No Good Deed

by Allison Brennan

  Nicole glanced over at her aunt. “It wasn’t me, Aunt Mags.”

  “You were arrested.”

  “Because of your son.”

  “You always blame him.”

  “Because it’s always his damn fault!”

  “You’re right about that, Nicole,” Sean couldn’t stop himself from saying.

  Elise hit him so hard when he wasn’t expecting it that he fell out of his chair. “I don’t like you,” she said and kicked him in the stomach.

  The feeling is mutual.

  Joseph grabbed Elise by the arm and half dragged her over to the bar. “Sit.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Sean climbed back into his chair, ignoring the bruises and throbbing in his arm. He spared a glance at Barry, who lay on the floor, eyes closed. He was breathing, but there was no way that Sean could escape with him. The poor guy wouldn’t be able to walk a hundred yards let alone miles.

  “The plane leaves at midnight,” Maggie said. “That’s our only window of opportunity.”

  “Midnight?” Tobias said. “That doesn’t give me enough time to get to Kane Rogan.”

  “You should have killed him the first three times you had the opportunity,” Maggie snapped. “What have I taught you, Tobias? From the very beginning, act swiftly. If you’d given the kill order in Mexico he would have been dead.”

  “Hey, that was all Joseph,” Tobias said.

  Joseph glared at him. “I’m warning you,” he said in a low voice.

  The computer screen flickered for a brief second and Sean almost missed it. Then it came again.

  Kate had written a message on the computer notepad.

  He had to look at it without drawing suspicion, and if Kate had risked his life to get it to him, it had to be important.

  Nicole was ignoring the fighting behind her. “Wrap it up, Rogan.” She was getting weary, but her eyes were glued to his screen. “One more transfer.”

  “You know,” Sean said conversationally, “if you’d all just listened to Joseph from the beginning none of this would have happened. He seems to be the only one with an ounce of real strategic planning in his bones.”

  Maggie came at him with a gun out. That, Sean wasn’t expecting.

  Nicole pushed Maggie’s arm up. “Stop it! He’s baiting you, can’t you see that?”

  While Nicole was distracted, Sean opened the notepad through the DOS function that he was writing code in. Less of a chance that he’d be caught.

  843 EXT SEC OUT ALERT

  He immediately wiped the screen.

  “What was that?” Elise said. “He just did something.”

  Nicole whirled around. “Why is the screen blank?”

  “I didn’t do anything. It’s from the other end.”

  “It’s here,” Joseph said. “The money is all here.”

  Sean hadn’t released the last five million. Kate must have done something … cloned his bank account? Sent false data? Whatever she did, it was going to save his life or cost him his life. They had originally planned to mirror the account information, but it would be extremely difficult and risky, and the chances of success—without knowing the account number and bank beforehand—was next to impossible. But maybe Kate had found a way while he was messing around in the Treasury back-end, stalling.

  Tobias was still at the bar. The cameras. External security. A SWAT team was outside and the cameras were going down in—he glanced at the clock on the computer—one minute.

  Maggie said, “Once he’s dead, he won’t be of use to us.”

  That was kind of obvious, wasn’t it?

  Sean looked down at Barry. His one good eye was open and watching Sean. Sean put up one finger. If Barry understood, he didn’t say anything. But his eye was focused. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

  Joseph showed his phone to Maggie. She stared and it was clear she didn’t quite understand what she was seeing. Sean wondered if Joseph and Nicole had another endgame, because they were both surprised—and none too happy—when Tobias brought his mother into the house.

  “Good,” Maggie said. “Now split it.”

  “Let’s do that from the road. I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Too many people know too much,” Joseph said.

  “From the road, huh?” Maggie said. “What’s your plan? You thinking of stabbing the family in the back?”

  Nicole said, “No, Aunt Maggie. Joseph is the most loyal person in the world. You know that.”

  “He’s not family.”

  “He’s been more a family to me than any of you,” she snapped.

  “He turned you. Against your own family.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been working to save this family for years. Tobias has risked us more times than I can count, and you just are too blind to see it!”

  The security screens went blank. Tobias didn’t notice because he’d come around from the back of the bar to defend his mother. Elise sat there sucking a lollipop, watching with wide eyes and a shit-eating grin, as if she’d seen this all before and she always enjoyed the show.

  Sean stood up and immediately eyes—and guns—were on him. “I have a plane,” he said. “You want it, it’s yours. Just let Barry live. None of this was his fault.”

  “Right. He was just unlucky enough to get your girlfriend as a partner,” Nicole said.

  “Fiancée,” Elise corrected from across the room. “He popped the question and she said yes. She has a big-ass ring on her finger.”

  Shit, eyes turned toward Elise, and the security screens behind her.

  Joseph saw the blank screens first.

  He turned to Sean, gun aimed at Sean’s head.

  A gun went off and Sean thought he was dead. But it was Joseph’s brains that were blown out of the side of his head. His expression didn’t change as he collapsed to the floor.

  Nicole screamed. “No! No, no, no!”

  “FBI, freeze!” a commanding voice said.

  Nicole knelt by Joseph. “Joseph! Please, get up!”

  Maggie Hunt turned her gun on the four FBI SWAT team members that stormed the room. She was dead before she could fire a round. Nate and Ryan moved cautiously toward where Nicole was shaking Joseph.

  “Put your hands up, Rollins. Slowly—let me see your hands!” Nate commanded.

  Jack Kincaid came in from the back, pushing Elise Hansen—or, rather, Elise Hunt—in front of him. “She ran out the back door.”

  “He kidnapped me! He hurt Dr. Oakley! Thank God you’re here.”

  “Save it,” a familiar voice said.

  Lucy.

  She took off her helmet and glanced around the room until her eyes caught Sean’s. She smiled, just a little, but the love and relief in her eyes gave Sean all the peace he needed.

  Then she saw Barry on the floor. “Oh my God! Barry?”

  “He needs help.”

  Lucy knelt next to him. “Barry, it’s Lucy Kincaid. We’re going to get you to a hospital.”

  Nicole screamed and Sean turned to where she knelt sobbing and bloody next to her lover. She had a knife and threw it at Sean at the same moment the fourth SWAT member—Brad Donnelly—shot her three times in the chest.

  Sean reacted quickly, but Nicole had been aiming center mass, and the knife embedded itself in his arm—the same arm that had been sliced open while rescuing Kane. Lucy rushed over, horror crossing her face.

  “I’m okay.” He winced as he pulled the knife out.

  Lucy grabbed a bandage from her belt and wrapped his arm. “I thought—”

  “I’ll be fine.” With his good arm, he touched her. He kissed her forehead. He was alive. He had Lucy. It was all he needed.

  Leo Proctor walked in and said, “We’ve secured the immediate grounds.”

  Jack said, “Where’s Tobias Hunt?”

  “He was here until—” Sean remembered seeing Elise bolt, but not Tobias. Which meant he’d gone the other direction. “He ran that way, the way you all
came in, not the way Jack came in.”

  “We didn’t pass him.”

  Proctor said, “Search the house, top-to-bottom, on your toes!”

  Lucy and Sean stayed with Barry while the rest of the SWAT team searched the house and the grounds completely twice.

  Tobias Hunt was nowhere to be found.

  An hour later, after Barry had been airlifted to the hospital and Elise arrested, Leo Proctor came back to the staging area and said, “We believe he went on foot to a dry creek bed. We found tracks there. It was rough terrain, but he stayed off the main roads. The Rangers are in place, and we have helicopters out with search lights. We’ll find him.”

  Lucy shook her head. She didn’t want to assume anything, not where these people were concerned. “Out of all of them, he was the dumbest, yet he got away? Is this ever going to be over?”

  “I know where he’s going,” Sean said, wrapping his good arm around her shoulders. “He’s in for a very big surprise.”

  * * *

  Kane Rogan hated hospitals. He hated people taking care of him, he hated feeling helpless. He hated the antiseptic smell covering up the sick, the way nurses fawned over him like benevolent dictators, and not being able to leave. Like a prison.

  But mostly, he hated being injured.

  He’d been shot, stabbed, beaten, and left for dead, but he’d always managed to heal and come out on top. Now he was forty-three and his age was a factor. He felt older than his years for the first time in his life. The surgery had been successful, he’d been moved from recovery to a private room a few hours ago. He was supposed to be sleeping, but he was in too much pain. If the nurse saw that he’d palmed his pain pill, she would have put something in his IV.

  Kane could tolerate the pain. He would take the antibiotic drip, but he wasn’t going to get doped up on pain meds.

  Blitz had come to see him earlier and bring him supplies that the hospital couldn’t provide. Kane had questions that Blitz refused to answer. His men couldn’t lie to him—Blitz just told him everything was under control. But he wouldn’t give him details, he wouldn’t tell him where Sean was, and he wouldn’t tell him if the FBI had a plan to capture Nicole Rollins.

  Kane wanted to be free, to be mobile. He had ideas on how to find her, but he couldn’t do it from a hospital bed. And he needed Sean’s help. He didn’t like bringing his little brother into his messes, he didn’t like asking for help from anyone except his team, but Sean had proven himself time and time again.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be sleeping.”

  He turned his head toward the door, his hand under the sheet. Then he relaxed.

  “Siobhan.”

  She smiled and for a moment, for one short minute, his heart felt lighter. She walked over to his bed. “Blitz said you were already going stir crazy. You lost a kidney. You always take care of everyone, you need to let someone take care of you for a while.”

  She was the most beautiful woman Kane had ever laid eyes on. The most compassionate, frustrating, loyal, stubborn, talented, beautiful creature on earth. From day one, when he’d first seen her, he’d been haunted by her. Haunted, maybe, because his life couldn’t include romantic entanglements. It wasn’t fair to Siobhan. Not just because of his life, but because he would put her in danger. Just being friends with him had put her in danger.

  “You’re thinking dark thoughts,” she said and sat down on the edge of his mattress.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “Maybe not, but you’re really not in a position to do much about it, are you?”

  He scowled.

  She frowned and felt around his sheets. He grabbed her wrist. “Don’t,” he said.

  “Kane.” The lines creased on her smooth forehead. Her red curls had escaped from her braid. She brushed them out of her eyes, but couldn’t hide the worry he saw in their bright-blue depths. Another reason why he couldn’t love her. He never wanted to see her sad. He never wanted to see her in pain, or in danger, or in fear.

  He wasn’t ignorant. They’d both felt this attraction from that first day, when she risked her life to save a child and he came in to save them both.

  But it couldn’t be.

  She leaned over and kissed him. “I’ve always loved you, Kane,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said.

  “I can’t turn my feelings on and off. But this week—I had to tell you the truth. You have to know how I feel. You’re the most arrogant, annoying, impossible man I’ve ever met. And you’re the bravest, most dedicated, most loyal man I know.”

  “I can’t change, Siobhan.” His voice cracked. The pain, not the emotions. Because he couldn’t afford to have emotions.

  “I’ve never asked you to change,” she whispered. “You never wanted to be a hero, but it’s what you are. And if you think I’m going to walk away after this week?”

  “You have to.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  A faint footstep sounded out of place. With all the hospital sounds, the one thing Kane had noticed was that nurses tread silently.

  This footfall wasn’t silent.

  “Drop to the floor,” he ordered Siobhan.

  She dropped.

  Tobias stepped into Kane’s hospital room. Kane had never seen him, but he had Lucy’s description, and it was right on the money.

  Tobias had a gun in his hand.

  “Isn’t this fun?” Tobias said. “You survived a fucking army in Mexico, but will be taken out by one man. And how about it—I’ll get the girl after all.”

  Kane pulled the trigger of his gun—the gun Blitz had brought him earlier. He pulled the trigger five times, though the first bullet had been fatal.

  Hospital staff and security rushed into the room. Someone helped Siobhan up. Kane watched the heart monitor beep. His heart rate had barely elevated when he killed Tobias.

  He was no man for Siobhan.

  There were questions and someone took his gun, but he didn’t need it anymore; Tobias was dead. Siobhan refused to leave, but she was crying.

  “Don’t look at me like that Kane. Don’t—I know you, dammit!”

  Kane was in a fog. Maybe they’d stuck some pain meds in his IV when he wasn’t looking.

  Blitz came in, arguing with security. But he must have told them something they wanted to hear, because they let him enter.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Blitz.”

  “I had the entrances covered. I’d never have let her in here if I thought he was in the building.”

  “Take her to Andie’s.”

  “No!” Siobhan said. “I’m not leaving.”

  Kane stared at her. His heart broke. But his life wasn’t the life for Siobhan. “You’re not staying.”

  “This isn’t over, Kane. I’m not letting you do this to yourself. To us.”

  “There is no us, Siobhan.”

  She shook her head. “I meant what I said, Kane. All of it.”

  She walked out.

  “Boss, you should—”

  “Shut up,” he told Blitz. They really had put something in his IV. “Make sure she gets home safely. Understood?”

  Blitz nodded and left.

  Kane finally slept. And dreamt of Siobhan.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Saturday

  Lucy stared out the window at the pool, but she didn’t really see anything. She was numb.

  She should be celebrating. She should be happy that the events that had started three months ago were over. Almost everyone involved was dead, except for Elise Hansen. She was in jail. She would not be getting out, regardless of what Dr. Oakley said. She was being transferred to a maximum-security federal prison while awaiting trial, and that suited Lucy just fine.

  She should be celebrating that she’d helped take down a violent drug cartel. Jimmy Hunt had been apprehended by the DEA in Mexico City based on the information obtained from the traitorous DEA agent Adam Dover. They had searched
the Hunt property in Los Angeles and found the remains of Tamara Rollins, killed five years ago for what reason, they still didn’t know. Considering what Sean revealed about how the family fought, it wasn’t surprising that one of them had killed her … though it was surprising that not one of them seemed to care. Kane survived surgery and the loss of a kidney, and Barry Crawford was slowly recovering in the hospital. He may not regain sight in one of his eyes, and he had additional surgeries in his future, but he would live. All of that was good news.

  And mostly, she should celebrate that she and Sean were alive. That they’d lost no one in the raid on the compound, and that finally, things might get back to normal.

  But she couldn’t smile. She could muster up no relief or joy or emotion. She was in a daze, and all she could think about was how much she almost lost.

  Sean stepped into the living room, moving slowly. He had a cracked rib, his arm had been stitched up at the hospital and he wore a sling to protect it, and the only remnants of his ordeal were bruises all over his body from being tied up and stuffed behind the seat in Joseph Contreras’s truck. She ached for him. But he was alive.

  “Lucy.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Sean put his good hand on her shoulder and didn’t say anything.

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m not okay. I almost lost you. I—I can’t. I can’t stop thinking about it. When I close my eyes, I see you dead.”

  “I’m not dead, Lucy.”

  “I know! But—dammit, I’m so mad at you.”

  She turned into him, buried her face in his chest, afraid if she touched him too hard she’d hurt him.

  He wrapped his arm around her and drew her in. It was so gentle, so tender, the tears started falling. “I’m not mad at you,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “When it was just me, I didn’t care. Because what I did was my choice. My decision. If I was hurt, it didn’t matter because no one cared.”

  “Your family cared.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you so much, Sean. I was so angry with you, with Hans, with Nate, with Jack—all of you conspiring to risk your life. It’s not just your life anymore.”

  “It was the best plan we could come up with. They put a million-dollar bounty on Kane’s head, Lucy. If we didn’t stop them—”