Blacklisted: Blacklist Operations Book #1 Read online

  “I love you, Veronica. I’m going to make you better. I promise.”

  “Don’t. You don’t know everything.” It seemed an effort, but she reached her ravaged hands down to lift her shirt, just a little.

  “I saw.”

  “No, you didn’t. Turn me over.”

  It took five minutes to help her onto her stomach. The wounds that were burned into her skin were pastry like at the edge and Veronica winced when Sophie’s knuckles brushed her skin. Wrapping her fingers around her sister’s side, she felt a wound open on the skin of Veronica’s back. Then she rolled her over and saw it for the first time.

  “He said he wanted to play music on my ribs,” Veronica explained. “How bad is it?”

  Sophie covered her mouth with her hands to block a sob. She shook her head, denying what her eyes told her and, for the first time in years, felt close to vomiting.

  The bones of her sister’s back were visible. Stripped almost clean of skin, Sophie couldn’t believe that she was able to speak. Able to stand the pain that she must be in. The dilated pupils. Drugs? Medicine? She’d be dead. If not for the enhancements, she’d be dead.

  “We can fix it.”

  “No, Sophie. Damn it. Sometimes you can’t fix everything.” She took a deep breath, cringed. “I’m done.”

  “No.”

  “You think I can’t feel what he did? You’re close to right. And I’m going to die. I feel it, like cold around the edges. It’s creeping in.”

  “Stop it.”

  Veronica pushed herself up, winced and Sophie could see the struggle not to scream. Reaching for her sister’s arm, the whole, pale skin like hers had been before Oliver, Veronica pulled the tube from Sophie’s vein.

  “Done, Sophie-bear. I’m done. You have to finish it.”

  “No.” Tears came now, ran unchecked down her cheeks. Her sister was her. A piece of her. The reason she was free.

  “I can’t heal from this.”

  “There has to be a way.”

  “Even if Lyle was here right now, I couldn’t heal. He sent you, so he knows I’m done. No offense, sis,” she said, mustering a smile. “My own fault for getting caught, I guess.” She coughed again. Sophie noticed the bruising on her thighs, the welts down the back of her legs.

  “I’ll kill him.”

  “He’s not worth it.”

  “You can’t die.”

  “Not without you.” Veronica looked Sophie in the eyes and, god, her sister was already gone. Already slipping away. One foot in the grave and the light had dimmed in her eyes. Her skin was almost grey.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Please,” Veronica choked again. On her own blood. It coated her lips now. “I can’t stand this pain. I’ll live for hours, damn fucking Lyle.”

  “Veronica, I don’t have anything for you. I don’t have any medicine or anything to give you. I can’t do this. I can’t, please I can’t.”

  “Are you going to make me beg?” She was on her back again. Her chest shook with the effort it took to speak. Ripped to pieces. Her once picture perfect double was scraps now.

  “No,” Sophie took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much.”

  “I want this. I need you to do this for me, Sophie-bear. Thank you. For everything. I’m sorry—sorry, I let him catch me.” Her voice was quiet now, a whisper that still rang bold in the forest.

  “How?” Sophie couldn’t see through her tears. They blinded her to everything but the red blur that was her sister’s face. To her seeking hands.

  “Head. Poetic, or something.” Veronica laughed again, blinked her one good eye. “I miss Mom and Dad. So much. Will you just hold me for a minute, first?”

  Sophie moved closer to her sister, curling her body around the slight cold one, much as she imagined they’d once comforted each other in the womb. “I love you. You saved me. Again and again, you saved me.”

  “Don’t cry, bear.” Veronica wanted to stroke her sister’s hair, to kiss her warm cheek but her strength was gone. All she could do was murmur soft words of love while her sister tried to stifle her sobs. “I love you. For this. For everything.”

  “I love you, too.”

  They lay like that until Veronica’s vision was blurring. Until she couldn’t see her sister anymore. “I’m ready to go now.”

  She felt Sophie shake as one arm groped for the gun that was in her waistband. Heard the sharp intake of breath and the soft press of lips in her hair. Then a hot, bright pressure across her skull and all the pain was gone.

  Sophie saw that as if it were happening again: her sister’s body laying limp in her arms, a spray of blood across the tan blankets. Veronica’s blood.

  She’d wrapped her sister in plastic, paid to smuggle the body out of Tokyo and buried her back at home in California. Three weeks later she’d appeared to Lyle, who’d sent people out after her. All returned, frustrated with the search.

  Sophie had told him that Veronica was dead. That she was determined to kill Oliver. And that she’d work for him until she had.

  That was more clear to her, those images, until she saw Oliver on top of her sister. Grunting and thrusting while Veronica turned her head away. Bites her lip like me, thought Sophie. Right through it. And when Oliver noticed she wasn’t paying attention, he rained blows onto her face with his bare fists.

  She watched for hours, each moment of footage, each new pain her sister suffered, they added to the debt that Oliver would be forced to pay. If it meant her life, she would kill him. And this time she’d stand over his body until the heat left him completely, until his eyes were as blank as Veronica’s.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “She’s probably dead already,” Caleb said before shoving another handful of peanuts into his mouth. “Not to be insensitive or anything.”

  “You’d never do that,” Adele said, her lips curled back in a sneer. Aidan had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes at the pair. It was already damned hot, though the sun had been up for only minutes. Aside from his own doubts about Caleb’s loyalty and Adele’s pissy mood, each hour that passed was one more that they weren’t with Sophie. One more that they weren’t saving her. He pinned his hope on the fact that Oliver had sent Eric to collect her.

  He usually kept them alive for awhile when he sent Eric.

  Aidan had been blacklisted now and Caleb was sure he’d be off the payroll as soon as they were spotted together. Access to the building where Sophie was being held could only be gained by someone with level eight clearance. Both men had it, though Aidan figured his was revoked. Caleb had not been invited to participate in her debriefing but had known about the grab. After that, he’d explained, it just made sense to hack into Oliver’s computer.

  “Can you stop with those damn peanuts?” Adele sounded angrier every time she opened her mouth, Aidan thought. Despite the attitude she’d been giving him for the past sixteen hours, she hadn’t been really unpleasant until they’d met Caleb. Maybe it was London. Or maybe she had a strong aversion to crunching.

  Caleb just grinned at her, popped more shelled nuts in his mouth, and offered her the bag. She knocked it away with the back of her hand and went back to studying the maps.

  Twelve stories beyond where Oliver’s office was, someone had built a stone room. It was on all the electrical grids, even if it didn’t show up on any official plans. Aidan had only been there once before. He hoped he’d never have to go back.

  He respected his boss but there was a strange light in his eyes when they had a prisoner restrained down there.

  “Lyle called me again,” Adele had moved to stand behind him. She showed him her missed calls, then flipped her phone closed. “I can’t answer. He won’t want me to get Sophie.”

  “Of course he will.” It didn’t make sense for Lyle to give up a woman he depended on as much as he did Sophie.

  “No, he really won’t. You don’t know him.” Adele sighed and lowered her voice, shot a glance at Caleb who was fiddlin
g with the computer again. “Every time he looks at Sophie, he sees Veronica.”

  “How exactly did Veronica die?” It wasn’t paramount that he find out the answer to the question that kept surfacing every time he thought of the rage on Sophie’s face. It wouldn’t get her away from Oliver. Yet Aidan felt compelled to know.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated, Aidan.” She led him to the kitchen and poured them both new cups of coffee. He felt like he was running off pure caffeine and adrenaline. Still, he took the warm mug between his hands and sipped. “More or less, Oliver killed her.”

  “More or less?”

  “Ask Sophie.”

  “I have.”

  “Then I guess she doesn’t want you to know. Did you really think I’d tell you if she didn’t want me to?” Adele smiled. She really was beautiful, he thought. Funny that he’d never noticed her before—surely their paths had crossed at some point. He considered asking her, then rejected the idea.

  “Worth a try.”

  “Speaking of try,” Caleb said as he joined them. Adele poured another cup, added a spoon of sugar, and handed it to him. “How’d you know I took sugar?”

  “You act like a child so I assume you drink coffee like a high school student,” she said.

  “I think we need to figure out where we’ll go if she’s injured. No time to bind her there—and we can’t take her to a local hospital.”

  “None of our safe houses either,” Aidan interjected.

  “Right. So we need to establish a base as soon as possible. In the next hour.”

  “Not necessary.” Adele was rinsing out her cup in the sink. “Sophie and I have a place here. It’s fully equipped.”

  “How secure?”

  “More secure than your secret underground facility,” she said mockingly. “Sorry. Just considering how easy it was for Sophie to break in.”

  “When we go in,” Caleb began, using his outdoor voice. “We have to do it fast and brutal. What are you prepared to do to get her back?”

  Aidan thought about his devotion to the organization. How long he’d fought for them, always believing that they were doing the right thing. He remembered the content of the papers locked in his bag and wondered how he could have gone so wrong. Thought of standing high up above the ocean in Dubai. Thought of Sophie, soft and pale, moving under him. Touching his cheek. Defying him even when he had the upper hand. Promising she’d come back from the market. We’ll have to work on trust, she’d said.

  “Anything.”

  “Suit up, then.” Caleb stood. “No camouflage needed. They’re going to know we’re there as soon as we hit the building.”

  “What do we do then?” Adele was using a rubber band she’d unearthed from a drawer to pull her hair back.

  “Run like hell and hope we don’t have to shoot anyone we care about. Tranqs?”

  “Got ‘em.” Aidan pointed at the closet in the hallway.

  “That makes me feel a little better about this.”

  “Why are you doing this, Caleb? I love Sophie. Aidan feels responsible for her. What about you?”

  “I like a challenge.” He met Aidan’s eyes and grinned. “Besides, he’s my partner. We don’t end up on opposite sides of a mission.”

  “Even if the mission is going to get us all fired and killed. And not necessarily in that order?”

  “Especially then. Couldn’t take that last smoke without you.”

  The three of them split into separate areas of the house to get ready. In twenty minutes, they’d meet to secure Adele’s London residence, then they’d be on their way to Sophie. They couldn’t be too late, he told himself. She’d hold up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I think she’s dead, Oliver.”

  “She’s not.” Oliver slapped Sophie across the face, watched her head loll to the side. “This girl here is better than you, soldier. I could skin her, real slow, and she’d live through it.”

  “I don’t think—.”

  “Right. You don’t think. Get me more adrenaline. I’ll pump her full of it. There should be more on level three.”

  The solider left. Sophie wasn’t sure who this one was. They all looked alike in their little hats and boots. Boys playing war and this one had looked sick around the eyes every time Oliver hit her. There was a split in her chin the size of Idaho and he’d taught her that Aidan wasn’t kidding when he’d said he could hurt her without leaving a bruise.

  For three hours—if she was right—that morning he’d tried to make her scream in synch with the video of Veronica. It required perfect timing and he endeavored to get it exactly right. When it worked, he’d light up like a Christmas tree, so bright that she believed the energy pumping off of him could have lit the whole complex.

  “You really are pretty.” He dug his fingers into her upper arm, pinched the flesh there until she whimpered. “Veronica was gorgeous, of course. Makes sense you’d be attractive. I just didn’t realize how nicely filled out you are.” He touched her breasts again and, when he saw her wince, resolved to do it more often.

  “I hate you.”

  “That just makes this more fun.” He pushed her back and stood, started the tape again. Veronica’s eyes swam into view. “I don’t think she hated me. Not in the same way you do. But then, I hadn’t killed her twin—yet.”

  “Will you kill me today?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I’d rather kill you.”

  “I’m sure you would.” Oliver looked thoughtful, paced the room. “Where is that man with my adrenaline?”

  “I figured it was my adrenaline.”

  He walked over and raised his hand, but just softly touched her cheek. “I loved killing your sister. See, I’d have put her down before—.”

  “Put her down?”

  “Like a mutt. I’d have hired her or killed her.”

  “Hired her? I thought you blamed her for what happened to Izzy.”

  “Veronica was a damn good operative either way.” He missed Isabella, but pushed her terrified last look at him from his mind. “Perhaps I did take too much pleasure in what I did to her. Because of Isabella.”

  “Isabella knew what was going to happen. She protected Veronica.”

  “And Veronica let her.”

  “You took that shot.”

  “I’d have never killed my daughter or ruined years of research.”

  “Fuck you and your research. You killed my sister.”

  The man who’d left for the adrenaline came back, syringe in hand. Administering the drug to her, he backed out of the room. Lyle turned up the volume on the DVD player and crossed the room to stand behind Sophie. He leaned down and gently kissed the top of her head. The gesture reminded her of her father.

  “You listen now,” he insisted. She felt something warm and soft slide over her skull and then she couldn’t see the video. “Listen and think about how your boss didn’t care what happened to your sister once he was done fucking her.”

  The sound was one hundred times worse when she couldn’t see what was happening on screen. Each silence between screams stretched forever and when Veronica begged for her sister to come save her, when she whimpered, Sophie cried. The bag over her head was soaked, itchy against her face while she slumped in her restraints.

  By the time Oliver walked back in, Sophie was broken.

  The black cloth bag on her head was wet with tears and her head pounded after too many high-pitched screams that echoed through the room. When he pulled the bag from her head, she swallowed to soothe her raw throat, but it didn’t do any good. Marshalling her strength, she glared at him.

  “Enjoying yourself?”

  “I can’t wait to kill you,” she said, spitting blood onto the floor.

  “I felt the same way,” Oliver explained, “but it looks like neither of us will get our wish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Synthesis is ready to go. I have
to leave you here so I can make it to Rome in time to play the game. The problem is, I can’t let you stay alive long enough for me to come back and keep playing our little game. Aidan’s off the grid and if he’s coming for you—well, I don’t want to deal with that.”

  “So you’re going to kill me?” Regret washed through her, cruel and acrid. She’d failed her sister and herself. Sophie closed her eyes and pictured Aidan’s face. His strength and fury were so at odds with his kindness. She remembered the shattered look in his eyes when he looked at the picture of her and her twin, realizing that everything he knew had been a lie.

  She knew how that felt.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “I owe Joey a bonus, and you’re it.”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  Oliver crossed to the door, then turned back to look at her. “No, probably not. It’s a shame. Have fun with Joey.”

  He opened the door and stepped passed the hulking figure. Once Oliver’s silhouette had disappeared up the stairway, Joey stepped through the door. He smiled and Sophie felt dread gather in her stomach at the sight of his thick yellow teeth.

  Jerking in her bonds, her arms ached to kill him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Luck was with them. Caleb’s security code still worked. The doors slid open silently and the three slipped through them. Without hesitation, Adele shot a guard in the chest and he went down hard.

  “Fast,” Caleb said, looking at her with new respect.

  “The guy’s just lucky that you gave me tranqs,” she said.

  “We don’t know who’s in on Synthesis and who’s just a pawn. I don’t want to kill people who might be doing good in the world.”

  Adele turned and gave Aidan an arch look. “Surprising.”

  The trio made their way down the hall, surprised that there were so few guards. Some researchers sat around a table in a break room, drinking coffee and going over presentation notes. Aidan tranqed them while Adele and Caleb continued down the hall. As he hurried to catch up with his compatriots, he tried to ignore the sour dread churning in him.