Wild Card (3 page)

admiral and Jordan's exchanged look from his periphery.

He was lying. His Bella wasn't tough. She was soft and sweet and he swore he heard her cries

in his dreams, in his nightmares. The ragged wound that was his soul would never heal,

because he couldn't get the sounds of her screams out of his head.

How much worse would her screams be if she saw him now? His gentle little Bella had loved

his body. When he had walked out the door that last day he had been strong, powerful, but even

more, he'd been a man who knew how to be gentle. That man didn't exist anymore. There was

nothing gentle in the dark, twisted dreams he had now. Dreams of death. And dreams of Bella.

And a hunger he knew he would never restrain if she came to him.

"I'm dead," he told them, his voice cold as he thought of the consequences of trying to return to her. "I'll stay dead."

The psychologist was scribbling furiously on his pad. Nathan's gaze jerked to him. As though

he could feel the spikes of fury aimed his way, the balding little man lifted his head.

His shoulders shifted beneath his ill-fitting suit jacket, and behind his plain glasses, his brown

eyes flickered nervously.

Nathan's eyes jerked back to the admiral. "Would you get him the hell out of my sight, sir."

Admiral Holloran stared back at him for long seconds before nodding to the doctors and

jerking his head to the door. They all filed out quickly. None of them were comfortable in his

presence. They never had been. Of course, they'd had to deal with an animal for the first three

months that he had been under their care.

Admiral Holloran sighed wearily and stared back at him.

"Last chance, son," he said softly. "Let us call your wife. Send someone for her."

He bared his teeth in fury. "No, sir." The "sir" was habitual, the growling rage in his voice wasn't. It was pumping through him, numbing his mind, filling his senses with the echoed

images of his nightmares.

"Enough." Jordan spoke into the silence. "I warned you he wouldn't change his mind."

"Your respect has gone to hell, Jordan," Holloran snapped.

"So has my patience," Jordan bit out. "I was given complete control of this unit, Admiral, and that supersedes even your rank."

"If he changes his mind then he can't go back," the admiral argued. "Is that what you want for your nephew, Jordan?"

"If he changes his mind then that decision is mine to make, not yours or anyone else's." There

was a hardness to Jordan, a bleak anger Nathan had never seen in him before. "He'll be

transferred to the command center tomorrow and the doctors there will work him with the

others."

"You haven't even asked him if he's willing!" The admiral was in Jordan's face now. The two

men nose to nose, two incredible wills clashing. It would have been amusing if Nathan had

been in the mood for it.

He wasn't.

He rose to his feet and headed to the door.

"Nathan."

Nathan paused before turning back to face his uncle. Jordan had once been not just family, but

a superior officer, when they had both been SEALs, when Nathan had been a man rather than

the animal he had turned into.

He stared back at Jordan. "Make it quick. I have exercises to finish this evening."

Jordan got to his feet. "There are other options than the SEALs."

"Oh yeah?" Nathan arched his brows. "What's better than the SEALs,
Uncle
! Hell? Been there, still take trips."

Jordan nodded slowly. His brilliant blue eyes, wild Irish eyes, his grandpop had called them,

stared back at him. "There are other options, Nathan."

"Really?" Nathan stared between Jordan and the admiral.

"Yeah." Jordan nodded. "You walk out of here as a SEAL and you walk out as Nathan Malone.

You walk out with me, and Nathan Malone ceases to exist."

The admiral moved from his chair with a jerky movement and paced to the other side of the

room.

"You leave with him and the SEALs won't exist for you anymore, Nathan. The only men you'll

have contact with are those in your old team under Commander Chavez, to retrain. You'll be

dead forever. Nathan Malone will no longer exist. Not for you. And not for your wife."

Nathan stared back at him, but it was Bella he saw. She hated a broken nail, she worried about

wrinkles. How would she handle a husband who was little more than a monster?

He turned to Jordan. "So where do I sign up?"

Three years later

Jordan Malone stood in his office and stared through the privacy glass at the exercise room. His

hands were shoved in the pockets of his jeans, a scowl on his face as he watched his nephew.

Nathan, now known as Noah Blake to the world, was only five years younger than he was.

Jordan had been a surprise to his parents, a shock to his older siblings. And he had been more

like a brother to the man pouring with sweat beneath the weights in the other room. The change

in Nathan over the past years was nothing short of miraculous. Hell, the first six months, the

very fact that he had survived had been miraculous. It had been the first three years that had

been the hardest though. The nightmares and effects of the whore's dust in his system had

nearly driven Noah insane.

But had he survived? Sometimes, Jordan wondered if the man who had taken that final SEAL

assignment was the same one he was staring at now.

His face was different. The plastic surgery had made it leaner, the bone and muscle more

denned. Fuentes had done a job on Nathan's face while he was a captive. Bones had been

shattered, the repairs had been extensive. The change drastic. No one who knew Nathan

Malone before would guess at his identity now. His build was different. His body was leaner

but more powerful, rock hard, and his will was steel. He was a cold, icy-eyed killer.

He wasn't Nathan Malone anymore. He was truly Noah Blake, because Noah had made certain

nothing of Nathan existed.

Noah's training with Reno Chavez's unit in the past years had worried Jordan. Where once the

Navy SEAL Nathan Malone had pulled his punches and killed only when he had to, now…

Jordan shook his head. Noah killed with deadly, silent efficiency.

Jordan remembered the night they had rescued the man who had been Nathan from Fuentes's

hold. Nearly every bone in his body had been broken at some point. He had been wasted away,

nearly starved, and pumped so high on whore's dust his eyes had glowed like a demon's. And

he had fought. He had fought not to rape the girl locked in the cell with him, he had fought to

protect her. And he had fought to walk out rather than be carried out.

Jordan had been certain his nephew would never survive the withdrawal of the drug and the

effects to his brain. He'd never imagined Nathan would come back, stronger than ever rather

than broken. Darker than ever, and so different that his identity change rarely blipped Jordan's

radar anymore.

"He's never going to be the same, is he?" Lieutenant Ian Richards said somberly, admitting

what none of them had dared say aloud over the years. Ian was part of that SEAL team, had

stood with the other men who had spent the past years with the man they called Noah.

It had been harder on Ian in some ways, because he had been closer to Nathan than even Jordan

had been. Nathan had only been ten when he heard young Ian's screams echoing through the

desert landscape of their ranch. He had awakened his father, harassed that mean-assed Grant

Malone out of the house, and found the young boy whose mother was dying in his arms.

Grant, in a surprising display of compassion, had helped the young woman and her child. Grant

had his moments, Jordan thought, they were just few and far between.

"No, he's never going to be same." He admitted the truth to Ian, as well as to himself. "This man isn't Nathan Malone anymore, Ian. He's truly Noah Blake. We may as well accept that."

"He's a machine now." Ian stated heavily, his expression saddened as he watched Nathan work

out. "He's the best damned killer I've ever laid my eyes on. Silent as a thought."

Jordan turned to Reno Chavez, the commander of the group.

Reno shook his black head. "He's not a SEAL any longer. He questions orders continuously,

lays in backup plans out the ass, and always has a plan if that one goes bad. If he feels he needs

to deviate, then he deviates. He's not insubordinate, but he's a leader now. He won't follow

easily unless he's assured the plan is the only way to go. He's a , Jordan, but he's a damned

efficient one. Like a shark. Cold-blooded. Focused. And deadly."

Jordan nodded. "Thank you, Reno. I appreciate the report."

"You have my written report as well." Reno nodded to the file that had been laid on Jordan's

desk.

The monthly reports hadn't deviated in years. Nathan was barely a man any longer. He often

reminded Jordan of a robot, little more.

"Jordan, he's not going to survive like this." Ian said quietly, turning back to the window,

watching the man that had once been his friend. "He'll self-destruct. One of these days, he'll put

a bullet in his own head."

As though Noah had heard him, sensed him, he sat up on the weight bench and grabbed a

towel. His gaze sliced past the two-way mirror and stared back at them. His eyes were darker,

wilder than Nathan Malone's had been. Searing navy blue in a dark, sharply defined face. His

black hair was thick, long, nearly to his shoulders now. He refused to cut it. As he turned his

back Jordan glimpsed the black sun pierced by a red sword that had been tattooed on the left

shoulder blade of Noah's back.

The emblem of the Elite Operational Unit was another re-minder of how Noah had shed his

past as Nathan Malone. He had signed his life over to a unit that at times could be little more

than a suicide mission.

"He'll survive." Jordan kept his response cool, but what he felt inside was anything but cool.

"He's not finished yet. He just thinks he is." Nathan hadn't returned to his wife yet, and Noah, the man he was, hadn't forgotten that woman. He wouldn't find himself until he did.

Jordan had pulled his nephew into this unit because he knew the man he loved like a brother

would have never survived intact if he'd had to face the world after his release from the clinic.

Or if he'd had to face his wife.

The psychologist had agreed. Nathan would have taken a walk one day and just never returned.

He hadn't been ready. Noah might still not be ready either. But Jordan was going to end up

testing him anyway.

Three years later

"It won't be easy to get him to agree to it," Ian Richards warned Jordan as they watched the six-man unit of the Elite Ops working out in the gym through the two-way mirror that looked into

it.

Noah was stronger than ever. Lean. Powerful. Cold.

"He'll go," Jordan said softly. "He'll not let her remain in danger."

Ian blew out a hard breath as they stared at the man they all knew as Noah now.

"Would she want him back like this?" he asked.

Jordan had questioned that one himself. For six years Sabella Malone had been without her

husband. In the past three years, she had finally begun living again. Dating again. There was a

chance Noah could lose the wife he never admitted he had, very soon, to another man's arms.

"We'll find out, won't we," Jordan mused.

"We'll be your backup in the Alpine mission," Reno told him then. This small group of men

had been assigned to the Elite Ops; partly privately funded, partly government backed, the unit

was a test unit, a group of dead men, of rogues. In the past years they had become a highly

advanced, specialized unit dealing in operations that other agencies couldn't touch either

because of political sensitivity, or the level of danger involved.

Jordan nodded slowly before watching Noah once more.

"We'll meet up at the command center set up in Big Bend National Park," he told them. "You'll receive your orders within the next day or so."

Ian and Reno nodded and left quickly, heading out to prepare for the coming operation. All that

was left was getting Noah Blake to go along with it.

Jordan sat down at his desk, picked up the file he had on the mission, and called Noah into his

office.

Noah made him wait. When he walked into Jordan's office, his hair was still damp from his

shower, his blue eyes cold, no emotion, no life flickering within them.

"Are we ready?" Noah took the seat in front of the desk that Jordan indicated.

"Almost." Jordan nodded. "Command center will be broken down tonight and flown to the new

location. We should be set up within forty-eight hours."

Noah didn't say anything, he just stared back at Jordan, waiting. His patience was seemingly

endless now. But when he erupted into action there was no one faster. No one deadlier.

"You're delaying," Noah finally drawled, that ruined voice scraping.

That voice had once been flowing, deep. Now, it was guttural, almost raw.

"First mission is in Texas," Jordan stated.

Noah didn't respond His gaze didn't even flicker. As though nothing in Texas concerned him.

No family, no grandfather, brother, or father. No wife.

"Command center will based forty miles out of Alpine."

"No." Noah's tone was icy.

Jordan lifted the file and slapped it down in front of him. "Read the file. You don't want the

mission, then the hell with it. You can head to Siberia for all I give a damn and babysit that