Beneath the Fire (A Guardians Novella) (3 page)

“Twenty-one.”

“What?”

“She’s twenty-one,” Nathan repeated.

“Fuck you, Stark,” Maia’s voice was still raised, and probably people walking by the briefing room outside could hear her. “She’s not some fuckwad dictator we have no problem hanging out to dry. We should not mess with her emotions.”

“That’s the risk we took when you sent me in,” Nathan bit off.

“Sleeping with her was not part of the plan,” Maia retorted.

“Don’t you think I know that!” Nathan yelled back at her. “It’s not only her that’s getting burned.”

Maia’s eyes widened. “Damn. Are you in love with her?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan replied stonily. And he didn’t. He cared for her now, that much he knew.

“It’s a simple question, Stark,” Maia pressed.

“I don’t know, OK!” Nathan shouted. “I don’t fucking know!”

The door to the briefing room opened and Viktor walked inside. “What the hell is going on? The entire HQ can hear you guys.”

“Stark slept with Lucy Cortez,” Maia said quietly.

“Fucking hell,” Viktor muttered.

Nathan continued to stare into space, not looking at the older man.

Viktor stalked directly into his line of vision. “You will not see her again.”

“It’s too late,” Nathan whispered. “It’s fucking too late. She’s mine.”

Maia rolled her eyes. “What is it with men and their “mine” bullshit?”

Viktor smiled derisively at Maia. “You should know Maia, McCord probably hammered the word into you enough times.”

Maia jerked her head toward Nathan, reminding Viktor of the immediate problem.
 

“You do realize you’re emotionally compromised,” Viktor said levelly.

“I can handle it,” Nathan grated out.

Viktor folded his arms across his chest. “How are you going to explain to her why you have to drop out of school?”

“I was hoping to wait after spring break to do that,” Nathan said. “She’s hiding something, it will be a mistake to pull me out now.”
 

Viktor and Maia exchanged looks, but it was Maia who spoke. “Until this mess with Francisco Cortez is over, you cannot break cover. You’ll have to find a way to justify not seeing her when you’re on assignments. Your parents do not even know what you do. ”

“No, they think I install security systems,” Nathan replied.

“That cover is getting overused,” Viktor muttered.

“Mine is unique,” Maia quipped. Her cover was a marketing executive for a pharmaceutical company.

“Unless this goes the distance with her, Stark—” Maia said.

“Look, I get it,” Nathan cut in tersely. He understood, damn it. Guardians rarely had families of their own because of the strains of their work. That was why he was drawn to the AGS too. They were his family because his own didn’t give a damn about him. Except now he had Lucy. And yes, it had gotten more complicated.

CHAPTER THREE

Lucy sat on the grassy lawn on campus. Nathan’s head was on her lap and she was idly sifting her fingers through his thick dark hair.
 

“How was lacrosse practice this morning?”
 

“Grueling,” Nathan grunted. His eyes were closed so she took the opportunity to study his face. His skin was naturally swarthy from playing sports outside, his dark brows were set closely to his sapphire blue eyes, which were lashed just right. He had a strong angular jaw and his lips were full but masculine. Right now he was sporting stubble and that made him look extremely sexy.

A group of guys was playing football not too far from them. One of them recognized Nathan and called out.

“Hey, Stark! Wanna join in? We could use another one.”

“Nah!” Nathan replied. “I’m good right here.”

The guys made some cat calls that caused Lucy to blush, but Nathan just chuckled and tilted his head back to gaze up at her. “Yes, I’m good right here. Give me a kiss, babe.”

“I don’t think so,” Lucy retorted.

“Why not?” Nathan asked innocently.

Lucy playfully covered his mouth with her hand and turned his head. “You are incorrigible. You know if I kiss you, your friends are only going to tease us more.”

“So?”

Lucy shook her head. Nathan was hopeless. But she loved his playfulness.
 

“This was how we met, remember, Lucy?”

“Yes, how can I forget? You threw a football at me and hit my soda, drenching me all over.”

“Not my fault my friend couldn’t catch it.”

“You just wanted to meet me,” Lucy said smugly.

Nathan grinned at her. “You looked so cute all decked out in a pink sweater reading whatever on your iPad. Your lips were sucking on that straw and it was giving me a hard on.”

“Nathan Stark!” Lucy said in mock horror. “Seriously.”

Lucy remembered being mad as a wet hen, pun intended. Nathan approached her with a wide grin on his face and had not, in anyway, looked apologetic at all, despite the words that came out of his mouth. And his method of drying her up was something else.

“You copped a feel, if I remember.”

Nathan burst out laughing. “I was helping you dry the soda that spilled all over your chest.”

“My boobs, you mean.”

Lucy remembered shrieking every unladylike expletive at Nathan that day. And he had just laughed. She had packed up her stuff in a snit and hightailed it back to her apartment. Nathan, sweaty and all, had followed her home. She realized how stupid it was to let him. What if he had been crazy or worse a psycho? Then he would have known where she lived. Unfortunately, she was too ridiculously attracted to the devastatingly handsome stranger following her to remember about personal safety.

“You stalked me.”

“Well, yeah I wanted to know where you lived,” Nathan said.
 

“You asked for my number.”

“Took a while for you to give it to me. You slammed the door on me, remember?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t take the hint anyway because you were waiting for me the next morning.”

Nathan just grinned.

“Stalker.”

Lucy had wondered how he knew what time she left for her classes. And was kind of weirded out for a while until Nathan admitted he had caught her name on her school badge that was dangling off her purse. He knew someone at admissions and had gotten her schedule. Lucy replied that what he had done was illegal, but of course he just shrugged it off. And this bothered Lucy about her relationship with him. He was obviously used to things going easily for him and judging from his motorbike and his apartment, he looked pretty well-off. All he had to worry about was going to school and playing sports.

Lucy herself had money. The settlement from her parent’s divorce had been huge. She had a trust fund, which she had come into when she turned twenty-one. She was funneling the money to help Leo finance his operations with ryker569 covering her money trail. But she doubted if Nathan would understand her cause. When it came down to it, they were really from different worlds. Maybe that was why she enjoyed his playfulness, it was an escape from the reality of what she was about to do.

“Babe, where did you go?” Nathan murmured, frowning.

“Nowhere. I was just wondering...” Lucy trailed off.
 

Nathan pushed up from her lap and sat cross-legged in front of her. He took hold of both her hands. “What are you wondering about?”

“We’re so different, Nathan,” Lucy said sadly.

“Where is this sentiment coming from?” Nathan asked sharply.

“There are just things you might not accept about me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he growled this time. Nathan’s jaw had clenched. Suddenly the carefree boy she thought she knew had disappeared. In his place was a different Nathan. Not a boy, a man. Not an easy-going boy, someone who looked dangerous.

“Never mind,” Lucy said slowly, puzzled by this change in his demeanor.

“Talk to me, Lucy, don’t shut me out.”

“Why did you take up economics?”

Taken off-guard by her question, Nathan frowned in confusion. “What?”

“Why did you take up economics?” Lucy repeated, a tad irritated. It was a simple question.

“Well, so I could be an investment banker or a venture capitalist I suppose,” Nathan replied cautiously.

“In short, you want to make money.”

“Isn’t that why people work?” Nathan asked.

“Not everyone. Eva wants to be a nurse because she wants to help people.”

Nathan sighed. “And how about you?”

“I want to help governments make the right decisions when thinking about the global economy, not about the good of one nation. That’s the only way we can avoid strife and war and oppression.”

“That’s a very idealistic way of looking at things, Lucy,” Nathan said softly. “But I’m proud of you.”

Lucy expected Nathan to laugh at her declaration, but she actually saw understanding in his eyes. Could she be wrong about him?

“Illiteracy and poverty is what’s driving terrorism,” Nathan said. “If we give everyone a better education, a better life, we can avoid another 9/11.” He narrowed his sapphire eyes at her mockingly. “What? You think I’m some jock with no clue about what’s happening in the world?”

“I’m sorry, Nathan,” Lucy said. How wrong she was about him!

Nathan grinned. “I forgive you, Lucy babe. I forgive you if you give me a big one right now.”

She smiled, leaned forward and gave him a big kiss.

***

“I’ll be sad to lose you. You’ve been blending well with the team. They like you,” Coach Bates told him. Nathan had pulled his coach aside after evening practice to tell him that his work here was nearly done.

“So you got what you came for?” Bates asked.

“Pretty much. Miss Pierce says she owes you,” Nathan said. He wondered how Bates and Pierce knew each other. His coach was in his fifties, stocky but well-built with solid muscles. Had he been a Guardian at some point?

“Marker. She knows that,” Bates gave a full-on shit-eating grin.

Nathan jerked his chin up in agreement and without another word to any of his team mates, he left the men’s locker room. He quickly pulled out his phone to check for any messages from Lucy. None. Frowning, he texted her again. He had sent her a message earlier asking if he could come over after practice. It was pushing 10:00 p.m. so he knew it was kind of late for a school night. But their schedules had not jived lately and he had not seen her in three days. She had said she had some catching up to do before spring break and needed to write several research papers and had not wanted any distraction.

Well, tonight was the same thing and he was missing her desperately. It wasn’t even about sex. He would be content simply sitting on the couch as she worked on whatever she needed to do for school as long as they were together in the same room. Fuck, he had turned into a sap.
 

There was no doubt, he was falling in love with her.

After ten minutes with no response, he kicked the tire of his bike. Fuck it, he was just going to drive over there and pound on her door. He was seeing her tonight whether she liked it or not.

It was a short five minute trip from the school to her apartment since she lived so close to campus. It was a two-story structure having a unit on each floor. She was renting the second floor apartment, accessible by outside stairs attached to the side of the house.
 

He parked his bike in front of the building and glanced up. Her unit was dark. He frowned. She couldn’t be asleep already if she was working on a paper. Quickly making his way up the rickety steps, he did a series of quick raps on the door.

“Lucy?” Nathan called. “Babe, it’s me, Nathan.”

A dog started barking in a neighbor’s yard.

Exhaling in frustration, he tried to call her but after the requisite few rings it went to voicemail. Was she blowing him off?

A strong foreboding twisted in his gut. He had an app to track her phone. Tim had hacked into her network provider’s system which allowed him access to her account.

He fired up the app and clicked on her ID to check where she was. The location, when it came back, made him curse. She was not home. She was fifteen miles clear across town. She had lied to him.
 

***

“I’ve cross-checked the girls’ identities with their families,” Lucy told her brother. They were at the house of Felipe Sanchez—a close friend of her brother’s. She and Eva had been meeting at this location in a middle-income DC suburb for the past three nights.
 
The house had a walk-in basement which they had converted into “command central” doing database searches of the kidnapped girls’ families, logistics, and videoconferences. All access was provided of course, by one ryker569 tapping into missing persons and police databases. Ryker569 also provided the secure laptop that she and her brother were using to communicate. Lucy was getting a buzz on all this high-tech sleuthing, she thought she might have a future with the FBI when all was said and done.
 

Eva weighed in. “I agree, it’s better if we do not inform the girls’ families yet. The less number of people that know about our operation, the better. It might cost us some dough to set the girls up somewhere, but I’d rather not raise their families’ hopes up until we have them securely across the border.”

Leo nodded in agreement. Lucy smiled at her brother. She had not seen him in over seven months. He had gone to California to visit their mother the same time Lucy was back there before she had started school again. Leo was a masculine version of Lucy. Three years older than her, he had jet-black hair and a light olive complexion. Although he was a couple of inches taller than her and lanky, there was no doubt they were closely related. He liked wearing heavy-framed glasses and looked like a nerd. But he was a cat burglar, and a very good one. He justified his heists as Robin Hood-like: he stole from the rich and gave it to the poor. Lucy wished he would just quit and join her permanently in the US. He could go back to college and they could be together as a family. But their disappointment with their
Papa
ran deep. They could never overlook the fact that their father sold women into slavery.