Beneath the Surface Page 12

  We were, but at a terrible price—our parents’ lives.

  Chapter 18

  Hannah

  Present Day

  With jetlag sapping some of her strength, Hannah sat on her bed as Jack checked in with his team. They’d flown out of Colombia with relative ease and were holed up in her apartment in Washington DC, waiting for word from his contact in the CIA. He was only three feet from her, so it was impossible not to listen in, at least to his side of the conversation.

  “I took the jet, Liam, but sent it back so you guys had a fast exit available.” As Jack listened, he shifted his gaze to the window. “Yes, Hannah is here with me. It’s a huge mess, but I’ll get into that when you all are back home. How are things going there? Any news about Chris?”

  There was a long pause as Jack listened to Liam.

  His eyes jerked to her, and her body stiffened. He seemed to soften and to open his posture to her, relaxing as if a layer of dust—former mistrust—peeled away.

  What just happened?

  “He’s safe? Chris is with you?” More silence. “Oh, wow. Yeah, I wish I was there for that.” He paused again. “Right. Be careful and let me know what happened.”

  Jack appeared to thaw toward her at the news about Chris, which functioned as proof that she’d told him the truth. Relief washed over her.

  “You told me he was okay.” His deep voice resonated inside her, awakening the desire that was always simmering just beneath the surface.

  “I tried to help him any way I could.” There was an ocean of words she wanted to say to Jack, but she couldn’t yet. She hoped a day would come when she was free to share, to love, to have a place she truly called home. Stop. That isn’t something you should entertain. There were bigger problems she had to unravel.

  She plucked a pen from her bedside table and repeatedly depressed the clicker. She should have been happy, but something was still bothering her: the pilot.

  Jack moved around the apartment, gathering clothes while she examined her feelings. Why does the pilot bother me so much, more so than the others I’ve come into contact with?

  She heard Jack start the water for a shower. She twirled the pen between her fingers, allowing her mind to sort through the details she’d noticed and those she remembered.

  After the water shut off, Jack exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam, with only a small towel around his hips. Her eyes traveled over the tapered V, up his washboard stomach, and across his wide, capable shoulders before lingering on the tattoo on his right arm. She’d traced its design with the tips of her fingers more times than she could count. The memory of his body pressing into hers caused her heart rate to double its pace. Their gazes collided, and the heat she was feeling was mirrored in the flare of his eyes and his wolfish grin.

  She tensed as Jack’s movements turned predatory, and anticipation skated across her skin as she sat frozen on the bed. Need slammed into her, and her fingers curled. She wanted to feel his rigid muscles. He stood over her, his body close enough to touch, and she shuddered as the memory of him—of them—superimposed itself over all her rational reasons not to get involved.

  Jack’s hand came up, skimmed along her cheek, and slipped beneath her hair to grasp her neck. His other hand cupped her jaw, and the gentle back-and-forth brush of his thumb on her cheek skyrocketed her pulse. Leaning down, he brushed his lips over hers. He teased her until she parted for him. Tugging her bottom lip with his teeth, he bit down lightly then ran his tongue over the tender spot. His breath feathered across her mouth. She wanted more.

  Threading her fingers through his hair, she kissed him with abandon. The man could kiss. He could make her forget everything. He could feed her very soul with a single touch.

  For several moments, they indulged in each other. As his lips reluctantly left hers, he moved around the bed and lay next to her. She shifted so she too was lying down. When his hand rested on her hip, she scooted close. He applied pressure, and she closed the distance between them.

  What she wouldn’t give for a lifetime of moments like that with Jack. But for the time being, she just cherished the fragile trust they’d established with Chris’s reported safety.

  Running the tips of her fingers up and down his back, she pressed a kiss to his broad shoulder. She rested her cheek against his chest. The thump of his heart against her ear lulled her to close her eyes, and her hands slowed in their path up and down his back.

  Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead and intertwined their fingers. Moments passed, and she snuggled against him, drifting until sleep claimed her.

  With the sheet crumpled at Hannah’s feet, an icy chill kissed her skin. He’d pulled her top up to expose her stomach sometime during the night. She lay with her back pressed to Jack’s front, and where their skin touched she was warm. The combination of sensations sent an avalanche of unwanted memories through her sleep-compromised mind until one blast from her past shot a jolt of alarm through her body.

  Jack’s hand tensed on her abdomen, most likely in response to how her body went ramrod straight as she played over the last few moments her sister was alive. I can trust him. I have to. They’d been good together when they were dating, and he already knew about her.

  “What’s wrong?” His husky voice vibrated along the top of her head.

  Rolling to her other side, she put distance between herself and the sinfully delicious man so she could think. “I remembered something small about the last second or two before my sister died.”

  He reached out and covered her hand with his, brushing his thumb across her balled-up fingers in a soothing caress. “What is it?”

  Turning inward, she mentally traveled back nine years to when her sister had lain in the snow. If only it had been a hard shove like Elsa had thought… But the red dye from the pellet wasn’t that at all. It had spread and soaked her parka. She’d tried... God, she’d tried. Blood had seeped through Hannah’s gloved hands as she applied pressure to staunch the flow from Elsa’s chest. It had only taken three minutes for the life to drain from her beautiful sister’s eyes.

  Her heart had pounded. In the moment of crisis, she’d remained outwardly calm, her ability to assess and react heightened and clear. It had been temporary. The tight rein she’d had on her emotions, her pending grief, and her almost paralyzing fear of her only remaining family member leaving her alone had been fragile at best.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks in both the past and the present as Hannah witnessed her sister leaving her all over again. “My sister wanted me to remember what she’d said the night before.”

  Minutes ticked by as Jack squeezed her hand, letting her tell him when she was ready.

  She’d heard the crunch of the snow seconds before she fell apart. Seconds before, she had pledged her life to avenge her family. “Just before she died, she was talking about a list. And then she looked over my shoulder. Her features softened. I knew that look. It was because of a boy, one she liked. He was standing behind me, but I didn’t turn to see. I couldn’t spare a moment away from her. All I could focus on was her.”

  “The list is important? Do you know what’s on it?”

  “Yes, it’s important. And, I’m not sure what’s on it. Maybe.”

  “We’ll find him and the list.”

  Something about this isn’t right.

  Jack

  Hannah’s head rested on his chest, her body flush against his. It was dawn, and they needed to get up soon. Even with the nightmare Hannah was involved in, he’d begun to trust her again because she’d told the truth about Chris. But trust wasn’t the only thing he contended with, and it wasn’t the only thing that held him back. Life wasn’t that simple.

  Drawing little circles on her arm, he enjoyed the peace of the moment with her in his embrace. If only their relationship could have been that simple, that straightforward. But it couldn’t be. His past still haunted him, even more so with the baggage she carried. He shoved the pillow in half beneath his head so he was angl
ed a little higher, jostling her in the process.

  Hannah cleared her throat before she tilted her head back to see his face. “Do you regret enlisting in the military?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  She splayed her hand over his heart. “No reason, really, just a feeling I have that there’s more to the story.”

  Fuck yeah, there is, but he didn’t want to get into it. “No. I don’t regret it. It kept us together.” At her questioning look, he continued. “The guys I grew up with, I mean.”

  “Chris and his brother?”

  “Yeah. Chris and Trev were part of our group. There were a few others too. We went into the military together and mostly stayed in the same group until Trev was split from us and was teamed up with Liam and the rest of the guys. Even after our term was up, we remained close.” He frowned at her. “You know this.”

  “I know the version on paper, but not the story behind it.”

  “Not much to tell.” There is… but no. “There was a point when the only option for us was to enlist, so we did. Why are you so curious about this?”

  “We all have our own secrets to bear, our demons in the past. I guess I was hoping you’d share yours. You know my family died.”

  I’m not in the sharing mood. Her words told him there was more she was holding back, more he would need to uncover. Whatever it was, he’d find out. “There’s not much to tell, Hannah.”

  The past was always just beneath the surface.

  Chapter 19

  Russia

  Hannah—14 years old

  An array of chemicals assaulted my nose as I prepped a new beaker for our next experiment. We were in science class, and I was partnered with Elsa. I worked hard to get there and to be by my sister’s side as often as I could. Two tables over, one of the students cursed. Simon wasn’t very good at mixing chemicals. Neither was my sister, really, but she had me, and I’d do anything to help her. She helped me too, especially in the classes where we needed to gather intelligence from others. Those she excelled at. I didn’t. Not like her, anyway.

  Something was happening that day. I could feel it in my bones when I woke up that morning. As anxiety threatened to overwhelm me, I knew without a doubt that whatever was coming would happen very soon. I felt the omen deep within me.

  The click of the door was loud in the classroom as it opened and shut behind the trainer who headed espionage activities, centering on psychology and communication. My sense of unease spiked. Please don’t take my sister away. I needed her close because she calmed the flashbacks I often had of the car crash, of our parents dying. Her presence reassured me that she didn’t leave too. I dropped my hands into my lap and laced my fingers in an attempt to hide the tremors.

  Our science teacher fell silent after a terse greeting. The head instructor gave a small smile as she faced our class. “I would like the following students to come with me after I call your name. Diana, Sophia, and Elsa.”

  My sister reached under the table and squeezed my hand. I knew she was trying to reassure me. For her, I put on a brave face. Our new home was its own version of hell. Most of the kids there didn’t know any other way. It was their normal. They’d grown up from a very young age within those walls and on the school grounds. It was all they’d known.

  There was another wing, one we didn’t frequent. It was for the students who were recruited from colleges, their dedication to the cause strong. Not us. We had another life, but it was taken from us. Our world had been very different from what we lived at the Academy, and both of us would give almost anything to go back to the way things were before the car accident.

  But it wasn’t meant to be.

  They were taking my sister.

  Someday I will take their everything.

  The anger that burned deep inside me roared to life until a look from Elsa doused the fire. She’d spared me a last glance before she left the room with the other girls and had halted my eruption.

  She was pleading with me. I needed to hold it together. She’d be the one punished, not me, especially since they’d learned not much would get to me. I would break for her, though.

  As I worked to regulate my breathing, the details of the girls that had left clicked into place like the first drops of rain against the window. Like my sister, they were all beautiful. Their bodies were curvy. They were perpetual optimists, real glass-half-full types.

  They must have had another purpose. I would find out what. If I could, I would join them.

  Even though it was slowly killing me to watch her go, I knew she would be happier to avoid the combat sessions in the afternoon, which I liked but she hated. I knew they were taking her to hone her skills in another area of our studies.

  I’d heard of that, of course. The most extroverted, charismatic, and beautiful of us would be taught—or trained—differently. They took only ones who shined for that training, and Elsa was the brightest of them all. The girls would learn impeccable manners, dancing, how to manipulate conversations to gain information, and sex. They could be anything, do anything, and sell anything, and they would make the perfect partners to the ones they were assigned to extract information from.

  We all learned those things, but that tier of people would master those techniques to manipulate others with information extraction based on a specific goal. They were social, enjoyable eye candy—who were also trained spies.

  I shared facial features with Elsa, but that was about it. I wasn’t as curvy or as bubbly. I was cold and precise. Elsa and those other girls exuded warmth. None of them were like me.

  There was one thing I did have in my favor, though.

  I’m more capable of killing than any one of them.

  Chapter 20

  Hannah

  Present day

  The click of the keyboard filled Hannah’s studio apartment as she logged in to sort through CIA employee files. With the weapon in Russian hands, waiting around wasn’t ideal. She needed to do more to uncover who from her past existed in her present. She scrolled through all CIA employees who would have access to the plane the day they flew out.

  She’d mostly come clean about the list—Jack knew it held valuable information about Russian sleeper agents. What he didn’t know was that she wanted it for another reason, to find the one responsible for her family’s death. There was another benefit to the list too. It could save her from prosecution.

  She’d also clued him into her officer position at the CIA and told him why she was an undercover employee at the Pentagon. But without an okay from Rich, she kept her association with him to herself. That wasn’t her secret to share.

  Jack paced the length of the small room behind her. “It won’t be long before the CIA is alerted that you’re in the system. This isn’t safe. We need to do this another way. Log out, Hannah,” he growled as his arms came down on either side of her, palms flat on the desk where she worked, caging her in.

  “What other way? No matter what I do, it’s a risk.” She swiveled and stood so they faced one another, and he automatically wrapped his arms around her. So close to him, she drowned in his familiarity and the comfort he provided. This isn’t fair to him. Held loosely in his embrace, she pleaded, “You can—should go, Jack. I’m going to bring you down if you stay by me. It’s just not worth it.”

  “No,” he said through clenched teeth. “There is a smarter way to get the same results.” He leaned around her and, with the tap of a button, logged her out. “We’re doing this my way.”

  She’d been on her own for a long time. Even when they were dating, she’d kept in the back of her head that he couldn’t be hers. Everyone that had cared for her had been taken from her. He would be too. Nothing fazed him, though. He still fought for her.

  Her eyes misted, the usual icy façade she kept up all but obliterated in his presence.

  “I’m calling my contact at the CIA,” Jack insisted. “Rich will help us once we explain everything. He’s been waiting to hear from me anyway, and going
this route will take the heat off of us. If we don’t, we’ll have a full contingent of agents swarming your apartment in a very short amount of time.”

  He had a point.

  Jack released her, took a step back, and slipped his phone from his jeans pocket. He punched in a number and put the phone to his ear. Rather than listen to his one-way conversation, she moved around him and went to get a cup of coffee. They’d been strategizing for the better part of the day but still hadn’t come up with a clear plan. The threat of the weapon the pilot had stolen weighed heavily on both of them. Time was ticking by, and they needed to figure out what the plans were—and against whom—then put them into play.

  In a pair of leggings and one of Jack’s T-shirts, she paced the length of her kitchen, hands wrapped around her coffee mug to ward off the slight chill she had from the brisk October day.

  She’d been told to go back to work for the Pentagon and that her next mission would come once she was firmly established back in the fold. I can’t put Henry at risk. She wanted to avoid visiting the Pentagon. She grimaced. We should have done that immediately instead of coming here and wasting hours—well, not wasting. Warmth spread through her at the thought of how Jack had held her throughout the night.

  She heard his steady, deep timbre pause, and she tensed. She took a sip of the scalding brew then set the mug down and weaved her fingers behind her neck as she pushed out a held breath. Not too long after she thought she heard him say goodbye, he rounded the corner of her small kitchen, his brows furrowed and his eyes unfocused. He was lost in thought.

  “Well?” On pins and needles, she waited to hear what the outcome was. That call could very well have determined her few remaining minutes of freedom. When the sexy grin that she’d always melted for lifted the corners of his sinful mouth, she almost sagged in relief.