
Sin
and
Sacrifice
by
Danielle Bourdon
Published by: Wildbloom Press
Copyright © 2011 All rights reserved
Cover art Copyright © Danielle Bourdon
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
For my parents Tim, Kathy, Jerry and Felecia, who always show never ending support in my
writing endeavors.
I love you.
"He called you disobedient? Please." Evelyn scoffed and popped a grape in her mouth. "Did you whack him upside the head when he spit that blasphemy out?"
Genevieve, sitting close to the balcony rail with the glittering Mediterranean spread out behind her, laughed and set her glass of lemonade down.
"No, but I asked him if he was confused about his role in my life. Told him I wouldn't obey any man that wasn't my father, and, since this was only the fourth date, it probably wasn't going to work out," she replied.
"What did he say to that?" Evelyn asked with a vast amount of amusement. Classically African, Genevieve had broad cheekbones, a high forehead, bow shaped mouth and a laid back, bohemian flair that attracted members of the opposite sex like bees to honey. The close crop of her dark hair accentuated her striking features and unusual, gray eyes.
Genevieve sat straighter in her chair and affected a studious frown. "You will make a difficult wife for any man. This is best ended."
"So you're not only disobedient, you're difficult and have an opinion. How dare you." They both laughed. She and Genevieve shared a passion for independence. Snagging a tube of sunscreen out of the bag at her feet, she started slathering it on. The light, golden hue of her skin was prone to burn if she didn't protect it.
Across the round, wrought iron table, slouched into an unfeminine splay of knees and elbows, Alexandra snorted. Her fingers flew over the keys of the netbook perched in her lap. "Didn't take much to convince him. C'est la vie. Don't let the door hit'cha on the way out, bub."
Genevieve laughed and flicked condensation drops from her glass at Alexandra. "You wouldn't say that to a guy you were about to dump."
"Yes I would," Alex argued. The tomboy shared a fiendish smile with them that spelled trouble and rebellion.
"You're incorrigible, Alex." Evelyn, rubbing a small dab of sunscreen on her own nose, winked at the grinning Genevieve and pretended to give Alexandra a chiding look.
"Run, don't walk, from any man talking about marriage on the fourth date," Minna, the oldest of the four with a hint of the orient in her eyes and bone structure, added her two cents. Skin clear of wrinkles or laugh lines, she actually appeared younger than the dark haired Alexandra.
"Hear, hear." Evelyn lifted her glass of raspberry lemonade.
Genevieve and Minna brought their drinks across the table to clink, toasting that particular bit of wisdom. They all tipped back a swallow at the same time. Alexandra was too busy with her netbook to bother.
"Alexandra, will you get your nose out of that computer for five minutes?" Evelyn said.
"I'm checking something."
"Checking what?" Evelyn asked. She arched a brow.
"This and that."
"That's a fabulous answer. You're always checking something." Evelyn glanced at Minna, who sat in the chair closest to Alexandra, and appealed for intervention with nothing more than a look.
Minna reached over and clapped the lid of the netbook closed.
"Hey! This is mutiny! I've already seen the water, Ev. And pretty much all of Athens, too." Alexandra slumped back in the chair, grinning despite her protests. She flicked the end of her dark ponytail over a shoulder and laced her fingers on her stomach. "Besides, we've been gossiping since breakfast."
"We're not gossiping," Evelyn scoffed. "We're catching up."
"Well how much could have changed in the two days since we all left California and flew here?" Alex asked.
"Obviously, Genevieve isn't dating what's-his-name anymore. That's news worthy," Evelyn retorted.
Minna and Genevieve watched the volley like a ping pong match.
"We coulda found that out at home though. Besides, we all knew Gen wasn't going to stay with that guy." Alexandra lifted her chin.
"You didn't know that," Evelyn argued.
"Did so. When I met him that night of their second date, he looked like he had a stick up his a--"
"Alexandra." Evelyn eyed her sister, struggling not to laugh. None of the girls had liked Genevieve's last 'date'. He'd been too stiff, too serious. Too controlling. Genevieve's languid nature had clashed like oil and water with his stern, stilted view on life.
No one could say Gen hadn't tried.
Before Alexandra could veer the entire conversation out of control, Evelyn said, "Anyway. I was thinking that maybe we could all move back here." She swept a hand out toward the sparkling Mediterranean.
They had a stunning view from their balcony. Cast in shade from the overhang, the four women who sat around the wrought iron table exchanged glances.
"Live in Greece?" Alex asked.
"Well, maybe not in Greece. Somewhere in Europe though. What do you think?" Evelyn had wanted to return to the womb of the world for longer than she cared to admit. Living in southern California had its purpose and its pleasures, but the twenty-eight years they'd spent on the west coast crawled by at a snail's pace. Centuries whipped by in the blink of an eye when she wasn't pining and homesick.
She glanced at each of her sisters in turn, gauging reaction. Alexandra wouldn't have a problem; Genevieve would think about it for a few minutes and agree, and Minna would predictably hesitate. Of all the siblings, Minna was the most cautious, the one who thought about every angle for days at a time before committing.
"I think it's a great idea," Minna said.
Shocked, Evelyn stared at her.
"Pacific Palisades is nice enough, but I'm ready to move." Minna took a drink of her lemonade.
"It's because she broke up with what's-his-name, Ev. We can't stay there too much longer anyway or people might start askin' questions. I'm in. I'll go where ever," Alexandra retorted, fiddling with the smooth cover of the netbook. Loving little pets over the glossy surface.
Genevieve just smiled, teeth strikingly white against her mocha colored skin. "Let's make plans. We're all single right now, so it's a perfect time to pull roots and relocate."
"Exactly," Evelyn said. Excitement spiraled through her. That had gone much easier than she'd thought. "So the question becomes...where?"
England, France and Spain had already been their locale of choice when they'd moved here in previous years. Evelyn would live in any of those countries again in an instant. Each one held special memories during different points in history. She waited to see what places her sisters came up with before laying out suggestions of her own.
"Well, let's look it up," Alexandra said with no small amount of glee. Only because it gave her an excuse to pop open the netbook and start typing in destinations.
"You're so transparent, Alex." Evelyn traded knowing looks with Genevieve and Minna.
Alexandra just smiled while her fingers flew over the keys.
"Maybe one of the islands this time," Genevieve said. "Get a place right on the beach."
"Oh, nice, Gen," Minna said. "Do you remember that time we stopped in Crete?"
"Of course we remember," Alex said. "That was when Genevieve got drunk and--"
"If you love your little computer, you will not finish that sentence." The languor that Genevieve delivered her threat with nevertheless had an instant impact.
Alexandra snickered, cleared her throat, and kept talking like there had been no interruption. Except any mention of drunken escapades were notably missing. "Crete was awesome. We had to all but drag Minna out of there."
"Okay, put Crete on the list," Evelyn said. She loved the island as well---loved all of Greece---which was why they were here on vacation. Antigua was the last island they had lived on. Five years of bliss in the late fifteen hundreds.
"What do you think Galiana's gonna say?" Alexandra asked without looking up from the netbook screen.
"As long as there's shopping, she won't care," Genevieve said, drawing a laugh from the three other girls.
"That's the truth. Speaking of Galiana, where is she?" Evelyn glanced at the sliding glass doors leading inside their hotel suite. She couldn't quite see the clock from here and refused to wear a watch on vacation.
"Late, as usual." Minna twisted around to follow Evelyn's gaze.
No Galiana in sight.
"If she wouldn't have missed the flight out of California to begin with--" Alex said.
"But I just need two more pairs of shorts!" Evelyn mimicked Galiana's voice in perfect imitation.
Genevieve laughed into her drink. Minna joined her.
"I'll check the flight schedule," Alexanda said with a muffled snicker at the teasing. "Maybe her plane's delayed."
"Let me go try and call her. If she's shopping at the airport I'll hurry her along." Evelyn set down her glass and stood up. The situation was not unusual; Galiana, famous for keeping them waiting, rarely arrived anywhere on time. After retying the red sarong around her hips, she skirted the table, pushed back the clear glass door and stepped inside.
She's just delayed or distracted, Evelyn reassured herself, refusing to let paranoia take hold and steer her thoughts in directions she didn't want them to go.
The sight of the three women languishing in the shade on the balcony paused Evelyn at the door when she closed it. Genevieve, dark all over except for her gray eyes; Minna, slender and deceptively delicate; Alexandra, the rough-and-tumble little heathen with black hair halfway to her butt.
As different as night and day, the lot of them.
No one would ever guess they were all sisters. Born from the same womb.
Evelyn could see her own reflection in the glass; tawny hair streaked with auburn highlights, golden skin, hazel eyes. She'd always thought her patrician nose and oval shaped face rather plain. There wasn't a lick of resemblance between herself and the women she watched, which, she thought, worked in their favor.
She turned and skimmed a look through the living room for her cell phone. The Aphrodite Hotel's mini-suite was a study in pale décor and Spartan furnishings; white walls, white floors and couches of light, baby blue. Sparkling clean, with modern chairs and a glass coffee table, Evelyn thought the design almost clinical except for the plush quality of the pieces and the exotic, colorful paintings in gilt frames depicting famous scenes from Greek mythology.
Spying her phone on the end table, she went over and snatched it up. After pressing three on speed dial for Galiana, she brushed strands of hair away from her face and checked the status of her tan in an oval mirror. Using her thumb, she pulled the black string aside near her collarbone, exposing a paler swatch of skin amidst the golden color surrounding it. She was making impressive headway in the sunbathing department. The conspicuous shape of sunglasses surrounded her eyes and she made a mental note to leave them off the next time she basked in the sun lest she wind up resembling a raccoon.
"You've reached Galiana's voicemail," came her sister's voice down the line. "Leave a message at the beep!"
"Where are you, Galian--" She got cut off when the front door swooshed open.
Galiana stumbled in, dragging her luggage, blonde hair askew around her face. She knocked the door closed with the heel of a designer shoe and snapped the bolt into place.
"I made it!" she crowed. It always looked like a strong wind would blow the woman over.
Evelyn hung up the phone with an exaggerated sigh, hiding her relief behind a sudden smile. She met Galiana halfway and hugged her disheveled sister tight.
"Finally! That's what you get for missing your flight." Leaning back, she gave her a quick once over; Galiana, the fairest and most fragile of the bunch, looked harried but happy.
"But I found the best sale at Saks, I swear..."
"Of course you did," Genevieve said, coming in from outside. Alexandra and Minna followed. All three girls were dressed for a day lounging next to the Mediterranean; bathing suits, shorts, sarongs.
Galiana left her luggage right there and hugged each one with fervent affection.
There was a special bond between them all that was never more apparent than when they'd been apart for any length of time. And they had, at different stages of their lives. A situation they tried to avoid when they could. If Evelyn had been pressed to choose a sister she was closest to, she wouldn't have been able to with any accuracy. She loved each one with as much depth and devotion as the next. All of their relationships were different and unique, their interactions varied. But she didn't love one more than the other.
"We're all moving to Crete," Alexandra announced. She wasn't as lavish with her hugs as the other girls, but they all knew it was just her way and had no bearing on her feelings. She just wasn't as girly as the rest of them.
"Excellent! When?" Galiana didn't even blink at the news.
"We have no idea. Sooner than later though, I'm guessing," Alex said.
Evelyn laughed, relieved to have all her siblings present and accounted for.
They spent an hour getting Galiana settled in and her things put away. The blonde exclaimed over the suite and the view, which she took in with a deep breath of air and her arms thrown wide. Galiana might have been dainty, but she was expressive and dramatic and didn't care who knew it.
"By the way. We're going out to The Andromeda Chamber tonight," Evelyn said, bringing Galiana a glass of water with two lemon slices floating in it. There had to be two, never three, never just one.
"I love that club!" Galiana took the glass and had a quick sip. "What time? I need to go have my hair and nails done."
Alexandra, back at the balcony table with her netbook propped on her thighs, groaned.
"You should just buy a shop or whatever, G. You're at them all the time."
"You could do with a facial and a manicure, Alexandra. Look at those fingernails." Galiana shuddered. Alexandra's nails were bitten back, the cuticles untended.
Evelyn watched on, hiding a grin behind a drink from her refreshed lemonade. Alexandra and Galiana were the epitome of opposites. For as long as she could remember, the sisters had squabbled over grooming and fashion---or lack of Alexandra's interest in it.
"Over my dead body," Alexandra quipped.
"Around nine?" Evelyn interrupted the banter, leaning against the rail. A cool breeze, the seasonal meltemi, made the dry, hot day bearable. It sifted through her hair, whipping the ends this way and that. Summer time in Greece was her favorite. She loved being here and loved being on vacation even more.
Galiana brushed a lock of hair away from her chin. The pale cloud always had an artfully disarrayed look to it. "Perfect. Gives me a little time to make a few more stops."
"Shopping," Alexandra said with a snort of disgust.
"I think you should let me pick your outfit tonight, Alex. Jeans and flannel won't go over at the Andromeda."
"Galiana, I might not squeal over shirts and sales, but I don't wear flannel out to nightclubs."
For two hours, Evelyn listened to the girls trade quips and flippant but teasing commentary, one upping each other with every volley. Minna and Genevieve lounged in the sun and Evelyn joined them, stretching out on a chaise. There were few things she loved more than basking in the heat. The scent of salt on the air was as relaxing as the rhythmic lap of water against the pristine shore.
Galiana took her leave before dusk set in with a promise to be back before they all departed.
Evelyn had her turn in the shower, choosing something flirty and fun to wear to the club. The skinny straps kept her cool and the sunset colors of the knee length dress looked good against her deepening tan. She choose sultry make up to highlight the color of her eyes and daubed lipstick with the dubious name of Plumpeii on her lips. She wasn't quite sure what plums had to do with Pompeii, but the hue went well with her skin and that was all that mattered.
At nine-thirty, when Galiana called to say she still wasn't done, they all decided to go on to the club without her. Evelyn didn't have the heart to be annoyed. If Galiana ever showed up on time for anything it would be nothing less than a miracle.
Taking a cab, the four sisters chattered about moving and houses all the way to the front doors of the Andromeda Chamber. The nightclub, with impressive columns, lush foliage, and blue lights shining up the facade of the stone exterior, had a tranquil aura despite the throb of music that made the walls shake. It wasn't hard to imagine mythical gods and goddesses moving through the carved tables, sitting in the plush chairs, or gliding over the dance floor that looked like a sheet of pale blue ice. Tiny white lights trickled down from the domed ceiling, resembling stars in the gloom.
Dancers writhed and gyrated through a thin fog that billowed lazily from jets rimming the floor.
Even though she was five-foot-ten, Evelyn felt short compared to Genevieve. Standing several inches over six-feet, her sister commanded attention with her exotic skin and strong bone structure. Alexandra, in charcoal suede and a silk top of blue, swaggered along like she didn't have a care in the world. Minna, mysterious and petite, had dressed in demure slacks and a stylish shirt of red with an oriental flare that fit her perfectly.
They chose to stand at a tall table and order drinks within close range of the dancers. Evelyn paid for the first round and declined two offers from men for a turn on the floor. Minna and Genevieve went out right away, leaving she and Alexandra to indulge in drinking and people watching. It was always easy for Evelyn to tell the tourists apart from the regulars; they stood around in small clusters, wide-eyed, heads tipped together to make gossiping easier. One or two snapped pictures.
Evelyn didn't consider herself a tourist just because she was on vacation here. This part of the world had been home for longer than it hadn't. In their much younger years, she and her sisters had traveled Europe extensively. Back then, there had been quite a few more siblings than there were now. A thought she turned her mind from lest it make her melancholy.
Alexandra, who always wore a watch wherever she went, checked the time when they ordered their second round. "Maybe you should call Galiana again. It's been like an hour and a half."
"She'll be here. You know how she is," Evelyn said.
"Well, yeah. But she's gonna miss the whole night." Alexandra shook her hand so that the timepiece rolled down to cover the two small pinpricks on the inside of her wrist. Before watches had existed, Alexandra used a bracelet or band to hide the anomaly.
All of the sisters bore the same mark. To a casual observer, it resembled a snakebite. Evelyn kept hers obscured by a trio of thin, dangling bracelets. Only a keen eye would detect the black dots just below the heel of her hand. In this modern age, with so many millions of people on the earth, Evelyn wasn't quite as paranoid about someone seeing them as she used to be.
Another hour went by. Evelyn gave in and danced with a man who'd come back three times to ask. He was at least four inches shorter than her, on the thin side, with glasses that slid down his nose every three minutes or so. He had a kind smile and boogied with enthusiastic swings of his arms and dramatic pauses that made her want to laugh. She didn't in case she was supposed to find his jerky gyrating sexy instead of funny.
Back at the tall table after gently declining to give him her number, she indulged in another drink with her sisters. The easy mood and buzz from the alcohol made time go by quicker, especially when a few men joined them, hitting on the girls with blatant stares and boyish grins. The harmless fun ended when a sudden announcement for last call came over the speakers between songs.
Frowning, Alexandra glanced at her watch. "What the heck. It's one o'clock. Did anyone get a text from Galiana?"
The men wandered away when they realized none of the girls were going home with them. Evelyn dug her cell out of the pocket of her skirt. No messages.
Genevieve and Minna had none, either.
"Maybe she got back too late and fell asleep at the hotel," Minna suggested.
"I'll go call her." Evelyn worked her way through the crowd toward the restrooms. Decorated like the rest of the club, with pale blue walls and tiny lights hanging from the ceiling, the women's room boasted a separate vanity area that made it convenient to talk. The three other ladies present were all washing their hands and giggling drunkenly.
Evelyn found a quiet corner and dialed. Galiana's voice mail came on.
"Galiana, where are you? We've been waiting all night. I know you can't still be shopping. Either way, we'll be leaving for the hotel soon. A text would have been nice." Scolding her wayward sister, Evelyn hung up. Galiana, notorious for neglecting to keep in touch like she should, left her sisters in a lurch more often than not. She was easily distracted from things like checking in.
When Evelyn got back to the table and announced the news, Alexandra rolled her eyes.
"She's takin' this shopping thing to a whole new level. You guys ready to go? They're closing in an hour anyway."
One by one, the girls filed out into the balmy night. Evelyn had just enough to drink to make her tipsy but not drunk; one glance at her sisters told her that none of them had imbibed enough to make them sloppy and careless. She couldn't remember the last time the five of them had been blitzed in public. Caution ruled the day when it came to losing ones faculties outside the safety of home.
The concrete sidewalk led them past trimmed hedges and fountains carved in the shape of mythical Gods. Poseidon held his trident proud and tall next to Athena, while Zeus sat sprawled in a throne. No expense had been spared at the Andromeda Chamber.
Although Alexandra had called them a cab when she'd been in the bathroom, a brief survey of the parking lot to the side of the club showed the taxi hadn't arrived yet. Overhead, the inky sky above Athens glittered with a million stars and Evelyn whimsically tipped her face up to pick the constellations out. Genevieve, Minna and Alex loitered just behind her.
"I want to visit The First Cemetery tomorrow--" Alexandra's comment was cut off by a muffled scream.
Evelyn quit stargazing to snap a look around in confusion. The parking lot, while full of cars, seemed empty of people except them. Whoever hadn't already left the club probably wouldn't leave until it closed its doors in an hour. When she glanced at her sister's faces, she saw the same confusion there.
"Is that someone drunk and laughing?" Evelyn asked. Sometimes it was hard to tell one from the other when someone had that much to drink.
"I don't know. Sounded like they were scared. Kinda," Alex said.
From around the far corner of the building, where the shadows were thicker, they heard it again. A scream, faint but fearful.
Genevieve frowned and only waited a moment before she started walking with determined strides for the back lot. Evelyn followed behind Alex and Minna, the latter of which had some serious kick ass abilities. If some drunk was pawing at a girl, Minna would be able to handle it with no problem. Her expertise in martial arts was impressive. Alex and Gen, while not experts in those arts, were still not to be trifled with. They had thousands of years to hone their skills and motivation in spades.
Evelyn didn't particularly like confrontation and liked weapons even less. She didn't hesitate to provide whatever aid she could though, even if it just ended up being a shoulder to cry on or assistance in calling the woman another cab.
Passing several cars and a gray van with heavily tinted windows, she rounded the corner on Alex's heels. A halo of illumination provided a cameo for the scene of horror that confronted them; the blade of a long, gleaming sword tacked Galiana to the wooden fence surrounding a dumpster. Pierced straight through the chest, feet suspended several inches off the ground, her body twitched through the last throes of life.
Evelyn processed what she saw in strange, strobe like glimpses; Galiana's chin sunk low, blood dripping off a pinky onto the ground, one shoe missing. The pale cloud of blonde hair, streaked with red, looked like someone had intentionally mussed and tangled it.
Shock severed Evelyn's ability to react as fast as Minna did. The diminutive woman rushed forward with Genevieve directly behind her and gave the sword a yank.
It didn't budge.
The entire situation seemed to take on an underwater quality for Evelyn, the noises of the night oddly distorted, the image of her dying sister flashing like still shots on a macabre slide show. Panting, she pressed a palm over her forehead. She couldn't think. Violence had always been her ultimate weakness. Face to face with it, she tended to freeze and her mind went blank. The irony was that she was a better shot with a gun than any of her sisters, able to consecutively hit her mark on a non-live target with eerie accuracy. Put into a real world situation, she couldn't hit the broad side of an elephant with a shotgun from twenty paces.
Alex understood her distress and pushed her the opposite direction of the gruesome scene.
"Go call for help," Alex ordered, before rushing in to try and help Minna and Genevieve remove the sword from Galiana's chest.
The detailed hilt swam through Evelyn's vision while she tried to make her feet move. She knew that hilt. Had seen it before. Thick and heavy, with ornate carvings in gold on the edges. A Templar's sword.
Could it be anything else?
Behind her, the door to the gray van opened with a bang. The sound ricocheted through the parking lot. Evelyn whipped a startled look behind her in time to see five men pour out from inside.
Another barreled around the end of the dumpster, running full tilt. Steel glimmered under the moonlight from the sword he carried in his hand.
Evelyn screamed and dropped her purse, leaving her hands free to grapple with the hulking man in black who reached her first. Teeth and fists clenched, she swallowed down the bile that rose in the back of her throat and battered him with impotent blows against the head and chest. He felt like a brick wall.
Immovable. Indestructible. Just as Templar Knights were supposed to be.
Genevieve confronted two of the attackers while another two darted around them for Alexandra and Minna. A sickening crack split the night when Genevieve kicked the side of one man's knee, forcing him to the ground with a howl of pain. The other attacker drew a sword with a hiss of steel and pointed the tip right at Genevieve's neck, effectively stopping her assault in its tracks.
It was the last thing Evelyn saw before something dark got yanked over her head, blinding her. She fought harder and sucked in another breath to scream. The chop of someone's hand against her throat stopped it cold. She choked and gagged, tears streaming from her eyes at the pain.
"Keep your mouth closed, or I'll close it for you. Permanently," a voice ground out near her ear.
He sounded vicious and cold as death.
Kicking wildly, she flailed, weakened by the vicious strike. Through the thick material of the hood, she heard Minna and Alex fighting for their lives. The men had the advantage in numbers and weapons.
Templars and their battle prowess with swords was legendary.
Hustled forward, she banged her knee against the metal of the van when the man tried to shoved her in. Hands wrenched behind her back, it was her chin that took the brunt of the fall. Impatient, he bodily lifted and tossed her inside, swarming in over her to secure her hands with plastic wrist cuffs.
Gasping and wheezing, feeling like her windpipe had been crushed, she struggled and tried to kick him. He felt like a giant anvil, pressing her down.
"Go, get out of here," the man said to the driver. The van door cracked closed, shutting out any sounds of a struggle. The vehicle lurched into motion, tearing through the parking lot and out into the streets.
Her cheek banged against the hard floor and she whimpered past the excruciating fire in her throat.
She wondered if she and her sisters would share Galiana's fate. After years of evasion, their nightmare had finally caught up to them again. Evelyn was surprised the Templars hadn't tried to kill her already. Of course they wouldn't though. Not until they had a chance to interrogate her.
Evelyn knew what they wanted. Besides her death, she knew what they sought. The same thing they had probably tried, and failed, to glean from her sister. Grief over the loss of her beloved sibling overwhelmed her. Sweet Galiana, gone.
The van sped through the city, taking so many sharp turns that Evelyn lost count. She couldn't tell what direction they were headed in. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even scream. Had no way to fight the bastards back. She wondered if her sisters were being summarily captured and driven to different locations or if some of them had been slaughtered where they stood.
Unthinkable.
Ten minutes later, at least by her warped estimation, the van came to a stop. Drug from the hard metal floor by her arms, she staggered onto the pavement, blind, mentally protesting the rough handling of her captor. Somewhere along the way, she'd lost a shoe. She staggered beside the Knight with a strange, hitching gait. Like a bug with a leg torn off. Dragging, scrambling, shuddering from one place to the next. He moved too fast for her to easily keep up.
A door creaked open and closed behind them. Footsteps, three pair besides her own, followed in their wake. They traded gruff whispers that she couldn't make out. Another door, a set of stairs leading down. Treacherous and steep, she pitched forward several times, saved by the grueling wrench of the man's hand on her elbow.
At the bottom, she sensed they were in a corridor below ground; their steps echoed off the walls and it was colder here than it had been outside. A confusing maze of twists ended when he pushed her across the threshold into a room. Fear took hold and she wrenched against his grip with a violent yank, using the foot with a stiletto still on to try and punch a hole through his shin.
Her scream got cut off when a sharp blow to her head made the whole world go black.
The rough material of her hood made it impossible to see when she surfaced from oblivion and tried to open her eyes. Abrasive and scratchy, the cloth made the skin of her cheeks and neck itch. There was an odd smell every time she breathed.
Old, stale. A little like smoke.
Slumped on a hard metal chair, she inched her posture into a straighter line. As the cobwebs started to clear, she realized her hands were still bound at the wrist and resting in her lap. The tingling in her feet felt like a thousand ants swarming over her skin. Through her toes, around the bones of her ankles. There didn't appear to be any rope securing her legs.
Silence, the kind found in crypts and graveyards, surrounded her. The oppressive weight of thick stone walls and a heavy ceiling felt cloying and confining. Enclosed spaces and Evelyn had never been good companions.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been out, or where her captors were. Her throat felt like it was packed with slivers of glass. Every time she swallowed it brought tears to her eyes. A throbbing pain made itself known on the back of her head. Pieces of memory came back one at a time, linked together in a haphazard string.
The club. Her sisters. Galiana.
Galiana. A small, choked sound of grief bubbled from dry lips.
"She's awake. Bring him in."
Startled by a gruff, deep voice, she stilled.
"Who's there?" Evelyn wanted to weep at the pain speaking caused.
A door, the hinges creaking and squeaking, opened. Footsteps led away, receding into the distance.
"Hello?" She tried again, testing the binds on her wrists. The plastic had been replaced by rope. It didn't give an inch.
She received no answer.
"I demand to know why I'm being held." To her own ears, she sounded less forceful than she'd intended. Of all the survival instincts kicking in the hardest, denial of who and what she was lurked at the top of the list. If she feigned ignorance, insisted she was only a normal, mortal woman that they'd mistakenly kidnapped, maybe they would eventually let her go.
Still no answer.
The door opened again and two sets of footsteps returned. Sensing someone approach, she recoiled, drawing her head and shoulders back. A suffocating, cloistered feeling made the hair on her nape stand on end. Whoever it was stood right in front of her. Looming.
"It has taken us a very long time to find you. Unfortunately, we had to kill your sister. The annoying little blonde. I hope her example inspires you to be more cooperative than she was," he said.
Evelyn couldn't place the voice. Male, deep and smooth with a hint of Italian accent. She tried not to have any outward reaction to the baiting he did with Galiana.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I have no sisters." Years of effortless lies made her reply sound sincere.
"Come now. We know what you are. We know who she was," he said with a cajoling lilt. A feverish, fanatical quality tempered the way he presented his information.
"What I am?" She injected confusion into her own question to make him think she didn't understand.
Unprepared for the blow to her cheek, she cried out, head snapping to the side. Blood filled her mouth and trickled down her chin under the hood. For a few terrifying moments, she feared she would choke on her own blood. Her throat felt that swollen.
"How many of you are left?" he asked.
Evelyn coughed, fighting through a stunned haze to concentrate. "I don't have any sisters," she repeated, bracing for another blow. Her back stiffened and her shoulders grew taut.
"Really. Then who were the women with you outside the club? The ones who fought back and escaped?"
When he didn't immediately strike her, she eased in her seat. Not for a second did she think the danger was past. She hid her relief to know that her sisters escaped. "Just friends."
"Friends who all bear the mark of the serpent?" With a quick, harsh yank, he snared her hands and lifted them like she might be able to see the small, black dots on the inside of her left wrist.
The mark of the serpent. It was the first time she'd ever heard them refer to the marks like that. Evelyn wondered if the Templars knew what it meant.
"That's an...old wound." Denial felt like the only advantage she had at the moment, if she could even consider it an advantage.
"An old wound that happens to be the same one the blonde had on the inside of her wrist. Do not lie to me!" He grabbed the back of the hood along with a fistful of hair and yanked her head back.
She yelped in surprise. Evelyn wanted to shrink away from his obvious hatred. This time, when he spoke, she could smell his breath through the cloth. An odd mix of liquor and mint.
"It is a mark of evil, and you, like the rest of your sisters, will be eradicated from the face of the earth."
"A mark of evil?" She didn't know what else to say except to echo him.
"From the serpent in the Garden of Eden. What a clever way for satan to spread the disease of corruption through millennium. One bite and you're tainted forever, blessed with immortality to do his bidding and cast the seed of evil far and wide. Clever, but not clever enough."
With righteous fervor, the Templar answered questions that had plagued Evelyn and her sisters for thousands of years. The 'snakebite' had been completely misconstrued and misunderstood by the Knights, used as a catalyst for the daughters own destruction, all probably under the assumption that the Templars would be saving the world. If she looked at the situation obliquely, she could almost see how they had come to their wrong conclusion. Unbeknownst to the Knights, their conjecture couldn't be further from the truth.
And she couldn't simply explain that the marks were reminders not to make the same mistakes once made by their parents; that meant admitting who she was, and what she was, and Evelyn was certain in that moment that the Templars wouldn't believe a word she said. They had subsisted for centuries believing and nurturing ideals of defeating evil, a noble cause, surely, and any argument from her wasn't likely to change that. All she had were vehement denials and urgent pleas of innocence.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I really don't." In her distress, she choked on the words. Fear made her skin prickle. Sweat slid down from her hairline and over the bone of her jaw.
"I expected no less from a daughter of Eve. Nothing but lies. I can do this for longer than you, I promise. And the rest of it will not be as pleasant." The hissing threat ended with a jerk of his fist in the hood and her hair. Then he released her.
Evelyn gasped, gagging on blood. She pushed the mouthful out over her lips rather than try to swallow it down.
Another pair of footsteps approached.
The muscles of her thighs tightened in anticipation of more violence, teeth clenching so hard her jaw ached. Her hands were picked up again and a pinky held in the vise of the man's fingers.
Instinctively, she tried to pull it out of his tight grasp. From behind, a second man reached over and braced her arm so the first could position something at the edge of her short nail.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to give you one last chance to tell me how many of you are left," the man in front of her said.
"Please, listen to me. I'm not whoever you think I am--" The dry state of her throat put a rasp on her words.
Without further warning, something thin and sharp slid under the nail of her pinky finger. She screamed, the sound rebounding off the walls. Part of the hood sank into her mouth when she sucked in another breath, cutting off a second scream. The sense of suffocation made her gag and twist in the seat. Anchored in place by both men, she arched in reaction to the burning pain shooting along her arm and into her elbow. It radiated out in waves, causing nausea to roll through her stomach. Dizzy, suffering from fear and claustrophobia, Evelyn tried again to get them to believe her.
"I don't have any sisters. It's just me. My dad never remarried after my mom died. I swear." She hated how the words clattered and shook when she spoke.
The first man, the one doing the torture, moved on to her ring finger. He held it trapped and pressed the tip of the sharp thing against her skin. Just enough to let her know it was there.
Evelyn swallowed. She needed water. Air. Space.
"How. Many. Of. You. Are. There?" He enunciated each word.
She knew in that moment that this was going to go on and on until she either passed out or died. Each finger, each hand, moving from this to battery to body part removal. Or something equally horrible. They weren't going to stop, and she wasn't going to give in. The Knights felt justified forcing confession from her, perhaps even felt justified with their torture.
Eradicating evil, as he'd put it, was serious business.
Faking unconsciousness wouldn't hold up under the pressure of their interrogation. A stab of an instrument in the right place would provide a telling reaction.
All she could do was endure until she slipped into unconsciousness for real.
To Evelyn's horror, she discovered they were adept at keeping her awake. Of bringing her back from the blessed brink of blackness that was her only escape. They used water and smelling salts to revive her, relentless in their pursuit of the truth. Relentless in their pursuit to break her.
Evelyn couldn't break. Wouldn't subject her sisters to this even if it meant her own death.
Soon, she knew, it would come to that.
Sometime during the following day, when she was rigid with pain and screaming the walls down, she felt the blackness swoop in and claim her. Time meant nothing in her dark world of flitting nightmares and hazy returns to consciousness. She couldn't focus on faces or voices or commands that they barked near her ears.
It was all distant. Dreamlike. Not a part of her reality. Once, after they'd removed the scratchy hood, she thought she glimpsed the tattoo of an iron cross between the shoulder blades of a Templar.
They all had them. Their own mark. A brand of power and loyalty.
The strong scent of urine and the taste of old blood in her mouth finally woke her. Someone trickled water past her lips. She could taste it mingling with the blood. Men moving forward and back through the room were blurry for long minutes until she squinted and brought them into focus. Four of them, all built like the warriors they were. Thick chested, broad shouldered, lean hipped. Dressed in casual, everyday clothes instead of white robes and red crosses.
But they were Templars, every one of them. Men with sharp, assessing eyes and grim expressions. Hands that had delivered more pain in a day than most people suffered in a lifetime.
Evelyn tried to assess the damage to her person; bloodied, abused fingers, a menagerie of burns, bruises and bumps and a raw split in her lip. Nothing felt broken. Fear crept through her system when she realized that if they didn't kill her soon, they would start to recognize the way her body healed the superficial injuries.
By tomorrow all the open wounds would be closed. The day after that, the burns would be just blushes and rosettes on her skin. Any fractures she might have suffered would be correctly healed. And on day three, there would be no sign of abuse at all. These were gifts from eating fruit off the Tree of Life. It was part of their immortality, what set them apart from the rest of humanity. Genevieve, Alexandra and Minna all had the same gift, given before they were cast out from Eden.
The dehydration she could do nothing about, and it would eventually kill her if they didn't continue to give her water. Healing ability aside, she could die like anyone else under the right circumstances. If she suffered mortal wounds or denied what the body needed to function (food, water, air), she would perish.
One of the men, her main torturer she presumed, broke off from where he murmured with the other three and approached. In his hand, he had a rolled up piece of parchment that he unfurled when he stopped before the chair. It was thicker and more pliable than modern paper with crinkles through the surface and faded drawings that looked like crude maps. She glanced up from the paper to the man's face. Hard, cold eyes. Tight, displeased mouth. Deep lines across weathered skin.
"We will start again. This time, you will correct the mistakes on this map. After that, you will tell me how many of you remain."
For a crazy moment, Evelyn wanted to scream. She wanted to rail and rant at this man for answers she could never give him.
Because she knew what that map led to, or where it was supposed to lead, and she wouldn't give up the location anymore than she would give up her sisters.
Day one had been almost more than she could bear. What pain would he bring for day two? She swallowed past the dryness in her throat and said nothing.
"So be it," he said, retreating to a tray of implements that he rolled closer to her chair.
She got a glimpse of sharp, shiny instruments and other, less familiar objects that looked old and frightening. Her mind conjured images and ideas in a rapid slideshow that left her weak and terrified.
"I can't tell you what I don't know." Her meek lie was met with a vicious backhand. Fresh blood pooled under her tongue. For a moment, her world was nothing but white noise.
"Today, you will tell me or you will start losing pieces of yourself faster than you can count them." He snatched a scalpel off the tray with a menacing gleam in his eyes.
"I told you I don't know. I don't know!"
Snaring her under the chin with one hand, he brought the scalpel right to the edge of her eye. "You didn't even blink at the map, which means you know exactly what it is and where it leads. Tell me. Tell me where to find Eden or I will carve out your eye, so help me."
With a sudden, violent crash, the door to the chamber burst open. The blade nicked the skin of her brow when the Templar spun around in surprise. Furious shouts and commands overlapped each other.
"Get on your knees!"
"Put the gun down!"
"Drop it---now!"
"I said, on your knees."
Evelyn twisted her wrists to try and loosen the ropes. She didn't know what was going on, but she wouldn't waste the opportunity to get her hands free. Dizzy and weak, the task proved difficult. The bonds were too tight.
"Don't make me tell you again."
The Knights, surly and growling, got on their knees.
It gave Evelyn a glimpse of the man who'd burst onto the scene. Over the heads of the Templars, she made sudden eye contact with a man taller than any of those in the room---which was saying something---and just as broad. Evelyn's first impression of him was a shocking one. He had a lion's mane of sandy blonde hair to his shoulders, a chiseled jaw, and the palest green eyes she'd ever seen. When he turned them on her, they were sharp and intense. Assessing. Dressed all in black, with a long sleeved shirt that fit high on the throat and snug across his torso, he made an imposing figure that she found it impossible to look away from.
"Move it or we're both dead." He gestured to her with the hand not holding the gun. Get up. Come here. Hurry.
She heard the unvoiced commands as clearly as if he'd said them aloud and lurched to her feet. Sometime between yesterday and now, she'd lost her other shoe. Barefoot, she shuffled around the kneeling Knights, leaving a wide berth between them, and made for the door.
"Stay close," he ordered when she was within reach. Sliding a hand around her upper arm, he escorted her out of the room with his gun leveled at the Knights, and then down the dark corridor. Like he expected there might be others.
There probably were. Evelyn suspected the numbers of the Templars ranked into the hundreds, at least. She stumbled once and he caught her against his side, letting her use his body to lean on. Over a thin layer of material, she felt the strain and flex of honed, hard sinew. Weakness and dizziness came in violent waves that she battled with every step.
"You! Stop!"
At the juncture of another corridor, someone called out from the far end.
The man at her side didn't even pause. He fired into the darkness and hustled her the other way with haste. Up a stairwell that she remembered coming down. Through a door he kicked open with a boot. Out into the night that disoriented her as much as the confusing hallways had. She couldn't get her bearings and had no time to.
He ushered her by the arm toward a car waiting at the curb, letting her go at the last second to open the door. "Get in."
Evelyn had no choice but to do what he asked. With pain screaming along her nerve endings she slid into the passenger seat. Out her window, she could make out the rising spire of what appeared to be a church. The stone walls were inset with arching panes of stained glass, the details lost with the darkness. The Knights had been keeping her in the basement or some other subterranean room. So far, none of them had burst out from the door to give chase.
After he got in, she glanced across the car. "Where are we going? Who are you?"
"Let me get us somewhere safe, and I'll explain."
Whoever he was, he had a pleasant, sandpapery voice and an efficient, no nonsense manner that made her want to trust him. Like he could handle anything and everything that came their way. Evelyn wasn't used to trusting anyone but her sisters and cautioned herself against her own instinct.
He set the gun on the console between them, started the engine, and reached over to fasten her seat belt. A moment later he pulled a knife from under his seat. It flashed sharp and silver and scared her half to death. Even as she twitched in shock he sliced through her binds and retreated. The blade disappeared with a sleight of hand move too fast to follow. He gave her a look that seemed to chide her for thinking he meant her harm after saving her.
Then he pulled the car into traffic. Black and sleek, the vehicle smelled new, a little like pine, and handled like a dream. When he took the corners too fast it hugged the road, growling like a panther after its prey.
Assaulted by his presence and the distinct, masculine scent that clung to his skin, she peeled the ropes off her red wrists and let them fall to the floor.
"How did you know where to find me?" She couldn't help herself. The questions came unbidden.
"Can you just...give me a minute? You'll get your answers soon enough." He glanced at her with mild impatience and took the next curve with a screech of tires, seeming to know his way through the streets of Athens without needing to consult a map. "You look like hell."
His blunt assessment would have struck her funny any other time. Just then, her warm, fuzzy feeling of safety and assurance was overridden by waspish irritation. "I was kidnapped and tortured. I'm pretty sure I have the right to look like hell."
"Do you have any idea why they kidnapped you?"
"I thought you couldn't answer questions right now?"
His sudden smile was all teeth. Checking the rearview and side mirrors with obsessive repetition, he said, "I'm not answering. I'm asking."
Evelyn exhaled loudly. "I have no idea--"
"Wait."
"I just thought you said you--"
"Hold on."
Evelyn saw that he wasn't referring to the awkward question and non-answer session but the light that had just turned red ahead. She pressed back in the seat in reaction, feet jamming down to the floorboards, hands flying out to the door and his arm. It was the first thing in reach to her left. Pain shot in several directions from the sudden contact with her damaged fingers.
He shot into the intersection doing about fifty.
Evelyn saw a flare of headlights coming from his side and was sure they were about to be broadsided. Probably flipped. She tried to scream and couldn't. Tires screeched, horns blared. By some miracle the two cars hurtling into the intersection at the same time missed them, spinning wild circles in the red wash of their taillights.
Evelyn glared at him.
"Are you trying to get us killed?"
"We're being followed. I had to push it. Will you let go of my arm?"
She snatched her hand away from his biceps and twisted around in the seat. Behind them, a tangle of cars blocked the thoroughfare. "How do you know for sure we're being followed?"
"Just trust me. They're back there." He stomped the gas coming out of another turn and sped through a residential area.
"I think you should take me to the U.S. Embassy. They can help me." She put her hands in her lap and faced forward. Bringing herself under the direct scrutiny of the officials there wasn't ideal, but it was better than being hunted for the rest of the night.
"Lady, I am the government. We'll be at the safe house in ten minutes."
Shocked, Evelyn glanced at him. He didn't look like any government official she'd ever seen. His hair was too long and his clothes were wrong. Didn't they wear suits? And how had he known about her down in the Templar's lair? Just what was a US government agent doing working in Athens?
A plethora of silent questions kept her busy until he swerved them them into a short drive that led to the back of a white-washed building. Two story, with dark windows and open shutters, the house looked like an upscale residence in a long row of them.
Using a remote attached to the visor, he opened the garage door. After it rolled up, he pulled the car inside. With a low drone and clink of chain, it closed once more.
He came around to open her door before she even had the seat belt off. It was a struggle with her abused, sore fingertips to undo the buckle. She needed a phone to try and get in touch with her sisters. Or a computer to check their private email account. Maybe there was a message waiting.
"Thanks." Repulsed by the fetid stench of her own clothes, she winced and got out of the car. She'd probably ruined his seats. Evelyn felt like a homeless person, shoeless and grimy, hair a tangled mess. The concrete was cold under her bare feet.
"Don't worry about it." He led her across the spacious garage to a door that he unlocked with a key he took from over the frame and went in first.
"Stay here until I secure both floors."
"I thought you said this was a 'safe house'?" she whispered.
After a quelling, silent look over his shoulder, he paced away into the shadows. Gun drawn, he kept the muzzle pointed toward the ceiling. He disappeared around a corner, gone from sight.
Evelyn waited there, too wary to defy him and go marching through the residence to find a restroom. From the small niche near the open door, she could see the edge of the kitchen and half of a dining room. Distant nightlights penetrated the gloom, casting vague circles of light over the tiled floor. Evelyn couldn't hear the agent moving around no matter how hard she listened. It was eerie. He loomed out of the shadows a few seconds later, startling her.
"It's clear. Why don't you go clean up. I know there are extra clothes in the closets upstairs so help yourself." He reached past her to close the door and snapped the bolt home.
Evelyn had her first uneasy moment. Government agent or not, they were alone in a strange place, on a strange night, with her fresh from kidnapping and torture. That he'd rescued her from it made little difference. Earlier in the car they'd been on the move with several options at their disposal. Now there was a silent, empty house and...him.
He arched a brow at the delay, silently asking her if there was a problem. This close, she could see the small scar at the edge of his left eyebrow and the beginning shadow of whiskers on his jaw.
"I don't even know your name. Can I see your credentials?" She felt a little ridiculous. What woman wouldn't at least ask to see them after what she'd been through, she argued with herself.
"Rhett." From the back pocket of his black jeans, he pulled a wallet and flipped it open. On one side was a gold badge with CIA Special Agent stamped on the front. A card decorated the other. Rhett Nichols, Central Intelligence Agency.
"Rh-ett?" She broke the syllable in half with an astonished laugh and examined the proof of his employment.
"Is there something wrong with it?" A stern frown creased his forehead. Closing the wallet with a snap, he pushed it back into his pocket.
"I---no. You just don't look like a Rhett."
"What do Rhetts look like?" He shifted his stance, putting more weight onto one leg than the other, gun pointed down against the outside of his thigh.
"It just doesn't fit you. Not really."
"Yes, because you've figured out everything about me after the whole twenty minutes we've known each other," he said with a caustic snort.
"You remind me of a Jeremy or a John or something." She couldn't explain why Rhett didn't seem to fit him. It just didn't.
"Well it's Rhett. Or Mister Nichols, if you prefer to stand on ceremony. What's yours?"
"Evelyn."
"Evelyn what?"
"Evelyn Grant."
"Nice. A grandmother's name."
All her ill subdued humor fled in favor of an inglorious, indignant snort. She drew her posture straighter though it cost her in pain. "It's not a grandmother's name. It's..."
"Dated. Overused. Brings to mind gray helmet hair and--"
"I do not have helmet hair!"
"No, you have a rat's nest," he said, staring at her hair.
Self conscious, she lifted a hand and smoothed a palm over the disheveled mess. Dry, matted blood covered the tender lump where the Knight had pistol whipped her. If she was honest, helmet hair would have been an improvement. Combined with her wrecked dress, grimy skin and multitude of bruises, she knew she looked a fright.
"Ugh." Using Alexandra's inelegant grunt as dismissal of the subject, she stepped around him and stalked deeper into the house. Evelyn knew, knew that if she turned around, she'd find him grinning. He'd effectively turned the tables and given her a taste of her own medicine.
The hallway broke open into a large, airy kitchen connected to an equally airy living room. Enormous floor to ceiling windows lined the whole front wall; beyond, the Mediterranean glittered where moonlight reflected off the surface. She thought the view must be spectacular during the daytime. Furniture, in shades of cocoa, cream and deep red, looked new and clean.
A broad staircase led up to the second floor and, suddenly weary, she trudged up them. Each of the four bedrooms had its own bathroom, large beds and simplistic décor that complimented the classic design.
Picking one with a baby blue and cream theme, she examined the clothes in the closet, finding a surprisingly large selection of sizes and styles. She guessed they never knew whether they were bringing in men or women or whole families and tried to supply something for everyone. There were even two board games on the top shelf next to a doll and a Nerf football.
Something soft and gauzy in a shade of barely-there pink drew her fingers to the hanger. The dress reminded her of something Galiana might wear. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks while she let the material slide over her knuckles. Grief took up residence in her chest, a great monster of emotion she was forced to subdue. If she allowed it to overwhelm her, she wouldn't be able to function.
Too nervous to linger long in the shower, she washed away the grime of captivity with strawberry scented soap and stepped out four minutes later feeling like a new person. Considering her injuries and wounds, that was an achievement.
Finding an extra wastebasket liner under the sink, she put the wad of ruined clothes inside and tied off the top to keep the smell contained. Drawing on a pair of jeans that almost fit and a cap sleeved shirt the color of plums, she faced the foggy mirror and used the side of her hand to smudge a swath to see by.
Her face was an atrocious mess. One side looked lumpy and purple. A split that felt as wide as the grand canyon in her lower lip bled off and on around a scab. She tongued it and winced. The ends of her fingers looked like raw meat and burned even when she wasn't touching them. Red rings circled her wrists from the scratchy rope and hand-print bruises marched up her arms.
Tomorrow there would be notable improvements. She wondered how to hide them from Rhett. Maybe she wouldn't be in his company then, and it wouldn't matter.
Drawing on a pair of tennis shoes that were a little snug for her liking, she left the bedroom and went downstairs.
Rhett stood in front of the tall windows, hand on his hip, a phone at his ear.
What a strange situation Evelyn found herself in. Did she stay? Go? It wasn't like he was keeping her prisoner here. On the other hand, government agents usually had connections and he might be able to get her and her sisters---if they were still alive---out of the country faster if they thought they were in danger. It didn't hurt to have an extra pair of eyes and ears working on her behalf for the night, either.
"Just find out what you can. All right." He snapped the phone closed and turned to face her. "Feeling better? There's coffee or tea if you want some."
Evelyn stood at the counter separating the kitchen from the living room. The addition of a shoulder holster and another gun kept her attention on his torso even after he asked his question. He looked ready for action. She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or unnerved. At least her mood had improved and she replied without sounding annoyed.
"I can't stand tea, but coffee sounds divine. I'll make it." Evelyn, far from helpless, wanted to be busy. Stepping behind the counter, she fished around for supplies, taking care not to bump her hands. "And you can tell me how you found me while I do it."
"We were staking out another situation, actually, when my partner and I heard screaming further along the parking lot," he said, coming into the kitchen.
"So you were there by accident?" She fumbled the box of instant coffee when he invaded her personal space and plucked up one of her hands.
"A stakeout isn't an accident. We just weren't there for you." He assessed the wounds to the ends of her fingers like a field doctor. Clinical and experienced.
"If you were already in the parking lot, then how did they get away with me?" She had to set down the instant coffee and fill a mug all with her other hand. "What are you doing?"
"Well, since I didn't see the whole thing, I can't answer that. What we saw from our vantage was what looked like a kidnapping in progress, so we ran back to get our car. I managed to get the numbers off the plates of the van before we lost it. We tracked it down and discovered where they were keeping you." He let go and cupped her chin, turning it an inch one way and an inch the other. Looking right at her mouth.
Evelyn, disconcerted by the warmth of his skin and his size, sloshed water onto the counter. She managed to get the mug into the microwave and remove her chin from his grip. "But if you knew they'd kidnapped me, then why didn't you arrest them? We wouldn't be on the run right now---do you mind? My lip is fine."
"Because, Miss Grant, we didn't get the information until right before I grabbed you. I was alone, we didn't know how many of them there were, or even who they were, or what kind of weapons they might have. I heard shouting and didn't want to wait to extract you. Might have been too late if we'd pulled back and come in a few hours later, armed with warrants." He spoke matter-of-factly, and added, "It's bleeding."
Evelyn didn't want to think what shape she might be in if they'd waited. Her initial disappointment in what she considered a flaw in their strategy vanished. Desperate for information about her sisters, and to distract him from his concern over her well being, she asked, "I'll live. What about...the girl they killed?"
Rhett arched his brows. He leaned against the counter right next to her and crossed his arms over his chest. "We're trying to identify her. She didn't have any identification at the scene, although we did find a small purse that apparently belonged to you."
Discussing Galiana's death was surreal. Unbelievable. Painful. After adding a scoop of hazelnut crystals, she stirred and took a cautious sip to steady herself. "She was a friend of mine. Galiana Jenkins. We were supposed to meet her there but she never showed up." As an afterthought, she added, "I'd really like my things back."
"Sure, sure. You'll get your belongings. Who is 'we'?"
"My other friends and I. We all met here to vacation together. I'm not sure what happened to the other three." Evelyn watched his expression to see if he knew more than he was telling about the fate of her sisters. He looked perplexed.
"There weren't any other bodies. Forensics hasn't come back with the results of the blood we found yet, so we won't know if it's all Miss Jenkins or not. How many of you were there?" Leaning up, he scratched at the vague layer of whiskers on his jaw.
"Four, not including Galiana." Evelyn watched his hand instead of his eyes.
"I'll see what else I can find out. Did they say what they wanted with you?"
"Not really. They thought I was someone else."
"Who?"
"Someone with sisters. I don't have any." Evelyn tread carefully, sipping at the coffee between answers to buy herself time to think.
"Did they say any names, specifically?"
"No. He just kept saying he knew who I was and that he wanted to know where my sisters were."
"Do you think they planned to kill you?"
The cup rattled against the counter when she set it down. She couldn't meet his eyes. Most of what she'd told him was truth, with a lot of other detail omitted.
"Yes. What do we do now? I mean, what's the plan? Do you even have jurisdiction here?"
"I think we sit tight until some results and information start rolling in. We're trying to find out who they are. You can try calling your friends to see if they're okay or whether we need to be looking for more missing persons. Don't worry about jurisdiction---we have special clearance to be working here."
She wasn't used to leaning on other people in times of crisis. Usually it was just she and her sisters, dealing with the fallout. Evelyn didn't know whether to walk out on Rhett Nichols or stay here until she knew what was going on. The benefits of staying, for now, outweighed her going it alone. He had weapons, seemed capable, and was trying to help her find her siblings. Sometime soon, she was going to pass out from sheer exhaustion whether she wanted to or not and the thought of doing that with no one to watch over her unnerved her.
The very last thing she wanted to do was wind up back in the hands of the Templars.
"Okay. Can I borrow your phone? I'll try and get in touch with my friends." She set down the coffee when he dug the phone out of his pocket and offered it over. Their hands brushed when she took it. Evelyn smiled her thanks and stepped away toward the tall, broad windows. Being a government agent, he could very easily have her calls traced, and giving him access to her sister's phone numbers was dangerous. But she also knew that he could find them just as easy with a simple search once he had their names, and in her mind, it was more important to try and make contact than not.
On every try, she got answering machines. Genevieve, Minna, Alexandra. They could have lost their phones, like she had. Alexandra didn't always carry it with her when they went out. The ominous whisper in her ear that something more sinister happened forced Evelyn to consider leaving them messages even if she didn't want them contacting Rhett without her knowledge. There were too many secrets to keep.
"I'm not reaching any of them. Do you think we can get our luggage from the hotel we were staying at? I know one of them left her phone behind that night." Evelyn decided not to leave any voicemail. She laid his cell next to his elbow and dumped the remains of the coffee in the sink, not as thirsty for it as she'd thought. Her lip throbbed, exacerbated every time she set the rim of the cup there. The steamy brew wasn't worth irritating her wound.
"Yeah, but I think you should give me the information and let us retrieve it. Whoever these people are, they might be watching your room. In fact, I'd count on it." He pushed his hands into his pockets, looking thoughtful.
"The sooner the better then. At least I'll have my own clothes." What she wanted was Alexandra's netbook. If the girls were safe, they would leave emails with a private account they had set up for this very reason.
On the counter she found a small pad and a pen. With quick strokes in slanting script, she wrote down the pertinent details: Aphrodite Hotel. Evelyn Grant. Room 220.
"We'll have it by morning. Maybe you should try and get some rest."
"I think I will." Leaving the pad on the counter, she straightened and made eye contact with him. After a brief hesitation, she added, "Thanks for your help, Mister Nichols."
"Just doing my job. You're welcome." He nodded once, never looking away from her face.
His intensity made her skin prickle.
Bone weary, Evelyn trudged up the stairs. Entering the gloomy bedroom she'd chosen for her own, she questioned again the wisdom of spending a night in a strange house, in a strange bed, with a strange man playing guardian below. What did she really know about Rhett Nichols anyway, besides that he was a government agent who happened to be in the right place at the right time?
Not much.
Not much at all.
Except that he had risked his life to extricate her from that subterranean hell. Any normal person in her position would likely cling to whatever kind of help they could get. How suspicious would it seem if she kept trying to deflect him? Probably suspicious enough to make him start digging deeper.
Alexandra, talented in the hacking department, could only cover their tracks so far. A determined person, with the right access, would start to uncover anomalies with enough research.
Ten minutes after stretching out on the bed, fully clothed, she went out like a light.
The firm pressure of a hand over her mouth jerked Evelyn awake. A body loomed above her, so close she could feel its breath on her cheek. Slow to adjust to the pitch black state of the bedroom, Evelyn couldn't see who it was. It didn't matter; she struck out with a fist and twisted under the hulking shadow. The blow glanced off a muscled shoulder.
Somehow, the Templars had found her. Fear licked sharp and hot along her spine.
"Shhh. Miss Grant. It's me." Rhett used his body to pin her to the mattress. Strong, firm, but not rough. He whispered, "Someone's in the house."
Sudden understanding replaced the fight or flight instinct; he was there to help her. She stilled, fingers gripping his arm so hard fresh pain shot up her wrists and forearms. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw him staring at her so they could communicate without speaking. Intent, his eyes bored into hers, face tense. She nodded.
He drew back with slow precision, switched his hand from her mouth to her arm, and helped her off the bed. Rhett moved like a predatory animal, sleek and controlled, drawing her with him to the wall. He pressed his back flush and gave her a look that expected her to do the same. She needed no second bidding. Any remaining cobwebs of sleep were seared away by terror, leaving her hyper-aware and alert.
He stopped at the edge of the door frame. Gun leveled upward at his side, he peered around the corner into the hallway. When he rounded out of the bedroom, Evelyn crept after him. Right on his heels. There were two doorways they needed to pass before hitting the top of the staircase. Faint illumination spilled forth from each, creating a rectangular glow. Rhett paused before the first, listening.
Evelyn paused, too, and held her breath. The house was deathly quiet. She understood his signal to stay against the wall while he cleared the room. It wasn't an optimal situation, staying in the hallway, but it was riskier to bypass the room without checking and leave their backs exposed. Even she knew that.
He swerved with the gun raised and went in fast. Evelyn pressed her spine and palms flat against the wall. Motion through the spindles on the banister snapped her gaze to a black shadow creeping up the staircase. Rising parallel to the hall, he didn't have a clear vantage of her position.
Panic seized her. She didn't know if she should scream, follow Rhett into the room, or wait for him to return. The man stalked up another handful of stairs. Any second he was going to hit the landing and see her. Faced with a situation she couldn't control, forced to confront her nemesis and her psychological fear, Evelyn fought down nausea while gathering herself for action.
She could do this.
A decorative vase filled with Pampass grass sat on the floor five feet away. It was much heavier than she thought when she crept over and picked it up. Pain burned up her fingers, into her wrists. Adrenaline motivated her and she hurled it over the railing with a war cry, aiming for the assailant's head. She sought to catch the intruder off guard, with any luck, before he took whatever small advantage she had away from her.
The vase crashed off the arm the man threw up to protect his head. He must have lost his balance because she watched his gun go flying when he pitched backwards, grasping for the banister. In the frozen second when Evelyn wondered whether she had the guts to go for the gun, Rhett swooped in, took stock of it all in a heartbeat, and hauled her back into the room he'd just left with an arm around her waist. With the back of a boot, he slammed the door closed. Without wasting time on questions, he bulled a heavy dresser across the floor and tipped it into the door, denting the wood.
"The window!" he whispered.
She hated how time seemed to slow down, how her footsteps felt mired in sludge. The eleven feet to the window might as well have been eleven miles. Shoving the sheer curtains aside, she fumbled for the latch. The house, a newer model, thankfully had an easy sash to lift. It slid up with a hiss.
Like she was some kind of action hero, she kicked out the screen. Moonlight gleamed off the terracotta tiles that sloped down the short section of roof. Evelyn went out head first, scrambling through the window frame, grasping onto anything she could to keep herself from falling. The tiles were more slippery than she thought they would be. The lower half of her body slid around, stretching her out, leaving her facing the window again on her stomach.
Not realizing Rhett was right behind her, she gasped when he grabbed her wrist. Holding his glittering gaze, her legs fell over the side of the roof and dangled there. She glanced back and down to the narrow lane of sand between the house and the fence, gauging the distance. At least the sand would probably help break her fall.
"Wait for me." Just as Rhett whispered and released her, the sound of muffled gunshots came from the room behind him.
Evelyn let go and landed with a grunt, falling back on her butt. Immediately, she looked left and right for other skulking shapes in the night. She saw none.
Rhett hurtled down like a cat, feet first, and sprang upright with much more balance than she had. When he grabbed for her hand she clapped it into his, biting off a yelp of pain, and lurched to her feet. Running, they came to the side door leading into the garage. Rhett didn't hesitate. With a vicious kick, he shattered the lock and the door slammed inward. He entered in a shooter's stance, gun swiveling left and right in the gloom.
"Get in the car." Terse and short, he let her go to get in the driver's side.
Running around the front, sure that the intruder would burst into the garage any second, she yanked at the passenger door and fell into the seat. The ends of her fingers throbbed from the abuse she'd put them through.
Rhett started the car and depressed the button on the remote to roll the garage door up. He set the gun across his lap. Reversing at high speed, he backed into the wide alley that ran along the back of all the residences.
Evelyn screamed when a bullet punched through the windshield.
"Get down!" Rhett bellowed. Twisted at the waist, he braced his arm on her seat, looking backwards, and flew in reverse down the alley.
A hail of gunshots pinged off the car; glass cracked, threatened to shatter.
Evelyn hugged the console, hands over her head. Something hard and plastic dug into her ribs.
At a juncture for one of the other homes, Rhett stomped the gas and shot them forward onto the street.
Evelyn sat up, panting. Shaking. "Was that them? How did they find us? I thought that was a safe house?"
"Hell if I know." Rhett looked annoyed and unhappy. Picking up the gun, he tucked it into the shoulder holster. "I need to get in touch with my boss. We're going to meet up with my partner and leave Athens."
"Leave Athens? But what about my...friends?" She barely curtailed the impulse to call them her sisters. The thought of leaving them sat ill with her.
"They'd be wise to leave Athens, too. Since you can't get in contact with them yet, let's hope they stay low."
"Where are we going?"
"Cairo. It's busy and I have contacts there. Maybe these bastards won't be expecting you to leave the country so soon and won't be watching the docks."
"The docks?" Evelyn watched Rhett instead of the road.
"We'll take a boat over. They could be watching the airport for all I know and I don't want to draw attention to our movements."
"How do you know they're not following us?"
"I don't." He dug his phone out, pressed a button, and put it to his ear. After a moment, he said, "Christian, it's me. They found us. Yeah. We're on the road, heading toward the docks. Meet us as soon as you can. You know where."
Pushing her hair out of her face, Evelyn looked out the window. The hour was late enough for the traffic to run thin on the street and most of the lights they drove through were green. She felt like there was no time to really stop and think. No time to assess her options. She couldn't even consult with her sisters.
Before the start of the Crusades, there had been fourteen daughters of Eve still alive out of the twenty-two their mother gave birth to. Fourteen women skilled in the ways of survival and adaptation. In the very beginning they had only known Eden, that lush, pristine place of surreal beauty and peace. Cast out after the Incident (as Evelyn liked to refer to it), the children of Adam and Eve adjusted to the raw terrain of the earth. They learned to acclimate with each decade that passed, some becoming excellent farmers, others starting societies that would grow and expand through the centuries. The girls had seen endless cycles of evolution, had personally witnessed the death of Jesus, watched invasions and wars and the rise and fall of the greatest empires on earth.
Nothing could have prepared them for the assault they suffered at the hands of the Knights Templar. They hadn't even known they were being hunted until one of the sisters managed to escape and tell the tale of torture and interrogation. The Templars wanted a radical cleansing, a systematic purge. They wanted all the daughters dead.
Evelyn had never understood how the Church could condone such heinous acts and atrocities. But the Templars took their orders directly and thus, the sisters had no alternative than to believe they'd been targeted. Perhaps it was the reason the Knight who had interrogated her gave; the daughters were suspected to be passing evil across the earth. Servants of the serpent.
The first murder---because that's what it was in Evelyn's mind---happened not long after the siege on Jerusalem by Saladin. Eurijah, with her exotically dark skin and sparkling, dark eyes, had been found dead in her humble cottage. Signs of torture riddled her body.
Once living communally in the same city, the sisters scattered to the winds with a plan to meet up in the one place the Templars were unlikely to ever find them: Eden. It became their safe haven, the one place they knew the Knights couldn't follow them into. And so, year after year, they made a pilgrimage to meet there. Over time, when the space between deaths expanded to decades and centuries, they banded together again.
"You okay?" Rhett asked.
Drawn out of her reverie, she glanced over. "I just don't want anyone else to die."
The fifteen minute drive to the docks passed without incident. Rhett made two more calls to set up transportation across the Mediterranean and one to his boss. Evelyn listened while she stared out her window, arms protectively crossed over her middle. She half expected men to start running from shadows whenever they stopped at a red light and the tension gave her a headache. The bullet holes in the windshield were a constant reminder of the danger.
At the docks, Rhett parked the car and reached into the back for a jacket. As they got out, he pulled it on over the holster, both guns tucked into their sheaths. He scanned the area in quick glances, on the lookout for trouble. Evelyn had nothing but the clothes she'd worn to sleep in. The temperate weather allowed her to go without a coat and not be uncomfortable.
Feeling strangely vulnerable, she met Rhett at the front of the car. The vehicle looked like they'd just been through a minor war zone. More bullet holes riddled the wheel wells and hood. She thought they'd been lucky not to get hit.
The sensation of being hunted by unseen things in the night made her crowd closer to Rhett. She hated not knowing where or when someone might strike.
He led her along the swaying dock past anchored boats and bigger yachts, some with low running lights outlining their shape. Water lapped lazily against the hulls, a deceptively soothing sound that might have lulled her into complacence if they hadn't just been shot at.
Rhett stopped in front of one with tiny blue lights affixed to the decking. "Aristo?"
She stood beside him, glancing warily up and down the dock. It seemed empty of everyone but them.
The yacht, with the name Selena Marie scripted on the side, had three decks and appeared well kept. It gave Evelyn the impression of comfort and speed rather than bloated luxury. Blue and white striped deck chairs lined up near a table with an umbrella that had been closed and tied off. Smoked glass sat beyond that, hiding any inner layout and décor from view.
A dark haired man, buttoning his shirt with haste, pushed through one of the glass doors. He blinked in a way that made her think he'd just tumbled out of bed.
"Mister Nichols. Ma'a--" Aristo cut his greeting short when he saw Evelyn's battered state.
Even in the dark, she knew her bruises were easy to see.
"I need you to take us to Cairo," Rhett said, ignoring the man's reaction. "Christian should be here any minute. This is Miss Grant. Evelyn, Aristo."
Evelyn smiled a tentative greeting. Aristo speared a hand through his thinning hair and bobbed a polite nod. He reminded her of a bird; tall, thin, somewhat angular, with a hook in his nose and overly prominent features. Countless hours under the sun had baked his skin into something of a mahogany hue.
He gestured for them to board the yacht.
Rhett helped her onto the lowest deck while keeping a sharp eye on the night around them. She noticed he grimaced twice and questioned him when he hopped aboard behind her.
"What's wrong? Is someone out there?" She felt like her words echoed over the water even though she whispered.
"I don't think so." With a hand guiding her at the low back, he urged her past the lounge chairs and in through the glass doors.
Done in a black and white theme, the spacious parlor sported couches arranged in a square. Striped pillows adorned the cushions and swags of alternating material covered the ceiling. Warm yellow light glowed from miniature lamps and several original looking paintings lined the wood paneled walls. Glass made up one wall by itself, overlooking the lowest deck and part of the dock. It was more lavish than she would have guessed.
Rhett stalked to a wet bar set up in the corner and fished around the cooler for water. He brought her a bottle and had one in hand for himself.
She noticed a streak of red on the plastic and raised it for a better look. Frowning, she asked, "Is that...blood?"
"Don't worry about it." He cracked the cap off his water and tipped his head back for a long drink.
"What do you mean---is it yours?" Her gaze snapped from the bottle to Rhett. He looked like he always did in the short time she'd known him. Strong, whole, hale.
After he swallowed, he met her eyes. "We'll be leaving the second Christian gets here."
There was another streak on his bottle. Evelyn's eyes narrowed. "You're bleeding. Where?"
"I just said it's fine." Capping the bottle, he turned away and set it on the short, glossy counter. When he stretched his arm, it pulled the coat open just enough for the light to glisten off a damp spot on his shirt.
She tugged the edge of the jacket aside to get a better look. A swatch just above his hip stuck to his skin. A tear in the material exposed an oozing wound.
"Oh my God. You've been shot." She felt a stab of instant guilt. He'd gotten this because of her.
"It's just a graze. No need to think twice about it." Rhett brushed the injury off like it was nothing.
Evelyn didn't let him off that easy. "I'm sure Aristo has a first aid kit--"
"I don't need anything--"
"Stop interrupting me. Yes you do. It'll get infected and if you don't peel the shirt away, it'll dry like that and then you'll have to rip it off."
She set down her water. Snagging the top of his jacket, she peeled it off his shoulders and down his arms. He exhaled in exasperation but allowed her to do it. Maybe he realized she wouldn't leave it alone until he caved to her demands. Tossing the coat over the bar, she went around behind it to search for a kit. Barring that there was whiskey. At least it would clean the wound.
"Take off your shirt," she ordered.
Rhett arched his brows. "You don't need to be so push--"
"Take off your shirt."
The holster slid down his arms first, and he put that on the floor. Then he stripped the snug shirt up over his head. It smeared small stripes of blood across the hard plane of his stomach and up his side toward his armpit. "If you wanted to see me half naked, you could have just asked."
Evelyn, minutely distracted by his physique, found a first aid kit in a lower cabinet and brought it with her around the bar. Setting it on one of four stools, she opened it and took out the antiseptic and a folded wad of gauze.
"I'm not green, Mister Nichols. I've seen many half naked men, most of them in better shape than you." It wasn't true and it galled her when he scoffed.
"How many? And I'm not talking about trips to the beach. That doesn't count. I'm talking personal, one on one encounters."
He hissed when she dabbed the moist cloth against the wound. She dabbed it again.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked through clenched teeth.
Hunched over at his side, she glanced up. "You'll thank me when this doesn't fester and get infected. And I don't keep a tally. Enough to know that yours isn't something special." Another neat lie. Rhett inspired her in ways a man hadn't in a long time.
"You really know how to kill a man's ego," he said with just enough droll sarcasm to suggest his ego wasn't anywhere near threatened.
She laughed because she couldn't not respond to the gleam in his eyes and the tone of his voice. "Would you rather have me starry eyed and stuttering?"
"Yes," he said without one second of hesitation. "You didn't answer the question."
"What question?"
"Are you enjoying yourself?"
His back, broad and powerful with sinew flexing under the skin, also had several streaks of blood that she cleaned. The graze of the bullet had been just deep enough to make quite a mess. Evelyn didn't realize she'd automatically checked for an iron cross between his shoulder blades until she found herself staring at it. There was nothing but smooth flesh. No ink, no tattoo. He had none anywhere that she could see.
"Of course I'm not enjoying myself. You could have been killed." The thought upset her more than she wanted to admit. Evelyn didn't want people dying to save her.
"I knew what the dangers of this job were long before I got into it, Miss Grant."
She straightened and found a fresh bandage from the kit. "Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I want to see you die."
"Go and get yourself shot, Rhett?" a voice said from the direction of the glass doors.
Evelyn whipped a look over at the man standing there watching them. Shorter than Rhett by an inch or two, with a slightly leaner build and ink black hair, he wore a dark suit and blue patterned tie. His eyes, also blue, surveyed the situation with sharp attention. He carried two bags; a black duffel and a grocery-store variety with the top rolled closed. Like Aristo, he did a double take at the black and blue bruises on her face.
She finished putting the bandage over the injury and gathered the bloodied gauze. Taking it behind the bar, she threw it into the trash and washed her hands in the tiny sink.
"Just a graze. This is Miss Grant. Miss Grant, this is my partner, Christian," Rhett said, gesturing between them.
Christian walked over when she came out from behind the counter and offered his hand. "Nice to meet you."
Evelyn shook it, making eye contact for a brief moment. "Nice to meet you Mister---Christian."
"Miss Grant. I believe this belongs to you." He took a small, glossy black clutch from the brown bag and handed it over.
In all the chaos, she'd almost forgotten they'd retrieved it from the abduction scene. Evelyn took the purse and worked the clasp until it popped open. Inside were all her belongings: I.D, two credit cards, cell phone and a small bit of cash hooked together by a silver clip. The purse wasn't big enough to hold a traditional wallet.
"Thank you. I didn't think I'd see this again."
"We're trying to extract your luggage from the hotel. When we get it, we'll have it sent to Cairo," Christian said.
"That's great, thank you. I'm going to see if I can contact my friends." She glanced between the agents and stepped away with her phone in hand. Anxious to get in touch, she pressed the number for Genevieve's phone. Out the glass windows, she saw they had already pulled away from the docks and were cruising at a low speed through the harbor, headed for open water. Another stab of guilt swept through her when she realized she hadn't even had a chance to arrange a funeral for Galiana.
Each phone she dialed went straight to voicemail. Frustrated, she left messages on each one with instructions not to return to the hotel under any circumstances. Instinct prevented her from saying where she was headed. She knew she didn't have to tell them to check their email account and as soon as she had access to a computer, she'd leave a message there as well.
Evelyn watched the glittering coastline of Greece recede as the yacht picked up speed.
The cabin on board the Selena Marie wasn't as small as Evelyn thought it would be. Situated on the second deck, it had a full bed, a dresser and nightstand, and its own bathroom through a rather narrow door. All the furnishings were newer and clean with a modern flare to the design.
With just a few hours until sunrise, Rhett had urged her to rest. While it was still dark, and while he and Christian patrolled the decks of the yacht. Isolated on the boat crossing the Mediterranean, they were about as safe as they were likely to get.
Still, she couldn't bring herself to take off her shoes when she laid on the bed. Closing her eyes for longer than a few minutes at a time proved difficult. Tension that she'd stored in her system unraveled slowly, like honey through a sieve, pooling in the pit of her belly.
Running the pad of her thumb across her fingertips, she discovered that they didn't hurt quite as bad as they had earlier. The tingling and swelling had diminished a little. By tomorrow, there would only be minor puffiness and red skin. If she could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, the process would go faster.
She considered covering her hands and then decided against it. That might draw more attention to the issue than if she just went on as normal. She couldn't do anything about her face and hoped the speed of her recovery would be overlooked. By the morning, her bruises should be less stark and the split in her lip would be a sliver of a scab instead of a fat one.
After a half hour of tossing restlessly, she got up and wandered into the corridor. There were four other bedrooms on the yacht; two of them were on the same deck as her own. When she passed an open doorway, she saw Rhett's duffel bag sitting on the end of the bed. A small lamp---really nothing more luminous than a nightlight---had been left on in apparent anticipation of his return.
An intense curiosity about the man who'd risked his life twice to save her drew her into the room toward the duffel bag. She knew she shouldn't look. Shouldn't invade his privacy. The corridor had been empty though and she didn't think Rhett or Christian would be down here any time soon.
No one would be the wiser for her snooping.
The zipper slithered along the teeth with a quiet hiss. Peeling the edges of the bag apart, her first sensation was the scent of him. It lingered on the folded layers of jeans, t-shirts and boxers she sifted through. Under those was another, smaller leather bag, a laptop and two more guns. Several clips of ammunition lined the bottom. Between two thin, ribbed sweaters, she found a handful of passports. She picked up the top one and opened it.
Rhett Nichols. Thirty-four years old. Hometown: Twenty-nine Palms, California. She remembered seeing the name of the city on a map once upon a time.
"Find what you're looking for?" Rhett asked from the doorway.
Startled, she yelped and dropped his passport so she could cover her thundering heart with her hand. When they locked gazes, she expected to see him scowling or frowning. Instead, he wore an unreadable expression that she found almost more disconcerting than if he'd just been annoyed or angry with her.
"I'm sorry. I was just--"
"Snooping," he concluded for her. "What did you expect to find?"
Shuffling in place, she lifted a shoulder. "I don't really know. I was just curious about you, I guess. I didn't mean any harm by it."
"Maybe you should ask me what you want to know."
Sheepish, she bent to pick up his passport off the floor and dropped it back into the bag. Patting the clothes down, she zipped the duffel closed. Evelyn could hardly believe she'd just been caught going through his personal things red handed.
"It was just general curiosity. I mean, you've risked your life for me twice."
"That's what government agents do, Miss Grant. I think I said something to that effect earlier."
An awkward moment stretched into two. She wasn't sure what passed between them just then, but the low curve of a smile that crept over his mouth reassured her that she hadn't offended him too badly.
"Try and get some rest while you can," he said, and turned to stalk away down the corridor.
Evelyn clapped a hand over her forehead. What the hell had she been thinking? In all the years she'd dated men, she'd never been caught going through their things. Then again, come to think of it, she'd never had a reason or the urge to do so before.
Back in her own stateroom, she sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated taking off her shoes. Four or five hours rest would do her good. She couldn't quite shake the hunted feeling though and in the end, she flopped back, one arm over her forehead, shoes still on her feet. Cautiousness had served her well at the safe house that hadn't been so safe at all.
Evelyn wondered how the Templars had found her. Found them. Myriad scenarios ran through her mind while she stared at the ceiling. None of them were especially pleasing. Phone taps, a tail on the car. A satellite bead? She couldn't be sure just how much paranoia was too much in a situation like this. The Templars had extensive backing and resources. All the sisters had known that for hundreds of years.
During the crusades, the Knights had been able to move between countries unfettered and unhindered. Whatever mission they were on, they were allowed to go about their business without question. She doubted much had changed over the centuries. Their technology and ability to find what they wanted had only improved exponentially with the advent of computers and lightning fast communication.
The girls had adjusted as well as they were able to. Alexandra, to help give them some kind of advantage, had become an expert in computers and could hack her way into just about any database in the world. It was how they changed names and identification and photos and backgrounds. Without it, Evelyn knew their chances of successfully staying free for any length of time were slim to none.
A distinct beep interrupted her inner monologue. Sitting up, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for the cell phone she'd left on the nightstand. When the screen lit up, she saw the small text icon and thumbed it so the message would open. It must be her sisters.
Finally. An answer and contact.
Enjoy your temporary freedom. There won't be any escape the next time.
Evelyn's eyes widened. She checked the sender: Unknown.
A dizzy spell struck when she realized the Knights had somehow discovered her cell phone number. It wasn't on any block lists, so they'd probably searched some internet directory and eventually discovered which Evelyn Grant was her.
Lurching up off the bed, she ran out into the corridor and down the stairs to the lowest deck. Dark water stretched for miles in every direction. A curling, salty breeze drifted across her skin while she glanced wildly around for Rhett. She didn't see him and immediately wondered if the Knights had somehow boarded the yacht between the time she'd seen him and now. The paranoia ran thick and deep.
"Rhett!" Panic infused her voice. Every sense on alert, she gripped the cell phone so hard that it left imprints on her palms. Distantly, she was aware that even after knowing him only a short time, it was Rhett she wanted close by. He had successfully extracted her from two dangerous situations and it only exacerbated the secure feeling she had in his presence.
One after the other, Rhett and Christian came running from different parts of the boat; Rhett, gun drawn, hurtled down the stairs from the top deck and Christian did the same but from along the side of the yacht.
"What is it?" Rhett asked, voice tense. He walked right up to her, checking in every direction for a threat.
Christian flanked them, darting looks around the water. Everywhere.
"They sent me a text. I think they know where we are," she said, flashing Rhett the front of her phone.
He paused and glanced at it, then took it out of her hand. Manipulating buttons with his thumb, he handed it back when he apparently didn't glean anymore from it than she did. His posture relaxed, the gun tucked into the shoulder holster.
"Is your phone unlisted?"
"No."
"Then that's how they found your number," he said. "I think if they knew where you were, they'd act first and taunt later."
"Doesn't look like there's another boat in sight," Christian added, sliding his gun into the waistband of his pants in the back.
"Are you sure? Maybe they're waiting in Cairo." Evelyn wasn't convinced that the Templars didn't know where they were.
Christian, standing at her side, shook his head and met her gaze. "I agree with Rhett. If they knew where you were, they would have come after you instead of warning you. If they're waiting in Cairo, we'll have to deal with it when we get there."
"Then why text me at all?" she asked, annoyed that the Knights were able to set her on edge like this.
Rhett and Christian both gave her the same look. Did she really need to ask?
"To do just what they're doing. Planting doubts, forcing you to stay tense and worried," Rhett said, spelling it out for her.
"Well, that's just lovely." Evelyn maneuvered through the menus until she found the one she wanted. "We'll see how they like being blocked."
Rhett and Christian gave her understanding glances.
After turning the phone off, she made her excuses and disappeared into her room. Determined to get some rest, she kicked back a shot of bourbon from an array of tiny bottles left on the dresser and stretched out on the bed. Rest didn't consist of sleep---she couldn't after the text message---but she did make plans for their stop in Crete on the way to Cairo. She would have an hour to find access to an unmonitored laptop and check the email account to see if any of the girls had left messages. They weren't responding by phone, which could mean a number of things, but there was a much greater likelihood that they'd found a way to leave a note for her there. It was the contact center of last resort and one they all knew to use in extreme circumstances.
If they were all okay, Evelyn planned to depart the agents' company in Cairo and go her own way. She couldn't rely on their help forever and the sooner she began the changes required to disappear from the Templar's radar, the better.
The Old Venetian Harbor in the port of Heraklion buzzed with brisk business. Boats motored slowly by, coming and going, while Aristo guided the yacht into a waiting berth. Other boats bobbed in their slips and people milled around the marina, each on their own agenda. The morning sun, bright and rising in the sky, spilled warm rays that Evelyn tipped her face into when she stepped out on deck. All her belongings were in the pockets of her jeans rather than in her purse so that she didn't give her intentions away.
Crete had always been a favorite place to visit and vacation for the sisters. Evelyn found it mildly ironic that she was here when she hadn't planned to be, without her siblings, in the company of government agents. With effort she steered her thoughts away from Galiana and surveyed the bustling activity on the docks. She wondered if the Templars knew she was here, and whether they were watching her even now. It made her plans for the day riskier after the text but she was set on her course.
Aristo disembarked with a promise to be back in one hour exactly. Something about refueling and restocking the yacht for the second leg across the Mediterranean.
Rhett appeared from inside with a tray in his hands. He looked like he'd been awake all night with his heavy layer of whiskers and wrinkled jeans. Despite that, the smile he gave her lacked weariness that she could see. Under the glow of the sun he seemed golden, from his skin to his hair, and she would have never guessed he'd suffered any kind of injury by his confident posture.
Setting the tray on a table under the shade of a blue and white striped umbrella, he glanced her way.
"Lunch. Hope you like chicken salad," he said.
Surprised, Evelyn walked over to inspect the bowl and the food. The lettuce looked fresh. Grilled chicken lay in strips over the top with several cherry tomatoes sitting to the side. Rhett's talents ran beyond his commendable ability as an agent.
Meeting his gaze, she said, "You didn't have to do that, but thanks. You're not eating?"
Having lunch with Rhett might have been appealing if she didn't have something she needed to do. He gave her an out a moment later and she hid her relief behind a neutral facade.
"No. Christian's on the phone with our boss and I'm heading in to take a shower."
"You didn't get any sleep last night, did you?"
"I will after we set sail and get out into the open water again."
"How's your wound?" She squinted at his side.
"It's just a scratch and already on the mend. Your face and hands look a lot better than they did yesterday," he pointed out.
Evelyn snapped a look up from the bowl to find him studying her. What remained of the bruising had faded down to yellowish smudges and the split in her lip lacked even a scab this morning. She had healed even more than she'd thought she would given time to rest. Self conscious, she touched her cheek and nodded.
"I'm lucky it's healing well. Thanks again for lunch, Mister Nichols."
"I didn't know what you wanted to drink. Help yourself to water or bottles of juice and whatever else he's got stocked in there." Rhett gestured toward the small bar in the parlor before turning on a boot heel and disappearing inside.
Evelyn watched him, fiddling with the utensils he'd rolled into a linen napkin. He hadn't pursued the subject of her unnaturally fast healing and for that she was thankful. It made her curious what he thought though. Rhett Nichols did not strike her as a slow man who let obvious things get by him.
Sitting in a chair, she attacked the salad and glanced around for Christian while pretending to be absorbed in her meal. Which was excellent, she noted, while spearing a slice of seasoned chicken. The other agent seemed to be elsewhere on the yacht. She doubted he would have disembarked with Rhett needing some downtime, leaving her unprotected. Evelyn weighed her options and the risks. She could stay here and not try to make contact with her sisters, or she could hurry about her errand and return before anyone noticed her gone.
She made her decision after another discreet check of the deck.
It took her less than fifteen minutes to disembark, hail a taxi, and have him drive her to a small café bordering the marina. Bustling with tourists, the café had floor to ceiling windows along the front, a small seating area around the doors and palms in pots lining the walkway. She went inside and bought herself a ten minute block of time on one of the public laptops lined up on a long counter facing the harbor.
Feeling strangely vulnerable out in the open without Rhett at her side, she engaged the search directory and typed in the email address for the private account. Glancing over her shoulder, she scanned the faces of the customers, looking for anyone who seemed too interested in what she was doing. No one, in her estimation, was paying any attention.
Fingers flying over the keys, she typed in their user name and password and hit enter. The account scrolled into view. No new messages. Evelyn checked the spam folder and the sent folders too, thinking maybe her sisters might have hid something in there so that it wasn't seen at first glance on the screen.
Nothing.
Two days was more than enough time for one of them, if not all of them, to make contact. An uneasy pang clenched her stomach. Alexandra, at the very least, would have found a way to access a computer. Which meant her other sisters had suffered the same fate as Galiana, or they had been captured after their escape from the parking lot and were sitting underground somewhere like she'd been. Tortured and interrogated.
There was no way she would be able to find them without outside help. Help like Rhett and Christian could give her. It was part of their job, wasn't it, to recover kidnapped Americans in foreign countries? They'd recovered her.
As dangerous as it was to continue interacting with the government on such intimate levels, they had access to information and resources she just didn't have. This kind of situation was their specialty, she thought, and it certainly wasn't hers. Unless there was a message waiting when she arrived in Cairo, she decided to stay with the agents a while longer.
Going through the history, she erased any trail of where she'd been on the laptop. Leaving the seat with time still on the 'clock', she wove her way through the bodies and back outside. Brushing wayward strands of hair from her cheek, she glanced left and right and hailed another taxi. With directions to take her to the nearest bank, she settled in the seat, watching the buildings flash by out the window. The architecture never ceased to amaze and mesmerize her although her appreciation was a distant thing compared to her growing consternation.
The taxi pulled up outside a string of businesses on Agapo street and she paid the driver extra to wait.
Climbing out, she crossed the sidewalk and went inside the bank. The interior of the older structure had been redone in marble with spiraling columns and a long counter beyond a sitting area with several couches for the customer's comfort. Sunlight streamed in through tall windows and highlighted a bank of ATMs that she passed on her way to one of the available tellers. She needed more money than the ATM would allow her to withdraw on any given day.
The teller, a black haired woman with clear skin, a hook in her nose and a pair of brown eyes greeted her with a heavy, English accent. "Welcome to the Bank of Herstos. May I help you?"
Evelyn fished out her identification and bank card from her pocket. Smiling at the teller, she passed both over and snatched a withdrawal slip from the stack to the side to begin filling out. "Hello. Yes, I'd like to make a withdrawal."
"Do you have an account with us?"
"No, I don't. But I'd like more than the ATM will give me," Evelyn explained. "Can you do that?" She pushed the withdrawal slip over while the teller examined her I.D and the card.
"Yes Ma'am. There will be a short wait and a transaction fee, you realize."
Evelyn nodded. She'd expected as much. "I'll wait. Thank you."
"Let me verify this and then we can discuss currency." The teller punched in numbers into her computer, watching the screen through the fine veil of her bangs. She frowned and clicked through another series of information on the keyboard.
Unable to see the screen, Evelyn watched the woman's face instead. "Is something wrong?"
"It seems your account has been frozen, Ma'am." The teller spoke with clear hesitation.
"Frozen?" Evelyn frowned. "That can't be right. I haven't closed it out or even accessed it in several days."
"Excuse me for a moment, Miss Grant. Let me see if my supervisor can make a call." The teller smiled cordially and took her card, her I.D and the withdrawal slip with her away from the counter. She spoke with a balding, rotund man in a voice too low for Evelyn to hear. They spoke at length while he took the information to a different computer behind a desk in the back, tapping through numbers and screens. Evelyn could see their eyes scanning each different one that popped up.
Unease ate at her insides. What could be the problem?
After several minutes, the man came back with the teller and took up the spot on the other side of the counter. He had an even thicker accent than the woman.
"Miss Grant, I am the manager. I'm sorry to tell you that your account has been frozen, and I will be required to confiscate your card."
"Confiscate my card? But--"
"I'm sorry, Miss Grant," he said, commiserating with her. The only card he traded back to her was her I.D. "Perhaps you can straighten it out with your bank on one of our house phones?" He gestured to a row of them, all tucked into privacy cubes, against a far wall.
Evelyn didn't need to follow his gesture. She'd seen them on her way in. It dawned on her belatedly that it was probably the Templars. They'd accessed her information and had enough pull or connections to freeze her account, making it hard for her to maneuver around the country. They were tightening the noose in every way they could.
Her dependence on the two agents had just ratcheted up another notch.
"Thank you for your time." About facing, she departed the bank without stopping by the service phones. Nothing would be gained by wasting time with representatives that wouldn't give her access anyway.
Squinting into the sunlight, she let her eyes readjust before stepping toward the waiting taxi. A hand on her elbow whirled her around and she gasped in surprise, drawing several stares from people passing by.
Rhett glared down at her, mouth a thin, white line. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Speechless for a moment, she regained her equilibrium and frowned. "I needed to get some money out of the bank--"
"So you just went wandering along the marina, leaving yourself wide open for them to grab you. Why didn't you just call them and set up a meeting place?" He ground the words out past clenched teeth and 'guided' her along the sidewalk, away from the bank.
"Mister Nichols. You have no right--"
"Don't I? Do you want our protection or not, Miss Grant? Because when you do things like this, you're not just putting yourself in danger. You put us in danger, too. Think about it." After another glare, he helped her into a black car parked at the curb and got into the back seat with her.
Christian sat in the driver's seat looking quite unhappy. He said nothing though while he pulled them into traffic and turned back toward the docks.
"The last I knew, Mister Nichols, I wasn't your prisoner, either. I'm free to see to my business." His brusque manner made her confrontational. If she was honest with herself, the strain of it all didn't help her mood any.
"All you had to do was ask one of us to come with you," he said, leaning back against the seat. Knees sprawled, he rested a fist on the arch of his muscled thigh and appeared to struggle to contain his irritation. "And since you didn't, it means you're trying to hide something. What, Miss Grant, are you trying to hide?" The knife sharp edge of his gaze came her way.
Evelyn bristled under the insinuation---which was the truth, damn him---and under his glare. "You'll excuse me if I didn't realize I needed to obtain permission to get my own money out of the bank. You said we were safe enough here. I took you at your word."
"Which still doesn't explain what you're trying to hide."
"I'm not hiding anything."
"Really? Then why didn't you ask me to go with you?"
"Because I don't need a babysitter. It was a trip to the bank. And as you can see, nothing happened." Engaged in a heated stare down, she refused to look away first.
Leaning closer, he obliterated the space between them and said, "What just happened is that you probably tipped them off to your whereabouts by accessing your account. And you could have fooled me about needing a babysitter when I found you in their basement."
The warmth of his mint-scented breath washed over her lips and chin. He was so close she could see the gold flecks in his turbulent green eyes. So close that she felt like she had to whisper an answer. "Actually, I'm sure I didn't tip anyone off because I couldn't access my account at all."
His brows shot up and he leaned back. "Why not?"
"I don't know how, but someone put a hold on it. The money's in there, but I can't get to it. And the manager confiscated my card." When she broke eye contact and looked forward, she met Christian's frowning gaze in the rear view mirror. Just a brief second of concern before he swerved the car into a slot not far from the Selena Marie.
"They've got more pull than I gave them credit for," Rhett said. "Checking your use of the card is one thing. Putting a freeze on the account is another." Swinging open the door, he got out without another word.
Seething and annoyed, Evelyn climbed out as well. She cracked the door closed and marched toward the tethered yacht a few feet behind Christian. Rhett fell in behind her. The tension, a palpable weight between them, made Evelyn uneasy. She knew she was defensive and wary because trust in other people, no matter how much she wanted it, didn't come easy. Rhett's efficiency and normally amiable demeanor tempted her like no one had tempted her in a long time to confide things she knew she couldn't. He just had that I-can-fix-anything-if-you-let-me aura about him.
They boarded the yacht and within twenty minutes, Aristo had maneuvered them out of the harbor and the port and back into the broad, blue waters of the Mediterranean.
The dark surface of the ocean hypnotized Evelyn while she watched out the window in her stateroom. Little whitecaps peaked and receded like the spikes on a heart monitor machine, and, if one watched long enough, it was easy to sync with the rhythm and be lulled by its eternal consistency. There was something soothing about the perpetual flux of the tide.
Earlier, after arriving back on the boat, she and Rhett had gone their separate ways. She suspected he gave in and went to get some sleep while Christian stood watch. Rhett was only human, after all, and needed to refuel like the rest of them. Christian announced there were deli sandwiches for dinner---although he hadn't made her a plate like Rhett---but she'd politely refused and sought the refuge of her room instead.
Propped on a chair with her legs tucked beneath her, she'd been sitting here for hours, thinking over the tension between her and Rhett, the status of her sisters and what repercussions the freeze on her bank would have down the line. No clear answers presented themselves to any of it. Disconcerted by her reaction to Rhett, Evelyn tried to reason it out. It was more than that he'd saved her from the Knights. More than his persistence in keeping her safe.
There was an inexorable pull, an undeniable something that she couldn't recall feeling around any other man. It went beyond simple attraction. She knew he felt it too, although she wouldn't have been able to say exactly why or how. Even the friction between them didn't offset the draw. Maybe it had to do with his saving her, or that she detected a capacity for caring underneath his tough exterior.
Unable to grieve properly for Galiana, she had the compelling urge to confess to Rhett her pain and agony and let him bear some of the weight.
In the distance, the wink of a light drew her out of her contemplative reverie. The swell of the water played hide and seek with an ocean liner's lights. It came again a moment later, a bright but small flicker, almost like a star on the horizon. She couldn't gauge the distance whatsoever, nor the direction. Many vessels made the voyage from Crete to Cairo or other ports close by. This was just one more ferrying tourists to exotic destinations.
Twisting a length of wavy, auburn hair between her fingers, she wondered if the occupants were having a better time of their trip than she was. Contemplation kept her mind off her sister, off the melancholy that wanted to pull her under like a riptide.
The door to her room swung open without warning, startling her. Rhett, dressed in dark colors with his shoulder holster in place, swooped in on her with a gun outstretched in his hand. He made and held strict eye contact, looming like a frightening ghost, as intent as he'd been the night he'd woken her from a dead sleep.
"Take this and lock yourself in here. Don't come out no matter what you hear or what happens. Shoot to kill if they get past us and get in," he said, just as the yacht lurched and the speed increased.
Evelyn sat up straighter in the chair and closed her hand over the gun even though she recoiled at the thought of actually coming face to face with the Templars and being forced to shoot them. But she would, if she had to. She would.
"How did they find us?"
"I don't have time right now to talk about it. Later." He squeezed her fingers around the gun and left the room, closing the door after a final gesture for her to come over and lock it.
Shocked that the wide open ocean wasn't a safe as she'd led herself to believe, she scrambled out of the chair and threw the locks the door. There were two; one in the knob and another deadbolt that made a satisfying click when she turned it. Setting the gun on the bed, she yanked socks over her bare feet and then jammed them into her tennis shoes. It was the only concession to comfort she'd made earlier when she'd retired to rest. All the rest of her clothes were as she'd worn them earlier, and she wondered again if she'd ever feel safe enough to dress in pajamas to sleep.
Rattled, she picked the gun up and checked the safety. Her experience with the weapon was rusty. She wasn't sure her aim would be as great as it once was, not after all these years of avoiding the practice range. The irony of the situation was not lost on her.
From the bed, she went to the window. Broad, with a three inch sill, it gave her a decent view to the east. The small light that wasn't so small any longer. It was closer, bigger, winking in and out like the gleam of a freshly cut diamond. The Selena Marie approached the fastest speed she'd seen so far, cutting through the lapping tide with an uptick in the drone of the engine. Over that, she heard the sound of a distant bang that she struggled to decipher.
With a sudden dousing, all the running lights on the yacht went out. From her second level viewpoint, she'd been able to see part of the lower deck along the side. Now there was only the hazy, phosphor glow from a half hidden moon to make out a dark head running below.
Christian. It had to be Christian. The other boat wasn't nearly in range to transfer people from one vessel to another.
Still, it made her stomach ache with nausea and set her nerves on edge. While the other, smaller boat drew closer, she steeled herself against the unlikely event that she would have to shoot her way free of the Knights. In these minutes before possible confrontation, she reminded herself that it was kill or be killed---or tortured.
Like anyone with a serious phobia, Evelyn's private pep talks only went so far. The mere thought of that kind of violence brought bile up the back of her throat that she kept having to swallow down.
Think of them as still targets. Like at the range. Nothing more than a wood silhouette, without souls, without hearts.
She breathed in and breathed out.
Gunfire erupted, sounding like firecrackers on the fourth of July. Instinct kicked in and she ducked down with only her eyes and forehead above the line of the window sill. It was hard to see and harder to tell who was doing the shooting.
She thought she heard shouting, too, somewhere in the din. Recognizing the voices was impossible. Had someone on the Selena Marie been hit? Dread coursed through her when she thought about Rhett taking another bullet in her stead. Or Christian. Or Aristo.
Drawing in a breath, she worked the latch on the window and slid it open. There was no screen to get in the way when she aimed the gun out over the water, angling the muzzle toward the faint silhouette of the smaller boat that was closer now, veering wildly when the captain tried to avoid incoming rounds.
Whatever light she had seen from a distance had been distinguished, leaving only the moon glinting off the hull to guide her.
Evelyn didn't like violent confrontations, but shooting at the boat---albeit it moving---was better than shooting at people. Steadying her hand and her faith, she braced her arm and cupped the weapon with both hands.
Aiming low, thinking to hit the tanks or something else critical to the running of the boat, she pulled the trigger. And she pulled it again. The weapon bucked in her hands, sending sharp jolts up her arms.
What she didn't expect was a return volley; two bullets punched through the frame a foot above her head. Retreating all at once, she sank below the sill and crab-crawled over the floor to the opposite side of the bed. As long as she'd been alive, no one had ever fired bullets at her. She found it terrifying.
So much for trying to help out.
Two more bullets slammed into the wall on the other side of the room, leaving holes in the window. With every crack and splinter of wood, she flinched. She half expected the smaller boat to ram the Selena Marie.
Steadying herself, she listened to the barrage of gunfire coming from both sides of the confrontation. The burst from a machine gun riddled the night, sounding like chattering, mad laughter. She couldn't tell who was doing the shooting. Breathing shallow like she'd just run a marathon, she pressed her back against the bed for support, making a small package of herself to avoid being hit. It took her three tries to thumb the safety of her weapon on. Until someone tried to come in the door---and please God, don't let that happen---she decided to wait it out.
Suddenly, the battle went silent beyond the windows.
What did that mean? Where were Rhett and Christian? Aristo? In a car, she would have been able to tell if the driver had been shot. In a boat, it was much harder to detect if they were veering off course because the man at the helm was no longer in control.
Her mind ran wild with suppositions. Any second she expected to hear running feet on the deck. Time slowed down and her focus became pinpointed on the door.
Don't forget to take the safety off.
It's you or them. Kill or be killed.
Remember Galiana.
Were they speeding up? Slowing down? Frustrated that she couldn't tell, she considered going back to the window. The not knowing whether they'd been boarded was making her ill.
The lock rattled when someone tried to open the door. Evelyn pointed the gun right at it, fingers shaking so bad that the muzzle swayed and pitched. At the last second she remembered to take off the safety.
"Evelyn, it's Rhett. Open the door."
She sagged with relief. Re-engaging the safety, she set the gun on the bed and lurched to her feet. She barely had the lock snapped over when Rhett opened the door, forcing her back a few steps when he bulled his way in. His shoulders and jaw were tight with tension. Glittering, his eyes seemed feverish, raking over her with ruthless scrutiny.
"Are you all right?" he asked in a tight voice.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. What happened? Is everyone else okay?" Evelyn forgot to be irritated with him. She looked him over for wounds just like he did her, relieved when she didn't see any gushing founts of blood.
"Everyone's all right." His mouth thinned when he saw the bullet holes in the wall and above the window. Walking over, he glanced out at the darkness and then at her. "We disabled their boat. Unless they have another one on the water---and radar hasn't detected anything close by---then I think we'll make it to Cairo without another incident."
"How did they find us? I mean, even if they did track me from the bank, they couldn't have known I left Crete or which direction I was going."
"Have you checked yourself for anything strange? Black dots on your skin? Looked at your back in the mirror? If they'd put the trace on your old clothing, they wouldn't have known we were here. But they would if they'd attached it to your body." Leaving the window, he came to stand right in front of her, weapons all tucked into his shoulder holster.
"Wait, what? You think they've put a trace on me? But I took a shower earlier, shouldn't that have disabled it?" The thought hadn't crossed her mind. It explained how they'd found them, though.
"No. Why don't you take off your shirt and I'll check your back." He made a curt gesture with his hand toward the small bathroom.
The irony of the situation didn't escape her. Just yesterday, she'd demanded the same thing of him. Take off your shirt, she'd insisted.
It wasn't such a monumental task, or even something she was shy about doing. The bra she wore wasn't her own, but it fit well and covered more than most bikinis would have.
Her hesitation came only in the realization that she was exposing herself to him. She didn't want it to matter what he thought. Whether he liked what he saw. Impatient with her own thoughts, she stepped back into the bathroom and switched on the light. Longer than it was wide, decorated as clean and neat as the bedrooms, the bathroom sported burnished gold accents and a rectangular mirror. The soft illumination picked out the auburn highlights in her hair and made what remained of her bruises seem less harsh. They were just vague, yellowish patches that were hard to see unless you were really looking.
Rhett loomed out of the gloom of the bedroom and stood directly behind her. The contrast of his masculinity and her femininity couldn't be more noticeable. He was broad and muscular and she looked almost dainty in comparison. The make up she'd applied made her hazel eyes more dramatic; his peered out from under the ridge of his brow like a predator, sharp and assessing. She couldn't remember the last time a man had affected her like this and silently chided herself for her distractions. Snatching handfuls of the shirt, she drug it over her head, leaving it caught around her wrists in a way that would make it easier to put back on when he was done.
The wisp of his hand against her hair, moving it out of the way, made her shiver. Watching him in the mirror, she saw his gaze dart to a specific spot on her back.
"Shit." Peeling something off the inside her shoulder blade, he presented it on the tip of his finger around the side of her arm. "We should have known." Rhett sounded disgusted they hadn't done this sooner.
Evelyn glanced at the tiny black dot, no bigger than the eraser on a pencil, sitting on the end of his finger. It had a small, raised center but overall, she thought it looked harmless. Innocuous. Certainly not able to withstand a dousing in water. She met his eyes.
"That's it? They've tracked us with that little thing?"
"Yes. I don't see any more on your back but it wouldn't hurt to give yourself a thorough looking over. Check your scalp. I really don't think they'd put more than one on at a time, but you can't be too careful."
"They'll all look like this?" Evelyn hated the thought someone was monitoring her every move. If she had been honest with Rhett about who was searching for her from the beginning, perhaps he would have understood they were capable of this. She'd led him in blind, understating the danger.
"Pretty much. I'm going to go get rid of this one. We'll have to take cover quick in Cairo. I thought we'd be able to buy ourselves some time but they'll be expecting us now." Taking the tracing device, he met her eyes in the mirror once more and left the room.
While he was gone, freaked out by the thought someone had attached things to her body, she stripped the rest of her clothes off. She searched everywhere; behind her knees, the nape of her neck, over her scalp. Using the mirror, she checked her back again, though she knew Rhett wouldn't have overlooked anything else. There seemed to be no more of those tiny black dots anywhere on her person. Only marginally relieved, she got dressed and went out on deck in search of her agent.
Darkness blanketed the sky like a comfortable lover, soothing in its endless serenity. The stars seemed even brighter than they had before the attack of the boat, glimmering like diamond dust. Evelyn saw no evidence of their attackers, no out-of-place spotlight on the horizon. Taking a deep breath, she scanned the lowest deck for signs of Rhett.
She found Christian near the rail, smoke trailing up like winsome phantoms from the burning end of a cigarette. He didn't look any worse for wear from the confrontation and still had his shoulder holster on over clothes that blended with the night. Although not as tall or as broad as Rhett, Christian was not a small man. Physically fit, he had a leaner, more tapered appearance through the abdomen and hips. He gave her the impression he could be quick when he wanted to be.
Evelyn wondered how much conditioning or experience it took for someone to become accustomed to shootouts. Maybe they weren't conditioned and were only better at hiding it than she was.
"Christian?"
He glanced over. "Yes?"
"Is Rhett busy?"
"He's with Aristo, going over new plans for arrival in Port Said. Is something wrong?" His brows furrowed either with curiosity or concern.
Evelyn didn't know him well enough yet to tell the difference. Leaning her hip against the side of the boat, she said, "I'm wondering just what kind of connections these people have to be able to put tracing devices on me and freeze my bank account."
Not for the first time, she felt like such a deceiver asking her question. Evelyn knew firsthand who was doing this to her, and why. Even then, she couldn't have fathomed the Templar's reach. Their utter ability to manipulate the system any way they apparently saw fit. It unnerved her and she wanted to know what was going on in Rhett and Christian's mind. What they personally thought about the incidents. Christian didn't hesitate to answer.
"The highest kind, Miss Grant. They seem to be able to pull any strings they want to, which makes them not only dangerous, but unpredictable." Dragging off the cigarette, he exhaled and flicked the spent butt out into the water.
"And you guys haven't found out anything more about them yet?"
"No. Our boss keeps coming up against walls with his queries. They're like ghosts, all but untraceable themselves and good at covering their tracks. Whatever they want you and your friends for, it must be something big." Crossing his arms over his chest, he watched her while at the same time, seeming to keep up a constant survey of the night around them.
Evelyn shifted uncomfortably and forced herself to keep her attention on his face. She latched onto the opportunity he gave her to change the subject off why the Templars wanted her. "Speaking of my friends. I'd like to know if you can help us with...Galiana. We're---or I'm---the only one who can make any arrangements for her burial. But I'm a little afraid to do anything and now that they've frozen my account, I can't exactly do what I need to."
"What do you need help with, Miss Grant?" Christian looked and sounded like he sincerely wanted to help.
"Well, for starters, we need to find out where she's being kept--"
"Her body is at Papadopoulos Mortuary right now. They told my boss they'll hold the body for another three days and after that, she'll be cremated and her remains relegated to an ossuary of their choice."
"No, no. That can't happen. She needs to be buried." Evelyn choked on the last word. The tension and strain of the last several days threatened to overwhelm her. All of a sudden, she struggled not to give in to more tears for her lost sister. Cremation was always a last, desperate choice when there was nothing else they could do to stop it. They preferred their bodies returned to the earth they sprung from.
Lifting a shaky hand, she rubbed at her temple.
She felt a headache coming on.
"I can ask my boss if he'll make the arrangements through you," Christian offered, like he'd interpreted the brow rub as a distress signal.
"Yes, please. Can't you guys override the freeze on my accounts?" Evelyn didn't understand why the Templars had more pull than the government. What the Knights were doing was illegal, wasn't it? Never mind she was the victim here. That was her bank account being messed with.
"For one, we didn't know they were locked until Crete. Two, he needs your permission to try and we've been a little...busy...the past few hours. But I'll see what he can do."
"Then go ahead. You have my permission. What about my other friends? I think we should count them missing by now."
"How can you say they're missing if you haven't been in touch with them? They might be anywhere in Athens or maybe even left the country for home," he said.
Evelyn didn't want to explain about their secret email set up. "None of them have called or texted me back, and they would have after all this. Just to let me know they were okay. I've heard nothing from any of them."
"We're looking for them, Miss Grant." He reached out to touch her shoulder reassuringly. "The second we know something, Rhett or I will tell you."
The fresh tension sliding through her frame eased at his reassurance, even if she wasn't convinced her sisters were safe. "Thanks, Christian. I think I'm going to go try and get some sleep."
"That's a good idea. Things might get hectic in Cairo." Pulling a soft pack from the front pocket of his coat, he shook free another cigarette and lit it with a lighter tucked into the plastic lining.
With a grateful smile, refusing to worry about what might happen in Egypt, Evelyn headed for her stateroom.
Dusk settled over the architectural wonders of Port Said in an orange film of muted light. High spires, swooping arches and arabesque shapes made a stunning silhouette against the encroaching evening.
Rhett used his body to forge a path through the sea of humanity, marching them away from the busy harbor into the busier city. It almost felt like they were salmon, swimming upstream against an impossible current. An entity unto itself, the crowd milled and swarmed in all directions. One second she was beset by the stench of strong body odor, the next a sickening smell of over ripe perfume clogged her senses. Long robes lapped at the ankles of women who kept their gaze down while brazen tourists paused in the most inappropriate places for pictures.
She caught Rhett checking on her often with quick, sidelong glances. Carrying his bag in one hand, he wore a jacket over his shirt to hide the holster packed with guns. Christian came behind, sandwiching her between them. They made an effective wall that moved her forward at all costs. Never back, never straying off to the side. Ahead, deeper into the flux, until it was hard to tell where one body began and another one ended.
The decibel level felt like they were standing directly in front of a tower of speakers at a rock concert, the very air trembling with noise. Evelyn hunched her shoulders up toward her ears, an inadequate barrier against the din. She never remembered it being this loud on any prior trips to Egypt. It grew worse when Rhett turned them down a narrow pathway between buildings. Vendors, set up on each side, hawked their wares with shouts and gestures, pausing to haggle with tourists and natives alike. The goods ranged from soda in bottles, stacked precariously like pyramids, to culture rich clothing hanging from eaves and jewelry that clinked prettily together in the dry, arid breeze. It was an explosion of color, sparkling glass, carts and teetering piles of hand-painted goods arranged to draw the eye.
Any other time, she would have loved to wander the market, sampling food, purchasing trinkets and collectibles to take home. Just now, she concentrated on being Rhett's shadow, reaching out to touch his elbow or side when someone sliced their way between them. Christian lurked close at her back, a steady presence to help keep her on track and in sight at all times.
Rhett took hold of her hand when they were halfway through the market, towing her to the right between two stalls. A dome shaped archway, cut into the wall of the building, led them into a shadowy alcove straight to a door that he pulled open to admit her.
Stepping inside, letting go of his hand, she glanced around. Ahead, through a hallway, she could see the side of what looked to be a foyer and front desk. A dark haired man stood behind it, tending to guests signing in for the night. On her right was a broad set of stairs leading up and it was there Rhett motioned.
"This way. Go on up. Three floors."
"But don't you need a key?" she asked, using the banister to start the ascent.
"I've got it taken care of." Rhett and Christian paced behind her all the way to the third floor. Charming little lamps provided light down the hallway when they got there, accenting the Mediterranean décor and tapestries lining the walls.
Rhett stepped ahead of her after bypassing a handful of rooms and let Christian go in ahead of them at a door marked 214.
Gun drawn, Christian went in with it raised, ready for trouble. Rhett monitored the hallway, a swivel-check each direction, until the agent returned.
"It's clear," Christian said. He exited into the hallway, taking up a post against the opposite wall.
"Let's go." Rhett guided her over the threshold with a hand at the small of her back.
If Evelyn hadn't known better, she would have thought the agents had performed this dance a hundred times before. Their overlapping protection had few wrinkles, little room for mistake.
She got her first look at what was more than just a hotel room. It was a suite, with several doors leading off the main living area to other bedrooms and a bathroom. Heavily Egyptian, the red and cream color scheme sported accents of brown and gold trim. The material looked new and fresh, the furniture heavy and solid.
A set of french paned glass doors drew her out onto a narrow balcony that overlooked the market below. She could see clearly from one end of the street to the other.
The structure across must have been a business with residential quarters above. Balconies like hers jutted out from the stucco, some decorated with potted plants, others used as a drying spot for colorful rugs.
"You can sleep in here," Rhett said behind her, motioning to one of the open doorways.
"Thanks. Did Christian talk to you about my...Galiana?" One of these times, she was going to call the girl her sister. Chiding herself to think before she spoke, she stepped in from the balcony and closed the doors behind her. The barrier only cut the noise in half rather than obliterate it completely. Evelyn wasn't sure how anyone could get any sleep with that cacophony outside.
Rhett watched her like a hawk.
"Yes. We're waiting word from our boss. He's supposed to call before too long." Rhett consulted the watch on his wrist. "Probably within the hour."
"Great. How's your wound?" she asked out of the blue, turning her mind from dead sisters and funerals she wouldn't be able to attend.
Rhett dropped his bag on the coffee table and speared a hand through his hair before sliding his coat off.
"It's fine. You're looking pretty good yourself." His eyes traced her face and the bruises that had faded to all but indistinguishable shadows. She knew they were hardly recognizable from the state he'd found her in and that the healing was curious if not questionable.
Evelyn didn't know what to do or say about it. This was another thing that could trip her up if she wasn't careful.
"I've been icing it every night. It helps." She hadn't had time to ice it. Every second she turned around there was a crisis to deal with.
"Mm." He rumbled a noncommittal noise, still studying her, like maybe he was trying to suss out the reasons she might be healing so quick. As if he didn't buy her icing explanation.
"I'm going down to talk to the clerk on duty, have a look around," Christian said from the hallway.
Rhett ticked his chin in goodbye.
The door clicked when Christian closed it.
Evelyn didn't have time to give a goodbye of her own. She broke eye contact with Rhett and made her way into the bedroom he'd indicated. Better to settle in and let the topic of wounds pass by. The few hours sleep she got on the yacht healed the remaining wounds on her hands, leaving her fingers looking normal, the redness gone.
Spacious and as well decorated as the rest of the suite, the room had a queen bed and its own small bathroom. Setting the purse she'd been carrying on the dresser, she sank onto the mattress and flopped back. It felt like she'd been on the run for weeks instead of an intense few days.
"You hungry? I'm going to order up." Rhett called from the living room.
"Actually...yes. Will you choose something for me?" Feeling whimsical, wanting to just forget and rest for a while, she left the choice in his hands.
"Feeling adventurous?"
"I trust you," she said with a laugh.
A moment later, she heard the warm baritone of his voice ordering food---in Arabic. Versed in all languages, like the rest of her sisters, she understood everything he said. All the children who had eaten from the Tree of Life and Knowledge gained the ability to speak and understand every tongue. It was a talent that served them well over the centuries.
Her surprise faded when she realized that if he worked in the area, he probably knew several languages, not just one or two.
Rising off the bed, she made her way into the bathroom. At the freestanding sink in front of the oval mirror, she stared at her reflection while turning on the water. Eyes wide, hair windblown, skin glowing with a healthy tan, she looked the same and yet different. It was in the set of her lips, the faint frown on her brow and the quirk at the corner of her mouth. She couldn't decide if she looked thoughtful or perturbed.
Fifteen minutes later, face freshened with a splash of cold water, she wandered back into the sitting room. She paused when she saw him; limned in the spill of dusky light from the balcony, Rhett sat on one of the couches with his hands locked behind his head, elbows askew. It was a masculine position of stolen ease. Knees tilted out, boots flat on the floor, jacket discarded, he looked peaceful with his eyes closed, chest rising and falling in an easy rhythm. She almost hated to disturb him.
"Room service should be here in about five minutes," he said, somehow knowing she was there without opening his eyes.
"Okay. What did you order?"
"It's a surprise. You said you trusted me."
"I do trust you." Evelyn was startled to realize she meant it more every time she said it. Or thought it. Rhett made it almost too easy to trust him. "But I also think you'd order something like octopus eyes and a side of tentacle just to see how fast I'd throw up."
He barked a laugh, one knee rocking back and forth like it was a lazy hinge. Finally, he slit his eyes open. "That's a little scary, Grant, because it's something I definitely would do. If you weren't under my care, that is."
"But I am, so eyes and tentacles are off limits." Grinning, she wandered into the kitchenette. It overlooked the sitting area so she didn't have to raise her voice to continue conversing with Rhett. This unexpected truce, or whatever it was, felt much better between them than the friction.
"You'd do the same thing if the situation was different," he said. It sounded like a challenge.
Evelyn glanced over the short counter. "I would not. I'm the soul of propriety and good manners."
He snorted. "I don't believe you."
Rhett's disarming personality threatened the careful wall she tried to keep erected between them. It felt thin and all but useless when he bantered with her like this. Just as she opened the cooler to see what was inside, someone knocked at the door.
Four hard raps.
With sinuous grace, obliterating the languor and ease in a heartbeat, Rhett rose off the couch and removed a gun from the holster. At the door, he stood just off to the side.
"Yes?"
"Room service," a muffled voice said from the other side.
"Leave it there. Thanks." Rhett listened with his head cocked, the gun angled low along the outside of his thigh.
Evelyn watched in silent fascination. Cautious even in this, he took no chances with her safety. After several minutes, he cracked open the door with the chain still in place and peered out into the hallway. The section he could see must have been empty because he closed it, unlatched the chain, and swung it wide again to pull the cart inside. Bolting up the door when he was done, he pushed the cart to the small table adjacent to the couch. The gun went back into the holster.
"I ordered drinks, but if you want something stronger than wine, there's a handful of little bottles in the cooler," he said, lifting the steel tops off the plates to check the food.
Evelyn came out of the kitchenette, wiping her palms down her thighs. The scent of the food made her mouth water.
He presented her plate with a flourish.
"Kushari. If you've been here before, you've probably had it."
She sidled up to the table and knew the dish the second he took the lid off. Evelyn had spent a good amount of time in this country and knew the cuisine intimately. The pasta, rice and lentils covered in tomato sauce was accompanied by rice stuffed grape leaves, a favorite of hers.
"I have, and it looks great. No tentacles in sight." With that, she took a seat and snagged the bottle of wine chilling in a bucket.
"All I have to do is call down to the restaurant..."
"Rhett," she warned, stifling a smile, and distracted him with a question. "What did you order?"
"The same thing." He set the covers aside and sat down opposite her. "But I've had it before, so I know I'll like it. Want me to open that?" His chin ticked the direction of the bottle.
Evelyn arched a brow. "I'm not totally helpless, you know. Are you having some? There's only one wine glass on the tray." One wine glass and one plain glass of what looked like water with a lemon wedge floating inside.
"Nah. I don't drink while I'm working." He transferred his plate to the table and picked up the utensils.
Rhett, she discovered, ate like he walked: Brisk, to the point, just get the job done. He chewed hard but ate quietly, adam's apple bobbing up and down every time he swallowed.
She was so distracted by it that she didn't realize she was staring until he stopped eating, fork poised midair, and stared back.
"Is there something on my face? You still don't have the wine open," he pointed out.
She jolted herself out of her reverie, aiming her sheepish smile down at the wine. Using the corkscrew, she got to work. "You eat like you don't really enjoy the food at all."
"I enjoy it. But there's no reason to examine every piece, is there? What---you go out with guys who roll food across their palate and discuss every seasoning and its function?" He eyed her with a dubious expression.
The cork popped free of the bottle. She laughed, countering his dubious look with an airy retort. "I didn't say that. But you're going to be done by the time I take my first bite."
Both of his brows arched that time. "And...?"
With a rush of heat, it dawned on her that for Rhett, this was work. And when had it become something else for her? His presence disconcerted her. Distracted her. She found herself doing and thinking things she shouldn't considering their extraordinary circumstances. Evelyn had enjoyed men and all the things they could provide in her time on earth: conversation, pleasure, companionship. But she'd never allowed herself more than that.
None of the girls had, because they knew that it led nowhere. The number of years they could be with a man were startlingly short when someone lived as long as they did. Then there was the risk that the men would become suspicious of why they weren't aging, which caused problems all its own. Minna was the only one of them that had stayed with a man for more than a handful of years. An exception because she knew how to handle her heart.
Buying time pouring and taking a sip of her wine, she met and held Rhett's gaze. When she was through, she said, "It's nothing. This is just the first time I've eaten with a ma-- anyone other than my close friends for a while. I thought maybe you'd tell me about yourself."
Rhett considered her with a thoughtful look. Setting down his fork, he sat back in the chair. "What do you want to know?"
At first she worried she might have annoyed him, but his tone and his eyes were intrigued instead. Although she'd glimpsed where he lived on his passport, she didn't want to mention it, so she asked, "Where did you grow up? Do you have brothers and sisters?"
While they talked she tested bites of the food, alternating with sips of wine. Once, when she stretched her legs out, she encountered his under the table. Immediately she drew hers back to tuck under her chair.
"Grew up in Twenty-nine palms. That's in California. And yeah, I've got two brothers. What about you?" He sat forward and this time, ate at a slower pace. Not much slower, but she noticed the difference.
His willingness to oblige her had that same strange effect on her insides. "I don't have any brothers or sisters and my folks are dead." The part about her parents was true, at least. Careful to keep her face neutral, she continued. "They moved me around a lot when I was little, so there isn't one particular place I can really name as 'the' place I grew up. But I live in Pacific Palisades. It's in Calif--"
"I've been there." He seemed amused that, considering where they'd met and where they currently were, that they both lived fairly close to each other. "Pretty posh."
"Yeah, but the beaches there are fantastic." She picked up the wine for another sip. Evelyn didn't want to imbibe too much in case she needed her wits about her unexpectedly.
"What do you do for a living, then?"
"Well," she said, setting the glass down. "Those friends I told you about? A few of us own some rental property in various locations. It keeps us busy."
He nodded while he listened, stabbing bites of food between commentary. "Sounds like it. Good for you. I'm guessing you're successful enough that you guys can travel around, take vacations often."
She detected no sarcasm in his tone. He looked genuinely impressed. And the more she talked about her sisters as friends, the more she warmed to the story. It allowed her to acknowledge them and speak about them without feeling like she was giving too much away. It meant she needed to get in touch with them before Rhett or Christian did so they could get their story straight.
"We do, and yes, we enjoy it. We work pretty hard. I'm also involved in several charity organizations for children, so that takes up another big chunk of my time." All of the sisters did. It had been part of their promise when they left the garden of Eden---to do good in the world. Spread compassion and kindness. It came naturally to each of them, in fact to all of the sisters, and the others felt as much satisfaction in that capacity as she did. Even Alexandra, the rabble-rouser of the bunch. For all intents and purposes, the girls were like any other women, making their way through life---or many lives. Evelyn was not unaware other people would find them extraordinary and they all understood why it was so important to remain hidden in plain sight.
The knowledge of their existence had the capability to change everything.
She caught Rhett watching her with a complex expression. His eyes looked darker, holding hers with an intensity that made her squirm in her chair. It made her uncomfortable when she couldn't gauge his mood or figure out what he was thinking.
"I would have pegged you as a player, I have to admit," he said with a wry grin, after a moment. "The kind of woman who takes what she can get and moves on."
His assessment startled her. Setting her fork down, she pushed her plate a few inches away. "Why is that?"
"The traveling around, the fact you haven't ever mentioned anything about a boyfriend, husband, lover. You just look like the type."
She frowned. "I guess that old saying is true, then. Don't judge a book by its cover."
For a reason she didn't understand, he laughed. A wry sounding rasp that sent goosebumps down her arms.
"And that's the god's own truth, hm?" he asked.
Before either of them could say anything else, his cell phone rang. Excusing himself from the table, he took the call. She heard Christian's name and wondered what information the agent had come up with. Sipping at the remnants of her wine, she watched Rhett walk to the open balcony doors. He hooked a hand over his head on the frame, taking up a relaxed stance while he got his update. Silhouetted by the glow of lights from the buildings along the street, the strength of his physique was on prominent display. He reminded her again of a warrior, strong and capable and dedicated to his work. Sometimes he seemed invincible, though the wound on his side declared him as human as the next man.
He ended the call and pushed the phone into his pocket. Turning, he scanned the room and made his way toward the TV stand. After fiddling with a knob, music made more of static than melody hit the air. Something beautifully foreign and lilting. He adjusted the volume to a lower level and thrust a hand back through his hair.
"Better than all the noise from outside. More wine?" he asked, coming back to the table to start clearing the plates onto the cart. He handled it all with brisk efficiency, something she was becoming used to.
"Thanks," she said when he took her plate. "And no, I think I'm good. What did Christian have to say?"
"He's got the rest of your luggage. All of it." When he had the table cleared, he pushed the cart to the door and left it in the hallway to be collected later or in the morning.
Evelyn changed her mind and poured herself a little more wine. Just a little. Galiana's things would be with the rest of theirs and she wasn't sure how she was going to face going through it without having some kind of major reaction.
So far, she'd kept most of her tears and grief in check.
"At least I'll have my own things again." Which was strangely little comfort.
"Are you all right?" he asked, proving that he was sensitive to her mood changes, subtle as they might be.
"Yes. Trying not to think about---well I'm sure you know. It's hard sometimes."
"Yeah. I bet." He leaned against the wall next to the open balcony doors. "Who taught you how to use a gun?"
Evelyn glanced up from the swirl of wine and met his eyes. "My friends. They're pretty confident in situations like...those. They stay in practice."
"Doesn't sound like you do."
"I don't like violent confrontations," she admitted. She saw no reason to hide it.
"You used the gun though."
"I wasn't shooting at a person. And it's more than just weapons. It's the physical manifestation of the rage that makes my knees feel like jelly. I don't know why." Feeling like she might have said too much, she had a drink.
"Everyone has their thing. Sometimes it's mind over matter. I know you couldn't because you were bound, but would you have fought back if you could when they had you in that room?"
"If it meant escaping---yes. Or helping one of my friends. I'm not sure how effective I would have been though." The wine glass made a quiet tink on the table when she set it down.
"What happened to you that made you so susceptible to violence?" he asked.
Startled by the insightful question, she fidgeted with the outside seam on her jeans. A scene flashed to mind, centuries old but as clear as if it happened yesterday. Four Templars, two stripped to the waist, the iron cross tattoo prominent on their backs. Swords in their hands, teeth clenched, engaging in battle just outside the walls of Jerusalem. She and Alexandra had passed within feet of their growling fury, sweat flying from their faces, veins standing out in their arms. She knew what would happen if they were discovered and caught, which made it terrifying for Evelyn. They passed so close she felt the heat of their bodies, heard the blade sing as it arced through the air. The Templars were legendary with their sword skill. There had been no other place to escape but there at that particular doorway and although the Knights were occupied with something else, it had left a lasting, terrible impression on her.
"Miss Grant?"
She started in the seat, jolted out of her memory. "I'm not really sure. I've just never handled it well when I see people fighting up close and personal." The lie felt sour on her tongue.
Rhett regarded her like he thought there was more to the story. But he said, "So if I were to stalk you right now, you wouldn't be able to react?"
Evelyn snapped to attention in a way she hadn't before. Sitting straighter in her chair, posture alert, she wondered if she looked as hunted as she suddenly felt. "I...I don't know. I mean, it's you, and I know you don't mean it--"
Before she could finish her sentence, he shoved off from his lean and started doing precisely what he suggested. Stalking her. And when Rhett wanted to look intimidating, he could. In spades.
Less than thirty feet separated them. Out of her chair before he crossed half that distance, she put her hands out like she meant to fend him off, back-stepping toward the kitchenette. "Rhett, I don't think this is a good idea."
"You can't hold me off with just your hands. Look for something. What's the best weapon within reach?" Closer, striding long and determined.
Evelyn felt the breath leave her lungs in a rush. That same, strange feeling hit her legs, like they were wet noodles instead of flesh and blood and bone. She couldn't look away from his eyes for anything, not even a weapon. Her hip glanced off the edge of the counter.
He was almost within reach. And then he was within reach, pressing against her hands with his body, pushing her all the way back to the door. Dwarfed by his size, by his sheer presence, she tried in vain to move him by pushing at his chest. He felt as solid as a brick wall.
She looked at his throat, his chin, his mouth. His eyes.
"The best weapon would have been your glass or the bottle. Crack it against the table to make a sharper point. Or there was that vase to the side, but it would have required you to look away from me and that's dangerous. You had time in the safe house to grab it and throw. Tonight, I would have been on you before you ever touched it. If all else fails, bite and kick and go for the eyes."
"I can't breathe," she said, and it was mostly true. He'd taken her by surprise and done the unexpected, rendering her incapacitated. "And I can't scratch your eyes out. You're you."
"You could if I meant you harm. Right? You have to learn to think through the panic. Sometimes the best way is to put yourself in that situation, force yourself to confront it." He stared down at her and braced one hand against the door to the side of her head.
Alive too long to usually be affected like this by any man, Evelyn found herself surprised at her lack of control where Rhett was concerned. Like a moth to a flame she was drawn by his eyes, his self-assurance. The way he radiated confidence made her wish she could trust him with her deepest secrets, to let someone else in, lean on him when the burdens became too much. It wasn't the first time she felt caught in his orbital spin, and it wouldn't be the last time she forced herself back to the stark reality that she needed to keep this a business arrangement.
"If you meant me harm, probably." Conceding his point, she stared up through the veil of her lashes. It couldn't be her imagination that he seemed as drawn to her as she did him. The way he glanced between her eyes and her mouth was an age old giveaway. But it was more than lust, more than a feral animal heat. It was something she squelched right then and there---again---and refused to acknowledge beyond mutual attraction.
Minna would set her straight in a heartbeat.
Against the small of her back, the doorknob rattled and turned. Gasping, she pushed into Rhett even while he pulled the gun out of the holster, putting himself between her and the door.
Christian froze when he came face to face with the muzzle of the gun.
"Hello to you, too," he said to Rhett.
"Knock or announce yourself next time." Rhett tucked the gun into the holster and stepped back to let him in.
Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief. Flushed from her interaction with Rhett, she brushed hair away from her cheek and moved out of their way.
It wasn't just Christian pulling a piece of luggage, but two other men, both also carrying luggage, who stepped in behind him.
One, older than the others, stood at least six-foot-five and had black hair with a goatee and mustache. Hair tied in a neat tail at his nape, business suit and polished boots, he looked distinct and businesslike. Almost his mirror twin, the second man, younger but equally as dark, chose a blazer and jeans instead of a suit and his hair was loose around his neck. He too sported a goatee that he kept neatly trimmed.
Rhett didn't look concerned or worried and made introductions while she moved out of the way to give them room.
He gestured to the taller man first. "Miss Grant, this is my boss, Dragar and my associate Dracht. They've been doing a lot of investigating while we've been in transit."
Dray-gar and Draw-kt. She locked the pronunciations away and shook Dragar's hand when he offered it. The calloused surface of his palm felt rough against her own. He had long fingers and a firm but not crushing grip.
"Nice to meet you, Mister-- er, Dragar."
"Mister Sagan. But call me Dragar, hm?" He smiled like an indulgent father might and released her hand. The man towered over her, his dark gaze as sharp as Christian and Rhett's.
"Miss Grant." Dracht took up Dragar's place, peering down at her from his loftier height. He had eyes so dark brown they almost looked black.
Evelyn went through the motions with them both, wondering what they were doing here. Drawing her hand back, she clasped them in front of her. She glanced between the two new agents.
"Thank you for bringing the suitcases. I didn't expect to get them so quickly."
"Just part of the job, Ma'am. We took a plane to cut the time down," Dracht said. "We have some news about your friends."
He and Dragar sat on a sofa, making themselves right at home in the sitting room. They were so tall that they seemed to take up all the real estate on the couch, yet there didn't seem to be an ounce of extra fat on either one of them.
Christian moved the luggage closer to the wall and went to stand near the balcony, keeping watch over the market.
Rhett escorted her to a sofa opposite the agents.
Evelyn perched on the edge, feeling like something important was about to be said. She felt out of place, out of sorts. Nothing could be gleaned by any of their expressions and she felt a moment of sheer panic thinking they were about to tell her that all the other girls were dead.
Please God, anything but that.
It struck her again how much had changed in a short amount of time, and that for now, their fates were inexplicably twined with these men.
Dragar and Dracht watched her straight on, without smiles, their broad hands clasped between their knees. Rhett stood to the side with his arms crossed over his chest. She could feel his gaze pinned right on her.
"Have you made contact with them, then?" Evelyn found it difficult to shape the question. She swallowed past a tight knot in her throat.
"Not exactly. We've been watching the place they held you and managed to track a few of them to another location. A few hours ago, we saw them move three women from a van into a building and we're assuming, considering the circumstances, that they're your friends," Dragar said.
Evelyn felt like someone had kicked her in the chest. "All three? Did you---I mean, I hope you're going to tell me next that you went in and got them out."
"Not yet, Miss--"
"Why not? Why would you wait when you know what they did to me?" she asked, incredulous. She'd been hoping against hope that her sisters had been able to stay on the run.
"We went in blind the first time after you," Dragar said, not unkindly. "It could have cost Agent Nichols his life. We can't do that again. It's better to find out all we can about the location, about the entrances and exits and how best to go in and extract them. It'll happen within the next twenty-four hours though. We thought you should know."
Caught between concern and misplaced guilt that Rhett had risked his life for her, she looked between their eyes. Part of her was relieved that they were making plans to get the girls out, and the other part of her wanted them out now.
"I understand the risks, but believe me, the risks to their lives are far greater. Are we going back to Greece?" she asked.
"I think it's best if you stay here, Miss Grant. We still don't know how broad their network is or what they even want with you and your friends. With any luck, we'll be able to take these people into custody and question them," Dracht said, taking over for Dragar. "We're planning to go in sometime in the middle of the night."
"But every hour you wait is another hour they're being tortured," she argued, upset at the thought of her sisters enduring that kind of pain.
"We don't know what's going on in there---"
"Well I do. They won't waste any time trying to get them to talk." She realized belatedly that she might have chosen the wrong words; all four men were staring at her like they wondered what she wasn't saying.
"About the same thing they tried to get you to talk about, Miss Grant?" Christian asked.
"I can't be sure, but it makes sense." Evelyn felt like the whole thing was perilously close to unraveling around her. "They obviously think we know something we don't, or know someone that we don't." The collective, contemplative silence of the four men all but unnerved her.
Finally, Dragar said, "We'll go in as soon as possible. As soon as it's safe for us and we know we're not putting your friends in more danger. Is there anything else you can tell us that might help? Think hard, Miss Grant. Every little detail is important."
Oh, there were many things she hadn't told them. Many things she could tell them that would shed a whole new light on the situation. Licking her lips, she debated confessing. Never had she felt such an overwhelming urge to confide as she did with Rhett and these agents. The same old reasons why she could not kept her secrets safe.
"I've wracked my brain and I can't think of anything I haven't already told agent Nichols. If I think of something though, you can be sure I'll let him or Christian know."
"Please do, Miss Grant," Dracht said.
Dragar and Dracht stood up almost on cue, as if there was some hidden signal they reacted to.
"Will you let me know as soon as you have them out?" she asked, standing when they did.
"Absolutely. Don't worry, they'll be all right," Dracht reassured her. With a cordial smile, he walked ahead of Dragar to the door. "We'll be in touch."
"Thank you." Caught between dismay and hope, Evelyn bid them goodbye.
"I'm going down to scout the lobby and around the perimeter of the building," Christian said, following both of the other men out.
Evelyn watched them go, sending up a fervent prayer the agents wouldn't be too late.
Rhett bolted the door in their wake and came back to lean against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. It seemed to be a favorite pose.
"Want help with your luggage?" he asked.
She understood he was attempting to distract her and nodded her gratitude.
"Yes, thank you. Then, I think, I'm going to try and get a little rest." She didn't think for a minute sleep was in the cards. She just wanted an excuse to stay secluded after going through Galiana's things.
Without another word, Rhett took the suitcases into the room she'd claimed as her own. He did so with the familiar ease he did everything else, and paused next to her on his way out after leaving them by the bed. "Don't worry. Dragar and Dracht are good at what they do. They'll get your friends out before another one dies."
Unzipping Galiana's suitcase metaphorically translated to unzipping the emotions she'd held at bay since the murder. When the flap flipped back and the sweet smell of Galiana's things hit her nose, Evelyn's restraint and composure fled. All the grief rushed to the surface. Silent tears tracked down her cheeks while she touched the make up bag, the ruffle on a shirt, the outline of a stylish shoe.
Twenty-eight years had passed since they'd lost one of their own. Blindsided and ambushed by the pain, by the hole it left in her soul, Evelyn tried to come to terms with it. The initial shock had been absorbed by the need to get away from the Templars; now there was nowhere left to hide from the uncomfortable certainty of death.
Sweet, compassionate Galiana, lover of fashion, fragile butterfly, fierce protector of the innocent. Sister, daughter, loyal best friend. The girl with a heart of gold who devoted so much time to those of the less fortunate persuasion. She had taken her oath to spread good through the world as seriously as the rest of them. For Galiana, it was less like duty and more a natural inclination to help others.
She didn't realize she was sobbing until she felt a pair of strong arms lace her up from behind. Rhett's distinctive scent and size would have given him away if she hadn't known they were alone. Seeking refuge in a stranger's arms was not typically her way, but she found that today, after all this, she didn't care. Half turning, she rested her temple against his chest and let him absorb some of her sorrow.
Galiana was gone.
Minna, Genevieve and Alexandra, all that she had left in the world from the beginning in the Garden, were at the mercy of the Templars. One or more might very well be dead already. Evelyn wasn't ready to face life alone without her sisters. The thought of never seeing any of them again cut her to her core. Every one of her other siblings were long dead, brothers and sisters alike.
"Shh. It'll be all right," Rhett said in a soothing murmur.
"Will it? She's gone. She's dead and I never even got to say goodbye." Her words broke over breathless sobs.
"We'll make sure we hold the body so you and your friends can give her a proper funeral, hm? Then you can say goodbye."
The stroke of his hand on her hair calmed some of her inner turmoil. Outside the balcony window, the noisy street below clashed with the private moment they had, a constant reminder of the danger they were in. Under her cheek and her palms, Rhett was solid and strong. Sure of himself. The sheer confidence he radiated along with his looming presence helped curb the harsh emotion rioting around inside.
He crooked a knuckle under her chin and lifted her face to his.
In the jaundiced glow of the street light filtering in the glass pane, Evelyn locked gazes with him. She instinctively knew it wasn't just her that felt the pull between them. She read the seriousness of it in his gaze, felt the tug of attraction from him as surely as he must have felt it from her.
The pad of his thumb cruised along the top of her cheekbones, smearing the tracks of the tears away. A sweet motion that Evelyn found as irresistible as the spark of heat in his eyes. They hovered on the brink of an action that would change how they interacted together, change everything period. If they gave in to the temptation, they would no longer be Agent Nichols and Miss Grant.
He searched her eyes for answers she didn't have to give him. Evelyn's grief subsided by slow degrees and she felt her chin tremble with suppressed emotion. Leaning on Rhett, literally and figuratively, felt right.
Without warning, Rhett lowered his mouth and claimed hers. A gentle brush turned into a hot slide of tongue that sought entrance. Entrance that she gave him. He tasted like exotic spices and heat. A small groan betrayed her, a sound he drew in and absorbed while cupping the back of her head to keep her close. That he could be so tender after all the things she'd seen him do only exacerbated the desire pooling low in her belly. They might never have had harsh words earlier, never had an ounce of tension between them as gentle as he handled her.
Changing the angle, he came in again at another slant, drawing her into a thorough exploration that left her clinging to him; he felt like marble under her pressing palms, never swaying or losing balance when she came flush against him. As if nothing could ever shake the foundation he stood on. A low growl shook his chest and she responded by arching into him, gasping against his lips when his grip tightened in her hair.
The opening of the door to the suite startled them both. Her more than him. She stepped away with her fingers touching the damp curve of her lips, eyes locked on his. In that split second before he pivoted on a boot heel, Evelyn understood that she'd rocked him as much as he'd rocked her. He wore his desire openly and there was more than lust lurking in his gaze. Something deeper.
Maybe she was just losing her mind.
"Rhett?" Christian asked.
"In here," Rhett said, leaving her room with long strides.
Evelyn used the time to get herself together. Turning back to Galiana's suitcase, a fresh pang surged through her. In the other room, she heard Christian and Rhett speaking in low voices but she couldn't make out what they were saying. If they weren't careful, Rhett's partner and boss were going to find out things were becoming more complicated than they imagined.
She found Galiana's stash of cash and pushed the fold into the pocket of her jeans. There was an extra credit card she hadn't had on her at the time of her death that Evelyn also kept. All the girls knew the passwords to each others accounts for safety reasons, and if she couldn't get into her own account, she might be able to access Galiana's if she needed to.
Every time she thought about her sister, her stomach rolled into knots.
Hearing the door open and close again out in the main room, Evelyn's curiosity drew her to the archway. Rhett stood there with his hands on his hips, staring at her as if he'd been about to walk in.
"We need to talk," he said, and gestured to one of the couches.
Safer out here than in the bedroom, she thought. Evelyn nodded and crossed the room to sit on the edge of the cushion. Her mouth still felt bruised and raw from his kisses.
"What's going on?"
"Christian's suspicious of a trio of men he spotted while he was making his rounds," Rhett said, getting right to the point. All the warm desire she'd seen on his face had vanished in favor of sharp concern. "He wants us to stay alert up here, ready to move at a moment's notice. I'd advise you to rest while you can though. The situation's too fluid not to take advantage of every second we can to refuel."
Despite his concern, Rhett exuded a sense of calm that, in any other circumstance, would have soothed any and all her fears. The recent torture though, the attack by the boat, kept her from getting too comfortable. Alarm shot through her at the thought that the Templars were closing in.
"What do you mean, suspicious of a trio of men? They can't already be here, can they? How will he know for sure?" The questions spilled out before she could stop them.
He must have heard her angst because he came over to place a hand on her shoulder. Rhett was so tall that she had to crane a look way up to see his face.
"It's his job to know what to look for, hm? Let him work. Right this second it's just a feeling, so we're still okay. Once my boss and Dracht and their team get your friends out of there, they'll be coming back here. Extra eyes, extra ears." Rhett stared down at her and squeezed her shoulder lightly.
"Will they be bringing my s---friends?" That was the second time she almost slipped and said the wrong thing.
Rhett arched a brow. "Probably not. It's not a good idea to make one big target out of all of you, Miss Grant."
So they were back to Miss Grant and Agent Nichols. Evelyn's lips thinned, though she knew that it was best to keep a professional distance with his partner coming in and out all the time. That knowledge eased the rankle at the formality he fell back on.
"I'd like to be able to at least talk to them when I can." Evelyn fretted over Dragar and Dracht questioning her sisters only to get a different story than she'd given Rhett. Not good. Not good at all.
"I don't see a problem with that. We'll know more as the night goes on. Get some rest." He stepped away toward the small kitchenette.
Evelyn watched him go, remembering all too well what his mouth had felt like on hers. She wondered if he was thinking of her that way, too, or if he'd already put her from his mind.
The look he speared back through the room when he opened the small fridge for a bottle of water assured her that no, Rhett had not put her from his mind at all.
Even in the middle of the night, she could hear noises from the market street below. People talking, people laughing, the random shuffle of shoes on asphalt. She wondered if the city ever slept. She also wondered if any of those bodies winding through the market were Templars. If they were, why were they waiting so long to strike?
On her back on the bed, fully clothed with her shoes on, Evelyn stared up at the dark ceiling. Her thoughts swirled around the safety of her sisters, the kiss with Rhett, and future plans that she couldn't quite grasp. She didn't know what direction to go in anymore, wasn't sure how to function without Rhett and Christian's help. She and her sisters needed them until they could slip back into the obscurity they preferred. Would Rhett be satisfied with that when it was all over? --would she?
The answers that came immediately to mind unsettled her. Rhett wouldn't just walk away from this and neither would the US government. They were involved too deep now, too invested in revealing the truth. If they caught the Templars and questioned them, there would be no hiding what they were.
And what then? How would she explain? The lies and deception would be impossible to overlook. Even if she figured out a suitable lie and the government didn't uncover the oddities in their backgrounds, she knew the Templars would probably out them. To save their own skin, they would sing like birds.
Saying goodbye whatever the outcome did not set well with her, either. After only a few days, Evelyn was already torn about her feelings over Rhett. Not one to fall in love at first sight, she still wanted the option to at least get to know him better.
Turning her head to the side, she saw the glowing numbers of the clock on the nightstand: 2:15. Exhausted, she closed her eyes and at least tried to rest. If Christian had come and gone to relieve Rhett, she'd never heard him.
The next thing she knew, weak fingers of light spilled in through the cracks of the curtains over the balcony doors and the scent of food filled her nose. Blinking awake, she saw Rhett standing at the side of her bed with a tray in his hands.
Sitting up, she glanced through the room, bleary eyed.
"Good morning," he said with too much crisp authority. He sounded like he'd been awake for hours. "I brought you breakfast."
Evelyn knuckled her eyes and propped her back against the pillows. He set the tray over her lap in that efficient way he had that always made her feel like he was one step ahead of the rest of them.
"Thank you. You didn't have to--"
"I know. Eat, and then we'll have a short chat."
A short chat. Evelyn snapped a look at his face. He smelled fresh from a shower, hair still damp, whiskers bristling along his jaw. In dark, plain clothing, he'd slung the holster over his shoulder with the guns tucked into the sheaths. She wondered if he had information about her sisters.
"Did you hear from your boss?" she asked.
"Just eat, hm?" he said, giving her a look that said he wouldn't tell her anything until she'd replenished her energy.
Pancakes, two slices of bacon and scrambled eggs stared up at her from the plate. A small glass of orange juice sat to the side. Suddenly, she realized she was ravenous. Picking up her fork, she dove into the meal that seemed home made rather than ordered up from room service.
Rhett must have had Christian gather supplies and cooked it himself.
She watched him cross the room to scoop back the drapes and tie them off to the side of her balcony doors; through the panes, she could hear the bustle of early shoppers and merchants in the street market below. He didn't open the doors themselves, standing with his hands propped on his hips while he surveyed the building across and what he could see of the milling crowd. Searching for threats. Calm and in control, he didn't act suspicious and yet there was no denying that he was alert and attentive.
She didn't think much got by Mister Rhett Nichols.
He turned with a sharp pivot and slanted her a vague smile that she couldn't read. "I'll be out here when you're done."
"I'll be out in a little bit."
He left, closing her door behind him. The man was an enigma, government agent or not. Last night he'd kissed her and this morning she half expected him to start whipping out the 'Miss Grant' again.
Ten minutes later, she set the tray aside with fully three quarters of her meal demolished. Awake, but still needing coffee, she made quick work of a shower. From her luggage she found another pair of jeans and a lemon yellow shirt with tiny white piping to wear. Leaving her hair to dry into natural waves, she folded all the spare cash she could find from the luggage, the identification and credit cards, into her pockets.
Done with that, she gave Galiana's luggage a last touch, stifling the knot in the back of her throat, and left the bedroom.
Don't think about it now.
More sunlight poured in through the open balcony doors in the living room, drenching the suite in a warm glow. Rhett made a strong silhouette outlined against the bright day, one arm up on the door frame. She couldn't tell from this angle exactly what he was looking at, but he seemed as serious and as intense as he'd been in her room.
"All set?" he asked before she could announce her presence.
How did he do that? She started to frown and then smiled to herself. If he wasn't so astute, she probably wouldn't be alive.
"I am. What's going on? What did you find out?" Perching on the arm of a chair was as comfortable as she could get until she knew more about what happened to her sisters.
He turned around and leaned his back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. It made him look broader, if that was possible. She tried not to openly stare.
"They didn't get your friends, Evelyn." Straight up, with a scrutinizing stare, lips thin with displeasure.
Whatever stray thoughts had started to slide through her mind cut off at the news. She looked at his eyes.
"What? Why not?"
"They weren't there went the agents went in. Some time during the night, they were moved through an underground tunnel beneath the church. We didn't know it existed until they did a thorough search." Rhett seemed grim about the news.
Evelyn's stomach lurched. "Well surely they can track them? I mean, if it's a tunnel, then it leads somewhere."
"They did that. The basement it emptied into was the building next to the church, an old mortuary no longer in use. They didn't find your friends there, either."
Evelyn got up off the couch and started pacing. "I don't understand. Was that just a preventative measure on their part? Did they have some other goal? I mean, it seems strange to me that they would just up and move them."
Rhett shook his head, watching her. "We haven't figured it out yet. But they're working on it. Believe me when I say Dragar and Dracht know what they're doing."
Evelyn wanted to snap and say she didn't think any of them knew what they were doing; it served no one, least of all herself, to give in to that kind of knee jerk reaction. If she lost control and allowed anger to rule, she'd only end up offending the only people trying to help them. And, the devil on her shoulder reminded her, she wasn't telling Rhett and his co-workers the truth. Not the whole truth.
Rubbing her forehead, she paced a path through the living area.
"So what do we do now? Keep waiting?" she asked.
Rhett straightened away from the wall and dropped his arms. "It's all we can do. But I'm not in favor of holing up in the room all day. Feel up to a short trip?"
The Egyptian sun blazed down from a sky as clear and blue as a sapphire. Not one puffy cloud interrupted the perfect canvas. Dry and arid, the breeze buffeted against her skin. Evelyn sat aside Rhett in a jeep he'd acquired from some contact in the city. It reminded her of an older military model, wheels thick with tread, the color a fading pea green. Roofless, with the doors welded closed, they'd had to climb up and over to get inside.
Rhett drove with as much authority as he had the night he'd extracted her from the basement of the church, aiming for the outskirts of Port Said by what appeared to be every back road and short cut he knew.
They passed robed natives and tourists piled into ancient looking buses and a few more markets that seemed to do brisk business no matter what time of the day it was. Camels brayed, led by their owners, and a few donkeys pulled cockeyed carts filled with produce. Raucous crowds reduced the grind of the engine to a low hum.
Once they left the teeming city behind, Rhett steered onto dirt roads without consulting any maps, leading her to believe he knew this area much better than she'd first thought.
Several times, to distract herself from distress over her sisters and Galiana, she let her gaze wander over the flex of muscle under his clothing and the strong span of his hands. When she found he'd caught her looking she veered her attention out to the sandy landscape, wondering just where in the devil he was taking her.
In what seemed the middle of nowhere, with no one in sight, he brought the jeep to a halt and hopped out.
"C'mon. We'll set up right over here." Dressed in khaki colors, from his pants to the shirt and vest over his shoulders, Rhett matched the desert around him.
Evelyn unclasped her seat belt and hoisted herself over the welded door to the ground. Whatever her other faults and flaws, she was fit and in good shape.
"Set up for what?" she asked, meeting him at the back of the jeep.
"You'll see."
He hadn't worn the shoulder holster in the open, but she saw a small cache of weapons when he opened a black bag to sort through the contents. Skin tingling from the heat, she watched him take two handguns and three glass bottles of soda out.
"What's that for?" she asked, following him away from the jeep.
Rhett strode ahead, purposeful and intent. Evelyn had her first inkling when he propped the three bottles a foot apart from each other on a waist high wall of chipped cinder blocks. Beyond stretched barren acres of desert.
"I'm going to teach you to shoot better."
"I've shot a gun before--"
"Not the way I'm going to teach you. This one's unloaded for now," he said, handing her one of the black handguns.
Evelyn eyed it skeptically, then reached out to fold it into her palm. It was heavy but not uncomfortable.
"Aim for one of the bottles," he said.
She raised the gun and aimed for the bottles.
"Okay. Your stance is all wrong and you're holding the gun like it might bite you." Rhett stepped behind her, a solid wall of hard muscle and heat, and knocked her feet apart with one of his. Gentle taps of his shoe against hers. "Widen your feet a little."
"I feel ridiculous." She widened her feet, glancing down.
"You won't feel ridiculous if you're in that basement again and they're coming at you with torture on their mind," he muttered. "Shooting at that boat on the ocean is a whole different animal than protecting yourself in face to face combat."
"Is it normal procedure for a government agent to teach the people under his watch self defense?" she asked, feeling truculent and belligerent.
"Is it normal for a group of women to be hunted, murdered and tortured by a clandestine faction no one can seem to trace?" he retorted.
His comeback grated on her fragile nerves. It galled her that he was right. She hated that she couldn't confess, couldn't admit who she was, or they were, and certainly didn't want him becoming more suspicious than he already seemed to be. Instead of fumbling around for an answer to his question, she centered her balance evenly over her feet and got serious about the lesson. Alexandra and Minna would be proud of her for making an effort.
"All right. That's better." The resonant timbre of his voice that close to her ear sent a tingle down her spine. His hands slid down her arms to her wrists and over her hands.
"Hold it like this. Tighter. Leave your finger off the trigger for now even though it isn't loaded. Get used to the weight and feel of it."
Evelyn adjusted her hands and tried not to be distracted by the way he wrapped himself around her. The bottles gleamed in the distance. She focused in, realizing she felt more in control in this stance than she had any other time she'd fired a gun.
Rhett talked her through the basics, adjusting her shoulders a little more. His chest kept making contact with her back though he never knocked her balance off. When he seemed satisfied that she understood what to do, he took the gun from her and showed her how to load the clip.
"Try to remember how many bullets you have and how many you shoot."
"That might be difficult in a panicky situation, but I'll try. If it comes to that."
Rhett met her eyes under the ridge of his brows. "You know what they say. Practice makes perfect."
Evelyn wanted to tell him she had no intention of getting into confrontations often that required the use of a gun. He took out two sets of ear plugs from one of the many pockets on his pants and gently pressed a set into her ears. Then he did his.
Standing behind her, he said, "All right. Let's see what you got."
Lining up a shot, his instructions running through her mind, she depressed the trigger. And missed. She frowned.
"Try again."
She missed four more times. None of the bottles so much as twitched. It really had been a long time since she'd done any target practice and it showed.
"Line it up again. Breathe. Concentrate," he murmured behind her.
On her fifth try, one of the bottles of beer exploded into a shower of glass and liquid. Evelyn, lowering the gun, glanced behind her to find Rhett smiling his approval.
"Well done. Four more rotations and we'll call it a day."
Dusk sheared away the last of the sunlight, leaving Port Said in that twilight time where night hadn't quite taken hold. Evelyn walked at Rhett's flank after they dropped off the jeep, keeping an eye on the swirling bodies filling the street. Moving at a brisk clip, he kept both hands free of his pockets, alert and attuned to his surroundings.
Evelyn wondered if he was always this intense. Even while he taught her how to shoot, she'd detected the underlying sense of awareness about him. As if he would never be completely at ease.
The bag of weapons, slung over his shoulder, made them appear, she thought, like any other tourist couple on a sight seeing trip. She tried to give off that aura, concentrating on not drawing any undue attention their way. The acrid heat made her shirt stick to her shoulders and back. She plucked at the material at her hip, letting in a fissure of air to cool her skin.
Around them, the scent of food mingled with sweat, smoke and concrete. Jostled from almost every direction as they sank into the crowded series of market streets, she felt Rhett reach back for her hand. Warm, rough-palmed, it encased hers and held firm. Evelyn had never been the hand holding type when it came to men and relationships, no matter how brief, but she enjoyed the sensation with Rhett.
Without any warning, he stopped.
Evelyn bumped into his side with a quiet oomph. Glancing up, she saw him twist a look behind them, eyes narrowed.
"What is it?" She had to raise her voice to be heard even standing right at his side.
He didn't immediately answer. While bodies swarmed around them, making her feel like a sardine in a tin, Rhett surveyed the area.
"Get in front of me. You know the way to the hotel from here, right?" He tugged on her arm and gave her no choice but to do as he asked.
"I know the way." She recognized several of the taller buildings.
With a lurch, she started walking in front of him, the clasp of their hands broken. All along her spine she felt his heat. Several times he bumped her when the crowd pressed too close. The urgency she detected from him set her on edge.
Something was wrong. Maybe his instinct kicked in and he felt like they were being followed.
Twice she felt him turn around to look behind them.
"If I tell you to, you go and don't look back. Take the shortest route to the hotel and wait for Christian." Into her palm he slapped the card-key to the room.
"But I don't think--"
"Just do it, Evelyn. Don't argue or interrogate me for once."
The short, clipped way he said her name told her that he was on high alert. Using her shoulders, she threaded through the crowd, unable to stop herself from glancing back once or twice. He loomed so close that she couldn't really get a glimpse of his face or his expression. Clutching the key card in her hand, she navigated one street to another, looking for the opening to the market that ran the length of their hotel.
She saw it ahead, finally, and was just about to tell him so when he gave her a push. He didn't shove her, just propelled her forward.
"Go. Right now. Go."
Evelyn stumbled forward a step but didn't fall. Adrenaline surged through her like a hot lash. Breaking into a run, she didn't look back because she couldn't, not without banging into an unsuspecting body. Cutting down the market street, she thought she heard heavy, hard breathing not far behind her.
As if someone were giving chase.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck because she knew it wasn't Rhett.
"Excuse me!" A knot of people haggling over an item at a booth seemed an impossible barrier between her and the door to the hotel. She squeezed through them instead of going around, gasping when she thought she felt someone grab for her arm.
Bursting out of the group, she hit the doors to the hotel and darted in. Without looking back, heart in her throat, she veered to the steps and ran up them.
Every second she expected to hear the door slam open behind her. Making it to the fourth floor, and then the suite, she jammed the key card into the slot. Glancing down the hallway, she saw no one rushing toward her but that didn't slow her momentum. Sweeping inside, she closed the door and engaged all the locks.
Rhett could knock when he got there.
"Christian?"
Silence.
"Christian, are you here?" Evelyn tossed the key card on the table and searched the suite. Christian was no where in sight.
Wary of the balcony, she stood near the sheer drapes and peered out along the market street, though it was too narrow to really get a good view of the end without being on the balcony itself. Worry for Rhett increased when he didn't show up right away, and doubled after fifteen minutes passed by. Holding the panic at bay, she started mentally going through options and making hasty plans. She had money, identification and Galiana's credit card in her pocket. That was all she would be able to take with her.
The chain on the door rattled, startling her, when someone tried to come in. She froze.
"Evelyn? It's Christian. Rhett's on his way up. Can you open the door?"
Relieved, she went over and removed the chain.
Christian looked out of breath and sweaty. Like he'd been running.
"What happened?" She closed the door when he came in.
"Ran into Rhett out on the street. He thought you guys were being followed so we took a little detour away from the hotel, then split up to make our separate ways back." Christian bent and put his hands on his thighs to catch his breath.
"Well, were you? Being followed?"
"It's hard to say, but Rhett's instincts are pretty good. Likely, he saw the same face too many times in a row too close to your position." Straightening, Christian reached for his phone when it beeped.
"Is that Rhett? Why isn't he here yet?" she asked. Evelyn stood near the door so she could open it again once Rhett got there. She had the key card---he had no other way to get in.
"He's making a circuit downstairs, just sent me a text. Said the foyer and all that looks all right." Christian pecked out a brief reply and put his phone back in his pocket. "We might have to change hotels or something."
"Whatever we have to do. I don't know how they could have found us already though." A hard rap of knuckles on the door a few minutes later startled her even though she was expecting it. Undoing the latch, she swung it open to admit a just as out of breath and sweat sheened Rhett.
"You didn't use the phone or anything in here, did you?" Rhett asked right off, without even greeting her first.
"I haven't touched anything." She held up her hands after closing and locking the door again. The situation unnerved her a little. The brief respite they'd had from the Templars seemed to be over. Evelyn just didn't understand how the knights could be breathing down their necks again. Like they had some sort of sixth sense.
"It could be they're making methodical checks of every port---or maybe it was someone else to do with something else altogether," Christian said. "There's more going on in this town than just what we're doing."
"Could be, but I won't take any chances." Rhett drug a hand back through his hair and went into the kitchenette to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler.
"So what do we do now?" Frustration ran keen that she couldn't take more control of her immediate destiny. The Knights had too many aces in the hole, had too much access to technology and resources that they'd systematically denied her. Although who was she kidding? Even if she had it, she wouldn't know what to do with it. Hacking into satellites, breaking into private databases, commandeering street cameras---she wouldn't know the first place to start to do any of that. Tracking devices, bank account freezing, hunting.
She was no good at any of it.
Alexandra's voice, so many years ago, sounding the alarm over RFID chipping and facial recognition, echoed through her mind. They'd all known they were on limited time before finding a new way to outsmart the system. The noose had grown tighter and tighter around their collective throats.
Ruminating, she studied Christian and Rhett. They'd both put their lives at risk to save her, were even now plotting ways to keep her out of the Templar's reach. But what would their reaction be if she blurted out that she was a daughter of Eve? It would be impossible for them to believe. A far out tale that might bring her sanity into question. There was nothing about her that suggested she was any different than any other woman and in truth, there wasn't except for her lineage, her immortality, and her ability to heal at a faster rate than most people. She had no special magic to prove herself, nothing but a mark on her wrist that could be explained away as a scar or a tattoo.
Simply waltzing them into the Garden of Eden was against the rules. She recalled a scroll, passed down through the centuries, that could validate her existence. Could prove she was who she said she was. Except, if she was correct, that scroll and the box it was contained in should be located in the vault below the Vatican. The very people who had the proof to save her were the same ones trying to kill her.
"What's on your mind, Evelyn?" Rhett asked.
Yanked out of her reverie, she made eye contact with him. He was looking at her in that incisive way again, as if he sensed there was more here that she wasn't telling him.
"I'm just concerned, that's all. Wouldn't you be? It seems like everywhere we go they're right on our tail." It was the truth, it just wasn't the whole truth.
Rhett didn't look like he believed her. His expression seemed slightly accusing.
"I told her that we might have to move hotels," Christian said, interrupting the stare down. He stepped past Rhett for the cooler, snagged his own bottle of water and reduced it to half in three long swallows.
"Will that really help anything, though?" she asked. "They seem relentless, ruthless, not to be put off just because they've lost track for a second."
Evelyn knew that was the truth of it. As long as they breathed, she and her sisters would never be rid of the threat. Rubbing her brow, she paced through the living area.
"It just depends how close we think they're getting. It'd be better if we knew who 'they' were, or what we're dealing with here." Rhett finished off the water at the same time as Christian and both men tossed the empty bottles in the trash.
There was that edge to his voice again. Hinting. Luring. Suggesting that he knew she had more information. Grouchy and bitter at being forced to hold her tongue, she avoided eye contact.
"I'll take first shift downstairs," Christian, said, glancing at his watch.
"Thanks for your help, Christian." As irritable as she was, she didn't forget her manners.
"I'll relieve you at two-thirty," Rhett said on his way to the balcony doors. There, he double checked the lock and yanked the sheers over the panes.
Christian made his quiet goodbyes and departed.
On her way to the door to engage the second bolt and the chain, Evelyn turned her mind from the Templars with determination. Instead, she mentally went over the lessons of the day in explicit detail. Once she'd gotten somewhat comfortable with the weapon, she'd managed to hit her target better than ninety percent of the time. Not bad for someone who loathed pulling the trigger. Rhett had remained patient if commanding and lavished praise on her for a job well done.
"Thanks, I was coming to do that," Rhett said somewhere behind her.
"Better to be safe than sorry." She squeezed past him and went into the kitchenette for something to drink. Food wasn't an option until she felt more settled and her stomach worked out of the knots the tension had tied it into. Opening the cooler, she stared at bottles of juice, tea, soda and water.
Hyper aware of Rhett and his presence, she felt him close the distance. The kitchenette was so small that he seemed to obliterate the entire space. She couldn't really see past him and certainly couldn't get past unless he let her.
"You all right?" he asked, reaching past her to grab an apple. He snapped off a bite and crunched it between his teeth.
The light bump of their bodies sent a jolt through her. She closed the cooler door, forgetting to snag a drink.
"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you won't look me in the eye. If I've learned anything about women in my time on earth, it's that a woman is not telling you something when she can't even look at your face."
She scoffed. The toes of her dusty shoes became intensely interesting. "I'm just trying to decide if I want to get some sleep now or wait another hour. If I go too early, I'll be up in the middle of the night."
Rhett cracked off another bite of apple. He stood so close she could smell the sweet scent mingling with his masculine one.
"You know what I think already. Get the rest while you can."
"Yes, because we never know when the---those men might find us." Evelyn cursed her wayward tongue. Rhett made her forget herself.
Rhett's few seconds of silence assured her that he'd caught on to her slip. "That's right. I've got things out here. Why don't you go sleep."
Because I can't get past without touching you, you ox. Evelyn curtailed the mental rant. It wasn't his fault she was so aware of him.
Well, actually...yes. Yes it was.
When she glanced up, she found him studying her in that way that unnerved her.
"What?"
"Just trying to figure you out, Miss Grant."
"Why was I Evelyn earlier and now I'm Miss Grant again?" she demanded, suddenly irritated. The rakish smile he flashed annoyed her.
"Are you saying you prefer me calling you Evelyn?" he asked in a far too silky tone.
"I am not."
"Then why are you bristling?"
"I'm not bristling. You're just being brutish--" Unprepared for the way he snagged her around the waist with one arm, she whuffed a breath when he brought her flush against him.
Without looking, he set the half finished apple on the counter and stared down at her.
Evelyn couldn't accurately describe his expression; searching, scrutinizing, calculating. None of the above. All of the above.
"If I was being brutish, Miss Grant, you'd know it. Why don't you just say what you mean? You've stopped or stalled yourself several times."
"Does it annoy you?" Breathless, she planted a hand against his chest. She wasn't sure if it was to push him away or to feel the solid muscle under the shirt and vest.
"Not half as much as it makes me curious over what you're not saying." He let the suggestion sit between them, a blatant invitation for her to clear the air.
"I just want to know why sometimes you call me Evelyn, and other times you call me Miss Grant."
"There's a lot of things I want to know that I'm not getting the answers for." He arched a brow pointedly.
Had he guessed she was keeping secrets, or did he mean generally, in regard to the men who'd abducted her? Even as her spine stiffened she saw his eyes narrow. Rhett was trained to pick up on the smallest cues, she reminded herself. He probably knew the whole time that she'd been keeping vital information back.
And yet there they stood, staring into each others eyes in a way that had nothing to do with his being an agent or her being a victim of a brutal assault. Tension thick enough to cut filled the space between them.
Bringing his other hand up, he covered hers over his chest. Trapping it there. Beneath her palm, she felt the steady thud of his heartbeat.
Get ahold of yourself, Evelyn. This won't work. It can't. In a day or two, once the girls are safe, he'll be out of your life forever.
The pep talk didn't work well when he bent his head, watching her eyes the whole time, and kissed her. A brush of lips, warm and apple scented. Almost like he was testing her resolve, or asking permission. Maybe he wanted to see if she could resist him.
She couldn't. Ignoring the inner warning bells, she opened her mouth under him.
That was all the invitation he needed. Plundering her with suggestive strokes of his tongue, he deepened the kiss until she was dizzy. Under her hand, she felt his heart rate speed up. Her own raced, making the blood rush in her ears.
With a low sound that reminded her of a growl, he broke the kiss apart.
Close range, she stared at his face, drawn to the longing he exuded that was like a silent clarion call. Reaching up, she brushed her fingers across the texture of his whiskers, curious and unable to help herself. Prickly and rough, they rasped against her skin and left a tingle in the wake. His eyes darkened when she dared to initiate the touch.
Evelyn lost interest in being confrontational and irritated. He seemed to sense it, drawing his hand through her hair to cup the nape of her neck.
The next kiss started out hot, and grew hotter by the second. There was something desperate and needy about it, a sensation she derived from them both, like they knew they were on limited time. And there were a thousand reasons to just let go. Give in to the desire and the passion. The most prominent one was that they might be parted tomorrow and Evelyn knew she would regret it for the rest of her life if she didn't have this memory to take with her when they split. She didn't just need to take a part of him with her, she wanted to. This was different than every other interaction she'd had with any man and it seared her to the core.
Pulling her harder against him, he drove his tongue into her mouth with hungry swipes. Molding her to the strength of his frame, Rhett seemed to want to burn the memory of her against his body. She reveled in the hard plane of his stomach and the breadth of his chest. Sweeping her into his arms, he kissed her all the way into the bedroom---not hers, but his---and laid her on the covers. Coming over her like a dark shadow in the gloom, he pressed her into the mattress, made of rough groans and determined hands and a grinding pelvis that quickly drove her wild. It escalated from there to the impatient tug and yank of clothing, stripping each other until it was only her skin and his.
Every stroke of his hips and hands were commanding, possessive, and the look in his eyes when he made her his melted the barriers around her heart that she'd spent a lifetime building. Her nails marked his back and his teeth scored her throat, leaving blush-bruises that would disappear by morning. She wasn't so sure that the furrows she left on him would do the same. They felt deeper, like the imprint of his passion on her soul. It was more than sex, more than a release.
And she knew that he felt it, too.
By the way he stared into her eyes, touched her cheek, kissed her with the same rhythm of his hips. Stroke for stroke, branding himself inside her. It unraveled like a whiplash and she buried his name in his neck, panting and breathless, while he shuddered and held her like something precious and sacred.
No words could make it more beautiful and so they remained silent, touching with gentleness instead of ardor, until she fell asleep tangled with him in an endless splay of limbs and heat.
Rain. It drug her up from the abyss with its gentle pressure pattering in her ears. Fluttering her lashes open, she saw the designs on the ceiling. Night still had a grip on the city beyond her windows; her gut told her that as much as the gloom wrapping itself through her bedroom. As clarity returned, she realized it wasn't rain but the steady hiss of water from the shower. Too groggy to figure out if it was Rhett or Christian---was Christian even back yet?--she sat up in bed.
Her body ached in all the right places in all the right ways. Evelyn couldn't remember feeling so sated and content. Pushing at the wild mane of her hair with a hand, she slid her legs over the edge of the mattress.
She smelled like him.
So did the sheets.
Struck by a sudden fit of ridiculous excitement, she got to her feet. It felt like the universe had cracked itself open and exposed a whole other world for her to explore. The men she'd chosen to spend time with on this earth all had their good qualities, but not one of them left her like this: blush cheeked, buzzing with pleasure, like a lost puzzle piece had finally found its place. Evelyn had always been practical where men were concerned, only staying in relationships long enough to enjoy the company but never long enough to threaten her safety.
After a while, people were bound to ask questions when they aged and you didn't.
Realistically, she knew she shouldn't lead herself on. Shouldn't lead him on. But she was too caught up in all the things that felt right, engaging in a moment of self indulgence.
The sight of their clothes strewn everywhere had an air of reckless abandon that appealed to her. It also reminded her that she needed to get dressed.
From her suitcase, she found a pair of jeans and a black shirt with capped sleeves to wear. Out of habit, she pulled shoes and socks on and stuffed the pockets with her usual items. Money, identification, credit cards.
Even if she decided to go back to bed at some point, she wouldn't sleep naked in Rhett's room while he was gone on duty. Paranoia assured that she stayed as prepared as she could be.
In the living room, she pulled the mass of her hair back into a ponytail and glanced at the glowing numbers of the mantel clock: 2:05 a.m.
Christian was due back in less than half an hour. Stifling a yawn, resisting the urge to interrupt Rhett in the shower, she decided to get a drink while she waited.
The front bathroom sat between her bedroom and the kitchenette. She had to pass it to get to the cooler. Rhett had left the door cracked, doubtless to allow him to hear in case anyone tried to get in. It was just a glance she spared in that direction on her way by. The mirror spanning the sink bounced his reflection back at her; the glass doors, etched halfway up in designs and hieroglyphics, kept his modesty while exposing his torso. Even through the vague curl of steam, she could see him so clearly she might as well have been standing right in the bathroom instead of out in the hallway.
But it wasn't the broad span of his back that stopped her, or the way the muscles flexed under the tawny stretch of his skin. It was a strange discoloration, like bruises, as if he'd suffered a major injury. She knew she hadn't done that much damage with her nails.
Drawn closer to the door with concern, she squinted, too curious about what he'd suffered not to investigate.
His skin seemed to be peeling back, and Evelyn wondered if he'd been burned. But no, it wasn't quite the same thing. The bruising, this close, started to take shape.
...the shape of an iron cross tattooed between his shoulder blades.
With a gasp of utter shock, she bumped into the wall behind her.
No. It couldn't be.
Rhett Nichols could not be a Templar. He was a government agent--
Silly fool. He's been playing you all along. They probably don't have your sisters but are hoping you'll lead the knights right to them.
In seconds her mind connected all the dots; they'd covered up the anomaly with make up or a skin-like patch of some kind, maybe realizing she might get a glimpse of his back. Now it was peeling away from the direct power of the shower spray and maybe a little help from her fingernails.
The betrayal felt like a sledgehammer to the gut and shock kept her pinned to the wall as if she'd been nailed there. He'd lied to her, deceived her. All those looks and kisses and--
Oh god.
Seducer.
Liar.
The bile rose up the back of her throat, thick enough to choke her. Christian, Dracht, Dragar. They were all Templar Knights.
Thoughts of Christian and the knowledge Rhett wouldn't be long in the shower drove her into motion. She had money and her identification in her pockets but there was no time to grab extra clothes or a suitcase. Instead she went for a weapon.
How fitting he'd taught her to use it so recently.
From the holster he'd left on the table, she took the remaining gun. The other was probably in the bathroom with him for safety precautions. With shaking hands, she checked the clip like he'd taught her. Seeing the gleam of bullets, she jammed it back into the weapon and tucked it under the back of her shirt in her pants. She couldn't just run around Port Said with a gun in her hand.
Wheezing, distressed, she glanced at the clock.
2:17
She had to get out of there. As it was, she might run into Christian on the way down the stairs. What would she say? What excuse could she give? Creeping toward the door, she disengaged the locks and the chain as quick and quiet as she was able to.
"Evelyn, is that you?" Rhett called out from the bathroom. His voice echoed eerily off the walls in there, resonating.
Maybe he'd turned around by then and had seen her pass by the door in the mirror. She didn't wait to find out but slipped out into the hall and broke for the stairs at a dead run. In her mind she determined how long it might take Rhett to really understand what was going on, get dressed, and come after her. Rushing headlong, she took the flight at a dangerous pace, circling down, down, down.
Hitting the door, she fled into the market without looking back. So many people. Didn't anyone ever sleep?
"Evelyn!" Her name snapped her gaze up to the balcony of their suite.
Rhett stood there, even then yanking a shirt over his head; he'd already managed to get jeans on. The man was quick.
Fear galvanized her into action; without a word, she charged through the crowd. She made hasty pardons when she elicited angry curses from the natives. Panic made her breath shallow. People stared at her, jostled her. Pushed at her.
"Evelyn!"
Startled at the ferocious growl of her name, she glanced back. Before she could look away, Rhett swung over the railing of the balcony, hanging on with his hands, and let go.
Yelping in surprise that he took that kind of shortcut, she watched him aim for an awning to break his fall. It bowed inward and the supports snapped with sharp cracks. Evelyn didn't watch more than that.
Rhett was coming.
Shoving her way through the milling bodies, she emerged out onto the next street and went left. Drawing all kinds of unwanted attention, heedless of anyone else or anything but getting away, she veered down the very next street and into the throng. Ten feet from the corner, she lurched into one of the tiny shops, nearly knocking down an older woman with a basket on her arm. Shouts followed her into the back, where she barged without permission, looking left and right for some other kind of way out.
A spiraling staircase led up and she took it. There was too much noise, too much commotion to see if Rhett was right behind her. Evelyn ascended to the next floor, and the next, following the staircase all the way to a door that led out onto the roof of the building. There wasn't a lock from the outside, but there was a stray two-by-four on the ground and she jammed it under the doorknob.
It wasn't a total fix but it might buy her another few minutes.
Just as she found a fire escape that would take her back to the main street, she heard Rhett kick at the door. The bang echoed across the rooftop.
She missed the rail of the ladder when she flung herself over the edge and for a single, terrifying moment, she thought she was going to fall all the way to the ground. But her fingers caught the iron and she crashed into the ladder with a grunt. Scaling down as fast as she dared, her feet just made contact with the concrete when she heard Rhett above her.
Looking up, they locked gazes.
"What the hell are you doing? Stop running!" he shouted.
Evelyn took off down the alley. She refused to stop or slow down. There was no need to listen to his excuses. Bastard. How could she have been so naive.
The metallic thump of his shoes on the metal rungs of the ladder encouraged her to go faster. Zig-zagging through another market, she looked for places to duck into. Places like the last where she could double back or hide or come out a different exit on another street that might throw him off her trail. There were less people here and she didn't know whether to be angry or thankful.
A jewelry and bead shop looked like it might connect elsewhere in the building, or perhaps she could bribe the owner to hide her. Either way she rushed in, accidentally knocking over a display. Thousands of beads flew everywhere, a riot of color that made the floor a haphazard landscape. Several shouts erupted at once and she gave up thinking to ask the owners to help her. The more commotion they made, the more it would draw Rhett's attention.
While confusion reigned, she found a door that led into another shop and she didn't even hesitate. Running through, toppling racks of clothes and collectables, she burst out onto another street teeming with tourists. It looked to be some sort of gathering or party.
Someone grabbed her ponytail, wrenching her head back. Screaming, thinking Rhett had finally caught up with her, she aimed a vicious kick at the man's knee. She felt it give and bow backwards, hyper extending the joint. When he howled and fell to the ground, she realized that it wasn't Rhett but someone who'd probably thought she was a thief and had been trying to stop her.
Disoriented for a moment, knowing his caterwauling would draw more attention, she glanced around to get her bearings. A glimpse of Rhett crashing through the shop drove her forward, barreling through people and onto another, less busy street. Here, where she had room to move, she picked up speed, uncaring at the way passerby whipped their heads around to watch her go.
A narrow alleyway between two buildings came up on her right and she swerved into the dark opening, feet pounding, breath coming in gasps. Not being a main street, the corridor looked empty, desolate. Muted light from two bulbs spilled over the asphalt, just enough to see by.
She didn't realize she was crying until the alley became blurry and out of focus. Passing two fire escapes, she looked for side doors into shops or businesses and found three---but they were all locked when she tried them.
Whirling at the crunch of gravel underfoot, she saw Rhett standing perhaps twenty feet away, poised like he'd been stalking her. His chest rose and fell with heavy, rapid breaths.
He held up a hand in the traditional gesture of Stop. "Evelyn, listen to me--"
"You liar!" she shouted, reaching into the waistband of her jeans to snatch the gun out. Bringing it up, shaking to the point the barrel wavered three or four inches in any direction, she aimed it at him.
He put both hands out this time. "I have to explain--"
"I've heard enough from you! Is your name even Rhett? Is it? You've been lying to me this whole time!" The shrill edge to her voice carried through the alley.
"We can't do this here, Evelyn. You're going to draw too much attention," he said, taking a cautious step closer.
"Stop! Don't you dare move another inch." Clenching her teeth, furious and hurt, she tried to steady the gun. Rhett had abused her trust---trust that she should never have given him---in ways that threatened to shatter her. Fear ticked along her pulse like a mad insect, racing to and fro, to and fro.
He stopped, palms still up in surrender. "There are things you don't understand, Evelyn."
She cut him off. "I understand what you are. That's all I need to know. You've been lying since the very beginning. What did you all do, decide to have you 'rescue' me, so that I'd trust you and lead you to my sisters? Bastard!"
The whole sordid plot unfurled before her eyes; a daring save, a charming 'agent', selfless acts of protection. They'd planned the entire thing from the beginning. She felt sick beyond anything she'd ever experienced.
He cocked his head and looked confused. "I thought you said you didn't have any sisters?"
"Stop playing games!" She railed at him, angrier by the second that he continued his ruse. If he was a Templar, then of course he knew she had sisters. Sisters they pretended they were going to rescue. Evelyn didn't know what happened to the girls, but she suspected they couldn't get in contact because they'd been hounded worse than she'd been.
"I'm not playing games. Evelyn, come back to the hotel--"
"No! I'm not going anywhere with you." The gun wavered, centering on him.
"I don't know what you're thinking--"
"I saw the tattoo, Rhett."
His eyes narrowed in a calculating way. "So? What's it mean to you?"
What did it mean? Death and destruction.
"It means you're one of them. You've known all along. Did you participate in my torture, even?" Nausea gripped her hard. That he could have such a cruel streak after making her feel safe unnerved her. The duplicity was so extreme that she could hardly wrap her mind around it.
"Do you think I'd have risked my ass, rushing into that basement to save you, if I'd been a part of it? Lower the gun, Evelyn." He took a step closer and had the audacity to look affronted.
"Don't," she hissed. "Don't do it."
"You're not thinking clearly. Just stop for a second and listen to what I have to say."
"I don't need to listen. I know what you want."
"What is it you think I want? Besides sisters you told me you didn't have."
"How could you have done this? I trusted you, Rhett." Evelyn choked back a fresh sob that started to rise up her throat. "Was it you that sent me that text? No wonder the boat found us so fast. You were telling them where we were the whole time."
"I did not tell anyone our location. What is it you think you know about the tattoo, Evelyn?"
"It doesn't matter what I know. Or how. It matters that you all lied, thinking I'd lead you to my sisters. You don't actually have them in your custody, do you? That was a ploy and a lie like the rest."
Rhett looked perplexed. "Have you forgotten I came under gunfire? That I almost took a bullet head on for you?"
Evelyn couldn't believe how realistic his confusion seemed. It antagonized her further. "Staged, like your fake concern and your kisses."
"You're crazy if you think I was faking that. There's some kind of miscommunication going on here, Evelyn. Just take a second to breathe. Let's go back to the hotel and figure it out." He closed the distance by a foot. Cautious, careful. Watching her eyes.
"Don't. Take. Another. Step." She clipped out each word with a shaky voice. Her insides were a mess of tension and stress.
"Or what, Evelyn? I know you won't shoot me. You can't stand there and tell me you haven't felt the same thing between us that I have since we met."
"No. That was nothing. And it was certainly nothing to you. If you really thought I wouldn't shoot you, you would have just come over here and grabbed the gun by now."
"You don't believe that--"
"Don't tell me what I believe!" She took a step back, gripping the gun with both hands. The muzzle shook like she was having mild seizures. Through the gloom, she could see people passing the end of the alley in periphery. They were alone, but they wouldn't be alone for long. He'd probably alerted Christian. Maybe even Dracht and Dragar.
Of course he had.
"Give me the gun, Evelyn. Let me take you somewhere safe so we can figure out what's going on." He stretched out a hand. Coming closer.
The crack of debris under his boots sounded so loud to Evelyn just then. Every one of her senses seemed exacerbated by the strain of the moment; the green of his eyes was greener, his hair more golden. She could hear him breathing, hear the rustle of of his shirt when he moved. The gun felt heavier, less steady. Cold. Hard. And much deadlier when it bucked in her hands the second she pulled the trigger.
Dracht glanced down to the paper in his hand. The license plate number matched the one of the van parked in the lot of the decrepit church.
"It's the same one," he said.
"I'll bet they've got them in the basement again," Dragar said, rechecking the rounds in his clip before sliding it into the gun. "There has to be another door leading down there besides having to go through the front."
Two other men in the back of their own van made final preparations. All were dressed in black to blend in better with the night. They wore shoulder holsters under their jackets. Each had a belt on with additional supplies: minor explosives, mirrors, stun grenades, heavy sedatives.
Dracht looked out the windshield from the driver's seat and brought the binoculars up to scan the outside of the building. It was the fourth time he'd checked for security. They'd gotten word only an hour ago that the van had been spotted. Dracht didn't want to waste a second closing in. With any luck, they wouldn't arrive to find the women moved to another location, like the last time.
"Anything?" Dragar asked.
"Nothing. I think I see stairs at the back but no one's guarding them."
"That'll be the door directly to the basement we need," Dragar added, then spoke over his shoulder to one of the men in the back. "Raoul, bring the bolt cutters just in case."
"I'm on it, boss," Raoul said, taking the bolt cutters out of a bag on the metal floor.
"If we're going, we need to go now. There's only about an hour until daylight," Dracht said, lowering the binoculars.
"Then let's go." Dragar pushed open the door and got out.
On cue, the other men exited at the same time, leaving the doors cracked so they wouldn't alert anyone on guard at the church to their presence.
Four hulking shadows crossed the street and swarmed the back stairs, descending one at a time.
Dracht stood to the side and let Raoul cut the chain wrapped through the door handles. He wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad sign. Either the group of men wanted to make it hard for anyone to get in, or they'd already vacated the premises. The van could be a decoy to make them spend time here while the group interrogated the women somewhere else.
The church, on the outskirts of Athens, was an older monument that had not gone through renovations in some time. Thin spires rose high and sharp against the black sky, like needles trying to pierce heaven. A large cross threw a shadow down onto the sidewalk from the moon. Stained glass windows depicting scenes from the bible lined every wall. Several had been broken out from vandals who had no care for religion or sacred places.
After Raoul painstakingly removed the chain, Dracht opened one of the doors and listened; in the distance he heard water dripping and a strange metallic noise that creaked rhythmically. The men around him stayed quiet, keeping an eye out in different directions so that they weren't taken by surprise.
Dracht made eye contact with Dragar. At the go-ahead nod, he crouched and went in; for such a big man, Dracht could move with predatory speed. One spare, lone light bulb swung from the ceiling on a string, casting eerie shadows on a long basement with discolored, pocked walls and thick wooden support beams. Gun drawn, he swung it left and right, ready to encounter anything.
The sight that greeted him when he passed a support beam that had been blocking his view was a shocking study in premeditated violence. A black woman hung from her wrists, head sunk down against her chest in death. Naked, her toes dangled at least a foot from the cold, concrete floor. A pool of blood sat beneath her, dripping down from the hole in her chest where her captors had cut out her heart.
This must be Genevieve.
"Mother of god," Raoul whispered somewhere behind him.
In this business, Dracht had seen a great many things. Vicious, ugly things. Torture, death, dismemberment. The impact of this girl's death hit him strange and hard and for reasons he could not understand. It felt like something precious had been lost, the light of goodness doused by something evil. This woman should not have died.
Dracht knew and understood that instinctively. The quiet noises the others made assured him that they felt the same thing he did. Unexplainable. Odd. Unlike any other death scene he'd come across in his lifetime.
He wondered if the men who'd found the blond behind the nightclub had the same reaction.
"Room's clear," Raoul said after a cursory sweep.
Dracht lowered his gun, mouth thinning in disapproval and disgust.
Dragar stepped past him, weapon down at his side. He made a wide circle around the girl, looking for other clues and signs. Dracht knew Dragar well and he could see and sense the same disturbance about this death that he himself felt.
Raoul and Benecio came to stand at his flank. Their unease was unusual and palpable.
"Go check the church and the back steps to make sure they aren't circling around to trap us in here," Dracht said.
Raoul cut one way and Benecio cut another.
The drip of blood made no noise, but it grated on Dracht's nerves nevertheless.
"This is different than other killings, hm?" Dragar said, bringing up what Dracht hadn't said into the open.
"Yes. You feel it, too?"
"I do. I want to have her examined by a private physician and see if they find anything unusual. Besides the obvious. There's something here we're missing," Dragar said.
"It doesn't look like they've killed the other women yet, unless they've done so between this stop and another." Dracht brooded over the fact that the murderers were keeping one step ahead of them and they hadn't saved Genevieve in time.
"They could have split off into two groups. Rhett said there were four of them in the room when he got Evelyn," Dragar replied. He came to stand next to Dracht facing away from the dangling woman.
Dracht hadn't thought about them splitting off into two groups, but it made perfect sense. "If they've done that, then there's even more here than we thi--"
Raoul came back into the gloomy basement at a run, cell phone in his hand. "Christian just called. He said we need to fly back to Port Said immediately. Rhett's been shot."
In the underworld of politics and religion, men of power had resources at their disposal other people did not. Such as the private jet that swept Dracht and Dragar across the Mediterranean toward Egypt; such as the team they left behind to take care of the deceased Genevieve. Dracht had left specific instructions that she was to be handled like a precious jewel or face the consequences of his wrath. He'd called the mortuary holding the other one, Galiana, and expressed his desire for them to keep the body in cold storage rather than cremate her until he had some answers.
The tasks kept him busy until they landed on the private airstrip where a waiting car whisked them away to a hospital on the outskirts of Port Said. Even here they had pull. Christian would have made sure to get Rhett out of the public eye and have him treated by a physician who could be trusted to keep his mouth shut. They had discovered in flight that Rhett had not been mortally wounded, which notched down the anxiety several levels.
When they walked into the secure, isolated hospital room, Dracht was not surprised to see Rhett sitting up on the bed yanking at the IV line. He had a bandage over the top half of his left shoulder with a small spot of blood seeping through the pristine, white gauze. A flesh covered bandage protected what he supposed was the other wound Rhett had acquired saving Evelyn from the safe house.
Two close calls.
"What the hell happened?" Dracht asked while Dragar went closer to investigate.
Christian stood up from a chair in the corner and hovered near the other side of the bed with his hands in his pockets after the greetings.
"She shot me, that's what happened," Rhett said with a snort.
"Evelyn shot you?" Dracht asked. Of all the scenarios he'd imagined, that was not one of them.
"That's right."
"The kicker, is that he gave her lessons in the desert, thinking to help--"
"Shut up, Christian," Rhett growled.
At any other time, Dracht might have thrown his head back and laughed. The recent death in the basement and Rhett having been shot by the woman he was protecting subdued his humor.
"I guess you didn't teach her how to shoot to kill?" Dragar asked, clapping Rhett on the shoulder once he seemed sure the man wasn't dying.
"I taught her just fine. If she wouldn't have closed her eyes when she pulled the trigger I might be in the morgue right now," Rhett said with disgust.
"Do you think she would have really killed you?" Dracht asked, growing more serious at the question.
"I don't think so. I think she was scared and wanted to slow me down." Rhett didn't seem disgusted so much at Evelyn as with himself.
Dracht regarded Rhett with a sharper eye. "Why did she shoot you to begin with?"
"Because she saw the tattoo." Rhett twisted his torso around so Dracht and Dragar could see the way the 'patch' had peeled away from his skin. Half of the Templar tattoo was visible.
"I don't understand," Dragar said. "Why would that send her into flight?"
"She apparently knows something about it. I couldn't get what she knew out of her. Situation was too tense," Rhett answered.
"How could she know? That secret has been carried down through the centuries. Only rumors exist outside the Church and our group," Dracht said. He wasn't sure what to think that some random woman knew about their status. Even people that had seen the tattoos didn't know what they really meant. The legend of the Templars had died out hundreds of years ago.
"I don't know, Dracht. But I'm not spending the whole night in here while she's out there on the run and vulnerable. She's been withholding information that we need to help them," Rhett said, standing up off the edge of the bed.
He swayed, and Dracht put a hand on his other shoulder, urging him to sit down. "You need at least one night of rest, Rhett. Don't push yourself."
"It's a flesh wound. No good will come of me sitting here all night while she puts more distance between us," Rhett insisted.
"How will you know where she's gone?" Dragar asked. "I don't think she'll be stupid enough to use her own identification to flee Egypt."
"Because I put a bug on her while she was asleep." Rhett sat down and reached across his chest to smear the edges of the bandage firmly against his skin. The IV dangled from the bed where he'd ripped it out.
"Why don't you let us pick her up--"
"No, I want to do it," Rhett insisted, standing up again.
He wasn't as steady on his feet as he should have been. Dracht and Dragar exchanged glances before Dragar left the room.
"Nothing good is going to come of you rushing after her right now. If you pass out somewhere, it'll take us too long to find you," Dracht said, buying time.
Rhett went to the armoire against the wall and jerked the handle, swinging the door wide. There was a shirt in there that Christian had probably brought earlier. Rhett snatched it off the hanger and shoved his good arm through the sleeve, going slower with the other.
Dracht knew Rhett well enough to know that he wouldn't slow down or stop until he either passed out or was made to pass out. The wound wasn't lethal, but Rhett had lost enough blood to make him woozy. That meant he'd be less attuned to his surroundings and more apt to be off his game. Mistakes often meant death in their business, and he wasn't willing to take that chance.
Dragar came in with the doctor on his heels. Before Rhett understood their intent, the doctor stabbed a needle into his arm and depressed the syringe.
".. what the hell." Rhett snarled and yanked his arm away.
Christian and Dracht caught Rhett as he sagged, cursing a blue streak under his breath that faded as unconsciousness claimed him.
Between them, they had no trouble manhandling him back into the hospital bed.
"Sorry old boy, but it's for the best." Dracht felt not one lick of guilt for their actions.
Dragar shook hands with the doctor and Dracht followed suit. The physician exited after assuring them Rhett would be well looked after.
Tomorrow they wouldn't have as easy of a time holding him back.
The small, seedy bar sat at least four blocks away from the shooting. It was the third one on her stop to nowhere, a late night haunt catering to nocturnal tourists. Gloomy, with a long bar against one wall, seating scattered intermittently and pool tables at the back, it had conflicting orange-green color accents and a floor that felt sticky to walk across, even in shoes.
With shaking hands, Evelyn ordered another shot of whiskey and tried to calm the frantic pace of her pulse. Images of Rhett flying back from the impact of her bullet had burned themselves onto the back of her eyelids, forcing her to relive the horror like a film reel on repeat.
She knew he wasn't dead, not with the bullet punching a hole through his shoulder instead of his heart. It had been the very last act of a desperate woman to save herself from certain death. Evelyn hadn't wanted to shoot him. Had not wanted to pull the trigger. She remembered pinching her eyes closed at one point and then had seen him go down after being struck.
And it irked her to no end that she was relieved he would survive even after his betrayal.
Damn Rhett. Damn him.
The bitter deception he'd perpetrated was hard to wash down, even with the burn of the alcohol. At the same time, she wondered how bad she'd laid him up, if at all, and whether he was going to come after her.
Of course he was.
It was only a matter of time.
She wasn't even positive the bullet had gone through him, perhaps only winging him like the last one had. His swift recovery from that incident was downright depressing when she was the one trying to flee him.
Dragging the band out of the ponytail, she ran her fingers through her hair and propped her elbow on the counter. She considered her options while the liquor slipped through her system.
Staying in Egypt was far too risky, and returning to Athens posed a problem because of travel issues. Even in her state of upset, she recognized that she couldn't very well use her passport or her I.D. She couldn't use Galiana's, either. Likely they had hers flagged, too. The Templars probably had every airport monitored in a fifty mile radius.
She thought about trying to take a boat across and dismissed the idea out of hand. Aristo worked for them and would turn her in if she showed up asking for passage. How many others were on their payroll?
What she needed was to be in touch with her sisters. Thoughts of them in the hands of the Templars made her stomach clench. Undecided whether they'd been captured and were being held as bait or were on the run like herself, she glanced along the bar to the woman sitting one stool down. She reminded Evelyn of a showgirl past her prime, with too much make-up, big hair, bright red lips and a misplaced debutante air.
Lola, of Copacabana fame, came to mind.
What held her attention however, was the purse sitting on the stool between them that gaped open while 'Lola' dug through for a lighter that she produced with a drunken coo of triumph. Specifically, the passport and wallet within easy view, which gave her ideas she shouldn't be having.
Evelyn was no ordinary thief. She wasn't a thief at all.
But desperation made her bold. Lifting her shot glass, she leaned a little to close the distance between her and the woman when she offered up a toast.
"To all night bars," Evelyn said, pretending to be tipsier than she was.
'Lola' billowed a lungful of smoke her way and picked up her own glass, more than willing apparently to toast a stranger. "Honey, we couldn' live wit'out 'em," the lady slurred.
Evelyn made sure that the tink of their glasses was hard enough to slosh liquor all down the woman's gauzy shirt.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Must have had a few more than I thought. Here, let me help," Evelyn said, setting her almost empty glass down while she slid off her stool and gathered up a few napkins.
"Crap, it's soaked through," the woman said, setting down her glass with a thump.
It was in the seconds where the stranger glanced through the dim room for the restrooms that Evelyn snitched out the wallet and the passport. She tucked them under her shirt, into the waistband of her pants. The bartender was too busy breaking up an argument over by the pool tables to notice and everyone else either couldn't see due to low lighting or were in the wrong vantage point.
Although she and the stranger had different color hair and eyes, Evelyn knew she could get around that with the addition of a hat and a pair of sunglasses. Women changed their hair color all the time, and at least she and the woman had similar bone structure to make the ruse less obvious.
"I'll order us another drink and I'll pay for your shirt," Evelyn offered, dabbing up what spilled on the counter with a napkin.
"Soun's right. Hold my seat now." 'Lola' grabbed up her purse by the straps and Evelyn held her breath, hoping she wouldn't look through it right then.
She didn't. Staggering off, the woman headed for the short hallway and the neon Ladies sign she must have glimpsed in her search.
Evelyn only waited until she'd disappeared out of sight to pay for her own drinks and depart the bar. Half expecting the bartender to suddenly call her out, she sank into the obscurity of the still crowded street. At some point, the woman she'd left at the bar was going to discover the theft and call the authorities. Or maybe, if she was lucky, the lady would think she'd simply lost them.
Hailing a cab, Evelyn gave the driver her destination and breathed a small sigh of relief when no one shouted her name or tried to stop her.
At the airport, feeling too exposed under the glow of florescent overhead lighting, she bought a floppy brimmed hat, a pair of reading glasses and a cheap purse to stuff the wallet and passport into. Sunglasses, considering it was still dark outside, might have been too conspicuous.
In the bathroom, she scraped her hair back into a hasty knot, securing it with a thin band she'd had in her jeans pocket. It helped disguise that her tawny, auburn streaked hair wasn't quite as light as the woman in the photo. Evelyn also decided that it made her own cheekbones look sharper, closer to a match for the identification that didn't belong to her.
As long as the clerk didn't pick apart the differences, she thought she could pass through undetected.
Still, she was nervous when she approached the desk a few minutes later. The hat provided her with a small amount of privacy in the way she glanced furtively around, checking for familiar faces, or even people who seemed too interested in her. Trying to be discreet, she was unprepared when the clerk asked her where she wanted to go.
"Excuse me?" Evelyn said, snapping a glance back.
"Your destination, ma'am?" the girl said with a heavy accent.
"I need something immediately, if you have it, preferably to Spain," Evelyn replied, hastily choosing a spot out of Egypt and away from Athens but still in the general area. She could travel easily enough from Spain to Greece when she needed to.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but there are no available seats until tomorrow in the afternoon."
"All right, let's try France. I can always connect with another flight there if I have to."
"All seats are booked until eleven-forty-five in the morning."
Evelyn caught one of the security guards watching her when she pretended to get inside the purse for the wallet. His scrutiny panicked her, although she tried not to show it.
Of course there were no flights to France. It figured.
The security guard strolled a little closer to the desk.
"What seat do you have available right now? The destination doesn't really matter. I'll just have my sisters change their flights tomorrow." Evelyn played at being a bored jet setter. Ignoring the security guard became harder and harder to do as he took up what seemed to be a casual lean against the high counter six feet to her right. His proximity forced her into a hasty decision to accept the very first flight out of Egypt that she could get, no matter the destination. Timbuktu, England--
"There's a flight to Las Vegas with four layovers--"
Vegas?!
"I'll take it," Evelyn said, cutting the desk clerk off. She smiled to reduce any sting and chided herself when her hands shook as she passed over the other woman's identification and passport. The clerk didn't seem to think anything was wrong, because she took up both items to start punching the data in on her computer.
Vegas. Well, that was much farther out of her way than she needed to go. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. If, when she got a hold of her sisters, she could tell them to meet her there. It would put oceans of distance between them and the Templars.
Out of the corner of her eye, Evelyn saw the security guard bring a hand up and tip his mouth toward the small radio on his shoulder.
Crap.
He was calling for backup. He'd probably recognized her from fliers the Templars had already sent around, guessing she'd try and flee the country. Thoughts of escape consumed her while she watched the clerk with growing impatience. Fear that more security guards were going to show up escalated her heart rate.
A fine sheen of sweat dotted her brow under the brim of the hat.
The price the clerk quoted was more cash than she had on hand. In a quandary, Evelyn wondered what to do. The pressure was on. She'd already stolen 'Lola's' wallet and passport, probably putting her into a world of hurt so far away from home. To use her credit card on top of that was just adding insult to injury.
Did she have any choice? If she used Galiana's card, the Templars would be alerted if they weren't already. Survival instinct kicked in and she passed over one of the woman's three credit cards, glancing at the name on the front so that she wouldn't have to look like she didn't know it when the time came to sign.
Margaret White.
Not quite a Lola after all.
With the transaction complete, and Evelyn about to jump out of her skin with nerves thanks to the security guard, she accepted the passport and identification back and stuffed them into the purse before signing the slip.
"If you hurry, you can just make it to the gate before final boarding, Miss White," the clerk said, handing her a ticket and pointing down the airport in the direction she needed to go.
"Thank you." Evelyn gathered the purse and the ticket. She didn't look at the security guard when she veered away from the counter and took up a brisk pace toward the departing gate. At least she had a good reason to be moving at such a quick clip through the terminal.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Evelyn boarded the plane without being stopped by security. Finding her seat, she sank into the cushions and for now, left the hat on. No one occupied the seat beside her.
All the better. Evelyn wasn't in the mood for small talk.
"See, the great thing about our arrangement here, is that I don't have to wait around to sign out. So either you remove the IV, or I will." Rhett glared at the doctor.
The sun had come up an hour ago and Rhett was impatient to be on his way. Dracht and Dragar were gone in search of the girls---the sisters?--and Rhett didn't want Evelyn to put any more distance between them. He was sure she'd figured out how to flee Egypt already, unless she'd decided on the age old trick of hiding in plain sight.
It didn't matter. The tracking device would lead him right to her.
"But you need to rest for another day at least. You're going to aggravate the wound and you don't want to lose anymore blood than you already have," the doctor said, looking slightly nervous.
"I don't have twenty-four hours." Rhett, standing next to the hospital bed, was through screwing around with delays. His patience had a limit. He shot Christian, who waited in the corner with his arms across his chest, a look that said he'd better be ready to move.
The doctor showed his palms in a sign of surrender and came over himself to remove the needle and tape from Rhett's arm.
Rhett sneered when the physician gave a piece of the tape an especially vicious yank. Versed in controlling pain, he showed no other sign than that before he brushed past the physician. The special arrangement in place for the Templars at this, and many other hospitals around the world, made it convenient to get their wounds treated expediently with utmost privacy.
Already dressed in jeans and boots, he tugged a navy blue shirt over his shoulders, careful not to dislodge either bandage. The pain incurred from the bullet was tolerable with the addition of the pills the doctor had given him, and he had more tucked away in his pocket for later. It wasn't the first time he'd been shot, or shot at, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last.
"Did you bring the monitor?" Rhett asked Christian while he adjusted the shoulder holster to fit around the wound. He gave the leather a few yanks until it suited him.
"I did. She's on the move, somewhere over the atlantic," Christian said.
Rhett arched a brow and slid his arms through the sleeves of a jacket. "Where the hell does she think she's going?"
Christian shrugged his brows. "I have no idea. She must be pretty freaked out to leave the area altogether."
"Well yeah, she shot me," Rhett snorted. "She probably thinks she'll be arrested if she's caught. I wonder what she meant by calling those girls her sisters," he mused.
"That's what they must be, but I don't see how from the pictures we were able to pull up with their information. One is clearly of oriental descent and another African. Maybe the black haired one, but that's all," Christian answered. He followed Rhett from the room and out into the hallway.
Rhett grunted, ignoring the fawning look one of the nurses gave him. He was all business, trying to think three steps ahead of what Evelyn might do. "Maybe the blonde we found dead, too. I wonder why she didn't just tell me one or two of them were her sisters."
They exited out into the already arid morning and Rhett squinted against the sun. Drawing sunglasses from his jacket, he slid them over his eyes and flatly ignored a sharp, stabbing pain through his shoulder. It felt like someone jabbed him with a hot poker.
"She must have something to hide, or that she doesn't want anyone to know," Christian said. He too drew on sunglasses to shield his eyes.
"Or," Rhett said, following Christian across the back parking lot to a waiting car. "She's simply protecting them from whatever the Templars want. Any news on that, by the way?"
"Man, no one knows what's going on. Dragar can't get any kind of leg up on all this because too many of them are out on missions and he doesn't know who else is involved. Something is going on, that's for sure though," Christian said, using the fob to remotely unlock the doors to the sleek, black BMW.
Rhett almost insisted on driving. Instead, he got into the passenger seat, scowling, and slammed the door closed. What remained of his patience and good mood were deteriorating rapidly.
"There were four in the subterranean room when I grabbed Evelyn. I'm betting there are more than just those four who are in on it, though. This isn't like your usual interrogation. They've got these girls mistaken with something or someone else. Has to be. The fact that the rest of us don't know anything about it is suspicious anyway," Rhett said, working out the facts in his mind. Too much of it was conflicting and contradictory. As a Templar, he didn't know all the missions the other Knights went on, but kidnapping and torture of innocent victims was never on anyone's To-Do list.
He angled the seat belt across his body and glanced at Christian as he backed the car out of the slot.
"Dragar's running an internal investigation while they look for the girls. See if any of the other guys crack under pressure. Someone has to know something," he said.
"Pisses me off that they killed another one. Systematically going through the ones left alive and taking them out." But why. Rhett couldn't make heads or tails of it all. He studied the scenery as Christian accelerated and whisked them away from the hospital. Rhett was glad to be out of there. He hated hospitals with a passion.
"Yeah, seriously messed up," Christian agreed with a low exhale. "Really vicious at the scene. Cut her heart out."
Rhett's mind superimposed Genevieve's face over Evelyn's. His gut twisted at the thought of her suffering something even worse than where he'd found her the first time. And his own brethren were responsible. Rhett wasn't a novice to death and even murder. Their jobs, such as they were, forced them to commit acts most citizens wouldn't understand. They were in the employ of the Church, acting on direction from a liaison. But their work was always geared toward the good, not senseless death.
And he was very sure that the two murders the Templars had committed already were just that.
Senseless.
"I figure we'll just go back to the stronghold and wait to see where she winds up," Christian said.
Rhett slanted him a dark look. "Like hell we will. I'll call ahead and get the private jet cleared. We know she's headed to the US, so we'll be on her tail when she arrives and just keep state hopping until she gets off. It'll help if we can find out which flight she's on."
"I already checked. Her name isn't on any of the manifests. None of her 'friends' names, either. Nothing I recognize. She's using someone else's name, though I can't figure out how she got something that fast," Christian said.
"Apparently. Let's hope she doesn't think to check for another bug or we'll really be up shit creek." Rhett grunted. He wouldn't be all that surprised if she found it and put it on someone else's luggage, leading them on a wild goose chase that would just waste time.
Rhett had the distinct feeling that every second they spent away from her was a second closer to her death.
This desert felt different on her skin. Las Vegas, with all it's glitter and shine, was not a strange place. Evelyn had been here when the very first buildings had gone up, when the dusty valley had taken on life. An oasis of steel and metal sprung up from the sand, luring visitors from every corner of the world. She'd been here when the Rat Pack played at all the swanky hotels, and she'd been here when Elvis took the stage. Onward, through the years, she'd watched the urban sprawl stretch out over miles while the hotels got bigger and fancier and more elaborate.
Her last visit had been sometime in the eighties, before the Strip had become home to hotels like the Venetian and Paris. As the cab cruised along the infamous street, she marveled at just how many new and glowing palaces changed the skyline she'd once been so familiar with.
Two delays in the extraordinarily long trip put her arrival in the dead of night though like Port Said, nothing about this city slowed down just because the witching hour was upon them. Lights raced around the edges of the Flamingo and the MGM Grand towered like a monolith, glowing as green as the witch's skin in the Wizard of OZ. She might have marveled at the replication of the Eiffel tower but all Evelyn could think was that Galiana would never see any of this again. Her sister had a special fondness for Vegas, always had.
Shoving the emotion down, she watched several little quaint chapels flicker past the window of the taxi, the spires lit up like the faux stained glass arching against the walls. The driver didn't have to compete with quite as much traffic as he might have four hours earlier and for that Evelyn was thankful. He pulled into the parking lot of the Venetian and angled up to drop her off before the front doors. Tipping him with a bit of the cash she had on her, Evelyn got out with only her bag over a shoulder.
People of all walks of life came in and out the doors, one of which she caught to hold open for herself. Entering, a cool touch of air hit her skin and the distant sound of chinging slot machines greeted her ears. Sweeping the hat off, feeling safe and obscure here so far from that gloomy alley a half world away, she stuffed it down into the large bag and headed to the front desk. The décor was charming and fitting for the theme, the lady at the counter helpful and smiling.
Evelyn used the stolen identification again and paid cash for a room for one night. She didn't trust to stay too long in one place and planned to move from one casino to another every few days. In the meantime, she would try to make contact with her sisters and get them on planes out of the middle east. If she couldn't contact them here, it wasn't likely that she would have been able to contact them in Egypt either.
She took the sobering thought with her to the elevators, rubbing her eyelids with her fingertips. The whoosh of the cab took her up to the third floor where she got off and made her way down the hall.
It reminded her of the hotel in Port Said.
It reminded her of the bastard Rhett. Damn him.
Emotionally drained, she used the key card in the slot and opened the door. Like everything else about the newer hotel, the furnishings were crisp and clean and well appointed. Swags in yellow-gold material hung over the broad windows and a separate sitting area boasted two elegant stuffed chairs with matching ottomans. The baroque details and warm red patterned comforter made the room feel like home.
Engaging all the locks and even the chain, she dropped the bag on the ground near the bathroom doorway and went straight to the queen sized bed. Flopping onto the mattress, she stretched out with an exhausted sigh and finally allowed herself to relax for a second.
For the first time since she'd seen the blasted tattoo on Rhett's back, Evelyn felt like she could actually breathe without worrying someone would crash through the door. Not for long, but long enough to just take stock of what had happened. The ceiling blurred out of focus and she closed her eyes.
Only for a moment, she promised herself. Only for a moment.
A sharp rap on her door startled Evelyn awake. Her body had that heavy sensation of deep sleep dragging down her limbs even while she struggled to sit up. Disoriented, she realized more time than she'd thought had passed. Confused and panicked, it all came rushing back as another sharp knock penetrated the haze.
They couldn't have found her already. Impossible. She had no weapons, nothing to protect herself from them. Scrambling off the bed, she lurched for the phone on the nightstand, ready to dial the hotel operator and scream for assistance. Her hands took on a palsied shake from being woken up in such a startling way.
"Hello, room service." Another rap of knuckles on the door.
Evelyn exhaled and set the handset back in the cradle.
Not the Templars at all. Just room service.
"Nothing right now, thank you," she called toward the door. Even her voice shook.
No knocks followed.
Tonight she needed to remember to put the Do not disturb sign on her knob.
Making her way into the bathroom, she took care of business, washed her hands and splashed cold water on her face.
The reflection that peered back at her looked pale and drawn. Her eyes had a jaded quality, mouth turned down at the corners. She felt older, as if the strain of the last week had added twenty years to her life.
Even the tan she'd acquired in Greece didn't help.
"What now, Evelyn?" she asked herself. There were no easy answers, even here, alone in a hotel room thousands of miles away from the chaos her life had become.
Her first priority was to buy a few clothes and to find another internet cafe to check for messages from her sisters. By now, if the girls were on the run and not captive, they would have found a way to leave her an email.
Rinsing her mouth, she spat into the sink and patted her face dry. Out into the bedroom, she went to the window and pushed the blackout drapes back. Squinting against the bright glare of the sun, she realized by the slant of it in the sky that it was much later than she thought.
Twisting a look to the nightstand, she saw the digital readout: 11:16.
She couldn't believe she'd slept that long. Gathering up the purse, she double checked that she had her key card and wallet. Putting the hat on her head, she exited the room.
Her first stop was to grab a bagel from the deli. Stuffing it down into the purse, she navigated the classy interior of the Venetian and stepped out through the double glass doors into the heat of the Nevada day. People bustled along the sidewalk and cars clogged the Strip. Keeping a wary eye on anyone that looked suspicious, she started walking. There were so many more businesses lining the street that Evelyn was momentarily taken aback. Not just enormous hotels but restaurants and shops. She ate the bagel on the way, giving her flagging energy a much needed boost.
A few blocks down, she caught sight of a store front off the main drag that boasted an internet cafe. Inside, small tables had been set up with computers across from each other. A long bar sat against a floor to ceiling window with stools lined up for customers to sit on. Airy and clean, pale blue with silver accents, it had an almost fifties feeling to it.
Purchasing a fifteen minute block of time, she chose a table in the corner with a computer that faced away from the crowd. Setting her bag on the floor near her ankle, she glanced over the faces in the cafe before putting her fingers on the keys.
No one looked familiar. Not that she'd expected anyone to. Still, she was too wary not to keep a constant eye out for anything suspicious. It only took her a minute to log into their shared internet account. She clicked the folder for new mail and held her breath.
Nothing.
No new mail. A sharp stab of disappointment turned into a fresh round of fear. Anger at the Templars surfaced as well. Debating the wisdom of leaving her whereabouts, she decided that ultimately she had no choice.
Except she did so in a language long dead that no one else would be able to decipher. Even the most proficient code breaker would find it impossible to translate. Evelyn made obscure references to her location in any case. In her mind's eye, she recalled the skill the Templars had in torture and wasn't sure one of her sisters wouldn't give up the email account information no matter how strong willed or determined.
With her fifteen minutes up, Evelyn closed out the window and erased the history before leaving the cafe altogether. Deep in thought, she walked back to the Venetian with the city coming alive as the lunch hour arrived.
She knew she couldn't go back to Pacific Palisades. Couldn't go home. Didn't really want to with her sisters in a possibly precarious position. Even when they had lived in separate countries all those years ago, Evelyn hadn't felt this alone and unsure of herself. It was like she could feel the Templars breathing down her neck, waiting for the right time to strike.
Evelyn glanced over her shoulder. There were too many faces, too many people to tell whether any particular person had a specific interest in her.
Without warning, she bounced off a hard wall of muscle, a man's chest, and gasped when strong hands grasped her by the elbows.
"Should watch where you're walking, Miss," the man said.
Evelyn, about to scream and fight back, met a pair of casual brown eyes that belonged to a man in a business suit. He released her right after that.
"Sorry. I thought I heard someone call my name," she fibbed, standing where he left her. If the man had been a Templar, she would doubtless already be hustled into a car waiting at the curb.
He smiled and walked on, whistling to himself as he went.
Trying to calm her racing heart, Evelyn marched along the sidewalk, unsettled by the contact more than she wanted to admit.
Curls of steam permeated the hotel bathroom while Evelyn took a shower. She inhaled the hot mist to soothe her dry throat, scrubbing hours of travel from her skin. The shampoo the hotel provided smelled like it came from an upscale salon. Evelyn washed her hair twice and finally turned the water off. Stepping out, she toweled herself dry and then wrapped it around her head swami style. Using the side of her hand, she smeared the fog away from the mirror and stared at her reflection again.
She thought she looked tired. Distressed. Usually hot baths and showers did wonders for her morale. Today she felt like someone had strapped an anvil to her back.
Three hours of shopping replenished her clothing enough to get her by for several days. Jeans, tee shirts, one sundress, sandals, socks and undergarments.
She felt a strong urge to be doing something to help the girls but she wasn't sure what. Being born in the Garden of Eden didn't give them any special magical skills other than an innate ability to heal and the gift of immortality. Evelyn couldn't look into a crystal ball for answers or make images appear on water. They shared no mental telepathy or any other extreme intuition that might have helped her understand their fate.
Frustrated, she left the bathroom and drew on one of the pairs of jeans, a plain tee shirt of dove gray and new running shoes.
Evelyn didn't think she would ever be able to sleep again without being fully clothed. Not for the first time, she didn't feel comfortable unless she was ready to move at a moment's notice.
Pulling a fat toothed comb through her damp hair, she glanced at the nightstand clock: 3:30 p.m.
She didn't know what to do with herself, couldn't decide whether to stay in the room or investigate the casino. Money was too precious a commodity to throw away on gambling right now. Using the stolen credit card would just lead them to her faster when the woman reported it missing. Too restless to pace up here for the next however many hours until she could fall asleep, she used the complimentary hair dryer to make herself somewhat presentable and filled the pockets of the jeans with money, identification and the key card.
Evelyn left the hotel room for the second time that day and took the elevator down to the main floor. Busier than it had been earlier, the casino buzzed with bodies, the clang of machines and a whoop of someone who'd hit a minor jackpot.
To be so carefree.
She wove through bodies in search of something to eat, preferring the sit down deli rather than a restaurant where she would feel too confined and trapped by booths and walls. Sitting at a small table for one, she ate an early dinner consisting of a hoagie and an orange, people watching while she did so. No one seemed to be paying any special attention to her barring one man who smiled broadly on his way by for something to eat.
Probably harmless, like the business man she'd bumped into, but she wouldn't give him anymore than a vague smile in return to discourage him from coming over to talk. While she ate, she plotted what to do about their houses back in Pacific Palisades. She was sure they were being watched. It pained her to think that they wouldn't be able to get any of their things out.
Evelyn, in fact all of her sisters, had emergency accounts in foreign banks and countries with new identification, new lives and money to see them safely relocated in case something like this happened. The problem was that they needed to get to the stash in the city or country. Evelyn had tried to get to France, where there was one such stash and had to abort the idea when that security guard made her nervous. There was another safe deposit box in Los Angeles, one in New York, Japan, and several other locations that were more obscure. If she didn't hear from her sisters or if they didn't show up here in Las Vegas within three days, she decided she would choose one of those locations to retrieve more money and new ID.
Washing down the food with a swallow of water, she rested her back against the seat and was about to take a second drink when her gaze landed on a pair of pale green eyes. She jerked in surprise.
Rhett. Oh shit.
He stood next to a bank of machines with his arms crossed over his chest, sandy hair loose around his broad shoulders. The bastard didn't look worse for wear, though she knew there was an injury under the long sleeved black shirt somewhere. She thought his expression was almost---accusing.
Frozen, feeling like a deer in the headlights, she couldn't fathom how he'd found her this fast. It cost her precious seconds of getaway time.
Lurching up, she left the water on the table and briskly walked the other direction, leaving the cafe behind. Running in a casino was no good. Security would be on her in a second, making his job easier.
She wove between bodies, trying to get lost, glancing back only to see him stalking with what looked to be a casual enough gait in her wake.
Oh god. Christian was probably somewhere, ready to cut her off.
How had they found her so fas-- a tracker. He'd probably slapped one of those ugly black trackers on her back in Egypt.
"Excuse me. Pardon me," she said, moving quickly around the main lobby for the doors. It was riskier to be out there but she'd take her chances over the idea that the Templars long reach could sway the security here to turn her over if they asked.
Or, he could just pose as the CIA agent again.
Panicked, her thoughts ran wild, even into sarcasm.
She felt trapped, suffocated. Like there was no where she could go to get away from them. Years ago, Minna had predicted that one day, the time would come when they would have to go back to the Garden of Eden just to survive. Technology would catch up with them, leaving them no alternative but to seek refuge in that hidden sanctuary. As beautiful as it was, as peaceful and safe, Evelyn wasn't willing to concede defeat yet. Especially not without Gen, Alex and Minna.
Straight from the doors, she broke into a run. Several people outright stared. All she cared about was that no one tried to stop her. Rushing headlong, she navigated the pathways, refusing to look behind her to see how much ground Rhett had closed between them. Making it to the sidewalk that ran along the Strip, she didn't turn down it; instead, she darted right into traffic, one hand slapping down on the hot hood of a car that barked its tires and screeched to a sudden halt. The driver swore at her in two different languages.
"Evelyn!" Behind her, Rhett shouted her name.
Too close. He was much closer than she thought he might be already.
Spurred on, she leapt away from that car and around the nose of another, enduring another round of curses from a driver who'd not been paying attention thanks to a scantily clad woman on the other side of the road. Nearly knocking her down, he stood on the brakes and scowled.
Evelyn only caught fleeting glimpses, breath short in her throat, her path through the vehicles hectic and bold. They were drawing attention with their mad scramble. She didn't care.
Making it to the other side, she pushed through people, hearing his footsteps behind her. Closer.
"Evelyn!"
She didn't even look back.
The bastard.
Ten steps later, just as she was about to cut up through the property of another hotel, she felt an arm like a steel band grab her around the middle. In blurry glimpses, she saw people staring and whispering behind their hands even as a rough palm closed over her mouth.
Rhett risked looking like he was kidnapping her all so she wouldn't let out a scream and draw even more attention. Kicking wildly, she struggled while he growled near her ear.
"Stop it. Just settle down for a second." Bodily manhandling her, he stalked to a taxi sitting on a side street and yanked open the back door.
"Hey mister, I'm waiting for--"
"CIA. They'll have to catch another ride," Rhett said to the driver, pushing Evelyn in.
CIA her bloody backside!
She screamed against his palm, making such a ruckus that several people stopped and frowned, looking on the verge of interrupting. Rhett's CIA announcement kept a few that might have intervened away. He was unbelievable.
Jamming her foot against the seat, she tried to make it harder for him to get the door closed. He snarled, pushing at the back of her knee with a hand to bend her leg, thus forcing her across the seat whether she wanted to go or not. Rhett snapped an address she didn't recognize to the driver. His tone brooked no argument. Cheek against the cushion, furious at his greater strength even when injured, she bit his hand. The taxi lurched forward.
"Man, this ain't right--" The driver, casting worried looks in the rear view, started protesting the rough treatment.
"Shut up and drive or I'll have you brought in for impeding an arrest." Rhett glared at the driver until he looked away.
Impeding an arrest. The nerve.
Evelyn clawed at his arm, kicked his leg. She wasn't going down without a fight. The weight of his body suddenly came down over hers when he spoke near her ear.
"You're making it worse. Stop fighting me. I'm not going to hurt you."
She lobbed sarcastic insults against his smothering hand. Evelyn didn't believe him. Wouldn't believe him. What she needed to do was save her energy for when the taxi stopped. Stilling, breathing hard, she saw glimpses of shiny buildings and racing lights as the taxi took back streets through the busy city.
Rhett's breath was warm on her ear.
"I don't know what you think you know, but you're wrong. Listen to me, Evelyn. I can help you if you'll just take a few minutes to hear me out."
Along with his good looks, Rhett had talent for persuasion. She desperately wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that their chemistry wasn't a figment of her imagination and that there was a very real, very good explanation for all this.
His deception was too raw, however. Too new. Too shocking. She couldn't just forget thousands of years of being hunted. Of death. The Templars had instilled fear into her very foundation.
And he was one of them.
She ranted at him in her mind, the words muffled into his hand. He meant to subdue her by placating her until he had her in some other basement in a place no one would ever find her, so they could continue the torture they'd started.
Eveyln felt bile rise up the back of her throat at the thought of Rhett hurting her like that.
Pinned against the seat by his bulky frame, she could only wait out this part of the ride. Nothing he said changed her mind. Somehow, an opening would present itself when the taxi stopped and then she intended to escape him.
Before it was too late.
"I have information about one of your friends---your sisters. Whatever they are. You need to settle down. This is serious, Evelyn."
The low gravel of his voice, the levity in the words shot a stab of fear through her. She hadn't expected him to take that tack, to use her sisters as a bargaining tool. What had they found? What had they done? Did they have the girls in their possession? Were they going to use them as hostages and threaten their lives if she didn't tell them where the Garden of Eden was? It was one thing to endure their torture and another to know that if she didn't cooperate, they would take it out on Minna, Genevieve or Alexandra. Disgusted and afraid, she swallowed down a thick knot of apprehension.
"I mean it, Evelyn. Don't try anything stupid. You need to listen to me," he said, speaking too low for even the driver to hear.
The cab came to a stop.
"Say anything about what you've seen and I'll bring hell down on your head," Rhett threatened the driver.
She felt him shift and saw a glimpse of money transferred across the front seat. Rhett manhandled her back out of the car and she was momentarily blinded by the sun gleaming off the metal side of a warehouse. He trapped her against his body with one arm around her shoulders, hand still across her mouth. Evelyn struggled against him to no effect. Even with one arm and his injury, he was all power, too strong for her to break free from.
When he turned her away from the taxi, she caught a glimpse of the Union Plaza. They were downtown somewhere, probably on the outskirts judging by the distance to the hotel, where old buildings and train tracks sat useless and empty.
All of it happened in a few seconds, a blur of turns and awkward steps that brought them to the door of the warehouse. She could tell it had been abandoned a long time ago by the debris clustered against the base of the walls and the extreme state of the chipped white paint covering the outside.
He opened the sliding door with a squeal that had the same effect as nails on chalkboard. Evelyn winced at the ear piercing sound. He guided her inside and closed the door behind them.
The taxi took off with a bark of tires. Evelyn wanted to shout at the driver for not even attempting to help her.
High, rectangular windows lined the top of the building, allowing late afternoon sunlight to pour down on the pocked cement floor. She saw dust motes filtering through the mellow glow. There wasn't anything else inside the warehouse except two mismatched folding chairs and a folding table sitting between them. Evelyn took it all in just before Rhett let her go.
Spinning around, glaring, she brought a hand up to her mouth where his had clamped across it.
"You have some nerve kidnapping me right off the street and bringing me here--"
"It has nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with your survival. I couldn't very well have this conversation out on the street or in your hotel room where you could scream us into a bad situation that I don't want to explain to the local authorities," he said, bringing a hand up to briefly rub at his shoulder.
The same shoulder she must have shot. Faced off with him, she kept a cautious distance between them. It hurt, his betrayal and deception. As angry as she was, there was also pain.
"What did you expect considering that you lied to me the whole time about who you really are."
"And how do you know exactly who or what I am? I know, I know," he said, taking his hand away from his shoulder. A spot of red dotted his palm. Blood. "You saw the tattoo. But not many people know what it is or what it means anymore."
Breathing harshly, she glanced around for other exits. Some other way out. There were two other sets of doors far across the warehouse, the same sliding kind he'd brought her in through.
"Don't even think about it," he growled when he saw her looking. "Don't you get it yet? I'm on your side."
"My side? I hardly think so!" she shouted, pacing behind one of the chairs. She rubbed at her forehead and scowled at him. "You know damn well what the tattoo means. You know who and what I am, as well, so stop playing like you don't."
Rhett threw his hands up. "How many times do I have to tell you that I have no idea why those men grabbed you?"
"Liar. You're one of them," she accused with a point of her finger. For the first time in years, her bravado felt as fragile as glass. She had to keep swallowing against a growing lump in the back of her throat. It was all just too much.
He took a stalking step closer. Evelyn took one back.
"How do you know that? We don't talk about who and what we are to anyone else. How do you know what the tattoo means?" he asked again, quieter.
"Why do you keep pretending--"
"Just answer the question, Evelyn, for god's sake. Can't you just answer me honestly and clear the air?"
"You want honest when you can't give it yourself? What a crock, Rhett." She paced the same three foot line, back and forth behind the chair.
"I played at being a CIA agent to gain your trust, yes, but also because I had no idea what was going on. What happened to you? That's not how we do things," he said.
He surprised her by admitting he wasn't a real CIA agent. She frowned and stopped pacing just behind the chair, like she needed some sort of physical barrier between them.
"How could you not know? You knew where to find me. You were probably one of the ones who--"
"Don't suggest I was one of the ones who tortured you again. I knew you were there because we'd followed the men who did torture you, like I said, but we had no idea what they were up to. Or why. When I heard what was going on outside the room they had you in, I acted first and thought later."
"You expect me to believe that?" Evelyn tamped down the surge of hope that flared in her chest. He was lying again, softening her up so he could more easily extract information out of her.
"Yes, I do," he said. He crossed his arms over his chest and widened the stance of feet to balance his weight between them.
Evelyn didn't see it as an intimidating gesture but one that allowed him to stay mobile and agile if she decided to bolt.
"Well, I'm sorry if I can't just take you at your word. Not after all this."
"This would go a lot easier if you'd just tell me what they wanted with you and your friends, or your sisters, to begin with."
"I don't know."
"Now who's lying?"
Evelyn gusted out an exasperated breath and traded glares with him. He looked so masculine standing there with that expression on his face. One that asked her to trust him. It made her irritable. The whole situation scared her half to death.
"I'm not going to tell you anymore than I told your comrades. Which was nothing." She'd slipped and called the girls her sisters which was bad enough. Evelyn couldn't figure out why he hadn't called in back up yet or strapped her down for more torture. He was trying to coax it out of her using the connection they had between them.
"Why do you sound so seasoned when you say that? Like this is something you've done before?"
Startled at his quiet insight, she glanced away from his eyes.
"Mhm," he muttered, as if that gesture clued him in that he was correct.
Damn him.
"Why can't you all just let us live? Why can't you let it go, finally, and just move on?" she asked in return.
He frowned in obvious frustration. "Let what go? What did they want with you?"
"I'm not telling you anything." She felt the walls of her will tremble. Rhett kept battering at her defenses and she had no where to go to escape him.
"This isn't just about us. There's something more here, something deeper. Your trust issues aren't solely because I lied to you."
"You're very astute, Rhett," she said, deciding not to argue what was plain to see. "I just can't believe that you don't know what's going on though. Not when you're wearing that tattoo."
"So you know that we're Templars."
She shuddered at the word coming out of his mouth. He'd just admitted to being her enemy. How could she have been so stupid? So blind? She said nothing, breaking the stare between them. Evelyn couldn't look at him. Looking at him, with the warm feeling that wanted to blossom out through her system at his presence, did not work in her favor keeping him at arm's length.
"How did you know? No one outside the immediate families know besides the Church and a few people very high up in the American Government. It's a carefully guarded fact that we exist," he said.
"I just do. And I know that you all do horrible things, which I don't need to tell you considering what you are and how you found me. What I also can't believe is that the Church condones this." Her disgust couldn't be more thorough or complete.
"We don't always do horrible things. I can see how you'd think so though if all the experience you've had with them is what went on in that basement. I can also tell you that the Church absolutely does not condone that kind of behavior."
"You killed Galiana--"
"Don't generalize, Evelyn. I didn't kill her. And I don't know why the other Templars did, either. One more time---I can't help you unless you tell me what's going on."
"I don't believe you and I certainly don't trust you, so all we're going to do here is keep going in circles." She hated how sincere he sounded. Hated the level look in his eyes when she glanced up from the floor. Could he be that good of a liar? Of course. Look how long he deceived you about being an agent. The devil on her shoulder kept whispering dark tidings, keeping her barriers from crumbling.
Rhett yanked the other chair back and sat down, stretching his long legs out. Hooking his ankles, he crossed his arms over his chest. For all the world, he looked like he was settling in for a long wait.
"Then we're going to sit here and talk about it until you trust me. Because I'm not letting you out of my sight until we've figured this out."
"You can't keep me here--"
"Watch me."
He might have spoken quietly, but Evelyn didn't mistake that he meant every word. In the short time she'd known him, she'd discovered that when he set his mind to something he usually saw it through to the end. Exasperated, she realized that she wasn't quite as on edge as she'd been when she first saw him. He was already wearing her down, trying to get under her skin.
She hated that it was working despite the fear and caution that clanged like hazard warnings in her mind.
"We're at an impasse, Rhett. I don't need to tell you anything because you already know it, and I'm sure it's just another way to make me feel better so that when you ask where the girls are--"
"Genevieve is dead, Evelyn." His voice took a grave turn and his expression showed sympathy for the ugly news he had to deliver.
She froze in place and stared at his eyes. There were no lies, no deception, to read there.
Genevieve. Dead.
Denial kicked in. She wanted to call him out for using such an underhanded tactic, but instinct told her as well as his demeanor that he wasn't lying. Galiana and now Genevieve.
A sob stuck in her throat and she turned away from him, burying her face in her palms. He'd effectively stripped her of her ability to function. She couldn't retaliate or shout or do anything but catch hot tears on her fingertips and try to remember to breathe. Evelyn was aware that Rhett was the one who'd comforted her last time when she'd broken down about a sister; this time he kept his distance, like he knew it would be too much to impose himself upon her while the wound was so fresh.
"How?" she finally managed to whisper.
"They tortured her and cut out her heart. They found her hanging from a beam by her wrists." Rhett did not sugar coat the horror. He laid it out plainly, with a dark edge to the words. "And if you don't let me help you, they'll eventually find you and do the same thing to you."
The fight had been sucked out of her. Distantly she wondered if he'd planned it this way. Grief made anger easier to grab onto. She whirled on him, cheeks flushed and tear stained, one hand raising to point an accusing finger.
"And you're here to make me feel helpless and hopeless so that I'll tell you where it is. Obviously my sisters didn't give it up, so now you'll use a different brand of torture to force my hand." She didn't realize she was shouting until her voice echoed back at her through the enormous warehouse.
Rhett watched with a look of controlled compassion, but did not get up to soothe her as he'd done before. Even now, with her heart in her throat, he left all that space between them.
"So you have something they want? A disc, an object? What the hell do you know or have that they want so bad? I only brought you here so that you and I can get on the same page again, Evelyn, because I'm not the enemy. I'll keep on saying it until you believe me, even if we have to sit here for three days." He spread his hands and crossed them over his chest again.
Evelyn wanted to throttle him and throw herself into his arms at the same time. He was swaying her, she could feel it, making her doubt all the things she'd believed for so long. Lowering her hand, she hugged her arms around her middle. They stared each other down; Rhett's gaze was deep, unrelenting. As serious as she'd ever seen him. She couldn't detect any weapons on him, saw no holster or the gleam of a gun. Nothing.
Could he be telling her the truth? Could he really not know what the other Templars had done, or why they wanted her? She couldn't decide if confessing all her secrets to him was self preservation or giving in, and she hated that, too.
Taking a steadying breath, she said, "They want us, Rhett, because we're the last survivors from the Garden of Eden. The last daughters of Eve."
As the sun started sinking lower in the sky, the rays through the windows grew duskier, less potent. Evelyn had no trouble seeing Rhett's eyes as the gloom deepened.
He narrowed them. Suspicious or disbelieving. She didn't have to wonder long which.
"You're kidding me."
"Listen, you wanted the truth. I tried to tell you that you wouldn't believe me." Pacing a few feet in a small area in front of him, she held eye contact the whole time.
He sat forward with a frown, staring hard at her. "How exactly is it that you're still alive? I'm sorry, but that's about as far fetched as anything I've ever heard. I need some kind of proof."
A hollow, derisive laugh preceded her answer. Not directed at him per se, but at the fact she and her sisters had been hunted for so long and now one of the Templars themselves didn't believe she was who she said she was.
The irony of ironies.
"I could take you to the Garden, but that's forbidden. If you knew the stories and the legends, then you'd recognize this," she said. Evelyn closed the distance and exposed her wrist, turning it over so he could see the soft underside and the two pin pricks of black that resembled a snakebite.
Rhett looked confused and blank.
It surprised her. He seemed too genuinely perplexed to be faking it.
"That could just be a mark from an old wound or something," he said, cupping his hands between the parted stretch of his knees. He looked up at her from under the ridge of his brows.
Evelyn didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Could she really be here, just learned of another sister's death, having to prove what she was to a Knight?
"If I was lying, why would the Templars be going to such great lengths?"
"Hell if I know." Rhett shoved up out of the chair, dragging a hand through his hair. "All right, so let's go with it. You and your sisters are from the Garden of Eden. They want you because...."
"Because they want to know where the Garden is. They want us to take them there, even if it's forbidden. And because they think we're evil. One of them said they thought this mark was made by the serpent, that we're spreading his work through the world. Actually, it was put there as a reminder," she said.
"A reminder of what?"
"Not to make the same mistakes as our parents. We ate from the Tree of Knowledge and Life and promised to go forth and do good in the world. And we have, all of us. We've honored our agreement down to the last sister."
"Adam and Eve were your parents." The question rolled out rhetorical. Rhett propped his hands on his hips and paced, clearly struggling to believe it. "But why are your sisters so different then? I mean, Genevieve, Minna? They're not even the same race as you and Alexandra and Galiana."
"You have to remember who made them, Rhett. Our brothers and sisters looked like people from all walks of life. Why shouldn't they? Adam and Eve were the first humans on the earth. Is it such a stretch to believe they wouldn't produce diverse offspring?" she asked, smearing another tear from her cheek. Talking about all the siblings she'd lost kept the emotion raw.
He grunted, finally looking away from her eyes to the floor. His expression deepened, brows sinking low. The sole of his boots hissed on the concrete with every step he took.
Evelyn saw the moment Rhett went from a disbeliever to an almost-believer.
"All right, well, we can talk about all that later on," he said, glancing up when he came to a stop behind the chair. "Do you trust me enough to work with me yet, Evelyn? I'll tell you another thing that might make you feel a little better. Christian and Dracht are my brothers. I told you I had two of them. Dragar is our father."
Evelyn shouldn't have been as surprised as she was right then. She knew the Templars were generational, the duty passed down from fathers to sons for centuries.
"And I can tell you that none of them know any more than I do about what's going on. The men who tortured you? They're Templars but they've gone rogue or something. I'm not sure yet. The fact that none of us knew what they were up to says this whole thing is a lot bigger than you or I know." Coming around the chair, he approached her slowly, like he thought she might bolt.
Evelyn regarded him from under the spiky, damp fringe of her lashes. Another surge of hope sliced through her.
"I only know what they told me when they were trying to extract information out of me. Do they have Alexandra and Minna? I don't know if I trust you or not. You have to understand how long they've hunted us, how many they've killed."
"I'm afraid so. Dracht and Dragar and several others are looking for them still. Christian was with me but stayed behind when he got a call from Father Valanzano."
"Who's Father Valanzano?"
"Our connection through the church. I know they don't know what's going on. I've already had two conversations with him and he's deeply concerned that the Templars are apparently following their own agenda. He's as confused about why they want you as we were," he admitted.
Evelyn had to lift her chin to keep eye contact when he stopped right in front of her. Even now she felt that strange electricity between them, something that wanted her to trust and believe in him. She didn't flinch when he set his broad hand on her shoulder to squeeze. It was a gesture of comfort and perhaps understanding. Right that second, she didn't want to be plagued by doubts. She wanted to believe all the things he'd ever told her, everything he'd made her feel.
Sinking against him, she wrapped her arms around his middle and held back the sobs by sheer force of will. He caught her up against him close and tight, putting his mouth in her hair.
If he'd wanted her dead, she reasoned, she already would be by now. He had most of the information, all except the exact location of Eden and how many sisters were left alive.
He'd been telling her the truth all along.
"We'll figure it out." The words were a rumble.
"I'm sorry I shot you," she said with a shaky voice.
"Considering what you've just told me, you didn't have a choice. You closed your eyes at the last second and didn't hit anything major. C'mon, let's get out of here. I need to call Dracht and Christian to see what they've found out. I don't really want to tell them what you've told me over the phone even if these lines are technically supposed to be secure." Rhett pressed a kiss against her crown and leaned back to use both thumbs, smearing the pads across her cheeks.
"Yes, let's go. And Rhett," she paused, "Thank you." She half expected him to say he was just doing his job, like he'd done in the safe house.
"There was no way I was letting you into their hands again. No matter what."
Dracht and Dragar crouched alongside the outside wall of a house that had appeared abandoned from the street. The neighborhood, straight up middle class, had a few homes in the row that needed more than a little bit of TLC. Islands of desolation with knee high grass, chipping paint, and a general air of neglect.
This house was one of them.
Weapons drawn, muzzles up, they listened for movement inside.
Nothing moved in the night around them. Other than the sound of their shallow breathing, the only noise came from the distant bark of a dog.
Against his hip, Dracht's cell phone vibrated. Not an opportune time to take calls, he paused long enough to dig it from his pocket and check the ID.
Rhett.
"Yes?" He spoke soft and low so his voice wouldn't carry. He knew Rhett would understand that he was in the middle of something important.
"Don't let any more of them die," Rhett said. "Do whatever it takes. The girls will not trust you or any of the Templars and if they fight you or try to run, tell them that Evelyn has confided in me."
"So what is it? Do they have some heirloom or knowledge--"
Rhett cut him off. "You won't believe it and I'm not going to repeat it over the phone. Just tell them that we know the snakebites are reminders."
Dracht couldn't figure out what the hell Rhett was talking about. He knew the women had marks on their wrists that resembled snakebites. That must be what he was referring to.
But a reminder of what?
Taking the information at face value, he set his own questions aside for now. He had no time to grill his brother.
"I'll get back to you." Dracht ended the call on that note and traded a look with Dragar, who had heard at least his side of the conversation.
They had no time to waste.
A thump from inside drew Dracht's attention back to the home. On the move, the large men skulked toward the back of the residence, searching out a rear entry. Two more Templars waited on either side, blending in with the shadows while another three were en route.
One of the other Knights, acting strangely, had led them here an hour earlier when he'd left a mandatory meeting Dragar had called in an attempt to flush out the traitors. Hundreds of Templars were out on missions, spread out over the globe doing their duty. It was the others, the ones who worked in Athens that were on their list of Knights to watch. They knew a couple names already; now they just needed to contain the rest of the ring and get the girls to safety.
With the windows boarded up, it prevented them from seeing in. It also prevented anyone inside from seeing them, as well, which suited Dracht just fine. They probably needed all the surprise they could get.
The back door, situated under a grimy green and white awning, had a lopsided screen in front of it, barely hanging on by the hinges. Dracht didn't scowl though he wanted to. That was going to make noise either way when they opened it to go in.
Leaving the shadows after a glance at his father, he rushed the back door and looked for any chains while Dragar yanked open the screen. Dracht saw nothing that would impede his entrance on the outside and lifted a boot to kick the shit out of the door. It banged open and he went in low and fast, gun out in front of him sweeping left to right in the gloom.
At the end of a short hallway, the space opened up into a larger room. Candlelight spilled over the scene from the left, the same direction a grunt alerted him to danger. Sinking to one knee, he pivoted and swiveled, aiming low. He recognized the size and shape of his brethren, two of them standing over a body roped to a chair.
"Don't move!" he shouted.
Dragar, at his back, came around the other side.
The slithering hiss of steel could be none other than a Templar sword, and, acting on instinct, Dracht swiveled the muzzle to the right just as Dragar passed; he pulled the trigger and blew out the thigh of a Templar arcing a strike aimed at his father's back. The sword clanged off the ground eight feet away.
He didn't want to go for a kill shot unless he had to. They needed them alive for questioning.
Through a cacophony of shouts, Dragar's gun discharged. In strobe flashes, from his kneeling position, Dracht saw another girl in a chair against the wall, saw one of the Knights fly backward from the bullet impact, recognized a third who never got a shot off when Benecio darted past them and tackled him to the ground. Their backup rushed in to secure the scene and subdue the Templars.
Dracht pressed to a stand and advanced on the first girl strapped to the chair. Dread made the blood thick in his veins; the way she slumped in the seat with her head forward looked like she might already be dead. The poor light did not help him identify which one it was until he gently tipped her head up and back, getting a look at her swollen, bloody face.
The one named Alexandra.
He felt for a pulse, working quick, prepared to attempt CPR on her to try and bring her back.
"Is she still alive?" Dragar asked, one knee planted in the chest of a Templar while another bound his wrists.
"She is. Unconscious, but alive." Dracht holstered his weapon and unbound the girl's hands from behind her. More signs of torture showed through bruises on her arms but she seemed intact. Unlike the last one they'd found.
"Here's another," Dragar said after leaving the fallen Templar in Raoul's care. He stood next to another chair in the corner, tugging the gag out of a girl's mouth.
"Get away from me, you pig," Minna spat, glaring upwards.
"Here now, we're not going to do to you what they did," Dragar said.
"Don't touch me."
"I have to in order to remove your binds. We're here to help you and you'll help us in return if you cooperate, Minna," Dragar said. The personal use of her name seemed to surprise her.
Dracht listened while he freed Alexandra from the ropes around her wrists and ankles. Lifting her like a bride, he glanced over to Raoul and Benecio to make sure they had control of the other Templars. They would be taken for treatment and held for questioning. The girls needed treatment as well, at least the one in his arms. The other spitfire sounded fine if her temper had anything to say about it.
Rhett had warned him the girls wouldn't respond well to their presence.
He carried Alexandra out the back of the house where another three Templars waited. Around the side, Dracht walked the girl to a waiting sedan and carefully climbed into the back with her. Another sedan waited behind this one to ferry Dragar and Minna to the Templar stronghold.
Settling Alexandra across his lap, Dracht scooped long pieces of tangled black hair away from her face. While the vehicle rolled into motion, he wondered silently what she and her companions had done to deserve such volatile treatment. The men who represented the sword were not unused to violence, either facing it or committing it, but generally their targets were something other than a flock of females.
You won't believe it, his brother had said. It piqued his interest.
The sedan took all the shortcuts through Athens while Dracht phoned in an order for a medic to meet them at the house. He wouldn't risk taking any of the women to the hospital unless he thought they were in mortal danger.
Turning into a long drive, the car stopped at a tall gate, gained admittance, and sped toward a structure that stood like a monolith against the night. Four tall columns decorated the front where a broad porch ran the length of the building. Intricate architecture had been carved onto the facade by what looked like master's hands, the depictions of war exquisite and detailed.
On the eaves above the door, carved into the stone between two rearing horses, sat a Templar shield. In the middle, the same iron cross that decorated the back of every Knight.
Dracht disembarked at the steps with the girl in his arms, bearing down on the double front doors that sported the same carvings as the facade. One of the doors swung open like they were expected.
They were.
Dracht took the girl in through a wide foyer and straight back past a swooping staircase with marble lions on the banister. The large room they ended up in, lit by sconces on the walls and a fire in a fireplace big enough for him to walk into, had couches and divans spread out over a spacious area. He marched Alexandra to one such divan and laid her down, careless that she might bloody the material of the furniture.
Just as he stood to see if the medic had arrived, she started stirring. Dracht motioned to another Knight, the one that had gotten the door, to go see about the doctor in his stead.
Dracht stared down at Alexandra but didn't loom. He knew she probably wouldn't have a great reaction to being in a new place with a stranger standing over her, especially one wearing a shoulder holster packed with guns.
"Alexandra?" he asked, putting her name out in front with the thought it might calm her.
The clothes she wore were bedraggled and grimy. Pieces of her hair were matted with blood and god knew what else. He watched her struggle through disorientation and confusion, awareness coming in small bursts. With a sudden lurch, she sat up and looked at him.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, choking on blood.
"My name is Dracht. We've called for a medic to see to your injuries. Understand, Alexandra, that we're here to help you." He repeated the words and let her see the sincerity in his dark eyes.
"Oh, I just bet you are." She pushed unsteadily off the divan to her feet, keeping a wary distance between them.
If he didn't know better, he might have thought she'd been on one hell of a bender.
"I'm supposed to tell you that your sister confided in my brother. She said to say that the snakebites are reminders, whatever the bloody hell that means."
The words had an immediate and profound impact on the girl. She stilled, staring at him through narrowed eyes.
He wasn't sure how much to tell her, or what else to say to put her at ease. His conversation with Rhett had been short and to the point.
"How do you know that?" she asked.
Dracht could all but smell her distrust.
"Rhett, my brother, phoned me just before we got you out of the house. He explained he was with Evelyn and that she had confided in him." He waited to see if Alexandra would take him at his word, and whether she might confide something of the situation on her own.
She closed the distance by two wobbly steps and swung a small, blood covered fist for his face.
Dracht, too well trained for too long to be taken off guard by her action, caught her wrist and bent her arm up behind her, bringing her right against his chest. He made sure not to exert the kind of pressure that would hurt her.
"Rhett said you would not trust me, so I will not take offense." Dracht wondered just what had happened in this girl's young life to make her look at him like that. As if she couldn't loathe anyone more.
"You're one of them, aren't you? You only know because some of your hateful comrades tortured the information out of her." Furious, her blue eyes gleamed with hate.
Dracht remained calm. He wasn't sure what she meant by 'them', and offered nothing about what he was or wasn't. She could be speaking about the Templars and she could mean something else altogether.
"She's in safe hands, that's what I can tell you. If you'll collect yourself, perhaps I can get him back on the phone again and we can straighten all this out."
Before she could spit out another venomous reply, Dragar stalked into the room with the Asian held by the elbow. Her hands were still tied.
Minna, tiny next to his father, had the same look in her eyes that Alexandra had in hers. In better light, she did not appear to have undergone any trauma, at least in places Dracht could see.
"Any more news?" Dragar asked, the neutrality of his expression telling Dracht that the woman had given him a hard time on the drive over. He arched a brow to see Alexandra with her arm up behind her back.
"No, but I think we should get Evelyn and Rhett on the line as soon as possible. He said they wouldn't believe or trust us," Dracht said.
"True enough," Dragar agreed, letting Minna go.
Dracht released Alexandra's arm, slowly. She took a few hasty steps back. The women stood next to each other, different as night and day, glaring at them with open hostility and suspicion.
"How can you expect us to trust anyone with what's happened to us?" Minna demanded. She spoke in dulcet tones and had less aggression in her stature than the other. Alexandra was all spit and fire and rebellion.
Dragar stood on the other side of the women, between them and the door in case either tried to flee.
"How can you expect us to protect you if you won't at least listen to what we have to say?" Dragar countered. "If we were like the others that have abused and tortured you, we wouldn't be standing here trying to have a civil conversation."
Both women wore their skepticism plainly. Alexandra licked her scabbed, puffy lip.
"What you fail to understand is that two of us have died, you bastards, and we know you're not above trying all these different tactics to find out whatever it is you think we're supposed to know," Alexandra said, spitting a wad of blood and saliva straight onto the floor.
Dracht suppressed a laugh at the little black haired, blue eyed hellion, and held up a hand to silence any further vehemence.
"Let's get you in touch with Evelyn and then we'll talk. We'll get it all straightened out."
"Here, I'll cut your binds." Dragar pulled a blade from his belt with slow precision, letting the women see that he meant them no harm.
Minna hesitated, then offered her wrists up to him.
"Where are we, anyway? This place reminds me of a museum." Alexandra scowled, smearing her knuckles across her mouth and looked around.
"Don't worry about that right now. You're safe here, that's all you need to know." Dracht's gut instinct told him that both girls would have a bad reaction to 'Templar Stronghold'.
Christian strode with purpose into the room. Dracht caught the chin kick, come here gesture and excused himself from the trio. He trusted his father, who wore a deceptive mantle of calm, to be able to handle any trouble the women might throw his way.
Instead of jet setting off across the world, Rhett had instead sent Christian to speak with their liaison, Father Valanzano. Peaceable, noble, honorable, Father V, as they sometimes called him in lighter moments, would not steer them wrong. Dracht was curious for the puzzle pieces to start falling into place.
Knowing that voices carried in the expansive room, he clapped Christian on the shoulder and turned him so they could bend their heads together and walk back into the hallway.
"What did Father Valanzano have to say?" he asked Christian.
"We spoke at length and he is certain that no one gave the other Knights orders to kidnap much less torture any women. He was concerned and dismayed at the thought they might be acting on their own will, using the resources available to find and detain them. He was very distraught to learn that two of them have already been killed, with a third possibly if Rhett didn't--"
"No, no, Rhett has the other girl," Dracht assured him.
Christian looked relieved. "I'm glad he found her before they did, then."
"What else?"
"Father Valanzano is discreetly changing account passwords and ordering new bank cards so that the funding and other resources will be impossible to access. It should slow them down until we bring every one of them in. For now, he said to have father use the safe here to draw what money we need." Christian glanced back a moment to the women and Dragar.
"We have three in custody awaiting interrogation," Dracht said. "I have no doubt that we'll be able to pull the names of everyone else in their eclectic little group from at least one of them." The men might be Templars, and tough beyond reason, but Dracht and Dragar knew all the ways to break them. They knew weaknesses others did not.
"And you have all the girls---the sisters---now?" Christian asked.
"All the ones that are not dead. At least I think. Listen, head over to the mortuary and make sure no one is tampering with the bodies," Dracht said. "Have Paulo there keep both bodies of the deceased under lock and key until Rhett gets back and we can figure out what the hell is going on."
Christian nodded and Dracht clapped him on the shoulder to send him off. They were keeping their youngest brother hopping.
Dracht found Dragar standing adjacent to one of the divans, where Alexandra and Minna sat perched on the edge. Their posture remained stiff and their expressions, uncertain. Whatever his father had said in the time he'd consulted with Christian had at least taken some of the viciousness from their eyes.
"All right. Let's put you in touch with Evelyn." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed speed dial for Rhett.
A daughter of Eve.
In the hotel room at the Venetian, Rhett double checked the locks on the door while his mind worked over the details Evelyn had confessed in the warehouse. It was almost impossible to believe, and yet, he believed her. It made him look at her differently during the ride back to the hotel and again when he stalked into the small but well appointed room where she stood by the window. There were a thousand questions he wanted to ask. She'd been alive, apparently, for centuries. The things she must have seen. Experienced.
When she glanced over, he presented a small smile and came to stand opposite her so they could look out over the beautiful waterways below. Replicating the scene in Venice, the boatmen rowed couples through the turquoise water. Lamps threw whimsical cones of light around the grounds, giving the scene a romantic vibe as dusk settled in.
Bringing a hand up, he rubbed at his shoulder. He needed new bandages and a new shirt. The black one had a damp spot from blood seeping through the gauze. It hurt like a bitch but he wasn't about to complain.
"Feeling a little better now?" he asked. They'd gotten food on their way to the room so they wouldn't have to leave again or have room service come up.
She glanced at him and he studied her eyes. A color of hazel that reminded him of a clear river. The smile that curved her mouth was pretty without being luring and enticing. He was lured and enticed anyway.
"A lot. And relieved," she replied. "We should take a look at your shoulder."
Rhett thought there was something beautifully vulnerable about her whether she was throwing vases over banisters or bathed in late afternoon light through a window.
"Don't worry about it. It's just a flesh wound." It was his standard answer no matter who asked. He set aside the pain to concentrate on the amazing circumstance he currently found himself in. He chuckled at the dry look she gave him. Already she was picking up on his habits.
"It's more than a flesh wound. My aim wasn't that bad."
"Needs work," he countered. "Though I'd recommend shooting other people besides me next time."
His cell phone interrupted the slew of questions he wanted to unleash on her. Fishing it out of his pocket, he answered without looking at the caller ID.
"Nichols."
"Rhett, can Evelyn have a word with her sisters? We all need to have the air cleared here so we can move forward."
"Yeah, sure, she's right here. They okay?" he asked.
"Alexandra's a bit banged up but otherwise they're both fine. We have three of the knights involved ready to be interrogated."
"Good. I want to know what those bastards were up to," Rhett said.
"You and everyone else."
Dracht passed off his phone and Rhett did the same to Evelyn. "Your sisters want to speak to you."
He watched her eyes light up from the solemnity they'd carried after the news of Genevieve. Taking the phone, she leaned against the window and Rhett stepped away to find an extra hand towel in the bathroom to press against his shoulder. While she did that, he called downstairs and ordered a shirt from one of the exclusive shops and had the front desk send up someone with a first aid kit.
After, he listened to Evelyn's one sided conversation to glean what information he could.
One thing he did know. They needed to get to Italy and have a face to face with Father Valanzano. Rhett was sure the Church would be very interested in the women and their incredible story.
"Alex? It's so good to hear your voice," Evelyn said. She fought back another round of tears, exhausted and overcome with emotion. The last week had been one heck of a roller coaster ride.
"Hey. You all right?" Alex asked, sounding wary.
"Yes. I confessed to one of the men, Alex. His name's Rhett and he was the one who got me away from the others. You need to tell Minna. I finally believe they're telling the truth and that they only want to help us. They're Knights, but not like the ones that have been hunting us all this time." It had taken an extraordinary amount of convincing to change her mind.
"That's asking a lot, Ev."
"I know, but you're going to have to trust me, too. Not just them."
"Where are you?"
"In Vegas."
"Vegas? No, no, doc, you don't need to fuss over me," Alex said, apparently speaking to someone trying to tend her wounds.
Evelyn wondered how badly she was hurt. If she was talking and asserting herself like she was, then she was doing well enough. Their innate ability to heal would fix anything else that was wrong.
"Yes. It's a long story that I'll explain later. Where are you and how's Minna?" Evelyn asked.
"Min's right here and she's fine. I'm fine, too, don't worry. Just a few scratches and a busted lip."
Alexandra's propensity to downplay most situations gave Evelyn a clearer fix on how much or how little her sister was actually injured.
"Good, I'm glad you're both safe. You need to stay with Christian, Dracht and Dragar. I've met them all and they've been trying to help us this whole time."
"I dunno about that, Ev, I mean--"
"Alex, this isn't the time to argue. Really. You and I both know that if they were the others, we'd all be in a lot worse shape right now. They're letting us talk, and hopefully soon we'll all be together again." Evelyn couldn't wait to see them. The loss of Galiana and Genevieve exacerbated her desire to be within touching distance of her sisters.
"I know, I know. It's just hard to trust them when I know what they are."
"It was for me, too. We'll figure out what to do with their help. We all knew that at some point or another, we were going to have to do something different than we are now anyway. It's been harder and harder to keep ahead of them with the way the world is."
"Yeah, that's true enough. You hear about Gen?" Alex's voice dropped lower.
Evelyn took a steadying breath. "Yes. Rhett's offered to help with that, too. So that Galiana and Genevieve can both have a proper burial. You know what would happen otherwise."
"Nah, we can't let them be cremated. What all did ya tell them, Ev?"
"I told Rhett the basics. He knows what we are and where we are from."
Alex was quiet for a long minute. "You didn't give directions or anything, did you?"
"No." She knew her sister wanted to know if she'd made a map to Eden. One of the things the other Templars had wanted so badly.
"Did he ask ya to?"
"No. He was pretty surprised when I told him," Evelyn said.
"So you think we're safe tellin' these guys here, whatever their names are--"
"Dracht, Christian and Dragar."
"...you think we're safe tellin' them everything?"
"I think we have to," Evelyn said. "Maybe when we're all together we can sit down and talk. It's probably not the best idea to say too much over the phone, even though I think this is a secure line."
"All right then. Hurry up and get your butt back here. We have two funerals to arrange."
"Love you," Evelyn said before Alex could hang up.
"You too, Ev. See you soon."
Closing the line, she turned the sleek cell phone in her hands and glanced out the window again. Vegas bustled below, cars and people going to and fro like busy ants.
"So what'd they say?" Rhett asked.
Evelyn turned to find him stuffing a folded towel up under his shirt. The shoulder was wet with fresh blood. She frowned. "That we should go back as soon as possible. We'd like your help to get our sisters buried and really, you need to see a doctor about that wound."
"It's nothing."
"Don't tell me it's nothing," she muttered. Crossing to where he stood near the heavy dresser, she brushed his hands away and yanked his shirt up.
"Are you always this pushy?"
"Oh, be quiet." Rhett's mock complaint drew an impossible smile from her when she didn't think she'd be able to smile for a very long time. "You need new bandages. I can make a trip to the little store they have downstairs--"
"I already called down. They're bringing up a new shirt and a first aid kit. I don't think it's wise to leave the room until we have to. We still don't know how many are left in their group, where they are, or what else they have planned."
"Yes, and if you bleed out, you won't be much help if they show up and there's more of them than there are of us," she pointed out.
"Such faith in my ability," he said with a droll tone. "It'll get me by until we get on the plane."
"Then everyone will see--"
"We're not going back on a commercial flight. The private jet I took out here is still at McCarran and as soon as we pack up your things here, we'll be on our way. Dracht said they've got three Knights in custody that they're going to question. By the time we get back, we should have a much better fix on everything."
"I'll be so relieved when this is all over," she admitted with a small smile. "It's strange to trust someone who isn't one of my sisters with the secret, but oddly soothing at the same time."
"I apologize in advance for all the questions I'm going to throw at you on the plane."
Evelyn laughed.
"You can watch from here but don't touch the glass. They know this is a viewing room, though I don't want them to know anyone else is observing the session. If you get uncomfortable about something, you can leave by that door." Dracht spoke to Alexandra---cleaned up after she relented to the doctor seeing her---and Minna near a two way window. The Templar stronghold had this one and another interrogation room down in the basement for less 'clean' question and answer sessions.
The two women, to his surprise, had both been anxious to hear what the Knight had to say. After receiving a nod from each, Dracht stepped through a door way and into the room. Bare of anything but a chair, a single overhead light, and a monochrome gray color scheme, it centered the focus on the Knight slouched and scowling on the seat. He had been restrained around the ankles and wrists.
Saul, in his estimation, was the weakest of the three they'd captured in the house. He was the only one not injured as well, which was either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how stubborn the man would prove to be. He'd known the Templar all his life, as he had all the others, and kept his personal feelings out of it while he and Saul exchanged glances. Brown haired, brown eyed, with a savage scar decorating his cheek, the man had a rugged appearance overlaid with copious amounts of perpetual sarcasm that tended to wear on his nerves.
Brethren or not, Dracht had never been close to Saul.
"Let me just say up front, to spare us both a lot of time and effort, that you're not leaving this room, or drinking or eating, until you tell me what I want to know," Dracht said. He knew his own reputation preceded him here; he was known for following through on his word always. There would be no deviation, nothing to spare Saul from this moment forward until Dracht had what he wanted.
He stood several feet in front of Saul's chair, spreading his feet apart for casual balance, and crossed his arms over his chest. As if he thought he was in for a long wait. To his surprise, Saul cocked his chin up and made a derogatory gesture with his hands, wrists straining the rope.
"Then get on with asking what you want to know," Saul said.
Dracht had expected him to at least put up a fight for a day or two.
"Let's start from the beginning. How many of you are there involved in the pursuit of these women?"
"Twelve."
"Why? What drove you to break rank and torture, then murder two of them?" Dracht moved little, watching Saul's face for signs of deceit.
Saul laughed, a rumbling sound not unlike an engine sputtering to life. "Because we have carried a secret for thousands of years that the rest of you know nothing about, Dracht. A secret so sacred that it could not be trusted with the entire Templar group."
"The one that has to do with the marks on their wrists?" Dracht asked drolly, catching Saul off guard. The Knight frowned.
"How did you know...oh, the women broke and told you, didn't they? I suppose they spouted some frivolous lie that you and your brothers all bought like the saps that you are. Always falling for a pretty face, eh, Dracht?" Saul snorted a caustic laugh.
"I would quit worrying about the women, Saul, and worry more about saving your own ass. It's not expendable." Dracht laid his threats down without boast or arrogance.
Saul leaned forward with a snarl. "They are the ultimate evil, set loose upon the world at the beginning of time. Do you even know about the mark of the serpent, hm? Have you never heard the tales? Check their wrists, Dracht, and you will find a snakebite on each and every sinner's skin."
"And what do they represent to you? How is it, Saul, that your group thinks they know that kind of secret?" The snakebites are reminders, Rhett had said. He kept that in the back of his mind as the interrogation went forward.
"Because the truth was passed down through the centuries, generation to generation. A sect within a sect, Dracht, our own secret kept from the rest of you all this time. We have been rooting them out and killing them longer than you might believe. Doing the citizens of the world a service while they sleep. Even the Church does not realize their true intent, the maliciousness that walks the earth." Saul spat on the ground.
"What I know is that none of your actions were condoned or ordered by anyone, which means you've acted against the wishes you promised to uphold and honor. What if you're wrong? What if the women are innocent?" Dracht dropped his arms and paced before the chair.
"When the Church learns that we've been eradicating the vermin, bringing an end to the disease and evil, they will immediately understand that we have been following God's will." Saul's eyes glinted with feverish fanaticism.
"Spoken like a true zealot, Saul. So it's God's will, is it, to slaughter women?" Dracht snorted his disbelief and disgust. "Did he tell your great ancestors that himself? Just how is it that they came into such knowledge?"
Saul sat forward until the chair creaked, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tight his knuckles were white. He spoke with righteous fervor.
"Before the crusades, a wealthy land baron's guard captured a man in a raid. They suspected him of thieving and pillaging a nearby village that had been under attack at the time. More than fifty men were rounded up. This particular man though, when it came about that he would be put to death for his crimes, spouted an incredible story. He talked about the Garden of Eden, about his brethren that had fled there with him, and how they had all eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and Life. He spoke convincingly of immortality, how they were destined to live forever. He whispered about a mark on the wrist of the women. The mark of the serpent. A mark he did not carry."
Dracht paced and listened, hiding his incredulity over the topic. "Go on."
"The prisoner promised that he could prove the truth of his words. He challenged them to let him live, and to inflict injury upon him, because they would see the miraculous speed with which he healed. Then they would have cause to believe him. And that he had many sisters who had escaped Eden with him. But the women, as their mother, had been cursed instead of blessed and that they had been bitten by the serpent, knowingly spreading his evil across the world. It was their task, chosen because of their fair looks and ability to breed. What more perfect vessel to assure the continuation of wickedness." Saul licked his lips, forehead beaded with sweat.
Dracht grunted and arched a brow, encouraging Saul to continue.
"This man wanted his freedom for the location of a few of the sisters. He didn't know where they had all scattered to, but with the capture of one, the guards could likely coax out the whereabouts of the others. He told them to look for the mark, and what their names were. He had an address of one, they could start from there. What the man didn't count on, was that the guards and the wealthy land owner, religious in their own right, saw an opportunity to prove his words another way. They wanted the location of Eden so they could seize fruit from the Tree of Life and therefore live forever themselves. Become immortal, like the man and his sisters. With that power, the baron thought he could rule absolutely. They kept the man a prisoner while they went in search of the sisters, whom they found, and whom all bore the mark of the serpent. They were slaughtered, the evil wiped from the earth, although none gave up the locations of any other siblings. They died with the secrets locked on their tongues."
"What happened to the man?" Dracht asked.
"They kept him a prisoner for years. Afraid he would confess his secret to another, they locked him in a cell in the baron's dungeon. He did not age and quickly healed from any superficial injuries he sustained. The baron had solid proof that the man was a son of Adam and Eve, which meant the women were his sisters, and moreover, that the women were indeed as evil as he claimed. The baron passed down the legacy of the man to his children, and their children, and still the prisoner never aged. Never died. He lived through three generations and could not ever produce a map leading them to Eden. He suffered dementia after a time and became nothing more than a shell of a babbling man. But the secret was in the hands of powerful men who made the right connections. The Templars were begun for this mission, Dracht. This is why the order was initially started. It expanded outward during the crusades and the Church used their power and prowess to advance their agenda. My forefathers never forgot what they saw, what they heard, nor that the man lived for more than a hundred years in captivity. Their belief's were well founded and only grew stronger over time."
Dragging a hand through his black hair, Dracht tried to absorb the story. It sounded impossible. Daughters of Eve. Eden. Immortality. A man who never aged. Yet he was faced with women who were being slaughtered without remorse and here was one of his own brethren spinning a tale that he couldn't just dismiss.
What had Rhett said? You won't believe it. He resisted the urge to glance at the one-way mirror.
"What if the captive man had been lying? To save his own ass? In the face of his own demise, he might have thrown them to the wolves. As a Templar, you know that you're required to find out what all the possible answers might be in a situation like this. Besides that, you and the others engaging in murder--"
"It's not murder," Saul spat.
"It is," Dracht said, leaning his back against the wall. "What happened to the man?"
"He eventually died. His mind was gone for the last twenty years."
"How many women have the Templars killed in the name of erasing evil?"
"There were supposedly twenty-two girls born to the sinner. No one can be exactly sure. We have killed twelve." The zeal kicked up a notch in Saul's voice when he made the announcement.
Twelve.
He remembered the uneasy feeling he'd had standing before Genevieve as she'd hung from the ceiling by her wrists. That uncomfortable sensation that something pristine and beautiful had been lost. For a moment, Dracht was overcome with the desire to end Saul where he sat.
"Where are the other Templars staying?" he asked, forcing calm.
"That I cannot tell you. After Rhett's raid we split off into two groups. So even if I wanted to tell you where the others were, I don't have the information. Safety precaution." Saul sat back in his chair with a satisfied grin. "Father Valanzano, in fact the whole congregation, is going to be terribly put out with you when they discover that you have interfered with our plans."
This was why Saul hadn't fought him for the information. Saul honestly believed the Church would stand on their side, that they'd been carrying out God's work all this time.
"I doubt it. You over reach. You and everyone working with you." Dracht exited the room without any more questions. If he stayed any longer, he might give in to the urge to beat Saul to a bloody pulp.
Half expecting the viewing room to be empty, Dracht found Alexandra and Minna standing right where he left them, eyes wide, faces pale. Wary, too, that much was easy to discern. He couldn't blame them. Shock, maybe at the news one of their brothers had been held for so long as a prisoner, or that he had turned against them, was plain on their expressions.
"Ladies." He gestured them out of the hallway and back into the main quarters of the stronghold. Dracht wasn't sure what to say to them at the moment. He needed to consult with Dragar, Christian and Rhett.
"What are we going to do now?" Alexandra asked, quite subdued from her earlier belligerent attitude.
"I need to speak to Dragar and Christian while Rhett and Evelyn make the trip back. Until we have the rest of that other group contained, I'd like you both to stay here in the stronghold. We have guards at the front gate and at the back and we'll be changing all the access codes shortly. I need to know you're both secure so we can act without worrying you'll bolt the second our back is turned." Dracht laid it all on the line, no nonsense, no bullshit. If the women wanted help, they had to give him a little.
"Just point us in the direction of a shower and a bed," Alexandra said.
The plush interior of the private jet was far more comfortable than commercial airplanes. Colors of fawn, cream and dark brown were accented by touches of red and gold trim. Evelyn spent most of the flight sitting in a leather chair across from Rhett with a small table between them. All her doubt about Rhett's loyalties and intentions fled between the time in the warehouse and their arrival back at the hotel.
In the peaceful atmosphere, with the roar of the engines in the background, Evelyn eased into the details of her life.
Out of twenty-two girls, eighteen of them had been given the choice to go forth in the world from the Garden. The other sisters had died natural deaths either from childbirth or injury. She explained that although they had innate healing abilities, they were still susceptible to mortal wounds and could die like anyone else. Reliving the murders of her sisters was difficult even without the two most recent deaths, and she fought back fresh tears as she rolled out the horror the Templars had visited upon them. One of their sisters had escaped, only one, and had urgently relayed the intent of the Knights, sending the sisters scattering across the globe. Evelyn had spent the ensuing centuries watching humans populate the lands and adjusting to the changes that took place with each generation.
She had seen Christ rise and fall, witnessed the unbelievable massacre of the Jews, lived through too many wars to count. Sometimes she and a few of her sisters would reside in the same city, always watching over their shoulders, always wary. As the population swelled, it became easier to hide. Travel was more convenient, giving them a wide range of countries to enjoy. Every year they returned to the Garden to reconnect with each other.
By the sixties, there were only seven sisters left. In nineteen-eighty-four, the Templars found them and killed two more. One had been Galiana's twin sister.
Rhett asked quiet, intuitive questions of her with serious eyes that studied her with the intensity she was used to. Perceptive, he seemed to know which questions not to ask that might upset the fragile balance she'd acquired since leaving Las Vegas. He served her drinks and made them a late dinner of teriyaki chicken and rice, handling the preparations with as much efficiency as he handled everything else.
Later, he drew her onto the long couch and encouraged her to rest. Evelyn, exhausted, leaned against him and fell into a dreamless sleep. When he woke her it was with a light press of his lips against her temple. The pilot announced their final descent and landed without incident.
Disregarding his wound, Rhett drove them through the last minutes of an Athen's sunset toward a safe house. Each mile they drew closer, Evelyn grew more excited to see Minna and Alexandra, until she was wringing her hands and scouting the streets in anticipation.
The house Rhett pulled them up to was large and imposing, almost cold. 'House' was an understatement for the expansive structure that reminded her of a small museum or state building.
"What is this place?" she asked after the guard let him in the gate.
"It's one of the Templar strongholds," Rhett said while he parked the sedan.
"One of them?" She glanced across the car. Rhett met her gaze.
"Yes. We have them set up all over the world."
"It seems the Templar business is thriving."
"They keep us pretty busy." He pulled the keys out of the ignition and came around to open her door.
"Thanks," she murmured and got out.
"Of course."
"I hope your brothers and father won't be angry." Considering she'd shot him. She brushed a piece of hair away from her cheek and stared up at the imposing facade of the building.
"I've explained. Not everything, not yet, but enough." After retrieving their bags from the trunk, he guided her toward the stone steps leading up to the carved, double front doors.
Christian swung one open just as they reached the landing. Evelyn studied his neutral expression, detecting no open hostility. He seemed welcoming and as calm as she'd ever seen him. His size was the only thing she thought he had in common look or build with Rhett. The black hair and blue eyes, the whole structure of his face was quite different than his brother.
"Hello, Christian."
"Good to see you well, Miss Grant," he said without sarcasm or mockery.
"Evelyn, just Evelyn."
"Evelyn." He inclined his head and closed the door after she and Rhett entered.
The brothers exchanged claps on the shoulder while she surveyed the soaring foyer ceiling, arched and painted with a mural. There was a classical feel to the atmosphere enhanced by the random carvings of lions on the banisters of the stairs and more around the archways to other rooms.
Rhett dropped their bags at the foot of the stairs.
"I think they're all in the back," he said, gesturing deeper into the expansive home.
Evelyn heard voices even as he spoke. Passing through the high archway, she saw Alexandra and Minna standing near a tall fireplace speaking with Dracht. Her sisters seemed relaxed and comfortable, a surprise considering what surrounded them.
"Alex, Minna!" The girls broke away from Dracht and met her halfway across the room, arms tangling in a tight embrace. Alexandra was as awkward about her affection as she'd ever been, giving a few stray pats to her back.
Nevertheless, the hug relieved her. It felt like years had passed since she'd seen them, smelled them, kissed the downy softness of her sister's cheeks. Under the skin the subtle heat assured her they were real and not figments of a fever dream.
"What the hell were you doin' in Vegas anyway?" Alex asked after untangling.
Leaning back, Evelyn checked them each over head to toe; Alexandra looked beat to crap but not seriously wounded and Minna seemed fine.
"It's a long story. I'll fill you in later. It's so good to see you."
Genevieve's missing presence was as much a black hole in Evelyn's life as Galiana's. She saw the similar looks on the faces of her siblings. They spoke of their sorrow with their eyes instead of their tongues.
"Hey, that Dracht guy made arrangements to hold Galiana and Genevieve so that we can give them a proper funeral," Alexandra said.
"I know, Rhett told me on the way over." It dawned on her that Alexandra and Minna hadn't met him yet. Glancing back, she saw him in conversation with Christian and Dracht. Catching his eye, she gestured him closer.
Rhett broke away from his brothers and approached.
"Girls, this is Rhett." Introducing him felt more intimate than it should have. On the plane, Rhett had showered and changed into simple, nice fitting clothing in dark colors. It accented his golden skin and hair and as yet, he'd neglected to get rid of his whiskers.
"Nice to meet both of you, finally," he said, and shook both girls' hands.
Alex clicked her tongue against her teeth, shaking firm and vigorous. "Yeah, you too. What's wrong with your arm?"
Alex and Minna were the type to notice the small things. Galiana, bless her, wouldn't have noticed anything but the cut and fabric of his clothing. How his skin smelled. Genevieve would have pinged in on his intensity, facial expressions and mood. She had always been empathetic and intuitive that way.
"Oh, that. Evelyn shot me." Rhett brushed off the remark like it was nothing.
Alexandra gaped like a landed fish and Minna darted a startled look at her.
Evelyn shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "He cornered me after I saw the tattoo. What was I supposed to do?"
Alexandra in her typical manner, resiliently bounced back from their strange circumstances and snagged Evelyn with both arms. "Way to go, Ev! There's hope for you yet."
"Hello, Dracht," Evelyn said after she pried Alex off with an exasperated huff. Relieved that none of the brothers were offended at her extreme course of action, she gave him a smile.
He inclined his head from where he stood near the fireplace. "Evelyn."
"All right. We need to figure out what we're doing next," Rhett said, gesturing to the available seating.
Evelyn sat between Minna and Alexandra on a deep set leather sofa. Alexandra sprawled, despite her injuries, one foot hooked up over the opposite knee. There was just nothing feminine about her. It was useless to try and correct her wayward sister's habits.
The brothers stood in a semi-circle in various poses of relaxation.
"Dracht suggested going to Italy to talk to Father V-someone or other, but I dunno if that's such a good idea," Alexandra said.
"Why not?" Dracht inquired.
"Because what if they see it the other Templar's way? What if they agree we should be wiped off the face of the earth once they hear his side of the story?" Her paranoia would not be shed so easily.
During the plane ride, Dracht had called Rhett and explained, in painstaking detail, what he'd learned from Saul. Rhett had relayed that to her with a fair amount of surprise at the tale.
He wasn't the only one. Evelyn had been downright stunned.
"Father Valanzano knows the system well. As do we. If we thought there was any danger of that, we wouldn't have contacted him to begin with," Dracht said.
"I don't see them taking that route, Alex, I have to be honest," Rhett added.
"Saul only thinks that the Church will be swayed when they hear the details because his mind has been warped into believing the wrong truth. He's delusional, and obviously the rest of them have been convinced of the same thing." Dracht seemed to have lost all respect for the rogue group of Templars. With good reason.
Rhett sank down onto an ottoman with his knees splayed wide, clasped hands dangling between. He fit right into the grandiose surroundings, as impressive and imposing as the arching ceilings and masterpiece paintings on the walls. Whenever their eyes met, she swore she saw a secret smile in his own.
She didn't miss a thing Dracht said in the meantime.
"The thing is, Alexandra, that if they knew the real truth, that you are who you say you are, then they can take further steps with the Knights who've acted out against you. Once we find the rest of them, they'll all face charges and you won't have to ever worry about them again." Christian spoke up this time.
"And then what? I mean, I get your point. But then we'll become curiosities and have no life but the one they dictate."
"Why would you think that?" Christian asked.
"Because I'm not stupid. They'll want something in exchange for their help. They'll want the same information the Templars have been tryin' to wheedle out of us for centuries. And I don't need to explain what world-wide repercussions this will have if it gets out."
"...that can never happen, Alex," Dracht said, cutting in. "They wouldn't allow it for one thing because they'll realize the consequences. They've kept many secrets for thousands of years--"
"None of them are living, Dracht." Alexandra, blunt as the day was long, nevertheless spoke with respect to the brothers.
Evelyn thought wonders would never cease.
"What do you think, Minna?" Rhett asked with a chin tick her way.
Demure and quiet, Minna, with her hands clasped lightly in her lap, said, "I think it is the only way we can ever hope to continue living and have some semblance of a normal life."
Alexandra scowled sideways at Minna. "What? C'mon, Min-Min. We'll be nothing more than glorified prisoners."
"They gain nothing by keeping us prisoners of any kind. Perhaps they will simply continue to offer us their protection," Minna said, splaying a palm toward Rhett, Dracht and Christian to indicate who she thought might get the job.
Alexandra snorted. "There's no way they'll let us out of their sight ever again, much less live 'our own life'."
"We have no other choice but to trust them, Alex. There are only three of us left. We must preserve what we can." Minna's voice was filled with so much inner sorrow that Evelyn reached an arm around her shoulders to both give and share comfort.
"Evelyn?" Christian asked, putting her on the spot.
She licked her lips, rubbing Minna's arm lightly. Alex had a valid point. She understood where her hellion sister was coming from, but she also believed Minna was right. They had no choice any longer.
"I think we have to trust that they'll do the right thing. Rhett made a good point that we've already discussed between us before. With facial recognition and fingerprinting and everything else, it's only a matter of time before making new identification with new names doesn't work anymore. If the wrong authorities pick us up, it could go a lot worse. Think about it, Alexandra."
Alex exhaled and shoved up off the couch, tonguing the wound on her lower lip. Hands on her hips, she paced around the large room while all eyes followed her. The dark length of her hair, unbound and wavy, made a curtain to hide most of her profile when she bent her head in contemplation.
Evelyn met Rhett's eyes and held them while her sister made circuits of the room. A prickle raced along her skin at the energy she imagined passed between them. Even with a look, he moved her. She had come full circle with her thinking and trusted Rhett and his family implicitly.
It had nothing to do with the sparks she felt every time she was around him. He had proven himself time and again, risked his life in their honor.
Finally, Alex lifted her hands and let them smack down on the outside of her thighs. "All right. Whatever you guys think."
"Good. I think we should have him come here instead of flying to Italy. It's not wise to be putting ourselves out into the open more than we need to until we collect what's left of the group," Rhett said.
"Which could take weeks, if they've been trained like you," Alexandra pointed out.
"We have our ways," Christian said where he leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
It seemed to be a favored position of the brothers.
"Or we could bait them out," Alexandra suggested, leaving no doubt she meant using herself to lure them.
"Alex! Don't even think it," Evelyn said, lurching up off the couch. She frowned at her sister; there had been too many losses already. The risks were too great. Evelyn would have rather waited weeks or even months for the others to be found before putting another sibling at risk.
What worried her more, was that Dracht, Rhett and Christian didn't have the same reaction.
Christian watched Alex thoughtfully. Rhett regarded her while scraping the tips of his fingers through his whiskers. Dracht...was grinning.
Were they all mad?
Minna did not look as opposed to the idea as Evelyn wished she did. Then again, why should she? Minna had always been practical and ready to do what it took to see a situation resolved. She was much more methodical and precise than Alexandra however. Alexandra would likely just waltz out into the open and invite the chaos in.
Evelyn rubbed her temple.
"It's a good idea, Ev. I'd rather just get it over with. Then we can see what the Father V guy has to say and--"
"No, Alexandra. I won't listen to another word of it." Evelyn felt every eye on her. "It's not worth it. Let them do their jobs. They're Templars too, and if anyone knows how to find them, they do." Evelyn threw a hand wide to indicate the brothers.
"Why don't we talk about more immediate concerns. Staying here is a good idea because it's fortified already. The other Templars wouldn't think we'd bring you here and won't show up because they know we'll detain them. Let's figure out what you need, if anything, and get you settled into your rooms?" Rhett suggested. He stood up off the ottoman.
Evelyn didn't immediately jump on Rhett's offer. She stared at Alexandra, facing off with her sister over an idea she just didn't agree with. Then Alex smiled broad and deviant at her, diffusing the situation like she always did. Evelyn wanted to throttle her, which wasn't anything new.
"C'mon, Ev. He's right. One thing at a time." Alex swung an arm around her shoulders.
Evelyn scoffed but relented. There was little use in arguing and demanding. She caught a grin on Rhett's mouth, too, as he led them across the large room.
Bigger than it looked from the outside, the Templar Stronghold impressed Evelyn with its design and function. The front end consisted of the broad foyer with a library and offices off to the sides. It led back into the long living area where they'd had their discussion, flanked by the stairs leading to a second floor. Beyond that sat an indoor sand pit situated in a courtyard surrounded by arches and hallways that gave easy access to the bedrooms lining the perimeter. A clear dome rose over the pit, allowing sunlight or moonlight to filter down and illuminate the sand.
Evelyn recognized it as a training area, especially after she caught sight of several Templar swords attached to a board within easy reach. Just seeing the swords caused a shiver to race down her spine. Those weapons had once meant death and destruction. Had terrified her, filled her sleep with nightmares.
Although the moldings, ceilings and statues of the stronghold were elaborate, the space itself was spartan and clean. The furniture, heavy teak accented with leather or microsuede, suited its purpose rather than fashion.
Rhett escorted them along a hallway that ran parallel to the courtyard with doors leading off to medium sized rooms. Each bedroom---Evelyn counted ten rooms on each side of the pit---offered a queen sized bed, one dresser and one teak chair. Nothing fancy, just clean and neat. The small closet might hold enough clothes for two weeks, if that.
Of course Alexandra and Minna gravitated toward the sand pit and only redirected their attention after Rhett called their names three times.
Rhett suggested they could put two more beds into one of the more spacious rooms so the girls could all sleep in the same space, but Alexandra declined. Evelyn knew her sisters would go exploring when they couldn't sleep and as long as they were all under the same roof, she didn't really care where anyone slept.
The back of the stronghold sported a gym, a large, galley style kitchen and a long dining room. Nailed to the wall of the dining room were what looked to be ancient Templar artifacts; chainmail, more swords, a white shield lined in hammered silver with a red cross emblazoned through the middle.
Such blatant signs unnerved her, until she caught a warm look or smile from Rhett. He grounded her, reminded her that he was on her side.
The building seemed like a fortress, with bulletproof windows, Rhett pointed out, and steel enforced doors on the only two main entrances leading in from the outside. There were updated alarms as well, and they were cautioned not to touch the doors after dark unless they told someone first. The basement, which they didn't visit, had a secret entrance that Rhett explained in some detail. Evelyn understood he meant to give them knowledge in case, just in case, the barriers were breached.
She put thoughts of that from her mind. Evelyn was tired of death. Tired of running. She just wanted peace.
A slice of moonlight slanted down through the dome high in the ceiling, painting the sand in the pit white instead of beige. Rhett could only see a sliver of the milky illumination in periphery from his supine position on the bed. This room flanked the training pit at an angle. For now he studied the ceiling, one arm cocked up behind his head.
The smell from dinner the brothers made the women finally dissipated and midnight had come and gone, leaving the stronghold in silence. On rotation with Dracht and Christian, Rhett was supposed to be resting. Unable to sleep, his mind wandered through the things he'd learned the last two days, lingering on Evelyn.
Immortal.
A daughter of Adam and Eve.
He still had a hell of a time wrapping his mind around it. Evelyn would live a long time after he was gone, hundreds or thousands of years, not bound to mortal concerns like the rest of them.
Rhett wondered if her thoughts had strayed where his had. Did she think about them, too? He knew she felt the same inexorable pull. The current between them was alive with attraction and chemistry. It didn't matter how long he'd known her. He couldn't deny the magnetism or the furious desire to see her safe.
His life up to this point didn't allow for personal relationships that lasted longer than one night stands. The dangers were too many, the intricacies too hard to hide. He'd accepted his role with no remorse, no regret. Constantly on the move, challenged with puzzles and danger, he could ask for no better job. It made him feel alive.
Evelyn made him feel alive, too. In ways his job didn't. He wondered if she had ever been in love, if she'd ever had children. Were they immortal, too, destined to live out forever on the earth? Those were questions he hadn't asked on the flight over.
Eventually, someday, he would marry and start a family of his own, leaving his offspring to carry on in his wake. It was the way things were done, had been done for thousands of years.
The hiss of steel on steel snapped his attention to the crack of his door. Easing up off the bed, he crossed the room in silence, fully dressed. Just in case. He had a clear shot of the sand pit and the doorways of all the rooms across the courtyard.
He was more than a little surprised to see Dracht and Alexandra, barefoot, swords in their hands, faced off against each other.
Instantly he tensed.
Then he realized when he saw their faces that Dracht was giving her instruction. The sword raised in a blocking motion, she copied it precisely, handling the weapon with skill considering she'd probably never held one like it before.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned against the door frame and watched.
This must be the epitome of ironies; a Templar Knight giving a Daughter of Eve self defense lessons. They circled each other, parrying until their blades slid slowly off one another. They did not clank or clang, but Alexandra was learning nevertheless.
He was impressed by their resiliency, how they stayed as fluid as the situations around them. Rhett imagined it was part of how they'd survived this long.
Motion further beyond the pit drew his gaze. Across the courtyard into the opposite hallway. Evelyn, resembling a deer caught in the headlights, stood just far enough out of her doorway for the vague glow of the moonlight to outline her features. She looked startled at what she saw her sister doing in the pit. To her credit, she did not interrupt the lesson.
He knew the second her gaze found him, though. Her chin shifted and he saw the fixed stare his way. The distance was not so great that he couldn't read the change in her expression. In another moment, Rhett knew that he wore the same look of open desire and need that she did. Across the space of the courtyard, through the moonbeam, they locked and held gazes while Dracht and Alexandra moved in slow motion with the blades catching light to bounce off the steel.
For five minutes he kept her there hovering in the doorway with nothing more than a look. Finally, she broke the spell and backed into the room, closing the door with a quiet click. Putting a barrier between their gazes but not the energy he could still feel slithering through his system.
Rhett glanced once more at the two in the pit before drawing back into his own room. Any thoughts of sleep had been lost for the rest of the night.
Gathered in the spacious living quarters the next morning, Evelyn sat between Alexandra and Minna on the couch. Smoothing her hands along the crease of her ash gray slacks, she waited in silence for the meeting Dragar had called. Their luggage had arrived early that morning from Egypt, giving them access to their own belongings once more.
Alex leaned behind her to whisper to Minna and Evelyn caught words like 'training' and 'sword' and 'skill' in the conversation. She was curious what Minna would think about Alex practicing with Dracht but didn't interrupt the girls to ask.
If she didn't know better, she would think Alex was starting to enjoy herself here. All the facial swelling had dissipated overnight and the bruises were fainter.
The brothers stood across from them, ever appearing the warrior; Christian, with his hands behind his back, Dracht and Rhett resembling twins in posture with their arms folded over their chest. Rhett looked especially appealing in jeans, a white button down and dark navy blazer.
Dragar entered the room and with him came the presence of power and steel control. He exuded it more strongly than did his sons, though none of them were lacking in confidence or ability. Evelyn wondered how she couldn't have realized the familial similarities between he and Rhett if only because of their size and stature. Dracht was almost a spitting image of his father with his dark hair and goatee.
Standing at a spot that allowed him easy eye contact with everyone, Dragar got to the point.
"I have spoken at length with Father Valanzano, who, as you know, is my direct liaison with the Church. Everything that we have learned from you as well as Saul was discussed and as you may have guessed, he is extremely skeptical. They're going to need some other kind of proof, but I have his early assurance that if this can be proven beyond doubt, that you will have their protection from here on out. Actually, you will have our protection. We---myself, Dracht, Rhett and Christian---will become your guardians. You will live as you always have, without the need to constantly look over your shoulders. Provisions will be made to change or hide your identities as the years progress so that as technology grows ever more intimate, you will be able to slide under the radar," he said.
Evelyn exchanged a look that was hopeful but cautious with her sisters. She knew they felt the same way she did; if this was truly the end of being hunted, then it was worth the small sacrifice of answering questions and having what amounted to bodyguards for the rest of their lives.
Which brought Evelyn full circle to the knowledge that when these men became too old to properly do their job, someone else would take their place. It reminded her, again, that she and Rhett had all the odds stacked against them.
"You do want the protection, don't you?" Rhett asked.
"Hm? Oh yes, of course we do. Although I expect that your jobs will be fairly boring after this because the biggest threat to our existence is one you're going to take care of now, rather than later," Evelyn said, coming out of her reverie.
"Somehow, I have a feeling it will be far from boring," Dragar said.
Evelyn watched his rugged features while he spoke. Relief and melancholy fought a bitter war inside for dominance; if this had happened a few weeks ago, Genevieve and Galiana would still be alive. She glanced at Alex and then at Minna, exchanging silent communication. They had another way to prove they were who they said they were, but she wouldn't give that information over without their consent.
"Might as well," Alex relented. Her foot started bounce-jiggling with restlessness.
Minna inclined her head in agreement.
Evelyn felt every one of the Templar's eyes on her.
"Somewhere in the tunnels of the Vatican is a box that has been passed down from the time of Christ. Its existence has been kept a strict secret. The Church will recognize it as the box of the Golden Pear."
"And what's in the box?" Rhett asked.
"A scroll with a list of twenty-two names. I'll give you the names, in the order they appear. There should be script as well indicating that these were the original daughters born to Adam and Eve."
"Why just a list of the daughters?" Christian asked.
"Because there's already a list of male names and this particular list was made specifically in case we found ourselves in the position we do now," Alex interjected.
"Instructions were passed down that dictated the box was not to be opened until a woman named Eiah came for it," Minna added. She pronounced it eye-ah.
"Who's Eiah?" Dragar asked.
Alex and Minna both pinned their gazes on her.
"That's me," Evelyn said with a lift of her hand.
Dracht, scraping fingers thoughtfully through his goatee, asked, "And how did someone know that you specifically would come asking for it one day?"
"We chose my name as a password," Evelyn explained. "It didn't really matter whose name became the key, so to speak, as long as we all remembered which one it was. As well, it didn't matter which daughter used the password. The disciple who wrote it intended it to be protection and perhaps explanation if our existence came to light."
"That, and there is no other complete list of the daughters to be found anywhere else," Minna said.
"Not the correct version anyway," Alex added with a grunt.
"What if he asks you to lead them to the Garden of Eden?" Christian asked.
"You can't just walk in if you're not one of us. It takes permission and special circumstances. The Guardian has to allow it," Evelyn said.
"Besides that, you can't find it without one of us. We're the only ones other than the Guardian who knows how to get to the Gate." Alex spread her hands and clapped them back together again after she'd made her point.
"The Guardian?" Christian looked confused.
Evelyn glanced between the four men. "The Guardian of the East Gate?"
Christian looked blank.
"The angel God put there to protect the Tree of Life." Rhett proved he knew a little more about it than Christian.
Evelyn nodded at the same time Alex and Minna did and said, "Correct. Not just the Tree of Life but the entire Garden."
"Huh." Dracht grunted, arms still crossed over his chest.
"All right. Make me a list of the names so I can give that to Father Valanzano before they try and find this box you're talking about. Then we'll wait for a reply while we're baiting the other Templars into a trap and go from there once they're in our custody. In the meantime, I've arranged for you to visit your sisters before their burial." Dragar gestured to Dracht, Rhett and Christian. "You three come with me for a moment."
"I'll make the list," Minna offered, standing up.
"Thank you, Dragar. We'll see you all shortly." Evelyn thought that went a lot better than she'd imagined. She stood up when Dragar nodded and met Rhett's gaze for a lingering beat while he filed out of the room behind his brothers. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.
"C'mon, Ev. Let's go get ready to say goodbye." Alexandra slung an arm over Evelyn's shoulders and led her out of the room.
With a lot on his mind, Rhett followed his father and brothers through the halls to an enclosed office. Like the rest of the stronghold, the furniture was heavy, thick and sparse. A desk framed by walls of bookcases sat in the middle of the room. Three chairs with leather cushions and burnished studs offered seating. On any other day, the brothers would have sank into the comfortable confines for the oncoming conversation.
"Shut the door, Christian," Dracht said with a gesture.
Christian closed the door behind him.
Rhett stood next to Dracht while his father perched on the corner of the desk, meeting each of their gazes dead on.
"The plan we discussed has been put into motion. False details were relayed that the girls would show up at the funeral for their sisters tomorrow. At the same time, I made a discreet call on a separate phone to Valanzano telling him that the girls would be transferred to one of the other safe houses here in Athens and that the funeral was to be used as a cover for the move. I have no doubt the Templars will intercept that phone call and show up at the safe house to try and nab them," Dragar said.
"How many of us do you want at the safe house? If all nine show up, it could get messy. The element of surprise will help," Christian said.
"I want you and Rhett here at the stronghold with the girls. Dracht, Raoul, Benecio and I will apprehend the men at the safe house along with some of the other Templars we've recalled from duty. Once we have them in custody, Dracht will call you while I inform Valanzano."
"Who is going to Italy for the transfer of the Knights?" Dracht asked.
"I'll take Raoul and Benecio with me. The girls are more familiar with you three, so I want you here until we get the rest of this straightened out."
"What about the visit to the mortuary today? You still want us to leave in separate cars?" Rhett asked, comfortable with all of the other plans. Everything, so far, was going according to their tentative schedule.
"Different cars, different departures. I can't imagine any of them would think we'd bring them here, but just in case they've outguessed us, I'd like to cover our actions as well as we're able," Dragar replied.
"I'll take Alexandra with me and go out the back entrance," Dracht said. "That'll split us up even more."
Dragar inclined his head. "Good. Then I want everyone back here with no other stops in between. After that, it's just a waiting game until tomorrow."
"I'll take personal pleasure in seeing the bastards brought in." Rhett, annoyed that their own brothers had deceived them, looked forward to their capture.
"How are you feeling?" Rhett asked.
Evelyn watched the streets of Athen's whip by out the tinted windows of the car. They had left the stronghold separate from the others, staggering their departures as Rhett suggested. She'd added a cream colored, crocheted shirt over the lemon yellow one underneath, affixing the single button across her chest. Paired with the gray slacks, it would have to do for the impromptu viewing of her sisters. She wouldn't complain; she wasn't up for a shopping trip and there was no time for it anyway. She felt lucky that they were allowed this last chance to see the girls before they were buried.
"Better now that the truth is out and we can all move forward from this. I'm anxious to have the others in custody and to figure out what happens after that."
"Soon. Dragar's got the names now thanks to Saul. He's getting a team together while we do this. It's just a matter of figuring out where they are," Rhett said.
Evelyn admired him instead of the view. To go along with the jeans and dark blazer, he'd shaved and combed his hair away from his face. He'd never even met Galiana or Genevieve yet he took pains to look respectable. She knew he wore a holster under the blazer---probably wore it at all times---and the knowledge reassured her. Even with the wound she'd inflicted, Rhett was a force to be reckoned with.
"How did you get that scar above your eyebrow?" Evelyn gave in to curiosity at last.
"In Jakarta. Barroom brawl." He smiled without taking his eyes off the road.
"...it wasn't from work?"
"No. Some drunk picked a fight when we were off duty. Christian and I almost got thrown in jail." Rhett rumbled a laugh, obviously reminiscing.
"You're pretty close to your brothers." She said it as a statement and not a question.
"I am. This has been our life since I can remember."
"Do you ever wish you were doing something different? Living a more normal life?"
"Define normal. If you mean do I wish I was sitting at a desk all day punching numbers or some other typical job, then no. I like what I do, if that wasn't obvious." He glanced at her.
Evelyn quirked her lips and looked out the front windshield.
"Why do I get the feeling that wasn't the right answer?" he asked.
"It's just dangerous, that's all." With an abrupt change of subject, she asked, "How do we know the others aren't following us?"
Evelyn took his few seconds of silence to mean she'd caught him off guard with the swerve in topic. Either that, or Rhett was deciding whether or not to pursue the former subject.
"We don't. I've done my best to lose any tail in the city though. What's on your mind, Evelyn?" he asked.
"I don't know. I think I'm just moody about this. It's hard to say goodbye." It was this and it was also other things she didn't know how to mention.
"Is that all?"
"Mostly. I have a bad feeling I can't put my finger on."
"Do you get those feelings often?"
"Not really."
"You're not reassuring me here, Evelyn."
"It's hard to reassure you when I can't even reassure myself."
Papadopoulos Mortuary felt as cold on the skin as a midwinter day. It seeped through the layers of clothing all the way to her bones. The sterile room in the back wasn't meant for guests or loved ones; it was a place to store coffins and bodies in the time between viewing and burial. The gray floor matched the gray walls and even the ceiling fit into the monochrome theme. It made the glossy, cherry wood caskets stand out like sore thumbs.
Evelyn stood next to Minna and Alexandra while an assistant opened the lids so the girls could say their final goodbye.
In her lifetime, Evelyn had experienced many deaths of her loved ones, and each time was just as hard as the last.
Galiana's skin was starting to mottle near the hairline and closer to the back of her neck. Her face, a ghastly whitish-blue, looked peaceful. Youthful. The inky web of her lashes fanned down over the high crest of her cheek. If she wasn't so pale, even with the light layer of make up, Evelyn would have thought she'd just been asleep.
An assistant at the mortuary had been kind enough to obtain clothing according to Evelyn's direction, so that Galiana would go to rest in a stylish dress of peach and cream. Genevieve, who'd suffered more physical facial damage than Galiana, was outfitted in the earth tones she always preferred.
With Rhett hovering at her back, she bent to place a small kiss on Genevieve and then Galiana's cheeks, restricting her tears to silent trails of saline that dripped harmlessly onto the satin lining the caskets.
Minna expended her grief in quiet breaths, murmuring soothing words while she stroked her hand over their hair and followed suit with a cheek kiss.
While Alex took her turn, Evelyn dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief Rhett pressed around her shoulder and into her fingers. She felt him touch the small of her back reassuringly, his broad stature like a wall looming behind her.
"You find some kick ass sales in heaven, Galiana, and we'll be seein' you sooner than you think," Alexandra said.
"Alexandra." Evelyn should have known Alex would say something like that.
She thought she heard Minna, Rhett, Dracht and Christian all muffle a laugh. Evelyn didn't know whether to be amused or beat her wayward sister to a pulp.
"What?" Alex said. "You know you were all thinking it." Alex went over and kissed Genevieve's temple next. "Tell Eurijah I'll be taking that necklace back she 'borrowed' like a thousand years ago when I get up there. Love ya."
The irony was that it had been a thousand years ago when Eurijah borrowed Alex's necklace and was never able to return it before her untimely death. Evelyn discovered she couldn't chide Alexandra for being herself. It was just her way, and probably made it easier to cope with the loss. Alex hadn't ever liked to show much emotion in front of anyone.
"If you two even think of snibbling and snarffling over me when I die, I'll kick both your butts when you get to heaven," Alexandra announced when she turned from the caskets. She eyed Evelyn and Minna with her brows up.
The girl was impossible.
"Snibbling isn't even a word. Hush and let's go." Evelyn pinched Alex's side to get her moving for the doors. She glanced a last time at Galiana and Genevieve before the assistant eased the lids back into place. Knowing that she would see them again was the only thing that kept her from breaking down completely.
Rhett caught her elbow with his fingers and steered her toward the back entrance. "Your sister is something," he murmured near her ear.
"She's always been blunt. I suppose it's a coping mechanism or something on days like today." Evelyn pushed the handkerchief into her pocket to return to him later, after she'd washed it.
"I'm sorry you won't be able to go to the cemetery. But at least you'll know that they'll be buried like you wanted. Once this is all over, we can do a memorial if you'd like the proper way." He led her out the back door and into the sunlight.
"That might be a good idea." Evelyn and her surviving sisters hadn't ever had a memorial for any of them before. It had felt too risky to gather in one place in case they were being watched. Usually they were on the run by then, doing their best to stay one step ahead of the Templars. Alex would balk at the thought. She couldn't be sure what Minna would say.
While the others parted off in pairs to travel back to the stronghold, Evelyn walked with Rhett to their car. He went around to open the passenger door for her and closed it once she was inside.
Evelyn tracked him in the rear view mirror while he made his way around to the driver's side. She could still smell the subtle scent of his cologne on her clothes and the seats. When he got in, she examined his profile while he slid the key into the ignition. The engine growled to life. They were slated to leave a few minutes before the others, staggering their exit like they had from the stronghold.
"Do you think we'll ever be able to live like we used to, Rhett? In our own houses in the cities of our choices?" she asked. He glanced at her, the pale green of his eyes serious.
"I'm sure you will. It'll all depend on how much protection we think you need, what you're willing to accept, and where you all want to live, really."
"We'd planned to move back here in the not too distant future. Crete, maybe. I don't know what the girls will want to do now, but I know we won't be splitting up to live separately again."
"You lived apart before?" He backed the sleek vehicle out of the slot, one arm slung behind her seat. Once clear, he put the car in gear and cruised toward the street.
"We scattered across the globe after Eurijah was killed. We wanted to make it harder to track us down. And if they did manage to find us, then at least we wouldn't put any other sisters in jeopardy by living together. That was our thinking. But finally, when so many decades went by without an attack, we felt pretty secure living close to one another again. Now I doubt I could be separated from them for very long."
"You shouldn't have to worry about it after this. You can live anywhere you want to."
"Will you and your brothers go anywhere we go? I mean, won't that be disruptive for you?"
Rhett stopped at a red light and searched her eyes. He said nothing for long seconds. "For a while. At some point I'm going to pick a home base and settle there, start a family of my own. It isn't something I've considered so far due to my lifestyle. They'll replace me with someone you can trust."
Evelyn was unprepared for the stab of jealousy that hit her. She had no right to feel so possessive over him after knowing him such a short time. Or did she? They'd shared more than just a kiss, and their situation was far from some casual meeting in a club or at a party. They'd been chased, shot at, hunted. He'd put himself in the line of fire for her.
Remembering the look they shared the night before across the sand pit, her cheeks flushed. She would have bet in that moment he felt just as possessive over her.
"So you can have little Templars of your own to train and get into the family business, I'm sure." She didn't phrase it as a question. Templars were generational. Of course Rhett would eventually settle down and have children of his own.
Evelyn hated the thought of him growing old, growing infirm and feeble.
"I don't know how the kid thing works for you. Have you had any?" he asked.
"Alexandra and I are the only two that haven't. I chose not to because the thought of watching them grow old and die didn't appeal to me. Alexandra just isn't the motherly type, not really."
"How did you 'choose' not to back before there was birth control?"
Evelyn studied his face while he drove. Confiding in him shouldn't be so easy. "Like our ability to heal, we have an innate knowledge of when the precise time is to conceive. So if you don't want to, then you avoid relations with men until that time has passed."
"Very handy little extra sense. I guess you're not susceptible to disease or anything like that then?"
"No. Though if we ingested enough poison or something like that, we'll die." She watched his reactions while he took a longer route back to the stronghold. By the way he watched the rear view and side mirrors, she knew he was making sure he lost any kind of tail.
"Does the immortality get passed down to the children?"
"No. That comes from eating fruit from the Tree of Life." Evelyn folded her hands in her lap, memorizing the strength of his jaw, the masculine bridge of his nose. The scar above his eyebrow only added to his appeal in her mind.
Rhett met her eyes and held them at the next red light.
He said nothing else for the rest of the trip to the stronghold.
The scent of grilled chicken wafted through the kitchen. Evelyn, impressed with how well equipped it was, decided to help Rhett make dinner. Not bothering to change, she'd found a full length apron to don over her clothing, the strings wrapped twice around her hips and tied off in the front.
Dusk had settled over the landscape a few minutes before, bleeding orange fingers of light through the windows.
"Smells pretty good," Rhett said from the island where he stood piling ears of corn wrapped in foil from the grill onto a plate. "There's salad fixings in the fridge, too. We can do that last."
"How many months out of the year do you live here?" she asked, turning over a few pieces of chicken with the tongs. An overhead vent quietly pulled the rising steam away.
"Months? I don't stay for months at a time anywhere. I move between the strongholds and houses depending on where I'm needed to work," he said, setting down his own pair of tongs.
"Oh. You don't have a place of your own for vacations and things like that?" she asked, glancing over at him.
"I've invested in a couple residences, but I don't live there. If I go on vacation, I choose a destination far from where any work is going on and usually just stay in a hotel or something."
"How long has it been since you've had a vacation?"
"Eleven years or so?" He went to the fridge and took out a fresh bottle of cold water, cracking the lid with a twist of his hand.
"Eleven years! That's a long time." Evelyn couldn't imagine waiting that long to have a vacation.
"Well, how often do you go on vacation? Two or three times a year?" He laughed as he asked.
"Of course not. But we usually all go somewhere at least once a year."
"That's because you have a lazy job."
Evelyn darted an astonished look at him. "I do not! I'll have you know--" She paused when she saw the devilish gleam in his eye. Setting down the tongs, she grabbed up a towel and after giving it a quick roll, she snapped it at his hip.
He dodged her with too much ease, grabbing the end of the towel to suddenly tug her right in front of him.
"You were saying?" His tone picked up a predatory edge.
Evelyn couldn't remember what she was saying. His proximity made her forget herself. "You're terrible."
"You like it," he challenged brazenly, setting the towel on the island after she let it go. But he didn't move away from her.
Evelyn lifted her chin. A small show of defiance. "I like no such thing. I prefer my men demure and--"
"Metrosexual?"
She laughed, skirting around him both to get her breath back and to see if there was any wine in their fridge. If there was ever a night she wanted to indulge, it was this one.
"What gave you that idea?"
"Just a hunch. Am I right?"
"Not whatsoever."
"So what kind of man do you prefer then?"
"Why are you asking?"
"Why are you avoiding?" he countered.
"If I told you, then I'd have to kill you." She muffled a laugh against her shoulder while he barked a loud one into the kitchen.
"You tried that once. Your aim sucks."
"Rhett!"
"I just call it like I see it."
"You're an instigator, is what you are."
"I repeat---you like it."
Evelyn found a bottle of blush and a bottle of burgundy. She took both out of the fridge. "I think you just want me to like it."
"There are a lot of things I want you to like."
Evelyn set the bottle of burgundy on the granite counter top. The inflection in Rhett's voice drew her gaze. He stared at her in a way that suggested he wasn't teasing any longer. It was both the right and wrong time to address the situation, but Evelyn knew that they needed to before anything went further between them. She glanced through the kitchen; it was empty save for themselves. Less interested in the wine than before, she toyed with the bottle.
"Such as?" she asked, meeting his eyes.
He strolled over after turning the grill off and leaned a hip against the counter a foot away. "Me, for one."
"I do like you. In fact, I like you more than I should if I'm honest." As if the events of the day weren't difficult enough, Evelyn found herself forced to begin a conversation that would only make things worse.
"Why is that a bad thing?"
"Haven't you been listening to everything we've said, Rhett?" she asked.
"Of course. It's impossible not to. What troubles you about it?"
"Don't you know?" Leaving the bottle alone, she faced him. He looked sturdy and solid, like always, as if he could fix anything. Change anything. Make life better just by being present.
But he couldn't fix this. He couldn't bridge the enormous gap that existed between them no matter how they both felt for each other.
Astute, he narrowed his eyes.
"If you think I haven't thought about the immortality, then you're wrong. I have."
"It's why we don't have relationships for long periods of time. Minna is the only one of us who has ever made something last longer than a year or so. It's not fair to you, or really, to me, either." If she allowed herself to fall the rest of the way, Evelyn knew that eventually, when they had to separate, he would not be the only one devastated.
She'd never felt this way about any man, no matter how fond she'd been of a few of her boyfriends over time. There was something different about the bond she felt with Rhett.
"I hate to fall back on an old cliché here, but isn't it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?"
Evelyn snapped a look up from where her gaze had gone distant on the wall. Was he telling her he was in love with her? Or conjecturing about their possible future? One that wasn't a future at all but a progression toward the day when they would have to part for the age differences.
She would continue on, like this, while he grew old and feeble.
It did not answer the question he put to her, however. And standing this close, where his scent lingered in her senses, his eyes regarding her so warmly, she felt tested beyond measure. Would the joy of being with him for twenty years outweigh the other thousands she would be without him after he died?
"A cliché made by someone who never had to watch a loved one wither and fade, and ultimately die. It's easy to make such grandiose statements when you're in your prime, when you're both in your prime, and have the rest of your lives to grow old together. We don't have that luxury." She rested her palm on the cool counter top. It was surreal to even be having this conversation.
Rhett continued to maintain eye contact.
"A cliché made by someone who undoubtedly understood that no matter what else, they wouldn't be able to resist what they want and to keep trying to do so would only result in lasting heartache. Better to seize the moment and live it than to wake up miserable every day, don't you think?"
"And how resentful will you be when you begin to age and I don't? Hm? How much do you think you'll enjoy that?" Evelyn closed the distance between them, standing so close that she had to tip her head at a sharp angle just to hold his gaze.
"I choose to live for the moment, Evelyn, not look so far into the future that it taints what we might have today. I could have sworn you'd be the type to do the same."
Evelyn of six months ago would have engaged in a brief affair with him and had no second thought about it. But today things had changed. Their secret was out. Rhett was...Rhett. Different than other men she'd dated. She wasn't sure if she was relieved that he knew her so well already or annoyed by the same.
"You make a good argument for the situation," she murmured, unable to come up with a suitable reply. "I need a little more time."
"There's no rush, despite my ticking clock." Rhett brought the topic back up to lighter footing with mild humor.
"What if I decide not to take the risk, Rhett? What if, ultimately, I don't want to put myself through it?" She almost hated to see the gleam in his eyes fade.
"Then that will be that. I won't fight you over your decision, Evelyn. There's no joy in it if you don't come willingly, with your whole heart." He turned away without any heat in his words to finish dinner preparations.
Evelyn tinkered with the bottle of wine and watched him, thinking over everything he'd said. It would be a challenge either way and for a moment, she felt frustrated by their circumstance.
"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Dracht asked from the doorway to his room.
Rhett glanced up from the bible in his hands. Curiosity had gotten the better of him after dinner and he'd sought a volume out from his father's extensive library. Well past midnight, Rhett was on schedule to take over after Dracht's shift.
"Can't sleep," he admitted, slapping the book closed. He set it on the bed beside him. Sitting on the edge, fully clothed, he propped his elbows on his thighs and eyed his sibling.
"Something happen I'm not aware of? I'm sure you're not worried about tomorrow." Dracht leaned a shoulder against the door frame.
"Nah, I know you guys will clean house. Everything ready to go?"
"Everything's set. The house is wired, videoed and we already have lookouts placed on the street. You didn't answer my question."
"Had a talk with her earlier while we were making dinner."
"And?"
"And I don't know if she'll set aside the major difference between us to give this thing a go." Rhett studied his brother. Dracht didn't bother to hide his surprise.
"I thought I was just imagining whatever it was I saw between you. Since when do you want something more than a one nighter with a woman?"
"Pretty much since the first night I met her." He saw no reason to lie. Rather than fight being baffled over their connection, he sought ways to overcome the problem.
"Huh." Dracht grunted. He made the sound often when he was thoughtful. "I don't need to tell you it's going to be tricky. Not just because they live for however long, but because at some point, word is going to leak out."
"The Church has kept many things secret for years--"
"I'm not talking about the Church. Who's to say these guys haven't already told someone else?"
"Wouldn't we have heard by now?" Rhett asked.
"Not necessarily. There are a lot of reasons, some we can't even guess at, why they might come forward. Money, notoriety, a shot at becoming immortal."
"We'll deal with it then. It's not enough to keep me from trying with her." He stood up and stretched his back. They spoke at such a low volume that he wasn't worried Evelyn or any of her sisters would overhear. Last he knew, they were all sleeping in their appointed rooms.
"Leave it to you to fall for someone you shouldn't have." Dracht snorted.
Rhett latched onto the thread of humor and smiled devilishly. "You know me. I like a challenge. It'll help tomorrow if you and Dad can slip out without the girls seeing you. That Alexandra asks a lot of questions."
"A challenge is what you're going to get." Dracht laughed. "Yes, she does. I'm half surprised she isn't waiting in the pit for another lesson. We're heading out an hour before dinner, so keep them distracted in the kitchen or something and they'll never know we're gone."
"I'll have Christian help me keep their attention diverted. After tomorrow, we can make extended plans. Hey, how do you feel about Crete?"
Dracht looked perplexed.
Grinning, he clapped his brother on the shoulder and let him wonder.
There was a certain archaic kind of peace to be found within the stronghold. Evelyn imagined centuries of Templars residing here, going on their secretive missions only to come back to rest and recover. Two weeks ago she would have gone cold at the thought of being ensconced within their sanctuary; now she couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
Strange.
Standing in front of the swords attached in a line on the board in the sand pit the following evening, she examined them closely. The blades shined. Each one had ancient script carved along the edge, a flowing line of words about strength and honor. Before meeting Rhett and his brothers, she would have laughed at the thought that any of the Knights were honorable. Each also bore an insignia, the same as the iron cross tattooed between the Templar's shoulder blades. It matched another engraved into the gold lined, leather wrapped hilt.
The weapons were rich with detail, polished and well cared for. A novice, even she could see that.
She wondered how old the swords were, how many generations they'd been passed down through.
Blanching, she wondered if any of them had been the instruments of death that had ended the lives of one of her sisters.
"Not inclined to pick one up?" a familiar voice said near her ear.
Startled, Evelyn whipped a look back at Christian. She smiled, one hand pressed over her racing heart. "You surprised me. I---no. That's probably not a great idea."
"Why not?" he asked, reaching past her. With care, he pulled one particular sword from the grips that held it vertical to the ground.
Evelyn took two steps to the side to give him room. "I've always had a fear of them, I guess. I'm sure you can understand why."
He angled the blade so that it was pointing straight up. Christian followed the shining steel with his gaze right to the tip. The grip he had around the hilt looked firm but comfortable, as if he'd spent a lot of time with the weapon. A corner of his mouth crooked into a half smile when he met her eyes past the glinting metal.
"I can understand that," he said with a nod. "Did you see them in action once before or something?"
"A very long time ago, yes." Evelyn laced her arms across her front. Overhead, beyond the dome in the ceiling, thunder growled through the sky. A few seconds later, lightning flashed a spear of illumination over the pit. It sounded like a big storm was rolling in.
"Must not have been very pleasant, judging by the look on your face," he added. "Then there was the way Galiana died."
An immediate pang lanced through her. She winced, looking up from the hold he had on the hilt to his eyes. The upright position of the blade blocked a portion of his face.
"There was that." Reminded, her voice lowered to a murmur. "I'm sure Rhett's told you that I'm not a fan of violence anyway."
"He didn't mention it." Christian lowered the blade an inch at a time, until the tip hovered just beneath her chin.
She was positive that Christian wouldn't ever mean to distress her, but staring down the glinting steel put a sudden ache in her stomach. Not wanting to touch it, she swallowed down a knot of unease.
It's just Christian. He doesn't know how much I hate these things.
While they stared at each other, with the storm growing in intensity outside, Christian touched the tip of the sword against her skin. A light rest of cold, hard steel. Evelyn flinched at the contact.
"...can you move that, please? It makes me uncomfortable." She half expected him to say it was a lesson. Like the one Rhett taught her that night in the hotel room when he stalked her.
"And it should make you uncomfortable. You've caused me more trouble than you realize." His eyes, usually blue as a summer sky, turned flinty.
Shock froze Evelyn in place. Thunder pounded the night as if a great hammer was trying to crack through the heavens.
Any second, she expected Christian to laugh and withdraw the blade. This was some awful joke, a twisted version of a reality she didn't recognize. She didn't understand the displeased look on his face, didn't---couldn't---comprehend the antagonistic nuance of his mood. It took her several agonizing, long minutes to realize he was serious. Christian wouldn't lower the blade until he'd said what he came to say, or did what he came to do.
She licked her lips, suddenly nervous.
"I don't understand. What's going on, Christian? What's this about?" She couldn't detect any crack in his metaphorical armor, no weak spot or vulnerable angle.
"You're going to come with me, that's what this is about. Don't even think of screaming or calling out for Rhett. He's been detained. Start walking toward the front doors." He kicked his chin that direction without ever taking his eyes off her.
Her first instinct was to do exactly that. Call out for Rhett. "What do you mean he's been detained?"
Christian said nothing.
Mind racing with implications and suggestions, all of them ugly and unbelievable, she took her first step. Christian kept the blade uncomfortably close to her throat, moving the tip so he could stay at her side instead of in front of her.
"Have you been working with the other Templars this whole time--" The idea bloomed into place when no other ready answers presented themselves. Christian cut her off.
"Be quiet. Don't ask questions." He spoke low. No nonsense.
Frantic to make sense of it all, she took another cautious step. Surely he hadn't done something to Rhett. And where were her sisters? Dracht? Dragar? Had Christian turned traitor against his own family? Questions raced through her mind while she tried to figure out what to do.
Instinct dictated that if she allowed him to get her away from the stronghold, she might never get a chance to escape. She couldn't let him just walk out the door with her without putting up some kind of fight.
On the other hand, her rational half refused to accept that Christian meant her any real harm. He'd spent hours protecting her, keeping her safe. And yet here he was, sword at her throat, indicating he meant to take her away.
Impossible.
The options at her disposal, when she considered them, seemed dismal and bleak.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Rhett's voice, deadly and low, came from behind them.
The instant she recognized who it belonged to, she pitched away from Christian, using the distraction to put some distance between them. The tip of the blade nicked her skin, a small wound well worth the risk of freedom. Stumbling in the sand, she fell to a knee and twisted in time to see Rhett, wet with rain, blood streaming down from his hairline, stalking Christian.
He had a sword in his hand.
Scrambling back, she found the edge of the pit and climbed out onto the tile.
Christian, forced to face off with his brother rather than go after her, took up a defensive posture. Lips thin, he narrowed his eyes.
"Don't tell me the other Templars turned you. I know you're smarter than to believe the junk they were spewing," Rhett said. Like a predator, he circled until he'd put himself between his brother and her.
"They were just a tool, good only for their fanaticism and ability to track the girls down. It allowed me to monitor their moves and not draw suspicion onto myself." Christian tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword. "You weren't supposed to see this."
"See what? What were you going to do with her? Christian, what in God's name are you doing?" Rhett jerked his head to remove wet strands of hair from his vision.
"There are a lot of things you don't understand. Things I can't tell you. We--"
"That's bullshit, Christian. You're my brother. You can tell me anything."
"I can't tell you this. I won't."
"That's your choice. I can't help you if you don't confide in me."
"I didn't ask for your help." A muscle twitched at the corner of Christian's eye.
Rhett spat a wad of blood into the sand. His discontent seemed to increase with Christian's latest answer.
"Who jumped me outside?" Rhett demanded.
"Is he dead?"
"He would have been if you hadn't taken the clip out of my gun. Why don't you put the sword down." Rhett made a short gesture with his blade.
Christian ignored the request. His posture became more predatory, matching the slow stalk Rhett made over the sand. Preparing to take it to the next level.
Lurching to her feet, Evelyn watched the brothers with increasing horror. Suddenly, the confusion over how the Templars stayed so close on their tail clicked into place. Christian had been with she and Rhett almost the whole time. He'd turned them in. Kept track of every move, every detail. Had he even been the one to send her the text message? He'd delivered her belongings to her, had access to her phone.
Oh God.
She darted a look from one face to another. Christian, always hard to read, was not any easier to dissect now. She couldn't tell if he felt remorse, anger, frustration---nothing. Rhett appeared controlled, steely, hyper-focused.
They faced off in the middle of the sand pit, circling, circling, swords held out in front of them. She knew she should probably run. Get away while she could. But Rhett might need her and she couldn't seem to move anyway. Locked in place, all she could do was watch with her breath in her throat.
Outside, the storm picked up intensity, rain hammering the roof and the dome.
"I'm not letting you take her anywhere," Rhett said, the words a clear warning.
"You don't have a choice."
Christian lunged forward, moving in to attack.
Hidden in the shadows of an alley between a vacant laundromat and an empty bookstore, Dracht regarded the house across the street. It was an older, white clapboard home with a wrap around porch and freshly painted eaves. The interior had long been stripped of everything, even carpet, the windows shuttered from the inside. Its location in a rough part of town made it less than desirable to use in rescue situations, but it worked beautifully for this.
Crouched next to his father, he heard the other Knights check in over the headset while he squinted through the torrential downpour for movement.
Three of the nine remaining sect members had been apprehended in the woods behind the safe house. Lookouts that Raoul had subdued before the others could be alerted. Benecio had forced one of them to call the other six in, luring them toward the trap Dragar had set in motion.
One by one, dark silhouettes crept through the night, through the rain, toward the front stairs of the house. Two split off along the side for the back and the other four came straight on, removing the front door from the hinges with a vicious kick.
While they were distracted, Dracht sprang to his feet alongside Dragar and sprinted across the street. The rush would have been quieter if the rain hadn't dampened the asphalt; his boots clapped through a few shallow puddles, drawing the attention of the last Templar about to go through the doorway.
Even in the dark, through the silvery deluge, Dracht saw the gun in the Knight's hand.
It swung wide and took aim at his father.
Dragar, possessed of decent speed and agility for his age, nevertheless couldn't dodge bullets. Dracht dropped to a knee right there on the parkway, raised his firearm, and squeezed off two shots. Instead of going for a non-fatal wound, he went for the broader target of the Templar's chest, unwilling to risk his father's life if he missed a thigh or a shoulder.
The Knight pitched back, landing half in and half out of the doorway.
"Shit," Dracht muttered. Their cover was already blown. He could hear shouting from inside the house. A moment later, something buzzed past his ear. He hit the ground and rolled, aligning himself behind the trunk of a tree.
Dragar never stopped, taking a zig-zagging path forward, shooting at the facade of the house to keep the other Templars pinned down.
Dracht blew his cover and ran straight across the short yard for the porch. His father, shooting from somewhere to his right, had to stop and reload just as he thumped to the side of the open door. Breathing hard, holding his gun with both hands, he listened for movement. The Templars, trained as well as the rest of them, had gone totally silent. But they were there, he knew, just waiting for the right time to strike.
"We have two in custody." Raoul's voice, out of breath, came over the headset.
Two contained, one dead.
Three down. Three to go.
In periphery, he saw Dragar lope onto the porch, bent in half to pass under the front window across from him. One on each side of the blown out doorway, Dracht made eye contact with his father. He nodded and pulled a small, round disc from the belt at his waist. Tugging the tab, he tossed it into the darkness, over the prone body blocking the threshold, and waited for the gas to smoke the Templars out.
At least here, under the awning, he didn't have to fight the rain to see. Dracht crouched down again, balanced on the balls of his feet. He didn't want to be eye to eye with anyone who might come out shooting.
As it turned out, that was exactly what happened. The first Templar barreled through the open door, stumbling on the body, gun blasting in Dracht's direction. Three bullets whizzed above his head. He knew his father couldn't fire because he risked hitting him instead of the sect member. In those spare seconds when they were forced to wait, Dracht saw Dragar gather himself and knew what he meant to do.
Dragar lunged after the Knight. Colliding, they tumbled down the stairs into the blinding rain. But Dracht had to worry about the other two who couldn't be far behind the first one.
Swinging the gun back, still crouched, he shot out the knee of the next man coming through the doorway. With a scream, the Templar crashed to the porch where Dragar had just been. His gun skittered away, falling off onto the grass.
Before Dracht could move, two bodies hurled out through the busted door frame, landing in a tangle of fists and curses.
One of them had to be Raoul. He must have cut through the house to take this last Templar by surprise.
"Freeze! Don't move!" Dracht shouted. He couldn't get a clear shot.
Raoul chopped his hand across the man's windpipe, effectively stunning him, and knocked the gun from his fingers.
Dracht plucked the weapon off the porch and pressed to a stand, stepping over them to check on the one he'd shot the knee out of. The Templar rolled around on the porch, hissing and groaning in pain.
Tucking the extra gun, Dracht snagged a pair of cuffs from his belt and secured the Knight's wrists. Satisfied he wasn't a threat any longer, he vaulted the rail to the ground.
Dragar had the last man pinned, knee in his back. From the safe house more Templars came, another few running onto the scene across the street.
"Get them all loaded into the van. Benecio! You know where to take them. Have the medic on standby." Dragar let go of the man he had pinned when other Knights came to take over.
Dracht surveyed the scene, mouth a grim line. He holstered his weapon and met his father a few steps from the stairs. The storm raged around them, soaking his clothes through to his skin.
"That's all of them." He glanced at the door where the prone Templar lay. Dracht wasn't happy about having to shoot one of his own.
Dragar clapped a hand to his shoulder. "You did what you had to. They made their choice, Dracht."
"I know. I still don't like it." He knew his father felt the same way, even if he hadn't been the one to pull the trigger. Dragar acted as a father figure to many of the Knights whose own parents had passed away.
"None of us do. I would have done the same thing if it had been you or any other in danger. It's part of the job. Come on, let's get going. I'm sure the women will be relieved to know that it's over." Dragar clapped his shoulder once more before leading the way toward a car that had been left for them at the curb.
On the way to the stronghold, Dracht tried to call Rhett. Three times it went to voice mail. He left a message on the fourth try.
"Hey, pick up once in a while. We're on our way back. We have them all contained. See you in ten." Dracht hung up and slouched in the passenger seat while Dragar traversed the slick looking streets of Athens. The storm pounded the landscape relentlessly, muting the colors into layers of black and gray.
At the gate, the guard let them in. Dracht, ready to be done for the evening, unfastened his seat belt while his father cruised slowly along the drive toward the building.
A strange car sat parked before the broad, sweeping staircase and Dracht peered through the gloom to try and get a better look.
"Whose car is that?" he asked.
"Can't tell. Doesn't look like anyone we know, does it?" Dragar replied, slowing to a stop twenty feet behind the vehicle. He cut the lights.
"It's hard to see through the damn weather." Dracht flung open his door and got out. He hadn't gone three steps when the sound of a brawl hit him over the roll of thunder through the sky.
"Dragar!" Dracht broke into a run after alerting his father something was wrong. Rounding the front of the other car, he saw bodies on the ground. Four of them, broke into two halves. The whip of long, wet black hair told him one of them was Alexandra. Minna must be the other, both in lethal combat with two men who didn't look immediately familiar.
"Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them! Now!" Dracht roared his command, the gun already out of the holster.
Alexandra and Minna both took advantage of the distraction. Alex cracked a fist into her attackers nose and Minna delivered a brutal blow to a temple. Minna rolled out from under the man who held her down, taking up a defensive stance. She was muddy and disheveled and breathing like she'd just run a marathon. Her sister, less graceful but no less effective, had a harder time getting to her feet. Dracht could see the beginnings of bruises on them both even through the rain.
Dragar stalked onto the scene with his weapon leveled at the men.
"Get up! Who are you and what are you doing here?" Dragar demanded.
The men, suits soaked through, scrambled to their feet with their hands raised in surrender. They stank of government. One of them had a bloody nose.
Dracht didn't recognize either of them.
"He asked you a question!" Dracht shouted over a peal of thunder. He saw the way the men's gaze darted back and forth, as if they were weighing their options of escape or retaliation. He would have bet his entire next paycheck that both were concealing weapons under their jackets.
Why they hadn't used them on the girls were questions to be asked later.
"Hands behind your back. Right now." Dracht drew a pair of plastic wrist cuffs from his belt and subdued one man while Dragar did the other. Each was divested of a gun from hidden holsters.
"Alexandra, Minna, what the hell is going on?" Dracht went to a different source when he got nothing from the men. He glanced over to see both women looking angry and wary.
"They just came in. We were in the office lookin' at the books Dragar said we could read, and before you know it, they tackled us and drug us outside. We managed to hold 'em off long enough not to be put in their car and then you guys showed up." Alex, a wreck of tangled hair and wet clothes, scowled.
Minna nodded her agreement with Alexandra's assessment of the situation. "They didn't say what they wanted, they just grabbed us. Took us by surprise."
After all the care they'd taken to make the women feel reassured and safe, this happened. Dracht was less than pleased.
"Where are Rhett and Evelyn? Christian?"
"No idea. I don't think anyone could hear us over the rain," Alexandra said, flailing in exasperation at the downpour. The guard at the gate couldn't have heard them through the storm and his view was blocked by several trees.
Something eerie and uncomfortable slipped along Dracht's skin. One glance at his father told him he had the same inclination.
"Benecio. Contain the group you have and gather every available Templar. Get back to the stronghold immediately," Dragar said into the headset. He yanked at the arm of the man he held, forcing him up the steps toward the double doors.
Dracht didn't have to tell Alexandra and Minna to follow. He shoved the man he held in the same direction, bulling him through the double doors. The echoing effect of the stronghold brought him a sound that chilled his blood to the bone.
A sharp clash and hiss of swords reverberated through the chamber.
Rhett parried Christian's thrust, twisting the blade in a counter roll that forced his brother to back-step and withdraw. The grip on the hilt of his sword was slicker than he liked, but he'd fought in worse conditions than these. It would not be a hindrance.
The blood dripping down into his eyes might be, however.
Fighting off inner dismay and frustration, he prowled the same section of sand between Christian and Evelyn. He refused to give up any ground there, wouldn't let his brother have a clear shot at the girl. That he even had to consider Christian might do her harm threatened to upset his usual steel equilibrium.
With a puff of sand kicking off the back of his boot heels, he thrust straightforward. Christian blocked, arching the blade in a half circle, taking his own sword around with it. Rhett retreated only two steps and came in at another angle, driving Christian back. They were, and always had been, well matched in the ring.
He realized that it had to be his brother who'd informed their pursuers where they would be going, and where they were staying. It made sense now, the boat finding them after Crete, the frozen bank accounts, the men in Port Said. Christian had been tipping them off all along.
Rhett couldn't fathom who 'they' were yet. It was only a matter of time though. He would have his answers come hell or high water.
With a hard clang, their blades clashed overhead. Rhett slid his down along the edge, trying to circle close to the wrist and disarm his brother. Christian saw it coming and whipped a strike at his shoulder, risking a jab in the chest for his effort.
Rhett danced back just time time; steel glinted low and to the right, barely missing his arm.
"Getting slow in your old age, brother," Rhett taunted, never taking his eyes off him. Christian didn't take the bait, parrying forward with a flurry of fast footsteps and ringing blows of metal on metal. Rhett blocked every one, anticipating the moves. He knew he had a slight advantage of age and experience, but he didn't for a second let the knowledge distract him from the fact that Christian had become a desperate man. It leveled the playing field, because while he might anticipate his brother's moves, he couldn't predict them. Christian was likely to take risks he might not normally take.
As if Fate wanted to prove him right, Christian did something he wouldn't usually do. Between one thrust and the next, he crouched, spinning, and picked up a handful of sand. Rhett, busy avoiding the blade, only realized too late what the grabbing hand he saw in periphery meant.
A cloud of sand hit him straight in the face, blinding him, blotting out his adversary.
Evelyn's scream warned him that Christian was moving to strike.
Everything seemed to slow down; time, her breathing, the beat of her heart. She watched the sand hit Rhett head on and an involuntary scream ripped from her throat. It didn't take a genius to understand that he'd be blind for a few precious seconds. Time enough for someone skilled in the craft of swords to deal a killing blow.
Would Christian really kill his own brother? Evelyn, for the first time in her life, wanted to confront the violence instead of run from it. She wanted to rush out there and distract Christian, give Rhett back a fair advantage.
Christian didn't cut Rhett with the blade; he swooped in with the hilt and his fist, intent on delivering a blow to the temple. That was Evelyn's first hint that Christian didn't want to end Rhett's life. Whether that blow would have ever landed, or whether she would have helped or hindered by intruding was left up to anyone's guess. Rhett, in a surprisingly agile, intuitive counter, clanked his sword against the base of Christian's. It contacted just above the hilt, making Christian grit his teeth and grunt in pain.
She saw his blade falter and realized Rhett had struck that close to Christian's hand for a reason. It bought him a second to sweep his foot out and catch his brothers at the ankle. Christian stumbled back, off balance, while Rhett, fighting to see, charged forward. The very tip of his sword glided down Christian's and in a swift arc, Rhett twisted the weapon right out of his brother's fingers. It flew off to the side and Christian landed on his back, staring down the shining steel of Rhett's blade.
Evelyn, so tunnel visioned on the altercation, didn't realize someone else was there until Dragar's voice boomed through the room. It rivaled the thunder blazing across the sky.
"Rhett Sagan, what the devil is going on here?"
Sagan? Evelyn, even in her distress, was caught off guard by the last name. It had been Nichols on his credentials. She recalled Dragar telling her his last name was Sagan in Egypt however, and she'd never made the connection until now. Nichols was as fake as Rhett's CIA status.
Dragar and Dracht, having come in on the end of the fight, seemed uncertain who had instigated it.
Rhett never looked away from Christian's eyes. "I don't know. Christian's decided to be stubborn. He isn't talking. Get up."
Christian slowly climbed to his feet. He and Rhett stared each other down, but Christian said nothing.
Evelyn met Rhett's eyes, just for a moment, before he herded Christian over toward Dracht and Dragar, the latter whom appeared to have aged ten years in the few minutes he'd been standing there.
Minna and Alex wore their confusion and mistrust openly. They made their way over and Evelyn hugged first one and then the other. She saw the men Dracht and Dragar had with them, men with their hands bound and injuries on their faces, and knew they had been in their own altercation with her sisters. They didn't look like Templars to her, though she couldn't have said exactly what the distinction was.
What the bloody hell was going on?
"Come on. Let's get you cleaned up," Evelyn said to her siblings. There was nothing she could do but wait for Rhett to find her with some answers.
Evelyn stared at her sisters from her perch on the edge of the chair in Alexandra's bedroom. The events of the evening had left them all in varying stages of shock, disbelief and anger. Learning how her sisters had been snatched out of the office right under their very noses, she'd explained her own turn of events.
How Christian had surprised her in the sand pit, turning the sword first on her and eventually on Rhett. She had no answers over the why of it, or even who Christian worked for. Evelyn's gut instinct, after everything she'd overheard, led her to believe he wasn't involved with the other Templars.
The men were sequestered even now, trying to figure it out.
Four hours later, the rain still fell. Not the vicious lashing of earlier, but an almost delicate patter on the windows and roof. Silence had descended upon the girls, finally, and each had taken up comfortable positions to wait.
A knock on the door interrupted the contemplative mood.
"Come in," Evelyn called, standing up from the chair.
Rhett entered first followed by Dracht and Dragar. Evelyn noticed the patriarch looked weary, as if a great weight had settled on his shoulders. All three of them were stony faced. Hard to read. Instead of inviting them out into the larger living area, they stood near one of the walls and faced the unfortunate incident head on.
"Christian and his partners insist there was only the three of them involved. We interrogated them separately without them having a chance to talk first, and they gave us very similar stories. The other two say they work for the US government," Rhett said.
Evelyn wrung her hands before her, glancing from face to face. Gauging reaction to the news.
"Do you believe them?" she asked.
"They coulda got their 'stories' straight before they ever came here," Alex said.
"That's the sticking point, Alex," Dracht replied.
The deep baritone had an edge to it Evelyn hadn't heard before.
"It seems unlikely that there would only be three with how organized they are, and with what connections they seem to have. So far, the background checks have turned up exactly nothing on either of them. They refused to give us their names, so we ran their fingerprints. There isn't a match, no names attached. Christian isn't giving up much information himself, we're having to get most of it from the other two," Dragar added. A muscle flexed in his angular, whiskered jaw.
Evelyn found Rhett staring at her when she looked at him next. She read regret, frustration, remorse and more in the long few seconds of eye contact they had.
"From the confusing, bumbling account the 'partners' gave, they, meaning the government agents, stumbled across knowledge of you by accident. We didn't have enough time to drag out exactly how, or what they'd planned to do with you when they caught up to you. We're not sure how the connections were made or who initiated contact between them and Christian. One admitted that they'd hired other people to work for them, but he insists none of them were ever told the specific details about your existence. He swears they were all three in it for themselves, that they weren't working for or with any other government," Dracht said. "The men only used their positions to gain access to needed resources."
"So what'll happen now? I mean, no offense to anyone, but I'm not really sure who I trust and who I don't." Alex laid it out plain and blunt. She slapped her palms on her thighs and pushed up from the edge of the bed.
"I spoke at length with Father Valanzano before we came here. They found your box, and your scroll, and verified all the names on the list. He is much more willing to do what needs to be done to see you and your sisters safe, and agrees with the plan I've come up with," Dragar said, taking the lead.
"What plan is that?" Minna asked.
"I think we should split you girls up until we know for sure that there's no one else involved. I give them a few days at most to make some kind of contact with Christian or to make a move on you. They will expose themselves, in one way or another, if there are more, and we'll propagate disinformation to try and draw them out of their holes."
Evelyn felt a sliver of alarm at the thought of splitting off from her sisters after just being reunited again. She could see the wisdom in the idea though, and chewed the inside of her lip while studying Minna and Alexandra's reactions.
Minna looked perplexed and Alex was frowning.
"Each of you will come with one of us to a different location. We won't decide where we're going until we leave here and none of us will know where the other is. New phones connected to no one but us are available, giving us the ability to communicate without fear of being traced. We can stay mobile while other Knights follow instructions to lure any other members of this---group---or whatever it is, into the open. Even if nothing happens in three or four days though, I recommend keeping your distance from one another for a short while longer, just in case," Rhett added.
"How do we know you won't do what Christian did? What if all this is part of an even more elaborate plot to get us to trust you so that we lead you straight to the Garden of Eden? Because I'd bet my favorite pair of knickers that's what they wanted us for," Alex retorted. She paced a small spot on the floor with her hands propped on her hips.
"Your answer's standing right in front of you. If we wanted it that bad, we would have attempted to get the information from you already." Dracht rubbed two fingertips over the edge of his goatee.
Evelyn thought his reasoning was sound. Rhett already knew he'd earned her trust, if not an answer about whether or not she would let her guard down to get involved seriously with him. When she glanced away from Rhett to Alex and Minna, she saw both of them giving her a look that was not difficult to interpret.
"Will you give us a few minutes?" she asked the men.
Dragar cut a brisk nod and turned to the door. Dracht followed with Rhett trailing. He stared a lingering moment more, gaze locked with hers, before they exited the room.
"It boils down to trust. Do we really trust them?" Minna asked.
The conversation had been raging for fifteen minutes.
Evelyn paced opposite Alexandra in the small bedroom, trying to work a headache out of her forehead with her fingertips.
"I can tell you that I trust Rhett implicitly. There's something more there between us. Something largely unexplored but there nevertheless. I honestly don't think he can be faking those looks he gives me or the connection I feel between us." Evelyn finally broke down and confessed.
"What surprises me, Ev, is that you think Minna and I don't know that already. That's part of the reason why I've decided I'm in favor of this crazy scheme," Alex said.
"How could you have known that?" Evelyn asked, astonished. She thought she'd hid that from everyone except for Rhett.
"Please, Ev. Really? You might as well have it stamped on your forehead. I got the hots for Rhett."
"Alexandra." Evelyn exhaled in exasperation.
"It's not that obvious, Evelyn, but it's noticeable." Minna, always the voice of reason, tempered Alexandra's outlandish declaration.
"It has to mean somethin', Ev, because we all know how you like to keep guys at arms length."
"You know the idea appeals to you, too, little miss innocent," Evelyn said, stabbing an accusing look at Alexandra. I saw you in the sand pit with Dracht, her expression said.
Alex didn't have the grace to blush; she smiled devilish and unrepentant. "Hey, I make no secret I like to move around and he's got skill I intend to exploit at every opportunity. This gives me three or four days or however long to learn a little something new."
Leave it to Alex to weasel every bit of adventure out of the entire thing.
"You sure changed your mind in a hurry," Evelyn said.
"I believed them when they answered our questions." Alex shrugged her eyebrows.
"I guess that means you would be going with Dragar, Minna. Are you comfortable with that?" Even as Evelyn asked, she realized she felt secure with each of her sisters in the brother's care, despite Christian's betrayal. Her only hesitation was over the split from her siblings.
"I'm comfortable with all of them. It led to misjudgment with Christian, but I think the bad seed has been culled from the group," she replied.
Evelyn knew both her sisters well enough to know when they were telling the truth and when they were lying. Alex and Minna were being honest.
"At least we'll be able to talk whenever we want to without worry someone will be breathing down our neck," Evelyn finally said.
"Don't look at this as an ending, Ev. Look at it as the start of a new beginning. Sure, we don't have the others with us anymore, and it sucks, but living without constantly having to worry about who's out there is almost within our reach. How long have we all wanted it? Too long." Alex crossed the space between them and in an uncharacteristic move, tugged Evelyn into a tight hug.
Surprised, she hugged Alex and left a kiss on her cheek when she drew back. "I know, you're right. It's a lot of gear shifting lately and I'm still trying to adjust."
Minna closed in to share affection with each of them, almost parent-like with the way she cupped Evelyn's face.
"Losing two siblings this close together has been difficult. We'll all still be adjusting a year from now," Minna said.
Evelyn knew she was right. She smiled, though, because for the first time they were getting an honest shot at what they'd dreamed of for years. Galiana and Genevieve would never be forgotten. Only missed until they met up again.
"I guess it's time to pack our things and inform them of our decision."
Rain washed the city clean, scrubbing a damp sheen over the buildings and leaving a layer of glitter on the asphalt. Even the air smelled raw and fresh, as if the entire city of Athens had undergone a thorough cleansing. It was still too dark to tell how many clouds were left in the sky or whether another storm waited its turn to be unleashed. For now the night was calm. Quiet.
Evelyn stared out the windshield of Rhett's sleek car while Alexandra and Minna's goodbyes rang in her ears. There had been promise and hope and determination in their hugs, smiles and glances. Over the course of the next few days they planned to keep in touch and communicate often.
Dragar and Dracht had been less physical in their goodbye with Rhett, though she'd detected the loyalty and affection as easily as she'd sensed the underlying, solemn acknowledgment that their lives were forever changed. Christian had much to answer for and as long as he breathed he was a threat to her and her sister's existence.
"Penny for your thoughts," Rhett asked, breaking the silence.
"Just thinking about all this." Few pedestrians braved the late hour, though Evelyn glimpsed two hurrying along in front of a row of storefronts as they cruised by.
"What part specifically?"
"Our homes. Whether or not your co-workers will turn up anything. My sisters. Christian." You and I.
"We can go back to California as soon as we have a better idea if anyone else is involved. Christian will be detained, unfortunately, for as long as it takes."
The bitter edge to his voice brought Evelyn's attention from the windows across the car to his face.
"I still don't understand how he got involved with those men so quickly," she admitted.
"He's being close mouthed about it. But one of the others told us that Christian had been working with them for a while. Before we found you at the club."
"How can that be?" Evelyn was still shocked that more people knew about them than she realized.
"I don't know. Maybe Christian came across the inner circle of Templars in a meeting or overheard talk about the daughters of Eve and did some research on his own. We can't be sure whether he contacted these other men or the other way around. Christian's conditioned not to talk if he doesn't want to, so we'll have to rely on the other two for any solid information."
"I thought everyone would break under torture eventually." Evelyn studied Rhett's profile. She cringed inside thinking about Christian undergoing any kind of torture, no matter what devious plot he'd been involved in. Secretly, she wanted Rhett to deny he would do that to his own brother. She got her wish a moment later.
"He knows we won't do that to him though. He's my brother for christ's sake. So that's to his advantage. The other two, though, are fair game. They've been consistent with their answers so far, but I have a feeling there's a lot more they aren't saying."
The cold calculation in his tone made her shiver. She knew it was part of the interrogation process. How information was extracted when need be. It didn't make it easier to hear about or think about.
"So if those two men are agents, then they'll be missed and more will follow in their wake to find out what happened. It's unrealistic to think they didn't have families beyond their jobs in the government and I'm sure they'll press the issue when the men don't return home."
"We'll hold both of them until they tell us what we want to know. Sometimes it takes a while to break them. If any more show up and press the issue, they'll meet an unfortunate and untimely end. The Church has a lot of pull, Evelyn, in matters like these. Father Valanzano has given his word that you're under their protection now, and I can vouch for the truth of it personally. I've known him since I was a kid." Rhett reached out to adjust the temperature control, letting a cool jet of air filter through the vents.
He spoke so matter-of-factly about death. Yet she understood that it was either him or them, and in this world where the danger to all their lives had increased exponentially in the last few weeks, sometimes hard choices would have to be made. She didn't think for a moment that they were the first lives Rhett might be forced to take, and probably wouldn't be the last ones, either.
Instead of being repulsed, she found herself relieved that Rhett was man enough to do what needed to be done. It would have felt a little hypocritical anyway if she'd judged him for the deaths of others when she'd shot him herself. True, she hadn't tried to outright kill him, but that mattered little in the grand scheme of it all.
"Why do you think Christian waited so long to act?" she asked.
"Probably because the situation broke open so suddenly. The Templar group had you at first, but your sisters were missing, and he likely wanted to corral as many of you as he could at once. Besides that, in the beginning, he was with me all the time. I'm sure those were his men I saw skulking around in Port Said, too." His mouth quirked in displeasure.
"So he waited, biding his time. He wanted the other group of Templars to be caught, didn't he?" she said with sudden insight.
"I'm sure. It took them out of his way. --and you know, it was Christian's idea to be in the club parking lot that night. I told you it was because we were staking out something else, but he used that same excuse on me. He planned for us to see the Templars grab you because he knew we would get involved." Rhett grunted his discontent at being manipulated and sped onto another street. Leaving downtown Athens further and further behind.
"Do you think his men, the ones in the boat that attacked us after Crete, would have killed you if they'd succeeded in boarding the yacht?" Evelyn hated to ask the question, but she hated not knowing the answer even more.
Rhett slanted her a sharp look. "I'd like to think not, Evelyn, but I can't say for sure. Not one hundred percent. I've never known him to sell out to anyone before, to betray his own blood."
"Do you think he would have hurt me in the pit?" Another meek question. Evelyn knew what she thought his answer would be.
He was silent for several, long seconds. "Yes. Yes, I think he would have. Push come to shove, he would have ended you right there. I have a feeling that something much larger is at stake here, and that makes men do dangerous things."
The reply, the one she'd suspected, made her feel queasy coming from Rhett's mouth. He knew Christian better than she did after all.
"What do you think his chances are for being released?"
"Not good. He took the same oaths we did and he's broken more than I can count. He'll be extensively questioned, not that they'll get a lot more out of him than we did, and probably wind up in jail. I just wish he'd confide in us. We can't help him if we don't know what's wrong." Rhett exhaled in quiet frustration.
"I think you must be right, though. There has to be a reason, more than just money, that he's doing this. He doesn't strike me as the type to betray his own family." But she couldn't be positive. If Christian thought he could have immortality, he might be willing to do a lot of things she didn't think him capable of.
Throughout the ages, men had done far worse in search of the same.
"We may never know. In the pit, he said there were things I didn't understand, things he couldn't tell me. Maybe he's too embarrassed to admit that he got sucked in by his accomplices and was lured by the thought they'd all be able to live forever if they could get you girls to tell them the location of Eden. Christian's always been a pretty prideful man, so I imagine his crumbling house of cards has been a humiliating blow."
"It wouldn't be the first time someone went to extremes to get what they wanted. There might even be a noble cause behind his thinking---"
"There isn't anything noble about kidnapping, Evelyn." Rhett glanced sideways at her.
"No, but if he felt like he had to, then it's possible he justified it in his mind and doesn't know how to tell the rest of you. I don't know. It's confusing and I wish it was all over."
Leaning back in the seat, she let her gaze drift out the front windshield. It was a lot to think about.
"It would be so nice to just...live for once. Without having to constantly look over my shoulder." Struck by whimsy, she shared the thought with him.
In periphery, she saw Rhett glance across the car again.
"We'll get there, Evelyn."
"Not if there are more people involved than the three of them. Because then it'll spread like wildfire and everyone will want a piece of what we know." The tone of her voice took a solemn turn.
"Dracht is pretty good at dragging information out of people. He's going to interrogate both of the men one more time before he and Alexandra take off. Maybe one or the other will break."
"Where are we going, anyway?" Evelyn and Rhett hadn't decided on a destination. They'd packed in a hurry, said goodbyes in a hurry, and walked out the door of the stronghold without looking back.
"Where would you like to go?" he asked in return.
"I haven't thought that far ahead, to be honest. As long as it's somewhere no one else can find us for a while." The thought of spending so much private time with Rhett was undeniably appealing. Even now, the chemistry between them ebbed under the flow of their conversation. At the red light, she looked over to find him watching her.
They shared a full minute of eye contact before the light turned green, spreading the glow over the hood and in through the windshield.
"Sometimes it's best to hide in plain sight. I think we should pick a smaller city along the coast and hole up in a random hotel room. I've got places in other countries but Christian knows about them. I'd rather choose something completely random rather than risk that he's given those locations out to strangers."
Evelyn didn't look away when he put the car into motion. The full shape of his mouth, pressed into a thoughtful line, was as appealing as the snug fit of his shirt over the breadth of his shoulders. He'd foregone the shoulder holster in public, though she knew he had a gun on him somewhere. The injury he'd sustained to his head, thankfully, hadn't been serious.
"All right. Where ever looks good, I guess." Despite their chemistry, the natural pull between them, she knew the second her head hit the bed she would be out like a light. Maybe this time, she wouldn't be woken up by an intruder, or gunshots, or someone blowing out the door.
Maybe.
Sunlight slanted across her eyelids, drawing a wince and a frown across her brow. Even with her eyes closed it was bright. Sitting up, she rubbed the vestiges of sleep away and yawned. Still in her clothes---that was one habit she couldn't (wouldn't) break---she felt slightly stiff and sore.
The Kineta Bay Resort had been the second hotel they passed coming into the small town. She remembered dragging herself out of the car and into the elevator after Rhett secured them rooms under false names. Up to the fourth floor, they had a room overlooking the water and as she'd predicted, she'd barely hit the mattress in a dead slump before passing out.
Hair a mess around her face, cheeks flushed, she glanced through the room for Rhett. He wasn't hard to find.
Sitting next to the balcony doors in a chair, he had his legs stretched out onto another chair and his arms folded over his chest. A golden layer of whiskers had come in overnight, reminding her of short stalks of wheat. Instead of his customary dark colors, he had on faded jeans and a white tee shirt. Fully clothed, he looked like he hadn't slept a wink.
Of course he wouldn't. Not with the possibility of a threat hanging over their heads. She almost felt guilty for crashing like she had.
The Saronic Gulf sparkled like a broad, turquoise gem out from the sands of the beaches beyond the balcony. Shaped in a slight curve, the shoreline led to a finger of land that jutted outward, making this particular stretch seem cut off from the rest of civilization. Private, beautiful, with the sun gleaming down overhead from a cloudless blue sky.
She guessed the time to be around noon.
"You should have woken me up sooner so you could get some sleep," she said, swinging her legs off the mattress. The one concession to not removing her clothing had been her shoes. She couldn't bring herself to tuck them under the covers last night. They sat side by side in front of the nightstand within easy reach.
He glanced over. "You needed the rest. I heard from Dracht."
"What did he say?" Walking over, she leaned against the chair his feet rested in.
"As far as he can tell, the three worked alone. The two men, who do work for the US government, found out about you girls by accident."
"What do you mean, by accident?" Evelyn tried and failed to come up with a way they might know about them.
"Nothing is ever as secret as it seems. They read about you in a top secret document buried in a vault they mistakenly came across while they were researching something completely different. So, though you have the scroll at the Vatican, someone else kept the knowledge of your extraordinary existence alive and passed it down through the centuries. What I'm guessing happened is that the men used their positions to unearth the secret group of Knights who've been looking for you all along and started tracking them without their knowledge." Rhett turned his attention from the water to her.
"That way, if the Templars ever did find us, they could spring into action on a moment's notice," she finished for him. It was disheartening to realize that their secret hadn't been such a secret at all.
"From what he says, he and his partner never told anyone else in the government about it. They compromised my brother and worked as a team once it came to light that the other Templars had you in their grasp. None of them will admit how they compromised Christian, and Christian still isn't talking." Rhett drew his legs off the chair and stood up to stretch his back.
"Did they say what they hoped to gain?" She thought she knew. It was the same thing everyone else always wanted.
"They wanted passage into Eden. Dracht didn't get much more out of them beyond that." Rhett exhaled and shoved a hand back through his hair while he watched her.
"I'm not really surprised. Does this mean that you, Dracht and Dragar think it's contained to just these three?" She linked her arms over her middle, all remnants of sleep seared away by the conversation.
"I don't think we can say with one-hundred percent certainty. It looks like it, though. Dracht, Dragar and I still think it's wise to let a few days pass while the other members of the order spread disinformation to try and draw anyone else out. It can't hurt, and it might even put you and your sisters minds at ease."
"What does your gut instinct tell you, Rhett?" she asked quietly.
He looked out the window, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
"That the worst is yet to come."
The small town of Kineta boasted quaint buildings that, in Evelyn's estimation, were some of the most beautiful in terms of architecture in the world. She'd gotten glimpses of them as they'd pulled into the village the night before, the white structures pristine against the darkness.
From the balcony, she had a view of the beach, the curving shoreline and a few other hotels in the distance. Pretty and peaceful, she thought she could stay here for a long time and never get tired of the scenery. It made her think of her and Rhett's conversation in the kitchen back in the stronghold. There was so much to explore between them. Things she would never get to discover and learn if she killed the idea before it really took flight.
She also had the feeling, even though Rhett hadn't confided in her yet, that Christian's actions had cut him deep. Every once in a while his features took on a grim solemnity that echoed in his eyes. She wanted to be there for him like he'd been there for her.
Leaving the balcony, she stepped inside the room. Two hours ago, Rhett had showered and finally laid down to rest. On his stomach, he'd sprawled diagonal over the bed, taking up a lot of room due to his size. Fresh bandages covered his healing wounds. The jeans he'd changed into were another washed out, worn in pair. But it was his back that gained and held her attention.
Shirtless, the tawny skin stretched over the honed muscles in ways that made her want to trail her fingers across it. The tattoo of the iron cross sat square between his shoulder blades. A stray chill inched down her spine at the sight. She might not be afraid of Rhett, Dracht or Dragar any longer, but it would take her a little while to overcome the knee jerk reaction to seeing the ink.
Reaching down, she put her fingertips to the edge of the scrollwork on the cross. Just as she started to trace the outline, Rhett twisted his shoulders and snatched a hand around her wrist faster than she could draw in a startled breath.
From a dead sleep to just...deadly...in a heartbeat. That was the leonine, golden haired man who held her captivated with the narrowed, pale green of his eyes.
"I don't care if you touch me, but waking me up like that will pretty much get you this reaction every time," he said, voice raspy from slumber.
"Didn't mean to disturb you. It was impulsive of me," she admitted. He didn't immediately release her wrist, and she did nothing to break the contact. A moment later, his thumb brushed over the delicate underside and instead of letting go, he gave her wrist a gentle tug.
She leaned forward onto her stomach, laying at an angle to him after he rolled onto his side. The sundress, turquoise with a white floral pattern etched into the hem and around the neckline, left her legs and arms bare. It was the first time she'd felt comfortable enough not to wear jeans and to go barefoot during the daytime.
"What's on your mind?" he asked, as if he could sense that she wanted to talk.
"Whether or not I can convince Ashrael to let us into the Garden." Evelyn had spent days thinking about it. Wondering. Planning.
Rhett cocked a brow up. "Ashrael? Oh, the Guardian?"
"Yes."
"I thought it was against the rules."
"It is. Unless I can convince him otherwise." Her mouth quirked at a corner in consternation. Doubtless, Ashrael would deny her. Deny them both. Though if she informed him that their secret was out, that their lives had been in danger, and that Rhett was now her Guardian, maybe Ashrael would allow Rhett to partake of the fruit so that he could continue his role indefinitely. She might even be able to do the same for Dracht and Dragar.
"What would make him change his mind? I'm no paragon of virtue, you know," Rhett said.
"I was thinking of telling him what happened, if he doesn't already know, and suggesting that if you ate from the Tree, it would extend your life so that you could continue providing security. The downfall, is that you'll be expected to do just that as long as you live." She studied his eyes, which had sharpened as the conversation deepened.
He rolled up off the bed in a smooth motion and speared a hand through his hair while he paced toward the balcony.
Evelyn got to her feet, tracking his progress through the room with her eyes. It was a lot to ask, a big decision, and had bigger implications for him than simply extending their time together. She realized as she watched him that she wanted him to agree. To take the chance of a lifetime. The same kind of chance she took putting all her trust in him in the beginning.
But she also knew, in that singular moment, that she would accept whatever decision he made and make the best of it. Explore what she could, enjoy the time they had while they had it. Whether it was ten months, ten years or ten decades, there would be no turning back for her.
The knowledge made her heart flutter strangely in her chest.
Standing five feet behind him, staring at the broad, strong expanse of his back, she waited for his verdict. Even the sight of the tattoo didn't give her any hesitation.
She was in, all in, for the first time ever.
With a slow turn of his shoulders, he found her eyes. What looked like a stern expression suddenly blossomed into a rakish grin that changed the entire landscape of his face. It chased the lingering ghosts of betrayal into the shadows, leaving only determination behind.
"It's a noble cause, watching over a woman with a grandma's name who sometimes sports a rat's nest for hair." Finishing the turn, he stalked her.
"I do not have a grandmother's name!" Laughing carefree for the first time in what felt like months, she set her palms against his chest when he bulled into her and backed her into the wall. Pinned, she didn't push him away but wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer.
"Yes you do." Blotting out the streaking sun rays, he lowered his head and kissed her.
The End
Look for books #2 and #3 in the Daughter's of Eve Series, Templar's Creed and The Seven Seals, in the fall of 2011!
Other books by Danielle Bourdon
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Bound by Blood -- Paranormal Romance by Danielle Bourdon and Kimberly Hoyt.
Blurb:
Spunky, down-on-her-luck Laurel Mayfield didn't believe in vampires. She didn't believe in the supernatural. Not until she met the enigmatic and darkly alluring Sebastian Thorn, a man shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Discovering he was a Prince turned out to be only the beginning of a harrowing journey that took them back to the Tudor Court during the reign of King Henry the Eighth. Caught up in the conspiracy of Whitehall, Laurel's love and devotion were put to the ultimate test.
Would she return to the future to find her Dark Prince waiting? Or had the executioner's blade taken more from her than just Sebastian's head?
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Dréoteth -- Born a dragon, masquerading as a man. .99
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Cemetery Psalms -- A collection of 5 ghost/horror short stories. .99
About the Author
Born and raised in Corona California, Danielle Bourdon has been dreaming up stories since she was 11. Her first two novels, Dréoteth and Bound by Blood, were published in 2010. She has already written a third novel, Sin and Sacrifice, which is due for release sometime in the summer of 2011. Her love of the thriller and horror genre prompted her to write a collection of short horror stories titled Cemetery Psalms and a Zombie Kids short story series, both available in January, 2011.
Visit her website for updates and contests: www.daniellebourdon.com
Contact her via email at: DanielleKBourdon@gmail.com
Follow on Twitter @Wildbloom
Danielle lives in Texas with her husband, two sons and black cat Sheba.

