by Lexi Blake
“And you think I’m insulting you because I’m upset you won’t ever love me? You think I want to get rid of Nina so I can take her place? Well, then you’ll probably misinterpret why I brought this along.” She pulled her hand out of the large bag.
And JT took a step back because that was one big-ass gun in her hand. “Hey, now…”
She frowned his way. “Chill your balls. I’m not planning on using it on you.”
Oh, god, had she come for Nina? Was she going to kill Nina right in front of him? He started to think about how to get that gun out of her hand. “Nina’s not here.”
Deanna’s eyes rolled and she let out a frustrated groan. “I don’t think Nina is who you think she is, JT. Something is going on. Something you missed. I don’t think Bill’s accident was really an accident.”
He went still. “You know what happened to Bill?”
Deanna might have said something, but the door burst open and Nina moved in with the fluid grace of a predator. He heard the door smack against the latch again, leaving it slightly open.
“Put the gun down,” she said tightly. “JT, get behind me.”
He moved to her side. But he couldn’t get behind her. He knew if he had to, he would stand between her and a bullet because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.
Deanna held her gun up and looked like she knew exactly what she was doing. It shouldn’t surprise him. Deanna was always determined to be an expert at anything she did. “JT, Nina is not who she says she is. Why the hell do you think I set a PI on her? Do you think I like spending money? He’s not cheap.” She stared Nina’s way. “I know exactly who you are. You’re here to make money off him. You’re not only a gold digger, you’re a criminal.”
Nina’s jaw went tight. “And you’re sad. You’re in love with a man who doesn’t want you. Put down the gun.”
Deanna’s eyes narrowed. “I do not want JT. I couldn’t care less about the man, but I do want the fucking job I was promised, and apparently I have to do it all. I have to be the most organized human being on the face of the planet, smile while I’m being marginalized by every man in the room, and now I have to hunt down corporate spies. If you’re looking for your friend, Nina, tell him I took back our prototype and he can pry it out of my cold, dead hands.”
She’d done what? He was about to ask the question when there was a pinging sound, and he watched in horror as Deanna slumped to the floor.
Patrick stood in the doorway. His plan to give Nina a heads-up had worked against them and allowed the snake into the room.
Nina turned and slammed into JT right before the gun went off again. Patrick fired wildly, trying to take them out. JT dropped to the floor and his head smacked into the side of the couch so hard he would have sworn he could see stars.
“Deanna, you stupid bitch,” Patrick said with a snarl. “That will teach you not to steal from me. Sorry, JT. I didn’t mean to kill anyone, but a man does what he must.”
Chapter Eleven
Nina shoved herself up and cursed under her breath as she tried to tuck JT closer to the base of the couch. “Don’t move.”
She wasn’t sure where Patrick was and she’d completely lost control of the situation. Hutch had said something about Patrick in her ear as she’d rushed into the room, but she hadn’t paid attention to him. All she’d been able to think about was JT and getting to him in time to save him from Deanna.
It turned out Deanna had been trying to save him from her. Apparently the assistant had figured out something was wrong and had decided to fix it all herself.
Now she was likely dead, and if Nina didn’t calm the fuck down and think like an operative and not a crazy scared girlfriend, they would be dead, too.
“I want that prototype,” Patrick was saying.
She had to stall him long enough to either take a good shot or give time for Hutch to get here. In her panic to get JT out of the line of fire, her earpiece had dislodged so she had no way of knowing how far away he was.
“So the fiancée is really a bodyguard.” Patrick sounded like he was moving into the room. The suite was huge, and he would have to move past the sofa they were using as cover if he wanted to get to the table where Deanna’s bag lay.
She glanced down at JT.
He winced but gave her a nod that let her know he was all right.
“I guess that means you knew something was wrong,” Patrick continued.
She shifted to a crouch and realized there was a mirror over the bar. She could see Patrick standing warily at the edge of the room, as though he hadn’t decided if he was going to go for the prize or run away.
“Keep him talking,” Nina whispered.
“You couldn’t think we wouldn’t realize the prototype was gone,” JT said.
“I was hoping you would think Bill had hidden it somewhere. I thought I would have a little more time,” Patrick replied. “Where is it? Deanna obviously stole it out of my room earlier tonight. I’ve got a meeting in thirty minutes and I don’t like to think about what will happen if I don’t make it to the beach.”
Probably the same thing that happened to Bill. But at least she knew where and when the drop was supposed to be. All she had to do was survive and she could catch the spy.
“I don’t know where it is.” JT moved so his back was to the couch. He watched in the mirror, too, as Patrick started to inch his way toward Deanna’s body. “She hadn’t gotten to the part where she told me what was going on. I thought she was upset I was engaged.”
A nasty chuckle came from Patrick. “Yes, we’ve all thought she was pathetic, hanging around when it was obvious you weren’t ever going to fuck her. Or promote her.”
Nina kept her eye on the mirror. She could feel JT behind her. She wished there was some way to get him out of this, but he needed to stay down. If he moved for the bedroom, he would be exposed, and she didn’t trust that Patrick wouldn’t shoot anything that moved. She studied him carefully and his arm was already shaking. He wasn’t used to holding a gun for so long. She would bet he’d had minimal training at best. It was dangerous since he wouldn’t know how to control himself or the weapon he held.
There it was again—that horrible anxiety that something could happen to JT and she would spend the rest of her life mourning him.
“If you don’t know where the prototype is, I don’t have a lot of use for you,” Patrick said, though there was a tremor in his tone.
“How do you think you’re going to get out of this?” JT’s voice was strong and steady. “Nina works for a private security company, but she’s got ties to the government. Yeah, that’s right. They know something’s happening, and they won’t stop looking for you even if you do manage to kill me. So the question is do you want to add another murder to what’s going to be a long time in prison for you?”
Nina’s heart was thumping in her chest, adrenaline flowing through her system. She could see the way this would play out in her head. Two more steps from Patrick and she could ease around the side of the couch, pop up, and plant two squarely in his chest.
Two more steps and it would all be over.
Patrick stopped. “If I kill the two of you it can look like a lover’s quarrel. I can make it look like Nina found out about you and Deanna and killed you both then herself. That’s what women do when they lose their shit.”
Where the hell was Hutch? Patrick wasn’t moving. He seemed stuck in a loop, trying to figure a way out of a trap that wasn’t ever going to let him go. The longer she waited, the more chance he would figure it out and come to the conclusion that nothing mattered. A desperate man was a dangerous man.
“Or you could take the prototype in Deanna’s bag and run,” JT offered. “I think it’s probably in her bag. She came up here to tell me about what she’d learned. Dee is smart. She knew something was going on and she tried to solve this thing herself. She came close. She figured out it was you.”
“Nosy bitch never could stay out of things that did
n’t involve her,” Patrick said, but he started moving toward the table again.
One more step.
Patrick came into clear view and Nina stood, took her aim, and fired. And again, taking out both lungs.
She watched his eyes flare and he put a hand to his chest. His gun clattered to the floor and then he followed.
She took a deep breath, banishing her panic. It was over. At least this part. She looked down at JT. “You can come out now. He’s dead.”
JT got to his feet, his skin sheet white. “Are you okay?”
Nina nodded. “I’m fine, but I have to make a couple of calls.”
“I really do think the prototype is in her bag,” he said. “She stole it earlier and she was bringing it to me. Damn. I can’t believe he shot Deanna. I need to see if she’s all right.”
He started to move toward where his assistant lay, but nearly jumped out of his skin when her seemingly dead body sat up.
Deanna looked around, a wild look in her eyes. “Where’s my gun?”
Nina moved to her and noticed there wasn’t a drop of blood on Deanna’s T-shirt, though it sported a nice hole in the chest. She held a hand out. “Body armor?”
Deanna took it and let Nina haul her up. “Of course. What? You think I would walk into some criminal shit without protection? My dad was a cop. And I am always prepared.” She winced. “Though I wasn’t prepared for how much that would hurt.”
“You’re all right?” JT stood back as though he wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but the job wasn’t over yet.
Deanna looked down at Patrick’s body and pointed. “Am I all right? No, I am not fucking all right. You gave this asshole my promotion. Mine. You want to go find Jordy now that Patrick’s gone and hand the job to him? He’s out looking for drugs, you know.”
JT shook his head. “Nope, it’s all yours. As of right now you are the VP in charge of operations.”
Deanna glared his way. “I want ten percent more than what this asshole was making. And I want the company to pay me the five grand I spent on PIs and all the crap I needed to do this job.”
“Done,” JT said.
“And a budget to redo the office because his is nasty.” Deanna brought her foot back and kicked the dead body. “Try shooting me again, moron. That was my fucking job.”
The cops would love processing this scene. Not that they would actually ever get to the scene. The Agency would have a cleaning crew here in no time.
The door came open and Nina brought her gun up only to breathe a sigh of relief as Hutch walked through.
His eyes widened as he took in the body on the floor and the petite blonde who was kicking and cursing at it.
“Don’t mind her,” Nina said, striding over to the table and opening the bag there. “She’s over-stimulated. It’s been a rough night. Ah, here’s what we’ve been looking for.”
She pulled out the small prototype. Such a tiny thing to have caused so much trouble, but then technology came in all sizes.
“I’m sorry,” Hutch said, sliding his gun back into his holster. “When I realized Patrick had used the woman in the bar as a distraction, I started making my way here. But he wasn’t content to let her go. He’d knocked her out in the stairwell. I had to make sure she was breathing. Are you all okay?”
She glanced over and JT was watching her warily. It was obvious he wanted to talk.
But she still had a job to do and she wasn’t sure what they should talk about. It was almost time to leave.
Almost time to leave him.
Could she leave him? She wasn’t sure how she could possibly stay.
And she was doing it again. She was letting her feelings stop her from doing her damn job. “No problem, but you need to call Sandra and Drake back. I know where and when to catch our spy. We have to hurry.”
“They’re already on their way.” Hutch slid a glance JT’s way and then back to Nina. “I can handle this if you need some time.”
She shook her head. Time was the one thing she didn’t have. “No. Come on. We need to get down to the beach before our spy does or we’ll lose him. JT, I need you to lock yourself in. I don’t think anyone else is coming, but I can’t be one hundred percent sure. I’ll send Sandra up when she gets here.”
Deanna had her gun in hand again. “I’ll handle whatever happens. He caught me off guard. I’m actually really good with this thing.”
“Nina,” JT began.
She took the prototype and started for the door. “Not now. Stay here. I need to get down to the beach and find the spy.”
“Or you could tell me where to go,” Hutch started. “He’ll be looking for someone like Patrick. I’m far closer in build. I think he’ll run if he sees a slender female walking his way. I put on a hoodie and he won’t be able to tell the difference.” He touched his earpiece. “Sandra and Drake are on their way up to the hotel. They’re already on property. They can back me up.”
He wanted to shove her out of the op? “This is my mission.”
“But it doesn’t make sense for you to go,” JT argued.
She ignored him. Somehow the idea of staying here and having it out with JT scared her more than standing in front of a spy who would be far better at killing than Patrick.
JT would ask her to stay, to give them a real chance. She would explain that her life was in London and she couldn’t give up her whole career because she’d fallen madly in love with some man.
Except she didn’t have to give it up. She could transfer to Dallas. Ian would let her do that. She knew there were a couple of people on the Dallas team who wanted to live in London for a while.
It could work.
It would be so stupid to change her whole life for a relationship that likely wouldn’t last a year.
There was a knock on the door. “Hey, it’s Drake. Let me in.”
Hutch moved to open the door and the CIA agent walked in. “That was fast.”
“Sandra’s going to take over in the camera room. She’s not as good with tech as you are,” Drake said. “What happened here?”
“Patrick was our guy on the inside,” Hutch explained.
“Patrick was a massive ass,” Deanna added.
“We’ve still got a shot at picking up the North Korean spy.” She was going to finish this job if it killed her. “According to Patrick, they’re meeting on the beach like we thought. He’s supposed to make the drop in about twenty minutes.”
Drake nodded. “Excellent. Let’s get moving. I’ll call in a cleanup crew after we’re done there. Civilians, try not to get too messy. It might be best if you went to another room until we’re done.”
Deanna looked up at JT. “We can use mine. I have a lot of changes I want to make. We can start talking about them while we wait for someone to clean up all the blood that got spilled because you picked him over me.”
JT ignored her, moving to Nina’s side. “I know you have to work and I’m not going to cause trouble, but promise me you’ll come back to the room. I need to talk to you.”
Yes, there it was. He was going to ask her to stay, to choose. She wasn’t ready. Not even close.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said under her breath.
He moved in closer. “Nina, I love you. Please give me a chance.”
“Is that the prize?” Drake asked.
She slid her gun into the holster and placed the prototype on the table. “Someone should stay and guard it. I don’t want the chance that our spy gets what he was after.”
She started for the door.
“Holy shit.” Hutch’s jaw dropped. “When did JT get hit? Where is all that blood coming from?”
JT shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Nina’s breath caught because now she could see a dark stain starting to creep around the back of his shirt. Blood.
He’d been hit in that first wild volley of Patrick’s and she hadn’t even noticed. She’d shoved him do
wn and then turned away from him.
JT’s face went blank. “Why is my back wet?”
All thoughts of the job fled as JT hit his knees and the light began to fade from his eyes.
* * * *
JT blinked at the bright light that greeted him as he woke from the nicest dream. Nina had been at his side and there had been no questions in her eyes. Only love. Only joy.
She’d forgiven him. She’d loved him.
For a moment he clung to the dream, wanting to stay there, but then the pain hit and he remembered.
“Hey, brother,” a soft voice said. “You doing all right?”
He forced his eyes open. Michael was standing over him and everything around him was stark and white.
Hospital.
“What happened?” It was fuzzy. One minute he’d been standing there in the suite at the resort. He’d been trying to tell Nina that he would wait for her, but she’d been so cold.
Then he’d realized that pain in his back had been more than a bruise from hitting the ground so hard.
“You were shot,” a second voice said. His cousin, Simon, stood next to Michael. “You’re in hospital. You took a bullet to the back. Unfortunately with all the moving about, the bullet shifted and came fairly close to one of your kidneys.”
Michael grinned. “Don’t worry. You’ve still got both of them. I was pleased since I’m the one who usually gets shot at and I take comfort knowing you’re around to be my organ donor.” He sobered slightly. “Mom flew down with us. Dad insisted on coming, too. They’re having some lunch now.”
He glanced around the small room. There was no sign of Nina. No purse left on a chair or blanket where she might have sat up next to his bed.
Had she simply left because the job was done?
“Did they finish the job?” It had been important to her.
“Yeah, they got it done,” Michael replied. “We’ve filled in all the blanks. Patrick needed cash and badly. We managed to unlock his phone. It was all there. He hired someone to run you off the road when he found out it was you and not your dad going to the retreat. He still went through with it, though, because he needed the money. And the prototype is safely on its way to Dallas. Deanna flew back with it this morning. Hutch and Sandra escorted her, and they’re going to make sure it’s in the safe at the main office until you decide what to do with it. The new security liaison insisted on getting it to Dallas right away.”
