Seduced by the Storm (6 page)

"That’s
some big shit, Haley." Remy sat forward in his chair and braced his
forearms on his knees, his gaze intense, masculine, having shifted into the
mission-mode sharpness that always made her heart trip with appreciation. Yeah,
he was definitely wearing the BDUs home tonight. "I’ll need you with
me."

"I
know."

"Not
an option," Dev said. "I need Haley here at the weather station."

"I
can’t do this without her," Remy said. "You know that."

Dev
dragged his hands through his hair, leaving wild tufts behind. "I do know
that, but just this once—"

"No
woman but Haley." The fierce tone in Remy’s voice put an end to any
further argument—an argument Haley hadn’t been surprised to hear put on the
table. Dev would do anything to make sure a mission as critical as this one
reached a successful conclusion, and if that meant Remy getting blown by one of
their Seducers while Haley manned the weather station, then it was a sacrifice
Dev was willing to make.

It
was not, however, a sacrifice either Remy or Haley would ever make.

Dev
turned his gaze on her, and she didn’t flinch. Everyone in ACRO’s top tier knew
about Remy’s sexual ties with the weather, and a handful were aware of her role
in the weather-sex thing, but she’d gotten over the embarrassment.

"Then
you’ll stay in touch with your weather lab?"

"I’ll
take all my portable equipment, and I’ll stay in constant contact with you and
them."

"How
much time do we have?"

"Remy
and I will need to be in place in two days. If Wyatt and Remy can’t take care
of this thing, then one day three cartographers can start rewriting the U.S.
map."

"Wyatt,
great save on drill four—we would’ve lost it for sure if you hadn’t been quick
on your feet." Don, the rig manager, slapped him on the back and Wyatt
couldn’t even bring himself to smile at the guy. Instead, he nodded and worked
his way down to the lower platform, where he drew in shaky breaths and tried to
shrug off the praise.

He
could almost hear his father’s voice berating him, mocking him. Wyatt’s fists
clenched at the memory and he shook it off the way he did all his shitty ones,
because he was not back on his family’s rig feeling like a pariah. This was a
job and he couldn’t afford the brain drain.

You’re
not the same.

Not
the same scared kid he was at twelve and thirteen and fourteen, not the same
young man who pushed his gifts down so hard it hurt him physically, sometimes
so badly that he had to curl up in a tight ball until the pain receded. In
order to ease it, he’d allowed himself to use his telekinesis in the privacy of
his room.

Yeah,
being back on a rig was full of memories, none of them particularly good, some
of them indifferent and a few that were downright scary. The distrust in his
father and brother’s eyes tended to weigh heavily on his mind, haunted him with
every drill he did for this particular job, even though he was a million miles
away from his family.

A
platform wasn’t the place for distrust. Neither was the military…and he’d
deserted his men and his country after he’d been accused of murder.

More
than twenty years had separated Wyatt and his two half brothers. One brother,
Tim, had been killed the week Wyatt was born—bringing Wyatt onto the earth
during major family chaos.

The
other brother, Mason, lost an arm and a leg in a rigging accident a week
later—but continued to live on the platforms and help his father run operations
both in Texas and on the Indian Ocean. And thus Wyatt’s birth was always tied
to the two tragic events, at least in his father’s eyes.

And
so, from an early age, Wyatt felt guilt for something he didn’t do…and for
those things he did nothing about, except run.

Wyatt’s
mother had died right after Wyatt had enlisted. Four years later, Mason was
found murdered, his neck broken in a mysterious accident the police blamed
Wyatt for, since he’d been in the military at the time and more than capable of
snapping a man’s neck…and there was also surveillance video of Wyatt sneaking
aboard the rig. Then, mysteriously, the video had been cut off. Another thing
Wyatt would’ve been able to accomplish.

He
hadn’t stuck around to figure out any of it—fight-or-flight response kicked in
and ACRO helped him to save his ass. But he still didn’t know for sure whether
or not he was guilty.

His
hand wrapped around the deck railing and he shifted from foot to foot, hating
that
particular uncertainty with a passion.

These
days, he was still working for his country, the only way he could. The best—and
only—way he knew how. He was loyal, faithful, and a fucking better-than-great
operative.

But
no, he wasn’t the same.

THE
HELICOPTER PILOT said the oil platform was ahead and to the left, but from her
seat directly behind the copilot, Faith couldn’t see a damned thing other than
endless ocean and massive storm clouds.

Screw
it. She sat back in the seat of the Chelbi passenger helicopter used to
transport rig crews to and from work. She’d never been on an offshore
installation, and would have looked forward to the experience if it weren’t for
the reason she was going to be there.

Liberty.

The
call had come last week, had left Faith stunned, trembling and unable to think clearly
for half an hour.

We
have your sister. She will die if you don’t cooperate.

At
the time, Faith hadn’t known whether or not Liberty was even alive. Their
parents had sent Liberty to a psychiatric hospital, and three years later, the
Great October Storm of 1987 had struck southern England, killing their mother
and father. Traumatized, fledgling powers running wild, Faith had been whisked
away by agents of the British government, eventually ending up in the school
for special kids where she’d met Sean. By the time she was old enough to search
for her sister, the trail had grown cold, and the mental facility her sister
had gone to had no information beyond sketchy medical records. There had been
rumors, but nothing substantial.

Faith
hadn’t given up, but she’d reached a dead end years ago.

Until
the call, and the accompanying video feed.

The
woman tied to a chair, one eye blackened and blood streaming from her nose, had
been the spitting image of Faith. Liberty’s black hair was shorter, jaw-length,
and straight rather than long and wavy like Faith’s, but there was no doubt as
to the identity of the woman who swayed in her seat, a Kalashnikov rifle
pointed at her head.

"Help
me, Faith," Liberty had said in a lilting Irish accent. "I’m scared.
This old boardinghouse is—"

The
man had struck Liberty with the butt of the gun before she could slip in more
clues. Liberty fell over with the chair, and Faith had screamed obscenities and
threats until the man who’d hit Liberty approached the camera.

"If
you want her to live, you’ll listen."

The
man’s accent, also Irish, had been muffled by the knit mask he wore, but Faith
understood. "What do you want?" she ground out.

"Itor
has developed a powerful weapon. A weather machine. We want it."

"I
don’t know who Itor is."

The
man turned, and though Faith couldn’t see it, his action and the resulting
grunt told her that he’d kicked Liberty.

"You
bastard!"

"Don’t
jerk me off, Ms. Black. You will contact Sean Stowe, the man in charge of the
weather device. We know you have a relationship with him. Tell him you love
him. Tell him you want to join Itor. We don’t care. Just get the machine’s
motherboard."

That
day, Liberty’s captors had sent a disposable phone and custom-made, waterproof carrying
case for the motherboard, along with more instructions. Once the motherboard
was in her possession, she was to contact them. She had two weeks. After that,
Liberty would start losing body parts.

Bastards.
Faith had her agency on the case, had given them the video, but she didn’t
expect much. Anyone who could track her, who could have found Liberty and used
her against Faith, wasn’t going to make mistakes.

And
how had they known about Faith and Sean in the first place? Where had they
found Liberty? Where had Liberty been living all these years? She needed
answers, and she needed them now. Unfortunately, Liberty’s captors hadn’t been
very forthcoming.

"We’re
landing," the pilot said, and grateful to tear her mind away from the
images in her head, Faith peered out the window.

For a
moment the air and water seemed to shift, shimmer. Suddenly, a monster offshore
platform appeared out of thin air, and how the hell did Itor do that? What kind
of men did Sean have working with him?

Her
stomach churned, because she’d find out in a minute.

Once
they landed, a man in black-spattered orange coveralls helped Faith out of the
helicopter. She could feel eyes watching her. Lots of eyes. But then, any woman
wearing a sleeveless black leather dress on an oil platform staffed with men
had to expect stares and wolf whistles.

"Ms.
Black, I’m Don Goss. I’ll take you to Mr. Stowe, if you’ll come this way."

She
nodded briskly at the man who stood before her on the helipad, shielding her
from the humid gusts that pushed ahead of the approaching, roiling storm cloud.
A sense of unease shivered through her, but she couldn’t be sure if the new
case of nerves came from the storm or from the impending meeting with Sean. She
wondered if he was watching. He wouldn’t be out in the open—he was too dramatic
for that—but he could have security monitors, and he was, no doubt, getting off
on the sight of his men drooling over what he’d had. And would have again.

Ignoring
the conflicting emotions that thought stirred, she followed Don through the
maze of metal.

They
climbed several flights of stairs, and she mentally thanked TAG’s research
specialist for advising her to wear boots instead of high heels, or she’d have
killed herself on the grated metal plating.

She
took note of the cameras, the placement of the men and of the fact that many
wore sidearms. What the legitimate oil workers thought of that, she had no
idea.

At
the door to an inside hallway, two men required ID, which she gave to them in
the form of her passport and British driver’s license, and they motioned her
inside. Alone.

She
entered the hallway, and immediately a man dressed in jeans and a casual jacket
joined her.

"I’m
Giulio," he said, his Italian accent bringing back memories of the last
time she’d been in Italy, six months ago, on assignment. "This way,
please."

Flanked
by her new escort, she memorized the path that led to a door guarded by two men
holding AK-47 rifles. One moved forward.

"Ms.
Black, I need you to raise your arms and stand with your feet apart."

"Of
course." She did as she was told, and the man ran his hands down her body,
ending at her crotch. There was nothing sexual or personal about it; the man
just as easily could have been searching a corpse.

He
finished, reached for the door lever, but paused, putting his hand to his
earpiece. After a moment, he turned to her. "Mr. Stowe is taking an urgent
call. He suggests that you take a look around the platform, and he’ll join you
shortly."

Faith
smiled. "Perfect. I’d love to explore."

Explore,
and map out the platform in a way the schematics she’d studied couldn’t. The
reprieve from having to see Sean for a few minutes wouldn’t hurt either.

WYATT
DID NOT like Sean Stowe. Didn’t like, didn’t trust—and sure, Wyatt could say
that about most people, but this Sean guy made Wyatt take his nontrust issues
to a new level. ACRO had determined that Sean Stowe was a high-ranking Itor
agent, but his exact talents remained a mystery.

Didn’t
matter. The weather machine was getting taken out
today
. No exceptions.
Wyatt’s escape route was all mapped out, dive equipment ready, and although he
hadn’t heard back from ACRO about the code he’d transmitted—a code that might
indicate Itor’s immediate plans for the weather machine—his gut told him that
waiting any longer wasn’t a good idea.

He
rounded the corner of the dive platform and stopped dead.

Faith
Black was standing on the platform—not the safest place to be, given that the
approaching storm had stirred up the ocean swells just feet below, but he
already knew the woman was anything from safe.

He
hadn’t stopped thinking about her since he’d kissed her good night. Had thought
about her all the way back to the crap motel room, dreamed about her, jacked
off thinking about her in the shower and found himself hard again almost
immediately.

Then
he’d thought about stopping by her hotel room this morning, but instead took
the early flight to the rig to check things out. Thought about Faith some more.
Wished there was some way he could make her remember the sex they’d had.