Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) (41 page)

“Uh, no, but we’re only dealing with Mark alone,” Sisko argued. “Not all of Obsidian.”

“None of you seem to get how dangerous he is,” Noah pointed out. “And don’t forget. We agreed years ago that I would be the one to make this call.”

Zade and Sisko exchanged telling glances. “Here we go again,” Zade said. “You self-important prick.”

“Too bad,” Noah said. “The party’s over. Everybody out of the pool.”

Appalled silence followed his pronouncement. After a few moments of it,

Caro shook her head.

“No,” she said. “You can’t do that, Noah.”

He was taken aback. She was supposed to be on his side—at least he’d assumed as much. The Midlanders bitched and moaned and pushed back, but they always deferred to him in the end. Caro just defied him. In his face. No compromise.

His vision was overlaid by a haze of hot red. The scrolling, the flickering.
Fuck.

Hannah gave Caro a startled look. “Right,” she seconded quickly. “Amen.”

“I’m not gonna toe your line either.” Zade said, his voice steely. “That shit’s over.”

Sisko’s clear gaze was just as unyielding. “You’re outmaneuvered, buddy,” he said. “We’ll all come up with a plan together. It’s cool.”

Noah closed his eyes, flexed his hands, breath shuddering.

Giving in could be fatal for them all
.
But what the fuck else could he do when he was outnumbered? He looked one by one at the familiar faces of his crew. All of them waiting in silence for him to cave.

“Everybody has to be ready to bolt,” he said. “Plane tickets, documents. We salvage what we can, if it all goes to hell. Sisko, warn the out-of-towners.”

Sisko nodded.

“Don’t forget me,” Asa said, his voice wry. “If your people all run off to the four corners of the earth, I’m screwed.”

“Tough,” Noah said. “If that happened, you’d be long past caring.”

Asa looked faintly impressed. “Fuck you, too. Expenses just doubled, brother.”

Noah met his gaze. “Give me an itemized bill when we’re done.”

Caro spoke again. “I’m going to bait the trap,” she announced.

“The
fuck
you are,” he said savagely.

“Like Asa said,” Caro went on. “Mark’s too smart to walk into an empty trap. I have to be there. I’m the only one who has what he wants.”

“But not what you need to survive,” Noah said. “You’re not combat trained yet, or modified for speed and resistance.”

“I’m the only one who can lure him in,” she said stubbornly. “And he can’t kill me until he gets what he wants from me.”

“But he will get it,” he said harshly. “Could take him hours. Or days. He’ll break you. Brutally. He’s good at it. He lives for it, in fact. He won’t kill you until you’re begging to die. Which will be long after he’s forced you into opening the safe.”

Caro sighed. “Noah, please shut up. I can share the risk with all of you.”

“No.” His voice was a whip crack, making her flinch back. “Get out of this room. You’ve done enough damage.”

“What?” Her eyes widened.

“Just go.”

She didn’t move an inch. Sudden fire with a white-hot blazing center bloomed out of her sig. It hurt his eyes.

When she spoke, her voice was cold and clipped. “I didn’t go through fucking hell on earth to be sent to my room like a bad little kid.”

No one else dared to speak.

Asa finally broke the silence, chuckling under his breath. “Yeah, you tell him,” he murmured. “Someone has to. Way overdue.”

“I did not ask for your input,” Noah ground out.

“Like I care.” Asa went back to staring into the laptop, his rugged features lit by its faint blue glow.

Noah closed his eyes and walked a tightrope inside himself, trying to block sensory input until he could breathe again. Asa’s voice dragged him back.

“. . . prefer to rip my arms off and beat me to death with them?” Asa’s tone was casual. “Or look at Mark’s counterproposal, instead?”

Noah positioned himself at a safe distance with a clear line of sight to Asa’s laptop screen. Caro ignored him, perching with a dancer’s grace on the edge of the sofa.

A little too close to Asa. Who didn’t seem to mind.

Noah got the unspoken message. He wasn’t in charge unless he wanted to fight for it.

Good thing fighting was what he was made for.

Chapter 31

Sitting crosslegged on the bed, Caro smoothed the final fold of the origami Pegasus. Various other paper creations were scattered over the bed. Making mythical animals out of squares of colored paper was her latest tactic to distract herself from the solitude and suspense of the last few days.

It wasn’t working.

The bedroom door opened. Noah came in, carrying two large suitcases. He didn’t meet her eyes. Just set the suitcases down with a thud. “Time to pack.”

Tension seized her whole body. “You’re making a mistake,” she began.

“It’s not up for discussion.” His voice was expressionless. “A team from SafeGuard will pick you up tomorrow morning.” He held out a bulky manila envelope.

She took it, and shook the contents out. There was a flawlessly faked driver’s license for a Melissa Brodhurst. He’d taken the picture on it two nights ago, using her wig, her glasses and the face-distorting mouth insert.

There was a cell phone, a set of keys for a car and another for a house or apartment, by the looks of them. The pen drive from Luke Ryan’s house. A sheaf of documents.

Lots of documents. Bank accounts for Melissa, with breathtakingly high balances. A car title. The deed to a condo. A birth certificate. High school transcripts. A college diploma. A graphic design resume featuring multiple jobs.

“Enjoy your new condo in Mendocino. Good security. And an ocean view, when the fog lets up,” he said. “Car’s in the garage.”

“OK.” Her throat was so tight, she could hardly say the word. It was a lie, in any case.

He continued in the same matter-of-fact tone. “I ordered you a passport. It’ll arrive in the mail, at your condo. Then you could leave the country. If you want.”

Caro squelched the urge to crumple the papers. Furious at him, for making high-handed decisions for her. Grateful that he cared so much. The conflicting impulses made her want to scream. As if her life would be worth a damn if she ended up needing another faked identity. Like she could hide or run for it, knowing that Noah was either dead or else imprisoned and tortured by a madman.

“Don’t look like that.” Noah sounded defensive. “We all have emergency escape plans, if things go to shit. This is yours. Best I could come up with on short notice.”

“You controlling bastard,” she said.

“That’s me. Pack your stuff. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Hurt stabbed deep, cold and sharp. “You’re not staying?”

“I have more work to do. Gotta focus. Everything else can wait.”

“Guess that applies to me, too,” she said.

A muscle pulsed in his jaw, but his blank expression did not change. “I need to stay in control.” His voice was rigidly even, almost robotic. “I’m having a bad time with imbeds. My old analogs are compromised, so I have to construct new ones every time. Takes time and privacy. It would be stupid of you to take it personally. Good night.”

He walked out, and shut the door. Like he’d been doing ever since their clash after they first got in touch with Mark in the Oblio chatroom.

His withdrawal had been subtle. Impossible to protest. Of course he was busy and preoccupied, largely on her behalf, so she had no right to complain. But ever since the flurry of preparations had begun, he’d been lost to her. Light years away.

Truth was, he’d spoiled her. When he was switched on, he radiated a wild, hot, reverent passion that was healing. It made her feel beautiful and powerful.
After h
er long stint of barely surviving, she’d glommed onto that like a starving creature. Passion, closeness. She’d lapped it all up.

Then, all at once, he’d yanked it away again, leaving her lost and bewildered.

Well. Almost. Not the sexual intimacy. Every night he had come to her deep in the night, after his secret planning sessions to which she was not invited. He’d stripped off his clothes, slid into bed and made fierce, focused love to her. No talk. No cuddling.

He peeled off her panties and hungrily licked her into a whimpering frenzy, keeping at it until she was aroused beyond belief. Then he rolled on top of her, kissed her senseless, and took her for a hard, pounding ride, driving her to wave upon crashing wave of erotic surrender. And as soon as she drifted back to reality, he promptly positioned her for the next round. And on, and on.

Sexually he was as eager and generous as he’d ever been, but emotionally, he was gone behind a thick wall of glass.

But still. He’d taken the weight of the world on his shoulders to help her. And she was feeling miserable because he wasn’t focused on her tender feelings? Please.

It made her hate herself
.
Which was really all she needed right now.

She folded over, pressing her hand to her belly. That falling-away feeling was like those last weeks before Mom died. Something so bad was bearing down on her like a train, and she was tied to the tracks. Helpless to stop it.

Then the train hit. The worst happened. It happened all the time, with monotonous regularity. Grief, loss, violence, disaster, brutality. Catastrophe. She knew. Falling in love was a trap. She’d tried so hard to dodge it.

Fail. Major fail. It embarrassed her.

Then again. Any woman’s ability to reason clearly would break down in the presence of a man like Noah Gallagher.

One thing was for sure. She could not leave for California tomorrow. She couldn’t blame Noah for trying so hard not to involve her in this encounter with Mark, but his fear and stubbornness was going to drive them off a cliff. He was tightening his control over everything and everyone, including himself. She’d seen it in his face, heard it in his voice. He was wound to the breaking point.

Fuck this. She was not going to let him push her away tonight.

Opposing his strength and will would take all of her energy and nerve, but she couldn’t be intimidated by the man she loved. She desperately wanted to believe they had something good going on. That they might still actually have a future.

She scattered origami animals in every direction when she got up, with no clear plan of action, just a restless hunger to be close to him and force her way through the wall he’d put up. They had no time for that shit.

She wished she still had her belly dancing outfit. That would have been good for a tension-relieving laugh. Still, thinking of her costume made her want to dress up for this. Maybe make him smile. Probably too much to hope, but hell. She could try.

She pawed through the dresser drawer where Hannah had dumped all the finery she’d gotten for Caro at the lingerie store. There was lots of silky, lacy, wispy little nothings in there to choose from. Pretty, understated, pastel. Too tasteful. Nothing that could be characterized as an in-your-face sexual weapon.

She wanted something fun, playful, loud. A bustier, a garter belt. Fishnet hose.

Then her hand brushed a little velvet bag. The mysterious object Hannah had left. She pried open the drawstring and upended a sparkling tangle of chains into her hand. At first she thought it was a necklace, but the clasps were positioned wrong.

Body jewelry. Oh, yes.

She peeled off her clothes, untangled the thing with some difficulty,
and put it on.
The top part was a collar, from which a long sparkling chain connected, plunging straight down between her breasts and hooking to a belt that draped low on her hips. Glittering chains draped from the belt over her hips, as well, and the belt let a richly embossed pendant dangle on her lower belly, just over her mound.

She studied at the ensemble in the mirror as she unwound her hair and shook it loose over her shoulders. The look would definitely have been improved by a Brazilian wax, but her life hadn’t permitted that kind of fancy grooming in a long time. Not that Noah had ever complained about her small puff of ringlets.

The ensemble had sort of a kinky, porno bed-slave sort of vibe. Perfect.

She shrugged on the peach silk dressing gown that Hannah had deemed essential for her emergency wardrobe, and padded down the corridor to the room where Noah had been retreating to do his analog dives.

She paused before entering, about to knock. But he never bothered to knock when he came to her at night. Why should she?

The room was dark, but enough moonlight filtered in to show Noah’s long, powerful frame, stretched out on the bed. He was stripped down to a pair of loose sweat pants which rode low on his hips. The room was chilly, but even naked to the waist, he radiated heat.

She moved closer, drinking him in
, her gaze moving over the
sensual contours of his massive chest and shoulders. He was lost in silent meditation, so deeply he didn’t seem to hear the sigh of the door or her barefoot tiptoeing
.
His body heat intensified with every step she took. She felt like banks of blazing stadium spotlights were switching on and lighting her up, one after the other, in the deepest levels of her being.

Everything about him pulled her.

* * *

The new analog dive was in place, every element chosen to do exactly what Noah needed it to do to stay chilled, sharp, in perfect control. The summit was just over that outcropping. Jagged fingers of of black rock poked through the powdery snow that crunched under his boots. At the summit, the soaring peaks of the mountainscape would calm both body and mind. One last step—

Fuck.
He reeled back from an unexpected cliff. A volcanic crater lay below him, exhaling steam, gray with ash. At its heart, a gaping cave glowed a hot, wounded red
.

Another imbed. So his new analogs were compromised, too.

Flinching away from the imbeds never worked. He had to stare that bad bastard down, and see what happened. Even if it hurt.

He descended into the crater. His boots kicked up clouds of ash as he got closer to the cave, coughing from the acrid fumes.