Midnight Vengeance (17 page)

His whole life had been about being invulnerable, in every way. Nobody could hurt him, man or beast—he wouldn’t allow it. He’d been like that since he was five, maybe even earlier. Nobody gave a shit about him so he learned to take care of himself right from the get-go and never depend on anyone. He grew big really fast so no one had bullied him, ever. He’d learned early to project that
don’t fuck with me
vibe. It was ingrained.

So giving Lauren what she deserved—an indication of just how fucking important she was to him—well that was hard to do. But he had to tell her. How his chest would cave in if something happened to her or if she walked away from him.

He knew he didn’t even really have to say The Words. She was smart. She’d read between the lines if he opened up to her.

But...he couldn’t. He could fuck her nearly to death but he couldn’t tell her what he felt. A lifetime of never expressing emotions stood like a huge, towering mountain of granite between them.

Lauren could sense something was going on inside him. Though his face was impassive—it took a freaking effort for him to show anything—inside he was vibrating with stress. She glanced at him, eyes wide. Waiting to see if he said anything.

No.

He couldn’t. Fucking
couldn’t
.

The only thing he could talk about was facts. The outside world—that he could do. “We’re here,” he said and swerved into her driveway. The first time she’d been to her house since they’d left a couple of days ago.

Lauren was talking again, a happy rush of words. He should be listening to what she was saying because she was always interesting—but right then all he could pay attention to was her flushed, happy, beautiful face. Hear the happiness in her voice. She chattered as he helped her down from his SUV and as they walked up her driveway.

Then she stopped, fell completely silent.

Jacko stood by her side as she reached out to touch her front door, as a primitive tribesman would a talisman. Touching it as if it contained special magical powers. And maybe it did because her face just shone. Something was touching her, deeply.

She glanced up at him and opened the door with the key in her purse. The door swung wide and she gestured with her hand for him to walk in.

She wanted him to go in first because—because this was going to become his home too. It hit him with full force right then. She’d agreed to living together, to sharing a home.
This
home, which was now by some twist of fate going to be
his
home.

Shit. He’d never had a real home before. He’d moved from his mother’s trailer, which was never clean and grew only more desolate and battered with each passing year, to barracks. The barracks were a huge improvement but basically he had a cot assigned him in an enormous space. Nothing was his, not even the cot. Just the navy-issue trunk at the foot with a few belongings. Not many.

The navy had been his home until he retired and rented his place in Portland. It wasn’t his home. It was where he slept and watched TV and listened to music. If ASI had set up bachelor quarters somewhere, that’s where he’d have lived.

And now...this. He hadn’t had much of a chance to look at her space. He’d been way too blown away by Lauren herself.

But looking around, feeling tense muscles relax, drawing in air that still smelled of flowers and her, it hit him like a sledgehammer that for the first time in his life he was
home.

Lauren switched on the lights and turned the heat on. Somewhere a boiler kicked in. She trailed a hand along the back of the couch in the pretty living room, picked up something soft across the back of it, lifted it to her cheek.

“I thought I’d never see this place again.” Her eyes were shiny when she turned to him. “I thought I had found a safe haven so I worked to make this place my home, and the other day when I left—” she gave a faint smile, “—when I tried to leave, it hurt. It felt like something was cutting me up from the inside. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this place. Leaving Suzanne, Allegra, Claire. Leaving
you
.”

Jacko let out a long breath. “I would never have let you go. I would have found you, wherever you went.”

She smiled. She was crisscrossing the house, touching things, touching him when she passed by.

Though Jacko wanted more than anything to pick her up and throw her onto her fancy bed with the billion pillows and flowered sheets, he understood she needed to do this. Needed to connect by touch with the life she’d lost, but now was hers again.

“That’s a nice thought, Jacko. But Felicity is good. Very good.”

He cocked his head. “Felicity?”

She sighed. “I guess now I can talk about it. Felicity isn’t her real name. It’s sort of her internet handle, after the character in
Arrow
.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Felicity Smoak?” She laughed at his clueless expression. “Very pretty and very smart character on a TV show. My Felicity is just as smart as the character. She gave me a new identity and even my secret job.”

Jacko did impassive very well. Or thought he did. But apparently Lauren saw right through him. She laughed again, which was good. Great even. If he could make her laugh, she could laugh at him for the next hundred years.

“You’re dying to know—I can tell.” Lauren pulled out her MacAir from her big purse, put it on the coffee table and switched it on. She sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her.

He didn’t need another invitation. He sank into the cushions, happy to be sitting next to her. Happy she was here. Happy he was here with her.

“Okay, pay attention. Felicity lives in the darknet. You know what that is.”

“Yeah.”

She pursed her lips. “Yes, you would. Of course you would. I don’t know what she does for a living—I suspect she’s involved in computer security. I’ve often thought that she might work for the NSA. For some reason, she understands innocent people on the run. She got me my new identity and she’s really good at it. She spent a lot of time creating Lauren Dare, giving her an impeccable background and supplying perfect ID. She said she hoped I could be Lauren Dare forever.”

“You can.” Jacko reached out, wanting to cup her face. He settled for tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear. Who knew if she wanted to go back to being blond? He didn’t give a shit. She could go purple, or shave her head like him for all he cared. “You can be anything you want to be. Anyone you want to be.”

“I can, can’t I?” Lauren smiled. “Maybe I will just stay Lauren Dare. Anne Lowell wasn’t too happy a person. Lauren Dare is. And there’s yet another person inside me.” She brought up Google and typed quickly. “Voilà!”

The screen showed a website in French, of all things, www.chenet.fr. She clicked on the small British flag on the upper right-hand corner and the site morphed into English. There was a carousel of pictures floating right to left. On the top of the site was a name in flowing script: Fabiola Chenet.

Jacko pointed. “Who’s she?”

“My avatar. My alter ego. Here.” She clicked on Bio and there was one of those Facebook-type photos that hid more than revealed. Half a face, the other half hidden by a long fall of platinum hair, dark sunglasses, face cropped just below the nose. Completely unrecognizable yet alluring. Jacko would never have been able to connect her with Lauren. “There you go. Meet Fabiola Chenet. She studied graphic art at the Paris Design School, did a year at the Royal College of Art, so her English is very good. If you check the schools, you’ll find her CV. Got very good grades.” She smiled faintly. “Though Felicity gave me some Bs, for authenticity.”

Jacko leaned forward, acutely aware of the heat of her body next to his. “So...what am I looking at here?”

She smiled secretively and clicked on a thumbnail image. It suddenly filled the monitor and Jacko sat back. “Whoa.”

A beautiful woman seen from the back, face in profile. Long black hair piled on top of her head. Arms out, in the process of twirling. She was dressed in a long black dress laced up loosely along the back, showing plenty of smooth satiny skin. As she twirled, the hem of her long black dress lifted and became sleek blackbirds. Like crows only with thinner beaks. The blackbirds lifted from her graceful hands, too. The overall effect was stunning, a woman who was magic.

“That’s beautiful.”

The smile broadened. “Thanks. It’s the cover of a fantasy novel about a shape-shifter woman who can command animals. She has been exiled and must make her way back to the castle.” She pointed a finger at a misty fortress on a granite hilltop in the background. “See?”

This was something entirely different from what Jacko had seen her do. This was artwork that told a story, that grabbed you and pulled you right into the picture. You could see the woman’s power, the trek ahead of her, the wild animal kingdom that was hers to command.

“You did that.” Jacko shook his head.

“I certainly did. Watch.” She clicked and the carousel of images continued floating across the monitor, enlarging as they reached midpoint then reducing again to a thumbnail. Many of them were fantasy images, magical and enticing. Some were portraits, the faces always interesting, with an element on the cover that showed whether this was a tragedy or a comedy. The colors were perfect—sharp and clear and glowing.

She sat back, satisfied. “These are all book covers. So—that’s how I’ve been earning my keep, thanks to Felicity who set me up, created me, created Fabiola. If anyone checked the website’s IP address, it’s in France. Fabiola is very successful and she pays all her taxes in France.” Lauren wrinkled her nose. “Nobody should complain about taxes in this country. Not after being stuck in the French system.”

“No, it wasn’t thanks to Felicity. It was thanks to you and your talent,” Jacko growled. “She just allowed you to use it.”

Lauren sobered, turned to look at him, utterly serious. “I thought I’d lost it all. If I’d been forced to run I don’t know whether I’d have had the courage to keep this business up, and it’s just now taking off. I have more commissions than I can handle. And I love it. I love interacting with the author, reading the book to get the feel of it, giving the book a face. I was on the verge of losing everything and now—” She stretched out her hand to him and he took it. “Now I think I have everything I could possibly want.”

Keeping his eyes on hers, Jacko brought her hand to his mouth. A romantic gesture, but it was not out of romance. He didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. He just wanted to feel her skin on his lips.

Lauren sighed and without changing tone said, “What took you so long?”

Jacko blinked. “What?”

“You hung around me for four months. Every time I turned around, there you were. Apparently we drove Allegra, Suzanne and Claire crazy because you weren’t making your move. Why not?”

Time for honesty. “You scared me,” he confessed.

Lauren’s eyes went wide. “I—I what?”

“Scared the shit out of me. You terrified me.”

She looked him over and he knew exactly what she was seeing. He was 240 pounds of pure muscle, a trained killer. Though he didn’t have the many piercings he’d had a few years ago, he was still heavily tattooed. Shaved head, the works.

Lauren, on the other hand, weighed less than half what he did and she was an artist. And a sweet woman on top of it. She probably had never hit another human being in her life. He’d grown up fighting bare-knuckled until he got into the navy. Then they armed him.

Her eyes narrowed, face lit with mischief.

“I like the idea of terrifying you. I like it a lot.”

Jacko fought a smile. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” She leaned forward, a few inches from his face. She pursed her lips and he thought she was going to kiss him but instead she said, “Boo!”

He jumped, gave an exaggerated shudder of terror. She laughed. God it was good to hear her laugh. Light, carefree. A laugh of delight.

Then she sobered and her hand tightened around his. “That was fun.” She searched his eyes. “But I don’t want to do that. I don’t like to dominate.” He gave a small nod. Her eyes remained steady on his. She was telling him something really important now. “And I don’t like to be dominated.”

“No.” Fuck no. He didn’t want to dominate her. BUDS training had been all about breaking strong men. Or trying to. Everything had been thrown at him—physical, verbal abuse, cruel punishments, DIs screaming in his face. They hadn’t broken him, not even close. But he did understand bone deep what it was like to have someone try to break you.

He didn’t want one molecule of anything like that near Lauren. In the same room as Lauren. She was magic. She made him feel better just being around her. He didn’t want that magic gone. He wanted to protect that magic from the outside world; he didn’t want to crush it. God no.

And maybe all things considered she was as unbreakable as he was. Maybe more. Because, shit, he couldn’t have taken the pressure of being hunted for two fucking years. Looking over his shoulder day after day after day. He’d have taken the fight to the enemy, that was his nature and he’d been trained to do it, but Lauren couldn’t do that. Two women had died. If he didn’t shave his head, every hair on his head would have stood up when she told him that. She didn’t have the tools to resist armed men so she’d done the only thing possible—run.

He couldn’t say all that. He didn’t have the words for that, but what was on his face must have been reassuring because she nodded sharply. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Something in his voice made her smile.

“So.” She stood. He stood, too. “I’m hungry—how about you?”

It hadn’t even occurred to him but now that she talked about food... “Starving.”

“Good thing when I was running away from home I didn’t take the time to empty the fridge out completely. I’ll cook, you’ll set the table.”

Another thing he’d been taught in the navy. Tactics.

“This is a test,” he said. “You’re seeing how domesticated I am.”

“Bingo.” She smiled but was still watching him carefully.

Well, this was easy. “I was in the military.” He looked down at her, wanting to dispel the slight anxiety that he saw in her beautiful face. He reached out, smoothed the small furrow between her brows. “I take orders well.”