But a cornered animal was unpredictable. One wrong move and Brier would have no compunction about shooting Sam point blank.
Nothing to lose and cornered. A recipe for disaster.
Goddammit, but I need to get Sam away.
“You talk too damned much, Hernandez. See where my beam is?” The laser site of Brier’s weapon now bounced in and out of Zeus’s vision. “Stop fucking moving, bitch, or the second bullet will be all yours.”
Sam froze, her gaze on Zeus.
“Won’t matter if you kill me, Brier. You’ll be dead before I hit the ground. Let Sam go, and we can talk. She has nothing to do with your agenda.”
The red light found his left eye. This time it didn’t waver.
“No!” Sam pushed Brier’s forearm as he fired, three times, in rapid succession.
The bullets went wild, striking the window on Brier’s left. As the loud rat-ta-tat of gunfire faded, the safety glass of the window pebbled. Thick shatter lines spider-webbed from the bullet holes. The glass broke into tiny cubes, as Brier smacked the side of Sam’s temple with the gun. With a crescendo that sounded like marbles spilling onto hard floor, chunks of glass disappeared from the solid, floor-to-ceiling frame. Some fell outside, some to the wood floor that bordered the room, some bounced on carpet floor. Damp outside air whooshed into the room.
“On your left.” Gabe’s whisper came through as Zeus felt his brother’s presence at his side.
Keeping his eyes on Brier, Zeus was peripherally, and murderously, aware of blood blooming on Sam’s right temple. Ah, shit. Either one of Brier’s shots had grazed her, or the blow he’d delivered had been enough to split her skin.
The red line of blood was steady, but there wasn’t enough of it for the injury to be life-threatening. She remained in Brier’s chokehold. Blood dripped into her eye. She lifted a hand to her temple, before lowering her now-bloody fingers to her line of vision.
She went limp as she passed out.
Block her out. Focus and illuminate the target. Assess injuries later.
Fuck! Still no kill shot—and Gabe obviously didn’t have one either.
“Let me walk out of here,” Brier said, straining to hold up Sam’s dead weight and keep his weapon fixed on Zeus at the same time. His hair ruffled in the wind blowing in from the broken window at his back.
“Not going to happen, unless you let her go.” Zeus inched closer. Planning to lunge, he knew Brier would likely get a good shot on him. He was too exposed. Didn’t matter.
Fuck!
Situation went from shit-bad to worse, because Brier’s wild expression—flitting eyes and steady weapon—indicated that the man knew he was cornered, and he was determined to get out of the situation any fucking way possible.
Brier had one out—a suicide leap through the pane-less window, to a paved walkway that bordered the Thames, five stories below. Edging backwards towards the window, dragging Sam’s limp body as a shield, Brier kept his weapon trained on Zeus.
“He’s gonna jump.” Whispering the obvious into the mic’s audio feed, Zeus’s peripheral vision told him that his brother, just a foot away, was poised and ready, waiting for a signal.
It was a fucking given that if Brier went through that window, he’d take Sam with him. Brier stepped within a foot of the open window, glass crunching under his feet, Sam hanging limply from his forearm. “On two.”
“Copy,” Gabe said. “With you.”
“One.” Holding his Glock firmly in place, Zeus visualized for a split second how he was going to get a close head shot on Brier while managing to grab Sam with his left hand. “Two.”
As he took a flying leap forward, Zeus fired.
He was vaguely aware of red and gray splatter raining out behind Brier, while very aware that Brier was falling towards the window and would soon be dropping through it.
Zeus grabbed Sam’s forearm with his left hand, and yanked her with all of his might out of the grip of the dead man. Zeus’s forward momentum almost carried them through the window with Brier. Gabe’s solid grip on Zeus’s legs stopped their trajectory. Zeus pulled Sam to him, and, as Gabe yanked them both backwards, crashed with her to the floor. Safety glass crunched under him when he turned and rolled, as Gabe yanked them further into the room.
Touching his fingers to her neck, he felt for her pulse. He was able to breathe when he felt the steady beat. He cradled her to his chest and dropped his face to hers. He kissed her cheek and inhaled the scent of blood and sweet jasmine, as his body shook with relief.
Chapter Forty
Samantha’s suite of rooms was a small, two-bedroom apartment on the eighth floor of One Thames Place. In between her bedroom and the bedroom of her lead security agent, there was a living room, a small kitchen, and a dining area, with a rectangular dining table that seated six. She’d used it the night before as a worktable with Abe and Charles.
Now, the dining table served as a medical examining table. Doctor Drannen, a Black Raven doctor, leaned over her, placing stitches along her hairline, where Brier had hit her with the gun, creating a several-inch split along her hairline. Rix, a Black Raven medic, worked on pulling pieces of glass out of her right arm. Rix and Drannen were working on her right. Gabe sat in a chair on the left, between the table and the windows, watching their progress.
“Wasn’t that window made of safety glass?” She’d refused the doctor’s offer of an oral painkiller. She winced as she felt the tip of the tweezers as Rix rooted in her arm. She could also feel the push and pull of the needle and thread in her forehead.
“Yes. Tempered, too,” Gabe answered. “And film-treated for opaque qualities.”
“Didn’t think safety glass was supposed to cut,” she muttered.
“A common misconception,” Gabe said. “It still has jagged edges, especially when shot at that close range. Sort of like a buzz saw, though nothing like the shards that would have sliced you, had the glass been plain old-fashioned annealed glass.”
“Why weren’t you cut?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t roll in it, like you and Zeus.”
Focusing for a moment on the window behind Gabe, she realized that where the drapes were slightly parted, the darkness outside made the window a looking glass, where she could see what they were doing to her. She drew a deep breath, breathing in the antiseptic, and shut her eyes. She immediately opened them. Closing them made her nausea worse.
She’d first become conscious in Zeus’s arms, on the floor of the conference room, with Zeus, Judge O’Connor, and Gabe looking at her. Seeing smears of red blood on Zeus’s cheek, and all over his white shirt, she’d promptly blacked out again. The second time around she’d woken up flat on the blanket-covered table, her head on a pillow, with Doctor Drannen and Rix leaning over her. She’d almost lost her post-faint battle against nausea. The doctor had given her a shot that should have helped.
It did, but barely.
Gasping for air, trying to fight past the feeling that her stomach was rising into her throat, she glanced at Gabe. “Where’s Zeus?”
“On his way up.”
Sam straightened her features because frowning made her forehead crease, and that made the thread and needle tug harder. “Is he okay?”
“Yes.” She’d known Gabe’s answer, because she’d asked the question a minute earlier, as the doctor was making his first pass with the needle and thread. But she also knew these men would say they were fine, even if a bullet was embedded in them. As long as they could speak and think, answer would be, I’m fine.
“But there was so much blood.”
“Mostly yours.” Gabe gave her the same slight frown that Zeus gave when he was concentrating. “Not his.”
“Talk to me.” She tried to focus on Gabe’s green eyes. If she looked anywhere else at him—his square jawline, his dark hair, his broad shoulders—it was like looking at Zeus, which was disconcerting, because this man wasn’t Zeus. “Please. I need to focus on something. How did he put that together?
Everything he was saying in the conference room. What, exactly, led him to Lawrence and Peterson? And how did he know Brier was involved?”
“You know everything I know. You heard it from Zeus. Brier went suicidal and tried to take you out in the process.”
“But why?”
She’d watched Gabe with the Black Raven agents the night before. When he spoke his voice and tone carried the same authority as Zeus, and his agents treated him with the same respect they gave to his brother, yet Gabe had an easy manner and an easier smile. His easy smile, though, was apparently for others only.
Upon meeting him in person the day before, observing the contrast of his easy manner with others and the way he looked at her as though she’d done something wrong, she’d immediately gotten the impression that he didn’t like her. At best, he seemed wary.
If he’s looking out for his brother’s best interests, I don’t blame him.
She heard the door open.
“She’s awake?” Zeus’s voice.
Thank God.
“Zeus! How the hell did you put all of that together, and—”
“Seriously?” Gabe’s arched eyebrow and marked frown quieted her.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Zeus said. “Best if I don’t walk over there looking like this, unless you want to be sick again.” She heard footsteps head towards the bedroom that had been Gabe’s the night before.
Gabe gave her a headshake. “Your first thought when my brother shows up, after what he’s been though in the last forty-eight hours and, by the way, almost getting his head blown off while saving your life, is to talk about work?”
“Zeus.” Doctor Drannen paused, holding the needle in the air, as he glanced to his left.
“Yes?”
“Need to get that glass out of you. Rix, go get started on him. I’ll pick up on Samantha, where you leave off.”
“Just a few more pieces to go. Those might need a stitch or two.” Rix stepped away from her arm.
She heard a door click shut—presumably the door to the bedroom Gabe had used the night before. Now that Zeus was here, she assumed Zeus would stay there.
She inadvertently got a glimpse of Rix pulling off his gloves, which were smeared with her blood. A fresh wave of nausea overcame her. She shook her head, forcing the doctor to step back for a second.
Frantic, she glanced at Gabe. “I need to focus on something other than blood.”
“Here,” Gabe said. Gabe held his cell phone up to her eye level. “Look at this. Doc?”
“Yes?”
“Need your confidentiality on this one. I’m not supposed to have this. I wheedled it out of a friend of mine.”
“Understood.” The doctor gave Gabe a smile as he leaned closer to Sam to study his handiwork. “Not a bad job, if I do say so myself.”
“Samantha. Eyes here.” Gabe jiggled the cell phone.
The image on the screen was a close-up of Zeus. She gave Gabe a questioning glance, which he returned with a look of Hernandez-style stoicism before tapping the screen. The video started playing, and she was immediately sucked into the gravity in Zeus’s dark eyes, the underlying grim worry evident in his voice.
“Hey, Sam. I’m heading to the DZ to rescue Ana. If you’re seeing this, I haven’t made it. Just wanted to tell you something I should’ve told you last night, when we were arguing on the plane. Instead of telling you I was done, that I was giving up on us, what I should’ve said was…I love you. As much as life itself. For the rest of our lives, I was never going to be more than one call away—because I was never giving up on you. I’m damn lucky that I got to be with you in these last few days and I wouldn’t change one second of it.” He gave a slight smile. “Well, that’s not true. I’d certainly change the fact that you chose to marry someone else while I was still alive.”
The smile drifted from his lips. “I blame myself for that, more than you though. I don’t want you to regret that decision now. Well, maybe just a little bit of regret would be nice. I understand you’re afraid of being with me—though I sure wish you’d have given me the chance to talk you out of that fear. You see, instead of getting angry with you, I should have just said that the simple fact is I love you. Always have. Always will. No matter what you do. You’re the only one for me. And I know now that if I had a hundred years to live, I’d never give up on us. Never.” He glanced away, then back at the camera. “You’re strong enough that you’ll realize every goal you set for yourself. But don’t forget to be happy, Sam. It’s important. When you weren’t driving me crazy—and even when you were—being with you made me happy. Just the possibility of us one day being together made me happy. I love you.”
She glanced at Gabe through tear-filled eyes.
Gabe’s eyes reflected more than a little concern as her tears started falling. “Awww. Hell. I didn’t mean to make you cry. It’s just that my brother’s not going to tell you any of that unless you give him a reason. He might love you more than he’ll ever love anyone else, but he’s never going to beg.” He drew a deep breath. “I just want him to be happy. He deserves to have the one woman in the world who has driven him to distraction. Your life will be better with him in it. I promise. He’s the toughest guy in the world, but his heart beats pure molten gold for the people he loves. Me. Ana. You. A handful of others. You’re part of an exclusive club, Samantha. Don’t think you should turn your back on it. Give him a chance. Talk about something other than work. See where that takes the two of you.”
“Has it occurred to you that perhaps one reason your brother is attracted to me is precisely because my first thought is to talk about work? Even now?”
For the first time, Gabe gave her the heartfelt, warm, genuine smile that seemed to be his trademark. His eyes lightened. “Holy hell. You two were made for each oth—” His eyes turned serious, his expression focused, as he touched the mic at his ear. “Zeus. Repeat.” He paused. “Okay. Copy. Jenkins? I’m going to the seventh floor. Need you here with Samantha.”
***
Zeus sat on a chair in the bathroom, with his arm on towels on the vanity counter, while Rix removed small cubes of glass from his left arm. The fast-paced dialogue between Ragno, Barrows, and the analysts in Denver was a good distraction from the pain. It was gratifying to hear Jigsaw prove, with data, the theory that had coalesced in his mind and which he’d voiced, as he’d tried to get a shot on Brier.
“Gabe? In position?” Zeus asked as a large pebble of glass clinked in the metal pan, leaving in its wake a gaping cut and a welling of blood. Thank God Sam isn’t watching this. She’d be out cold about now.
“Yes.”
“I’ll let you know if we need to take action. Getting Jigsaw on my hunch now.”
“Roger.”
When there was a lull in the Denver-based conversation, Zeus broke in. “Ragno. Go private.”
“Okay. Me and you.”
“While you and Barrows focus on the big picture, I need an analyst to focus on a few small slices of time.” Rix rinsed the cut with alcohol, then opened a fresh pack of gauze and placed it over the cut. “The time frame of Stanley Morgan’s death and the cyanide poisoning.”
“Good idea.”
“Look for calls to either Peterson, Lawrence, or Brier that suggest any connection to those events. Morgan’s death, if it was a murder, was up close and personal. Plus, the cyanide poisoning suggests an awareness of procedures in place at the Hotel Grand Athens. So far, there are no suspects for either.”
Doctor Drannen stepped into the room, washed his hands, and pulled on gloves.
“Ragno. Hold a second.” Zeus addressed the doctor, “How’s Sam?”
“Now that I’m finished with her, she’s getting her equilibrium back.”
“She called Senator McDougall,” Ragno said, “and her grandfather, and now she’s talking to Judge O’Connor.”
Upon hearing McDougall’s name, Zeus’s heart twisted.
Hell. After the last forty-eight hours, I’m surprised
my heart—the part of it that results in emotional feeling—still exists. And even more surprised that feelings can make my chest hurt like someone’s reached in for a tight squeeze. I wish the goddamned organ would just stick with pumping blood.
The doctor’s eyes narrowed as he studied Zeus’s arm. He glanced at Rix. “Good job. These two need sutures.”
Rix lifted his hands. “My skill set runs to extracting the glass and Band Aids. Have at him.” He stepped back and let Drannen take up his position beside Zeus.
“At the time of both Morgan’s death and the cyanide poisoning,” Ragno said, “the Amicus team was guarded by U.S. marshals. Is that where you’re going with this?”
“Not necessarily.” He adjusted his arm as the doctor examined the bloody mess on his elbow, which was where he’d landed. They’d hit the wood floor first and his jacket had provided no protection for the shards of glass. Sam’s weight on his arm, combined with his own, had turned his elbow into a pincushion for the glass that had been everywhere.
“Can you bend that arm?”
Zeus lifted his arm and bent it at the elbow. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t broken.
“Good enough.”
Zeus turned his focus back to Ragno and said, “I’m throwing into the mix the question we had when we learned Ana’s kidnapers wanted Barrows.”
“The question of why Barrows and why now?”
“Yep. Interesting that in the year that we’ve had Barrows working for us, the very first threat we’ve had directed against him came after I revealed OLIVER to the Amicus team.” The doctor pushed the needle through his skin. “OLIVER revealed just a fraction of Jigsaw’s data gathering and assimilating capabilities, but it was still impressive.”
“You think someone on the Amicus team worked with Brier, Peterson, and Lawrence?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, let’s run with this. Assuming complicity in the three events—Morgan’s death, cyanide poisoning, and learning about OLIVER—we can rule out Eric Moss.”
Jigsaw (Black Raven Book 2) Page 45
