Killing Time

8

One hundred percent nuts, Mike thought, holding the line against his growing interest. She’d proven that from the get-go, right? She was nuts to take him on. Nuts to drug him.

“So are you going to help me or not?” she asked, more challenge than question.

He laughed. “That would be a not.”

“Not even if it means clearing your name? Not even if it means bringing whoever’s behind this to justice?”

“Not even.” Jaw clenched, he tried to ignore the pounding of his heart and the voice in his head that suggested he was making a mistake.

“Then you’re exactly who I thought you were. A cowardly, selfish bastard.”

He rose to his feet, tossing the syringe onto the table. “I do love living down to your expectations.”

“You know what your problem is?”

“I’m not the one with the problem.” He lifted his chin toward her bound hands as he prowled the room.

“You need to stop thinking about yourself,” she accused, not letting up. “Quit wallowing in your own self-pity and think about the men who died that night. About the men who took the rap with you. Ramon and the others deserve to have the record set straight. Cooper and Taggart deserve their day in court—deserve the trial they never got because you sold them out when you took a deal that steamrolled them along with you.”

“I didn’t sell them out. I saved their lives,” he countered, unable to stop his anger. Instead of rotting in a jail cell or six feet under, Cooper was living the good life in Australia, making money off his pretty-boy face modeling, screwing women, and not giving a shit. And for the past several years, Taggart had been doing what he wanted: working with a private contractor and mixing it up with the bad guys back in Afghanistan. Mike had saved their asses, but she didn’t get that. No one got it.

“Then save their honor,” she shouted back, and damn her, he swore she could see straight through him. See that even though he didn’t want to he still did care about what happened.

He still cared a lot.

“Help me find out who did this. Help me figure out if there’s more going on.”

He stalked toward the terrace doors, braced his palms on the frame above his head, and stared outside while she pecked away at him like a vulture on fresh meat.

“If we can get Cooper and Taggart on board, we can find whoever was responsible and expose them.”

“Get them on board?” He spun back around. The fire of conviction brightened her eyes; a flush of color stained her cheeks. A slice of smooth caramel skin peeked between the waistband of her jeans and the T-shirt that had ridden up her ribs. The generous swell of her breasts rose and fell with her agitated breaths.

And as angry as he was, as crazy as she was, damn if the sight of her didn’t turn him on like a flashlight.

Talk about fucked up.

“What alternate universe do you live in?” he snapped. “The boys and I aren’t exactly buddies anymore. They hate my guts. They’re not going to help me with anything.”

“And if they would?” She dangled the possibility like a carrot.

Damn his hide, he was tempted. So tempted to do something other than run from his past for a change. But it was pointless. “You’re dreaming if you think you can get either one of them to work with me again.”

Her coffee-dark eyes snapped with fire. “I don’t dream. I plan. I execute. And I make things happen.”

“Said the woman cuffed to the bed.”

“We can get Taggart and Cooper to help us,” she insisted.

He snorted. “When pigs wear tutus.”

“Look, Brown, before you tell me if you’re in or out, you think about this. Think about slinking back to your own little alternate universe, where you try to convince yourself every single day that what happened to you, what happened to all those people, doesn’t matter. You try to convince yourself that you’re going to spend the next eight years and all the years after that hiding out from your demons, pretending you don’t care, pretending you don’t have an obligation to Taggart and Cooper. Pretending that you don’t have an obligation to yourself, for God’s sake! And what about to your country?”

She cut way too close to the quick with that one. “Are you fucking kidding me? You seriously played the patriot card?” He’d been sold down the river by the very people he’d pledged to protect and serve and almost died for. “I’ve paid that debt. One hundred times over. Try a new tactic, chica, ’cause that dog ain’t gonna hunt.”

“Fine. Then let’s try something you can relate to,” she said acidly. “I’ll pay you to help me.”

He considered how badly she hated him in this moment. It was never more evident than now as she lay there, tied up and helpless, yet making her best play to kill him with her disgust.

He thought about all the reasons he should tell her to fuck off, stay out of his life and out of his head. But the words that came out sealed his fate.

“Well, now. You’re finally talking my language.” She’d barely had a chance to register surprise, when he reached into his boot and retrieved his jackknife.

And he’d barely sliced the blade through the plastic cuffs, freeing her, when he heard a sound outside on the terrace that shot all his defenses to red alert.

• • •

Eva heard it, too. Someone was out there.

Her heart went crazy but she held it together and nodded that she understood when Brown pressed his fingers to his lips, signaling her to be quiet. When he pointed to the floor behind the bed, she didn’t hesitate. She rolled off the bed and dropped to her knees, using the mattress as the only available shield as Brown rushed back across the room to the table where their guns lay side by side.

He grabbed both and tossed her the Glock. She caught it and checked to make certain there was still a round in the chamber as, two-handing his Beretta, Brown moved like a big cat toward the wall beside the terrace door. He’d no sooner gotten into position, his back flattened against the wall, when the doors flew open and a masked figure burst into the room wielding an MP5K.

Eva scrambled toward the foot of the bed as the gunman fired a three-round burst at the pillow where her head had been.

She slid to her back and started firing at the same time she heard Brown’s Beretta pop off several rounds in quick succession.

The barrel of the MP5K jerked toward the ceiling as the gunman stumbled backward out of the room and fell against the iron rail on the terrace. Brown shot outside after him as Eva scrambled to her feet and raced across the room to the terrace.

Brown was leaning over the railing when she reached his side. Her stomach rolled when she saw the scene down on the street. Their would-be assassin had fallen backward onto the roof of a cab. His prostrate body lay motionless in the dim light from the streetlamp as the startled driver scrambled out from behind the wheel.

“You okay?” Brown turned to her.

Her ears rang like church bells. Other than that, she was fine. “Yeah. I think so. You?”

His answer was a grunt, which pretty much told her that other than his attitude, he was fine. “Friend of yours?”

“I told you I was being followed.”

He sprinted past her toward the door that led to the hallway. “Shut those balcony doors. Keep your Glock close and don’t let anyone in this room but me.”

She didn’t have to ask where he was going. He was heading down to check the body. As he left, she ran inside and locked the doors to the terrace. Then she wedged herself into the corner facing the hall door, sank down to her butt, and propped the Glock on her updrawn knees. And she waited. Heart going hay-wire, her breath tight and strained. She’d trained for such a scenario all of her career—but this was the first real encounter she’d