Breaking Point

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Well, yeah,” Gina said. “Obviously.”

  “A bullet travels until it runs out of energy,” he told her. This was good. They were talking, and she didn’t look so scared, and the topic wasn’t anything that would add to the swirling chaos inside his head. He was able to sound cool. Calm. “But when it does, it doesn’t just stop and drop, like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It keeps moving forward, but it’s less and less effective. It’s spent.”

  “So if the bullet that hit you was spent,” she asked, crossing her arms, “why are you bleeding?”

  “It was almost spent,” he corrected her.

  Gina got in his way. “Let me see.”

  “Later,” Max lied.

  She somehow knew. She always did have a highly honed and super-sensitive bullshit meter. “I want to see it now.”

  “Do you want me to just drop trou?” he asked. “Right here?”

  She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. She just looked at him.

  And that same heat that had always sparked whenever Max gazed for too long into Gina’s eyes jumped to life. Instant meltdown, like stepping into a steam room.

  It wasn’t so much that he wanted to fuck her, except it was.

  Except it wasn’t.

  It both was and wasn’t, because really, when he had been told that she’d died, what he’d wanted more than life itself was for her to still be.

  Just be.

  Just Gina. Alive.

  Except her being alive and breathing and standing right in front of him got all mixed up with sex and pleasure and guilt and the memory of the way she’d smiled and the sparkle in her eyes that had turned into such satisfaction when he’d . . . when they’d . . .

  Right now she practically jerked her head away, breaking that eye contact, and Max—always good at helping his mental chaos come to a full boil—found himself wondering if she’d had this same instant animal attraction with the father of her unborn child.

  He placed two Beretta M9s over by the 9mm ammo as gently as he possibly could. This was not the right time for that conversation.

  She sighed and he was sure she was going to retreat—maybe go check on Molly. But she turned back to him instead. “Look, I’m sorry, but I just want to make sure you’re really all right.”

  Christ. “Gina, it’s going to look bad, you’re going to freak. You’re just going to have to trust me. I’m not bleeding to death. I’m not going to die.” He wasn’t leaving her. Not in any way, shape, or form. “At least I’m not if you let me have a second to think and figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  Saying that was dirty pool, but it worked. She backed down. “What can I do to help?”

  “Go make sure that Molly’s all right.”

  When they’d first come in here, Molly had made a beeline into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  “She’s all right,” Gina told him now. “She’s giving us privacy. You know, in case we wanted to say something heartfelt to each other. Like, thank you for quitting your job so you could rescue me.”

  She was a smart woman. Max wasn’t surprised that she’d figured that out.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, “I haven’t quite managed to rescue you yet.”

  “Or: I’m sorry I still piss you off,” she said.

  He sighed his exasperation. “You don’t piss me—”

  “Or maybe even something like: I really didn’t expect you to come at all,” Gina said quietly.

  God damn it, what could he say in response to that? “You thought I’d just, what?” he asked tightly. “Shrug it off? Because you’re not my responsibility anymore?”

  “Oh, great,” she said. “The R-word. I was wondering how long it was going to take before I heard that one. I’ve never been—I’ve never wanted to be your responsibility. Is that really why you came all this way? Because even though I’m no longer your responsibility, you still feel—wait for it!—responsible for me?”

  For the love of God . . . “Gina, how about we fight after you’re safe?”

  “How did you survive, Max?” She was very angry. “All those months, with me in Kenya? Didn’t it drive you nuts, thinking I was maybe gonna get eaten by a wild animal, or . . . or . . . killed in some tribal dispute?”

  Like her friend Paul Jimmo had been.

  Max lost it. He felt himself just . . . snap. “Yes, it drove me nuts,” he found himself shouting at her, part of him looking on in complete horror. “It made me freaking crazy!”

  “Well, it shouldn’t have!” she lashed back at him. “You wanted me to leave. You can’t have it both ways, Max. You either have me in your life or you don’t. And when you chose don’t, you gave up the right to be driven freaking crazy! You gave up the right to—”

  “I gave up?” he asked, disbelief dripping off every word. “You left me.”

  “No.” Gina got in his face. “You left me. Do you have any idea what it was like—”

  “To have to live with me?” he finished for her at high decibels. “Yeah, I do, Gina, because I fucking have to live with me! 24/7. And I’m sorry that I put you through it, too. Goddamn it, I’m sorry about all of it—all of it! And you want to hear something really fucked up? What I’m sorry about most of all is that I didn’t go to Kenya and drag you home a year and a half ago!”

  Okay, so that was probably something he never should have told her.

  In the dead silence that followed, she was looking at him with the same amount of stunned surprise on her face that she might’ve worn if her father’s schnauzers had suddenly started singing opera. In harmony.

  But Jones came thundering down the stairs, saving them the further embarrassment of attempting to speak civilly after that conversational train wreck.

  The really stupid thing was that Max had been wanting to apologize to Gina for a long, long time. He definitely owed her one, but Christ, that had come out really wrong.

  What he’d really wanted to do was tell her that he was truly, honestly, sincerely sorry—about almost every single thing that had happened between them, over the past few years.

  Well, almost everything.

  The nights that he’d actually slept because she was there in his arms, the way she made him laugh, her insistence on reading aloud to him while he was in the hospital, that look she gave him from beneath her eyelashes, that smile right before she locked the door and . . .

  Okay, he definitely felt sorry about all that, too, but it was a bigger, more complicated kind of sorry.

  “The top floor is divided into five small rooms,” Jones reported, and Max made himself pay attention.

  Molly even came out of the bathroom to listen, which meant private time was officially over. Thank God.

  “Two are in the front,” Jones continued, “but only one of them has a window. Three in the back without—and one of those rooms has the same security monitor setup that’s in the kitchen. Three screens, showing views both from exterior and interior cameras. The rooms are all smaller than they should be, but then I realized that the walls are seriously wide, even up there. Best I can think of is Emilio played host to more than one involuntary guest at a time and didn’t want them communicating with each other.”

  Gina was still staring at Max, her eyes filled with tears.

  Great. Good job, Bhagat. Make the girl—Woman. Shit. Make the woman cry.

  “What kind of professional criminal owns a house that’s built like a fortress,” Max put voice to one of the important questions that they needed to be focusing on, “but doesn’t have a back door or escape tunnel? Have you looked at his security cam setup?” he asked Jones.

  He nodded, scratching the back of his hand with the stubble on his chin. “Yeah, I was going to mention that. That seventh exterior camera, right? You think—”

  “Oh, yeah,” Max said.

  Emilio had seven security cameras in place outside of his house. One on the roof, two showing different angles of the front of the house, one in the garage,
two on the sides of the house. There was no need for one in the back—the building was built against that steep mountainside.

  Yet there remained one last mystery camera. It showed what looked to be a dense patch of jungle in the middle of nowhere.

  That camera had to be placed at the end of Emilio’s escape tunnel. Had to be.

  “What are you talking about?” Molly asked, trying to follow.

  “We think Emilio does have some kind of tunnel out of here,” Jones told her. “We just haven’t found the damn thing yet.” He turned back to Max. “Maybe you should look in the kitchen and living room—see if you can find it. Because I couldn’t.”

  Boom.

  “What was that?” Gina asked.

  “Grenade,” Jones answered, already heading toward the kitchen, Molly at his side. “They’re going to have to do better than that. This place is solid.”

  Max followed more slowly, trying not to wince from the very literal pain in his ass. Gina was right behind him, watching his every move.

  “So would you have dragged me home by my hair?” she asked him, her voice low.

  What? Oh, wonderful. It figured that she had something to say about Max’s “drag her home from Kenya” remark.

  “Because I definitely wouldn’t have gone,” Gina told him, “unless you dragged me by my hair.”

  How could she joke about something like that?

  “A chest thump or two would’ve been a nice touch,” she added. “Nothing like a good alpha caveman chest thumping to make me totally hot.”

  “Okay,” he was going to say, “you can stop now,” but he had a sudden flash of memory—not of Gina, laughing on top of him, but instead that shroud-covered young woman who could have been Gina, lying in the airport morgue. It was all he could do not to fall to his knees and thank God he’d found her alive.

  “Am I pissing you off yet?” she asked. “Oh, wait. It’s you who’s so good at pissing me off.”

  As he grabbed for the kitchen counter, she mistook his unsteadiness for pain.

  “God, Max,” she said, all sarcasm instantly vanished. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, wanting to reassure her, but afraid of the subhuman noises that might come out of his mouth if he tried to speak.

  “I’m so sorry.” Gina put her arms around him, and ah, God, it nearly did him in.

  “I’m sorry, too.” Max had to pull away from her, definitely pissed—at himself for putting that frightened look back on her face.

  But he had to focus on the problem, and he scanned the room, looking for that escape route.

  If he were Emilio, where would he have put it?

  The man hadn’t cut costs anywhere in this house—the appliances in the kitchen were all restaurant quality.

  Max took a few more seconds to slow his breathing, to fully reemerge back into this world—the real world, in which Gina truly hadn’t been lying there, dead on that table.

  He forced himself to check the video monitors that were built into the wall—technology circa the early 1990s, when digital was fantastically expensive. All of the security cameras were still up and running, the three screens flipping from view to view to view. They all showed that the troops surrounding them were still keeping their distance. There was no sign of any damage from that grenade.

  That was good.

  He or Jones should probably go up to the second floor in a very short while, and fire a shot or two dozen down into the dusty street. Make that army continue to stay back out of range.

  Last thing they needed was some cowboy coming up to the windows, trying to dislodge those bars.

  Not that it would be easy to do.

  Max had never been on this end of a military takedown before, never mind that this particular military wasn’t as powerful or well-equipped as the one he was used to working with. It was still impressive—all those soldiers and trucks. He knew more and more would be arriving with each passing hour.

  And after the commanding officer got his men organized, one of the first things he’d do was knock out the security cameras. Provided he knew that there were security cameras that needed knocking out.

  Max had to assume someone knew—that Emilio was still alive. It was highly likely that the man who’d built this house would be willing and eager to point out its vulnerabilities.

  Which meant he’d also reveal the location of that freaking escape route—which, had they not underestimated the man, they would have thought to search for a half an hour ago.

  Gina spoke—loudly enough for everyone to hear this time. “Why don’t we just stay put until Jules brings help?”

  Jones shot Max a look that asked, You want to answer that, or should I?

  Max took it. He cleared his throat a few times as he figured out how to soften his response. “Jules . . . may not be able to get help,” he told her. “He, uh, is probably going to have more trouble than we originally thought making it to the embassy. Those soldiers out there, Gina—they were shooting at us. That’s not SOP—standard operating procedure. Firing on civilians without issuing a challenge or warning? No, someone high up their chain of command is involved in this, in the kidnapping, in all of it. Whoever they are, they also had the ability to take out whatever cell towers were on this island. These are some powerful people.” He shook his head, knowing that however soft he made this, she could see the hard truth on his face.

  She didn’t mince words. “You think Jules is dead.”

  Think? “I hope not,” Max said. “I think he’s probably . . . in trouble.” He cleared his throat again, watching Jones help Molly move the refrigerator on the off chance that there was a secret passageway behind it. That was ridiculous. The entrance had to be easily accessible. Still, they were being thorough. “But I hope not.”

  Gina took his hand. Squeezed it. “He’s good, you know. People underestimate Jules because he’s always making jokes. And because he’s so good-looking. He’s cute and he looks so young, so they think . . . But he’s going to be okay.”

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. There were tears in Gina’s eyes again, but she was trying to smile, trying to stay positive. But try as he might, he couldn’t smile, too.

  The fridge wasn’t hiding anything. Nor was the stove.

  Jones got onto his knees, examining the bottom of the cabinet under the sink. “If I had unlimited funds,” he was telling Molly, “and I were putting in an escape route, I’d put it in the least likely place. Keep my ene-mies guessing.”

  Boom.

  Over on the monitors, wisps of smoke drifted across one of the screens.

  “That one sounded louder,” Molly said.

  Max went into the other room, looking at the furniture Jones had already dragged away from the walls in his search. Again, it was obvious that money had been spent on this place.

  “It’s not,” Jones reassured Molly, his voice carrying from the kitchen. “Don’t let it get to you.”

  “This isn’t your fault.” Gina had followed Max, touching his arm to get his attention. “I know I said that you shouldn’t have let Jules go with Emilio, but you were right. You didn’t let him go. You wouldn’t have been able to stop him.”

  Max nodded. Right. “I have that problem with all of my friends, don’t I?”

  “I hate that word,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry, Max, but come on. Didn’t I have, I don’t know, even just slightly higher status than Jules?”

  “Yeah,” he said, unable to keep from noting her pointed past tense. So he used it, too, as once again his own temper flared. “You were the best friend I ever had. And as far as letting you go—honey, I was cheering you on when you walked out that door. I was—” He shut his mouth and turned around, and went back into the kitchen, because just like that, from out of the storm of his anger and frustration, he knew.

  Clarity.

  “Least likely place is up on the second floor,” Max told Jones. “Listen—if someone’s chasing you, and you run upstairs? They’re going to take thei
r time because they think they’ve got you cornered. It’s upstairs. Gotta be.”

  Jones dusted off his hands as he stood up. He looked at Gina and then back to Max, clearly uncomfortable about interrupting their argument.

  “You said the interior walls were thick,” Max persisted. “He’s probably got a staircase going through the house, and then tunneling down the mountain . . .” He pointed to that seventh video camera’s jungle view as it came up on the monitor. “To here.”

  He glanced at Gina, who had an expression on her face that he couldn’t identify. Ah, please God, don’t let it be pity . . .

  “It’s just crazy enough,” Jones said. “Expensive as shit, but maybe that’s also what we should be asking. Where’s the most costly place to put the entrance to an escape route?” He laughed his disgust. “Wish I had money to burn.”

  “You okay?” Max heard Molly ask Gina, as he followed Jones far more slowly up the stairs.

  “Actually,” he heard Gina say, “Yeah. I’m . . . Yeah.”

  “Jackpot,” Jones called from the second floor. “Here it is. Fake freaking bookcase and everything.”

  Maybe—just maybe—their luck was about to change.

  Emilio was all the way on the other side of the wreck and slightly uphill—close enough to the car to use it for cover.

  “Hands where I can see them,” he ordered.

  Jules, sadly, had moved far enough away on the off chance that the car might explode. He was in a clearing—if you could call it that, considering the canopy of leaves and branches overhead completely blocked the sun. He’d always thought of the jungle as being dense—with the kind of underbrush that needed a machete to cut through. But since the sun didn’t shine down here, there wasn’t that much capable of growing. A few very undernourished ferns and some other plants that—with his luck—were probably the local equivalent of poison ivy.

  He had nothing to hide behind, considering his ability to do more than roll was seriously limited. And in the time he’d take to roll to the nearest cluster of trunks and roots, Emilio would fill him with lead.