Dark Redemption (Broken Souls #1) (5 page)

Chapter Twelve

He could tell that Sofia was confused by what had happened between them this morning, because as soon as she’d come, Eitan had gotten up off the bed and released her from the cuffs. Then he found some comfortable clothes for her to wear, telling her to get dressed as he left the room, even though his hard on had been clear as day, tenting his boxer briefs in a ridiculous fashion.

He knew she was wondering why he didn’t do something about it while she was at his disposal. But time was of the essence here. They needed that zip drive before any of Donovan’s potential buyers found out he’d been picked up by the CIA. Once that happened, there would be a lot of interested parties coming around searching for connections in “Carl Roberts’” life, and who knows how many people in that building saw him and Sofia together that day.

Eitan couldn’t stand the thought of some Russian mafia contractor or even his boss getting their hands on Sofia. They would be ruthless in seeing what information they could get out of her and then once they had it, her fate would be even worse.

He dialed the number for his handler and waited for Hays to answer the phone.

“Kent, did you get it?” his boss said as soon as he’d picked up.

“I’ve got a probable location on the drive,” he answered calmly. “I’m going to go right now and take a look. I’ll keep you posted.”

“That’s good because we aren’t getting anything more out of Donovan unless we agree to his deal.” Hays sounded exhausted on the other end, as if he’d been up all night trying to get Ben Donovan to talk. “That bastard is a lot tougher than he looks.”

“I doubt that, boss,” Eitan replied. “But then again, you never did have my delicate touch.”

There was a low laugh on the other end of the phone and then silence as Eitan’s boss ended the call. With a little luck, this job would be over in a few hours. Eitan was beginning to think that he was finally ready to leave this career behind him.

“Can I come out of the room?” Sofia’s small voice carried through the open doorway to the bedroom, “You didn’t say.”

“Yes. We need to go to this storage locker of yours right now,” he said as he finished getting dressed.

Her eyes went wide as she watched him put on his gun holster, and the other various weapons he had on his body at all times. He didn’t try to hide anything from her. What was it about this woman that made him want to show her who he was?

Who he
really
was. Not the façade he was forced to show the rest of the world because of what he did for a living.

He’d already made the decision to take Sofia with him to the storage lot. He wasn’t sure what his boss’s intentions would be toward her if they did find the drive and the information was verified. It was hard to anticipate if they’d think of her as a loose end or not, but he wasn’t comfortable leaving her unprotected.

***

It was quiet in the car as they left the building and made their way to the storage lot. Eitan couldn’t pinpoint why her silence bothered him so much. It just didn’t feel right and he needed to fix it.

“So, do you like writing for a living?” he asked, trying to ease the tension.

“How do you know I write?” she replied in surprise, turning to look at him before understanding bloomed on her face. “I suppose you know just about everything there is to know about me now, huh? Well, I just hope you didn’t leave my apartment in the same state you left Carl’s when you tossed it.”

“Nah,” he said with a teasing tone and a quick wink. “He really was a slob. It looked like that pretty much when I got there.”

Eitan didn’t know why he felt compelled to make conversation with Sofia, but the small smile that crept over her lips was more than enough reward. It was true. He’d gone through her entire apartment, her computer…hell, even her refrigerator. You could learn an awful lot about a person from the things in their lives, but still he needed more. He wanted to know everything about this woman sitting next to him.

“Yeah, I love it. But sometimes I get a little lost in my head, you know?” she said quietly after a moment. “Do you like your work?”

Talk about a loaded question. He was impressed she’d had the balls to ask it in the first place, to be perfectly honest. Sofia was tougher than he gave her credit for.

“No,” he answered, shocking her and himself when the word fell out of his mouth.

“Then why do you do it?” she asked quietly.

Eitan didn’t say anything for several minutes as he debated whether to tell her the real reason why he did what he did. He was so tired of this life, tired of having to lie to everyone he knew. Well, everyone except his former boss at the CIA, who he took contracts with, and Maddy, of course, but she knew better than to ask too many questions.

The last thing Eitan wanted was to add one more name to the list of people he couldn’t be honest with. There was just something about sweet little Sofia that made him ache to tell her everything.

“My little sister, Tara, went missing from her university dorm room almost six years ago. I was working for the CIA at the time, and when they didn’t pursue her case in connection to the human trafficking ring we knew to be active in the area, I made a choice to resign my job and look for her myself. I didn’t find her. But when I followed the lead my contacts had given me, I ended up finding another woman who’d been taken, and I brought her home after dealing with the man who’d abducted her. Now I take private contracts…mostly to find criminals who are trying to hide from our government and bring them in.”

It felt so foreign to say this out loud to another person, but damn did it feel good to have the weight of it off his conscience just a little. There’d been so many times he’d wanted to share with his parents, but he was scared they would blame him just as he blamed himself for not bringing Tara home.

“I’m sorry about your sister, Eitan,” Sofia said, putting her hand on his arm in comfort. “That woman you saved must have been so grateful you found her.”

The irony of his own captive now trying to comfort him was not lost on Eitan, Sofia was special, there was no doubt about that.

“Maddy is a strong woman,” he answered, clearing his throat when his emotions began to rise. “She held on long enough to be rescued, and now she takes care of anyone I find who needs my help. I wouldn’t know what to do with those girls if it wasn’t for Maddy.”

Eitan could see Sofia holding back some of the questions that naturally came into her curious mind, and he was thankful for it. He didn’t know how much he was ready to share with this woman.

“Did…did you ever find out what happened to your sister?”

“No.”

There was that silence again, only this time, it wasn’t awkward…just sad.

“It’s not your fault. You know that, right?” Sofia said finally. “You’re only human, Eitan. You can’t save everyone.”

“Look, Sofia…” He turned so he could look straight into her eyes. “I’m sorry you got caught up in all this mess, but I know you weren’t helping Donovan. I promise I’m going to get everything sorted. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I believe you.”

Eitan was shocked at the resolve and trust in her face as she looked back at him. She really did trust him to take care of her.

Well, shit.
How could he resist her now?

Chapter Thirteen

Finally, the storage lot came into view as they were stopped at a street light.

“Eitan…what’s going to happen to me when you find what you’re looking for?”

He glanced over to her. He could hear the hesitation in her voice, and when he met her eyes, she held his for just a moment before breaking the contact and lowering her gaze.

Ah, Sofia was so deliciously submissive and she didn’t even know it yet. Eitan was willing to bet he was the first man who’d ever dominated her in bed. By her reaction to it, especially in their particular situation, the fact that she’d been able to completely let go and trust him to give her what she needed? Well, that was a gift to a dominant man like him. He’d seen so many men try to make women submit, or try to break them. Eitan had stopped counting how many of
those
men he’d had to show the errors of their ways. That was a part of his job he didn’t regret.

But a truly submissive woman who captured his attention like no other? It was a quality he hadn’t found in a woman in quite some time.

“There are two possible scenarios for what will happen once we find the drive and verify it is what I’ve been contracted to recover,” he said after thinking about it for a few moments. “I can give you the injection which will erase your memory of the last forty-eight hours and you will wake up back in your life like none of this ever happened. Or…you can choose to remember it. The choice is up to you.”

Eitan didn’t spell it out for her, but he knew she was smart enough to figure out the choice he was giving her. If she chose to forget everything that had happened to her, and between them, then it was pretty obvious how she felt about it. Sure, he felt a connection to this woman, but that didn’t mean shit about what she felt. Her answer to this question would, though.

She didn’t react for quite a few minutes…just stared out the passenger side window until finally she took a deep breath in.

“Will you show me more…if I choose
not
to forget?” she asked in barely a whisper.

His body instantly responded to the submissive tone in her voice. That was exactly the answer he’d been hoping for.

***

They’d just pulled in through the gate of the storage lot and parked as she finally had the courage to whisper her question to him. Sofia was still thinking she’d lost her damned mind because deep down, she felt like she knew Eitan wouldn’t really hurt her. She knew he’d shared more with her than he’d intended, and she ached for how much guilt he’d felt at his sister’s disappearance.

Of course, she should be choosing to have her memory erased and sent on back to her happy, shining little life…her happy, shining,
boring
little life, that is. Sofia had been waiting her entire existence to feel anything as exhilarating and exciting as what she’d felt when Eitan had touched her. The truth was she wanted more…but would he give it to her? Sofia held her breath, waiting for his answer.

She watched him walk around the car and open her door for her, and then he reached out his hand for her to take. His face was still unreadable…those stoic gray eyes and chiseled features not giving a hint as to what he thought about her request. When she placed her palm in his and he gently pulled her up toward him she shivered at the heat of his body so close to hers, and when he leaned forward, she knew she was helpless in his arms.

“I’ll show you everything,” he whispered next to her ear before drawing her earlobe into his mouth and sucking gently.

Sofia’s heart raced as she remembered what his talented mouth had been doing earlier this morning, and she clutched at his sweater to try to draw him closer.

“Will you kiss me?” she asked in a shaky voice.

How silly to need something so benign as a kiss, but Sofia had a feeling that kissing Eitan would be so much more than just lips touching lips. She had a feeling it was something special to him, and she wanted it now more than ever.

“I will,” he answered as he stepped back and took her hand in his, leading her toward her locker unit. The look on his face made it clear to her that everything would be in Eitan’s timeframe and surprisingly, that turned her on even more.

Oh God
, she thought.
How can this man just declaring that he intends to kiss me be so much hotter than any sex I’ve ever had?
Sofia didn’t know what the connection was between them at this point, but she felt it all the same, and she intended to savor it for as long as she could.

When they arrived at locker twenty-one, it was just as she had left it, the large silver lock untouched.

“Oh crap, I forgot to tell you the key was in my purse,” she said, feeling like an idiot for not remembering.

“I know.” He just smiled at her and lifted his hand to show her the key ring with her favorite
Star Wars
Lego figure on it, “Chewy, huh? I would’ve pegged you for a Han Solo fan myself.”

“Well, I’m glad I can surprise you with something,” she murmured back.

“Oh trust me, baby,” he said as he opened the lock and lifted up the metal door. “You’ve ended up being more than a surprise to me.”

Sofia liked that he said that. She liked that he admitted some small weakness to show he couldn’t have anticipated this connection between them either. It made her feel like it was more substantial…like she could trust it more.

“So what are we looking for?” she asked, taking a measure of the dozen boxes she’d just put in here.

“Well, it looks like you taped them all closed,” Eitan answered, closing the door behind them, “So any box that looks like it may have been tampered with should be where we look first. The drive is small, so he wouldn’t have needed to open the box fully to sneak it in there.”

Truthfully, Sofia still couldn’t believe any of this had actually happened to her. Had she been targeted by Carl in the first place, or had it just been an opportunity he saw and it was just bad luck on her part? There was no point in speculating about it now. It was best she just concentrate on how to get this resolved.

Then it hit her. That slimy bastard had been fidgeting with one of the boxes as she’d pulled the car up. She remembered because it was the one with all her old textbooks in it and she was worried the tape hadn’t held so much weight and that’s why he’d had to reclose the top of the box. That must be the one he put it in.

“Hey, I think I remember which one he put it in,” she said, searching the labeled boxes frantically. “It should be the one marked as textbooks.”

Of course, they finally found it buried in the back corner, as the nice boy from the front desk who had helped her would have stacked the heaviest stuff on the bottom. Eitan quickly opened the box and started to remove the heavy books inside. He took all of them out and Sofia looked to the bottom of the box with disappointment.

“It’s not in there?” she asked in confusion. “But I’m certain that was the one he had played around with.”

“Well, Donovan isn’t an amateur at this, so let’s check the books,” Eitan answered as he began to open the first one.

Sure enough, after several were checked, when he finally picked up one of the largest books and pulled both covers back, a small zip drive fell from the pocket covering the spine of the book.

“Ah ha! We’ve got you now, you bastard,” he said as he picked up the drive and quickly put the books back in the box.

“So what now?” Sofia asked, glaring at the small object that had turned her life upside down.

“Now my boss will pick up the drive, then this will all be over soon,” Eitan answered as he led them back to the car, careful to make certain they were still alone. “The drive will be encrypted, so it will probably take them some time to verify it. Until then, we stay put back at the apartment.”