Chapter 10 #2
Blake barely blocked her first strike, the impact jarring his arm. She followed through with a fist aimed at his ribs, which met its mark enough to incite a grunt from him, but he snagged her arm. She was already pivoting, using his momentum against him to hook his ankle.
He kept his feet—barely—pulling her off-balance in the process.
Her strikes came with desperate energy, almost wild in their execution. They fought in the moonlit room with a ferocity their first encounter had lacked. This wasn’t exploration. This was anger and hurt turned physical.
Self-protection was on his side, at least. And perhaps a little disappointment.
That she would fight as if she were the traitor.
“Whose side are you on, Evie?” he demanded, catching her wrist as she struck again.
“I can’t believe you’d even ask that.” Something frantic hung in her voice. “You, of all people. You who have known me best of all.”
She twisted free, using his grip against him, and her knee came up with such force that the impact would have debilitated him if he hadn’t spun away just in time.
They stared at each other, breaths pulsing shallow. Neither moving. Both assessing.
And Blake was trying his best to understand what was happening. Build truth out of the pieces she was sharing or not sharing.
“If you believe I know you, then trust me now. Explain why you are here.”
“Don’t you know?” The question emerged from her, strained.
He couldn’t read her expression, but his chest squeezed at the look. “If I knew, would I be asking questions?”
“Idiot!” Her eyes narrowed, and she rushed him again, almost desperately.
“I came here because—” She got past his guard, her fist connecting with his stomach hard enough to bend him at the waist. He retaliated with a sweep that took her feet out from under her, but she rolled with practiced skill and was up again before he could press the advantage. “It doesn’t matter.”
He managed to get behind her, his arm across her shoulders—holding her against him as he had last time, mouth at her ear. “It matters to me.”
Her breath hitched, almost like a … sob?
What?
“It shouldn’t.” She breathed and used his position against him.
Dropping her weight and twisting, she nearly flipped him over her shoulder, but he held tight, crashing them both onto the floor. Steering his body at just the right moment, he partially broke her fall, sending a shock of pain up his side.
Idiotic chivalry!
If only it served me well.
He pulled her over, pinning her to the floor.
“You should hate me,” Evie gasped, pushing against his hold. “I should have known. I should have seen the signs in Evan—”
What?
Blake managed to pin her wrists above her head, his weight holding her down. They were both breathing hard, faces inches apart in the moonlight. Evan?
Why would she mention Evan? Slowly, awareness began to dawn.
Was she blaming herself?
“Where is your brother?”
“Dead.” The word was flat, final, and it stilled Blake entirely.
She used his hesitation, her knee ramming into his thigh—thank heaven—and despite his wince, he kept hold of her arms.
“Evie …”
Whether from him speaking her name or her own admission, some of the violence was gone from her movements. Then those eyes, made deeper and darker by the shadows, gave him more information than her words.
And the truth gutted him.
“You killed him.” It wasn’t a question.
“I defended myself.” Her jaw tightened as she struggled against his grip, but weakly now, as if the fight was draining out of her. “He tried to kill me after the Lusitania went down. We were in the water, and he … he couldn’t let me live. Not after I’d seen what he’d become.”
“No—” Blake’s grip loosened fractionally. What a horror among so many horrors of that day!
“So yes.” Her voice shook, her gaze boring into his. “I left the service. Because I killed my own twin brother, and I couldn’t … I couldn’t go back and pretend everything was fine. And I’d shot you, my partner … my …”
She looked away.
Her what? His breath stalled again. What had she meant to say?
“And yes, I know the sleepless nights of wondering if you’d bled out or drowned or been crushed when the Lusitania went down.” Her gaze flashed back to his. “Five months of those nights, in fact.”
The truth stabbed him as if she’d used her knife.
She had come for him. Blake’s mind raced. How was it possible? That she …
His thoughts couldn’t even wrap around the idea. Yes, as partners, they were bound to each other. But this choice, it whispered of something infinitely sweeter. A truth he’d only hoped for.
If Evan was dead, if Evie had killed him in self-defense …
“Why didn’t you report to Director Lark?” The question came softer now.
“Because I was done!” The words erupted raw, anguished. “I killed my own brother, Blake. My twin. The person I’d trusted more than anyone besides you. And when it came down to it, as he was attempting to drown me, I put a knife between his ribs and watched him die.”
Her hands trembled where he held her wrists.
“So forgive me if I wasn’t keen on rushing back to take orders from men who’d send me out into a world I wasn’t ready to face again.”
The pain in her voice was real—he’d heard enough false emotion in his career to know the difference. And he felt its truth all the way through his body.
“And then I heard you were alive,” she continued, pulling against his grip now, more desperately than angrily. “That you were here. That there was a mission. And I thought—” She shook her head. “I thought maybe I could make up for what Evan did. Maybe I could protect you—”
“You thought you could save me.” Blake’s words were scarcely audible, the truth eradicating his anger, his concern … and leaving behind something more convoluted—understanding mixed with something he wasn’t quite ready to name.
Or, perhaps, had been wanting to name for a long time.
“I thought I owed you that much,” she whispered.
Owed me? He stared at her, frozen, kneeling over her, his hands still circling her wrists, their faces inches apart. The moonlight painted silver tracks down her cheeks where tears had fallen.
Her tears. Ones he’d never seen before.
Blake rocked back on his feet, bringing her with him. Without a word, he gently led her away from the open room and easy discovery. She followed without resistance, without question, and that told him everything.
She trusted him.
And she was not his enemy.
He guided her into a small storage closet off the corridor. Cramped—barely six feet square, filled with old furniture and unused linens. A narrow window high on one wall let in faint moonlight that spilled over white cloth, wooden shelves, and Evie’s upturned face.
He knew then. She cared for him. Enough to risk showing vulnerability. Enough to cry in front of him and trust him with her brokenness and wounds.
Not the kind they’d bandaged for each other.
But the ones hidden from the world. Twisted behind a shield of years of practice and unfortunate betrayals. The ones that made her the glorious woman he’d grown to … love?
All the pieces of his heart—the puzzle of his nameless emotions—snapped into place with sudden, perfect clarity.
He loved her.
He loved Evie Montgomery.
His friend. His colleague.
His heart.
“Evie.” His voice cradled her name with the gentle fierceness of this new awareness, this undeniable need to protect her, heart and all. Past and all. “You don’t owe me anything. What happened on the Lusitania—what you did—that was mercy. Strategic, yes, but mercy nonetheless.”
“I shot you.” Fresh tears spilled over. “That bullet, a truer shot, belonged to my brother.” Her lips trembled. “And I should have gone back for you. I should have found a way, Stephen.”
His name from her lips, soft and warm and tender, nearly undid every coherent thought in his head.
All his training, his carefully maintained control, crumbled beneath the weight of her admission.
And in her eyes, he saw everything she wasn’t saying.
The guilt. The grief. The desperate hope that maybe, somehow, she could atone for her brother’s sins.
And something else. Something that made his chest ache and swell at the same time.
She wanted to protect him not because they were partners, but because she cared about him. She’d emerged from her self-imposed, grief-stricken exile to save him.
They stood so close in the confined space of the closet.
Her confession mingled with her subtle scent to beckon him forward.
It was as if he’d been waiting ages to touch her. To give her the affection he’d feigned for women while under cover. Never true. Always a game.
But this? His entire soul had been anticipating this real and raw and wonderful moment.
He gave in to the tug and breached the gap between them, hands finding her face, thumbs brushing away tears.
“You gave me a chance while making an impossible choice. The kind no sister or partner should ever have to make.”
“I have to set things right. Don’t you see?” Her fingers gripped the front of his shirt, insistent. “I must atone for what my brother did. All the people whose lives he took or jeopardized. I should have known.”
To see this strong, remarkable woman desperate—quivering—wrung his entire being. “Evie—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand, while the other still clung to his shirt. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault. Don’t tell me I couldn’t have known. I should have seen the signs. Should have realized—”
“You can’t blame yourself for your brother’s choices.”
“Can’t I?” Her voice broke. “He was my twin, Stephen. If anyone should have known, it was me.”
“He fooled us all.” His thumb traced away another tear, his body aching with this new awareness. Every muscle burned to breach the distance to her lips, to claim something he’d craved for nearly a year. Maybe longer. To comfort her in any way within his power. “It wasn’t your fault, luv.”