Prisoner Mine Page 8

  “Yes.” She whispered the word to keep the bile churning in her gut from erupting.

  “Then…” The striated muscles in his jaw danced. “How did the Stas think you were…”

  And it could get worse.

  The heat drained from her face. Her extremities grew numb like the drugs plunged into her vein again. The answer lodged itself in her windpipe. Sheer will forced it out one rusty word at a time.

  “He didn’t choose the path that would get me pregnant.”

  Zach’s hand lifted from her chest. The trickle turned into a waterfall. His hands latched onto his dark hair, straining the roots. He drifted from her on slow backward steps, and then turned and retreated to the large window. The grips on his head eased from his hair. He braced a hand on the edge of the wall.

  Tears stung her eyes. Color and heat continued to siphon away. She wanted to run to the bathroom and lock herself inside or hide under the covers, but what good would that do? This confession, the first and only one she’d given—until tonight—couldn’t go any worse.

  Muscles strained the back of his shirt. They bunched with each bullish exhale. His head started on a slow back and forth that gained speed. His palm snapped out, smacking the frame. The panes rattled.

  Greer’s skeleton jumped. She held her ground. There was no place to go. When she’d joined US Elite she’d sublet her apartment in DC and placed all her things in storage. Besides, she wouldn’t leave her partner in the enemy’s hands.

  “You joined the military to protect yourself.”

  Zach had turned. His growled statement washed over her and seeped into her soul.

  Was that the reason she’d joined? It had been a perk. A major perk.

  “Joining the Marines was a family tradition all the way back to my great-great-grandfather Gunner Boone Stockton, senior. All except my father were highly decorated.”

  “Did you tell your father?”

  For the first time, she couldn’t look at him. Her chin drifted left. Out the other small window the sun slipped behind the trees, turning the sky as dark as her memories of that day. Not of the act. Not of the horrible pain of grunted thrusts. But of seeing her own father’s face darken with rage…at her.

  She’d done everything right. She’d said no. She’d tried to fight. She’d screamed. She hadn’t showered after. She told a trusted adult. He’d made her feel responsible. He’d shoved her into the shower and demanded she remove her shame and never speak of it again. He’d ruined her more than Greeson had.

  Zach’s gentle grip on her chin turned her to face him. “Did you tell your father?”

  “Yes.”

  The lightning in his cloudy eyes could only compare with a tempest rolling in off the shore. Rage billowed off him in silent waves that decimated the banks.

  “And he didn’t do a fucking thing.”

  “A scandal would have killed my uncle’s road to the White House. And I…” Greer hauled in a breath.

  “You what?”

  “Tempted him with my revealing swimsuit.”

  His grip on her chin tightened. Every finger made its own impression. His gaze narrowed.

  “You tempt me in full gear and a gun strapped across your chest. You tempt me naked and vulnerable and every which way in between. You have no idea.” He ground the words between his teeth. “But that doesn’t matter. No amount of undress, no amount of spread legs and bare pussy gives anyone a right to violate someone. No invitation, no fucking way.”

  He lightened his grip incrementally, and then brushed away the marks before releasing her. Neither of them moved.

  “What about your mother, did she know?”

  “She died when I was a baby.”

  Zach nodded ever so slightly.

  “I told you something. Now tell me, how did you have enough money to buy me and Raisa?”

  “No.”

  The refusal deepened the cut in Greer’s exposed heart, but it told her something too. He’d been deeply hurt. Was that what turned him into a bad guy? Zach said he was bad. Perhaps he was on the wrong side of a line. Maybe he took money for favors, bad favors. He certainly had the crass, cold manner for it. And yet, at the heart of this brutish, beautiful man hid a protective and just soul.

  “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, will you let me get back to it?” He stepped away from her, straightened the chair, and yanked on the belt of his pants before sitting.

  “You plan to stare at the screen all night in hopes that you catch a pattern you haven’t over the past three days?”

  “I had a better idea. You didn’t appreciate it.”

  “You had an idea. Not a better one.”

  Zach braced his palms on the desk, hissed a breath, and glared at her. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  8

  They ghosted through the shadows outside an abandoned warehouse complex that hosted too many delivery trucks and too much off-grid wattage to really maintain its deserted status. With no more than a half nod they split up as they’d planned. Well, he’d planned for her to stay at the barn, but logistics swung things in Greer’s favor. Her camo-clad form disappeared around the corner and he suppressed the urge to follow. The drug’s major effects had waned two days ago. She could handle herself.

  Zeke sidled to the building’s brick face, leapt, and pulled himself onto the fire escape. He hustled up the brittle steps of the southern exterior wall, scanning the dark surroundings and even dimmer interior through the grey matte of an infrared monocular. His shoulder pressed against the butt of his rifle, while his left hand cradled the barrel.

  Just beyond the defunct chemical company’s fortified fences, gleaming glass high-rises partitioned into luxury condos in various stages of completion speckled the horizon. The occasional car rumbled past, but never closer than four blocks away. Construction ran during the day, which left the Stas the perfect opportunity to package and ship their illegal wares in the cover of night.

  Rounding the third floor Zeke stopped. His heart beat oxygenated blood through his veins. Two round eyeballs stared back, unblinking. His right hand drew the rifle to ready. A carnival-character smile graced the painting’s otherwise naturally painted face. Beyond the propped canvas, brushes and old paint cans cluttered the space. A couch missing three seat cushions and the stuffing from the center’s back squatted in the corner.

  “In position. Two low.” Greer’s voice cracked through the comm link in his ear.

  “Copy.”

  He continued, encountering a room that doubled as a crack house at some point and a rather neatly arranged space that may have sheltered a family. Graffiti coated the building’s roof. It added a little something to the desolate space. His boots whispered across the artwork and headed to the elevator shaft that crowned the building with a copper top and ornamental spires. The architecture provided easy footholds onto the weathered metal.

  Zeke lowered his chest to the eagle’s nest, eased his elbow over the roof’s crest, spread his feet, arches down, and settled into position five stories high in the breezy Long Island night. He ignored the panoramic view of distant New York City and the shimmer of the few visible stars. Why look there when what the row of windows at the top of the adjacent building revealed was so much more interesting?

  “In position and locating.”

  Shipping crates lined the far wall. Two assembly lines split the remaining area. Open boxes sat at each end and at stations in between. Gunmetal black pieces assorted in different sizes and shapes filled them. Bedraggled men and women stood along the line, adding essential parts to AK-103s.

  Derrick Coen leaned against an orange shipping container.

  How the hell she’d found him, Zeke hadn’t a clue. She’d shooed him away from the computer last night and started clacking away on the keys. Greer didn’t think she had any of his trust, but it had taken an inordinate amount of the stuff to keep him from snatching away the laptop. She could've kited an SOS to anyone. In the
six hours it had taken her to complete the task a SWAT team could’ve descended on the place and he would’ve been SOL.

  The openness of her confession, in her safeguarding Buzzy, of her determination to find Coen had kept him at bay. That and she’d finally told him she’d coaxed Buzzy’s password from him before she’d been taken.

  A day, nearly 200 miles, and a trunk load of weapons later his patience and confidence in Greer paid off.

  A man with a rifle across his chest gestured wildly at Coen. Zeke couldn't see the guard’s mouth, but he bet it gaped wide enough to invite a fly inside. Coen’s head hung, studying the clipboard in his hands.

  Another guard paroled the line, while two more ambled back and forth on a narrow catwalk thirty or so feet in the air. All of them carried the mark of the Stas visible on the hallow where their clavicles met. The very tip of a cupola cross peeked out from behind the shirt that often hid elaborate tattoos of the Kremlin.

  Zeke’s lips parted to confirm Coen’s location, but the bloke’s expression stopped him. His lazy stance and cocked brow read irritated more than scared. And why wasn’t he on the line? The guy had organizational skill, but something about the scene trampled up Zeke’s spine and left ice in its tracks.

  The guard shimmied in rage once more. Coen held up one finger and pointed to a flat of crates against the south wall. The guard turned, yelled at a man at the end of the nearest line. The assembly worker grabbed two rifles from the people around him, stuffed them into his crate, and closed the lid.

  A modern ice age started in Zeke’s veins and flowed outward.

  “Located?” Greer begged, but her words drifted into the background.

  He stared at the seal on the top of the crate. He’d have missed it from the ground or north wall. At this distance the stamps on the pile of crates looked like a Rorschach blot. But this one…

  They heaped completed weapons into crates stamped with the US Elite seal.

  “Z? Located?” Greer snapped.

  That pulled him back from the edge. Only his sister called him Z.

  “Two low in. Two high. Target located, quadrant one.”

  “Ready to move,” she chirped.

  “On my mark.”

  Now, more than ever, Zeke needed this to go off without a hitch. He fished the detonator from the front of his vest and depressed the button. A boom echoed through the complex, but he’d rigged it for effect more than destruction. The northeast door buckled, drawing the guard’s barrels.

  Screams seeped through the walls and rose into the night. Workers ran. Metal parts bounced across the concrete.

  “One and two down,” Greer said.

  “Sea of workers headed your way.”

  “Target in them?”

  Zeke pocketed the device and found Coen in his scope. He crouched next to the container. His gaze swung left and right, low and high. The chap’s brown eyes centered Zeke’s sights.

  “No.”

  “I’m going in.”

  “Negative.” Zeke growled.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He swung the barrel to the left. Greer bulldozed her way upstream through the crowd. She looked like a pebble in a raging river. Somehow she burst onto shore, her cheeks red. Her mouth opened, forming Derrick’s name.

  Coen shoved himself away from the container. His hands lifted palm up. He waved Greer away. Stubbornly, she charged forward.

  Zeke swept the warehouse. Three of the guards had vanished out the door. The fourth sprinted in Greer’s direction. He yanked the deadly point of his gun around from the blown door.

  “Bogey, quad six.” Zeke shouted in the quietest voice he could manage.

  Greer sank her fingers onto Coen’s sleeve and hurdled him around the open end of the container. But she wouldn’t make it in time.

  Zeke focused his crosshairs on the guard’s temple. His fingers found the trigger with ease.

  The world shook. He lost sight of his target. He lost sight of Greer. Night took hold. The bite of metal and blood filled Zeke’s mouth.

  A string of shots roused him from the depths. Greer. Zeke struggled to his elbows to find his rifle and Greer. Weight planted itself against his kidney and pressed.

  “Who are you?” The bur of a Russian accent swam in his ear.

  His reply came out as an incoherent mumble.

  “What?” A hand pressed against his collar and rolled him.

  One of the guards from the warehouse leaned close, assessing the amount of weapons strapped to his body. “Alexi Basov,” Zeke wheezed.

  Shock widened the man’s features. He straightened just enough.

  Zeke kicked out, aiming for the knee cap though he couldn’t see it. The man’s howl reverberated at what seemed a distance. He rolled to the side. The boot that had crushed his kidney disappeared over the side of the building.

  He sat, scanned the empty roof, grabbed his rifle, and turned back to the warehouse. His heart lodged firmly in his throat.

  The splat-crunch punctuated the end of a life.

  Left to right, Zeke scanned. No bodies littered the warehouse floor. Footfalls pounded up the building’s north end fire escape. He righted his brains with a shake, wiped the blood and grime from his lip, slid off the elevator shaft roof, and ran for the south escape.

  He gripped the rails and lifted his feet. Gravity did the rest until each landing. A spray of bullets pinged off the metal barrier between him and the Stas guards. His cheeks puckered, but he didn’t stop.

  Zeke tossed himself through a window and into the painter’s lair. He rolled to his feet and pressed on toward the interior stairs. The farther he moved into the building the dimmer it grew. His monocular read like a cracked cell phone screen. A regular ol’ flashlight guided him through the trash laden stairwell and to the main entrance.

  “Greer?” Zeke whispered into the comm link.

  When several precious seconds passed without an answer he hunched and bolted for the car four blocks away. He expected to dodge bullets again, but none rained.

  The longer he ran with no answer from Greer the harder breathing became.

  “Greer?”

  Where the fuck was she?

  “Greer?”

  “Shut up and move.” She nearly plowed over him around a blind corner. Coen’s legs pumped just behind her.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” Greer snapped like a crocodile. “You are.”

  “Na.”

  “Oh, I’m great. Thanks for asking,” Coen panted.

  They pushed ahead on seasoned legs, falling into a fast even pace, covering ample ground. But not ample enough. Tires squealed behind them.

  Zeke bailed left into an alley and pulled Greer with him. Several long strides in, his gaze deadened into a brick wall. His gaze shifted, looking for a way out. They collectively slowed. The roar of the approaching engine grew.

  “Fish in a barrel.” Coen danced on the balls of his feet.

  He refrained from telling the bloke to sod off, mainly because his attention locked on an alcove a few feet away. Zeke shifted the rifle onto his back. “There.”

  They crowded into the shallow space and stilled.

  The rumble reached a pinnacle. Greer’s hand moved to her sidearm, while Zeke tried the door knob. It didn’t budge. He pulled a multi-tool from his belt and worked blindly on the lock.

  When the engine revved on down the street Zeke, turned, worked the mechanism, and opened the door.

  “They left.” Coen tossed his arms wide and cocked his wrists in question.

  Greer followed him into the back of a furniture manufacturer based on the amount of wood, fabric, and stuffing cluttering the place.

  When Coen stepped inside Zeke launched himself at the man. He double fisted his collar, yanked him forward, planted his feet, and popped his hip. Coen grabbed Zeke’s wrists, but hit the floor before he could do anything.

  “What are you doing?” Greer shrieked.

  Zeke smashed his forearm into Co
en’s throat, pinned his legs with his own, and jerked down his shirt. Bright colors and the elaborate design of the Kremlin’s tallest cupola decorated the center of his chest. The black outline continued under the fabric.

  “No.” Greer stepped back and covered her shock with a hand.

  “It’s not what you think,” Coen choked.

  “Never is, is it?” Zeke patted him down expecting to find a wire or at the very least a gun. He found a cell phone, which looked almost as bad. He tossed it to Greer.

  She removed the battery and smashed the device into splintered pieces.

  “Why weren’t you on the line?” Zeke hopped to his feet and put himself between Greer and Coen.

  The ponce hacked and sputtered. He rolled onto his side and wheezed breaths with his cheek against the sawdust covered floor. Finally he clambered to his hands and knees.

  “I had an in with them.” His head lifted. That murky gaze found Zeke, and then Greer. “Before you started disappearing like planes in the Bermuda.” He patted his chest. “They trusted me, but when you two came into question I did too bec—”

  “Because we all started about the same time.” Greer supplied.

  “Don’t.” Zeke shot her a warning glare.

  She glared back.

  “Yes. Two weeks wasn’t enough lag time between our starting for them not to get suspicious,” Coen answered.

  “How’d they—” she started.

  “Greer,” Zeke yelled.

  “Then ask some damn questions.” Her arms knotted across her middle.

  “I will when he finishes answering the first one,” he explained.

  “They asked me if I was loyal to Stas. If I was willing to prove it,” Coen continued.

  “What made them suspicious in the first place?” Zeke demanded.

  Coen lifted a palm. “I don’t know. I asked. They told me to mind my own business or I’d join you.”

  “Did you prove your loyalty by selling us out?” Greer snarled.

  “No.” Coen looked at Greer a little too long for Zeke’s piece of mind. Zeke stepped closer, commanding his attention. “I got a stupid tattoo and they let me run the floor. I just drove a delivery truck before.”