Reckless Assignation by Denyse Bridger Read Free Book Online

his
hands out in a gesture of surrender. “But take it from me, not an innocent
girl.”
    “That doesn’t seem a balanced equation.” She slid back into
position, again blocking the screen.
    She was enjoying this, Rick thought with a flare of anger
that he forced into submission. If he allowed any of his fear or pain to show
in his face, she would feed off it like a parasite. He wouldn’t give her that
pleasure. He waited for her to continue.
    “You killed my son. I’ll kill the only person I have ever
known you to really love. How ironic she’s the age of my Kurt. Then we are
even. Don’t you agree?”
    “Except that I didn’t kill your son,” Rick offered softly.
    That caught her attention. For a moment she wavered and
genuine indecision flickered through her eyes.
    “Perhaps it was not your gun,” she conceded, reining in her
temporary confusion, “but it was your operation. You were in charge. You are
liable for anything that happened during the mission. Do you deny that?”
    The anger was the first honest emotion he had seen in her
eyes. It suggested a loss of control Rick would not let pass.
    “You never read the report, did you?” he pressed. “You never
even read your own people’s version of the report.” He waited. “Did you?”
    “I saw my son’s body!” Her voice rose almost to a shout. “I
did not need a report to see my dead child!”
    “Kurt was killed by one of your own agents. He tried to help
one of the other students who was wounded and one of your people shot him. He
died trying to save another life, but it was neither my hand nor my mission
that killed him. It was your own people’s lack of concern for innocent
bystanders.”
    Her face grew scarlet, suffused with rage. When her words
came, she was almost whispering. “The little bastard should have stayed in
Berlin. I told him to stay there.”
    Rick watched, chilled by the strange, distorted smile that
came over her face. Confusion flickered in his mind, he had no idea who she was
talking about. Well, she’d enlighten him or she wouldn’t.
    “Your lover is very much like my son was, Rick. Did you
realize that?”
    She stepped away from the table, turning to stare into the
screen. For a moment, she watched the still figure on the cot, then spun around
on one heel, taking a single step closer to Rick.
    “I have been watching you both for the past couple of years,
Rick.” Her mouth twisted as if undecided on its next expression. “She’s very
much like Kurt. Idealistic. Naïve. You know what it’s like trying to keep them
safe. We work so hard just to keep them safe and they fight us. Always, they
fight us.”
    She walked across the room at an angle from him, the
severely straight skirt frustrating her usual long stride. At a dust-covered
desk, she halted, speaking again as if there hadn’t been a pause. “No matter
what you do for them, they don’t appreciate it. Cindi accuses you of
restricting her freedom, doesn’t she?” She looked up at him, waiting for an
answer.
    Rick knew he was treading dangerous ground, but he hardly
imagined things could get much worse. “She used to. Now she tries to
understand.”
    The dark anger flashed again. “She accuses you! Just like
Kurt did. He never understood that I did everything for him. Never! He thought
the world was worth saving, and he died before I could convince him otherwise.”
    “Then perhaps he was better off,” Rick said into her
madness, knowing he would only enrage her but not caring now. Her insanity had
put the only real love in his life in danger, and Rick was well beyond even a
second of compassion for her. That she had ghosted after them for months on end
woke his own fury, along with the metallic taste of fear. She might know the
effort of keeping a child safe, but she so very clearly did not know the joy of
really loving someone. When she stared speechlessly at him, he explained, “He
died before you were able to destroy him with your own twisted