Victor, p.27
Victor, page 27
“You are deplorable.”
“Why? Because I want to dominate you or because I’m close to the truth? Or is it that I’m pointing out how you felt so goddamn guilty about your brother and nephew that you put yourself in a situation that punished you every single day. Or maybe you’re saying I’m deplorable because I understand that guilt and need for pain. Is that it, Sabine? My actions are unforgivable so that makes me deplorable, but your situation is unassailable?” The sick part of me wanted her to say yes, fuck, I wanted it. Then I could walk the hell away and go back to the Annex and break shit and not have to look at my own goddamn life.
“You know nothing about me.”
“Don’t I?” I knew her worst secrets, and she knew mine.
“I know what you are doing,” she accused. “I heard what Echo said about you picking a fight. You are trying to make me the same as you, and you want me to admit to something I did not do. But just as I was not guilty of what Joseph accused me of, I am not guilty of whatever—” She gestured dismissively with her hand. “—impropriety you are accusing me of.”
“Impropriety?” Echo flashed his headlights again, and I fucking lost it. “Is that what you call reaching for the son of a bitch who let a mafia boss hold you at gunpoint as he attempted to kidnap you? And let me assure you, pet, it wasn’t just the diamonds and ring Bertrand was selling to Vincenzo. It was also the woman wearing the ring. You were nothing more than a payday to that piece of shit you called out for.” Slamming on the brakes, I pulled onto the shoulder and threw the SUV into park. “For the record, if you’d walked away with me, none of that would’ve happened.”
Sabine
The headlights behind us flashed again, and Vance braked suddenly, swerving the large vehicle to the side of the road. “For the record, if you’d walked away with me, none of that would’ve happened.”
None of that would’ve happened.
His words echoing in my mind, my sore ribs pushed against the restraint of the seat belt, I started to shake as I reached for the door just to escape—myself, him, this situation.
But the dominant, alpha mercenary in the driver’s seat growled low in his throat and barked an order at me. “Don’t fucking go anywhere.”
Everything instantly suspended.
The spinning in my head, the tightness in my chest, my shaking hands. Breath filled my lungs, and I stopped reaching for the door.
“That is how I know you’re submissive.”
My mind scrambled, and I fought back against everything I thought I believed in. “You threatened me,” I accused. “What was I supposed to do?”
“I didn’t threaten. I ordered, sternly. And I’m not talking about my goddamn order. Look at your hands.”
My gaze dropped to my lap where my previously shaking hands were now calmly clasped.
“Right.” He got out of the SUV.
I didn’t want to think about what he’d just said, but I could no more stop the reality than I could control the volatile situation that had escalated at the auction. Before I could wonder if everything Vance had said about me was true, my door was opened.
His voice still rough with anger but not as stern, he held his hand out. “Watch your step.”
Battling the overwhelming urge to take his hand, I instead fought for independence. I fought for everything he’d just said not to be true. “What are we doing?” I told myself it was not a question, that it was a demand, but even I heard the difference in the tone of my voice that only he elicited.
“Switching vehicles. This one can be tracked. It isn’t safe.”
Safe.
The word echoed around in my head, and before I could stop myself, I was taking his hand but feeling weak for doing so.
His warm, strong fingers wrapped around mine, and despite his anger toward me, he helped me from the vehicle with both gentleness and dominance.
It hit me as hard and as shockingly as if every star had just fallen from the sky.
I was exactly who he accused me of.
I wanted this man to keep me safe.
I wanted him to protect me.
I wanted to forget about Joseph and what he had almost done. I wanted to forget my entire past, and I wanted to fall into this man’s arms and never look back.
I wanted to submit to Vance, and I wanted to trust him.
But trust had to be given in order to be received.
Not letting go of his hand, looking up at his austere face in the moonlight, I gave him the only kind of conviction I had to give in that moment. “You are right.”
With his expression locked, he said nothing.
Truth was the only apology I had. “For seven years, I wanted to be safe, but I was a prisoner of my own making. In my mind, I was not calling out for Joseph to save me when the men started shooting. I was reacting to my hand landing on him instead of you, and I told myself that was why his name came out. But that is not the entirety of it.” I swallowed down fear and spoke a truth I had not even admitted to myself yet. “I was calling out for what I knew as opposed to what I wanted because nothing I feel when I am with you is safe.” Without waiting for a response, I dropped his hand and turned toward the other vehicle.
Before I reached the rear passenger door, his dark voice closed the distance between the two vehicles. “For ten years, I exclusively dated blondes.”
I turned to look at him.
Even though I instinctively knew, I asked. “The girl when you were seventeen, she was a brunette?”
Barely tipping his chin, he nodded once. “I learned to live with the guilt coursing through my veins. I embraced it. Using it for fuel and self-hatred, I told myself it was the driving force that ensured I would never make the same mistake again.”
Jealousy flared, but I had to let go of both the fact that an innocent young woman who had lost her life seventeen years ago was dark-haired and that Vance had been with many women. Instead, I focused on what he was admitting to. “Did it work?”
For a long moment, he stared at me.
Then Vance Conlon broke me all over again. “Up until two days ago.”
My wounded heart took another blow, one I did not know how to comprehend.
As if he knew I was standing there adrift on the side of a road in a country where the language was as foreign to me as this moment, Vance closed the distance between us.
His voice went low and quiet as he reached around me and opened the passenger door. “Get in the car, oiseau.”
I did as he said, and he shut the door, but then he didn’t get in the front passenger seat. He went back to the SUV.
I glanced at Echo. “Where is he going? He said that vehicle was not safe to be in.”
Echo smirked. “When you steal the mob boss’s ride, nowhere is safe, sweetheart.”
Oh God. “The Italian man is going to come after him?”
Echo glanced first in the side, then the rearview mirror as he shrugged. “Who the hell knows what that mafia fuck will do. If we’re lucky, your asshole husband won’t tell Vincenzo who we are, and Vincenzo will be too busy disappearing to care.”
I foolishly thought this could not get worse. “Is Vance in danger?” I watched the taillights of the SUV disappear into the tree line beyond the shoulder of the road.
Echo turned in his seat to give me a look. “Vance, huh?”
Heat flushed my cheeks. “Mr. Conlon,” I corrected.
Echo raised an eyebrow. “You’re worried about Lover Boy when you were dragged halfway across a ballroom at gunpoint while your jackass of a husband hid behind a Sicilian mafia boss?” He shook his head. “Gotta hand it to you, woman, you got balls.” He turned back around and nodded toward the side window as Vance walked out of the tree line. “Don’t worry, Lover Boy can handle himself.”
Vance silently got in the car.
Echo glanced at him before he pulled back onto the road. “Did you wipe it down?”
“Do I look like an amateur?”
Echo smirked again. “Only ninety percent of the time.”
“Right, and the other ten percent of the time I’m kicking your ass. Sitrep on Bertrand and Vincenzo?”
Echo dropped the hazing attitude and turned all business. “Good news—the Federal Police grabbed Bertrand, then CIA grabbed him from them. Apparently the fuck sang like a canary before the proverbial cuffs were even on him. He’s already on a ghost plane home, courtesy of the Feds. Bad news—your fucking aim was off, you didn’t fatally wound Bertrand, and Vincenzo slipped through the cracks. Alpha’s contacts said Vincenzo will go underground for a while, best guess is back to Italy. Zulu’s still grounded while the Federal Police scratch their asses. Diamonds are MIA. Harrington’s accounts have all been frozen and assets seized pending investigations, and you and your girlfriend managed to walk off into the sunset unnoticed thanks to November erasing all the security footage from the hotel.”
“I wasn’t aiming to kill,” Vance defended.
“Sure, Lover Boy.”
“Vincenzo’s soldiers?” Vance asked, ignoring Echo’s quip. “They can ID any of us.”
Echo glanced out the side mirror. “Reverse is also true. Those fuckers like night shade. They won’t be the problem.”
“No, but Vincenzo will when he resurfaces. Ronan’s boss at Luna and Associates used to have Vincenzo’s brother as a client. I’ll get a hold of Ronan and tell him to have Luna relay a message. Those Sicilian fucks need to know she’s off-limits.”
Echo shook his head. “All right, but you know that’ll cost you. At a minimum, Vincenzo will find out who we are.”
“Let him.”
Echo smirked. “Your self-preservation sucks. Might want to rein that in.”
Vance ignored his warning. “The nephew?”
Echo’s tone sobered. “November’s sitting on Das Safe’s security feeds. It’s the only lead we’ve got.”
I leaned forward in my seat. “You cannot find my nephew and his mother?”
Echo glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “No.”
“Joseph did not tell the police anything about them?” I did not care what he would say about me as long as Julien and Chantel were safe.
“Affirmative,” Echo clipped.
For the first time all night, I exhaled with relief. “Then that means they are safe.” If these men could not find them, no one could.
Vance
Flat on my back, one foot on the ground, my arm over my face, I still heard her.
Not that she made a sound, but I’d become attuned to her brand of shifting air. As effortless as an ocean breeze, the same way she’d floated into the safe house hours ago, she floated into the doorway of the living area. The scent of her perfume long gone, I could still smell the faint hint of exotic flowers and heated citrus.
“Don’t take another step,” I warned. The mood I was in, I wouldn’t be responsible for what I’d do if she came closer. The auction, the evening, three hours in the car where she pretended to sleep, then two hours on patrol outside the safe house while Echo was alone with her inside—I was wound so goddamn tight, I wanted to fuck or fight. Preferably both.
The air molecules stilled. “I did not mean to wake you.”
Yes, she did. “I wasn’t asleep.” The couch was too short for my height, and I was listening for any noise out of the ordinary because my instincts were firing hard. The diamonds were still out there. November and Alpha hadn’t shown yet. Zulu was still grounded, and I didn’t know where the fuck Vincenzo was. But none of that was what was kicking at my instincts, telling me something was off.
“My grandmother used to have a saying.” She paused as if translating it from French before saying it in English. “The wary never rest.”
I chuckled without humor. “Right. She may have had a point.”
She didn’t respond.
Telling myself I didn’t care, I counted seconds.
At one minute, ten seconds, I broke like the fucking pussy I’d become around her. Lifting my arm, I glanced toward the open door.
Looking both exquisite and vulnerable in the evening gown she still had on, she shivered in the unheated space. Completely unaware of the power she had over me, and having no idea how goddamn beautiful she was, she stood in the doorway and submissively waited.
Staring at her, I took the moment like a starved man.
Studying the arch of her neck, imagining my palm on her throat as my fingers wrapped around her delicate skin, I thought about sinking inside her, and I inhaled deep. Crisp air and exquisite woman—a combination I wanted to fucking drown in.
But I wasn’t that stupid.
I was rough. She was fragile. Her headspace was on that asshole, and mine was worse. What was I going to do if I did get her under me? Fuck her, then go back to fighting at the Annex and taking assignments for AES? The irony wasn’t lost on me that any other woman I was this physically attracted to, circumstances be damned, I would’ve fucked her by now.
Letting my arm drop back over my face, I settled in for what would hopefully be a short remainder of the night before exfil tomorrow—today if I was being technical. “Go back to bed, Sabine.”
“You are still angry with me.”
Anger didn’t begin to cover the shit rolling around in my head. “Did I tell you I was angry?”
“I wanted to apologize.”
“I don’t want or need one.”
“I am still sorry.” Her voice quieted. “I made mistakes.”
Mistakes I could handle. The complete mindfuck headspace she’d put me in, I couldn’t or wouldn’t. Regardless, it didn’t matter. The clock was counting down. “Get some sleep. Alpha and November will be here soon.” Then I could fucking step back. Or get the fuck out of here and step into the ring.
Her inhale was audible, then her words came out rushed and heavily accented. “You are punishing me for something I cannot undo.”
Just like I couldn’t undo the image of her in my head as she reached for that prick as it played on repeat like some fucked-up reel of history repeating itself.
“You asked me to walk away.” Her voice broke.
I fucking lost it.
Sitting up, I glared at her like she deserved my bullshit. “I didn’t ask you to walk away. I asked you to walk away with me.” There was a giant goddamn difference.
Tears shone in her eyes. “Vance—”
“Don’t,” I warned a split second before I heard it, but it was too late.
I was too late.
The front door kicked in, and four armed men in tactical gear bled into the space, fanning out in a maneuver I’d done so many times in the Marines I could do it in my sleep. Putting themselves between me and Sabine, they all aimed their rifles at my head.
My hands out, I slowly stood and scanned the eyes behind the balaclavas, but I didn’t see any that were a distinctive color of blue. “Gentlemen.” Where the hell was he? “You seem to be missing somebody.”
“Sit the fuck down,” the team leader barked.
I scanned the door, then the four men. Maybe my instincts had been wrong. Maybe he was dead. If so, we were about to have a bigger problem than missing diamonds.
Stalling so Echo could line up his shots, I forced a smile. “Right. And why exactly would I do that when I’m perfectly comfortable standing with my arms up as you point—” I squinted in the dark like I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking at. “—FAMAS rifles at my head?”
“Sit. Down,” the asshole in front growled.
Any-fucking-time now, Echo. “Let me guess. The lady goes, and I stay.” Amateurs. “Although, I should warn you.” Catching the telltale glint from the reflection of moonlight hitting the end of a scope, I barely tipped my chin. “I’m not particularly fond of your plan.”
Echo fired twice.
Two of the armed men’s heads exploded as a third man turned toward the open door and blindly fired. A fraction of a second later, another shot rang out and the third armed man dropped.
Before his body hit the ground, the asshole team leader had lunged, beating me to Sabine. Grabbing her in a headlock, he dropped his rifle to let it hang loose on its shoulder strap as he unholstered and shoved a 9mm against her temple.
M4 aimed, Echo stepped over dead bodies as he walked through the busted-in door.
Fucking tired, my hands went to my hips. “What are you going to do now? Shoot her?”
Sabine whimpered, and Echo let out a growl like the fucking animal he was as he took another step toward the asshole.
“One more step and she dies,” the asshole warned.
I glanced at Echo. “Do you believe him?”
“No.”
“Me either.” I looked back at the asshole. “Before you can think of a dozen different ways her brother will torture you for killing her, Echo will have already blown your head off.” I glanced back at Echo. “What do you think? This is pretty close range. You’re what…?” I scanned the distance between him and the asshole like I actually gave a shit. “Two meters?” I nodded. “Definitely two meters.” Avoiding Sabine, I looked at the asshole. “Do you know what happens when a 556 enters your skull from a distance of six feet? Actually,” I amended, “it’s what will happen to the back of your skull.”
“You shoot me, I shoot her. Reflexive action,” the asshole bluffed.
“Total myth, but by all means, keep that 9mm trained on her, and let’s find out.” This was taking too long. “Echo?”
No hesitation, Echo pulled the trigger.
The asshole’s head snapped back from the force of the close-range shot. The back of his skull exploded, and Sabine screamed.
His hand dropped, his gun hit the floor, but his arm stayed locked around Sabine’s neck as he went down.
Scrambling to get out from under his hold, Sabine slipped in the prick’s blood.
“Stop.” I grabbed her by the arms. “You’re only making the mess worse.” Pulling her to her feet, I avoided the blood and stepped us both back before glancing at Echo. “Patrol. I’ll call it in.”
“Copy. Clean her up. We’re not waiting for Alpha. Exfil, two minutes.” Echo disappeared through the kicked-in door.
