Keep (Command #2) (24 page)

She’d escaped. She was still in Germany. Kara could be waiting for him right this second, holed up somewhere safe. He just had to get to her. So he started thinking aloud. “It’s four hours from here.”

“We can’t take the plane. It’s not any faster and too visible,” Jason said.

Shawn nodded. He’d drive, faster than he’d ever driven.

“This could be a trap just as easily,” Ethan remarked, hesitant.

Shawn’s email chimed again. Same fake email address, a different subject this time:
For Laurel
. His knees collapsed him into a chair. In this picture, Kara looked unconscious. She was dressed in a pair of muddy pants and a drenched, bloody shirt, her body curled up on a rug covering a white tile floor. If this picture was recent, she’d been recaptured. The swing from high to low was devastating. Everyone in the room sensed the shift in Shawn and movement ceased.

“What is it?” L asked, her fearful whisper breaking the quiet.

“Juric,” Shawn said, scanning the rest of the email, trying to stay detached, “has instructions for you.”

“For me?”

“There’s login information for a video conference. He wants to talk to you, and only you, at nine tomorrow morning.” Shawn’s stomach bottomed out as he read the next part out. “He’ll kill her if you’re not alone in the room.”

L’s shoulders drew up sharply and she blinked a few times. Her gaze went to her husband, her bright blue eyes determined. “Okay.” She struggled with this. “You need to prepare me for what he might say.” Her voice wavered. “I don’t want to do anything that might set him off.” It was clear she was scared to see Juric again, but wasn’t going to let that stop her.

Jason thundered to his wife, seizing her face in his hands. He didn’t like this idea anymore than she did, but what choice did they have? “We’ll set it up so we’re watching from the other room. I’ll be right next door.”

As Shawn watched this exchange, he was vaguely aware of Ethan tugging the phone from his hand, anxious to read the email and put his people on it.

A quick investigation said the picture was recent. Shawn’s heart thudded slower again, the hope dwindling somewhat. But he had a location. Six hours ago Kara had been in that shop in Trier, which meant wherever she’d escaped from had been close by. She’d been barefoot, after all.

Ethan was handed the keys to the Range Rover that Jason kept at the safe house, the one that Shawn had bought in cash last December, and said he’d follow behind them. Shawn drove while L and Jason sat in the backseat of his Audi, her helping her husband search for possible locations Kara could have been hidden. They were eighty kilometers outside Trier when Jason called Ethan and put the phone on speaker.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “This house was rented last week, but the renter only exists on paper.” He rattled off an address. “What can you find out about it?”

“I’ll put in a request for satellite surveillance,” Ethan said. “If I’m granted permission, it should take a few hours to re-purpose.”

Jason’s startled gaze met Shawn’s in the rearview mirror. “Christ,” his brother said, “you weren’t kidding about resources.”

The thought gripped Shawn suddenly. Juric was the asset the CIA was interested in, not Kara. “Don’t cut us out, go after Juric, and fuck it all up,” he snarled.

There was a tense pause. “You don’t have to worry about that, I’m not on a sanctioned op here.” Ethan’s voice was tight and strained. “Only my director knows what I’m doing, and he’s looking the other way. I may not have let the dog off the leash, but I’m part of the hand that did, so that’s on me. I’m going to see this through to the fucking end.”

He hung up.

Was that end Juric’s death, like Shawn hoped it would be? Which he was sure Jason wanted it to be? It was night outside and the pavement was damp from the rain. For a long time the only sound was the windshield wipers streaking across glass. L had fallen asleep, her forehead against the crook of Jason’s neck.

He didn’t expect Jason to have any answers even though he’d been where Shawn was now, but he asked it anyway, his words low. “How did you do this?” How had Jason endured knowing the woman he loved was in Juric’s hands?

Another stroke of the wiper blades.

“You shut everything out so only the goal matters.” Jason’s eyes were dark in the mirror. “Find her. Save her.”

-15-

The pounding behind Kara’s closed eyes was steady. Everything ached now that she’d woken. She didn’t want Juric to know that, though. During the night she’d rolled on her side, only to be reminded with stabbing pain of her wounds. The hand that had caused it was hot and uncomfortable on her. He’d asked her if she wanted something for the pain, but she responded by telling him to fuck off.

She was developing quite a filthy mouth, not that it mattered.

“You missed your window on killing me,” he said. “I know you’re awake.”

She opened her eyes reluctantly. He was up on an elbow, gazing down at her with a frightening look. One that said she should have chosen the basement. This bed was the most dangerous place in the world for her. His hand on her waist curled the hem of her shirt up so he could touch the bare skin beneath it, causing her pulse to jump.

He bent his head to hers and kissed her, his slimy lips sliding over hers. When she turned her head away, he trapped it with a hand and turned it back to him. “I’m not finished.”

She gasped when he shifted and put his body over hers, increasing the demand. Her hands pushed on the skin of his bare chest, but what a total mistake. He misinterpreted this action as encouragement. Hands yanked her hair, forcing her into his kiss.

“Give in to me,” he urged.

Fight poured through her veins with his command. “No.”

When she swung at him, he grabbed her wrists and pressed them above her head into the mattress, pushing himself up on his arms, so only their lower bodies were touching. “This is how it could be between us.”

“Us?” Her brain was loud with hysterical, inappropriate laughter. “There is no
us
. I hate you. After everything you’ve done to me, and everything you’ve done to her… A million times over: No.”

The corners of his evil mouth turned down at the word he disliked. And then he slammed his face in her neck, his tongue probing and licking. Her skin wanted to abandon her body and seek shelter elsewhere. She struggled against his hold, desperate to get away from the mouth on her. In her panic, she scrambled to find something to distract. “I’m not Laurel.”

The head snapped up, giving her skin relief from the revolting mouth. Once again, he was furious at the sound of her name. “I’m aware of who you are,
Kara
.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

His anger receded and was replaced with a slow, bitter smile. “I couldn’t get to her, the marshal made sure of that. So I followed you. From your apartment, to work. My plan was to use you to get close.” She bucked against his hold, but it was futile. “It didn’t take me long to realize what a mistake I’d made.”

Her throat closed up, so the words were near impossible to get out. “What mistake?”

“She doesn’t deserve me. I don’t want a whore with some other man’s baby inside her. But you? You’re perfect. It’ll be perfect between us.”

“No.” All her muscles seized until she was rigid. “No.”

His eyes had an unfocused look, like he wasn’t all there. “And then he almost ruined it. That asshole in New York that threatened your life.” Juric squeezed both of her wrists together with one hand so he could set the other on her neck, placing his thumb at the hollow of her throat. A dominating gesture. There was no pressure in his grip, yet it felt like his hand weighed a million pounds. “I made him beg for his life, not that it made a difference.”

Oh, god, no.
“You killed Rhodes?”

His chaotic expression washed away and focus returned. “He almost took you away from me. I don’t like people coming after what’s mine.” The harsh hands around her were gone, like he’d suddenly been struck with a thought. He rolled off and sat up with his back turned to her. “Get up and get dressed. It’s time to talk to your sister.”

They sat in Jason’s hotel room, going over satellite images until it was the dead of the night, L asleep on top of the covers of the nearby bed. They’d seen a figure leave the house and return a few hours later, nothing more than a grainy dot on the images, but another good sign. Even if Kara wasn’t in the house, someone was. Someone they could question when they stormed the place tomorrow.

Jason and Ethan refused to move until the video call with L was over. Ethan was convinced this was a trap. “More information,” he said, “equals better operation.”

Like some trite CIA saying was supposed to comfort Shawn.

“We need to get some sleep,” Jason said, looking as exhausted as Shawn felt. “If you’re coming with us tomorrow, you need to do this. You can barely stand.”

Shawn didn’t take orders, but he’d let his brother believe he would tonight. He nodded and went to his bland hotel room across the hall, shutting the door behind him. The cold water he splashed on his face helped a little with his exhaustion. He’d give it ten minutes before he went downstairs, slipped behind the wheel of his Audi, and drove to the house himself. Ten minutes was too long. Who knows what could happen to her in those ten minutes? Five minutes. Five minutes was better.

He paced a circle in the tiny room and coursed a hand through his hair. If he sat down, he’d feel the urge to lie down, and if he did that, he’d be done for. Only his worry and anger were keeping him going.

He checked the peephole on his hotel door and saw the hallway was clear, but when he opened the door, a huge rock of a man fell into the room. His brother had been sitting on the carpet with his back against the door, guarding it.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Jason said when he was on his feet.

“Get out of my way, you know where I’m going. I can’t wait here.”

“You can, and you will.” This was a threat from Jason. His brother’s broad shoulders were square to Shawn, his stance wide and ready for a fight, a scowl on his face. Jason had perfected that dark, authoritative look their mother gave, even when he’d been living in America for most of his life. Shawn was taller, but that was the only advantage he held over his younger brother. Jason was bigger, faster, and better at physical confrontation.

Shawn was coming apart, couldn’t his brother see that? A hand latched onto the back of his neck so Jason could pull his face close.

“I almost lost the woman I love to him. I’m not going to lose my brother. Get the fuck back in your room, or I’ll put you there.”

The intense look in the dark brown eyes said he would do it. This was the logical, smart thing to do, but that part of Shawn had died when the first picture of Kara had appeared on his phone.
Mine,
Juric had said. No, Kara wasn’t his. No one owned her.

Shawn blinked his bleary eyes at Jason.

“I’d like to stay with my wife tonight.” Jason released his hold and stepped back. “Can I trust you to stay put?”

“Yes,” Shawn lied.

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Okay. I’ll sleep in the hall.”

Two of Ethan’s men arrived in the morning with black duffel bags of supplies. Guns, tear gas, bulletproof vests. Shawn’s last stop before leaving Munich and heading to the safe house had been to the bank. Jason had told him to get all the cash he could get his hands on. He couldn’t tell whom these men worked for. Rance wasn’t CIA because he was British. Tony sounded American, but he operated differently than Ethan did. He seemed too excited about the raid, like an adrenaline junkie. Mercenary? Both Rance and Tony took the money, but there was hesitation in them.