Shatter (32 page)

Her gaze blurred over the cardboard. Fist lifted to her chest where her heart hammered as hard now as it had then.

She didn’t have an answer. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel anything but this blinding, splitting failure. And loss. God, she couldn’t bear it anymore.

She knelt in front of the box. The shredded top looked like it had spent too much time with rodents. The thought made shivers crawl over her arms. She closed her eyes until they passed and rubbed at the gooseflesh left behind.

“If I find something dead in here,” she barely whispered, “I’m going to scream.”

As she lifted the box top, the front door opened and voices flooded the house. Followed by Kat and Mateo’s little running feet. Halina closed her eyes and moaned. She couldn’t face anyone now. She needed to be alone.

While everyone was milling through the front rooms, Halina flicked through the folder tabs. She’d only glanced inside the box that one night to make sure it held the Classified files and didn’t really know what it contained. When nothing jumped out at her, she grabbed two handfuls of files and pulled them from the box. A soft thud drew her gaze back to the empty space. Something small and blue tumbled around the bottom. Not a mouse—thank God. She reached in and picked it up. As soon as she drew it into the light, her stomach dropped to her feet.

It was a box. A signature Caribbean blue Tiffany’s box. The air whooshed out of Halina’s lungs and a flood of tears rushed her eyes from nowhere.

“Shit,” she whispered, wiping the streaks away, too aware of the others so close. “Not now.”

She sniffled and looked out the windows, holding the box tight. When Mitch had bought her jewelry, it had always been from Tiffany’s. And he used to come home with something new for her at least twice a month. Bracelets, earrings, necklaces, charms, watches. The way his eyes glittered as he watched her open gifts, it was as if he was the one getting a present. He’d loved to give. Especially to Halina. The man had the biggest heart of anyone she’d ever known.

She huffed a humorless laugh. “At least he used to.”

She looked back at the box, turning it end over end in her fingers. He must have hidden this gift in the file box, planning to give it to her at the right moment. Her heart sank.

Throw it back in,
one voice said.

Open it,
another argued.

She slowly lifted the blue top and peeked inside. Instead of something shiny laid out on a bed of shimmering satin, a black velvet jeweler’s box filled the Tiffany’s cardboard square.

Her chest squeezed. Her breath caught. She darted glances at the doorway and around the kitchen as if she expected someone to be watching her.

The box was the size and shape of a ring box. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know that. But nor could she pretend that only meant one kind of ring. Or that it had been meant for her. It could have been a gift for Alyssa.

This was stupid. She had to know. No matter what it turned out to be, it wouldn’t change anything about the present.

With one more glance at the door, she reached in and pulled the hinged top back.

The shock of sparkle made her gasp. A strangled sound came from her throat and she stopped breathing, unable to tear her gaze away.

It wasn’t a gift for Alyssa.

It was an engagement ring.

An amazing combination of diamonds, one large and centered, several others reducing in size as they flared down the band in a simple but stunning and elegant design.

A dagger stabbed her heart. Twisted. Hot tears trailed out of her eyes but her whole torso had gone icy cold.

“Oh my God.” The whisper shook coming out of her numb lips. The sparkles turned into blurry, five-pointed stars. Halina’s breaths were ragged as she covered her mouth with her free hand.

She suddenly understood—everything. His fury, his deep hurt, his smoldering desire, his sense of complete betrayal. Mitch hadn’t just cared about her. He hadn’t just loved her. He’d planned his future with her. He’d committed his heart and soul to her.

Staring down at the gems, still sparkling happily after all this time hidden in that dismal box, something inside Halina broke—a physical snap at the center of her body.

 

Owen grabbed a bottle of water from the small refrigerator hidden beneath Stephanie’s desk. His secretary was long gone for the evening and Owen was glad to be alone. He entered his office with a sick, dull ache in his belly and fell into his desk chair. An hour of grilling by the head of DARPA, Carter Cox, was not a pleasant experience. Owen had known it was coming. Sofia had warned him she’d gone to Cox first to get permission to talk to Owen. Not that she’d needed it, but she was playing nice.

Owen smiled at the thought of Sofia. And the pleasure of seeing her earlier took away some of the discomfort in his gut. He’d been impatient to get the divorce papers before he’d seen her. After he’d seen her, he’d made a call to the divorce lawyer and asked him where the hell they were. His attorney was looking into it.

Owen turned on his computer and flipped through the messages his secretary had left him while he’d been in with Cox. A couple from his team. A few last-minute meeting changes. And one from . . . Jennifer? His daughter, Jennifer? He couldn’t remember the last time she’d called him. Not in months. And not in over a year at the office.

His brow pulled. Head tilted. He reached for his cell and tapped into the recent calls. One missed call . . . from Libby. But no message. The burn of alarm slid along his nerves. “What the hell?”

He dropped the messages and called Libby back on her cell. The call rolled into voice mail.

“Shit.” Owen disconnected and called Jennifer at home.

She picked up on the second ring with a blustering, “Oh, Daddy, he’s the cutest thing
ever
. I
love
him. Thank you, thank you,
thank you
!”

The enthusiasm and pure love in her voice created a flurry of emotions he wasn’t ready for. Longing and loneliness blindsided him with a direct hit. But it didn’t take long for anxiety to creep in, because Jen’s voice dropped and she went on.

“Mom’s pissed, but she’s always with Philip,” Jenny said, referencing Libby’s lover of nearly a year, “and now that Josh has his license, he’s always with his friends. I’m always alone and . . . and . . . this is the best present ever. I really
needed
him.”

Her voice rose with emotion, the way it always did before she started to cry. And now that she was having her period regularly, those tears came a lot more often. But they still stabbed at Owen’s chest. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, aching at the thought of telling Jen he hadn’t done whatever she was so thankful for. Owen hadn’t forgotten her birthday, it was still four months away—she’d be fourteen. There was no special occasion coming up, nothing he’d missed. And he was doubly twisted over the fact that all this love was going to end up going to—probably—Philip.

“I miss you, Dad,” Jen said, her voice soft, but still brimming with pain. “Thanks for coming to my recital the other day. I saw you in the back.”

“I miss you, too, baby.” A sad smile lifted his mouth. At least he’d done something right. “I was going to come up after,” he said, then cleared the roughness from his voice, “I brought flowers—”

“I saw them.”

“But . . . it was so crowded, and you were busy . . .”

“And Philip was there.”

Owen smiled. “I don’t want to cause any more . . . issues. Baby, I just want you to be happy.”

“Well,” she suddenly bubbled to life again. “This little guy sure makes me happy. Where did you get him? He’s
perfect
.”

“Honey,”—the uneasy sensation grew—“get what? What are you talking about?”

“The
puppy
. You don’t have to pretend it wasn’t you. Mom already knows.”

Puppy?
“How does your mom know it was me?”

“The man who brought him told me and she overheard.”

Owen stood so fast, his chair banged the wall. Every muscle in his body tensed. Hands and jaw clenched. “A man”—he could barely get the words out—“brought a puppy to the house and told you it was a gift from
me
?”

“Yeah,” Jen said, apology and resignation in her voice. “Sorry, Dad. If I had known I could have made up a story to cover for you. You know, I found the puppy or a friend couldn’t keep him or something. But I didn’t know. I hope she doesn’t give you a bad time.”

Sweat broke out over the back of Owen’s neck and shoulders, down his spine. “Babe, what did the man look like?”

“Um, I don’t know. Kind of like you, but not as handsome. Wait . . . that’s weird to say, right?” She laughed. Owen wanted to absorb the sound, but couldn’t. “Anyway, he had short blond hair and his face was all cut up. He said he’d been in a car accident. Kinda looked like Frankenstein.”

Owen bent at the waist and planted his free hand on his desk. He was breathing hard. Seeing crimson. “How long did he stay, honey?”

“Just a little while. Came, dropped off the puppy . . . I think I’m going to name him Roscoe. Do you like it?”

Owen closed his eyes, searching for patience. “Yeah. Great name, Jen.”

“Then he left. He was really nice. Hey, Dad?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Can I see you soon? I know you’re, like, really busy . . . but . . .”

“Yes. Absolutely.” He dropped back into his chair, covered his eyes with a surge of sickness rolling in his belly. “How about next week? Want to stay here for the weekend? We can go house hunting for a new place for me.”

“Um . . . can I have Roscoe at your apartment?” she asked timidly. “Because no way will Mom take care of him for me and I wouldn’t trust Josh.”

“Abso”—
fucking
—“lutely, baby. Bring Roscoe.”

Owen said good-bye to Jen, then reconnected and dialed the cell number he’d gotten for Abernathy from his file.

“Colonel Young,” Abernathy answered on the second ring, his voice distracted, but with an air of knowing. “I’ve been waiting for your call.”

“What’s this about?” Owen said, he voice low and cold and controlled.

“I’m assuming you mean the dog? Damn, your daughter is the cutest little thing—”

“What . . . is . . . this . . . about?”
One hand was clenched around the phone, the other in a fist. Every muscle in his body was rigid.

“Just a demonstration of how quickly I can get close to your family.”

Owen clenched his teeth. “Why?”

“Well, see, I’m going to need your help, Young. I understand you met Foster and his crew at the airport today. The whole chauffeur gig doesn’t really suit you, but, to each his own.”

“What do you want?” He enunciated every word clearly.

“For starters, I want you to show me where you put them up. We can go from there.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Let’s not play that game. I don’t have time. If you want your daughter to stay safe, Young, you’ll get your ass down to the parking garage in three minutes. I’m waiting in your car.” Abernathy paused, giving Owen just enough time to go a little insane. “If you can’t make it, I could always check on the pup—”

“Tangi Valley,” Owen said through gritted teeth, wishing he could forget what he’d done in that hell called Afghanistan. What had been done to him. But willing to use it if it would keep his kids safe from a psychotic predator like this.

Abernathy went silent a moment. Then, “An urban legend.”

“The truth,” Owen rasped. The scars on his back burned. “
My
truth. Soon to be
your
truth if you . . .
ever
. . . go . . . near . . . my . . . family . . . again.”

Abernathy hesitated. “I’m . . . glad we understand each other. I’ll see you in three.”

 

M
itch had wasted as much time outside as possible. But the sun was gone, he was shivering now, and he couldn’t see anything but the reflection of city lights off the river and silhouettes of the two guys guarding the riverbank.

He and Halina had made a lot of memories walking alongside this stretch of water. He’d thought reliving them might help him find some kind of resolution. But he found himself thinking less of the past and a lot more of the future.

He kept coming back to Cash’s words of advice—focus on the big fucking picture.

There was so much he loved and wanted about this new, improved version of Halina, his desire for her—as a lover, a friend, a partner . . . a wife—coiled and coiled inside him until he felt like a spring ready to pop.

Yet what kept him out here perched on a log near the shore instead of inside with Halina was fear from the past. Fear of that impending loss she’d all but admitted to today on the plane—running from him, pregnant or not.

He couldn’t fault her reasons, even if he didn’t fully believe in their source. She did. And she wasn’t even leaving because she didn’t love him. She was leaving because she loved him so much.

His brain just kept doing this—spinning and spinning and spinning. Yet he found no answer. No relief.

“Fuck,” he groaned, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing his temples with his palms.

“Hey.”

Mitch’s head came up fast at the deep voice. Too fast. A rush of blood hit his brain and pain slid beneath his skull. “Ah, shit.”

“Sorry,” Quaid said. “I was waiting for you to come in, but . . .”

“Did you find something?” Mitch asked, squinting toward Quaid’s dark silhouette. “A connection between Schaeffer and Classified? I know it was there when I last had the box.”

“Haven’t found anything in the box yet.” Quaid tossed a jacket to him.

“Thanks.” Mitch pulled it on. “Then what’s up?”

“Couple things.”

“Sit,” Mitch invited, gesturing to the log.

Quaid took something from his back pocket and sat next to Mitch. He unfolded some papers and Mitch took them.

“What’s this?” Mitch shone a flashlight over the pages. Scientific formulas lit up under the light. He flipped the flashlight off. “Shit, I already have a headache, dude. What is it?”

“A possible formula for the skin Cash has been trying to finish.”

Mitch perked up. “He finally got it?”

“Not Cash,” Quaid said. “I got this from Owen Young today when we were picking up the file box. He said he got it from Abrute.”

“What? When?” Mitch straightened. “How?”

“He has the guy in custody. Illegal custody, actually.” Quaid laughed. “Gotta love that, right?

“See, when Cash destroyed the Method pages at the Castle, Dargan sent Abrute home to get copies of Cash’s experiments. Evidently, he’d taken them from the lab for ‘safekeeping.’ We think he was going to sell them, but whatever. Anyway, Abrute left the Castle just before the explosion. Young was informed during the investigation and questioned Abrute. When he realized Abrute’s potential, he locked him up, put him in solitary, and had him working on finishing the formula.”

“Why the fuck didn’t he tell us this?”

“Young says Abrute would rather take his chances at a trial than risk Schaeffer’s hit men. And he’s not talking.”

“Give me five minutes in a cell with him and he’ll start talking,” Mitch said into the night. He glanced at the notes again. “Has Cash seen this?”

“Sure. He’s been studying it the whole time you’ve been out here.”

“And?”

Quaid shook his head. “It’s not right. Won’t work.”

“Fuck.”
Mitch slammed the papers against his thigh.

“But it’s closer than he’d been,” Quaid said. “He says he’ll use parts of it. Seems excited. That’s got to mean something.”

Mitch nodded and braced for the other half of the couple things Quaid had come out to talk about. “What else?”

“Halina.”

The burn of panic cut through his gut. “You guys were supposed to watch her—”

“She’s still here,” Quaid said. “She took files up to one of the bedrooms to work on them. Dillon’s standing guard outside her window. She’s not going anywhere.”

Mitch relaxed. “Then what about her? I already got a lecture from Nelson about being a jackass on the plane. I don’t need another one.”

“She moved from St. Petersburg to Chechnya when she was nine.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How do you know? She tell you?”

“No,” Mitch said. “From intel Young gave me.”

Quaid’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been to Chechnya?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know.” Quaid leaned forward, pressing his forearms to his thighs. “I
have
been to Chechnya. An assassination occurs every ten minutes. There are one hundred murders every day. Prostitution, drugs, and mafia are rampant. That move—from St. Petersburg to Chechnya—is the equivalent of moving from Jessica’s plush townhome in DC to a jungle hut in Columbia run by drug cartel.”

Mitch tried to absorb that, but realized he didn’t have the knowledge or experience.

“I’m trained to understand people,” Quaid said. “To read them, find their greatest weakness, and exploit it. I’ve worked with terrorists and assassins in Chechnya. Men like Halina’s uncle. You need to understand that Halina spent her formative years in an environment as warm as concrete. As frightening as hell. Orphans are a dime a dozen in Russia. The reason her uncle took her in was most likely for free labor—cleaning, cooking, and someone to abuse when he was pissed off.”

Mitch scrubbed his fingers through his hair. His gut ached.

“Halina was programmed to react a certain way, just like I was programmed to kill whomever Gorin told me to kill. Halina’s youth effectively rendered her as helpless to her programming as the drugs rendered me to mine. She never had a choice to believe one way or another, just as I didn’t.”

Quaid let out a breath and pushed one hand against his thigh to twist toward Mitch. “Halina believed Schaeffer would have assassinated you. She’d grown up around men who killed professionally, and she protected you the way she learned by watching them—she blackmailed the killer. Successfully, I might add.

“It’s difficult for me to describe the depth of what I’m trying to explain, but . . . you’re seeing the conflict from an empowered, privileged American’s point of view. Halina sees the conflict as an impoverished, suppressed, Russian underdog. You can’t expect Halina to go about solving problems the same way you would.

“As far as her visions, you don’t have to like what she’s seeing, but they’re very real. I’m telling you, that woman has a level of power caught up inside her that surpasses mine tenfold. When she learns to control the visions, there’s no telling what she’ll be able to predict or how her ability will expand.”

Quaid straightened and pushed to his feet. “Programming can be broken. I’m an example of that. And given what Halina’s done over the past twenty-four hours when she could have escaped you at any time, I’d say she’s already broken it. I think she’s operating out of pure emotion now—love and fear. Not programming. But hey . . . that’s just me.”

Quaid turned toward the house and shot a glance over his shoulder. “Get your ass inside and help us with this box. No one can read your writing. Not even your freaking twin.”

Mitch didn’t immediately return to the house. He spent some time thinking about what Quaid had said. It made a lot of sense. Would probably make a ton more sense if he could get Halina to talk about her childhood. He could certainly see why she hadn’t. Especially given his background of American baseball and apple pie.

He dragged himself toward the house, punching his radio to tell the four guys, two here, two on guard roadside, that he was going in.

Mitch heard laughter from inside before he’d even reached the porch. Climbing the stairs, he took in the warm glow emanating from the closed blinds over the windows and a small smile turned his mouth. He loved this group—every last damn pain in the ass—and he was grateful time and again for all of them.

He knocked and looked up when Teague pulled the curtain aside from the glass and peered out at him.

“This is an asshole-free zone,” Teague said and dropped the curtain back.

Mitch was too tired to be amused. “Then no one with a dick between his legs should be in there.”

“Out of the way, Creek.” Kai’s voice melted through the glass. “He gave you a chance when he didn’t want to.”

“Only because Alyssa made him,” Teague said.

The door opened and Mitch looked into Kai’s frustrated face. His green gaze swept Mitch’s face, assessing. “You look better than you feel.”

Mitch cocked his head. “Excuse—” Then he realized he must be even more twisted than he realized if Kai was picking up his emotional state. Mitch sidestepped Kai. “Don’t do that, Ryder. It’s creepy.”

Kai and Teague returned to the kitchen, where they were cleaning up from dinner. The thought of food made Mitch’s stomach growl, but his gut ached too much to eat anything substantial. He paused at the bar to grab a branch of green grapes from a bowl and popped a few in his mouth.

“How’s it going in here?” he asked as he turned and glanced into the family room.

“We’re all just working,” Kai said. “Guys are in place. Grounds are secure. Where’s Young? He’s got to pick sides once and for all.”

“I was just about to call him.”

Mitch turned toward the family room and found everyone staring. They were all stretched out on the furniture or floor, either playing with the kids or looking through documents. Everyone except Halina. And without her, the group suddenly didn’t seem complete. They were all quiet except for Kat, Mateo, and Brady. He met every adult gaze, each sending a different message, from confusion to frustration to pity.

He tossed a few more grapes in his mouth. Chewed. Lifted his brows. “Slow TV night?”

“You look like hell.” Cash set some papers aside and pushed to his feet. “Go catch a nap. I’ll take the radio and make rounds on the guys.”

The thought of a nap instantly brought Halina to mind. Brought the idea of pulling her into his arms, feeling her against him, tasting her lips, her skin, sliding inside her, watching her arch in pleasure . . . Then
snap
. The fear kicked in, dragging him below a murky surface he couldn’t clear.

Mitch handed Cash the radio with a muttered “Thanks” and turned down the hallway.

He paused at the base of the stairs, looking up, his hand covering the square head of the newel post. He didn’t have another fight in him. He felt weak. Needy. Not the best time to be near her. Yet he needed to know what she’d found.

“Mitch?”

Jessica’s voice startled him and he jumped, his hand falling from the post.

“Sorry,” she said. “I need to talk to you for minute.”

He ignored the quick beat of his heart and pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Find something good?”

With her arms crossed over her ribs, she pursed her lips and shifted them to the side. That’s when he noticed the apprehension in her eyes. “You could say that. But not what you think.” She tipped her head toward the formal living room. “Can we . . . ?”

“You sound like your husband. If you’re going to tell me all about the hell of Chechnya, we’ve already had that discussion.”

“Chechnya?”

“Never mind.” He turned into the formal living room and faced her. When she moved to close the pocket doors, he noticed something in her hand and a burn of alarm kicked up in his gut. “What’s going on, Jess?”

She turned toward him with a look in her eyes that made him realize he’d need those defenses he was too damn exhausted to pull up.

“When I took files from the box to split them up among everyone, I found this in the bottom.”

The words had his body tingling and his mind searching. She extended her arm and opened her hand to expose a familiar small blue box filling her palm. His stomach went hot just before his heart seized. But his mind tumbled backward in time, to him sitting in his office, elbows on thighs, holding the ring between his knees and staring at it while mumbling the words, “Will you marry me?” in Russian over and over until he got the pronunciation just right.

He remembered Halina coming home from work early that day . . . one of those last days . . . one of those bad days. Remembered panicking and stuffing the ring back into the nested boxes and tossing it in the nearest file box.

Then all hell had broken loose . . .

And he’d lost . . . everything.

Pain cut through him, so swift and sharp, his legs went weak and his head went light.

“Ah, fuck,” he whispered, dropping his head to his hands and turning to look for somewhere to sit before he fell on his ass.

Jessica grabbed his arm. “Behind you,” she said softly, easing him back to a padded bench along a bay window.

Mitch dropped hard and fell back against the blinds, smashing them to the glass. He couldn’t pull enough air into his lungs. Couldn’t find the strength to even sit up straight. He closed his eyes, more to hide from his own weakness than because he needed to. “Shit.”

Jessica didn’t speak. She ran her cool hand across his forehead, pressed it to his cheek.

“Sorry, Jess.” Automatic excuses rose to his mouth, but he didn’t feel like using them. Besides, he doubted Jess would believe them anyway. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”

“No, you won’t, honey.” Her voice overflowed with understanding and compassion. “You won’t be okay until you’re willing to face how much Halina still means to you. You won’t be okay until you decide to either let her go or go after her.”