Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International (31 page)

Shoving the coffee table off, Miles jerked on the large, heavy rug, but got nowhere. It was anchored under a couple of chairs on one side and a couch on the other. Frustration burning through his veins, he did a linebacker move, hitting the couch full force and toppling it over. Then he turned and kicked each of the chairs off the rug.

Flipping it up and over, he folded it a couple of times and hauled it out of the room.

“Does anyone have eyes on Norris?” Zeb said in their comms.

Hunter and Parker both responded with nos.

Fuck
. Miles would have punched the wall if he hadn’t been concentrating on helping Jax position Charlotte on one end of the rug. Slowly, they began to roll her up.

When they finished, Jax helped him lift her up onto his shoulder, fireman-style. “Asset is secure,” Miles told the group. “Now find me a clear path out of here.”

“Go back to the secret passage,” came Parker’s reply. “Take a left instead of a right and you’ll come to the back entrance I snuck you in through earlier. I’ll have you covered.”

“Roger that,” Miles said and patted Charlotte’s unconscious body. “Let’s get you out of here, Agent Butter.”

Chapter Twenty

_____________________

______________________________________________________

C
HARLOTTE
F
OUGHT
T
HROUGH
the heavy waves of pain and darkness. She was so damn cold again and a part of her just wanted to let go. Let go of the pain, let the darkness swallow her.

Nico. The castle. The images came in fits and starts, making her gasp. She’d been here before. She’d sworn she’d never let him do this to her again, and yet here she was, body broken, spirit crushed. Why not just give up? What was there to live for?

Miles
.

She’d heard him call her name, hadn’t she?

Had to be a trick of her mind. Miles was gone. She would never see him again.

Tears ran from the corners of her eyes. Hot and messy and she hated the world for a moment.

Pressing through the darkness, she tried to remember more. Madeena had been there, calling her Sarah, but in her mind, she heard Miles again. She was sure she had heard his voice calling her name.

In fact, through the pain buzzing in every cell of her body, she thought she could hear him saying her name right now.

Maybe I’ve already died and gone to heaven
. Miles was there to meet her. A lovely thought, but surely heaven, or whatever afterlife there was, wasn’t filled with so much cold and pain.

“Charlotte.”

There it was again, the voice she loved with its slight southern accent.

“Charlie, can you hear me?”

Charlie? Miles never called her that, only her friends back in school had ever used that nickname. Friends, who one by one, deserted her after she claimed her mother was killed. Friends who treated her like she had a disease after she came out of the mental hospital.

This afterlife was really screwed up if this was some version of heaven.

She felt someone take her hand. Life seeped into her fingers, warmth, support.

“Come on, Charlotte. Wake up for me.”

She wanted to wake up, but her eyes refused to obey the command to open. What if this was all a trick? What if the voice she was hearing wasn’t real?

It can’t be Miles. Miles is dead
.

Man, God had a wicked sense of humor.

If she kept her eyes closed, maybe the voice would keep talking to her and she could pretend Miles
was
alive. She wanted more of that voice, more of the heat warming her hand. She could forget about the pain and the darkness if she just had those two things to anchor onto.

She’d never told him that she loved him. So many missed opportunities. What had she been waiting for? She, out of anyone, knew how easily a life could be snuffed out. How someone you love could be taken away in the blink of an eye.

Parting her lips, she took a deep breath. A fresh wave of pain shot through her ribs and she winced. “I love you, Miles,” she said on a tremulous exhale.

Fingers brushed across her cheek. “I love you, too, sweetheart. Now, open them pretty eyes for me.”

A surge of hope smothered her doubts. She forced her eyelids to crack open. “Miles?”

Her vision was crap. She was on a bed, under some blankets, but the person next to her was a giant blur.

She blinked rapidly, trying to bring him into focus. Every blink brought a clearer picture.

Dark hair, flannel shirt, a wide smile. “There’s my girl.”

He turned his face and called over his shoulder, “She’s awake.”

“Miles?” She couldn’t seem to stop saying his name. He leaned closer, the features on his face becoming distinct. The beautiful eyes she loved, the angled jaw, the broad nose. “Did I die and go to heaven?”

In her peripheral vision, several fuzzy figures appeared.

Miles chuckled, rubbing her arm. “Close, but no. We’re at an abandoned church not far from the compound. You’re in the parish.”

Despite the pain, despite the weakness and her blurry vision, Charlotte reached out and grabbed him. “Oh, my God. I thought you were dead.”

Clumsily, she pulled him into an embrace, fighting through the sluggishness in her body. A tug on her arm made her glance at it. She was hooked up to some kind of homemade IV.

“Easy, easy.” Miles held her tight but with care. After a too-short minute, he forced her to let go of him and lie prone again. “I killed the guy who got a jump on us at the cabin and then I came after you.”

One of the fuzzy figures on the edge of her vision moved closer. “You took a serious hit to the back of your head, Charlie.” As his features materialized, she recognized Jaxon. “I didn’t want to give you any pain medicine in case you have a concussion, which I’m pretty sure you do.”

Head concussion. Try three. “I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

Light laughter sounded from everyone. “How do you feel otherwise?” Miles asked. He held her hand and she had to keep squeezing it to make sure he was real. “You have a couple of bruised ribs, and it looks like you sprained your ankle. You took a stab to your shoulder.”

Were the ribs only bruised? The pain was substantial. Didn’t matter.
Miles is alive
. “I feel like I took a horse kicking,” she said.

Another round of chuckles.

“Everything is wrapped up good and tight,” Jax said. “I think you avoided any internal injuries, so the thing we’re most worried about is your head.”

“Not the first time someone’s been worried about that,” Charlotte mumbled. Although the last time anyone had worried about the condition of her head, they’d been more worried about her mental state than her physical one. “Nico? Did he get away?”

Miles exchanged a glance with an older guy. “A team of SIS showed up right as I carried you out. Nico was down for the count. They picked him up and have him in custody, but…”

“They don’t have the video proving he and his men shot down the plane.” Charlotte sighed. “CB Norris, my handler, has the USB. I don’t suppose you nabbed him? The guy in black? He had a girl with him.”

The older guy spoke. “He disappeared on us.”

“Sorry.” Charlotte squinted. “But who are all you people?”

A round of introductions ensued. Zeb, Parker, Trace, Moe. She repeated the names in her head three times to make sure she didn’t forget.

“We assume Norris took the girl with him,” Zeb said.

Madeena.
Have to find her.
Norris would use her for the same reason Miles would if he knew her identity—to find her father.

Charlotte tried shifting into a sitting position. The room spun, a fresh wave of pain exploding behind her eyes and inside her ribs. “Damn, that hurts.”

“Whoa.” Miles stopped her and forced her back down. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Madeena, the girl. She needs me.” She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up on her elbow. The floor seemed to roll like a wave under the bed and she closed her eyes for a second, then blinked them open. The rolling stopped, the room didn’t spin.

Better
. “I didn’t tell you this before, Miles, and I hope you don’t hate me.”
Especially after you told me you love me.
“But…”

Miles narrowed his eyes, his lips firming slightly before he spoke. “But what, Charlotte? Spit it out.”

Should she tell him? Come clean?

God, she was tired. Tired of the lies and the secrets. She had to protect Madeena, but she couldn’t lie to Miles any longer. She had to make him understand. “The girl? She knows the man responsible for shooting down your helicopter last year.”

“The terrorist?”

“He goes by Blackwater,” Zeb interjected.

Charlotte licked her dry, cracked lips. “Yes, I know.”

Miles’ voice rose. “You know?”

“That’s what Madeena called him. Blackwater.”

“Your handler, Norris, has been after him for almost twenty years,” Zeb said. “How does the girl know him?”

Sweat broke out along the back of her neck. Everyone was staring at her, their faces now distinct and every one of them clouded with worry. “Nico made some kind of trade with the man. He got the girl as part of the payment for the RPGs.”

“Who is she?” Miles asked.

Charlotte swallowed against the lump in her throat. “She’s Blackwater’s daughter.”

Zeb’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Blackwater has a daughter?”

Charlotte nodded, keeping an eye on Miles. His face was tight, his body completely still. “From what Madeena told me,” she said, “he has several sons whom he put into his training camps. She’s his only daughter, no better than a dog to him. Her mother died and Blackwater wanted her gone. He sold her in the trade.”

Miles’ gaze was hard. “She knows where her father is hiding out, doesn’t she?”

Charlotte nodded.

“You were going to tell me this, right? At some point, while we were still in Romania, you were going to tell me that you actually knew the identity of the bastard who killed my teammates and that this Madeena could help me find him. Right, Charlotte?”

She needed to sit up and face him straight on, make him understand. She didn’t think the pain in her ribs could get much worse, but it did as she forced herself into a sitting position. Grabbing his hand, she held it tight. “I couldn’t tell you. I knew you’d want to go after her and force her to tell you where Blackwater is hiding in the mountains. I couldn’t do that to her.”

His hand was slack in hers. “Couldn’t do what?”

“Miles, she’s fifteen. If she gave up her father’s whereabouts to you and you killed him, think of the guilt she would live with for the rest of her life.”

“Her father is a murderer. He gave her away like a piece of property to a man who’s done despicable things to her. Why wouldn’t she want to see him brought to justice?”

“It’s a complicated situation, but believe me, she would never betray him willingly, even after what he’s done to her.” She knew the feeling well. No matter how badly her father had betrayed her, she still felt some loyalty to the man. Some love. “You might have had to…force it out of her, and she’s been through enough. Nico is a master at torture.”

“Wait.” Miles jerked his hand away. “You think I would hurt some young girl to get what I wanted?” He jumped up and fell back a couple of steps. “Jesus Christ, Charlotte. I want revenge, but I’m not Nicolae Bourean. I don’t get my rocks off on hurting women.”

“I never said that. I just didn’t want you or her to be put in such a position.”

Zeb rubbed a hand down his face. “But Norris will do exactly that. Force her to tell him where Blackwater is.”

Charlotte nodded. “He will use violence and torture if he has to. That’s why I have to find them. Not just for the proof that Norris set me up and that Nico was working with Blackwater. I have to save Madeena. Besides, my beef with Norris is personal.” She looked down at the blanket covering her legs, picked at a lint ball. “He had my mother killed.”

It seemed strange to say the words out loud. To know that she’d been right all along, even when everyone else had been telling her she was wrong. Deep down, she’d believed what she saw that night was real, but after so many years of people telling her she was confused, she’d started to doubt herself.

“What?” Miles was back at her side. “Norris?”

She gave him the brief details, Miles sitting on the edge of the bed as she relayed the story CB had told her. “I was right all along,” she said with a sad smile. “And all that time, I played right into his hands.”

Miles pulled her into a gentle hug and it felt so good to be held, comforted. She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes.

Zeb interrupted the moment. “Norris is a borderline sociopath, Agent Carstons. You shouldn’t feel bad about being dragged into his master plan.”

But she did feel bad. Some operative she was. How flippin’ stupid and gullible could she be? She broke from Miles’ embrace and looked at Zeb. “You seem to know more about him than I do.”