Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Callie didn’t like the way her heart kept throbbing around her handsome bodyguard. She wished she hadn’t nearly fallen on her ass and broken her head because then she wouldn’t know what it was like to have her body pressed up against his.
When he’d held her in the cool, dark back hall of the Dawg, she’d felt like a teenager on her first date again. She’d been enamored of Bobby Bowen since she’d been old enough to be interested in boys. When she was sixteen, he’d asked her to homecoming. That night had been her first kiss, and her heart had thundered so hard she’d thought she was going to pass out.
Callie Crowell was a nerd, and football jocks didn’t ask nerds to the dance. But he had, and she’d been positive it was fate. Turned out it was a bet. The moment their mouths touched, a light went on and cell phones flashed as they captured her startled expression. Bobby had laughed.
Then Tara Warren, the head cheerleader and Callie’s arch nemesis, only because Tara’s mom and hers were rivals at the country club, sashayed up to Bobby and looped her arm in his.
It was like every heart-wrenching moment out of every single teen movie ever made. She’d been the butt of the joke when social media blew up with photos of her stupid expression. Bug eyes behind her glasses—which she no longer wore full-time because yay for corrective contacts—and her mouth open wide. She’d been startled, but it’d looked like she was about to devour poor Bobby’s face.
Yet it was still her first kiss ever.
Seth wasn’t mean like a high school jock and a prissy cheerleader, but he also hadn’t been holding her close out of any real desire for her. He’d held her because she’d been trembling. Then he’d let her go and hauled her inside for lunch.
Sure, he told her things that made her heart ache for him, but that didn’t mean he was sharing his secrets with her. He was a man, and whatever emotion he might have felt as a four-year-old left with his grandparents was no longer an issue for him.
He’d been trying to be nice, to tell her that Nikki would be okay, and she appreciated it. Reading anything else into it was folly of the worst kind.
They finished lunch—as amazing as he’d promised it would be—and went to deliver Colleen’s computer. Colleen wasn’t there, but a note on the door said to leave any packages at Doc Sutton’s office and she’d pick them up later. So they’d trudged to the doctor and Callie had gotten to meet Emma Sutton, who’d moved back to town to take over her dad’s practice. Emma was engaged to Blaze Connolly.
She was a pretty woman, also nerdy, which meant that Callie liked her right away. Then again she’d liked Rory, and Rory was a girlie-girl stunner in jeans and a white tank top with a plaid shirt over it to keep her warm in the chill of the AC. But she was nice, and she had a comedic streak that Callie admired because she didn’t have one herself.
Once the computer was safely stowed and the conversation was over, Seth drove them to the Piggly Wiggly. Callie had been before, many times, and everyone was super friendly and said hello. But this was the first time she’d been inside with a man who attracted the kind of attention that Seth did. Women darted down aisles just to say hi. Older ladies stopped him to talk about how he was settling in and ask did he like the weather, among other things.
The younger women side-eyed her like she was a puzzle they couldn’t quite solve. Yet more proof that a man like Seth King would never be interested in someone like her. She didn’t have buck teeth and braces anymore, but she knew her limits.
Seth grabbed sandwich meat, cheese, and bread. He picked up milk and cereal and toaster pastries. She resisted the urge to tell him about the toxicity of palm oils and added sugar but made a mental note to make sure Nikki didn’t see the box. He also bought steaks, potatoes—she told him she had a bag, but he waved her off—and salad fixings. There were potato chips cooked in vegetable oil (very bad) and soda (ultra-toxic).
“That’s enough for the next three or four days,” he said. “You need anything?”
She didn’t so he rolled to the checkout and paid and then they were on the way again. It was after three when they got back to the farm. Charlie was at the fence, waiting to be fed. Seth wouldn’t let her go alone. He checked the house for any intrusions, took the groceries inside and put the cold stuff away, then walked with her to the barn, one hand on his side as he went in before her. He’d concealed the gun like she’d asked, but now she knew where.
When he was satisfied nobody had been in the barn, he helped her scoop feed into a bucket and grabbed the hay she pointed at. She took it to the run-in stall and patted Charlie as she hooked the bucket to the wall. He shoved his nose into the sweet feed and started to eat.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she cursed beneath her breath, hoping she didn’t actually start crying. Because Seth would ask, and then what would she say? That she was worried about what would happen to Charlie when she left him behind? Jack would be fine because he was young and in peak performance shape, but Charlie wasn’t. He had Cushing’s, and that required regular meds. He could be ridden, and he wasn’t in pain, but he would be if he was neglected.
She didn’t think Nikki’s trainer would do that, but it also wasn’t fair to leave Lisa with two horses to support. At least until she could sell Jack. He’d bring a decent price so Callie comforted herself that the money would help take care of Charlie. In fact, she’d write an email saying precisely that, and she’d send it after they’d been gone at least a month. It would be the only email she’d send from that account once she disappeared.
After Charlie was taken care of, they returned inside. Seth put his groceries away after asking her where she wanted them. He took the toaster pastries and chips to his room and stashed them, thankfully. He said he was happy to share, but she’d told him she tried not to feed Nikki those things at home. She knew her sister was going to scarf down some Mickey D’s before she came home this afternoon, but she wasn’t trying to control everything Nikki ate. She just wanted there to be good, healthy choices at home so maybe the other crap wouldn’t do too much damage whenever Nikki indulged.
“So you’re a health nut,” he said when he returned. “Except you ate meatloaf at the Dawg so that can’t be it.”
“You didn’t read the small print. It was made with grass-fed beef, organic eggs and milk, and fresh onions and bread from local sources. About as good as you can get, really.”
“Huh, didn’t pay attention.”
“I always pay attention to the food I eat. Did you know that in Europe, many of the food additives we use in this country are banned?”
“Nope. Should I?”
“Maybe you should. You look like you work out. Isn’t caring about what you put into your body part of that?”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Honey, I’ve been shot at, stabbed, and taken prisoner during my time in the military. I’ve been in situations where I thought I’d die any minute. I’ve been too hot, too fucking cold, slept in places that would make you shudder. I’ve jumped out of airplanes, swam through crocodile infested waters, and sewn up my own side on one memorable occasion. If a few Oreos and some potato chips are going to kill me, all I can say is at least I’ll enjoy them before I die.”
“You swam with crocodiles?”
He snorted. “That’s what caught your attention? Yeah, I have. Sometimes we got sent to a jungle. Crocs live in rivers inside those jungles. When you gotta cross the river to get where you’re going, sometimes you swim.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“No time to be scared. You do what you’ve been sent to do and you get the fuck out. If you’re lucky, you make it back to the transport. If not, well, at least the crocs get a good meal.”
Callie shuddered. But beneath her horror was something else. Hope. If he’d done those sorts of things, maybe he really could protect her from Mikhail. Except he wasn’t moving in permanently and eventually she’d be back to living alone with her sister and going to the lab every day. Mikhail would find a way to get to her if she hadn’t managed to leave town by then.
Her hope slowly flattened under the weight of stress.
Seth’s phone rang and he fished it from his pocket. Then he went outside and kept walking until he was far enough from the house there was no chance she could hear what he was saying.
She watched him listen to whoever was on the other end. The hard look on his face. The way he looked like an avenging angel as his expression darkened. Whatever he was being told, he didn’t like it one bit. When he tucked the phone away again, he tipped his head back and swore. Then he kicked at the ground, sending a rock flying.
When he turned toward the house, she ducked away from the window. She was paralyzed for a second before hurrying to the kitchen and grabbing her journaling supplies. If she looked like she was busy, he wouldn’t know she’d been watching him.
She plopped into the chair, grabbed her reading glasses, and flipped open a box with craft paper and stickers. Then she snatched up her tweezers, threw open her journal, and pretended to be studying the page when Seth stormed back inside.
She looked up as he approached, her heart ramming against her ribs like she’d run a marathon.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
His expression was black. Concerned? Or just pissed? She couldn’t tell, but she didn’t like the way it made her feel. Like he had something to say and she wasn’t going to like it. In fact, she was going to actively hate it.
But she tipped her chin up and met his gaze, refusing to back down an inch. She’d been threatened, harassed, and nearly burned to death in her lab last night. She wasn’t going to cower now. At least not for the next few minutes anyway.
“Depends on your definition of okay. There was a body found in the Potomac a week ago. Cause of death was a bullet to the head.”
“That’s terrible. But why are you telling me?”
“Because the body was Mikhail Volkov’s.”
Callie blinked. And shuddered. Her mouth opened. Closed. She finally managed to whisper, “A week ago?”
“That’s right.”
Ice froze her veins. If Mikhail had been dead for a week, he hadn’t set the fire. Or ordered it set. Sure, he could have planned it that far ahead, but he hadn’t known she was going to refuse to replace the cable then. She’d still been putting him off with vague talk about people watching her and not having a moment alone in the lab. She’d been trying to think about how to refuse so he’d understand why she couldn’t do it.
“He texted me two days ago. But it couldn’t have been him, could it?”
Not that she needed an answer to that question. She’d seen him in person ten days ago. Three days after that, he’d been dead.
“What did he say?”
She bit the inside of her lip, thinking about what she could reveal that wouldn’t compromise Athena. “He said it was time. That I had to do what he wanted me to do, or things were going to get really bad for me. He said he couldn’t protect me from it any longer.”
Seth looked like he could chew through nails. “What did he want you to do, Callie?”
She gazed up at him, her heart hammering. She could tell him without revealing anything top secret. She wouldn’t be violating her NDA or her security clearance. But the words didn’t come. Instead, she got up and went over to her computer case, pulled a cable from inside. Then she went back to where he stood and handed it to him.
He turned it over, studying it.
“It looks like a normal charging cable,” she said. “But it’s not. There’s a keystroke logger and a Wi-Fi chip embedded in the connector. He wanted me to replace one of the cables in the secure lab with this one. I refused.”
His eyes burned into her. “You didn’t do it.”
She shook her head. “No.” And then, because she felt like she needed to explain, she said, “You know the lab I work in is secure. You know that Griffin Research has government contracts. If I replaced that cable and gave Mikhail access, I’d not only be breaking the terms of my employment and violating my security clearance, but I’d also be betraying my country. I was born here, but my mother wasn’t. She came over as a teenager, first as an exchange student and then later on a work visa. She loved America, loved what it stood for. I was eight when she took the oath of citizenship. My dad and I went with her to the federal courthouse. There were a lot of new citizens taking their oath that day. Most of them wore some combination of red, white, and blue. Mama wore a red dress with an American flag scarf around her neck. She carried a red, white, and blue purse, and she was so happy. The judge read off the stats about where people were from originally and had them raise their hands. They came from all over the world, and they all had stories. I was only a kid, but I’ll never forget how it was almost a party atmosphere.”
She dragged in a breath, aware she was once more word vomiting a bunch of stuff he hadn’t asked to hear. But he watched her intently and she felt like it was something he wanted to know.
“Afterward, we went and had hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes, and Mama kept staring at her certificate. She had a pocket copy of the Constitution in her purse, and she used to read parts of it to me. I was bored, naturally. But she insisted, and then she’d speak Polish and tell me about her family and how hard life had been for them during the Cold War. How she never wanted me to know that kind of deprivation or lack of freedom. I made a mistake getting involved with Mikhail, but I thought he was like me. His parents were immigrants, and my mother was, and I thought we understood each other. I was very, very wrong.”
Seth turned the cable over again, his eyes dropping to it. “Thanks for telling me. And thanks for showing me this.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, chilled. Mikhail was dead. Someone had sent her a text, she’d sent one back with her answer, and then the lab burned.
“It’s scary what kind of tech is out there these days. How many unsuspecting people would plug that thing in and never know it’s spying on them, sending someone all their data? Or that somebody could take over their computer remotely and steal everything? I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t work in the field.”
“I don’t know who’s behind this, Callie, but I’m pretty sure Mikhail was only the tip of the iceberg. He recruited you, put you into play. But somebody killed him, and since you got a text recently, we’ve gotta assume whoever he worked for still wants access to whatever you’re working on.”
The chill crawling through her laid icy fingers around her heart. Squeezed.
She was running out of time.
“I need to disappear. Take Nikki and go somewhere they can’t find us.”
Pity. That’s what she saw in his gaze. She’d hoped for understanding. For help.
Not the look he was currently giving her.
“You can’t run away. Trust me on this. Witness protection is a thing for a reason. It requires a lot of groundwork, and it requires giving up everything you know and love. It requires people to make sure you’re coping with your new life and to keep you from making mistakes. It’s not something you’re gonna be able to do on your own. Not unless you want to be running for the rest of your life. And not only you, but your sister. You’re gonna take her away from every sense of normalcy you’ve worked hard to build for her, and it’ll set her back years. She’ll have to give up horses for the next few years, maybe forever, and then there are the new names and passports you’ll have to figure out how to get. These days you need a social security number to work anywhere, so how are you getting past that? You can buy a fake number, but you risk getting caught—and that’ll land you in worse trouble.”
It was like he had a vise around her heart, squeezing it tighter and tighter. Cutting off her oxygen. Her hope. Her wild, reckless, last-ditch attempt to escape and keep her sister safe.
It was in ruins at her feet. Like shattered glass.
A sob welled in her chest, broke free. She spun away so he wouldn’t see her lose control. Stuffed her fist against her mouth and tried to contain all the emotion she’d been holding in.
Holding onto for a year now. Since she’d gotten the call her parents hadn’t made it off the mountain. She’d had to be strong for Nikki. Had to be the one who took care of them, the reliable one. The one who made it all better.
Her shoulders shook as she worked to contain her feelings.
A pair of strong arms wrapped around her, tugged her backward against his body. She clutched at his arm like a lifeline, her body shuddering with the weight of her tears.
His voice was in her ear. Soft, gentle, and somehow hard at the same time. “I got you, Callie. I got you. You’re gonna be okay. I’ll take care of you. Both of you. I promise.”
She didn’t know if she believed him, but the solid weight of him behind her, holding her, felt so very right in that moment. He was the rock she didn’t have. The man she’d thought didn’t exist.
But he was here, now, and he was holding her firmly, letting her cry and promising to take care of her. She knew he wasn’t hers, that this wasn’t anything remotely romantic, but for the moment she felt safe. Protected.
“I’m s-sorry,” she hissed out brokenly when the tears didn’t immediately cease.
His fingers stroked her arm. Softly, gently. “Nothing to be sorry about. Cry it out, honey. I’m not going anywhere.”
She wanted to say so many things. That he didn’t know her, that he wasn’t obligated to soothe her, that she was grateful he did it anyway. That she felt safe with his arms around her, and that scared her too.
He turned her in his arms, pressed her head to his chest, and ran his fingers up and down her back the way he’d done her arm. Soft, gentle, soothing. She clutched him, cried into his shirt, and felt both safe and embarrassed at the same time.
Eventually, her tears gave way to hiccuping little coughs. She closed her eyes tightly and then pushed away from him.
He let her go, his hands falling to his sides. The cable was on the couch where he’d tossed it. She wrapped her arms around her body and stood there, uncertain what came next.
“What do I do now?”
He shoved a hand through his hair, looked away. When he met her gaze again, his eyes were harder than before. Determined. “We stick with the plan. I’m here for your protection and to install an alarm system. I’m not gonna lie to you, though. Alarms aren’t going to do much good out here in the sticks. You’re far from town, far off the road, and by the time anyone got here, it’d be too late.”
Her stomach knotted.
“But you’ve got me, and that’s not insignificant. I did time in special forces, and I’ve seen combat. I’ve got the skills you need to keep you and your sister safe, and I’ll do it as long as I have to. My guys aren’t going to stop me, if that’s what you’re thinking. We run a range, and we do security and personal safety training, but that’s not all we do. You need to tell me everything, Callie. Not the things you can’t because of national security, but whenever you get a call, a text, or even a suspicious look from a coworker, I need to know about it. Because you can either try to run, and probably fail, or you can stay here and let me and my friends end this for you. Up to you which to choose. But I highly suggest you choose us.”