by Cynthia Eden
“How’d that make you feel?” Mercer’s gaze bored into him. “Angry? Enraged? A girl who should be with you...but she wound up with your brother.”
Gunner shook his head.
But Mercer wasn’t done. “Then it happened again, didn’t it? Another girl you wanted...” He cast a fast glance toward Sydney. “But she wound up with your brother.”
Enough.
Sydney jumped to her feet. The chair slammed back behind her, and it hit the floor. “Stop accusing him, okay? Gunner didn’t do this!”
“But his access code was used.” Mercer’s voice was still without emotion. “Hal told me what he discovered today.”
“He discovered a setup, that’s what he discovered,” Sydney snapped. “You can’t actually believe that Gunner could be responsible for this—”
“I have to explore all possibilities,” Mercer said again. “Every avenue.”
Sydney huffed out an angry breath. “Why would he access the Guerrero file? He has no reason to do that.”
“He’s not the one talking right now,” Mercer pointed out.
For an instant, Sydney was tempted to go across that table, boss or no boss. He wasn’t just going to sit there and accuse Gunner. Not while she—
Gunner’s fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Easy.”
He must have realized just how close she was to lunging. But the last thing Sydney was feeling was easy at that moment.
“Pull up your security cameras,” Gunner told Mercer. She wondered how he could sound so calm. “You’ll see I wasn’t even at the facility during the time of the breach.”
“Funny thing about that...the cameras weren’t working then.” Mercer’s lips thinned. “This facility is supposedly one of the most secure locations in the world, and our damn security cameras blacked out. You know what that tells me? It says we were hit by a professional, one with covert skills that would let him get in and out of a building without being noticed.” His fingers drummed on the table. “It also tells me that we’re definitely looking at an inside job. Someone knew all of our weaknesses. Someone studied them. And that person or persons exploited them.”
Sydney frowned. Hal hadn’t mentioned that the security cameras stopped working during the breach. He was the one who should’ve had an uplink to those videos. If they went off-line, he should have been alerted immediately. “Did you question Hal?”
Mercer nodded. “Who do you think I talked to first? The man was shaking so hard he could barely answer any of my questions.”
And he’d been so nervous when Gunner came into the room. She’d just written off that nervousness because Gunner truly did make most people tense up, but what if it had been more?
Hal was the one who’d found the evidence linking Gunner to the hacking.
Hal was the one who should have been alerted to the camera failure.
“If anyone knew how to get past the security system,” she whispered, “it would be Hal.”
Mercer shook his head. “His key card wasn’t used for entry that night. Hal wasn’t here—”
Sydney laughed, but the sound held no humor. She was still standing and definitely didn’t feel like sitting. “Hal knows the system in this building from the inside out. If he wanted to slip in, he could.”
Was she throwing Hal under the bus? At this point, Sydney wasn’t sure. She just knew...Gunner hadn’t done this. “I want to look at Hal’s computer.”
Or rather the roomful of computers that he actually had.
“Sydney...” Mercer began.
“I want to check his data. He said the authorization code linked back to Gunner. Well, that code should have been deleted years ago. By Hal. I want to see his computers. I want to find out just what searches he used to find that intel.” Her heart was beating too fast, but Gunner didn’t seem to be defending himself. Why not? So someone had to prove his innocence.
She wasn’t wrong about Gunner. She wouldn’t be wrong. There was no way that he’d tried to kill her.
No way.
Mercer was studying her with his hard gaze. Sydney held her breath, waiting, then... His head inclined toward her. “Go search the computers.”
Yes. She nearly ran for the door. This was what she needed. What she had to do. Gunner was clear. Or he would be, once she was done.
Because she wouldn’t lose faith in the one man who’d pulled her from the darkness. He’d helped her before. She’d help him now.
* * *
SILENCE FILLED THE room after the door shut behind Sydney.
Gunner knew his body was too tense, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to relax.
“She has a lot of faith in you,” Mercer finally said, voice considering.
Yes, she did. Enough faith to humble him.
“You didn’t seem to have as much faith in her.”
Gunner’s eyes narrowed.
“I mean, you were so sure that she’d go back to Slade, right? You were the one who backed away.”
“Listening to gossip, are you?”
“I listen to everything. In this business, you have to.” Mercer sighed. “I don’t like this.”
“You think I do?”
“I think you’re barely holding on to your control. You’re so worried about Sydney that you can’t even think straight.” Mercer stabbed a finger toward him. “Get your head in the game, Gunner. Stop letting your emotions rule you.”
He’d never let emotions rule him. Not until—
Sydney.
“If the evidence against you keeps piling up, I’ll have to act.”
Those words sounded like a warning.
“My gut tells me you’re clear. I know you, and I don’t want to be wrong about you.”
“You aren’t.” Neither was Sydney.
“Then find my perp. Bring me evidence that I can use to nail him to the wall.”
Gunner unclenched his jaw. “I want Cale Lane reassigned. Get him to start guarding Slade.”
He trusted Cale. No way would Slade slip by him.
“Already done,” Mercer murmured. Then he rose. The legs of his chair slid back with a screech. “Protect her.”
With his life.
“Sydney reminds me...” Mercer began, but then his words trailed away. Sadness flickered in his eyes, and the lines on his face deepened. The man looked as though he was skirting sixty, but Gunner had no idea at all what Mercer’s personal life was like. Did he have a wife? A family?
Mercer cleared his throat. “She reminds me of a woman I knew a long time ago. I lost her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ll be sorrier if you lose her, trust me.” Then he headed from the door. “There are some things that even soldiers can’t recover from.”
If he lost Sydney, the baby...no, he’d never recover.
Good thing he wasn’t planning on losing them.
* * *
SYDNEY SWIPED HER key card over the access panel, and when the lights flashed green, she pushed her way inside Hal’s inner sanctum. The Hub, as he called it.
Hal wasn’t there. Good. He should have gone home an hour ago. Time for her to get working and see exactly what was happening with his system.
She eased into his chair, started typing and immediately, the screen froze on her.
Hal had installed extra protection on his machine.
Good for him. Except...she’d been there when he’d installed that protection. He hadn’t even bothered to glance over his shoulder to see if she was watching while he typed in his code.
She’d been watching.
And she never forgot a code.
Her fingers tapped quickly over the keyboard. She knew how to get around this system. Hal never gave her enough credit.
Then she was pulling up the searches he’d used in the mainframe, and yes, sure enough, the access code had linked to Gunner. Damn it.
But she kept searching. Looking for the security video feed from the night of the breach—a feed that should have been there.
/> Her eyes narrowed on the screen as she read the system file for the time of 0300 on the date of the breach. There were no reported errors with the monitoring system. No reported errors at all because...
Her fingers typed faster.
Because Hal had shut off the system thirty minutes before. She could see the override, right there on the screen. He was in on—
“I figured you would be the one to come and look at the security logs.” The door behind her closed with a soft click.
Sydney tensed. She’d been so intent on the monitor that she hadn’t even realized that Hal had come into the room.
But as she looked up into the monitor, she could see his reflection. He was walking toward her, and he had a weapon in his hand.
A gun.
He wouldn’t have gotten past the security check-in downstairs with that weapon. But they had a weapons room on the second floor. As if it would have been hard for Hal to help himself to some equipment. After all, he controlled the access to most of the rooms in that building.
She inhaled a steadying breath. She didn’t have a gun, but that didn’t mean she was defenseless. She was the one trained for combat. Not Hal and his nervous hands. He might think that he had the advantage, but he’d soon realize the error of his ways.
“You were supposed to die, though,” Hal said. “So it wasn’t going to matter. The shooter was going to take you out. You’d be dead, so you wouldn’t come in here and find out about me.”
“Why?” She turned and looked at him. A deliberate move on her part. For someone like Hal, someone not used to doling out death, looking into the face of his victim would be hard.
Staring into her eyes, then killing her...even harder.
Her fingers curled around the pen she’d taken from his desk.
“I didn’t want to,” Hal whispered, and sure enough, his hands were shaking. “I didn’t have a choice. He was going to hurt my family.” His eyes teared. “They’re all I have...he knew things about them. Too much. I had to do it.”
“You had to turn off the cameras?” She wanted to keep him talking. Needed to.
Hal nodded.
“And you gave him the access code?”
“Y-yes.”
The shaking of that gun was making her nervous. Her body was tense, ready to attack, and she planned to lunge at him soon, but she had to time her move just right. The last thing she wanted was a bullet hitting her or the baby.
The baby.
“Do you know I’m pregnant?” she whispered. “Please, Hal, don’t hurt the baby.” She meant that plea. The baby—the one she hadn’t even felt moving inside her yet—mattered more than anything to her.
Hal hesitated. “Baby?” The gun began to lower.
It was the moment she needed. Sydney leaped out of her chair. With one hand, she grabbed Hal’s right wrist—his right hand still clasped the gun—and she shoved that wrist out wide, making sure he wouldn’t have a shot at her. Then, with her other hand, she brought up her pen, aiming for his now exposed inner arm. She drove the pen into his arm because she knew that his reflex action at that attack would be to drop the weapon.
The gun hit the floor. Just as she’d anticipated. But it discharged on impact, and the shot echoed around her.
Instantly she could hear the scream of alarms. No way would a gunshot be missed in a place like this.
Then, as Hal was howling, she brought up her elbow and slammed it into his nose. She heard the snap and saw the spurt of blood from his nose. Hal backed away from her, crouching and...crying?
Sydney kicked the gun across the room. It skittered toward the entrance. She kept her hands loose at her sides, ready to attack again if necessary.
But Hal wasn’t putting up much of a fight. He was trying to stop the blood that was flowing from his nose and saying—
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”
“You’re sorry?” Sydney demanded. The alarm was hurting her ears. “You pulled a gun on me. You leaked classified information. You need to be a whole lot more than just sorry.”
He stood, or tried to stand, but his body kept trembling. His hand went to his side.
Over his shoulder, she caught the movement of the door as it opened.
“I want a name,” Sydney demanded through gritted teeth. “I want a full description of the guy. I want to know exactly who paid you off.”
Hal shook his head. “I—I can’t—”
“Do you know what happens to people found guilty of treason? Do you have any idea just how long you’ll be in jail?” Not to mention the slew of other charges that would be coming against him.
He shook his head again harder this time. “I can’t...can’t go to jail.”
Maybe you should have thought about that before you sold out the EOD and me.
“Give me a name. If you cooperate, then—”
“I can’t!” And his left hand came up. His fingers were wrapped around a box cutter. He had been a busy man. “Muerte, I—”
A shot rang out.
Sydney was staring right into Hal’s gaze, and she saw his eyes widen in shock. Then his body was crumpling as he fell to the floor. She rushed toward him. No, no, no! He couldn’t die. He knew the identity of the man who’d infiltrated the EOD.
She put her hands on either side of his head, tried to make him look at her. “Hal?”
His eyes were wide open with shock and pain.
She moved closer, forcing him to see her. “Hal, give me a name.”
“S-sorry...”
“Don’t be sorry.” There wasn’t time for sorry. “Help me, Hal. Make this right. Give me a name.”
But Hal wasn’t going to give her anything. As she stared at him, all of the life vanished from his eyes.
“Hal?”
He was gone.
“Sydney?”
She looked up. Slade stood just a few feet away, a gun in his hand. Hal’s gun. The gun she’d kicked across the room so Hal couldn’t use it again.
“I—I saw him coming at you, I thought he had a knife....”
The box cutter could have done as much damage as a knife, but she would have been able to knock it out of Hal’s hand. She knew plenty of techniques to disarm him.
“I couldn’t let him hurt you,” Slade whispered. His eyes—filled with horror—were on Hal’s still body. “I just reacted. I just...shot.”
Footsteps pounded in the hallway. She could hear them through the open door. Then Gunner was there, bursting into the room. “Sydney!”
He saw Slade with the gun. He lunged for his brother.
“Gunner!” Sydney called out.
Slade didn’t fight him. Gunner yanked the gun away from Slade and shoved the smaller man up against the nearest wall. Then Gunner turned that gun on his brother. “What the hell are you doing?”
Sydney rose. “Saving me.”
Mercer was there, too, breath heaving from his lungs. She saw Cale and a few other agents.
All too late to change what had happened.
She straightened her shoulders. “Hal attacked me. Slade came in and...he thought he was saving me.”
Gunner glanced back at her. His eyes widened as his gaze swept over her. He put the gun down on a table, and then he was across the room in an instant, his hands running over her arms. “Is the blood yours?” There was a tight, desperate quality in his words that she’d never heard before.
Sydney shook her head. “All Hal’s.”
Gunner’s hand was resting over her stomach now.
“I’m okay.” They both were. She looked to the right. Mercer had crouched next to Hal, but the others were watching her and Gunner. Silent, tense.
Gunner locked his jaw, gave a grim nod and slowly dropped his hand.
She heard a ragged gasp and her gaze met Slade’s. He’d seen Gunner’s hand on her stomach. Seen the fear and worry on Gunner’s face.
He knows.
Slade’s head tilted down. His hands clenched into fists.
&nbs
p; Tears stung her eyes. Things should never have been this twisted.
“Why the hell did Hal go after you?” Cale asked.
“Because I knew what he’d done. I found it...” She pointed toward the computer. “Hal’s the one who turned off the security feed. Probably so we wouldn’t realize that he was the one here that night, doing the hacking. He used Gunner’s old code. Hal set him up.”
Mercer’s fingers were on Hal’s neck, looking for a pulse. He wasn’t going to find one.
He must have realized that same fact because Mercer swore and glanced up at her. “Did he tell you why?”
Mercer wasn’t the kind of man to take kindly to betrayals. But then, who was? Only with Mercer, she knew the retribution for betraying him usually involved death or imprisonment.
“He said...he said he didn’t have a choice. That his family was threatened.” But if she looked into his bank accounts, would she discover that he’d been paid off? Not just threats, but an enticing wad of cash to help him escape from the EOD and start fresh somewhere else?
There was always a price that had to be paid for a betrayal.
“Muerte,” she whispered.
Cale’s gaze cut to Slade. Slade shook his head.
“That was the last thing Hal said to me.”
“Maybe he was afraid of death,” one of the other agents muttered.
No, she didn’t think he’d been talking about death so much as the drug. With the drug showing up in the shooter’s blood, with that being the last word that Hal had spoken, the dots were connecting in a very deadly way.
“It’s in the U.S.” Mercer stood. He had blood on his fancy suit. “The bastards have it here, and the DEA doesn’t even realize it.” He waved his hands. “I want this room clear. Don’t touch anything, hear me? I’m getting a crime scene analysis team sent in from the FBI. They owe me, and the feds are about to start paying up.”
Sydney eased toward Slade. He looked up at her, his face pale.
“I heard the gunshot,” he whispered. “I was in the hallway. I didn’t...I didn’t even know you were the one in here. The door was ajar...I just slipped in.”
And he’d seen her and Hal in a standoff.
“When I saw the weapon in his hand...” Slade swallowed. “I just fired. I killed him.”