Driven by Fire

by Anne Stuart

  If only she could reach the baseball bat things would be easier. She could smash the phone with it, smash Soledad with it before she could get off more than one shot.

  But that one shot would kill her, and she hadn’t given up on Ryder yet. He had to be somewhere around, hiding from the guards, waiting for his chance. Unless he’d already been captured and killed.

  If he had, Soledad knew nothing about it, or she’d be crowing in triumph. There was still a chance she might survive this clusterfuck her father and brother had thrust her into, though the chances were looking slim. She just had to stall for time.

  The deck was narrow—just wide enough for a table and chair, and the drop over the side was terrifying even to a woman with no fear of heights. Then again, the height wasn’t the problem; it was the landing. She sat in the chair and began keying in random numbers, her back to Soledad, her attention on the shiny screen.

  She heard the door open behind in the living room, and she glanced up to see one of the guards return before she turned back to the phone, her feet drawn up and resting against the low railing. Whoever had designed this house had no sense of safety.

  “The password is beastmaster.”

  She froze at the sound of Ryder’s voice, then at the words. She turned to find him standing in the middle of the room, pointing a gun on Soledad. The guard lay at his feet, and Soledad had a gun trained on Ryder.

  Jenny jumped up, shoving open the sliding glass door, about to run to him, when common sense stopped her. “Stay there, Parker!” he snapped.

  “How sweet,” Soledad said. “I thought she looked particularly well fucked this morning, though I don’t understand how you happened to get in and out, if you’ll excuse the pun, so easily. However, I’m afraid your girlfriend miscalculated. You can shoot me, but not before I put a bullet in her head.”

  Ryder didn’t even glance at her. “That’s not my concern. My job here is simple—retrieve the cell phone and terminate the South American head of the trafficking cartel.”

  “Which would be me,” Soledad said smoothly, seemingly not disturbed by his words.

  “Which would be you,” he agreed.

  “And you are not concerned about your girlfriend? Americans are so squeamish about collateral damage. Do you really want to see her head blown apart in front of you?”

  “You’re holding a twenty-two. It won’t blow apart her brain,” he said in a laconic voice.

  “She’ll still be just as dead.”

  He wasn’t even looking at her—it was as if they were in the midst of an academic argument, not talking of life and death. “You underestimate my resolve. And you’d be wise not to think of me as American. I’m Committee.”

  Soledad’s smug smile faded slightly. “Isn’t this what they call a standoff, then?” she said in her pure voice. “Put the gun down, Mr. Ryder, or your girlfriend is dead.”

  “Now why would I do that?”

  “Because if I kill your girlfriend you’ll be forced to kill me, and I won’t be able to answer any of the thousand questions you must have,” she cooed.

  “I don’t mind,” said Ryder, and his gun spat fire at the same moment Soledad’s did.

  It was a blur of noise and light and action, as Jenny felt Ryder crash into her, slamming her against the decking as his body jerked, but everything seemed to move in slow motion—the repetitive gunfire, Ryder diving in front of her, the phone falling onto the deck and skittering toward the end, and Soledad sprawling onto the white carpet, an expression of disbelief on her innocent face as bullets pierced the designer suit and blood began to spread outward, soaking into the rug.

  And then time flipped back to normal, as Ryder rolled off her and went straight to Soledad’s limp body, feeling for a pulse.

  Jenny grabbed the phone and shoved it in her pocket before she pulled herself upright, using the railing to do so. She looked over the edge with a shudder before pushing away. “Is she dead?” she asked in a raw voice.

  Soledad’s eyes were wide and staring. “Close enough,” he said, not turning to look back at her. “You in one piece?”

  “Your concern for my well-being warms my heart,” she snapped.

  “Don’t be a baby. Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Then stay put. I’m going to find us a vehicle and we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “And what if she’d managed to shoot me? Would you be taking me with you?”

  “Depends on how badly you were injured,” he said callously. “Stay put. There’s at least one more guard roaming around. If you need to throw up then throw up here. I don’t want you wandering around this place—there may be booby traps.”

  Jenny immediately swallowed her incipient bile. How did he know her that well? “I’m fine,” she said icily.

  “Of course you are. You gonna give me the phone?”

  “What do you think?” she replied.

  “I can take it from you. If you think you’re going to be smart and throw it over the balcony, then think again. Remember, I know the password. My people found it when you were wandering around the house on Magazine Street, and everything’s been downloaded and decrypted. We can make a case against your brother without it, but it would be a lot more trouble.”

  “Sure,” she muttered.

  He caught her chin in one hard hand. “Promise me you won’t throw it over the balcony.”

  “I promise.”

  To her shock he place a swift, hard kiss on her mouth, and a moment later he was gone, leaving her alone with a dead woman and the one thing that could destroy her brother.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jenny stared at the smartphone in her hand. He was right, he could have taken it from her, but he probably thought she was too shell-shocked and grateful that he’d saved her life to disobey him.

  He had saved her life, she realized. If he hadn’t knocked her aside Soledad would have shot her, and at such close range it would have been fatal. Instead, he’d knocked her aside as he’d shot back, and now Soledad lay dying on the once-pristine white carpet, and Jenny couldn’t bear to look at her.

  Instead, she stared at the phone. It symbolized everything—her trust in her brother, her blind hope that he really was innocent. It was still a possibility, but a weaker and weaker one.

  Had Soledad lied? Was it possible her brother could really have been behind it all? She’d been wrong about Soledad. She stared at the phone like it was a snake, an evil, murderous thing that was going to crush the life out of her family. She’d promised Ryder she wouldn’t throw it over the balcony, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t destroy it some other way. And what would happen if she did? Would she be saving her innocent brother from a punishment that far outstripped the lesser crime he’d thought he was committing? Or would she be protecting a monster who deserved everything he got? Ryder said they’d already downloaded and decrypted the information—they would still have a strong case even without the actual phone itself. She turned to pick up the baseball bat and then froze.

  Soledad was standing, holding on to the table for support, weaving slightly, her eyes crazed. In her hand she held the gun.

  Jenny felt like a rabbit caught in the stare of a rabid coyote. Ryder had gone off somewhere and left her to die. Had he done it on purpose, knowing that Soledad was merely wounded? Had he left her gun behind just so there wouldn’t be any loose ends? Did he want her dead?

  Whether he did or not, that was going to be the outcome, as Soledad swayed, trying to get her gaze properly focused. “Give me the phone,” she said in a guttural voice, and there was blood trickling out the side of her mouth.

  A number of responses came to mind, such as “come and get it” or “in your dreams,” all of which would have signed her death warrant. In fact, she was so terrified she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could simply stand there waiting to be shot.

  And then the sheer stupidity of that hit her, breaking the thrall. She dove for Soledad’s feet, sliding
on the bloody carpet, moving so fast the dazed woman didn’t have time to react, and she went down with a crash, firing the gun wildly. Jenny didn’t count the bullets, she simply rolled away, snatching up the baseball bat as Soledad rose to her feet again, like fucking Rasputin, and on sheer instinct and adrenaline Jenny slammed the bat against her head.

  It only seemed to daze the woman. She staggered toward her, but Jenny was already at the very edge of the room, by the sliding doors, and she had nowhere to go but out on the ledge, where there’d be no escape from Soledad’s gun.

  She was backing onto the decking as Soledad advanced on her, cornering her, when she heard the click click of an empty gun, and relief swamped her. Jenny’s eyes met Soledad’s crazed ones a moment before the woman heaved the gun at her head, stunning her, and then Soledad jumped her, overwhelmingly powerful in her insane rage.

  It was over in an instant, so quickly Jenny wasn’t even sure how it happened. Soledad clamped her strong, bloody hands around Jenny’s neck, squeezing fiercely, and Jenny could feel the air cut off, the blackness begin to close in. The baseball bat was trapped between them, and she turned, shoving at Soledad as hard as she could in blind panic. Soledad’s hands fell away from Jenny’s throat, and in the next moment she went backward over the low edge of the railing, twisting and turning in the wind as she fell in a silent, graceful dance.

  Jenny sank back in the chair, still clinging to the baseball bat, panting, shocked, wanting to scream herself. And then she saw the smartphone lying in the middle of the carpet, in the pool of Soledad’s blood.

  She’d promised not to throw it. She hated that small piece of technology—it stood for her brother’s betrayal and every horrible thing that had happened, up to and including the fact that she’d just killed a woman.

  She stood up dazedly, walked over to it, and slammed the baseball bat in the center of it, over and over and over again, until she felt arms come around her, strong arms, forcing her to stop, to drop the bat. “I think you killed it,” Ryder said in her ear, sounding incredibly calm. “Where’s Soledad?”

  She was surprised she was even able to speak. Her voice came out in a curiously raw monotone. “She’s gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I knocked her over the side of the balcony. She wasn’t dead, and you’d left the gun behind. Did you do that on purpose?”

  He said nothing, and since he still had his arms around her, holding her back against him, she couldn’t see his expression. “Are you hurt?” he said instead. “You have blood on you.”

  Jenny shook her head, not caring whether he could see it or not. “It’s Soledad’s blood. I hit her with the baseball bat.”

  Something rippled through the body behind her, and she had the horrified suspicion it was laughter. “And you dumped her over the balcony?” he said in an even voice.

  “No. She still came after me, but she ran out of bullets, and then she was trying to choke me, so I shoved her, and that’s when she fell.”

  He turned her in his arms, with surprising gentleness, tilting her chin up so he could look at her throat. His face was expressionless but his fingers were gentle. “You’ll have some bruising,” he said. “But you’re in one piece, and that’s what matters. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  She looked up at him dazedly. “You didn’t answer my question. Did you leave the gun behind on purpose?”

  There was no change in the emotionless face, but his eyes darkened, and her brain woke up enough to regret her words.

  “I promise you one thing, Jenny,” he said, and she’d never heard him call her by her name before. “If I decide you’re going to die I’ll kill you myself. I don’t leave things to fate.” His words were cold, clipped. “Either come with me now or take your chances with the rest of the Guiding Light when they show up.” He stepped away from her, removing his protective warmth.

  She couldn’t summon any words, so she simply nodded, following him out into the bright, cheerful sunlight, leaving the house of death behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The ride down the mountain was made in complete silence. Ryder had commandeered an ancient jeep, in worse shape than the one they had first used, but it bumped its way over the barely perceptible roads without complaint, splashing through deep channels of water that sent sprays of mud up the sides and over Jenny, bouncing over gravel and stones and small tree trunks without hesitation. She’d managed to unearth a seat belt, but Ryder was driving like a bat out of hell, and if she didn’t know better she would have suspected he was driving fast more out of rage than necessity.

  It wasn’t until they were down on level ground that she noticed the fresh blood on his hand as he shifted gears, the blood that had accumulated all around the stick shift. “You’re hurt!” she said involuntarily, startled.

  “Yeah, so what?” he snarled, stomping on the accelerator. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? You’re bleeding.”

  “What the fuck do you care?”

  She was emerging from her horror-filled thoughts to stare at him. “If you bleed to death, then chances are I’ll die out here as well,” she shot back furiously. “Pull over and let me see how bad it is.”

  “It’ll be a cold day in hell, gorgeous,” he muttered. “It’s just a through and through in the fleshy part of my arm. A couple of Band-Aids will fix it.”

  “In that case stop and we’ll find the Band-Aids,” she snapped.

  “This jeep doesn’t come with a first-aid kit.”

  “Then I’ll find something to bind you up. Stop the fucking jeep!” A distant part of her brain wondered at her language. Her father had always hated it when she swore, and she’d never dared use anything stronger than damn and hell in his presence. But right now it was a holy fuck of a day.

  Ryder slammed on the brakes so fast that Jenny would have gone through the windshield if she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt. He was wearing a loose jacket, and if she hadn’t been so caught up in her own horrors, she would have noticed the dark patch of blood on the upper arm. She unfastened her seat belt with shaking hands, then started rummaging through the front of the jeep. “Take off your jacket,” she ordered, coming up with a beer-can opener, a bandanna, three oily rags, and a roll of duct tape.

  “You think you’re putting any of those filthy rags on me and you can guess again. Unless you’re trying to kill me. Which I suppose would serve me right since I deliberately left the gun with Soledad, hoping she was strong enough to shoot you before she died.”

  It sounded absurd when he said it. “Shut up,” she muttered.

  “But why? I thought you wanted the truth. Of course I left the gun with Soledad. I should have known three bullets center mass wouldn’t kill the bitch, but then I thought I’d spare your tender sensibilities by leaving her as she lay rather than turn her over and finish her off with a head shot. Of course I was hoping she’d be able to reach the gun she fell on and take care of you, but things don’t always work out as we plan, now do they?”

  “All right, I’m sorry I asked!” Jenny said. “It’s just that you never make mistakes, and leaving that gun behind . . .”

  He sighed. “Leaving that gun underneath Soledad’s body was the very least of my mistakes in the last week.”

  “What was the worst?”

  “You.”

  Okay, she was a glutton for punishment. She knew that answer was coming long before he said it, and she didn’t even flinch. “Are you going to take off that jacket?” she said in a dangerous voice.

  In answer he shrugged out of it. He was right—the bullet had gone through the fleshy part of his upper arm, tearing across the skin. “That’s not harmless,” she said. “You’ve got muscles there.” She could feel a sudden warmth in the pit of her stomach. Of course he had muscles in his arms—he’d held her, carried her, rocked her when he’d killed the snake.

  “I’ll live,” he said dryly.

  “There’s a stream up ahead. Do you think it
’s safe to wash it off?”

  He shrugged, and the gesture didn’t seem to cause him any pain. “I’ll take antibiotics when we get back to town.” He slid out of the driver’s seat and stalked toward the stream, and Jenny followed after him, bringing the bandanna and the duct tape. He was kneeling by the stream, splashing water up his blood-streaked arm, and she could see the tear was still oozing blood. Coming down beside him, she began to wash the bandanna in the stream, hoping to get some of the dirt off it.

  “If you think you’re wrapping that around my arm, you can guess again,” he drawled. “It’ll still be filthy.”

  “It’s the cleanest cloth I have.”

  “I think we should use your panties.”

  She looked at him in shock, certain he was kidding. He wasn’t. “They’re relatively clean, and considering their proximity to holy virgin territory they’re probably supernaturally blessed. You can count the instant healing as your first step toward a miracle.”

  “I wasn’t a virgin.”

  “Well, you fuck like one.”

  The words were so cruel they took her breath away. She turned her face so he wouldn’t see how he affected her, and muttered, “I’m not taking off my underpants to bandage your arm.”

  “Softhearted, aren’t you?” He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and presented it to her. “Then use this. I won’t enjoy it half as much, but then, I’m not in a very good mood.”

  “I know you don’t give a damn, but if your bad mood has anything to do with me then I’m sorry,” she said, feeling stupid.

  “You mean when you accused me of trying to murder you? I’m hardly going to get all butt-hurt over something like that—I don’t give a flying fuck what you think of me.” He leaned back, most of the blood gone from his arm except for the fresh rivulet beginning to slide down.