Dark Knight

Author’s Note: This story explores two of my enduring fascinations with Alias: Who is Sark, and how is he related to the Rambaldi quest? In order to answer those questions, the early chapters (after this prologue) explore Sark’s teenage years, his relationship with Allison Doren and his association with The Man. Later chapters, of course, delve into his involvement with SD-6, the CIA and, yes, Sydney Bristow. This prologue is set four years before Sydney learns the truth about SD-6, when she believes she is working for the CIA and has yet to begin her relationship with Danny Hecht. Please enjoy and review!

Prologue: Mystery Man

Searching all my days just to find you

I’m not sure who I’m looking for

I’ll know it

When I see you

I’m tired of being alone

So hurry up and get here

So tired of being alone

So hurry up and get here

You’ll be so good

You’ll be so good for me

“Love Song For No One,” John Mayer

Running for her life down a darkened corridor with bullets flying past, Sydney Bristow deeply regretted deciding to be a hero.

Sixteen hours earlier, in the conference room at SD-6, Arvin Sloane had laid out this mission to her and her partner, Marcus Dixon: Pierre Dusique, something of a mad scientist who had worked for a number of terrorist organizations, had been tracked to a new state-of-the-art laboratory in Mexico. Intel indicated that Dusique was creating a new kind of germ warfare for a Muslim extremist group.

The plan was for Sydney and Dixon to infiltrate the lab, download Dusique’s files and destroy the facility.

Only Dixon had come down with the measles two hours before he and Sydney were scheduled to fly to Mexico City. Even though she had never attempted a mission of this magnitude without backup before, Sydney had assured Sloane that she could handle it; she simply couldn’t stomach the thought of Dusique coming any closer to completing such dangerous work while they pulled someone else in to prep for the mission.

Over Sloane’s protests that sending her in alone would be taking an unnecessary risk with her life, Sydney had insisted that finding her a new partner for the op would take a day at least – a day in which Dusique could conceivably hand a biological weapon over to known terrorists. She had reminded Sloane of her numerous successes, her many hours in the field, her outstanding evaluations.

She was, she had convinced both Sloane and herself, ready for this.

At the moment, with what seemed like every guard in the massive facility chasing her, Sydney was seriously rethinking that assessment.

Had everything gone as planned, she would have entered the lab through an electrical tunnel beneath it, slipped into Dusique’s office disguised as one of the numerous lab-techs, downloaded the files, and left the same way she had entered. When she was safely away, she would have detonated the explosives she’d planted in the tunnel.

Instead, she had accidentally shut down the power while accessing the facility’s mainframe, thus alerting the guards to her presence and leading to this desperate dash for her life through the pitch-black, maze-like hallways.

Sliding around a corner, Sydney shut her mind to the fear and concentrated on an escape route. What she needed was a way out of these winding corridors, because at any second she fully expected to turn a corner and plow right into a guard.

Much as she feared being shot, she was more terrified of being captured alive and used as a test subject for Dusique’s new chemical weapon.

After what seemed an eternity of harrowing pursuit, Sydney finally saw what she was looking for: an exit sign, glowing faintly green in the oppressive darkness. Adrenaline pumping and lungs burning, she crashed into the door shoulder-first and flew down the twisting staircase toward the first floor.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t made it down one flight when more bullets whipped up past her from below – apparently, the stairwell was guarded, leaving her with no choice but to abandon the stairs at the next landing.

She was on the third floor now, with enough of a head start on the guards to pause and plan.

The blackout had disabled their security cameras. That greatly increased her chances for survival, since they could only track her when they could see her – so escape depended on becoming invisible.

When she was recruited by SD-6, Sydney’s instructors had told her she was a “natural”. She hadn’t really believed them until she got into the field, where it seemed that every time a situation looked impossible she figured out another way.

Thankfully, that proved true tonight as well. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her gaze settled on an air-vent near the ceiling.

Perfect – if you can’t outrun ‘em, outsmart ‘em.

Knowing the guards were only steps behind her, Sydney ducked into the first unlocked office she found. As quietly as she could, she drug a chair up under the vent beside the door. Her hands shook slightly but she ordered herself to focus, not to worry about what would happen if a guard stepped in to inspect this room.

In that case, she knew she would be dead, so she didn’t need to waste time dwelling on the possibility. She just needed to get out of here.

She slipped a tiny screwdriver out of the pocket of her black cargo pants and swiftly loosened the screws around the vent cover. It screeched loudly on its rusty hinges as she lifted it, making Sydney wince – surely someone would hear that, and then she was dead…

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the door swung open. Sydney reacted instinctively; leaping sideways out of the chair, she knocked the intruder to the floor with a muffled thud as the heavy door fell shut behind him.

Lying across the man’s back, Sydney jerked a knife out of her belt and prepared to slam it down between his shoulder blades.

Despite being tackled and pinned down, the intruder was surprisingly resourceful. Before she could drive the knife home, he reached around and grabbed a hunk of her long hair, yanking so hard Sydney thought her neck might snap. She tumbled to the side; her opponent immediately rolled on top of her and trapped her arms above her head with one hand. He clamped his other hand over her mouth.

Even in the darkness, Sydney could see his eyes – fantastically blue, like the heart of a sapphire.

Training told her to fight him – instinct told her to lie still. He had her immobilized but he wasn’t hurting her, and the way he had his head cocked slightly toward the closed door told her he was listening for something.

A second later she heard it too: footsteps.

Sydney held her breath and lay motionless, staring into her captor’s incredible eyes as the footsteps hesitated outside the door. Minutes felt like hours. She fully expected an army of guards to descend upon them at any moment. The anticipation of the torture that would inevitably follow sent an involuntary shudder through Sydney’s body.

She didn’t want to die here, tonight, after interminable hours of excruciating pain. She had just started her senior year of college last month. And there was this guy she was just getting to know, Danny, who seemed like he might be really nice. And she needed to take Francie out for pizza and tell her roommate how much she truly disliked this newest boyfriend…

The hand gripping her wrists gave a little reassuring squeeze. In spite of herself, Sydney smiled against the palm covering her mouth.

Did she imagine the sparkle that brought to those amazing eyes?

At last, the footsteps resumed and moved on down the hallway. Sydney released an audible sigh of relief.

Then she turned her attention to the next threat – the man on top of her.

He melted into the darkness, so she assumed he was wearing all black. He also wore a mask – a black ski-mask that hid everything except his eyes and his mouth.

Sydney surprised herself by automatically thinking how soft his lips looked, especially the bottom one, which tapered off in a charmingly crooked slant. The rest of him wasn’t too bad, either; the body pressing down into hers was lean and muscular, somewhat small for a man but definitely powerful.

She wondered who he was, and why he was here, and what he planned to do with her.

“If I move my hand, will you scream?”

The creamy British accent startled her. He sounded young, probably not even as old as she was.

But she sure as hell wasn’t going to scream and alert the guards to their whereabouts. Whoever this man was, Sydney knew she stood a better chance of escaping him than Dusique’s heavily armed legion.

She shook her head, promising with her eyes that she would behave. He took his hand away, brought it up to join the other one on her wrists. Those blue eyes stayed locked onto hers. Sydney sensed another shiver coming on, but this one had nothing to do with fear.

He had to be beautiful. What she wouldn’t give for a peek behind the mask…

“Who are you?” she whispered, permitting him – for the moment, anyway – to keep her pinned down.

“That’s not important.”

The smooth response again surprised her. The voice was young, yes, yet his confidence suggested someone older, someone even more experienced in all of this than she was.

His gaze flicked up briefly to the open air vent before returning to hers. “I assume you were planning to escape through those vents.”

Sydney nodded, shifting a little underneath him, enjoying the sharp intake of breath her movement elicited from him.

“Then it’s fortunate for you that I came along,” her mystery man continued, “since the power is about to come back on.”

Perplexed, Sydney demanded, “What does that have to do with anything?”

He smirked. She immediately liked the way his crooked lower lip pulled up into the smug grin.

“You’re not very thorough with your reconnaissance, are you, Agent Bristow?”

She was so shocked that he knew her name that Sydney didn’t even react when he abruptly released her hands and stood up. Pushing up onto her elbows, she watched – too dumbfounded to make a witty retort – as he picked up the screwdriver she had dropped and tossed it into the vent.

An instant later, the lights flickered back on. As the room filled with a warm yellow glow, sparks shot out of the vent – the electrical current was so strong it shot the screwdriver back out onto the floor.

Sydney’s stomach turned over as she realized what this stranger had saved her from. Apparently, Dusique had anticipated the ventilation system proving a weak point in the lab’s security and had installed current-conducting shafts. Anyone who entered the vents while the power was on – or who was unlucky enough to be inside of them when it was restored – would be electrocuted.

The phrase ‘crispy critter’ shot through her mind, making Sydney wince with the thought of how close she had come to dying.

Of course, that now raised the question of how the hell she was getting out of here – and why this man had saved her, not to mention how he even knew she was there.

Well, those last two could wait until she completed her mission.

He was obviously waiting for her to comment – and looking quite proud of himself, Sydney thought – so she said, “All right. How do we get out of here?”

“We? What makes you think I intend to get you out?”

Sydney couldn’t decide whether the arrogance was cute or annoying. She did know she wasn’t in the mood for games. Shrugging, she tucked her knife back into her belt and said, “Fine. I’ll find my own way.”

Her calm reply amused him, she could tell by the way his eyes danced. God, he had amazing eyes…

“I suppose you actually asking for my help would be out of the question,” he observed dryly.

Folding her arms over her chest, Sydney countered, “Do you want to stand here and chit-chat until the guards come back, or would you like to get the hell out of here?”

She meant to sound cold, superior; instead, she sounded teasing, playful. His grin broadened, and she really wished he would take off that mask so she could see if he was as cute as she was imagining.

“Point taken,” he agreed with a nod. “But first we need to do something about those cameras.”

Crossing to the light switch, he pried the cover off with a pocketknife, slid a small black box out of his vest and connected it to the wires inside the wall with a copper clamp. When he flipped a switch on the box the wires sparked, immediately plunging the building into darkness again.

Her admiring stare must have been obvious despite the blackness, because he quipped, “And just think, I even did that on purpose.”

Sydney was so ready to be on her way that she allowed him that dig.

Watching him ease the door open and lead into the hallway with a .9 millimeter, Sydney recognized that, whoever he was, he was a very good operative. He moved with a grace and confidence that bespoke a mind that had already anticipated every problem, already prepared for every obstacle. She was glad he was on her side, but she was also a bit envious.

And, she admitted as she followed him down the dark corridor, she was more than a little smitten with this masked man.

He led her swiftly to an unmarked door that opened into a large, cluttered room. The cloying scent of laundry detergent assaulted Sydney’s nose; she opened her mouth to ask where they were but stopped, suddenly understanding.

The laundry chute – perfect secondary escape route.

He went directly to the east wall, opened the hatch, and lay down in the chute, anchoring himself by gripping the edge with one hand stretched up behind his head. Sydney, impressed by his ingenuity, crawled in beside him.

He wrapped his free arm around her waist. With their faces inches apart and their bodies molded together, Sydney could feel his heart hammering.

So was hers.

“Where does this chute come out?” she asked, her head swimming from his musky scent.

“The basement,” he replied.

A second before he let go of the edge, he added, “I think.”

Sydney barely had time to register that before they were hurtling downward at an impossible speed. He pulled her tighter against him and she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder to stifle the giddy scream that threatened. She was frightened, of course, but the exhilaration of leaving her stomach high above was undeniable.

So was the magnetism of the man who now cradled her so gently in his arms.

The ride ended after a forty-second drop into darkness. They shot out the end of the chute and landed safely in an enormous laundry cart filled with white sheets.

Her mystery man climbed out first and gave her a hand over. Sydney didn’t argue when he held onto her fingers, leading her through the dark basement and into the tunnel she had entered by.

They walked in brisk silence until they emerged from a manhole two miles from the laboratory, along a deserted stretch of highway surrounded by fields. The lab was fifty miles from Mexico City; Sydney spotted her rented Buick a quarter-mile down the road, right where she had left it.

She wondered where her mystery man’s vehicle was – or was he an angel who had dropped out of the heavens to rescue her?

Except for the distant lights of the compound, the night was totally dark. Sydney busied herself with the pocket-sized detonator Marshall had given her, but her thoughts were really on the man standing beside her, so close she could feel the heat from his body.

Who was he? Why was he here? Should she let him leave or attempt to capture him, to take him back to SD-6 for questioning?

“I do hope you know more about bombs than computers,” he remarked, scuffing his shoe through the rocks.

Sydney smiled sweetly at him as she pressed the button on the detonator. A half-second later, an impressive fireworks display lit up the western sky, shooting flames fifty feet high as the lab exploded.

He chuckled. “I guess that answers that question.”

He walked her to her car. It was then that Sydney spied the motorcycle concealed in the tall roadside weeds, which explained how he had gotten there.

Not an angel after all.

She leaned back against the Buick’s driver’s side door. He stood directly in front of her, toe-to-toe.

“So now that we have a minute,” Sydney said, keeping her tone purposefully light, “who are you?”

“As I said, that’s not important.”

She noted the sudden guardedness in his blue eyes, yet he held his ground, didn’t look away or step back. Something almost imperceptible behind his even reply, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, told Sydney that he wanted her to know who he was – he just wasn’t going to make it easy for her to find out.

“It matters to me,” she insisted. He didn’t budge, so she tried another tact. “Okay, if you can’t tell me your name, at least tell me who you work for. MI-6? SAS?”

“Hardly.” He lifted a hand when she started to press further. “Agent Bristow, let’s just say that, for tonight anyway, you and I are on the same side.”

Sydney shook her head, torn between frustration and amusement. “And I thought I was secretive,” she teased, to which he grinned ruefully.

She sensed that he was about to leave and suddenly realized how much she wanted him to stay.

Stepping closer, Sydney laid her hands on his shoulders and looked hard into his remarkable blue eyes. “I wouldn’t want to have to fight you,” she confessed softly, meaning it. “But if you were after Dusique’s research, I have to know who you are. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let someone have that kind of intel without knowing what they meant to use it for.”

His response was automatic. “I assure you I wasn’t here for Dusique.”

Sydney searched his eyes. “Then what?”

The way his gaze suddenly shifted over her shoulder belied his nervousness. Sydney thought again that he had to be young – even younger than she was.

What the hell was he doing in a place like this, saving a CIA agent’s ass?

“Would you believe,” he spoke quietly, still not looking at her, “that I was here for you?”

When his eyes returned to hers, Sydney couldn’t doubt the honesty there – he looked incredibly vulnerable, as if he had just confessed his darkest secret. The intensity made her tingle all over.

“Yes.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I believe you.”

She curled her fingers under the edge of the ski-mask, but before she could slide it off, he caught her hands and gently pushed them away. Sydney didn’t struggle; he held lightly onto her fingers and looked down at his shoes.

That struck her as so innocently sexy she couldn’t help but tease, “Cute accent, great body, beautiful eyes – I really don’t get to see your face?”

She could have sworn he was blushing under that mask.

His smirk twitched into a wry smile. “Maybe someday.”

The possibility that she would see him again made Sydney’s heart jump. She supposed she should have scolded herself for being so infatuated with a nameless, faceless stranger – and for allowing him to walk away on nothing except his word that he wasn’t the enemy.

Should have.

“When might that be?”

She was looking at his mouth now and thinking that he really did have soft lips. She imagined, with a little flutter in her stomach, how they would feel against hers – warm, damp, hungry…

He dipped his chin slightly, bringing those tempting lips within a half-inch of hers. “I’m sure you’ll need rescuing again one day,” he murmured.

His voice was like a caress and Sydney shut her eyes, fighting the urge to melt into him, to lean forward and taste that tantalizing mouth.

When he stepped away, the desire had turned his blue eyes a deep azure. Sydney swallowed a plea for him to stay, realizing that she too needed to get moving before they were discovered here – if not by Dusique’s dangerous financiers, by the local authorities.

Nevertheless, she allowed herself to ask once more, “Who are you?”

This time he walked over to the motorcycle before answering. “I promise I’ll tell you someday, if you promise me something.”

Sydney arched an eyebrow. “What?”

He slid onto the bike and revved the engine. “The next time I’m rescuing you, don’t try to kill me.”

He roared away before she could retort. She shook her head, filing away that little fact about him – Always has to have the last word.

It wasn’t until after he disappeared into the darkness that Sydney realized she hadn’t thanked him for saving her life.

Part One: In The Beginning

Chapter One: Natural Born Killers

Never thought that I knew too much

I always thought I knew enough

I didn’t want to learn this stuff

I didn’t ever want to be that tough

But love was just implied

And everything else died

This class has now begun

In Murder 101

- “Murder 101,” The Wallflowers

*Two years earlier*

Few things frightened Sark. He could stare down gun barrels, jump off buildings and withstand interrogations without breaking a sweat.

But just occasionally, he encountered a situation that dropped his stomach into his shoes.

This was one of those times.

The car went up on two wheels as it squealed into an impossibly-tight U-turn. Arms outstretched to brace himself against the dashboard, Sark shut his eyes so he couldn’t see the pavement scrape close outside his window; for one second, he knew the car was going to tip over, flattening him against the asphalt.

Instead, the fully-loaded Corvette managed to right itself, bouncing down so hard on the driver’s side that Sark nearly bit through his tongue as it landed.

The engine revved once more, sending the Corvette into a wicked series of doughnuts before it finally screeched to a halt in the middle of the deserted tarmac.

Instant silence descended, so complete that Sark heard his heart pounding.

He rolled down the window, spat out blood from where he’d bitten off a chunk of his tongue, and ordered himself to calm down. He didn’t dare look at the beautiful chocolate-skinned girl behind the wheel – he could feel her staring him down, and the sparks in her eyes would undoubtedly snap the remaining vestiges of his self-control.

And then he might beat the shit out of her for this little display.

Sark strove for an icy tone that would mask his fury – and failed. “Bloody hell, Allison, what the fuck was that?”

“That was me showing you I don’t need driving lessons, asshole.”

With that, Allison Doren jerked the keys out of the ignition, flung them into Sark’s lap and climbed out of the Corvette, leaving him to fume.

Goddamn fucking women!

Admittedly, in his sixteen years Sark hadn’t dealt with that many women. He’d spent the first eleven years of his life – or what he remembered of them, anyway – in an all-male boarding school, and in the five years since Alexander Khasinau had brought him into The Man’s organization, Allison was really the only girl he’d been around. Khasinau kept his four charges on a tight leash, grooming them into a sharp, close-knit team with limited outside contact. And it worked – for the most part.

Except that Allison refused to take orders from Sark, whom Khasinau had established as the leader of their four-person team.

The second member of that team suddenly appeared beside the driver’s side door, which Allison had left open as she stalked off.

Morgan Grey, irascible as always, smirked in at him. “What the fuck, man?” the gangly sixteen-year-old laughed in his thick Southern drawl. “She took you for one hell of a ride, brother.”

In spite of himself, Sark grinned as the other boy slid behind the wheel. It was difficult to resist Morgan’s contagious good-nature.

“That she did,” he agreed, spitting more blood out the window while Morgan drove back to the hangar. “I think she proved her point, though.”

“Yeah. But something tells me you’re not gonna tell her that.”

If Sark had a best friend, it would have been Morgan. Although he had been eight years old when The Man pegged him as ‘actionable’ based on the CIA’s short-lived Project Christmas, Morgan had never lost his Texas accent or his hearty good humor. He and Sark planned elaborate practical jokes together, talked about girls and music, once broke into the liquor cabinet and got drunk on vodka – Morgan’s out-going goofiness nicely complemented Sark’s quiet reserve, making them a well-balanced pair in and out of the field.

But in the field, Morgan didn’t question Sark. He was older by a few months, and a whole head taller, yet he readily accepted Sark’s leadership.

So why, Sark wondered, can’t Allison?

The private airfield where they had come for today’s training was owned by The Man, and aside from the four of them, it was empty. Morgan parked in the hangar behind a twin-engine Cessna; Allison and the youngest member of their group, thirteen-year-old Joey McAffrey, sat on wooden crates near the plane.

It was a blustery October day in the south of France. The wind sliced through Sark’s black leather jacket and faded jeans, making him wish he was sipping hot chocolate and reading a good book back at the mansion they called home.

Instead, he had to deal with Allison – again – before Khasinau learned (probably through Joey’s big mouth) of her continued disregard for his authority. That pattern didn’t reflect well on either her or Sark.

Joey, a painfully frail and freckled redheaded Irish boy, almost overturned the crate in his excitement to be behind the wheel. “Hey, is it my turn now?”

“Morgan will take you,” Sark said. As the boy darted around him, he called, “And remember what I told you about the curves.”

Joey slowed, turned, and nodded solemnly. “Speed up into them. I won’t forget, Sark. I’ll do it right this time.”

Allison feigned interest in her pink-painted fingernails as Joey, waving madly at them, pulled out of the hangar with Morgan in the passenger’s seat. Morgan gripped the door handle and feigned absolute terror, which made Sark grin despite his irritation with Allison. He couldn’t have asked for a better friend than Morgan.

From the doorway, Sark watched Joey cruise down the tarmac. He notied how much the boy was improving and used the distraction as a cover while he considered what to say to Allison.

Not that she would listen anyway…

Allison and Sark were naturally competitive. He accepted that, since he was their leader, his success hampered her progress through the ranks. Unlike Morgan, who recognized that he was more cut out for taking orders than giving them, Allison would never be satisfied with second best. She wanted, as Sark did, to excel at everything; it infuriated her to no end that Sark was, simply, better at this than she was.

Not that she didn’t rival him in many areas. Sark shuddered to think what would happen if it ever came down to a physical fight between the two of them; they would probably kill each other, because their combatant skills were almost perfectly equal. He was the better marksman, but no one was deadlier than Allison with a knife. Deception, improvisation, efficiency, tenacity, intelligence – they were peers in these arenas as well.

But where Sark beat her hands down – and this was why he was in charge, not her – was in planning, leading and executing ops.

He knew how to prepare for every possible scenario, instinctively understood what could go wrong with a mission, possessed an uncanny ability to anticipate an opponent’s next move. For five years, even under extremely dangerous circumstances, he had kept them all alive and never failed to deliver what The Man wanted.

Allison resented that. And because of it, she never missed a chance to needle, belittle or undermine him.

Right. So, the direct approach then – no bullshit, just tell her how it is.

Folding his arms across his chest and leaning a hip into the doorframe, Sark said over his shoulder, “You can dislike it all you want, Allison, but Khasinau put me in charge.”

“Of our missions, yes. This is training.”

When he turned to face her, Sark was glad for the dark sunglasses that masked the frustration in his eyes. Why did she have to be so stubborn?

“And he put me in charge of that, too, while he’s away,” he insisted evenly.

He tried not to notice how pretty she looked in her down-lined ivory jacket and dark jeans, with her mountain of black curls tucked up under a white scarf.

Until the last few months, Sark had never thought of Allison as a ‘girl’ in that sense of the word – she was just Allison, one of the gang, a capable if annoying comrade.

Then she had shot up a couple of inches, rounded out in all the right places while remaining lithe and slender, and taken to wearing clothes – like the tailored white button-down under that tight jacket – that accentuated those new curves incredibly well. He also suspected she was wearing makeup now, if the golden-pink tint to her lips was any indication, but she wore it the way Sark liked on girls – so subtle it was difficult to tell it was there.

He told himself that he was sixteen now, and she was fifteen, and it was only natural that he should start to notice how she looked. Morgan certainly did; he practically panted around after her, and Allison would giggle (which Sark found irritating) and toss her hair over her shoulder and make big doe-eyes at him. Sark could hardly stand to be around the two of them.

She looks even prettier when she wants to rip my face off, Sark noted, before shaking those thoughts away.

“I don’t need ‘training’,” Allison snapped. She crossed to him and stabbed a long, sculpted fingernail into his chest. “I scared the shit out of you today and still brought us back in one piece.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

Sark wished she would back up. With her chin lifted defiantly toward him, it was impossible for him not to notice how full her lips were. And that made him think of –

Stop right there, my friend. Don’t even head down that path.

“The point,” he sounded irritable, hated how she got under his skin, “is that you either learn to respect my authority, or you’re out.”

That brought Allison up short. She fell back a step, planted her hands on her hips and studied Sark intently. He ordered himself not to fidget.

“Is that what Khasinau said, or is that another commandment from the Great Mr. Sark?”

Her sarcasm belied her anxiety. “From Khasinau,” Sark admitted, almost apologetically. He hadn’t intended to threaten her with that, but…

He supposed she should know how swiftly Khasinau was tiring of this division amongst the ranks. Before heading off on his latest mysterious assignment, Khasinau had informed Sark that if Allison didn’t shape up, she would no longer work for The Man. Sark had wondered, with a shudder he couldn’t quite suppress, if that meant she would be killed.

Allison glared at him for another moment before shrugging. “Fine. Whatever.”

Supposing that was as close to reconciling their differences as they would ever come, Sark turned away and spat out another glob of blood. He was startled when gentle hands caught his shoulders and turned him back around.

“What happened?”

Allison sounded truly concerned, causing Sark to arch an eyebrow at her. “I nearly bit my tongue in half thanks to that little stunt of yours,” he retorted caustically.

She tilted his chin down and stretched up on tip-toe, bringing their mouths a bit too close for Sark’s comfort. He was again thankful for the sunglasses so she couldn’t tell he was looking anywhere but at her.

“Let me see,” she ordered.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

He tried to pull away but she held on, rolling her eyes at him. “Sark, don’t be such a fucking baby. Open your mouth.”

“I don’t need you to – ”

He never got to finish that hateful sentence because Allison suddenly tickled his ribs with her other hand. His mouth opened in an automatic gasp; she smiled triumphantly as she jerked his chin down farther and peered inside.

Sark narrowed his eyes, realizing the gesture was lost on her because of his dark glasses – but that was just as well, since they also hid the immediate arousal her momentary tickling had evoked.

And if she didn’t get her mouth away from his and stop pressing herself against him like that, she was going to discover even more mortifying evidence of that arousal…

“God, you really did bite it,” Allison observed, her nose nearly brushing his cheek. “There’s, like, a big piece missing off the side.”

She released his chin and Sark immediately backed up, only to find himself trapped by the doorframe. Allison regarded him curiously, undoubtedly noticing how eager he was to get away from her.

He covered by asking coolly, “Happy now?”

“Oh get off it. I didn’t mean to hurt you and you know it.” She rolled her eyes at him again. “But you should put some ice on that or something.”

“Do you see any ice around here?”

“I can get you a cold cloth from the washroom,” she offered, ignoring his grumpiness.

Good Christ this girl was persistent. “Don’t bother. It’s quit bleeding now.”

“Sark, it’s going to swell – ”

“It’s my bloody tongue, isn’t it?” he snapped, cutting her off.

For a second, Sark thought Allison was going to slap him. Instead, she snickered. “Yes,” she agreed, her voice thick with laughter, “it is your bloody tongue.”

He hated it when she mocked his British accent, but he had to admit that was kind of funny.

Sark allowed himself to return her grin, effectively defusing the anger between them. Much as they competed against one another, they usually did get along passably well, and he preferred their banter to their arguments.

Joey was racing back and forth in front of the hangar, apparently testing out the Corvette’s speed. Sark turned to watch him, grinning ruefully as he saw Morgan fumbling to buckle his seatbelt.

Morgan and Joey – or Tex and Midget, as they teasingly called one another – were both nuts.

Allison broke into those bemused thoughts when she stepped up beside him and, to Sark’s surprise, laid a hand on his arm. He glanced down at her with an all-too-familiar knot in his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, looking up into his eyes. “About your tongue, I mean.”

Worried his voice might tremble if he spoke, Sark just nodded.

She looked away, out toward the fast-approaching Corvette, yet kept her hand on his arm. “When do we leave for England?”

Ah, yes, tomorrow’s mission.

Sark hated to admit that being so close to Allison had almost made him forget entirely about the upcoming op. “First thing in the morning,” he replied, in his usual clipped, crisp tone, hoping she couldn’t sense his nervousness.

Why was she touching him?

“So we’ll have to be heading home, if these idiots ever bring the car back.”

Without looking at him, Allison slid her hand down his arm and slipped her fingers into his. “Do you want to do my driving lesson again?” she asked, with a perfectly straight face.

Trying to decide whether to jerk his hand away or grip hers tighter, Sark replied, “No. I don’t think you need driving lessons.”

They both snickered. Before Sark could decide what to do about the handholding, Allison squeezed his fingers and let go as the Corvette rolled up beside them.

* * * *

Sark and his comrades lived in what they called the Manor.

The gorgeous mansion stood proudly on a fog shrouded hill in the remote French countryside. Surrounded by sculptured gardens and acres of forest, it could be reached only by a winding, paved drive that twisted back from a rural two-lane highway. Every inch of the grounds, like the house itself, was monitored by security cameras.

Besides Sark, Allison, Morgan and Joey, Alexander Khasinau – their teacher – and an ancient butler named Maurice resided permanently at the Manor. Sark knew the property was also crawling with guards, but he never saw them; they were like ghosts.

Like his three comrades, Sark was careful to go only where Khasinau had told him he could on the day of his arrival: the downstairs, the second floor, the gardens, and the guesthouse. The cellar, third floor and forests were all off-limits.

They each had their own rooms. When Khasinau had taken Sark from the Winslow Academy (the horrific English boarding school where he had spent the first eleven years of his life), Allison and Morgan had already been at the Manor for two years. The Man, Khasinau explained to Sark, had found the two of them through a CIA contact who tipped him off about a black ops program that trained children to be future agents. Both Morgan and Allison had been kidnapped from their families, who believed them to be dead.

Neither, Sark had noted, seemed upset by that. He suspected life at the Manor was as much an improvement over their former lives as it was over his.

Joey had joined them a year after Sark. Apparently a criminal ring known as the Triad had discovered the CIA’s program – codenamed Project Christmas – and begun tailoring it to their own purposes; Joey had been the most promising of the first group they identified, so an associate within the Triad had sent him to The Man.

In the four years since, they had each carved out a niche in their small clan: Joey was the tech-wizard, Morgan was the muscle, Allison was the undercover genius, and Sark was the boss.

And that’s the way we all became the Brady Bunch, Sark reflected darkly.

Back home from the airfield, they were lounging in what they had dubbed The Bat Cave – an elegant second-floor room they had rebelliously transformed into a tacky pseudo-pub, complete with pool and ping-pong tables, felt chairs and a collage of neon signs. Khasinau allowed them such youthful indulgences. While he pushed them hard and disciplined with an iron hand, he also treated them well.

Yet Khasinau they feared. They stood in awe of him, yes, but they also realized he held the power of life and death over them.

And, despite his gentle voice and diffident manner, Sark knew Khasinau was not a soft man. Once, when Sark was fourteen and had dared disobey an order during a mission, the moment they returned home Khasinau had taken him directly to his room, slipped off his belt and beaten him bloody.

Maurice had patched those wounds. Maurice they did not fear; Maurice they loved, unconditionally, as he loved them. He was a small, stooped man, white-haired and grey-eyed, who hobbled about the Manor on arthritic knees in moth-eaten, decades-old suits. Maurice fixed their meals, washed their clothes, bandaged their cuts, doctored their colds and cleaned their rooms. But none of them saw him as a servant. He was like a kindly grandfather, who regaled them with stories of the famous criminals Khasinau had entertained under this roof and listened to their complaints about the life they had been handed and watched over them with a fierce protectiveness that rivaled Khasinau’s.

Sark was never afraid at the Manor. He implicitly trusted that, more than the heavily armed guards who prowled the grounds, both Khasinau and Maurice would protect them.

The atmosphere inside the house relaxed noticeably when Khasinau was away. Maurice kept an eye on them, of course. Not that they would ever have broken any serious rules – they all knew better by now. But he allowed them much more freedom than Khasinau, who, on a night before a mission like this one, would have ordered them all to bed early.

Instead, Maurice poked his head into the Bat Cave to ask if anyone wanted a midnight snack.

“No thanks,” Sark answered for them all, shooting the always-hungry Joey a warning glare. It was late, and Sark knew the old man had to be tired.

“You gonna come play cards with us, Maurice?” Morgan asked. He and Sark were playing a vicious game of poker while Joey watched, grunting in amusement at the myriad ways they found to cheat one another.

At a small table across the room, Allison – now clad in thin cotton pajama pants and a tight blue tank top – ignored them, typing away furiously on her laptop.

Maurice smiled. “I prefer to keep my money, Mr. Grey,” he quipped, to which they all laughed. “I think I’ll go to bed then, since you’re settled for the night. Oh, Sark, could I see you for a moment, please?”

“Don’t touch my cards,” Sark warned Morgan, knowing full well he would the moment the door closed.

In the hallway, Maurice studied him closely, unnerving Sark a bit. “Everything okay?”

“I heard you cry out in your sleep last night.” Maurice paused; Sark fidgeted. “This is not the first time. And…Allison told me she hears you almost every night.”

Sark looked away, embarrassed. “I have nightmares,” he admitted, hating how childish that was. “I’ve always had them.”

He glanced at Maurice, who looked truly concerned, and found the courage to confess, “I think they’re getting worse, though.”

That was an understatement, really. For as long as Sark could remember his dreams had been odd, vaguely disturbing and jumbled; at the Winslow Academy, where no one came to comfort a child who cried out in the middle of the night, he would wake terrified but unable to remember what he’d been dreaming about. The pattern had continued even here at the Manor.

Only one element of the dreams stood out clearly in his mind: a tall, slender girl, probably in her early twenties, incredibly beautiful, with silky chestnut hair and sparkling amber eyes. Though the details remained elusive, Sark knew the dreams centered on her, but he had no idea why – he didn’t recall ever seeing her during his waking hours.

Lately, however, the dreams had become more persistent and terrifying. He still remembered little of them, yet he would often wake drenched in sweat and breathing fast. The sense of unease would plague him throughout the day, leaving him wearier than he had been before going to sleep.

“Well,” Maurice said, when Sark didn’t elaborate, “I suppose you have seen many awful things, and it’s to be expected.”

Thankful that Maurice wasn’t going to make a big deal out of what Sark considered a weakness, he nodded, said good night, and returned to his companions.

As he so often was when he was away, Khasinau was the topic of their conversation tonight.

While Sark settled back into his chair, Morgan posed the familiar question: “So who do you think The Man is?”

“Fuck if I know.” Sark frowned at his cards. He was disappointed with the deal and suspected Morgan was up to more of his tricks.

Joey piped up, “It’s Khasinau. It has to be.”

“It doesn’t have to be anyone, Midget,” Morgan retorted, deliberately using the nickname Joey hated.

The younger boy stuck out his tongue. He looked sleepy, and Sark was considering shipping him off to bed – where they really should all be, since they had to fly to London in about nine hours.

But what the hell, he didn’t feel like playing dad tonight.

Morgan tossed a chip in Allison’s direction. It clattered off the table; she flipped him off without looking up. He called to her, “Who do you think The Man is, pretty lady?”

Allison snatched the chip up off the floor and aimed it precisely at Morgan’s forehead, which it glanced neatly off of. Joey snickered, and Sark covered his mouth to hide a grin.

“Show-off,” Morgan muttered, rubbing his forehead gamely, not really upset.

“I’m trying to work here,” she informed them superiorly.

The boys rolled their eyes at one another but left her alone. Girls.

Morgan threw more chips on the growing pile and smirked so confidently that Sark knew he was cheating. His own head wasn’t in the game tonight; he felt taut, nervy, wired. A punishing swim in the indoor pool followed by a grueling five-mile run and an icy shower had barely made a dent in the electric energy surging through his veins. He was nervous about tomorrow’s up – only the second assassination he’d ever been totally in charge of – and hoped the others didn’t notice.

The target, Trevor Lawrence, ran a global narcotics and prostitution ring. Recently, he had made a foray into the weapons world, which had brought him to the attention of The Man.

The way Sark understood it, The Man intended to take control of as many criminal organizations as possible, until his own was the most powerful in the world – sort of an underground Hitler waging a private war amongst the underbelly of human existence. Sark assumed The Man had a master plan that would ultimately be played out, but he understood his place on the food chain well enough not to ask such questions.

Someday, Sark promised himself, he would meet The Man. And then he would be just as important as Khasinau.

“He’s taking you for a ride, mate,” Joey told Sark suddenly, nodding at a broadly-grinning Morgan who had just won another hand.

Before Sark could respond, Allison swiveled around and announced, “I think The Man is a woman.”

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Morgan demanded, pushing away from the table to face her.

Allison flipped her laptop shut and began braiding her hair. Sark noticed how Morgan stared appreciatively at her chest and told himself to stop being jealous – it wasn’t like he had a claim on her just because she’d held his hand for five seconds.

“Well,” Allison explained, and Sark could tell from her tone that she’d really given this a lot of thought, “first of all, a woman never gets as much respect as a man. If a woman was at the top of this organization, she’d probably get pretty sick of all the chauvinism. So she comes up with this alias that forces all these dumb guys to refer to her with this really macho-name, The Man.”

Allison deepened her voice comically on the last two words, and the boys laughed.

“Second,” she continued, finishing with the braid and resting her small hands in her lap, which Sark found inexplicably endearing, “what better way to hide your identity than to make everyone forget you’re a woman? Because everybody, like the CIA and MI-6, they’re out looking for a guy, and that means you’re not going to get caught.”

They considered that for a minute. Sark had to admit it made a certain kind of sense, but –

“What woman could be that powerful?”

He voiced the obvious question, and Allison tilted her head at him. He pressed, “I’m sure we could all think of three or four men who might have enough clout to run this organization – like Khasinau, for one – but what woman has ever achieved that much power?”

Morgan smirked a challenge at Allison. “Okay, babe, what you got to say to that?”

She smirked right back, though her eyes never left Sark’s. “That just proves my point – she’s done one hell of a job of hiding herself.”

Morgan and Joey groaned, but Sark was too captivated by the sultry way Allison was smiling at him to care whether her argument made any sense.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she stood, tossed the loose braid over her shoulder and announced, “I’m going for a swim. Anybody else coming?”

A midnight swim would probably not have been a possibility had Khasinau been there, so Morgan and Joey jumped at the chance. Sark, however, sat rooted to the spot, fearing that if he saw Allison in a bathing suit right now, he might be forced to go relieve some of this tension her catty smile had created in him.

“So, Sark,” Morgan’s voice broke into his thoughts, jolting him back to find them all watching him, “you coming?”

“Coming?” he echoed dumbly, face reddening because of where his thoughts had just been. He clenched his fists under the table and ordered himself to calm down.

“Where are you, man?” Morgan was laughing, making a joke out of it. Joey, as always, was unconcerned; Allison looked quite pleased with herself. “We’re going to the pool, but I guess you’re going to be a pansy and turn in early.”

Sark flashed what he hoped was a passably sardonic grin. “Someone has to be in charge of this mission tomorrow, you recall.”

“And you’re a fucking sixteen-year-old kid, you recall,” Morgan retorted. “Or at least some version of one. Who needs sleep?”

Sark followed them out into the hallway but headed toward his room as they turned toward the stairs.

“Get some rest,” Morgan called after him. “Don’t be flogging the bishop all night, brother. Fucking sleep for a change.”

Sark flipped him off and closed his bedroom door on the accompanying laughter, hoping that parting jibe was just Morgan’s normal crassness and not a veiled hint that he knew how Allison was getting to him lately.

The Manor was strangely quiet without Allison’s ‘angry girl’ music thumping away next door and Joey snoring across the hall. Sark undressed and crawled under the covers, surprised by how genuinely tired he was. These dreams were quickly sapping his energy, and he couldn’t afford to be exhausted for the mission tomorrow.

More and more, Sark found himself wondering about the Dream Girl, as he had privately dubbed her. He couldn’t recall when he had first started dreaming about her, but she had always been the same in his dreams: young, beautiful, adventurous, maybe a little sad. The older he got the more curious he became about her: Was she a real person? Where had he seen her before? What would he do if he ever met her in real life?

Tonight, however, another pair of dark eyes haunted him – Allison’s. The way she had touched him today, looked at him, smiled at him – like she wanted to melt into his arms and let him tangle his fingers in her hair while he tasted those incredible lips…

Sark told himself to stop it, because he was not going to fantasize about Allison.

He didn’t even know if Khasinau would allow that sort of relationship between them, but beyond that, Sark also wasn’t sure he should consider forming that kind of a connection with anyone. Every mission became more dangerous; realistically, he accepted that he could be killed at any time. And the higher he climbed in The Man’s organization, the more of a target he became for his employer’s enemies – which would mean anyone associated with him would also be in danger.

Khasinau, so far as Sark and the others knew, had no family. He didn’t even seem to have any friends, unless they counted Maurice. Sark suspected that successful spies led very lonely lives.

Then what’s the point? Why do it?

For the thrill, he decided.

Besides, he wasn’t really alone – he had Morgan, and Joey, and Allison, and Maurice, and even Khasinau. They were like a little family, albeit a dysfunctional one. The point was they took care of one another, looked after one another, needed one another.

And tomorrow, he really had to look after his team, bring them all safely back home. It was a weight that rested more heavily on his shoulders with each new mission – the burden of a commander who loved his soldiers.

Sark was still lying awake when he heard the three of them come giggling down the hall more than two hours later. It was only when the last door closed and they were all tucked safely into bed that he could finally fall asleep.

Chapter Two: The End of Innocence

Like strawberry wine

Seventeen

The hot July moon

Saw everything

My first taste of love

Oh, bittersweet

And green on the vine

Like strawberry wine

“Strawberry Wine,” Deena Carter

For the head of an international crime syndicate, Trevor Lawrence had surprisingly little security.

Sark’s team arrived at the fabulous country estate where Lawrence spent his weekends under the cover of darkness. From the electronically-equipped van Sark had arranged to have waiting for them at the airport, Joey hacked into the electronic security system and looped the video feed within minutes.

Morgan was their eyes and ears on the wooded lane leading back to the house. Camped out in a tree, his high-powered night-vision binoculars scanned the road for any approaching vehicles that might signal Lawrence’s arrival.

It was ten-thirty on a crisp October Saturday night when Sark and Allison scaled Lawrence’s six-foot-tall privacy fence and darted past the landscaped garden to the stable that housed six of England’s finest thoroughbreds. Horse breeding and racing was one of Lawrence’s passions, a hobby that distracted him from his criminal activities. Sark supposed the refined pastime appealed to the veneer of civility a supposed British gentleman like Lawrence prided himself on.

Sark could understand. Khasinau regularly stressed the importance of image; Sark did his best to be suave, controlled and sophisticated – the quintessential gentleman spy.

Allison, predictably, was not impressed by that image. Nor was she impressed by Sark’s decision to take point on this op, rather than allowing her to assassinate Lawrence herself.

Yet she was making an effort to conceal her frustration, causing him to hope she had taken his warning at the airfield yesterday to heart.

They encountered no resistance as they ascended into the stable’s hayloft and positioned themselves between two large bails of straw. Sark stretched out on his stomach and aimed the high-powered rifle toward the door. Behind him, Allison checked through her pack to be sure they had everything they might need in case of emergency: extra clips for the .9 millimeters in their belt holsters, canisters of tear gas, rappelling ropes.

The plan was to shoot Lawrence once through the head when he entered for his early Sunday morning ride. Since Joey had the security camera feed captured, he could see to it that Sark and Allison’s escape after the hit went unnoticed.

Weeks of surveillance had shown that the security (which was generally lax anyway) was lightest on Saturday night, when Lawrence was partying in London, so Sark had determined that they should set up for the mission tonight. Which meant, of course, that he had to spend the night with Allison.

Not a prospect he relished, especially after yesterday’s awkward handholding, but aside from him she was the best member of their team and he preferred having her as his back-up.

Nothing could go wrong with this op. It was only the second assassination he had been entirely in charge of; Khasinau had told him that The Man wanted to take over Lawrence’s syndicate and instructed him to “deal with it”, leaving the particulars up to Sark.

He refused to take any chances. The first hit he’d planned had gone off without a hitch, and he fully expected to be promoted within The Man’s organization if this one went equally as smooth.

Coupled with that pressure was another sleepless night in which his Dream Girl had haunted him.

So he was already tense, eager for the deed to be done and the success to be confirmed, and Allison’s typical disapproval of everything he did was grating on his nerves more than usual.

“Are you going to point that thing at the door all night?” she asked him from behind, settling herself in against the wall. “Because your arms are probably going to get tired before 6a.m.”

“You can wait in the van if you like,” Sark offered evenly, squelching the desire to unleash a string of profanity on her. She would just grin knowingly at him and twirl her hair, like she always did when he lost his temper with her, and then he might totally snap and shoot her in the face.

Their comms crackled. “Lawrence’s limo just turned onto the lane,” Morgan reported. “It’s at the gate…Okay, they’re in. If I can get out of this goddamn tree without killing myself, I’m gonna go keep an eye on Midget.”

“Fuck you, Tex,” came Joey’s fiery reply.

“Knock it off,” Sark snarled, silencing them instantly. “I want radio silence until you have something to report, understand?”

In response, no one made a sound, letting him know they’d gotten the point.

When he was convinced no guards had spotted their entry, Sark lowered the rifle, unscrewed the silencer and returned the weapon to its case. Simply to irk Allison, he rechecked the supplies she’d just inventoried; she rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Satisfied, Sark scooted back against the wall, a few feet away from her.

“This is going to suck,” Allison commented, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. “I should’ve brought a book.”

“Which would be really helpful since we need to stay alert,” Sark shot back.

“Alert for what? This place is like a fucking theme park – everybody’s welcome. They should hang out a sign.”

In spite of himself, Sark grinned. Biting wit and sharp-edged humor were two more traits he and Allison shared.

Swinging her silky black hair over her shoulder, Allison turned toward him. Sark was struck again by the uncomfortable realization of how pretty she was. Recalling with a mental groan how shamelessly she and Morgan had flirted on the flight out, he hoped she didn’t start that shit with him.

He immediately dismissed the thought. Allison would be much more likely to shoot him in the head than to come onto him.

Why was that oddly disappointing?

“What?” he demanded, quite sharply, when she continued to pin him down with a searching stare.

“Are you nervous about this op for a reason?”

The straightforward question – and her dead on assessment of his unease – irritated Sark. Especially on a mission, he preferred to be treated with a standoffish respect, yet Allison refused to act as if anything had changed since they were eleven years old and had chased each other with water guns.

Coolly, he replied, “I’m not nervous. Unlike some people, I like to stay focused on a mission, but I’m not nervous.”

She actually smirked at him. “Right. Mr. Sark has no fear.”

“I’m really not up for the witty banter tonight, Allison, so could we just sit here quietly?”

She giggled. Christ, that bugged him – more so because it wasn’t how she giggled for Morgan, all flirty and girly, but more derisively, like she was laughing at him.

“Is that your very polite way of telling me to sit down and shut-up?”

“If you’re going to force me to be rude…”

“Oh, cut the shit, Sark. The 007 nonsense may impress Morgan and Joey, but not me.”

That one stung. Sark refused to blush, refused to look at her, refused to let her know she affected him at all.

She thinks I’m a real loser, he realized, and hated that it bothered him.

After he declined to retaliate, Allison slipped into silence. Sark watched from the corner of his eye as she lay back in the hay and turned over on her side, facing away from him.

He considered ordering her to stay awake to pull guard duty, then thought better of it. He was too tense – not nervous, dammit, tense – to sleep, so why not let her rest? It would keep her quiet anyway.

Her breathing evened out minutes later, and Sark visibly relaxed. Picking up a piece of straw, he twirled it between his fingers, watched it crumble.

Allison had gotten one thing right – it was going to be a long, boring night.

And a cold one.

Sark shifted deeper into his black leather jacket. Beneath him, the horses were bedded down warmly in the straw, but up here by the rafters the cold wind seeped in and chilled him to the bone. His hands inside the black gloves were frozen within minutes; after half an hour, his feet went numb inside his boots.

He glanced over at Allison, wondering how she could sleep when it was so frigid, and discovered that she was shivering. Removing his jacket was an automatic reflex that Sark quickly checked – why should he suffer so she could be warm?

And what would she say if he offered her his coat? Would she thank him or tell him to shove the chivalry up his ass?

“Sark?”

Allison’s voice startled him – she had her back to him, and he’d thought she was asleep.

“What?” That came out a bit more harshly than he intended.

“I’m cold.”

Well, dammit.

Sighing, Sark slipped the jacket off and threw it at her back.

Slowly, Allison rolled over and picked it up. “Thanks,” she said, almost nicely.

He shrugged and stared straight ahead, hoping she would just roll back over and go to sleep again. Even small acts of kindness ruffled Sark; he preferred to be seen as above them.

Allison didn’t seem sleepy anymore, unfortunately. Sitting up, she pulled his jacket around her shoulders, smoothed her hair into place – brushing out a few pieces of straw – and smiled at him. When he turned away without smiling back, he felt her staring at his profile.

“What?” Sark was getting very tired of asking that question.

“It’s just – it’s not fair for you to be cold.”

What? Allison, concerned about him, for the second time in two days?

Sark eyed her suspiciously. “I’m fine,” he answered stiffly, concentrating hard to keep from shivering.

“No you’re not. You have to be cold,” she insisted. “Here, take your coat back.”

She extended it to him. Sark’s pride refused to accept it. “I said I’m fine.”

“Sark, you’re shivering. Take the coat.”

“Just wear the bloody thing and shut-up, will you?”

Exasperated, Sark hurled a piece of straw over the edge of the loft. In the semi-darkness, he didn’t see where it landed, but he stared after it anyway, while Allison drilled holes in the side of his face with her eyes.

“You’re an asshole,” she observed after a minute, rather conversationally. Sark ignored her. “But instead of us both being cold, why don’t we sit closer? There’s this concept called body heat you may have heard of.”

Sit closer. To Allison. In a dark hayloft.

Okay, he wasn’t going to think about that, because it sent a funny tingle through his stomach.

“Sark?”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

Well, he didn’t have much choice, did he? Because if he said no, it would just be weird. And she might think – she might think he was scared to be near her. Or nervous around her.

So he scooted a half-inch toward her, forcing her to come the rest of the way. This time he accepted the jacket when she handed it back, but as he lifted his arms to slip it on, Allison tucked herself into his side so that when he lowered them one arm was slung around her shoulders.

Sark hoped she couldn’t feel his heartbeat speed up.

He could smell her shampoo: lavender and roses, a strange combination. The heat from her body seeped into his, yet he was, he knew, warmer than he should have been.

“Better?” Her voice sounded small, timid.

You have no idea, Sark thought, but merely nodded.

“You know everything will go fine tomorrow.” Allison toyed with the outside seam of Sark’s trousers, above his knee. “Everything always goes fine on your missions.”

Was that a compliment? From Allison?

Wondering what alternate universe he had stepped into, Sark replied tightly, “Thanks. But I’m not worried.”

“Okay. You just seem – tense.”

“I’m cold and tired and not looking forward to sleeping in a hayloft, Allison. That’s all.”

He still sounded angry – hell, he still was angry, he didn’t know why – and Allison leaned back slightly to study him, obviously puzzled.

Sark ran his free hand through his hair. Yes, they hounded one another mercilessly, but he wasn’t usually such a jerk to her, and he could understand why his behavior was confusing her.

“Sorry,” he said grudgingly, after a moment of her scrutiny. “I’m just tired.”

“So you said.” Allison snuggled back into his shoulder, pressing even closer this time. Sark swallowed audibly. “You want me to take first watch so you can sleep?”

“No.”

Now it was Allison’s turn to be angry. “Sark, for fuck’s sake, I can handle guard duty.”

“I realize that. I’m not sleepy.”

“You just said you were tired.”

“That’s different than sleepy.”

“Have I mentioned lately how impossible you are?”

“I’m sure it’s been an hour or two.”

She was leaning back again, far enough so she could look up at him but close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. Her eyes were dancing, and Sark knew he was grinning, too. Sniping at each other was fun; it was how they normally communicated, when they weren’t pissed off and giving one another the cold shoulder.

Only tonight she was looking at him differently, smiling that sultry smile he was beginning to see from her far too often, and Sark didn’t know whether to be pleased or frightened. He did know his stomach was turning flip-flops and his palms were sweating inside the gloves, yet the feeling wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

Allison tilted her head to one side, causing her hair to fall softly over one cheek. Sark barely resisted the urge to tuck it behind her ear. Damn she was gorgeous…

“Your eyes are really blue,” she remarked, as if she’d never seen his eyes before.

Embarrassed because he wasn’t sure how to respond, Sark looked away. “Thanks,” he said, and mentally slapped himself for how lame it sounded.

“For some reason, when you wear black, they’re even bluer than usual.”

She noticed the color of his eyes? She noticed what he wore?

Dangerously close to a blush, Sark muttered another thanks and focused on a stream of moonlight filtering in across the stable – anything to keep from looking at her when she was staring at him so intently.

His discomfiture was obvious. Playfully, Allison teased, “You’re really hard to flirt with, you know that?”

As usual when he was insecure, Sark responded with a calculated insult. “Maybe you’re just not very good at it.”

Even without looking at her, he knew her face fell. She twisted around and fell back heavily against his shoulder. Sark didn’t dare glance at her; he suspected the quivering in her back meant she was crying, or very near to it.

He suddenly despised himself. Why did I say that? Why does this all have to be so…confusing?

Clearing his throat, Sark cast around for a way to defuse the tension, to return some normalcy to the situation. “I should check in with Morgan, see if everything’s all right.”

“He has you on comm. If there’s a problem, he’ll let us know.”

Allison was back to sounding derisive, although her voice was thick with what could have been tears. “We’re not incompetent, you know. Just because we aren’t as good as you doesn’t mean we can’t do our jobs.”

“I never said – ”

“You don’t have to say it. It’s how you treat us.”

Allison pulled away again, and this time when she faced him, her eyes were blazing. Sark immediately thought how pretty she looked when she was furious with him – and proceeded to kick himself for that thought.

“You act like we’re always one step away from fucking up your perfect missions,” Allison raged on.

Sark didn’t dare tell her to keep her voice down. She was mad enough to punch him, and having been on the receiving end of her violent outbursts once or twice, he wisely stayed silent.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, Allison, did you double-check that your gun’s loaded?’ Or, ‘Joey, are you sure your comm is turned on?’ Completely asinine shit that we are perfectly capable of handling without you hanging over our shoulders. You’re not a god, you know.”

Sark knew no other way to respond to her fiery anger than with cold disdain. “Allison, we’ve already had this conversation. I know it bothers you that Khasinau put me in charge, but he apparently sees me as more qualified than you for leadership. So if you have problem with how I handle things, I suggest you think about that – because Khasinau obviously approves of my way.”

“I don’t have a problem with how you handle things. I have a problem with how you handle people – like we are things.”

Allison’s tone dared him to deny it. “Honestly, Sark, I think if one of us got blown away you’d only be upset that the mission was compromised.”

That hit home.

Sark’s jaw clenched with a combination of hurt and fury. How could she possibly believe he didn’t care about her and Morgan and Joey? How could she not see that he agonized over every obstacle, every danger, so he could plan for their safety as best he could? How could she not realize that he took on the most dangerous parts of every op to protect the rest of them?

Well, if she didn’t get it, he wasn’t going to spell it out for her. Let her believe whatever she damn well wanted.

“Perhaps you’d do better if you weren’t so emotional,” he shot back, aiming for a low-blow that would cut her as deeply as she’d cut him.

It worked – Allison’s dark eyes iced over instantly. “I’d rather be too emotional than Khasinau’s fucking robot.”

So now he was a robot – this just kept getting better and better. Nice to know how she really feels about me, Sark thought bitterly.

But he’d be damned before he showed that her words stung.

“Your prerogative, of course, but feelings are a weakness in this game. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.” Sark was deliberately baiting her, purposefully playing up that persona she’d criticized earlier – the remorseless, unfeeling assassin he worked so diligently to come across as.

Behind the iciness, her eyes were smoldering. Sark understood too late that more than fury burned there.

“You’re telling me you don’t feel?” Allison demanded, catching him by the front of the shirt and hauling him towards her.

Caught off-guard, Sark reached up to push her away, expecting a physical attack. Before he could, though, her lips brushed across his.

He froze. The contact was fleeting, less than a second, but he’d never been kissed before.

Allison must have read that in his face. She moved in again and whispered against his mouth, “You don’t feel this?”

Sark had no idea what he was supposed to feel, because he couldn’t pick one emotion out of the tumult that rose in him: fear, nervousness, excitement, desire, tenderness.

Fortunately, Allison didn’t seem to expect a response. Sark shut his eyes automatically when she kissed him again, this time soft and slow, her hands sliding up his chest and into his hair, urging him closer. He wasn’t certain what to do so he allowed her to lead, since she apparently had some experience with this.

She pushed his lips apart with her tongue and stroked the inside of his mouth, sending his heart off into a frantic patter. He was aware of her pushing the jacket off of his shoulders, of her peeling the gloves off of his fingers, yet everything seemed wrapped in a weird fog. His skin felt hot and flushed, feverish; his palms were clammy and his stomach was tensed into a fierce knot.

He was terrified that he wasn’t doing this right, that he wasn’t kissing back the way he should. But Allison seemed to like how he tentatively slipped his tongue into her mouth, stroking along the inside of her lips as she had done to him.

After what seemed a small eternity, her mouth left his and moved onto his neck. Her warm lips on his cold skin sent shivers down Sark’s back. Every place she kissed became strangely ticklish. He was breathing fast and afraid to touch her and certain she could tell that he had never done this before.

Allison shrugged out of her jacket and gloves before starting to unbutton his shirt. Sark glanced down to find her watching him and was gratified that she looked as nervous as he felt.

He leaned back on his palms as she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, down to his wrists. The way her eyes raked over him made him blush; he knew he was muscular, but he worked out for the necessity of it, not the vanity. He was instantly relieved that she liked his body.

Allison ran a fingertip down his chest. “No wonder you’re always kicking my ass in training,” she teased, her light tone not masking the tremor in her voice as she climbed onto his lap.

All snide comments – in fact, any sort of speech – had deserted Sark, so he just silently allowed her to push him back until he was lying down with her on top of him. He realized how light she was, and for some reason, her smallness excited him.

Not knowing what to do with his hands, Sark kept them at his sides. Allison kissed down his chest and onto his stomach; each brush of her lips tightened the growing need inside of him until he was certain he was going out of his mind. When her tongue flicked over his nipple, he whimpered, prompting her to close her mouth over it and suck gently. The whimper became a full-fledged moan.

Finally, Allison lifted her mouth back to his. Consumed with the need for her as he’d never been consumed by anything in his life, Sark kissed her hard, bruising her lips with his. The ferocity seemed to excite her – she bit down gently on his lip and tugged his hips into hers, pressing herself against his hardness. Sark gasped.

Their mouths still fused together, Allison began to unbutton her shirt. Sark sensed that he should be doing that and caught her hands.

His fingers trembled over the buttons. She smiled softly against his mouth, but Sark no longer cared whether he impressed her. He wanted her; he was desperate for her.

He hoped against hope that he would be a good lover, yet at the moment, he couldn’t think clearly enough to really worry about it.

He tore her shirt and trousers off and flipped her over so that he was on top. The sight of her near-nakedness inflamed him even more: she was beautiful, sleek caramel skin stretched tight over delicate bones and lean muscles. He wanted to see all of her, to touch all of her, to taste all of her – but abruptly, he felt shy.

Allison pushed up onto her elbows and raised a questioning eyebrow at him. Breathing raggedly, Sark asked haltingly, “Are you – I mean, is this…what you want?”

“Sark,” she whispered, blushing at her admission, “I’ve always wanted you. I’ve been in love with you since I was ten years old.”

In love? Someone loved him?

Had his body not been screaming so fervently for fulfillment right then, Sark might have cried.

Instead, he lowered his lips to her stomach, sucking softly, loving how her back arched slightly toward him. He only fumbled with the clasp of her bra for a second before pushing the lace away from her breasts, which were high and small and firm; he closed his hand over one, rolling her taut brown nipple between his fingers, and Allison cried out. The sound sent shockwaves to his core.

When his mouth replaced his fingers on her breast, she jerked her hips into his, her body’s way of begging him to hurry.

Suddenly nervous again, Sark braced himself over her on his palms, forcing himself to look her in the eye as he confessed, “I’ve never done this before.”

“Me either.”

That startled him. She sure as hell seemed to know what she was doing earlier, when she kissed him.

“Then – I think this will hurt you a little.”

“That’s okay.”

Allison ran her hands down his chest and unzipped his jeans, reaching inside to touch him. Sark bit his lip and shut his eyes, willing himself not to come right there in her hand. “You won’t hurt me. I trust you.”

His lips found hers again as she pushed his jeans down. Sark knew what came next, of course, but he was surprised at how his body seemed to understand exactly what was needed; he shifted his hips into hers and slid with a gasp into her tight opening. Allison yelped and grabbed his shoulders, squeezing until her nails dug into his skin when he pushed forward again, and again, and again.

Realizing that he had to be gentle, Sark nevertheless fought to control the urgency that nearly overwhelmed him. She was silky and warm inside. The feel of her around him made him want to drive in as forcefully as he could, to push into her until his body found what it needed and this incredible, almost painful desire satiated itself; he went as slowly as he could force himself to, relaxing a little when her expression shifted from pained to exultant, when her cries became charged with pleasure rather than agony.

When she bent her knees to draw him in deeper, it was all Sark could take.

Clenching his hands into fists on either side of her head, he gave himself over to the passion and shoved in as far as he could. Allison’s arms wound around his neck. She buried her face in his shoulder while he called out with the sudden, overpowering ecstasy.

He hadn’t known anything could feel that wonderful…

The ache deep within him satisfied, Sark was suddenly terrified that he had been too rough, that he had hurt her.

He eased himself out of her as gently as he could, wincing when she flinched, and pulled her quivering body into his arms. Throwing his leg over hers and gathering her close, he whispered into her hair, “I’m sorry, Alli, I’m so sorry.”

Her tears dropped onto his chest. “You didn’t hurt me,” she protested, snuggling closer. “I mean, it hurt at first, but then in a good way.”

“Then why are you crying?” Sark tilted her chin up and kissed the dampness on her cheeks.

“I don’t know.”

She giggled, and the sound, he realized, no longer irritated him – it brought an immediate smile to his lips.

“I’m happy. Are you happy?”

“Extremely.” He grinned again when that drew another giggle from her.

Abruptly unconcerned about the guards, or the mission, or anything other than the fascinating creature in his arms, Sark spent the next several hours acquainting himself with how Allison liked to be touched, and kissed, and caressed. She reciprocated with her own exploration of him, until he finally overcame his shyness enough to tell her what he wanted. They made love again, and it was better this time, for both of them he knew, especially since he wasn’t so worried about hurting her.

As dawn crept up on the horizon they dressed and began preparations for the op. Their comms crackled to life about five-thirty.

“Elvis has left the building,” Morgan announced, characteristically chipper. “Sleep well, you two?”

Sark and Allison grinned at one another.

“Fantastically,” Sark replied, at which Allison giggled again.

They were both feeling rather giddy, but business was at hand – and Sark refused to explain to Khasinau that the mission had failed because he was busy being lovesick over his partner.

“Give me a location on the target,” he ordered.

“Coming to you…now. ETA is less than a minute.”

“Could’ve given us a little more warning,” Sark scolded lightly, quickly screwing the silencer back onto the rifle.

Allison, all business again as well, crawled to the far end of the hayloft and drew her .9 millimeter, ready to back him up if any guards showed.

“Yeah, yeah. You can spank me later.” Allison rolled her eyes at Morgan’s predictable crassness. “Good luck.”

Switching the comm off, Sark crouched, shouldered the rifle, and aimed at the door below. Seconds later, it opened, spilling pale early-morning sunshine into the stable. Then a figure stepped into view.

Sark timed the shot so that any noise the bullet made was lost in the click of the door closing.

Trevor Lawrence stumbled forward once, flailed helplessly at the air, and collapsed in a silent, bloody heap in the dirt.

Another victory for The Man, courtesy of Mr. Sark – who had a victory of his own to chalk up to this night.

He had Allison.

Chapter Three: The Morning After

I really should have known

By the time you drove me home

By the vagueness in your eyes

Your casual goodbyes

By the chill in your embrace

The expression on your face

That told me maybe you might have some advice to give

On how to be insensitive

“Insensitive,” LeAnn Rimes

Sark and Allison had their first fight as a couple on the flight back to France that morning.

They flew out of London on The Man’s private jet, the same way they had flown in. After the hit on Lawrence, Sark had been too focused on getting away clean to worry about anything else; while Morgan drove them back to the airport, Sark had phoned Khasinau to report that the hit was a success, and Joey and Allison had scanned the road behind them for tails.

Once they got onboard, however, Sark quickly realized that in the heat of last night’s passion he hadn’t given much thought to what this new relationship would really mean.

For starters, he was worried that Khasinau might outright forbid him to be with Allison. Yet before he could find that out, he first had to decide how to broach the subject without humiliating himself. He sure as hell wasn’t going to say, Excuse me, sir, but are there any rules against me sleeping with Allison?

Secondly, he had Morgan’s feelings to consider. Sark knew his friend cared for Allison; aside from the blatant flirting, Morgan talked incessantly to Sark about his crush on her. Although Morgan would have to respect her decision, Sark wasn’t anxious to lose his best friend over a girl.

In the bright light of day, Sark knew he had betrayed Morgan by acting on his own attraction to Allison.

Beyond those concerns, however, he simply didn’t know how to reconcile the warmth and openness he’d shown Allison last night with the cool, sophisticated, sarcastic persona he consistently wore around his comrades.

The call to Khasinau had confirmed Sark’s expectations for his promotion. Khasinau was waiting for them at The Manor, and he said they had important business to discuss. If that meant what Sark was fairly certain it did, then he was about to be handed the reins of this group officially. He couldn’t afford to drop his guard around them now; first and foremost, he was their leader, and he had to maintain that authority.

All of that translated into Sark having no idea how to behave around Allison.

In an effort to hide his confliction, he retreated behind his usual impenetrable mask. He gave her orders in the same smooth, crisp tone he used with Morgan and Joey; he pretended not to notice her coy glances and quick smiles; he folded his arms across his chest when she started to reach for his hand. He acted, essentially, as if nothing had happened between them.

Not surprisingly, it made Allison furious.

With a half an hour left in the flight, she cornered him in the small room he used as an office. Closing the door firmly behind her, she planted her hands on her hips and glared at him across the metal desk.

Sark feigned interest in the report he was writing for Khasinau. Truthfully, he was more nervous than he could ever remember being.

What was he supposed to say, or do? Should he simply fight with her like he always had, or was it supposed to be different now?

“You know, I didn’t have you pegged as that kind of guy.”

Since he’d been expecting one of her typical fiery tirades, Sark was so startled by the calm, almost casual remark that he forgot to avoid eye contact.

Mistake. Allison’s eyes were snapping with fury, yet beneath that he saw the hurt. His insides tensed up because he knew he had caused it.

With an effort, Sark kept his voice perfectly neutral, very noncommittal. “What sort of guy is that?”

“The sort who fucks a girl and then just dumps her.”

Ouch.

Sark forced himself to hold her gaze, torn between instantly apologizing and maintaining a distance from her until he figured this out.

He opted for the latter. “I’m not sure what you expected to happen, Alli. We still have jobs to do here.”

Her pain was quickly being crowded out by anger. “Yes, Sark, I get that, and it’s not like I didn’t do my job this morning. But I’m pretty sure Lawrence is dead now. So unless there’s some second part to this mission you haven’t told us about, that means the op is completed.”

Her implied so what the fuck is your problem hung at the end of that sentence.

Sighing, Sark wished the knot in his stomach would unwind. He didn’t want to mess this up with Allison; he just needed to find a way to make it work, to be both her lover and her commander. He wished he had someone to talk to about it and instantly thought of Morgan, which only reminded him of the other obstacles in this relationship’s path.

Should have kept it in your pants, he chided himself.

Despite that, though, the last thing he wanted was for Allison to feel like she’d been used.

He motioned her into the chair across from him. Leaning forward with his elbows braced on the desktop, he began earnestly, “Last night was…amazing. I mean that. You’re amazing.”

A charming pink tint crept into her cheeks. She waited silently for him to continue.

“But nothing about our lives is simple. I have no idea how Khasinau is going to react to this, to…us.”

“It’s none of his goddamn business,” Allison broke in, that infamous temper flaring. “I’m sick of having every part of my life controlled by these people – Maurice, Khasinau, The Man, whoever the hell that is.”

Sark was dangerously close to losing his patience. She knew, as well as he did, that keeping secrets from Khasinau was a sure way to an early grave – not to mention that Sark wasn’t about to have his advancement through the ranks derailed by such a stupid, amateur mistake.

“Anything that effects how our team operates is Khasinau’s business. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. You’ve been in this life long enough to understand how things are done.”

Allison stood up so fast she nearly knocked her chair over. “Oh no you don’t. You are not going to pull rank on me over this.”

Matching her blazing eyes with an icy stare, Sark tabled, “I’m telling him, and that’s that.”

“You unbelievable asshole. This is my life, too, and I have a say in it.”

“You had your say. But I’m still telling him.”

“And if he says no? If he says we can’t be together? What then, Mr. Sark?” Allison spat his name out nastily, fists clenched at her sides, spine held painfully straight. “We just go back to how it was before?”

Despite her fury, her lips were quivering around unshed tears, and that was more than Sark could take.

He walked out from behind the desk, held her by the shoulders when she tried to turn away, pressed his lips against her forehead. She allowed it, though her body was trembling with rage.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I just don’t know, Alli.”

“Quit calling me that.”

She jerked away; this time he let her go. “You know what? You don’t even need to bother Khasinau with this. I can already see we would never work.”

The knot in Sark’s stomach twisted again, cruelly. He dropped his eyes, unable to meet hers when he was fast blinking back tears.

Should have seen it coming, his inner voice sneered. You didn’t really think you were meant for a happy ending, did you? Now she’ll be off to Morgan – because he won’t let her slip right through his fingers.

“Please don’t cry.”

Allison spoke softly, her anger abruptly replaced by tenderness, and caught his chin in her hand. Sark swallowed hard and refused to let the tears stinging his eyes spill down his cheeks.

“I’m fine,” he responded gruffly, pushing her hand away.

“I’m not.”

That stopped him, made him listen as she went on, “You really piss me off most of the time. Especially with this whole mercenary role you like to play. But,” Allison cut off his protest, “even though you’re a real bastard, and you totally don’t deserve me, I still want to be with you.”

Sark decided those were the sweetest words he’d ever heard.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his forehead against hers, feeling drained from the emotional roller-coaster of these past few sleepless weeks. “Please understand,” he pleaded quietly. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right, or it’ll never work. You have to let me tell Khasinau.”

“Nothing will ever be more important to you than this job, will it?”

There was no malice behind her remark – just somber acceptance. She waved off his halfhearted protest. “Okay, Sark. We’ll do it your way.”

She pressed a soft kiss onto his lips that quickly turned heated, blotting out everything from Sark’s mind besides the memory of her naked body beneath his. Her fingers tangled in his hair and her tongue slid into his mouth; he moaned in the back of his throat, astonished by how instantly aroused he was.

Before he could work up the nerve to take her right there on the desk with Joey and Morgan a few feet away in the cabin, however, Allison broke the kiss.

“Just so you know,” she said brightly on her way to the door, smirking at his flushed cheeks and labored breathing, “if Khasinau says no, I fully expect you to run away with me.”

And even though she laughed as she said it, Sark knew she was serious – and he wondered, if it really came down to it, if he would give all of this up for her.

Chapter Four: Favorite Son

I’m a fortunate son of a fortunate son

Living large on the wrong side of town

Too many friends and the fun never ends

Drinking and hanging around

I wanna rule the world

Wanna swallow it whole

At least I could kick it all down

I wanna kick it all down

“Eyes Wide Open,” GooGoo Dolls

Relieved as always to have them home safely, Maurice met the four of them at the front door of The Manor.

He ushered Morgan, Joey and Allison toward the kitchen for cookies and milk – still their homecoming treat, and one they loved – but Sark he sent down the hall, to where Khasinau waited in his study.

Allison caught and squeezed Sark’s hand as they parted in the dim foyer. He flashed a quick smile back at her. They had kept their distance for the rest of the flight and on the ride home from the airfield, but he hoped that after this meeting with Khasinau they wouldn’t have to keep up the pretense of normalcy.

Of course, he still had to talk to Morgan. But Sark understood the importance of taking things one step at a time – and Khasinau was the first step.

The study housed hundreds of books as dry and dusty as Khasinau himself. Clad in his usual gray suit, the deceptively slight and diffident man immediately rose from behind his massive mahogany desk and shook hands warmly with Sark.

“Congratulations,” he greeted him. “I’ve already sent one of our associates to replace Lawrence. His organization now belongs to The Man. Excellent work.”

“Thank you.” Sark always felt strangely shy in Khasinau’s presence, not nearly as cocky and arrogant as he typically purported to be. “I was surprised by how lax his security was. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a challenge.”

“Ah, perhaps that’s because your skills are so improved.”

Khasinau released Sark’s hand but continued to beam at him. The twinkle in his blue-gray eyes nearly made Sark squirm with anticipation – this was it, he knew it, he was about to be promoted at last.

No longer just a lackey, just some kid with ‘potential’ – he would be a real player in The Man’s empire, someone of importance…

They settled into leather-covered chairs in front of the stone hearth. Khasinau poured himself a glass of wine; after a moment’s hesitation, he poured another and handed it to Sark, who took it with some surprise.

“Do you remember the first time I gave you wine?”

Sark had to grin. “Yes.” He vividly recalled his eleven-year-old self trying not to gag on the bitter liquid. “I think that’s the only time I’ve ever had any.”

He swirled the thick red juice, watching it stain the inside of the delicate crystal goblet.

“We’ll make a toast, then. To your second glass of wine,” Khasinau smiled broadly at that, “and to your victory.”

They clinked glasses. Bringing the goblet to his lips, Sark had to admit he didn’t find wine any more appealing now than he had when he was eleven.

Though he tried hard to appear to enjoy it, Khasinau chuckled. “You’re not a wine drinker, my friend,” he observed, setting his own glass aside.

Sark grinned sheepishly but forced down the last swallow – no need to waste it, and anyway, he needed something to relax him.

Abruptly, Khasinau rose. “Come. I want to show you something.”

Sark obediently followed him over to a bookcase on the east wall. Rather than selecting a book from the shelf, however, Khasinau pressed a black button on the side of the fourth shelf – what Sark had always assumed was merely a notch in the wood.

The case swung open, revealing a staircase behind it.

His excitement mounting as he realized he was finally being shown the Manor’s secrets, Sark followed Khasinau up the narrow, winding stairs to a green metal door that was opened by a pass-code.

“The code is 4747,” Khasinau told him, and Sark filed that away in his flawless memory.

When the door opened, he entered what reminded him of the space station control centers in sci fi movies.

The room was long and narrow and filled with people and equipment. A bank of monitors lined the east wall; a half-dozen black garbed men sat in front of them, scanning what Sark recognized as images of the grounds and house. Against the west wall were two state-of-the-art computer stations. One was empty, the other manned by yet another man in black who was typing away furiously.

No one even looked up as Khasinau led Sark out a door in the north wall.

The corridor they entered was almost exactly like the one outside of his bedroom. Sark inferred they were on the third floor, which had been forbidden to him until today.

Walking briskly down the hall, Khasinau explained, “That was the security room. All of the surveillance cameras on the property can be accessed and viewed from there. These rooms,” he gestured at the closed doors they were passing, “are for the guards. They have all been hand-picked by myself or The Man, and they are all unquestionably loyal to our organization. In the sixteen years I have owned this home, no one has ever breached its security.”

At the far end of the hall, Khasinau unlocked a door and showed Sark into a spacious office that closely resembled the study downstairs.

The most notable difference was the contents of the bookshelves: instead of antique texts, they held countless computer disks and video tapes. And the west wall contained, rather than a bookshelf, a black steel door that Sark recognized as the opening to a vault.

Probably what makes this room look smaller than the downstairs study, he decided, eyeing the door’s locking mechanism, which would be nearly impenetrable even for someone with his skill. That vault must be huge.

“This is where I run The Man’s operations while I’m here.”

As he spoke, Khasinau unlocked the desk drawers with a small key and took out a large manila envelope. Sark hovered awkwardly beside the door, wondering what secrets were about to be revealed.

“In addition to handling your training, and that of your friends, my job here has been to oversee four of The Man’s subsidiaries.”

Sark focused on his employer’s eyes to keep from staring at the envelope. He sensed that it held some important truths.

Khasinau went on, “Those subsidiaries are smaller criminal rings, two based here in France and two based in England. Their day-to-day operations are handled by other associates of ours, but I monitor their dealings, handle any problems and report back to The Man on their progress.

“I am leaving here, the day after tomorrow, and I won’t be coming back – not to stay, anyway.”

Khasinau’s announcement surprised Sark, and frightened him a little as well.

Was he about to be handed this entire branch of The Man’s organization?

Was he really ready for that?

His trepidation must have been obvious, because Khasinau quickly assured him, “You will come with me for the next three months. I will teach you what you need to know, so that when we return you can take over for me here.”

Although he managed not to shout, Sark couldn’t conceal his triumphant grin. Khasinau smiled back, obviously pleased with his charge’s progress.

Yet, thrilled as he was, Sark didn’t forget his friends. “What about the others? Morgan, Joey, Allison – what happens to them now?”

“They will stay with you, if you want them to. You make a good team, and you’re going to need well-trained operatives to help you deal with any difficulties among these four operations.”

Khasinau hesitated with his fingers on the envelope’s clasp; Sark’s heartbeat sped up considerably. “Unless you’d prefer to work alone.”

Was that a trick question?

Well, he wasn’t abandoning his friends. Sark shook his head. “You’re right, we work well together. They should stay.”

Khasinau nodded approvingly and finally opened the envelope. He handed the contents to Sark one by one, naming each as he did. “That is the deed to this house. Those are the keys to this office door and this desk. These are the passwords for the computer up here and the one downstairs – memorize those and tear that up.

“And this,” he last produced a small slip of paper, “is a list of five bank accounts. The first is your expense account, for handling The Man’s business. It has 25 million dollars in it. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to spend it wisely,” he added, chuckling at Sark’s wide eyes. “The next three numbers are your comrades’ accounts. They each have 100 thousand dollars in them. And that last one is yours.”

Sark held his breath, waiting to hear his net worth.

“You will receive more money every few months, the amount depending on your progress. For now, you’re starting with five million dollars.”

Five million dollars.

One million for every year he’d worked for The Man.

Sark released a quiet, disbelieving sigh. Money had never really been a concern of his; at both the Winslow Academy and the Manor, his basic needs – food, clothing, shelter, medicine – had always been met without him paying a dime. But simply knowing he was a millionaire made him giddy.

What to buy first?

A car – a Mercedes. A shiny black one like Khasinau’s.

“One more thing,” Khasinau was saying, bringing Sark back to reality.

The sudden steeliness in his gaze sobered Sark immediately.

“This vault.” Khasinau nodded toward the door. “It contains four extremely rare artifacts. Their value cannot be told. For the moment, those contents will be kept secret, as will the combination to unlock the door.”

A bit disappointed, Sark nevertheless realized that his employer was deadly serious as he said, “It is very important that you understand this. Should this location be compromised, the contents of this vault take priority over all else – even human life. The guards will protect this room at all costs. And should anyone defeat all of that security, the vault door is rigged to explode if it is opened by anyone other than The Man.”

Sark shivered. So he and his friends were basically sitting atop a ticking bomb?

Khasinau allowed that to sink in before asking if he had any questions.

His mouth suddenly dry as he came around to the topic he’d been dreading – Allison – Sark postponed the awkwardness for another moment to ask, “Will I be reporting to you, or…someone else?”

“To me, for now.” Khasinau’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled knowingly. “Soon you will meet The Man. Soon. But not yet.”

Again stifling his disappointment, Sark plunged ahead with his next question. He strove for the smooth, confident tone he’d been rehearsing in his mind all evening. “I know you’ve always been strict about our outside relationships. But I was…,” he almost faltered, ordered himself to remain poised, “I was wondering how that applies to relationships between the four of us.”

Despite his best efforts to fight down the blush, Sark’s cheeks were burning.

Khasinau considered him for a moment before stating mildly, “You mean Allison and yourself.”

“Yes.”

A tense second passed during which Sark didn’t dare to breathe.

At last, Khasinau smiled kindly at him. “You’re not children anymore. I trust you to know the boundaries between personal and professional relationships.”

When Khasinau turned away to lock the desk again, Sark allowed himself a fleeting, ear-to-ear grin.

He had everything he could have dreamt of up to this point, or close to – a position of real importance in The Man’s organization, complete control over his team, five million dollars in the bank, a beautiful girl who loved him. How many 16-year-olds could even come close to that kind of success?

And to think, this was only the beginning.

* * * *

Later that night, Sark gathered his team in the Bat Cave and announced that he would be going away with Khasinau for three months to prepare for his promotion.

Allison’s face instantly fell. “Just you?” she inquired.

For once Sark knew she wasn’t upset that he had beaten her – she was upset because she would miss him.

He hoped the passionate kiss he had stolen from her on the stairs had adequately conveyed that Khasinau was in their corner. Now he hoped his eyes told her that he would miss her too as he confirmed, “Just me.”

“What do we do while you’re gone?” Joey piped up. Perched on the edge of a green felt chair, he looked rather small and forlorn, possibly a bit frightened at this sudden upheaval in their family unit.

“We fucking party, Midget,” Morgan replied, reaching over to ruffle Joey’s flame-red hair with a brotherly gruffness. Joey ducked away and stuck his tongue out at him.

Sark noted the coolness in Morgan’s eyes when he looked back at him, though. “What I want to know,” Morgan said, his jovialness unusually forced, “is what happens when you get back.”

“We take over these four small operations,” Sark replied automatically.

“We?” Morgan echoed. “You’re sharing the power, then, brother?”

Morgan was not the one Sark would have expected such a question from – concern over their positions in The Man’s hierarchy generally fell to Allison. Morgan had always accepted, so far as Sark could tell, that they were really in this together, that Sark would never leave them behind.

He suspected Morgan’s attitude had more to do with Allison than the promotion. He had yet to broach the subject, but the way Morgan was pointedly ignoring Allison, not flirting up a storm with her as usual, made it plain that he had already figured it out.

Well, Sark decided, they would simply have to find a way to work through it, to remain friends – and colleagues – despite the wounded feelings.

So he answered firmly, “Of course. I’m going to need all of you to make this work. It’s sort of a…group promotion, from how I see it.”

“Funny,” Morgan shot back tightly, barely concealing his disdain with a teasing tone. “You’re the only one who made the trip to the third floor.”

Fuck this.

Sark refused to start off as their official leader by allowing any kind of insubordination – even if Morgan did have a right to be angry over the Allison situation. Fixing the taller boy with his coldest glare, Sark demanded, “Are we going to have a problem, Morgan?”

His icy blue eyes let Morgan know he meant over either the promotion or Allison. Out of the corner of his eye, Sark saw Alli look down, and he knew she took his meaning as well.

For a second, he thought Morgan was going to push it. Instead, he grinned – a real, sincere, toothy grin – and said, “Hey, just as long as you spread the wealth, we’re cool.”

Oh yes, spread the wealth.

Sark explained about the bank accounts (though, for the sake of peace, he neglected to mention that his had five million dollars while theirs had only 100 thousand). He gave Morgan and Allison their account numbers, but to Joey he said, “I’m going to look after your account for a couple more years.”

“No way!” Joey’s lower lip jutted out in a pout. “That’s not fair, Sark. I’ve worked for my money, too.”

“Get off it. He doesn’t want you blowing it on comic books, Midget.”

Morgan winked at Sark over the top of Joey’s head, letting him know he approved of the decision. Sark was glad. He liked having Morgan on his side; it was what he was accustomed to.

“If you want money for something, tell me,” Sark consoled his youngest comrade. “When you turn sixteen, it’s yours.”

“Allison isn’t sixteen,” Joey pointed out.

“Yeah, but Allison’s fucking the boss.”

Morgan froze as soon as the words left his mouth. Allison turned bright red beneath her dark complexion.

Sark went ice-cold with fury, and it showed in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean that,” Morgan sputtered, backing up a step when Sark advanced on him. He lifted his hands in a submissive gesture. “Christ, man, I would never call Allison a whore. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Joey looked bewildered and scared. Sark glanced at Allison, flicked his eyes toward Joey and inclined his head toward the door.

Understanding, she grabbed Joey’s hand and said cheerfully, “Hey, let’s go see if we can talk Maurice into taking us shopping tomorrow, okay? This money is burning a serious hole in my pocket.”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Sark punched Morgan squarely in the mouth, cutting his knuckles on the bigger boy’s teeth and splitting Morgan’s lower lip open.

Morgan yelped, but the glare Sark held on him stopped him from retaliating.

You do not strike me, Sark’s menacing stare warned him. Just like you wouldn’t strike Khasinau.

“I’m sorry,” Morgan said, through a mouthful of blood. He cuffed a red stream off of his chin, keeping his eyes on Sark. “It just…slipped out. It was stupid. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”

They stared at each other for another long moment. Outwardly, Sark remained cold, absolutely detached; inwardly, he was wondering how he could do this – how he could truly assume the role of leader, the way Khasinau had been a leader for them, someone they feared as much as they respected.

He realized instinctively that the fear was necessary. Without it, he couldn’t control them – and without control, he couldn’t protect them.

That meant, of course, that he couldn’t apologize to Morgan for hitting him, or for becoming involved with Allison despite Morgan’s feelings for her. Nor could he blurt out everything Khasinau had told him upstairs and admit how excited he was about it, the way he normally would have.

Everything, Sark suddenly understood, was going to change between them now – between all of them.

Turning his back on Morgan, he declared quietly, “I trust you – to look after them while I’m gone, to have my back when I come home.”

He swiveled around to find Morgan watching him sadly, as if he too accepted that one stage of their lives – the little bit of childhood and uncomplicated friendship they had been allowed – was ending.

“Of course,” he agreed, with a sincerity that Sark didn’t doubt. He suddenly grinned despite the busted lip. “Just don’t think this means I’m letting you win at poker.”

A knock at the door precluded Sark from responding with an equally smart-ass remark.

Maurice poked his head in. “I need to speak with you a moment, please,” he said to Sark, noting Morgan’s bloodied mouth with a disapproving frown.

“See you tomorrow,” Morgan said to Sark.

“Put ice on that lip,” Maurice called after him, as the lanky boy moved off down the hall.

Sark expected Maurice to scold him for fighting, the way he usually would have done. But apparently this elevation in his status affected his interaction with Maurice as well because the white-haired old man made no comment – he just hobbled in and placed a white box on the poker table.

“To celebrate your success,” Maurice explained, when Sark arched a questioning eyebrow at him.

A gift?

Sark was truly touched. He hastily opened the box, flashing a grateful smile at the old man when the tissue paper fell away.

The suit was more expensive than anything Sark had ever owned, he could tell by the rich texture of the fabric. It was entirely black, right down to the oxford and tie.

He instantly thought of Allison’s comment in the hayloft: “Your eyes are really blue. For some reason, when you wear black, they’re even bluer than usual.”

“Well, you can’t wear jeans and a tee-shirt to the places Mr. Khasinau will be taking you,” Maurice noted, beaming at Sark’s obvious pleasure. “I know he had some things specially tailored for you while he was away. You’ll find them in your closet. But I thought this,” he ran a hand down the suit jacket, “might help you make an impression.”

Pausing in his admiration of the suit, Sark frowned. “While he was away? But I hadn’t even completed the Lawrence op yet.”

“No one doubts your abilities, my boy,” Maurice assured him. “I knew from the moment you walked through that front door you were destined for great things.”

Maurice was the closest thing to a parent Sark had ever had, so despite his resolve to be the detached commander, he broke down and hugged the old man.

Maurice just laughed and patted his back. “Listen to Mr. Khasinau while you’re away,” he instructed, stepping out of the embrace. “But keep your eyes open as well. You might be surprised by what you see.”

Before Sark could question that cryptic comment, Maurice squeezed his arm and struck off for the door. He added over his shoulder, “And if you’re finished in here, I do believe Miss Allison is waiting for you in your room.”

Sark was glad Maurice kept walking and didn’t see him blush. Folding the suit over his arm, he hurried out of their childhood playroom and down the hall to Allison.

Chapter Five: In Dreams

All through the night I’ll be standing over you

All through the night I’ll be watching over you

And through bad dreams I’ll be right there, baby

Holding your hand, telling you everything is all right

And when you cry I’ll be right there

Telling you, you were never anything less than beautiful

So don’t you worry

I’m your angel standing by

“Angel Standing By,” Jewel

That night, the dream that would haunt Sark for the next eight years visited him for the first time.

It began in a familiar place for his dreams: his last day at the Winslow Academy.

Christmas was only weeks away. Snow covered the ground outside the castle-like school, where the sons, grandsons and nephews of the Alliance members were sent to learn the family business.

Sark was a thin, wiry boy of eleven, and he was not yet known as Sark – he was just quiet, lonely Padraic Nealy Finn. Or simply Finn to everyone besides the bullies who mockingly called him Paddy.

Everyone, even a student as intelligent and naturally gifted as Sark, suffered at Winslow. How could they be taught to survive in the world of organized crime without suffering as part of the curriculum? The men who instructed them, however, took a sadistic pleasure in their torment.

But most of the boys were protected somewhat by the teachers’ fear of their parents. That made a parentless child like Sark, who lived year-round at Winslow and had no idea who his family was, an easy target for their cruelty.

He realized, of course, that his family belonged to the Alliance, yet he remembered nothing about them. Winslow was the only home he had ever known. The teachers answered his few timid inquiries into his genealogy with steely silences, leaving him with no one to run to with his horror stories, no one to shield him from the brutality.

On that night, his last at Winslow, he was in solitary lock-up after being falsely accused of releasing a rat into the dining hall. Sark knew who the real culprits were, yet when Professor Higgins accused him he hadn’t tattled, despite the fact that his classmates abused him as much if not more than the teachers.

He took a grim pleasure in the admiring stares that followed him on his stoic march out of the dining hall; whatever other cruel names his classmates might call him, they couldn’t label him a nark. In spite of his fear he had been buoyed by their sudden respect.

But once in the freezing cold cell, huddled up in a ball on the dirt floor listening to the wind howl through the cracks in the walls, he was wishing he had pointed fingers.

Solitary lock-up was housed in the old gatehouse. It had no bed, no toilet, no sink. Any boy condemned to time in here slept on the floor, relieved himself in the corner and subsisted on the thin gruel passed through a slot in the door.

From horrific past experience, Sark knew why Professor Higgins had falsely accused him – so he could make one of his disgusting late night “visits” to the cell.

But this time, Sark was ready for him.

As he was marched out of the dining hall, he’d managed to pocket a fork. Now, he clutched that weapon as footsteps drew nearer to his locked door, which slowly eased open to reveal a tall figure silhouetted by moonlight.

Solitary lock-up was not guarded. Sark knew that because on sleepless nights he watched from his dormitory window as the guards walked from the gatehouse back to the kitchens to gossip.

That meant he only had Higgins to deal with.

“Hello, Finn,” the balding, pot-bellied professor crooned. He stunk of whiskey and cheap cologne. “Were you waiting up for me?”

Sark raised defiant blue eyes but didn’t move from his crouch. Higgins, he knew, would believe he was cowering, not coiling for the attack. “Fuck you, faggot.”

“Now, now, Finn, language!” Higgins scolded lightly, kneeling down in front of him and running his sweaty fingers through the boy’s soft blond curls. His voice was oily, his words slurred by the alcohol. “You’re so cold. Don’t you want someone to keep you warm?”

When he dropped his hands onto Sark’s thighs, the boy struck. In one fluid movement, just as Professor Quon had shown him in martial arts class, he jerked the fork out of his pocket and buried it up to the hilt in the fleshy part of Higgins’ neck, right below his Adam’s apple – directly into the man’s windpipe.

Higgins’ beady eyes widened and bulged. He clutched at his throat, but the prongs had sunk deep into the tendons – so deep they could not be freed by a man fast losing strength as he gasped for breaths that, thanks to his punctured trachea, couldn’t fill his lungs.

Sark scrambled out of the way before the gurgling Higgins could collapse on top of him. He instantly bolted for the open door, not stopping to watch his enemy die.

He ran barefoot through the snow with a speed only the hunted could achieve. He knew the punishment for running away – a month in solitary lock-up – yet he couldn’t imagine the punishment for killing a teacher. He had never heard of that happening and supposed it might be a Winslow first.

He sure as hell wasn’t sticking around to be flayed alive in the Quad, or whatever twisted torment they would concoct for him.

So he ran, and he ran, and he ran, until his feet were numb from the cold and bleeding from the rocky ground, until his side ached and his legs burned, until his breath came in painful gasps and his throat was raw from the biting wind. He ran until he was certain they weren’t following him.

And then he collapsed, in a pile of brush beside a highway running alongside the forest.

Sark calculated that he was eight miles from the school. He also realized that he was freezing to death.

The night was bitterly cold; powdery snowflakes cascaded out of the dark sky, coating his lips and eyelashes. He shut his eyes and waited for the warmth that would precede death. As much as he was afraid to die, it was almost peaceful this way.

When the headlights scraped over him, he was nearly unconscious. But he summoned the remaining vestiges of his strength and crawled a few feet away, back toward the trees, waiting for one of his teachers to tromp through the snow-covered bushes and shoot him point-blank in the face.

Instead, a small, thin man in a gray overcoat climbed out of an enormous black car and walked to the edge of the road. Shivering violently, Sark listened silently as the stranger called softly into the darkness, “I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Alexander Khasinau. I have been watching you with great interest for some time. My employer has instructed me to make you a job offer, Mr. Finn, if you will come out and talk with me.”

At that point, the dream – which was quite familiar to Sark, and had been since Khasinau rescued him that night – jumped to an entirely different scene.

Sark was standing at the side of a large concrete pool filled with crystal-clear water. He saw himself as if he were standing in the corner looking on; his dream self was slightly older than he was now, probably in his early twenties, and wore only a thin white tee-shirt and a pair of black suit pants.

An armed guard was winding a thick chain around his waist. The chain connected to shackles on his wrists and ankles.

On the other side of the pool, his Dream Girl was tied to a chair and struggling madly against her bonds. Her dark jeans and gray sweater were torn and soiled; her beautiful face was bruised and tear-streaked.

A man knelt down behind her. Sark couldn’t see his face, but he could tell that he was whispering something – something Sark couldn’t hear.

She started to cry, silent sobs shaking her shoulders as tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Don’t do this,” she shouted toward the man’s back as he walked away from the pool. “You’re wrong! I can’t make it work! Please, don’t do this.”

Her voice cracked. Sark watched the guards pushing him closer to the water, watched himself futiely fight them; the Dream Girl was yelling at them, begging them to stop, but they paid her no heed.

As he slipped over the edge into the pool, Sark saw himself look directly at her. Their eyes locked – she stopped screaming and just stared at him, held his gaze until the water closed over his head.

Suddenly, Sark was no longer a detached observer – he was in the water, which was ice cold and strangely greasy, as if it were mixed with oil.

He kicked toward the surface, but the chain weighed him down. Panicked, he told himself to remember his training, to keep a clear head. He shut his burning eyes and concentrated on his thumbs, working them back and forth, back and forth against the steel handcuffs until they popped out of joint with an agonizing snap.

Lungs screaming, he slid his hands out of the cuffs and fumbled with the chain around his waist. It was padlocked. He tugged desperately at it, twisted and kicked and flailed, but it remained wrapped tight around him.

The surface slipped farther and farther away.

His chest was on fire. His tongue was swollen, too big for his mouth. His throat burned. His head swam. He was drowning, and the pain and the terror were unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

A name flashed through his mind, too fleeting for him to catch. But he knew, somehow, that it was the Dream Girl’s name.

And he knew that was what he screamed as instinct defeated logic and he opened his mouth to gulp in air that was only cold, oily water.

Sark woke with a cry in his dark bedroom at The Manor.

Allison, tangled in the sheets beside him, jerked awake. “What is it?”

At the moment, Sark couldn’t answer. He was drinking in huge breaths of clean, crisp air, persuading his pounding heart and trembling hands that he was here in bed with Allison, not drowning in an ice cold pool somewhere.

But it felt so real – not like a dream, more like a memory.

A memory of the future.

He quickly shook away the strange thought.

Allison was rubbing his bare shoulders, which were soaked with sweat. Even his hair was damp. The sheets looked as if he’d climbed out of the shower and lay down without drying off.

“Are you all right?” she asked, with real concern.

He managed to nod as he sank down into her arms. She cradled his head against her chest. He was shaking, unable to control the violent convulsions coursing through his body.

Allison stroked his cheek and kissed the top of his head, murmuring soft words of comfort. He snuggled closer, too shaken to care about seeming weak.

They lay in silence for a long while. Finally, when his heartbeat had slowed to normal and his body had stopped trembling, she inquired, “Was it a nightmare?”

“Yes.” He sounded hoarse, weary.

Allison wrapped her arms tighter around him and whispered in his ear, “I’d never let anything hurt you.”

Sark grinned and kissed her shoulder. As his terror faded, he was becoming more and more aware of her slender, naked body wound around his.

“My knight in shining armor,” he teased, nibbling on her earlobe.

She rolled him over onto his back, stretching herself out along the length of him. Her dark eyes glinted playfully. “I could kick your ass any day, Mr. Sark.”

“I’d like to see that, Miss Doren.”

When she kissed him, Sark sensed a tenderness behind it that he hadn’t felt from her before. “I love you,” she breathed against his mouth, staring down into his eyes. “I love you so much, and you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

For once, Sark didn’t pretend to be strong. He just let her love him, until her body chased away the worst of his fear.

Chapter Six: Surprise Party

Lines form on my face and hands

Lines form on the left and right

I’m in the middle, the middle of life

I’m a boy and I’m a man

“I’m Eighteen,” Creed

* Two years later *

Sark never celebrated his birthday.

In fact, he only knew his birth date because he once broke into the headmaster’s office at Winslow and looked in his file. He had hoped to discover who his parents were, but the file had only listed his place of birth (a Catholic orphanage in Galway, Ireland) and the date (September 30).

He supposed Khasinau knew his birthday, because Khasinau was thorough. But his comrades didn’t know. Their birthdays were ushered in with cake, ice cream and gifts, courtesy of Maurice; the same had never been offered to Sark, nor had he ever expected it. The night Khasinau rescued him along that lonely highway, he had told him that he would leave everything about his former life behind – his name, his time at Winslow, even his birthday.

So, on the day before he turned eighteen, Sark was – not surprisingly – preparing for a mission.

And thinking about a girl.

Allison.

Sark stood in the shower with her face swirling in his mind and the feel of her all over him. He accepted that he was probably in love with her. They still fought viciously, though now it was in that comfortable way of a couple who knew the quarrel would eventually be resolved. They also still worked together; she’d saved his skin, he’d risked his life for hers, they were both dedicated to his advancement in The Man’s organization – his successes were now hers, because wherever Sark went, Allison went as well.

As she so often did these days, his Dream Girl suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye. Sark shoved her away with thoughts of Allison.

Allison.

Just Alli to him – no one else was allowed that much familiarity, and even he didn’t exercise it in front of the others.

Not like they didn’t know.

Her voice floated in from the doorway, interrupting his reverie. “It’s time, baby.”

Sark stepped out of the shower and toweled off alone. Allison would be waiting outside, knowing without being told that he needed privacy to mentally prepare for this op. She’d already spent an hour giving him what other comfort she could.

He dressed methodically – black boxers and undershirt, black Armani suit, black silk oxford and tie, Italian leather shoes, silver Rolex. Affluence suited Sark. In the two years since Khasinau appointed him as director of this division, his wealth had grown to accommodate the suave, sophisticated style that had become as much his trademark as his eternal smirk.

The fact that he preferred a worn-out pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt to the tailored suits was irrelevant. It was all about image, all about persona.

Never mind that he had never failed to complete a mission. Forget that he had increased the profits in his division twice over in less than twenty-four months. Disregard that he had successfully conceived, planned and executed operations that resulted in three new organizations falling under The Man’s rule. Without the persona, all anyone saw was a 17-year-old upstart kid.

That led to unnecessary problems, like this situation in England he was heading off to deal with. Zachariah Ward, a former Wall Street investment banker, ran an embezzling and money laundering operation in London for The Man; his organization fell under Sark’s jurisdiction. Over the last ten months, Ward’s bookwork hadn’t been adding up. When Sark sent Allison in undercover to investigate, she quickly discerned that Ward was skimming profits – and that he considered himself safe because of the “little boy” Khasinau had left in charge.

Which meant Sark needed to prove himself, yet again, to an underling.

Such scenarios were quickly becoming tiresome. He had anticipated some resistance to his authority because of his youth, but rather than coming to respect him for his accomplishments, his subordinates continued to test him. The violations were hardly egregious – missed monthly reports, messages left unanswered, crude nicknames used behind his back – yet it was all intended to let him know that no one believed he was really in charge.

Thus far, Sark had dealt with the situation by trying to earn their respect, by proving to them that he could handle the job – the way he had proven himself to Khasinau. He now realized that had been a mistake. These men respected only what they feared, and as of yet, they had been given no reason to fear Mr. Sark.

That was about to change, tonight.

Sark didn’t mind violence. He didn’t necessarily go looking for trouble, but he had no difficulty answering it when it came knocking. And he wasn’t surprised that Ward, whom he suspected had been quietly encouraging the dissent in his ranks, was the first to cross the line from subtle disrespect into blatant rebellion; Ward was handsome, educated, urbane, the type of man to be personally insulted by answering to a teenager. Given his enormous success in London, Ward also undoubtedly thought he should have the position that had instead gone to Sark – so Ward was plotting to oust his rival, thereby showing Khasinau and The Man who should be in power.

Sark couldn’t blame the man. It was what he would have done in his position.

Nevertheless, the whole situation was a waste of time, in Sark’s opinion. He was anxious to be thirty already so people would take him seriously.

He had his usual team for this one, of course: Alli as his eyes and ears on the inside, Morgan as his backup, Joey as his tech guy. Sark trusted them all completely, trusted his own ability to plan and execute this mission, yet for some reason, he felt off today. Edgy. Skittish. Uneasy.

Sark tried not to dwell on the nagging fear that sat heavily in his stomach. He told himself it was only the hassle of executing and replacing an extremely capable associate combined with the strange nightmares plaguing him these past few months.

Over the last two years, the nightmares had come in cycles, almost as if they built to a crescendo and then faded away to hibernate in his subconscious. Only lately, they seemed worse than ever before. Twice now he had woken up screaming, with Allison smoothing his hair and whispering that it was all right.

Sark had little patience for mysticism or superstition. But he couldn’t deny that, as he stepped into the hallway, one sharply disturbing thought raced over and over through his mind.

Something is coming.

Allison’s pixie-like beauty often drew too much unwanted attention to her, but when she downplayed that beauty, Sark noted, it was only enhanced. Like today.

She waited for him at the end of the hall. Clad in a knee-length plaid skirt, a red sweater and chunky brown loafers, with her raven hair pulled back in a loose bun, she looked pretty and poised – a gorgeous caramel-skinned waif.

Except Sark knew what ruthlessness that beauty concealed.

“Maurice asked to see us in here,” she greeted him, lacing her fingers with his and nodding toward the Bat Cave.

For the last month, Allison had been undercover as Ward’s new mistress. Sark admitted that a good bit of his insane jealousy over her sharing another man’s bed – even on his orders – had been eradicated by the passion she had shown him upon her return the night before. It was as if she had been starved for him.

He had missed her desperately as well, especially since his Dream Girl seemed to occupy more of his waking thoughts when Allison wasn’t around.

Sark pushed open the game room door, thinking how seldom any of them visited this room anymore – he and Allison usually worked in his study, Morgan normally stayed on the third floor overseeing the security, and Joey hunkered down in his room with his computer.

Allison caught his hand before he could enter. “I think you should know that we have a little problem.”

Sark sighed. What now? “Yes?”

“You never told me that tomorrow’s your birthday.”

Few things startled Sark – at least not visibly – so Allison smiled triumphantly when he gaped at the scene in the Bat Cave, speechless.

A handmade banner (most likely Joey’s work) suspended from the ceiling read, in huge glitter-sprinkled blue letters, “Happy Birthday Sark.” Morgan, Joey and Maurice, outrageously proud of themselves for managing to surprise their unflappable cohort, stood beneath the banner; Maurice was holding a huge birthday cake, complete with eighteen candles.

They burst into song before Sark could recover: “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Sark, happy birthday to you!”

“And many more!” Joey shouted, waving Sark forward to blow out his candles. Morgan cackled wickedly and flung a handful of confetti at him.

Sark shook his head. There he stood, with scraps of confetti on his two-thousand-dollar suit, about to blow out the candles on a lop-sided chocolate cake. He had to laugh at the absurdity, but he did it anyway.

“Make a wish,” Allison reminded him, giggling.

Let us all come home alive…

As the last candle flickered out and his friends applauded him, he added, And after I take care of Ward, let me finally meet The Man.

Maurice doled out bowls of cake and ice cream. They ate at the card table. Joey, now a skinny 15-year-old with long red hair, chattered incessantly about how they had worked for weeks to make the party a surprise. Maurice and Allison tossed in comments now and then, happily revealing small deceptions they had pulled on him to keep him in the dark, but Morgan, Sark noticed, was oddly quiet.

Their friendship had never fully recovered after Allison chose Sark as her lover. Yet they got along quite well for the most part; in truth, Sark relied on Morgan to have his back in almost every dangerous situation. He had promoted him to head of security at the Manor, which basically meant he was Sark’s second in command.

Allison tolerated that because, as Sark’s lover, she knew just as much about their operation as Morgan did.

Feeling Sark’s eyes on him, Morgan flashed a quick grin. “Aren’t you wondering how we knew it was your birthday?”

“I’m assuming Khasinau told you,” Sark replied, though he wasn’t certain why he would have done so after all these years.

“Yup. Guess he thought eighteen was too important to let slide.” Morgan suddenly pushed away from the table and stood, a bit too abruptly. “I’m going to get the car pulled around.”

They watched him go, all puzzled by his odd behavior. “What’s with him?” Joey muttered, as the door closed behind him.

No one had an answer.

Sark decided he had enough to worry about. Morgan did occasionally get bent out of shape over some minor thing, usually when Sark and Allison were being openly affectionate as they had since her return yesterday; in any case, whatever the burr was under Morgan’s saddle, Sark would have to deal with it after he dealt with Ward.

“We do need to get going,” Sark declared, brushing cake crumbs off his pants. Though he generally refrained from displays of affection toward any of them except Allison, he felt compelled to add, “Thank you for this. All of you.”

“I wanted a stripper,” Joey confessed, “but Allison said no.”

“So did Maurice,” Maurice reminded him. Sark winked at Joey, who grinned devilishly.

Allison kissed Sark’s cheek. “Hey, we just couldn’t pass up the chance to fool you,” she teased. “Now, c’mon, Joey, I’ll race you for shotgun.”

They darted out the door, arguing about what music they would listen to on the drive to the airfield. But Sark sensed that Allison had left him alone with Maurice for a reason, so he followed him down to the kitchen.

He was right. After depositing their dirty dishes in the sink, Maurice reached on top of the fridge and retrieved a silver-wrapped package.

“You didn’t have to get me anything, Maurice,” Sark protested.

“And why wouldn’t I? I always bring the others gifts on their birthdays.” Maurice’s kindly gray eyes twinkled at him. “Well, go on then, open it.”

Sark peeled back the paper and disguised his bewilderment with what he hoped was a pleasantly surprised expression. The gift was a thick, glossy paperback – A Beginner’s Guide to Fine Wines.

Wondering if it might be some sort of gag gift, Sark glanced up to find Maurice staring at him intently.

“Eighteen is an important age,” Maurice announced solemnly, with an intensity that gave Sark a sudden chill. “An age where one becomes a man, officially. And a man needs to understand the world he lives in.

“Wine,” Maurice went on, crossing to the liquor cabinet and producing two bottles, “is a little-understood delicacy. Most people think wine is just wine. They may prefer red, or white, or know which complements a certain dish, but they aren’t true connoisseurs. They can’t tell you the gold from the brass, so to speak.”

Sark leaned against the counter, hoping Maurice wasn’t succumbing to senility, while the old man poured a dollop from each bottle into two separate goblets.

Handing the first to Sark, he prattled on, “A man with a true appreciation of wine, though, he can do more than distinguish a merlot from a cabernet. He comes to know the particular aroma of a finely-aged Bordeaux, to respect the dry texture of a Chardonnay, to love the distinct bite of a vintage Petrus.”

He motioned for Sark to taste the first sample. Grimacing – he was not, as Khasinau had once pointed out, a wine drinker – Sark swallowed the bitter liquid. Maurice immediately handed him the second glass, which he downed just as fast with an imperceptible shudder.

“Can you tell the difference?” Maurice pressed.

They were both bloody awful, Sark thought, but he didn’t want to hurt Maurice’s feelings so he shook his head and kept quiet.

Holding out the bottles, Maurice explained, “That first glass was a cheap strawberry wine I picked up for myself one evening in town. That second glass was from Mr. Khasinau’s private collection – one of the most expensive merlots you’ll ever find.”

Sark managed to look interested, but he was fast losing patience. Why the hell were they having this off-the-wall conversation about wine when he needed to be on his way to London?

Before he could say thanks and take his leave, however, Maurice caught his wrists and held them tight. Sark shifted nervously – this earnestness, this crypticness, was not Maurice.

First Morgan, now Maurice – had everyone gone crazy today?

“Learn the difference,” Maurice ordered him gravely. “Learn to distinguish those subtle variations that make each wine unique. Learn to tell the good from the bad.”

Sark realized they weren’t talking about wine anymore.

Withdrawing his hands, he nodded slowly, searching Maurice’s eyes for a clue about the warning that lay just beneath the surface.

After a long moment, the white-haired man turned away and walked to the sink. Over his shoulder, he said, “And Mr. Khasinau said to wish you a happy birthday. I believe he’ll be here later tonight.”

Yet another oddity to add to this increasingly strange day.

“Did he say why he was coming?” Sark’s mind whirled through the possibilities of what could prompt a visit from Khasinau, who had basically dropped out of their lives after handing the group over to Sark. He decided it could be one of two things: either he was about to be promoted again, or he was about to be replaced.

Replacement in The Man’s organization, as Zachariah Ward would soon learn, meant a burial plot.

Maurice shook his head, apparently engrossed in washing dishes. “Good luck in London,” was all he said by way of goodbye, leaving Sark to piece together the puzzle on his own.

Chapter Seven: Enemy Territory

They say I’m cocky and I say, What?

It ain’t braggin motherfucker if ya back it up

They say I’m cocky and I say, What?

It ain’t braggin motherfucker if ya back it up

“Cocky,” Kid Rock

When Sark and his crew arrived just before sunset, London was covered in its eternal cloak of fog and sporadic rain.

Allison separated from them at the airport. To maintain her cover with Ward, she would be meeting him at his hotel before going to the restaurant – an upscale club owned by The Man and operated by Ward – for his scheduled meeting with Sark.

So far as Ward knew, Sark’s visit was merely a routine inspection. Sark valued the element of surprise; he knew Ward had many faithful followers in London, effectively placing Sark and his comrades in enemy territory despite the fact that they all worked for the same person. The last thing he wanted was to tip Ward off that the hammer was about to fall and then walk into an ambush.

Not to mention that Ward would not be the only one in The Man’s employ who would be happy to see Sark removed. His promotion had created serious waves with those who felt their years of service warranted the reward that had gone to, as they saw it, a green kid. Only an intense fear of Khasinau had kept them in line this long.

But with Ward blatantly stealing right under his nose, Sark understood that the time had come for him to establish himself as their superior in his own right. He could no longer depend on Khasinau’s influence to hold the mutiny in check – either he broke the mounting rebellion here, with Ward, or the minor violations and barely-concealed insults that had been steadily escalating amongst his subordinates would become an outright coup.

Another defining moment, as the Lawrence op had been. Sark prayed it went equally as smooth.

Joey and Morgan (whose earlier abruptness had been replaced on the flight out by his normal good humor) accompanied Sark into the restaurant. Joey carried a briefcase that held his laptop and the incriminating files on Ward. Morgan, like Sark, carried only a pistol under his jacket.

They all three wore black suits. Off-duty, Sark didn’t expect them to maintain the sort of icy persona that he did, but on a mission he insisted on the same suaveness from his crew that he himself displayed.

It was all about perception – look in control, act in control, be in control.

The candlelit dining room was filled with the elegantly dressed elite of London society. Sark had to grin at the upstanding politicians and businessmen here with their wives and colleagues, all clueless that they were actually contributing to one of the many front businesses for an internationally wanted terrorist.

The maitre de led them up the carpeted staircase to where Ward, four members of his security detail, his second-in-command Arthur Billingsley, and Allison waited in a private dining room.

Sark shook hands all around, feigning civility and British charm. Ward was tall, thin and handsome; in his early forties, he was prematurely gray, but with his natural grace the silver hair made him appear distinguished rather than dated.

He smiled warmly, yet it didn’t reach his eyes.

Sark recognized a worthy opponent when he saw one. And this man, with his Harvard education and razor-sharp mind and charismatic leadership, was definitely a formidable adversary.

Billingsley, on the other hand, was a hanger-on. A college buddy of Ward’s, he had ridden his coattails to success first in New York and then here in London after The Man recruited Ward nearly a decade ago. Rail-thin and balding, he personified the sniveling weakling: nasally voice, limp handshake, nervous twitches, beady eyes.

Sark disliked him at once.

“And this is Bekah, my lovely friend,” Ward announced, using the alias Allison had given him.

Sark shook her hand as if they were meeting for the first time. As was expected, he looked her up and down appreciatively. The plaid skirt and sweater had been replaced by a strapless cranberry-colored cocktail dress that accentuated her every curve.

Sark felt a surge of pride that such a beautiful woman was his – even if she was pretending to be another man’s at the moment.

They made small talk about the weather and the economy until the food arrived; then they got down to business. Over a delicious lobster dinner, Ward lied through his teeth about every aspect of his operation. He was a gifted liar, Sark noted – had he not been aware of the deception, he most likely would have been fooled, since Ward was clever enough to wrap the lies in a veneer of truth.

It was all about perception. For the time being, it suited Sark’s purposes to be perceived as the naïve amateur, a boy thrown into a man’s world who wouldn’t stand a chance against a professional like Ward.

So he nodded eagerly at each lie, until the gleam of triumph in Ward’s eye shone like a beacon and even Billingsley had relaxed enough to eat a few bites. Ward’s security detail sat at a table in the corner behind their boss; Joey sat beside Sark, sort of his counterpoint to Billingsley, but Morgan stood rigidly behind him.

It wasn’t only for appearances – Sark had entered the proverbial lion’s den, and he wouldn’t put it past Ward to pay an assassin to shoot him in the back.

That was why he needed to convince the other man that he wasn’t a threat. If he could cause him to drop his guard enough, Sark could take him out the way he wanted to – bluntly, to make a statement to anyone else who considered crossing him.

But since he also wanted to walk out of here alive, Sark needed to first bring Ward’s defenses down. Then he could strike.

Oh, the tangled web we weave…

After the table was cleared, Sark motioned for Joey to set up his laptop. “I appreciate your report, Mr. Ward,” he said, with the air of a hesitant schoolboy addressing a revered teacher. “But I’ve discovered a few…discrepancies in your accounting. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t clear up right away.”

Ward remained calm though he looked down his nose at Sark, suggesting that he was overstepping his bounds by questioning him.

Billingsley resumed fidgeting.

Sark handed him the file he had been building over the last ten months as Joey pulled up Ward’s accounts on the computer. Ward maintained a plausible pretense of confusion; he frowned at the documents, conferred with Billingsley on a few points, even sent one of his guards to his office to locate some “expense reports.”

Ten minutes into the discussion, Sark was pretending to know so little about the documents that he had to constantly ask for clarifications of even simple concepts like profit margins. Ward was patiently “explaining” – twisting the truth around to his own purposes – and Billingsley was sweating bullets and Allison was drumming her fingers on the table and yawning.

Finally, she laid a hand lightly on Ward’s arm and said coyly, “Darling, this is so tedious. Do you mind if I step out for some air?”

“Of course not, love,” he replied, tracing her jaw with his fingers and laying a soft kiss on her lips. Sark ordered himself not to react and blow their cover, but that goaded him more than he cared to admit.

You came up with her cover, asshole, his inner voice reminded him. Don’t be jealous when it was your idea and she’s just playing her fucking part.

As Allison sashayed out of the room, Ward quipped, “One thing you’ll learn, Mr. Sark, is that you can never own too many beautiful things.” Sark forced a smile when he added, “That, and to get them when they’re young, so they don’t wear out as fast.”

Normally, killing was just part of the job to Sark, but he decided he would enjoy it with this man.

In the end, after twenty minutes of slick explanations, Ward declared cordially, “I think the problems are mostly clerical errors. I’ve gone through three accountants in the last year, and each one had his own way of doing things. But I’ll certainly look into it and see that you get correct reports by the end of the week.”

Sark smirked – Ward’s first clue that the tone of this meeting had suddenly, if subtly, changed. Time to take off the mask and show this arrogant son of a bitch who he was dealing with.

“You know,” Sark commented mildly, casually unbuttoning his suit jacket to give himself easy access to his Sig Sauer, “if I were going to steal from The Man, I would at least attempt to cover my tracks.”

Billingsley twitched so violently he almost upset his wine glass.

Ward’s eyes narrowed, yet he never missed a beat. “Let’s not make unreasonable accusations, Mr. Sark. I understand that you’re new to this, so your tendency might be to take the heavy-handed approach. But you don’t want to be overzealous about a simple misunderstanding.”

His smile said, Trust me. I’ve been where you are. Learn from me – don’t make a mistake here.

He was good, Sark had to give him that, playing the role of the benevolent mentor for a young man he considered incompetent. A young man he would happily murder to move up a rung on the ladder.

Sark matched his silky tone. “Indeed. Were this a ‘simple misunderstanding’, I wouldn’t want to be overzealous.”

When he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, both his voice and his eyes hardened noticeably. “But let me be clear, Mr. Ward. You aren’t dealing with – now, what was it they said you called me? A dickless moron? Yes, that was it.”

Ward’s even gaze morphed into a stony glare as Sark tossed his words – reported by Allison, though Ward didn’t know that – back at him. Billingsley was practically convulsing from fear; the four guards had gone very quiet at their table, awaiting a cue from their boss to step in.

Joey rose to stand beside Morgan. Neither reached for their guns, but Sark saw Ward mentally sizing them up.

It was all about perception – and Ward’s fatal mistake was that he was still underestimating them.

The gloves were off now. Ward dropped the civil act entirely, flaunting his disregard for Sark’s authority as he sneered, “I almost feel sorry for you, kid. Khasinau dumped a load of shit into your lap when he gave you this job, and he didn’t even give a fuck if you succeeded at it, apparently. It’s nothing personal. You’re just not cut out for playing in the big leagues.”

“I’m not here because you insulted me, Mr. Ward.” Sark settled back in his chair, smiling gamely, throwing his opponent – who obviously expected him to go on the defense – another curve. “I’m here because you’re stealing, not from me, but from my employer – The Man. I would have thought someone with your experience would be aware of the consequences for doing that.”

“You presumptuous little prick.” Ward snapped his fingers, bringing the four guards to their feet.

A quick flick of Sark’s wrist kept Morgan and Joey in place. The climax was approaching, but Sark knew how to wait it out.

“You really thought you could walk in here and remove me? Just like that?” Ward shook his head, almost sympathetically. “It’s really too bad. You’ve got talent, potential. It would be a shame to waste that.”

He paused. Sark already knew what came next – his uncanny ability for reading people told him that the smooth New York lawyer would seek to defuse the situation here, to avoid an all-out gun battle while the restaurant below was filled with guests. Later, Ward would dispose of this inconvenient boy; for now, he would try to appease him.

Ward didn’t disappoint him. “But it doesn’t have to go that far. You came here yourself to confront me, and I respect that. This was never about the money. I can fix these…clerical errors, satisfy Khasinau. We can all come out a winner here.”

“Are you offering me a deal, Mr. Ward?”

“Why not?” Ward’s magnanimous smile was back in place. “We’re both business men, aren’t we? What do you say we explain to Khasinau about my bookkeeping troubles, and then, in the interest of you walking out of here alive, you suggest that I take over your position? Not that I’d be forcing you out, of course,” he added smoothly, as if the thought would never cross his mind. “Not in the least. You could be my protégé, if you will.”

The Harvard Law training kicked in, and he offered his best closing argument. “Trust me, Mr. Sark, if you worked for me, I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch as Khasinau has. I could make something of you.”

Sark smirked. “Another one of your beautiful possessions?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Again, the act was entirely convincing. Had he been as green as Ward believed, Sark would have swallowed it hook, line and sinker – only to wake up in the very near future with a bullet in his brain.

Standing, Sark held out his hand to Ward, who rose triumphantly and shook it. He didn’t even notice Sark’s free hand dropping to the gun at his side. “Thank you, Mr. Ward. That’s a very generous offer.”

The triumph turned to horrified realization, however, when Sark slid the weapon out of its holster. “Unfortunately,” he concluded calmly, watching from the corner of his eye as Morgan and Joey drew their guns, “I didn’t come here to make any deal. I just came here to kill you.”

Such battles always happened so fast that, at the time, Sark merely reacted. Later, he would reflect on the action, piecing together a coherent memory from the snatches of sights and sounds his brain used to retaliate second by second.

The guards pulled out their weapons as he finished his sentence. The room erupted in a spray of bullets; Morgan and Joey each took out a guard, and Allison – who had purposefully taken her exit so she could wait outside the servers’ entrance – flung open the side door and took out the other two.

Sark fired only once – directly into Ward’s gut.

With a groan, Ward collapsed in a writhing heap on the floor. When the smoke cleared and the echo of the shots died away, Sark casually walked around the table to stand over him.

Allison pressed her gun into the back of Billingsley’s head, though she really needn’t have bothered – the man was whimpering and mumbling, seated in a puddle of his own urine.

Morgan and Joey moved over to guard the room’s two entrances: the side door off the back stairs and the main door off the hallway. Sark could hear screams and running footsteps below as the restaurant’s patrons, terrified by the sound of gunfire from above, nearly trampled one another in their escape.

Rolling Ward over onto his back with his foot, Sark knelt beside the moaning, gasping man. Ward clutched the tiny hole above his navel; blood poured out between his fingers. His face was white and sweaty, and the pain caused him to shake violently.

Compassion didn’t come naturally to Sark; his time at Winslow and the Manor had forced that emotion out of him. Nevertheless, he saw no need to cause someone pain unnecessarily – not even a snake like Ward.

“That’s a fatal wound,” Sark observed offhandedly. He used the gun to push Ward’s hands away from the bullet hole so he could inspect it. “Since you’re going to die anyway, I can end it for you now, if you like. Save you some pain.”

Gurgling on his own blood, Ward managed to snarl, “Fuck you.”

Sark shrugged. “As you wish. Just thought I’d offer.”

He stood again, ignoring Ward’s agonized groans, and studied Billingsley, who looked ready to piss himself again. “Does this bother you?” Sark demanded of him, sounding amazingly cavalier while a dying man was bleeding all over his expensive shoes.

Billingsley stopped whimpering long enough to whisper, “Does what bother me?”

“Your friend here. Dying.” Sark nudged Ward with his toe, drawing a loud moan from him. “Are you loyal to him, or are you loyal to The Man?”

Trying not to watch his longtime friend squirming on the floor, Billingsley breathed, “The Man.”

“Good.” Sark nodded at Allison, who lowered her gun and walked over to link her arm through his. “How much do you know about Mr. Ward’s day-to-day operations, Mr. Billingsley?”

Relieved to have the gun away from his head, Billingsley looked suddenly hopeful that he might survive this encounter. “Everything,” he said, this time with some confidence. “I know everything about his business.”

“Then this is your lucky day, because you’re still useful to me.”

Sark didn’t add that he had always intended to leave Billingsley alive, as a witness who could attest to Mr. Sark’s cruelty and thus quell any other resistance to his authority.

“My associate Morgan here will drive you to your office. There’s a man waiting there to meet you. His name is Andrei Kristoff. He’ll be taking over for Mr. Ward, and I want you to train him.” Sark offered the petrified man an affable smile. “I think you’ll like him. He used to work for the Russian mafia.”

Billingsley slowly rose, too frightened to even be embarrassed by his soiled pants. “Thank you,” he mumbled, and fled on Morgan’s heels.

It was time for the rest of them to be going as well. Sark could hear the distant wail of police sirens drawing nearer; naturally, they would be coming to investigate reports of gunfire at a public place.

“Shall we?” he said to Allison.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” She inclined her head toward the nearly unconscious Ward.

Sark frowned, perplexed by her concern – Allison usually showed even less compassion than he did. “I offered him the easy way.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one he’s been pawing for the last four weeks,” Allison insisted. “So do you mind if I…?” She tapped her gun.

Ruthless. Sark truly pitied anyone who crossed Allison Doren.

“Be my guest,” he said.

With her arm still linked through Sark’s, Allison smiled sweetly down at Ward, who glared up at them with his teeth gritted against what had to be excruciating pain. “I just wanted you to know,” she told him, as she took aim at his forehead, “that there isn’t anything you could teach this ‘boy’. He knows more about this business and more about pleasing a woman at seventeen than you would if you had a million years to learn.”

Sark almost blushed at that, swelling up inside with pride.

Allison paused with her finger on the trigger. “Oh yeah. And I’m nobody’s possession.”

The killing shot echoed in the room behind then as they followed Joey down the back stairs to the alley where Sark’s Mercedes was parked. As he slid behind the wheel, Allison dangled the key to a hotel room in front of him.

“To the Regency, please,” she requested.

“We’re flying back tonight,” Sark protested, checking the street for police cars as he eased out into the traffic.

Allison smiled cattily at him. “Wrong – and don’t worry, I already checked it out with Khasinau. We’re staying in London tonight, in style. It’s my birthday present to you.”

“Something tells me I paid for this birthday present,” he shot back playfully. In the backseat, Joey rolled his eyes at their flirting and slipped his headphones on.

“Well, the room isn’t your gift.” Allison slid her hand up his thigh, looking at him with such undisguised hunger that Sark wished they were alone in the car – in that case, he wouldn’t have bothered with the hotel room.

“The Regency it is,” he agreed.

What the hell, it wasn’t like one night of fun was going to kill him, and he did have a lot to celebrate tonight.

With five hours left to go before his eighteenth birthday, Sark had won his greatest victory to date – the triumph that would establish him as a force to be reckoned with in The Man’s empire. He felt like being a kid for once.

Chapter Eight: And Dream I Do

You don’t remember me but I remember you

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you

But who can decide what they dream?

And dream I do

I believe in you

I’d give up everything just to find you

I have to be with you to live, to breathe

You’re taking over me

“Taking Over Me,” Evanescence

Five hours later, the green digital numbers on the bedside clocked ticked over to 12:00 and Allison sealed Sark’s lips with a tender kiss.

“Happy birthday,” she murmured, collapsing onto his chest.

“I’d say,” he teased.

She giggled as he ran a hand down her back and pulled her closer. He rested his cheek against her hair, exhausted from the stress of Ward’s execution and their passionate lovemaking but more content than he could ever remember feeling.

His voice muffled by her hair, he said, “This was a good idea, Alli.”

“All my ideas are good.” Allison traced lazy circles on his stomach with her fingernails, making Sark shiver. “You think Kristoff is going to work out okay here?”

Always business.

Sark grinned at how Allison reprimanded him for being obsessed with his job yet overlooked the same tenacity in herself. “He’ll be fine. Better than fine. Khasinau recommended him, didn’t he?”

Around a yawn, she pressed, “So what happens with you now? Another promotion?”

“Presumably.”

With the mission successfully completed, Sark had to admit he was nervous about Khasinau’s visit to the Manor. He mentally scrolled through the events of recent months, agonizing over every possible slip-up, wondering if he had somehow earned himself a spot beside Ward in The Man’s graveyard.

On top of that, his earlier edginess had returned, along with the overpowering sensation that the danger had not yet passed.

Something was coming.

While he would have preferred the penthouse, Sark had settled for a suite on the seventeenth floor so Morgan and Joey could take the adjoining room. He felt better knowing all of his charges were close at hand, where he could keep an eye on them.

Not that he and Alli had even come up for air since they checked in…

If Allison picked up on his apprehension, she didn’t let on. “Promoted to what, though? I mean, what’s next?”

Sark toyed with a silky strand of her hair. “Last month Khasinau mentioned that the man who oversees the entire European division wants to retire.”

“Hans Beckelhymer, retire? Is that a euphemism for murdering him?”

Allison was stroking his chest in a way that was quickly becoming distracting. Insatiable, that was the only word for Allison.

“No, he really wants to retire,” Sark explained, tilting his head back so she could nibble on his neck. “He’s put in a lot of years. And his is the only position I can think of that’s coming open.”

Allison trailed kisses along his jaw. “You know what that’d mean: the inner circle. You’d be reporting directly to The Man.”

“Mmm.” Sark was fast losing interest in the conversation as her mouth moved closer to his.

Suddenly, she pulled back and propped herself up on an elbow, studying him intently. “Do you still think Khasinau is The Man?”

Sark sighed. Couldn’t they not talk shop just for one night?

But he didn’t want to argue, not on his birthday, so he answered evenly, “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I suppose I’ll find out when he’s ready to tell me.”

Allison arched a disapproving eyebrow at him. “You know baby, if you have one weakness in this game, it’s that you trust Khasinau far too much.”

Taken aback, Sark rolled onto his side to face her. “What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I trust him?”

“It’s just this vibe I get off him sometimes.” Allison shrugged, very noncommittal, obviously hesitant to voice her real concerns.

After a moment, she looked back at him, and her dark eyes were troubled. “It’s just…a lot of the time you act like he’s your father. And he’s not. He doesn’t think of us as his children. We’re his soldiers.”

Sark did not like having his flaws pointed out to him, particularly when he was tired and wanted a night off from such worries.

He sat up and regarded her coldly, the sheet tucked around his waist. “You and Morgan and Joey are my soldiers, if that’s how you want to look at it. And I still care about all of you.”

“You’re different than Khasinau, though. More human.”

Allison grinned when Sark glared. She tugged him back down into the sheets and stretched out on top of him, refusing to be daunted even when he turned his face away from her kisses. “What, it’s an insult for me to say you’re human?”

“Maybe.” Sark relented slightly when she managed to capture his mouth; he kissed back tentatively, still annoyed with her assessment of his ‘weakness’ but too tired for one of their all-out verbal brawls.

“Okay,” she teased, trailing her fingers down his sides, “how about ‘demigod’? Is that better?”

Before he could answer, her hands closed around his growing hardness. Sark gasped; this time when her mouth descended on his, he more than reciprocated her passion, amazed by how deftly she could make his body respond to hers.

Allison stopped kissing him long enough to ask, “So how does it feel to be eighteen?”

Flipping her over, Sark kissed his way down her neck and onto her stomach, determined to make her want him as badly as he wanted her – even in bed, he noted, they were competitors.

“I’ll let you know in about twenty-three hours,” he replied, stroking her inner thigh. “I don’t technically turn eighteen until 11:56pm.”

Allison moaned when he slipped his fingers inside of her. Loving the way she moved against his hand, Sark laid soft kisses along her stomach and whispered, “So I guess you’ll have to give me my present again then, when it’s official.”

* * * *

The dream was different than any Sark could recall.

He was feeling his way down a pitch-black staircase in what he instinctively knew was a cave. The air was cold and damp; the darkness was so complete he couldn’t see the uneven stone steps he was descending, so he stayed close to the wall and moved slowly.

With each step he expected to drop off into an abyss, but the fear was strangely exhilarating.

Finally, he found himself at the bottom facing a rock wall. He groped along the rough stone until his fingers closed over a door handle, which gave easily when he pushed.

A rush of bright light assaulted Sark’s eyes, almost painful after the encompassing darkness.

He lifted a hand to shield his eyes as he entered a long, narrow room. An enormous crystal chandelier hung high overhead in the center of the room; the walls, the floor and the ceiling were made of a thick opaque glass that reflected the brilliant white glow emanating from the it.

As his eyes adjusted to the glare, he saw a figure coming toward him from the opposite end of the room – his Dream Girl, but as he’d never seen her before.

She didn’t walk; she floated. No other word could describe the absolute grace with which she moved. She wore a flowing, strapless ivory gown of the sheerest gossamer; the nearly transparent fabric caught the light and reflected it in soft pastel hues. Her chestnut hair was swept up in an elegant twist, leaving soft tendrils to frame her face. Her gold-flecked eyes sparkled, almost as if they had caught and held the room’s radiant light.

She was, simply, the most beautiful woman Sark had ever seen.

They met in the middle of the room. He was scared and excited and nervous; she looked perfectly calm.

“You’re incredible,” he whispered, surprised he could even speak in her presence.

She blushed prettily. “I wanted to be perfect for you.” Her voice was soft, breathy, yet it echoed in his ears, as if he were reading her thoughts rather than hearing her. “Dance with me?”

So they danced, without music – a slow, graceful waltz that matched the rhythm of their heartbeats. She rested her head on his shoulder; Sark shut his eyes and gathered her closer.

When her lips touched his throat, he stopped dancing – and breathing.

How long had he wanted this? To hold her in his arms, to taste her lips, to stroke her skin, to give all of himself to her?

She slowly worked her way up to his mouth, dropping the gentlest kisses he’d ever felt along his neck and jaw. His body was so hypersensitive to hers that his knees went weak and he leaned heavily into her, his breathing fast and uneven.

When her lips finally met his, they were warm and tender and full – everything he could have imagined, everything he could have needed. The desire for her pulsed through him almost painfully; he wanted to crush her mouth under his but restrained himself, thinking suddenly that she was fragile, that he could break her as easily as he could break these glass walls that surrounded them.

She was strong, yes – strong and determined and capable. But also vulnerable, and trembling, and lost.

Fragile – not like Allison.

That sudden thought made Sark pull away, though it took all of his willpower to do so. He stepped out of her embrace and shook his head. “I’m with someone.”

Her dazzling smile erased his doubts. “You’re with me now,” she answered, holding out her hands to him. “That’s all that matters.”

His guilt vanished.

The Dream Girl slowly sank to her knees, drawing him down with her, and suddenly the floor became a featherbed. She stretched out beside him and ran her hands and her eyes down the length of his body, admiring him.

“Why now?” he asked, as she lifted herself on top of him and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Why tonight?”

“Because it’s time.”

Again, her smile stilled his racing thoughts. His shirt fell open and she kissed his chest, just above his pounding heart.

Raising up to nuzzle his cheek with her nose, she murmured, “Do you think it’s possible to love someone you don’t really know?”

His answer was automatic. “I know it is,” he whispered back, tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling her lips down gently onto his. “Because I love you.”

* * * *

Sark woke with a start to the disappointing realization that the most fantastic lovemaking of his life had only been a dream.

On the heels of that revelation, however, came the dread that had been plaguing him since yesterday.

What had woken him up?

He lay perfectly still, listening. Allison’s arm was across his chest; she faced away from him, her raven hair spilling out onto the pillows. Her even breathing told him she was asleep.

The room was absolutely silent. Sark strained to see in the darkness. A shaft of moonlight spilled in from a crack in the drapes, casting long shadows here and there on the thick carpet. He cut his eyes to the side, checking that his gun was on the bedside table where he’d placed it, inches from his fingers.

The clock read 4:47am.

Another five minutes ticked by, during which Sark slowly became satisfied that no one was in the room. Gently slipping out from under Allison’s arm, he pulled on his boxers and padded into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him.

The dream had left him wired and nervy. He felt like a caged animal as he paced the length of the spacious bathroom, remembering the Dream Girl’s light caresses and sweet kisses.

She had to be real. She had to be out there, somewhere, waiting for him. He couldn’t be in love with someone who didn’t exist.

Listen to yourself, his inner voice chided, as he stopped pacing and raked a hand through his hair. You aren’t ‘in love’ with your Dream Girl. She’s something you’ve created, a figment of your imagination, someone you needed when you didn’t have anyone.

So why, he asked himself, looking into the gilded mirror above the sink, can’t I forget about her now that I do have someone – Allison?

He washed his face in the deep porcelain sink, hoping the cold water would bring him some clarity. When he looked up, his reflection challenged him: wavy blonde hair, passably handsome face (in his opinion), clear blue eyes.

The eyes startled him.

When did I start to look so – old?

Since you became a fucking head case who winds himself up about a measly little erotic dream, his reflection answered.

Sark grinned at what Allison would say if she knew he was having a conversation with himself. Not that he intended to tell her; he had never told anyone about his Dream Girl, not even Morgan. He certainly wasn’t starting with Allison, who tended to be insanely jealous anyway. As if he ever so much as looked at another woman.

Perhaps that was why he couldn’t get rid of his Dream Girl, Sark decided, running hot water into the tub. He watched Morgan gallivant around with every cute skirt that walked by, while he remained – quite happily so, admittedly – monogamous with Allison. She was the only woman he’d ever made love to, the only woman he’d ever even kissed; possibly this continued infatuation with his Dream Girl was a normal male response to being slightly ashamed of his inexperience with the female sex.

Of course, he wouldn’t really want anyone besides Allison, Sark assuaged his guilty conscience as he lay back in the warm water and closed his eyes.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have offers, or opportunities. He and Allison weren’t always together; he often traveled without her, on overnight trips to plan ops or handle problems within the organizations he oversaw. Women regularly came onto him, yet he’d never been tempted to cheat – not seriously tempted, anyway. Allison more than satisfied his physical needs, and they complemented each other nicely as partners, both in their personal and professional lives. Why screw up a good thing over a meaningless fling?

In any case, he wouldn’t hurt Allison like that.

The hot bath helped to soothe away the tension of the last few weeks. The more he thought about it, the more that explanation made sense: he held onto his Dream Girl because he occasionally wished for his freedom. It was a natural human impulse to never be content, wasn’t it? So no matter how happy he was with Allison, it was, he decided, normal for him to fantasize now and again about someone else.

And who could help what they dreamed?

More than the idea of having an erotic dream about another person, however, Sark was bothered by the intensity of his feelings for this Dream Girl. Sliding under the water, he wondered – not for the first time – what might happen if he ever met her in real life. Would he suddenly abandon Allison for a perfect stranger?

This is ridiculous, his inner voice piped up testily. You’re worrying about something that will never happen – because that girl doesn’t exist. You made her up.

Okay, so that was true. In the clear light of day, Sark accepted that his Dream Girl lived only in his mind. But at night, especially when he couldn’t shake the vague sense of unease that sporadically gripped him, he couldn’t dismiss the notion that she was out there, somewhere, hoping to be found as much as he was hoping to find her.

He sighed and climbed out of the tub. What he needed, really, was to get back to the Manor, to talk to Khasinau so he could stop driving himself crazy wondering if he was about to be promoted or executed. The more he thought about it, the more convinced Sark was that it had to be the former; he was certain Khasinau had only mentioned Beckelhymer’s impending retirement because he expected Sark to become the director of the European division.

Eighteen, and the whole world at my feet, he thought smugly, wiping steam off the mirror with his towel.

Allison was still sleeping soundly when he tiptoed into the bedroom, gathered his clothes, and returned to the bathroom to dress. Since they would be traveling today, he wanted to wear a comfortable pair of jeans and a tee-shirt, but Khasinau would be waiting for him at the Manor so he opted for his usual suit and tie.

As he dressed, he concluded that what he needed was a vacation. While it might not be the best timing, seeing as how Khasinau would want him to be trained by his predecessor before he was officially promoted, Sark decided to ask his employer for a week off. A real week off, too – no pager, no cell phone, no security detail, no guns. A week for him and Allison and Morgan and Joey.

Allison would think he should stay and learn the ropes of his new job, of course, but he would persuade her. He would say, I need a break. We’ve got money; let’s go to Rome, or Madrid, or Honolulu, or anyplace where they don’t blow shit up on a regular basis.

Maybe he’d even propose once they got there – wherever there turned out to be. Hell, he was eighteen now (or would be officially in about twenty hours), and she would be in less than a year. They already lived like they were married; why not make it legal?

Sark pictured Allison in a simple white gown, himself in a plain black suit, at an outdoor wedding on a beach, with just an elderly priest to perform the ceremony and Morgan and Joey as witnesses.

Or perhaps no witnesses. Just him and Alli, and a little time away from all of this death. Maybe that would chase away the nightmares.

His fantasy was rudely interrupted by a burst of staccato gunfire from the street.

Sark froze, waiting.

Another burst. Definitely two weapons – someone was exchanging fire outside the hotel.

Allison was rolling out of bed and throwing on her clothes when Sark hurried in and grabbed his .9 millimeter off the bedside table. He wordlessly motioned for her to check on Morgan and Joey in the adjoining room. As she disappeared into the suite’s living room, Sark slid up alongside the window facing the street, barely lifting the heavy velvet drape to peer out.

Shit.

Under the greenish glow of the streetlights, he saw Arthur Billingsley sprawled on the sidewalk, obviously dead. Three men dressed all in black – Sark would have bet his life they were associates of the deceased Zachariah Ward come to avenge his murder – were creeping up on the front door of the hotel.

Every curse he’d ever heard flew through Sark’s mind. He’d been daydreaming about weddings, and they were being closed in on. Fuck!

Allison rushed back in with Morgan and Joey in tow. “What the fuck was Billingsley doing here?” Sark snarled at Morgan, whose bloodshot eyes and whiskey-laced breath belied a wild night of partying. “I told you to leave him with Kristoff and his men!”

“I did,” Morgan answered, backing up from Sark’s rage. “I swear on the Virgin Mary, brother, I did exactly what you said. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“I do,” Allison snapped at him. She was angry, which meant she was frightened, Sark knew. “Ward’s cronies aren’t too happy about their new boss. They think if they come in here and kill us, Khasinau will let them run this show however they want.”

Sark mentally cursed Ward’s cold dead body. Everything had gone exactly as he planned with this execution, but it didn’t matter; the coup was happening anyway.

Well, he’d be damned if he was going to die quietly, or allow his team to be cut down without a fight.

“Here’s the plan,” he told them. “Morgan, you take both of them out the back exit I showed you and get the car pulled around. I’ll meet you in the alley behind the hotel in ten minutes.”

“What are you going to do?” Joey’s voice trembled despite his best efforts to be brave.

Morgan laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “He’s going to distract them, Midget.”

Sark met Morgan’s eyes. “You up for this?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Morgan assured him. His eyes were bright and alert; though Sark wasn’t thrilled about one of his subordinates drinking on duty, he appreciated the sobering effect of a life and death situation and so believed him.

“If I don’t get there in ten minutes, leave.” Sark raised a hand against the automatic protests all three started to make. “This isn’t a democracy. I’m giving you a direct order. If I don’t make it out, you go to Kristoff and tell him to send every man he has to end this thing, tonight. Understood?”

Allison folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not leaving your side.”

Khasinau’s words jumped into Sark’s mind: “I trust you to know the boundaries between personal and professional relationships.”

Without blinking, Sark leveled the .9 millimeter at Allison’s head. “You do not question my orders,” he declared, careful to keep his voice emotionless. “Is that clear?”

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she nodded.

He lowered the gun, praying he would have the chance to apologize for that later. “Let’s move. Allison, Joey, check the hall.”

As those two hurried to the door, Sark caught Morgan’s elbow. “No matter what happens, you get them out of here,” he whispered. “I mean it, Morgan. If I die, you get to Kristoff and then you put them on a plane back to France. I don’t care if you have to knock Allison out, you make sure she goes.”

Morgan stared at him for a minute, looking as if he desperately wanted to say something. Instead, he nodded solemnly and turned away.

“We’re clear,” Allison hissed, motioning them forward.

Morgan led into the hall with his Colt .45, shielding Joey with his body. The corridor was deserted. Sark slipped out beside Allison and squeezed her hand as they parted.

Love you, she mouthed.

Me too, he mouthed back, and offered her a soft smile before she hurried away after the others.

He hoped it wouldn’t be the last time he ever saw her.

Sark waited until his comrades had disappeared down the back stairs to creep to the main stairwell. Easing the door open, he listened for footsteps. Nothing; no enemies had ventured this far.

Yet.

Taking a deep breath, Sark moved as quietly as he could down seventeen flights of stairs. He knew these men were all well-trained assassins, and that the three he had seen might be the tip of the iceberg. He could be facing a veritable army in that lobby.

He did have one advantage, though – they wouldn’t be expecting him to come meet them. If he survived this night, Sark knew he would earn himself one hell of a reputation.

Sure enough, when he breezed casually out of the stairwell, five armed men were waiting for the elevator to take them to the seventeenth floor. A terrified clerk and a security guard were tied up beside the front desk.

Sark didn’t hesitate. Walking directly toward his enemies, he shot the closest man in the back; he fell forward with a grunt, and a second man went down with a bullet in his chest as he whirled around.

The remaining three opened fire on him. Sark dove for cover behind a large stone pillar between the front desk and the elevators. He was careful to leave himself a direct path to the back stairs – his escape route.

When his opponents paused to reload, Sark leaned out, quickly took aim at the third man’s head and downed him with a single shot. He ducked back behind his pillar as more bullets whipped past him.

Probably wondering what the fuck they’ve gotten themselves into, he thought, smirking despite his fear.

Sirens wailed in the distance. That was Sark’s signal to get a move on; no need to spend his eighteenth birthday in a police interrogation room.

Inserting a fresh clip into the .9 millimeter, he lay down a spray of gunfire as he sprinted to the door that led to the back stairs. A bullet grazed his cheek, but his adrenaline was pumping so hard that Sark barely felt it.

He crashed down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. He knew his pursuers would be only moments behind him. He also knew the ten-minute clock he’d given himself to reach the alley was fast ticking down to zero. He had outfought his enemies; now he had to outrun them.

The light which had been rapidly fading as he descended from the first floor ended abruptly at the entrance to the basement. Instinct gave Sark pause; the hair stood up on the back of his neck and goosebumps shot down his arms.

The air down here was cold and musty – cellar air – but it was more than that. A sense of foreboding so strong it nearly made him retrace his steps brought Sark to a full stop just inside the doorway, where the darkness became oppressive and all-encompassing. The terror of crossing that room to the door, even in a two-second flat-out run, rooted him to the spot.

It’s this or a grave, pansy-ass. They can’t be far behind.

Or was this a trap? Was his trepidation prompted by the intuitive knowledge that an army of guns waited in the alley above?

Sark wavered, torn between two equally hopeless courses of action: go back upstairs and battle it out in the lobby, or take his chances with this escape route, with what lay beyond that seemingly far-off door.

In the end, after a moment’s pause, he stomped down the fear with a good dose of bravado and propelled his feet forward into the room.

He immediately stumbled over a body.

Even in his thick-soled shoes, Sark realized he was stepping in blood; the darkness screened all else from his eyes, yet he knew, instinctively, that the body had been torn apart. He sensed a feral violence in the room that made every fiber of his being scream for him to turn and run back toward the light.

But he knew he’d never make it.

The men chasing him, if they were indeed still behind him, were instantly forgotten. Stepping cautiously over the body, every sense on the highest alert, Sark worked his finger back and forth anxiously on the trigger.

Stop it, you’ll shoot yourself, his inner voice growled.

He edged along the wall to keep his bearings in the pitch-blackness. His forearm brushed the concrete and came away sticky.

Blood.

Blood-smeared walls.

Where the fuck was he, the ninth circle of hell?

Halfway around the room, Sark tripped over another body. He quickly stepped over it, aware that something, some unseen presence, was following him around the room – drawing closer, mimicking his careful steps. He suppressed the urge to scream by a supreme force of will.

The door to the alley was close, close, closer – inches away… He could make it, and damn anything that waited out there, because it couldn’t be worse than what was in this room with him now.

He felt the rush of air around the doorframe, fumbled with the knob, prayed the door wasn’t locked, winced as the malevolent presence stepped nearer –

“You really would leave us all behind, wouldn’t you, motherfucker?”

Sark whirled around and froze, unable to believe his eyes.

Morgan stood before him, drenched in blood, with a knife pressed to Allison’s throat.

Chapter Nine: Betrayal

I still remember the world

From the eyes of a child

Slowly those feelings

Were clouded by what I know now

Where has my heart gone

An uneven trade for the real world

I want to go back to

Believing in everything and knowing nothing at all

“Field of Innocence,” Evanescence

“Morgan?”

Sark shook his head to clear it, wondering if he had wandered into one of his strangely realistic dreams. The gun hung at his side, momentarily forgotten.

It wasn’t possible – they were comrades, friends, brothers…

“Man, do I know you or what?” Morgan sounded impossibly glib, maybe a little giddy. “I told them, ‘He’ll send us on ahead. Then you just get him down to the basement and let me deal with him.’ And here you are, just like I said.”

Holy shit. This was really happening. He’d been double-crossed by Morgan.

A thousand emotions vied within Sark: terror, rage, despair, guilt, confusion.

He settled for rage – a controlled, icy rage.

Allison stared at him with round, frightened eyes. Morgan held the knife tight enough against her neck to draw blood, which enraged Sark even more.

And where the hell was Joey?

“Let her go,” Sark commanded, careful not to move. Morgan’s wild eyes suggested that he might snap and cut Allison’s throat if he were startled. “This is between you and me. Leave her out of it.”

Morgan snorted contemptuously. “As if you give a fuck.” He considered Sark for a moment, a knowing smile playing on his lips. “Or maybe you do, brother, maybe you do. Maybe she is more than just a nice piece of ass to you after all.”

Allison’s temper flared at that. “Fuck you, Morgan.”

“Shut-up,” he and Sark ordered her, simultaneously. She glared at Sark but stayed quiet.

“Drop the gun,” Morgan instructed.

Sark hesitated. Morgan pressed the knife harder against Allison’s skin; she whimpered, and Sark immediately dropped the weapon.

“Now, kick it into the corner and get on your knees.”

Reluctantly, Sark complied. His mind raced through possible escape scenarios, yet as long as Morgan had a knife to Alli’s throat, they both knew he wasn’t going to try anything.

But no one was deadlier than Allison with a knife. If he could distract Morgan – keep him talking, make him drop his guard – perhaps she could take it away from him.

And once that knife fell into Alli’s hands, that would be the end of Morgan Grey.

A sliver of light from the streetlamps slipped in around the door. On his knees, Sark could see that the body against the wall belonged to a hotel maid – some poor woman just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The body over by the stairs was more difficult to make out, but when Morgan moved slightly to the side, Sark caught a glimpse of copper-colored hair.

His heart stopped.

Joey.

Focus, his inner voice insisted. Get him talking. Buy yourself some time.

“So what the hell is this, Morgan?” Sark laced his fingers behind his head like a good prisoner yet made no attempt to disguise the malice in his eyes as he gazed coolly up at his longtime friend. “I find it difficult to believe you were loyal to Ward, since you didn’t even know the son of a bitch.”

“Forget Ward. This has nothing to do with him. Leading his men here was just a way for me to catch you off-guard.”

He was willing to talk, and that worked to Sark’s advantage. He sensed that Morgan wanted to explain, not to justify his betrayal to Sark but to himself.

“So why kill me? What’s in it for you?” When Morgan just smirked, he countered, “You have to know that Khasinau will execute you for this.”

Morgan laughed at that. The low, hollow cackle sent shivers down Sark’s spine; Allison shut her eyes and appeared to be silently praying.

“You really think you’re the favorite son, don’t you, Mr. Sark?” Morgan sneered. “Well, maybe you aren’t as beloved as you’d like to believe.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Deciding that his friend had totally lost his mind, Sark retorted, “Apparently not, because I thought you and I were brothers.”

“You stupid fuck.” Morgan shook his head, almost sadly. “I hated you the second we met.”

That stung, and Sark hoped it didn’t show. How could Morgan hate him? How could their entire friendship have been a lie?

Pulling Allison closer against him, Morgan went on, “Before you came along, it was just me and Allison. Sure she was better at everything than me, but it didn’t matter because we looked after each other. We were a family.

“Then you show up.” The bitterness in Morgan’s voice made Sark wince; he said it as if Sark’s arrival was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. “You knew how to do everything. Everything. Weapons, hand-to-hand combat, computers, languages, disguises – whatever Khasinau threw at us, you’d already done it at that goddamn school of yours. And I knew. I knew right away that our girl here,” he slid the hand that wasn’t holding the knife under the hem of Allison’s shirt, “would choose you. Because Allison would never settle for second best.”

Allison shuddered but stayed still as Morgan’s hand moved up her stomach and onto her breasts. Sark trembled with impotent rage; his fury was so intense it nearly blinded him, yet so long as Morgan held the knife to her throat, he didn’t dare move.

Oh, the ways he would find to make Morgan scream – if only he could get that knife away from him…

“Get your hands off me,” Allison finally spat out.

To Sark’s relief, Morgan grinned and took his hand out from underneath her shirt. “It’s okay, Alli,” he told her, purposefully using the nickname only Sark called her by. “Once he’s dead, I’m sure you won’t mind shaking your tail at me again, like you did for Ward.”

“That was work, asshole,” Allison shot back.

“Oh, the boys do talk, sweetheart.” Morgan smiled cruelly at Sark as he spoke. “I heard all about how you couldn’t get enough of Zachariah Ward. How you told him that you’d never been with a ‘real’ man until him.”

Ignore it, Sark’s inner voice commanded. He’s only saying it to hurt you. He doesn’t just want you dead – he wants you defeated.

“Don’t be a jerk-off, Morgan, I was pretending to be the guy’s mistress. What was I supposed to say? ‘You’re a lousy fuck and a slimy bastard’? Might’ve killed the mood.”

Sark started to tell Allison to shut-up, that it didn’t matter, but a sideways glance from her stopped him. He realized that she, too, was trying to get past Morgan’s defenses.

“The way I see it, babe, you were just playing your usual game – keeping your options open until you saw who came out on top, Ward or our brother here.”

Morgan grazed his lips over her ear; Allison stiffened. He kept his eyes on Sark’s as he said to her, “You and I both know you don’t really love him, Alli. But you figured out that you couldn’t beat him, so you took the next best thing – riding along on his success, letting him take you right to the top with him.”

“And Joey?”

Sark’s question erased Morgan’s smug expression. “What about him?”

“What did he do?” Sark pressed, recognizing that he had struck a nerve. “Or did you always hate him, too?”

“I did that kid a favor,” Morgan answered haughtily, but there was no conviction behind it. “This way he doesn’t have to grow up like we did. He doesn’t have to spend his life taking orders and murdering people and waiting everyday to get his ass shot off.”

Yes, this was definitely a touchy subject.

Sark produced his most patronizing smirk. “You know what I think? I think you were jealous of him, too. Was he just a little too smart for your liking,” he paused before adding pointedly, “Tex?”

Midget and Tex – Morgan and Joey’s playfully debasing nicknames for one another.

The dig achieved its desired effect. “You shut-up! You shut your goddamn mouth,” Morgan roared, pointing a trembling finger at Sark. “Don’t call me that.”

It was Sark’s turn to smile cruelly. “Why not, Tex?”

Sark’s heart was pounding, his stomach churning. Either this strategy was about to work, or Allison was about to have her throat cut.

Either way, he decided, Morgan wasn’t walking out of this basement alive. If worse came to worse, the moment he killed Allison, Sark would tear him limb from limb.

“Shut-up.” Morgan twisted a handful of Allison’s hair around his fingers, yanking her head back to expose her throat. “You call me that again and I kill her.”

A charged silence descended as Sark debated what to do – take his chances that Morgan wouldn’t be fast enough for Alli, or figure out another way to escape.

Before he could decide, however, the stillness was broken by a whisper from behind Morgan.

“Tex.”

Morgan screamed. Releasing Allison, he whirled around but never had the chance to raise the knife against his assailant.

Two shots rang out. The knife clattered to the floor; Morgan stumbled backwards, gasping and gurgling, clutching his throat.

Allison scrambled into Sark’s arms. He leapt to his feet and shoved her behind him, watching in transfixed horror as Morgan collapsed in a squirming heap, blood pouring from the two bullet holes in his neck.

In spite of his rage at Morgan’s betrayal, Sark wanted to shout that he was sorry. He wanted to drop down beside his friend, hold his hand while he died, let him know he wasn’t alone. He wanted to tell him that it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t supposed to end like this. He wanted to weep, the way Alli was sobbing into his shoulder from behind.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he stood by stoically while Morgan’s life bled out onto the floor.

Maurice’s words echoed in his mind: “Learn the difference. Learn to tell the good from the bad.”

When Morgan finally went still, his unseeing eyes wide and staring, Sark looked over at the person who had saved their lives. He was surprised to find that the shooter was a woman.

For one second, while she was half-shrouded in darkness, Sark thought it was his Dream Girl. When she stepped into the light, he saw that she wasn’t; she was too much older, though with her dark eyes, slender build and silky hair, she bore an undeniable resemblance to her.

“Who are you?” Sark demanded, amazed by how composed he sounded.

The woman smiled. “Hello, Padraic,” she said softly, in a curiously lilting Russian accent. “I thought it was time for you and me to finally meet.”

Chapter Ten: Letting Go

In my soul I know what is gone and what remains

Fearing that time will break me, I doubt I’m strong enough

Through the years I’ve lost myself

Through the years I’ve grown scared

Holding onto what’s left of myself

I swear that one day I’ll be myself again

Now I see how this life was meant to be

What I am, what I’ve become, is all that I have left

“In A Time Where Hope Is Lost,” A Death For Every Sin

Sark took Morgan and Joey home.

They flew back to France in The Man’s private jet, the same way they had arrived. Sark laid Joey’s body out on a plastic tarp stretched over the couch in the plane’s office. He rinsed the blood out of his friend’s long hair, gently removed his bloody clothes and cleaned the bone-deep wound.

Morgan’s body, wound up in a black sheet, lay in the cargo hold.

Allison curled up in a chair beside the couch. Neither she nor Sark spoke. Someday they would talk about the events of this night, analyze the clues that might have tipped them off to Morgan’s deep-seated hatred, but for now the pain was too close. They shared it in silence.

By the time he finished with the body, Allison had quietly cried herself to sleep. Sark covered her with his jacket and kissed her lightly on the forehead. More than anything he wanted to take her in his arms and fall asleep with her reassuring weight against his side, but the mourning would have to wait – business was at hand.

If he wanted to survive this night with his hard-earned success intact, Sark couldn’t afford the luxury of grief.

Numb from Morgan’s betrayal and Joey’s death, Sark had yet to fully appreciate the revelation of his employer’s identity. He had heard of Irina Derevko. At Winslow, she had been hailed as a paragon of undercover operatives – the woman who had infiltrated the CIA for more than a decade through a faux marriage. Her untimely demise in a car accident had been much lamented by the KGB.

Apparently, however, death wasn’t enough to stop her.

Sark remembered Allison’s assertion that The Man was a woman and his own retort that no woman had ever gained that much power. Had he known that Irina Derevko was alive, she would have been the first on his list of suspects.

He wondered why she would go to the trouble of faking her death only to establish herself as a powerful player in the criminal underground. Why not simply disappear when she had the chance? Why not walk away and start a new, normal life somewhere?

Whatever questions he had about her motives, though, Sark knew one thing for certain: Irina Derevko was not a woman to piss off. If the dozen CIA agents she had murdered weren’t sufficient evidence of her brutality, her ruthlessness as The Man proved that she had no qualms about removing anyone who stood in her way.

That made Sark terribly nervous, considering how seriously he had slipped up tonight – he had lost control of his team, nearly been murdered by one of his own, and The Man had witnessed his failure.

Not the first impression he had hoped for, to say the least.

One skill Sark had mastered long ago was compartmentalization. Functioning despite his intense grief, overcoming the urge to punch through a wall and cry until he had no tears left, required a supreme force of will, but he understood that the next few hours were vital to his future. He either focused on damage control and persuaded The Man that Khasinau’s faith in him wasn’t unfounded or he might very well be sharing a burial plot with Morgan and Joey, given Irina Derevko’s track record of handling incompetent associates.

At the very least he expected to be demoted, to be stripped of the authority Khasinau had given him and returned to taking orders rather than giving them.

Sark decided he had lost enough for one night; he wasn’t going to watch seven years of hard work go down the drain as well. Time to put on my game face, he decided, shoving his misery deep down inside and donning his most impassive expression.

Irina Derevko lay on the cabin’s sofa, her head pillowed on her jacket and her dark hair cascading around her shoulders. She appeared to be sleeping soundly.

Sark lingered in the doorway, studying her, insanely curious about this stranger who exerted so much control over his life.

She was surprisingly small, definitely muscular yet petite and slender. In sleep, she looked more fit for hosting tea parties than operating an international crime ring. She was also incredibly beautiful – and resembled his Dream Girl just enough to disconcert him.

And she’d kill you in a second without batting an eyelash, his inner voice warned. So don’t underestimate her because she looks delicate.

Sark suspected many men had met their demise by doing just that.

She looked so peaceful that he didn’t want to disturb her, though he was anxious to have this meeting over with and his fate decided. Besides, he couldn’t imagine shaking The Man awake and asking to talk to her. So he crossed quietly to a cushioned chair beside the window and stared out unseeingly into the night.

Sitting in the quiet with nothing but his grief to occupy his mind, Sark bordered on losing his remarkable self-control. Try as he might to block them out, memories of Joey and Morgan – of their happy times together – hounded him: cheating one another at poker, sneaking into Alli’s room to swipe her diary, sledding down the hill behind the Manor at Christmastime, concocting elaborate missions to steal cookies out of the cupboard before dinner…

But none of it was real – not for Morgan, anyway. He was always looking for his chance, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Resting his elbows on his knees, Sark rubbed viciously at his temples and willed himself not to cry.

It’s my fault, he wailed inwardly, almost gagging on the lump in his throat. It’s my fault they’re dead. I should have seen it coming. It was my job to know our enemies, even the ones amongst us. That’s what I was trained to do, for fuck’s sake, so why didn’t I do it?

A small voice inside of him answered, Because you trusted. It’s what Alli was trying to tell you, what Maurice was trying to tell you. This is what happens when you let someone get too close: You lose your objectivity, and people die.

On the heels of that unpleasant thought came another: Something is coming.

It already came, so leave me the hell alone already, his inner voice snapped back.

“Are you all right?”

The soft, lightly accented voice at his elbow made Sark jump.

Irina Derevko stood beside him, her head cocked to one side so that her dark hair fell across her cheek. In an unconsciously habitual gesture, she reached up and tucked it behind her ear.

At that moment, she looked so much like his Dream Girl that Sark went weak-kneed. He was glad he was already sitting down.

You will not have a crush on this woman because she resembles somebody you made up. So get over it.

Sark nodded silently in response, afraid the tears might flood his voice if he spoke. The last thing he needed was to go to pieces in front of her.

Irina sat down in the chair across from him, and they sized each other up. Sark realized he didn’t look his best: his normally impeccable suit was wrinkled and bloodstained; he had discarded his jacket, tie and shoes; his eyes were bloodshot and his hair disheveled.

He hoped she would make some allowances for his appearance considering what he’d been through tonight.

Irina, on the other hand, was flawless. She wore black trousers and a hunter-green sweater – casual yet expensive, approachable yet poised. No hint of makeup, and she didn’t need any, either.

Perfect – like his Dream Girl.

With an effort, Sark regained his earlier detachment, reaffirming his inner determination to salvage some chance of a promising future from this disastrous night. The Man had sought him out in London for a reason, he was certain; it was no coincidence her showing up like that.

And now she wanted to talk business. So he would talk business.

“I’m sorry about your friends.”

Her words, her earnestness, surprised him. Given what Sark knew about Irina Derevko, he hadn’t expected her to be so…human.

“Thank you.” He forced himself to withstand her searching gaze, though the sincere concern in her hazel eyes made the tears more difficult to fend off.

“I wish we could have met under different circumstances. But I suppose it was fortunate that I was there.”

Well, this was not good. The Man’s first impression of him was as a commander whose soldiers mutinied – a commander who nearly got himself killed by the rebellious faction in his ranks.

Allowing the cold, analytical part of his mind to take over, Sark swiftly strategized. He could either offer excuses or accept responsibility – and, mysterious as she was, he instinctively knew which she would prefer.

Folding his hands calmly in his lap, Sark looked her straight in the eye and said, “After what you witnessed tonight, I’m sure you’re finding it difficult to agree with Mr. Khasinau’s decision to give me so much responsibility. But I assure you, Ms. Derevko, I am capable of doing this job. I don’t know what it will take for me to prove that to you, but whatever is, I’ll do it.”

Irina smiled. Again her warmth and openness startled him. “It wasn’t Khasinau’s decision to put you in charge. It was mine. And I stand behind it.”

Sark met very few people he couldn’t read within seconds. But this woman had him spinning. Her disarming sincerity struck him as a weakness for their line of work, yet The Man was quickly becoming the most powerful crime lord in the world – how could she be weak?

He thought back on what he’d learned about her at Winslow: A master manipulator, the ultimate deceiver, a woman virtually incapable of telling the truth – unless that truth worked to her advantage.

Okay, so she was playing him. He would play along.

Sark was on dangerous ground here and he knew it. Had she been coldly disapproving (the way Khasinau would have been) or absolutely furious (the way Allison would have been), he could have easily formulated a plan; Irina’s almost maternal charm, however, had him guessing about the best way to respond.

The direct approach worked before – might as well try it again.

Matching her forthrightness, Sark countered, “I appreciate your confidence, obviously, but I’ll admit I don’t understand it.”

The sparkle in her hazel eyes said she approved of his candor. “If tonight were the first time I’d seen you in action, I might be inclined to…replace you. But I’ve followed your career with great interest, even while you were at the Winslow Academy.”

Now they were coming to it.

Sark had long suspected that The Man, for whatever reason, had a plan for him – a plan he had to prove himself fit for, of course, but nevertheless a long-term strategy that involved him. He could think of no other reason why Khasinau would have been spying on him at Winslow.

His heartbeat quickened as he realized that Irina might very well know who his parents were. Of course he was also adept enough at manipulation to realize that she had purposefully dangled that carrot in front of his nose.

This entire conversation felt like a test. Sark just wasn’t sure which was on trial, his competence or his loyalty.

“Betrayal is part of our business,” Irina continued.

She leaned forward and laid her hands gently over his. Sark immediately tensed, recoiling not from her touch but from his longing to be comforted.

“You’re a capable leader and a talented operative. But you’re also very young, and there are some lessons only time can teach. Learning to anticipate treachery in those closest to you doesn’t come naturally to anyone. We all have to learn that the hard way. Even I did.”

She offered him a sympathetic smile. “And now you have,” she finished, releasing his hands and falling back in her chair.

Sark wanted to believe that it could be this easy, that The Man could be as forgiving as she was ruthless. And he might have, if he hadn’t seen the grim pleasure in her face when she killed Morgan.

He thought again that this was a test, yet he was beginning to suspect that her concern wasn’t about his fitness to lead – she seemed convinced of that. So what was she after? What angle was she playing?

She’s saying everything I want to hear, he reasoned. She’s consoling me about my loss, reassuring me that I’ve done a good job. It’s like…it’s like she’s my mother.

Allison’s warning about Khasinau echoed in his ears: “A lot of the time you act like he’s your father. And he’s not. He doesn’t think of us as his children. We’re his soldiers.”

Looking cynically at that relationship, Sark decided that Khasinau could have relied on his paternal image to ensure their loyalty. He had used fear to control his charges, to groom them into skilled operatives, but the care and concern he showed for them had demanded their fealty when they were fully capable of mutinying.

This exchange with Irina made more sense when considered that way. She was simultaneously testing and securing his fidelity – using his grief to her advantage, sympathizing with and comforting him to solidify his allegiance to her.

The smart move, he realized, would be to go along with the ruse – it wasn’t as if he had any intentions of betraying her. But tonight, with his illusions about their happy little family cruelly shattered, Sark couldn’t take another person manipulating his emotions.

Aware that he could be making a fatal mistake, he drew in a deep breath and summoned his courage. “With all due respect, Ms. Derevko, if our roles were reversed, I would be pitching you out that emergency exit right about now, not offering my condolences. I walked into a trap of my own making tonight. My foolishness cost us two talented operatives, whom you invested thousands of dollars and nearly a decade in training, and allowed Ward’s associates to rebel not only against my authority but against yours. So if it’s all the same to you,” he concluded, bracing himself for her counterattack, “I’d like to know the real reason you’re so willing to overlook this failure.”

For one second, Sark could have sworn she was gaping at him.

Irina covered her surprise gracefully, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a bemused smile. He was relieved that his outburst had intrigued rather than infuriated her – but he decided that would be as close as he ever came to insubordination with The Man.

“Have you ever heard of a man named Milo Rambaldi?”

Having steeled himself for a caustic retaliation, Sark was momentarily bewildered by her question.

Quickly recovering, he turned the name over in his mind; nothing registered in his flawless memory, so he shook his head. “Who is he?”

“He was an inventor. He lived in the late fifteenth century.”

Sark furrowed his brow and wondered where she was going with this, but he waited patiently for her to continue.

“Rambaldi was Pope Alexander VI’s chief architect. He enjoyed a successful career, but in the end, his ideas were too radical for his time. You see, he believed that mankind would discover God through science.”

The Winslow Academy taught more than weapons and espionage; Sark clearly remembered Professor Johanssen’s history lectures on the consequences of heresy in medieval Europe. “I assume he was executed for that assertion.”

Irina nodded. “Before his death, Rambaldi compiled a manuscript of his scientific plans and sketches. No one paid much attention to it after he died – some of the pages were sold, some were traded, some were mixed up with other documents.

“Rambaldi was forgotten and stayed that way for five centuries, until shortly after World War II. Then an Italian aristocrat, destitute from the war, sold his family’s library to an American museum. Three pages of Rambaldi’s manuscript were among those texts. When the documents were studied, some scholars came to believe that Rambaldi was a prophet.”

Intrigued yet skeptical, Sark echoed, “A prophet?”

His disbelief must have been obvious, because Irina smiled indulgently. “It sounds silly, I know. But U.S. Naval Intelligence became interested in the pages because they appeared to be plans for an entirely unmanned submarine.”

Sark arched an eyebrow. “You mean an inventor 500 years ago was designing military technology that didn’t exist until the latter part of this century?”

He shook his head, trying to process what he was hearing – and the idea that such a brilliant woman could have swallowed this tall tale. He was also hoping to cast off the beginnings of what promised to be a killer headache. “How is that possible?”

“No one has been able to answer the ‘how’, but it is possible. Following Rambaldi’s instructions, the Navy designed a state-of-the-art submarine.”

Right, Sark thought, wishing the pressure behind his tired eyes would ease up. And the Tooth Fairy is real, too.

He was careful to keep his expression neutral, although Irina seemed both prepared for and undaunted by his skepticism. “Naturally that piqued their curiosity. They assigned officers to study the manuscript and began collecting pages from all over the world. That sort of thing is difficult to keep quiet, though, so other governments – and eventually private contractors, such as myself – joined in the hunt for Rambaldi’s work. In the intervening decades, prototypes of his designs have sprung up everywhere, and a good portion of his manuscript has been found, though it’s far from complete.”

The ache in Sark’s head was becoming truly distracting. Exhaustion and stress. Just hold it together for a while longer and you’ll be home, he consoled himself.

As if that would be much of a relief. At the Manor he would have to tell Maurice that Morgan and Joey were dead – and face Khasinau…

“What did he design, besides submarines?” Sark managed to sound interested but couldn’t quite mask the strain in his voice as the headache reached full power.

“Many things. A cell phone, a CD player, a computer. But most of his creations were weapons – very powerful weapons.”

When Irina leaned forward, he couldn’t decide if her intensity stemmed from concern about his obvious discomfort or excitement over her subject. “The weapons are fascinating, yet there were always those who believed that Rambaldi had a specific goal – a strategy that would allow mankind to know God, as he had said. Thirty-six years ago, the answer to his true mission was discovered.”

Despite his headache and skepticism, Sark was anxious to hear the end of the story.

“Rambaldi was searching for the secret to immortality.”

Well, why not aim high?

Sark strove for a noncommittal tone that would disguise how ridiculous he found all of this. “And your organization, its purpose is to help you finish his quest, I presume. You dominate the global arena of organized crime, and any Rambaldi material not in the hands of a government agency comes under your control.”

Irina smirked at him. “You’re a quick study.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He congratulated himself more for sounding smooth and confident while feeling terribly weak and nauseous than for coming up with the right answer. He had always believed The Man had a master plan that surpassed a simple lust for power; hearing Irina’s impassioned speech about Rambaldi made solving that puzzle fairly simple, even for someone as physically and emotionally drained as Sark was at the moment.

Or perhaps he hadn’t come across as chipper as he believed, because she abruptly ended their meeting, though he sensed she had much more to say.

“We shouldn’t talk anymore tonight,” Irina announced decisively, rising. “You need to rest. Come, lie down over here.”

She motioned him over to the sofa where she had been sleeping earlier. Sark hesitated – tired as he was, he wanted to impress her, to show her he was strong enough to handle this.

A wave of dizziness rolled over him. Must be getting the flu or something – but I never get sick, he thought, struggling against the faintness. He wasn’t about to collapse in front of Irina when he had pulled off the impossible and convinced her he was suitable for leadership despite tonight’s evidence to the contrary.

“No arguments,” Irina tabled, seeing his uncertainty. “I’m coming to the Manor with you. We’ll have time to talk there.”

Reluctantly, Sark gave in. He managed not to wobble as he stood, crossed to the sofa and lowered himself onto it, almost groaning as his weary muscles relaxed.

Yes, this was what he needed. A few hours of sleep – hopefully dreamless sleep – and he would be ready to find out how he figured into The Man’s Rambaldi quest.

And ready to face Maurice, and Allison, and Khasinau, and Morgan and Joey’s empty rooms…

While they talked, Sark had almost been able to forget that his friends were gone. Now the grief pressed in on him again, intensifying the pain in his head until he feared he might throw up.

Irina covered him with a blanket. Watching her lean down over him, Sark was struck again by how closely she resembled his Dream Girl – had she been twenty years younger, she would have been her.

But that wasn’t possible…right?

“What?”

Irina’s amused question made him realize he was staring. Sark barely managed not to blush. “Nothing,” he said quickly – too quickly – and looked away. “I’m just…tired.”

She grinned rather knowingly but accepted that answer. When she disappeared into the kitchen, Sark allowed himself a mental groan.

Way to go – seem even more green, like some dumb kid mooning over her!

Any other time he would have done this so much better, he decided, as he fast lost the battle with sleep. But he would make up for it later. Once they reached the Manor he would prove to her that he was worthy of the faith she’d put in him, erase whatever doubts still lingered in her mind about his suitability for power.

But first, of course, he had to bury his brothers.

* * * *

Maurice met them at the front door as always. This time, however, there was no smile of relief and cheerful ushering down the hall to milk and cookies.

This time there was only sorrow.

Maurice’s sad gray eyes met Sark’s as he carried Joey’s body over the threshold. Still holding Joey, Sark moved wordlessly past him and up the stairs.

Below, Sark heard Allison begin to sob as Maurice embraced her; his first instinct was to go back to her, but he kept going.

He was afraid that if he stopped he might sink to the floor and never move again.

Sark didn’t realize anyone had followed him upstairs until Irina stepped around him to open Joey’s door. “Thank you,” was all Sark could find to say.

Joey’s room was that of a typical teenage boy: posters of his favorite rock bands filled the walls, heaps of dirty clothes covered the floor, empty soda cans and potato chip bags littered the dresser and nightstand. His electric guitar sat proudly in one corner, next to a stack of CDs.

The only true oddity was the state-of-the-art computer network that took up one entire wall.

Sark carefully placed Joey on the bed and arranged the pillows behind him. Pulling the sheet up to his chin to hide the gaping wound in his neck, Sark thought, He looks asleep.

From the doorway, Irina said, “Come see me when you’re ready.”

Because he didn’t trust himself not to cry if he spoke, Sark nodded silently. He heard her close the door as she left.

The finality of death amazed Sark. He walked slowly around Joey’s room, overwhelmed by the evidence of a life cut off in midstream. A paperback copy of Slaughterhouse Five lay on the nightstand, a page turned down to mark his place; notes strewn about the workstation attested to the latest computer program he was writing; his alarm clock was still set for 7:00am.

It was as if the room and all of Joey’s possessions were waiting patiently for a master that would never return.

Alone with the boy he had long considered his baby brother, Sark wanted to take Joey’s lifeless body in his arms and say, You were the best of us. None of this ever tainted you – you were good and kind and generous and happy. When I looked at you I saw what we all might have been, in another life. And I don’t think I ever told you how much I loved you.

Instead, those tears he had expected to shed the moment he was by himself refused to come. In place of the unbearable agony was a permeating coldness.

Inhuman.

Well, hadn’t he already decided he couldn’t afford to be human any more?

Deep down, Sark recognized that if he closed off now – if he didn’t simply suppress the pain but actually refused to feel it – he would set a precedent for the rest of his life. Gradually he would come to resemble more and more that icy persona he affected until eventually he wouldn’t even recognize himself.

What frightened him was that he wanted that to happen. He wanted whatever vestiges of compassion, kindness and innocence that remained in him to disappear. He wanted to become the mask.

From somewhere in the back of his aching head the thought came again – Something is coming.

Bring it the fuck on, his inner voice answered calmly, as if he were challenging a schoolyard bully. And like any bully, the fear retreated.

An hour later, Joey’s body was ready for burial. Sark had sewn the wound in his neck shut and hidden the stitches beneath the collar of a white oxford; he had dressed Joey in his finest black suit, right down to the black leather shoes and imported silk tie, and arranged his long red hair in a tasteful ponytail.

When Maurice quietly entered, Sark didn’t look at him. He suspected that if anyone could penetrate this tough exterior he was determined to hold in place, it would be Maurice.

“Miss Allison would like to see the body.” Maurice sounded strangely formal.

“I’m nearly finished. I didn’t want her to see him…like that.” Sark smoothed Joey’s tie and stepped back, surprised by how handsome his brother looked.

He would have broken some hearts in a couple of years, he realized, willing that cold detachment to descend on him again.

Maurice joined him beside the bed. He placed a hand silently on Sark’s shoulder; they stayed that way for a long while, looking at Joey.

At last, Sark was able to speak without crying. “I didn’t realize how tall he was getting.”

“He was growing up. I’m not sure any of us realized how quickly.”

Another short silence followed. Always adept at deciphering motives, Sark realized Maurice was wordlessly offering to share this burden of grief with him; had the gesture come from anyone else – even Allison or Khasinau – Sark would have steeled himself against it.

But in his entire life, Maurice was the only person Sark knew had no ulterior motives – Maurice just loved him. Much as he wanted to be strong from now on, to rise above his emotions until he no longer had to pretend not to feel, he understood that it was safe to let his guard down with Maurice.

So he did.

Kneeling beside the bed, Sark picked up Joey’s cold hand and caressed it as the words he’d been holding back tumbled out. “I remember the first night he was here. He came to my doorway and said it was cold in his room.”

Sark paused and shut his eyes, picturing the scrawny freckle-faced boy swathed in shadows and clutching a stuffed bear.

“I told him he could sleep in my room. I don’t think his feet even touched the floor between the door and the bed, he ran so fast to get under the covers.”

They both chuckled at that. Sark reached back in his memory and recalled perfectly the strangely gratifying sensation of being needed by someone. “He got as close to me as he could. After a little while he said he’d heard a scratching at his window. I told him there was a tree right outside his room, and he’d only heard the branches blowing in the wind.”

Sark gently placed Joey’s hand back on his chest, finishing thoughtfully, “Every time after that when he had a bad dream or heard a strange noise, he’d come to my doorway and say he was cold. I never let on that I knew he was really scared.”

Or that I missed it when he didn’t need me anymore…

Standing, Sark turned to Maurice as another old memory, long buried, suddenly surfaced. “Do you remember the bird? The bird with the broken wing?”

Cuffing tears off of his wrinkled cheeks, Maurice frowned, uncomprehending. Then he laughed. “You mean the one you four found under the stoop?” Sark nodded eagerly. “How could I forget? You brought the filthy thing into my kitchen.”

Sark couldn’t believe he had nearly forgotten that day, although he didn’t understand what had made him remember it now. “We wanted to nurse it back to health,” he recalled. “Joey brought down the thermometer and the bandages, remember?”

Maurice was smiling broadly through his tears. “Miss Allison found that old toy stethoscope. She said it had an arrhythmia.” He shook his head ruefully. “And you wanted one of my heart pills for it, as I recall. I gave you a jelly bean instead.”

In his mind’s eye, Sark saw the pitiful bird lying in one of Morgan’s old tee-shirts on the kitchen table. It was a robin, he thought, hearing its weak cries again. It was so beautiful, and so helpless, and we all wanted to protect it – even Morgan.

“How long did it live?” he wondered aloud, trying to remember. It had seemed an eternity to him at the time, knowing the bird was in such terrible pain.

“An hour, if that,” Maurice answered. “Then I had four distraught children on my hands.”

In spite of himself, Sark shivered. He experienced a very vivid image of Maurice kneeling in front of his 12-year-old self, gently explaining the concept of heaven.

And he had believed, unquestioningly, that the bird was in a better place. Only somehow the same concern for a human being had never crossed Sark’s mind until this moment.

Tears were streaming freely down Maurice’s cheeks again when Sark asked, “Do you remember what you told us?”

It took Maurice a moment to compose himself enough to answer, and then his words shook. “That the bird wasn’t in any more pain. That it was with its family. That it would never be cold, or scared, or hungry, or hurt or sick ever again. That it was at peace.”

The old man reached out a gnarled hand and lovingly stroked Joey’s cheek, adding in a whisper, “In heaven.”

Sark wanted to believe again, to be comforted by Maurice’s tender version of death, the way he had been as a child.

But I’m not a child anymore. I’m eighteen – as of two hours and ten minutes from now, anyway. And I’ve seen too much to go back to what I was before.

He realized it was cruel to voice his disillusionment when Maurice – good, caring, honest Maurice – was wrestling with his own grief. Yet the oddly soothing numbness had returned, making it possible for Sark to say tonelessly, “I don’t believe in heaven, Maurice. That’s just something we tell ourselves so we can feel better when someone dies.”

Slowly, Maurice turned to face him. The determined set to his jaw startled Sark.

“Then believe this: the people we love never truly die. They live on inside of us, in our memories.”

The moment held between them. Sark understood that this wasn’t Maurice placating a crying child; this was a man who had weathered many of life’s storms imparting the knowledge he’d gained along the way. For an instant, it wasn’t so easy for Sark to dismiss it and retreat behind his stony façade.

Finally, he managed a bleak smile that broke the tension. “You’ll never change, Maurice. You’ll always be finding ways to comfort us.”

“That’s my job,” Maurice replied, his glibness not quite lightening the solemnity. His eyes filled up again when he looked back down at Joey. “He loved you very much, you know. He always tried his best to please you, and you always tried your best to shield him from the worst of all this. You were a good big brother to him.”

Yes, I was. But I wasn’t supposed to be his brother. I was supposed to be his commander. I was supposed to keep him alive.

Sark didn’t know how to put into words, even to Maurice, the decision he had come to – that he would never again allow himself to love or trust another person as completely as he had Morgan and Joey. Besides, he knew Maurice would argue with him and he didn’t want to be dissuaded.

So he just took Maurice’s arm and led the old man gently out of the room. Allison wanted to say her goodbyes to Joey, and Sark needed to find Irina, to hear the end of the Rambaldi tale – the part that he understood, with a knot of dread forming in his stomach, somehow involved him.

In the hallway, however, Sark faltered. The door to the Bat Cave stood open. His birthday banner, the sign Joey had made for him, was still stretched across the room.

Maurice followed his gaze and gasped. “I’m sorry,” he cried, rushing to shut the door. “I was going to take it down tomorrow, and then this happened…”

His voice trailed off as he searched Sark’s cold blue gaze for some sign of feeling. “What a terrible memory for your birthday...”

My birthday.

Sark’s mind leapt to the gift Maurice had given him. “You tried to warn me, didn’t you? When you told me about the wine, you were really trying to tell me about Morgan, weren’t you?”

Shaking his head, Maurice protested, “I didn’t know this was going to happen. I was afraid something like it would happen one day, but I never thought…not this, not so soon.” He bowed his snowy head. “I should have told you outright what I suspected, though. I’ll never forgive myself for settling for riddles.”

Sark squeezed Maurice’s arm. He couldn’t be angry with the old man; it had been his responsibility to protect his comrades, not Maurice’s.

“Every time I drink a glass of wine, I’ll think of Joey.”

His words brought a half smile to Maurice’s face. “That would be a nice memorial.”

And I’ll remember never to trust anyone again.

They stared into the game room for a while, both lost in their own thoughts, until Maurice said, almost apologetically, “When you feel up to it, Mr. Khasinau asked to see you in your office on the third floor.”

Time to get back to business.

“Will you bring Allison up to see Joey? I don’t think she should be alone right now.”

“Of course. I’ll take care of it.”

Good old Maurice. Sark smiled his thanks and started away, but instead of heading downstairs to collect Alli, Maurice turned toward Morgan’s room. Puzzled, Sark called after him, “What are you doing?”

His hand on the doorknob, Maurice swiveled around. “I’m preparing him for burial.”

He pushed the door open, and Sark froze. Someone – he assumed Maurice – had carried Morgan’s body inside and laid him out on his bed.

Sark’s feet carried him, unbidden, into the doorway of the room where he had spent many afternoons listening to CDs and discussing girls and guns, many late nights making a tent out of the covers and reading comic books by flashlight, many rainy days playing soldier inside a fort made out of blankets stretched across chairs. His best friend’s room.

The black sheet was still wound around Morgan’s body, but it didn’t hide the carnage where the bullets had torn through flesh, muscle and bone. With his eyes wide open and staring and his arms pinned at his sides by the sheet, Morgan didn’t look at peace as Joey did – he looked terrified.

I don’t believe in heaven, but I do believe in hell…

Again a part of Sark wanted to go to Morgan, to clean his wounds and dress him properly and tell him goodbye as he had Joey – to mourn the friends they could have been as much as the young man who had died. But once more he shut that off, welcoming the chill that flooded his veins and transformed the anguish into emptiness.

The change must have been obvious because Maurice visibly recoiled when Sark swung around and said crisply, “We didn’t bring him back to bury, Maurice. We brought him back so the authorities wouldn’t identify his body and question how a boy who reportedly died a decade ago was killed tonight.”

Maurice studied him for a moment. When he finally spoke, his only comment was a clipped, “What should I do with him then?”

Sark didn’t miss a beat. “Burn him.”

Chapter Eleven: The Keeper

This is over my head but underneath my feet

‘Cause by tomorrow morning I’ll have this thing beat

And everything will be back to the way it was

I wish it was just that easy

‘Cause I’m waiting for tonight

Then waiting for tomorrow

And I’m somewhere in between

What is real, and just a dream

“Somewhere In Between,” Lifehouse

Sark found it difficult to think of the office as his with Irina seated behind the desk and Khasinau hovering beside the door.

The third floor office had been Sark’s sanctuary for two years now. Although he respected that they were his superiors, his defenses automatically went up at this invasion of his territory.

Bloody well make yourself at home, he thought grumpily, grating an irritated glance toward Irina as she neatly stacked the mess of papers on his desk.

Sark was smart enough to hide his displeasure behind a veil of polite passivity. But his exhaustion (the nap on the plane had been anything but restful, plagued by his typical hazy dreams), his grief (repressed as it was) and his nagging headache made it difficult to play the contrite subordinate.

Oddly, he was more nervous about facing Khasinau than he had been about squaring off with The Man.

I’ve thought of him as my boss for so long, Sark reasoned, shaking the hand Khasinau stiffly extended to him. I always believed he probably was The Man. This power shift will take some getting used to, that’s all.

Was it his imagination, or did Khasinau look less than thrilled to see him?

“Does Kristoff have the operation in London back in hand?” Sark honestly couldn’t have cared less at the moment about Kristoff’s managerial woes, but he wanted to show Khasinau – and Irina, of course – that his concern was, first and foremost, for the success of their organization.

Though Sark’s question had been directed at Khasinau, Irina answered. “I instructed Kristoff to execute all remaining members of Ward’s staff. By tomorrow morning, he’ll have his own people in place.”

The implied reproof, obviously, was that Sark should have taken that tact from the beginning and avoided the possibility of a revolt altogether.

Memo to self: When in doubt, kill them all, he thought sardonically.

Because he was quickly learning that Irina tolerated no evasions, Sark replied bluntly, “Another mistake on my part.”

“On mine, actually.”

Khasinau’s protest startled Sark. He stepped up to join his charge in front of the desk and continued, “I only authorized him to kill Ward. I didn’t realize how far the corruption had spread.”

Irina narrowed her dark eyes. Sark shifted uncomfortably as the tension in the room escalated; he sensed an underlying malevolence between these two – Khasinau was being diffidently elusive, taking the blame without admitting he had known what a viper’s nest Sark would be walking into, and Irina was scrutinizing her second-in-command with barely concealed distrust.

After a nerve-racking silence, during which Sark half-expected guns to be drawn, Irina observed dryly, “Apparently not.”

Her meaning was clear. On the plane, she had excused Sark’s inability to predict Morgan’s betrayal; now, she was accusing Khasinau of choosing not to defuse that situation long ago.

Or was she implying something else entirely?

The exchange with Morgan in the basement reverberated in Sark’s mind:

“You have to know that Khasinau will execute you for this.”

“You really think you’re the favorite son, don’t you, Mr. Sark? Well, maybe you aren’t as beloved as you’d like to believe.”

Could Morgan have been working under orders from Khasinau – using a coup among Ward’s associates to cover up a murder The Man hadn’t sanctioned?

Sark shook those suspicions away. Khasinau had no reason to want him dead. He was rising swiftly through the ranks, yes, but he was light years away from challenging Khasinau’s power.

Morgan was just angry, and bitter, and vengeful, saying whatever he could think of to hurt me – like that Alli enjoyed playing Ward’s mistress. It was all a pack of lies intended to destroy me before he killed me.

He cleared his throat. Irina and Khasinau dropped their staring contest to look expectantly at him.

“If I may,” Sark began hesitantly, hating that he felt compelled to throw himself to the lions. “I don’t believe Mr. Khasinau was to blame for this, Ms. Derevko. Morgan Grey was part of my team, and Zachariah Ward’s operation fell under my jurisdiction, and it was my responsibility to assess all threats related to the mission. That I failed to do so is no one’s fault but my own.”

Keep talking, his inner voice snapped, and you’ll talk yourself right out of that promotion.

Irina’s eyes glinted with what could have been malice when she looked back at Khasinau. “Would you excuse us, please?”

Sark immediately started to leave, a tad miffed about being summarily dismissed from his own office, but Khasinau laid a hand on his arm. “She means me,” he said quietly, sounding almost amused.

“Oh.” Sark smiled sheepishly.

Giving his arm a quick squeeze, Khasinau added warmly, “I’m glad you made it back safely.”

Why didn’t that quite ring true?

Shoving aside his doubts about Khasinau, Sark waited for Irina to finish the story she had started on the plane. She seemed in no hurry, however. Leaning back, she crossed her legs and waved him into a chair across from her.

He wished he could figure her out, pin down her motives the way he normally could. The look in her dark eyes disconcerted him; it could have been compassion, disdain, curiosity or – Sark fought down a shiver – lust.

“You’re wondering about your promotion.”

Obviously, Irina was having no such difficulty reading him.

Sark nodded and concentrated on settling an inscrutable expression in place. He was certain, however, that his disappointment was written all over his face when she announced, “I’ve already found someone to replace Hans Beckelhymer.”

Wave goodbye to that promising future…

“Will I be staying on here then?” Sark left off the second half of that question – Or am I about to be executed?

“No.”

His throat closed over with fear. He wondered if he should take the bullet like a man, sitting here calmly across from her, or go down fighting.

“You’ve done a remarkable job,” Irina went on, sounding conciliatory. Sark sat rooted to the spot as he waited for the killing blow – would she do it herself or leave it up to Khasinau?

“I realize there’s been some…resistance to your authority, but you’ve handled it remarkably well. Not even Khasinau ran this division so effectively.”

Well, this was odd. Why was she congratulating him on his success if she was about to do away with him?

“However,” she uncrossed her legs, and Sark flinched, “your talents are wasted in this capacity. You’re destined to be far more than a mere manager, Mr. Sark.”

He nearly melted with relief. A sudden buoyancy of hope made him sit up straighter and smirk, to which Irina covered her mouth to hide a knowing grin.

Too pleased to be abashed about his happiness, Sark countered, “So what am I destined for, Ms. Derevko?”

He hadn’t meant it to sound so…seductive.

Her dark eyes crashed into his. He felt his face heat up but was powerless against the blush; for one instant, with her full lips curled in a coy smile and her hair falling in her eyes, Irina looked exactly like his Dream Girl.

Sark suffered a very vivid recollection of last night’s dream. He could almost feel his Dream Girl’s lips on his; the sensation clouded his mind with desire.

Desperate to rescue himself from this incredibly awkward moment, he blurted out, “You remind me of someone.”

Irina, he realized with an inner groan, was trying not to laugh. “An old girlfriend?”

Oh for fuck’s sake, just shoot me now…

“No,” Sark muttered, resisting the urge to drag a hand through his hair. He wrenched his icy persona back into place and regarded his employer coolly. “Just someone. I can’t place who.”

She wasn’t fooled by that lie, but she didn’t seem interested in pursuing the subject, thankfully. Instead, she abruptly rose and crossed to the vault door. “Did Khasinau ever tell you what is in here?”

Immediately, Sark forgot his other worries. “No,” he replied, his heart in his mouth. “He just said they were four artifacts of untold value.”

“Rambaldi artifacts,” Irina clarified.

This was huge. He was about to be included in a secret that Sark understood only she and Khasinau knew about. He couldn’t imagine why The Man was placing so much faith in him after the mess in London, but he decided to stop analyzing it and go along for the ride.

Intuitively he sensed that he should stay put, so he waited while she disappeared into the enormous vault. When she returned, she was holding two sheets of paper – one she placed in his hands, the other she lay behind her on the desk, out of sight.

The page was very old. The edges were curled and yellowed, the parchment thin and brittle, the ink faded and blotched. Sark held it gingerly, afraid it might crumble in his fingers.

Irina was seated on the edge of the desk now, studying him. “That’s from Rambaldi’s manuscript,” she explained. “Page 47, to be exact.”

But Sark wasn’t listening anymore – he was too busy gaping at the paper.

His Dream Girl – a sketch of his Dream Girl in the Rambaldi manuscript...

Again a voice in his head whispered, Something is coming.

“If you’re thinking that looks like me, you wouldn’t be the first to make that connection.”

Irina, of course, had no idea what was really going through his mind, and Sark had no intention of telling her – it sounded too crazy. So he said nothing while she explained, “I learned about Rambaldi while undercover as Laura Bristow. My husband worked with a man named Arvin Sloane, who had studied the manuscript with Naval Intelligence.”

That name rang a bell with Sark. “Arvin Sloane, member of the Alliance. Director of their SD-6 division,” he recited.

Irina arched an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “We did case studies at Winslow.”

She accepted that. “I thought then, as you do now, that the whole thing was nonsense, but out of prudence I reported back on it to my superiors in the KGB.”

Like a good little soldier, Sark thought, though of course he didn’t say it.

“My mission as Laura Bristow was to gather intel on the CIA’s Project Christmas. But once Rambaldi entered the picture, my handler ordered me to find out as much about it as I could. To that end I set up surveillance on Sloane.”

An almost imperceptible edge to her voice made Sark wonder if that “surveillance” had taken the form of a love affair. After all, that was what Irina Derevko was known for.

“The more I learned about Rambaldi, the more fascinated I became. When I learned that Sloane had arranged to purchase two pages of the manuscript from a seller in Tokyo, I flew there myself, intercepted the man and retrieved the documents. This page,” she tapped Page 47, “could only be read by applying this solution to it.”

Irina held up a tiny vial of liquid. “When I exposed the page and saw that drawing, I realized I couldn’t let it fall into the hands of either the CIA or the KGB.”

Perplexed, Sark asked, “Why not? I’m sure thousands of women have looked like this since Rambaldi’s time.”

Like my Dream Girl…

“Undoubtedly. But when I decoded the page, it referred to contemporary dates.”

Sark understood. Either the CIA or the KGB would have put two and two together and assumed Irina was the woman in the drawing – and he was getting the impression that was not a good thing.

Another benefit of a Winslow education was the ability to read and speak more than a dozen languages, but he couldn’t make sense of the text. “You said it’s in code?” he prompted, his curiosity overcoming his continued skepticism. “So what does it say?”

She held his gaze as she quoted from memory, “This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks, signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works, bind them with fury, a burning anger. Unless prevented, at vulgar cost this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation.”

In spite of himself, Sark shuddered.

Laying the page down on the desk, he queried in a decidedly neutral tone, “And you believe this woman is you?”

“I did, at first,” Irina confessed. “And I had no desire to be a lab rat for any government agency, mine or the United States’. So I hid the pages, returned home to my husband and made an appointment with my doctor.”

Confused again, Sark echoed, “Your doctor?”

“The page listed three specific anomalies – DNA sequencing, platelet levels, the size of the heart – as those ‘unseen marks’ the woman would possess.”

She suddenly smiled rather shyly and tucked her hair behind her ears, reminding Sark again of his Dream Girl.

Focus, he ordered himself furiously. Somehow this involves you or she wouldn’t be wasting time explaining it, so keep your head in the game!

“I know this sounds silly to you.” He was surprised – and rather pleased – that she cared about his opinion of her – until he reminded himself that Irina was more than proficient at telling people what they wanted to hear.

He looked at her coldly. As expected, she dropped the act and went back to business, saying crisply, “But for my own protection, I needed to know if that woman was me.”

A short, tense pause followed. Sark once again waited in suspense, admiring her ability to weave a tale so captivatingly.

“It wasn’t.”

So what the hell is all of this about?

“I’m not sure I understand,” he began.

Irina lifted a hand to silence him. “My DNA sequencing and the size of my heart matched Rambaldi’s anomalies. My platelet levels didn’t. But of course the DNA sequencing meant the woman in his manuscript had to be a relative of mine.”

Sark had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to like where this was headed. Because if he remembered correctly, Irina Derevko’s undercover operation had also involved rearing a child…

“The first date on that page is April 17, 1974 – my daughter’s birthday.”

Holy shit. My Dream Girl.

Even as he told himself it wasn’t possible, Sark knew that, somehow, it was. Crazy as it sounded, he had been dreaming about Irina Derevko’s daughter his entire life – long before he ever knew Irina existed.

“What’s her name?” he asked dully.

“Sydney.”

Sydney Bristow. Pretty name.

His headache returned full force as he tried to process the idea that his Dream Girl was very, very real.

The unshakable sense of foreboding rose up in him again as well, turning his stomach and chilling him to the core.

If Irina noticed his astonishment, Sark assumed she attributed it to disbelief of her Rambaldi tale. In any case, she glossed over it and finished her story.

“I wasn’t about to let my daughter be harmed, either, so I kept the pages hidden. Unfortunately, it was around that time that the CIA began to suspect me, and I was extracted shortly thereafter.”

While he found it difficult to believe that The Man could truly be altruistic, Sark acknowledged that a mother’s love was a powerful thing. And, master manipulator that she was, Irina couldn’t disguise the love in her eyes when she spoke of her daughter; what he found even more convincing was that she had tried to.

“So your interest in Rambaldi is to protect,” he faltered slightly over her name, “Sydney.”

Irina confirmed that with a nod but cut him off before he could suggest that they simply burn the damn pages and be done with it. “There’s more.”

Sark groaned inwardly. More? Could this get any more disturbing?

She picked up the second page yet withheld it from him. He barely resisted the urge to rip it out of her hands; fear, like empathy, didn’t come naturally to Sark, but he was honestly terrified of what she was about to reveal.

Something is coming…

“This is Page 48,” Irina declared.

Sark swallowed audibly around the apprehension coiled in his throat.

“It refers to a man Rambaldi calls the ‘Keeper’. The text is frustratingly vague, but one thing is clear: the woman in Rambaldi’s prophecy – my daughter – will face terrible danger in her lifetime. But her destiny is so important that she will be given a sort of guardian angel – a person with the ability to foresee those threats so he can protect her from them.”

Sark didn’t want to hear anymore. The pieces were falling into place: his dreams of Sydney, his recruitment into The Man’s organization, were starting to make a horrifying kind of sense.

He fixed Irina with his stoniest glare, suddenly unconcerned about offending her. Voice dripping with condescension, he asked, “And you believe this ‘prophecy’, as you call it?”

Once again unfazed by his incredulity, Irina continued smoothly, “Page 48 listed both the birthplace and the birth date of the Keeper: Galway, Ireland, September 30, 1976.”

Un-fucking-believable.

Irina ignored the effect this was having on Sark. He struggled to stare her down, to show her how ridiculous he found all of this, but the ache in his head was becoming so unbearable he thought he might pass out.

Her voice floated to him out of a fog, sounding strangely far away. “After I faked my death to evade the CIA, only a handful of people in the KGB knew that I was alive. My handler, Alexander Khasinau, was one of them. I shared the Rambaldi pages with him, and he helped me go underground, to hide from the KGB while we researched Rambaldi’s quest.”

How lovely for you both, Sark thought. He focused on a glass paperweight on his desk to fend off the dizziness.

“Our first step was to locate all of the male children born on that date in Galway. There were four. Fortunately, Rambaldi also gave three anomalies that the Keeper would possess. The first was DNA sequencing. The second was this birthmark on the right hip.”

She held up a sketch of an eye inside of a triangle, which Sark recognized as the tiny mark on his hip he’d never given a second thought to.

“The third was that he would be born with no appendix.”

Irina slipped off the desk and knelt in front of Sark, looking rather concerned by his pallor. “Those other three children were easy to locate and rule out. You were more of a challenge. But when we found you, we stole your medical records from Winslow. They proved that you have all three anomalies.”

Sark was cold but sweating. Irina almost hesitantly extended the page to him, saying softly, “The first time I saw you, you were sitting by yourself beneath an oak tree outside your school. You looked sad and lost, but I knew right then that you were destined to protect my daughter.”

He shut his eyes as he took the parchment from her. This is ridiculous, his mind shouted, drowning out the voice in his heart that whispered he had always known he wasn’t here by accident. It’s absolutely insane. If you weren’t so tired and sick and upset, you wouldn’t be buying a bloody word she’s saying!

“Padraic?” Irina whispered.

The use of his real name made Sark open his eyes. He opened his mouth to tell her that Padraic Finn was dead, nothing but a memory –

He froze as his eyes fell on Page 48.

Tracing the drawing with a fingertip, Sark allowed emotion to defeat logic.

That’s me, he realized, staring at his own face on the yellowed paper. This is really happening – my life was predicted, my Dream Girl is real…

Something is coming.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

His voice sounded small and miserable even to him. Irina reflexively reached for his hand, but stopped herself; Sark wished she wouldn’t have, because he could have used some genuine comfort right then.

“As I said, the text is extremely vague. The only concrete prediction is that the Keeper’s destiny will be set in motion on his eighteenth birthday.”

She paused, staring into Sark’s turbulent blue eyes. “And if I’m not mistaken, you turn 18 in exactly one minute.”

When Sark turned to look at the clock, a sudden rushing filled his ears as the pain in his head intensified. Clutching his rolling stomach, he managed to gasp, “I’m going to be sick.”

Irina grabbed the trashcan, and he retched into it. He was dimly aware of her calling for help before a blinding whiteness rushed toward him and the world disappeared.

* * * *

She was running.

His Dream Girl – Sydney.

She was running for her life through a maze of darkened corridors, with a legion of armed guards in pursuit.

Sark wanted to go to her, to shield her body with his own, but he was strictly an observer in this dream.

He was powerless to protect her as she raced down a flight stairs, only to be confronted by an ambush party. He screamed for her to get out of the stairwell, and although he knew she couldn’t hear him, she appeared to have her wits entirely about her; she shoved open the door to the third floor and paused for a moment, taking stock of her surroundings.

Sark saw her eyes fall on an air vent near the ceiling and applauded her quick thinking – it was exactly the escape route he would have used.

Sydney ducked into the closest empty office and drug a chair over beneath the vent. Standing on it, she pried the cover loose and climbed inside.

He held his breath as a guard hesitated outside the door, listening. Sark willed the man to keep moving, not to discover her…

He sighed in relief when the guard walked away. She would be okay now – he instinctively knew that once she got outside she could get herself to safety without any difficulty.

But Sydney had crawled less than a foot when she stopped. He could tell that she was straining to hear something; a second later, he heard it, too: the muted whirr as the building’s electricity was restored.

She labeled the sound at the same time he did, shrugged, and started forward again.

When the volt of electricity hit her, she screamed.

For an instant, Sark was too shocked to register what he was seeing. Then, through his horror, he understood – the vents were designed as electric conductors, to safeguard against anyone using them to enter or exit the facility undetected.

He wanted to look away, or escape, or shut his eyes as Sydney flailed and writhed, but he was trapped in the dream – an utterly helpless, captive audience to her excruciating death.

The electricity seared through her flesh, burning down to the bone. Her clothes sparked and ignited. Sark silently howled along with her until, after what seemed an eternity, she collapsed in a blackened, twitching heap, her muscles continuing to convulse from the current long after she was dead.

He wished he could go to her and cradle her lifeless body in his arms. Seeing her that way, all of the pain of losing Morgan and Joey rose up within him; the sense of loss was overpowering.

Before he could reach out to her, though, he was spinning away. The thought occurred to him that he was flying back through time, but it happened too quickly for Sark to analyze it – one moment he was staring at Sydney’s mangled corpse, the next he was standing on the deck of a ship with the a warm summer breeze ruffling his hair.

This isn’t a dream, he realized, looking down at his small hands gripping the railing. It’s a memory – I remember this…Don’t I?

Strong hands steadied him. He was only a child, a frail little boy no more than five years old, perched on the bow of a ship that wasn’t moving.

He heard someone in the distance talking about the ship’s history. The words were muted, unimportant to his ears, because all that mattered was that he wasn’t at Winslow – he was in some glorious world where he could eat ice cream and explore an old ship and ask as many questions as he wanted.

“Are you my dad?” he heard himself ask the unseen man behind him, the man who was holding his shoulders tightly so he didn’t fall overboard.

“No,” a deep, gravelly voice replied kindly. “But I knew him, and he loved you very much, Padraic. He would be here with you if he could.”

“And my mum? Do you know my mum?”

“Yes, I knew her too. She was very beautiful.” A gentle hand moved through his hair. “She had blonde curls, just like yours. You look very much like her.”

“Are they ever coming back for me?”

There was a pause in which his whole world hung in the balance. And then the promise: “Someday.”

* * * *

Whether the darkness after he collapsed lasted moments or months, Sark couldn’t have said.

He was aware of being lifted and carried to a bed, of pain that floated gossamer and hazy at the edges of his consciousness like a shark circling its prey. The darkness protected him from that pain. He swam into it, and kept swimming, drifting and dreamless, grateful for a respite from all he had suffered.

A memory of the future, and a memory of the past I don’t remember – is any of this possible?

But in the delicious darkness, he didn’t have to answer that question. He let it slip away into nothingness.

I have to go back. If I stay here, I’ll die.

That thought brought the light hurtling toward him – a harsh whiteness that smelled (if light could smell) cold and sterile. The blackness burned away, leaving him exposed.

The pain was suddenly a very real companion.

It was like waking up from the dead. His eyes stung; his muscles burned; his head throbbed; his stomach heaved. Sark blinked away the bleariness to find himself in his own bed. For one hopeful moment, he thought it might have been a nightmare – Morgan’s betrayal, Joey’s death, The Man’s identity, the Rambaldi revelations.

Yet as the world slowly came into focus again, that hope was dashed. Irina Derevko, her face taut with concern, was sitting beside his bed.

“What happened?” Sark asked hoarsely, sitting up and stretching his sore muscles. He felt bruised, like he’d been in a fight.

“Are you okay?”

That was Alli. She appeared from the other side of the bed and pounced on him, throwing her slender arms around his waist and holding him as close as she could.

Sark had enough presence of mind to be embarrassed that Irina was witnessing this display.

“I’m fine,” he assured her, somewhat gruffly. He hastily disentangled himself from her embrace, though her red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks gave him a twinge of guilt for scaring her.

After all she’s lost in the last 24 hours, for her to think she was going to lose me, too – that must have been terrible…

He touched his lips to her forehead and added softly, “I really am, Alli.”

She kissed his cheek before falling back into her chair. Sark spotted Maurice over her shoulder, hovering anxiously in the doorway. Khasinau was nowhere to be seen.

Sark turned his attention back to Irina and asked again, “What happened?”

“You collapsed,” she replied. “You seemed to have some sort of seizure.”

She handed him a slip of paper. “And you wrote this in the dust on the floor with your finger.”

The message read: Mexico City, Pierre Dusique, October 2, 1am

Without even thinking, Sark announced, “That’s where Sydney’s going to be.”

His eyes flew to Irina’s as the dream rushed back in horrifying detail. “She dies. I saw her die.”

Allison and Maurice both looked thoroughly bewildered, but Irina smiled comfortingly. “No, she doesn’t,” she promised him. “Because you’re going to save her.”

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