When the commotion ceases, I lift my head with Ellie trembling uncontrollably in my arms.
“It’s okay. It’s over now.” I smooth her hair and kiss her head repeatedly while she latches onto me like it’s the end of the world.
I’m sure for her it is.
I glance around. Javier, El Rey, and all their thugs lay dead on the floor. The room is destroyed, bullet holes in all my books, the walls, and my desk. The cherry wood looks like it’s been chewed on by wild animals.
“Can you stand?” I ask Ellie delicately.
She looks up at me, drained of life.
I lift her to her feet and secure her in my arms. I’m never letting go. “It’s okay. It’s over. It’s all over.”
“Agent Rivers.”
I stand at attention at the call of my name. “Commander.”
Ellie looks at me funny. Yeah, kitten, we have a lot to talk about.
“You alright?”
I nod. “Affirmative, sir.”
“Nice work.” He puts his hand out. Commander Adams is the A-typical Army commando. Short buzz cut, thick mustache, and no nonsense. He’s one of the best people I know. Next to Jett.
My heart sinks. I hug Ellie tighter with the arm I still have around her. She’s the only thing grounding me at the moment. The only thing holding me together. I try not to think of Jett and the terrible end he faced. Images upon horrific images infiltrate my mind.
“Thank you, sir.” My response is strained.
“Debrief at 0800. The house will be wiped.”
“Sir,” I answer mechanically.
Ellie watches our exchange. I know she thinks she’s in the twilight zone.
One of the Special Forces soldiers wraps her in a blanket as I converse with Commander Adams. Then he tries to remove her collar. I want to growl, but I don’t. Mine. When he finds he can’t because of the padlock, he disappears. Good riddance.
“Get that wound taken care of, Rivers. See you in the AM.”
I nod compliantly.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Solider?”
“Did the team I requested deploy?”
“An hour ago.”
I nod again. I sent a fleet to diffuse and disband Javier’s slave operation. The team was instructed to evacuate the estate and then burn the house to the ground. I vowed I wouldn’t let that girl’s death be in vain and I always stand by my word. Now I’m freeing them all.
Commander Adams gives Ellie a once-over, then cocks an eyebrow at me. He leaves without another word after that. Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. That’s how this operation works. Execute the mission. End of story.
“Please tell me what’s going on before I fall to pieces.” Ellie finally speaks once we’re alone.
“I’ll tell you everything, but I want to get you out of here first.” I put my arm around her to lead her out of the room, but she backs away.
“No, Kayne, now. Here. Tell me.” There are so many emotions laced in her voice. She’s scared, confused, upset, and rightfully so. I’ve kept her captive for a month, told her nothing about anything, and then just dropped it all in her lap.
A room full of dead people is not exactly where I wanted to have this conversation, but Ellie seems adamant and my time as her proprietor is over. I owe her answers, and it’s time to fess up. Heaven help me.
“What’s going on is it’s over. Everything.”
“What’s over?”
“My mission.”
“Mission?” she repeats, trying to understand.
“Ellie.” I drop my forehead to hers. Where do I start? I guess from the beginning. “I spent my entire life in and out of foster homes, and to say my upbringing was rough is putting it mildly. When I was eighteen, I joined the Army. It was either enlist or live on the street.” Ellie frowns, her eyes compassionate but hard at the same time. “I scored particularly high on certain parts of the aptitude test and was recruited for a pilot program called Black Dawn. It’s where I met Jett.”
“Jett was in the Army?” Ellie interrupts.
“Hard to picture, I know.” My lip quirks solemnly. Every inch of me hurts, inside and out. And the mere mention of Jett’s name magnifies the pain twenty-fold.
“Mutual friends,” she muses.
“Excuse me?” I question trying to understand her statement.
Ellie’s eyes water. “He said the two of you met through mutual friends. I understand now. Sorry, go on.” She wipes a stray tear away from her cheek. I want to lick it off of her finger, but I don’t. Instead I continue.
“We were trained for three years in covert ops.”
“What, like spy school?” She tightens the blanket around her.
“That’s one way to put it. After the training was complete, they let us out into the world. Leaving us to our own devices.” She looks at me puzzled. Explaining this is harder than I initially thought. “They gave us free license to break the law, with hopes of aligning and infiltrating ourselves with drug dealers, arms traders, terrorists. Really anyone who is a threat to national security.” Ellie looks around the room at the covered bodies and blood oozing all over the floor.
“So that makes you what exactly?”
“An undercover special ops agent for a covert operation called Endeavor. For six years I have lived and worked under the alias Kayne Roberts. I have assumed the identity of an entrepreneur, liquor distributor, and proprietor of an elite sex club called Mansion,” I spew. It feels like an act of confession. “It was a cover. A government trap used to lure the enemy. And it lured one of most notorious drug lords on Earth. That was my mission, bring down the bad guy.”
“So Kayne Roberts isn’t your real name?” she asks.
“No, Kayne Roberts doesn’t exist. Kayne Rivers does.”
I can see the wheels grinding as she digests this information. I’m no one she’s ever known me to be. Not since day one.
“Is Jett really dead?” Her voice cracks, it’s like she’s coming out of a coma.
“Yes.” I put my hands on her arms, heartsick. Death is a harsh reality in this business. Jett and I both know that. We willingly chose this life, fully aware of the consequences. It still doesn’t make losing my best friend, my brother, any easier. I take a cleansing breath—my shoulder is fucking killing me—as I grab onto Ellie. She has no idea she’s my support. My rock. My everything. And I have to tell her.
More tears spill out of her eyes.
“No need to cry, sweet thing. Those fuckers had it coming.”
I whip my head over to find a ghost standing next to us. I don’t think I’ve ever been so elated in my life.
“Jett!” Ellie throws herself at him before I can move. Apparently I’m not the only elated one.
“Easy, killer.” He winces as he catches her in his arms. He looks like shit, all bloodied and bruised.
“You’re alive,” she weeps.
“Barely.” He smiles weakly, his left eye swollen shut. “It’s going to take more than three goons and a paring knife to take me down.” He lifts up his sleeve and shows me his arm. There’s a thick white bandage around his bicep. “That was unpleasant.”
“So was this.” I point to my bleeding shoulder. “The fucking thing went straight through.”
“I’m glad you’re alright.” He grins, dried blood caked on his mouth.
“You too.”
Jett looks uneasily between me and Ellie. He knows we need our time. And it’s now. “Well, I just wanted to find you and let you know I was alive before you started planning a funeral.” He smiles at me with sad eyes.
“The night’s not over yet. A funeral might not be taken out of the equation.” I glance down at Ellie.
She frowns.
That moment the solider chooses to return.
“Ma’am.” He holds up bolt cutters. Motherfucker. Then he snaps Ellie’s collar in two. The leather falls to the floor, landing right at my feet. It feels like a bomb just went off. Ellie looks up at me with wide eyes as she grabs her neck.
“Am I free?”
Jett takes that as his cue to leave.
“I’ll just be over there.” He backs up, thumbing in the direction of the door.
Traitor. I shoot him a death glare.
“You’ve always been free,” I reluctantly admit, snapping the delicate strings of crystals off her wrist cuffs.
“I don’t understand.” Her voice wavers.
“I did it to protect you,” I blurt out. Cause really how do you tell someone that you kidnapped them and turned them into your sex slave so some other pervert didn’t get to them first?
“Protect me from what?” Ellie spits.
“Not what, who. Javier, he wanted you. The night of Mark’s party, he wanted to take you. So I took you first.” I start to ramble. “I did it to protect you. You saw how he is. What he was capable of. I couldn’t let him get near you.”
“He did get near me.” She starts to tremble.
“It was a drop in the bucket compared to what he could have done.”
I see the storm brewing in her eyes. “It wasn’t a drop in the bucket to me. Why didn’t you just tell me? Why put me through all ... that? All those things?” The agony in her voice destroys me. I know she’s recounting every second of the last month. Everything I forced her to do, the brutal fuckings, the spankings, the chains, the collars, the beatings, the humiliation.