Blacklisted: Blacklist Operations Book #1 (9 page)

“They’re dead.” Her torso tightened against him, and Aidan worried that she would vomit. He rubbed her back soothingly. “Once we’re past and into the clean air, take deep breaths. Don’t look at them.”

He knew he could never have this woman. Not someone delicate and beautiful and brave in a way that didn’t matter in the face of carnage. Aidan knew that no matter what
his future held, it would be fast and hard and violent.

Sophie wasn’t meant for a life where men were shot in the face.

Before they could clear the bodies, Milad came around the corner, backed by two other men, also armed.

“Aidan,” he said, his thin lips twisting into a smile that exposed his tobacco-stained teeth. He disengaged the safety; the slight click sounded like a resonating boom.

Aidan could smell Sophie’s roses on the air, over the copper smell of blood. There was death in Milad’s eyes, and Aidan could feel his woman’s choked breaths, her shudders against him. He knew it was over.

If he’d had one b
ullet, he’d have put it into Sophie’s head without hesitation to spare her what she’d suffer at their hands. But he was too weak to even reach over and break her neck, though Aidan knew it would be a better end than what she’d get from the pitiless men before them. He didn’t say anything as Milad’s eyes grew more excited and he trained the gun on Aidan. It was a Baretta, sleek and black.

He didn’t hear the blast before the bullet hit him. The sound seemed to come after the hot flash of pain in his chest. Sophie and Aidan both dropped into the gore that pooled around their shoes and he saw her roll next to one of the dead men, protecting her head with her arms. She didn’t move again.

Milad and the two men kept their guns trained on Aidan, the real threat, and ignored the whimpering girl whose arm they’d cut to ribbons.

“Fuck you,” Aidan snapped, trying to get to his feet. Then
Milad fired two more shots into his torso.

The last thing he heard was Sophie screaming.

Chapter Eleven

He was dead. And didn’t it just figure that the afterlife was full of pain, too. He probably deserved it.

At least there was music. Soft jazz bleeding through old speakers and filling the space around his head.

When he opened his eyes, there was only light. Pure, white light that didn’t end in any direction. Then a figure appeared from the light, a shadow with no features. The fire in his head cooled while she whispered to him that he’d be okay, brushed the hair back from his face. The pain in his ribs overwhelmed him again and he sank back into the soft, rolling black.             

“Aidan,” Sophie said softly, dribbling more water into his mouth. Three days since they’d left the warehouse and that was the closest he’d come to waking up. The first day, she didn’t think he’d make it and she hadn’t been able to get him to the hospital, because she was sure that someone would be looking for him after what had happened.

She’d managed to get her hands on some Azithromycin and morphine, thanks to finding the right clinic with a lack of security. Thankful that veiled women were the norm in Iran, she stuffed the interior pockets of her robes with the drugs, a drip line and ointments that she thought might make a difference. Then she’d retrieved the car and made it back to the hotel that she’d smuggled Aidan into, pleased to find him still breathing.

His fever had broken after a day of medication and the saline drip she kept running into his veins. Him waking was the best sign she’d seen so far, even if he wasn’t conscious in the strictest sense of the word. But he’d opened his eyes and groped for her hand while she held a cool cloth against his forehead.

Sophie found relief in each of his breaths, and in his color, which was returning. During the three consecutive hours of sleep she allowed herself, she dreamed of the men in the warehouse, what they’d
done and threatened to do. More than that, she dreamed of digging into Aidan’s chest with tweezers, the first rush of blood that had flowed up from the wounds when she’d eased the bullets from his body. Closing the cuts with twine and a thick needle hadn’t been easy, but she suspected the heavy application of the cream he’d used on her face was speeding his recovery.

And he was healing faster than she’d thought possible. The relief that built in her was almost terrifying in its intensity.

For the first time in a week, she was confident that she’d see Adele and Lyle again. Each hour that she spent at the window, watching people move over the sunny street through the gauzy white curtains, she settled deeper into her earlier conclusion that Aidan would never hurt her.

She wondered if he’d realized that tears were in his eyes when he’d looked at her after he was shot, when they were both lying in the blood of dead men.

He wasn’t the kind of man who’d cry for himself, and it broke her that he’d cried for her. Maybe even cared for her a little.

That wouldn’t last. She knew it, even while she let the warmth of the realization wash over her.

His unconsciousness was a boon in some ways, though. Not having to be constantly on her guard, second-guessing herself and worried about their final destination and the man who waited to pass judgment on her gave her time to relax. To gather herself for what waited.

That afternoon, she felt confident enough to leave him alone in the room and find some food. The market was bustling, and she slid into the crowd, blending in effortlessly. She bought some fresh fruit and then found a vendor selling meat and rice. Tucking the food in a bag, she brought it back to the hotel and ate it sitting on the window seat.

There wasn’t nearly enough food on this trip, she thought as another chunk of sweet, juicy papaya disappeared between her lips.

Hours later, she was laying on the floor reading a novel she’d purchased in the hotel lobby when she heard Aidan groan and try to roll over. Hopping to her feet, she rushed to him and used her hands to gently restrain him.

“Stop fighting. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“What happened?” His voice cracked on the second word, but his eyes were open and clear. Sophie thought that he knew where he was and who he was speaking to for the first time.

“We’re in Teheran. I’m sorry. I know it was a risk to take you so far, but I thought we’d be found too quickly in Qom.”

“
Milad?”

“Dead. He’s dead.” She let her hands fall away and sat delicately next to him, taking care not to jostle him. “Do you want some water?”

He nodded, and she poured a cup from the pitcher she’d been using. It was filled with ice and the glass was beaded with drops of water. She held it to his lips and slipped her other arm behind his head so that she could tilt a little liquid at a time into his mouth.

“What happened?”

She took the cup and placed it on the bedside table. Neither spoke while she helped Aidan move to a more elevated position, then placed pillows behind his back.

“How did he die?” He held out his hand and she put the glass in it. He would have chugged the water if she hadn’t reached out and snagged his wrist, guiding him to only take a
sip.

“One of the men standing behind him pulled a gun after he shot you. He killed
Milad and the other man. I don’t know why—I wish I did. He just said something in a language I don’t know and pulled the trigger.” She took the glass and put it down again.

“How did we get out?” Aidan couldn’t connect the dots from the moment he’d pulled Sophie out of the room to their standoff with Milad in the corridor. Sophie had been injured, he remembered, in no shape to get him to a vehicle, to Teheran.

Her hands were folded in her lap and her clean, straight hair was hanging down in front of her eyes. Aidan hated making her remember something he was sure haunted her dreams, but he needed to know. Guilt swelled in his throat when he saw the puffy skin around the cuts she’d received in Qom.

“The man who shot them. He—he picked you up and took us to a truck. He gave me the keys and pointed me toward the gas station, but I drove all the way to Teheran, dropped you off and then went back for the car instead. It was still there.”

“Doctor.”

“I took care of you.” He saw a blush rise to her cheeks and, despite the pain in his body, brightened. “I have first aid training and everything else was common sense.”

He looked at his arm deliberately, nodding at the tube in his vein. “Common sense?”

“I stole a few things.” She blushed even more. “There’s a clinic a few blocks over and I had the right clothes.”

His mind rebelled against the images she’d painted. Sophie driving through the desert in the dead of night with blood on her shirt. Sophie sneaking into a clinic and stealing medical supplies. But the proof was right in front of him.

He looked down at his chest and saw raw, raised welts, but nothing like he should have had. He was more repaired than the woman who’d healed him.

“Why aren’t your arms healing?”

“They are.”

“My chest is closed up, but your arms aren’t.”

“There was only so much of the salve you used. I prioritized.”

He sighed. “There’s a bottle of pills in my bag. Look for an interior pocket. Take two and give me two.”

“What are they?”

“They’re like the salve.”

Once she’d located the bottle and opened it, put the pills in his mouth and given him more water, he was ready to go back to sleep. But he watched her steadily until she sighed and took two of the pills as well.

“Sophie,” he said as his eyes grew heavy.

“Yes?”

“Put whatever of the salve is left on your arms. I don’t want you to scar on my account.”

“You need it more than I do.”

“I can get more.” Aidan wanted to ask for a phone, but suddenly felt nervous. After everything he’d done, she was a fool to not have already left him. He didn’t need to make her more aware of a way to contact the outside world.

“Goodnight, Sophie.”

“I’m here if you need me,” she said, pulling back the blinds from the balcony and
stepping out into the sunlight. They swished closed, leaving him alone in the dark.

She read on the balcony until the sun had set and she couldn’t see the words anymore. Inside, she checked Aidan’s pulse and found it steady and slow.

The bed was soft under her. She’d been sleeping on the floor or in chairs since she brought him in, but the mattress called to her. She
relaxed against the pillows, moving a little closer to gather warmth from his big body.

It didn’t escape her notice that she was snuggling up to her captor without threats or cause. She just liked the way he felt against her. When only an inch separated them, Sophie
stopped moving. The last thing she knew was that his hand was restlessly searching for hers over the blanket. Finding it, he twined their fingers together and they both slept.

Chapter Twelve

The next two days crept by, though Aidan healed quickly and grew surlier by the hour. Fresh, pink skin grew over the wounds that had caused her to fret and the sickly yellow color in his eyes faded, leaving the whites clear. Soon enough he looked as strong as he had the night he’d looked at her across the convenience store floor and silently told her to run.

The horror of the nights after that kept her awake when he slept deeply. The days weren’t the worst of her life, but
Milad, whose face she would never forget, had jammed a hook-edged knife in her arm and dragged it through the flesh it punctured. He did it without asking questions or trying to get information. He did it because it was fun.

She’d never been so glad to see someone dead.

The hotel room hadn’t been easy to get as a single woman with a battered face, but a donation to the clerk’s personal treasury netted them a room under fake names. She’d managed to get Aidan inside on a luggage rack, her breath quickening at every corner. If she was found carting an almost-dead man into a hotel room, Sophie had no doubt she’d be taken to jail.

But he was getting better. Six-foot-three inches of man that was more hearty and beginning to be irritated that she was feeding him bland broths and rice, insisting that he’d heal better with steak or curried lamb. Still, he didn’t press the issue and they stayed in Teheran, though she knew he was anxious to get on the road.

Sophie bugged him about the medications they’d taken, but he wouldn’t tell her where they came from or how they were developed. She had no doubt that the average consumer wouldn’t be able to afford enough to cure as much as a hangnail, let alone the wounds Aidan was recovering from. As much as she wanted to know, she let the topic rest, content to talk about high school or favorite movies, anything but the issues cluttering both their thoughts.

He’d insisted that she give him a full account of her injuries, but she’d held some back. She’d left out the beating they’d given her, laughing, to see who could knock her down the longest. He was already blaming himself for something that he couldn’t have prevented—if it was her sister who the Russian had taken, she’d have done the same things he did, however illogical and ill-advised.

At night when he thought she was sleeping, sometimes Sophie felt him watching her. His breathing would change and he’d shift on the bed. Deep in her stomach, she wanted him to reach for her again. To make her feel the way he had in the car that night. But he never did.

He waited too long, but Aidan finally had to insist that they get back on the road.

“We need to get up early tomorrow,” he’d said, and from Sophie’s expression, Aidan knew that she understood what he was really saying.

She didn’t move away from him on the mattress, but she craned her long, slender neck up to meet his eyes. “You’re still taking me to Oliver?”

“I have a duty to him, and he needs to see who and what you are. He might ask you some questions about Lyle.”

“Lyle isn’t the villain here.”

“Then there’s no harm in answering. Oliver is a fair man. He’ll let you go.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll get you out one way or another. I swear it on my life.” He was rewarded when she relaxed her head against his shoulder and her fresh scent drifted up to tease his nostrils. Now that he was finally comfortable in his own skin again, he felt a stirring to her nearness that he hadn’t felt in days. Uncomfortably aroused, Aidan stiffened his spine and tried to ignore it.

Sophie was a good woman, he told himself. A good woman didn’t deserve someone as battered as him. She deserved someone whose hands were clean. What she made him feel was enough that he’d consider walking away from fighting, from his work—if the stakes weren’t so high. If he turned his back on the people he’d sworn to protect, then he wasn’t good for her anyway.

Besides, it wasn’t like the nightmares would ever entirely disappear.

Aidan knew that deep down, he was made to be a soldier. Born to it, trained for it and there wasn’t anything else for him.

While he didn’t take pride in his skills, exactly, he knew that he was uniquely suited for the kind of work Oliver had him do. He’d left a trail of bodies in his wake from
Johannesburg to Austin, but he didn’t regret it. Each death had made the world a better place, and he couldn’t ever feel sorrow over that. But it cost him dearly. His friends were mostly people he worked with. Women were no-strings lays in cheap hotels. He hadn’t spoken to his parents in almost a year.

Yes, he’d consider leaving for Sophie. But in the end, that feeling was exactly what would make him stay.

“Where are we going?” She hadn’t asked him in days.

“London,” he finally answered, looking down at her.

“How far away are we now?”

“Another week, if we stop. I could make it in three days, if we didn’t have to sleep.”

“And if we flew?” Aidan realized that he’d overlooked that simple option. He trusted her now, enough that he could take her on a plane and not worry about exposure. Sophie had been free to walk out the door, but she always walked back in.

He couldn’t help but wonder if she felt something for him, too.

God, he wanted to kiss her. Her lips were soft pink and the bruises had faded from her face, leaving them clear of cuts. He wanted to cover her body with his, to taste her mouth and feel her moan against him.

But he couldn’t ask her for what she shouldn’t give. Not to him. He’d already taken too much from her.

Sophie felt him shift against he
r. Unsure if her weight was making him uncomfortable, she started to move away, then stopped when his arm moved up and circled her waist, drawing her back to him. He smelled like sandalwood, she thought, like sandalwood and fresh air.

They’d only had one disagreement since he’d woken up and that had been when he was unable to find his phone in the car she’d left in an underground parking garage. Digging through the almost-empty car, he’d complained that she’d obviously overlooked it, even accusing her of hiding it at one point. She’d shifted her weight from one leg to the other and glared at him.

“What cause could I possibly have to hide your phone?” After everything she’d done for him, he still didn’t trust her, she thought.

He didn’t say anything, just frowned and reached his hand deeper under the seats. “I left it right here when I came to get you in Qom,” he insisted, pointing his other hand to the driver’s side of the car.

“Well, obviously someone took it or it fell out when I was maneuvering your dumb ass into the backseat.” She huffed out a breath and started to walk away, stopped by his hand around her good arm.

He’d pulled her back toward the car. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you could try trusting me a little.”

“Habit,” he’d growled, releasing her and locking down the car.

She thought about that as they watched a sitcom. It was habit for Aidan to not trust her, for him to push her away and rely only on himself. Sophie supposed that she should feel honored that he’d deigned to offer her information about their city of arrival, but instead she was only irritated. They had, at most, a few more days together and he still wouldn’t talk about Synthesis.

It haunted her, dogged her every step, even when she was searching through flowers in the marketplace. At night, when they settled in for bed—and how much of an old married couple could she really feel like with this guy—she’d almost asked. Twice. But he wouldn’t tell her. For the last two weeks she’d done nothing but be helpful, had never tried to run, had only called him a moderate amount of terrible names and, sure, she’d bit him really hard that one time but the marks her teeth had left were gone the next day. What did it take?

Pushing it out of her head again, Sophie pulled away and stood up, went into the bathroom and got ready to go to sleep. When she came out in a blue tank top and white pajama pants, Aidan pulled back the blanket and she crawled in next to him, curling up and closing her eyes.

He reached to turn out the light on her side of the bed and she felt the weight of his arm over her chest for one brief moment. It was delicious, masculine and strong. Once he’d reclined, face toward her and almost indistinguishable in the dark, she leaned forward, seeking his lips with her own.

Electric, again. Better than the first time because she wasn’t scared, wasn’t shivering and sick to her stomach with terror for her friend. Better than the second because she wasn’t sour with anger at his actions. He didn’t move forward, though god she wanted him to, just pressed his mouth to hers and touched his tongue to her lips. Moving closer, wrapping one arm around to his back, she deepened the kiss. Then he covered her.

She tasted
sun-warmed mint and, oh, his body under her hands was taut and rippling with muscle. When she bit his lower lip and moaned, he slid his hand under her shirt, stroked the skin on her back, gentle, so gentle, aware of the pain that would still nest under her ribs from the beatings.

Finally she pulled back, put one hand on his chest and eased him off of her. She pressed her swollen lips to his once more and then moved away slightly, rising up to press her forehead against his.

“I didn’t thank you yet for protecting me. For trying to get me out of there.”             

“Is that what that was
?” he asked, jaw clenching. “You shouldn’t give yourself away so cheaply.”

Furious, she pulled back. “That wasn’t thanks,” she snapped, turning around and moving as far away from him as she could. “That was something I thought maybe I’d like. I didn’t.” She felt petulant and childlike, but couldn’t stop the words from escaping.

“You didn’t like it?”

“No.” She pulled the blanket up with a jerk and wrapped it around herself.

“That must have been a moan of disgust then. You know, when I had my hand up your shirt.”

Such a fucking man, she thought. “Well, I won’t make that mistake again.”

She could see his desire to prove her wrong then, to lean over and take her lips until she was mewling into his mouth, to drive himself into her and finally ease the ache that had started in earnest after their second kiss. She watched it rise and then die.

“Good luck,” he finally said and settled down. Unable to dampen the impulse, he reached one arm out and locked it around Sophie’s waist, pulled her back to him. She fell asleep quickly and he let himself follow.

She woke up the next morning with a sick, sour feeling in her throat. Like a child who’d never kissed a man before—and what a load of crap that was—she’d followed their embrace with careless, thrown out words. Then, when he took offense, she’d erupted on him, denying what she’d felt in his arms.

She’d have to apologize, she thought. Aidan had already left the room with her bags slamming against his hip. Maybe later, in the car, she’d get a chance to say the right thing, for once.

Since she’d met the man, nothing had gone right. Made sense, of course, given the circumstances. She smoothed the covers over the bed, a habit of many years, before closing the blinds tightly and looking out at the street below.

He’d insisted that they leave early, shaking her gently when the room was still too dark for even shadows. Now it was a pale blue and yellow that reminded her of getting up early for family vacations as a child. Then she’d forced down a bowl of cereal and milk, wandered sleepily to the chilly car on the driveway and dozed the entire way to some beach or mountain.

Now she longed for the cereal, but most of all for her mother. Always hungry, she didn’t think that Aidan would want to stop for doughnuts or eggs. If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she wanted to make him; the last time they’d stopped, after all, they’d been captured. Her
stomach flipped at the thought. She’d never forget the sight of Milad bearing down on Aidan with a gun and her soaked with the dead man’s blood, unable to move in time to stop him.

Shaking her head to clear the unwanted thoughts, she looked around the room for the last time. Ready, finally, Sophie stepped into the hallway and walked down the faux-Persian rug to the front desk, left the keys in the middle of the dark, polished wood. Then Aidan walked back through the doors and gestured to the car he’d parallel parked on the street.

“Ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” She walked to him, cheered when he took her hand. He pulled it behind her and slipped something cool and damp into her palm.

“You’re always hungry, Sophie,” Aidan explained. He’d given her a cardboard carton of orange juice and, when she looked ahead, she saw puffed rice and chunks of fruit on her seat, neatly arranged in a wide, shallow plastic dish.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile.