Page 16 of Heartless

“I’m not sure what their purpose was,” Olivia said. “Their questions related back to ops I worked before I came to the US. They didn’t get a chance to ask much before Hawke intervened.”

Hawke didn’t visibly flinch, but he withered inside. Once they fell in love, she stopped calling him Hawke. When she was exasperated with him, she had called him Nicholas. All other times, he had been Nic. But now he was Hawke again.

“What did they ask?” Jazz said.

“Really obscure things.” She shook her head. “I only recall bits and pieces… I was so out of it.”

“Out of it how?” Jazz asked.

“I was drugged. Scopolamine, apparently.” She looked at Hawke again. “Do you think they recognized you and could tell someone?”

“I don’t know. I look a little different than I used to, and these men were mercenaries. I doubt they’d have known who I was. We managed to capture one of them.”

“Where is he?” Xavier asked.

“In a secure spot, being questioned.”

“He tell you anything?”

“Not yet. Claims he’s freelance, which I believe. Said he was paid to break in and rough Olivia up. That’s all.”

“Who hired him?”

“Doesn’t know that either. Said he’s a tall, bald guy with ugly brown eyes and a scar over his left eye. Has no accent.”

“Sound like anyone you know?” Ash asked.

“No.”

“You believe him?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Kate’s people were good at interrogation, but he was better. Their captive knew nothing.

“How did you know they were going to attack Olivia?” Serena asked.

“Because I’ve had her under surveillance since I disappeared.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Surveillance? Olivia jerked at the terminology. Not someone watching over her. Not some people keeping an eye out for her safety. It was almost as if she were under suspicion for something. What did that mean?

And why hadn’t she spotted them? She always took precautions. She switched up her routines three or four times a week. Never went directly to LCR from her house. Never ate at the same restaurant twice. Nothing she did was the norm. And yet, she had never seen anyone watching her. As angry and confused as she was, she still couldn’t help but be impressed. Almost from the time she could crawl, she had been trained in covert ops. She knew how to hide, and she knew how to spot a tail.

What infuriated her more than anything was the fact that any one of those people at any time could have spoken to her. Hawke could have gotten a message to her at any time. He could have told her he was alive. The hell she’d been going through for the last two years could have been eased in an instant with just a few simple words. Instead, he had wanted her to believe that he was dead. Why? She wanted answers, and he had promised that he would give them. She intended to ensure that he kept that promise.

“How did the attackers find Olivia? And if you’ve had people watching her, how did the attackers get past them to get to her?” Xavier asked.

“They screwed up.”

That wasn’t completely true, and Hawke knew it. They might have screwed up in letting them get to her, but the way they’d found her was all on her. The realization of how she’d been found had come to her earlier. On the flight to Montana, she’d had a lot of time to think. It infuriated her that she had never even considered it. If he’d had people following her, then they both knew how she’d been found.

He was going to let her off the hook. She could see it in his eyes that he was going to blame those watching her for the screw-up and not her own stupidity. She refused to allow it. She wanted no favors from him. She wanted nothing but answers from this man—not even to lessen her embarrassment.

Olivia refused to look at Hawke as she admitted, “I went to the house in Charlottesville where we lived when we were first married. They tracked me from there.”

“What?” Xavier’s incredulous look went between Olivia and Hawke. “They lay in wait for years at your old house just on the off-chance you happened to stop by?”

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