Wildfire (The Fire Series Book 3)

by Anne Stuart

  He turned back, his gaze settling on the balcony terrace where he knew she was waiting, watching him, probably hoping Jaws would pop out of the water and eat him in one gulp. Sorry, sweetheart, he thought. I’m not done yet.

  He started back toward the distant shore, his long arms slicing through the water. Not done yet, the words rattled in his brain. Not done yet.

  Sophie rolled the wheelchair away from the railing. Once Mal got close enough, he’d know she was watching him, and she wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction. She wasn’t going to give him anything.

  Something inside her had snapped this afternoon, and she had stopped caring, stopped planning, stopped waiting. She wasn’t going to loll around in this fucking wheelchair, letting Archer hurt her in ways big and small, letting Mal get close to her again. He was here to kill her husband, to finish what she’d failed to accomplish. But Mal had a second agenda, to find and destroy Archer’s latest pet project and bring that down too, and he couldn’t kill Archer until he’d taken care of that little detail.

  Sophie didn’t give a flying fuck. Archer had his iron in a dozen fires, all of them disreputable, ranging from Ponzi schemes he was running for the hell of it, since he didn’t need the money, to parts for nuclear warfare, to biological weapons. Wipe out one, and the others would just keep going under new management.

  She wasn’t going to wait any longer. She was going to put a bullet in her husband’s brain, one long overdue, and it would be up to Mal to pick up the pieces. If that included killing her, then so be it. Anything was better than waiting.

  She sat in hot water till the skin on her hands wrinkled. She washed and washed every trace of him away from her. She still couldn’t get away from the phantom memory of him inside her, pumping into her, and each time she thought about it her stomach knotted with anger and confusion, and she refused to consider why. She had no concrete reason to hate Mal. In fact, she knew damned well she didn’t hate him—she just wanted to cut his throat.

  She laughed without humor. She was being emotional and ridiculous, the same flaws that had gotten her into this mess. What the fuck was wrong with her? You didn’t hate a man for giving you the best orgasms of your life with just about zero effort. He was after the same thing she was—he’d even given her a gun. He was an ally, albeit an unwilling one.

  She didn’t want an ally. She’d been alone in this for too long, and she was afraid to trust anyone, even another Committee agent. Maybe especially another Committee agent—she knew as well as he did just how ruthless they were required to be. She was collateral damage and she accepted that fact. She just didn’t want Mal to accept it.

  She pulled her French doors closed. There was no way she could lock them, but she hoped Mal would get the message when he came back upstairs. She turned the air conditioner up high and levered herself onto her bed, using only her strong arms, then turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness. If she looked hard enough, she could find the pinprick of red light that gave away one of the surveillance cameras—whoever had installed them hadn’t made much of an effort to hide them. For just this moment, for a short while, she was going to indulge herself. She was going to lie quiet and still in the darkness where no one could see her. She was going to stay very still and do something she hadn’t done in almost four years.

  She was going to cry. She had felt the tears on her face earlier, but she hadn’t let go. Now she was going to release the tight hold she had on her emotions and sob.

  Ever since she’d found out the truth about Archer, she hadn’t dared give in to her emotions. Even when she was lying on the ground, a bullet in her back, vicious pain ripping through her, she hadn’t shed one tear. She’d been afraid if she started crying, she might never stop, and she had to survive. She wasn’t going to let Archer win.

  Today she could cry. Today she could give in to all the disparate emotions that swirled around her and release some of the tension—she could cry for the lost years, for the stupid girl who’d been blinded by Archer’s charm, for the stupid woman who’d fucked Malcolm Gunnison knowing he didn’t care if she lived or died.

  But she couldn’t. She was wound so tightly with fear and tension that she couldn’t let go. Tears would have broken through some of the stultifying despair. She felt like a kettle of water on a hot stove, the steam building up and no way to release it. She’d trained herself never to let go, and now when she needed to, for just a short, self-indulgent moment, she couldn’t.

  She’d cried when he’d fucked her. Because that was what that encounter in the boathouse was. He’d taken her, she’d been too needy to resist, and she thought she remembered that her face had been wet. She tried to bring that feeling back, to push herself into tears, but it was like trying to force an orgasm. She could get just as far as the despair but no further. She lay in the dark, dry-eyed, alone, and abandoned.

  She was being ridiculous. She finally had someone she didn’t have to lie to. They were hardly compatriots—in fact, he felt more like an enemy than Archer did at the moment, but the truth was, for the first time in two years she should have hope. After all, he was the one who’d brought the handguns onto the island, though he’d been stupid enough to let her get her hands on one.

  Though that wasn’t like Malcolm Gunnison. She told herself he was a dirty, treacherous snake, but he wasn’t stupid. Unlike her, he didn’t make mistakes. He would get the job done and get off the island, without letting any foolish weaknesses make him doubt his mission. He was a machine. She was human. It was no wonder they were mismatched.

  But machines weren’t subject to impulses, to emotions, to unexpected acts. And she knew what she was going to do.

  Despite Mal’s earlier words, he made no attempt to bring her down to dinner, proving once again that he was a smart man. If he didn’t keep his distance, there was no telling what she might say or do that would incriminate him. He’d pushed her too far that afternoon, and he knew it. It would be one thing if they’d just gone through the motions of hasty sex. It had been more than that, though, and she hated it. There had been emotion flowing between them, feelings, ones she refused to admit to in the aftermath, ones he wouldn’t notice in the first place. He just thought she was pissed.

  He was giving her time to calm down, and she heard his and Archer’s voices drift up from the veranda by the pool, the whisper of the waves from the ocean beyond coming and going, obliterating their words. It didn’t matter. They would both be lying to each other—nothing they said would be important.

  She lay still in the bed. Elena brought her a dinner tray, but Sophie sent it away, the thought of food making her stomach twist. Never eat before a job, Isobel Lambert, the Ice Queen, had told her. Tonight she had the biggest job of her life. She would do the one thing she could to break the bonds that tied her, the sticky spiderweb that trapped her with Archer and Mal. If she died doing it, so be it.

  It was after midnight when she slipped out of her bed, reaching beneath her mattress for the handgun and taking it with her into the bathroom. She’d done a thorough cleaning when she’d first taken it, so she made do with a simple field cleaning now before reloading it. There were enough bullets—even if her aim was off it was more than sufficient to kill Archer and then run like hell. With luck, Joe’s first instinct would be to go to his boss and try to stanch the blood, and if miracles happened, she could get back to her room before anyone noticed she was gone. After all, she was a cripple—how could she get up and down the stairs to shoot Archer?

  She could try to ride that, or she could simply run like hell and hope Joe didn’t find her. Elena had been right—there wasn’t one inch of the island she didn’t know, and with Archer dead, who’d be paying Joe’s bills? She’d been in this world long enough to know that loyalty meant nothing—it was the bottom line that mattered. If there was no practical reason for Joe to find Archer’s killer, then he’d simply leave, go somewhere else and find new employment.

  And maybe pigs would fly. In the end
she was willing to risk it. She couldn’t wait any longer.

  She climbed back into her wheelchair and headed out onto the balcony. The night was still and calm, and she could hear Archer quite clearly. He was fucking one of the women, encouraging her with particularly vicious threats, and she could tell by the sound in his voice he was close. Archer never minded having an audience—in fact, he preferred it, though she’d always refused that game when they were together. Where was Mal? Was he fucking someone else, side by side? Getting a blow job while he watched. Hell, was he the one being fucked by Archer?

  She couldn’t see that happening, though Archer would have loved it. So where the hell was Mal?

  Joe would probably be in bed, though he was always on call when Archer wanted him. Mal could be anywhere—out swimming again, wandering around the island, asleep in the room next door. No, she would have heard him come in—she’d been paying careful attention. She looked out at the dark ocean, but there was no sign of him. She’d watched him earlier, slicing through the waves, his long, sleek body beautiful in the clear gulf waters. In fact, she couldn’t look away, and when he finally gave in to the gathering dusk and waded in, she watched him until he disappeared from her sight. It wasn’t until then she realized she’d been absurdly tense, barely breathing, her body growing warm.

  She had to get the hell out of here, before she made another monumental mistake, and she was more than willing to risk her life to keep that from happening. She wasn’t worried about reclaiming a normal life. She was hardly likely to lose her mind over some damned man when . . . if she got off the island. Clearly Archer and Mal were anomalies. Maybe she was attracted to danger. Except the classically handsome hit man from New York whom Archer had imported had left her cold.

  In fact, she couldn’t think of very many things Archer and Mal had in common. The dangerous world they lived in—but that was her world as well, and if anything she wanted to escape from that life. Archer was a sadist, Mal a straightforward bastard. All she could guess was that some strange trick of chemistry had opened her legs to Malcolm Gunnison, and the sooner she got away from him the better.

  It was past two when she heard the footsteps on the stairs, the door next to her open and close. She held her breath, panicked that he’d decided a late-night visit would be a good idea, but within moments the lights went out, and everything next door was still.

  She wasn’t going to be fooled that easily, and she waited a full hour, sitting in her chair, alert, the gun tucked beside her. Even if Mal was trying to outwait her, see if she was truly asleep, he would have dropped off by now. Archer spent his nights plying his guests with alcohol, and even the most adept of men—and she did consider Mal very good at his job—would end up having to swallow a few. Mal would be sound asleep by now.

  Besides, if he’d had any doubts about her, nothing would have stopped him from coming into her room and checking. Nothing would have stopped him from coming into her room, into her bed, into her body, if he’d had any interest in repeating this afternoon in a horizontal position. But he hadn’t. He’d done what he had to do in the boathouse and it looked as if she wouldn’t have to put up with it again, thank God. Because putting up with it wasn’t really the right term for the most shattering sex of her life.

  Looking back on it over the last years, she’d realized that Archer hadn’t been that good a lover. He’d been more interested in being entertained than putting out himself, and she’d been happy to do it, besotted with him. Why?

  She’d never know the answer, and she needed to stop looking for it. It wouldn’t change the past, and she was never going to make that kind of mistake again. Archer would be dead, and the rest would fall into place as it would.

  She locked the wheels of the chair and pushed herself up, moving silently toward the door. She opened it, just a crack, and peered into the darkness beyond. All was silent except for the ever-present sound of the ocean. Archer would be downstairs in that huge bed she’d once shared, a fitting place to kill him.

  But would he be alone? He never liked to sleep with women—in fact, when they married he’d wanted them to have separate rooms, insisting he was a light sleeper. She hadn’t paid attention to that, and he’d given in with sullen grace, but she thought he was unlikely to have changed in that regard. He wouldn’t like having anyone around when he was asleep and vulnerable, and after discovering his wife had been sent to kill him, he’d be even more wary.

  Not that she had any proof that he was behind the attempt on her life. She didn’t need any. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see behind Archer’s sadistic games, guess at the sudden turnaround in her previously adoring husband. As long as they never spoke of it out loud, they could continue this endless dance, and Archer seemed to have a boundless appetite for it. She had had enough.

  If by any chance someone was in Archer’s bed with him, she’d deal with it. She wasn’t going to kill anyone else, even the wretched Rachel, tempting as it might be. The only person she really wanted to shoot, apart from Archer, was Mal, but that was irrational emotion, not common sense. With Archer it was cold, deadly determination.

  She closed the door silently behind her—if Mal was listening, there was no way he could have heard it. She wished the damned man snored—it would give her some peace of mind. Then again, snoring would be an easy thing to fake, and someone as machinelike as Mal would be able to control even involuntary bodily functions like snoring. The man probably didn’t even fart.

  The living room was dark, but there was light coming from the terrace by the pool. The lower she crept on the stairs, the more she could see, and that was definitely Archer’s silhouette on one of the chaises. He’d have a glass of whiskey in his hand—he’d always liked that moment of solitude. It was too nice a way for him to die, but she was past those kinds of considerations. She moved lower, down the stairs.

  Archer MacDonald looked out over the inky black sea. The sky was overcast—there were only a few bright stars visible through the clouds, but he liked it that way. There were times when he hated Isla Mordita, the bright, sunshiny smile of the place. There were times when only darkness would do.

  He sipped at his scotch and watched the waves roll in, thinking about Malcolm Gunnison’s dick and where it had been. The man was hung—he’d seen the evidence. He wondered whether Malcolm was interested in a little extracurricular activity. Archer had never had a man so well endowed, and the thought was enticing.

  Enticing enough to make him forget how pissed off he was. He’d combed through all the surveillance footage and found nothing, just some silent footage of the two of them having coffee in the kitchen before disappearing outside. He couldn’t believe Mal was going to fuck Sophie in the grass—not when he’d ripped out the cameras in his bedroom and was under the mistaken impression that he wasn’t being watched. It had been child’s play to replace the cameras with a newer, smaller, undetectable one, and there was no way Mal would find it. Not unless his employers had access to more advanced technology than Archer did, and that was simply impossible. The one camera, a prototype, gave up in sound quality what it gained in invisibility, and it covered only the bed. Last time he looked, Malcolm Gunnison was sound asleep, on his own, and as far as he could tell Sophie hadn’t made a move in the darkness except for her peculiar bathroom habits. He needed to get some infrared in there—he had a scientist working on that down in Chile—though he sincerely doubted Sophie got up and walked when he wasn’t looking. She wasn’t that good an actress, and he knew the kind of pain she was in. If there was any way she could move, she’d be trying to win him back again.

  He took another sip. He couldn’t believe Mal had told him to keep his hands off his own wife. He admired his gall, enough so that he had agreed. Not that he had any intention of honoring that agreement—Sophie was his wife, his property, and no one was going to tell him what he could or could not do with her. With Mal being so tight-lipped Archer couldn’t even find out how severe her limitations were, but he’d
assumed he could check via the videos.

  Mal had known he couldn’t. The whole point of having him fuck Sophie was for Archer to gauge the extent of her damage, that and humiliating his darling wife. He’d wanted, expected, to watch, and Mal wasn’t leaving this island until Archer had a good view.

  He didn’t stop to think about why it was so important to him—motivations didn’t particularly interest him. He wanted what he wanted, and he set about getting it. It didn’t matter why.

  He’d been trying to watch Sophie in bed for two years now, and she’d shown no interest at all in the men he’d brought in. That was one reason he’d come to the conclusion that she really did love him, despite her treacherous lies. She wanted nothing more than to get back in his bed, and she wasn’t about to do anything to jeopardize that possibility. Oh, she knew better than to make the first move—she realized that deformity and disability disgusted him, and she would know she’d be rebuffed.

  Now he was thinking he just might try her out. Mal had certainly looked well served. Oh, it wouldn’t be the way it used to be. For one thing she was a cripple, though he could always use her for blow jobs. He could even see if something could be done for her condition. He’d cut off all doctors, determined to make her suffer, but now that time had passed, there might be things they could do. It would be nice to have her wait on him, eager for his approval. He could get her to do all sorts of things she’d refused in the past.

  Maybe he’d take Mal away for a while, give Sophie a chance to think about things. A little deprivation might do her some good. He’d abandoned her before, and Chekowsky’s absence was growing tiresome. He could pack up the household and take them away, leaving her alone and helpless on Isla Mordita. After all, what could she do? They’d take the big motor yacht, though he’d never been able to manage a decent crew out of his various employees. Mal looked like someone who knew how to sail, and the Sophia was a responsive boat. He would have changed the name to Traitor if it weren’t bad luck—Archer wasn’t particularly superstitious, but he preferred not to tempt fate.