“Don’t shoot, Libby. I’ve got her.” It was Rascal.
“Jared,” Libby said again, more weakly this time. Everything hurt. And he was so heavy.
He rolled to the side, taking her with him, and she could breathe again. Hope flared to life like a tiny candle flame. “Jared?”
“I’m okay, honey,” he said. He sat up and tugged her into his lap, and she sobbed in relief. He wasn’t dead. He hadn’t sacrificed himself for her. In the background, the soft whirring of a helicopter sounded and a frigid breeze blew over her skin, freezing the tears on her cheeks.
She pressed her fingers to his face, caressing that beautiful jaw of his. His mouth. Then she pressed her mouth to his, crying out at the pain where her teeth had cut the inside of her lip. One of them was loose.
Jared grasped her hand and pulled it up to his face, kissing her fingers. “Shh. Don’t try to kiss me. Not until we get you taken care of.”
“She shot you,” Libby said. “I felt it hit, and then you fell to the ground.”
“I’m wearing body armor, baby. It still hurts like a motherfucker to get hit, knocks the breath out of you, but I’m okay. She didn’t do any damage.”
He held her and rocked her against him. She clung to him, shaking. “Thank God for that.”
She looked up to where Rascal had Kristin subdued. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and she yelled obscenities at the big man. “I want up,” she said, suddenly determined.
Jared got to his feet slowly, dragging her with him. “Are you sure you can stand?”
“Yes,” she gritted. It hurt, but she had something to do. She started hobbling toward Kristin.
“Baby,” Jared said.
“No. I have to do this.”
“Lean on me,” he told her, putting his arm around her waist like he had the night he’d found her. Together, they made it to where Kristin sat in the snow with Nate Anderson and one of the thugs. Colt shoved Daniel Weir out the door and toward the little group as Libby swayed against Jared.
“Get up,” Libby said to the woman who glared at her with such hatred.
Kristin made no move to do so. Rascal put a big hand under her elbow and dragged her upright. She tottered in the snow for a second before straightening.
“We could have been rich,” she said to Libby. “You. Me. All of us. But you had to believe that toad Hicks. You had to give him someone to talk to. He wasn’t going to say anything if not for you. But you told him you were sure he would do the right thing.”
Libby blinked. She remembered that moment. Paul had been telling her his worries about the RIM software and how Daniel wanted the project to go ahead anyway. He had ideas for how to put the brakes on but he wasn’t sure which one was best. She’d told him she was sure he would do the right thing. She hadn’t spurred him to expose the truth. She’d merely told him he would choose the right way for everyone involved.
“You’re wrong, Kris. Paul had a conscience and he couldn’t let the project move forward until it was perfect. He was always going to tell the truth. I had nothing to do with it.”
“He wanted to impress you. You strung him along and gave him hope he had a chance with you.”
Libby sucked in a breath. Everything hurt and she was losing her resolve. “You’re going to believe what you want, no matter what I say. But before you spend time in prison for being an accessory to murder, I just wanted to give you something to remember me by.”
She’d intended to use her fist but in the end she hit Kristin open-handed, putting her whole body into it and slapping her former friend as hard as she could. The shock of it reverberated down her arm, making her already injured body hurt even worse. But it was fucking worth it, especially when Kristin cried out and stumbled sideways. It felt so good she tried to do it again—but Jared was there, pulling her back into the warmth of his body, holding her firmly.
“That’s good, baby. You don’t want to make yourself hurt worse, do you?”
She turned into him, burying her face in his chest. “I feel like it might be worth it.”
He chuckled softly. “Bloodthirsty girl. Come on, we need to get you to the hospital and get you checked out.”
She leaned into him as they started toward the helicopter. “This isn’t how I thought today would go when I walked into work this morning. This morning—” Libby swallowed, her throat tightening. “This morning she was still my friend. I had no idea she was this person. A person who could betray everything and everyone they pretended to care about.”
“It’s not your fault, Libby. She made her own choice. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her.”
He made sense, and yet she couldn’t help but think there was something wrong with her. Why did people who claimed they cared about her become suddenly able to discard her like yesterday’s trash?
Libby stumbled to a stop as pain flared in her belly. She dragged in a lungful of air and moaned. Jared swung her into his arms and strode toward the helicopter. She clung to him, her head buried in his neck, fighting the pain but failing. Once they were onboard, he probed her with careful fingers.
“What did they do to you? I need to know so I know what to look for.”
“Th-they hit me in the stomach. That’s where it hurts the most. Someone kicked me when the chair fell. They punched my face. I cried, Jared. I couldn’t help it.”
“Of course you couldn’t.” He sounded gruff, and she sniffled.
“Anything else?”
“No. Daniel told me they were going to break every bone in my body, but they found the card in my shoe so it didn’t happen. I told them there was an access code so they wouldn’t kill me right then. I didn’t know if there really was. But it was true.”
“Thank God for that.”
“They were going to torture it out of me, but the joke would have been on them.” Not that she thought it was funny in the least, but she’d just been trying to get through each moment in the hopes that Jared would come for her.
And he had. Her knight.
There was a sting in her arm. “What’s that?”
“Painkillers,” Jared said as the sting eased. He rubbed her arm and put a bandage on the place where he’d stuck the needle in. “You’re going to go to sleep soon, Libby. I’ll be there when you wake up.”
She was already starting to feel groggy. “Promise?”
His lips ghosted over her forehead. “I promise. We’ll talk then.”
“Okay,” she whispered before the world faded to nothing.
Jared sat by the hospital bed in a private room in Riverstone and watched Libby sleep. The beating she’d suffered had ruptured blood vessels in her abdomen, causing internal bleeding severe enough that she’d needed surgery to stop it. Fortunately, she would make a full recovery. Her ribs were also bruised and her face looked like she’d gone ten rounds with a prizefighter.
Jared wanted to maim every person who’d been in that house with her in the most painful way possible, but he couldn’t. The law would deal with them and that would have to be enough.
His concern was Libby. Physically, she would be fine. But mentally?
That’s what worried him most. He simply didn’t know how she was going to react as time passed and the gravity of what’d happened sank in. Libby’d had her trust broken by someone she cared about. Kristin Martin had been her friend—the woman who’d helped her get the job at Ninja Solutions, someone she’d texted with on a regular basis and shared the kinds of personal things that women shared with each other—and Kristin had tried to kill her. Libby’s faith in others had to be pretty shaky right now.
He hated that for her. So much. Which meant he wasn’t going to be anywhere but here when she woke up. He sat beside her and held her hand for what seemed like days though it was probably only an hour or two. At one point, the door opened silently and he looked up.
Ian was standing there, looking tired and angry.
“How’s she doing?” he asked softly.
Jared sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face. “She’s going to be okay. But she’ll be in pain for a few days.”
“Rascal told me she hit Kristin Martin.”
Jared couldn’t help but grin just a little. “Slapped that bitch silly.”
“Good for her. She’s a thinker, too. Heard how she kept them guessing about an access code.”
“She’s quick on her feet.”
“Good qualities to have.”
Jared stood and stretched, shaking his limbs to ease the kinks of sitting for so long. “I assume you’ve got news for me.”
Ian nodded. “I do. Anderson and Martin are in custody.”
“What about Weir?”
“Sprung for the moment. Don’t forget he’s engaged to a congressman’s daughter. They’ve brought out the big guns, and they’re arguing that Weir didn’t know anything. It was all Anderson and Martin’s doing. They were having an affair, of course. Nate bought the house on the river. He put it in Kristin’s name in order to avoid having another asset for the courts to consider in his ongoing alimony and child support suits with his ex. Weir’s lawyers plan to argue that Nate and Kristin had financial motives to stop Paul Hicks from telling the truth while Weir could have afforded to wait two years or better while the AI stayed in development.”
“Bullshit. We heard him. He’s the one who said Hicks was dead. He’s the one who threatened Libby.”
“I know. We’ve got the recordings, but we’re not dealing with overworked public defenders here. There’s a lot of money going into Weir’s defense. We’ve got to make sure we do this absolutely right or the whole thing will fall apart and what we have will be inadmissible. We’ve got Hicks’s information, and it’s very damning for RIM, but a good lawyer can make the case Hicks was a disgruntled employee and that Weir didn’t know the details. Hell, they might even say Hicks was trying to sabotage Weir’s business because he didn’t feel appreciated enough or some such bullshit.”
Jared knew what the boss was saying was true. Someone like Weir, with money and connections, had incredible luck at avoiding consequences. It was what was wrong with the world, in Jared’s view. The richer you were, the more connected you were, the worse you could behave. And nobody would hold your feet to the fire for it.
“I hope you’re digging into Weir’s finances. There’s got to be something to incriminate him.”
“I am. He’s leveraged to the max, but with backers like his future father-in-law and other high-powered Washington elites, his financial situation doesn’t look as dire on the surface as Anderson’s does. Still, Ninja Solutions needed the influx of cash. They weren’t going to survive for two years—or more—while Paul Hicks tinkered with the AI software. They needed that suit to work, and they needed the Army contract to happen before someone else built a better product and got there first.”
“That’s a motive. Are you seriously telling me he has lawyers who plan to argue otherwise?”
“Yep. The good news is that the Army was already suspicious. Hicks had arranged a meeting with General Comstock where he planned to share his information, but apparently Weir didn’t trust him and he’d had his office bugged. He knew about the upcoming meeting and used B&B Security to put a stop to it.”
“So there’s a link between Weir and B&B?”
Ian shook his head. “No. Anderson used them in the past and he made the calls. He’s saying he did it at Weir’s direction, but of course it’s his word against Weir’s, especially since he had a past relationship with Byrd and Boggs. He also said Weir ordered the bugging of Hicks’s office, but Anderson’s the one who placed the equipment.”
Jared blew out a breath. Weir was smart. The only time he’d gotten directly involved was when they’d taken Libby from the office building. And that must have been because they’d had to scramble to do it once she returned unexpectedly. Time hadn’t been on their side when she’d walked back into the building. Must have given the three of them a heart attack. Weir’d been at the Pentagon, but he’d clearly cut that short and returned as soon as he’d been informed. If he’d arrived any other way besides a helicopter, they wouldn’t have gotten Libby out of the building.
“What about the bodies on the mountain? Who did that?”
Ian frowned. “I don’t know. Besides the helo pilot, there were two hired thugs with Anderson, Weir, and Martin. You shot one. The other surrendered when you guys infiltrated the house.”
Jared nodded. He remembered that guy. He’d been calmly standing there with his hands over his head when Jared breached the room. Anderson had tried to run, but not that guy.
“He’s Army CID. But, so far, no one in CID is admitting to cleaning the site. They thought we did it.”
“Army CID was there and let Libby get beat like that?” Jared growled.
“He couldn’t compromise his cover. You know that.”
He did know it. But he didn’t have to like it.
“He didn’t participate in beating her,” Ian said. “He swears he pulled the only punch he delivered and made it look worse than it was. He was trying to mitigate what was happening to her without blowing his cover.”
“And what the fuck would he have done if they’d killed her?” Rage was a bitter stew inside him.
Ian put a hand on his shoulder. “They didn’t, Jared. She’s alive and she’s going to need you to be her rock when she wakes up. You have to get past it. Like every other job we do, you have to let it go. The Army agent is a witness to what happened in the house before we got there, and his testimony will be useful.”
It was all true, and yet Libby’s swollen face made him feel helpless and impotently angry. He’d wanted to beat the shit out of his dad all the times the man had done the same to Jared’s mother, but he never had. And now he couldn’t punish any of the people who’d done this to sweet Libby either. He’d shot one of the hired thugs when he was racing toward the house to rescue her. It wasn’t enough to satisfy his thirst for justice, but it was something.
“Weir needs to go down,” he growled.
“I know. I intend to make it happen, but it’s going to take time. Anderson has already turned on him, and Kristin Martin’s done nothing but cry and swear they forced her to go along with it. I don’t think she knows anything beyond what Anderson told her, but if she does, CID will get it out of her. They have as much incentive to nail Weir as we do. More, since the Army nearly spent millions on something that could have caused troop casualties.”
“Jared?”
His head snapped around at the weak sound from the bed.
“I’m here, Libby,” he said, dropping into the chair and taking her hand gently in his.
“Where am I?”
“You’re at Riverstone, honey. The private hospital where I brought you before.”
He heard the door snick quietly as Ian left. There was still so much he wanted to know, but he’d worry about it later.
“Oh yes,” she whispered. “They were nice.” A frown crossed her features. “I feel like hell. But I still know who I am.”
He kissed her fingers, stomping down the hot emotion swirling in his belly. “That’s good, baby. You’re going to be fine. We got there in time.”
Not in time to prevent her from being injured, but he wasn’t going to split hairs. They’d prevented her death, and that was what mattered most. If he told himself that often enough, maybe he’d stop feeling so fucking guilty that she’d been hurt at all.
“You shouldn’t be upset at yourself anymore, you know. You save people. You deserve your nickname.”
His throat was tight. “Thank you, honey. I appreciate that.”
“I hear the doubt in your voice,” she said, frowning. She turned her good eye toward him. The other was still swollen nearly shut. “You aren’t allowed to doubt. I’m still alive because of you. Twice now, and that’s not nothing.”
“No, it’s definitely not nothing.”
She squeezed his hand where he held hers. He was encouraged b
y the strength in her grip.
“We’re going to talk about this when I feel better, okay? I want to know what’s making you doubt yourself.”
How could she tell? That’s what he wanted to know. It’s not what he said though. “Do I have a choice?” he teased.
“Not really. I’ll talk your ear off until you tell me what I want to know.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I guess you will.” He kissed her hand again. “Go back to sleep, Libby. You need to heal, and sleep will help.”
“You’ll be here when I wake up?”
“I’ll be here.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Each time she woke, Jared was there. Libby didn’t know how he managed it, but he’d promised he would be there and he was. She barely had to open her mouth to say his name, and he was whispering softly to her. Comforting her.
She had so many thoughts racing around in her head, many of them to do with him and what was going to happen once she recovered. She wanted to tell him how she felt about him, wanted to tell him everything about her life, but how did she begin? And what if he didn’t want to hear it?
He’d saved her life but that didn’t mean he loved her or anything. It was what he did. What he’d do for anyone.
When she woke again, soft light streamed into her room. She blinked up at the ceiling, hearing the beeps of the medical equipment, but there was no touch on her hand. No voice to say her name. She shifted, her heart squeezing—and he was there, his head thrown back on the recliner they’d brought into the room for him. His hand hung over the side, as if he’d dropped it in sleep and hadn’t yet noticed.
He had ridiculously pretty eyelashes, she decided. And he had that scruffy beard she’d come to love. When those eyes opened, they’d be as blue as sapphires. His lips were full and kissable, and she wished she could lean over and press her mouth to his.
A nurse entered the room then, and Jared jerked awake at the sound. His gaze landed on the nurse first and then immediately darted to her. Libby smiled. Or at least she hoped it looked like a smile and not a grimace. She still hurt all over, but she thought it was getting better. Hoped it was.
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