Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [167]
She frowned at him, her long lashes fanning her cheek. “I’m well aware of that.”
He waited while the gates opened automatically and drove on through, pausing just long enough to assure himself the gates had closed properly behind him. In his life, there had been so many times when he felt on the brink of a precipice, but nothing like this. His heart was actually pounding, and he knew he could feel sweat beading on his forehead.
He parked the car and helped her out, carrying the tote bag for her up the stairs into her house. “You know, Judith, about my coming here to warn my brother, but I was working for my government at the time. I had another assignment.”
Judith turned slowly to face him, there in the middle of her living room, surrounded by the serene beauty he’d come to associate with Judith. Very carefully she set the canvases down on the low-slung, black-lacquered table. “I don’t understand. You said you came to Sea Haven to warn Levi that Petr Ivanov was still hunting him.”
He ran a hand through his hair, rubbed the bridge of his nose and nodded. “And that was the truth, but not the entire truth.” He set the alarm on the house, more to give himself breathing space than anything else.
“Just say it, Thomas.”
“A little over five years ago, a very important man working on a new defense system for our government was attacked. His wife had been compromised and she helped by providing extremely sensitive information to the man who was behind the theft. One of my brothers, Gavriil, was one of his bodyguards. Gavriil is about eighteen months older than me and we were closer than a lot of young kids when our parents were massacred. He was severely injured. In our business, that’s a death warrant. We don’t get nice retirement checks. Men like Gavriil and me live without real identities. Sorbacov, the man who came up with the idea of taking the children of his country and training them . . .”
“Using brutal force to turn them into killers and spies,” Judith corrected.
He nodded. “He has too much to lose if any one of us starts talking. We’re ghosts and he can’t afford for any of us to surface. The moment I knew Gavriil’s wounds were serious, I made my way to him and helped him escape the hospital. I took him to a doctor I knew was safe. He disappeared after that, although we have a way to get in touch with one another to indicate we’re alive and well.”
He watched her face closely, knowing he was starting the story with his injured brother because it would appeal to her compassionate nature. He couldn’t stop being who he was. His training had given him the ability to read every expression, to adjust quickly if he was losing a battle. So far, she was looking at him with soft eyes, not really understanding where he was going with it all, but willing to understand.
“The information stolen was on a microchip, a tiny little speck really. It had been sewn into a coat and the thieves had known exactly where to find it. They cut it out of the coat and disappeared. That chip is extremely important and I was sent to track it down.”
He studied Judith’s face. She’d gone very still and there was a very small frown forming on her face, as if she was puzzling something out in her mind.
“I found the wife and her lover and they led me straight to Jean-Claude La Roux.”
Her head went up, her gaze jumping to his. The breath left her lungs in a rush, as if he’d sucker-punched her—and he probably had. He took a step toward her. Judith backed away, shaking her head, raising one hand palm out to ward him off.
“I don’t understand.”
“Before I could get to him, La Roux was brought up on charges in France and was sent to prison. The chip was never offered on the black market and we knew he hadn’t had time to sell it. We tried diplomatic means to get him transferred to Russia, but France refused to cooperate. In the end, as a last resort, I was sent to the prison