Traitorous Attraction (20 page)

Outside in the yard, Connor waved to Finn. He lowered the chopper once, and Connor seized the dangling harness, fighting off prisoners who grabbed at it. He didn’t trust that Aiden had enough strength to hold on to a rope. Strapping his brother in, Connor wrapped himself around Aiden. Other inmates reached for the chopper like a lifeline. They couldn’t airlift anyone else. They didn’t have enough fuel to support more weight.

“Let go,” Connor shouted. Some of the inmates were staring in shock as if they couldn’t process what was happening. A few stepped back. Only one clung to the metal frame. His small body didn’t release at Connor’s command.

“You’re going to be killed,” Connor said. “We don’t have enough fuel.”

The man wouldn’t be reasoned with. He had latched on and wasn’t letting go. It was his life, and Connor didn’t have the heart to rip the man off the chopper and throw him to the ground. Taking his chances on a risky jailbreak was his decision. Falling from hundreds of feet in the air and hitting the ground was an ugly way to die.

Finn was pulling the chopper off the ground. Connor held on to the rope and his brother with every ounce of strength he had. Amid the gunfire, a flash of hot searing pain speared through his leg. He needed his hands to support his weight and he ignored the burn and focused on staying conscious. The most important part of the mission was complete. Aiden was out.

Connor looked at his leg. Bright red colored his pant leg. He’d been hit by a guard’s bullet. Dangling from the end of a rope swinging from a chopper while under fire, he’d be lucky not to be struck again. Aiden was in bad shape and Connor didn’t know if he would survive more injuries. He hadn’t had time to assess his brother’s condition.

The rope began to retract into the chopper. Finn was a miracle worker. The farther they got from the prison, the safer they were.

“Are you okay?” Connor asked his brother.

Aiden nodded and closed his eyes. The thin man from the yard continued to cling to the chopper. Tenacious little man. Hopefully, his small stature wouldn’t affect their fuel and fly time too drastically.

Despite the burning pain in his leg, Connor had never been happier to see his little brother. They were close to the chopper’s cabin when he realized he hadn’t heard Kate’s voice. The shared line was silent.

“K, are you there?” Connor asked.

Finn’s voice came on the line. “Two immediate threats. Someone named Marcus was with K, demanding you go to
el presidente
’s palace and turn yourself in to rescue K and A. And I’ve got someone on my tail.”

Connor looked around and saw a helicopter racing toward them. They didn’t have enough fuel to engage in a chase. Considering the extra hundred-plus pounds they were carrying, they were in bad enough shape. “Pull us in.”

“I’m trying,” Finn said, veering the chopper in another direction. Connor had never been afraid of heights, but after this experience, he might change that and join Kate in her terror of it.

As the rope got shorter, Connor pulled himself into the cabin and then dragged Aiden inside. He tossed the rope down and, against his better judgment, helped pull the small man into the cabin with them. The man was surprisingly strong and nimble.

“Thank you,” the man said, his entire body trembling with fatigue and fear.

Connor’s leg was covered in blood, and dizziness overwhelmed him. “I’ve been shot.”

Finn looked over his shoulder. “Wrap that before you bleed out. I can’t help at the moment. I haven’t shaken the tail.”

Aiden reached for the first-aid kit, and he and the small man helped with Connor’s bleeding.

“Hold on back there,” Finn said. “This maneuver might make you green.”

Connor controlled the contents of his stomach as Finn lowered the chopper. He had lost too much blood. He was thirsty, and shock and adrenaline were wearing off, giving way to pain and dizziness.

“Where’s K? Did she shake Marcus?” Connor asked. She was his priority now.

“She’d better be at the meeting point, but it sounds like she ran into trouble. I’ll get us down and we need to bolt. These jokers are persistent,” Finn said.

Aiden pressed hard over Connor’s injury and spoke to the smaller man. “I saw you around the prison. You never spoke to anyone. Who are you?”

“Hyde,” the man said and nothing else. He sat quietly with his legs folded as if staying quiet and tiny enough would make him disappear. Though La Sabaneta contained some of the most dangerous men in the country, it was difficult to picture this man being capable of such a title.

Finn brought the chopper down in an open field in a landing that surprised Connor with how gentle it was. Given the situation, he was bracing to be slammed to the ground. They climbed out of the cabin and grabbed the camouflage sheet. With some struggle and with Hyde’s help, they pulled it over the aircraft. Detection from the air would be more difficult, but not impossible. None of their precautions was foolproof. The Tumaran government wouldn’t give up looking for them that easily.

Connor’s chest tightened at the empty off-road vehicle waiting for them. Kate and Ariana hadn’t made it.

“Where are they?” Connor asked, pressing down on the injury on his leg. Had Kate fought off Marcus?

“They?” Aiden asked.

“Ariana and Kate Squire.”

Joy erupted across Aiden’s face. “Ariana is alive?”

“Yes, and she’s supposed to meet us here,” Connor said.

“We need to go. We won’t have long before someone finds us,” Finn said.

“Give them a few minutes,” Connor said. His argument with Kate the night before flashed into his mind, and he tamped down the guilt and frustration that came with it. He had told Kate he loved her and he still did.

He was disappointed that she had lied to him. Was it necessary for every person he loved to betray him? Couldn’t he have just one relationship where the other person treated him with honesty and respect? He hadn’t spoken the right words to her and he hadn’t known what to say that morning. Did she understand how important the truth was to him in matters of his heart? Connor shook off those thoughts. Of course Kate understood what was important to him. No one else in the world had ever understood him as deeply as she seemed to. Fight or not, why hadn’t he told her that this morning?

The state of their personal relationship wasn’t important at the moment. All that mattered was that she was part of this mission; therefore, he had to help her. He left no man—or woman—behind. That meant he had to find Ariana and Kate.

“You coming?” Connor asked Hyde.

The man nodded and climbed into the vehicle. It was either his lucky day or the last one of his life.

Chapter 13

C
onnor stared at Aiden. Just stared at him. It was like seeing someone who’d come back from the dead. In some ways, Aiden had.

“Want to talk about it?” Aiden asked, catching his brother looking at him. He put down his fork and took a long drink from the cup next to his plate. It seemed as if Aiden had been eating and drinking since the moment they had crossed the border from Tumara into Theos. Theos wasn’t an ally or enemy to Tumara, and they maintained their neutrality. Theos was the Switzerland of South America.

Connor winced. He wasn’t great at talking about problems, and while he wanted to improve, starting the conversation was hard. To make it worse, his leg burned like fire. Though the doctor who’d performed the surgery on his calf had advised against it, Connor was putting weight on his leg, testing it and forcing it to bear weight. Though the bullet that hit him had been a through and through, Connor still needed time for it to fully recover. Time he didn’t have with Kate and Ariana being held at
el presidente
’s palace. “When you disappeared all those months ago, I thought I would never get over it. There was so much unsaid between us.”

Aiden took a seat next to his brother. His limp was less noticeable. He would need an orthopedic surgeon to repair the damage that had been done when a broken leg hadn’t been set properly and had healed incorrectly. “Then say it now. Tell me what you wanted to say and couldn’t. I’m listening now.”

With his brother in front of him, Connor’s throat grew tight with emotion, and the words lodged in his chest, unable to form on his tongue. Why was this so hard for him?

Aiden rolled his eyes. “We’ll start with an easy one. How is it that you fell in love with Kate?”

Connor looked away. That wasn’t an easy question. His feelings for Kate were a mix of love, betrayal and camaraderie. “She asked me for help to find you.”

“No kidding,” Aiden said, leaning back in his chair. “I knew there was something special about that woman. Have you seen her on the computer? I have never seen fingers move so fast. A real thinker. I’d heard of her before I met her, and when I found out we’d be working together, I did a jig. I had the best computer and analytical support looking out for me.”

“She made a mistake that caused you to be captured.”

“What mistake?” Aiden asked.

“The night you disappeared, she had intel about a planned raid against the AR. She didn’t pass it on to you.”

Aiden arched a brow. “The government is always planning raids against the AR. I knew Sphere suspected I had flipped sides, and I knew they were coming for me. They wanted the Tumaran government to kill me and make it look like I had been a casualty of the war with the AR or one of their victims.”

“Why didn’t they kill you?” Connor asked.

“I made for better leverage alive than dead,” Aiden said.

“Maybe Sphere didn’t know where you were after the raid and they were using me to find you,” Connor said, the theory gaining some traction. When Kate had brought evidence from Marcus to Sphere that Aiden was alive, Sphere could have decided to use her to find Aiden, a task they hadn’t been able to accomplish themselves. They had her psychological profile. They had to know she wouldn’t have walked away and left Aiden in danger.

“Was her contact in on it the whole time? Did he feed her the bait?” Aiden asked.

Hard to say, but it didn’t jibe with Connor, not after what he had seen of Marcus. “I don’t think so. Marcus works for the Tumaran government. I think he was helping Kate and then he flipped on her for cash. The Tumaran government knew where you were. If they had shared that with Sphere, you would be dead and Sphere wouldn’t have needed to use me and Kate to find you.”

Aiden dropped his head, and when he lifted it, he looked exhausted. “Best-case scenario, I’m facing treason charges for helping the AR. Worst-case scenario, I return home in a wooden box.”

“I won’t let them kill you,” Connor said.

“I’ve made a lot of enemies. I’ll find Ariana and we’ll be together. In Tumara, somewhere else—it doesn’t matter to me as long as I’m with her,” Aiden said. “Probably what you’re thinking about Kate.”

Aiden was wrong on that count. Connor hadn’t made any future plans with Kate. “She lied to me.” The burn of her lie coursed through him all over again. What made her lie worse was that she had earned his trust. He had stopped believing that she was outright conning him and started thinking about her as a partner and a friend.

Aiden inclined his head. “That doesn’t sound like Kate. You mean she lied about something regarding Sphere? Because you know we’ve all lied about that place and the work we’ve done for them.”

“No, not about Sphere. About you. She knew more about your disappearance than she initially told me.”

Aiden lifted his brows. “So you said. What’s your point?”

His brother wasn’t upset that she had withheld information that could have helped them? “She should have told me everything. Your life was at stake.”

“Come on, Connor. I’m calling you out on that. Do you really believe she should have confided in a stranger classified information about my disappearance?” Aiden asked. “You know that’s not how it works. Sphere agents are conditioned to be tight-lipped. We’ve each signed the agreement to stay quiet on matters related to and affecting our missions.”

Connor propped his leg on the coffee table. It was throbbing hard and aching. “She should have trusted me.”

Aiden threw back his head and laughed. “She should have trusted you? This coming from the man who trusts no one? Who suspects everyone is out to get him? Who lives in the freaking woods in the middle of nowhere so he doesn’t risk interacting with a neighbor because God forbid you make a new friend?”

Connor stiffened. “That’s not true.” Not all of it.

“Connor, I love you. You’re my brother and you’re the only one I’ll ever have. But sometimes you are too hard on other people and too hard on yourself. You’re even hard on the people who love you. Put yourself in Kate’s shoes for a minute. How much courage did it take for her to find you?”

A lot. Massive brass. “I never said she was cowardly,” Connor mumbled.

“Cut her a break. Cut yourself a break. When you talk about her, you actually smile. Will you let her get away because she didn’t give you classified information on day one?”

“She had plenty of opportunities to tell me after day one.” His argument was sounding lame even to him.

Aiden shook his head. “You can’t write people off the first time they make a mistake. If you do that, you’ll never get close to anyone. You’ll never get to that point where the relationship has substance and really matters.” Aiden brought his finger to his lips. “Oh, wait. That describes you exactly. Everyone is allowed in to a very shallow point, and then, at the smallest infraction, they’re done and you throw them out.”

Connor held back the denial. He had known he had overreacted to Kate’s admission, but Aiden was helping him see it from Kate’s point of view. Perhaps she had done the best she could. Perhaps she had told him everything she could at the time. In this instance, Connor had made a mistake, too. He had been quick to dismiss her. She had said she loved him and cared about him. She deserved better from him. An honest conversation, or at a minimum, he could have listened to her and not stalked away, running from the situation. He was ashamed of his behavior, and deep regret sluiced over him. He needed to talk to her and couldn’t. She was somewhere at the hands of
el presidente,
a man known for his ice-cold detachment, severe punishments and general ruthlessness.

Aiden sat forward. “No sharp reply? Let me put it to you another way. I talk to Mom. I even talk to Dad about more than the obligatory ‘how is that place treating you’ topics. You know why I’ve never talked to you about it?”

Connor replayed Aiden’s words. Aiden spoke to their mother? The woman who had walked out on them and had abandoned them years before when they’d needed her? “I have many questions about that trinket of information, but I’m guessing you never told me because you didn’t think I cared.” If that was Aiden’s assumption, he would have been right. Connor wouldn’t have wanted to hear about it.

Aiden shook his head. “Nope. I never told you because every time I’ve tried, you cut me off. You make it impossible to tell you or talk to you about it. You don’t want Mom and Dad in your life and you’ve made that clear. What was I going to do about it? Hammer you with it until I beat you into submission and made you listen?”

“You could have told me,” Connor said, questioning how he felt about this. His curiosity about Aiden’s relationship with their parents was a surprise. He shouldn’t care what his brother chose to do or say to them.

“You don’t listen, so I don’t talk about it.”

Connor hadn’t realized his brother felt this way. “What is there to say about them? Mom left us and Dad hated us. Why would I want people like that in my life?” For the first time since he was a child, he wanted Aiden to give him a reason why it was worth having them in his life. Almost losing Aiden had opened Connor’s eyes to how precious time with family was. If something happened to their parents, would Connor have to live with the same regret he’d felt after Aiden disappeared? Worse still, would he have to live with the regret of not making up with Kate?

Aiden threw his hands in the air. “You’re doing it again. You’re giving your side of the story from the perspective of a child. You’ve never stopped to ask questions or find out what happened between Mom and Dad.”

It was a painful part of his life he didn’t want to relive. “What happened between them wasn’t my concern.” He had cared only about how his parents as individuals had treated him and Aiden. In this case, it wasn’t well.

“Would it surprise you to learn that Mom and Dad fought hard and viciously to get custody of us? Dad dragged Mom’s name through the mud during the custody battle to make sure she couldn’t take us away. Mom borrowed a great deal of money and put herself in deep debt to hire lawyers to fight for us, for all the good it did.”

His father had never spoken about what had happened between him and his wife. What Aiden described of their father hurting their mother fit what Connor knew of him. “Mom and Dad fought for custody of us?” Both their parents had wanted them. That knowledge lightened and softened the darkest, most hardened place of his soul.

Aiden nodded. “Dad had reasons to be angry with her. Mom had an affair and she openly admits it was wrong. She tried to explain it to me, the why and the how, but mostly she feels sorry for what it did to us and our family.”

Their mother’s affair was news to Connor. He wanted to hear what else Aiden knew.

“When Dad found out Mom was cheating on him, he filed for divorce and for sole custody of us. Mom fought it, but Dad had more money and more resources. When she lost us, she returned to England. She said her heart was broken and she had no reason to stay,” Aiden said.

“She never called. Or wrote.”

“She says she did for a while, but Dad wouldn’t let the calls or letters through. By the time we were adults, you wouldn’t speak to her even when she reached out.”

Twice. His mother had tried to contact him twice during adulthood. “Why did Dad want us if he hated us?”

“He doesn’t hate us. He never hated us.” Aiden looked at the ground. “He didn’t know how to be a single parent and how to deal with the stress. I know as the older brother you took most of the beatings. You put yourself in the way so that I was spared. You antagonized Dad to keep him away from me. I didn’t realize how bad it was for you. Now that I look back, I carry a tremendous amount of guilt, knowing what you did for me and what it cost you.”

“I didn’t do any of it to make you feel guilty,” Connor said.

“I know that. But you took on more than a child should. Dad was an alcoholic, and he was angry and depressed, and he needed help. He didn’t know how to deal with life, and being a single father was terrifying for him. He acted out when he was frustrated, which was most of the time.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Connor said.

“No, it’s not. But it’s an explanation. It wasn’t the childhood I wanted, but it was a childhood that made me strong. It made me the man I am today.”

Connor had never heard Aiden speak like this. Usually carefree and lighthearted, his younger brother went along with what Connor wanted and said. Though he’d contradicted him, Connor liked this side of Aiden, even if what he was saying made Connor uncomfortable.

Connor questioned his choices regarding his family. Why had he refused to allow their mother in his life? Why was he cold and distant with his father over hurt that had ended decades before? Why was he so quick to cut people—Kate, most recently—out of his life?

It didn’t take weeks of therapy to draw a conclusion. Connor sealed people out because he didn’t want to be hurt. But by isolating himself from the potential to be hurt, he was isolating himself from the people who loved him. Connor stood and reached for his brother. He drew him into an awkward hug.

Aiden responded by putting his arms around his brother and hugging him back. “I missed you, big brother.”

Though they had both gotten misty, they cleared their throats and patted each other’s backs and released each other.

“I made a mistake with Kate.” And perhaps with their mother and father, too.

Aiden shrugged. “Find a way to make it right. We will get Ariana and Kate out. And when we do, you’ll have the chance to tell her how you feel.”

Connor scrubbed a hand across his face. “Do you think she knows I’m coming for them? She needs me now. She needs me to find her.”

Aiden twisted his mouth in thought. “We’re both going to find them. No arguments about that. Kate and Ariana may know we’re trying. I don’t know how much about the prison break they know. Regardless, I doubt they’re sitting around waiting. They’re capable women. They could find a way out on their own. They’re fighters.”

“Like you found a way out on your own?” Connor asked drily.

Aiden laughed. “Time would have told. I was close to getting out. If it wasn’t for this bum leg, I would have climbed out.”