by S A Gardner
I didn’t know how I didn’t throw myself over them and wail my very life out.
Instead I only looked up and said, “Those two are critical but still alive. We have to get them out of here right now.”
I gestured to four of Damian’s team. They descended on us, loaded Ishmael and Sam into stretchers and swept them away.
The others came out of the ballroom, announcing everyone dead, all but Desideria and Sir Ashton whom they had with them and who they also reported to be in critical condition.
I thought I walked back to the helicopters. I’d have to have done so. I was onboard now, clutching Sir Ashton’s hand, staring at his too realistic fake blood and injury, letting misery take me over in decimating sobs.
Through it all, I heard Damian’s voice, black and bottomless, giving the orders for our staged detonations, a warning one first so the police would vacate the place, then massive, successive ones that would level the mansion to the ground.
At some point, I found myself wrapped in him, spent for now, my eyes swollen and on Sir Ashton as he sat beside Desideria before us, talking in subdued tones. The ordeal we’d just put them through, that they’d insisted on sharing and making possible, stained both their gazes, leaving them shaken, drained, making them feel their real ages to me for the first time. But they were alive and unharmed.
And I wanted everything to just stop. End. Now, before I ever endangered them, or any of my people ever again.
Before I eventually killed them all.
I must have moaned it out loud because Damian gathered me to him tighter, his lips pressing harder against my forehead.
Then his murmur stirred the damp hair sticking to my clammy skin. “It would be the best day of my life if you really decided to hang up your warrior’s syringes and scalpels, amor. But don’t count on this being over yet. You might have gotten your mentor through this alive, but for us all to remain so, I have to go kill mine now.”
Thirty-One
“…And now, the details of tonight’s major headline. In an unprecedented terrorist attack by a yet unnamed radical movement that targeted a gathering of some of the most influential people in the worlds of finance and politics, seventy-five people were killed and twelve others injured. Of those critically injured only Sir Howard Ashton, billionaire philanthropist, and Mrs. Desideria Henderson, now the widow of Josiah Henderson, oil tycoon, who has been killed in the attack, are reported to have stabilized. Investigations into the accident…”
“Turn it off.”
Damian’s calm order plunged the spacious room in ice. I felt it even through the deep freeze in my veins.
We’d just broken into General Fitzpatrick’s home, Damian’s former PACT superior, were now standing over his head as he sat on his couch watching the news.
I had no doubt he’d felt us the second we’d entered the room, the house even. He hadn’t grabbed a weapon, hadn’t turned to us. He just sat there, waiting for our next move.
He now obeyed Damian’s order, turned off the TV.
Silence throbbed in my ears, thundered in my chest.
Oh, God—why was I here? Why had I insisted on accompanying Damian? I couldn’t stand there and watch him blow his mentor’s brains out.
So Fitzpatrick wasn’t one of my favorite people, but he’d been one of Damian’s. I couldn’t see him kill someone he’d loved.
But this was exactly why I was here. If this needed to be done, I couldn’t let him be alone doing it.
“You’re alive.”
Fitzpatrick’s rasp shuddered out of him, then his shoulders started shaking.
Great. Another ox of a man breaking down and crying.
Damian didn’t think much of it, either. “Very touching, Fitzpatrick. Can it.”
It was long minutes before Fitzpatrick did, bringing his weeping jag under control. After a couple more minutes of ragged breathing, he rasped, “I went to bed early tonight. I’ve been going to bed earlier and earlier for over a year now. I’ve had nothing to be awake for. To be alive for. Then a phone call woke me up. A dozen followed. All my TOP colleagues. They told me to watch TV. The moment I heard the news, I knew who’d been the real target. I knew you had to be alive. Calista, too.”
“Very perceptive,” Damian said, a blade’s edge to his voice. “So how did you take the news of the collective end of your new bosses? Feeling lost now without their firm guiding hand?”
“I’m not sure how I feel,” Fitzpatrick rasped. “You could be right about feeling lost. I’ve been their puppet for so long now I don’t know if I remember how it felt to have an independent will, how to do the job I joined this outfit to do.” A beat. “Forgive me, Damian.”
Silence bled now. A maelstrom of emotions burnt the air I was breathing, shook the floor under my feet.
When Damian talked again, he sounded emotionless, and far more disturbing for it. “Between you and Ed, you’re asking too much. I never was big on forgiveness, let alone the endless well of it that it would take to get over your betrayal.”
Another ragged minute passed before Fitzpatrick answered, “I fully understand. I even wonder why you’re still talking to me now, why I’m still alive.”
I was wondering the same. Damian had said it was imperative to terminate all the real TOP and PACT people, even with their puppeteers gone. They’d become too much of their accomplices. I agreed. About the accomplice part.
But I also thought being held hostage through fear for their loved ones did mitigate their actions, absolved them of a big percentage of culpability. I didn’t believe they should die. I didn’t think they should just go free either.
I had no idea what we should do with them.
I looked at Damian, praying he wouldn’t press the death penalty. He was stonily staring down at Fitzpatrick’s salt and pepper mane.
When he finally spoke, I shivered. “I could say you’re alive because I rethought my stance, and decided your crimes aren’t punishable by death because they stemmed from love for your family. And because I could tell now you won’t be a source of further danger to my people. And these are factors. But the fact is you’re alive because you’re the only one who ever came close to filling the vacant father slot in my life. That’s a lucky break for your TOP and PACT cronies as well, for they’ll share your amnesty. You don’t get another chance, though.”
Fitzpatrick stood up then, staggered around to face us, his chiseled face ravaged by guilt and relief. I was sure the latter wasn’t for his reprieve, but for seeing Damian, blond hair and all, whole and healthy.
“We won’t need one,” Fitzpatrick said, deep voice ragged and halting. “We’re all stepping down. Before you came, we’d just agreed to shut down the whole thing. But now I know you’re alive, it changes everything. Step into our collective shoes, Damian. The main powers and resources of both TOP and PACT are uncorrupted, and you’ll definitely do a far better job than we did running the show. It’s time for young blood, for weakness-free leadership.”
Whoa.
I mean—just whoa.
I stared at Damian, trying to fathom his reaction to this sucker-punch offer, to predict his answer. Though there were only two possible answers, really.
Yes or no.
He gave it a minute’s consideration, then shook his head. “You aren’t getting out of it that easily, Fitzpatrick. You’re remaining where you are. You’re all working your butts off putting everything you’ve helped unbalance and corrupt right.”
So he’d come up with a third answer. Shouldn’t I have known better by now to even try predicting him?
My burning lungs had just begun to expand again when Damian collapsed them again. “You’ll remain the visible names and faces in case someone digs up the truth about TOP and PACT again like your puppeteers have, and tries to use you. I’ll remain totally behind the scenes this time. I’ll remain dead. But you can bet your collective lives I’ll be driving. Me along with the team I pick. Any objections?”
Fitzpatrick coll
apsed again, on an armchair facing us this time. I wanted to join him. This was—this was—
Whoa!
Fitzpatrick leaned forward, buried his face into his hands.
Then he at last spoke, thick and impeded, “This was never a situation I thought to find myself in, and I’m eternally thankful to you, and to Calista, for freeing me and my family from our blackmailers. I can guarantee this will be the others’ stance, too. There will never be objections.”
“Good. Stand by for my instructions.”
With that Damian took my good arm and gently led me out.
At the door his hand convulsed in my flesh at Fitzpatrick’s muffled, “I’ll be waiting. Thank God you’re still here—son.”
For seconds, I thought he’d turn around. I would have in his place. And I would have hurled something pointy at Fitzpatrick.
Son, indeed. He sure hadn’t treated him like family. He’d paid with his life for theirs.
Damian didn’t turn around. He remained staring ahead.
I clung to him with my working arm, burrowed into him.
It doesn’t matter. You have me.
In response to my silent pledge, he just gathered me tighter to him, dropped a kiss on top of my head as he started walking again. “Let’s get on with the important stuff, amor. Let’s see to you.”
Thirty-Two
The next week passed in a haze.
I returned that day from Fitzpatrick’s to find Matt and the others primed to stuff me into OR. I swatted them all away. I was attending Ishmael and Sam’s burial even if it meant losing my arm.
That made Damian hurry up his arrangements. He concluded everything in an hour. He provided them with burial next to Mel and his other men. He even made graves for those we couldn’t retrieve in Colombia.
We’d gathered our fallen in one place.
I came back from the service so numb they could have performed that muscle and tendon repair surgery without anesthesia. As it turned out, Megumi elected to go with regional nerve blocks and heavy sedation rather than general anesthesia, since I had documented intra and post-surgical adverse reactions to it.
According to Matt the surgery was a great success.
Of course. What else could it be with him behind the scalpel?
He still told me not to expect to throw any punches or indulge in handstands for at least six months. If it wasn’t for Ishmael and Sam, I’d say I’d gotten off too damned lightly.
And though Megumi had saved me from post-general anesthesia misery, peri-surgical medications had knocked me for six.
I could dish out medicine, but I sure couldn’t take it.
All I could do for the next days was sit in bed in the Sanctuary, my outline blurred, being fussed over by everyone, while Damian and his team conducted cleaning sweeps picking off the last of PACT’s corrupt operatives.
But I hadn’t been so hazed I hadn’t used the time to tie up all loose ends myself. I discovered a few things while I was at it.
Things Damian had hidden from me. Mislead me about. Again.
The first thing was the antidote formula, the one that had been on Di’s laptop.
It had not been destroyed in the crash in Russia as I’d thought. He’d gone behind my back, struck a deal with Di the moment she’d come up with it. She’d given him a copy for safekeeping. Char had let this slip while we were discussing the agent’s fate.
The second thing was that he’d broken the truce I’d made with Ed.
He’d gone after him, dragged him back and was keeping him under lock and key. In my Sanctuary, the one Ed had almost decimated once. And he’d gotten my people to hide the fact from me.
And there he was, coming in all clean-shaven and golden-haired and eyed and skinned. Mmm—skinned…
Sounds like a plan.
My glare was the first thing he noticed. He looked around for its cause then put a hand to his hair. “What? My roots are showing already?”
“Think there’s a market for weasel skin?” I hissed. “One as big as yours should bring in a pretty dollar.”
He raised both eyebrows, bent to plant a kiss on my compressed lips.
When his seeking tongue almost got bit off, he straightened, chuckling. “What have I told you before about the value of my mouth’s contents?” Then he sobered, sighed. “What is it now?”
As if he didn’t know. But then again, he probably didn’t. Know which transgression I was fuming about, that is.
There were probably hundreds I hadn’t found out about yet.
I specified my current grievances.
He just shrugged. “You didn’t believe I’d leave the world open to the agent, without a way to fight back, did you? Or that I’d leave the only record of something so monumental on such a flimsy thing as a laptop? When people back up their emails?”
OK, point taken. But… “You had to go behind my back?”
“There really wasn’t much time to discuss it with you then, if you remember, and I saw no reason to burden you with the knowledge that I had the whole agent package…”
“You what?”
OK. I couldn’t afford an apoplectic stroke now. I had to kill him first.
I rose from bed, staggered towards him.
He backed off. “Uh—amor—maybe I should get out of your sight right now. Matt did warn me that you’re not all there yet with all the medications he’s been pumping you with.”
“Which makes him one more huge rat to skin,” I spat. “You said Jake destroyed the plant and every evidence of the agent’s formula and manufacturing procedure!”
“He did. But I’d gotten hold of it first. Having everything he had was the only way to play his game on a level ground.”
“And you didn’t tell me that—why?”
“Because the less you knew, the safer you were, in case of worst-case scenarios.”
I advanced on him again. “How about this scenario, De Luna—now I know you have Jake’s apocalyptic weapon, I have to kill you to save the world from its eventual resurfacing.”
He caught my good hand, dragged it to his lips. “And you’d be right to do it, St. James, if I hadn’t destroyed the agent’s formula already. I only have the antidote’s now, just in case.”
“And I should believe you—why?”
“Because you know the lengths I went to, to retrieve the agent in order to destroy it. Because you know I’m not insane.”
“Maybe not, but you’re also too good a liar, De Luna.”
That stymied him. So he turned to counterattack. “You’ll end up believing me, anyway.” He knew me too well. I believed him already. “But that’s not such a privilege that you reserve for me. You go around believing anyone. You’re just too trusting. And that’s what made me go after Ed. You trusted his word, but I wasn’t about to leave a volatile element as him on the loose when we were going out there risking our collective lives. I didn’t have time to argue with you whose view was more valid. I chose to be safe rather than sorry, okay? And then, Ed is alive, isn’t he?”
I groaned, remembering the last time he’d been here. “Not for long, if Char gets her hands on him.”
“You’d be surprised. You’ve been out of it the past few days you haven’t seen how things have changed since little Nikki and that fighter Penni came to inhabit the Sanctuary. No matter how Char hates Ed, she isn’t about to kill their father.”
“Really? You think? God—I hope so. But—still, bottom line is, you lied to me—again, with the best of intentions, of course…”
“I always have the best intentions. The very best.” He caught me to him, all gentleness with my bandaged shoulder, took my open lips.
This time his tongue entered, sought mine. And fool that I was, I soon had it wrapped all around his, gulping down his taste and passion.
He was the one who disentangled our tongues and groaned into my lips. “Like my intentions to merge TOP And PACT and have subdivisions within a unified outfit. Just think what this will mean to your opera
tions, with me having all this power at my disposal, and you having me at yours.”
I leaned back in his embrace. “Cheap, De Luna. Distracting me with kisses, and trying to buy me off with promised favors and support.”
“Cheap?” he scoffed. “You come with an ultimate price tag, St. James. That of my very life—not to mention everything that I have.”
What had I said about this man and talk? Frightening thing was, I knew it wasn’t just talk.
Then he winked at me. “Both of which have taken new dimensions now, since my life has become far more—uh—interesting, and what I have now is just about unimaginable.”
Uh—interesting and unimaginable was right. If as part of a system, then on his own, Damian had led the extremely-uh-interesting life I was still finding out more and more about, and had had all that clout, resources and access, I truly couldn’t imagine what his life, what his reach would be like now he ruled over TOP’s and PACT’s combined powers and assets.
I slipped out of his arms. “Don’t you think you’re biting more than you could chew here? And I’m not talking about me. You really think you have enough experience to assume the leadership of such an octopoid organization?”
He gave me such a pout I didn’t know how I didn’t just sink my teeth in his lips. He knew I was teasing. For who was more equipped to hold every tangled string of such a shadow establishment but my convoluted Damian?
“Is this your way of asking me not to?”
I jerked at his question. His voice had none of the lightness of his expression, solemn, probing. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask him anything like that.
Still, I had to ask. “Would you give it up if I said yes?
He only smiled. One of those bone-penetrating, blood-evaporating smiles. And the hell of it was, I did think he would. Do anything, anything at all, if I asked it of him.
But on the other hand, he probably knew that I’d never ask him to give up something that huge. Hell, I’d never ask him to give up a nap or a cappuccino.
And this—this was world-impacting power. And boy, was he the man for it. I’d never deprive the world of having Damian in the driver’s seat of such a potential force for good, no matter the cost.