Bellisia smiled at her as if they were co-conspirators. “I see that you have. I’m a GhostWalker. I’m actually designed to be one of their premier assassins and I’m very, very good at my job, Roseland. I just want you to know that you’re dead, and if anyone deserves it, you do.” She turned and walked away. Behind her, the body dropped to the sidewalk.
Bellisia hurried back toward the parking garage. She skipped like a child might up the sidewalk, just in case there were cameras on her. It didn’t take long to catch up with the couple, Tania and Tommy Leven. They were laughing as they hurried into the garage, on that first floor. They paused, Tommy throwing his arms around Tania and pushing her up against the side of the concrete building to kiss her over and over.
“This was such a rush, Tommy,” Tania whispered, “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” he said.
Bellisia fell into them. Tommy reached out to steady her. Tania did the same. The small bites were delivered, the venom going in easily. Bellisia smiled up at them, looking for all the world like a pleased child, one with faint blue rings scattered across her skin.
“Thanks.”
The two ignored her and, arms around each other, started toward their car. Their pace slowed. Tania staggered and Tommy tried to catch her just as her legs gave out. They both went down. Hard. Neither was able to break their fall. They fell and lay very still.
Amaryllis removed the red wig, rolled it tightly and carefully laid it up against the column closest to the vehicles near Treadway’s rented SUV. She backed carefully into the shadows and removed the skirt and blouse, making certain she was out of every camera angle and left that clothing, also rolled as if she were trying to hide it, behind another column. Beneath the attire, she wore her yoga pants and tee, the ones that reflected the background around her, the ones that helped her disappear into any environment. She left her shoes tucked under a car, just barely so they could be seen.
Her hair was already pulled up tightly and slicked back with mesh over it so her wig had stayed on easily. She slipped on soft-soled shoes and looked up at the garage’s cameras. Immediately, the energy she sent out short-circuited them. The explosion was dramatic, the sound a loud pop as glass shattered throughout the floor.
Callendine whirled around, his gun out. He looked at the glass on the floor and then up at the camera. He wasn’t a coward; he straightened slowly and then, taking his time, walked over to examine the shards, looking to see how the glass had been broken. In doing so, he discovered the red wig rolled so tightly and placed against the wide cement support column. He touched it with the toe of his shoe and then turned, back to the column to search the garage.
He knew he was in a hunt. He spotted the shoes beneath the vehicle several cars down from the dead body of his soldier almost immediately right from where he was standing. She saw him react, his eyes widening, and then once again, searching the garage for other clues. It took several minutes before he spotted the clothing and he had to step out of his comfort zone to ease his way stealthily to get to them. He crouched low, utilizing the vehicles as cover to make his way over to the skirt and blouse to examine them.
Callendine could see that it was a woman who had killed Treadway. He kept shaking his head as if that didn’t sit right with him—as if he couldn’t believe it. He still couldn’t figure out how the man had died. Worse, not one of his soldiers had responded when he had tried to contact them, which meant they were probably dead as well. Amaryllis didn’t feel in the least sorry for him. He had been the one to plan and carry out the horrendous attack on innocent people for whatever his reasons, on his own country’s soil.
She slipped from one car to the next, creeping closer to him. She knew she had to deliver the toxins into his system before he could pull the trigger and put a bullet in her. She would need a distraction. One small little break. She had to get close and never let him see her. She’d practiced for just such an event as this one. Weeks. Months. Years. It was all about being that close and never letting him see or feel her until it was too late. Whitney had given her the most venomous poison possible and made certain it was extremely fast-acting.
Callendine made the mistake of moving close to his soldier again, once more bending down to try to examine him, looking to see what had killed him. Needing to understand so he wasn’t caught in the same trap. Once he stood up again and began to search the garage, she knew she had him. She simply slid beneath the SUV and slithered like a snake over Treadway’s body, blending with it so that if Callendine happened to glance down quickly, he would only see Treadway, the body he expected to see.
A car backfired and Amaryllis injected the poison into Callendine’s ankle, immediately sliding back beneath the SUV and out the other side. Callendine was distracted momentarily by the loud bang, so that the sting barely registered. Then the pain began to overtake him fast. He started to reach down toward his leg but then looked carefully around again before crouching low to rub at his ankle.
Weirdly, his hand missed his ankle as if his coordination was off. He stared at his hand in fascination. His fingers had multiplied. The gun slipped from his palm to drop to the ground beside Treadway’s body. He watched it fall, but there seemed to be two guns clattering to the floor of the garage, not one, and both were so blurred he could barely make them out. His ankle burned and hurt with a fiery pain. He’d never felt anything like it.
Someone crouched down beside him. A woman, yet he couldn’t quite make out her face, it was too blurry. He knew it was important to note she was a woman, but he was sliding to the floor right over top of Treadway, which seemed indecent, but he couldn’t stop himself, his body was no longer his own to control. He could barely find a way to breathe.
“Malichai Fortunes is my fiancé, Callendine, and I didn’t much like you having your man try to kill him. Nor do I take kindly to you and your merry associates attempting to murder innocent people. You didn’t get away with it. Not a single one of you.”
She got up and sauntered away. He tried to watch her go, but his vision was too blurred, and he was fighting for every breath, his lungs burning and his diaphragm laboring. He lay there for a few more minutes struggling, and then there was silence.
* * *
Malichai worked as fast as he could, moving through the wires, grateful whoever had built the bomb had used a much simpler method than the more sophisticated ones that he’d learned to take apart. Those took time they didn’t have. He had to block out everything around him but the bomb itself. The people running. Their screams. The sounds of crying children. The fact that Amaryllis was out there somewhere unprotected. The excruciating pain in his leg that caused every nerve ending to send shards of glass through his nervous system.
He ignored his body and concentrated on the bomb, even when Ezekiel threw himself down beside him to disconnect the second bomb Major Roseland Salsberry had attached to the main one to add an extra kick to bringing down the center on top of the innocent people.
He felt sweat trickling down his forehead and more down his chest. He wasn’t like the men in the movies who just disarmed bombs so nonchalantly and easily as if they did it daily, yet he’d always had a knack for it. He knew part of that was his psychic gift, his hands moving like the surgeons’ might in a body. It was instinctive as well as trained. He was fast because the movement was almost without thought, but yet guided by both training and instinct.
Time passed and he was at the end, cutting the last wire and turning his attention to the bomb Zeke was working on. Ezekiel had it nearly finished with the clock ticking down. Malichai looked at it for a long moment, frowning. Something wasn’t quite right. He studied it, staying his brother’s hand. Zeke looked at him over his shoulder, but didn’t insist he was on the right path, although he’d stopped this bomb once before.
Very cautiously, Malichai used the tip of his snippers to ease open a small door built into the side of the bom
b. It was very small and seemingly incongruous. There was no reason for it to be there at all. So why was it there? Two blue wires trailed innocently up to the detonator along with two red ones.
Zeke looked at him. Shook his head and sank back on his heels. “I would have blown us up. How did you know?”
He hadn’t. Malichai couldn’t tell him why or how his body reacted to explosives, it just happened, and in this case, it had not only saved their lives but also saved the lives of the people not yet evacuated from the building. It wasn’t easy getting a couple thousand civilians out of a building, even for military teams working together.
Malichai followed the blue and red wires back to the detonator. All four were twisted around one another and around other wires. Major Salsberry had deliberately made this as difficult as possible. Malichai had to trust his gift—and he did. The timer had counted down far too close to the last minute. He chose a blue wire and snipped it, hearing his brother’s gasping protest as he did.
The clock stopped ticking and the two bombs simply sat there looking harmless. Malichai had one moment of euphoria and then pain engulfed him, spread through him, twisting his insides into shards of glass and spewing his guts onto the floor as darkness overtook him.
19
There was the continuous sound of machines beeping in the background. Muted noises that became louder and more persistent until Malichai had little choice but to try and pry his eyes open. For some reason, his eyelids refused to lift. Maybe he was just too damned tired. He was aware of smells. He recognized he was in a hospital, he certainly had been in them enough times. He wasn’t in pain. Had he been brought in wounded and fallen asleep? That wouldn’t be the first time either.
He tried to assess what was going on while he worked on his sticky eyelids. Memories refused to return to him no matter how hard he reached for them. The world seemed far away at first, but the machines and the persistent beeping annoyed him, refusing to allow him to return to sleep.
“Malichai.”
His name. He heard that clearly. Was there a trace of anxiety in his brother’s voice? That was Ezekiel calling out to him. When Zeke called, you always answered. Malichai redoubled his efforts to pry his eyelids open, a little ashamed to be caught sleeping on the job. He managed to open them slightly, mere slits so he could peer around the room.
He was in bed, hooked up to machines, IVs running up his arms to bags of fluids and even blood. What had happened? He forced his gaze to move around the room. Amaryllis’s face swam into view. She looked as if she’d been crying. Mordichai was close to her. Rubin and Diego taking her back. Right between them was . . . Nonny. His heart jerked hard. He heard the answering acceleration of a machine. Nonny was there. The machine didn’t stop the rapid-fire heartbeat.
Malichai’s gaze settled on Ezekiel’s face. He was close, right near Malichai’s head, ready to block him from the sight of the others. From Amaryllis. This wasn’t good. This couldn’t be good. He couldn’t lift his eyelids any farther. Now he didn’t even want to, but he looked at his older brother. Zeke was everything. Father. Brother. Commanding officer. Malichai would follow him into hell. Right now, he needed his father. Ezekiel didn’t let him down.
“I’d like to have the room, if you all don’t mind,” Ezekiel said quietly, which was his way. “Malichai is waking up and I’ll need a few minutes to talk to him alone.”
“Of course,” Mordichai said, before anyone else could say anything.
He took Amaryllis by the hand. Rubin gently put his arm around Nonny. They were careful with the woman. Gentle. Reverent even. The men escorted the two women out of the room, leaving only Ezekiel with Malichai. Now Malichai’s heart beat so hard he feared it would explode.
His brother slipped his arm around his chest. “Do you want to try to sit?”
“Just tell me.” He knew. He couldn’t feel, but he knew. Nonny was there and she wouldn’t have come all the way from her beloved swamp at her age if the news wasn’t bad—if it wasn’t the worst.
God. He felt the burn of tears welling up behind his eyes, choking him in his throat so he could barely breathe, and Ezekiel hadn’t said a word.
“They had to take the leg, Malichai. Whatever was causing the bone to disintegrate was creeping higher and higher, almost like a fungus, and there was no stopping it. When you stepped down on it getting out of the van and ran toward the center, the bone itself shattered like glass. It was impossible to repair.”
That arm was steady, the way Ezekiel was steady. Always there for Malichai and his brothers. Always would be, no matter how bad things got, and they’d gotten bad. They’d been worse, but not for Malichai. This was his personal nightmare, and then there was Amaryllis. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask her to share this with him.
He wouldn’t have cried like a baby in front of the others. He would have been stoic, and not made a single sound, but this was Ezekiel and he just wrapped his arms around his older brother, buried his face in his neck and let his heart shatter. Let his emotions spill like his guts out on his brother’s broad shoulders. He sobbed like a baby and didn’t even care that he did.
Ezekiel held him tight, never once admonishing him to stop. He simply held him and let him cry, let him mourn his lost leg. When he finally subsided, and Malichai had no idea how long that took, Zeke handed him something to blow his nose with and then pulled up a chair beside the bed.
“You’ll have to stay here a little while before we can bring you home. I’ll be here. When I have to go home, one of the others will come. Amaryllis wants to stay with you and obviously she can be at the bed-and-breakfast.”
Malichai shook his head. “It isn’t safe for her there. I don’t want to see her either, Zeke . . .”
“Don’t be a bonehead. No one is going to be able to stop that girl, least of all me. She earned the right to be in this room with you. You put a ring on her finger, and she knew, just like you did, what you were facing. She’s not going away because the worst happened, and don’t insult her by even suggesting it. Seriously, Malichai, you’re upset, I get that, you’re having a first reaction to the news, but you’re not going to be an idiot and alienate everyone who loves you because you’re depressed and upset.”
That was why Ezekiel was his commanding officer as well. He told it like it was and Malichai respected him for it. “Do you remember when I was a kid and it was a bad winter and I gave away my blanket and food? You were so pissed at me?”
Ezekiel ran his fingers through his hair and looked away from Malichai. “Yeah, I remember. It was so damned cold I thought you might freeze to death just getting up to pee. You were so thin, Malichai.”
He suddenly turned back and brushed hair from Malichai’s forehead. Malichai could feel his fingers trembling, and that was shocking.
“I went to find your blanket for you. I thought someone had taken it from you and I was going to beat the shit out of them. I found the soldier. He wanted to give it back to me. Instead, I told him to keep it. I was so damned proud of you.”
To Malichai’s astonishment, Ezekiel blinked back tears.
“He told me that you were a great kid and that you had such compassion in you. You always noticed everyone less fortunate on the street and tried to help them. I didn’t. I don’t know if you realized that or not. I tried to be more like you after that.” Ezekiel’s fingers continued to move in his hair.
“When I saw him, without his leg, I was terrified that I’d end up like him, an old soldier on the street with no one to care for him after years of service. I had him put in a care home and paid for it when I could, but then . . . I wanted to stay in touch so when it came time, I could bury him. I was in and out of the country so much I just lost sight of him some years ago and he passed away . . .” Malichai trailed off, ashamed that he’d failed the soldier.
Ezekiel looked down at his hands. “I didn’t. You were on a run in the Congo when he passe
d away and I had him buried with military honors.”
“Thanks for that, Zeke.”
“You can handle this, Malichai. You’re the strongest man I know. You can. It will be a long hard road, but we’re all with you. You and I both know that because they’ve invested so much money in your training, the government is going to want to put a very expensive prosthesis on you so you can continue to go out on missions for them. You can say no. You will still be invaluable to us guarding our women and children at home. You can still be a soldier. Whatever you want to do. It’s there for you. In the meantime, Malichai, you just take one day, one step, at a time and know we’re all with you.”
Malichai knew, intellectually, everything his brother said was true, but emotionally, it was difficult to accept. He still hadn’t looked down his body to see his missing leg. He would do that when he was alone. He would rub his hip where he felt that ache still, the one that told him the leg was still present and would hurt for a long, long time.
“The others are going to want to see you, but you don’t have to see them until you’re ready,” Ezekiel assured. “I can put them off, if needed.”
There was no judgment in Zeke’s voice. There wouldn’t ever be from him. Ezekiel would give him all the time in the world to figure it out.
“Just give me a few minutes.” He had to look down and see his leg gone. He had to come to terms with it. It would be one thing for his brothers and even Nonny to see him like this, but Amaryllis? No. She was different. He was supposed to be her everything. Whole. Her man. Her protector. Losing his leg didn’t fit into his equation of what he was supposed to be for her.
Ezekiel waited for a few minutes and then once again came to the side of the bed to help him sit. He raised the bed just a few inches, forcing Malichai’s back up. Still, Malichai didn’t look down or take the sheet from his leg. His hip throbbed and the upper part of his thigh throbbed and itched, but he wouldn’t touch it. His stomach lurched at the thought. He forced himself to think about Jerry, the soldier they’d rescued in Afghanistan. He’d not only lost his leg, he’d lost his arm as well. Where was he now?