Wolfe (21 page)

This wasn’t freedom, but I dared not ask his reason. He was angry, and perhaps didn’t know why. They’d said he might’ve eaten people. Which was so fucked up.

“Magnus Wolfe?” he said again.

“Yes.” Though there seemed more to that question than name verification.

“I’ll be back, soon.”

I hoped so, though I was afraid. I had lied to him by omission and then again by swearing I wouldn’t lie. I hadn’t told him everything, especially not about Amelia or my suspicions, or the rumors about what might have happened to him in Thailand.

Wolfe wasn’t normal, and I’d known that, but I did believe in him.

I’d been afraid he might kill me, because the potential was there when he sank deep into his crazy animalistic phase. Now I knew he’d killed a woman.
Nothing
had altered. The risk had always been there if the drug failed.

And I’d already accepted that.

He might kill me, one day. I could either cut loose from him, when I had the opportunity, or I could stay with him, help him be the good man that he was when sane, and pray like mad that he never became that animalistic again.

Yeah. I nodded and took a calming breath then sat on the rug, arranging the chain leash so it didn’t pull on my neck. Beneath the rug was hard, cold floor.

I would wait for him, in good faith.

Wolfe

Chaining her to the wall was rough after saying she was free. I didn’t care. I’d wanted to do it – better than shaking her until she fessed up. She was lying to me, in some way. She was lying.

That was all I could think as I retraced my steps to where the two Russians waited.

I had to determine their fate, based not on what was good for them, but on what was good for me and Kiara.

That was the key. What was good for us both.

I paused to rub my forehead.

I cared for her so much that a lie should be allowable. I hated the idea of forcing her to say what she’d lie about. Either she would tell me, or she wouldn’t.

I’d chained her up because I was angry. Everyone got angry at their partner at some point. Everyone lied too. Honesty was a hard gig to follow.

When I ducked and pushed aside the branches so I could enter the hide, the answer hit me.

Whatever I did to these two, I might not tell Kiara the truth about it either. Or not all of it.

And I would be doing that so as not to hurt her. She wouldn’t like me killing them.

A lie could sometimes be the best choice. Perhaps her lie was for my benefit.

Yes. That was it.

With my anger lessened, I could now judge what to do.

I sat on Kiara’s log and beckoned Guera over. “Bring more of those zip ties.”

A strong-willed woman – new to this, she was wriggling in her head, trying to shake me loose.

“You can’t do it,” I said, gesturing for her to kneel facing away from me. “I can control you like a puppet. “Didn’t you two know this? I mean...Russia wants me? It has to be because of this?”

“Yes,” she croaked out. “It is. We knew. They don’t have all the facts but they think you were a CIA agent, once. We thought I could stay out of range.”

“Wrong.”

Me? CIA? And my name was Magnus Wolfe.

I rolled that around, saying it in my mind. It sounded right and good. Yet shocking too. CIA?

Jesus H.

This was like the tooth fairy delivering unexpected presents but pulling a few extra teeth because she wanted to. Good teeth. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.

“Not many women can resist what I do.” I finished the wrist tie and started on her ankles.

Then I dragged her over to her hog-tied partner, the silent one who glared. I double-checked his bonds.

Though I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of what I’d do with them, I’d had a fair bit of time to think on the way over.

“Start with this police thing,” I instructed Guera. “What’s that about?”

“Your woman fired a shot and argued with a man about something. There’s an old skeleton, a grave site your dog found, and the man saw it too. He drove off erratically and we watched him from here. If you know where to look, you can see the gash where his car left the road.”

“He crashed? At a fresh landslide?”

“Yes.”

“So, you didn’t shoot him or anything? With a sniper rifle?” I gestured at a few long bags lying around. At least one looked to hold a rifle.

“No. The shot would be impossible.”

“He’s just a bad driver,” Damian added. “Stop messing with us.”

“Messing?” I snarled out. “After you bruised Kiara’s face and threatened to kill us both? I’ll mess if I want to.”

Damn him.

“What were you two going to do with me?”

The man clamped his mouth into a line.

Guera however... “Kill you and obtain a sample of your brain tissue.”

“Uh huh. Woohoo. Nice. A pair of murderers.”

So was I, if my nightmares were based on reality.

The rangers here would notice the landslide. There’d be people crawling everywhere soon in any case. We had to get out of here. They’d find the man’s car. This was going to cause a fuss. These two though?

If I killed them, their superiors would likely figure out Kiara was around still, and with me, and alive. There’d be DNA evidence all over the cabin and the cops were already after us. That might result in harm coming to her family.

If they thought she was dead, that’d be better. Arranging that sort of subterfuge would be near impossible and we had to leave here ASAP. There wasn’t time for fanciness.

If I killed these two, their bodies might be found, in a year, a decade.

If alive, they were sneaky enough to work out how to get out of the zip-ties. Though it’d take them time.

Guera could testify to her superiors as to how I could make a woman do anything. That might help Kiara’s family...except they’d seen her act like a free woman, without me around too. I needed to do something to make them see she wasn’t free, even if she was. That she was a victim too, even if she wasn’t, anymore.

I needed to make the danger very real.

“Well.” I rubbed my chin. “Seems like I have to do something you two won’t like. Just to show you I mean business.” I rose, with the hunting knife in hand – the knife I’d used to cut Kiara’s ties. “I’ll make it quick, but it won’t be painless. This is what I do to people who disobey me or try to hurt me or Kiara. Or just annoy the fuck out of me. Kiara is mine, my property.”

I tested the blade on my thumb. Sharp enough to cut air.

Funny how you got used to people screaming.

CIA, Langley

Hardinger noted the email coming in and the high priority, logged on, and read.

Hardinger. Your eyes only.

Please decide on further action.

Request from NYPD for DNA identification of a tissue sample from the alleged Andy Carruthers. Sample has been found identical to the DNA of Magnus Wolfe, a previous CIA operative, seconded to aid in a high security research project in Thailand eleven years ago. Details of this research are no longer available.

Wolfe was suspected of involvement in the disappearance and possible murder of his wife, Amelia Wolfe. For undisclosed reasons, the subject was allowed to leave the USA to participate in the research project.

Magnus Wolfe had been declared missing, presumed dead.

Facial recognition from provided photographs also confirms with a 95.6 % probability that this is Magnus Wolfe.

Subject therefore confirmed as Magnus Wolfe.

He is believed to be currently in the USA and is sought in relation to alleged kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, and various vehicular charges.

Hardinger made his chair squeak as he thought, rotating it a fraction of an inch this way, a fraction in reverse.

No matter how secret the project, this Wolfe should be apprehended. Who could he put on this?

The request by local law enforcement would be denied, of course.

He accessed the file of available agents and began to scan them.

Kiara

Waiting was scarier than knowing. I didn’t want him to kill them, no matter how bad they were. I didn’t know how angry he was at me, but I’d sensed I was partly his target.

The wall under my shoulder was cold and I leaned my forehead into it, letting the cold penetrate and wake me with the icy shock. I couldn’t run from him and I still didn’t want to.

When I heard him come in the door, then watched him descend the spiral staircase, tears of relief sprang into my eyes. I didn’t care what he meant to do; I just needed to see him alive and well.

“Don’t ask,” he growled as he came to me. “I won’t tell you.”

About the Russians? That was all he thought of? “Are you angry at me?”

He unclipped the chain, gathered it and tucked it into his pocket. “I was. I came to see how things should be between us. We can be normal, as a couple. I’ll leave you your secrets, if you leave me mine.”

“Normal?” I smirked at the tail end of the chain he was shoving back in his jacket pocket.

“Yeah.” His grin was good to see. Then it faded and the look he gave me stirred me again to fear.

“What is it? We have to leave now? I know that.”

There was something else. His forehead settled into a frown as he picked up my hand and smoothed his thumb over the backs of my fingers.

“I have to do something to you.” He locked eyes with me. “It’s necessary to make your Russian friends believe you’re my victim and not my friend. Will you trust me?”

My heart was doing a frantic knock against my ribs. This was
bad
with many exclamation marks, I could tell, feel it.

I gulped down the fear. “I will. Now tell me.”

“I think I will need your nurse skills. Yes...” He sniffed, cleared his throat. “We have to be fast but I want to be safe. Tell me what to get, what to use to help you afterward. Just this...I think I can take some of your pain.”

“Pain?” I stared.

“I’m going to cut off one of your fingers and leave it here.”

Fuck.

“What about just blood?” Say yes to that, for fuck’s sake.

“It won’t be enough. Not unless you lose some life-threatening amount.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “An ear might do, but I don’t want to disfigure you that way.”

An ear...and here I was choosing which. He was right though, I decided, sickeningly. A part of a finger would convince them he was a mean, fucked up man who hurt me just...because...he wanted to. I flexed the fingers he held. Which?

Get it over with.

He could take some of my pain? If that were so, I could do this.

Wolfe took a knife from the sheath at his waist. Guera’s perhaps? I didn’t recognize it.

A knife would be best. If clean.

My heartbeat counted out the seconds while I summoned some calmness.

“Okay.” I thought furiously, pretending this wasn’t for me. I stared up at the ceiling while I rattled off my ideas. “Get bandages, something to use for a small tourniquet, you should sterilize the knife in fire, if you can. Faster than boiling water, I guess. Maybe tie my hand down somehow, so I don’t jerk away.”

This was going to hurt like fuck. Wolfe took my left hand pinky in finger and thumb. “This one?”

I nodded and swallowed back rising bile. Best not to take a more useful digit. “At the joint but not just the tip as that’ll look suspiciously nice.”
Haha.

“Hmmm. Okay.”

“Pull back the skin toward my hand, really tight. See if you can leave some skin that can be stapled or stitched. Try not to cut bone. That’d make a mess.”

Not like Amelia. I laid my head on his arm. “And be quick.”

“I will.” He stroked my hair. “Should I clean your skin with iodine? I have some.”

Now that would really look odd to forensics. “No. We’ll have to trust to antibiotics, afterward.” And find a doctor to fix the mess.

And so it was done. He left me to gather everything and when he returned, serenity cloaked me. It was him, helping me. I surely didn’t mind. When he laid the knife across my finger, I shut my eyes.

Thank god, he was right. He did take some of the pain. Into himself, I guessed, though I was too busy sobbing to see what effect it had on him. I wasn’t numb, but I could stand the pain.

There was blood everywhere.

As a nurse, I should’ve been able to handle that. Seeing it was my blood splattered on the rug, on him, on me, and that was my finger lying on the floor – no. While he applied the tourniquet, I threw up, copiously.

If he’d tourniqueted it before cutting that would’ve looked odd to the cops too.

There wasn’t time or the materials to stitch the wound. I’d have to make do with a bandage after the tourniquet came off. There was something very wrong about seeing a part of yourself missing.

“Kiara,” Wolfe said in the swaying distance. “Tell me how to bandage this. Now! Do not faint.”

His presence splashed into me like fire and ice. I jerked my head up. “Okay. Umm. Sure.”

We managed.

Wolfe gathered our gear, what he could find and load quickly, and we drove off with me cradling my bandaged hand and applying pressure when the bleeding started again. At the last, the stump had gone numb.

Wolfe was better than a local anesthetic.

God, I’d left a finger back there.

“This had better be one time only,” I muttered.

Wolfe chuckled. “Of course.”

Partway down, I glimpsed the landslide through a cutting. It truly was massive and a ranger’s vehicle was parked at the bottom. Lower down the slope, though beyond where they could see easily, was a smashed vehicle. It must’ve been heading down the mountain when it crashed, from the looks of it.

The visitor. Had the Russians observed the accident? I figured that was why they knew he wasn’t returning with cops.

There was no regret in my heart. No sadness. Maybe too much violence had happened today? Maybe my soul was numb at the moment. Or maybe, I was becoming hardened to the idea that sometimes you had to sacrifice others if you wanted to live life your way.

Bad things happened. Best if they happened to others.