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But he’d blown his chance. Which was why Atticus was sending him on this mission and not one of the other agents who had a family. He’d bring Eden Kane back with him and then he’d go on the next mission, and then the next after that. And he wouldn’t think about being content. He’d think about surviving.
“I’ll bring her in for you,” Nate finally said, opening the file. The photograph was taken from her CIA file, but there was nothing ordinary about the woman in it. Her face was clear of cosmetics or any enhancements, and still he had trouble believing what he was seeing.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Nate asked, uncomfortable at the heat that gathered just beneath his skin and his racing pulse.
“In what way?” Atticus asked, brow arched.
“There’s no way this woman was Mossad or working for Oblivion. She’d stick out like a sore thumb. She looks like she should be doing the pageant circuit.”
“Interesting,” Atticus said, studying him closely. “I guess I didn’t notice.”
Nate rolled his eyes in irritation. A man would have to be dead not to notice a woman like this one. She wore no makeup in the photo and her dark hair was pulled back in a severe style. But it didn’t matter. There was nothing that could detract from beauty like hers. He guessed if he was looking at her critically he’d say her features were unique or arresting—exotic—an oval face with sharp cheekbones and a stubborn chin. A nose that reminded him of a queen he’d seen in an Egyptian relief. Dark brows winged over almond-shaped eyes that reminded him of a raven’s feather—a soft black with the slightest tinge of blue.
“Don’t be deceived by her looks,” Atticus said. “Mossad has a long history of recruiting beautiful and deadly women for just that purpose. I’d pit her skills against yours and mine any day.”
Nate sighed. “Why do I have the feeling I’m going to hate this assignment?”
Nate turned the photo facedown, hoping to get the image of her out of his head, but there was another behind it. It took several seconds for him to comprehend what he was seeing.
“God,” he whispered. Where her face was a study in sheer beauty, her back was gruesome in its display of cruelty. Thick white scars marred almost every inch of skin where she’d obviously been flogged. Scars on top of scars. And along her ribs the skin was puckered where it had been burned.
“From her time with the Syrians,” Atticus explained. “She didn’t talk, so the torture went on for almost seventy-two hours before US agents were able to extract her.”
Cold fury slid through Nate at the thought of what she’d endured. But he turned to the next photograph, wanting—no needing—to see it all. The next photograph showed the front of her torso. The burn scars extended to the front of her ribs and just beneath her breasts, though her breasts remained untouched and smooth, making the scars seem all the more monstrous.
This photograph must have been the most recent, because three white bandages were placed over the wounds from where she’d been shot. It was a miracle the one in her upper chest hadn’t pierced her heart.
Nate nodded and looked at Atticus. “Are you sure about this? This much trauma can damage the mind as well as the body.”
Atticus looked beyond him to the room where his daughter lay. “Sometimes it can. But there are special people in the world who are worth pulling out of the abyss. I believe she’ll be worth it.”
“She’s not going to want to come with me. If you say she’s hunting, then she’s got an agenda and nothing will make her stray from that.”
Atticus’s lips twitched. “I guess that means you’ll be helping her. Call me if there’s trouble and I’ll spare a couple of extra men, but I think she’ll be more agreeable if it’s just you. We wouldn’t want to scare her off.”
“A woman who’s been tortured and left for dead isn’t likely to scare easily.”
Atticus smiled again and the scar along his jaw tightened. “Just make sure you’re not the one with your tail tucked between your legs at the end of it. Dynamis Security has a reputation to uphold.”
“It takes more than one woman to have me running scared.” Nate gave him a two-finger salute and headed toward the elevator. It had been a long time since he’d been on a good hunt.
ChapterTwo
For three years, Eden’s sole purpose in life had been to track downProteus. And kill him.
She made no excuses for what she’d decided to do. She only knew the man known asProteushad to be stopped. It was easier to think of him asProteusand not Jonah Salt—former mentor and husband. And she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that revenge at what he’d done to her weighed in on her decision to take him out. But it was only part of the reason.
He’d put three bullets in her chest, leaving her for dead after she’d given him her trust—something she’d never given lightly and would never give again. To anyone. Then he’d left her for dead and gone for her friend Shai, who’d given herProteus’s identity in the first place. Shai’s body had been found in the Jordan River with his throat slit along with evidence of prolonged torture—his back teeth had been missing as well as his genitalia.
Salt had always been a good interrogator, and she had no doubt that by the time he was finished, Shai had given him names of anyone else who knewProteus’s identity, as well as where he kept his computers where the information was stored.
Yes, she wanted revenge. But that was just a side benefit. Salt was a threat to all humankind. And the lives he’d taken, and would continue to take, were why she needed to end him.
No one else had been as close to him as she had. He’d helped train her and had been her partner. Who else would know how to hunt him better than she did?
She’d slipped out from under the agency and gone her own way. And it hadn’t been easy, because Jonah was very good at what he did. She liked to think she was better. Like any agent, she had safe houses scattered in different countries that held bags of cash, new identities and weapons. They’d allowed her to survive and blend during her time off the grid.
It had taken her months to recover from the gunshot wounds enough to go out on her own. They told her she’d died twice on the operating table and was lucky to be alive. She believed in a higher power and understood that she’d been spared so she could finish this last task. Part of her knew she wouldn’t come back from this mission alive. And she’d made peace with that.
