Chapter 7

Once again he was in the shadows of an apartment. This one was being rented by a Daisy Harper of Omaha, Nebraska—a.k.a. Ella Banning. The flat was a total of four rooms. Kitchen and living room were combined into one large area, with a small bedroom down a short hall and a bathroom at the end of the hall.

The furniture had probably been around for forty or fifty years and the same with the appliances. It was in a building right in the middle of Moscow, surrounded by offices and other flats. The paint was peeling, the wallpaper had been stripped bare in some places, and all in all, it was a small hellhole.

So while he was in the same kind of shadows as her Sarajevo safe house, the digs were definitely different.

She hadn’t shown yet, but Jude felt in his gut that it was only a matter of time. He’d followed her to the train station and lost her, finding her again as she hopped a cab and drove away. Always she was running from him, and he was sick and tired of it.

“Objective in sight,” Rook informed across his ear mic.

“Roger that,” Jude responded.

“Disable the objective and wait for us.” King McNally growled this time.

Jude didn’t respond to that. He estimated he had approximately five minutes from the time she entered until King and Rook made their entrance. He wanted to get one answer out of her before his team leader and teammate arrived.

“She’s in the building,” Rook said, voice whisper quiet.

“Disable, Jude. Do not engage her in conversation. Do you understand?” King was adamant that Ella wasn’t what she seemed.

It was shocking for Jude to realize that wasn’t the most important thing to him anymore. He didn’t care one way or the other. She was his, and she was in grave danger. She would go willingly or not; King would get angry with him or not, but Jude was going to ask his question, and he was going to do it today.

A soft click heralded her entrance into the flat. Night had long ago fallen, the threadbare curtains covering the windows almost no hindrance to the lights of Moscow. Outside, horns from irate drivers blared, and night traffic noises infiltrated the silence.

Ella stepped in and went completely still. She sensed him, no doubt about it. Jude’s body came alive—adrenaline spiking, breath roughening, and dick going brick hard behind the fly of his cargo pants.

It was always like that with her. He grimaced. It always would be.

“I want to know why,” he bit out.

Her chin dropped almost to her chest, and then she straightened her shoulders and lifted her face, finding him unerringly in the darkness.

“Goddamn it, Jude,” King said across the mic. “Disable. Do not engage.”

Ella smiled, sad and haunted. “Things happened, Dagan. I just didn’t want us anymore.”

“Lie,” he growled. The tense line of her body, the way her pupils contracted in the low light, showed she was lying through her teeth. “That’s a lie, and I won’t hear another one from you, Ella.”

She turned, shaking her right arm and more than likely dislodging the small blade she carried on the inside of her forearm. “Lies are all I know now.”

“Tell. Me. Why.” He was demanding it of her. She owed him at least that.

The thump of boots echoed through the small flat. Jude was out almost out of time.

“I won’t,” she whispered, and her agony rebounded through Jude. “I can’t.”

He nodded. She wasn’t going to give him what he needed. So he’d take it.

He moved fast—in his space beside the hallway one second, on her in the next. She lifted her right arm and tried to cut him with her blade; he dodged, knocked her arm to the side, and used the momentum to turn her.

With his front to her back, he took both of her wrists in one of his hands and pulled the syringe King had given him earlier from a side pocket of his pants. She struggled, and he inserted a knee between her legs and spread them far enough apart that she had to concentrate on not falling instead of kicking back at him.

Dodging her head as she threw it back to clock him in the nose, Jude uncapped the syringe with his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear a second before he pressed the syringe to her neck.

She didn’t say a word, just went lax in his arms with a soft release of air. The door opened, and both King and Rook entered, looking ready for WWIII.

King’s eyes swept over Jude, reprisal in their depths. “At least you disabled her. She’s become quite a handful, hasn’t she?”

Ella had done something for King she’d not done for Jude. Answered his questions…hell, given him something. She’d given nothing to Jude.

His heart mocked him. She gave you six fingers against the cab’s glass.

It wasn’t enough. Was it?

“You got her?” Rook asked.

Jude nodded as he shifted her in his arm and lifted her small body high against his chest. King and Rook turned as one and left the building. There was no reason to search the flat; he’d handled that and loaded up anything of use earlier. Jude left behind them, carrying the most precious of his burdens close to his heart.

They walked down the hallway and took the tiny service elevator to the ground floor. Rook exited and took point. King glanced at Jude. “You okay?”

Jude had never been more vulnerable than right that second. Every emotion he’d felt during the last year bombarded him, nearly sending him to his knees. He’d seen her, smelled her, but until that moment, he hadn’t held her in nearly four hundred seventy-three days.

“Dagan,” King demanded sharply.

“I don’t know what ‘okay’ means.” He met King’s gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “But I can do this.”

King nodded slowly and held open the doors. They exited the back of the building and got into a blacked-out Range Rover they’d appropriated from a used car lot on the outskirts of Moscow.

It took them an hour to reach the abandoned farmhouse in Sergeiv Posad. Known for its monastery, Trinity Lavra, the town was a quiet one and just what they needed to handle business. They weren’t going back home to DC. Not quite yet, since King felt it would be better to question Ella before returning.

Rook glanced at Jude in the rearview mirror before looking down at Ella. Jude ignored the warning in his teammate’s eyes. He wasn’t letting her go until he absolutely had to. Jude returned his gaze to Ella’s face, the lights of the roadside lamps highlighting her and then casting her in darkness. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, braided and then wrapped into a bun near the top of her head. Jude longed to release the shiny tresses, run his hands through them, and hold her still for his mouth.

His hand fisted, and he slowly removed his glove, the temptation to be skin to skin with her damn near overwhelming. Her lashes lay like fans over her cheeks. The wings of her black brows arched over eyes that could skewer a man or make him feel like king of the world.

He loved staring at her while he entered her because everything she felt was mirrored in her gaze. Her face could remain passive, but those eyes? They were truly the windows to her soul, and she’d never been able to hide from Jude.

He lifted his hand and was shocked to note a tremor. He was shaking. He lowered a single finger to her lips, stroking over the lush bottom one.

A touch was all he could stand because as he came into direct contact with her, his skin heated and he knew he was going to lose it.

Never had he loved anyone as much as he’d loved her.

Never had anyone hurt him as much as she had. Not even his mother.

He dropped his hand, used his mouth to tug his glove back on, and then stared at everything but her face.

It was the longest hour of his life.

They let King out of the Rover half a mile from the abandoned farmhouse they’d reconned and set up for tonight’s purpose. He would make sure their surroundings remained clear and return to them.

It had taken Jude hardly any time to read what Vivi had sent him, and then he’d called King. Rook’s words two days ago had reminded Jude of why he was in Endgame Ops…brothers, family, teammates. He couldn’t continue to let down his brothers-in-arms, because the relationships he had with them were now the most important.

He couldn’t let Ella, or what he felt for her, interfere with that anymore. He’d resolved that he would use tonight to get his answers, and then he would leave her alone. He wouldn’t chase her any longer.

It was clear she didn’t want Jude, no matter that she’d held six fingers up to a goddamn window. No matter that he still loved her like hell on fire. She didn’t get those pieces of him anymore.

He’d contacted King, given him everything he had, and he’d listened to the man he respected more than any other tell him they’d figure it all out. King was angry, and that was to be expected, but he was a leader, and all leaders knew when to ream you out and when to let it ride.

Jude wouldn’t get a free pass, but the fact that King had let him stay on this was proof that his leader had his back.

King returned, waving them forward and walking beside the Rover as they drove up the dirt path to the farmhouse. Within a minute, they were out of the car. King stepped up, adjusted the strap on his rifle so the weapon rested on his back, and held out his arms.

Jude froze. First steps were a bitch, but if he was going to do this, he had to let her go. He transferred her to King’s hold and walked into the house. They had set a tarp on the floor of the living room. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, and once the clouds had cleared from the rain earlier, the moon shone through, giving them enough light so they didn’t have to set anything up.

The original structure had been built well over a hundred years ago, and time and Russia’s climate had taken over. Weathered walls and floors, furniture moldy and falling apart—the place had an ancient, broken feel. It probably wouldn’t last much longer, but it was perfect for their purpose. There were ghosts in this house, and even more now with Ella’s presence.

King placed her in a chair in the middle of the tarp. He blindfolded her—Jude thought for effect. She’d have to rely on her other senses, and when a body was stressed, those senses could lie. Ella had been a wonderful CIA analyst, but like Rook’s Vivi, she hadn’t exactly been a dyed-in-the-wool soldier.

Rook wound long lengths of rope around Ella’s torso and each leg, strapping her in place. She could move—Jude was sure Rook hadn’t tied her tight enough to cut off circulation—but she couldn’t escape. Rook was a master of knots. Jude steeled himself to remain impassive. Those ropes represented so much.

They told of failure and betrayal. Love and lies.

“She’ll wake soon. We didn’t give her enough to keep her out for very long,” King murmured as he walked to the other side of the room and leaned against a doorjamb, facing Ella.

Rook moved to the opposite side, taking up much the same position. Jude moved to behind her and waited.

The air felt charged moments later, and Jude knew she was awake. He tamped down his body’s response to her by force of will alone. His pain at her betrayal helped him.

Silence reigned. She’d obviously decided she’d let this play out. King took a step toward her, and she straightened in her seat.

What was she feeling? Trapped? Did she know the fear Jude had felt when he’d thought her dead? Why did it bother him that she might understand that?

King walked until he was standing beside her. Ella’s chin notched in the air.

“Just say something,” she demanded roughly. Her voice was strained and gravelly.

Jude found himself wanting to give her a sip from his canteen. He fisted his hands and crossed his arms over his chest, holding himself back.

“What are you doing in Russia, Ella?” King asked in a bored voice.

“Oh, you know, touristy things. I’ve never spent much time here, and so…” she said with a small, gruff laugh.

King laughed with her. Then his voice lowered as if Satan himself were speaking through him. “What are you doing in Russia, Ella?”

She cleared her throat. “I told you, I wanted to see Russia.” She coughed, and Jude lowered his arms, almost walking to her, but her words stopped him. “Let’s see, I know you’re here. I’m guessing Dagan and, hmmm, Rook? Yeah, Rook’s here too, isn’t he?” she questioned in a polite tone. Making everyday conversation, huh?

“I’m here, Ella-Bella,” Rook informed her in an easy tone. Rook had a soft spot for women.

“Rook, how’s your wife? You know, I meant to talk to you about that in Beirut a few weeks ago. You have got to control her better. She’s really nosy, and she’s sticking hers in places where it might get lopped off.”

Rook straightened at the underlying warning in Ella’s voice.

She laughed again, the sound ricocheting off the walls of Jude’s heart. “I won’t hurt her, but Dresden is a real bastard, and he does his best to watch every move she makes.” She turned her head so she seemed to peer over her shoulder, and Jude was grateful for the blindfold that kept him from seeing her eyes. “Hey, Dagan, Rook know you’re pumping his wife for information on me?”

“He knows,” Rook said before Jude could reply. The man threw Jude a look that told him to keep his mouth shut. Jude ground his back teeth together.

“Aww, scared of Rook, Dagan? Since when are you scared of anyone?” She seemed to taunt him.

“He won’t bite the bait, Ella,” King said. “Now tell me why you’re in Russia.”

“How about I tell you to kiss my ass, team leader? How about that?” Ella intoned. “If you hadn’t left me to Dresden, none of us would be in this!”

Finally a truth from her. Her words, the pain in her tone, scored Jude. It was the one question he’d not allowed himself to dwell on—had they left her to Dresden? Could they have saved her?

King moved then, sweeping the front legs of the chair with his foot and causing her to fall back. He caught the chair inches from the ground. Ella gasped and then laughed, the sound shrill after the pain of her admission. “Take off the blindfold, King. If you want to talk to me, this isn’t the way. I seem to remember saving your ass in Spain. Oh, and the ass of your woman… I saved that too. Doesn’t that merit at least some civility?”

“The same ass you put in play to begin with.” King grunted but lifted the chair, reaching for the blindfold and removing it. Ella blinked a few times, accustoming herself to the low level of light. Jude moved around to the side of the chair and watched her, arms still crossed, fists still clenched.

“Really, all I did was confirm what Loretta Bernstein had already given Dresden.” She tilted her head. “Can you guys not just leave well enough alone?”

“Not when it involves Dresden. And not, apparently, when it involves you,” Rook said conversationally.

Ella sighed, making sure it was loud and conveyed how put out she felt. “I just want to live my life. Do my own thing. What’s a girl gotta do to make that happen?”

“Tell the truth,” Jude bit out, his silence a thing of the past.

She hung her head and just as suddenly raised it, spearing him with those eyes of frost. “Ah, Dagan, the great hunter. Keeper. Just haven’t gotten the memo yet, huh?”

“What memo is that, Ella?” Rook asked.

“The one where I obviously want nothing to do with Endgame Ops, and that includes your teammate, Dagan.” Her words were forceful, but the underlying layer had Jude’s ear perking, making a liar out of her once again. Why she persisted with this, he had no idea, but he realized that the truth lay within her lies.

“Just can’t get that telling-the-truth thing down, can you, Ella?” He kept his tone light, but she shuddered.

Yeah, she still felt it. As much as she denied it, denied him and their past, she felt him in her bones as much as he felt her.

She looked away from him. “Let me go, King. This is too big for you to step in and jack it up now.”

Steel underpinned her words. What was going on?

“Tell me,” King demanded.

“Talk to the Piper,” she responded.

King shook his head. “What does he have to do with this?”

“I can’t give you any more than that,” she whispered. “Let me go.”

Jude stepped up to her now and sank down on his haunches in front of her. She stared over his head, refusing to meet his gaze. He took a gloved finger and ran it slowly down her thigh. The muscle quivered, and Jude fought his reaction. “Tell me why,” he urged, watching her face for every nuance she’d give him.

“Don’t do this to me,” she pleaded.

“You’ve asked me that a lot lately, but I’m not sure what I’m doing. I mean, you left with Dresden a year ago, watched as he shot Madoc and killed Micah. You stayed with him willingly and have spent the last year doing his dirty work. You claim we left you with the bastard, but at every turn you’ve run from us. All I’ve asked for is the truth. So what exactly am I doing to you?”

She bit her lower lip. Jude continued to trace down her thigh. “If I ever meant anything to you, you’ll let me go.”

He barked out a laugh and stood abruptly. “Let you go? I never had you, Ella. So let’s cut the bullshit, yeah? Tell us what you’re doing here for Dresden, and we’ll let you go.”

He took a few steps back because the need to rip off those damn ropes and pin her beneath his body was raging. She was lost to him, and his mind couldn’t accept it. His heart refused to accept it. Goddamn, he was a soldier to his core, but he was human too.

She drew in a deep breath and looked him in the eye. That look almost took him to his knees. “Dresden has aspirations of selling Crimea and all of its oil to Russia. I’m here to broker the deal.”

King hissed in a breath. Rook cursed. Jude shook his head. “How can he sell something that isn’t his?” he queried.

“He bartered with Ukraine, vowed protection from Mother Russia if they gave him the rights to the oil in Crimea. They did. Dresden can be persuasive when he has something you want very badly.”

“What did he have of Yoraslav Schevchenko’s?” King asked.

“Schevchenko’s sons, daughters, wife, mother… Dresden had his entire family. The prime minister caved quite easily once he was delivered his youngest daughter’s head on a platter.” Ella’s mouth twisted. “Dresden doesn’t care who he kills, only that it nets him something he considers valuable. In this case, Schevchenko’s three-year-old daughter netted him the oil rights to the Crimean Peninsula.”

“Jesus Christ!” King ran a hand through his hair. “And you work with this bastard?”

She pinned King with a hard, cold glare. “I do what I’m told. As should you and your team. You’re wading into waters you haven’t been invited into. Talk to the Piper, and stay in your lane, team leader.”

Jude cleared his throat and cocked his head. “Is that a threat?”

Ella moved her glare to him. She had developed quite an attitude over the last few months. “I think we both know I can’t make good on any threats. I mean, look at me. Bound and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

“She’s got you there, Keeper,” Rook said while rubbing his chin.

Jude shrugged him off. “Why were you there with Svetlana Markov yesterday?”

“It’s none of your concern,” she answered crisply.

“What did you pick up at the train station?” he asked, not giving her time to breathe.

“Again, none of your concern,” she replied, that waspish tone making another appearance. “You really have no control over him, do you?” She directed the question to King, but it was Jude who answered.

“He does. I mean, you’re here, right? Not somewhere locked up at my mercy.”

Jude turned his back to her and walked into the kitchen area. He just needed a few minutes to get his shit together, and he’d go back in and have another go at her.

“She’s working with the Piper,” Jude said as King came up at his back.

“I know,” King responded, and it was the last thing Jude expected.

A bitter chuckle escaped. “She pulled an op within an op with us, didn’t she?”

King nodded. “Looking more and more like just that.”

“What is he doing?”

“He won’t tell me. He points and directs, and I lead my team into whatever hellhole he says to.” King’s tone suggested he was beginning to question doing so.

“She’s on Dresden for a reason. We need that reason. She’s been close enough to put a bullet through his skull, yet she hasn’t. That means the Piper wants him alive. What the hell is going on, King?”

“I don’t know, but let’s—”

A muffled groan from the living room sounded, interrupting King, and it happened a split second before the noise of an engine cranking invaded the house.

“Motherfucker!” Jude shouted. He took off, sprinting outside the main door only to see the taillights of the Rover disappearing. “Damn it,” he raged at the sky.

He hustled back into the house and found King tending to Rook. The man had a goose egg on his forehead. “What the hell, dude?”

Rook glanced up at him, and what Jude saw there had him frozen. “She’s not the same Ella. She took me like I was a babe in the manger. Quick, effective, and deadly accurate.”

No way that tiny slip of a woman had overcome Rook Granger. “She was tied up, man.”

“She had a knife. Nobody checked her,” Rook said as he pushed King away. “I’m good.”

Still Jude didn’t believe it.

“She wanted me to tell you something, Jude,” Rook told him.

Jude didn’t want to hear it. “What?”

“She said she’s let you go. Now it’s time for you to do the same. But then she gave me something else…said you’ve got a tail, and they’re watching every move you make.”

King bit out a curse. “She’ll head back to Moscow. If Dresden is selling rights to that oil to Russia, there’ll be a meeting. Rook, talk to Vivi. Have her tap every resource she has to find out where that meeting is and when. Jude? Get Knight and Black here ASAP.”

“On it,” Rook and Jude replied at the same time. “What about the tail?”

“I’ll handle it.” Jude pulled out his satellite phone. “How are we getting back to Moscow?”

King sighed. “Rook, get Vivi to find us transpo too.”

Rook grumbled something, and Jude dialed up headquarters. Once he’d talked to Jonah Knight and gotten assurance that he and Harrison Black were headed their way, Jude disconnected and turned to King.

“They’re on their way,” he told him.

“Do you still have that contact in the FBI… What’s her name? Greta? Gerta?” King asked.

Jude rubbed his jaw. “You mean Georgia?”

King waved a hand in the air. “Whatever, but yeah, her.”

“I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years, but I’m sure she’ll answer my call,” Jude replied. He’d dated Georgia on and off two years ago. Once he’d seen Ella Banning, he’d never had another thought about Georgia until King had just mentioned her.

“Call her. I need to know everything she can get me on Noah Caine,” King ordered. “Oh, and I’m going to contact Chase. Have him be on the lookout for Abrafo Nadege in Burundi. He’s in Dresden’s pocket, and I want to know why. What does he have or supply Dresden with that makes him valuable?”

“Who is that?” Jude questioned.

“Nadege? He’s an African warlord who hit the radar last month. Chase mentioned in his last report that he’d discovered intel while questioning a local mercenary. The merc mentioned a link between Nadege and Dresden. Don’t know if Nadege is working for or with Dresden.”

“And he just gave up that info out of the goodness of his heart, huh?”

“Chase did mention he had the merc spread-eagle in a wooden chair and a ball-peen hammer in his hand,” King shrugged as he answered with a dry tone.

Jude nodded. “Now tell me why we’re researching the Piper.”

“He’s withholding information from us. If he won’t give it, we’ll take it. I’m not losing her again, Jude. I’m not losing any more of my men because he’s playing games with my team.”

“Give me more than that, King,” Jude requested.

“Like you gave me on Ella?”

Ouch. Point to his team leader. “He’s pulling her strings, and it’s torturing her.”

King’s head swiveled to Jude. “Where did you see him?”

“In Sarajevo.”

King’s brows lowered. “And you’re just now telling me this?”

“Ride’s here,” Rook said, jogging back up to them from the road. His arrival saved Jude from having to answer.

“You’ll tell me about Sarajevo, Jude,” King ordered.

Jude nodded and watched as a dilapidated truck made its way down the dirt road toward the farmhouse.

“House is clean?” King asked Rook.

“Yep. Let’s go.”

Jude, Rook, and King all loaded up. The arrival of the truck had saved Jude that time. Before the night was out, he’d told King everything—how his last months before they’d rescued Allie from Savidge in Beirut had been spent doing everything he could to discover the woman with eyes of frost and a bullet scar at her temple.

King nodded a lot, grunted some, and in the end he clapped Jude on the back and said seven words that let Jude know they were okay.

“I would have done the same thing.”

Jude lay down on the cot in the apartment they’d rented on the outskirts of Moscow. But he didn’t sleep. Ella kept running through his mind. Until they could draw a better picture of what was going on, they were simply going to do recon. Vivi was working on getting them a location of the meeting taking place tomorrow.

During the course of their situation report, Jude had silently come to a conclusion: he loved Ella, but he had to let her go.

Before that happened though, he’d make sure she was safe and out of this game the Piper had embroiled her in. Because Jude might have lost her, but if she wasn’t somewhere in the world, alive and well, it would destroy him completely.

He’d lost her once. He wouldn’t do it again.