Chris leaned back in the chair next to Abigail’s bed, where she was lightly snoring without a care in the world. He stretched out his fingers on his right hand, then clenched his fist again. He repeated the action a few times, wincing as he pressed to the limit of the injury. Already the knuckles turned disgustingly deep blues and purples, even where he’d broken the skin.
Abigail’s strawberry blonde hair splayed out across the pillow, making her look like an angel in sleep. Chris couldn’t reconcile this woman with the skinny teenager he’d rescued. That girl had had braces, frizzy hair, freckles, arms that were too long, and legs that were too short.
Now everything on her was perfect.
Her hair was smooth, probably used a straightening iron. She still had the freckles, but they’d blended more into her overall look. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup that he saw, just a little eyeliner and mascara. Her tank top had fallen on one side, exposing even more of her freckled skin. He tried not to think about how far down those freckles went, though at this point, there wasn’t an inch on her that wasn’t covered in freckles. It wasn’t just adorable. It was sexy as fuck.
He envied her ability to sleep so deeply, even though he knew it was because of the sedative he’d injected. But her dreams also weren’t marred by old battlegrounds or fights with evil men. Her sleep was peaceful.
Chris hardly ever slept these days. Every time he closed his eyes, he got shot again, or someone he loved did. He frequently relived that day on the train when Jean Giroux shot him and took his sister away, while he bled out, unable to help her.
Not sleeping was far less terrifying than reliving that nightmare.
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. His first mission lay sleeping, not two feet from him. He couldn’t even bring himself to leave the room.
“I shouldn’t have hit you, Mr. Hardy.”
Nathan’s voice was barely above a whisper behind him. He knew the man had entered a few minutes before, but both of them had been content to sit in silence. Chris didn’t care about what Nathan wanted to absolve himself of. They were past the point where he wanted to discuss it.
“I have spent half a lifetime putting this operation together, creating an unbeatable team.” Chris didn’t turn or answer. His fingernails dug into his palms instead. He kept his eyes on Abigail’s sleeping form.
“The others that came after you. I didn’t give them the choice to keep their lives as I did you.”
“I know that, Nathan.”
“You don’t know why. That’s what I’m telling you now. I didn’t give them that choice because I realized it split you.”
Chris stood and faced his boss. His fists still clenched tightly at his side. He wasn’t sure that he could relax them and not lose the tight control over his anger. “Split me?”
“Being here… it wasn’t a clean break for you. You came here confused and emotional.” Nathan sighed. “I made a mistake involving you in this and in letting you keep your old life.”
“It was my decision. I couldn’t let my family think I was dead. It would devastate them.”
“Is it any better not speaking to your sister, with her knowing you’re out there somewhere in the world and she doesn’t know where or what you’re doing?” Nathan blew out a labored breath. “You’re supposed to be moving on here. This…” he glanced at Abigail. “She’s part of your old life.”
Nathan shook his head. “I knew the risks, and I took it anyway. I played with your life and I think it shattered you completely to see her again.”
Chris narrowed his eyes. “I can handle this, Nathan. I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Nathan’s eyes searched his curiously, thoughtfully. “There’s so much conflict in you. Assigning you to contact her… It was a calculated decision. Now, I think it’s a step backward for you. In the wrong direction.”
“Stop trying to analyze me,” Chris growled. He squared himself, facing his boss. “I have done everything you’ve asked of me for the last two years. I’ve never faltered.”
“Yes, you’ve done well. Better than I hoped. So why hesitate now?” Nathan came around to the opposite side of the bed. His dark hands brushed a stray hair from Abigail’s face. Chris’s knee-jerk reaction was to grab that hand away from her, but he resisted.
“She knew me when… before it all. She remembers who I was. Who I used to be.” The words tumbled out of him before he realized he said them.
“You can’t look back anymore, Chris. It’s not healthy. You are why I changed the parameters of the program. I don’t need broken agents.”
“Yeah, I know.” Chris pressed his lips together tightly.
Nathan’s eyes narrowed as he studied Chris. It was disconcerting when he did that like he was dissecting his mind all over again. The training for Reapers was extensive, and he was the guinea pig for most of it. The procedures had been written through trial and error on him.
Maybe why that was why he was so fucked up in the head. He was the culmination of years of research, a prototype, really. The procedure had not just fixed the bullet holes in his chest. They had given him heightened senses, a better perception of the world. It had hurt like a mother fucker, too. But in the end, it worked out, and he’d survived it, a completely different man on the other side.
Nathan headed for the door, seemingly satisfied with whatever conversation they’d just had.
“Nathan?”
The man turned back, pausing at the door.
“I’m not ready to die,” he whispered.
“I know,” Nathan replied. A sad smile drifted over his face like a ghost, soft and almost impossible to see before it was gone. “Make your peace with it. It has to happen, Mr. Hardy. Not just for your safety, but for the people you love as well.”
Chris had never been more grateful for the switch from Chris to Mr. Hardy before. Nathan only called him Chris when he thought he was potentially breaking.
He wasn’t in danger of that, yet.
“Oh, and Mr. Hardy?”
Chris faced Nathan. “Yeah?”
“I know we’ve had a bit of a partnership these last few months while we were building this team… But make no mistake. I am in charge. Defy me again in front of the team, and I will bury you in a hole so deep, you will wish you chose that miserable existence that day in the hospital. Are we clear?”
Chris’s anger spiked inside his chest. He clenched his jaw shut and glared at the man across the room. He could have killed Nathan with a sweep of his hand. But that would be if Nathan was anyone but who he was. The man had the support of nations, spider-like connections, and he was absolutely right. He was in charge. Chris had signed on the dotted line two years ago, and Nathan owned him, lock, stock and barrel for another eight.
“We are clear,” Chris spat out, his voice rough and raw with the fury inside him. Nathan’s eyes coasted over him as if he were trying to ascertain if Chris was lying or not. Then he nodded without another word and left the room.
Pissing off Nathan wasn’t his best idea yet, but Chris was involved whether he liked it or not, and he needed to know what Nathan wanted with Abigail as much as he needed to know what secrets Abigail kept inside that fiery head of hers.
He pulled the chair he’d been sitting in before Nathan came in over to the bed, the back of it facing the bed and straddled it as Abigail stirred to life. Her bright blue eyes fluttered open, a guttural groan escaping her delicate lips as she attempted to sit up. She only made it an inch before she fell back to the pillows, her hands covering her face.
“You shouldn’t sit up so fast. Head trauma is no joke.”
“You,” she ground out between her teeth, almost in a growl. She tried again, and finally managed to get herself to her elbows, her head kind of floppy as she woke herself up.
“But of course, you’re going to do it simply because I said you shouldn’t.” He shook his head. At that moment, she reminded him of his sister. Addison would have tried to sit up too.
He banished that thought as quick as it came. He couldn’t afford to miss his family right now. Not with Nathan on his ass and a senator’s daughter in his secret underground lair.
He leaned over to the table next to the bed, grabbed the glass and held it out to her. “Drink.”
She took it without a word, still blinking her way back to consciousness. She sipped it delicately and frowned. “This isn’t coffee.”
He laughed. “Just drink it anyway, princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” she slurred and took another sip, then another.
“I make no promises,” he shrugged. Water dribbled down her chin. He followed the droplet all the way down her slender neck, wishing he could follow it with his tongue. His gut rippled with want, his jeans got unbearably tight.
Fuck.
“So…” she croaked once she’d taken a few more sips. “My car blew up. That happened.”
“Yeah,” he said. He watched her carefully as he said his next sentence. “We should contact your father and get your security down here to pick you up and take you home where it’s safe.”
She scoffed and set the water back on the table. “I’m not going back to my father.”
“Well, it’s obviously not safe for you here.”
A sarcastic smile slid over her expression. “I’m not intending to stay here either. You drugged me.”
“It was just a sedative so you’d rest. And how exactly are you intending to leave? It’s two hours to DFW, there’s no buses or trains here. It’s a small town.”
“I’ll find a way,” she replied.
“You’re serious,” he said. He stared at her while she nodded. “You need help.”
“Well, certainly I don’t need it from you,” she spat. “What was in that thing you gave me?”
“It was just a sedative,” he said again.
She glanced around the room. “Quite the setup here. I don’t recall you being a doctor.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why have this place? It’s like… you’re expecting to need to treat injuries.” Her eyes speared him in place. “What is it that you do again?”
He marveled at her ability to compartmentalize the fear he saw inside her. His body tightened as she jutted her chin out in obvious defiance. No longer was she that scared, traumatized teenager he’d had to talk down to get her to come with him to safety. Replacing her, was this gorgeous, independent woman he wanted nothing more than to devour.
He rolled his shoulders back, pushing the desire to the back. “I’m a mechanic.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
He didn’t answer. There were too many answers he could give. He wanted her touch, he wanted to touch her. Nathan wanted to keep her here, so by extension, he had to. And he wanted to distract her from ever trying to leave.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” she said. She took a breath like she’d decided something important. “But you can’t call my father.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s the one trying to kill me.”
~*~*~
Abigail hadn’t known what Chris’s reaction would be, but this wasn’t it. His body stilled, his muscles taut. Tension filled the room, and for a moment, she wondered if she’d just made a mistake. She wanted to back away even though at the same time she knew the fury swirling around him was for her, not at her.
“Kill you? Why would your father want to kill you?” The words were quiet but full of anger and promise.
Five years ago, he had saved her from misery and death. She needed that Chris Hardy again. The one with clarity and a sense of duty. She wasn’t sure he existed anymore behind this hardened exterior of a stranger. The only way to get to him was through the stranger.
“If you have a facility like this,” she gestured around them. “Then I have to assume you’d have the resources to know that answer.”
Judging by the set jaw, he knew something, but he didn’t say anything. That was interesting. Not many knew about all the illegal activities Senator Lewis was into. She hadn’t known herself until she’d found the evidence in the safe.
“Why come here?”
“Here? Or to Jubilee?” She asked.
“To Jubilee.”
“That car that blew up… it wasn’t mine. Someone gave me the keys, along with a note that said ’Safety is in small numbers’ and a map pointing to Jubilee.”
“And you just followed the map. Didn’t even think about that it could be a trap?”
“Of course I thought it could be a trap. I didn’t have a choice. If I stayed in Galveston, my father would eventually have found me. I didn’t have any money, no car, and no ID. What do you think happens to people like that?” She swallowed hard, fighting back tears she didn’t want to drop.
Chris shot to his feet, his hand slamming the chair away from him. It clattered across the tile floor and she flinched at the noise. He ran his fingers through his hair as he paced the length of the room. Something nagged at him, but she wasn’t sure what. But she could see his gears turning as he ran the entire situation in his head.
“Why did you come here?” It was more a plea than a question. Pain laced every word. It wasn’t what she expected him to ask.
“I took a gamble, a chance that the car was my way out. And it was. It led me here. To you.”
“Princess, I’m not the kind of protection you need,” he said, almost laughing. Maybe it would have been a laugh if his voice hadn’t been so low and serious.
“Maybe not. But I bet you might be able to help me get out of the country.”
“Why the country?”
“My father’s reach is long. He reports me kidnapped, and he’ll have the FBI and hired guns all over the States searching for me.” She sighed. “I have someone I can stay with, in France. If I can get there, I’ll be safe.”
Chris laughed and shook his head. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I know. I have to.”
“You need protection. You’re descending into the belly of the beast, and you have no idea how dark it is there.”
He sat down on the bed, so close she could have touched him, except suddenly, she had this irrational fear that if she did, she’d get burned. Her head throbbed as he leaned forward, balancing his head in his hands as his elbows rested on his knees.
“You know I’d protect you if I could.”
“Yeah, I know. I knew that the moment you stepped out of your truck.”
He lifted his head, and his gaze met hers. There was something beautiful in that gaze but also laced with vulnerability. The world needed him, whether he knew it or not, but somewhere in his head, he’d lost that knowledge. “This is complicated.”
“What isn’t?” He didn’t know the half of it. She wasn’t sure what had happened in his life to make him so jaded and hopeless. It wasn’t who he was meant to be.
Slowly, she lifted her hand until she was so close she could touch his face. She stopped and lowered her hand, thinking better of it. Curiosity ebbed from her, dying to understand that unknown quality inside his expression. “Chris?”
He blinked as if some kind of spell had been broken around them. He jerked away from her, off the bed. She gasped as he moved, and groaned as her reflex made her head throb.
“Look, I gotta do a thing,” he said. “I’ll come back in a few. You need to rest.”
She frowned and shook her head. “Chris, please. I don’t think—”
He stood at the door now, his hand on the door handle. “Just do me a favor and stay here for a bit. Let yourself heal a little. It’s been a long day.”
“Chris—”
Like a shadow when the sun rose, he vanished. The only clue she had that he’d ever been there was the slam of the door as it shut behind him. Fury bubbled up in her. She grabbed the dressing on her head and pulled it off her, ignoring the pull of her hair from the adhesive. As soon as it was free, she tossed it to the floor.