Only one guy seemed to be making any headway with the woman—but just as Tait Bommer had made that connection, his team undertook a rogue mission that went horrifically sideways. Everyone got out alive, but only because of a surprise operative in the mix. Luna. In the end, the woman gave the ultimate sacrifice for that effort.
Or so they’d thought.
“So did you bring the whole Scooby Gang this time, or just these two dorks?”
Clearly, they’d thought wrong.
The woman’s fresh ignition of her signature snark wagon gave more glaring proof than if she’d whipped out a giant-sized photo ID. But there was more that gave her away. The scrutiny she tried to disguise with her words. The way she studied every tiny move they made, as if one of them were about to reveal they were hiding more men in their nonexistent coattails.
No. Not more men.
Just one man.
Who obviously wasn’t going to appear.
It was one of the few times, in all his experience as an elite missions operative, that Brick hated having the answer in advance.
Zeke and Ethan were on his bandwagon before he asked. Their waves of discomfited energy were as thick as twenty-foot breakers of Pike Place clam chowder. And damn it, he was weirdly certain Luna had heard that thought too.
There were new slivers in her stare, not so hard to read anymore. He’d seen them too many times before, in the mirror…when he ached for home.
“Nobody else is with us.” Again, Zeke came through like the surprise stringer from the bench. Since Brick was feeling more and more like a number on the injured list, he gladly stepped back to let the guy fully address Luna. “But shit, do I know someone who’s going to barf on his phone when he sees you on Faceti—”
“No.” Luna punched it out so vehemently, Brick joined Jayd and his buddies in a group jolt. But she only punched the trigger on her denial to Z. “No,” she repeated, quieter on volume but disquieted in tone. Brick wasn’t sure he’d seen the woman so unraveled without being flogged into subspace first. “No Facetime, Z. No…anything. You can’t let him know. I’m begging all of you… Just please, Sirs. No.”
Z took a long moment to step back, mentally wading through what the woman had said. Brick didn’t have that luxury. He whipped around, frantically locating Jayd again. Scrambling through both seconds he had after her pained gasp. Two seconds to communicate a thousand impossible things.
It’s not what you think.
It was never like that. Not with her. Not how it was with you. Not how it is for me with you.
Pixie…please hear me. Please…
His telepathy was cut short by a new growl on the air. But this time, not Zeke’s.
Ethan strode forward, his wide gait eating up space. “Begging isn’t always the key to getting what you want. You should know that more than anyone else, Luna.”
The angles of her elegant face became a new contortion of desperation. “This has nothing to do with what I want and everything to do with your safety. And his.”
“His who?” Ethan demanded.
She grimaced. “Damn it. You know that already.”
“And we all know what assuming does to everyone, girl.” Ethan stiffened. “So yeah, we’re going to go there. We will be saying it. Tait Bommer. The man who paid for your funeral and all the upgrades on your tombstone. The guy who wept on your grave for hours and then practically fucked up a string of missions because of his memories of you. The friend who had us wondering about setting up a suicide watch—”
“All right, man.” Brickham swung up his hands, almost looking ready to swing at a curve ball. Appropriate, given the insanity of this new twist. “That’s enough.”
“Is it?” Ethan swung his glare back around to Luna. “Because what’s really enough here? Did you even know all that, Miss Lawrence? Did you even care about all that?”
“Fuck. You.”
Luna punctuated the first part by hurling the crossbow to the ground. She spat out the second while a bolt discharged, hitting the ceiling before impaling the packed mud directly behind her. While they all gawked at the stranger-than-a-movie-moment, she pulled in harsh air through her nose.
“Yes,” she finally declared. “Yes, damn it, I did know all that—two entire months after it happened. Because, you see, for six of those eight weeks, the coma I supposedly died in was the prison I was forcibly kept in. And if you think the Pura don’t have the resources to make all that shit happen, think again.”
“By the blessed Creator.”
Jayd’s insertion, heavy with fear and sympathy, was better than anything Ethan could have mustered. Fortunately, the guy nodded with the same acknowledgment.
“Go on,” he encouraged, more good cop than bad cop about it now.
“I did gain consciousness a few times,” Luna offered, back to that voice of raw but strained emotion. “I remember him—Tait—being at my side. His hair between my fingers. And all the things we said…” She choked, but it quickly became a rough cough. “The other times weren’t as wonderful. Once, I was on a plane, I think—it was loud and cold. But at least there were people there. People with comforting faces and soothing voices. After that, I woke up a few times in the box, and—”
“The what?” Zeke sounded as incredulous as Brick felt and Ethan looked.
Luna waved a dismissive hand. “My word for it,” she stated. “I was simply so happy when they let me out of it, I didn’t want to know its official label.”
But while Brick nodded hard, flowing his commiseration to her in every way he could, Ethan was back to being strict enough for a powdered wig and velvet britches.
“So they let you out…and you made no efforts to contact Tait at that time?”
Luna nailed him with her crossbow-tossing glare again. “I said they let me out of the box. Not anything else.”
Brick pivoted, purposely setting up his stance like a symbolic bridge. “Prisoners have to be grateful for mercy, in any small way they get it.”
Luna sent him a thankful nod before going on. “After a couple of weeks, they finally trusted me with a smart pad. Everything was blocked except for internet searches and some lame games. You want to know how strange it is to read about your own death between Google hits for Seattle’s best Italian restaurants and that girl from the wizard movie with the crazy glasses?”
“Rahmié Creacu.” Once more, Jayd’s rasp felt like the flow of warm compassion that the air needed. “I cannot imagine…”
“Well, I can,” Ethan objected. “But what I don’t get is why.” With Brick’s and Z’s nods of support this time, he drove an intense scrutiny into Luna. “These douche nozzles went through a lot of effort to keep you alive and reined in. For what?”
Luna’s demeanor straightened. She actually seemed grateful for the questioning now. “For keeping my mother in line.”
“Your mother?” Z demanded. “You mean the one who is also supposed to be dead?”
“Along with my father, yes,” she said. “Darlene and Owen Lawrence. My loving ‘parents.’” She air-quoted the word with hard finger stabs. “Their names are even on my birth certificate.”