“Cranston’s good at games, period.” Natches finished his beer, then tossed the bottle in the trash as Chaya watched him closely now.
He ran a hand over his face before staring back at her.
“Do you have any idea how much I missed you?” he said, his voice soft. “How much I ached for you last year?”
Chaya backed up a step, her movement jerky as she tried to look everywhere but at Natches. She didn’t want to talk about last year; she didn’t want to talk about five years ago. She wanted this over with. She wanted to run and hide, to bury her head in the sand and pretend this mission and this man could be ignored.
“That wouldn’t have been very wise then, and it wouldn’t be now,” she answered, her throat tightening as she watched him, as she watched his expression flicker with primitive lust.
He wasn’t going to just let her go this time, and she knew it. He was going to force her to face everything she didn’t want to face, and she didn’t know if she could do it.
Chaya shook her head at the look. “Don’t, Natches.”
She couldn’t handle his touch, not now, when this entire mission hinged on betraying him. She wasn’t cold-blooded enough; she wasn’t the agent Timothy thought she could be.
“Don’t.” He shook his head wearily before running his fingers through his thick hair and staring back at her with an expression of torment. “How long is it going to lie between us like a double-edged sword, Chaya? When are you going to forgive me?”
No. Oh God, she couldn’t deal with this. Her throat tightened and closed with pain and fear as she saw the determination in his eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about that.” She gave her head a hard jerk. “We can argue over this operation or Cranston or anything else. But not that.” She had to fight her tears, her sobs. She had to fight the memories that wanted to return in a rush of agony.
“Damn you.” He was across the room before she could avoid him. His hands gripped her arms as he jerked her against him, and she felt the heat of him, felt the weakness that threatened to flood her as she dragged in a hard, gasping breath.
“Five years.” He moved, forcing her to back up as she stared up at him in shock. “Five f**king years, Chay. How much longer do we have to suffer for something that neither of us caused?”
“No.” Her cry sounded too close to hysteria. “Stop, Natches. I can’t discuss this. I won’t.”
“She was a beautiful little girl. I saw her pictures later.” His voice was agonized, tormented.
Chaya heard the pain-filled moan that left her throat. Even when she was being tortured, she hadn’t made a sound like that.
“He stole her.” He groaned the accusation as she felt his forehead press against hers. “She was safe with your sister, wasn’t she, Chay? If he had just left her there.”
“Don’t do this.”
“She looked like you. She had your smile and your hair. Your innocence.”
“Stop it!” She screamed the words at him, tearing from his embrace as she pressed her fist against her stomach and swallowed back the sickness rising in her throat. “You didn’t know her. You didn’t raise her, and you didn’t love her. And it’s none of your damned business.”
Beth. Sweet Beth.
“She was three years old, and your husband had her flown to Iraq. While you were being tortured, she was landing at the airport in a military transport believing she would see her mommy again.”
Her heart felt as though it were shattering in her chest now, and she didn’t want to collapse from the pain of it. She had lost everything in that damned desert. She didn’t want to remember it, and she didn’t want to think about it or talk about it. Especially not with the man who had been there to witness it, who had held her back, who had covered her with his own body to protect her while her child died.
“Why?” She turned on him, tears she swore she wouldn’t shed escaping now. “Why are you doing this to me? Do you think I don’t know what happened?”
Her voice was rasping. She sounded nothing like herself. She sounded like the demented creature she had been the day she lost Beth.
“Army Intelligence didn’t know he had your child.” His expression looked as agonized as hers felt. “They didn’t give the orders to bomb that hotel, did they, Chay? Someone else did. Something f**ked up like it always f**ks up, and your baby was killed.”
She shook her head. Her body shook. Tremors raced through her as she stared at the ceiling. But she didn’t see the ceiling; she saw the missiles, ribbons of steam flowing behind them, the hiss of flight, the fiery destruction with impact.
“I know who killed her,” she whispered. She had always known.
Her husband. Beth’s father. He had killed their child just as surely as he had ordered his wife’s torture and death. But she knew even more than that. She knew there had been others, those who knew what her husband had done, and they had struck out. They had killed her child when there had been a chance of saving her.
She lowered her eyes back to Natches and saw the pain, his eyes so dark with so many emotions. Grief and sorrow and need.
“You hold her between us as though it were my fault,” he said then, his voice graveled, accusing. “As though I ordered the attack or I arranged her death, Chay.”
Chaya swallowed tightly and turned away from him again. She didn’t know which way to turn, which way to run. She wanted to run. She wanted to escape the shared memories, and she wanted to escape her own loss.
Natches had been with her when they had learned where Beth and Chaya’s husband, Craig, were staying. The suspected headquarters of a terrorist cell. He had raced after her when she went to rescue her child. He had thrown her to the street, held her down, and tried to shield her eyes as missiles slammed into the building.
“I held you when you identified her. I held you then, and I held you through the night. Did you think I wouldn’t hold you longer, Chay, if you had given me the chance?”
FIVE
Craig Cornwell had been a major in Army Intelligence and a traitor. He had been selling secrets to Iraqi terrorists, and when he’d known he would be identified for it, he had arranged for his daughter to be brought to Iraq, believing he could hold her for Chaya’s cooperation in helping him escape.
He couldn’t have known the cell he was tied to had already been targeted and that their headquarters would be taken out so violently.