Текст книги "Darkest Before Dawn"

Автор книги: Maya Banks

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

CHAPTER 17

“YOUR wound is getting better,” Hancock said matter-of-factly.

His brisk and impersonal examination of Honor’s stitches told her that indeed he had no desire for her to remember those tender, unguarded moments that he thought she had no knowledge of.

“The swelling is almost gone from your knee. You should be able to walk on it in another day without pain.”

“Does that mean we can go home soon? Tomorrow?” she asked, grabbing on to those last words and holding them to her with unconcealed excitement.

His eyes flickered. She almost missed it before he turned away, pretending interest in one of her other more minor injuries. There was something there. Something he didn’t want her to see. It should have alarmed her, but she wasn’t afraid of him. She trusted him. He’d told her he’d get her safely from the reach of A New Era, and he’d done exactly that.

Then he shrugged. “It isn’t as easy as you seem to think it is. There are . . . things—plans—that must be put into place. It wouldn’t do to make any hasty moves. We aren’t out of danger yet.”

It was vague and yet it was a reminder to her that, regardless of the fact that she felt safe with him, they weren’t safe and they weren’t immune to an attack. She frowned, wishing she knew where the hell they were.

She hadn’t even seen one of Hancock’s men in the days she’d lain in this bed, in this isolated bedroom resting and healing. Hancock had brought her meals. Hancock had dressed and tended her wounds. He’d even helped her bathe, much to her mortification. But he’d helped her in the shower with brisk efficiency that made it appear as though it were the most mundane task in the world. He’d patiently washed her hair, shampooing it several times with each shower to rid the strands of the dye. And then there was the body scrubbing that had her face so scarlet that she likely resembled someone with a bad sunburn. But again, he’d merely been exacting and thorough as he cleaned the henna from her skin, returning it to its original sun-kissed state. If he was trying to make her solely dependent on him, he was doing a damn good job, because even the thought of someone else in her—this—room made her uneasy.

This wasn’t her room. Even if it had become hers over the last few days. Her room was at home. In her parents’ house. She didn’t maintain a separate residence in the States. It made no sense to do so. She was gone more often than she was home, and so when she visited between assignments, or simply needed a break when the pain and despair she faced on a daily basis became too much for her to bear without losing sight of her mission, she sought refuge at her parents’ home. She slept in her childhood bedroom, a room they kept for her. One that was purposely unchanged from when she was a teenager still in high school.

It had all the things she’d grown up with. Her favorite stuffed animals. Her beloved books. Her language textbooks and all the research books on the Middle East, its culture, the differences and nuances of each individual dialect that changed from region to region.

Even her sports trophies, though she’d laughed at the idea that her parents would keep what amounted to nothing more than a participation trophy. She’d certainly won no championships, nor had she stood out as an athlete like all her siblings had. She was the odd duck of the family.

Honor swore to her parents they must have adopted her or found her in a cabbage patch because she was nothing like her siblings. She was so much softer. More empathetic. She lacked the ruthless drive to succeed, to be successful at everything she did like her siblings did. They called her a softy. Too kindhearted and tender to survive in the “real world,” as they called it. And yet the world she lived in was the epitome of survival. Nothing at all like her family’s safe jobs, safe homes, safe lives.

Her father was a former all-star athlete. He’d played multiple sports but had gone to college on a football scholarship and had even been drafted to the pros. But by then he’d met and fallen in love with her mother, and he’d told his children often that he wanted nothing more than to be at home with her and for her to have his children. A house full.

Most doubted his sincerity, and Honor’s mother said that even she’d been skeptical at first. She hadn’t thought her husband would be happy just walking away from such a lucrative career in the spotlight. But he’d never displayed one ounce of regret, and only a year after they married, they had their first child.

Playing pro ball would have kept him from home for the majority of the year. There was spring training camp. There was the entire football season and the playoffs if the team made it to postseason play. There was no doubt her father could have been one of the greats, but instead, he’d taken a high school coaching job in Kentucky, where he and her mother had chosen to live and raise their family.

It was a small town in Kentucky, not so northern that it came too close to the line between north and south. It had the hallmark of every southern town. Open, friendly and welcoming. Small enough that everyone knew everyone else and as a result, everyone’s business was also known.

Honor and her siblings had grown up and thrived under the love and affection their parents had bestowed on them. Her brothers, every single one of them, excelled in one sport or another. As had her older sister. Her oldest brother had also played football in college and showed promise of being recruited by a pro team. He, like their father, hadn’t entered the draft and no one had questioned that decision. But then their father knew well that some decisions were simply too personal to be discussed. They just were.

But where his father had gone into coaching, an adequate substitute for not playing the sport he loved, her older brother had chosen law enforcement and was the sheriff of their county.

Her second oldest brother had chosen a professional career in sports. Unlike his father and older brother, he wasn’t a football fanatic. His entire childhood had been devoted to baseball and he was a natural. Even now he was playing with a pro team and had just signed another long-term lucrative contract before Honor had departed that last time.

The two younger brothers were both businessmen and partnered in several ventures. But that didn’t mean they didn’t carry the same abiding love—and gift—for sports.

Even her sister, the second to youngest and only other daughter in a sea of sons, was athletic and as graceful and fast as a gazelle. She too had gone into coaching after a brief stint playing professional softball in Italy after attending Kentucky State on a softball scholarship. Honor was very proud of her sister, who was the youngest head coach of the softball team in the history of the small university where she worked.

In the two years since her sister, Miranda, or Mandie as she’d been affectionately nicknamed, had taken over the program, the team had made postseason for the first time in the program’s history. Her job was definitely secure. The university had seen to that. And she was very happy there because she was already being heavily recruited by other larger, more prestigious universities with much larger programs and that had long-heralded legacies in college sports.

But Mandie was a homebody at heart, while Honor was the complete opposite. Mandie liked her job. Liked getting her hands dirty and rebuilding a program from the ground up. She had no desire to walk into a program that was already well established and be a veritable figurehead. She wanted to make a difference in every aspect of the game.

Honor briefly closed her eyes, going back to the fact that her brother had signed another contract with his team right before she’d left. Her going-away party had been mixed with joy and celebration but also with heartbreak and worry. None of them liked what she did. They didn’t understand it. They didn’t try to understand it. Each of them had gone their own way and no one ever questioned them for it. No one questioned Brad, who had simply walked away from pro football with no explanation. Or why his burning desire to become a police officer had never been known to his family.

They only questioned her. And she knew it wasn’t that they didn’t believe in her—they did. They loved her. She never doubted that for a moment. They just didn’t understand her. Didn’t understand why her calling took her so far from the people who loved her when all her other siblings’ paths had kept them close to home.

How could she explain the restless drive to make a difference in places that seldom received anything at all except death and violence? Brad should understand her better than anyone. He was a protector. The sheriff. He was responsible for a lot of lives. He was perhaps the only sibling she believed she had a kinship with. A shared burden. Surely their need to protect and save others had to come from somewhere.

“Honor, are you in pain?”

Hancock’s low voice, laced with concern, drifted through her melancholy and brought her gaze to his; she saw him intently studying her face as though he were privy to her every thought.

She sucked in her breath and impulsively slid her fingers through his where they rested on the edge of the bed at her side and linked them together with a gentle tug. He flinched as though he’d received an electric shock, but he didn’t remove his hand or pry hers away, a fact she was grateful for.

For this one brief moment, she needed the touch of another. Comfort. The promise of soon being held and surrounded by the love and support of her family. Every minute she was away was the worst sort of hell for them all. They likely thought she was dead, and if they were not certain of her death, then worse, they feared what her fate was. What she was enduring even now.

She prayed they thought she was dead until she could prove to them she wasn’t. It was kinder than them torturing themselves with the endless possibilities of what could be happening to her. Besides, that wasn’t going to happen. Hancock had her. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.

It was foolish to think of anyone being invincible, impervious to the reach of A New Era, but she absolutely believed that Hancock could and would destroy anything in his path and would never let harm come to her. She knew it as surely as the sun rose in the east and slid into sleep in the west.

“What’s wrong, Honor?” Hancock demanded bluntly, his eyes narrowing further as he searched her face for any sign of what was causing her distress.

She wasn’t distressed.

She needed.

Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks and she could only pray that the remnants of the dye as well as being in the sun for so long prevented him from seeing the evidence of the guilty blush.

She licked her dry, cracked lips and hesitantly, shyly, looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes.

“Kiss me, Hancock,” she said in a quivery voice that could be construed as fearful. But she knew better. And judging by the look on Hancock’s face, he also knew she wasn’t afraid of him. Or of what she was asking.

His eyes flashed with uncertainty, a rarity for him. She knew that without questioning how. She just knew. But there was also a spark of something else altogether.

Answering need. Want. Desire.

It was gone almost before she registered it happening, but the eyes never lied. They were the door to a person’s soul, or so the poets always said.

And just as she knew that Hancock was rarely if ever uncertain about anything, she also knew that it was even more rare for him to allow anyone to see what she’d just witnessed in his eyes.

She’d gotten to him and she knew it. Was stunned by it.

Good God, was she happy about it? What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t know this man and it was presumptuous on her part, not to mention arrogant, to think that she could discern anything about him when others certainly couldn’t.

But she was already headed down a hazardous path that gave her a euphoric rush. Alive. She felt alive. Gloriously alive when death had been a suffocating fog surrounding her at every turn.

She’d made it free. Hancock had delivered what he’d promised. Her freedom from the horrible men hunting her like ruthless predators.

“Kiss me,” she said again, her voice dropping to a husky whisper laced with need. “Just one time when we’re both perfectly aware of it happening and neither of us can claim it never happened.”

His eyes widened in quick alarm and then surprise. Both reactions were chased from his eyes as they hardened with the realization that she knew. She remembered. Perhaps she’d never forgotten at all but needed time for all the pieces to drift back together. Now that she had them all in place, she would lock that memory into her soul for all time. Savor it. One pure, sweet moment amid so much fear and chaos and torment.

He swore softly, but even as he did so he slid one knee onto the mattress and leaned his big, tightly muscled body toward hers until he hovered mere inches above her. Heat licked from his skin, warming her to the bone. She suddenly took in the huge disparity in their sizes. He was a mountain of solid steel, not a spare ounce of flesh anywhere on his body that she could discern. And she had a very vivid imagination.

But he made her feel small and fragile. Vulnerable. But not afraid. She licked her lips, suddenly realizing that perhaps she should be afraid, provoking the beast when she was completely aware and had all her senses about her. Or maybe not enough sense to resist poking the wild animal.

With a harsh groan when her tongue darted over her bottom lip, he leaned down and swept her mouth into his, hot and hungry. There was none of the almost delicate tenderness he’d maintained when he’d kissed her so reverently when he thought she was unaware of her actions or that he was kissing her.

He devoured her mouth, consumed her, tasted every part of her hungry tongue, showing her the staggering difference between a male trying to offer a woman comfort and a starving man demonstrating his ruthless dominance over her.

If it wouldn’t hurt so bad, she’d rip every bit of his clothing off and strip herself naked and throw herself at him, or rather on him. All she managed was a low moan that ended in a hum and then a breathy sigh of pleasure and sheer contentment that was quickly swallowed up and inhaled by him.

With considerable effort, he dragged his lips from hers but didn’t immediately distance himself from her. She wondered why she considered that a huge victory. He leaned his forehead into hers in a surprisingly tender gesture, his breaths blowing raggedly over her throbbing mouth.

“That was not a good idea,” he said through tightly clenched teeth. “Goddamn it, that was stupid.”

Okay, that hurt. She could admit it, and even if she couldn’t, the very real physical reaction—her flinch—would have betrayed her.

She scrambled for something—anything—to say to break the awkward silent tension that surrounded them, stretching her nerves to their breaking point.

“How soon will I be well enough to go home?” she asked anxiously.

It had the effect of a fierce blizzard. His face became shuttered, locked down as fury so cold blistered through his eyes and then blasted her, sending wave after wave of goose bumps racing across her flesh.

He abruptly rose, turning his back as if he didn’t want her to see any part of him or his reaction.

“You still have some healing to do before we can move you,” he said flatly.

And then he strode to the door, yanking it open and then slamming it behind him with enough force to knock one of the paintings on the wall askew.

CHAPTER 18

HANCOCK knew he was walking a razor’s edge in a true battle for his sanity. Worse, he was battling against what he knew must be done. The mission. The cost of completing his mission. All tied to one innocent woman with more courage and fire than he’d ever witnessed in one small female warrior.

He’d bullied her for days, ensuring that he and only he had access to the room where she was kept . . . prisoner. No way to leave the room, though as prisons went, he’d made sure it had all the comforts she could possibly need or want.

He avoided her questions. Natural questions. Questions she had the right to know the answers to. But the minute he answered them, all was lost. Because he wouldn’t lie to her. And he’d have to face her, those large trusting eyes, and watch the light shrivel to nothing but haunting resignation. And worse, betrayal. She would know that he was the very thing she’d run from and fought against, the thing she now believed she was safe from. She didn’t know—yet—that he was delivering her to the worst sort of evil, who would then hand her right back to the devil she knew.

And he couldn’t bear it. Even knowing his time was running out and that every day that passed that he didn’t tell her the truth about his intentions was simply a delaying tactic. Because he wanted those few days for her. Hell, he wanted them for himself. Just a few more hours, days, whatever he could buy when she still looked at him with trust in those warm brown eyes. With no fear or hesitancy to follow his lead.

With trust.

She trusted him when she should trust no one. He’d told her as much. But Honor being Honor, the very thing she was named for. God, the irony of just how well that name fit her. How could her parents have known that she would live up to the legacy and prophesy of that name?

No one had ever trusted him. His men respected him. They obeyed him without question. They’d die for him without hesitation, just as he would do for them. They had loyalty that ran deep in their blood. But they didn’t trust him any more than they trusted their other teammates or even themselves. They were all too aware of what they were. Ruthless killers, willing to sacrifice an innocent woman to achieve their means.

“When?” Conrad asked bluntly as he and his men gathered outside the huge mansion belonging to Bristow.

The irony of them already being stateside wasn’t lost on Hancock. Honor thought she was still somewhere in the bowels of the Middle East, and that their every movement could be watched, that they were in danger of discovery. If she discovered just how close she was to her family, he’d have to tie her to the bed to prevent her from bolting out on her own.

He glanced at his men, at their tight expressions as they stood expectantly, waiting for go time.

It was one of the few times Hancock had left Honor’s side, but he’d ensured she’d sleep in his absence, and Bristow’s men knew the consequences of trespassing. Hancock had made it very clear that no one was to be granted access to Honor’s private quarters, using her injuries as an excuse.

Bristow was impatient. Excited and edgy, like someone who’d found a treasure worth more than all the gold and jewels in the world. His anticipation was thick in the air when he was in the room and it was why Hancock avoided him for the most part. Bristow’s sickness of the soul—the foul stench that always emanated from him—was difficult for Hancock to handle without it overwhelming his senses. He felt ill, smothered by so much evil that he could barely breathe. It was suffocating him, like someone who was severely claustrophobic, and Hancock was anything but that. He could remain motionless in a cramped space a man of his size should never be able to fit into for days, weeks when necessary, waiting for that one opportunity. A rare window in which only one with ultimate patience would ever get to take down an elusive mark.

Bristow wanted to send word to Maksimov immediately, but Hancock warned him that if Maksimov knew of the woman before they were ready, he wouldn’t sit back and wait as Bristow was currently doing. He’d come after Honor and he’d lay waste to anyone in the path of his quarry.

Hancock had made it very clear that Honor must heal before they arranged to deliver her to Maksimov and that it had to be on their—Hancock’s—terms or they would lose any bargaining power they currently possessed. The only thing keeping Bristow alive was the fact that Maksimov didn’t know where Honor was, and he made certain that Bristow realized just how dangerous and powerful a man like Maksimov was.

Bristow was dangerous and held much power in his own right, but Hancock made certain that Bristow feared Maksimov and rightly so. He spoke of Maksimov in a tone that Bristow couldn’t possibly mistake, and Bristow had gone pale listening to Hancock’s matter-of-fact recitation of just what Maksimov would do to achieve his means. Life and death meant nothing to a man such as Maksimov, who didn’t just consider himself invincible. He truly thought he was immortal. A god among mere men, able to come and go as he pleased. A bringer of death and destruction, and he was unstoppable.

That kind of thinking nearly made it so in Maksimov’s case. He was a cagey bastard, unlike others who’d come before him wearing that same shield of invincibility, convinced that no one could get to him, who had fucked up. They all did at some point. But so far Maksimov displayed no sign of carelessness. No sign that he took for granted what he thought himself to be. Indestructible.

Though he thought it, was utterly convinced of it, he still was careful to keep a tightly woven net of security around him, removing anyone he considered a threat to his cause. He was judge and executioner, and no one received a fair trial with Maksimov. If Maksimov even thought one was disloyal, had betrayed him or simply didn’t have the will to do what Maksimov demanded, then he was discarded with all the care Maksimov reserved for disposing trash.

That kind of fear bought him a lot of loyalty. It bought him men who’d rather take certain death than face Maksimov after failing to carry out a mission. He bred relentless, desperate soldiers who’d die carrying out Maksimov’s orders, sometimes by their own hand if they failed. It was a preferable fate to facing Maksimov and having to tell the dictator they had failed. Maksimov had no tolerance for failure. He didn’t accept it in himself and he sure as hell didn’t accept it from those who worked for him.

In all the years Hancock had hunted him, he’d found no weakness in Maksimov he could exploit. Not a single chink in his armor. The man cared for nothing other than himself. It was damn hard to get close to a man in order to be able to exploit his weaknesses when it appeared he had none.

But Hancock knew better. There was something. There was always something. He himself would have sworn he had no weaknesses. Nothing that could be used against him. But he also knew he was wrong. He had Big Eddie. Raid and Ryker. And Eden. Precious, innocent and good Eden.

He’d been careful never to expose them, never to allow anyone to know of their existence because they would most certainly be in danger every day of their lives. He even kept his distance from the fucking Kellys because anyone with eyes could tell that he respected them. He might not like them, their methods or their ethics. The things he considered their weaknesses. But over the years he’d grown to realize that they weren’t so different from him. They just controlled their impulses better than Hancock did.

When someone hurt one of their own, they retaliated and carried out swift justice. And it wasn’t the justice most people considered. They hadn’t used the legal system. No, they’d carried out their own brand of justice, crossing lines Hancock had long ago crossed. From them he hadn’t expected it, though. They were too rigidly set in good. Captain Americas, he’d always sneered at them and about them.

But some of the things they’d done in the name of justice were no better than Hancock had done himself on many occasions. He felt a stirring of admiration for P.J. Coletrane. The woman had been brutalized. The details still set his teeth on edge because he was furious at her team for leaving her vulnerable. For not covering her better. She deserved better than what they’d given her, and she’d paid the ultimate price.

And then she’d walked away from her team, not wanting to drag them into the muck of revenge. No justice. Cold-blooded revenge. She’d hunted down every single man responsible for the vicious attack on her, and she’d killed them all. And in the end, her team had caught up to her and they’d stood side by side with her, not allowing her to bear the brunt of the repercussions.

The Kellys were a different breed of people. The kind of people that Hancock once could have been more like had he chosen a different path. The right path. They were fierce protectors. The good guys. The ones you called on when you needed help. They were good, maybe as good as Hancock was himself, but where he stood out, having the distinct advantage, was that he was far more willing to delve into those twisted gray—no, not even gray . . . black areas. A line none of the Kellys would ever cross unless it concerned someone they loved. One of their wives. Their teammates. Any other mission would be run by the book.

None of them. Not a single member of the KGI group would ever stoop to Hancock’s level. They’d never rescue a beaten-down woman who then took a bullet meant for one of their men and then repay her with treachery. All in the name of the greater good.

P.J. Coletrane’s face came into his vision, her snarling features giving him an inward smile. He could hear her words as if she’d said them herself.

Fuck the greater good.

Yes, it was absolutely something she—and the rest of her team—would say. Especially Steele. The team leader reputed to be much like Hancock himself. Ice running in his veins. A machine incapable of feeling anything. Able to do a mission without emotion clouding his judgment and weighing him down.

But now? The ice man had been taken down by one small blond woman and a baby girl who looked just like her mama. Hancock was no longer sure Steele was the same man he’d been before. Except . . . except if his wife or daughter was in danger. Then there would be no controlling the man. He would become a ruthless killing machine unlike any the world had ever seen before. Hancock wasn’t even sure that he could take on an enraged Steele if his wife’s and child’s lives were at stake.

Realizing his men were still silent and edgy, waiting for him to answer Conrad’s question, Hancock jerked his thoughts to the present, swearing violently under his breath. He was off his game and his team knew it. Just like they were growing edgier by the day as they drew closer to . . . betrayal. The day when they’d hand Honor over to Maksimov, hopefully enabling them to take out the man once and for all. But it would likely be too late for Honor. They’d already resigned themselves to her death and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it. But it didn’t mean that every time he looked in his team’s eyes he didn’t see helpless rage burning in their depths. He was sure it was mirrored in his own, despite his best attempt to keep them from seeing just how tormented he was over what they must do.

“Soon,” Hancock said in a low voice. “She’s recovering more every day. I’ve been able to keep Bristow off her. He’s afraid of me. But he’s terrified of Maksimov and I’ve told him that Maksimov would not be pleased to be presented with a hurt and damaged Honor because it would lessen her value to ANE. He doesn’t like it, but he fears us both too much to disobey me on this. And I’ve had one of you stationed outside her door at all times, even when I’m inside with her bullying her to eat and giving her pain medication when she overexerts herself.”

“Except now,” Copeland said mildly.

“Bad mojo,” Mojo growled.

A prickle of unease chased up Hancock’s spine. His men were right. He’d summoned them outside where he could speak freely to them. The walls had ears in Bristow’s home. Nothing went unobserved. It was why he and his men were so careful not to be oversolicitous when it came to Honor. They treated her as a prisoner they didn’t want damaged. Damaged goods didn’t make for good trades.

But they had left her alone. For an hour now. What if Bristow had seized the opportunity to look in on his “guest”? He wasn’t a patient man and he clearly hadn’t liked being kept apart from her. All the work Hancock had done could be unraveled in just a few minutes’ time in Bristow’s presence.

He’d been too arrogant, too certain of his hold on Bristow, when he should have known better. Bristow believed himself invincible, and though he was afraid of and intimidated by Hancock, he wasn’t afraid that Hancock would kill him. And that was where he was wrong. Hancock would take Bristow apart with his bare hands if he hurt Honor.

“Get back,” Hancock said hoarsely. “Get back now. Find Bristow’s men and make sure they are under control. Kill anyone who resists. I’ll take care of Bristow.”

“Hancock.”

Conrad’s cold voice penetrated the red-hot haze surrounding Hancock’s mind, turning him once more into a ruthless killing machine.

“You can’t compromise the mission over what he’s done. If he’s done anything at all.”

“The hell I can’t,” Hancock spat. “I don’t need Bristow to make the exchange with Maksimov. I did at first. But that contact has been made. All I have to do is complete the drop and then take the bastard and his entire network down.”

“But not in time to save Honor,” Viper said tightly.

Hancock swung his haunted gaze to his man. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”

“Would you?” Henderson pressed, his face drawn into grim lines. “You’ve never wavered in a mission before. Why now?”

“You forget I sacrificed two opportunities to take down Maksimov to save innocent lives,” Hancock snapped. “I won’t do so a third time. Now move out. If he’s touched Honor, if he’s made her afraid, I’ll kill him.”

None of his men commented on the hypocrisy of Hancock’s killing a man who would at least be more honest with Honor than Hancock had been. None dared.