Armed DARK officers in flak vests burst in through the terrace and the front doors.
Nick slammed into Amir with his full weight. They rolled onto the floor, both struggling for the pistol. Nick smashed the heel of his hand into the prince’s nose. Blood spurted as cartilage crunched. His grip on the weapon slipped.
Nick knocked the pistol away.
Byrne picked it up.
Nick hauled back a fist. “You bastard, I should kill you, but I want you to suffer like all the people you hurt. Just killing you isn’t good enough.”
“It’s over, Markos,” the DARK officer said. “I know how you feel. I’d like a piece of him myself. After questioning, the U.S. will turn him over to his government. In that part of the world, they don’t treat traitors gently. He’ll wish you’d killed him.”
Panicked fear filled Amir’s eyes.
Nick let his fist drop.
“Cuff that man. His feet too,” Byrne ordered.
Leaving the broken-beaked prince to them, Nick crawled to Vanessa. His hands shook. He lifted her gently and cradled her still form in his arms.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Nick … you’re all … right.”
He breathed again. “Thank God you’re alive.”
Blood soaked the side of her jacket. He tore off his sweater to staunch the bleeding.
“Call 911,” he rasped out past his tight throat. “She’s been shot.”
Chapter 22
VANESSA WOKE FROM a restless sleep. An elephant sat on her chest. Every breath stabbed pain in her side.
Then she remembered. Amir. Nick. The gunshot.
It was finally over.
At a noise beside her bed, she turned her head. The dim glow from a bedside lamp showed Nick asleep in a chair. Dark bristles shadowed his jaw. He’d combed his thick, dark hair with something like a garden rake. Both hands had swollen knuckles as if he’d gone ten rounds without gloves.
For her.
He looked so beautiful to her greedy eyes that for a moment the pain receded. Her heart swelled with love for him, and ached with sorrow for what would never be.
He stirred. His eyes opened. His Aegean-blue gaze studied her. Worry crinkled fan creases at the corners. “You’re awake. How do you feel?” His normally smooth, deep voice cracked like an adolescent’s.
Her mouth tasted like the inside of a vacuum cleaner, and an ache radiated through her as if she’d been stunt double in a kickboxing movie. “Hurts.”
He came closer and helped her sip ice water through a straw. His familiar scent floated to her above the antiseptic odors.
“The IV beside you is pain meds. The self-dosing kind. All you have to do is squeeze the control by your hand.”
“In a minute.” With her right hand, she lifted the flowered hospital johnny. A white bandage covered the entire right side of her torso and wrapped around her chest beneath her breasts. “How bad?”
“The doctors said you were lucky.” His mouth flattened. “Lucky is a matter of opinion. The bullet cracked a couple of ribs and tore muscle. But no organ damage. You’ll recover. No thanks to me.”
He hadn’t learned yet. “Not your fault, oh responsible one. You can’t stop a bullet.” The long speech provoked the elephant to squash her a little harder. Her breath hitched.
“I should’ve gone in the front, not you.”
“Twenty-twenty hindsight. And I should’ve worn Kevlar.”
Big sigh of resignation. “You never give up,” he said. “Get some rest. Take care of the pain.”
“Not yet. What happened at the Mall?” From his grim expression, she expected the worst.
“The unveiling ceremony was to be an assassination all right. A setup. Al-Din aka Prince Amir’s fanatics had rigged a bomb to blow when the tarp was pulled from the sculpture. C-4. It would’ve collapsed that wing of the museum and killed dozens, maybe more. Hundreds of people were there, including the U.S. Secretary of State. One of the fanatics tried to trigger the explosion, but a DARK officer stopped him.”
So why wasn’t he jumping for joy? Her breath caught at the sharp pain as she tried to turn toward him. “You are vindicated, Nick. Your hunch saved scores of people and prevented a coup. If DARK saved the day, why aren’t you celebrating?”
He covered her hand with his. His blue eyes bored into hers. “The DARK officer who stopped the bomber was Gabriel Harris. The New Dawn man had a knife. He stabbed Harris before a sniper could take him down. Harris … didn’t make it.”
She gasped. “Oh my God, Gabe! Poor Janna. They’ve only been married a year.” Hot tears filled her eyes.
“Byrne was going to see her after they took Amir into custody. He apologized for not trusting me. Said General Nolan would be contacting me.”
“We should all apologize for not trusting you. You’re a hero.”
“I appreciate that, honey, but Harris is the real hero of the day. I’m sorry about him. I understand he was a good officer.”
“A stand-up guy. Hero Harris is truly a hero this time.” She blew her nose in the tissue Nick handed her. “He’ll probably get a medal. Too bad it’ll be posthumous.”
“Enough talk. Do I have to pump those meds into you myself?” He stood by her with his arms folded.
“I can do it. I’m ready to rest now.” Moving her left arm provoked a spasm like a rhino tusk in her side, but she pressed the control. A languorous fog gathered in her body and blurred her vision. The meds were fuzzing the rest of her system. The rhino backed off and the elephant went on a diet. “Sleep now. You leaving?”
The cool hand that brushed her forehead trembled. Or it could’ve been her imagination. His last words put a smile on her lips as the fog bank closed around her.
“You couldn’t get rid of me with a forklift.”
***
At noon the next day, Nick drove Vanessa back from the hospital. He’d left in the morning to meet with the DARK director. She’d expected J. T. McNair to show up, but Nick had apparently taken over.
During the ride she talked about the wrap-up of their mission, anything but “It’s been great, but so long, babe.”
The surviving bomber at the Mall had been the one who pushed the statue over on Vanessa and Laura. Emil Alfieris identified Prince Amir’s secretary, Rashid, as the man who paid him for the house plans. And Rashid himself revealed all of the Yamari prince’s recruits, people he’d convinced he spoke for the New Dawn leader.
When Director Nolan finished briefing Ambassador Khalil, the dignitary thanked him profusely and vowed to root out the rest of New Dawn. An enlightening conversation with the holy man himself should put an end to their terror campaign.
In the garage, Nick opened Vanessa’s door and offered a hand.
“Guess I’m still a bit weak,” she said, accepting it. The warmth and support of his hand reminded her of what joy she’d found in his arms. Going back to her solitary life was too painful to contemplate.
“You look four hundred percent better.” His gaze, full of tenderness, captured hers.
Normal human concern, she reminded herself with a sharp pang, after what they’d been through. No more. She’d disappointed him, deceived him, so they were done.
“I feel better. Like I fell off a fifty-foot cliff, but I’m mobile. And clean.” A newly plaited braid draped her right shoulder, and she wore clean jeans and a pullover. “Laura Stratton breezed in this morning with stuff from my apartment. And she did my hair.”
“I’m glad you don’t have to conceal your friendship any longer.”
“Me too. They’re adopting another child, a two-year-old from Romania. I can visit anytime since I’m on medical leave for a few months.”
She stopped her chatter. Their words were small talk, meaningless. The conversation of two people who had nothing to say to each other. That saddened her more than ever.
She sought a way to explain her final search of the desk. Afterward she’d ask McNair to dri
ve her to HQ to do her report. They were probably packing up the command post.
Then she would go home to her studio apartment. Alone.
“Vanessa, we need to talk about the other night. I overreacted, but it hurt that you didn’t trust me.”
“I did trust you. I felt lower than a snake, but I had orders. By snooping and not finding anything, I thought I could prove to DARK you could be trusted.”
His hands hovered over her shoulders as if he feared hurting her. His arms lowered to his sides. “After a long night of soul searching, I figured out a lot of things. For one, that you had no choice. Security was paramount. But I needed to hear you say it again.”
She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. For what? Hoping for declarations of love? No more foolishness. Her gaze snagged on the library door. “Did you ever look at the two papers? The ones I had when you came in?”
He shook his head. “I stuffed them in my briefcase and shut down the laptop. Haven’t been back in there since.”
That didn’t surprise her. They’d been a tad busy. “But they’re not your papers. I found them in the desk jammed to the back of a drawer.”
“Then what the hell are they?”
“They show what Alexei did with the ten million dollars.”
***
“Say what?” Ray Lincoln scratched his head, making his short dreadlocks bounce like springs. “You want to pry off this gizmo. Y’all sure?” The wry cant to his mouth and the look in his eyes clearly said his new employer was nuts.
“I’m sure.” Nick restrained a grin. “Go ahead and do your work. Just let me use a crowbar.”
Ray shook his head in disbelief. “A crowbar? You better let me do it. You’ll trash the good part of this here wall.”
“Do your worst. I’ll pay you for the extra.”
Ray went at the medallion with a hammer and chisel.
Nick joined Vanessa, buttoned in a fitted wool jacket, at the wrought-iron table and chairs. Her cheeks glowed with the excitement of treasure hunting. She was poring over the two sheets of paper, the keys to Alexei’s stash.
“I think the DARK searchers either missed these or thought sketches of the stone medallions and descriptions of coins were of no importance. Who would?”
“They weren’t looking for the money, remember.” He cast an anxious glance at Ray’s progress.
The chipping and hammering went on for endless minutes until Nick wanted to go at the medallion with a wrecking ball.
A crash and a crack like a lightning-split boulder pulled him from his cold seat.
“Here you go, Mr. Markos.” Ray dropped the crowbar with a clatter. He mopped his brow with a red bandana.
Nick knelt beside the medallion, split in three chunks. The pale November sun caught on shiny spots in the crumbled mortar. He picked up the trowel lying on the terrace and chipped them loose.
“Oh, wow,” said Vanessa behind him.
Nick levered to his feet. He held out twelve coins in his palms.
Alexei had converted the stolen funds to valuable coins. A quick check on the Internet located the dozen coins on the list. Two — a 1913 Liberty Head nickel and a Colonial American silver sixpence — each had sold for over a million dollars within the last two years to an anonymous bidder.
Then Alexei mortared them behind the second medallion from the house. But after committing murder, he’d fled in such a rush that he left behind the coins. And the papers. By a fluke they lay stuck in the desk drawer for months.
“Holy sh—, um … damn!” the young mason exclaimed. “All that for pocket change?”
“You’ll think I’m a couple of inches off plumb, Ray, but these are the key to your future.”
They hurried inside, leaving the young man scratching his head.
“What did you mean by the key to his future?” she said.
“The charitable fund.” He stowed the coins in the safe. She should be part of this decision, as she would be in all his future ones. If she let him. Fear that she might not want him chilled the warm glow from finding the coins.
“What have you decided?”
“What do you think of low-interest loans to help deserving disadvantaged people start businesses?” He turned to see her reaction.
The color in her cheeks brightened almost to match her hair. Her glowing smile reached inside him and hugged his heart. His throat was tight, and his eyes burned. Maybe he still had a chance.
“Oh, Nick, that sounds perfect. Like a hard-working guy who needs a truck and tools for a landscaping business?”
Of course she’d catch on quick. He ached to hug her, but her injury restrained him. “You got it. Or a great cook who wants to own a restaurant.”
Moving gingerly, she unbuttoned her coat. When he offered to help her off with it, she shook her head and kept it on. He was afraid she’d leave, but she followed him to the kitchen.
Chapter 23
VANESSA SQUARED HER shoulders and geared up to be flip and casual about saying goodbye. What she wanted to do was to cry and howl. The pain whacking her chest had nothing to do with her cracked ribs.
She couldn’t help staring at Nick, memorizing the exact shade of his eyes, the proud blade of his nose, the sexy cleft in his chin, the ebony hairs curling above the V-neck of his cream-colored sweater.
“You’ll be able to sell those coins for more than your brother paid,” she said, tamping down emotions that threatened to overflow. “That and the proceeds from the house sale will set up the charity fund.”
“Dwight Wickham finally came through with a reasonable offer for the import business. He and Abdul Nadim have some scheme to enlarge. So that’s done.”
He opened a cabinet door and took out the bag of coffee beans and the grinder.
“Don’t make any for me,” she said, hoping her voice sounded normal. “I have to get going. Write out my report.”
Slowly he turned. Something like fear or anger flitted across his features before his expression gentled. He took her hand and pulled her closer. “Honey, your report can wait. We have something much more important to sort out. Our future.”
Our future? In his eyes she saw desire … and something softer, warmer, more intimate. His dark velvet voice stirred heat and hope within her.
“I thought we … it was done.” She didn’t trust herself to say more than that. Another word and she’d blurt out her feelings, lay her crumbling heart at his feet.
He cupped her shoulders, kissed her nose. “If I have my way, ‘we … it’ will never be done. I don’t want to lose you. I love you. And I think — hope you feel the same.”
His words branded her brain and jumpstarted her heart. The heat in his eyes held her in thrall, and she could say only, “Nick.”
He curled a hand on her nape and massaged. “I’m climbing out of the darkness I’ve wallowed in for years. A few sessions with a VA counselor should help me the rest of the way out. I’m starting to trust myself. You’re responsible for that.”
“Me? How?” The gentle pressure of his hands mesmerized her, drugged her more than the Demerol had.
“Honey, you’ve prodded and challenged and supported me ever since we met. You helped me deal with my anger at Alexei. You made me examine my marriage plans and realize I’m not my father. I’ve been trying to prove my family honor and redeem my own. Without your tenacity on Somalia, I’d still be in that dark pit. You mean more to me than I have words to express.”
“You were suffering. I knew from the first you were a good man, an honorable man who’d find his way. But you don’t know me, not really.”
“I know enough, and we have time for the rest. I know your warmth and generosity, your wit and your humor. I know you brought sunshine and laughter into my empty life.” He lifted her hand and kissed the palm. “Besides, you’re so damn cute I can’t keep my hands off you. Marry me.”
He surprised her so much she gasped, and the sudden twist cinched th
e elephant’s trunk around her ribs. After a couple of shallow breaths, she slipped from his hold. “Marriage? What kind of marriage? I want no part of your corporate contract. I want a real home and family.”
“I want that too. I’ve been hiding from my problems by filling the hours with work and social obligations. I didn’t think I could have a home other than a pad to crash in. I want the woman I love, not a contracted hostess. I want my best friend to make that home with me.” Intensity glowed in his dark eyes.
She’d hurt him once. She couldn’t hurt him again by denying she loved him. “Oh, Nick, I tried not to fall in love with you. I had something to prove too, that I could go undercover without getting involved.”
He smiled with affection. “I’m glad you blew uninvolvement.”
“I wanted you to be the hard-nosed CEO, but you weren’t. Your kindness and honor beat down my defenses. And you seemed to want me for myself, not for who I pretended to be or for an ulterior motive.”
“And I know that you wanted me for me, not for my money.”
“I guess we’ve both missed knowing what it’s like to be loved for ourselves. We have that in common.”
“Unless you want me for those ten-plus-million dollars worth of coins.”
“What?” Then she saw the mischief in his eyes. The love there seeped into her soul, tempting her to believe. But doubts lingered. “You. Me. It would never last.”
“And why not? We love each other. Everything else can be worked out.” He bent and nuzzled her ear.
She dredged up courage and backed away. “I’d never fit in your social circles. All those sophisticated jet-setters and important diplomats and tycoons.” She twisted her hands in front of her as if that could slow the racing Indy car in her stomach.
“Latrea mou. Sweetheart.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “You have been doing exactly that for the past few weeks. Fitting in with jet-setters and diplomats.”
“But that was like in a play. Inside I knew I was just a cop’s daughter. It wasn’t real. I was just playing the part of Danielle.”
He shook his head. “Danielle Le Bec, European fashion editor for Adorn, isn’t real either.”
Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2) Page 22
