“No. I’ll have to do the hard part. He can handle the kind of pain you’ll give him.”
“But no man can deal with the kind of pain a woman can inflict,” Jem finished.
“You’re an asshole.”
“An asshole who’s right.” He stared at Gunner through the two-way glass. “He’s not going to know what hit him.”
She waited another hour, turned the heat up in the room and watched him fall asleep. Then she turned the temperature back down, walked in quietly and poured freezing-cold water over his head to rouse him.
He woke immediately, blinking away the water, baring his teeth. Growling. He looked beautiful. Dangerously so.
“You are really pushing your luck.”
“What are you going to do about it, Gunner?”
“I told you, my name is James.”
“I’ll never call you that.”
“You will. And you’d better pray I’m not in front of you, making you say it, Avery.”
“It was okay when I yelled your name in my bed, right?” she challenged.
“I don’t remember. Guess it didn’t mean that much to me.”
“Oh bullshit, Gunner.” She straddled his lap, pressing herself to his wet, bare chest. He might’ve been able to control a lot of his behavior, but he couldn’t stop biology. His arousal pressed between her legs almost immediately. It was heady to know she still had that effect on him, despite his protests otherwise.
“What don’t you get, chère? I was born to do this. Literally, born into this world. It’s in my genes. I didn’t need much training. Took to it like a duck to water, and I loved it.”
“Really? Then why’d you stop?” she challenged.
“Extenuating circumstances.”
“Like what? Falling in love?”
He scowled. “Who the hell told you that? I don’t fall in love, sweetheart. I like pretty women and lots of sex. If they want to marry me, why the hell not?”
“Then why have three of them left you?”
“Because I can’t help it if they think they can change me. What you see is what you get. I thought you realized that, honey, when you let me leave you in the hotel. You let me go,” he said hoarsely, and her heart ached.
She’d been right—letting him leave that night had been something she should never have done. The fact that he’d actually admit it gave her more hope than anything, but she didn’t show it, simply asked, “What did you expect me to do? Chain you to the bed?”
His gaze told her that he’d hoped she would’ve tried, but he refused to say anything.
“Forcing you to stay wasn’t the answer.”
He cocked his head. “What makes this the answer now?”
“Because you keep trying to kill us. Or else you’re letting us think you are to try to make me hate you especially.”
He started to say something but shut his mouth. She waited for him to deny it. Own it. Something.
Instead, he stared past her shoulder, straight ahead at the wall. She thought about how narrow her escape from the bomb had been. That if the flowers had hit the floor or the ceiling before she’d gotten herself into the steel panic room, she wouldn’t be here.
She’d barely gotten the door shut behind her. She hadn’t heard as much as she’d felt the vibrations of the bomb. And after finding Billie Jean, she’d been in shock, shivered for hours, unable to come down from the high that kept her alive.
“You want to think you know me. You all do. But that’s not who I’m meant to be.”
“What are you?”
He brought his gaze back to hers. “I’m a man who kills for a living. I take out bad men for another bad man. It’s a dirty business, but it pays well. And I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.”
“We’re so alike. You have to know that. We both ran from everything we knew and started over,” she told him. “You started again with me. You still can.”
“It’s too hard,” he ground out. “Don’t you get it? I’ve done this before—started over.”
“And you got a lot of good things from it.”
“That’s the problem. It was good. And every time I have to give it up, it’s like ripping my goddamned heart out. I won’t do it again.”
“So you’ll just rip mine out instead,” she said softly.
“Avery, come on. Just fucking let me go.” He jangled the chains.
“And you’ll disappear.”
“That’s the general idea.”
She played with the key she wore around her neck. Gunner watched it and she wondered if he’d try to overpower her. If he’d hurt her.
Hasn’t he already? “I don’t want to let you go. I won’t let you go again. Letting you leave my hotel room was a mistake, one I won’t make again.”
Gunner’s eyes flashed. There was anger there, but maybe, just maybe, she spotted a slight bit of relief before he turned away. “You going to keep me tied up forever?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Then tell me,” she implored. “You know, S8 can help.”
“Is that what this is about—S8?” His tone was angry. “S8 nearly got me killed. You and your team fucked me over good. I was in it before I knew what happened. So don’t talk to me about taking one for the team.”
“We’re more than that and you know it.”
“I know that I like to work alone. I’m built that way.”
She grabbed the folder. “All these jobs you’ve done are just for you?”
“Yes.”
“What about Drew Landon?” she asked. “He had nothing to do with this?”
He grimaced.
“He’s pulling your strings and you’re letting him. And I don’t know why.” She would push him now, because she did know. “You’re not man enough to stand up to him, to tell him no. Does he scare you that much, Gunner? Are you that weak?”
After those words, everything became one big blur.
• • •
Gunner wasn’t sure what made him angrier—the fact that he was scared of Landon hurting her, or the fact that he’d taken the least weak way out he knew. Avery’s face blanched when she realized what was happening, as if she knew she’d gone too far, miscalculated.
It was probably his one and only chance to escape, once he knocked her out and beat the shit out of Jem.
He’d been working on the cuffs for two days. Getting Avery close enough to get a paper clip off the file to fall to the floor had been easier than he’d thought. A gift she hadn’t known she’d given him.
And even though he could’ve gotten out of the cuffs half an hour ago instead of admitting shit better off kept to himself, he hadn’t. Now he moved fast, his limbs protesting after being held in one position for too long. Didn’t matter, because he wasn’t losing the upper hand.
She tried to run from him, but he had her around the waist, then pinned to the steel table close to the double-paned window, aware that the cameras—and Jem—would see all of this. He didn’t have much time before the man came in.
His body covered hers, one of her legs curling around his waist. He had to give her credit for trying to control a situation she’d very much lost control of. His hand splayed over her throat even as he pinned her tightly to him.
“You need to forget this. Forget me,” he growled, hating the desperation in his voice.
“I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth,” she told him. Pushed up so her face was so close to his and he leaned in.
Would be so easy to kiss her. Sink into her. Let her promise she could fix everything when he knew damned well no one could.
Not even him.
“Don’t do this,” he told her as she rubbed against him.
“Why not? You used me as your scr
atching post once. Why can’t I do the same?”
Because you’re not like me, he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t. Dammit, she was dangerously close to breaking down the hard-won walls he’d built, brick by brick, over the past months.
He didn’t move away though. “Goddammit, Avery—you can’t—”
Jem burst in then at the same time Gunner spun with Avery, holding her back to his chest and her throat with his palm still.
“You won’t hurt her,” Jem said.
“You’re going to count on that?”
“Yeah, I am.” Jem walked out, slamming and locking the door behind him, leaving him with a hostage who was the worst hostage ever, because she kept rubbing against him.
Frustrated, he let go of her, pushed away carefully, extricating himself from any and all contact with her body. “What do you want from me? An explanation? A promise to stay with S8 forever?”
“Sure, that’s a start.” He noted that her hands shook, despite how confident she sounded. He hated himself for being the one to do that to her.
Gunner didn’t know what to do at all. Maybe if he was honest with her, really, truly honest, she’d forget him. Let him go. Realize that he was never right for S8, or for her, anyway.
He sat in the chair he’d been tied to. Avery watched him warily, hoisted herself up on the table so she faced him.
“Everything in that folder? It’s true. And there are maybe a hundred more jobs out there that I’ve done too. I did them for the man I was given to by Powell. It was a way to get the guy you know as DL—Drew Landon—off his back, because he’d screwed the man in a business dealing. Giving him me seemed the best way to appease him.”
“Your father . . . traded you? That’s sick.”
He shrugged. “In those circles, shit like that’s more common than you think. Everyone just wants to stay alive, stay in the game. Most don’t care what that takes.”
“Powell thought you were dead. So did Landon, until . . .”
“Until cameras caught me on Powell’s island,” he explained. “Powell and Landon never really believed I was dead. For added security, they had their tapes sent to each other if the facial-recognition software alerted them to my presence. No amount of hair dye’s going to avoid that kind of detection.”
“You knew going back to that island would trigger this.” She hopped off the table and moved closer. Knelt, her hands on his knees.
“I didn’t have a choice. Not after what Grace had gone through. I couldn’t let her lose Dare. I know what that’s like.”
He trailed off, and Avery was up, in his lap. Straddling him. Kissing him. This time, it was the best kind of torture and he knew he was true and well done for.
“I know you’re trying to scare me away. It’s not going to work. It’s never going to work,” she told him in between kisses.
He tried to hold out, to not touch her. To push her away. But in the end, he did none of those things.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
Jem cleared his throat from the doorway and pointed at the two-way glass. “Dude, there’s no way for me not to see what’s about to happen.”
“You could close your eyes,” Gunner growled over her shoulder. Avery laughed softly, pulled back a little.
Gunner stared between Avery and Jem and wondered what the hell he’d done. He had to tell them the truth. Keep them safe.
“Damn you both—I was taking care of shit.”
“Yeah, that was going really well,” Jem told him. “We don’t need you babysitting us.”
“There are women involved,” Gunner told him.
“I can certainly take care of myself,” Avery echoed, then softened. “I appreciate the sentiment, Gunner, but Landon didn’t keep his promise to you. Not this time, and not with Josie.”
Instead of answering, Gunner got up and threw the chair across the room. It slammed into the wall and Jem said, “Dude, this place is rented. I want my security deposit back.”
“Rented? From what—Interrogations R Us?” Gunner asked.
“Something like that. You know, that’s not a bad side business.” Jem rubbed his chin and Avery shook her head.
“We’ll get right on that, Jem.”
“Sarcasm. There’s a new one,” Jem muttered. “We don’t have to pay for another full day if we vacate in the next couple of hours. Think you can pull it together before that, Gunner?”
“I’m still going to kill you.”
“You had your chance. Do you know I broke you in less than two days? Christ, I would’ve lasted weeks,” Jem said.
“Because your pain sensors are all fucked up,” Gunner pointed out.
“Just jealous. But I do I have a question, G,” Jem said.
“You did not just call me G.”
“Did. Anyway . . .” Jem leaned forward on his elbows on the table. “Why not just kill the motherfucker and be done with it?”
“Landon’s got a lot of enemies, but a hell of a lot more associates who make a hell of a lot of money with him. Taking him down would put an entirely new bounty on my head.”
“How about giving him over to the CIA?”
“Guy’s bulletproof. Other people, like me, do the dirty work. If I kill him, I might as well kill myself.”
Avery grabbed his shoulder. “Bullshit. Don’t say that.”
“He’s going to start looking for me. I have to keep working for him.”
“Until we find a way to kill you,” Jem finished.
“That won’t work a second time.”
“It has to. So either you die or Landon does. Personally, I’d take Landon out, but hey, what do I know?”
Gunner fisted his hands on the table. “He’ll turn me in to the CIA if I try anything. He’s got more on me than anything you’ve got in that folder.”
Jem stood. “We’ve got shit to figure out.”
Gunner nodded. “Let me make contact with Landon first.”
Jem pulled Gunner’s phone from his pocket. “You already have. I bought you a week and then he expects you in Bali.”
“I’ve got a place,” Gunner told them. “Can’t risk flying, though, unless you’ve got a private plane I don’t know about.”
“I’ve still got several favors to call in, but I’d rather use them when we’re closer to desperate,” Jem said. “You two drive. I’ll fly. Let me see if anyone’s got my trail.”
“I don’t want you going alone.”
“With my luck, I won’t be.”
Chapter Twelve
Avery held him the entire way up the narrow stairs to the small apartment above the interrogation room like she was afraid he would disappear.
He wanted to tell her that she’d brought this shit and everything that came along with it on herself, lock, stock and barrel, and they would need all the luck they could get. Instead, he let her help him, because he was beyond thinking. He needed to clean up and get her out of here.
He pushed into the shower she ran for him, let the hot water soak his sore muscles while she packed her things and brought him clothes. His clothes, from his house, he noted, then turned his face back under the spray for a while. Washed James away, as if it could be that easy to wash so much bad down the drain.
Avery was watching him and he was grateful she didn’t join him. Not yet. It was too soon, everything too raw. When he finally emerged from the shower, he dried himself briskly and dressed. Ate some takeout she’d brought in for him too. Let her dress his split lip and a cut across his eyebrow. She dealt with the cuts around his wrists and ankles too, cleaning and dressing them gently like she was trying to make up for hurting him.
He didn’t bother to tell her he’d deserved every second of it, and she didn’t even know the worst of it.
“You still want me? On your team, in your life, af
ter how many times I’ve fucked up?”
“Yes.”
Yes. So simple. No reservations.
She brushed some hair out of his eyes. “You have to stop punishing yourself. You’ve made up for what you’ve done so many times over. You can’t control things that weren’t your fault.”
“I made choices.”
“You made the best choices you could at the time. I hate that Landon used us to force your hand.”
“He knew what would work.” He paused. “You haven’t told the others.”
“No.”
“I don’t want Grace to know . . . to feel like she’s responsible. Because she’s not.”
“Gunner, we all feel responsible.”
“I didn’t have to go to the island,” he told her. “I chose that. I knew. Didn’t care, because saving her, Dare, Darius . . . it was important to you. And you’d already lost so much.”
“Then don’t make me lose you. Not when we just started.”
He didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded. And her arms wound around him. Hugging him. Healing him. Welcoming him home.
Within the hour, they were in a truck with bulletproofing and tinted windows. Avery pushed him into the passenger’s side and he didn’t argue. He was bruised and sore and he gulped down some ibuprofen.
“Jem was doing it out of love. You know that, right?” she asked as she tried to leave on a song that sounded like a cat wailing. “Hey, I love that song. It’s Fiona Apple.”
“It’s depressing.” He found some classic rock, AC/DC, then rubbed his ribs. “Asshole you claim loves me tried to waterboard me,” he sniffed.
“I’m sure he’ll make it up to you.”
He leaned his head back and let the easy rhythm of the truck moving fast on the highway lull him into thinking everything was going to be all right.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked quietly after they were a couple of hours into the trip. She’d gotten them fast food at a rest stop, but that was the only break they’d taken. Couldn’t afford to be out in the open, not at all.
“Everything.” Because it was easy to let it all overwhelm him. He realized he’d lost count of how many jobs he’d done. There’d been no point in counting them. After he’d left Avery in the hotel, he’d completely immersed himself into James’s old life and hadn’t looked back. He had zero contact with anyone or anything from his old life. He hadn’t kept an e-mail address or a phone number. Nothing to tempt him or make him think or wish he could’ve held on to something.
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