Micah shook his head. “It’s not Walters. She was too calm. Her subconscious knows who her rapist was. She hasn’t seen him or she would have remembered him already. We’re looking at a potential mess with Orion and the rapist in the same ballroom as well.”
“I agree,” Jordan stated. “But this is our best chance to acquire at least one of them. That’s all we need. Tehya and I will leave ahead of you. Travis will have your limo; Nik will be following behind you. We’ll meet in the lobby of the hotel along with the grandmother, and Ian and Kira Richards.”
“Check,” Micah murmured as he watched the bathroom door.
He wanted to shower with Risa. He wanted to watch her curvy body, love her to distraction, and ease the fear filling her. But there was no time. There was simply no time.
He had run out of time.
He disconnected the call before moving to the closet and pulling free the silk suit that had been delivered along with Risa’s dress.
He took it and the hunger to shower with her and left the room to retreat to the spare bedroom where he would shower. Alone.
He needed to remember what being alone was like. Soon he would be without her, and he needed to prepare himself for that. If tonight went as planned, then by tomorrow night, Risa would be safe.
And he would be leaving. Without her.
Without her.
It echoed in his mind, his heart, and his soul.
He would be leaving, without her.
THE GOWN WAS gorgeous.
Risa felt the swish of the skirts around her as she and Micah walked along the hallway to the elevator. He held her hand and kept her close to him. She could feel the warmth of him, the power, and the tension that radiated in his body.
It was a tension that seeped into her as well. She could feel her stomach tightening with fear, her heart racing with it as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside.
The moment the doors closed, she found herself in Micah’s arms, against his chest, his lips on hers as he kissed her with a hunger that seared her to the bone.
“You’re making me crazy,” he groaned as he lifted her against him, pressing her hips into his so she could feel the erection raging beneath his slacks. “You look like a banked, glowing flame in that dress, Risa. So beautiful you take my breath.”
Her lips parted as she saw the hunger in his eyes, his expression.
“You should have built some time in for a nap before we left,” she murmured.
“Just a nap?”
“Well, we’d have found something to do in that bed if we didn’t sleep.” She tried to tease him; she tried to ease her fear and his tension.
“Many things,” he agreed as the elevator beeped a warning that it was reaching the lobby. “Things that would have made us incredibly late.”
He released her as the elevator doors opened, though he kept his hand on the small of her back.
“Ah, Miss Clay, you shine like the brightest star.” Clive Stamper was standing in the lobby, his smile beaming as she walked toward the door.
“Thank you, Clive.” She smiled back at him nervously as he held the door open.
“Have a very nice night, Miss Clay, Mr. Sloane.” He nodded as they passed.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered as the chauffeur opened the door and Micah helped her into the passenger area.
He moved in beside her, his arm going around her as he pulled her into his lap. The door closed behind them, and seconds later the limo was pulling away from the building.
“I’m here with you, baby.” He held her close to his chest, his hand stroking her back as he pressed a kiss to her neck. “Nothing or no one will touch you tonight but me. Okay?”
She pulled in a hard, nervous breath. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to fight. She wanted to demand that he turn around and take her back home.
“Do you remember the night we met?”
She felt his breath against her neck and shivered with the pleasure. She nodded.
“I watched you walk into the nightclub. I was sitting at the bar when you entered. You looked around nervously. Your eyes were wide with fear, but you forced yourself to walk across the room. Your courage amazed me. Awed me.”
She shook her head. “That was different.”
“How could it have been different?” His nose brushed against the lobe of her ear in a curiously gentle caress.
She almost grinned. “I already knew I was going to go to bed with you. I decided before I ever arrived at that nightclub.”
He stilled against her. “You had already decided? You didn’t know me, Risa.” There was a warning edge to his voice that had the grin tugging at her lips.
“Emily told me you were completely handsome.” She looked up at him, her hand curling around the side of his neck as she took in his black eyes, his black hair. “She was right, Micah. You’re devastating to a woman’s senses.”
He grunted at that. “And you decided to sleep with me based on that?”
“Sorry.” She gave a small laugh. “I did. But when I saw you—” She swallowed tightly at the memory. “When I saw you, Micah, I knew I had to. I didn’t want to change my mind. I didn’t want to run from you. I just wanted you.”
She wanted him to hold her, to kiss away her fears, to show her what pleasure was, rather than pain.
“You terrify me with your courage, Risa,” he sighed as his lips whispered over hers.
“I don’t know about the courage part.” She looked outside; they were only minutes away from the downtown exit and then would be even closer to the hotel where the ball was being held. “I’m so scared, Micah.”
“There’s no reason for fear, sweet.” His fingers brushed back a few loose strands of hair that had slipped from the loose upswept style she had chosen. “Tonight, we’re going to mingle with our friends, we’re going to dance, and we’re going to people-watch. Nothing more.”
“Monster-watch,” she breathed out roughly.
She could feel it. She knew the truth. He would be there tonight. The man she fought not to remember. With his large, hurtful hands. His cold, precise voice. He would be there.
“We’ll monster-watch then.” He sounded unconcerned. “But it won’t touch you. He won’t touch you. We’ll identify him if he’s there; then you and I will leave him to the others. Agreed?”
She looked into his eyes. “You’re lying to me,” she accused him. “You won’t leave him to the others. You’ll kill him first.”
He stared down at her, his expression stilling before he nodded slowly. “I will kill him first,” he stated. “For daring to lay a hand on you, Risa. For that alone, even if there was nothing more, I will be the one to kill him.”
But there was more. There was the history he had with both Orion and the scientist. His friends who had died because of them. Or was it his friends? She watched him closely, saw the flicker of guilt and of pain in his eyes, and she knew the truth. She knew her lover. She knew he had once been Mossad. Mossad didn’t walk away from their culture or from their vision to work for an outside agency.
“They were your parents,” she whispered. “Weren’t they? And the son, he was your brother?”
He shook his head slowly as he watched her. “There was no brother. There was only a father, a mother, and a son. A man so bent on revenge that he accepted a life of the walking dead to draw the blood of his enemy.” He lowered his head, brushed her lips with his own. “And when this is over, he will be alone again, with more than the memories of the desert to sustain him. He’ll have the memory of a woman. A touch that burns with passion. A kiss that sustained his soul. He’ll have his memories of you, Risa. More than he ever believed he would or could have.”
She stared back at him in shock. He was David Abijah. The son who had supposedly died at Orion’s hands when he stalked him.
She felt her throat tighten in remorse, felt her heart ache for everything he had lost.
“You don’t.” She swallowed
tightly. “You don’t have to leave, Micah.”
He laid his finger against her lips. “I’m a dead man, Risa. I made a vow. A promise. And I forsook any dream I may have wanted at a later time. I made a vow that I can’t walk away from now. Even for the most beautiful, the most courageous woman I’ve ever known.”
She felt her lips tremble. At least he didn’t love her, she thought. As much as she loved him, if he had breathed those words to her, she would have shattered apart. She could love him and lose him, but the thought of Micah throwing away a chance at love would have broken her.
“I’ll always be here,” she told him. “You can visit.”
He could hold her whenever he wanted to. She would be there for him. She would await him.
But he was shaking his head. “You have a life awaiting you, baby. I signed mine away. Live your dreams. Breathe in the desert air. Build the home of your dreams and fill it with children. Be the woman you dream of being.”
But she dreamed of being his woman.
She looked out the window and watched as the limo turned off the interstate and headed into town. They were almost there. She wanted to scream at him to turn around now, to take her home. Because when the mission was over, there was nothing left to hold him with her.
Instead, she slid from his lap, gathered the tattered remains of the courage he thought she had, and forced herself to be silent. To be dignified.
Only children threw tantrums, she told herself. But she wanted to throw a tantrum. She wanted to scream and rage. She wanted to fight whatever fate had decided that she couldn’t have the man she dreamed of having.
“We’re meeting Jordan and Tehya, as well as Ian and Kira Richards with your grandmother and her escort, in the lobby of the hotel,” he told her again. “We’re going to enter the ballroom, get us some drinks, and mingle. You’ll know many of the people there. You’ll introduce me as your friend. Look for the doctors you know. If you recognize the man that accompanied your father that night, and later to the clinic, then turn in to me. Don’t stare at him. Simply tell me you’re ready to leave, and we’ll leave. You can give me his name after we leave the ballroom.”
“Then what?” She watched as the lights of the hotel came into view.
“Then I’ll return to your apartment with you and the others will meet with me. We’ll work up a plan and we’ll go after him. That simple.”
“You’ll leave me alone?”
“Never.” His look was possessive, fierce. “You’ll be protected, love. I swear it. Are you ready now?”
The limo pulled into the front entrance of the exclusive hotel.
“As I’ll ever be.”
It came to a stop as the doorman stepped to it and opened the door with a practiced swing of his arm.
Micah stepped out, then reached in and took her hand to help her step free of the limo.
Risa drew in a hard breath.
She could do this, she assured herself. Micah was depending on her. Orion and the doctor he worked for had destroyed Micah’s family. For whatever reason, it had caused him to sign away his future. He deserved his chance for revenge.
She felt his hand on her lower back, a warm, comforting weight as he led her into the hotel.
Bright lights assaulted her eyes. She clutched at the small purse she carried and looked around frantically at the guests gathering outside the nearest ballroom. Faces blurred; the music seemed distant and far away. She felt as though she were suddenly outside herself and scrambling to find purchase.
“Risa. There you are.”
Her head jerked to her left. Her grandmother Abigail was moving across the lobby, her escort behind her. Dr. Oswald Heinrick was a family friend. She had tried to get Risa to let Heinrick see her after she was released from the clinic, but she had refused.
Heinrick, like James Walters, had been a friend of Jansen Clay’s.
Ugly little girl. The words clashed in Risa’s head as her grandmother’s voice seemed to fade. Damn you, Jansen, you promised one of these girls to me. I’ve risked my entire reputation for your fucking drug.
Risa shook her head.
“Risa, dear, are you okay?” Her grandmother hugged her.
Abigail’s now short, spiked hair brushed Risa’s jaw. She glanced behind her, looked up, and encountered Oswald Heinrick’s cold green eyes.
I know you! I know you! Her own screams echoed in her head.
“Risa, you look simply beautiful.” Her grandmother drew back and stared at Risa with a beaming smile before looking over her shoulder. “Isn’t she gorgeous, Oswald?”
“She’s simply beautiful.” His voice.
Risa shook her head. It wasn’t the right voice, was it? She remembered a colder tone. Didn’t she?
God, she couldn’t breathe. There were too many people surrounding her, too many voices. She couldn’t think.
“Risa, darling?” She felt Micah’s arm around her back as she stared up at Oswald Heinrick. His smile was warm and friendly. His eyes were cold. The thick beard and mustache that covered the lower part of his face distracted her.
It shouldn’t be there, she thought.
“You grew a beard,” she whispered faintly.
His eyes narrowed on her. Snake’s eyes. Small and mean. She remembered those eyes. Like ice. Hatred and disdain filling them.
“Actually, I did.” His smile was wide, disarming, as he ran his hand over his lower face. “Abigail isn’t quite used to it yet.”
Abigail wasn’t the only one.
“Micah, please meet Oswald Heinrick,” Abigail introduced them. “Oswald, this is Risa’s gentleman friend I was telling you about, Micah Sloane.”
“Mr. Sloane.” Oswald lifted his hand. “It’s good to meet the man that finally broke through our Risa’s reserve. Her grandmother has been worried about her.”
Risa’s heart was racing in her chest as she stared at his hand. It was large. Broad. It would be rough on the back. She wanted to know about his palm. Was it soft?
She could feel her stomach trembling. Her hand reached out, her fingers shaking as she gripped his wrist.
“Risa?” Micah’s voice was at her ear. She heard him, the tone dark, warning.
She wouldn’t break down. She was to turn to him.
She turned Heinrick’s hand over.
“Risa?” Oswald questioned her.
His palm was soft. She stared at it. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it. It was pale and white, without so much as a callus.
Against her hand she could feel the back of his. She felt the fine, almost invisible scars.
“I’m fascinated with hands,” she said faintly as she released him.
“Really, dear. You’re being a bit odd tonight, even for you.”
She tilted her head. There it was. The derision. The mockery.
She stared into his eyes.
I know you. She spoke the words silently and watched his pupils flare.
Yes, she knew him.
Her nails were biting into Micah’s wrist.
“I need to leave,” she whispered. “I’m not feeling well, Micah.”
That simple. That was all it took. His arm went around her and they were moving for the doors. She looked behind her to see Oswald’s eyes narrowed on her. Hatred flamed in them before he could hide it.
It was him. She knew it was him.
She heard Micah talking, but she didn’t know who he was talking to. She was filled with the images from the past. Those hands holding her wrists to the floor of the plane, his voice at her ear, telling her how ugly she was. How it behooved him to rape her. How she should thank him for teaching her how to be a woman.
“Because I was born to be used,” she whispered as Micah rushed her back into the limo. “I was born to die.”
“Stop it, Risa.” The door slammed behind them as Micah pulled her against him, holding her against his warmer body. “It’s over. You don’t have to remember this.”
“I should thank him,” she said tonele
ssly, repeating the words Oswald had thrown at her the night he raped her. “I should thank him for lowering himself to settle for me. At least I was a virgin.” She flinched at the sensation of tearing, ripping pain.
She could feel the sickness gathering in her stomach. It boiled and threatened to gag her as she fought it back.
“Stop it.” Micah jerked her face up to meet his black, enraged gaze. “It’s over. Do you hear me? It’s over. He’ll pay for what he did to you, Risa.”
“Jansen paid him.” She smiled mirthlessly. “He had to pay someone to fuck me after all.”
And he wasn’t the only one. Micah had fucked her to gain his way to the man who would lead him to Orion. Even Micah had an agenda.
She loved him, but there was no love for her.
She lowered her head and stared forward. She pushed back the emotion, the fear. She pushed away the pain. But nothing could still the betrayal.
Oswald Heinrick was a family friend. He had dated her grandmother for years. He had always been kind to Risa. Until the night he was with Jansen for the chance to molest a child. He’d wanted Carrie. Jansen had forced him to settle for Risa.
Micah wanted revenge, and he had taken Risa to get it.
She stared into the darkness, and for the first time, oddly enough, despite the rape and her confinement for nearly two years, Risa finally felt defeat.
CHAPTER 24
“HEINRICK IS IN the house.” John’s voice came across the receiver Micah had tucked at his ear as Jordan, Travis, Nik, Noah, and Mac all gathered in Risa’s apartment along with the Durango team.
Morganna and Kira were sitting in the living room with Risa. Micah stood at the doorway watching her, his brows lowered in a frown as he took in her pale expression, the dazed look in her eyes.
“Observation only, Heat Seeker.” Micah lifted his wrist and spoke into the small mic attached to the strap that surrounded it.