Security had definitely been beefed up at the house, Shane noticed as he and Sebastian slipped onto the grounds and made their way patiently to the small patio at the back of the senator’s D.C. mansion.
The senator had doubled the security guards and added canine reinforcement, and though the guards were good, they weren’t military or Special Forces trained. They were civilian and not nearly as diligent as their better-trained, highly intuitive military counterparts.
Slipping through the break in the guards’ perimeter checks, they made it across the grounds, using shadows to cover their approach until they made it to the tree-shaded patio at the back of the two-story mansion.
The first set of French doors led to a hall lined with offices used by the senator’s staff. Farther along the precisely placed flagstone walk was another set of doors, all but hidden behind another¸ much smaller, tree-lined patio. There a small suite had been left intact, though the shades at the doors and windows blocked any attempt to see inside.
Using an ultra-thin camera connected to telescopic cable he worked between the panels of the window, Shane was able to glimpse the part of the suite they’d be slipping into. It was clear, though it was impossible to glimpse what waited behind the ornate room divider that hid the other half of the room.
Waiting to be certain there was no movement, he gave Sebastian the go-ahead to disable the alarm and move into the room as he kept watch.
Nothing moved. Even as the door opened and Shane slipped in, no more than a shadow along the side of the wall, and indicated Sebastian could proceed in.
Sebastian’s first sight of Alyssa as she lay unconscious in the narrow bed, tucked against the wall away from the doors and window, nearly brought him to his knees. Fear congealed in his belly, had his heart racing, and tightened his throat with so much emotion he felt swamped by it.
He moved across the room, uncaring if anyone waited in the darkened bathroom or entered by the door leading to the hall. Nothing mattered but Alyssa and getting to her as quickly as possible.
Reaching out, almost terrified to touch her, he let his fingers stroke down her arm, his breath catching as a sound similar to an animal’s whimper left his throat.
“She’s so cold, Shane,” he said softly, his gaze moving over her still, silent face. “She hates being cold.”
She would often chill at night for some reason, unless one of them cuddled her against his body. Now she wasn’t just chilled; she was cold. So cold and so still that he feared she’d never waken.
Kneeling next to the bed, he could only stare at her, count each breath, and fight back the rage threatening to engulf him.
Behind him, Shane sat heavily in the chair that had been pulled close to the bed. The cousins had both suffered the past six years, one just as deeply as the other. The first six months they had spent so drunk they barely remembered anything but the day they’d felt her pain striking inside them like stabbing blows.
For weeks Lucien and Murphy had kept the hands at the hacienda on alert. Many of them hadn’t escaped unscathed during the bitter, violent fights that ensued when Shane and Sebastian had fought to leave, to get to Alyssa. To ease that black, agonizing pain that had reached out to them.
“Look at you, siren,” he whispered raggedly, lifting her hand to lay his cheek in her palm, holding her lax fingers to his flesh. “I bet you were climbing again.” He knew better. “You were, weren’t you? Didn’t I warn you? We’re going to talk about that spanking, baby.”
God, what he wouldn’t do to hear her call him Goofy, to see her smile, perhaps hear her laughter?
Behind him, Shane rose, collected the doctor’s metal file at the bottom of the bed, and returned to the chair.
“You’re going to have to wake up, siren,” Sebastian whispered. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen those pretty eyes. Since you’ve given me that little scowl you used so often on me.”
She had called him incorrigible so many times, but the love in her voice had assured him she’d found joy in the antics he’d pulled just to hear her laughter.
He’d loved her laughter.
“Come on now, you know how Shane gets when you won’t speak to us.” His voice thickened painfully. “He gets impossible to deal with, starts threatening me.”
It was actually the other way around.
There was no response, though. Not even the slightest movement of her fingers against his cheek. She was completely still, far too cool, as though death had already stolen her from them.
“What did we do to you, siren?” With his free hand he reached out and brushed her hair back from her cheek, his fingers following the line of her delicate ear.
“She was stabbed. Three days before her mother’s death.”
Shane’s announcement, delivered with a growl of rage, had Sebastian freezing. “Right side. The blade pierced her lung, significant blood loss. The lung was stabilized, blood transfusion. They nearly lost her hours later but managed to revive her.”
Sebastian couldn’t breathe. Horror raced through him.
“The night we headed here, fuck me they had to revive her twice, ’Bastian.”
That made no sense. The lung was stabilized, blood transfused. The wound shouldn’t have caused her to slip away from them once, let alone twice.
“Exhaustion.” Shane’s voice was lower, so thick that his Texas accent almost slurred the word. “Anemia. The overriding concern is the infection that developed, though.” The file clattered to the floor. “It isn’t good, ’Bastian. She’s not fighting to live.”
Sebastian swallowed tightly, his gaze locked on Alyssa’s face as fear surged through him.
“The hell she’s going to give up,” he snarled, his hand cupping the side of her face as he pressed her fingers closer to his cheek. “You can’t give up, siren. Not now. We fixed it, baby. We fixed everything. You’re safe now.”
A heartbeat later he and Shane were both moving as the French doors pushed open. Positioning themselves protectively between Alyssa’s still form and the small, black-clad, armed young woman who entered the room. Sebastian kept his gaze on the amused expression and brilliant violet eyes staring back at them.
“Well now, are we havin’ a party?” The southern accent was heavy with anger, those violet eyes snapping dangerously. “Little late, aren’t you?” she queried with a lift of graceful midnight brows. “Like by maybe six years?”
Shane watched her carefully, recognizing the accent, the way she held the weapon, and her unique eyes. Summer Bartlett was well known to both of them as was her connection to Alyssa and her family.
“Stand down, Belle.” Shane ordered firmly.
Belle. The CIA asset had trained in Spain for several years. Once they’d even worked with her for a very brief time. They had known she was Alyssa’s friend, but she’d never mentioned it, and they had forced themselves not to.
Belle smiled, a hard turn of her lips that wasn’t encouraging.
“Do you know how hard it was to keep from killin’ the two of you in Italy?” she asked with savage amusement. “Several times, it would have been so easy.”
“Stand down, Belle,” Shane repeated the order.
She rolled her eyes in disgust. “Darlin’, this aint a Company assignment,” she assured them. “This is personal.” Her voice hardened. “That’s the most important person in my world layin’ in that bed. And I’ve watched her grieve like a widow for six years. I think it’s high time she has a real reason for all that grief. Maybe if she buries you, she’ll get over you.”
The bloodthirst in that little hellion’s gaze was a bit concerning. And she had just enough training that it wouldn’t be easy to take her down. Unless they killed her; that would be easy. But if Alyssa knew her, then their little siren might not speak to them when she woke. For a while anyway.
“Or will she follow us?” Sebastian asked softly. “If she takes her last breath, you won’t have to worry about killing us, Belle. We’ll follow her. There would be no saving us. Can you be certain she wouldn’t do the same?”
He struck a nerve. Belle’s gaze flickered with concern, with pain. If Alyssa was that important to her, then how important was she to Alyssa?
“I really want ta cap your asses, ya know,” she sighed, though a hint of tears filled her voice. “And that wouldn’t be nearly enough to pay you back for what you’ve done to her.” She blinked back the tears, her lips tightening as they trembled with the threat of those tears falling. “You destroyed everythin’ she was. Every dream. Every part of her exceptional soul. You should burn in hell.”
They should burn in hell? Fuck, that was all they knew. Hell.
“We do. Daily,” Shane was the one to assure her.
There could be no hell greater than feeling Alyssa’s siren’s song calling out to them, filled with so much pain, with such overwhelming need that the only way to deal with it was to drown their senses in booze. And even then, she was there. Whispering to them, her tears burning their souls.
This woman had no idea how closely they were tied to their siren.
Belle, Summer Bartlett, the petite Georgia native with the seductive drawl and perfect aim. She’d been like a shadow in Italy, one of the best covert agents in training Shane had seen. Until now, he hadn’t even known Belle possessed emotions, let alone tears.
But those were tears she was fighting now.
“I hate y’all, you know that, right?” she whispered.
“If you’re going to kill us, then do it,” Sebastian ordered her, his voice harsh as he turned back to Alyssa.
Sitting next to her, his back to the weapon Belle wielded, Sebastian stretched out beside Alyssa slowly and tried to wrap himself around her. She was too fucking cold. Too unresponsive.
“Damn, you have a good friend there, siren,” he whispered at her ear as he tried to surround her with his warmth. “She’s going to put a bullet in our asses. You going to let her do that? I thought only you were going to shoot us if you got that pissed. Come on, open your eyes and I’ll hand you a loaded gun myself. Please, baby, come back to us.”
The monitor at her left gave a strong beat, the heart rate indication spiking marginally and remaining stronger.
“There you are, siren,” he whispered at her ear again, allowing his lips to brush against the shell gently. “You’re with me now, aren’t you, Alyssa. This friend of yours is a little bitch, you know. Has that gun leveled at our balls and she’s really wanting to pull the trigger. Don’t you want to pull that trigger yourself? You going to let her do your job for you?”
The heart rate stayed strong and Sebastian swore, he swore he felt the fingers of her left hand tighten just a bit beneath his hold.
Summer moved tentatively to the bottom of the bed, her eyes on that monitor, the weapon held ready at the side of her leg, though.
“They deserve to die, darlin’,” she told her friend softly. “You know they do. Just as we both know there’s no way you’d kill them. Ain’t you just too soft for somethin’ like that? You’d just let them get away with walkin’ away from you. I won’t.”
“I need you, ’Lyssa,” Sebastian told her, allowing all the pain, all the grief, of the past six years into his voice. “I swear to you on all I hold dear we didn’t leave you willingly. We didn’t let you go without dying inside. At least come back to us long enough to punish us yourself if you don’t believe me.” He laid his head against hers, the shards of his heart gouging straight to his spirit as he held her, tried to warm her. “Don’t leave us, siren. We won’t survive without you.”
“Come on back, girlfriend,” Summer drawled. “I’ll draw and quarter them and tell ya all about it.”
* * *
She had been so cold for so long.
As Alyssa felt the tendrils of warmth moving around her, pushing back the black, bleak cold that held her in its grip, she focused on what the warmth could be. Where could it be coming from? She hadn’t felt it in so long she wasn’t certain what it was.
It seemed like she had been in this place forever. A place where even dreams of Barcelona and the dizzying heat she’d found there couldn’t reach her. No dreams. No memories. Nothing but the inability to move from the darkness or to sink deeper into it.
If she let the darkness have her then she knew something terrible would happen. Something she couldn’t allow. But she couldn’t face leaving it, either. At least here there was no pain, there was no loss. And she couldn’t bear losing more. She’d lost so much.…
That warmth wrapping around her, barely there, yet encasing her, was lifting her from the darkness. Despite the struggle to remain where she was, to have the warmth as well as the dark, she knew she couldn’t have both.
One or the other.
And it had been so long … she cried out, silence meeting the wounded thought. It had been so long since this warmth had been a part of her.…
It was them. It was their warmth wrapping around her and pulling her to them.
How long had it been since she’d felt them? Since she’d been able to close her eyes and just feel them?
Don’t let it be a dream.
Desperation gouged at the darkness, the warmth easing her closer to the light as the pervading nothingness began to fill with shadows rather than the overwhelming starless midnight. The closer she came to the light, the warmer those tendrils surrounding her became. The closer the whispers trapped in the shadows seemed. Their whispers. Their insistence that she come to them, that she let them in.
That she allow them to remind her of all she had lost.
But she wanted to go to them, to let the warmth touch her just one more time.
Just one more time.
She wanted to stop the light as it began to overtake the darkened landscape she was held within. Just for a moment. Just to be certain if it was a dream or if it was real.
She couldn’t face another dream. Couldn’t face waking to learn that reality was an ugly, cold place, without laughter or joy.
Without dreams.
The warmth tightened around her, urging her closer to the surface where only pain existed.
“Darlin’, these two are startin’ to piss me off.” Summer didn’t sound happy in the least. “Please let me kill them. I’m beggin’ ya.”
Kill them?
Why was Summer being so cruel as to trick her away from the dark, where she needed to hide?
“Siren…” Soft, that hint of Spanish in his voice, some tortured emotion making his voice ragged …
’Bastian. His warmth surrounding her. She could feel him against her. She’d never felt him against her as she was pulled from her dreams. She hadn’t felt his warmth or the beat of his heart against her shoulder as she did now. Oh God, how she’d missed that. The feel of them surrounding her, warming her, holding her until nothing existed but being wherever they were.
“You can’t leave now. I won’t let you leave us.” His voice was so ragged, so filled with aching need and tortured dreams. Just as hers were. Just as she ached and needed. “We wouldn’t survive without you.”
She knew that. She knew, in this place where she could feel them, touch what was left of their souls with what was left of hers. But there was so little of hers left now.
Tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t cried in years. Those tears had lain trapped inside the shattered remnants of her soul, unable to escape.
One escaped now. She felt it fall from her closed eye as she fought to open her eyes, felt it burn down her cheek.
She knew they wouldn’t survive without her. Why did they think she had chosen to remain in the darkness rather than sinking deeper into it and letting go completely? They were bound. She couldn’t break that bond, couldn’t escape it, no matter how she tried when her conscious mind ruled her.
As she hovered between the soft light surrounding her and reality awaiting her, she felt a cool, longed-for weight settling against her breast, before surrounding her neck.
She knew what it was, knew the promises that had been broken when they had taken it. Promises she’d wanted to die without.
“This was taken from you.” Shane’s voice penetrated the warmth gently. “Remember the promises that went with it, baby? Our promises?”
Another tear fell, scalding her flesh, forcing her to drag her eyes open despite the pain that lanced her body and the fears that filled her mind.
She had to open her eyes. She had to see them.
Blurry at first, her vision cleared enough that she found herself staring into Sebastian’s black eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping again, she thought, exhaustion trying to swamp her.
“Siren,” he whispered, his eyes damp. “Have you been climbing again? That spanking’s coming.”
God, how she wanted to smile.
“Goofy.” The word was slurred, instinctive.
“Oh God. Alyssa.” His head lowered, his lips against her ear. “Don’t you leave me. Don’t dare leave.”
Behind him, Shane stared down at her, his face haggard, his blue eyes so dark. They knew not to go so long without sleep. They became irritable and made her snappish. She didn’t like it when they were irritable.
Swallowing to dampen her lips, she breathed out in exasperation, so tired it was all she could do to speak. “Sleep, Cowboy.”
Shane’s throat tightened, working as though he had difficulty swallowing before he nodded sharply. “When I know you’ll wake for us again I’ll sleep.”
Wasn’t that just like them? The hazy thought drifted through her mind.
“Bossy,” she sighed weakly. Staying awake was so hard.
“Alyssa. You can’t let them just get away with this,” Summer drawled, though Alyssa could hear the tears in her voice.
“Never.” Her eyes drifted closed. “Never. Just had to know…”
Had to know they were there. Had to know the bonds weren’t broken.
Oh, they were going to pay. Because as the warmth and healing sleep pulled her back into that place of dreams rather than darkness, there was the fragile thought that she would never remember a moment of it anyway.
And she’d sworn to herself before she was thrown into the darkness that she would break the hold they had on her.
Forever.
That she would definitely remember.
“I hate the two of you for real,” Summer muttered.
“Shh.” The drugged sound coming from Alyssa shocked Summer and had her eyes filling with tears again.
Fuckin’ bastards! she mouthed silently.
“She’s ours,” Shane said softly, his head resting next to hers, his larger body still sheltering her.
“Too bad you didn’t remember that six years ago,” Summer told them. “Maybe she wouldn’t be here now. And it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t stay.”
“The hell we can’t—”
“You don’t understand. You will not stay with her, De Loren.” She spoke slowly, firmly, as though speaking to a child. “Because whatever made her husband decide to kill her had somethin’ to do with you, and that’s a fact.”
“We took care of it. And Stanhope had nothing to do with it,” Shane snarled. “It’s over.”
“That’s not what my intel says, Cowboy.” She fluttered her lashes at him as though flirting, though the sneer in her voice was anything but. “From what I hear, you two have that little mess you made in Spain to clean up, and you’re gonna give Alyssa time to regain her strength before she has to deal with you and the obvious destruction you evidently bring to her life.”
He couldn’t argue that, as much as he wanted to.
“You’re in no position to make that demand,” Shane pointed out, determined to stay with Alyssa now.
“I’ll make a deal with you then.” Summer smiled back at them. The curve of her lips would be frightening to some. “You give her time to finish healin’ and regain her strength; then I’ll contact you and give you a clear path to her once she’s done so.” Her expression hardened. “Until then, you use the next two years to clear the danger out of your lives and put the agency behind you. Otherwise, me and her daddy will have a little talk. And he really likes me. And the CIA really likes his influence on their fundin’ at the moment.” She glanced at her nails while the other hand still held the weapon. “Get the danger out of your lives; then you can have your shot. Make a choice and make it now.”
“The doctor believes if she begins to recover then she’ll be at full strength in eighteen months,” Shane pointed out.
“That was his best-case scenario, sugah,” she assured them. “Twenty-four months is his actual time line for her. It will take you that long to clear the agency junk out of your life and make damned certain nothing in your past endangers her. Because I promise you if it ever does, you won’t have a chance against the hillbillies I send out after you. That’s a Georgia promise, assholes. Take it to the bank.” She wrinkled her nose in an expression that would have been enchanting if it hadn’t gone along with a threat to kill them.
As much as Sebastian hated to admit it, she was right. There was also the follow-up investigation needed to ensure Gregory Santiago hadn’t been working with anyone else. There was no evidence he had been, but Sebastian knew it was foolhardy not to make certain.
Looking down at Alyssa, he touched her cheek, then leaned to her and let his lips touch hers.
“Sing for me, siren,” he whispered. “Let me feel you again.”
Having that part of the bond disappear had nearly broken him. The one they’d shared in Barcelona, a sense, a certainty she was there, waiting for them.
Letting his lips caress hers a moment longer, he moved from the bed, standing between Summer and Shane as he took that place next to her.
Shane hated leaving her. Hated knowing Summer was right, that there was garbage they had to clean up before they could come back to her. At least now that sense of urgency that Alyssa could be taken from them at any moment was gone.
Leaning to her, he kissed her as well. A gentle, lingering touch of his lips to hers before he moved to whisper in her ear.
“Feel me, siren,” he whispered. “Feel us. Are you warm now, baby? I promise, you get cold again and we’ll be here. And soon, you won’t be able to chase us out of your bed. I swear it.”
A final kiss to her brow and he stood. Giving her one last worried glance, he turned to Sebastian.
“Let’s go,” he breathed out, his voice rough. “While I can make myself do it.”
They left her room, stepping back into the night and leaving the heart they’d fought to return to for so long.
Summer stepped closer to the bed. She’d be damned, but Alyssa was breathing easier, the monitors showing a small but noticeable improvement. And she knew she hadn’t seen Shane or Sebastian wrap Alyssa’s fingers around the stones of that necklace, but that was where they were. Shane had to have done it, she told herself. There was no way in hell Alyssa had the strength to do so.
“Girlfriend.” Crossing her arms over her breasts, she glared down at the closest friend she had. “You don’t even know the bill you’re gettin’ on this one.”
It was going to be a helluva debt, though, because she’d played the best bluff of her life. It was gonna be hell topping this one.