“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said under her breath.
He moved in closer. “Nina, I love you. Please give me a chance.”
“Is that the prize?” Drake asked.
She slid her gun into the holster and placed the prototype on the table. “Someone should stay and guard it. I don’t want the chance that our spy gets what he was after.”
She started for the door.
“Holy shit.” Hutch’s jaw dropped. “When did JT get hit? Where is all that blood coming from?”
JT shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Nina’s breath caught because now she could see a dark stain starting to creep around the back of his shirt. Blood.
He’d been hit in that first wild volley of Patrick’s and she hadn’t even noticed. She’d shoved him down and then turned away from him.
JT’s face went blank. “Why is my back wet?”
All thoughts of the job fled as JT hit his knees and the light began to fade from his eyes.
* * * *
JT blinked at the bright light that greeted him as he woke from the nicest dream. Nina had been at his side and there had been no questions in her eyes. Only love. Only joy.
She’d forgiven him. She’d loved him.
For a moment he clung to the dream, wanting to stay there, but then the pain hit and he remembered.
“Hey, brother,” a soft voice said. “You doing all right?”
He forced his eyes open. Michael was standing over him and everything around him was stark and white.
Hospital.
“What happened?” It was fuzzy. One minute he’d been standing there in the suite at the resort. He’d been trying to tell Nina that he would wait for her, but she’d been so cold.
Then he’d realized that pain in his back had been more than a bruise from hitting the ground so hard.
“You were shot,” a second voice said. His cousin, Simon, stood next to Michael. “You’re in hospital. You took a bullet to the back. Unfortunately with all the moving about, the bullet shifted and came fairly close to one of your kidneys.”
Michael grinned. “Don’t worry. You’ve still got both of them. I was pleased since I’m the one who usually gets shot at and I take comfort knowing you’re around to be my organ donor.” He sobered slightly. “Mom flew down with us. Dad insisted on coming, too. They’re having some lunch now.”
He glanced around the small room. There was no sign of Nina. No purse left on a chair or blanket where she might have sat up next to his bed.
Had she simply left because the job was done?
“Did they finish the job?” It had been important to her.
“Yeah, they got it done,” Michael replied. “We’ve filled in all the blanks. Patrick needed cash and badly. We managed to unlock his phone. It was all there. He hired someone to run you off the road when he found out it was you and not your dad going to the retreat. He still went through with it, though, because he needed the money. And the prototype is safely on its way to Dallas. Deanna flew back with it this morning. Hutch and Sandra escorted her, and they’re going to make sure it’s in the safe at the main office until you decide what to do with it. The new security liaison insisted on getting it to Dallas right away.”
“Good.” Nina was probably on her way back to London. She hadn’t hung around very long. “Did they catch the spy?”
“Oh, yes.” Simon was wearing one of his suits. Even in the tropics, his cousin wore a three-piece suit and managed to not get the damn thing wrinkled. “The Agency operative proved quite wily. He captured the spy and managed to not piss off Tag by trying to swipe the tech. The spy is likely being interrogated, and Drake isn’t on the shit list. Given who’s pulling the strings at the Agency these days, that’s a miracle. Hutch was specifically here to ensure Drake didn’t run off with the prize and present it to his boss.”
He didn’t know what any of that meant. His brother had gone on and on about someone named Levi and all the shit he’d stirred, but it didn’t matter.
“So we figured out that Dee went to Houston and lied about it because she was investigating Bill,” Michael explained. “She was surprisingly forthcoming in her debrief. And she knows a lot of ways to call a man a moron.”
“My wife was impressed with her,” Si agreed. “Apparently she’d caught some odd expenses on the engineer’s reports and decided to investigate. She also said she told you but you weren’t interested.”
“Bill always had odd expenses.” He should have listened to her.
“You okay?” Michael was looking at him with concern he hadn’t seen in years. “I can get the doc in here if you need pain meds. You’ve been in and out, but they’re going to start to wean you off. I can tell them to wait on that if you need the drugs.”
If he took more, he might be able to dream about her again.
Or he could get healthy and go after her. He could stop being a whiny baby and prove to her that he was worth her time.
He shook his head. “No. I want to be clearheaded. How soon can I go home?”
He would go home but not for long. Just long enough to get his shit together and put in for a few months’ leave. Then he would find a place in London and put his whole life on hold while he pursued the most important part of it. Her.
“A couple of days.” Michael looked over at Simon. “Maybe we should go tell them he’s awake. I don’t think they’ll want to miss it if he goes back to sleep.”
“No.” He knew his parents would be worried, but he had to ask the question. “Give me a minute. I need to ask you something and I need to make sure you’re going to tell me the truth.”
“Nothing hit your dick, man,”
