Page 23 of Dalla’s Royal Guards (Second Chance #3)

Fifteen

Dalla stared out of the window of the SUV as Musad pulled onto the highway, the vehicle’s tires crunching over gravel as they left the cave far behind.

They had descended the trail again once it was light enough to see where they were going without breaking their necks.

The men had transferred the contents of the chest into the backpacks they had brought.

The vehicle glided smoothly along the winding road. Morning light slanted across the desert in soft gold streaks, bathing the barren landscape in warmth that hadn’t yet chased away the night’s chill. Inside the vehicle, Dalla sat in the back seat, her eyes fixed on the ever-changing horizon.

Low hills rolled past, dotted with scrub brush and the occasional twisted acacia. In the distance, jagged cliffs rose like ancient sentinels watching over the land below. The rhythmic motion of the car lulled her, but her thoughts were anything but still.

She leaned her temple against the window, staring at her faint reflection in the glass, watching the ghost of herself flicker with the shifting light. A soft smile curled her lips, though it held a trace of sadness.

Last night had changed everything. She curled her fingers into fists under the cuffs of her long tunic as she thought about everything that had happened since she ‘awoke’ again.

The Previous Night:

It was long past midnight when she slipped out of the cavern, her movements quiet.

The calming scent of juniper smoke from their fire clung to her clothing as she threaded her way up to the top of the cliff.

The cool air caressed her heated flesh. Above, the stars shimmered like ancient eyes, watching, waiting.

She followed the trail that wound upward toward the ancient juniper grove. The path was steeper than she remembered, but her feet knew the way. When she reached the crest, she paused beneath the gnarled limbs of a majestic tree, its roots wrapped around stone like her memories wrapped around her.

Dalla lowered herself onto a flat rock, her gaze lifting to the heavens. The sky stretched wide, a canvas of ink and silver. A breeze stirred, soft as a whisper. Her fingers slid into the pocket of her coat, drawing out Harlem’s letter.

She traced the ink with her thumb. The paper differed from the parchment she remembered. His message was sharp in her mind.

“Call this number, and I will help you.”

She breathed deeply, releasing her stress, and stared upward at the constellations she had known since childhood, her lips parting in a silent plea.

“Please… not this time. Not now. Not after I’ve finally found something worth living for.”

A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn’t brush it away. The weight of all the lifetimes she had endured pressed against her chest. Loneliness had been her only companion for so long, but now… now she had felt something else. Tenderness. Connection. Desire.

Her skin still remembered the heat of Musad and Nasser’s hands, the press of their lips, the way their voices had spoken her name like a vow.

They hadn’t looked at her like Gerold or Pascal had—full of wonder and suspicion, as if she were both a miracle and a curse.

No. Nasser and Musad had touched her like she was real, theirs, like she belonged.

“Don’t let me die this time,” she whispered to the heavens. “Let me stay. Let me love. Let me find… peace.”

Her heart twisted with anguish when the sky remained silent. It was only the wind curling around her, warm and comforting, that gave her hope.

Gods, she wished Aesa was here.

Her breath caught, and she sat straighter as she suddenly remembered her sister’s vision.

“I did not see your death. I saw you… in a strange place, a place far from here. I saw two men. Strange men. They will be your guards. These are no ordinary men, Dalla. They live in a world where magical things exist.”

Her lips parted with a hiss.

Aesa had foretold her meeting Musad and Nasser. Wonder filled her. Could being with them break the curse? Had she simply been born in the wrong time and was always meant to belong here —with the two men that she cared about?

A breathless laugh escaped her lips. Perhaps she wasn’t meant to die again, but live. Live a full life, aging as a mortal. Rising with a heart full of aching hope, she turned and made her way back to the men. Back to the warmth of their fire. Back to where she belonged.

The memory made her smile, and she studied the two men sitting in front of her.

Her heart swelled as the car curved around a bend, revealing a sweeping view of the valley below.

She blinked against the rising sunlight and reached for the dark glasses that Musad had given her this morning as she slid into the car.

It hadn’t been the only thing he had given her.

The memory of his deep, passionate, possessive kiss sent a shiver of need through her.

Her eyes locked with Musad’s in the rearview mirror.

It was as if he heard her thoughts. Her breath caught at the heat in his eyes before he turned back to the road.

She returned her attention to the window. Her smile deepened when she noticed her reflection again. Her face warmed when her body reminded her of what had occurred when she returned from her trek to the plateau.

Nasser and Musad had made love to her again after she returned—slowly, fiercely, tenderly. They hadn’t spoken much. Their touch had said everything. And when sleep finally claimed her, it had been dreamless and deep.

She leaned back, enjoying the sound of their voices as they spoke in low tones. She loved listening to them. She… loved them, she suddenly realized with a start.

“Raja Hadi and his wife are good people,” Musad was saying. “We’ve met them at a few diplomatic events.”

Nasser nodded. “Katie is American. She saved Raja’s life.”

Musad laughed. “She disguised herself as a boy and crossed the desert when she overheard a plot to kill Raja. They’ve been inseparable since.”

“I heard they just had their first child,” Nasser commented.

“That’s wonderful,” Dalla murmured.

“Yes,” Nasser said, glancing back with a smile.

She hesitated, then asked, “Do you… know how to reach Harlem?”

Nasser glanced at his phone and gave a brief nod. “I’ve got a good signal. Let me see the number.”

She handed him the letter. He read the digits, typed them into his phone, and handed both the phone and the paper back to her over his shoulder.

“It’s ready. All you have to do is hit the round button.”

“Hold on, and I’ll pull over to make sure you don’t lose the signal on the way back down over the mountain. There’s a scenic view up ahead,” Musad said.

He turned off the main road and onto a small horseshoe-shaped overlook. The lot was nearly empty. A few motorcycles were parked to one side, and another SUV had its doors open as a group of tourists laughed and snapped photos near the edge.

Musad pulled the SUV into a parking spot near the far end of the lot and turned off the engine.

Dalla opened the door and stepped out, the phone pressed to her chest. The morning air carried the scent of sun-warmed stone, distant blossoms, and fresh mountain air. She walked toward the railing and stared out at the far mountains where Kashir lay like a shadow.

Nasser and Musad joined her, scanning the area with casual watchfulness.

Her hands trembled slightly as she pressed the call button.

A single ring. Then another.

Her breath caught as the line connected.

No greeting.

Just silence.

And yet… she knew.

Her voice trembled as she whispered, “Harlem?”

Langley, Virginia – CIA Headquarters

The late afternoon sun filtered through the narrow blinds, casting long, slatted shadows across Deputy Director Debra Carr-Myers’ desk.

Her office was a study in utilitarian minimalism—bare walls, a steel bookshelf with procedure binders aligned like soldiers, and a single photo of a family reunion taken from a stock photo site tucked behind her monitor.

Just enough to suggest she was human, not a machine.

Those who worked with her would probably disagree.

She didn’t believe in decorating the space. This wasn’t home. This was work. And in her line of work, comfort bred complacency.

The soft click of her office door opening caused her to glance up from the file she was reviewing. Her spine stiffened when she saw who entered.

Adam Kindred.

Debra stood immediately, surprised. The Director of CIA Operations seldom ventured down to her floor.

He was either locked in his office upstairs, at closed-door briefings in the White House, or—when he was feeling especially smug—out playing golf with people who wrote the rules the rest of the world was expected to follow.

“Director Kindred,” she greeted, neutral and crisp.

Adam lifted a hand, a subtle motion for her to sit. “Debra.”

She sank back into her chair, one brow arching with curiosity. When he motioned with his fingers, her fingers hovered over the open file on her desk before she closed it and slid it toward him without a word. He picked it up and flipped it open.

The name Mark Hammer stared back at him in bold type above a red-stamped DECEASED.

His gaze flicked up to meet hers.

“Simdan?” he asked.

She nodded. “He and Allison Turnwell.” She gestured toward the second folder neatly waiting beside the first. “Both operatives for Bronislav. Hammer was a mercenary. Turnwell was a bit of a surprise. She worked for MI6. She was also a very accomplished hacker with an interesting history. They were killed trying to abduct Prince Jameel Saif-Ad-Din of Jawahir and a woman named Junebug Rain. Not much is known of Rain—suspiciously so. Same cause of death for Hammer and Turnwell. Not a pleasant way to die.”

Adam opened the second folder. A clean black-and-white of Allison smiled up at him. The background report was brief—deliberately so. Redacted lines interrupted almost every paragraph. MI6 had not been happy about their agent’s moonlighting activities.

“Knife wounds?” he asked, his voice low.

She nodded again, then motioned to the third file at the edge of her desk. “And if you’re here, I assume you’re interested in Bronislav, too. Another knife wound, only from his own blade. It wasn’t self-inflicted.”

His eyes moved to the folder labeled Andrius Bronislav. Before he could reach for it, Debra leaned back and folded her arms, her tone dry. “Want the whole stack while you’re at it?”

She motioned to the small but tidy pile of files sitting off to the left, the stack she had quietly built over the last few years—pieces of a puzzle no one wanted her solving.

Adam’s lips pressed into a thin line. Without a word, he reached out, gathered the entire stack, and placed it neatly on top of the ones she had already pulled.

Debra watched as he shuffled through the pile, his expression growing more concerned when he noticed some names attached to the folders—including Cosmos Raines and Tansy Bell. Her expression changed from curious to disapproving when he re-stacked the pile and rose with it in his hands.

Debra’s chair scraped softly against the chair mat under her as she stood, her frown deepening when she realized he wasn’t going to return the files.

“Director… I’ve spent a considerable amount of time investigating the information you have there. I would like to know what in the hell is going on.”

He didn’t meet her eyes.

“You’re to drop it,” he said instead, his tone clipped. “The case is closed. That’s an order, Debra. Drop your investigation.”

Her jaw dropped. “Closed? You expect me to drop everything I’ve uncovered? Adam, I’m close to finding out what is going on. There are too many unanswered questions. Too many inconsistencies to ignore what has been happening for… for decades, maybe longer!”

Adam shook his head. “Some questions should never be answered.”

He paused at the door, hand on the knob. His voice dropped, almost too soft to hear.

“For your own safety, Debra… let it go.”

Before she could respond, he opened the door and walked out, the echo of the latch clicking shut behind him louder than it should’ve been.

She stood frozen; her heart pounding. It was rare for Kindred to get involved in fieldwork. Rarer still for him to show fear. But that’s what she’d seen in his eyes.

Fear.

Debra pushed through her bewilderment and slowly lowered herself back into her chair. Her fingers trembled slightly as they reached for the drawer beneath her desk. She slid it open and pulled out a plain file with a simple, penned label.

OPERATION REBIRTH

She opened it.

Her breath caught as her eyes landed on the first page—four names, printed in black ink:

Harlem Jones

Lily O’Donnell

Rune August

Dalla Bogadottir

Beside the first name, her predecessors had scribbled notes in looping handwriting. Dates. Locations. Code phrases. The next two names had been added just a few years ago. She had added the last name a few days before.

The first name, Harlem Jones, had a list of prominent people under it. All successful, wealthy, powerful. All tied to the same man.

The next two, Lily O’Donnell and Rune August, had the names of powerful people who were wealthy—but not in the same way as the names under Jones. No, the names under Jones were those that he had direct contact with—for the past century or more.

She had just begun her research on the men involved in Lily and Rune’s lives. The last name on her list, Dalla Bogadottir, had come onto her radar after a message from Sergi Vasiliev and Dimitri Mihailov both requested information about her from a hacker called Bugs when ‘Dalla’ had contacted them.

In reality, they had been dealing with Allison Turnwell, but their inquiry into Operation Rebirth and the name Dalla Bogadottir had given her a new lead to follow.

Still, everything came down to another common thread. At the bottom of the page, in the lower right corner, were three bold letters:

C.R.I.

Debra ran her fingertips across the words, her voice barely above a whisper.

“What are you hiding… and why does the government not want you found?”

Her lips thinned with resolve. She slid the file into a manila envelope, grabbed her coat and purse from the rack behind her, and strode to the door.

Let Kindred play golf and protect his secrets in D.C.

She had a trail to follow, and she wasn’t stopping now.