Fatal Obsession (Black Widow Book 2) (18 page)

“That wasn’t her fault!” Mike pushed off the wall and shouted, completely out of character. Damien wondered about that. Dale crossed the room in three long strides and stood in front of Ellie. But Mike went back to lean against the wall, back in his casual pose, calm, like his outburst never happened.

“Long story short, we trained her, gave her everything she needed to be the most feared assassin.” Elaine coughed and Mike chuckled, “Alright, one of two most feared assassins.”

Damien heard Ellie gasp and Dale quickly turned to her, taking her into his arms.

He said that word again, assassin.
Victoria Secret was a hired gun?
Damien rubbed his temple, he was getting a headache. “VS is an assassin?”

“Was—a damn good one for four years.”

“What happened?”

“You happened.” There was no missing the venom in his voice.

Mike blamed Damien for whatever ruined Tasha’s assassin perfect score. Dear Lord, the woman he loved made a career out of killing people?

“What exactly did I do?”

“You knocked her up. Then all these maternal feelings made her start to question everything even more than she used to. She wouldn’t take an assignment without researching the target first. If she found nothing guilty about her target, she wouldn’t do it, but what she would do was hide the target so that no other Widow could ever find them.”

“Be mad all you want Mike but you know she did the right thing,” Elaine offered, “Killing a monster is one thing, killing a kindergarten teacher who just loves to teach kids is another.”

Oh, thank God!
“So your targets were bad guys?” Damien knew he sounded, hopefully naive, but he didn’t care.

Mike cleared his throat, fidgeting uncomfortably where he stood, “We called them puppet masters, the guys who pulled the strings and also untouchable. People who the authorities couldn’t touch, we killed.”

“Authorities, like the FBI?” Dale asked and Mike nodded his ascent, “That explains a lot.”

Damien could understand that, but one thing didn’t make sense, “Why would the FBI want to kill kindergarten teachers?”

“They didn’t. Vladimir was taking side jobs; spiteful rich parents who didn’t like their daughter-in-law because she wasn’t from the same social circle, or a cheating spouse or high target criminals who want the cops off their back.”

“Ellsa found out and she put a stop to it, in secret at first, then she started to recruit other Widows and their handlers,” Elaine spoke, “By the time Vladimir caught on, Ellsa had already gone into hiding.”

“Hiding? Why, was she afraid for her life?” Ellie sniffed, her eyes wet with tears.

“No,” Damien looked at Mike, “She was pregnant, wasn’t she?”

“Yes. She only told me and I helped her, pretending I didn’t know where she was. Then she went back to work and Vladimir kept her on his radar.”

Damien shook his head, “But wasn’t she already on his radar, way before me?”

“What?”

“The night we met, she was running from him. She had blood on her nightgown and none of it was hers.”

Mike chuckled, “Oh that. He summoned her to Miami to discuss Ellie. Apparently Ellsa rushed a job because she didn’t want to miss saying farewell to Ellie when she left for Italy with her class. From what she told me, Vladimir threatened to have her killed in Italy and Ellsa didn’t appreciate that, hence the Thanksgiving carving.”

Damien could see what Mike found amusing about that. “But she was so scared.”

“Just because we are Widows—assassins, doesn’t mean we don’t get scared.” Elaine threw in, drawing a startled look from Mike. What, wasn’t she ever scared? Only cold heartless people weren’t scared, probably why she was assassin number one.

Mike stared thoughtfully at Elaine as he spoke, “She took a calculated risk. She wasn’t sure it would work, but it did, because he became fixated on Ellsa.”

Yup, Vladimir was a real loon if he translated attempted murder as an act of love. “Drawing the danger to herself?”

“As long as Ellie was safe. Everything to keep Ellie safe,” Mike sneered, gaining Dale’s ire.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mike uncrossed his arms and pushed off the wall to face off with Dale, “All Vladimir had to do was threaten Ellie’s safety and she would do whatever he wanted. If Ellsa had done what I told her and faked her death, cutting all ties with Ellie before she joined, none of this would have happened.”

“So everything is my fault?” Ellie sobbed. She looked so broken Damien was tempted to hold her, comfort her, but that wasn’t a line he could cross. Everything might be straightened out, but he wasn’t going to risk it.

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s Ellsa’s fault… and Mike’s.” Elaine spoke, her eyes screwed on Mike and Damien noticed Mike actually tensed under them. What hadn’t been said?

“What do you mean?”

“Black Widows are women, the men are their handlers because we get into places men can’t. Handlers also do more than keep tabs on their Widows.”

Damien clenched his jaw, “What do you mean?”

“Lover, friend, family, they are everything the Widows need them to be to make sure they stay happy and never leave the company and of course, get the job done.”

“So Mike and Ellsa…” hell, Damien couldn’t say the words.

Elaine’s lips twitched like she was fighting a smile, sending his temper a notch higher, “Calm down hot shot. Ellsa wasn’t the type. Some of us don’t like to mix business with pleasure. She never slept with targets or informants either. You’d have to be narcissistic to fuck someone before slitting their throat. Mike was a friend, nothing more, even if he wanted it.”

Damien cursed. He knew it! Mike’s dedication to Ellsa was born out of more than just friendship. Mike leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest to appear more uncaring.

“She considered him her best friend, trusted him enough to make him godfather to her son. Trust no one, one of the fundamental rules in the Black Widows that you had to reiterate, didn’t you, Mike?”

Mike’s lips pressed in a hard white line in barely controlled anger.

Eyes still on Mike she went on, “You see, Ellsa had become unpredictable, disobedient, rebellious; all things frowned upon. She’d earned a new name—the White Widow. She was the punisher of the evil and protector of the innocent and on the company’s dime. Not good for business. Vladimir was too obsessed with her to kill her—which is protocol—so he did the next best thing. He coerced her into
volunteering
for a new control chip one of his crazy scientists had invented.”

Damien felt his temper flare. He already guessed how Vladimir got Ellsa to volunteer, but he was praying it wasn’t true. Lord he hoped it wasn’t true! “How?”

“Handlers deliver instructions, orders. Mike was the only one who knew where DJ was so when he disappeared, Ellsa knew it was Vladimir. Mike confirmed her fears and told her what she had to do and she did it. She let them cut into her head and implant two chips. One to control her and the other was a memory chip. No one thought she would survive the procedure, but she did, took weeks in recovery but the guinea pig survived and the tech worked. Only then did Mike tell Ellsa that DJ was safe and Vladimir knew nothing about him.”

“What?” Damien felt his body vibrate with uncontrolled anger.

“I did my job the best way I could. The other option was kidnapping Ellie and torturing her until Ellsa gave in. I got immediate results with DJ and that’s all that mattered.” Mike finished with a shrug. A shrug!

Damien hadn’t realized he’d launched across the room at Mike until he felt the grips on his arms. Daniel and Dale were holding him back, pissing him off even more. “I’m going to kill you!” he hissed.

Mike tipped his head in a maybe nod, “You could try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“So the chip—all the innocent people she killed, it wasn’t her fault,” Ellie practically yelled. The hope in her voice stilled Damien. “Elaine, am I right?”

She nodded, “I was appointed to watch her, see how the chip worked. I became her second handler, a first in the company. Yes, her body wasn’t her own. It was hard to watch, even harder to watch how it ate at her. Her mind was beginning to fracture, but the last push to insanity was when she was ordered to kill Ellie. Vladimir was under the impression that if Ellie was out of the picture Ellsa might actually love him back. Stupid childlike idiot.”

“Is that why she hurt me?”

Dale let go of Damien and went back to his wife. Daniel moved to stand between Damien and Mike.

“She fought it as hard as she could, but she was losing. For months, she did all she could to push Ellie away without hurting her—physically that is. It was another reason she practically pushed you onto Dale. She trusted him to be your last line of defense when she finally failed. Since she wasn’t obeying the direct order, they decided to convince her into believing everything that had gone wrong in her life was Ellie’s fault. But somehow that blame was transferred to the men who’d threatened their relationship as sisters. She started to disappear and we only realized what she was up to after the fourth victim. By then she’d hidden Stacey-Ann and Ellie—and to her defense, she wasn’t in her right mind when she hired those two crooks.” She nodded at Daniel. “We found her at his house mumbling to herself, crying and apologizing, begging for Daniel not to die. We realized then that she was completely off her rocker and we had to take her away. I called an ambulance and Mike knocked her out and carried her to the car. But we didn’t hold her for long, she escaped and the next thing we knew, Ellie was in the hospital, a victim of a botched fetal abduction. I realized then that she needed that chip removed so I left to find the scientist whom she’d hidden during one of her few lucid moments.” She smiled at Mike, “only to come back and find genius here had let her go.”

“You make it sound like I uncuffed her, let her out of the house, gave her my car keys and bid her good luck on her crazy mission!”

She shrugged, prompting Damien to ask, “Then how did she get out?”

“She got out of her cuffs—Black Widow one-o-one—stabbed me in the abdomen and stole my car. Elaine found me bleeding on the floor. At least she was kind enough not to pierce any vital organs.”

“That’s when she came to the hospital and tried to steal Third?” Dale asked, holding Ellie against his side.

“Yes. Going so long without seeing DJ made her believe he’d been stolen again.” Mike shifted on his feet. “Before she jumped me I was giving her an update on DJ and I mentioned that her nephew was doing well in the hospital. I asked her what she did to Ellie and she told me the voice in her head told her Ellie had stolen her son and she was hiding him inside her.”

“Dear God, she really flipped the sanity switch, didn’t she?” Kris, who’d been quiet so far, piped up.

Elaine shook her head, “No. When I finally found the scientist and explained to him what was happening, he told me the chip was malfunctioning. It had been far from being complete when Vladimir ordered the procedure done. He needed to remove it, volunteered for it in fact, since Ellsa had made sure his family was safely off Vladimir’s radar. But we arrived too late and she was gone. When we got to the hospital and found the stand-off, I knew there was only one way to put an end to everything.”

“You were going to kill my sister!” Ellie yelled in hysteria. She was looking close to losing her mind as well.

“I made her a promise. If she hurt anyone innocent I was to put her down, her exact words. All those men wouldn’t be dead if I’d kept my promise. But even when she shot Dale I couldn’t do it. The red head did the job for me. Once she’d recovered and was sent to the insane asylum, we broke her out when it was clear she couldn’t be helped with that chip still in her head.”

“Her doctor at the asylum, Charles Malkin, what happened to him?” Dale asked.

“He’s playing the role of her husband Tom Turner in her life as Tasha, am I right?” Damien stated, earning a smile from Elaine.

“I knew you were more than just a pretty face.” Mike snorted at that.

“Why did you let him tag along?”

“He was pretty convincing on how he could help Ellsa and the idiot was in love with her.” She shrugged, “I figured what was the harm.”

“He beat her black and blue. She could barely move for a week, that was the harm!” Damien gnashed out.

Mike vaulted away from the wall, “What?”

“Where she even got the strength to drive to that gas station is beyond me. That idiot is obsessed with her and probably the only reason why he keeps juicing her with that forget drug is to keep her from remembering her real family.”

Mike shook his head, “She
has no memory of her past. That was taken care of when the chip that controlled her was removed. There were some complications and her memory suffered for it. Still does.”

“So she’ll never remember me?” Ellie whispered.

“No, she never will. And until we get her through all her triggers, she might just forget her current life.”

“And the nightmares? When she woke up, you asked her if she had a nightmare and she got agitated. What are the nightmares?”

“They are not actually nightmares, but memories. Probably recordings of the worst times of her life post implantation. The last chip in her head is a memory chip.”

“Why wasn’t that removed too?”

Mike stared at Elaine, who sighed, then answered, “Because removing the first one almost killed her. We don’t want to take the risk.”

Ellie released a desperate cry and fell into Dale, who held her tight against his chest. By the time this was over, Ellie was bound for a shrink couch.

“So now what?” Damien asked. He was still on the fence about the whole story, but he had no other choice but to believe it if his new family was to come out on the other side unscathed.

“Now it’s my turn,” Elaine stood, rubbing her hands on her hips, “I should have done this a long time ago; but better late than never.”

“I’ll go with you. I owe Ellsa this.” Mike added.

Damien didn’t know what
this
was, but he had his suspicions. “What do I do?”

Elaine smiled, walked up to him and playfully punched Damien’s shoulder, “Stay alive and out of jail. Killing Tom won’t solve anything. DJ and Ellsa are going to need you now more than ever. One of us will call once the deed is done.” A wistful look came over her face, “I’m going to miss them.”