God. This was never going to work.
She’d lived the past day in a state of numbed shock, but now, in the quiet of this awful room, the hopelessness of their situation crashed into her full force. Travis was just as lost as she was. Her SEAL. Her protector. He didn’t have a clue how to save them.
And he was in a massive amount of pain.
She straightened at the realization, ashamed at herself for not noticing his clenched jaw and the strain around his eyes sooner. Yes, he had broken his promises to her, but he’d also gone through hell trying to keep her safe. He’d been beaten up, slashed with a knife, had endured a pounding of icy-cold water, and had been drugged. And, still, he was trying to do something about their situation. Maybe it was hopeless. Maybe it wouldn’t work. But at least he was being proactive and not sitting there wallowing in self-pity.
She walked over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. His complexion was pasty, tinged with a green-gray hue, and he was sweating despite the chill in the air. “Travis?”
The spoon slipped out from under a nail. “Fuck!”
“Are you okay? Do you need me to—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, which told her all she needed to know. Travis was not the kind of man who lost his patience like this.
“No, you’re not. Anyone looking at you can see you’re in pain. Why don’t you take a break from that? Let me try for a while.”
“I’m fine,” he repeated. “What time is it in El Paso right now?”
“Uh.” Thrown by the sudden topic change, she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You’re wearing a watch. Unless you’ve changed it to local time—which would save me from having to do math with a splitting headache…?”
She shook her head again in answer to his half question.
“Then you should still have El Paso’s time on it,” he finished.
“But it doesn’t work.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” he muttered and returned his attention to the window. “Why the hell would anyone wear a watch that worked? It’s ludicrous.”
Self-conscious, she twisted the band around her wrist. “It was my dad’s.”
Travis exhaled hard. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I don’t need a break. Even if I did, we don’t have time to—” The spoon slipped from his hand. He bent double, cradling his head, then dropped to the floor on his hands and knees and dry heaved. The sound he made could only be described as a whimper of pain.
Alarm shot through her. Travis Quinn, or at least the stoic man she’d met this summer, didn’t whimper. He didn’t show pain, period. Yet here he was, nearly curled into a fetal position on the floor.
And she had no clue how to help him. “What can I do? What do you need?”
“Lights,” he gritted out. “Off.”
She looked around, but there were no switches in the room. She had no control over the lights and instead found his coat where he’d left it on the end of the bed. She draped the material over his head. “Better?”
He groaned.
Her heart was racing, but she refused to break down when Travis needed her to be strong for the both of them. She rubbed his back. “What’s wrong?”
“Just…migraine.”
A migraine dropped him to his knees like that? She’d never gotten one before and had no way of judging how normal this was. “Do you get them a lot?”
He made a sound in the affirmative. “On meds to control…them.”
And that medicine was probably well out of his system by now. “What can I do?”
“It’ll go away. Need…dark. And quiet.”
Okay, she could take a hint. She straightened away from him and noticed the spoon on the floor near his hand.
Something clicked inside her mind, like a missing puzzle piece snapping into place. If she really wanted to help him, she should continue his work.
She carefully stepped over Travis and picked up the spoon.
Chapter Eleven
Nikolai Zaryanko hung up the phone and pushed away from his desk, pleased with the outcome of his phone call. The ransom for Quinn was inching toward the million-dollar mark, and with the involved party having such deep pockets, he could easily see it reaching seven, maybe even eight digits before it was over.
And that deserved a bit of celebration.
He poured himself a glass from the bottle of Kvint on his desk and breathed in the scent of the top-notch cognac found only in his country. If you asked him, it was the best in the world, and he savored the burn of the first sip sliding down his throat.
As he lowered the glass, a slow round of applause from the doorway caught his attention. There wasn’t much left in the world that could shock him, but when he spun and saw a dead man propped in his doorway, it startled him so much he spilled his drink.
“Liam.” He set the glass down. “My old friend. I—I was told you were dead.”
“I have risen,” Liam Miller said, spreading his hands in a godlike gesture. “And you’ve been plenty busy since I’ve been dead.”
Zaryanko swallowed hard. “You know, business as usual.”
“Ah,” Liam said on a laugh. “Not what I’ve heard, Nicky. And I’ve been racking my brain, trying to decide if you are extremely clever or if you have a secret death wish.”
Zaryanko got up and found a towel in a nearby cabinet to blot the front of his shirt. A fissure of panic tried to claw up his spine, but he suppressed it and forced a smile. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” Liam strolled in and made himself comfortable in one of the leather chairs. “It is brilliant, I’ll give you that. Brilliant, but you’ve already gone and cocked it all up.”
Realizing he wouldn’t get away with playing dumb, Zaryanko filled a second tumbler with Kvint and offered it to Liam. “How so?”
Liam set his drink aside without touching it. “You’ve given both sides time enough to rally the troops.”
“HORNET doesn’t know they are dealing with me. And the other? They won’t risk coming here when Mother Russia is in such a bad temper. They’d start a war.”
“Ah, my shortsighted friend. They know exactly with whom they are dealing. I heard rumblings about the con you have going all the way in Istanbul, and I found you within an hour of arriving in Tiraspol. What makes you think that HORNET won’t? As a matter of fact, I have little doubt they are here now, as we speak. And as for the Americans, you’d be wise not to underestimate their willingness to start wars. Or their ability to justify them. If there’s one thing Yanks are good at, it’s that.” He didn’t wait for a response but instead picked up his drink again and leaned casually back in his chair, slinging a leg over the arm. Only a slight tightening around his brown eyes spoke of the pain he still felt from the bullet that had supposedly ended his life back in May. “You’ve painted a bull’s-eye on yourself, mate. Give Quinn to me.”
“Nyet. I cannot. He’s worth too much money.”
Liam made a tsking sound. “Nicky, Nicky. Do you truly believe they’ll pay up? They’ll kill you first and take Quinn by force. Do yourself a favor and hand him over to me.”
“No, but you’re welcome to bid on him. If you can pay more than our American comrades, he’s yours.”
Liam said nothing for a long moment. “I think you’re forgetting. Who gave you your start? Who scraped you off the street and made you rich in this shithole fake country?”
Zaryanko clenched his jaw, pride warring with a deep sense of self-preservation. In the end, self-preservation won. Always did. “You,” he ground out between his teeth.
“And yet you cannot grant me a favor when I ask it?”
“I have to recoup my losses,” Zaryanko tried to explain. “HORNET cheated me out of my money in Afghanistan. I want it back.”
“Heard about that. So you’ve seen them in action.” Liam sat up slowly, the strain around his eyes tightening even more at the movement. “You know better than to un
derestimate them. Give Quinn to me, and they’ll have no reason to come after you.”
Zaryanko’s hand shook, jingling the ice in his glass. He set his drink down, unwilling to give Liam the satisfaction of seeing his nerves. While he had witnessed firsthand what HORNET was capable of and he wanted no part of that, he couldn’t very well hand over his own personal gold mine. “My answer is still no. As I said, you’re welcome to join in the bidding. It’s at one million.”
Liam didn’t move for a moment, then finished his drink and produced a wallet from his back pocket. He peeled off a one-ruble note and stuffed it into his empty glass. “There’s my bid, and I have no doubt you’ll accept it sooner rather than later.”
Relief made Nikolai light-headed as Liam left. He downed his cognac and sat forward, reaching for his phone. He needed to move his merchandise to a more secure location. He’d just made an enemy, and Liam Miller was not someone you wanted as an enemy.
…
Noise from the hallway startled Mara awake, and she groaned at herself when she realized she’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t meant to. Last thing she remembered was taking a break from working on the window after she managed to get the first nail free sometime in the early morning hours. She’d wanted to share her triumph with Travis, but he was out cold and with how much pain he’d been in before he fell asleep, she didn’t dare wake him. Instead, she’d settled down on the floor beside him, planning only to rest her eyes for a few minutes.
Should have known better. She was beyond exhausted and now, judging by the angle of the light filtering through the window, it had to be late afternoon. They’d slept all day.
Travis’s arm rested across her ribs, and when she tried to move away, he unconsciously pulled her closer. She exhaled hard as emotions threatened to swamp her. She couldn’t let herself fall for this man who made promises and walked away. And yet, he still made her belly jitter and her heart pound, and the less rational part of her never wanted to leave his arms again. She curled toward his body and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, enjoying the moment of intimacy for the fleeting thing it was.
He’d broken her heart six weeks ago. It was a stupid thing to fall for a one-night-stand-turned-fling, but they had connected on more than just a physical level, and she hadn’t been able to help her foolish heart’s involvement. Having him walk out on her in the middle of the night should have killed all of the tender feelings she harbored for him. But, no, it really hadn’t. She was just as attracted now as the first time she’d laid eyes on him on that insanely hot July day.
She remembered she’d been worried about the guard Jesse had told her would be sitting in a car outside her duplex, so for the first time ever, she’d broken the rules. Jesse had laid down a strict no-contact law, but she’d still decided to take her bodyguard some of the fresh lemonade she’d made that morning. Except her visit had startled him, and he’d pulled his gun, which in turn had startled her. She’d tripped over her own feet, and Travis had jumped out of the car to catch her.
The spark had been instantaneous and electric. She’d never before experienced lust at first sight—but Travis Quinn, with his stormy gray eyes, hard, unsmiling lips, and lean, muscular body had made her formerly dormant libido jump up and do a samba. As they stood there on the sidewalk with his hands on her hips for a beat too long, she’d realized she’d break any and all rules to be with this man, even if it was only one time.
And she had. They had. Broken every rule in the book together. Repeatedly.
Next to her, Travis stirred and opened his eyes. They were clear again, and although he was terribly pale, his complexion didn’t have the greenish hue of nausea that it had last night. He smiled—just a sleepy upward quirk of his lips—and memories of their first time together flooded her.
Before Travis, she had never understood the appeal of sex. It had always been more obligation than pleasure, something she had to do to make her boyfriends happy—the same two boyfriends that her stepfather had handpicked for her. But sex with Travis was different. Fun. Thrilling. A little dirty. A lot hot. And the man had stamina for days…
“You’re ready again so soon?” She opened her eyes in time to catch the look of awe that crossed his face.
“Apparently,” he muttered, schooling his features back into a mask of concentration.
She laughed, caught his jaw in her hands and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his mouth. “I can’t tell if you sound happy about that or annoyed.”
“Happy.” When she lifted her hips into his downward thrust and he sank in even deeper, he groaned. “Oh, fuck, yeah. Definitely happy.”
“Then smile, Travis. I promise it won’t hurt.” She stuck her pointer fingers in the corners of his lips and pushed them upward, then mimicked his scowl. “Actually, that stern face of yours might just break. You should start small. A smirk. C’mon, let me see it…”
Travis cupped her cheeks in his hands, much the same way she had his that day in her bedroom, and Mara snapped back to the present. Her body hummed from the all too vivid memories.
“Travis?” Her voice came out a shaky whisper.
He drew her in closer and claimed her mouth with commanding lips and an exploring tongue. A little alarm chimed in the back of her mind. He must not be fully awake yet and didn’t realize what he was doing, because since finding out about the baby, he’d barely been able to look at her, and the only time he’d touched her was to protect her from something. For that reason alone, she should pull away, but he took the kiss deeper, his hard mouth demanding a response, and she melted. She couldn’t help it. Like it or not, she’d always melt for this man.
Her breasts ached and her peaked nipples scraped uncomfortably against the material of her bra. She arched her back, pressing against his chest, seeking some kind of relief. His hand left her cheek, skimmed her neck, her shoulder, and finally settled over her breast, cupping her through her shirt. She wanted skin to skin. Oh, how she wanted it, and she moaned her encouragement.
In a burst of movement, he rolled, tucked her under his body, leaned down to kiss her again—
And froze when his hard stomach brushed hers.
“Fuck.” He shoved back onto his knees and dragged his hands through his too-long hair.
She propped herself up on her elbows. “What’s wrong?”
“What isn’t wrong is the better question. Wrong place, wrong time. Everything I just did was fucking wrong. Christ.” He got up and paced across the room like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
Chilled to the bone by his abrupt rejection, she snapped up his coat from the floor and pulled it on. It smelled like him, and that rankled. “Pregnancy is not a communicable disease, Travis.”
With his back to her, she clearly saw his spine stiffen. “I know that.”
Oh, if he wanted a fight, she was ready to give it to him. It was about time they discussed the proverbial pink elephant in the room. “Do you? Because you’ve done everything but put on a hazmat suit to avoid touching me.”
“Mara,” he said and massaged his temples. “Just—be quiet for a minute.”
Be quiet? She stared at his back in disbelief. “No! I will not. Everyone always wants me to be fucking quiet. To be unseen. To be a lady. To not make trouble. Well, you know what? I’m done with being quiet.” She climbed to her feet. “And, you, Travis—”
“Quinn,” he said in an icy tone. “My name’s Quinn. Nobody calls me by my first name.”
“Excuse me?” She planted her hands on her hips. “We’ve slept together, and I’m carrying your child. I think if anyone gets to break that rule, it’s me.”
He finally faced her again, and his expression was a frighteningly blank mask.
Smile, Travis. I promise it won’t hurt…
Oh, God. This complete shutdown wasn’t what she wanted from him. Why couldn’t he let himself get mad? Break down? Maybe even tell her how terrified he was of his impeding fatherhood? Because, dammit, he was terrified, and they
both knew it. Why couldn’t he give her some kind of reaction to work with? At this point, she’d take anything other than this emotional vacuum.
“Well, say something! If you—”
The door banged open behind him, and Mara jumped, but he didn’t even blink. Alexei and Pyotr tromped into the room. Pyotr grabbed Travis in a chokehold and wrestled him to the floor while Alexei secured his hands behind his back with a zip tie. He didn’t fight back. If anything, he appeared startled. Frightened, even. Not like himself at all.
“Travis?”
He didn’t respond. Alexei hauled him upright and marched him out the door.
No! Where were they taking him? Why wasn’t he fighting back?
She lunged forward, but Pyotr blocked the doorway and said something nasty in Russian. She didn’t need to be 100 percent fluent in the language to know he’d made a sexual suggestion, since he grabbed his crotch and thrust his hips.
Classy.
She dug around in her rusty memories of Russian for an insult and only came up with, “Yeban’ko maloletnee.”
Adolescent jerk.
But it was enough. He stopped with the lewd gestures and, scowling, slammed the door as he left.
At a loss, Mara glanced around the room. Until this moment, she hadn’t been aware of how much she had depended on Travis to get her through this. Even with him recovering from the drug injection and suffering from migraines, she’d believed he’d get them out of here.
But he hadn’t even fought to stay with her. He’d let them just…drag him off, and she had a sinking sensation in her heart that, one way or another, he was always going to leave her.
Exhaustion dragged her to the floor. It would be so easy to just lie down and give up hope. She was alone in this, and the weight of that realization crushed her, very nearly broke her. In fact, if it wasn’t for her baby, she was pretty sure it would have.
But, no, that was the old Mara. The one her stepfather dominated, the one who let everyone walk all over her without a peep of protest. That Mara was gone, because her baby needed her to be strong. Needed her to keep going, keep hoping, keep trying, even without Travis.
Broken Honor Page 10