Agent U7: Keegan (The D.I.R.E. Agency Series Book 7) (7 page)

Chapter 7

Keegan went to stand on Clint’s right, while Monica made her way to Austin on his left. Clint stared at the blank screen where Mitchell had been seconds before, his eyes narrowed in thought. He still wore tuxedo trousers, his throat exposed at the top of his white, button-down shirt. His blond hair was mussed, his jaw showing thick stubble. A mix of light cologne and starch wafted around him, drawing her near. Her hand moved to rest on his shoulder, before she snatched it back.

She cursed herself mentally. This attraction to Clint was pure madness. Despite his actions, she felt sure—well, kind of sure—he’d been feeding intel to Cyrus and The Madam. Otherwise, how would they have gotten Jim’s DNA?

He spat an expletive at the screen, startling her. He turned to Austin. “I need to tell Tristan.”

With an arm around Monica’s shoulders, Austin shook his head. “He gave a direct order, Robinson. We wait it out.”

“Where’s he going?” Monica said, as she studied the screens. Her mouth dropped open before she turned to Austin. “He’s not going to the farm alone, is he?”

Austin gave her a crooked grin. “I’m not the only idiot that does solitary ops.”

“Yes, but Mitchell has experience,” Monica countered, with a timid shove against the inexperienced, D.I.R.E. agent’s chest.

Clint leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “He hasn’t been in the field in decades.”

For a fifty-something, former Navy SEAL, Mitchell Jacobs still looked fit and intimidating enough to run an op. However, in this case, that op was personal. Too personal, to go it alone.

“Maybe I need to offer myself for the women,” Clint blurted aloud. “My mother wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Your mother?” Keegan and Monica said in unison.

With a wary glance over his shoulder, Clint nodded at Keegan. “Yes. It looks like Cyrus and I share the same mother.”

With a step back, Keegan stared at Clint, her mind reeling. Not once had Cyrus ever mentioned his mother. Over the years, he’d talked about his grandfather often and in admiration, but never his mother—or father. How could it be that of all the people in the world, Clint and Cyrus shared the same mother? It seemed too coincidental.

Which made his guilt all the more likely.

She tried to erase the scowl on her face but it wouldn’t seem to clear. “And, you knew nothing?”

He matched her scowl for scowl. “No. My mother and father weren’t…shy when it came to taking various bed partners.”

Striking, stylish Cyrus Matheson was the product of an affair? It would explain why he never talked about them.

It also explained Clint’s unyielding stance on her recent one-night stands. He held an old and buried belief that carried back to childhood and had taken root. With news that Cyrus was a result of one of those liaisons, his attitude would never change.

“Perhaps, he was sent to live with his grandfather for that reason,” Keegan said. “Your mother was trying to hide him.”

Clint started shaking his head before she finished her statement. “They didn’t hide their affairs from each other. They didn’t care enough.”

It explained so much about Clint. His research on love in college, his drive to find the right wife and raise a family the way he thought it should be done. He needed fidelity, honor, to be a part of something he could believe in. D.I.R.E. had become the family he’d never had.

Or had it?

It all seemed too perfect, too coincidental. Something just wasn’t right.

Until she figured it out, she’d have to stick close to him. With the others gone, it was up to her to keep an eye on him. Even the most intelligent slipped up.

A dawning light shown in his eyes. His mouth dropped open, his face turning a milky white. Reaching for the wastebasket, he bent over the can, the contents of his stomach spilling into it with an alarming rush. Holding her breath, she brushed back the hair from his face, her other hand rubbing his back. She crooned incoherent words, her only thought to help him through the awful experience.

Coughing, he swiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tears resting at the corners of his eyes. His other arm fell across his middle before he bent over the can again to finish the job.

“Damn, Robinson,” Austin said, “are you okay?”

Monica shoved a bottle of water in his face. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to throw up, too.”

Taking the water, he unscrewed the top and downed half of the bottle. He wouldn’t look at her, or anyone, his eyes closed tight. Setting the bottle on the floor, he bent and put his face in his hands and groaned.

“What is it, Clint?” she said, genuine alarm setting in. “Do you need to go to the medical wing?”

Austin looked at her over Clint’s head. “He has orders to stick around.”

Clint jumped up from the chair, startling her. He started for the door without a backward glance. “I’ll be back in a few, Rose.”

The three of them stared after him. Dumbfounded, she watched his wide shoulders retreat.

“I’m going after him.” She started forward.

Monica stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Give him a minute.”

Austin said, “Yeah, something upset him. He was fine a few minutes ago.”

Keegan ran the last few minutes through her head. He must’ve remembered something—or figured out something. Nodding her head, she decided that had to be it. An answer came to him; one he didn’t want to share with any of them.

All the more reason to hound him until he confessed.

The phone rang in her hand. Private.

It had to be Cyrus.

This time, Clint wasn’t there to protect her.

You’re stronger than you think. You have to do this, if you want any chance at peace.

“How
did
he get my number?” she mumbled with feigned sarcasm, before pressing the speaker button.

Cyrus’s voice carried in the silent room. “I expected you with the others, my love. Where are you?”

She stared at Austin and Monica who gazed back at her with sullen eyes. “As far away from you as possible.”

Twin smiles appeared on their faces before Monica gave her a thumbs up.

Silence filled the room before his voice carried low and lethal. “That’s too bad. I had hoped to avoid hurting the others, but I see you give us no choice.”

Guilt gouged her stomach as Natalie’s face popped into her mind like a thousand flash bulbs. “There’s always a choice, Cyrus. In this case, you’re choosing to hurt me.”

Austin did a fist pump, while Monica nodded in solemn agreement.

She acknowledged them with a wink.

“I would never choose to hurt you, my love. You know that.”

Clint walked back into the lab, his ashen face dotted with perspiration, his eyes bloodshot. Horrible didn’t do justice to the way he looked and the only thing that ran through her mind in that moment was that she needed to make whatever ailed him go far away. With Cyrus.

“You have my sister, Cyrus.” She scanned Clint’s wide-eyed face, which took on a murderous expression. “Of course, that hurts me.”

“I thought you would be with her.”

“Why did you have to take them at all? I don’t understand.”

“Did you think we could allow D.I.R.E. to stop us? We have plans for the world. Those plans can’t happen as long as they exist.” He lowered his voice to a seductive whisper, making her skin crawl. “This is all for you, my love. We’ll bring up our children in peace, make a new world for our family.”

“Who is we, Cyrus?” Keegan said. “Who are you working with?” Her eyes zeroed in on Clint with lethal intensity. “You’ve never mentioned anyone else before. I thought this was all your plan.”

His swallow echoed in the silent room. “Our visions are each pieces of the master plan. Come to me and I’ll reveal all.”

Perhaps, it was her destiny. To live with Cyrus to keep her family and Clint, safe. If she went to him, perhaps it would give the others time to stop this. Maybe she was never meant to have peace. Maybe, she was meant to be a sacrifice for the greater good.

As though he’d read her mind, Clint’s glittering grey gaze bored into hers. “Like hell.”

She turned her back on them and spoke low. “I’ll come to you if you release them.”

Turning her to face him, Clint gripped her by the shoulders and shook her. “No, Keegan.”

“I can’t, my love,” Cyrus said. “We need them. Especially, Teague Hamilton. But, I’ll release your sister… For you.”

Austin’s low growl carried to her ears. Giving into Cyrus meant he still controlled her, and everything in her rebelled at that thought. Yet, what were the alternatives? To let the agents walk into an ambush?

A part of her wondered why it wasn’t someone else’s turn. Hadn’t she served her time? She supposed Riordan had said that more times than he could count during his years in Cyrus’s prison. Teague was probably saying that now, knowing Cyrus was responsible for her parents’ deaths, and her work in Capri’s lab.

Yet, if it meant Natalie’s freedom, and Teague and Riordan’s freedom from sacrifice, it was worth it. After all, it was a life she found familiar. She’d done it for over twenty years.

“How do I know I can trust you, Cyrus?”

His voice held a heavy note of incredulity. “Have I ever lied to you, my love?”

Her scoff came swiftly. “Yes.”

“Keegan, don’t mistake my omissions for lies. I have always kept your welfare foremost in my mind.” He hesitated before adding, “Come to me. We belong together. You know that.”

A vicious, frightening growl erupted from Clint. Words spewed from his mouth like the bile moments before.

“Lies of omission are your forte, aren’t they? You always
were
only about yourself, you sonovabitch.”

Keegan caught her breath. What the hell was he doing? What was he talking about?

“Who’s there with you, Keegan?” Cyrus said.

Shaking his head at her, Clint took the phone from her hand with calculated purpose. “I’m hurt you don’t recognize my voice. Then again, you never did shut your mouth long enough to listen to anyone else.”

Keegan would’ve never guessed the quiet, stoic scientist had such a patronizing, cruel side. And damn, if she didn’t like it.

“You
will
die,” Cyrus said with toxic certainty.

“Eventually,” he said with nonchalance. “Then again, so will you.” Clint lowered his voice to the same, malicious tone Cyrus used seconds before. “Of course, you’ve had a little practice, haven’t you…
James
?”

* * *

“What was that?” Keegan said, as Clint slapped the silent phone in her palm.

“Yes,” Austin said, sitting back on the desk, Monica beside him. “Why’d you call him James?”

Clint paced in the small area, hands in his hair, on his face, and tightening in front of him. He didn’t normally pace. He considered it a useless waste of energy. However, in this instance, if he didn’t do something, he was going to blow.

Disbelief warred with betrayal inside him like a bag of snakes, striking at his mind, his gut, his
heart
, releasing a poisonous venom that slowly, painstakingly devoured him.

“I’ve lived with the guilt all my life,” he muttered. “I’ve run it over and over in my head, wondering what I could’ve done different. I spent years trying to figure out a way to make it up to my family, before realizing I was destined for a life alone because I had stolen his.”

He glanced at Keegan’s stunned face before turning away.

His stomach roiled again, gurgling, before bile shot up his throat. Plopping down in the chair, he bent over the fresh can, soiling it, soiling the memories and any loyalty he may have felt toward his family. They’d allowed him to wallow in the bog of guilt unnecessarily. His mother and James had lived a completely separate life and probably ridiculed his attempts at showing family allegiance and love.

“Well, fuck them,” he spat into the trash can. “Fuck them all.”

Keegan’s tentative hand on his back sent a shockwave of arousal through him. He stiffened, hating her for it, hating himself, yet shamefully yearning for more. He shrugged off her touch and jumped up, that live wire buzzing with anger, whipping and snapping at his insides.

“Clint, you’re not making any sense,” she said.

Worry lined the most beautiful eyes he’d ever looked into, their green-gold depths a pool of confusion and pain. They’d screwed up her life, too, had used her and still tried to abuse her from afar.

She still wanted to sacrifice herself.

He couldn’t let that happen.

“You’re the reason they’re in trouble, Keegan.” He held up a thumb. “Way to pay back Hope for rescuing you.”

Her eyes flashed like steel in the midday sun.

“Robinson…” Austin warned under his breath.

“That’s rich,” Keegan said, moving close to stare up into his face. “Considering it’s
your
family that’s holding them.”