by Alyssa Cole
Drat. She was tempted to say yes but knew Yates was capable of making her night miserable in retaliation.
“Is there anyone else?” Salomeh asked, already knowing the answer.
“Would you rather spend the night bunking with someone you haven’t met?” Henderson asked in surprise.
Julian stood in the doorway, his face blank.
“What about you?” she asked Henderson, a last-ditch attempt. Julian’s eyebrows quirked in annoyance.
“As much as I would love to keep you company, my wife would kill me if I called to say that after a day of golf and work I was going to spend the night with a beautiful young woman.”
Salomeh rolled her eyes but bit her tongue. Something about Henderson’s nice-guy shtick was beginning to grate on her, but she supposed it was just her frayed nerves and absolute exhaustion.
“All the good agents are busy,” Julian said. “I guess you’re stuck with me, again.”
She ignored his reference to their conversation on the rooftop. The entire exchange was tainted for her now.
“Yes, she is, Tamali,” Henderson said as he gathered his things into his briefcase. “Please keep in mind that Miss Jones is here through no fault or desire of her own, and act accordingly.”
He turned to Salomeh. “If this putz tries anything, let me know first thing in the morning. I’ll have him off this case so fast he’ll forget he was ever on it.”
“Thank you,” she said, and at the same time, Julian muttered, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Julian carried a small duffle bag, and he held it up in her direction. “I gathered some toiletries and clothing, since you had to leave everything behind.”
Salomeh nodded. She doubted he had her expensive, imported conditioner in there, but it was thoughtful of him.
“Excellent, Tamali,” Henderson said. “I’ll lead you to the safe house to make sure everything is in place, and then both of you should get some much-needed sleep.”
Salomeh stood and brushed past Julian as she followed Henderson out of the room. Julian might have shared his sob story with her, and he might truly be sorry, but that didn’t mean she had to be nice to him. She tried to focus on all the ways he had been an ass to her, but her tired brain was firing the wrong synapses. Instead of remembering he had lied to her, she remembered how he had pulled her behind him onto the fire escape, putting her safety first. Instead of remembering him cockily remanding her into custody, she thought of the way he had looked at her when he said, “There is no one else.”
Was what he had done completely unforgivable?
Julian gave her a small smile as they walked through the front door and out into the warm dusk where an unremarkable beige sedan awaited them. It was the merest of smiles, barely a quirk of his lips, but it warmed her from within. She tried to stomp out any trace of affection for this man, but a small resistant ember remained, ready to flare up into a conflagration at the slightest encouragement.
Salomeh sighed, her thoughts spiraling into confusion. She’d heard that sleep deprivation was a tactic used to wear down the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Without sleep, a person was willing to overlook anything, to think of even an enemy as a savior.
She glared at him, despite the fluttering in her belly.
I’m on to you, she thought.
Chapter Seventeen
Julian didn’t know what had caused the dirty look Salomeh shot his way. He had been nothing but respectful and solicitous since their interview, had bought her food and drink when she wanted and sometimes when she didn’t. He’d even had Yates contact Marta again when Salomeh had panicked that something would happen to her friend. To placate Salomeh, Marta had gone to stay with her parents.
So he didn’t know why she glared, but he was just happy she had finally deigned to look at him. Her back was straight, and her chin was up in the air as she stiffly marched past him. His gaze traced the curves of her body, unable to avoid appreciating how her simple black T-shirt and jeans fit her as if tailored. He could see her body was taut with stress and exhaustion, and his fingers itched to caress her neck, to feel the tension ease from her as he worked over her muscles. He wanted to feel the weight of her body in his lap, jelly-boned and too satisfied with lovemaking to move.
She turned her head, and when their gazes met, Julian knew his thoughts must have been written all over his face.
Busted.
In less time than it took to blink, her face registered shock, and fleetingly, a look he was sure mirrored his own. It was a familiar one—he had seen it as she kissed her way down his belly, and as he had thrust into her fast and hard. But she turned away before he could be sure he wasn’t just projecting his own lust onto her. If she was half as tired as he was, sex was probably the last thing on her mind. Throw in the fact that he’d made her feel like he used her body for his own purposes, and he had to chalk her perceived arousal up to an extreme case of wishful thinking.
“Why do we have to leave here? Didn’t Birdie send people to your apartment today?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t they also know about wherever it is we’re heading?”
“This office isn’t cleared for overnight safety.” Henderson stood beside his car, the driver’s side door already open as if he were eager to be done with them. Julian noted a trace of annoyance in his boss’s voice, which was a bit surprising considering how compliant Salomeh had been. “And we’re still investigating exactly how these goons found out where Julian lives. Yates and a couple of other agents are looking into it.”
“Is she good?” Salomeh asked Julian bluntly.
“Even though she goofs around, which I personally believe is a carefully constructed facade, Yates is one of the best agents I’ve worked with. If there’s something rotten on this end of the equation, then she’ll find it.”
“Julian is absolutely right,” Henderson chimed in. “Now let’s all go get some rest, and come at this thing bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning.” He gave Julian a fatherly pat on the shoulder and offered Salomeh a quick wave. “And we’ll set you up with a protector more to your liking as soon as we can, Miss Jones.”
“Great,” Salomeh said, her voice raspy from fatigue.
“We should get going,” Julian said.
When he lightly touched her arm to guide her to the car, Salomeh jumped. He winced when she folded her arms across her chest as if to protect herself from his touch.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Her rejection kicked him in the gut, and the unscrupulous part of him wished he would never have had to reveal the truth to her. Maybe then, the rare connection they had immediately formed would have remained intact. Knowing what could have been, what he had ruined with his own impetuousness was unbearable.
“I’m just tired,” she said defensively. “I feel like I could keel over right here.”
“No need for that,” Julian said as he opened the passenger door for her. She hesitated and then stepped into the car.
“Thanks,” she grumbled
Julian chuckled as he closed the door. Pissed off at him as she was, Salomeh still managed to mind her manners. His mom would have liked that.
“Can I ask you something?” Salomeh asked after they had been driving behind Henderson in silence for a few minutes.
“Of course,” Julian said.
“In the past, when you’ve found girls who have been put through—who have been drugged and sold, what happens to them afterward? How do you make things okay for them?”
Julian scanned the streets as they drove. He wasn’t very familiar with this industrial neighborhood, the deserted back roads of Queens lined with collapsing warehouses and empty lots. Henderson was taking a strange route, but perhaps he knew something Julian didn’t. “Unfortunately, the ending isn’t always so happy for these girls once they’re free. Some can’t kick the drug habit that was forced on them, or they’re so shattered by the abuse that they don’t want to.
“Some of their families refuse to take them back
after they learn what’s happened to them. Many of them end up back on the streets, sometimes in worse situations than we saved them from.”
Salomeh nodded, facing straight ahead. In the glow of streetlights that filtered into the car, he could see her lips pressed tightly together.
“Don’t worry about Yelena. She has you in her life, and I know you won’t let that happen to her.”
“If I ever see her again,” she said.
“You will. I give you my word that you will.”
She glanced over at him, and he added, “Not that it’s worth much to you. But I mean it.”
“How?” she asked. “How are we going to find her when it seems like Bardhyn has people everywhere?”
Julian had no idea. He didn’t even know where Birdie was located. But he said in a voice calculated to reassure, “We’ll figure that out together. With your brains and my ravishing good looks, there’s no stopping us.”
Salomeh smiled, a tight smile that was nothing like the luminous one she was capable of, but it made Julian’s heart leap all the same. A new sense of determination was born from that smile. He already had every reason in the world to want to capture Birdie, but somehow Salomeh had added another.
A blip of blue light in front of him pulled his attention away. Henderson had flashed his police lights once quickly. A sense of dread filled Julian. His instincts were trying to tell him something, but he didn’t want the message they were sending him to be right.
It had to be an accident. Henderson must have hit the switch by accident.
“Julian,” Salomeh said, her tone reinforcing his uneasiness. “Over there— What is that man holding?”
He followed her line of sight and saw a man had stepped from the darkness into the illumination of a street lamp. The man was squat and bald, and dressed all in black. The light bounced off something metal and cylindrical that rested on his shoulder. It was small enough to be confused with an aluminum baseball bat, but Julian was well aware that weapons tech had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to the never-ending wars being waged. Weapons that had once required massive setup had been shrunk down to petite, easily transportable sizes.
“A fucking grenade launcher,” Julian said incredulously.
He heard the screech of tires ahead of him but didn’t bother to look, already knowing it was Henderson peeling off. Julian had wondered why his boss, usually eager to get home and avoidant of extra work, had been so insistent on seeing them to the safe house. This put everything in a new light—from Bardhyn’s constant evasion of the authorities to the men who had tried to kill Salomeh today. Julian filed away the betrayal for later processing.
The bald man took aim and fired just as Julian threw the car into Reverse, sending the sedan into a 180-degree spin. He shifted back to Drive and jammed down on the gas pedal. The explosive landed in the street behind them as the car surged forward, almost but not quite out of the blast radius. Julian guessed that it was a small grenade, or he and Salomeh would have been reduced to cinders. As it was, the rear window had shattered behind them, and the impact of the blast had lifted the rear wheels from the ground for a terrifying moment.
Salomeh screamed, but Julian didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He needed to focus on getting them out of this situation. If he saw her in a panic, or worse, his reaction would do neither of them any good.
In the rearview mirror, through the flames and billowing smoke, Julian saw the man reloading. They wouldn’t have long before he fired again. Julian processed his options. He wouldn’t be able to reach a main street anytime soon; Henderson had made sure of that by taking them on this byzantine route to nowhere. He considered fishtailing on the chance that the zigzag motion would throw off their pursuer, but that would slow them down, and he didn’t know how accurate the man’s scope or aiming skills were. There was a turnoff up ahead that led into the parking lot of a warehouse area that seemed to be their fastest means of evasion. The warehouse looked abandoned, which was both good and bad. There might not be anyone around to help, but Julian wasn’t sure if calling the cops would be the smartest thing to do at this point.
Julian pulled a hard left through the entranceway to the parking lot. They were almost through the gate when the grenade hit.
Julian’s stomach dropped at the loud blast so close to them. The impact caused the car to ride along on its two rightmost wheels before flipping over onto the passenger side. He lost his sense of direction as the car rolled, but he managed to throw his arm out and pin Salomeh back in her seat, supplementing the work her seat belt was made for. The sounds of shattering glass and crunching metal blocked out all other noise, and the all too familiar smell of smoke and flame filled the car.
When they finally skidded to a stop, the car was upside down. Julian used one arm to release his seat belt and the other to support his weight as he tumbled onto the car’s ceiling, which now served as its floor. He reached for his gun before turning to Salomeh.
She hung limply from her seat, the seat belt pressing into her as it kept her from falling. Her hair obscured her face, and he couldn’t see whether she was responsive.
“Salomeh,” he said, but she didn’t move. Something dripped down from the tips of her hair, leaving a dark stain on the upholstered roof of the car. Blood.
Fear knifed through him, that same nausea that had doubled him over as his childhood home went up in flames. He fought against the triggers that threatened to pull him into the past—the smell of fire and blood—but seeing Salomeh in such a state nearly drove him senseless with panic.
Not her.
He scrambled to release her from her belt and gently cradled her when she fell. She was bleeding profusely from a gash on the side of her head, and she wasn’t responsive, but her breathing was strong. The glass had already been knocked out from her window, so he crawled through before lifting her out and placing her on the ground, carefully avoiding broken glass strewn around the car. When he had placed her a safe distance away from the vehicle, he doubled back and grabbed the overnight bag he had packed.
He quickly ripped a strip of cloth from his tattered T-shirt and tied it around Salomeh’s head to stanch the bleeding, all the while scanning the parking lot for the man who had done this. Julian’s first priority was Salomeh, but the man would pay for his actions—him and Henderson and Birdie, who all treated human life like so much trash.
When he tightened the makeshift bandage, Salomeh’s eyes fluttered open. She raised her hand to the source of her pain, looking confusedly past Julian toward the burning car.
“Who the hell uses a rocket launcher on a sedan?” she asked dazedly.
“Bardhyn is a bit overdramatic, if you haven’t noticed,” Julian said, managing a relieved sigh. She was okay.
“We have to move now, zemer,” he said. “Can you walk? I don’t know where the asshole with the advanced weaponry is, and I need to know you’re safe before I find him and rip his head off.”
“I can walk, but let’s just get out of here,” she said, trying to stand. Julian’s anger spiked as he took in her wobbly movements and the blood staining her face.
“What am I going to do if something happens to you?” she asked. “I don’t think my self-defense classes will get me very far.”
He stood and shrugged the bag onto his shoulder and then swept her into his arms and jogged over to the closest building in the warehouse complex. He tried not to jostle her too much as he ran, and when he found an alcove that was a safe distance from the burning car and shielded from prying eyes, he placed her on her feet.
“I’d love to take you away from here, but I have to find this guy,” he said. When she started to protest, he held a finger to her lips and continued, “We need information, and that man has it. He may even know where Yelena is.”
She closed her eyes briefly as if calling on some inner strength and then gave him a determined nod. He wanted to kiss her, but taking advantage of a possibly concussed woman was a line he didn’t want to cross. He
settled for giving her arms a gentle squeeze.
“Did Henderson set us up for this? I wondered where he was taking us, and then I saw his lights flash…” She looked even more upset by the betrayal than him. “I thought he was a good guy,” she said brokenly. “Are there any good guys anymore?”
“There’s me and there’s you, and those are the only people we trust for now,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t call him on it. “I’m going to try to find out what we need to end this. Please stay here, Salomeh.”
“I will,” she said, and when he looked at her doubtfully, she said, “Go.”
Julian moved off into the night. The only light in the sprawling lot came from widely spaced streetlights and the burning car.
If there is a security guard, he must really be sleeping on the job, Julian thought. But when the gas tank finally goes, this place will be crawling with cops.
He had to be quick.
He stalked away from the side of the building and prowled through the lot, sticking to shadowed areas as he approached the remnants of their vehicle. There was movement by the burning shell of the sedan.
The bald man was attempting to investigate his handiwork but jumped back when a bright burst of flames flared in his direction. He pulled out a cell phone as he took a few steps away from the destroyed hunk of metal.
“They’re roasted,” he said nonchalantly. The light from the blaze was reflected in the sheen of sweat on his lumpy head, giving him a hellish cast. “I used that sweet little grenade launcher you wanted me to test out before you meet the West Africans. Yeah, it works like a dream. I wish we could use these babies on the force, but then we’d have the ACLU even more up our ass.”
Another dirty cop. Julian wondered if it was the same one who had assured Salomeh he’d help her.
Julian crept closer but didn’t attack. Although he wanted nothing more than to run up to the man and beat him to within an inch of his life, he had the element of surprise on his side, and he decided to use it wisely.
“Tamali was definitely in the car and so was the teacher. Look, I need to get out of here before some other cops show up. I can only pin so much of this stuff on gangbangers.”
