The next morning, Chris took her back to the underground infirmary, where he checked her wound. He fussed about replacing the bandage she’d torn off the previous day, but she refused it and didn’t budge. He recognized it pretty quickly, and let it go.
After that, they came to a room she hadn’t been in yet. A rather large meeting room. Three huge screens lined one wall, with a block of controls along the side, and then a smaller screen below it that looked like it was a laptop. A dark-haired man sat at the laptop, typing away. His dark, soulless eyes briefly left the screen as she and Chris walked in, his gaze hesitating on her for just the briefest of seconds before he was back at work.
An Asian woman relaxed in the chair nearby him, cleaning her nails with a small, double-edged knife. She also looked up as they entered. Her eyes were like twin orbs of black diamonds, and if she looked into them for too long, she felt like she’d be lost forever.
The one man she did know, Jordan, came in right after they did, clapping Chris on the back as he passed by. He grinned. “Hey, glad to see you’re not in a deep, dark hole, mate.”
His voice was almost magical, the Irish pronunciation lyrical and melodic.
“Yeah, me too.” Chris pressed his lips tightly together.
Deep, dark hole? Was Chris really in that much trouble? Who was this person he worked for?
Jordan smiled as he took Abigail’s free hand and lifted it to his lips. “Welcome, beautiful Abigail. Hope you’re feeling better.”
She smiled back, but her face felt tight. “Yes, thank you.”
“No hard feelings, I hope?” He might have meant it as a question, but it came out flat. She really thought that maybe even if she had hard feelings, he wouldn’t really care that much.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Chris grumbled, slapping Jordan’s hands away from hers. “Abigail, you know Jordan. That’s Bea back there, and Scott next to her. And,” he cleared his throat as an older man leaned back in his chair, looking very pleased with himself. “That’s Jack.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, sending a shiver down her spine. His arms were covered in tattoos, and she couldn’t see where they ended, just where his sleeves covered them. His dark hair fell over his equally dark eyes when his head moved, and the muscles in his arm flexed when he brushed the hair away.
“Everyone, this is Abigail Lewis. She’s under our protection for the moment.”
No one seemed surprised at the news. Did they already know that? She had to admit, being this close to a bunch of people that were such bad people in life that they had to fake their deaths made her somewhat queasy.
“What’s the update?” Chris asked as he pulled out a chair for Abigail. Instead of taking the seat next to her, he crossed his arms and stood behind her.
“Nathan’s calling in soon. He said he was in the middle of something he couldn’t pull away from.”
“Maybe he’s getting laid,” Jordan said, chuckling.
“God knows he needs it,” Scott agreed.
Chris rolled his eyes. “Let’s get started. He probably knows it all anyway.”
“What doesn’t he know?” Bea asked.
“You’d be surprised, Miss Li,” a voice said over the speakers. Abigail looked up sharply. She knew that voice. She could only see from his shoulders up, but it was enough. Only a light smattering of hair was over his head, obviously shaved regularly. Out-of-place black-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, his eyes were cold and calculating as they swept each of his team. “Mr. Allen, please begin your report.”
Was that a flannel shirt and a white t-shirt beneath it? Who dressed like that? Outside of the 1990s.
“I’ve been doing a little research,” Jack started.
“Wait,” Scott chuckled. “You can read?”
“Fuck off, dickhead,” Jack growled. “I figured we should know more about our new guest here and Nathan agreed.”
“You’re Nathan, I’m guessing.” Abigail didn’t really need him to confirm, but he briefly inclined his head. Familiarity spread over her as she watched the man on the screen. He was more familiar than she liked. She stole a quick look at Chris, who had set his jaw tight. He looked angry. It didn’t seem like he cared for his boss all that much.
“We’ve had four bombings in the last forty-eight hours. Someone has been trying to send a message. We just hadn’t been able to figure out what the message was or who it was being sent to.” Jack was saying.
“Or who it’s from.” Jordan’s jaw set in vicious determination. She found him more approachable than the others before but seeing that face, it sent cold shivers down her spine. He wasn’t a man to cross.
None of them were, she realized as she watched them talk. Each of them held themselves in confident, battle-ready positions, even as they lounged in completely unprofessional ways. Scott barely looked up from his screen, but she could see the way his eyes watched the room like he was sure to be attacked at any moment. Jack made no secret of his menace. It emanated from him in waves. Jordan’s easy-going nature had jagged edges, brief pictures of violence promised to anyone who’d hurt another. Even the woman, Bea, stood with hips straight, her ebony eyes scanning the room constantly.
And then there was Chris.
Beside her, he looked relaxed at first glance, but his body stood ready to defend at a second’s notice. Muscles tensed at small moments, his glance continually swept the room in a regular pattern. If someone were to try to attack her, she could see him tackling her to the floor before she even knew what was happening.
“These bombings aren’t random,” Jack continued. “All these locations, there’s one common denominator.”
“What’s that?” Bea asked. She leaned forward, viciously baring her teeth in a smile. “All places were you, unfortunately, weren’t?”
“Close, babycakes,” he replied. “They’re all places Senator Lewis had been in the last two days… without her.” He pointed at Abigail. “They started hours after she left Galveston.”
“You think I’m bombing my dad?”
“No. I’m not done yet,” Jack said. He glanced at the screen with Nathan on it. “You want me to tell them here? Now?”
Nathan nodded.
Abigail’s heart pounded as a picture of Jean Giroux filled the middle screen. No.
“This is the man responsible for the bombs. C4 matches his particular setup, and uses his custom detonators.”
“Giroux,” Chris spat out. His hand went to his chest. He probably didn’t even realize he’d done it, she thought. “We knew about the C4, though. It all matched up on the first two bombs.”
“I did some more digging. The question we had was why he would target a United States Senator. He doesn’t deal in the US usually, and he’s a French national.”
The color drained from her face as the next picture hit the screen. It was a child, playing on a playground, with carrot red hair, smiling and laughing. She’d never seen that picture before, but it was definitely her. Every one of Chris’s team was staring at her. She could feel them spearing her, like a hundred different wounds opening at the same time, but she couldn’t look away from that picture.
“This is you, isn’t it, Miss Lewis? 2002ish?” She tore herself away from the picture, glaring at Jack Allen as he matched her with an accusing scowl.
Did he expect her to deny it? There were enough pictures of her when she was that age that there was no point. Her adoption had made national news. Her earliest memories were of camera flashes and reporters yelling questions. Her breath shuddered out of her and she inclined her head in a half-hearted nod. “It’s me.”
“Please continue, Mr. Allen,” Nathan said from the screen. His voice was flat, dangerous. But when Abigail looked up at him, she found his eyes sailing past her to Chris. Something else was going on here. Chris’s body had tightened, the tension coiling around his muscles and squeezing tightly. He wasn’t quite there yet, but he was smart. He was about the connect the dots to her best-kept secret, the reason why she needed to leave the country.
“Why are we looking at baby pictures?” Jordan asked.
“This picture is from our files on Jean Giroux.”
Chris’s back snapped straight as the dots aligned in his head and the answer slammed into his mind. It was clear as a Texas summer day as it happened. Abigail sunk in her seat.
“It seems our little kitten here has Giroux roots.” Jack met her eyes with a dangerous grin. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, kitten?”
The lie was on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to deny it, more for her own sanity than protection from them. But when she glanced at Chris, the man who’d promised to protect her over and over again, the man who had just kissed her the night before like a man who’d been starved to the brink of death, he looked at her like a stranger. She didn’t need any of their fancy gizmos to see the knowledge hurt him. She nodded. “Yes.”
“I arranged for Miss Lewis to join us so she can help us,” Nathan said on the screen. No one else spoke at first. “She has intimate knowledge of the way the senator works, and she can ferret out Giroux for us.”
“Arranged?” Abigail’s heart skipped a beat. “The car was you.”
Nathan’s lips twitched with knowing knowledge. Chris sometimes did that same maneuver, when he knew more than he let on.
Scott was the first to speak. “We don’t deal with politicians, Nathan. We should just hand her over and be done with it. The bombings will stop. Giroux won’t hurt her.”
“And how many more in the world will Giroux hurt? We’ve been looking for a way to get into his organization for months. We’ve got a golden ticket right here.” Bea said flatly.
“It wouldn’t take much to create a new identity so she could travel,” Jordan said. “We could float her right through customs.”
“No,” Chris said, simply.
The entire room stopped when he spoke. If Abigail had ever thought for a second that Chris wasn’t a leader in his own right, that moment would have stopped that thought process cold. Nathan leaned forward on the screen. “You have thoughts, Mr. Hardy?”
“We’re not turning her over to Lewis.” He replied, his voice low and flat. “Letting her go to Giroux isn’t an option. It’s too dangerous.”
“Then what do you propose?”
“She stays with us,” Chris said. “We can protect her better here.”
“Protect her?” Scott frowned. “We’re not bodyguards. Our mission is to stop the bombs from continuing. People are dying. We should use her to do it. By giving her back to her father.”
“At what price? At the price of her freedom?” Jordan asked. “Or her life?”
“The bottom line is Giroux needs to be stopped. We need to do something.” Bea said.
“We aren’t turning her over,” Chris stated. His tone didn’t invite arguing.
“Can I say something?” Abigail asked, raising her hand.
“Put your hand down,” Chris said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a school.”
She lowered her hand. “I appreciate the discussion, but I know how to stop this. You have to use me.”
“Abigail…”
“Not for Lewis. Daniel Lewis… He’s got no leverage without me. I don’t know why he held it over Jean Giroux, but he did. For years. Giroux is far more dangerous right now. He’s angry and he finally has an outlet for that anger because I’m no longer with Lewis. I can get close to Giroux. I’m the only one that can. If I go…”
“He still won’t have any reason to not to continue to target Lewis. We’re talking about years of resentment and anger built up over losing his child.” Chris shook his head. “It won’t work.”
“He knows me, though. He’s watched me my whole life, as some other man claimed me as his daughter to the world, paraded me on camera like a prized show dog. I can get close to him.”
“Are you suggesting you work as our asset, Miss Lewis?” Nathan asked on the screen. Curiosity filled his expression. Was he fascinated by her? Maybe he had expected this to go differently, for her not to want to put herself into harm’s way.
“I’m the reason this all started. People are dying because of me.” She swallowed, her heart thumping so hard against her ribcage it physically hurt with every beat. “I can be the one to finish it.”
“No, this is a stupid move,” Chris said. “She’s not trained for that, Nathan. It’s safer if she stays here and we do a surgical strike.”
“On an arms dealer?” Jack stared at him. “You want to mount an assault on an arms dealer?”
“Miss Lewis is correct, though.” Nathan smiled, cold and calculating. “She can get right into the belly of the beast without even a shot fired.”
“This is a bad idea,” Chris ground out. “It’s not safe.”
“Mr. Levi, work your magic and create a new identity set for our guest, yourself, and for Mr. Hardy. She’s going home.”
“Nathan—”
“I’m well aware of your history with Giroux, Mr. Hardy. You’ll be running the brains on the ground. Jordan can go in with Miss Lewis.”
“Nathan!”
“That will be all, Mr. Hardy.”
Abigail had never seen Chris get shut down so quickly as the screen went dark. Chris was furious, his rage tainting the air like sour milk. He clenched his fists tightly as the rest of the team got to work.
Daniel Lewis had known all her life who she was. He’d kept her a prisoner in his house, paraded her around like she was his daughter, told her how he loved her and was so proud of the woman she’d become. That was… until she’d found an entire file on her in her father’s safe. Pictures of her with a blonde woman, and a dark-haired man. No, not just pictures. Surveillance pictures. Birth records, shot records… all pointed to a girl like her, but not her. Abigail Emilia Giroux. He’d even perversely kept her first name.
But even as betrayed as she’d felt, it didn’t come close to the lost and hurt look on Chris’s face as he turned toward her.
“Chris—”
“Well, that was a doozy of a secret you had,” he said.
“Chris, I didn’t know who to trust.”
“You didn’t tell me. Why?”
“Chris, I barely know you. And then last night, you told me he shot you. You’ve got your own history with the man. How would you have felt if you’d found out then that you not only met his daughter but saved her life twice?” She swallowed. Not to mention kissed the hell out of her. But bringing that up was a bit like twisting the knife she’d already lodged into his gut.
“She’s got you there, man,” Jordan said. Chris glared at him and Jordan threw up his hands in surrender. “I got some work to do in the lab. Abigail, come see me in a few for a photo shoot. We’ll get you all set up.”
She didn’t reply to Jordan, only managed to nod as he left the room. Jack smirked as he walked by, looking smug and proud of himself. Bea and Scott were discussing something on the laptop, but they quickly cleared out as soon as they realized the other two had left.
Which left her alone with a man that couldn’t even look at her now.