Assassin's Promise, The Red Team Series, Book 5 (21 page)

“Leave what?”

“Here. This group of guys, fighters. Whatever they are.”

“I could.” Eden smiled and gave a little laugh as she sat on Remi’s bed. “But I’m married to Ty.”

Remi sat on the edge of the bed and faced Eden.
 

“Look, I’m sorry you’re here, sorry you got involved in all of this,” Eden said. “I remember how overwhelmed I was when I was first brought in to it. I wasn’t at all sure what to expect. Who would think that all of this is going on in the middle of America?”
 

“How were you brought into it?” Remi asked.

“I came up from Cheyenne to visit a couple of my longtime girlfriends who were staying at a guy’s house that one of them had been internet dating. Turned out it was the leader of the WKB’s house.”

Remi was shocked to hear that.
 

“We ran in to Ty and the team. They discovered what I do and hired me to have Tank check out Ty’s house. This house. After that, things just fell into place. Owen has me training some dogs for him.”

“What happened to your friends?”

“They were roughed up pretty bad. Owen sent them home on his private jet.” She looked at Remi. “Greer hasn’t said why you’re here, but knowing what I do, I imagine it’s bad. You were at Mandy’s. You saw what the guys are dealing with. Their enemies blew up her equestrian center and they kidnapped her. They mobbed this house, fought a battle here. One of their leaders came in and tried to shoot Kit and Ivy’s daughter. If you’re here, it’s for a good reason. And it’s best that you’re here and not somewhere else.”
 

Eden studied Remi. “So, to answer your question, yes. We can leave. Any of us can. But there is no safer place for us than right here.”

And that was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? The secret to maintaining cult members’ adherence to the community culture. Convince them no one would understand them in the real world, no one believed as they did, none would be safe separate from the group. It was so easy to keep people subjugated. Geez. She’d gone in search of one secret society and found herself sucked into an entirely different one.
 

Remi looked at Eden’s dog absently as she tried to find holes in her observation about the group.
 

“This is Tank. He’s a working dog and my best friend.”

Remi smiled. “He looks like he eats baby hellcats for his meals.”

Eden laughed. “I thought that when I first met him, too. He’s a pit bull/bullmastiff mix. Now I just see a teddy bear. Unless you make him mad.”

Remi looked from the dog to Eden. “Are you happy, Eden?” she asked.

“Yes.” Eden smiled. “Meeting Ty, getting involved in the team, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me—both professionally and personally. I can show you around, if you want, while you wait for Greer. This is a ridiculously big house. And I want you to see my kennels and Mandy’s stable.”

“I’d like that.”

* * *

Remi and Eden came back to the living room at the end of their tour. Ty and Greer were just coming into the dining room. Greer checked her over critically, his eyes serious. He came down the steps into the living room. Eden said something as she went the opposite way, up to greet Ty. Remi didn’t take her eyes from Greer. He looked tired.
 

He walked right over to her, stopping so close to her that his body blocked the dining room.
 

“Hi,” he said.
 

She tried to smile, but the attempt was lost in the intense way he was regarding her.

“How are you this morning?”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“Did you sleep?”

“I did. Eden gave me a tour.”

“Good. Hungry?”

“I could eat.”
 

He started to turn, but she stopped him.
 

“I need to go to Cheyenne this morning.”

“Why?”

She sent a quick glance around him to the dining room. “I have my archives in an apartment there. I need to check something out.”

“We’ll go after breakfast.”

“I want to go alone. No one knows about the apartment, except my assistant. I’ll be safe there.”

“The WKB wants you dead. You don’t leave here without me.”

“Greer, my research is secret. I have a ton of files of confidential information. I swore to the people who provided me with their information that I would keep their identities confidential.”

“Like you did with the woodcutter.”

“Yeah.”

“You saw how much he cared about your high morals.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is the point. What do you want from there anyway?”

“After the shock of the night wore off, I remembered I have info on other white supremacist groups. I’d like to see how many have relationships with isolationist groups like the Friends.”

Greer nodded. “We’ll go after you eat.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to lose my data. I don’t want it sucked into this—” she waved her hand as she searched for the word.

“Let’s take a look at what you’ve got. If it’s something that will help the mission, we need to bring it in.”

“No. No, Greer. My data can’t be used for other things. I promised people that only I would have access to it.”

A muscle bunched in the corner of his jaw. “Are you going to support the woodcutters over us, over your country?”

“That isn’t a fair question. I have to apply the elements of trust equally across all informants and sources—I have to treat everyone the same or I have nothing. If I find something in my files that can help, and if I can keep my sources protected, I’ll share it.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got, then we’ll talk about it.”

Chapter Twenty

Remi’s apartment was on the top floor of a brick building in Cheyenne’s Old Town. It wasn’t a large building, only three apartments on each floor. She put the key in the lock, then looked at Greer before she turned it.

She felt more nervous now than she had the first time she got naked in front of him.

She’d never brought anyone here. In fact, her teaching assistant was the only other person who even knew about her archives.

Greer lifted his brows, waiting.

She steeled herself for his reaction.

Opening the door, she walked in first so she wouldn’t have to see his expression. Off to the immediate right was a short hallway with a door into the kitchen on the left, a bathroom on the right, and a bedroom at the end of the hall. Straight in front of them was the living room…and a lifetime of research in neatly stacked boxes where furniture should have been.

“What is all this, Remi?”

She flashed him a look as they navigated their way through rows of boxes. “It’s my research archives. I’ve been studying cults a long time.” She made her way to the kitchen, where she set her purse down. “Want something to drink? Water or coffee?”

“I’ll take some coffee. Looks like we’ve a long day ahead of us.”

She put the grinds in the coffeemaker, then fetched two mugs. When it was ready, she poured two cups. “How do you like it?”

“Black. Straight up.”
 

Greer leaned against the kitchen island and sipped the hot brew. She avoided looking at him. “Talk to me, doc.”

“About what?” she asked, staring at her mug.

“About why you chose the field, the specialty you did. Why cults?”
 

She looked at his throat, then dragged her eyes up over his jaw, over the hollows in his cheeks, to his cinnamon eyes. “I was under the impression there was nothing about me you guys didn’t know.”

“I know you on paper. I don’t know the whys and hows of you.”

She set her mug aside. “I grew up in a cult in Colorado.”

He nodded. “The Grummond Society. But you got out. So why are you still fighting the fight? Why the rabid desire to continue existing in that world?”

“Because I want to raise awareness of communities like the one I grew up in.”

He sipped his coffee. “What’s wrong with people living how they wish, grouping together according to their ideals?”

“I don’t have a problem with adults who self-identify with certain schools of thought and build communities around them. I do have a problem when those groups use fear to impose rules that harm the welfare and freedom of their residents. I have a problem when women are owned by men. I have a problem when children are taught to fear and hate and judge and condemn.”

“And marry at fourteen.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “And that.” Especially that. Oh, God. Did he know? Or was that just a random comment?

“What happened to your mom? She seems to have disappeared after you turned eighteen.”

“She got me out when she learned that I didn’t want to be Prophet Josiah’s fifth wife.” Remi looked at the floor, remembering those idyllic four years with her mother after they’d left the Grummonds—the only time the two of them had ever been alone.
 

Her mom had put a brave face on, but Remi knew she didn’t like being separated from her group. She lost weight and grew fatigued over the years. The day Remi graduated high school was the day her mom returned to the Grummond Society. Communication between them became sparse, then stopped. In the autumn of her freshman year at CSU, Remi contacted one of her mom’s friends when she couldn’t get a hold of her mom, only to learn that she died of a chest cold that went to pneumonia the summer she was back with the group.

Her mom’s friend warned her never to contact the group again. A warning she’d heeded for more than a decade…until this year. She’d reached out to them a few weeks ago. She hadn’t used the name she’d been known by while she lived with them; she’d used her real name. She had street cred now, a professional reputation that she could stand behind. She’d come far enough as a researcher that she’d decided it was time to look at the Grummonds with the eyes of an academic.

Remi looked at Greer. “She stayed with me until I turned eighteen, then she returned to the Grummonds, where she died.” Silence settled between them.
 

Greer reached for her hand. “Can I ask you something?”

She looked up at him, waiting, dreading his question.

“You and your mom picked new names when you got out and set up your current identities. Why did you pick the names you picked?”

Remi smiled, remembering those frightening first days, wondering if the Grummonds were going to come after them. “My mom picked Joan for her name because she thought it sounded like a warrior’s name.” She leaned her head as she glanced at him. “You know, Joan of Arc.”

“And you?”

“I picked Remington because I thought it was about as polar opposed to Chastity as I could get. I was going to be an ender of things…and a protector.”

Greer slowly smiled, though his eyes looked sad. “I told you that you were a warrior. Why Chase?”

“Mom wanted us to never forget that we might be targets of Grummond retribution, that we might always be chased.”

“Did they come after you?”

“No. But we changed our names, blended in quickly, disappeared into mainstream society.”

“Who set up your IDs?”

Remi looked at Greer. “Are you asking as a Fed?”

“I’m not a Fed. Just curious.”

“There was an underground network of people who’d left the Grummonds. Mom used them. One of them helped us establish all of the historical paperwork we’d need.”

“Do the Friends have a network of ex-members like that?”

Remi shook her head. “I looked for one, but couldn’t find it.”

His hand tightened on hers. “About your identity…your mom had your new profiles set up illegally. I don’t know if he picked a social from a deceased person or one that hasn’t yet been assigned, but the fact that it isn’t legitimate is a wrinkle our enemies could exploit.”

Remi pulled her hand from him and gripped her mug. “What does that mean?”

“It means we need to file the proper documentation so your past can’t come back to haunt you.”

“Oh my God. If the WKB knew…if the provost were to find out…”

“Right. We’ll get it squared away.”

“I’ve passed so many background checks, it never occurred to me that Mom might have done it illegally.”

He set his cup down, then eased hers from her tight hold so he could pull her into his arms. “I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.” Remi hugged him. “You know everything about me.” She flashed him a look. “Tell me something else about you.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Not much to tell. I’m the oldest of three kids, well four, but you know about the baby. Both of my sisters are married. Like I said before, my parents are both schoolteachers. We lived in a suburb of D.C.”

Remi smiled, feeling a little jealous of his life. “That’s all so normal.”

Tension shimmered across Greer’s features. “Yeah. Until you wash away the shine and look at the ugly beneath.”

“Do they know what you do for a living?”

His gaze locked on hers. All softness vanished from his face. “They know. I stay away to spare them.”

Remi’s eyes widened. She’d loved her mother. Always. Without fail. She even felt that her mom had surrendered her life for Remi’s. What kind of relationship did Greer have with his family if it was easiest to simply stay away from them?
 

“Can you control it—the thing you do?” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “When you fight, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. What happens when you get mad, really mad at something?”

“Nothing makes me flip, Remi. I am always aware, always on, always watchful. There is nothing without self-control. You learn to rein in your fear and anger, to hold all of your emotions in check. Every step, every movement is calculated.”

“So you’re not like a mad dog that flips into snarling beast mode without warning?”

“I didn’t say that. I move fast, but never without cause or provocation. If you’re worried that I’ll turn on you, I won’t. Unless you’re one of the bad guys, in which case you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

“What if I am a bad guy? What if I brought this on myself?”

“What, like a rape victim who asks for it?” He shook his head. “The victim is never the one to blame.”

Remi slowly smiled. It was so easy talking to Greer. He never pretended to be something he wasn’t; he never expected her to, either.