Tess Gerritsen - Double Impact

Maybe he was wrong about her. She might not be vulnerable at all. The woman who had fooled him once before might simply be a talented actress.

For that matter, perhaps Carlos had been right on that score.

Perhaps Michal was under a spell.

AMI STRIPPED OFF her torn blouse and stuffed it into the trash basket. She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and winced at the red welts left by her attacker’s strong fingers. She shuddered when she thought of Carlos lying dead on the floor in the kitchen.

How many people had died here?

She trembled and chafed her arms against the chill of fear. Would she be next? She hadn’t missed the fury in Michal’s eyes. Did he somehow see her as responsible for Carlos’s death? She had caused Raoul’s. She stilled, searching her emotions, attempting to separate fact from presumption. Was her presence what had made Carlos start undermining Michal’s authority?

Closing her eyes, she forced away the thoughts. This was crazy. All of it!

Why hadn’t she grabbed Fran Woodard by the arm and rushed to her car the moment the woman arrived?

There had been time. Of course she hadn’t known that then, but there definitely had been. No one had been watching her. They had been too busy being brainwashed by Carlos. Dammit. She could have escaped…could have been rushing toward the American embassy this very moment. That is, of course, if Fran had gone along with the idea. Though Ami had seen definite sympathy in her eyes, the woman was CIA…she would probably have told her the same thing Tanner had: she had no choice but to stay and finish this.

She flattened her palms on the rim of the basin and sighed in self-disgust. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of business. She didn’t know how to seize an opportunity and make the best of it. At least, not these kinds of opportunities.

Pushing away her worries and uncertainties for the time being, she trudged to the armoire and dragged out a new blouse. Any moment now Michal would come into the room demanding answers. For whatever reason, he was angry with her. She had to deal with him first, then she could mull over the worry that Fran would most likely tell Tanner she had no intention of helping them kill Michal.

She pressed her forehead against the cool, wooden surface of the armoire and battled the emotions that threatened to well inside her all over again. She couldn’t think about her baby right now. She absolutely would not admit defeat. She would find a way to get back to him. But she would have to do it on her own.

An urge to tell Michal about his son, to share that wonder with him, clutched dangerously at her heart. But she couldn’t do that. To tell Michal about Nicholas would be to sentence her son to this life.

That, above all else, was the one thing she was infinitely certain she could not do.

When the door to the bedroom opened, she stood in the middle of the room waiting for whatever was to come.

Judging by the intensity in Michal’s eyes, he was still plenty angry.

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. He had, actually, but not the kind of hurt she felt certain to which Michal referred. She massaged her throat, subconsciously contradicting her response.

He paused only inches away and tugged her hand from her throat. “You will have more bruises,” he commented, surveying the red welts on her flesh.

She nodded. “Thank you for stopping him.” It sounded lame in afterthought, but she was immensely grateful for what he’d done. Her fate had already been decided by Carlos.

Michal’s gaze zoomed in on hers like twin piercing laser beams. “Carlos believed you were hiding something.” He inclined his head and studied her eyes, her face, more closely. “Are you hiding anything from me?”

She tamped down the automatic need to stiffen, to avert her eyes. He was watching for those very warning signals. “No.” The word didn’t come out quite as firmly as she would have liked, but she’d gotten it past the constriction in her throat. That was something. Her heart knocked brutally against her rib cage. He knew something. She was sure of it.

There was no way to know which of her secrets he’d uncovered. If she gave away the wrong one…

“Why do you still question me, Michal?” she demanded, hoping to shift the context of the discussion. She lifted her chin and glared at him defiantly. “If you suspect me of some deceit, why didn’t you let Carlos do what he would? Surely he would have extracted whatever truth you believe I’m hiding.”

Fury flashed in those midnight-black eyes. “Answer the question. Do you or do you not have something you wish to tell me?”

Though she could not recall anything about her life before two years ago, other than the dreams of her with this man, Ami couldn’t imagine that she had ever used her body to keep herself out of trouble. She had lived, until quite recently, in a very safe environment with a man who believed women to be equal to men in every way. She had a respected career as a nurse and she was the loving mother to a toddler. An ache pulsed through her when Nicholas’s face filtered through her mind.

The very idea of whoring herself to achieve some cause…of setting up a man for betrayal…of betraying her own father, was utterly alien to her. It simply couldn’t be possible. The events she had witnessed the past two weeks were like scenes in some action-adventure movie or high-tech video game. None of it felt real.

But it was.

She looked deeply into Michal’s eyes. And she had to do whatever it took to stay in the game.

No, she didn’t want to help the CIA or anyone else harm Michal.

No, she couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible, directly or indirectly, for anyone else’s life.

But she was damn sure going to take responsibility for her own survival.

In this game, she was on her own. There was no way forward, that she could see, and no way back.

There was only now.

And right now she needed Michal Arad to need her. She wanted him to trust her whether she deserved it or not. Most of all, she longed to live at least two more days…time enough to figure out how to accomplish the two most important missions of her life.

She must find a way to get back to her child if only for a moment. To hold him just one more time before she died.

But first, she had to figure out how to save Michal’s life without alerting the CIA to her new stand.

And all of that hinged on one person. Fran Woodard. If Fran warned Tanner, Ami was doomed.

For now, though, she had a more pressing matter to which to attend.

Earning Michal’s trust again now that he’d had to kill his right-hand man for her.

“I have nothing to hide from you,” she told him in the most sensual tone she could muster with the image of death still indelibly seared in her brain.

Something like regret flickered in those sinfully dark pools focused solely upon her. Fear that she’d somehow said the wrong thing made her heart stutter. But she couldn’t stop now.

“You pulled me back into a world of which I have no memory.” Her gaze locked fully with his, despite the worry that he would read the confusion and fear churning inside her. “You tell me all the despicable things I did before and how a good portion of the world, including you, have reason to want me dead. But you allow me to live.” She tried without success to shake off the surreal quality that very nearly overwhelmed her. It all felt so impossible…but it was real.

He was real.

And he held the power over her very existence.

“And still you question me?” She turned her back on him, praying her ruse would work to divert his focus. “What makes you any better than Carlos?” she added for good measure as she folded her arms over her breasts.