Soul and Blade (17 page)

He slides in and out slowly, getting a feel for me, like we have never done this before.

And maybe we haven’t.

In this honest place, the one where I finally know why, we are making love, not fucking. We are worshipping and caressing. Maybe he knows I need gentle.

He lowers his face to one of my nipples, sucking and stroking with his tongue. He shortens his thrusts, like he’s not quite certain he is going to be able to keep going.

He’s lost with me.

He clenches his teeth down on my nipple, speeding up the pumping to the point that his balls are slapping against me and his fingers are gripping a little too tightly. I pull his face to mine, sucking his tongue and biting his lip. He makes a face when he comes. It’s almost a painful expression, but I love it. He thrusts a few times more, really twitching and jerking into me.

When he does stop moving, his breath has turned ragged and violent.

His weight atop me makes it hard to breathe, but in the best way. I don’t feel like his words have fully hit me. I don’t know how to deal with them. So lying here under him is a nice alternative.

I look down at his right hand and ask the question I know will hurt me, but I need to be hurt. I need to feel something normal people feel. “The ring is it—”

“It’s ours. Or it was meant to be. Before we canceled the wedding of the century. Well, after I canceled the wedding. You sort of left that up to me, didn’t you? I assumed it was canceled when you never returned a single call or text.”

“Oh, right.” I blush and look down. “I just didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to cancel and I didn’t want to go ahead with it. I hated you as much as I loved you. I think I still do.”

He kisses my cheek. “Surely you must see why?”

“Absolutely.” I hate that we are back to that part of the story. But he doesn’t press and he doesn’t make me talk about it. We don’t have to. We aren’t those people who force talking.

I close my eyes and sigh, holding on to him like I never want him to go anywhere. “Can we let go of the fragile orphan girl? If you stop treating me like a feeble little bitch, I will stop acting like one.”

“You don’t act like one, and yes, we can.”

“Thank you.” I give him another look. “I will be needing proof of what you say.”

“Do you want it now?”

“No. One day.”

“You realize you agreed to marry me on the street there, and I am holding you to it.” He rolls out and off me, and lies on his side.

I cock an eyebrow. “I want to wait on the wedding and the whole “getting back together” thing. I don’t want to rush this.”

His smile falls. “Why?”

“Because I don’t trust you, Dash.”

“Everything I do is for you, Jane.”

“While I understand why you did everything, you have to see that you have been lying to me for years. Even though it was for a good reason, and I get that, it still has not made me want to trust you. And,” I look down at my belly, “there are other things I have to adjust to.”

“You were a drug addict and a kid yourself.” His gaze has followed mine to my stomach.

“I know. And I shouldn’t care about what I did when I was a stupid teenager, but nothing changes the fact that I had a baby with a person who is now a stranger to me, maybe a rapist or a John, and then, to add to that craziness, someone stole it. I should be saving that for a particularly low point when I need to cry and do the whole “wine-and-sorrow” thing women do. And while being a teenage runaway with a baby and a drug problem is not a past I really want, I need a bit of time to let it all sink in. I can’t move forward until I move past, as clichéd as that sounds.”

He winces, but he agrees. “It sounds fair, Jane, not clichéd. I have had seventeen years to adjust to all of this. I won’t rush you. I mean it. I just don’t want to be apart from you. I’ll sleep in one of the other rooms, but I want to be here with you.”

I want to tell him that it’s okay, that he can sleep with me, yet I pause. I don’t trust him, and trusting someone means turning your back when you’re sleeping and at your most vulnerable.

I want him to earn his way back. Earn his way back to the place where I trust him enough to turn my back.

At this point, I don’t feel that way. “I’m scared that either this is a mind run or you are testing me in some way. That none of this is real. Or that there is something so much worse hiding out there in the world. Something you are preparing me for.”

He gives me an astounded look. “Jane, what could possibly be worse than what I have told you?”

“That it’s all lies and you are judging my reactions. That you don’t actually love me and that this is part of the project.”

He leans back a bit. “Okay, that is much worse. I would never lie to you about that. But I have lied about everything else, so I can understand. I don’t expect you to. Just know I am on your side.” He leans back in, kissing my nose. “I have always been on your side.”

I close my eyes. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Then I will not rest until it does.”

I believe him, and that makes me uncomfortable too.

17. HO HEY

A
ntoine’s voice hovers in my ear. “The package is a man with brown hair. The informant says he’s got a tan jacket and he’s carrying a bouquet of flowers. The cyanide is in the flowers.”

I signal, glancing down at the girl I have partnered with, Cami. She was my choice. I’ve never made that decision before; Rory was always the one who picked new team members. But I am the senior agent now, so I get a say in whom I train. I chose a woman. Mostly because I think more women are needed in undercover work. We are always unassuming. People think of spies as men.

I motion to her that I am going to sneak thirty yards and peek around the corner of the building to see if I can see him yet.

She acknowledges. Her doe eyes and chestnut hair complement the location of this mission. She’s tanned like she belongs in the desert. Like the people who live here.

Her mix of any number of ethnicities makes it easy for her to blend in wherever we are. In France she can get mistaken for a Sardinian or a Romanian. In India, with her makeup done right, she looks like every girl in the temple.

Here in Bahrain, she wears the traditional abaya and sports smoky eyes as if this is her lifelong jam.

I on the other hand manage to rock the Asian tourist look, mostly because I let Cami do my makeup. She’s pretty good at it. She’s also remarkable with a knife, a sniper rifle, and eleven languages.

She’s essentially my new favorite person. Especially because she’s twenty-three and fit as a fiddle.

I remember being that girl, but it’s a little painful to see Cami so young and so strong, as I am now so much older.

Especially because my memories stop just before her current age. I was almost nineteen when I signed up for the military. Before that is a haze of lies. I wish they weren’t there—the lies or the memories—but unfortunately they contain years of hard work and experience too.

So I am stuck with all or nothing.

“How hot is she in the abaya?” Antoine asks in my ear alone, making me smile.

“You don’t even have the ability to comprehend just how hot. She is ridiculous.”

“She speaks Portuguese. Did I ever tell you how much that turns me on?”

I smile wider as I creep across the stone roof to the corner. The man with the flowers comes into sight seconds later. “I got him.”

“If you shoot, someone is going to find those flowers and die from the cyanide. I was thinking maybe you could—”

“Shhh. Do I tell you how to search the Internet or poop in a tube sock properly so you don’t have to leave your mom’s basement?”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me.” He chuckles in my ear as I tuck my gun and sprint across the roof. I leap across a catwalk between two buildings and jump down onto a balcony. I toss a support up into the rafters of the building next to me and attach a rappeller to the rope. I add a second knot as I attach it, for the extra heavy weight.

“You got this, Jane?” Cami asks with a very British accent. I know Antoine is dying. Every time she speaks he pees his pants.

“Got this,” I confirm, and the moment the man is close enough, I drop down, just hovering above the ground, snatching the flowers in one hand and him in the other. I head-butt him and press the retrieving button. The rappeller lifts us back up. The man’s nose is bleeding and he struggles, but I wrap my legs around him and squeeze. When my hands lose him, my lower body doesn’t.

He shouts obscenities at me, but the moment we are on a balcony again I place the flowers down carefully and then punch him hard. He cries out as I grab my scanner and check him for cyanide. He has none hidden away, so I grab the flowers and press the button again.

He scrambles to grab at the flowers, but I kick him in the face, knocking him back again before leaping for the railing of the next balcony. When I get to the next level up, I unclip and start the long and painful process of jumping from one balcony to the next and climbing the railings. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t bent on not stirring the flowers up while hurrying to the rooftop.

Using the same skills, Cami has made her way to the roof as well and is holding a rolling suitcase.

I try to catch my breath as the wind twists my hair. I glance up at the chopper overhead. We have made it just in time. I walk quickly, dumping the flowers into the special case as Cami closes it. I nod at her as I hurry past to the ledge on the far side of the roof. Cami grabs the case and jumps onto the chopper’s ladder, climbing up as it flies away, as if it never stopped near the building at all.

I jump down the other side of the building, landing on the highest balcony. The way down is better; there is a fire escape. I spotted it earlier when we were plotting how to get away with snatching a man from the street. I had needed somewhere to stash clothes.

I strip and get into my business suit and put my glasses on, brushing my hair smooth with my fingers and folding my Asian tourist name tag over my lapel. I drag off my comfy shoes and slip on the heels to go with my suit.

Leaving the clothes I had worn moments before in the same spot as my stashed clothes, I rush down the stairs to the concrete. When I get back on the ground, I smile and laugh into my Bluetooth, switching to Mandarin when I tell Antoine I have delivered the flowers he ordered.

“Your flight is ready. The Lord and Lady are expecting you in eight hours. So you had best make this flight.”

“Did someone grab the trash?” I ask about the man I left bleeding on the balcony.

“Yes. It has been taken care of. I found my uncle a very nice apartment in the city there. Right in that building we were checking out.”

“Excellent.”

He’s quiet as I hail a cab, so I say, “We aren’t ever going to talk about it.”

“I know.” He swallows hard. We haven’t talked about it since I found out exactly who I was. I can hear the gulp in the earpiece before he speaks. “I’m sorry. I just needed you to know. It was for the best, your best. Trust me, Jane.”

“Whatever. I still don’t want to talk about it.” I click along in my heels on the concrete to the taxi that has stopped, and nod. “Airport, please.” The driver nods and drives as I speak to Antoine. “I still want the proof. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“It’ll be on the plane. Waiting for you.” There’s a hesitation in his voice. “I’m glad you’re back.”

I laugh. “You don’t sound glad.”

“I am. You run the smoothest op in the entire world. I swear it.”

“Thank you. But I think a lot of people would disagree.”

He chuckles. “They don’t, Jane. Everyone knows you are the best.”

“I think we both know there was one who was better.” I hate to admit it. I hate to remember him as anything but a monster.

“But we shall not say his name, so that he will not rise again.” He makes an uncomfortable joke, likely in reference to one of his video games.

For me, though, it might be a bit early to joke about Rory, even if that’s how we attempt to deal with everything.

The cabbie takes a turn, like I don’t know the city. I point and say in perfect Arabic that he needs to take me to the airport or I will gut him like a fish. His eyes widen and he turns and gets back on the road I need to be on.

“Getting dodgy again?” Antoine asks.

I smile. “Yeah, but you know me.”

“Right, not a fan. I never feel like the Arabic countries are the right choice for you and Cami.”

His words bring about a hearty chuckle. “Because we are clearly delicate flowers.”

The driver eyes me up. I slice my finger across my throat, showing him how I will kill him. He flinches and drives faster.

“Well, let’s not get out of hand. Obviously I didn’t mean delicate. But perhaps just female. Delicate or not.”

I sigh and look out the window at the beautiful scenery passing me by. “You just have to avoid the sketchy-looking people. Those show up in every city. The minute they get a little aggressive or sneaky, you leave or force your way out. Either way, it ends there.”

“Is Bahrain bad? Because I feel like India would be the one where I would avoid being a girl.”

“India is not so bad.” I remember them all so well. “And Bahrain is a cakewalk, compared to almost everywhere in Africa. There, you’re guaranteed to get murdered.”

“I know I worry about Cami being there.”

That makes me smile. “You like her a lot.”

“I do. And I intend on asking her out this weekend.”

“She thinks you’re cute.” I throw him a bone. I shouldn’t, but I have to.
He is the sweetest guy in the whole world. Even if he lied to me for years.

When I get to the airport, I nod at the cabbie. “Try that shit again and I will find you.”

He gives me a dirty look. I toss cash at him, American cash, and hurry to the front doors.

“Is it a private plane?”

“Yeah, in the hangar you hate. Cami is already on board, waiting for you.”

“Chat in a bit.” I disconnect and smile sweetly to clear customs.

When I get to the hangar, I hurry on board and strap in, nodding at Cami and a guy I don’t really like. His name is Dwayne; he’s the overly confident and annoying surveillance guy Rory handpicked. I find him creepy and sexist at the best of times. But I relish the fact it drives him nuts that I have the president’s ear. When that doesn’t get me by, I spend every moment we are together fighting the urge to throat-punch him and tell him exactly why I have the ear of the president.

I pull up the laptop in my seat and lay it down as we taxi. We need to leave right away. We have a case full of cyanide and have just assassinated three men.

When I turn the computer on, I see Antoine on FaceTime. He grins, giving me a cheesy look. “You come here often?”

I roll my eyes. “It better be here.” Neither of us wants to see my past, but I know I won’t ever believe Dash if I don’t see the proof for myself.

His smile fades and a worried look crosses his face. “You sure? Jane, the things in your past are bad. I wouldn’t want to know.”

“I want to see.”

“Okay, then.” He vanishes as the FaceTime ends and the screen fills with documents.

One is a newspaper report out of Manhattan of a seventeen-year-old homeless girl found naked with her belly cut open. Her baby had been stolen. She had been assaulted and was in serious condition.

The next is a video link. I click it and watch as I, a young pregnant me, walk into a store. I buy food—a sandwich. There are sores on my face and my hands shake as I count change on the counter. I resemble a junkie; there’s no doubt. The way I eat as I leave the store makes me think I hadn’t eaten in days. I glance up at the camera, clearly aware of them. It’s me. There’s no mistaking the girl as me.

I look like I am dying of starvation and on drugs while being very pregnant. A man follows me out. I back the video up and watch the man in the video. He’s watching me. I can’t help but notice the way he stares at my belly.

When the screen-me leaves, I catch a glimpse of his face. I don’t know him and yet he seems familiar.

The next link is a police report. I click it, immediately seeing the handwritten account of Jane Doe.

Seventeen, approximate age.

Caucasian.

Female.

One hundred twenty-eight pounds.

I grimace at the thought of being that small nine months pregnant.

The next lines catch my eyes.

“Victim is easily recognized by other street people. They say her name is Andrea, no last name. She’s a runaway from Atlanta. One girl bunks with her at a shelter for homeless kids. Says the victim was due in a few weeks and that the baby was being given up for adoption. Says it was legal, but none of the agencies know of her. Spoke to one agency in the Lower East Side. They said the street kids sell their babies illegally. Lady at the adoption agency said she has seen this before where the seller went back on their word and decided to keep the baby. It’s a theory the buyer might have taken the baby.”

I stare at the words sell their babies. My eyes cross, but I don’t stop staring.

I click the next link and find a doctor’s write-up of the damage—the stitches and surgeries and lacerations and prognoses.

I should have died.

But I didn’t, not really.

The words might as well be a language I cannot read, because I do not know the girl in the report. I do not know her, I do not remember her, and I do not know what it would be like to be her. I cannot even comprehend what it means to have a child.

I see it there in that moment. Dash gave me a second chance. He bought me a second chance. My medical bills were paid. I was sent to the best brain-injury clinics and centers. Every single document that comes next is a shocking revelation that Dash has been caring for me for as long as he said.

I dug myself into a terrible hole and he pulled me out and sheltered me until I was strong again.

I had a family, but I left them?

I chose to starve on the streets, and sell my body and my baby, over going home?

How bad was home?

Or was I such a bad kid they kicked me out for drugs and stealing?

The possibilities are endless, and I can see why Dash took it all away. Whatever happened to me, happened to a different girl. I am not her.