Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers, #4)(33)

Jack and Ken had made a pact together, a sacred oath, that neither would ever risk destroying a woman the way their father had their mother. His father had loathed them, twin boys who took up their mother’s time, received her smiles—and her love. There were beatings that became more and more vicious as his obsession grew.

God help him, Jack felt that way about Briony—that terrible need to keep her to himself, to hold on too tight. He couldn’t fool himself into thinking he wasn’t already a little obsessed. He was capable of killing—had done so before he was in his teens—and now, faced with looking at the monster he’d become—he had to give her up. She deserved a normal man—one capable of loving without possession and jealousy and fear. It was the only gift he could give her. He knew, when he walked away, that no other woman would ever do, but he couldn’t take her and watch her innocence and light slowly fade, to be replaced by fear the way it had been in his mother.

Briony stirred, murmured his name in her sleep, and reached for him. His heart clenched hard. He leaned close to her. “Once I’m gone, Briony, don’t come near me again,” he whispered. “Not ever, because I’ll never be able to give you up twice.”

Her eyes opened and she smiled at him. “I was dreaming about you.”

His stomach churned and he bent to kiss her. He shouldn’t. He knew better, but it was damned hard to let go. “I’ve got to get out of here. My ride’s waiting.”

She sat up, pushing at the silky hair, a small frown on her face. “Is it safe? Are you certain it’s safe, Jack?”

“It’s safe enough.” He stood up and slung the rifle around his neck. “Thanks for everything.”

Briony swallowed hard, resisting the need to cling to him. Of course he had to go, but he hadn’t said one word about seeing her again. Not one. She caught his hand. “Jack.” She said his name softly. “How are we going to find one another?”

He pulled his hand away, rubbed his palm down his thigh as if the gesture simply wiped her away. “We aren’t. You didn’t think this was going to go anywhere, did you? I’m not the kind of man who settles down with a woman and kids in a house with a white picket fence. You knew that going into it. You’d be a liability to me.”

Briony never took her eyes from his face. His features were set and hard—carved of stone—eyes as cold as ice. Jack betrayed absolutely no emotion. She could have been looking at a total stranger. Her heart crumbled into tiny pieces. She heard her own wail, a long, drawn-out cry of anguish, but it was only in her own mind—and she had enough pride to keep her shields up stronger than ever so he couldn’t hear the weeping in her head. He couldn’t know just how much she’d invested in him—how much of a fool she’d really been.

“I see.” It was all she could get out. She should have looked ahead, should have known he would be capable of walking away without a backward glance. She kept her eyes on his face, hoping for one small sign that she’d meant the same things to him that he had to her. “Good luck then, Jack.”

He turned away from her, an abrupt motion, and walked out the door. Not once did he look back. Briony knew because she watched him through the window, all the way, until he was out of sight. She sat on the bed until dawn, unmoving, without a single tear, feeling numb—frozen—feeling as if he’d torn out her heart and taken it with him. She felt a fool for even thinking they had something special. Jack took her gift of love and trust and flung it back in her face. She stayed very still—very small—wishing she could just disappear. She stayed there on the edge of the bed until Jebediah pounded on her door to tell her it was time to face the day and another performance.





CHAPTER 6





Twelve hours earlier…

The Special Forces GhostWalker team gathered together in the California home of Lily Whitney-Miller, daughter of Dr. Peter Whitney. They grouped together in the war room, where they met regularly, knowing the room was impossible to bug.

“Do we know if he’s still alive?” Kadan Montegue asked as he spread the aerial maps of the Republic of the Congo across the table.

“If there’s one person who has a chance of escaping the rebel camp and making it out of the jungle alive, it’s Jack Norton,” Nicolas Trevane replied.

“General Ekabela is the most bloodthirsty of all the rebels in the region,” Captain Ryland Miller added with a small sigh. “The general’s troops are mostly veterans in combat. Most of his men were in the military before everything went to hell there.”

“It seems to me, as long as I can remember, it’s always been hell in the Congo,” Nicolas said. “Ekabela had done more damage to that region, destroying entire villages and towns, committing genocide, but he’s as elusive as hell and well funded.”

“He controls the marijuana traffic and has major backing by someone here in the U.S. None of his prisoners have ever lasted more than a couple of days. He’s particularly ruthless when it comes to torture. Ken Norton was in bad shape and they’d only had him about ten hours. Ken’s still in the hospital,” Ryland pointed out. “They nearly skinned him alive, not to mention sliced his body into tiny pieces. If Ekabela has Jack, he has only a few hours to escape before they do worse to him.”