by Cynthia Eden
“Baby, baby, please, talk to me.”
She blinked and saw Ethan’s face right above hers. He was staring at her with desperate eyes. A desperate Ethan—a sight she didn’t see every day. “Wh-what do you want me to say?” A crazy man just attacked me. He scared the hell out of me. That pretty much summed up the last ten minutes of her day.
“You’re bleeding.” His hand flew toward her collarbone. “Sonofabitch. It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.”
“Ethan…”
“I have to see how bad it is.”
She almost didn’t want to know. Not if it was bad, anyway. “He’s…getting away.” The man she’d never seen—the man in the mask. The man who’d said that he’d been waiting for her. Waiting with duct tape and handcuffs.
Suddenly, the threats that Ethan had mentioned were horribly, terrifyingly real.
Ethan kept one hand on her collarbone even as he yanked out his phone with the other. His fingers flew across the screen. “Charles, I need an ambulance. Yes, I said a fucking ambulance. No, no, shit, I didn’t kill anyone. It’s Carly.” His fingers pressed a bit harder to her skin. “Some bastard attacked her. We’re in the parking garage. He’s getting away. In a black van, late model, driving hell fast. Find the SOB. Stop him.” Then he dropped the phone. “I’m going to pick you up,” he told Carly. “I’ll take you outside. Charles will get the ambulance, and everything will be okay.”
“Liar.” Things were far from okay.
He lifted her into his arms. Held her carefully and turned—
“What in the hell is happening?”
She didn’t recognize that horrified voice, but when her gaze slid to the speaker, she saw a man in a guard’s uniform. Wait, was he pointing pepper spray at them?
“An attack just happened,” Ethan snarled back. “I told you to get the cops here. She’s hurt, and some jerk in a black van is getting away.”
The guard’s face went slack with shock. But, before he could say anything else, more men were rushing out of the stairwell behind him. Armed men.
Men in…FBI vests?
She saw Special Agent Monroe. He was at the front of that pack. He closed in and as he did, he aimed his gun right at Ethan.
“What the fuck have you done now?” Agent Monroe demanded.
***
The bitch. The bitch. The bitch.
He drove into another parking garage, moving as fast as he could, and he ditched that van. Just jumped out of it and ran into the shadows.
He wasn’t about to take off his ski mask. Not with the chance that his image might be caught on a security camera. It was a good damn thing he’d worn gloves. At least there wouldn’t be any fingerprints in the van—he figured the cops would find it, sooner or later.
He yanked at the handles on a few nearby cars, and alarms started peeling. Shit. He didn’t need this—
One car didn’t sound an alarm. One car…it was actually unlocked.
He glanced at the plates. Tourist.
Some people should really know better.
He jumped in the car, and, less than a minute later, he was shooting out of that parking garage. When it was safe, he ditched the ski mask.
His ribs fucking hurt from her hit. She’d pay for that attack. He was going to make sure of it. She’d be paying for everything that she’d done to him.
Did she think retribution would never come her way? Oh, it would.
Revenge. Punishment. Hell.
Carly Shay would get exactly what was due to her.
Chapter Four
The wound hadn’t been deep enough for stitches. Apparently, she just had a tendency to bleed like crazy. Who knew?
Carly sat on a gurney in the ER, a paper gown covering her body. Her clothes had been taken—where, she didn’t really know. Though she suspected the FBI had confiscated them. Probably looking for some kind of evidence on them.
Had the attacker bled on her? It was possible. She’d sure tried to hurt him. So maybe the FBI had his blood, his DNA. Maybe they could find out who the jerk was.
The curtains around her were pushed aside, and Carly gave a quick jump.
“Easy.” Ethan’s voice was low. “It’s just me.”
Her heartbeat didn’t slow down any.
Her bare feet flexed a bit and her shoulders hunched. “I figured the FBI would be hauling you away.”
He laughed and came closer. “They can’t. They don’t have any evidence to use against me. Story of their lives.” His hand lifted and he brushed back her hair. When she glanced at his face, Carly saw that his laughter was already gone, as if it had never been there at all.
His expression was so intent that her breath caught for a moment. What’s wrong now?
His gaze dropped to her new bandage. “I was scared as all hell when I couldn’t find you in that building. I went up to that idiot shrink’s office and found out that you were gone, but the guard in the lobby said you hadn’t left.”
She swallowed, then focused on breathing. Nice and easy. “So you came in, guns blazing, to find me.” She could hear the bustle of people around her. Doctors and nurses were working frantically just behind the curtain. She’d been told that she had to stay put, for a few more moments, until her doctor officially released her.
She didn’t want to wait, though. Carly wanted to cut and run.
Hospitals weren’t exactly her favorite spots.
“I should have been with you the whole time. I knew the threat was there. I knew that Quincy’s brother was looking for you.”
“You still think it was the brother?”
“I think his younger brother, Curtis, has been aiming to punish his brother’s killer for years. He might look clean on paper, but I know better—than just about anyone else—how easy it is to fake a clean cover.”
"I didn’t see his face. I have no clue who attacked me.” She gave a weak laugh. “The FBI agent grilled me, again and again, but I couldn’t tell him much. Just that the guy was big, close to your height. Strong. His voice was low, no accent that I could detect.” And all that was pretty much nothing. No useful info. “He had all of his killing supplies in the back of that van. He said he’d been waiting to get me alone—”
“He won’t get you alone again,” Ethan promised her.
“You can’t stay with me forever.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
The curtain slid back once more. This time, her doctor was there. And a male nurse—one holding scrubs and looking apologetic.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse began, “but you won’t be getting your clothes back tonight. The FBI—”
“Right,” Carly interrupted. “I figured that.” But at least the nurse had brought her scrubs to wear. She wouldn’t be heading out in the paper gown and flashing her ass to the FBI agents on the way out of the hospital.
That was one win for her.
Maybe.
“The wound wasn’t severe,” the doctor said. The doctor was a lady who appeared to be in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. A little too thin and with her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Just keep it clean. The last thing you want is an infection.”
Actually, the last thing she wanted was to be hunted by some psycho with serial killing supplies at the ready, but yes, an infection was bad, too.
“It may scar,” the doctor said. And as she said those words, the doctor’s gaze cut to Ethan’s face, then, quickly, she looked away. “Though scarring can be minimalized by—”
“I don’t care about scars,” Carly responded flatly. “I care about breathing. He missed my jugular, so I know just how lucky I am.”
The doctor glanced down at her chart. “You’re clear to go. If you have any issues, just give us a call back.”
Ethan had taken the scrubs from the nurse. A call back? Hopefully not.
The doctor and nurse left. Ethan put the scrubs on the gurney beside her. Voices drifted in and out.
“I need to change,” Carly
said. “So you have to leave.”
He put his hands on either side of her body. “You never look at my scars.”
His scars. The slashes that slid down each of his cheeks.
“You’ve never asked about them, either. Don’t you want to know how I got them?” He leaned in closer. “Daniel Duvato gave them to me. The man I’d trusted for years—he hated me. And he had been working to make my life a living hell. Anytime I got close to a woman, he attacked her. He was setting me up, you see. Making it look as if I were some insane killer. And at the end, when he snapped completely, he came after me. Stabbed me again and again.” He caught her hand. Pressed it to his chest. “I’ve got more scars than I care to count. He wanted the world to look at me and see that I was a monster. As twisted on the outside as I was on the inside.”
She shook her head. “You aren’t.”
“Ah, baby, we both know that’s a lie.”
“You aren’t.” And the other voices faded away. “You’re right—I didn’t ask about your scars. Mostly because I don’t see them. You’re handsome as sin, and you have to know that, Ethan. Women look at you, and I’m pretty sure panties drop. There’s nothing twisted about how you look. There’s nothing twisted about you.”
His face softened. “Oh, Carly, if only that were true.” He brought her hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I’ll turn my back while you dress, but I don’t want to leave. Now that I finally pushed my way past the FBI, I don’t plan to leave you for a very long time.”
Because he thought the attacker might strike again? Fear bloomed in her stomach and she hurriedly dressed. In her head, she kept sliding back into that parking garage. Kept seeing the man in that ski mask coming at her.
Ethan’s shoulders seemed so incredibly tense as he stood there, just in front of the thin curtain. She glanced down at her toes, feeling vulnerable in the scrubs. What was she supposed to do about her shoes? They’d given her some little sock things and she put those on quickly, but it wasn’t as if those were really going to help her once she left the hospital. “I need to get back to my place,” she said. “Will you get Charles to take me there?”
He turned toward her. “No.”
Her brows lifted. “I have to go home, Ethan. I can’t hide forever.”
His jaw hardened. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight?”
She was pretty sure her heart nearly shot right out of her chest.
“No sex.” A muscle flexed along the hard line of his jaw. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
Well, damn. The one man she actually wanted and—what, now he was going to treat her with kid gloves? Because of her confession about the rape? Or because she was now sporting a lovely bandage courtesy of her attacker?
“I want to make sure you’re safe. I owe you—”
Again with the owing. At that one word, owe, her temper erupted. Without another word to him, Carly shoved aside the curtain and marched out of the emergency room. She kept her gaze straight ahead, but with her peripheral vision, she could see some of the other patients in the ER. One man was a bloody mess—had he been in a traffic accident? And there was a crying kid to the left. It looked as if he’d broken his leg.
A woman had a long slice along her thigh and—
I’m out of there. She shoved open the emergency room doors and exhaled a hard sigh of relief. Only that relief didn’t exactly last long because she made a beeline for the swinging doors of the hospital’s exit, and when she stepped foot outside the place, FBI Special Agent Victor Monroe appeared.
Did he seriously have nothing better to do than track her?
“You didn’t think you’d just disappear into the night, did you?” he asked her.
She took a step back and hit something—someone. Even before his hands settled around her shoulders, she knew that Ethan was behind her. She knew his smell—that rich, masculine scent. And his touch—she’d be able to recognize his touch anywhere, anytime.
“I’m not disappearing,” she said. She’d already talked to the agent, again and again, while the docs had examined her. “I’m just going home.”
But the agent’s gaze cut up to Ethan’s. “Is she now?”
“That’s what she wants,” Ethan said flatly.
Victor’s expression hardened. “My mistake,” he murmured. “I thought you cared about this one. Guess my intel was wrong.”
Ethan’s hold tightened on her. His fingers were close to her wound, but not touching it, thank goodness. She probably would have freaked if he’d hit that spot with a careless touch. Since the agent was now studying her so intently, she made herself give a light laugh. “I have no idea where that faulty intel is coming from, but obviously Ethan doesn’t care about me.”
Victor glanced at her shoulders. At Ethan’s hands. Slowly, his gaze slid back to her face, then to Ethan’s. “My mistake.” Same words, but his tone had changed now. “I just would have thought that with an imminent threat against you, Ethan would want to make certain you were in a secure location. I highly doubt that your home is a safe place.”
Her palms were starting to sweat. “I have an alarm system.”
“A professional came after you tonight.”
She realized that. The serial killing tools had been a dead giveaway. Not like it had been amateur hour.
“You really think some standard grade alarm will keep him away?” Victor shook his head. “It won’t. But I can keep you safe. The FBI will provide you ample protection.”
Will you still protect me when you realize I killed Quincy Atkins? She exhaled slowly. The pavement was cutting through the bottom of her loaner socks. And she felt far too exposed just wearing those oversized scrubs. “In return for this protection, you expect me to—what?”
“To tell the truth.”
I don’t like the truth. I like to pretend my past doesn’t exist.
Schooling her expression, Carly said, “I don’t have any information that can help you. I don’t know who is after me.”
“He does,” Victor said.
And at that, Ethan moved to Carly’s side. They were just a few feet from the hospital doors, and the light from the hospital poured down on them.
“You know plenty, don’t you, Ethan?” Victor pressed. “You knew she’d be a wanted woman and that’s why you hauled ass up here. My mistake was in believing that it was because you cared about her. Now I get it, though. You’re here because you want to stop her from talking. Why? Because you’re afraid she’ll incriminate you? Afraid that you’ll finally find yourself on the inside of a jail cell for all the twisted shit you’ve—”
“Stop.” The angry snarl tore from Carly.
Victor’s words immediately fell away into silence.
“You don’t know Ethan.” And it was as if a volcano had burst inside of her. She couldn’t contain herself. “You know the stories. The crap his enemies want you to believe. But you don’t know him. He’s more than the lies and the fear. And he’s definitely not the one you should be after right now. You want to lock someone up? Then go find that freak who was trying to toss me into his van. Leave Ethan alone.”
Victor sighed. “Like that, huh?”
Ethan stepped in front of her. “You don’t understand the situation, so let me make things very clear to you, agent. No on hurts Carly. Not you. Not that bastard out there. You hunt him. You hunt him fast. Because if I find him first, there’s not going to be anything left of him for you and your FBI team.”
“Did you just threaten to kill a man?” Victor demanded. “Right in front of an FBI agent’s face?”
Ethan laughed. “Sorry. My bad. I thought you realized I was a psychopath who didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. After all, that is what you were just telling Carly, right?”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Do your job. Find him. Or maybe no one will ever be seeing that asshole again.” Then Ethan took Carly’s hand. He started to lead her forward but a heavy rock pushed into the bottom of
her foot, nearly piercing right through the soft sock, and Ethan immediately bent at her cry. He lifted her into his arms, holding her easily. “Don’t worry, baby,” Ethan assured her softly. “The car’s waiting. We’ll be home soon.”
They’d taken five steps when Victor called out, “Never see him again, huh? Isn’t that what happened to Quincy Atkins? He just disappeared, and no one ever saw him again. Seems like that might just be your MO, Barclay.”
Ethan stopped.
“Don’t,” Carly whispered. “Let’s just go. Take me home, Ethan.”
They’d already moved away from the light, so she couldn’t see Ethan’s expression clearly. She wished that she could—she wanted to read the emotions that might be in his eyes.
After a moment, he kept walking. Unfortunately, Victor followed them. She saw Charles up ahead. He hurriedly opened the car door for her. Ethan bent and carefully put her in the backseat. His hands lingered on her as Victor’s voice drifted in through that open door.
“Psychopath,” he said. “That was your word. Ethan. But now that it’s on the table…Ms. Shay, I hope you know that psychopaths don’t feel much real emotion. They mimic. They show the world what they think others want to see. So if you believe you’re seeing emotions from Ethan, if you think you’ve got him close to you, then you really need to think again. I can help you.”
Ethan’s hand slid over her cheek. “Be right back,” he told her softly.
“Ethan—”
He slid away and a moment later, the car door slammed shut.
She inched forward, desperately trying to overhear the conversation going on outside, but, jeez, what had Ethan done? Totally sound-proofed his car?
***
Ethan smiled as he faced off against Agent Victor Monroe. They were both about the same height, even shared the same build. But that was where their similarities ended. This guy was the true blue agent type. A by-the-book mentality practically reeked from the guy.
He hadn’t met Agent Monroe before seeing the guy in New York, but he’d heard of the man. A guy who was quickly moving up the FBI ranks.