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“That, then, is what you are here for.” Gold epaulets flashed and the uniform shifted. “I have heard you were the best. Fix the problems and we will be on our way.”
“It’s not that easy—”
“I do not wish for excuses, Major McConneghy. I want only solutions.”
Jane watched the other man’s gaze darken and shift and was thankful he was no longer looking at her. Even the uniform seemed to realize he’d taken the wrong tone with the man he called McConneghy as he stepped back and waved a hand before him. “My fear is for Elena. This is a terrible strain on her.”
“I understand.” The reply indicated understanding would only be extended so far and not an inch further. “But a shoddy operation is worse than no operation. I’ll take care of the details here.”
“Well then…” the uniform glanced around the room. “I shall be on my way and expect to see you in Dubruchek tomorrow.”
Jane did not feel relief when he turned on a booted heel and marched from the room. In spite of his commands and imperial words, it was Gray-eyes who worried her.
His stillness permeated the room, as if he were weighing options and gauging consequences. The two soldiers kept their gazes on him, their attention as ramrod straight as their stances.
“Elderman.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell Winters to ready the plane.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier closest to the door saluted and disappeared.
Two down, two to go, Jane thought, not finding an ounce of comfort in the realization as long as one of those two was Major Gray-eyes.
She watched him, every cell in her body waiting, hoping against hope that now that the others had left he would turn toward her, tell her it was all a big mistake and unstrap the tape. But then optimism had always been one of her weaknesses.
“I won’t say anything to anyone if you’ll let me go.” She heard the plea in her own voice.
“It’s too late.” The man said it as if with regret, then nodded to the soldier behind her. His gaze shifted to hers, right before he crouched beside her once again, his hand covering her own clenched fist, his eyes steady on hers. “Just do exactly as I say and I promise you’ll be safe.”
She believed his words, maybe because of the intensity of the gaze riveted to hers, until movement out of the corner of her eye snagged her attention.
The other man, the soldier who had been slightly behind her, moved. He stepped forward, far enough into the light that she could make out his face. One that looked too young to be dressed in fatigues. A soldier-boy she thought, then caught sight of what was in his right hand.
Light flashed off a sliver of metal. A sharp, lethal-looking slice of silver. One attached to a hypodermic syringe.
“No. No, please no.” The words were automatic. And useless. As useless as struggling against the bonds holding her. But she could no more stop either reaction than the pounding of her heart. “No, I won’t tell. I won’t—”
“It will be all right.” Gray-eyes spoke, his words like an anchor in the swirl of terror surging through her. Yet he was one of them. More than that, he led them.
Her gaze snapped to his. “Please, don’t let him do this. Please…I won’t—”
She could feel the other man’s hand pin her arm even as Gray-eyes raised his free hand, holding her chin so she could not look toward the needle.
“You’ll be safe. This is the best way. The only way.”
She tried to pull her chin away but he wouldn’t let her. Cold dampness touched her lower arm. The pierce of a needle slid beneath her skin. And yet he held her. There would be bruises tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow.
He spoke again, gently murmured nonsense words. Words that in another place might have been of comfort, or compassion.
But this man held no compassion. If he did she wouldn’t be there, feeling helpless. Defenseless. Terrified.
The needle receded. The fear didn’t. But it took only a heartbeat to feel it muted. Her struggles slowed. Became exaggerated. Even more useless.
“Shhh. It won’t be long now.” Silence, then more words. “You’ll be safe. Remember that, you’ll be safe.”
She heard what he said. And knew he lied. His words lied. The emotion in his gaze lied.
The cottony feeling thickened, but not enough to douse the realization that he was still lying. She’d never be safe around this man. Never.
And then the darkness descended.
Lucius McConneghy watched the flutter of the woman’s dark eyelashes as they slowly closed, creating half circles against the paleness of her skin. She was fighting the drug Versed but it was pointless. Between the earlier dosage and the fear accelerating through her system it’d be a matter of minutes at the most, then they could move out.
“Check on the vehicle.” He barked orders to Corporal Tennison, aware they sounded harsher than they needed to be. Where was the legendary McConneghy control? The ability to shut off all emotions to get the mission accomplished?
Shot to hell, he mused, watching the younger man snap to attention and all but run from the room. Shot to hell the moment he saw this doe-eyed young woman, her look pleading with him to save her.
As if he were some bleeding angel of mercy. Hell, he was the reason she was here. And the sooner she knew it, and accepted what her role was, the better it would be for all concerned.
He felt the scramble of her pulse lessen beneath his hand. Her head lolled forward, the curtain of her midnight-black hair shielding all but the curve of her chin, the paleness of her complexion. One that had turned sheet-white when she realized what Tennison was doing to her with the hypodermic. Then her gaze had consigned him to a hell with no return. Not that he blamed her.
But that was his job. Make the tough choices, get the mission accomplished. Maybe he was getting old, or stale, since the thought sat heavy on him. But he meant what he’d said. So far this mission had been a disaster. If they’d had more time, they could have foregone the crudeness of a kidnapping. Avoided the emotional and physical costs the woman before him already was paying.
But if there was one thing he had accepted after years of service, there was no going back and correcting past mistakes. There was only going forward, and minimizing future ones. Someone always paid. In this case—her.
Jane Richards was his responsibility now. And he’d do everything in his power to keep her alive. Everything.
“I will keep you safe,” he whispered aloud to the woman who couldn’t hear him. He squeezed her hand, knowing it was a useless gesture, surprised that he was compelled to do it at all.
Chapter 2
“Here, drink this.” The voice was close to her. A male voice, like hot caramel over cold ice cream. One she thought she should know.
“Open your eyes and drink this.”
She didn’t want to open her eyes. Then there’d be no going back, no pretending she was safe and in Sioux Falls. But there was no avoiding it. The voice wouldn’t let her.
Slowly, as if they had been glued shut, she pried her eyes open. Then shut them quickly.
Gray-eyes. Mesmerizing, compelling, lying Gray-eyes. Like the crash of a wave—it all came back to her. Her apartment building. A cramped, airless room. A man with medals strung across his chest and another man—Gray-eyes—telling her one thing, holding her still while yet another shot her full of who knew what.
“You can’t ignore it. Better to face things head-on.”
Easy for him to say, she wanted to snarl, surprised at the clean edge of her anger. It felt good. Better than the terror she remembered so vividly. The helplessness and confusion in the small room. The willingness to trust a man who said one thing and did another. This man.
She opened her eyes again. Cowering was for cowards. While Jane thought she was a lot of things—shy, unprepossessing, ordinary—she didn’t like thinking of herself as a coward.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
The demand she heard in her voice pleased her. For a second she thought he might have felt the same way. A glimmer of a smile touched his lips, until he pushed forward a glass. It looked as if he’d been holding it, waiting for her. “Drink this. Then we’ll talk.”
She raised herself to a reclining position, balancing on her elbow and reaching for the glass, aware her hand shook as she grasped its cool surface. Even under ordinary circumstances it would have been difficult to appear unmoved when a man like this hovered next to her, close enough that she could smell the scent of his skin and feel the heat his body radiated. An awareness out of place with the man who had kidnapped her.
She willed herself to look away, to break the contact of his gaze pinning hers, and caught herself wondering what was in the glass he insisted she drink. More drugs? Something to keep her quiet and compliant? Until what? Or when?
“It’s just water.”
“Then you take a drink first.” She thrust it back into his hands, surprised she dared such a thing, even more surprised when he accepted it and took a long, slow draught, his gaze never leaving hers over the edge of the glass.
“It will help with the dry mouth.” He pressed it back into her hands. Obviously this man had dealt with drugged women before. Not a comforting thought. “Later, if you want, I’ll get you some aspirin for your headache.”
Yes, he definitely knew the aftereffects. Just who was this guy? And what did he want with her?
She watched him rise to his feet and cross to a chair several feet away. Only then did she sip from the glass, thankful for the cool sensation soothing her too-dry throat, yet wary as to why he was being so solicitous. He remained quiet until she had finished most of the water and placed the glass on a coffee table before her.
It was only then that she sat up and looked around her. Looked around and felt the flip-flop of her stomach. They were no longer in the small, cramped room. It looked like a plane, but not the passenger kind.
Instead it looked like a living room, with carpeted floors, two butternut-brown leather chairs on both sides of the couch she was sitting on, end tables and a series of oval windows on either side which showed nothing but blue, blue sky. With a feeling of detachment, or maybe it was hysteria again, she was glad to find that here at least she wasn’t tied to anything.
Not that she could make a run for it thousands of feet in the air, she thought, sure it was hysteria making her want to shake her head and close her eyes again.
But Gray-eyes had his own agenda.
“We’re thirty-two thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean,” he remarked, his voice calm and level. “We should be landing in a little over two hours, given our present rate of speed.”
“Landing where?”
“Dubruchek.”
“And Dubruchek is where?” Jane wrapped her arms around herself to keep from shaking.
“Dubruchek is the capital city of Vendari. A small, very important mountain country in the Balkans.”
“Important to whom?”
“To a lot of people.” He shifted in his seat, leaning forward, his fingers splayed across his knees as if they were discussing the weather. It was then she saw the gun peeping out from a shoulder holster he wore and knew, like a swift kick to the head, that this was not a dream. It was a nightmare.
“I know this is all very confusing.”
That was an understatement if she’d ever heard one. But something in his look told her he’d have little patience for pithy comments.
“Vendari is a monarchy sandwiched between two larger, and unstable countries, which makes it of strategic importance to the United States.”
Great, she wakes up to a strange man and a throbbing head only to get a geography lesson.
He continued. “It’s a monarchy with its own history of bloodshed and violence. Its last king, Zhitomir Vassilivich Tarkioff, was assassinated twenty years ago.”
“And this means what?”
“Since then they’ve undergone two attempted coups.” He was ignoring her. “Again, not without bloodshed.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
His gaze asked for patience, his voice gave nothing away.
“Today Vendari is ruled by King Viktor Stanislaus Tarkioff.”
“The man with the medals?” It was a wild guess, but obviously right on target as she saw his glance narrow, his hands tighten minutely.
“Yes, the man with the medals.”
“And what is his relationship to Elena?”
Instead of answering directly, Gray-eyes leaned back in his seat, his gaze shifting to scan the horizon out the row of small windows, his expression blank.
She thought he might have sighed before he turned to face her again. “Elena Illanya Rostov is the king’s fiancée.”
If she thought pushing for answers was going to make things clearer, she was wrong. She was more confused now than when they had started this bizarre conversation.
“I don’t get it.” Ignoring the pain it caused, she shook her head, and tightened the grip of her hands wrapped around her arms. “Why does it matter that I look like this Elena Ro…Ros…”
“Rostov.”
“Why does it matter that I look like her?”
“Take my word for it that it does. That’s all.”
Obviously she wasn’t going to get any more information. At least for now. He rose from his seat, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of pressed khaki pants, uneasy about something. He walked away and she guessed it did not bode well for her.
Lucius glanced out the window, seeing nothing, buying time, even seconds worth of time. How had things unraveled so quickly? Had it been only minutes ago that he was thankful Jane Richards wasn’t in hysterics or fighting him tooth and nail? Not that he’d blame either reaction. But he wasn’t getting that.
His limited research had informed him she’d taken a job as a librarian straight out of college, was dependable and conscientious in her habits, didn’t even have an outstanding parking ticket to her name and, if a bit boring, could be expected to behave in a rational manner.
What they had neglected to discover was that she was also a woman who had a quick and ready intelligence. One able to control herself under the most extreme circumstances, and one who was unlikely to accept pat and pretty answers about what was going on.
Things were going to hell in a hand basket.
“You’re not answering my question.” She sounded almost prissy.
If he didn’t think it would get him into hot water he’d smile at her tone. Didn’t she realize he was the one in the position of dictating—not her?
He turned to face her, wondering if he was doing it for her sake—or his own. “Elena Rostov plays a very pivotal part in the politics of Vendari. She’s the daughter of one of the king’s leading rivals for power.”
“So her marriage to the king consolidates power in the country.”
“Exactly.”
