Authors: Kaylea Cross
Man, she must have been scared to death. “A firefight starts up, but she manages to run to safety. She gets Luke's e-mail about the op our team was executing, and realizes something might be on her laptop hard drive, so she texted me that the intel had been leaked.”
If she was telling the truth, she was the unluckiest woman he'd ever met. If she was lying, she could make millions acting on the silver screen. “Then because she still doesn't know who's behind all this, she stays on the run four more days until she gets e-mailed photos of Neveah tied up and gagged with four masked guys holding AK-47s standing behind her in front of an Afghan flag. That tells her it's terrorists, not us, so she admits she's in over her head and contacts us.”
“She contacted
you
,” Luke corrected, “and you alone. For the second time.”
Well, whatever. “Point is, her story's plausible. Right up until her abduction today.” He had Luke's full attention now. Ben drew a deep breath, knowing the next part was highly suspect. “She claims they took her into the house to deliver a message.”
Something changed in Luke's eyes, like a switch had been flipped on. The intense focus was almost eerie. “And what was the message?”
“That she was wanted in Kabul.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Luke exhaled, and his shoulders seemed to relax. “She's clean, then.”
“Excuse me?”
“She told you the truth. It was a test, to see whether she'd give the information to us or not. She passed.”
Ben was indignant. “You set that up? Had her abducted off the street at gunpoint as a
test
?”
“That's right.”
And Luke hadn't bothered warning any of the rest of them. Ben glanced at the others, who were watching Luke with interest, and fought down the spike in his temper. “And what was she supposed to happen if a gunfight erupted? I almost went in there to get her out.”
“But you didn't.”
Shit no, because he hadn't been sure if she was trying to get him killed. Even then, he'd almost gone in after her. The hell of it was, he'd
wanted
to believe her. That made it doubly important he stay immune to her big brown eyes until they validated whether she was telling the truth about the rest of her story. “So you're telling me she really could be innocent?”
“Yeah.” Luke rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn, I never thought sending Davis out to watch her would make her bolt. He's one of the best I've ever seen. If she sensed him following her, she's a hell of a lot more observant than most.”
Great. “Why'd you send him out, by the way?”
“Sam was acting suspiciously. Jumpy, on edge. Rhys thought so, too.”
Ben shot a glare at his brother. Why the hell wouldn't Rhys have said something to him in the first place if he'd thought something was up with her? Tight-lipped bastard.
“Might not have been Davis she noticed,” Rhys put in. “Could have been one of Tehrazzi's, or someone else.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, “and how did those pictures Davis took end up at her computer in the internet cafe with her name on the envelope? Who else had access to them?”
Davis’ deep brown gaze was unflinching. “Me, Luke, Ali, you two, Fahdi.”
Ah yes, Fahdi. The back-stabbing bastard locked in the cell next to Sam at that very moment.
Ben did the math. Ali was dead, so obviously he was absolved of any wrongdoing. Rhys and him were both clean, and he was sure Luke wasn't involved. That left either Davis or Fahdi, and since Davis was pretty much Luke's right hand man, logic dictated that the culprit had to be Sam's current neighbor in cell block C.
Luke planted a hand on the table and stood, pausing a moment to take a couple of breaths. When he straightened, he did so almost cautiously, and Ben thought he saw him wince a little. “I'm surprised the doc discharged you,” he said. Guy looked like hell, all pale and pasty.
Luke ignored the comment. “I'll pay Fahdi another visit in the morning. And I'll take these,” he said, slipping Sam's photo and BlackBerry into his pocket, “back to the office for further analysis, see if we come up with anything.”
The low-grade anger churning in Ben's gut burned hotter. “What about Sam?”
“What about her?”
He narrowed his eyes. “She's stuck in a cell next to Fahdi, remember?”
He'd hated leaving her there, even if he did have reservations about her. She'd been curled up on her hard bunk with her feet tucked beneath her, dull black-dyed hair pulled into a high ponytail and her arms wrapped around herself as if she was freezing. She had no privacy from anyone, let alone if she had to use the stainless steel toilet against the wall. Though the security guards were on special orders to look after her, she was still locked up with a bunch of male hard-core criminals.
Luke regarded him with a raised brow. “That a problem for you?”
Damn right it was. But he refused to take the bait and curled his hands into fists beneath his armpits. “You're going to spring her tomorrow and find her somewhere else to stay, right?”
“I might if you volunteered to watch her.”
That shut him up.
“Look, whatever her reasons, she wants your attention. You giving it to her would only work to our advantage. I'm sure you could get what we need from her without any trouble.”
Ben popped his gum and set his jaw. He didn't like the implication embedded in those words. “You want me to seduce information out of her.”
The ghost of a smile touched Luke's mouth. He barely glanced at Ben as he gathered up his jacket and tucked a pistol into his waistband. “We'll see what Fahdi has to say first. And if she's innocent, she's safer there than anywhere else in the city.”
Like hell she was, and Ben didn't appreciate the idea of being whored out just to work Sam for information. Would he take her to bed? Sure. Would he enjoy it? Hell yes. But would he use it as an interrogation technique? Screw that. He opened his mouth to blast Luke, but Rhys cut him off with a warning look. Ben clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, and waited until his boss and Davis left. The door clicked shut behind them.
“Dammit, I can't believe this,” Ben barked, surging out of his chair and running his hands through the back of his hair.
“Calm down.”
“Don't tell me to calm down— weren't you listening? The guy all but told me to fuck the information out of her. In case you didn't realize it, this is
Sam
we're talking about. Your friend, remember?”
Rhys rolled his eyes as he took a fresh t-shirt. “He didn't say that.”
“Close enough, and the prison thing is just as fucked up. I goddamn hated leaving her there— I almost didn't. It's no place for a woman, let alone her.” He could still see the nerves and fear in her big brown eyes as he'd turned to go.
Rhys pulled off his shirt and put it away in his duffel, exposing the broad expanse of muscles across his back and the tattoo of a partial infinity symbol wrapped around an up-pointed dagger inked into the skin across his right shoulder blade. Ben had the other half in the same spot on his left side. When they stood shoulder to shoulder, the two halves became a whole. The infinity symbol represented their eternal bond as twins, and the dagger their service in the military, back in the day when things had been black and white and made sense. Orders came, they carried them out. Not like the shit they dealt with working for Luke, which was a world filled with endless shades of gray. At least, for him it was. During his years as a Delta Force operator, Rhys had worked closely with the CIA, doing their dirty work and black ops, so he probably wasn't fazed.
Rhys tugged on the clean shirt. “She'll be okay, man. Sam's tougher than she looks.”
“Screw that, she looked about twelve years old sitting there locked up behind those bars.”
Stretched out diagonally across his queen-sized bed so he'd fit on the thing, Rhys studied him. “Luke said she might be innocent. What do you think?”
Ben thought about it. Did he believe her, in spite of all that had happened? It seemed so unbelievable, but, “Yeah. Fuck me, but yeah, I think she might be telling the truth.” At least, he hoped she was.
Rhys nodded. “Good. She's gonna need someone to have her back through all of this.”
“What, because you're not in her corner all of a sudden?”
“Doesn't matter to her what
I
think.” His brother picked up the remote, turned on the TV. “Luke's right.” Ben nailed him with a glare, but Rhys raised a hand, asking him to hear him out. “This way she's got a twenty-four hour guard to look after her. And about the other? She could've contacted any of us. I've known her a couple years, worked with her before, but you're the one she reached out to. You're the one she wants to believe in her. You'd be stupid not to capitalize on that.”
The weight of responsibility pressed down on Ben's chest. Damn. The thought of using her that way made him uncomfortable. He'd seen the plea in her face before he'd walked away from her cell, gazing up at him with eyes as gentle as a golden retriever's.
Why are you doing this to me? Don't leave me here, Ben. Help me.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my twin?”
Rhys’ navy eyes met his. “Meaning?”
Ben snorted. His twin was a freaking Boy Scout, with a set of morals so high no one but him could uphold them. “I can't believe you, of all people, would condone something like that. Christ, last time I so much as
swore
in front of a woman in your presence you cuffed me upside the head.”
Rhys shrugged. “I'm not worried about you mistreating her, because I know you better than that. And let's be honest, we've both seen the way she looks at you. If it came down to taking her to bed, I doubt it would be a hardship for either of you. So while I don't condone
it
, per se, under the circumstances it could come in handy. That's all I meant.”
“Whatever.” He huffed out a breath, grabbed a shirt and a change of underwear from his bag. Maybe his shower would help wash away some of the sensation that he was covered in filth. “She's completely out of her depth on this.” He twisted his clothing in his hands. “Think she's going to be okay?”
Rhys looked up from his channel surfing. “Like I said, she's tougher than she looks. You'd better not forget that. She's been out there for what, six days by herself? With us, the Mahdi Army and Tehrazzi tracking her. How many women do you know that could evade all of us and live to tell about it?”
Rhys had a point. Until now, the only other woman Ben had ever considered strong enough to take something like that on was Bryn, and then only in a worst case, end of the world apocalyptic scenario. She and her father had been kidnapped after an explosion at the US embassy in Beirut. While he'd been helpless to prevent it, he still blamed himself.
He
was head of her father's security team, and had tortured himself by going over every second of video footage from the embassy, trying to figure out what he'd missed. After all, he'd dropped them off and left them there. If he'd stayed, maybe he could have made a difference.
Dec's SEAL team had gone in to rescue them, but Mr. Daoud had died later in the hospital. Dealing with his own head fuck after that was hard enough, but when Luke had brought her onto his team to go after Tehrazzi, there was no way Ben could say no when he'd been asked to help protect her. Then Rhys had signed up, no questions asked because Bryn meant the world to him, too. Working the last op with her, then finding out she'd been kidnapped— for the second time— was the worst thing Ben had ever experienced, and for damn sure he didn't want to go through that again.
Man, he'd had a thing for her for years, but she'd wanted Dec, and he'd been forced to let the idea of her go. When he'd met Sam in Baghdad, he'd been dealing with that reality and hadn't expected to feel anything for his new teammate. But he had anyway.
Something in the way Sam looked at him resonated deep inside him, like an echo. The light in her intelligent mahogany eyes seemed almost familiar, and her good looks hadn't hurt, either. She was a hard worker, he'd seen that much himself, and calm under pressure, which made her an ideal communications specialist. Sam might not have Bryn's physical strength or fighting skills, but she was brilliant with electronics and evidently resourceful enough to survive being on the run from one of the most lethal terrorist cells in the world. Her quietly confident demeanor was sexy as hell.
Then there was the mysterious effect she had on him. It might be crazy, but Sam calmed him somehow. She was the only person he'd ever met who could quiet the static in his head so he could breathe easier. Just being in her presence for five minutes was better than any relaxation technique he'd ever tried, and he'd test-run more than a few in his years on earth. Damned if he understood how she did it, but it was there whether he wanted to admit it or not.
He shook his head at Rhys. “I don't want to see her get hurt.” He couldn't watch another woman he cared about go through what Bryn had, no matter what the circumstances.
Sam couldn't believe he'd actually left her here. Right up until the moment the guard had locked her in the cell, some part of her had still expected Ben to grin and say “Kidding,” like it was just another of his pranks, and then get her out of there. It had taken a full minute after he'd gone for reality to sink in. This was no joke. Far from it. Did they think she'd tell them something more if they left her here long enough?
On her hard-as-concrete bunk, Sam tucked her knees into her chest and stared at the cinderblock walls. She didn't dare look anywhere else in case someone was watching her. The weight of the stares coming her way made her want to curl into a ball and shut her eyes to block everything out.
Ben mistrusted her enough that he'd abandoned her here. Hadn't even looked back once she'd sat down and the guard had shut the cell door with a resounding clang and locked her in. Now she was alone in a CIA holding facility, the sole female prisoner, surrounded by male guards and men who'd done any number of violent things to land them here. Including her former friend and teammate Fahdi, who was in the cell next to hers for murdering Ali.