Vendetta (12 page)

“This is my fault,” he mumbled. “I know this was my fault, but I’m asking you to come back to me. I’m asking you to forgive me and fight your way back to me.” He pulled one of his military medals of honor from a closed compartment on his shirt. He always took that medal into battle. He remembered when he got it, how his team had laughed at him and picked on him, telling him that piece of honor might just save his life. They were teasing in fun when they clipped it onto his shirt before he put on his vest. They couldn’t have known that they would be right. He had taken a hit, and the bullet went through his armor. The only thing that stopped it from lodging in his chest was that piece of medal they had pinned on him. He hadn’t gone into battle without it since that time. It was his lucky charm, so to speak, and now it would be hers. He placed the Purple Heart in her left hand and closed her fingers over it. “I’m here,” he said. “Come back to me.”

“Thomas.”

He turned, hearing her voice. He couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t expecting it.

“I heard about Thena and I came straight from New York. I’m so sorry,” Eve went to his side and pulled his head against her stomach. “She’s going to be okay, Thomas. You have to believe that.”

“I thought you were still overseas.”

“I was on my way back, probably by the time you found out I was gone. Then I heard from Alyssa and she told me about Thena. I wanted to be here for you like you were for me.”

“I might lose her,” he wrapped his arm around Eve’s waist and pulled himself closer to her. She placed her hand on his head, cradling him with comfort. He felt the tears burning his eyes and no matter how hard he fought, he couldn’t stop the floodgates from opening. He couldn’t stop the pain from stabbing him through. And the entire time he convulsed in her arms, Eve held him, whispering words of comfort and assuring him Thena was going to live. Hadn’t he said those same words to her once? He had assured her the doctors thought Adam was going to be fine, the man was a fighter and he was going to make it. The outcome had been vastly different. He had died in a hospital bed exactly like the one Thena was lying on now.

Eve lowered her head to his and placed a soft kiss on the top of his head. “She’s going to be okay,” she said softly. “She’s going to survive.” He wrapped his other arm around her, holding her completely as he buried his face against her stomach. Composure wasn’t an option for him right now because he was so far gone with grief that he couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

“When you need to leave I’ll stay here with her.”

“I can’t leave her.”

“You have to,” she said. “You can’t let him get away with this. He’s trying to slow you down because you’re closer to him than you’ve ever been. If you stop now then he wins. You have to find him, and you have to stop him.”

He knew she was right, but at this moment he couldn’t imagine leaving Thena there. What if he left and she didn’t make it? But did he really want to be there to watch her die? Eve had watched Adam lose his battle and it had broken her. She was still broken. But would it be any easier if he weren’t there when the lines went flat? He didn’t imagine it would be.

“Shawn is downstairs in the lounge. I saw him before I came up. He wanted me to tell you he’s sorry. He feels as if he should have been able to stop it.”

“He couldn’t have known, but I should have.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Thomas. This is Sabian’s doing, not yours. Now,” she brushed her fingers through his hair. “Shawn and I are going to stay. Kyle seems to be firmly planted too, except for when he has to leave without choice. She’ll be guarded.”

“Shawn can’t stay here all day. He has work.”

“They fired him,” she said. “His superiors didn’t want him involved with this. He reminded them you helped them out on a high profile case, and they reminded him that they didn’t care. So, they fired him. He’s an on duty bodyguard right now and he’ll figure it out from there, so he says. The nurses and doctors don’t know he doesn’t have any pull on the force yet and he’d like to keep it that way in case he needs to use his previous title to get her moved to a safer room later.”

“I can’t believe this.” He pulled back and looked up at Eve. “I’m destroying lives and careers left and right.”

“You’re not destroying anything. Shawn made a choice. In fact, I think he said something about thinking of being a PI anyway.” She ran her fingers through his hair again. “He’ll be okay, as will Thena.”

“I’ll take him in on the business and make the man a partner if he wants. He deserves that and more.” He nearly growled, his anger returning with a vengeance.

“I also saw a very beautiful Valencia in the hall. She’s standing at attention outside the door. She’s prettier than I thought she would be—younger too. I thought she would be old and battered.” She shrugged. “Perception…” she shook her head. “She’s good people, Thomas. I’m glad she’s on your side. She saved your life once; looks to me as if she’s ready to do it again.”

“Yes,” he acknowledged. “She’s an amazing woman.”

“Thomas,” Eve pulled his head back to ensure he was looking at her once more. “I know your pain. I know the thoughts going through your mind because I’ve had those same thoughts. I know what it feels like to wonder if you had done something different, if the person you love would be safe, at home, and in your arms; and I know those thoughts can destroy you. I don’t want that for you.”

“I don’t want that for you either.”

“It’s too late for me, Thomas. I live with this guilt and pain every day. I’m trying to keep my head above water when most days I feel as if I’m twenty thousand leagues below.” She shook her head and took a deep breath trying to calm her emotions; trying to be strong for him. “Thena’s going to be okay, Thomas. You have to believe that. You have to keep your head above water without any fog, because when she wakes up I refuse to be the one to tell her you got yourself captured by the enemy because you couldn’t think straight because of her. Don’t leave that behind for her. Because she is going to wake up, Thomas. And you better get your behind back here so she can open those beautiful eyes and see you when she does.”

He hugged her once more before pulling back. “God I love you, Eve. You’re my little sister, but sometimes I think maybe your wisdom has us all beat.” Right now she was his voice of reason in the midst of chaos, and without her he wouldn’t be able to keep the fog threatening to cloud his judgment from taking over.

Chapter Ten

T
homas had stayed with Thena as long as he could, but once arrangements were in place for her safety, he returned to Texas with Valencia. The anger and hostility they all felt had increased the second the call about Thena came in. What made things worse is they hadn’t been able to break their prisoner. They couldn’t even get name rank and serial number from him. Sabian had trained some dedicated men—too bad they weren’t dedicated to protecting the country as much as they were to making money and protecting a traitor.

Sully ran his hand along the stubble growing along his jaw. If Drake couldn’t get anything and he, himself, couldn’t get anything then he wasn’t sure what Valencia thought she could do, but she had come into the room, looking docile and innocent, and calmly said, “My turn,” before sitting a small case down on the stand. The man expertly chained to the sitting chair simply tossed his head back and laughed.

“You can go now,” she told the men standing in the room. Thomas looked as if he were ready to just shoot the bastard right that instant, but they all knew they needed information that they weren’t soon to get without this man.

“Are you sure?” Sully mumbled.

“Sure. I haven’t done this in a while.” She opened her case exposing several small blades and other devices that he hadn’t seen before and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what each one was used for. “As I remember it used to be fun,” she smiled. “Some might call me a sadist,” she shook her head. “They might be right.” She ran her fingers along the selection until she found her weapon of choice. “Don’t come to me,” she told them. “I’ll come to you.”

“I’m going to get out of here and kill all of you,” their prisoner grumbled. His blond hair was low cut along the sides and higher in the top. He was short, maybe five seven at best, but he was also big, like a bodybuilder.

“Go on,” Valencia shooed them away.

“I’m going to start with her,” he yelled.

They reluctantly left the room and sat at the table outside, waiting to see if Valencia could get any farther than they had. When they heard the screaming Gavin had jumped up quickly and was ready to rush the door until Thomas grabbed his arm. “That’s not her,” he said.

“Oh,” Gavin mumbled before sitting back down. The man was screaming like a girl. “What is she doing in there?”

He wanted to know the same thing. They had all tried varying tactics, and maybe that’s why they weren’t working. They were using things they learned in their military days, and they were interrogating him as if he had some legal rights that needed to be attended to. Valencia clearly had a different method.

First came the high pitched screaming, then gibberish as if the man was spilling his guts and then nothing, before the door opened and Valencia surfaced. “He said Sabian has another facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He had a rough estimate of the location based on some conversations they’d had recently, but he had never been to the spot. What he did know should get us close. We’ll need to map it out. He also said you’re too late to stop the events that were put in motion. He mentioned something about sweet rhapsody, but nothing more concrete. That’s all I could get for you.”

They walked inside the room and what they saw shocked all of them. The man was missing body parts, but the amount of blood had been minimal.

“You cut off his fingers?”

“He didn’t need those in order to talk,” she said as if that should have been understandable.

“That’s not all she cut off,” Gavin pointed to an area that all the men instinctively covered.

“He didn’t need that either.”

“We were going to turn him over to the proper authorities,” Drake looked at the man in front of him. Clearly he wasn’t still breathing.

“Oh,” she said in a tone that was purely innocent. “You should have told me that before you left me in here. I did most of my training with the Japanese mafia. We don’t leave an enemy behind alive.”

“And they say I’m lethal,” Drake mumbled.

“Wow,” Sully mumbled. “I’m glad you’re on our side.”

“Me too,” she freely admitted. “You all are savagely vicious when you’re angry.”

“We are savagely vicious!” Sully looked shocked. “You just…you just…” he pointed to the man in the chair.

“All I did was interrogate him. I didn’t give him a beating or anything,” she eyed Gavin suspiciously noting the bruises on the man’s face.

Gavin shrugged. “He called my wife a racial slur, and then talked about all the things he planned to do to her when he had a moment alone with her little body; there’s no forgiving that.”

She nodded. “Nobody messes with my family and gets away with it either.” In other words, she wasn’t going to condemn Gavin for using that man’s face as a punching bag. Sully liked this woman already. She was the only woman on their team, and she was definitely the lethal link they needed. She wasn’t bound to the same rules they were. She lived by a different code and right now they needed that.

It had been three days since Valencia got a basic location on Sabin, but what they hadn’t pinpointed was the exact spot of his facility, but they were narrowing it down—slowly. “Sweet rhapsody,” Drake mumbled. He couldn’t figure out what that had to do with anything Sabian could be working on.

Gavin shrugged. “Name of their mission maybe?”

“It sounds familiar,” he noted. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“What we were carrying was top secret,” Thomas said absently. “Guess since it’s missing it won’t hurt to tell you all about it.”

“Thomas…”

“Sully, I don’t even care anymore. Somebody in the government is helping this sick bastard cover his tracks. Why should I keep their secrets any longer?” He stood and walked over to the window, looking out into the distance as if he didn’t even see the land in front of him. Drake knew where his mind was. He was worried about Thena. He had called Eve several times each day trying to see if there had been any change in her condition. There hadn’t. She was still in a coma. She was still in ICU. She was still stable but critical.

“It was an electronic chip. It was some new invention that was supposed to revolutionize the weapons guidance systems, only it was different. It was meant for something they were building elsewhere, but they didn’t tell us what. What we knew was that it was vital to world security, not just the U.S. They didn’t let us forget how vital it was that our package didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Of course they never told us what it was doing out of the country in the first place.”

“I know there’s been some hush hush work at the Pentagon,” Drake noted. “I know there had been a lot of chatter about some new, detailed and deadly scientific work, but from what I hear it’s nowhere near completion, or test phase for that matter.”

“Well it was important to somebody because they killed a lot of good men to get their hands on that package.”