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“Are you sure about this?”
In the privacy of the bedroom, Jaia watched Brandon worriedly as he tugged a shirt over his head, covering the muscular contours she was unable to fully appreciate given the level of anxiety grinding a hole in the pit of her stomach.
“Yeah, it’ll be okay,” he said, tugging the hem over the waistband of his jeans and gave her a reassuring smile that eased the knot in her middle a bit. “I’ll meet with Agent Forster and his boss and feel them out before I tell them anything. I won’t be gone long, a few hours max. One agent will stay in the house with you the whole time, and the other’s posted outside to keep watch. And my number’s programmed into the phone I gave you if you need me before that.”
The burner phone and personal security detail was the only thing allowing her to keep her fear inside. The two FBI agents had arrived ten minutes ago and met briefly with them both before going on duty.
She was as safe as she’d been since this whole thing started, and as safe as she was going to get until this was all over.
“You’ll tell me everything they say?” She hated being left out but understood that until they knew who to trust with all of this, she was safer here than going with him.
He shot her a funny look. “Of course I will.” He closed the space between them, slid his hands around her waist and tugged her to him. “Hey. We agreed we have to start somewhere, right?”
She nodded, ordering herself not to cry as her throat thickened. It wasn’t the meeting she objected to. It was being separated from him. Even with two trained FBI agents here to guard her, she would still rather be with Brandon. He made her feel safe.
She took a steadying breath. Hopefully after this, things would move quickly toward a resolution and maybe she and Brandon would be put into a proper safe house together for the duration. She was looking forward to being able to breathe easier and let her guard down. Constantly being on edge and waiting for another threat to pop out of nowhere was taking a toll on her.
His hand came up to wrap around the back of her neck. “It’s going to get better after this.”
She forced a smile even as her eyes stung. She wanted to believe it. Desperately wanted to feel safe again, to not have to look over her shoulder. To be able to actually live again. To think about the future. About her and Brandon.
Because there was no way she could just walk away after this and pretend he hadn’t stolen her heart. “Yes.”
He dipped his head, his lips finding hers. She leaned into the kiss, wrapping her arms tightly around his back. After a moment he chuckled softly and raised his head. “Hold that thought, beautiful.”
The compliment made her flush and fight a smile. They had only spent a few days together, but with everything that had happened and the intensity of it all it felt much longer.
Last night had broken through many of the emotional walls she’d thrown up to protect herself against becoming attached to someone else, and then the inevitable pain of losing them. She had never been intimate with anyone outside of a committed relationship until him, but he made it impossible to stay emotionally distant.
He kept surprising her. Showing her parts of him that made her want to keep peeling the layers back until she knew them all. Taking her off guard with his tenderness and unexpected passion.
Her growing feelings for him were as startling as they were alarming. The future remained so uncertain, yet even if this all ended tomorrow and they were both safe to go back to their lives, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him. Losing Sukhi had been the hardest thing she’d ever gone through.
She didn’t want to grieve all over again when she and Brandon parted ways. It was so damn unfair that he’d already gotten so deep under her skin and into her heart.
“Be careful,” she murmured, unable to shake the anxiety that something would happen to him.
“I will.” Staring deep into her eyes for another moment, he kissed her once more and straightened. “Be back soon,” he said, squeezing her hip as he left the room.
Jaia exhaled and leaned her back against the closed door, the worry returning in a rush. She could hear Brandon’s deep voice in the kitchen as he spoke to one of the agents, then the side door opening and closing. Moments later she heard the sound of the rental car starting up in the driveway.
When the purr of the engine faded away into silence beneath the hushed sound of the waves across the street, she released a long breath. She needed to do something productive and occupy her mind with something other than thinking about all the things that could go wrong during the meeting.
“Right. Best get to work.”
She retrieved her laptop from the kitchen. The agent was standing beside the counter running along the front wall. He nodded politely at her as he spoke to someone on his phone. The other was posted outside somewhere, watching the street and house.
Back in the bedroom, she leaned back against the headboard and sat cross-legged, balancing her laptop on her splayed thighs. The lists she had shown Brandon were hidden in a special folder on her hard drive.
She perused the names again, mentally compiling what she knew about the men. She had reached out to all but a handful of guys listed who had been in Yemen with her brother. The remainder she still hadn’t found any contact information for.
Some of these men had been there during the infamous January 17th incident in Aden. Some of them had actively participated in the slaughtering of unarmed civilians. Women, children and old men. Why? What would have made them do something like that? All she had at this point were theories, and all of them disturbing.
She didn’t know whether Sukhi had been there and seen it in person, or if he’d only heard about it later, but she was convinced that wanting to expose it had gotten him killed.
Some of the men on this list would know the truth about how he died. Months had passed without anything being done about it. It infuriated her that no one had come forward about any of it.
She accessed the internet and used a VPN to resume her search for the few men she had yet to contact. Her research showed that after leaving Graystone, most of these guys had either taken other security jobs elsewhere in a variety of sectors or left that world completely and gone back to school for other things. Some had led stable, productive lives and had families.
A few others had spiraled out of control. Several had even killed themselves. Whatever secrets they knew, they’d taken with them to their graves.
No one wanted to talk about what had happened over there. It was up to people like her and Brandon to gather all the evidence they could and shine a spotlight on what had taken place. Only then could true justice be served.
If she could just find one person brave enough to come forward and tell the truth, maybe that would shift the overwhelming tide she and Brandon had been struggling against alone thus far. Hopefully the FBI would help, but she wasn’t counting on it, just in case.
She was in the middle of searching for people to contact in the hopes of tracking down some of the missing former Graystone contractors on her list, when she heard a faint pop from outside. A moment later she heard the agent in the kitchen talking to someone.
She relaxed and stretched her neck and back. An hour had passed since Brandon had left. They hadn’t gotten much sleep last night and it was catching up to her. Some homemade chai was just what she needed.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she paused when she heard rushing footsteps heading from the kitchen to the side door. It opened. Another muted pop came from somewhere outside.
Frowning, she got up, cautiously opened the door and peered down the hall. She jolted when the agent who had just been in the kitchen suddenly stumbled back inside, blood pouring from a wound in his chest.
He aimed a pistol through the door and fired two shots in the direction of the driveway. She jumped, frozen, the gunshots loud as cannon blasts to her ringing ears. Shoving the door shut behind him, the agent collapsed to his knees with a grunt, a hand pressed to his wound.
Without thinking she rushed toward him, fear streaking through her. Oh my god, they’re here. They’ve come for me.
His gaze snapped to hers. “No, Jaia,” he rasped out, pain etched into his features. “Run. Run.”
Torn, she did as he said, spinning around to flee back into the bedroom, locking the door with shaking hands. The agent at the door would die without immediate help, and from that other muted pop outside earlier, she had to assume the other agent had been killed or wounded too.
Yanking out her phone to dial 911, she raced for the closet, hoping to find an access panel to an attic where she could hide. But there was nothing. No way out except the window that faced the side yard.
Her skin crawled, the urgency inside her screaming to flee. She only had seconds to make a decision. If she stayed, she would either be captured or killed. She needed to get out of here before they breached the house, call for help and alert Brandon.
There was no time to shut down her laptop. She shoved it between the mattress and the box spring and ran to the window, sliding it open as quickly as she dared, cringing at the noise. Cold, misty air rolled over her as she hoisted herself up onto the sill to peer outside, fear seizing her muscles.
She checked left and right. Clear so far.
She swung her legs over the edge and hopped down. The damp grass soaked her socks as she ran for the adjoining neighbor’s backyard, not daring to go near the road. She squelched the urge to scream for help, afraid the attackers would shoot her down before she could escape.
A wooden privacy fence divided the properties. There was no gate. The only way across was over the top of it.
She raced for the section closest to her, grabbed the top and jumped, straining to heave her body weight up to throw her leg over. Her heart stopped when she heard feet pounding over the grass behind her. She cast a terrified glance over her shoulder.
Her shrill cry was cut off by hard, relentless arms locking around her waist.
One moment she was clinging to the top of the fence for dear life. The next she was ripped free, those powerful arms clamping around her ribs.
“Let me go!” She bucked, twisted as she tried to claw the restraining hands off her.
The man merely tightened his grip and ran with her toward the road, her struggles and screams seeming no more bothersome to him than a toddler having a tantrum.
Panic clawed at her. He was not taking her.
In desperation, she wrenched her head to the side to sink her teeth into his shoulder. He shifted her, putting her teeth out of reach just in time and crushed her to him, immobilizing everything but her legs.
She kicked at him, ignoring the pain shooting through her socked feet. “Help! Somebody help me!” Why wasn’t anyone doing anything? There was no way at least one neighbor hadn’t heard her or the shots.
Another bolt of fear tore through her when they reached the driveway. The other agent was sprawled facedown by his car, sightless eyes staring at nothing, his blood running down the driveway.
A van raced up to the curb. A man wearing a cap and dressed in dark clothes jumped out and opened the back.
Her heart lurched, stomach clenching hard. “No!” She bucked, twisted and fought with all her might, using teeth and nails, a feral sound of rage and denial coming from her throat. This was not happening. They would not take her.
The man carrying her unceremoniously tossed her into the back like she weighed practically nothing. She landed on her side and one elbow with a thud, the force squashing the air out of her lungs.
Jaia scrambled into a sitting position, ready to lunge for the door, but her attacker jumped in after her and slammed the rear doors shut, sealing her into the darkness with him. The van took off immediately with a screech of its tires, throwing her head into the wall with a thud.
Her pulse pounded hard in her ears, the sound deafening in the sudden, awful silence.
Trapped.
Horror spread through her, far worse than the earlier panic and fear, the certainty of no escape filling her with ice. With no place to go, she shrank back until her spine hit the wall, her heart slamming so hard against her ribs she felt sick and lightheaded.
A small part of her clung to the hope that them taking her alive meant there was a chance she would survive. But the certainty that they would kill her when they were done with her extinguished that tiny hope. And whatever they planned to do to her in the meantime, all the ways they could try and extract what she knew...
She shuddered, sucked in a shaky breath. Brandon. Help me, she screamed silently.
But he couldn’t. No one could. No one even knew she’d been taken. And by the time anyone did, it would probably be too late.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Jaia.”
She went rigid at the sound of that low, calm voice in the darkness. Yeah, right. “Who are you?” she blurted, unable to conceal her alarm.
“It doesn’t matter. But I won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t believe him for a second. “What do you want?”
“I need you to tell me where Brandon is.”
Tears flooded her eyes, stoking her growing anger. She was not going to just sit here and cry, and fuck them if they thought she would endanger Brandon. “I don’t know.” She braced herself as the van took a hard right turn and sped up the street. Taking her God knew where, but no doubt to her death.
A hard, reluctant sigh gusted through the tomblike interior. “I’ll get what I need from you soon enough.”
Those terrible words echoed in her head for only a moment before she heard movement near her. She cowered into the corner, shrinking back as far as she could get.
A strong yet curiously gentle hand landed on her shoulder. She flinched, tried to twist away, then gasped at the sudden sting in her arm. Oh, shit, a needle.
“What—” A heartbeat later her head began to spin, the sense of vertigo terrifying. A heavy fog descended on her, swamping her brain, her body.
Brandon... She prayed he was safe. That the FBI hadn’t set them up.
Those same strong hands caught her as she toppled over. Laid her head on something soft. She thought she felt him brush the hair back from her face.
“Now,” he said in that calm, low voice. “Let’s see if we can get hold of Brandon.”
She felt something slip from her pocket. Her phone. The screen lit up, illuminating the harsh features of the man who’d captured her.
“N-nooo,” she slurred, barely able to form the word. Don’t call him... He would try to race to her rescue.
Which was exactly what they wanted.
