Surrender (The Command Series Book 3) (21 page)

“When we get back to Rome, my father’s going to have questions about the meeting. He’ll want details. He’s . . . a precise man.”

No shit. Then Ethan’s brain quit working. “I need an hour.”

Gio stared at him like he’d just spoken nonsense. Jesus, he needed to think of a believable explanation, one that Gio could relate to. “An hour for what?”

“I met a woman.”

“Moving on so soon after Olivia?” Gio made a ‘tsk, tsk’ noise. “Of course, you did put a bullet in her stomach.” He waved a hand. “We have women back in Rome. Wouldn’t you rather have an Italian girl over a German one?”

“This one’s . . . American.”

“Oh, I see.” The smile that grew on Gio’s face was annoying.

“I can take a commercial flight and be back in Rome this evening.”

“You must need it bad. Staying around isn’t the best idea.” His employer pulled his phone out as he considered the request. “Fine, go have your fun with the girl and get it out of your system. Don’t keep my father waiting.”

It was mid-afternoon when Olivia finished at the Osterhägen headquarters and returned to the hotel, her appointment scheduled with her new captain for the morning. She’d have to log several hours in both aircrafts before she could start flying passengers, and she and the captains were anxious to get started. She came into the room, dropping her stack of paperwork on the side table.

Wait, why were the lights on?

The air in the room went thin. Ethan stood from the couch, his expression unreadable. “I told you my real name,” he said. “You could’ve at least told me yours, Kathryn.”

Her bones turned to ice. “Don’t say that name again. I’m Olivia Wallace.”
Dammit, Jason.
People looked at her differently when they thought they knew her story. “Kathryn Pierce died on a mountain, and I told you before—I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Like it or not, we’re going to have that conversation.”

She shook her head in frustration. “Why? It was a long time ago. How is it important now?”

“Because I want to know what happened to you.” The statement hung in the air. “Tell me.”

No. She’d left the States precisely to get away from this. “I don’t need to. There are plenty of articles online that tell the story better than I can. And what are you doing here? Where’s Gio?”

“Don’t worry about him. Tell me about the night on the mountain.”

Was he serious? She put her hands on her hips and unleashed the full fury of her stare on him. “I believe I told you that I don’t like talking about myself.”

His enormous feet brought him closer. And closer. “You just came to Europe to get lost for a while. You weren’t running from that.”

“So what if I was?” Anger burned inside her. “Go to hell.”

He shot her a weird half-smile. “Thanks, but I’ve already been.” His strong, rough hand touched her cheek, his thumb brushing over her lips. “Tell me about your time in hell, and . . . I’ll tell you about mine.”

Unexpected warmth spread from his caress and his words. He dangled this information as incentive to get what he wanted, but she was skeptical. “You’ll do that?”

His hand curled, tilting her head up as he leaned down into her. “I’m getting tired of secrets.”

His kiss was disarming. Gentle and sweet, but it leveled her all the same. She steadied a hand on his arm, struggling to appear immune and pushed away. “Fine, I accept.”

He stepped back from her and went to one of the side tables, retrieving a glass filled with a honey-colored liquid. He must have found the bottle of bourbon the bar had sent up last night.

There was no point in stalling.

“We were coming back to base when there was a bang, and the Blackhawk began to shudder. It got worse until I thought we were going to shake apart.” She took the glass when he offered it to her and sat on couch, staring at the drink in her hands. “Main rotor failure. We all knew we were going down, and the crew chief picked the clearing on the mountain. He said we were gonna make it.”

Her gaze abandoned the glass and worked its way over to him. Ethan leaned against the side table, a cryptic expression on his face.

“There wasn’t enough momentum left in the blades to control the descent.” She took a sip and the bourbon warmed her cheeks. “So we fell out of the fucking sky. I don’t remember the impact. When I came to, the chief, Damon, and the two Rangers we’d picked up . . . they were already gone. The other pilot, Gonzales, he was in rough shape. A lot rougher than me.”

“Wait a minute,” Ethan said, straightening from the table.

“Yeah. The media left that part out, for his family.”

“Jesus, what happened to him?”

Olivia didn’t want to remember. It had taken ten hard years to push it down. Why risk telling Ethan if it was going to bring that horrific night back into the front of her thoughts? Yet she only felt alive when taking risks. Maybe it was better to feel the pain than continue not living, being numb and empty inside.

“He died, bawling like a baby and begging me to kill him. I spent the last thirty minutes of his life trying to keep him quiet so no one would find us.” Ethan’s expression was heartbreaking and she couldn’t bear it another second.

“That was when Kathryn died,” he said.

It was barely a whisper. “Yes.”

Since she’d taken her eyes off of him, she didn’t know he’d moved. He was always silent. The couch cushion shifted as he sat next to her. He pulled the glass from her fingers and drank from it. “What happened after?”

“I don’t remember where the grenade came from. Probably one of the Rangers brought it on board, or the chief had it. There was a munitions box that I figured the Taliban fighters would go after, once they discovered the crew was dead. So I pulled the pin and tipped the box on the safety lever, right next to the leaking fuel tank. I didn’t know how big the explosion was going to be.”

Or how much it was going to hurt. Even after the fire was out, she was sure her back was engulfed in flames.

“Look at me,” Ethan commanded. She sighed, not wanting to see the pity and horror in his eyes. But it wasn’t there. Instead he gave her that intense stare. “You’re a hell of a woman, you know that? And you’re so beautiful, it hurts.”

Why did he do that? Her stomach lifted into her chest like she’d hit an air pocket. His gaze strengthened and heated until it was smoldering.

“You’re doing it again,” she said on an uneven voice.

“What’s that?”

“Looking like you want me to kiss you.”

His dark eyes didn’t waver. “Because I do. What the fuck are you waiting for?”

She all but attacked him, climbing into his lap so she was facing him, his whiskers bristling under her fingertips. When their mouths connected, it drove away the dark memories she’d worried would reappear if she told him. Her only thought was knowing more about this man. And right this moment, that was knowing what he tasted like.

Bourbon. And sex.

He still had one hand wrapped around the glass, but his other was tight on her hip as he pressed her down, letting her feel his desire. His mouth was hot and urgent. His tongue slipped in and sent electricity through her, flowing down between her legs. She wanted him like nothing else. She burrowed her hands up under his shirt, skimming her fingers over the hardened muscle decorated with scars.

The rapid thump in his chest mimicked hers and was proof they were alive. Holy hell, she hadn’t felt this alive in years.

“Your hair,” he said. “The color looks nice.”

It’s like he’d figured out what his compliments did to her, and now he wasn’t playing fair. She was off balance and veering toward free-fall. His hand followed her lead, and slipped under her shirt as he worked his way upward. She arched her back into his path, encouraging him.

It was a thousand degrees in the room when he touched her. His firm grip on her breast, followed by his thumb brushing over her sensitive skin intensified the need until it was a painful ache. His black eyes scorched and gave her the gaze she hungered for. No man had ever looked at her this way, and she’d never want another man to try it. It wouldn’t compare. His expression burned with lust. Passion. Desire.

“Do you want to move to the bed?” she whispered.

There was a quiver from his pocket as his phone vibrated.

“Wait.” The body beneath her went stiff as he dug the phone out. “Shit.” His expression filed with an emotion it took a moment to place.

Remorse. Guilt.

“I . . . have to catch a flight back to Rome.”

She sat with her back straight, giving him a hard look. “When? Now?”

“Yeah. I have to go.”

Unbelievable. She climbed off of him and crossed her arms over her chest, as if that could hold back her welling anger. “What about our deal?” When he stood, he towered over her. That build might threaten a lot of people, but not this woman. Ethan had played her. Gotten her to open up about her painful history, and he was going to walk away without doing the same.

“I’ll keep my end of the deal, I promise. But I can’t right now, I’m sorry.” He downed the rest of the bourbon and plunked it on a table. “I had every intention of talking, but as I’ve told you before, I find you incredibly distracting.”

She could see he wasn’t lying, but she was worked up and didn’t like that he was throwing some of the blame her direction. “Whatever.” When he remained, she glared at him. “I thought you had to go.”

He delivered another one of his abrupt kisses, moving too fast for her to refuse. “I will tell you, Olivia. For now, go ahead and add it to our unfinished business.”

It had been six days.

Ethan palmed his phone for the millionth time. He kept telling himself it was a nervous habit, but it was bullshit. He didn’t get nervous. His fingers itched to dial that number where a lyrical voice would hopefully answer. What was wrong with him?

He sat on the side bench in the back of Vitale’s limo, forcing himself to focus.
The mission.
His account of the sit-down with Kara and the Dunns had gone over well with Vitale, and slowly Ethan was being brought into the fold. With that, he’d finally learned what placed Constantine in the hallway the day the youngest Abramo died.

A while back Constantine had botched a deal with a Serbian arms buyer, and that mistake had landed the buyer’s son in prison in the States. To smooth it over, Constantine had asked Juric for a favor. Fix his mess with the Serbians long enough to get the deal done.

It was like fixing a hangnail by cutting off the whole finger.

When Juric escaped CIA custody, he called in the favor the Abramos owed him, only he demanded more. The Abramos owed him for putting the CIA spotlight on him, and not giving them up while under enhanced interrogation techniques.

Some of which Ethan had administered personally.

He’d needed the names and location of the Abramo deal in Berlin. Torturing the information out of Juric that night in Croatia hadn’t been an issue. There’d been a dark part of Ethan that thought of it as payback for what Juric had done to Laurel.

The expression on Laurel’s face when she’d discovered what he’d done didn’t sit right with Ethan. She’d gazed at the towel and bucket of water, his method of waterboarding, then turned to Ethan with horror. He wondered if she still felt that way now, after what Juric had done with her sister.