Sin and Sacrifice (8 page)

Evelyn, minutely distracted
by his physique, found a first aid kit in a lower cabinet and
brought it with her around the bar. Setting it on one of four
stools, she opened it and took out the antiseptic and a folded wad
of gauze.

“
I'm not green, Mister
Nichols. I've seen many half naked men, most of them in better
shape than you.” It wasn't true and it galled her when he
scoffed.

“
How many? And I'm not
talking about trips to the beach. That doesn't count. I'm talking
personal, one on one encounters.”

He hissed when she dabbed
the moist cloth against the wound. She dabbed it again.

“
Are you enjoying
yourself?” he asked through clenched teeth.

Hunched over at his side,
she glanced up. “You'll thank me when this doesn't fester and get
infected. And I don't keep a tally. Enough to know that yours isn't
something special.” Another neat lie. Rhett inspired her in ways a
man hadn't in a long time.

“
You really know how to
kill a man's ego,” he said with just enough droll sarcasm to
suggest his ego wasn't anywhere near threatened.

She laughed because she
couldn't
not
respond to the gleam in his eyes and the tone of his voice.
“Would you rather have me starry eyed and stuttering?”

“
Yes,” he said without one
second of hesitation. “You didn't answer the question.”

“
What
question?”

“
Are you enjoying
yourself?”

His back, broad and
powerful with sinew flexing under the skin, also had several
streaks of blood that she cleaned. The graze of the bullet had been
just deep enough to make quite a mess. Evelyn didn't realize she'd
automatically checked for an iron cross between his shoulder blades
until she found herself staring at it. There was nothing but smooth
flesh. No ink, no tattoo. He had none anywhere that she could
see.

“
Of course I'm not
enjoying myself. You could have been killed.” The thought upset her
more than she wanted to admit. Evelyn didn't want people dying to
save her.

“
I knew what the dangers
of this job were long before I got into it, Miss Grant.”

She straightened and found
a fresh bandage from the kit. “Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I
want to see you die.”

“
Go and get yourself shot,
Rhett?” a voice said from the direction of the glass
doors.

Evelyn whipped a look over
at the man standing there watching them. Shorter than Rhett by an
inch or two, with a slightly leaner build and ink black hair, he
wore a dark suit and blue patterned tie. His eyes, also blue,
surveyed the situation with sharp attention. He carried two bags; a
black duffel and a grocery-store variety with the top rolled
closed. Like Aristo, he did a double take at the black and blue
bruises on her face.

She finished putting the
bandage over the injury and gathered the bloodied gauze. Taking it
behind the bar, she threw it into the trash and washed her hands in
the tiny sink.

“
Just a graze. This is
Miss Grant. Miss Grant, this is my partner, Christian,” Rhett said,
gesturing between them.

Christian walked over when
she came out from behind the counter and offered his hand. “Nice to
meet you.”

Evelyn shook it, making eye
contact for a brief moment. “Nice to meet you
Mister—Christian.”

“
Miss Grant. I believe
this belongs to you.” He took a small, glossy black clutch from the
brown bag and handed it over.

In all the chaos, she'd
almost forgotten they'd retrieved it from the abduction scene.
Evelyn took the purse and worked the clasp until it popped open.
Inside were all her belongings: I.D, two credit cards, cell phone
and a small bit of cash hooked together by a silver clip. The purse
wasn't big enough to hold a traditional wallet.

“
Thank you. I didn't think
I'd see this again.”

“
We're trying to extract
your luggage from the hotel. When we get it, we'll have it sent to
Cairo,” Christian said.

“
That's great, thank you.
I'm going to see if I can contact my friends.” She glanced between
the agents and stepped away with her phone in hand. Anxious to get
in touch, she pressed the number for Genevieve's phone. Out the
glass windows, she saw they had already pulled away from the docks
and were cruising at a low speed through the harbor, headed for
open water. Another stab of guilt swept through her when she
realized she hadn't even had a chance to arrange a funeral for
Galiana.

Each phone she dialed went
straight to voicemail. Frustrated, she left messages on each one
with instructions not to return to the hotel under any
circumstances. Instinct prevented her from saying where she was
headed. She knew she didn't have to tell them to check their email
account and as soon as she had access to a computer, she'd leave a
message there as well.

Evelyn watched the
glittering coastline of Greece recede as the yacht picked up
speed.

The cabin on board
the
Selena Marie
wasn't as small as Evelyn thought it would be. Situated on
the second deck, it had a full bed, a dresser and nightstand, and
its own bathroom through a rather narrow door. All the furnishings
were newer and clean with a modern flare to the design.

With just a few hours until
sunrise, Rhett had urged her to rest. While it was still dark, and
while he and Christian patrolled the decks of the yacht. Isolated
on the boat crossing the Mediterranean, they were about as safe as
they were likely to get.

Still, she couldn't bring
herself to take off her shoes when she laid on the bed. Closing her
eyes for longer than a few minutes at a time proved difficult.
Tension that she'd stored in her system unraveled slowly, like
honey through a sieve, pooling in the pit of her belly.

Running the pad of her
thumb across her fingertips, she discovered that they didn't hurt
quite as bad as they had earlier. The tingling and swelling had
diminished a little. By tomorrow, there would only be minor
puffiness and red skin. If she could get a few hours of
uninterrupted sleep, the process would go faster.

She considered covering her
hands and then decided against it. That might draw more attention
to the issue than if she just went on as normal. She couldn't do
anything about her face and hoped the speed of her recovery would
be overlooked. By the morning, her bruises should be less stark and
the split in her lip would be a sliver of a scab instead of a fat
one.

After a half hour of
tossing restlessly, she got up and wandered into the corridor.
There were four other bedrooms on the yacht; two of them were on
the same deck as her own. When she passed an open doorway, she saw
Rhett's duffel bag sitting on the end of the bed. A small
lamp—really nothing more luminous than a nightlight—had been left
on in apparent anticipation of his return.

An intense curiosity about
the man who'd risked his life twice to save her drew her into the
room toward the duffel bag. She knew she shouldn't look. Shouldn't
invade his privacy. The corridor had been empty though and she
didn't think Rhett or Christian would be down here any time
soon.

No one would be the wiser
for her snooping.

The zipper slithered along
the teeth with a quiet hiss. Peeling the edges of the bag apart,
her first sensation was the scent of him. It lingered on the folded
layers of jeans, t-shirts and boxers she sifted through. Under
those was another, smaller leather bag, a laptop and two more guns.
Several clips of ammunition lined the bottom. Between two thin,
ribbed sweaters, she found a handful of passports. She picked up
the top one and opened it.

Rhett Nichols. Thirty-four
years old. Hometown: Twenty-nine Palms, California.
She remembered seeing the name of the city on a
map once upon a time.

“
Find what you're looking
for?” Rhett asked from the doorway.

Startled, she yelped and
dropped his passport so she could cover her thundering heart with
her hand. When they locked gazes, she expected to see him scowling
or frowning. Instead, he wore an unreadable expression that she
found almost more disconcerting than if he'd just been annoyed or
angry with her.

“
I'm sorry. I was
just--”

“
Snooping,” he concluded
for her. “What did you expect to find?”

Shuffling in place, she
lifted a shoulder. “I don't really know. I was just curious about
you, I guess. I didn't mean any harm by it.”

“
Maybe you should ask me
what you want to know.”

Sheepish, she bent to pick
up his passport off the floor and dropped it back into the bag.
Patting the clothes down, she zipped the duffel closed. Evelyn
could hardly believe she'd just been caught going through his
personal things red handed.

“
It was just general
curiosity. I mean, you've risked your life for me
twice.”

“
That's what government
agents do, Miss Grant. I think I said something to that effect
earlier.”

An awkward moment
stretched into two. She wasn't sure what passed between them just
then, but the low curve of a smile that crept over his mouth
reassured her that she hadn't offended him
too
badly.

“
Try and get some rest
while you can,” he said, and turned to stalk away down the
corridor.

Evelyn clapped a hand over
her forehead. What the hell had she been thinking? In all the years
she'd dated men, she'd never been caught going through their
things. Then again, come to think of it, she'd never had a reason
or the urge to do so before.

Back in her own stateroom,
she sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated taking off her
shoes. Four or five hours rest
would
do her good. She couldn't
quite shake the hunted feeling though and in the end, she flopped
back, one arm over her forehead, shoes still on her feet.
Cautiousness had served her well at the safe house that hadn't been
so safe at all.

Evelyn wondered how the
Templars had found her. Found
them.
Myriad scenarios ran through her mind while she
stared at the ceiling. None of them were especially pleasing. Phone
taps, a tail on the car. A satellite bead? She couldn't be sure
just how much paranoia was too much in a situation like this. The
Templars had extensive backing and resources. All the sisters had
known that for hundreds of years.

During the crusades, the
Knights had been able to move between countries unfettered and
unhindered. Whatever mission they were on, they were allowed to go
about their business without question. She doubted much had changed
over the centuries. Their technology and ability to find what they
wanted had only improved exponentially with the advent of computers
and lightning fast communication.

The girls had adjusted as
well as they were able to. Alexandra, to help give them some kind
of advantage, had become an expert in computers and could hack her
way into just about any database in the world. It was how they
changed names and identification and photos and backgrounds.
Without it, Evelyn knew their chances of successfully staying free
for any length of time were slim to none.

A distinct
beep
interrupted her
inner monologue. Sitting up, she swung her legs over the side of
the bed and reached for the cell phone she'd left on the
nightstand. When the screen lit up, she saw the small text icon and
thumbed it so the message would open. It must be her
sisters.

Finally. An answer and
contact.

Enjoy your temporary
freedom. There won't be any escape the next time.

Evelyn's eyes widened. She
checked the sender:
Unknown.

A dizzy spell struck when
she realized the Knights had somehow discovered her cell phone
number. It wasn't on any block lists, so they'd probably searched
some internet directory and eventually discovered which Evelyn
Grant was her.

Lurching up off the bed,
she ran out into the corridor and down the stairs to the lowest
deck. Dark water stretched for miles in every direction. A curling,
salty breeze drifted across her skin while she glanced wildly
around for Rhett. She didn't see him and immediately wondered if
the Knights had somehow boarded the yacht between the time she'd
seen him and now. The paranoia ran thick and deep.

“
Rhett!”
Panic infused her voice. Every sense on alert,
she gripped the cell phone so hard that it left imprints on her
palms. Distantly, she was aware that even after knowing him only a
short time, it was Rhett she wanted close by. He had successfully
extracted her from two dangerous situations and it only exacerbated
the secure feeling she had in his presence.

One after the other, Rhett
and Christian came running from different parts of the boat; Rhett,
gun drawn, hurtled down the stairs from the top deck and Christian
did the same but from along the side of the yacht.

“
What is it?” Rhett asked,
voice tense. He walked right up to her, checking in every direction
for a threat.