Intrusion (3 page)

Audra put the call through to their head of security, then dropped the phone in its cradle and rubbed her hands across her face. She picked up her mug and pressed the cold ceramic against her palms.

The clock on the wall ticked out the ungodly hour. One-thirty a.m. Just sixty minutes ago she was revved up, ready to work. Now, she suddenly wanted to crawl beneath her warm comforter for a few hours. Maybe she’d wake up and discover this had all been a crazy dream. With a shaky hand she set the mug back on her desk. No, work couldn’t wait, not when she was this close to handing off her prototype to the Department of Defense.

If she didn’t finish the armor soon, chances were high tonight’s intruder would return for another attempt—and with those enigmatic gray eyes and a brash smile that could coax the panties off a nun—next time, he just might be successful.

***

Margaret Stanton gripped her daughter’s limp hand in hers. The blip of monitors disturbed the silence, and the steady swish of Noelle’s respirator sucked Margaret’s confidence from her.

She bowed her head. “Noelle...”

Swaddled in bandages, her face bruised and swollen, she looked nothing like the sixteen-year-old that had begged to borrow the car two weeks ago. Why had Margaret caved? Why hadn’t she demanded to drive Noelle to her friend’s birthday party herself? She didn’t want to be at odds with her daughter. Noelle was all she had. If she drove her away with her overprotective demands...

She inhaled deeply to calm her racing heart. Ammonia filled her nostrils and trickled into her throat. This sterile ICU was no place for her vibrant girl. She rubbed Noelle’s palm.

“It’s Mom, sweetie. Can you hear me? I...”

A sharp rap on wood brought Margaret’s head up with a flinch. Her heart fluttered at the sight of the tall man standing in the doorway. Her throat went dry. Confusion buzzed through her throwing off her focus.

“Russ?” He stepped into the room and suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath. “I...I didn’t expect you today.”

Her gaze roamed over his face. More than seventeen years had passed since she’d first laid eyes on Russell Coburn, and yet he looked the same. His brown hair still lay in thick waves, with just a hint of gray peppered at the temples. Distinguished lines creased the skin around his deep mocha eyes and crinkled at the corners of his mouth.

Noelle had inherited that mouth. The eyes, too.

“I didn’t think you’d come.” She pushed the words past her dry throat.

He stepped into the room and studied Noelle. “I’ve been telling you for months that I’d like to get to know her.”

True, he had. But she’d learned to take promises lightly where Russ was concerned. And yet, she’d still kept him updated about his daughter, sending pictures and notes to his office. She’d wanted Russ to know what he was missing, even though she refused to tell Noelle anything about the man who’d fathered her.

Hands in the pocket of his tailored khaki slacks, Russ drew near the bed. “When you called and told me about the accident all I could think of was how many years I’ve wasted.” He snagged one of the vinyl chairs and planted himself in it, next to the bed. “I wanted to rush down here immediately, but I didn’t think I had the right to interfere.”

Her breath shuddered from her. “You don’t.”

His eyes connected with hers then skittered to Noelle. “I know. I tried telling myself it was best if I stayed away, but I couldn’t do it anymore.”

He had a way of making her feel thirty-years old again, excited and breathless over the CEO’s attention. Their affair had been wrong on so many levels, yet right on the only one that mattered. She’d loved him, and that love had consumed her. Consumed her to the point that she put all his needs before her own, even sacrificing her career by passing on a once in a lifetime opportunity to run her own nanotechnology lab, just so she could stay at Coburn Industries and help Russ with his research instead.

“Where’s your wife? Didn’t she want to pay her sympathies to your illegitimate daughter?”

He kept his focus on Noelle. “I told you over the phone, Kate and I divorced.”

His words were like a scalpel, cutting deep into her heart. Divorced? Divorced! Her affair with Russ was the one insane act she’d ever committed. But, he’d had a way about him. With nothing more than a look he’d made her feel treasured. Loved. Important. Until the day two faint pink lines appeared on her home pregnancy test. Russ had broken her heart, her career—her life—with one cruel blow.

“I didn’t believe you,” she said, smoothing a strand of Noelle’s honey colored hair from the large purple bruise that marred her forehead.

She’d chalked Russ’ statement up as one more in a long line of half-truths and broken pledges—she’d choked on so many of them over the years. “You said you’d never divorce her. You said you...couldn’t.”

Russ shoved a hand through his hair and met her eyes over their daughter’s hospital bed. “Mags, I’m so sorry.”

Mags.

To everyone else she’d been Margaret, the straight-laced, boring research assistant who took life far too seriously. Only Russ had seen a different side. Wild, impetuous, full of laughter.

His Mags.

Her heart twisted with bitter longing. “What do you really want, Russ?”

“To know my daughter.”

“Now?” Anguish and hysteria crawled up her throat. “How can you get to know her when she’s in a coma?”

He reached across Noelle and laid his palm atop her hand. “I want to help. Noelle deserves the best care money can buy. There’s a specialist in brain trauma at the Phoenix Children’s Hosp—”

She pushed his hand away. “I knew it. You feel guilty. That’s the real reason you’re here, isn’t it? You think you can just waltz in here and take over with your money and your fancy treatments. No, absolutely not. You haven’t done a thing for Noelle since the day she was born.”

“Mags, hear me out. Please.”

She clamped her teeth together. “It won’t change a thing.”

A nurse poked her head through the open doorway. She bit her lip. “Excuse me, Ms. Stanton?”

Margaret reeled in her frustration with a deep breath. “Yes?”

“I apologize for disturbing you, but Angela has some insurance papers she needs you to sign. She’s waiting at the ICU desk.”

“Of course.”

Margaret pushed back her chair and stood. She gave Russ a pointed look. Which he ignored.

“Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

She sighed and rushed to the desk. Angela’s sympathetic smile did little to lift her heavy heart. Her stomach knotted. “Please tell me the insurance won’t refuse to pay for long-term care.”

Angela slid several papers across the counter. “No, they’ll pay, but your plan does have coverage limits. We’ll do all we can to help minimize those costs, Margaret, but we need your signature, here, stating you’ll take responsibility for the rest.”

Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t like putting a price tag on Noelle’s life. Her daughter’s health was worth every penny in her savings account. She’d gladly sell her house along with any other valuable assets, but what if it still wasn’t enough? Legally, they couldn’t stop treating Noelle if she ran out of money, could they?

She snatched a pen from the jar on the counter. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” She scrawled her signature at the bottom of the pages and handed them to Angela.

“Thanks.” Angela squeezed her shoulder. “Hang in there, okay?”

She nodded and rushed back to Noelle’s room.

Russ still sat at their daughter’s bedside and he turned toward her. “You okay?”

She dashed the wetness from the corner of her eyes. “I’m fine.” Her hands froze on her face as she caught sight of her bag next to Russ’ chair. “What are you doing with my purse?”

He frowned then held up his hands. “Mags, come on. With you not working right now, I thought you could use some extra cash. Just to get you by.”

She stalked to him and snagged her purse off the ground. Several one hundred dollar bills peeped out from the open pocket. She plucked them between her fingers. “We’re fine. We don’t need your money. Nanodyne is covering my time off.”

At least for another couple weeks, until her vacation and personal days wore out. After that...well, she’d find some way to keep afloat.

Russ stood, sending her a small crooked grin that’d always set her heart to pounding.

He slid the money out of her grasp. “God, you’re as stubborn as always.” His expression sobered, his chocolate eyes pooling with moisture. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret sending you away,” he said. “I was so wrong. What we had—it was special. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of you or Noelle. But with Kate refusing to give me a divorce...I didn’t know what to do.”

He’s telling you what you want to hear. Don’t listen to him.

Righteous anger burned in her stomach. She should send him away. She and Noelle didn’t need him.

But, Lord help her, after all these years, she still loved Russell Coburn.

He dipped his head into her line of vision. As she looked into his soft, misty eyes, she felt her heart start to cave.

She needed to believe him. Needed to trust his intentions were true.

He picked up her hand and this time she didn’t resist. His lips touched her skin and lingered briefly—just long enough for a current of desire to zap up her arm.

“Mags. Please let me help
our
daughter.”

How could she say no?

***

Ivan Petrovic depressed the volume button on his stereo and the strains of Stevan Mokranjac’s
Rukoveti
echoed throughout his house. His American mother had tried to erase his Serbian heritage when she’d whisked him out of the country at age fourteen. She’d given him a new name, a new country, but she couldn’t change his heart. It had—and always would—beat for Serbia.

Arms outstretched, he stood in the middle of his living room letting the powerful strains of music vibrate within him. It filled his cavernous heart, but did very little to ease the sickness that resided there. It had been four years since his wife and children were taken from him in an act of horrific violence. Ethnic cleansing the papers had called it.

His fingers slipped along the smooth goblet in his hand and squeezed. The glass shattered, piercing his flesh. A cry wrenched from his chest and his stomach churned. A sick unease slithered up his body to clutch painfully at his chest.

He watched two thick rivulets of blood run down his hand and over the Serbian Coat of Arms tattooed across his forearm.

My blood. Shed for my Country.

A crimson drop fell from his arm and splashed across the silver picture frame atop the oak coffee table. His trembling hands reached for the photograph, but he recoiled before his fingers could connect with the gilded edge. Sweat popped out on his brow as a slash of red washed across their faces.

Their faces.

He stumbled backwards and fled to the kitchen. It was just his family. Only his family. His wife Mina, with her serene smile and her eyes overflowing with love and mischief, had been his light. His laughter. He’d met her while working at the U.S. Embassy in Serbia and had fallen head over heels. Their wedding in the small village of Čaglavica had taken place less than a year later.

His son Nikolai would never age beyond his seven years, and sweet Anica would never have the chance to celebrate her second birthday. They were ghosts. Lost to him forever.

He plunged his arm under the cold spray from the kitchen faucet, plucking bits of glass from his hand while he watched the blood swirl down the drain.

Reaching into the cabinet, he retrieved a first aid kit and a bottle of Smirnoff. He bandaged his hand then twisted the lid from the bottle and took a stiff drink. The clear liquid beckoned him and a shaft of longing pierced his soul. Southern Serbia with its rolling mountains and lush river valleys would always be his true home.

Very soon he’d return to make sure his family’s death at the hand of the Kosovo Liberation Army had not been in vain. The Albanians may have declared Kosovo’s independence with the burning of churches and villages, but the region would never belong to them. Not as long as he drew breath.

Serbia would rise again, and his family would be avenged. Tears splashed onto the counter and he pushed the bottle aside, suddenly unwilling to dull the ache in his heart.
Victory will be ours, Mina, my love.

His cell phone rang and he fished it from his pocket. Good. The call he’d been waiting for. “Is it finished?”

Static crackled over the line then a low voice rasped, “We have a problem.”

Ivan clenched his jaw. “I can’t afford another problem.”

The man on the other side cleared his throat. “The armor’s gone.”

Ivan had waited three years for Nanodyne to complete this project, swallowing the bitter pill of Kosovo’s sovereignty while he’d plotted its demise. The dynamic armor was essential to his plan: the creation of an indestructible Serbian armed force that could squash the Albanians reign once and for all.

“Impossible.” His stomach twisted, the vodka turning sour in his gut. “You assured me you could deliver.”

“And you didn’t tell me someone else was after it.” The man’s voice thinned. “Or I wouldn’t have given them the opportunity to beat me to it.”

Anxiety popped out on Ivan’s brow and he swiped at the moisture. “Then I suggest you get it back. By whatever means necessary.”

“I need more money.”

“You’ll get it when you deliver the armor.”

He turned off his phone and tossed it on the counter. His throat ached and he tried to swallow past the threat of his words, but they were lodged in his esophagus by shame.

Violence begets violence.

His pacifistic mother must be turning in her grave. But he couldn’t let anything stand in his way.

Chapter Three

Audra smoothed a wrinkle from the gray jacket of her Calvin Klein pantsuit then reached up to tuck an errant strand of hair back into its chignon.

Business meetings sucked—especially when she’d purposely spent the last few days dodging the boss’ calls.