His gaze flicked to hers. “I’m an EMT. I think I can handle it.”
He dipped the paper towel into the water, then dispensed a generous amount of soap onto it and pressed it against the cut. The soap stung, but it wasn’t the pain that had Lily’s heart beating double time. It was the sight of Chase’s hand on her thigh.
“Sorry,” he said. “I know it hurts.”
What hurts, she thought, was your inability to put your dangerous lifestyle aside for me, the woman you claimed to love.
Water under the bridge, she reminded herself and concentrated on the sting. She clung to the small physical pain because it was so much easier to deal with than the truth of what had happened between them.
“It’s clean.” He reached for a roll of masking tape and a paper towel he’d neatly folded. “Now here comes the bandage.”
Setting his hand on the underside of her thigh, he gripped it while applying the makeshift bandage with the other. “Going to hurt when I tighten this thing.”
“It’s okay,” Lily heard herself say. But, looking at him, feeling the old emotions churn inside her, she felt certain nothing was ever going to be okay again.
Chapter Five
Chase leaned back in the chair and listened to the whisper-soft sound of Lily’s breathing. After he bandaged the cut on her leg, he’d talked her into lying down. As usual, she’d protested. But she must have been exhausted, because the instant her head hit the towel he’d folded for her to use as a pillow, she’d gone out like a light.
He wished he could turn off his own mind as readily, but he couldn’t. He should try to get some sleep, or at the very least, rest. But he was wound as tight as a man could be and not snap. He needed to know who was behind the attempt on Lily’s life. On his life and Shane’s. He needed to know if that same person was behind the kidnapping of Vice President Davis and if the incidents were related to the blackout or merely coincidence.
Chase had long ago decided such a thing didn’t exist. So who was behind the actions?
He had made plenty of enemies over the years, many of whom were violent and powerful men. The Federal Bureau of Prisons kept him informed of recent parolees. Was it possible one had slipped through the cracks? Still, one question nagged at him. Why sabotage the Boston power plants to get at him?
In that instant, in some small corner of his mind, something pinged. Dread swept through him with the violence of a tidal wave when he recalled a threat that had been made against his Special Forces team some eleven years ago after a high-profile and ultimately disastrous Middle Eastern rescue mission.
Fifty-eight people, including U.S. Secretary of State Geoffrey Rollins, had been taken hostage in civil-war-torn Barik. The hostages, mostly engineers, teachers and missionaries, were being held in a densely populated downtown, in the basement of a closely guarded building. The world prayed for their safe release. After several failed rescue attempts, an elite team was assembled.
Under the leadership of Commander Tom Bradley, the coterie consisted of security expert Shane Peters, computer ace Ethan Matalon, demolitions man Ty Jones, tactical expert Grant Davis, electrical specialist Liam Shea, linguistics man Frederick LeBron, and Chase. They were charged with getting the hostages out alive.
But something had gone terribly wrong.
Bent on revenge against the sect holding the hostages, Liam Shea disobeyed direct orders. He acted impulsively, without waiting for the commander’s signal to cut the power to the building, throwing off the timing of the rescue. Alerted to an assault, the captors released cyanide gas in the basement, leading to the deaths of three hostages, including Secretary of State Rollins.
In the end, Shea was court-martialed and sent to prison, effectively terminating the political career he dreamed of. Teammate Grant Davis, on the other hand, having been hailed a hero in the mission for saving Shea’s life, parlayed his military career into the second seat in the White House.
Throughout the trial, Liam Shea had maintained his innocence and went to prison a very angry man. But not before threatening the lives of everyone involved.
Was Shea behind this? Chase thought. Had he been released from prison, or escaped?
Had he ambushed the other men from the mission as well?