Dead No More. L. R. Nicolello

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СКАЧАТЬ the soft movement shooting daggers into her side. Damn, she hurt. “Believe me. I’m sure. I looked into his eyes as he dropped me.”

      “He dropped you?” Ben’s face darkened, his voice stone cold.

      “He said, ‘Sorry, Lil’ and let me go.” She pushed herself up and grit her teeth as pain poured over her, followed by a wave of nausea. She clawed at the tubes sticking out of her arm. “The case. Jackson had the case. Where is it?”

      “Easy.” Ben caught her hands in his larger, calloused ones and held tight. “Are you absolutely sure it was Jackson who pushed you?” He frowned. “Your injuries were pretty severe. The doctors said they could have adverse effects on your memory.”

      “My damn memory is fine.” Her voice rose, and she struggled against his strong hold. Why didn’t Ben believe her? She remembered everything, down to the tiny specks of brown that had shimmered in Jackson’s green eyes before he’d let her go.

      Before he’d tried to kill her.

      “Ben. Where is the damn case?”

      “It disappeared. And until this moment, I thought—” He shook his head. “We thought that Jackson was dead. If he isn’t, then he’s gone to the wind, with the case.”

      She stopped fighting. Jackson had betrayed them, betrayed her. He was a traitor, and she’d let him get away.

      She’d failed.

      The heaviness of guilt crushed her until she could barely breathe. She’d never been unsuccessful on an assignment before. Lily closed her eyes and slipped back into the welcoming darkness.

      Jackson hadn’t died. He’d gotten away.

      And she’d let him.

      * * *

      SEETHING, LILY PACED beside the director’s long window overlooking the city below.

      “Let me get this straight. You want me to stand there, lie through my teeth to the team and pretend Jackson died a heroic death, when he actually betrayed this agency and our country?” That wasn’t the only thing he’d betrayed. She clenched her fists. She’d trusted Jackson with her life.

      Worse yet, she’d loved him.

      “You do remember he threw me out of a three-story window, right? He tried to kill me. I was in a coma for five days.” She stopped her march and stared out into the dark night. There was no way in hell she’d honor that man for betraying her country. No matter what the director wanted. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t do it. I won’t go to Jackson’s funeral.”

      “It’s not a request, Andrews.” The director spoke slowly, quietly. “It’s an order.”

      She spun around. “Are you kidding me?”

      “No, I’m not. You’ll stand beside his grave, and you’ll mourn your partner. End of story.”

      “With all due respect, sir, I—”

      He lifted his hand and cut her off.

      “Do you know what it would do to this place if people found out that our top operative turned? That we had a traitor within our midst and didn’t know it?”

      Lily didn’t need to be reminded. Only the elite of the elite within the intelligence community made it through Unit 67’s doors, and only after being hand-selected, black-hooded and whisked away in the middle of the night.

      There was no application, no interview process.

      On paper, 67’s operatives embedded themselves among the rest of the alphabet agencies, but that was not their true directive. The small group of men and women Lily shared a building with had one common goal—to flawlessly execute their missions and allow the other government agencies to safely accomplish their jobs. Unit 67 was called in whenever the CIA didn’t want to get their hands dirty, paving the way for them to ride in on their white horses and step into the spotlight.

      Their mission success didn’t make the news because humanity couldn’t handle the hidden darkness walking among them. Which suited 67 just fine. They were ghosts, even among the other spooks. Unit 67 didn’t exist to the world. And they didn’t make mistakes.

      Ever.

      Having a traitor working within their ranks highlighted a security breach, and they needed to know, needed to step up their individual games. Be more alert. Lily opened her mouth to argue again.

      “No, Lily,” the director said firmly, shaking his head. “We wouldn’t survive it. To keep morale high, the others need to think he died in the line of duty.”

      “He didn’t—”

      Director Stephen Kennedy pushed to his feet, his face flush with anger. “Enough! That isn’t the point here, Lily. This place—your team—needs to see you shed tears for your partner. So that’s exactly what you’ll do. Consider it your greatest assignment yet.”

      A perfect storm of emotions swirled in her head. She couldn’t let Jackson’s betrayal go, yet disobeying a direct order from her boss—godfather or not—wasn’t an option, unless...

      A wave of regret hit her as she stared at Kennedy, but it soon passed as an ironclad resolve settled into her mind.

      “Fine.” She walked to the door and reached for the knob. “But, sir, it’ll also be my last.”

       CHAPTER THREE

      Thirteen Months Later Monday, September 15, 4:00 p.m.

      LILY FELT CAPTIVE in her own skin. The longer it took her to find Jackson, the worse the sensation became. It had been thirteen months to the day since she’d dangled three stories above the pavement and stared into his face before he let her go. She’d kept her word to the director and walked—and had hunted Jackson ever since. To end that horrible chapter and get her old life back at Unit 67. The life she loved and missed every second of every single day.

      She couldn’t escape the mental imprisonment she found herself in, no matter what she did to combat it. So, on a daily basis, she took to the wide dirt path along the Missouri River snaking through Omaha and ran until her lungs gave out.

      To clear her mind, her thoughts, her mood.

      Endless months of searching had resulted in nothing but dead ends. Frustration and anger ripped through her veins as one foot after the other pounded against the well-traveled trail. Jackson couldn’t have just disappeared. People didn’t vanish into thin air. They always left a trace. Always. She just had to find it.

      Her legs screamed at her to stop and her breath came in soft gasps as Lily eyed her fellow joggers. On cue, they moved left or right, as though somewhere deep within their subconscious, a tiny voice screamed not to have any contact with her, to get away from the impending danger.

      A man approached from behind and ran next to her. She stumbled, regained her footing and picked up her pace. He matched it. Stride for stride.

      Lily СКАЧАТЬ