Sin and Sacrifice (36 page)

“
I thought everyone would
break under torture eventually.” Evelyn studied Rhett's profile.
She cringed inside thinking about Christian undergoing any kind of
torture, no matter what devious plot he'd been involved in.
Secretly, she wanted Rhett to deny he would do that to his own
brother. She got her wish a moment later.

“
He knows we won't do that
to him though. He's my brother for christ's sake. So that's to his
advantage. The other two, though, are fair game. They've been
consistent with their answers so far, but I have a feeling there's
a lot more they
aren't
saying.”

The cold calculation in his
tone made her shiver. She knew it was part of the interrogation
process. How information was extracted when need be. It didn't make
it easier to hear about or think about.

“
So if those two
men
are
agents,
then they'll be missed and more will follow in their wake to find
out what happened. It's unrealistic to think they didn't have
families beyond their jobs in the government and I'm sure they'll
press the issue when the men don't return home.”

“
We'll hold both of them
until they tell us what we want to know. Sometimes it takes a while
to break them. If any more show up and press the issue, they'll
meet an unfortunate and untimely end. The Church has a lot of pull,
Evelyn, in matters like these. Father Valanzano has given his word
that you're under their protection now, and I can vouch for the
truth of it personally. I've known him since I was a kid.” Rhett
reached out to adjust the temperature control, letting a cool jet
of air filter through the vents.

He spoke so
matter-of-factly about death. Yet she understood that it was either
him or them, and in this world where the danger to all their lives
had increased exponentially in the last few weeks, sometimes hard
choices would have to be made. She didn't think for a moment that
they were the first lives Rhett might be forced to take, and
probably wouldn't be the last ones, either.

Instead of being repulsed,
she found herself relieved that Rhett was man enough to do what
needed to be done. It would have felt a little hypocritical anyway
if she'd judged him for the deaths of others when she'd shot him
herself. True, she hadn't tried to outright kill him, but that
mattered little in the grand scheme of it all.

“
Why do you think
Christian waited so long to act?” she asked.

“
Probably because the
situation broke open so suddenly. The Templar group had you at
first, but your sisters were missing, and he likely wanted to
corral as many of you as he could at once. Besides that, in the
beginning, he was with me all the time. I'm sure those were his men
I saw skulking around in Port Said, too.” His mouth quirked in
displeasure.

“
So he waited, biding his
time. He
wanted
the other group of Templars to be caught, didn't he?” she
said with sudden insight.

“
I'm sure. It took them
out of his way. --and you know, it was Christian's idea to be in
the club parking lot that night. I told you it was because we were
staking out something else, but he used that same excuse on me. He
planned for us to see the Templars grab you because he knew we
would get involved.” Rhett grunted his discontent at being
manipulated and sped onto another street. Leaving downtown Athens
further and further behind.

“
Do you think his men, the
ones in the boat that attacked us after Crete, would have killed
you if they'd succeeded in boarding the yacht?” Evelyn hated to ask
the question, but she hated not knowing the answer even
more.

Rhett slanted her a sharp
look. “I'd like to think not, Evelyn, but I can't say for sure. Not
one hundred percent. I've never known him to sell out to anyone
before, to betray his own blood.”

“
Do you think he would
have hurt me in the pit?” Another meek question. Evelyn knew what
she thought his answer would be.

He was silent for several,
long seconds. “Yes. Yes, I think he would have. Push come to shove,
he would have ended you right there. I have a feeling that
something much larger is at stake here, and that makes men do
dangerous things.”

The reply, the one she'd
suspected, made her feel queasy coming from Rhett's mouth. He knew
Christian better than she did after all.

“
What do you think his
chances are for being released?”

“
Not good. He took the
same oaths we did and he's broken more than I can count. He'll be
extensively questioned, not that they'll get a lot more out of him
than we did, and probably wind up in jail. I just wish he'd confide
in us. We can't help him if we don't know what's wrong.” Rhett
exhaled in quiet frustration.

“
I think you must be
right, though. There has to be a reason, more than just money, that
he's doing this. He doesn't strike me as the type to betray his own
family.” But she couldn't be positive. If Christian thought he
could have immortality, he might be willing to do a lot of things
she didn't think him capable of.

Throughout the ages, men
had done far worse in search of the same.

“
We may never know. In the
pit, he said there were things I didn't understand, things he
couldn't tell me. Maybe he's too embarrassed to admit that he got
sucked in by his accomplices and was lured by the thought they'd
all be able to live forever if they could get you girls to tell
them the location of Eden. Christian's always been a pretty
prideful man, so I imagine his crumbling house of cards has been a
humiliating blow.”

“
It wouldn't be the first
time someone went to extremes to get what they wanted. There might
even be a noble cause behind his thinking—“

“
There isn't anything
noble about kidnapping, Evelyn.” Rhett glanced sideways at
her.

“
No, but if he felt like
he
had
to, then
it's possible he justified it in his mind and doesn't know how to
tell the rest of you. I don't know. It's confusing and I wish it
was all over.”

Leaning back in the seat,
she let her gaze drift out the front windshield. It was a lot to
think about.

“
It would be so nice to
just...live for once. Without having to constantly look over my
shoulder.” Struck by whimsy, she shared the thought with
him.

In periphery, she saw Rhett
glance across the car again.

“
We'll get there,
Evelyn.”

“
Not if there are more
people involved than the three of them. Because then it'll spread
like wildfire and everyone will want a piece of what we know.” The
tone of her voice took a solemn turn.

“
Dracht is pretty good at
dragging information out of people. He's going to interrogate both
of the men one more time before he and Alexandra take off. Maybe
one or the other will break.”

“
Where are we going,
anyway?” Evelyn and Rhett hadn't decided on a destination. They'd
packed in a hurry, said goodbyes in a hurry, and walked out the
door of the stronghold without looking back.

“
Where would you like to
go?” he asked in return.

“
I haven't thought that
far ahead, to be honest. As long as it's somewhere no one else can
find us for a while.” The thought of spending so much private time
with Rhett was undeniably appealing. Even now, the chemistry
between them ebbed under the flow of their conversation. At the red
light, she looked over to find him watching her.

They shared a full minute
of eye contact before the light turned green, spreading the glow
over the hood and in through the windshield.

“
Sometimes it's best to
hide in plain sight. I think we should pick a smaller city along
the coast and hole up in a random hotel room. I've got places in
other countries but Christian knows about them. I'd rather choose
something completely random rather than risk that he's given those
locations out to strangers.”

Evelyn didn't look away
when he put the car into motion. The full shape of his mouth,
pressed into a thoughtful line, was as appealing as the snug fit of
his shirt over the breadth of his shoulders. He'd foregone the
shoulder holster in public, though she knew he had a gun on him
somewhere. The injury he'd sustained to his head, thankfully,
hadn't been serious.

“
All right. Where ever
looks good, I guess.” Despite their chemistry, the natural pull
between them, she knew the second her head hit the bed she would be
out like a light. Maybe this time, she wouldn't be woken up by an
intruder, or gunshots, or someone blowing out the door.

Maybe.

Sunlight slanted across her
eyelids, drawing a wince and a frown across her brow. Even with her
eyes closed it was bright. Sitting up, she rubbed the vestiges of
sleep away and yawned. Still in her clothes—that was one habit she
couldn't (wouldn't) break—she felt slightly stiff and
sore.

The Kineta Bay Resort had
been the second hotel they passed coming into the small town. She
remembered dragging herself out of the car and into the elevator
after Rhett secured them rooms under false names. Up to the fourth
floor, they had a room overlooking the water and as she'd
predicted, she'd barely hit the mattress in a dead slump before
passing out.

Hair a mess around her
face, cheeks flushed, she glanced through the room for Rhett. He
wasn't hard to find.

Sitting next to the balcony
doors in a chair, he had his legs stretched out onto another chair
and his arms folded over his chest. A golden layer of whiskers had
come in overnight, reminding her of short stalks of wheat. Instead
of his customary dark colors, he had on faded jeans and a white tee
shirt. Fully clothed, he looked like he hadn't slept a
wink.

Of course he wouldn't. Not
with the possibility of a threat hanging over their heads. She
almost felt guilty for crashing like she had.

The Saronic Gulf sparkled
like a broad, turquoise gem out from the sands of the beaches
beyond the balcony. Shaped in a slight curve, the shoreline led to
a finger of land that jutted outward, making this particular
stretch seem cut off from the rest of civilization. Private,
beautiful, with the sun gleaming down overhead from a cloudless
blue sky.

She guessed the time to be
around noon.

“
You should have woken me
up sooner so you could get some sleep,” she said, swinging her legs
off the mattress. The one concession to not removing her clothing
had been her shoes. She couldn't bring herself to tuck them under
the covers last night. They sat side by side in front of the
nightstand within easy reach.

He glanced over. “You
needed the rest. I heard from Dracht.”

“
What did he say?” Walking
over, she leaned against the chair his feet rested in.

“
As far as he can tell,
the three worked alone. The two men, who do work for the US
government, found out about you girls by accident.”

“
What do you mean, by
accident?” Evelyn tried and failed to come up with a way they might
know about them.

“
Nothing is ever as secret
as it seems. They read about you in a top secret document buried in
a vault they mistakenly came across while they were researching
something completely different. So, though you have the scroll at
the Vatican, someone else kept the knowledge of your extraordinary
existence alive and passed it down through the centuries. What I'm
guessing happened is that the men used their positions to unearth
the secret group of Knights who've been looking for you all along
and started tracking them without their knowledge.” Rhett turned
his attention from the water to her.

“
That way, if the Templars
ever did find us, they could spring into action on a moment's
notice,” she finished for him. It was disheartening to realize that
their secret hadn't been such a secret at all.

“
From what he says, he and
his partner never told anyone else in the government about it. They
compromised my brother and worked as a team once it came to light
that the other Templars had you in their grasp. None of them will
admit
how
they
compromised Christian, and Christian still isn't talking.” Rhett
drew his legs off the chair and stood up to stretch his
back.

“
Did they say what they
hoped to gain?” She thought she knew. It was the same thing
everyone else always wanted.

“
They wanted passage into
Eden. Dracht didn't get much more out of them beyond that.” Rhett
exhaled and shoved a hand back through his hair while he watched
her.

“
I'm not really surprised.
Does this mean that you, Dracht and Dragar think it's contained to
just these three?” She linked her arms over her middle, all
remnants of sleep seared away by the conversation.

“
I don't think we can say
with one-hundred percent certainty. It looks like it, though.
Dracht, Dragar and I still think it's wise to let a few days pass
while the other members of the order spread disinformation to try
and draw anyone else out. It can't hurt, and it might even put you
and your sisters minds at ease.”