The Death of You

by Allyson Young

  “What’s his status?” He knelt beside Lawrence.

  “No sign of any injury, but he was down for the count. Thought he was dead.”

  With a grunt, Gagne thumbed the man’s eyelids open, then checked his vitals. “I’d venture a tranq, maybe gas. Likely have killed a smaller man. I’ve got this, and Benedett will soon be done outside. Unless we have more company we’re good for now. Go see to Maddy.”

  “Cameras first.” It killed Connor to prioritize, but it was the right thing to do, and the way Gagne looked at him, he knew it too. He hoped Maddy would, as he hustled to the den.

  A desperate search detected the infiltration and it took but a few keystrokes to override it. That made no sense but he had no time to puzzle over it, drawn upstairs by a substantial crash and the sound of the silenced discharge of a pistol. Gagne was still on the floor beside Lawrence as Connor hammered up the stairs, once again careless of any personal danger, heading straight to the master bedroom. He was sick at heart, understanding he’d badly underestimated Abbott by not paying close enough attention to Maddy’s earnest tales. Not to mention being distracted by her.

  Rafe stood over a male figure, also dressed completely in black, but wearing a balaclava. Probably the man who’d been at the gate, the rolled hat pulled down over his features. The body appeared a boneless sprawl, much like Lawrence, except a seeping wound near the waist signified at least one gunshot had hit its mark. A side table was upended and the smell of smoke fouled the air, although the only evidence of a fire was a crumple of paper on the floor and an abandoned candle with some waxy residue.

  “You okay?”

  Rafe spared him a quick glance. “Fine. Asshole was trying to smoke Maddy out. When he saw me he took a quick shot. I was faster. Connected and he spun into the table.”

  Connor secured the Ruger lying a few feet from the man’s body. “It’s Lawrence’s. Probably not familiar with it so you lucked out. The asshole still with us?”

  “I grazed him because of the angle, and then—”

  Connor got it. It was one thing to kill a man who was trying to kill you. Quite another when the opponent was down and incapacitated. He nodded to Rafe, then cautiously approached the still figure. Lawrence had gone down because of some yet-as-unknown weapon and this guy might be playing possum. With a quick move, he stripped off the black mask and stepped back.

  The guy’s eyes flickered open, perhaps an involuntary act when the balaclava came off, and they settled on Connor. If he had to describe them to anyone he’d have said they were a blank canvas, empty and soulless. The pale color added to the impression.

  “Ryker?”

  A slight smile lifted the man’s thin upper lip, almost a snarl. “That would be me.”

  Rafe grew to gigantic proportions without moving a muscle, his cold fury and contempt overwhelming the room. Connor felt his own reaction rival that of his friend, and his weapon levitated upward to draw a bead on Ryker’s black heart. The strange tableau fractured with a slight noise at the door.

  “Connor?” Benedett spoke quietly, and Connor eased the pressure on the trigger, hanging on to his control by some miracle. He barely registered his own action as he stepped into Ryker and dealt the man a kick in the face, effectively rendering him unconscious.

  “I’ll secure him.” Rafe sounded as though he’d swallowed a mouthful of gravel, and Connor didn’t trust his own voice, looking at Benedett instead.

  “Lawrence is talking but Gagne is taking him to a clinic. He’s fucked up.”

  He knew the kind of clinic Lawrence would be taken to for medical attention. They had those kind of contacts. He didn’t know if Gagne could manage Lawrence alone. “Go with.”

  “Nah. I’ll help load him and then get those SUVs inside the gates. Put the bodies on ice or something. Gagne’s good. You check on Maddy and then we’ll figure the rest out.”

  Rafe had rolled Ryker over and utilized some snap ties on his wrists and ankles. Connor nodded to Benedett and went to help his friend haul Ryker out into the hall. The wound at his waist had quit bleeding, but opened up again with the handling, and Connor didn’t give a shit. He used a set of his own ties to attach Ryker to the railing via his wrists.

  “Nearly a royal fuck up,” Rafe commented, a small measure of his tension seeming to have dissipated.

  “We’ve got three bodies. Four, I guess, with the guy at the gate.”

  Rafe gestured impatiently. “Whatever. They knew the risks coming in or should have. Doesn’t matter who they were coming up against. Nobody in this country is going to let somebody do that shit without taking some kind of a stand. I meant we underestimated this Ryker guy.”

  “I underestimated him.”

  “So we’re not partners?” Rafe sounded as pissed off as he’d ever heard him.

  “Jesus, Rafe. You know what I mean.”

  “We underestimated him, Connor. Maddy tried so fucking hard to warn us.”

  He slowed his breathing. “Okay. But we prevailed.”

  “We did. We’ll know better next time.”

  “There had better not be a next time.”

  “You ass. I meant in the field. Learn from this mission.” Rafe lifted one shoulder, but Connor knew he was as unsettled as him and they owed Maddy an apology.

  Connor forced himself to relax further. He was reacting this way because Maddy had been at stake, making it personal and therefore making any failure totally unacceptable. They needed to let her know the all clear but not until they could present a calm, united front. There was still Plan B, make that C, to implement before too much time passed. He only hoped he hadn’t overlooked anything else.

  “You okay?” Rafe pinned him with a look.

  “I’ll do.”

  Ryker groaned, probably gaining consciousness. Connor became aware of a pitiless core deep within himself. He knew Rafe possessed one when their minds met in complete accord. Ryker was gone. Without another glance at the restrained man at their feet, they went to retrieve their woman, shutting the bedroom door so as not to overwhelm her all at once.

  ****

  Maddy couldn’t make herself key in the code, although her fingertips had traced the numbers over and over again, unable to feel the surface but intuiting the sequence. She’d promised to stay put, and she’d come to the conclusion that if the worst had happened, it didn’t follow that she’d even find Connor and Rafe. And if they were, say, being held captive, seeing her caught as well would be too terrible for them to comprehend. She ignored the truth, that she was a coward, and prayed for a miracle.

  The dogs hadn’t relaxed an iota, actually putting themselves between her and the panel, as alert as she’d ever seen them, and she slumped to the floor, drawing her legs up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them and dropped her head on her knees, wondering if there was a special place in hell for people like her. A faint, keening sound filled the air and she became aware she was making it, but was unable to stop self-soothing.

  The beeping of the panel infiltrated the haze she’d sunk into, and additional light spilled into the playroom as the door swung open. Two big shapes jockeyed for position in the doorway and transformed into Connor and Rafe. Maddy ate them up with her eyes, soaking in the sight and dragging the visual safely inside her head before dissolving into a pile of mush.

  Near shouts of her name and a few endearments vaguely penetrated, but she’d held herself against the bone deep fear and uncertainty long past her endurance—déjà vu—and she couldn’t respond. Big hands hauled her to her feet and up against a hard, muscled body smelling of sweat and chemicals. Another pair of hands rubbed her back, then worked at the knots in her shoulders, but it all felt as though it was happening to someone else.

  She blinked against the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the blinds and caught sight of Connor’s worried face. The softness of the bed cushioned her body as she was lowered onto it and a blanket was tugged over her. Rafe’s visage joined Connor’s and they both stared do
wn at her with trepidation etched on their features. She closed her eyes, then opened them when somebody patted her cheek with force.

  “Maddy. Stay with us.”

  “Breathe, sub. Do you hear me?”

  It was the sheer power in the second command that got through to her. Rafe would brook no resistance. She sucked in a lungful of air and coughed it out, then took in another, and another.

  “Slow down, honey. Easy.” Connor sat her up, a hand between her shoulder blades to hold her there. She worked at regulating her breathing, mimicking Rafe, who was crouched and looking intently into her eyes.

  “I’m okay,” she managed, and accepted a sip of water from the bottle Connor held to her lips. “Thanks.”

  She drifted a look over what she could see of both of them. “Are you…okay?”

  “Fine.” They spoke as one and she nearly collapsed again, this time with relief, but Connor supported her.

  “What about the other guys?”

  Connor exchanged a glance with Rafe, who raised that eyebrow. Before she could insist, Connor replied. “We think Lawrence took a lungful of something that put him on his ass, but he’s at the doctor now. Otherwise we’re good.”

  “And—” She couldn’t ask, didn’t want to know. Maybe later, in generic terms…

  “We dealt with Abbott’s men, Maddy.” Rafe didn’t elaborate and she didn’t ask.

  “Ryker is secured in the hallway.”

  Holy shit. Her mind froze on the epithet and ran it on a loop. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. “Which hallway?”

  Connor pointed toward the closed bedroom door. Hannibal and Anann posed in front of it in exactly the same way they’d done in the playroom. “Was he outside the playroom door just now?”

  Connor took her hand. “Maddy. He was, but Rafe ran him down. He was trying to smoke you out, literally. You picked the very best time to obey, little one.”

  Something deep inside Maddy curled up and crawled into a dark corner. When they thought on her response some more they’d hate her as much as she hated herself. They’d come to see how weak and cowardly she really was. But she wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity, not when there were clearly things Rafe and Connor had to accomplish and deal with. She forced a little smile to acknowledge Connor’s comment. “What now?”

  “You wait here until we give you a call, okay? I want you to help me with Abbott’s accounts.”

  “I can do that.” She definitely could because she was going to give every bit of her cooperation to get Abbott taken care of and out of everyone’s lives forever. His reach would be hampered by prison and there was always the witness protection program. Connor and Rafe didn’t have to be associated with this debacle and could continue on doing whatever they needed to do. Maddy nodded vehemently, and with strange looks in her direction, Connor and Rafe made their way toward the door.

  Her relief was short-lived as chaos reigned with the opening of that door. The dogs surged through and via a narrow margin of sight, a sliver of space between Rafe’s shoulder and Connor’s profile, she saw Ryker. He looked taller, somehow, and definitely demon-like, the way he came to her in her sleep. Her bowels turned to water as his eyes met hers and perhaps distracted the swipe he took at Anann, the combination of twisted need and hatred in those pale orbs poisoning the very air. The bitch howled in pain, and Maddy blinked, snapped from the near trance.

  Rafe slapped at his hip, loosing his pistol, the movement seeming impossibly slow as Connor shoved past the doorframe. Maddy lurched upward and saw Hannibal hit Ryker dead center, a snarl ripping the air, and the momentum carried them over the banister in a desperate flail. She scrambled into the hall and fell to her knees beside Anann, instinctively putting pressure on the wound Ryker had inflicted. Damn him and his knives. The bitch whimpered and licked her lips, but lay still. As still as the bodies in the foyer, for nothing moved in her peripheral, and there wasn’t a sound.

  Connor jumped down the stairs, eating up the length with ease. She peered through the railings. Rafe crouched beside her, saying something about not searching Ryker, his tone pained, but her attention was focused on Connor. After an eternity he called up to them.

  “Ryker’s dead. His head must have hit before the rest of him.” Maddy couldn’t ask about Hannibal.

  “What about the dog?” Rafe inquired in her stead. “Anann’ll need stitches.”

  “Had his fall cushioned. I expect the breath was knocked out of him, maybe some wrenched muscles, but I can’t find any broken bones and his color’s good. We’ll take them both to the vet, anyhow.”

  She shook her head when Rafe tried to hold her, and ignored his look of entreaty. “Take Anann. Please.”

  Rafe gently disengaged her from the dog and lifted the animal into his arms to head down the stairs. Maddy tore her gaze away, then looked at her hands. She awkwardly wiped them on her jeans before turning to find a bathroom down the hall. There was no sensation of her feet touching the floor, as though they belonged to someone else, and everything around her was blurry around the edges.

  She washed up and pulled herself together, compartmentalizing the events of the past few hours, remembering her resolve to assist Connor and Rafe and not hinder them. She took as long as she needed, and that was a considerable length of time, but she accomplished it. Ryker was dead. Rafe and Connor had prevailed, and maybe they wouldn’t think as badly of her as she did of herself. Like some kind of Pandora.

  Chapter Nine

  When she forced herself to descend to the main floor, Benedett was waiting. He appeared a little…manic, and Maddy supposed they all looked similar, although she quite suddenly wanted to sleep for several hundred hours. She made herself smile, studiously avoiding the area in the foyer covered in what appeared to be a garden tarp.

  “Rafe’s gone to the vet,” he volunteered.

  “And Lawrence?” The thought of that gentle giant brought low was disconcerting.

  Benedett smiled back. “Under observation, but initial impression is he’ll recover. Gagne will stay with him and get him home. We’ll soon have everything wrapped up. Sorry that asshole got through the pedestrian gate. I thought I had it covered.”

  She didn’t know the details and wasn’t much interested, that curious numbness spreading outward from her chest. She certainly didn’t want to discuss any hint of her cowardliness with Benedett. “Oh. Well. It’s fine.”

  “You okay, Maddy?” With a snort, the man shook his head. “Sorry, stupid question. You haven’t had a lot of experience with this kind of thing. But it’ll be okay.”

  So everyone kept saying, but she knew the truth. She’d been in hiding, unable to even give in to that desperate need to check on the men she supposedly had fallen in love with and could have easily emerged from her safe room to find them dead and gone. “I’ve known what Ryker was capable of for a long time, Benedett. No surprise to me. I still can’t believe he’s dead.”

  And it should have been a huge relief instead of this strange, exhausted emotion like there was nothing after today. She compressed it all again and gestured toward the den. “Is Connor there?”

  “Oh, yeah. He wants you to give him a hand soon as you can. Then we can tend to the rest of this and put it behind us.”

  She was glad these men could do that, really she was. But this stretched out in front of her, although it might replace the other flashbacks. Or add to them. “Thanks.”

  It seemed like an eternity since she’d last seen Connor, and the sight of his strained face made her want to go climb onto his lap and soothe him. He reached out a hand and for an instant she thought it’d be okay, trying to push past her hesitation. Except he withdrew his hand, dropping it back down, and it felt like he was building distance. She pretended not to notice and perched on a chair in front of the desk. “Tell me what to do.”

  An unreadable look in his eyes, Connor turned the laptop so she could see it. “Does this make sense to you?”

  It took a bit of time to process, but she
thought she had it, reading through the distinctive code and cryptic inserts. She was sure she recognized it. “Is that Wilkes?”

  “You tell me.”

  “It’s him. It has to be.” The more she looked at it, the more certain she became.

  “Do you think he’s running an end game?”

  “What? Like playing us all?” She thought about it, pushing through her exhaustion. “I don’t know. I can’t see that there would be anything in it for him to mess with us now. Why?”

  “Someone hacked our security system but then made it easy to pull back up once I had time to get at it. I probably could have fixed it—if I hadn’t reacted to the assault on the gate.”

  Something was off here, more than the puzzle of Wilkes. She could hear it in Connor’s tone, but she was too tired to pursue it. Her eyelids were so damn heavy. “Let me try.”

  It took some effort, and a rehash of any number of passwords and programs she’d memorized, but she got through to Wilkes. Just a few numbers, but the pattern rang a loud bell, and she turned it back to Connor.

  “I’m going to dump a package to Wilkes, using a conglomeration of the things you mined. I was gonna do it direct to Abbott, but I think his tech will get it done better, and take some additional steps I can’t.” His big hands dealt so efficiently with the small keys.

  “You’re setting Abbott up so that he fails, in his boss’s eyes.” She wished she’d thought of that, although she probably lacked the skills to see it through, and she hadn’t thought about Wilkes’s willingness to participate.

  Connor nodded, giving her another look she couldn’t interpret, and punched in some code. He hit Enter and grunted. “Done. I doubt it’ll take long. Abbott’ll be busy, trying to keep all the plates spinning and in the air. And he won’t be able to explain it if Wilkes dumbs it down enough for Abbott’s boss to figure it out. And I think he will, because otherwise, why help us?”

  She didn’t care about Wilkes’s motives, so long as she was out and Connor and Rafe were shut of this mess. “So that’s it? It’s over?”