Page 7 of Heartless
Olivia would come to Montana soon, too. She would arrive, demanding answers. That was fine. He’d give her some, but he was going to get some answers of his own.
She would take extra precautions now that she knew she’d been compromised. He’d had security on her, and they’d managed to get to her anyway. They hadn’t wanted to kill her. Information had been what they were looking for, but she’d had none to give them. Dammit, he should have seen this coming…should have put even more security on her. This was all on him, because what they wanted was something only he could give.
And if they knew he wasn’t dead after all, he was living on borrowed time. And so was Olivia.
* * *
Olivia woke gradually, her eyes so heavy she was sure rocks were sitting on them. When she finally got them open, her vision was blurred for several seconds. Whatever she’d been given had delivered a powerful punch. She made herself lie still for several long moments as she tried to regain her sense of self. Shadowy memories of pain and anger swirled around her. Then she remembered a gravelly, masculine voice and strong, sure hands, both achingly familiar. Nic—he had been here. She knew his touch, knew his voice. He had rescued her.
Her husband was alive.
Willing herself not to think about that right now, she forced her body to move. She made it to the bathroom where she didn’t bother to undress before stepping into the shower and turning the cold water on full force. After a couple of minutes, she switched to warmer water and yanked off her wet nightgown. The cold water had woken her, and now the hot water eased the pain from the multitude of bruises. She stood beneath the flood for a full five minutes, her mind deliberately blank.
Feeling almost human again, she turned off the water and snagged the towel hanging on the peg beside the shower door. She dried off quickly and, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, groaned out loud. Yeah, they’d done a bang-up job. A black eye, bruises on both jaws, and an extra dark one on her chin. The bruises on her ribs were thankfully not as bad as she’d feared. Breathing wasn’t too painful, so no cracked ribs this time. Various bruises on her thighs, an ugly one on her left shoulder.
She looked like an abuse victim. But she was no victim.
Who these people had been and what they’d wanted was still a mystery. Their questions had been both specific and bizarre. Why would they want names of assets that were almost a decade old? Nothing about this made sense.
Turning from the mirror, she pulled a large T-shirt from the closet and slipped it over her head. She’d dress fully later. For now, she needed three things—a gallon of black coffee, ibuprofen for her aches, and a clear, focused mind.
Two cups of coffee later, her mind was now clear and alert. She shoved aside questions about the reason for last night’s attack and allowed herself to face the miraculous truth—her husband was alive. Despite the hurt, the anger, the soul-rending sense of betrayal, she could not stop the rush of relief and joy at the knowledge.
Nic was alive!
Another cup of coffee later, she reviewed the facts. What she had been told. What she knew to be true. What she suspected.
How many people knew he was alive? Kate, most definitely. Kate Walker, friend and ally, had been their go-between. She and Nic had brought Kate in on their plan from the start. Had Kate been played, too, or were she and Nic both in on the deception?
If so, why? What could be the reason to keep her out of the loop? She had been a major player and had as much, if not more, to lose if the plan had gone awry. Why would she have been kept in the dark?
Was it because of what had happened before? Their personal lives had been in shambles, their marriage essentially over. Had the hurt neither of them had been able to get past colored Nic’s perspective so much that he had deliberately shut her out? Had he hated her that much?
Pushing back the pain, she continued to grapple with questions. What about Ash? Did he know, too? Asher Drake was the head of Option Zero. Though she and Nic had agreed to keep him out of their plan, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was the only one who’d actually been in the dark.
It had been two years, three months and seven days since she’d last seen her husband’s face. She remembered that moment like it was yesterday. He had walked into the small cabin. Seconds later, the cabin had exploded. But seven seconds before the explosion, she had seen him exit out the back, just as they had planned.
From the moment she’d met Nicholas Hawthorne, he had never stopped surprising her. Their first encounter in Munich had been epic. They had both been on missions and had used each other for cover without even knowing why. As if an invisible force were working, they’d been drawn to each other. She’d stolen a kiss from him that night, believing she’d never see him again.
Six months later, she had asked for an assignment as a liaison to a covert government agency in the US. By that time, she had been desperate to get away and had looked upon the opportunity as a godsend. When she arrived and saw that Nic had been in charge of one of the teams, she had been immediately suspicious.
Neither of them had been keen on working together. Even though she had been training for years, she’d had almost no real field experience. Hawke, as everyone called him, had been a seasoned professional, having run numerous missions as both a Navy SEAL and then team leader for several different covert agencies. Having a neophyte on his team had not been his idea.
To his credit, he had never berated or humiliated her when she’d messed up, which she had in those first few months. She had been trained to accept harshness, and when it hadn’t come from him, she had somehow believed that he hadn’t cared enough to berate her. In time and with the help of her teammates, she had learned that Hawke was not that kind of leader. Because of that, she had become a valuable member of the team much sooner than she had expected.
The team. She had loved them, and they had loved her back. It had been the first time she’d ever felt she was part of a family. The one she’d been born into had been the antithesis of family.
The heartache of what had happened to Layla would haunt her till she died. Hawke had felt the same way. In those last days before he had disappeared, that had been the one thing they had both agreed on.
Rising from the kitchen chair, she put away the few kitchen items, allowing her mind to go into neutral. Working out problems in this way was an old routine, and she desperately needed that normalcy today. She dressed for comfort in a pair of cotton pants and a long-sleeved blouse. With all the bruises on both her body and face, there was no way to hide them all. However, she did what she could with makeup and decided that would have to do. Staying inside until they healed was out of the question. She had places to go and people to confront.
Her first call was to Noah McCall. He was head of Last Chance Rescue and her boss. She owed him an explanation. Not only was she going to be out of commission for a while, he needed to know that she had been compromised. She had believed she’d been off the radar and couldn’t be found. Now that she knew that wasn’t true, he needed to be aware. The last thing she wanted was to put LCR at risk.
Half an hour later, she was standing in front of a hotel room. When she’d requested a meeting away from LCR headquarters, Noah had known immediately something was wrong. In his fashion, he hadn’t demanded an explanation. One of the many things she appreciated about Noah McCall was his steadiness.
Taking a breath, she knocked, and Noah opened the door. He was tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome. His coal-black hair had silvery threads running through the thickness that he jokingly attributed to his two children and not to his job as head of Last Chance Rescue.
Years ago, Noah had made rescuing human trafficking victims his life’s goal. During that time, he had created an organization that had successfully rescued hundreds of people and brought thousands of traffickers to justice.