Chapter 20

20

Rogue

“ I ’m ready,” Bea said, presenting her wrists.

Rogue looked up from the kitchen table, where he, Dark and Slate had been sitting.

It was only now, almost a week since they’d been rescued, that he was able to do something as simple as sit at a table with a cup of coffee.

The first days after getting to the safe house, sitting up had been an impossibility. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to get to the bathroom without assistance. He’d refused all painkillers, even though the pain was strong enough to keep him up at night, because he wasn’t about to let any more drugs into his system.

Drugs . That was his biggest fear, the one that had fueled his nightmares—that the drugs Cruz had injected would take over his mind, that, just like that, all the work he’d done in the past two years would be undone. That he would go from former addict to just plain addict. If that happened, he knew he’d never find himself again. And even though he knew it was madness, to fear something with such intensity, it was a madness that paralyzed him.

The only thing that brought him back was Bea. She became a constant presence by his bedside. And fuck, he was selfish. She’d gone through hell as well. She needed rest. But every time he’d opened his eyes and seen her on the armchair next to his bed, he’d felt safe in a way he’d never felt before in his life. And, each time, the madness receded a bit further.

Eventually, he’d calmed down enough to hear what Slate and the doctor he’d brought in had been telling him all along. That he was going to be okay. That he wasn’t going to relapse.

Dark was looking at Bea’s hands now, a shuttered expression on his face. It took Rogue too long to realize his boss wasn’t looking at Bea’s hands, but at her wrists. She was offering her wrists. He replayed her words in his mind.

I’m ready.

“Ready for what?” Rogue asked.

Bea swallowed thickly. “Now that you’re feeling better, I’m ready to go wherever you need me to go. I know you’re with the DEA. I know you need to arrest me. I’m ready.”

Slate made a strangled sound with his throat, but other than that, the small kitchen fell into silence. Thick silence, broken only by the periodic dripping of the broken kitchen tap.

Drip. Fuck. Drip. Fuck. All this time, Bea had been taking care of him, thinking they would arrest her the moment he was back on his feet. She thinks we’re DEA.

She must have heard snippets of conversations here and there and worked to put the pieces together. He—he hadn’t realized what she was going through.

“We’re not DEA,” Dark said.

“You’re not?”

Bea’s body swayed lightly, and Rogue pulled himself to his feet, slowly and more awkwardly than he’d planned to. Bea put her hand up to stop him.

“Please, Rogue. Don’t make this any harder. I said I’m ready.”

Fuck this. It was time to stop with the secrets. Rogue covered the few steps between them and took her hands in his. Bea raised her eyes and their gazes met. The fear in her gaze hurt more than anything those assholes had done to him back in that cell.

This was all his fault. Bea was scared because he hadn’t been honest with her. He’d assumed it was enough that he wasn’t lying to her, but he’d left her to fill in too many gaps by herself.

“Nobody’s going to arrest you, Bea. You’re free. I’m sorry if we haven’t done a good job of explaining.”

“You said this was a safe house,” she said defensively. She looked at Slate, who had the grace to look sheepish. “You mentioned the DEA.”

Rogue took a deep breath. He pulled Bea gently towards the one remaining chair. “It is a safe house.” A safe house on the outskirts of Cartagena. The DEA and Interpol had both offered their houses, but Thorne hadn’t wanted to accept them, and for that Rogue was glad. He didn’t know where Thorne had found this place, but nobody outside their team knew about it. Which made it safer than any other safe house they could have gone to, even though he wasn’t na?ve enough to think they were truly safe here. Rogue couldn’t forget how quickly Cruz had found him last time. They wouldn’t be completely safe until they left Colombia.

“You have to bring me in,” Bea continued. “I know what my uncle does for a living. I’ve always known.”

A strangled sound left his throat.

“I’m sorry,” she went on. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I always knew, but I was so afraid, I never did anything. I was a coward. I’m sorry.”

The pain in her eyes almost broke Rogue. Nobody should grow up carrying such guilt, such a burden on their shoulders. But to think of Bea, his Bea, feeling this way … My Bea.

Her voice lowered to a mere whisper. “Do what you have to do. I don’t want any of you to get in trouble for my sake.”

Dark stood up, and Slate followed, his expression grim. “We’re not DEA, Bea, though we are working with the DEA and with Interpol. We will leave Rogue to explain everything to you.”

Rogue exchanged a look with Dark, understanding what his boss and friend was really saying. He was giving Rogue permission to share everything with Bea. Which Rogue would have done, anyway. But it was nice not to have to break any rules. They’d all agreed when they joined not to share any details of their employment with anybody outside the team who hadn’t been vetted and sworn to secrecy, as Alexia and Reka had been when Dark and Ash had fallen in love with the two women.

Love. The word gave him pause. Is this love? As quickly as the thought came, he dismissed it. What he felt for Bea didn’t matter. What mattered now was letting her know that she didn’t need to be afraid. That she was safe, and that he would do everything in his power to make sure she remained safe.

Rogue waited until Dark and Slate left the room and closed the door behind them. The interior walls of the house were paper-thin, but Rogue knew his friends wouldn’t listen in on them. He pulled his chair closer to Bea’s chair and took her hands in his.

“If you’re not with the DEA, then I don’t understand …” Bea began. Suddenly, a torrent of words rushed out of her. “You were helping my uncle. I was there, hiding at the top of the stairs, the day you showed them what your program could do.”

Rogue nodded. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before, Bea. The software I designed for your uncle doesn’t work. I didn’t need it to. I just needed to convince him that it would work—and wait for my team to get there.”

“But my uncle hired you. He says you worked with my father, years ago.”

Rogue sighed. It was still hard to think of those days. “It’s a long story, Bea. I don’t have time to tell you everything today, but I’ll tell you the basics, and I promise you I will tell you anything else you want to know later.”

When she nodded, he took a deep breath. “After university, I joined the Australian Army Corps of Engineers. I had a degree in Computer Science, I wanted to see the world and eventually I ended up going undercover in a joint mission with the DEA.”

Bea gasped. “That’s when you met my father.”

Rogue nodded and steeled himself for the rest of the story. This was going to be hard for her to hear. She might end up hating him. But he had to tell her. “I did my job. I was part of the team that took your father down.” He ran a hand through his hair. “For … medical reasons, I wasn’t there when he died, but I was part of the team that led to his death.” Bea’s eyes went glassy. “I’m sorry. I know he was your father. I wish—I wish I could tell you something different. But I promise I will never lie to you again, either directly or by omission.”

“Never?” He had to struggle to make out her words, her voice was so soft.

“ Never .”

Bea stared into the distance, lost in her own thoughts, in her own experience of the past. Rogue waited, the knot around his belly growing tighter with every passing second.

“I’m sorry, Bea. I’m sorry about your father. I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you the truth when we met. I’m sorry?—”

Bea raised her small hand. “Stop.”

Stop? Stop what?

“Stop being sorry. I told you I knew what my uncle was doing. I knew what my father was doing, too, long before then. The difference was, I loved my father. He was a different man with me. He could be tender and loving.” The knot in Rogue’s belly tightened, but Bea wasn’t done. “In a different world, perhaps he might have turned out to be … a good man. But his chosen work led to the death of thousands of innocents. He taught my uncle how to kill. Stop being sorry for trying to stop that. I understand why you had to do what you did.”

Relief flooded him. “Thank you.” There was nothing else he could say, and yet, never had those two simple words held more meaning for him. “Thank you, Bea.”

“So this time around … you were undercover, as well.”

“I’m working with a team of private contractors. Dark is our team leader, and you already know Slate, he’s part of the team as well. The DEA and Interpol found me and roped us all into working with them on this.”

“Because you knew my father and my uncle.”

Rogue nodded. “We didn’t even know it was your uncle, at the time. We thought your father had somehow survived. The way your uncle grew the business over the last two years … he’s incredibly powerful, Bea. The biggest drug dealer working on the East Coast and moving into Europe as well. The DEA and Interpol agents thought I would be in a good position to earn his trust.”

“Which you did.”

“Which I did,” he agreed. “But I never meant—I never meant to hurt you in the process.”

“Hurt me? I was trapped in that house. Trapped with no one to trust, paralyzed by fear of what my uncle would do if I tried to leave, not realizing that every day I stayed there, my chances of ever leaving grew more remote.” Her expression grew somber, her forehead wrinkling as she thought of her next words. “Life with Oscar Aguilar would have been worse than death. Whatever happens now, you saved me.”

Rogue pulled her into his arms, holding on tight. She let him for a moment, then took a quick step back, taking Rogue’s hand in her two small ones. “But we’re not safe, Rogue. My uncle will kill us all if he gets his hands on us. And he won’t make our deaths easy.”

“We’re not staying here an instant longer than necessary. We’re just waiting for a way out of the country.”

“Out of the country? But I don’t even have a passport. I’ve never been out of Colombia.”

“We’re going to figure it out. You’re going to be safe.”

“This isn’t safe,” she whimpered, pressing his hand tight enough to hurt. “Nothing is out of my uncle’s reach.”

Rogue searched in his mind for the right words. I would die before I let anyone hurt you. Before he could say anything, the kitchen door opened again and Dark popped his head inside.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Rogue. I’ve got the DEA and Interpol on the line, and they’re not happy.”

“I take it Cruz was gone by the time they got there,” Rogue said. He’d feared as much.

“I can leave,” Bea said, starting to stand. Rogue put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

His finger poised on the speaker button of his phone, Dark exchanged a long look with Rogue. Rogue knew what he was asking and nodded.

“Put them on, Dark. We can trust Bea.”

Dark pressed the button.

“You guys fucked everything up.” Rogue recognized Agent Jon Roberts’ nasal tone.

“There’s no need to be crude, Agent Roberts.” That second voice was female, the tone clipped and precise. Rogue remembered her, as well. Agent Claudia Rahmer. “I’ve got my boss in Virginia up my ass, and you tell me there’s no need to be crude?” the man insisted.

“Do you think my superiors are happy?” the woman asked, dismissively. “What we need to figure out now, is how to move forward.”

“We wouldn’t be in this situation if your guy hadn’t jumped the gun and rushed in. I thought you were all professionals.”

Slate slipped into the room just in time to hear that little quip. “What did you expect me to do?” he asked, his face twisting in anger. “You guys should have been ready sooner, as we’d discussed.”

“There were … unexpected delays,” Agent Rahmer said.

“But you,” the man sputtered. “You should have controlled your team better, Dark.”

Slate looked like he was about to say something else, but Dark held up a hand, silencing him. “My man acted on my orders,” he said firmly. “We couldn’t wait any longer without risking Rogue’s life. If we had to do it over, we would do exactly the same thing again.”

There wasn’t anything the two agents could say to that, but the silence on the other end of the line made it clear just what they thought of the choice Dark had made. Bea’s small hands curled into fists. Rogue’s heart swelled. He placed his hand on hers.

“It’s okay,” he murmured gently, so only she could hear, stroking the back of her hand until her fingers uncurled. He knew the agents were just doing their job. Hell, he understood their frustration. They couldn’t take this personally.

“What’s done is done,” Agent Rahmer said, finally.

“Who did you find there when you arrived?”

“Nobody of any relevance. Emiliano Cruz was gone, as were all his men.”

“And Oscar Aguilar?” Rogue asked, somewhat unnecessarily. He needed to hear them say it.

“Gone. They had time to burn some documents as well. We have agents going through the ashes now.”

So we have nothing. So close, and we have nothing.

“Are you sure Emiliano hasn’t logged into your system?” Roberts asked.

“Of course I’m sure,” Rogue said, striving for patience. “He’s smart.”

“He’s greedy, too,” Rahmer said. “If he can use any of what you built, he will.”

“I set it up so we would all be alerted if he tries to use the program,” Rogue said. He didn’t mention he’d purposefully done that in case something happened to him. “But it’s probably a dead end.”

“Yeah. You can say that again,” Roberts said.

“So, we have nothing,” Rahmer said.

Something fierce pounded behind Rogue’s temples. Rahmer and Roberts were both under pressure to find Cruz. If they knew Cruz’s niece was with them …

“We’ve told you everything we know,” Dark said simply. Rogue stared at Dark and Slate. He already owed them both his life, but now he owed them so much more than that.

“Then we’re wasting our time here. You can find your own way out of Colombia while we sort out the mess you left,” the man said crudely. There was silence in the kitchen long after the call was disconnected.

“So,” Slate finally said.

“You didn’t tell them Bea is with us,” Rogue said.

Dark shrugged. “We’ll have to let them know, eventually. But not until we’re out of the country.” Rogue breathed out a relieved sigh.

Bea watched the exchange without saying anything. “I don’t know where he is,” Bea said. “I swear. If I did, I would tell you.”

“We believe you,” Rogue said. It wasn’t something they’d asked her directly, but there was no doubt in his mind she would have told him if she had any idea where her uncle could have gone.

Fuck. A man with his resources, he could be halfway around the world by now. Or not. His business was here. And it was a risky business. If he left it unattended for any length of time, somebody like Miguel Ruiz or Oscar Aguilar would be happy to take over. Already his reputation must have suffered for letting Rogue into his house and into his business. He’d let Rogue con him, and that wasn’t something Oscar Aguilar or Miguel Ruiz would let him forget.

“I spoke with Thorne,” Dark said. “He’s working his contacts to get you a passport.”

“A passport?” Bea shivered. “Then my uncle will know?—”

“Don’t worry. It will be in a different name.”

“You can do that?”

“Leave that with us. We just need to hang tight until it’s ready.”