Common sense told her that if there were guards in the towers above, watching for any kind of movement, they might see her make a break for it, could fire on her from above, and she could be dead within seconds. But if she stayed here, cowering in the corner and didn’t take a chance, she might never be free.
She’d broken free before. Her mind flashed back to that Conex container she’d been trapped in after she’d been abducted three months ago. To the flash of light, the fresh air, to the men dragging her toward that van. She’d taken a chance then and run. And ultimately they’d caught her and beat her. She’d paid for trying to escape, but she knew she’d do it again in a heartbeat, even with the same outcome, because she was a fighter.
“Do you want to live, Olivia?” Yes, she did. She hadn’t given up then, and she wasn’t giving up now. And she wasn’t about to let some stupid man give up for her.
For the second time in twenty-four hours, she ignored Landon’s orders and did what she knew was right.
Landon slinked around the edge of the building and located the propane tank thirty-five feet out from a utility building set back from the compound. A wood fence ran around the tank, hiding it from view, but he knew it was his target from the pipes sticking up from the ground near the building, in direct line with the small square fence.
He glanced up at the nearby tower. An oak tree stood between him and the fence. Dragging in a deep breath, he sprinted through the dim light and drew up sharply when he reached the shadow of the tree, then plastered his back to the trunk.
His breaths came fast and shallow. By now Olivia had to be well into the vineyard. She could run fast when she wanted. He’d watched her do it. He said a quick prayer she’d get to that Kubota before the guards in the towers noticed any movement.
Don’t think about Olivia. You don’t have time.
No, he didn’t. But as his eyes fixed on the wood fence surrounding his target, he couldn’t help but think back to the way she’d looked up at him when he’d held her under those stairs. The fit of her body against his had excited every part of him and sent blood rushing to his cock. He knew she’d felt it—she’d have to be dead not to feel that—and he’d seen it in her eyes when she’d eased back and looked up at him. But he’d also seen fear. The kind he was used to seeing in women’s eyes when they got their first look at him, and it had quickly dampened any arousal he’d been feeling. Because Olivia was the one person who’d never been afraid of him, who’d seemed to see through the exterior, who’d made him think he could be something more than a killer trained by the DIA.
That’s exactly what you are. Accept it and move on.
The kicker was, though, he had. And then Olivia Wolfe had dropped into his life, and he’d found himself wanting . . . more.
Focus, dumbass.
He pushed thoughts of Olivia out of his mind and zeroed in on the fence. As a cloud passed in front of the moon, dimming the light, he darted toward the edge of the fence, away from the view of the tower. The gate was locked, and he didn’t have a key. Luckily, the panels were nailed, not screwed—thank the fucking stars above—to braces on the inside.
He tucked his gun in the front of his jeans, slunk down, and moved around the corner of the fence. Reaching for the top of the closest board, he flexed his muscles and pulled. Metal groaned as he pried the nails from the wood. He ground his teeth and jerked the panel free, then tossed it to the ground. Just as he’d hoped, a one-thousand-gallon propane tank sat inside the square fence.
He pried off two more boards, just in case, grasped the handgun at his waist, and slinked back into the shadows along the building, thirty-five feet away. When he reached the corner, he peered around the edge, looking for any kind of movement. The grounds were quiet. In the tower above, though, a shadow passed in front of the light, indicating someone was up there, watching.
He ducked around the side of the building and looked back. Across the compound, a dog barked, and voices echoed, rising up in the night. Lights flashed in another tower, and a flurry of activity lit up the courtyard.
The tat-tat-tat of gunfire echoed through the night. Landon’s heart rate jerked.
Run, Olivia.
He lifted his gun in both hands, peered around the building toward the propane tank he’d exposed, and lined up his shot. His focus zeroed in on the target. And pushing aside everything else, he pulled the trigger.
The first bullet ricocheted off the ground inches from her shoes, and Olivia screamed. Fear dropped her to her stomach. Dirt and mulch flew up in the air around her. She coughed, then struggled to her feet, trying to stay low in the vines so whoever was shooting couldn’t find her.
Her heart pounded hard beneath her ribs. At her back, a cacophony of dogs barked, and voices echoed. They were coming for her. They’d seen her. She had seconds before they’d be on top of her.
She lurched beneath the vines to the next row. The ATV Landon had told her to run for was fifteen yards ahead, parked beneath an oak tree. Her shoes skidded to a stop in the loose earth near the bright-orange vehicle, and she ducked inside, scanning the dashboard for the keys he said would be there.
They were still in the ignition. Holding her breath, Olivia reached for the keys to turn the engine over, when she realized she hadn’t seen Landon’s signal yet.
Where was he? Oh God, had they gotten him? Fingers on the key, she looked over her shoulder, scanning the compound for any sign of him. A roar echoed in the night sky. The ground shook. A split second later, an explosion lit up the right side of the compound, sending flames shooting fifty feet into the air.
The vehicle rocked, and Olivia let go of the keys to grab on to the frame of the machine. Her heart lurched into her throat. She pushed herself back up, wondering what had happened, hoping Landon hadn’t been anywhere near that explosion when it had gone off. Praying . . .
That was the sign.
Her lungs felt like they condensed down three sizes. Hands shaking, she turned the key. The engine roared to life, but the sound was muffled by the raging fire behind her. Gripping the wheel, she pushed down on the gas pedal, then yelped as the ATV jerked to life beneath her, rocketing her down the lane between two rows of grapes.
She couldn’t see a thing. The night was dark, and she couldn’t figure out where the headlights were to flip them on. A tree loomed ahead, and she jerked the wheel to the right, narrowly missing plowing the ATV head-on into the trunk.
He said to go right.
Right? She couldn’t tell which way was right out here in the dark. When she drove straight through a row of vines and the branches smacked against the windshield, she bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out. The metallic taste of blood pooled in her mouth, but she ignored it, focusing instead on not killing herself while she tried to maneuver through the vineyard. A glance to her right confirmed she was running parallel to the vineyard, not away from it like Landon had told her to do.
She cranked hard on the wheel, angling back toward the villa. Voices echoed through the night. She could see the frantic rush of bodies hustling around the compound. Fear balled in her chest with what she was about to do.
A figure appeared in the middle of the lane. She shrieked, slammed on her brakes, and barely missed running into the person. Pulse racing, Olivia pried her eyelids open in time to see Landon stalking around the vehicle to her left, heading right for her, his body covered in black soot.
“I told you to get lost. Not come back. What in bloody hell were you thinking?”
He pushed her over, forcing her to slide across the bench, taking the seat behind the wheel. Whipping the rig around, he glanced over his shoulder and stomped down on the gas, rocketing them down the aisle.
The scents of burning wood and rubber filled the air. Olivia didn’t have time to be relieved. She grasped the back of her seat and held on for dear life. “I was thinking about saving your neck. A thank-you
is in order.”
They reached the end of the row. He cast her a surprised look, then jerked the vehicle to the right, cranking on the wheel. “I didn’t ask for it. When I tell you to do something, fucking do it.”
The way he was swearing grated on every last bit of her control. “If you don’t like the way I do things, don’t send me to do them!”
The ping of bullets hitting metal echoed somewhere close, and Olivia yelped, covering her head with her hands.
“Son of a bitch,” Landon muttered. Then to her, “Take the wheel. And goddammit, stay down.”
Too shocked to do anything but, Olivia ducked her head and reached for the wheel. He kept his foot on the gas while she scrambled over him, his hard body brushing her back, his heat seeping into her for a split second before he was gone. Her foot slid over his, and then he moved out from under her, letting her have control of the vehicle once more while he lifted his weapon.
Gunfire echoed through the night. She clenched her jaw, ducked her head, and tried to block out the sounds as she whipped the vehicle behind another oak tree. Landon swore. Another ping echoed off the ATV. Ahead, Olivia spotted the edge of the vineyard and the olive grove beyond.
“Hold on,” she yelled.
Landon swore again, but braced himself and kept firing. Olivia jerked the vehicle around the first olive tree, then the next, pushing down on the gas with every bit of strength in her leg, using the grove as a cover—or at least as better cover than those vines.
“Keep going,” Landon shouted above the roar of the engine. “Don’t let up!”
Another ping. Another echo of gunfire. Olivia leaned forward, narrowed her eyes, and headed for the forest beyond the olive grove. Oh, she wasn’t about to let up. Not now. Not when they were almost free.
“No, keep going.” Landon glanced around the small village as Olivia slowed the Kubota a half hour later. The soft glow of streetlights illuminated houses and empty cobblestone streets, but there was little cover for them to hide behind, and they weren’t far enough from the compound yet to make him breathe easier. He pointed to the right, indicating for her to go around the village, not through it.
“Which way?” she asked when she reached the other side.
He glanced behind them as he finished ripping off a strip of fabric from the tail of his shirt. He couldn’t see anyone following, which meant they’d given their kidnappers the slip, but he didn’t doubt they’d be on their trail soon enough. “Right. Head east.”
He wrapped the fabric around his upper arm and pulled tight, tying it off as Olivia turned the rig that direction.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just ripped my shirt.”
She didn’t prod for more, and he figured that was good news on his part. He’d been hit by something—flying debris, ricocheting metal from the blast, a bullet—but he wasn’t losing enough blood to cause permanent damage, and there was no sense looking until he got Olivia to safety.
The ATV bounced over uneven terrain, and Landon braced his one-size-too-small boots on the dash and tried to ignore the burn in his arm.
“Why not this village?” she asked.
“Because it’s the first place they’ll look for us.” He glanced behind them again before settling back in his seat. “We’ll need to ditch this rig. It’s not going to get us far.”
“It would help if we knew where the heck we were,” Olivia mumbled.
He slanted a sideways look her direction. She’d tucked her hair behind her ears and was focused on the dark terrain in front of them. Since he hadn’t let her turn on the headlamps, she could barely see and was using the moonlight to guide her. Her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed, her slim hands wrapped around the steering column. She was as focused as he’d ever seen her, and his stomach did a little flip when he thought about how calm she’d been during that whole escape—how she’d come back for him.
He clenched his jaw. “We need to talk about your decision-making skills. When I tell you to do something, I need you to do it, not ignore me and do whatever you damn well please.”
She stomped on the brakes, jerking the vehicle to a halt. His body flew forward, hit the dash, and bounced back. He groaned as pain lit up his arm and shoulder.
“Seriously?” Gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white, she glared his direction. “You’re going to pull that on me now? After I saved your life? If it weren’t for me, you’d be right back in that cell again. Or worse, dead.”
He pushed himself back into his seat and grimaced, rolling his shoulder against the pain. “I’d have dealt with it and been fine.”
“Oh, right.” She looked out the windshield again. “I forgot. The way you deal with everything. Yeah, I saw the way you dealt with those two guards.”
She pushed down on the gas, this time a little harder, forcing the vehicle to bounce over rocks and lumps in the field. His body jerked back against the seat. A ribbon of guilt snaked through him. Not because he’d killed those two guards, but because she’d seen him do it.
“Look. It was either them or us. You know that, right?”
He couldn’t read her expression, but her jaw tensed as she swerved to avoid hitting a tree. “How many ‘thems’ have there been? Give me a number.”
His hand stilled in the act of reaching for the dash to brace himself. “That’s not—”
“More than ten? Obviously more than ten,” she muttered. “I mean, you killed at least five back in Seattle when you rescued me from that house, and then those two today, and God only knows how many for breakfast. That’s clearly more than ten.”
The lift to her voice, the way she was staring ahead and the rig was bouncing over branches and boulders as if she weren’t even seeing them told him loud and clear she’d reached her limit. “Okay, stop the vehicle.”
“Do you even work for Aegis? Was that all a lie? That woman said you work for the DIA. Not that you used to work for the DIA, like you insinuated to me. How does it work? Do people just call you up and say, ‘I’m ticked at my dad, take care of him for me’? How the hell does that work?”
She was quickly moving from pissed to hysterical, and she wasn’t slowing the vehicle. If anything, she was pushing harder on the gas. “Olivia,” he said carefully, bracing his hand on the dash, “stop the rig.”
“I think I have a right to know,” she went on. “They said you’re after this young girl, this Danica Crossler. Is that her name? Why? Unless she’s like that Angelina Jolie wannabe back there, what could she have possibly done to warrant your wanting to kill her? God”—she shook her head—“I’m such an idiot. Why the hell does this keep happening to me? How do I keep ending up with the nutcases? I swear I have ‘Psycho Magnet’ stamped to my forehead.”
Landon reached over and killed the engine. Startled, Olivia looked down at the speedometer as the vehicle began to slow, then eased on the brake, her eyes growing wide with disbelief. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He wasn’t sure what she’d been told when they’d pulled her out of that room to interrogate her, but he needed to get this out in the open. If for no other reason than to make sure she didn’t plow the Kubota head-first into a boulder or tree and kill them before he had a chance to get her to freedom. He had to hand it to her. She’d held it together a lot longer than most. And she’d come back to save his life. No one did that. No one he’d ever met.
He pulled the keys from the ignition and reached for her. “Olivia, listen to me. I—”
“No.” She jerked back and scrambled out of the Kubota. “No, I’m done listening to you. You humiliated me, you put my life in danger, you almost got me killed, and you lied to me. All this time I thought you were just an operative for Aegis.”
Calmly, because he knew she was on the edge, he climbed out of the vehicle, tucked the keys in his pocket as he rounded the hood,
and stood in front of her. “I was. Sort of.”
“Sort of? Sort of? How do you sort of work for someone?”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“I’ll tell you what’s complicated. You lying to me. About who and what you are. You’re not an Aegis operative at all. You still work for the DIA. You’re . . .”
“What?”
She waved her hands in front of her, a sick look passing over her face. “You’re . . .”
“Just say it.” He wanted her to say it. Wanted to hear the words come out of her mouth. Because as soon as they did, he could stop fantasizing about some stupid relationship that was going nowhere.
Her eyes flattened and hardened, then settled on his. “You’re a killer.”
The whispered words were a sucker punch, straight to the gut. He’d expected them to hurt, but not to knock the wind completely out of him.
“Yes,” he said slowly, locking down those emotions that shouldn’t be bombarding him. “Technically, I still work for the DIA. But I didn’t lie to you when I said I was working for Aegis. I was. In an unapproved fashion. While I’ve been on leave from the DIA.”
“On leave from killing people.”
This was clearly a major sticking point for her. Exactly as he knew it would be. “That’s a simplistic description. I’m more like a people finder.”
“Oh my God.” She lifted her arms, took a step away, and then dropped them to her sides. “A people finder who kills people. It’s not simplistic at all. You either kill people or you don’t. Don’t lie to me anymore. I was there, Landon. I saw what you did to those two guards. Is that what you’re going to do to me? If I piss you off enough, is that what’s waiting for me?”
He moved without thinking, gripped her by the arms, and pulled her up against him. “Do you honestly think I would hurt you?”
Her eyes searched his in the moonlight. She didn’t immediately answer. Against his chest, he felt the increased beat of her heart, but he also saw the doubt lurking in her soft green gaze. “I don’t know. Everything I thought I knew is wrong. Before last night, I thought there was something happening between us, but I was obviously wrong. And then all of this . . . I don’t know what to believe anymore.” She hesitated. “They said you want to kill that girl.”