THE FIRST SIN (26 page)

Goddamnit.

He’d be fucking worthless if he didn’t calm down and take care of business.

Including himself.

Sonofabitch. He didn’t have time for this shit.

Nick

April 15

Monday morning

“The team should have been there a hell of a lot faster than they made it Saturday night.” Nick barely kept his voice under control as he tried not to limp while he paced; in front of Karen Oxford’s desk. “Steele wouldn’t be missing if RED’s response time hadn’t been crap.”

“Thirteen minutes and RED was inside.” Oxford folded her arms across her chest as she leaned back in her chair. “An acceptable response time.”

“Five minutes too long.” Nick smacked one fist into his palm. “All I know is Steele is hurt real bad, that Cabot’s got her and we could have saved her ass by minutes.” “Agent Donovan.” Oxford’s cool voice brought Nick to a stop in his pacing. “All RED agents know the risks involved in working any kind of undercover op. What we must concern ourselves with now is retrieving Steele and bringing down the rest of Cabot’s operation.”

“Got him in the balls with the Glass Slipper,” Nick said with only a little satisfaction. “He owns a couple more around the city and just maybe Steele is at one of those. Unless there’s something I don’t know, we weren’t able to gather the intel on exactly which clubs he owns.” Nick rubbed his hand over his face. “Shit, we don’t even know if he’s still in the area.”

Karen Oxford picked up a pen and started tapping it on her desk. “Find Cabot and we will find Agent Steele.” Nick let out a rush of air in a heavy exhale. “I need access to all the intel from Operation Cinderella from the past three months.” Oxford gave a clipped nod. “You have free rein.”

“One more thing.” Nick turned his head just enough that his glare might as well have pierced the wall to see the agents monitoring locations linked to specific illegal activities. “I want to kick some junior agent ass.”

Nick scowled as he looked back at Oxford and her eyebrows were raised in a questioning look. He gave her the rundown on his own surveillance vid and how the incident had to match what happened to his sister when she was abducted. “RED agents should have been all over that.” Nick was tempted to draw his Beretta and scare the shit out of that junior agent. “I want Wallings’s ass. Now.”

“There was absolutely no excuse for his error.” Oxford narrowed her brows. “I will deal with him. We do not accept nor tolerate subpar agents in RED. We hire and keep only the best.”

“Not only do I want those operational records,” Nick said. “I want a team of eight agents that I handpick for these two assignments. I want four on Kristin Donovan’s case and four on Agent Steele’s.”

“You’ve got your teams and your records.” Oxford gestured to the door. “And you have your work cut out for you.”

April 14

Sunday. I only know because someone told me.

Pain shot through my head as light blinded me. Light through fog. Couldn’t be heaven because after being an assassin I was destined for hell.

Brilliant white light. A white room. I thought. In the haze I wasn’t sure.

It couldn’t be the room where the men forced me to be an assassin. No. God, no.

All I was positive about was that my entire body hurt in every place imaginable. I was nothing but pain. As it brushed my skin, warm air carried familiar smells.

Antiseptic. A medicinal odor.

Cologne.

The cologne was the smell I hated the most because it belonged to the man I hated the most.

A face wavered in and out over me. Concentrating was so hard it hurt. Cold, then heat, washed over me as I recognized Satan.

Benjamin Cabot.

Vaguely I was aware my right arm felt almost too heavy to move. A cast.

The pain in my left shoulder was so great I wanted to scream. Dislocated. The guy named Danny who’d dragged me had jerked it out of its socket.

“I wanted to make sure you’re awake for this part, Alexi.”

Cabot smiled, then looked up at a man with a surgical mask on. “Dr. Rogers, your patient,” Cabot said to the man. “I’ll take care of her, Mr. Cabot.” The doctor reached for me and I became more aware of the focused pain in my dislocated shoulder.

“No.” I knew what he was going to do. While I was awake. I shook my head so hard that I almost threw up from the pain just moving my head caused me. “Please. No.” Dr. Rogers grasped my shoulder and I cried out. He examined it with his fingers and hands, and I wanted to scream from every touch.

The man wrenched and twisted my shoulder into place. I screamed so loud my throat and chest hurt. Agony. Sheer agony.

Oh, my God. Take me.

And blackness did.

April l5

Monday

I was sitting on something cold.

My arm was cradled against my belly. A cast My right arm was in a cast and pain shot through my forearm. I almost cried at the memory of a man jerking my shoulder back into place, but I had to admit that at least my shoulder felt better now. My arm itched beneath the cast and I wanted to scratch it.

Wouldn’t have had the strength to even if I could. The wobbling in my head made it hard to focus as I tried to figure out where I was and what I was sitting on. I tried to pry my eyes open. All they would part was a slit. I was in someplace dark.

“You need to relieve yourself.” A sweet voice. Not Cabot’s devil’s voice.

Relieve myself? Relieve myself. Oh.

I let go and emptied. A tissue was put into my left hand. Left... Oh, right one was in a cast. My left hand shook but managed to wipe.

Then I toppled off the cold seat and welcomed the dark again.

April 16

Tuesday

Water. Lapping at my waist, covering my legs. Warm, welcome.

Lightening some of the pain.

Hands scrubbed my body with—a washcloth? Gentle hands. But still my body ached.

The swaying of the water made my head feel like it was swaying, too. My eyes—stuck. Glued together. “What is your name?” came the sweet voice.

“You never answer me.”

My lips seem glued, too. Maybe it would be too much of an effort to speak.

Maybe that was why I couldn’t open my mouth. “I am Alyona,” the girl said.

A Russian accent. “I have been caring for you. Sometimes you wake, sometimes you are in a place between wake and sleep and don’t know what it is you do. Bathe. Drink water and broth. Relieve yourself. And sleep. They always drug you.”

It hurt to focus on what she was saying as I tried to make sense of her words.

Then warm water spilled down my scalp, hurting but healing. too. “As always we must take care not to wet your cast or the bandages around your chest.”

Yes, my heavy arm was propped on something. The warm water only went as far as my waist and my chest felt tight, constricted.

“I am sorry, but I must wash your hair.” She squirted something cool on my scalp and began soaping it. “The cuts and bruises—they must hurt so.”

Alyona was so gentle, yet the pain was incredible as she lathered my hair.

Sleep would be better.

April 17

Wednesday

The broth was plain and it didn’t want to go down. I didn’t want it. I just knew 1 was sick of it. But Alyona insisted. And she gave me water. Helped me up to relieve myself. Helped me climb into bed and pass back into oblivion.

April 18

Thursday

Did I wake today? I must have.

I think, therefore I am.

Ami?

April 19

Friday

Did I really exist? The world tilted and wouldn’t right itself.

A snow globe with swirling white flakes tipping to the side.

Floating . . . floating . . . floating. . . What was right or normal? Was anything real? Or was it all just . . . nothing.

Pain was real. Constant pain.

I was there. I wasn’t. I was nothing at all. Nothing but pain. Yet beyond the haze and agony there was a life that was mine. I did have a place in the world. The world that wouldn’t stop tilting.

Pain. So intense.

Must be alive. To feel such pain, I must be alive.

No lying to myself anymore.

“What’s your name?” came a small voice. Alyona. “One day you will tell me.”

Sweet, singsong, her voice should have made me smile.

Instead it echoed in my head and I wanted to scream.

I was gone again.

April 20

Saturday

“Are you awake?” the delicate voice asked through the darkness of my mind.

“We must get you up to attend to your bath.”

No pain. I didn’t wince at the sound of the voice.

Progress.

What progress was that? Nothing made sense. Here.

There. What was what?

“They make you sleep, sleep, sleep.” Yes, a Russian accent.

Her name—Alyona, right?

‘They have kept you drugged long.” Alyona sounded concerned, confused, even as she continued. “Maybe it is because you suffered much. They wait for you to heal.” The dryness of my throat made it ache when I tried to swallow.

It hurt almost as badly as the rest of my body. Yes, I ached. I felt it now. So much so that I whimpered behind my closed lips.

A small hand gently touched my arm. “Your color is much better and you breathe without so much labor.” Yeah. She was right. My ribs still hurt with every inhale and exhale, but it was better.

I sucked in another breath. Jeez, that hurt.

Alyona moved close. She smelled sweet and delicate. I had a life outside this pain, right? Beyond the fuzz fogging my mind.

My lips parted as my throat worked. I sucked in air, gasped, and coughed.

Christ. Wasn’t there a single part of me that didn’t feel like I’d been hit by a train?

“You need water.” Alyona put something cool against my lips, and thirst hit me hard and sudden. I might crumble to dust if I didn’t have a drink. Now.

Give me. Now. Now. Now.

Cool water flowed through my parched lips. Alyona was pouring it into my mouth. Only a little, like she was holding back.

More. Goddamnit, more!

When did I raise my head?

More.

Something anchored my right arm. Couldn’t raise it. My left hand moved, though. It shook as it reached the paper cup.

Water down the sides of my mouth. Down my neck. Wetting my chest.

More, more.

Water droplets rolled over my breasts. No clothes. I was naked beneath a light blanket.

“Slow.” Alyona drew the glass away and a scream of frustration nearly tore through me. “You have never tried to force it so fast before. Perhaps it is because you are getting better.”

“Now, slowly.” Alyona brought the cup to my lips again and I gulped what water she gave me. “You will vomit if you don’t. A little at a time.”

She took the glass away from my lips.

My whole body was collapsing in on itself. Too much. It had taken too much out of me. To drink the water, raise my head, lift my hand.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I heard the smile in her voice as she said, “Finally, you speak.”

The sound of a lock clicking was followed by the screech of unoiled door hinges. I winced. Alyona moved away from me.

“The bitch is awake.” Who was it? I knew that voice. In my daily nightmares that voice always came. I hated whoever it was.

“Not for long,” said another male. “Just get her into the shower and that needle back into her arm.” Get your eyes open. My jaws hurt when I ground my teeth while fighting to raise my eyelids.

Someone lifted my left arm. The one that didn’t feel like a gorilla was sitting on it.

Everything was a blur when I finally pried my eyes open. I saw a plain room with a door to a bathroom. The men holding me got me into the tub.

Alyona bathed me. This time I realized the men were standing there, watching.

I still couldn’t tell Alyona my name when she asked.

April 21

Sunday. I haven’t a clue what time and don’t care.

What a godawful nightmare.

“Jesus Christ.” My words came out in a low croak through my aching throat.

It was damned near impossible to swallow.

Open your eyes. What was that crust crap gluing them together? Someone might as well have jerked them open with a crowbar, as bad as it hurt when I managed to get them open. Nothing but a blur. The gunk in my eyes was like looking through a thick fog.

One breath. Another. It so hurt to breathe. Did one part of me not ache?

Blink. Blink away the gunk. There, everything came into focus.

I frowned. It looked like I was in some kind of hotel room with boarded-up windows.

Before, I couldn’t open my eyes. Now I couldn’t get myself to close them.

Every lump in the mattress beneath my back bruised my skin, and I felt pain at the bottom of my backside. The caning on top of everything else. A dizzying sensation wanted to take me away to some kind of black hole. Maybe I wanted that. Maybe I wanted the black hole to swallow me. Maybe I didn’t want to face reality. Because I knew there was a reality beyond this threadbare room. A new reality. A reality I didn’t want. A reality I would find a way to overcome. But... what—when—how did I get here? The how and why touched the fringes of my mind like cold fungus. And days . . . days of broth and water and the toilet and baths . . . it all seemed surreal.

I’d been here awhile, but I’d never been so aware since I came to this place.

What place?

Deep breath. Face more reality, Steele.

For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that I had a name.

Lexi Steele.

Lexi.

My chest hurt when I held my breath before turning my head to my right. A worn-out chair next to a nightstand with a reading lamp.

A flash of memories hit me from nowhere. A flood of memories. I had a partner. Donovan. Nick Donovan. I worked for—for an organization called RED. I was a special agent and was an assassin. Yes, that was me.

I was a killer.

More memories bombarded me and I wanted to hold my stomach with both hands.

Cabot.

Every blow to my body came as clear to me as if he was beating me now.