EDGE OF SHADOWS: The Shadow Ops Finale (Shadow Ops, Book # 3) (19 page)

A shudder shook Rose. She fought to bring her body back under control. That was what had saved her in Razgravia, being able to compartmentalize, to block all thoughts of Eve, stifle her fears in order to keep her greatest secret hidden. Because if Grigor ever found Eve…another shudder traveled from the top of her head down to her toes, carrying with it waves of panic.

But no. Eve was safe. That knowledge had saved her in Razgravia and it would save her now.

The man slid from his seat to sit beside her in the back of the van. He smoothed her hair from her face with a gentle caress, carefully avoiding her cuts and bruises. She closed her eyes, erasing his touch from her consciousness. Billy, where was Billy? In her mind, she reached for him and he was there, waiting for her, his touch erasing the pain.

“This is what Grigor did,” he whispered, his voice pitched low as a lover’s. She kept her eyes shut, focused on her hands, bringing life back to her numb fingers. “After his guards did their work, he’d come to comfort you, ease your pain, bathe you, salve your wounds, feed you. He took the pain away.”

Behavior modification. Operant conditioning. Sadism. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was a sick, perverse way of breaking a person. Intense pain in unpredictable cycles until the only thing she could trust was the man who controlled both: Grigor.

When he came for Rose, the pain vanished. And when he left… The man beside her seemed to follow her thoughts. His hands dropped away from her body. An electric shock of pain slammed through her with such intensity that her back arced up from the floor as her entire being twisted in agony.

Then it was gone, and she fell back, sweat pouring from her as her heart careened out of control. She gasped, swallowing air as if she was drowning.

He smoothed her hair, his touch gentle once more. “Grigor had such an artistic touch. Really, the man was a master. You remember the rats, don’t you, Rose?”

Yes. Yes, she did. One of the many tortures Grigor’s men would use on her while he was gone: an industrial-sized laundry sack filled with rats, her body twisted and contorted inside it, bound by barbed wire so that with every movement, every breath, the wire sliced her skin—the blood exciting the rats…then they’d hang the bag from a chain and bat it like a piñata.

Another electric shock, this one aimed at the sensitive nerve in front of her ear, slamming her head against the metal wall behind her. Billy, her Billy, the one in her mind, vanished. Lightning shot down her every nerve ending, but she couldn’t find him again. Leaving her here alone.

“Do me the courtesy of answering, Rose,” the man said in a genial tone. “Do you remember the rats?”

“Yes.” The syllable was strangled by pain. But she was already blocking most of what her body felt, blocking the fear, blocking everything except her fingers working to reach the button of her pants pocket, hidden beneath its flap. She didn’t think of Eve, not of Billy, or her team. All she focused on was the delaying tactics she needed to keep her tormentor’s attention diverted.

“Good.” He held a water bottle with a straw for her to sip from. “Grigor’s favorite tools were even simpler. The knife, grain alcohol, a blowtorch. That’s how he broke you in the end, isn’t it?”

She nodded, still drinking. It was how Grigor broke her—and how she escaped. She wondered if the man knew that, as well.

He took the bottle away. She braced herself for another shock, but none came. He moved to her feet, unlocking the restraints around her ankles. “I’m going to start,” he told the driver.

She couldn’t stop the shudder roiling through her body at his words. Saw the glint in his eyes and didn’t try. Giving him what he wanted was her best weapon.

A weapon that might allow her to escape. To save KC. To return to the real Billy.

“No, man, you’ll stink up the van. We’re almost there.”

“I won’t use the torch. Just the knife.” He unlaced Rose’s boots and slid them from her feet, then used a switchblade to slice her socks off. He sat back, his gaze meeting hers. “You know what comes next, don’t you, Rose?”

“Yes.” The syllable was torn from her, reluctant and cut short.

He slid the knife over her flesh, not cutting, more like a caress. “Grigor made you watch as his men flayed one of the rebels who’d been captured with you. While you were eating, drinking, and resting in Grigor’s arms, this man had his skin sliced off, a layer at a time. They’d pour grain alcohol on the raw, exposed nerve endings. And finally, they’d light the alcohol, the flames crackling over the skin.”

The memories of Marco’s screams threatened to overwhelm her control. But she forced them aside, concentrating on her hands, on Billy, could almost hear him cheering her on, encouraging her. She could do this. No matter the pain. She could. She would.

Couldn’t let Billy down. He’d never know it, but just like before, he was the one saving her. Her body might be going through the motions, but Billy was her reason to keep fighting, to live.

The man sat back on his haunches, grinning at her, the knife blade glinting in the early morning sun. “And then they’d start again. Layer by layer, working from the fingers and toes in, until the man had no hands or feet, eyes and lips and tongue gone, a helpless hunk of meat, yet still living. And Grigor asked you to make a choice. What was that choice, Rose?”

She shook her head, looking down, hiding her gaze, shifting her body to get in a better position, and fighting to keep his words from resurrecting the images she had struggled for years to lock away. Her fumbling fingers found the small, plastic handcuff key attached to the button securing her pants pocket. At last.

“Answer my question, Rose. What did you choose? Life in constant suffering for a man who’d fought beside you? Or did you grant him the mercy of a swift death?”

She faced her captor. “Death. I chose death.”

He nodded as if she was a particularly clever student. “And Grigor’s answer?”

“He left. His men bound me with barbed wire, put me back in the sack of rats, forced me to watch as they finished skinning Marco alive.”

“How long did it take him to die?”

“I don’t know.” Time was measured only by Grigor’s appearance in that dark, windowless corner of Hell. “A long, long time.”

“When Grigor returned, and you were once again in his arms, safe, comfortable, he brought in another of the rebels. A young man, a mere boy. And they did the same to him, leaving him his eyes and mouth so he could watch you watching him, He cursed your name. And this time when Grigor asked you to decide between life and death, he told you that if you chose life for the boy, unable to walk, to care for himself, constantly in pain and dependent on strangers, if you chose that life for the boy, you’d be spared the same fate.”

Grigor’s voice, the scent of his cologne not strong enough to mask the stench of terror and burning flesh, his gentle touch, his soft voice searching out her weaknesses, these all flooded over Rose, the memories threatening to overwhelm her control.

The man moved up her body, unbuttoning her shirt to reveal the scars that crisscrossed her belly. His fingers danced over them. “I see no burns here. Tell me what you decided, Rose. You broke. Grigor broke you. You gave in, saved yourself, didn’t you?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes,” she admitted.

“Open your eyes, Rose. Tell me again. What did you do?”

She sobbed loudly, using the noise to cover the sound of the handcuff clicking open. As she locked eyes with his, she slid one hand inside her jacket to the toggle at her waistband and began to unwind the Paracord drawstring. “I chose life. For both of us.”

Chapter 20

Mother?
Billy stumbled, would have fallen down the porch steps if Chase hadn’t used the crutch to brace him. “Excuse me, did you say—”

“Way Rose talked,” Eve said from the doorway, “I thought you were different, someone special.” Her face had regained its color, was now flushed. “I should've known the government would abandon her—again. Just like when the CIA left her to rot in that prison the first time!”

She tried to slam the door, but Billy got a foot over the threshold just in time. The heavy oak door pinched, but he barely felt the pain. “Wait!”

He pushed the door and her back. Eve stood, hands fisted on her hips, looking ready to launch herself at him. God, how could he have missed it? Rose was written all over the girl’s face. The flash in her eyes, that dark hair, a creamy complexion now flushed crimson with anger.

“You’re her daughter?” His voice cracked, and he fought for control. “Rose has a daughter? It’s not in any of her records—”

“Think she’d trust any of you government yahoos after what the CIA did to her? Not to mention knowing how many enemies she’s made over the years.”

Chase cleared his throat, looked over his shoulder toward the street. “Do you think this is the right location to be holding this conversation?”

He was right. Not exactly the place to be airing top-secret confidences. Confidences that even with Billy’s high-security clearance he’d had no inkling of. Not to mention the fact that Rose never trusted him enough to share her secret. The stab of pain shamed him. The woman was gone, and he was jealous this kid knew more about her real life than he ever would? Eve Harding had just lost her mother, whether she accepted it or not.

“Look, Eve—” he started, reaching out to comfort the girl. Instead, she grabbed a knapsack and a key ring off a hook beside the door and darted past him, down the steps.

“You two yahoos coming?” she called over her shoulder from the bottom of the steps. Chase shrugged at Billy and hobbled off after her. Billy closed Eve’s door and followed.

What the hell had Rose been thinking? But, as usual, her thought processes eluded Billy. Rose was all intuition, somehow piecing random, seemingly unrelated bits of information into patterns that defied logic but revealed the truth. Billy was a straight-line kind of guy.

He followed Eve, Chase’s slower progress giving him time to process the information. Rose had a child? A child who seemed to know more than any civilian should—but Rose probably thought it necessary to keep Eve safe. Unlike Billy, Rose wasn’t known for following the rules, not if someone she cared about was at risk.

Rose was always the first to take the heat for any of her “kids” on the Team, like last week when she saved Lucky and a civilian from the Preacher. Billy almost smiled, remembering the lies he’d told yesterday morning in front of the oversight committee in order to get the charges against her dropped and the Team back on active status.

The one time he’d broken the rules—and she’d never know why.

Too late now.

Unless...

He shook his head, barely noticing as Eve led them into the building’s subbasement and along a dimly lit passage that led to the building across the courtyard on the block behind them.

Eve’s hope was contagious. Exactly what his own subconscious wanted to hear. Maybe the county coroner got it wrong—maybe the FBI told him to tell the Team that Rose was dead so they’d have a clear field to hunt her.

He stopped, Chase almost running into him from behind. No, she couldn’t be alive. And even if she was, he couldn’t abandon the Team to go after her—she’d never forgive him. He’d lose everything, any chance with her.

But she’d be safe. How could he put the Team’s needs before the woman he loved?

Because that was the job. Billy clenched his jaw. The Team came first, always—Rose lived by that creed and so did he. He couldn’t jeopardize their people to satisfy some selfish whim, to go chasing after a pipe dream.

Even more important: Eve. Rose had trusted him with her greatest, most dangerous secret. He couldn’t abandon Eve.

His mind spun with contradictions. Then he realized Rose had made it easy for him. She knew exactly what a man like Billy would do: his duty. To Eve, to the Team, to his country.

He couldn’t leave to chase down his hope that Rose was alive. Rose needed him right here, keeping Eve safe and protecting the Team. Following the protocols she’d set in place.

If she was dead—no, she wasn’t, she couldn’t be—it was the right thing to do. And if she was alive—please, God!—then it was the best way for her to find him, would give her the best chance at eluding any pursuit, because she’d know exactly what Billy’s next moves would be.

For the first time in hours, he felt able to take a deep breath, cracked ribs be damned. He didn’t need evidence or logic to lead him. All he needed was Rose.

Eve was silent as she unlocked a thick steel door and led them into another basement and to a freight elevator with an open front. The doors at each landing were marked by the names of an accounting firm, two lawyers and a real estate escrow office. Finally, they reached the top floor, and Eve used her keys once more on an industrial-strength steel door marked:
Rose in Time Florists, Flowers for All Occasions.

Eve opened the door, gestured for them to enter. Chase went first, then stopped just inside the entrance. Billy followed and immediately saw why the younger man wore a look of amazement.

The space was a huge greenhouse with large windows, skylights overhead and lights blazing. Plants and flowers of every description flanked the windows, hiding the occupants from any outside view, a living privacy screen. There were no walls, just columns trailing exotic flowers climbing fourteen feet high to the glass panes of the ceiling. In two steps they’d been transported to an oasis.