“You’ve got us to do that now,” Donovan continued. “We’re not going to let these a**holes—whoever they are—so much as get near you again.”
Ethan nodded his agreement.
“What do you want to do, Van?” Nathan asked. “I don’t think we should bring this kind of trouble home.”
“We could take her to one of the safe houses,” Ethan suggested. “There’s the cabin Sam took Sophie to in Virginia.”
Donovan frowned for a long moment. “I’ll call Sam, give him an update on the situation and we’ll figure out our best course of action. Either way we’re getting the hell out of here.”
“But what about Grace?” Shea demanded. “I can’t just leave here. I won’t leave her.”
Donovan acknowledged her with a nod. “I need some time to go over the footage Nathan was able to upload. We have to put the pieces together and come up with as much of the puzzle as we can. We can’t do that here. We need to be in a safe place where I also have access to all of KGI’s resources.”
Shea slapped her hand on her forehead. “The journal. God, Nathan, the journal. I just forgot all about it. Maybe there’s something in there.”
She started to scramble off the bed, but Nathan snagged her hand. “There’ll be plenty of time to read it when we’re in the air. Right now our priority is getting you the hell out of here and to a safe place.”
When she would have protested again, he pressed his mouth to hers. When he drew away, he ran his hand over her hair. “We aren’t going to leave Grace, baby. I promise. I need to get you away from here. Once we’re out of here, I swear to you we’ll do everything in our power to locate her.”
Slowly she nodded.
“I’ll get Resnick to put some feelers out to find out what government agency might be interested in Shea’s and Grace’s abilities,” Donovan said.
Shea raised her head in alarm. “No! You can’t tell anyone else about us!”
Donovan held up his hand. “We aren’t going to tell the world. Just Resnick. He’s someone we trust. He has no incentive to f**k us over. We do too much of his dirty work for him. If the government is looking for you, he’ll find out. A faceless enemy does us no good. We need to know exactly whom we’re dealing with. The only way to do that is to go on the offensive and not wait around for them to find us. We hunt them. Not the other way around.”
“Hell yeah,” Swanny said, speaking up for the first time. “Count me in.”
Nathan almost laughed at the enthusiasm in Swanny’s voice. It was the first time Nathan had seen him worked up about anything since they got back from Afghanistan. Hell, it was the first time that Nathan had felt a purpose. It felt pretty damn good.
CHAPTER 25
THEY took off the next morning after sending the other jet ahead to a different location as a decoy. After a few derogatory remarks from Donovan about Nathan stealing a Kelly jet, Nathan endured a lecture about leaving KGI in a lurch if they’d been called up for a mission and been left with limited transportation means.
Shea had separated herself from the men. And Nathan. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. But she was curled up in the corner of the wraparound couch, a reading light on as she flipped through the journal she’d found at her parents’ house.
His brothers were talking, but Nathan had tuned them out. His focus was on Shea. It was obvious whatever she was reading distressed her. She was pale. Her fingers gripped the edges of the book and she turned each page with a seeming sense of dread. Almost like she was afraid of what she’d find.
He wanted to go over to her. He wanted to pull her into his arms, but she had a tangible barrier constructed, both physically and mentally. He’d briefly tried touching her mind, more to reassure himself than to reassure her, but she was blocked off. She’d shut the door on him, and it frustrated him even as he knew she needed this time alone to process whatever it was she was reading.
It took him a moment to realize that Donovan was talking to him. Only when Ethan nudged him did he turn and stare at his brothers, his mind blank to whatever they’d been saying.
“Don’t you think it’s time you told us what the f**k is going on with you? Has been going on with you? Is it Shea? Is she why you’ve closed yourself off from the rest of us? Why you refused to come to us for help until now?”
Donovan spoke in low tones so that Shea wouldn’t overhear, but Nathan still glanced back to see that she was still firmly involved in her reading.
Then he turned back to his brothers and Swanny. At least Swanny would understand.
“What was I supposed to do, Van? There were times I thought I was crazy. Certifiable. She was with me when I went through unimaginable hell. She suffered it with me. She took my pain, my torture, and made it her own. And why? She didn’t know me. She put herself at risk. Huge risk.”
“You should have told us,” Ethan said. “We would have understood. What we didn’t understand is why you put this wall between you and your family. Hell, it wouldn’t have mattered to us if you were crazy as a loon. At least we could have helped.”
“How could you understand when I didn’t understand myself?” Nathan asked in a tired voice. “She left me when you came for me, that last time, when I knew I was finally going to get out alive. I went crazy because, for so long, she was all I had. She was the only hope I had. She was like this talisman for me and then she was gone. And then I began to wonder if she was real. Maybe I’d imagined her. But it always came back to those emails. The ones she sent Van. But then I had no idea how to find her, how to reach her, much less how to explain her to you. Everyone was already tiptoeing around me like they were afraid I’d lose my shit and start barking at the moon. And maybe I was. I just knew that I had to come to terms with what happened on my own. And then…”
He broke off, chanced another look in Shea’s direction.
“She’s a f**king miracle. My miracle. The day of Rusty’s graduation party, she spoke to me and she was so afraid. I knew those bastards had taken her then. Several nights before that, she’d tried to reach out to me, but she was drugged and all I felt was her confusion and disorientation, but I knew it was her, and I knew something was terribly wrong. But again, what could I do? I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t even know who she was. Just her name. I’ve never felt so goddamn helpless in my life. But then she called for me. She’d escaped and was running for her life. Those bastards tortured her. They drugged her and tortured her and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about it. But I could get to her as fast as I could. I could do that much. And I could do everything in my power to protect her. So I did.
“Could I have asked for your help? Yeah, but then I would have had to explain everything. I would have had to combat your disbelief. We would have wasted time that Shea didn’t have while you decided whether to believe me or lock my ass up in some mental facility. By the time we came up with some damn plan and coordinated KGI and figured out who was going to do what, it would have been too late for Shea, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Ethan’s lips tightened into a fine line. He understood. He understood all too well and Nathan knew it. He’d once been faced with the situation of having to go in and rescue his wife, and he of all people knew Nathan’s frustration and why he’d made the choices he did.
Swanny merely nodded. Didn’t offer words, just nodded his agreement.
Donovan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I get it, man. I do. I just wish you’d come to us from the start. It’s been killing us to see you this way and not know what if anything we could do to help. You’re my brother and you have to know there isn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for you. Whether you’re crazy or not.”
Nathan smiled. “I know. I do know that, Van. I know I could have done things differently, but at the time it was what I thought I needed to do. I hate that I hurt you and the rest of the family. But when I came back…I wasn’t the same man. I wasn’t sure I could ever be that man again.”
Donovan put a hand on Nathan’s shoulder and squeezed. “You haven’t changed. No matter what you might think, you haven’t changed. Not to your family. We love you and support you unconditionally.”
Then Donovan glanced over at Shea. “We’ve got a shitload of stuff to process. I’ve been in touch with Sam. Our first priority is safety. Our second priority is figuring out who we’re dealing with. I’m going to analyze the footage you uploaded and hope to hell it gives us something to work off of. Sam is also ringing Resnick’s bell to see what info he’ll cough up.”
Nathan nodded. “She goes nowhere without me. Just so you know. It’s not an option.”
Ethan snorted. “Hell, like we can’t figure that out? I’m tempted to call Ma and rat you out, but no one wants her on our asses right now. I’m more afraid of her than I am of a whole terrorist cell.”
Donovan didn’t look as convinced. “I get that you want to protect her, Nathan, but it’s entirely possible the safest option for her won’t be tagging along with you.”
Nathan was already shaking his head. “She’s tough, Van. She’s saved my ass more than once. Her looks are deceiving. She’s got more steel in her spine than a lot of men I know. She won’t accept us sticking her in some hole, and furthermore I don’t want that. I want her with me. All the time.”
Donovan blew out his breath. It went against his grain to ever put a woman in danger. His instinct was always to bury them as far underground as possible and then go kick whoever’s ass threatened them.
But Nathan knew that Shea was different. She’d been on her own for a year, and she wasn’t going to fall apart at the first sign of danger. They were…partners…for lack of a better term. He needed her every bit as much as she needed him. She kept him centered. Grounded. And the only way he’d ever be convinced of her safety was if he could see her at all times.
Donovan opened his mouth to speak but then fell silent, his gaze riveted to Shea. Nathan turned to see her get up from her seat. She wobbled a little as she started toward where the men were gathered. Her face was pale and her entire demeanor told him she was in shock.
She gripped the closed journal and took another step. This time he hurriedly rose and crossed the distance to take her other hand. He led her to where the others sat and then simply put her on his lap so she could be near him.
He wrapped his arms around her and whispered close to her ear. “It’s okay, baby. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”
“You need to know this,” she said, her voice scratchy.
Realization hit him in the gut. She’d been crying, even though the signs were gone from her face. He pressed his lips to her shoulder, not knowing what else he could do to comfort her. Not until they knew what she’d learned from the journal.
She raised haunted eyes to his brothers before turning her gaze on Nathan, hurt and confusion brimming in her liquid gaze.
“Grace was right. They weren’t our real parents.”
CHAPTER 26
SHEA’S chest hurt so badly that she could barely squeeze air into and out of her lungs. She was more afraid than ever. Terrified.
And everything she’d thought she’d ever know about herself—her life—was all a lie.
Nathan kissed her shoulder again, and his hand slipped up and down her other arm in a soothing pattern. His brothers and Swanny looked curiously at her, their gazes going from her face to the journal she held so tightly in her grasp.
“I don’t even know how to explain it.” Numbness was rapidly spreading through her veins until she felt disembodied.
“Start from the beginning,” Donovan said gently. “What did you mean by they weren’t your real parents?”
Her breath hiccupped out of her mouth and her shoulders drooped with fatigue and disillusionment. “Apparently my parents…the people who raised me…were scientists. They were heading a top-secret, government-funded project. No one but a few high-ranking government officials even knew of its existence, and they were all military officials. My mother remarked in her journal that it was doubtful the president or members of Congress ever knew about the project.”
“What the hell were they researching?” Ethan asked.
“They weren’t researching,” Shea said softly. “They were creating. Me and my sister, Grace. Though now I wonder if she’s even my sister.”
Nathan stiffened against her. “Wait a minute. Back up.”
She stood, suddenly no longer able to sit still against him. She paced away and then turned to face the assembled group again.
“According to my mother…” She shook her head and swallowed back the knot in her throat. “According to Andrea Peterson, Grace and I were lab-created experiments. Who knows who my real parents were. I doubt they even knew each other. They chose ‘samples’ from a selection of people who were particularly gifted and possessed ‘unusual talents,’ though none of the so-called abilities are outlined in her journal. And then these samples were basically mixed, implanted in a volunteer uterus, and they took the baby when it was born.”