Chris ran his fingers along Abigail’s hairline, marveling at how soft her skin felt, despite the millions of little freckles that peppered her skin. He hated to leave her like this, alone in a strange place in case she came to, but he had to talk to Nathan and he didn’t want to worry about her wandering around and getting into trouble. Or worse, collapsing somewhere he couldn’t get to her.
She was going to be pissed when she woke up.
“Sierra, lock the doors behind me. She doesn’t leave.”
“Confirmed, Agent Hardy.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead, closing his eyes as his lips touched her warm skin. Her warmth seemed to spread all through his body in the brief seconds they were connected.
Then he left the room.
The entire team had already congregated when he made it to the briefing room. Jordan was at the curve of the U-shaped table, his black boots crossed at the ankles, and he leaned back in the chair, his hands behind his head. Jordan very rarely ever lost his cool, and now was no different.
Scott sat behind the computer as usual, not even glancing up as Chris entered. Scott Muldoon was the first team member Chris and Nathan picked. They’d needed a good tech guy, and Scott was the best. He’d grown up in Boston, but his computer skills had landed him in a French intelligence prison cell, which was where Nathan had recruited him.
Bea stood behind him, arms crossed and scowling. But that was par for the course for her.
The final member of their team was Jack Allen, an ex-NSA agent. But it wasn’t his time with the NSA that made him valuable. It was the fact that he’d worked for Alex Giroux for nearly a decade, first spying for him as a member of the NSA, then as his personal lapdog enforcer after that.
Chris hadn’t wanted him. He’d questioned how loyal a traitor could be, but Nathan was big on second chances. Jack had his attention on the tablet in front of him, oblivious to what was going on in the room, but then, that was Jack. He didn’t give two fucks about any of them.
“Nathan’s coming,” Jordan replied easily as Chris turned away from the table.
Fuck. He needed to talk to Nathan, but he didn’t really want to do this in front of the team.
“Nathan is here,” came the irritated voice. Chris turned just as Nathan swung his fist. The impact snapped Chris’s head to the side, pain blossoming on his cheek and spreading fast with the flow of his heartbeat as it increased. He resisted the urge to hit back because it wouldn’t solve anything. “Explain to me exactly why I have a senator’s daughter locked up in the infirmary?”
Nathan’s dark eyes flared with leashed anger. Chris knew he had probably held back on that punch. Nathan was every bit as deadly as the men and women he recruited. He’d spent a decade honing those skills, long before the Reapers were ever a thing.
“You told me to bring her here. I did.”
“I told you not to reveal your true mission here.”
“Then you tell me why her car blew the fuck up as soon as I so much as opened the damn door!” Chris growled back, gently touching his lip as he felt the trickle of blood.
“I have the Ghosts working on that. Early reports indicate there was a localized charge wired to pressure movement near the door itself.”
“You didn’t do it?” Chris asked. “To make sure she stayed?”
“No,” Nathan snapped. “I asked you to make contact and get her to trust you. Not to endanger our operation here.” He paused, his nostrils flaring with rage. “I told you not to reveal your true mission to her.”
Chris wiped away the blood with the back of his hand. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Like hell, you will,” Nathan snapped. His fist clenched again, and Chris watched him carefully. If he tried to hit him again, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself this time. “You have potentially compromised us all.”
“She doesn’t know anything yet. She’s not even awake. I sedated her.”
He pointed toward Jordan. “She recognized Jordan.”
“Because you sent him to that coffee shop and she put the pieces together!” Chris roared back. “Now, I said, I’ll handle it.”
“No,” Nathan said. “Maybe Jack should. Certainly would be more effective.”
Jack grinned, a satanic, gleeful grin that had Chris shaking with rage. He knew what Jack’s role was more than anyone else’s.
“No.” Chris blew out a breath.
“Daniel Lewis is not a man that will just let his daughter walk out of his life,” Nathan said. “He’s got investigators, mercenaries, and half the FBI looking for her right now.” He shook his head and blew out a long breath. “I needed her off the game board delicately, but it’s been given the treatment of a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.”
“Nathan, I will fix this. Okay? Let me try.”
“I’m still in favor of putting a bullet in her head,” Jack growled.
Chris’s anger spiked and his fists clenched tightly. Nathan put up a hand and every one of them stopped cold. “Hold on. This might still work in our favor. Let’s put her through her paces. Limit her access, but let’s bring her into the fold. Slowly.”
“Mr. Hardy will facilitate her induction. Let’s keep the exposure to a minimum.” Nathan turned to the rest of the team. “Mr. Muldoon, we need a full medical workup, including DNA tests, please.”
Scott nodded, grabbed his laptop, and left the room.
“Is that really necessary?” Chris asked.
Nathan’s eyes flared with carefully contained rage. “Yes, it is.” he turned to Jack. “Mr. Allen, I need you to do a full background on Miss Abigail Lewis.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Enemies. Discrepancies. Anything to identify who might bomb a car, particularly one that is Company owned, and no one should have known she had.” Nathan sighed. “It’s possible she was tagged. Mr. Levi, sweep her for bugs, please. And Miss Li,” he turned to Bea. “Run interference with Mr. Martinez. He’s more plugged into the town than you are. I’d like you to see if our big boom made the town rumor mill. Do what you can to keep it out.”
As the rest of the team shot out of the room, each on their personal task, Nathan rounded on Chris, his eyes burning with anger.
Chris straightened his shoulders. “I did what you asked. I couldn’t let her walk into town bleeding with half her clothes singed off. I made a judgment call.”
Nathan nodded. “I know. I shouldn’t have put this on you. It’s too much, considering your struggle.”
“There’s no struggle. I kept up my promise.”
“Did you?” Nathan asked. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I know that I asked you to contact her. It was a misstep on my part. You’re never going to adjust to this life as long as you have a tie to your old one.”
Chris drew in a sharp breath. “We had a deal, Nathan.”
“Yes. I know. It’s time to change it. It’s time Christopher Hardy meets his death.”
“You lying son of a bitch,” Chris spat. “We had a fucking deal.”
Nathan stepped toe to toe with Chris, his eyes dark and deadly behind his glasses. “Each of you is alive and well by my grace. In a heartbeat, I can take that away, and bury you so deep, no shovel on Earth will be able to dig you out.”
The emptiness of his eyes reached into Chris’s for several long seconds. The warmth that Abigail’s brief touch had given him crumbled as tendrils of ice slithered into his body.
Then Nathan marched out of the room like the ghost he was.
Chris’s entire body shook with rage until he couldn’t contain it anymore. He screamed and his fist flew out and hit the wall behind him. Drywall crumbled, his fist leaving a dent, surrounded by cracks in the surface. Specks of blood rested among the cracks but he didn’t even feel the pain in his hand.