“I got in with Caldwell at the right time. I gained his trust and I did what I had to do to make myself invaluable to him. I also exerted a lot of influence and control over him. It’s what I do. It’s what I did with Farnsworth. It’s a gift, I guess you would say.”
“Some gift,” Maren muttered.
“It’s a very valuable gift,” Hancock said. “After a while I can control them by making them do what I want while making them think it was their idea. And it was working fine until you.”
Maren tied off the knot and then stepped back with a frown. “What did I have to do with anything?”
“He’s bloody obsessed with you,” Hancock said bluntly. “He’s convinced himself that the child you carry is his.”
She went pale and reached out to brace her hand on the bar. Steele wrapped his fingers around her elbow to steady her.
“Easy, Maren,” he murmured next to her ear. “He can’t touch you here. Remember that.”
“He went crazy after I got you out. Lost focus. Didn’t give a shit about Maksimov. Started blowing him off because he was too busy turning the world upside down looking for you.”
“Oh God, please tell me you didn’t give him any information on me,” she said faintly.
Steele slipped his arm around her shoulders, offering her silent support. He was too pissed to say anything.
“I didn’t have to. It’s not hard to find, Maren,” Hancock said in an oddly gentle tone.
Steele was starting to wonder if Rio wasn’t right about Hancock having a heart buried somewhere under all those layers of stone. Hancock was being extremely gentle with Maren, treating her with gloves on. And she’d told Steele the lengths to which Hancock had gone to reassure her when Caldwell had kept her under lock and key.
“So what happened?” Maren blurted. “Why are you here and not with him?”
“I have Maksimov to blame for that,” Hancock replied. “Well, and the fact that Caldwell lost his shit and went off the rails.”
“Spill it,” Steele cut in, impatient to get to the point.
“From the moment Maren left, Caldwell was consumed with getting her back. Nothing else mattered. He was pissed at me, but still afraid enough of me not to push me. He didn’t think I knew the lengths he was going to in trying to locate Maren. He asked me a hundred questions about KGI, when before he’d blown them off as no threat to him.”
“And what did you tell him?” Steele asked harshly. Fuck it all, but all they needed was a batshit-crazy person unleashed on KGI. As if they didn’t have enough to deal with already.
“Nothing that would get him anywhere but enough to keep him busy and occupied. With Maren there, Caldwell was less interested in dealing with Maksimov and more focused on Maren. He was very close to losing his patience where she was concerned, and I expected him to make a move any day.”
Steele’s nostrils flared and his hold on Maren tightened, his fingers digging into her shoulder.
“I had hoped that if I removed Maren from the equation, Caldwell would refocus his attention, forget about her, move on. I underestimated his obsession with her.”
Steele’s eyes narrowed. “So the great badass Hancock fucked up.”
“If I’d fucked up, I would have left Maren there,” Hancock said, coldly meeting Steele’s stare.
“Anyway, when Maren was there, Caldwell kept canceling his meetings with Maksimov, citing his surgery and that he wasn’t fully recovered. Even well after the normal recovery period, Caldwell kept blowing him off, and Maksimov is not a man you want to piss off.
“As I said, I’d hoped that if I removed Maren, Caldwell would refocus and move forward and I’d be one step closer to taking them both down. I set up the meeting with Maksimov and then that morning, Caldwell simply disappeared. I went through his correspondence, his computer files, anything I could lay my hands on.
“Then Maksimov shows up and there’s no Caldwell and Maksimov didn’t take that very well. His men worked me over and told me to deliver a message to Caldwell when and if he showed up again. It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. Caldwell is a dead man.”
“Not if I get to him first,” Steele growled.
“Well, that’s the thing. You’re likely to do just that.”
Hancock glanced at Maren, reluctance in his expression as if he didn’t want to tell her what he was about to say.
“He knows where your parents live. It was evident he’d done extensive research on them and the area in which they live. He’s likely searching for you, but as unstable as he is, he’s likely to completely lose it if he doesn’t find you there.”
All the color leached from Maren’s face. Her eyes were huge, stricken with instant fear. She twisted from his grasp and lunged for Steele’s cell phone, her fingers fumbling with the buttons.
Steele got to her and forced her to look at him. “Breathe, Maren. Call your mom. Make sure everything’s all right. Then let me talk to her. I’ll tell your mom and dad what they need to do and I’ll have Sam get the plane there for them immediately. I don’t want you to worry. We’ll protect them and we’ll protect you.”
She nodded, some of the agitation fading from her eyes. She punched the buttons on the phone and then brought it to her ear, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited. For several long moments, she stood there, her lips drooping more and more as the silence extended.
“Mom, it’s me. Please call me back as soon as you get this. It’s urgent.”
Then she hung up the phone.
“Voice mail,” she said unnecessarily. “Oh God, Steele, what if he already has them?”
He went to her, slipping his hands over her shoulders and then rubbing up and down her arms in an effort to soothe her. “We don’t know that, Maren. Don’t panic. We’ll try again soon. Just keep it together until we know more, okay?”
She nodded, but the worry didn’t ease in her eyes.
Steele turned to Hancock. “You have a hell of a lot of answering to do. First, how did you know Maren was here and where to find me? Did Rio give you my location?”
Hancock’s lip turned up in a glimmer of a smile. “I didn’t contact Rio since I knew Maren wouldn’t be with him. Would have been a waste of time. I have resources you can’t imagine.”
“Who the hell are you working for?”
Hancock regarded him steadily. “Does it matter who signs my paychecks? Titan is no more. There’s talk we went rogue. We just don’t happen to be on Uncle Sam’s payroll any longer. But it doesn’t mean we’re traitors or that we don’t have the best interests of this country in mind. You’re so derisive of me—of us—but how the hell are we any different than your KGI? Just because I don’t work for Uncle Sam doesn’t mean I don’t still have access to contacts and intel, and it doesn’t mean we don’t take private assignments that no one else has the resources to touch. We aren’t bound by politics and bullshit foreign policies. We aren’t afraid to get our hands dirty if the cause is righteous. But what’s righteous to one may not be righteous to another. And we don’t just work for U.S. interests. We take out any threat to national and world security. Think what you want of me, Steele. I don’t give a fuck. But for a man I’m trying to help, you have a shitty way of showing gratitude.”
Steele bared his teeth. “The only goddamn thing I’m concerned about is the safety of Maren and our child. Yeah, my child. Not fucking Caldwell’s baby. Maren and that baby are both mine, so you stay the fuck out of my way when it comes to protecting her because I don’t give a goddamn what your mission is, how fucking righteous it is or how it tips the scale in world politics. This is my family we’re talking about here, and I’ll take you and whoever the hell else out in order to protect my family.”