Brody's Vow (Colebrook Siblings Trilogy Book 1) (12 page)

“Mostly, yes.” It was her opportunity to settle the score. This way she could stop some of the monsters from hurting more victims. She was helping protect the innocent, because no one had protected her.

He stepped closer, his big body inches from hers, a frown pulling at his brow. “Did someone…hurt you like that? In the past?” His eyes held a buried anger now.

She glanced away and resumed petting the horse, hating this conversation but liking the feel of his hand on her and the balm of his concern all too much. If anyone in her life had cared one tenth as much about her back when she was a kid, things might have turned out so much differently. She might have been…normal. Maybe even happy.

“Did they?” he pressed, his voice soft but with a lethal edge she recognized.

She pulled free of his hand. “They did what they felt was necessary to turn me into what I am today.”

His eyes widened in outrage. “Wait, you’re saying your
trainers
did it?”

She glanced away. While the CIA had technically founded the program, they’d given their trainers a certain…operational latitude with the trainees, and turned a blind eye while they implemented their unorthodox methods. Then someone had gone too far.

“One of them.” And she’d never forget his face. “He was a contract agent. All our trainers were. They weren’t held to the same…ethical standards as the actual agents were.”

On her fifteenth birthday one of her trainers had shown her what would happen if she couldn’t defend herself against a man. He’d taught her what it meant to be physically at the mercy of a man while he used her body and she was helpless to stop it. It had been her first sexual experience and it had left one hell of a lasting impression.

The brutal lesson had been permanently ingrained into her psyche: always be in control, never let anyone use you again. It had hardened her, inside and out. Since then, she never underestimated her targets. Never let her guard down, never let them have the upper hand. She never let a man in.

She
held the power.
She
was the one in control. Always.

“I don’t believe this.” He sounded horrified. “Why the hell would you ever work for the government again after what they did to you?”

“Because this way I can even the odds.” She was a Valkyrie—and just like the mythical Norse females they were named after,
she
got to choose who lived and died on the battlefield. “He paid for what he did. He was fired from the program and served jail time.” And then he’d met with an unfortunate…accident a few years after his release.

Brody didn’t say anything to that, simply cursed under his breath and paced a few steps away.

His reaction shouldn’t have hurt, yet it did. He was no doubt disgusted, and she understood his shock. She wasn’t ashamed of her past, of what she was, but she rarely told anyone the truth because she didn’t want to risk the judgment and rejection.

She put on a wry smile to cover the burn in her chest. “Not so tempting any more, am I?”

Brody swiveled his head to meet her gaze and the look on his face wiped the smile away. In the moonlight his eyes burned with a cold fury and his jaw was knotted. But he wasn’t angry at her, she realized with a start. He was angry at what had happened to her so long ago.

“Fuck them,” he ground out after a charged moment. “Fuck them all for doing that to you. For being part of it, and for letting it happen in the first place.”

She folded her arms and stared at the horses, trying to ward off the sudden chill that rippled over her skin. No one had ever cared about what happened to her, except maybe Briar and Georgia, the only two people on earth who knew her darkest secrets, who understood her and accepted the stains on her soul. “It made me stronger.”

“It shouldn’t have happened
period
. Jesus.” He walked another few paces away, ran a hand through his hair.

It shouldn’t have mattered to her that he cared so much, but it did, touching the deeply buried wound she’d locked away inside her where no one else could see.

No. Stop. There’s no way this can go anywhere. You’ll be gone in a matter of days and he’ll forget all about you
.

She suppressed her burgeoning feelings out of habit, refused to let them cloud her judgment as she narrowed her eyes in warning. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

He swung around to face her, his eyebrows drawn together in a fierce frown. “I don’t pity you. I’m pissed as hell that our government would do that to an innocent girl. And you should be too.”

An unexpected lump lodged in her throat and she had to look away again. She lived with the memory and outrage every day of her life. But with Brody looking that way at her right now, all of a sudden she felt…dirty, in a way she hadn’t since the rape. After only one full day with him, he’d already managed to crack the walls she’d been forced to erect around herself, out of necessity.

Out of survival.

When she turned away, intending to walk back to the house, he caught her arm. She gritted her teeth and pulled free but he just caught her again and tugged her around.

He set both hands on her shoulders, ran them gently up and down her arms, raising goose bumps. “That should never have happened to you. And, God…I wish I could go back in time and shoot the bastards responsible.”

At his words, something shifted inside her. A kind of thawing, deep in the center of her chest. “He’s dead now.”

His hands paused on her upper arms. “Did you kill him?”

It made her grin, him sounding so hopeful about that. “What do you think?”

“I hope you did, because the son of a bitch deserved it,” he answered flatly.

Oh, she had. She’d hunted him down as soon as she’d left the Valkyrie program, shortly after he’d been released from prison. At a bar in downtown Portland, Maine, she’d slipped poison into his beer while he’d been trying to pick up another woman to abuse.

When he’d dropped to the floor and grabbed for his throat, she’d stepped into his line of sight, made sure he saw her before he died. Watching the knowledge of what she’d done dawn in his eyes in the moments before he took his last breath made it by far the most satisfying kill of her life.

“Hey,” he murmured, bringing her out of the memory.

She let out a deep breath as those incredible hands moved up to her neck now, stroked the sides of it before they cradled her head.

His dark eyes delved into hers and she was too spellbound to pull away. “Tell me it wasn’t always like that for you. Tell me there’s been someone along the way who showed you not all men are like that.”

Why did he care so much? She lowered her gaze to his chest, unable to look him in the eye as she answered. “Once,” she whispered after a tense pause. “A long time ago.” Back when she’d been young and still somehow naïve, despite her brutal training experience. For a while she’d even thought she might be falling in love with him.

Until reality had hit her in the face and shown her the truth of who he really was. “But he wound up selling me out because he was afraid for his own safety.” She looked up at him.

His gaze hardened like steel. “Then the gutless asshole didn’t deserve you.”

But you do?
She bit back the words at the last possible moment, too afraid of his answer, because she was pretty sure he’d say yes. And she was having a hard enough time resisting him as it was.

“Lucky for me, I don’t scare easy,” he murmured, his eyes on hers.

A ribbon of longing twisted painfully around her heart at the same time as heat curled in her abdomen. She didn’t resist his hold, even allowed her eyes to close when he leaned down to settle his mouth over hers.

This time the kiss was gentle, tender. An offer of comfort. A promise to protect and cherish.

The ribbon twisted harder, until her entire chest ached.

Before she could reach for him or deepen the kiss to turn it into something more, he pulled away and captured her hand, twining his fingers through hers. For some reason it felt like more of a claiming than his kisses had.

“We’ll come up with something together in the morning,” he said. “It’s late. Let’s sleep on it first.” With a gentle tug he led her back toward the house, and she was powerless to resist.

As a precaution to make sure Trinity didn’t try another escape attempt under cover of darkness, Brody had camped out on the couch all night. Sixteen hours later, his leg still hurt like a bitch.

He was on the floor doing his stretches when her light footfalls came down the stairs. She paused at the bottom, looking fresh after her shower. “Sore?” she asked.

“A little.” He sat up, grimacing a bit as his stiff muscles pulled. “It’s just us here again.” His dad was in town getting some supplies and Wyatt was at a VA appointment in the D.C. area. Brody had told them he’d be taking Trinity back to D.C. at some point today. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, but keep stretching. I’ll put on some coffee.” She headed into the kitchen.

Brody resumed his stretches and watched her as she worked. She was moving more fluidly today and the swelling in her face had gone way down. He couldn’t help but admire her shapely curves while she stood with her back to him at the counter.

When she lifted on tiptoe to reach into one of the cupboards and turned slightly, the hem of her borrowed sweater rode up, exposing the creamy expanse of her stomach. He’d lain awake for a good hour last night after coming back into the house, thinking of what she’d told him about her past.

It enraged him to think that a government agency would stand by and allow the sort of abuse Trinity had suffered. He ached to think of her enduring that, would give anything for the chance to replace that horrific memory with a good one.

The rich scent of brewing coffee drew him out of his thoughts. He pushed to his feet and headed over to her.

She glanced at him, those deep blue eyes pulling him in. “You take a bit of cream, right?”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t surprised she remembered that from yesterday. Operators watched their surroundings carefully and noticed details.

She added some cream to his coffee and offered him the mug. He made sure his fingers lingered on hers at the transfer, was rewarded by a delicate pink blush that stole into her cheeks.

“Thanks,” he murmured, glad that she was as affected by their chemistry as he was. She’d already booked a flight to London in the morning using an alias and a credit card belonging to that persona she’d memorized the number of.

If he had his way, she’d be spending her last night in the States naked in his bed at his place near Quantico. He wasn’t ready to let her go yet. There was something special brewing between them and he wanted to see where it led.

He joined her at the table, leaned back in his chair. “So, anything else you want to go over?” They’d already planned things out this morning. Well,
she’d
planned things. He’d been careful to let her run the show so she wouldn’t pull back from him, and he hadn’t had any objections to anything she’d said, so he’d kept quiet.

“We didn’t talk about what would happen once I retrieve my gear.”

“No, we didn’t.” Because he was still hoping all would go smoothly and he’d be able to convince her to stay the night with him. He wanted much more than one night, but if that’s all he could have, he’d take it.

She lowered her gaze to her mug. “After I get my things we go our separate ways—”

“I’m not leaving you until you get on your flight out of the country,” he informed her, not about to keep silent on that point. “That part’s not up for negotiation.”

For a moment it looked like she would argue but then she sighed and relented. “All right, but if this thing goes sideways, you have to promise me that we’ll split up and you’ll get clear.”

“Why London?” he asked instead, avoiding that promise because he didn’t want to lie to her. There was no way he was leaving her to fend for herself if things got ugly.

“I’m based there, for now. I’ve lived there for the past year or so.”

Made it damn hard for him to see her again, and he definitely wanted to. He might not know her all that well, but he knew enough. He’d make sure she was safe tonight and personally see her onto the plane tomorrow night.

She finished her coffee and set her mug down, eyeing him across the table. “You sure about this?”

“Yeah,” he said, an edge to his voice. He was tired of her trying to come up with a reason to ditch him. “Thought I made that pretty damn clear already.”

“All right.” She stood, grabbed both mugs and carried them to the sink. “Let’s roll then.”

He had his gear already stowed in a lockbox in the back of his truck. Fatigues, helmet, body armor, rifle, pistols, ammo and medical supplies. Trinity had insisted on seeing it all that afternoon. They were both carrying a concealed pistol with them as they climbed into the truck.

He drove them through town as darkness fell over the valley, then headed east toward the mountains.

“Will you be coming back here for a while after?” she asked him.

“Most likely.” He still hadn’t been able to have the downtime he’d been so looking forward to, and there were plenty of things he could help out his dad and Wyatt with on the property.

“Do Charlie and Easton come home much?”

“Charlie more so. She works in D.C. Easton’s job comes with a demanding schedule and he travels a lot. He and I both like to come home for downtime when we can, and I know my dad likes to have us around. Even if he says we’re pains in his ass sometimes.”

“You’re lucky,” she murmured, staring out her window. “To have a home and family like that.”

“I know.” He felt bad that she had neither and decided to change the subject. “After we go to the apartment. Where are you planning on staying?”

“I’ll find a hotel.”

Fortune favored the brave, or so the saying went. “My place is just outside Quantico. Stay there with me tonight.” He glanced over in time to see her swivel her head to look at him, the streetlamps they passed revealing the guarded expression on her face.