Shades of Gray k-6

by Maya Banks

  Her rapists were dead. Her mission was done.

  A shiver took over, and she realized that she was still astride Brumley, naked and cold, shaking like a leaf.

  And then her team was there, surrounding her.

  Mortification gripped her and she clutched her arms to her in an attempt to cover her body.

  Steele wrapped a blanket around her shivering form and pulled her up and away from the blood and the sight of Brumley’s dead body.

  “Are you hurt?” Steele demanded, his hands on her shoulders, holding the blanket in place.

  It seemed a senseless question when she was bleeding all over and her face must look like a train wreck.

  “Cole,” she croaked out. “How is Cole?”

  She broke away, uncaring of anything but Cole. She rushed to where he still sat on the chair he’d damn near torn apart in his desperation to get to her. There were rope burns at his wrists and a bulky pressure dressing on his shoulder. But he was alive.

  As soon as she pushed her way past Dolphin and Renshaw, Cole staggered to his feet and met her halfway.

  Ignoring his injuries, ignoring hers, he crushed her to him, holding on as if he’d never let go.

  “My God, you scared me, P.J.,” he whispered against her ear. “Don’t ever do that to me again. Swear to me you’ll never do that again. I almost lost you. I can’t lose you again. Never again.”

  She clung fiercely to him, fearing what would happen if she let go. She could literally feel the threads holding her in place loosening and starting to fray. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to keep it together.

  “Baker, get everything out of that safe,” Steele ordered. “We need to clear out of here double time. I don’t want any sign that we were here.”

  Renshaw snorted. “I think the dead bodies will give it away.”

  Steele pinned him with a glare. “They may speculate as to who and what, but I don’t want them to have irrefutable proof. I want everyone out and this place clean on the double.”

  “Yes sir,” Baker said.

  Baker gathered everything from the safe and began stuffing it into his pack.

  Renshaw began a wipe down of all the surfaces that could have been touched and then started working on the doorway, the knobs and the frame.

  P.J. was still holding tightly to Cole, knowing if she let go, she was a goner.

  Steele walked over to them.

  “Can you make it down without help?” he asked Cole.

  “Yeah, I’m good. But she’s not.”

  “I know,” Steele said quietly.

  He gently pried P.J. away from Cole. She went ballistic, stretching her arms out to Cole, not wanting to be separated from him for even a moment.

  “Shhhh, P.J.,” Steele said gently. “It’s over now. You’re safe. Cole is all right.”

  But her shattered mind couldn’t process anything but her need to be close to Cole.

  She was still struggling when Steele swept her into his arms. After ordering Baker, Dolphin and Renshaw to complete the cleanup, he headed out the door with Cole following closely behind.

  P.J. went limp, the pain from her struggles overwhelming her. She laid her head on Steele’s shoulder and closed her eyes, so many different emotions bombarding her until she was utterly overwhelmed.

  Relief. Pain. Sadness. Grief. Vindication.

  Justice.

  She clung to the last word knowing it was the most appropriate of all. Justice had been served. Brumley would never pose a threat to another woman or child again.

  Steele carried her out of the gates that had been blasted open, and she gazed at the twisted iron, the carnage that had been wrought when her team had blown their way in.

  A moment later, Steele set her down into the back of an SUV and eased her into a sitting position. He carefully pulled the ends of the blanket around her, tucking the ends like she was a child incapable of doing even the simplest task for herself.

  “I’m going back to round up the others so we can get the fuck out of here,” Steele said. And then he strode away, leaving her and Cole alone.

  She sat hunched over and Cole closed in, pulling her into his arms. She closed her eyes and simply inhaled his scent. The blood, sweat, dirt. She didn’t care. He was alive. They’d made it. Brumley was dead.

  “It’s over, baby,” he murmured. “It’s finally over. You kicked the ever-loving shit out of him. You scared me to death, but I never doubted you for a moment.”

  She sighed and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. Her voice trembled and shook when she spoke. She had to work to get the words past her stiff, cold lips.

  “It’s over, but will I still see him at night when I close my eyes? Will I still see him in my dreams and relive that moment of helplessness again and again?”

  He slipped his fingers under her chin and gently nudged it upward until she met his gaze.

  “I’m going to be right beside you every step of the way, and every time that asshole enters your mind, I’m going to push him right back out again. For every bad dream you have, I’m going to replace it with something wonderful.”

  She leaned her forehead against his chest again. “I love you, you know.”

  He put his mouth to the top of her head, and she could feel his smile. “Yeah, I know. And I love you just as much. What do you think we should do about that?”

  She made a garbled sound that could have been panic or satisfaction. Maybe a little of both. It was so hard to get her thoughts together and this was so very important. She had to get this right.

  She raised her head so she could look him in the eyes, so she could see that love—for her—shining like the warmest light in the darkest corner of hell.

  “It probably means we should do something stupid like move in together. But I draw the line at popping out babies.”

  He laughed softly, his bloody mouth working into a semblance of a smile. “What, you don’t want to raise a brood of little snipers?”

  She shuddered. “No.”

  He hugged her fiercely. “I’m fine with that. As long as I have you. We make a good team, Penelope Jane. On and off the job.”

  She pulled back again and eyed him suspiciously. “No demand that I quit my job so you can shut me away and keep me safe?”

  “Hell no. Who would save my ass on a mission? I’m counting on you to protect me!”

  She laughed, despite the gut-wrenching pain it caused her, and let go of some of the horrible tension knotting her gut. “I’ll do my best.”

  She hugged him again because she just couldn’t stop touching him. “I love you,” she said fiercely. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say it before. But it was there. Maybe it’s always been there. It’ll always be there, Cole. I swear it.”

  He stroked her hair, raining little kisses over her brow and head. “We would have gotten there eventually. Our dating time just happened to be over bullets, grenades and hostage rescues. We’ll never be normal, but screw normal, eh?”

  “Yeah, screw normal,” she said, her voice muffled by Cole’s shirt.

  “Let’s go and load up.”

  Steele’s voice penetrated the warm glow that P.J. existed in and brought her crashing back to reality all too soon.

  They still had to face the music for their actions, and it could very well mean that she no longer had a future with KGI.

  CHAPTER 38

  FOR the first time since she’d come to work for KGI, P.J. openly defied her team leader. Technically what she’d done before hadn’t been defiance, since Steele hadn’t specifically told her not to do the things she’d done. He couldn’t very well have told her since she didn’t let him in on her plans.

  And technically she’d resigned from the team so anything she’d done in that six months had been done solo, not as a member of the KGI organization. Never mind that Steele had told her where to stick her resignation.

  But when Steele announced his plan to dump his team back home in Tennessee and go alone to meet wit
h Sam, Garrett and Donovan to turn over the intel collected from Brumley, P.J. had drawn a hard and fast line in the sand.

  She refused to allow Steele to take the rap for her actions and her decisions. Cole had stood firmly beside her on that count, stating that he and P.J. would both give an accounting to the Kellys. No way in hell they were throwing Steele under the bus.

  Steele hadn’t been happy about the matter, but there wasn’t a lot he could do when faced with two determined people who would go to Sam, Garrett and Donovan with or without him.

  Since Steele had all but hijacked a Kelly jet—without permission—P.J. figured he had enough to answer for without taking the blame for her crimes.

  After the adrenaline had worn off and Cole was sure of P.J.’s safety, his injury hit him a lot harder than it had initially. He’d lost a lot of blood and had begun to weaken during the flight home.

  Without Donovan, they had limited medical aid they could give him, but Steele changed the dressing often and made sure he had pain medication to keep him calm and still.

  P.J. hovered next to Cole, never leaving him. She held his hand, bullied him mercilessly and vowed to kick his ass if he even thought about doing something stupid like dying.

  Steele tried to get her to rest—she was in little better shape than Cole—but she remained steadfast in her refusal to leave Cole’s side.

  She was literally drooping, pain gnawing at her body, when she felt a prick and turned, stunned, to see that Steele had injected her in the arm.

  “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

  “Something for pain and something that’ll help you rest. You’re about to fall over and anyone with eyes can see you’re in agony. Give it up, P.J. You aren’t helping Cole by hanging over him looking like something the cat dragged in. He’s worried sick about you, so he won’t calm down and rest.”

  The medication was already making her swimmy. Her limbs grew heavy and her eyes were increasingly harder to keep open.

  “Damn it, Steele,” she slurred out.

  “Curse at me later,” he bit out and then promptly caught her as she fell over.

  Cole picked his head up, his lips drawn into a grim line of satisfaction. “Thanks, Steele. I was worried she was going to fall over any second. She needs the rest. She got the hell beat out of her back there.”

  “You didn’t fare so well yourself,” Steele said dryly.

  Steele laid her down, brushed the hair from her face and then carefully arranged a blanket over her. Then he returned to Cole.

  “How bad is it?” he asked tersely.

  “Hurts like a son of a bitch, but I’ll live,” Cole said. “Nothing I haven’t lived with before.”

  Steele sat down in one of the armchairs across from the couch where P.J. and Cole were both sprawled.

  “You both could have gotten yourselves killed.”

  Cole nodded. “Yeah, we could have. But P.J. didn’t let that happen. She’s a mean son of a bitch when she gets pissed.”

  A half smile cracked Steele’s lips. “Yeah, I hear you.”

  Cole sobered and then stared over at his team leader. “How’s this going to play out for me and P.J. being on the same team?”

  Steele was silent for a moment.

  “I won’t sacrifice my relationship with her for a job,” Cole said.

  Steele snorted. “It’s a good damn thing, because I have no intention of letting either one of you go. It’s annoying the shit out of me that I’m going to be out of action for the next while because two of my team members are going to be laid up and then you’re probably going to want time off for a goddamn honeymoon.”

  Cole grinned. A honeymoon sounded pretty damn good. He glanced to where P.J. was passed out on the couch. They both had some healing to do, but the future was looking pretty damn bright.

  Then he looked back to Steele and sobered. “How is this going to go down with Sam? I know we fucked up. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Steele said rudely. “I’ll take care of Sam.”

  Cole grinned and relaxed. Steele was a complete hardass but Cole wouldn’t work for anyone else in the world. The day Steele no longer led a KGI team was the day Cole hung up his gun and became an average Joe with a nine-to-five job.

  “Get some rest,” Steele said. “We don’t land for several more hours and you’re going straight to the base hospital.”

  Cole groaned. “I swear, they need to just reserve a room with my name on it as many damn times as I’ve been in there.”

  “Between you and P.J., they’re going to need to name an entire wing for you,” Steele said dryly.

  CHAPTER 39

  P.J. was technically released from the hospital before Cole, but she’d insisted on staying by his bedside until the army doctor thought he was well enough to be discharged.

  Steele arrived on the day Cole was being released. In terse tones, he told them that Sam wanted the team at the KGI compound. He wouldn’t say anything more when pressed, and that worried P.J.

  It was the day of reckoning. A day she’d known would come. She just wished Cole and the rest of her team wasn’t involved.

  The ride from Fort Campbell to the KGI compound was tense and silent. Cole’s hand crept over P.J.’s and he squeezed as if to say it would be all right. But neither spoke, and she knew that the impending confrontation weighed heavily on Cole’s mind every bit as much as it did on hers.

  Even Dolphin, who typically had something to say for every occasion, was as silent as the rest of the team.

  Steele drove while P.J. and Cole sat in the middle seat with Renshaw and Baker in the back. Dolphin rode shotgun, and it was the longest P.J. could ever remember no words being exchanged between the teammates.

  Were they angry with her? Resentful? Pissed because she’d dragged them into her own personal vendetta?

  She was torturing herself with all the possibilities.

  By the time they pulled into the compound, P.J. was a wreck.

  They parked outside the war room and got out, Dolphin and Steele helping P.J. and Cole. But she was determined to walk into this meeting with no vulnerability. She didn’t want it said she played on anyone’s sympathies, so she shook off Dolphin’s supportive arm and strode toward the entrance, ignoring the protests of her leg.

  Her face was a mess, bruised and still swollen from her fight with Brumley. The X-rays had shown no fracture of her jaw, though Cathy had sworn it was broken when P.J. had been brought in.

  Chewing would be tough for a while, but she could deal.

  She punched in the security code to gain access into the war room and she walked—or rather strode stiffly in her attempt not to limp—into the room where the Kelly brothers were gathered.

  She frowned as she glanced around. It was just the Kellys; well, not even all of them. Nathan and Joe weren’t present.

  Hell, not even Ethan was there, which meant that this was going to be a come-to-Jesus moment between the three men who officially ran KGI and the team that was in the proverbial dog house.

  “P.J.,” Donovan said in greeting. “I’d say you’re looking good, but even I can’t pull off that kind of lie with a straight face.”

  She relaxed at the teasing and grinned crookedly at him. Damn, but it even hurt to smile.

  The rest of her team filed in behind her, and an awkward silence fell over the room.

  Cole came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close to him. It was obvious he was sending a message to everyone. He was with her. He had her back, and whatever affected her, affected him.

  Sam cleared his throat and leaned against the edge of the large planning table in the middle of the room. Donovan and Garrett flanked him, and all of their expressions were serious.

  “We have a serious problem here,” Sam began. “KGI as an organization can’t be associated with vigilantism. The Austrian government is screaming. The U.S. government is screaming. Resnick is screaming. And I’m stuck p
laying dumb about it all. While the respective governments may swallow my cock-and-bull story, Resnick’s not going to bite. He knows better.”

  “Fuck him,” Cole said rudely.

  Donovan coughed and covered his mouth. P.J. could swear he was holding back laughter, but then his expression reverted back to that pinched tight-ass look his brothers were wearing.

  Sam held up a hand. “Resnick is mollified by the information we were able to provide him. Of course we wouldn’t explain how we came by it, but he’s about to cream himself because he has the leverage to bring down a lot of the big players in child trafficking, which in turn gives him more power, which in turn gives him more protection. He’s skated a pretty thin line with the shit that went down with Shea and Grace, and he’s spent plenty of time wondering when he was going to be taken out. This gives him plenty of insurance, so to speak. Before long, the damn president’s going to fear Resnick. If he doesn’t already.”

  “So get to the point,” Steele said impatiently, speaking for the first time. “Two of my team members were only discharged from the hospital a couple of hours ago. You wanted us here, but they need to be in bed.”

  Garrett cleared his throat. “After much discussion between the three of us, it’s been decided that as a disciplinary measure, Cole and P.J. are going to be put on administrative leave, effective immediately for a period of sixty days, and both will have to undergo a full medical exam and receive clearance from the physician before they can report back for duty.”

  Cole’s brow furrowed. “Administrative leave? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means you’re out of action with pay for the next two months,” Donovan said, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Steele, you’ll report to the KGI facilities five days from now with Dolphin, Renshaw and Baker and you’ll head training of the newest KGI team until we’re satisfied they’re capable of working on their own,” Sam continued. “They’re good. But good isn’t acceptable. We want the best.”

  P.J. stared between the brothers, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. Two months’ paid leave? Steele reporting to train new recruits? This all sounded like talking out the other side of their mouths. We have to sanction you, but oh, here’s your cushy punishment.