Shock Waves
Prologue
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.”
—Helen Keller
”
T
ouch her, and it will be the last mistake you make.”
Late-morning sun cut through an expansive wall of windows, falling like a spotlight on the man with the gun. In his element, the fool laughed. “Look at you.” He swept an arm toward the far side of the spacious room. “You’re hardly in a position to be making threats.”
The ornate mirror revealed the apparent truth of his words, a tall raven-haired man with his hands bound behind his back, his ankles secured together. Armed guards surrounded him in a circle of semiautomatics he recognized as MP-5Ns. Thick rope cut roughly into his wrists, but he welcomed the bite of pain.
And so long as he was alive, the man with the suit of white, but a smile of pure darkness, would not be allowed to win.
“I have what you want. Killing me leaves you with nothing.”
Contempt flashed in eyes that once shone with the lie of friendship. “Death doesn’t always involve the body, my friend. Only if you’re lucky.”
The threat echoed silkily through the sunbathed room. White walls, white furniture, white carpet. But not white lies. The lies were black, and they had destroyed.
But not again.
So long as he had a breath in his body, not ever, ever again. This time it was personal, and this time it was going to end.
“The choice is yours,” the man in the white suit announced. “The power has always been in your hands.”
True enough. But he hadn’t planned on the woman. She hadn’t factored into his agenda. She was a complication, a risk he could neither afford nor risk.
Refusing to take the bait, he hardened his eyes and lifted his chin, stared beyond the weapons trained on him and through the window to the beach beyond, where the turquoise surf crashed against a carpet of sand so white, so sugary, it defied logic and possibility.
The flash of red hit without warning. A wave of it, surging up from the pale-blue horizon and sloshing over the beach, washing away the serenity. Seagulls squeaked. Gunfire exploded.
A woman screamed.
Deliberation shattered. He was running then, shouting, swearing, through the sudden blanket of darkness. He had to find her, find her fast. Before the man with whom he’d once broken bread broke something that could never be replaced.
“Stand down!” he roared. “It’s over.”
The flash of sunlight blinded him, but he saw her anyway, a slim silhouette against the impossibly blue horizon. She wasn’t moving. Wasn’t running, wasn’t taking cover. She just stood there, her flimsy dress flapping wildly, the surf crashing against her calves.
Pain exploded against the base of his skull. He staggered, went down hard, refused to stop. He pushed to his hands and knees and lunged forward.
He saw the gun too late. The explosion of white blinded him, blanketed him, snuffed out his voice and his breath…
* * *
“No!”
In a small bed, she jerked herself awake. Her heart thundered in her chest with painful precision, hard, urgent, violent like the breaking surf. Sweat bathed her body, gluing her nightshirt to clammy flesh. Automatically she lifted a hand to her burning throat, fully expecting to find a rope constricting her breath.
Of course she didn’t.
So real. So horribly, vividly real.
Coldness then, moistness pressing against her free hand. “Gryphon.”
The Great Dane whimpered his concern, nuzzling closer. He knew. He always, always knew when the images struck. She’d once wondered how but had long since given up trying to understand. Gifts didn’t have to be understood. Just accepted. Respected.
“It’s okay, boy,” she reasoned, but the words rang hollow even to her own ears. The taste of fear lingered like a vile poison at the back of her throat. The smell of blood sickened.
But there was no blood. Not yet. She knew that as surely as she knew the ugliness had found her again, dug its claws deep. A cold resolve sank through her as she fumbled for the bedside lamp and let light spill into the small room. From the drawer of her nightstand, she retrieved her grandmother’s silver Celtic cross and curled her fingers around the talisman.
The infusion of heat fortified her.
For more than two years she’d kept the images at bay. She’d slept peacefully. She hadn’t quite dreamed of white bunnies frolicking in a waving field of brightly colored poppies, but there’d been no darkness. No terror. No blood. No death.
Until now. Through the flood of light, she opened her fingers and stared at her palm, saw the deep crescent gouges her fingernails had cut, saw the ancient cross, the truth. And deep inside, she shivered. The tall man with the closely cropped raven hair stood in grave, imminent danger.
Her dreams were back, and they were never wrong.
Someone was going to die.
Chapter 1
S
he recognized him.
The tall man with the thick raven hair and piercing green eyes emerged from the federal courthouse and cut through the crowd of gathered reporters. He didn’t spare those flanking him a glance. He just kept walking, his stride determined and powerful.
From her vantage point only a few feet away, beside a prolific crepe myrtle drenched in showy white blooms, Brenna Scott watched. The October sun beat against the leather of her jacket, making the crisp fall afternoon feel more like an inferno. Or maybe that was just the burn of inevitability.
“Is it true Jorak Zhukov has been found?” a striking young woman in a tailored jade pantsuit shouted at the man. She trotted after him, her photographer rapidly angling for the perfect image of one of
Richmond
‘s favorite sons.
Finally. At last.
Time drained quickly, Brenna knew, relentlessly, blood-drenched sand through a broken hourglass. Waiting for nothing. No one. Not her. Not the man she’d come to find.
“Reuters is reporting a raid on his compound,” another reporter put in, this one a well-known personality with one of the major networks. “I’m told there were no survivors.”
“If Zhukov is dead,” the attractive woman persisted, “does that mean the threat to your family is over?”
Federal prosecutor Ethan Carrington never broke stride. He slid on a pair of sunglasses and descended the wide, concrete steps, leaving the squawking reporters in his wake. They didn’t give chase. They obviously knew it would be pointless. It was a well-known fact the Virginia Military Institute graduate had a will of steel. He played by his own rules. He would talk to the media when he was ready and not one second before. That’s what made him such a formidable opponent in the courtroom.
That’s what made him as feared as he was revered.
That was also what made the action she was about to take as uncertain as a shot in the dark.
She’d tried to deny, stay away, avoid what needed to be done, but the tentacles of inevitability dug deep, through flesh and bone, deeper, to that dark place far inside. She’d fought hard, resisted, clawed her way back to the land of the living, but in the end the truth could not be denied. Once lives tangled, there could be no escape. No running. No hiding.
Not from Jorak Zhukov.
A chill whispered through her, much like the thin clouds skittering toward the sun. Slipping on a pair of dark sunglasses, she watched her target head down the busy
The same chest-tightening dread.
Of course not. Men like Ethan Carrington didn’t feel dread. They walked unblinking into the fire, dead sure the flame would not burn. Not them.
The quick twist of sorrow made no sense. She fought the unwanted sensation, slipped from her spot by the showy crepe myrtle toward her car. Ethan Carrington never looked back. He just kept walking, his brisk stride carrying him among pedestrians and tourists, businessmen and women. And yet, with disturbing insight, she knew the man walked alone.
Soon he might never walk again.
* * *
“It stops now.” The light turned green and Ethan forced himself to slowly accelerate, resisting the urge to floor the Jeep. He could do nothing about the rush of adrenaline, however, the sweet taste of anticipation.
Indulging, savoring, he clenched his mobile phone tighter. Only a few more minutes. “It stops with me.”
“Maybe it’s already over,” security specialist Hawk
Monroe
pointed out. “CNN reporters on location say there’s no way anyone could have survived the
fire.”
“He survived.” Of that, Ethan had no doubt. Jorak Zhukov had more lives than the proverbial alley cat. Until Ethan had irrefutable confirmation of Z’s death or captivity, he wouldn’t stop looking, wouldn’t rest. And he knew his future brothers-in-law, Hawk and Sandro, wouldn’t, either. They’d continue to stand guard around Ethan’s sisters.
“You really think he’s behind the meeting?” Hawk asked.
There was no one there to see him, but Ethan didn’t care. He smiled. He’d been in D.C. when the first call came in, a scratchy message left on his work voice mail in
Richmond
. He hadn’t thought much of the message, not at first, other than that the woman had one hell of a voice. Federal prosecutors got calls all the time. Everyone had
vital
information to share.
Then she’d called again. And again. At the office. At his home. Finally at the hotel in D.C.
And then she’d uttered the magic name.
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Ethan said. Not when it came to Jorak Zhukov. The man was too cunning, too determined.
Hawk bit out a vicious curse. “Tell me where you’re headed, bro. I’ll be there, back you up.”
Ethan swung the Jeep around another corner, leaving downtown’s eclectic combination of graceful streets and intrusive high-rises in his rearview mirror. “No.” He knew
Monroe
too well, knew his penchant for being in the heart of the action. But this didn’t concern his twin sister’s fiancé. It didn’t concern anyone but two men, and until they again stood face-to-face, until all cards lay face-up on the table, especially the one Ethan had been protecting for years, the danger to his family would drag on.
And that, he could not allow. “He won’t kill me,” Ethan said. Not so long as he had what the other man coveted.
“You can’t be sure of that.”
But he could. He knew Jorak Zhukov in ways his future brother-in-law didn’t. Couldn’t. The bastard had been threatening Ethan’s family for weeks now, prompting the Carringtons to live in the circle of a tight security net. And Ethan was tired of it. Tired of seeing his sisters struggle to be brave, tired of living in the dark and playing cat and mouse, tired of wondering when and where Jorak Zhukov would strike next.
Turning onto a narrow, bumpy road, he indulged another rush of anticipation. Six short weeks ago, Jorak had been behind bars; his father, the ruthless general responsible for kidnapping Ethan’s sister Miranda, dead and buried. Ethan, a federal prosecutor and member of an antiterrorism task force, had built an iron-clad case against the man. With the court date drawing near, justice, a mistress too long denied, had been seductively close.
In the blink of an eye, everything had changed.
Z had escaped, and the game had begun anew.
“This has gone on long enough,” he barked out. Not just weeks or months, but years. Years only he and his father knew about.
Years that had haunted him, driven him.
“I still don’t like it,” his friend muttered.
Old-growth forest rose up around Ethan and blotted out the sky, sycamore and oak, an occasional elm. It was damn hard to believe mere minutes separated this primitive world from the man-made jungle of concrete and steel downtown.
“That’s because you don’t get to have all the fun.” He glanced around the shaded, gravel parking lot, saw no one. “Trust me. There’s no other way.”
“This woman, you really think she’s connected?”
He exhaled roughly, and even though alternative rock blasted from his radio, he could still hear her voice, low, throaty. His finger had been poised on the delete key when she’d whispered the name. He’d gone very still, all but his heart rate. “I’m about to find out.”
But in his gut, he already knew. Instinct hummed through him. This was it. He felt it in his bones.
That’s why he’d called her back, suggested an out-of-the way meeting place, dropped his security detail. He didn’t want an audience. He didn’t want interference.
Not even from Hawk.
“Maybe she just wants a date,” Hawk mused.
Ethan shoved the gear into park, let the Jeep idle. “She mentioned Z by name.”
“You could be walking into a trap.”
“That’s the plan.” Again, he glanced around the clearing. He was early. “Not a word to
Elizabeth
.”
A hard sound broke from Hawk’s throat, equal parts amusement and frustration. “I won’t have to say anything, bro. Your sister has radar when it comes to you.”
As he had for her. He’d never forget the afternoon a few weeks before, when they’d come dangerously close to losing her. The spider tingle had crawled down the back of his neck seconds before the phone had rung. He’d known before Hawk had said a word.
Calling his sister, trying to assure her everything was under control while pretending to say goodbye, was the hardest phone call he’d ever made. He’d heard the fear in her normally confident voice. The sorrow. The belief that she would never talk to her twin, her family, again.
“I trust you can distract her.”
Elizabeth
was a strong, capable woman, but Hawk had barely let her out of his sight since Jorak had escaped prison. The same was true for Ethan’s younger sister, Miranda, and her fiancé, special forces operative, Sandro Vellenti. They were visiting Sandro’s parents in
Who would have guessed that beneath his sister’s sharply tailored suits and neatly combed hair beat the heart of an adrenaline junkie?
Ethan grinned. They
were
twins, after all.
“She worries about you,” Hawk said, ignoring the off-the-cuff suggestion. “She thinks you’re obsessed with Jorak, taking this vendetta too personally.”
The word
obsessed
hit like a swift shot below the belt. “I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s what worries her.”
“It shouldn’t.” He was a lawyer by trade, but like every other Carrington male before him, he’d learned how to survive. His father and grandfather had seen to that.
“I’ll update Sandro,” Hawk said. “I’m sure he’ll want to come on back.”
Ethan flicked off the engine. At first he hadn’t known what to make of the dark and dangerous-looking agent with the International Security Alliance, but as he learned of the time Sandro and his baby sister spent together in
Portugal
, the way Sandro had risked his life to save hers, misgivings had been replaced by gratitude, then camaraderie. The man had quickly become part of the family, even though he and Miranda wouldn’t exchange marriage vows for another three months.
“With any luck, you won’t hear from me again until it’s time,” Ethan told Hawk. The two reviewed the plan they’d constructed with the help of a few trusted FBI and ISA agents, then Ethan disconnected the line.
The aroma of burning leaves hit him the second he stepped from the Jeep. Cool air whipped against flesh exposed by the shorts and T-shirt he’d changed into before driving to the river. Every evening he ran along the tree-enshrouded shore of the James. To the world, tonight would appear no different.
Slowly he looked around, noted the canopies of the oaks and sycamores rustling against an increasingly gray sky, heard the river, running low, rushing nearby. A prickly sensation crawled over him, but he saw no one.
Disappointment pushed closer, but he held the useless emotion at bay. Either the woman would show, or she wouldn’t.
Narrowing his eyes, he glanced toward the stoic old trees crowding out the light. “Come and get me, you coward,” he snarled, but only a lone warbler answered. Restless, he wandered to the riverbank where, just beyond,
Ethan had retrieved her before their mother could scream.
Now he stood on a carpet of damp, decaying leaves and watched the water trickle over and around the gradual falls. He let his arms drop to his side, held his body still, making himself the perfect target, just like Miranda had been a few short months before. He was a patient man. He’d waited this long. He could wait a little longer.
“You came.”
The low voice slipped through him like a shot of
The feeling hit immediately, a niggle low in his gut, a breath of familiarity.
“How could I resist?” he asked quietly. Anticipation quickened through him. She was different than he’d imagined when he’d first heard her throaty voice, softer, more slight in appearance. But she stood her ground as he crossed to her, never so much as flinching, never taking a step back, despite the purposeful steps he took. She reminded him of a defendant stoically waiting for the jury to pronounce her fate.