Lie with Me (2 page)

He struggled, his hands around Cam’s ankle—but Cam’s footing was too strong. The co-pilot knew Cam fully intended to leave alive and didn’t care who he took out in his wake, and he stopped fighting.

“Who the hell sent you?” Cam asked, but neither man answered. “Where are you supposed to bring me?”

Again, nothing.

Cam didn’t know friends from enemies anymore in this game, the wilderness of mirrors that spooks and spies dealt with on a daily—and lifetime—basis. As he stared between the man under his boot and the pilot, who held the gun in a shaky hand while he tried to wrestle the helo with the other, Cam told them, “My fight’s not with you.”

The pilot’s eyes held his for a second—Cam wondered if he’d been pressed into service as well or if he was flying this bastard bird of his own free will.

It didn’t matter; Cam didn’t have time to play savior now, not when he’d just committed suicide himself. “I’m out of here.”

He took his foot off the man’s chest, turned and didn’t look back, wondered for a fleeting second if he’d get shot in the back, and then dropped out of the helo and onto the hard ground, with a vicious slam. He curled in a ball as it rose, the wind buffeting him with a harsh hand as the stealth left him behind and headed back to report the incident to Gabriel.

As he stared after the bird, well after its lights disappeared, he wondered why the hell they hadn’t simply killed him when they’d had the chance—while he was climbing up into the helo. When he was vulnerable.

What the hell did he know that made him worth something? What did Gabriel want from him?

After he’d cleaned the blood off his hands and his bearded face with snow, Cam hitched a ride with a trucker, got dropped off halfway up the mountain to Dylan’s house and then ran the rest of the way, his bag slapping against his back, wind whipping his face—his heart beating so fast from stress and fear, he was pretty damned sure it would rip from his chest.

Dylan opened the door as Cam pounded on it. He didn’t ask any questions, not even when Cam shoved him aside and slammed the door behind him to peer out the window.

He hadn’t been followed. He wouldn’t be—not tonight. Probably not tomorrow. But when he reported back into work, there could be consequences.

You’ve lived with the consequences for years—how much fucking worse could it be?

He felt empowered and freaked all at once.

“Did you crash?” Dylan asked finally.

Cam turned, still needing to catch his breath. His hands were shaking. He’d never been like this on a mission before—but this … this was personal. His life.

The words spilled out. “Gabriel sent a stealth—same kind, same suit waiting for me. He had a gun. There were restraints. I killed him, and the helo took off with the dead guy and the pilots.”

“Breathe, man, breathe.” Dylan handed him a brandy—Cam gulped it down and then poured another before noticing that Dylan also had a towel waiting for him.

He rubbed the towel over his face and hair, then stared at his friend. “They wanted intel from me—or else they could’ve killed me a thousand times over before I got on board. I’m done, Dylan. No way out.”

His friend didn’t say anything for a long moment and then he walked over to a bookshelf that lined a far wall of the room. He pulled out a hardcover book and handed it to Cam. “Open to the back … the author.”

Cam did as Dylan asked, staring at the picture of a beautiful young woman named Skylar Slavin at the back of the novel. “Are you setting me up with her? Because I don’t think I’m really dating material right now.”

“She’s Gabriel Creighton’s daughter, Cam. His only child. The only thing he cares about in this fucking world. Skylar Slavin’s the key to your future.”

Cam didn’t say anything, continued to stare at the picture as the woman with the clear green eyes stared back at him. She wasn’t smiling—in fact, he’d say she looked slightly haunted.

But still, the woman must have had a better life than him—been loved and protected by her father. She was probably just like Gabriel—cold and cunning, with a heart of steel.

“How long have you known about her?” Cam demanded. Dylan simply shrugged, that noncommittal kind he typically reserved for authority figures. Which was why he didn’t last long in the military at all, yet somehow managed to get out with an honorable discharge and several medals of honor.

Fucking bastard
.

“How long?” he asked again, with enough of an edge to his voice for Dylan to know this wasn’t the time to fuck around.

“Five months.”

“Five months? Five motherfucking months?” Nearly blind from rage, Cam leaped at his best friend in the world, ready to kill him as soon as he could wrap his hands around his neck.

Dylan readied for him, but Cam was like a charging bull and knocked him to the ground, hard. Dylan grunted as he attempted to roll Cam off him—when he couldn’t, he swung and punched Cam in the face a couple of times, reopening the gash above his eye.

“Fucking asshole,” Cam said through clenched teeth, the blood dripping into his eye and onto Dylan’s shirt. “You had something on Gabriel and you didn’t tell me?”

“Because you weren’t ready to hear it, to use it,” Dylan growled, his breath coming in quick gasps because Cam was sitting on his chest, punching him anywhere he could.

He and Dylan were evenly matched, but not when Cam’s temper was riled by anything involving Gabriel Creighton. Then he ran on pure adrenaline, an anger machine.

“I found out … 
after
your last mission. It wouldn’t have … changed the outcome. You always said … it was your fight. That I needed to … stay out of it. And … I did. For the most part. Jesus Christ, Cam, Gabriel was … leaving you alone, and I didn’t want you to … bring trouble on yourself you didn’t need.” Dylan took a stuttered breath while holding his rib cage. “I’m going to kill you if you broke my ribs.”

Cam leaned back on his elbows and tried to ignore the blood running from Dylan’s nose. Blood was running from Cam’s mouth and forehead as well.

“Look, tonight you made the move. There’s no turning back. If I’d told you about Gabriel’s daughter earlier … I didn’t want you to do anything else that could weigh on your conscience. Didn’t want to give you a choice like that, didn’t want you to run off half-cocked and do something that really would land your ass in jail, for good this time.” Dylan fell back on the carpet heavily. “You weren’t ready until tonight. I know you, Cam. Now you’ve got no choice but to move forward out of hell.”

Cam let his head fall back and stared up at the high-beamed ceiling. Of course, Dylan was right—not that Cam would admit that to the man’s face … or in writing. Ever. Dylan liked to say that Cam had been born with an extra dose of conscience while Dylan himself had skipped that line entirely when they were handing them out.
Probably off getting laid somewhere
, Dylan would say.

Dylan, the man who would never betray him, the one who knew him better than anyone.

“I’m sorry, man,” Cam breathed, his gaze still on the ceiling, until he heard a crack and a small whimper—Dylan setting his own nose back in place. His friend would have two black eyes by morning. “So you want me to fuck with his family?”

“He fucked with yours, didn’t he?” Dylan’s eyes blazed. He was a fierce warrior and just as fiercely loyal when it came to Cam.

“I don’t have proof.” Cam’s jaw hurt from keeping it clenched, and both men knew that he had no way of getting any.

Gabriel Creighton had a lot of ways to kill a man. Cam’s father, just as many. But Gabriel killing Howie didn’t make sense. Pretending to help in the search for what happened to Howie kept Cam on the line just as effectively.

And still, the questions always lingered. He stared down at the photo on the book and Skylar stared back at him. “What the hell do I do, man, hold her hostage?”

“Yeah, for starters. Gabriel’s obviously kept her existence a secret for a reason, so tell him you’ll expose her as his daughter. Kidnap her. Seduce her—and make her fall in love with you. Tell him you’ll kill her. And then be prepared to do that if it’s necessary.”

Cam stared at his friend. “Why the hell would I need to kill her?”

“If it comes down to you or her, it needs to be you. You have to be prepared to make any and every choice to take this all the way.”

Jesus, that made the already splitting pain in his head worsen. “What’s to stop him from throwing my ass in jail, or killing me?”

“He can’t, if he realizes you and another person know about his daughter. Tell Gabriel that someone else knows who Skylar is. I’m your backup, your safety. Gabriel doesn’t know about me … he’ll only know that if you die, Skylar will never be safe. The two of you will come to a mutual agreement to live and let live.”

Dylan had been straddling the line for far too long, and yet Cam knew his friend was absolutely right. “I need a better plan, I need time.”

“You don’t have that. Once you threaten to expose her, it’s over. Besides, she’s kind of famous.”

Kind of, yes. He stared at her picture at the back of the book again and his stomach turned.

Like father, like daughter
.

It was finally time. “How did you find out about this?”

Dylan sighed before he answered, “I slept with someone. Broke into her files. And then she shot me, so I figured it was pretty damned important information she had about Gabriel and his family.”

Jesus
. Dylan had cut it closer to the edge than ever. Cam had met Dylan five years earlier—they’d served together in Delta for mere months before Dylan retired. Dylan had been a risk taker then, but went well beyond that these days.

Now, his friend rattled off Skylar’s current address. “She’s on vacation for a week.” He paused. “Why don’t you let me take care of all this?”

It would be too easy to let Dylan do it, to let himself off the hook. He’d been passive in this situation for far too long, though, fighting to keep the street kid inside of him dead and buried. His friend knew that better than anyone.

Dylan was a good enough friend to make that offer.

“Thanks. But this is my fight. Always has been.”

He despised Gabriel, would have no problem putting his hands around the man’s neck and squeezing, tight, but slowly, so he could watch him struggle, the way Gabriel had been watching Cam struggle for years.

Payback would be fucking fantastic, to crush that bastard under his shoe, to watch everything he’d worked for crumble, like the soul-sucking little bastard he really was.

It was easy for Gabriel to sit back and fire orders, to have the ultimate power over Cam. Cam knew the man was nothing more than an empty, pathetic shell who took out his misery on others—the world was full of sad little people like that, who reveled in whatever power they had to make others feel as shitty as they did.

Most people could only dream of getting revenge on those who’d wronged them. Cam’s would soon be a reality, and she was staring at him from the photograph.

Gabriel had always told him,
You don’t get something for nothing
. The man would finally feel the truth of those words, at Cam’s hands.

And if Gabriel didn’t comply, didn’t care about his flesh and blood enough to free Cam from his service, Cam would have to decide what he’d do next.

You don’t get something for nothing
.

“You do this and then you let it go,” Dylan said quietly, and Cam realized he was holding the book so tightly he’d bent the hard cover.

Did he even know how to let it go? He’d lived with it for so long, it was like a well-worn fabric. An excuse. Something to fall back on when things were shitty. Woven into the texture of his life.

Could he really do this?

You have no fucking choice, unless you want to spend the rest of your life hiding
.

He finally had collateral. Leverage. He’d use it to his full advantage … had to be prepared to do anything it took to grab hold of his freedom.

K
ill her.”

Elijah gave the order without even looking at the man in front of him. Instead, he slid the picture and the address toward his associate. “Call her when you land. Tell her to meet you. She’ll be expecting the call, but not what comes after that.”

When he looked up, the man he’d given the instructions to had exited his office wordlessly, and silently. Perfect.

He didn’t give a shit about most of the people who worked for him—just the core group of six who ran his operations, and even then he wasn’t ever sure they wouldn’t stab him in the back, literally, given the opportunity.

Which was why he never turned his back. And why he changed his appearance so often.

He’d been nameless and faceless for so long, and yet DMH’s reputation proceeded him. Men and women followed him. Listened to him. Killed for him.

He was thirty-five, looked younger and easily passed for someone who wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.

It’s what helped his group stay so successful—he recruited men and women who were like him, who could pass for normal.

Who could kill on command.

DMH was one of the most respected and feared groups overseas and had a growing reputation as a potentially major terror organization in the United States because of that. It was exactly the way Elijah saw the operation growing. First, the funded terror camps, then branch out to black market weapons and organ trafficking.

However, they’d just discovered a traitor in their midst. That wasn’t shocking, of course. In his line of work, pure loyalty was hard to come by, and they were all stepping on one another’s backs in order to survive, to get to the top.

It was nearly impossible to stay on top, but Elijah planned on doing so. And he had the magic formula, right in the cell below him … the husband of a CIA operative who’d been killed because of her association with DMH, and apparently a CIA operative in his own right. To be infiltrated once was bad enough; to have it happen again was unforgiveable. How had he allowed this?

Because you’re getting old. Paranoid
. To him, everyone and anyone was the enemy, which meant he cast equal suspicion over all of them.