Money, Honey

by Susan Sey

  For one horrible moment, Patrick looked beyond tempted. Liz stood frozen beside him, knowing she should stop him, knowing she had a duty to stand between Villanueva and whatever Patrick was ready to deal out. But she couldn’t even open her mouth against the incandescent fury that had transformed him into some kind of dark angel of vengeance. She watched in helpless fascination as Patrick drove the knife through the meaty flesh at the base of Villanueva’s thumb without an ounce of effort or regret.

  A terrible noise hissed through Villanueva’s clenched teeth as Patrick gave the blade a tiny twist. “Do we understand one another?” He could have been inquiring about the weather, so cool and detached was his voice. “That was your radial nerve. You won’t lose your thumb, but you’ll never have quite the same dexterity or range of motion in that hand. I’m considering it a public service. I missed the artery by a wish but I could try again. I’m fully prepared to continue in this vein—so to speak—until you’re quite clear on what I’d like from you. Shall I go on?”

  “Finish it, O’Connor.” Villanueva was sprawled on the floor, hair sticking to the sheen of sweat on his forehead. His lips peeled back in a fierce snarl but Liz saw pain and something new—fear?—slide into his eyes. “Grow up and finish this.”

  “You know, I find myself tempted,” Patrick said softly, almost to himself. As if he were musing over the pros and cons of a reasonable suggestion. “I’m actually quite tempted to do just that. Liz? Darling? What do you think?” He could have been asking if she’d like her drink refreshed, there was so little feeling in his voice, in his face when he turned to her.

  But the breath caught in her throat when she looked at him. Really looked at him. Because while his body was absolutely relaxed and easy, his eyes were blazingly hot, alive with rage and temptation and barely leashed vengeance. He wanted to kill this man, she knew it with every cell in her body. He wanted it quite desperately, but had disciplined that desire, chained it down. And the more it ate at him, the more remote he became, the more he retreated behind the smooth sophistication Liz had never quite forced herself to look past before.

  She’d been wrong about so much, she realized now. The money, the clothes, the manners, they weren’t any part of him at all. They weren’t what he felt or who he was. They were simply a way for him to hide when he was feeling more than he deemed wise to feel.

  But she knew him now, with her heart instead of her eyes, and she didn’t see a man who could casually deal out torture and death. He crouched before her, one hand on the hilt of the knife protruding from Villanueva’s hand, the desire to avenge and protect practically pulsing in the air around him, but he was offering her his sword. His obedience.

  She put one hand over his on the knife, staying it. She put the other on his cheek in a gesture that both gave and sought forgiveness.

  “Patrick,” she said softly, rubbing her thumb lightly over the sharp curve of his jaw. “It’s done now. Please.”

  He smiled at her, though it was tight and edgy, then turned to Villanueva. “The lady is merciful,” he told him. “Your lucky day.” He glanced back at Liz. “He’s out.”

  She leaned over his shoulder to look at Villanueva’s unconscious face. “We should call for backup,” she said. “We’re putting him in prison for life; we ought to make sure it’s a long time. I’d hate to have him pop off from a brain bleed before he gets to see the inside of his cage.”

  “He’s fine. This is just a flesh wound—” Patrick yanked the knife free from Villanueva’s hand, wiped it on the man’s pants then sliced through the ropes still binding Liz’s ankles. “And he didn’t hit his head when he went down.”

  “No?” Liz rubbed carefully at her screaming feet. “Then why’s he out like a frat boy at Mardi Gras?”

  “Because I drugged him.”

  Chapter 27

  “YOU DRUGGED him?” She stared at him, astonished. After the past twenty-four hours, she hadn’t thought she could be surprised by anything. She’d been wrong.

  Patrick gave her an impatient look as he rubbed briskly at her feet. “What? You wanted a fair fight?”

  “Well, no, but . . .” She trailed off, moaned against the vicious return of sensation to her feet. “You really drugged him?”

  “Of course I did. I’m not an idiot, Liz. I’ve got nothing against a good brawl, but the guy’d been honing his knife skills in Central America for the past six years, dreaming of nothing but slicing me into ribbons. Did you really expect me to ante up without making sure the odds were in my favor?” He smiled at her then, but it was self-deprecating and just a little bitter. “I’m not above cheating, Liz. Particularly with your life on the line.”

  She ignored that. “How?”

  “How did I drug him?”

  She limited herself to a nod. It had been a very disorienting twenty-four hours and she didn’t trust herself to speak. God knows what she might ask.

  “The money,” Patrick said, helping her to her feet as the blood surged back into them. “While Oz and Goose were printing it up—”

  Liz blinked. “Wait, you have more money than God and you paid my ransom with fake bills?”

  “Well of course. What did you expect?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. I think I might be insulted. I’ll let you know.” She took an experimental step, stifled an involuntary curse. “So while Oz and Goose were printing up the fake money . . . ?”

  “I had Oz add a little something extra.”

  “Like what?”

  “A date-rape drug. Oz has some predictable connections, given his choice of hobbies.”

  Liz frowned at him. “Every date-rape drug I’ve heard of needs to be ingested somehow. How did you get it into him? I was distracted, I’ll admit, but I’d have noticed him eating a C-note.”

  “Your war on drugs sucks. You know that, right?” Patrick smiled, but it was still tight and violent. “As it happens, there’s a new variant of Special K making the rounds. Absorbed right through the skin. Doesn’t knock you out, really. Unless you get punched in the face, of course.” He smiled down at Villanueva. “It just slows you down, makes you a little more suggestible than usual.”

  “So.” Liz spoke slowly, trying to take it all in. “A knife-wielding maniac kidnaps me and instead of breaking down the door with the SWAT team like any normal person, you decide to drug him instead. With a date rape drug that you solicited from the juvenile delinquent we just busted, whom you also hit up for enough fake money to pay the ransom.”

  “That’s about it,” Patrick said. “How are your feet?”

  She ignored him. Emotion ran up in a sudden wave, crashing over her head and tightening her throat. She forced herself to speak anyway. He’d protected her with his life. She owed it to him to reveal at least this much of herself.

  “I don’t think I could have survived watching you die,” she said quietly. “I just don’t think I could, and I can’t believe you almost made me do it. Do you really hate me that much?”

  “Liz, darling.” He took her hands in his. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Then why did you do that?” She felt raw, exposed and completely incapable of dissembling. “I love you, Patrick. It would kill me to see you hurt. What were you trying to do?”

  “Protect what’s mine.”

  She glanced at the mangy stuffed bunny still sitting on the table by the briefcase. Evie’s. She’d guessed as much. His hands were large and warm and incredibly dear, and Liz could feel her own trembling inside them. Her throat ached with unshed tears and the effort to keep them that way.

  “Your sister and her family would have been just as safe if you’d gone the SWAT team route, you know,” she said, pulling one hand free and swiping it under her nose. “You didn’t have to go hand-to-hand with a violent criminal to protect them.”

  “But I did,” Patrick said. “Villanueva’s operating on a pretty primitive world order. You can lock him in a cage, but the instant he gets out, he’ll dedicate himself to hunting down an
d destroying any enemies who haven’t proven themselves too costly to engage. A show of strength was the only way to protect the people I love.” His hands closed tighter over hers and she looked up to find his eyes on her, intense and wildly blue. “And despite what you think of me, I am capable of love, Liz.”

  She smiled at that. “I’ve never doubted it,” she said. “Nobody sacrifices what you did for your sister without knowing what love is.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m trying to say—”

  The door crashed open under a furious assault from the outside and Liz found herself crushed between Patrick’s body and the wall. He’d shoved himself between her and whatever threat was pouring through the door, she realized. Protecting her again. Love and relief poured through her battered soul like a healing balm. She rested her forehead between his shoulder blades, felt rather than saw him relax.

  “Looks like you got your wish after all,” he said, that old-money drawl back in his voice. “The SWAT team has arrived.”

  Liz looked around him to see the room swarming with agents in navy windbreakers with FBI emblazoned across the backs in bold gold letters, guns drawn, shouting to one another in the verbal shorthand that had become like a second language to her.

  Then SAC Bernard was there, his face lined with responsibility and a fair amount of temper. He glanced at Patrick with what looked like animosity, then turned to Liz. “What’s your condition, Brynn?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Patrick spoke over her. “She needs to see an EMT. She was bound for several hours and her circulation may have been impaired.” He pushed a lock of hair away from her cheek with a casual flick of a finger. “Somebody ought to take a look at that shiner of hers, too.”

  Liz reached up and fingered her cheekbone. Jesus, it felt like somebody’d driven a truck over her face.

  “He had a decent swing,” she said. “But I’m fine. Really. If I were concussed or something, I’d have had symptoms overnight, but—”

  This time SAC Bernard spoke over her. “I want you checked out. And I want your report on my desk by tomorrow, noon.”

  Liz looked at his hard face and decided not to argue. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  An EMT appeared at her elbow and she allowed him to draw her toward a quiet corner.

  “I still want to talk to you,” she yelled over the noise to Patrick, who waved a reassuring hand at her and turned back to accept his dressing-down from her boss.

  “Pipe down, will you?” The EMT frowned at her over his blood pressure cuff. “You want to stay out of the hospital tonight, you’ll make a serious effort to relax. Your pressure’s through the roof.”

  Liz sighed, leaned her head against the cinder-block wall at her back and concentrated on breathing in some kind of normal pattern.

  SAC BERNARD watched him with stony eyes and Patrick looked back without a shred of remorse.

  “You fucked me,” Bernard said, his lips barely moving.

  Patrick nodded. It was beside the point to mention that Bernard had been trying to fuck him. They both knew he had. He tipped his head, considered the man in front of him.

  “Tell me, Bernard. What if it had been your wife? Your kids? You come across a lot of dangerous people in your line of work, you know that sometimes violence is the only language spoken or understood. Would you really have let the system stand for your family, or would you have sent a message yourself?”

  Bernard was still for a long, tense moment; then he said, “I can’t answer that.”

  Patrick accepted that with a shrug. “Of course you can’t. But you understand.”

  “Yeah. I do.” He blew out a breath, and all that solid squareness seemed to sag for a moment. “But I can’t condone it. And I can’t condone the rest of it, either.”

  “The rest of it?” Patrick’s spine tried to stiffen, but he forced it to slouch instead. Forced himself to laze into the arrogant posture that had been his home for so long.

  “You’ll kill her career,” Bernard said simply. He didn’t look away from Patrick, didn’t shift his gaze or shuffle his feet. There was regret in his face, but no uncertainty. “She’s talented, she’s driven and she’s passionate about what she does. Agents like Brynn aren’t easy to come by and she has a future with us. A damn bright one. Before you go any further with this, you need to know that you’ll cost her that future.”

  Patrick didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. It was the truth, a truth he’d always known in some piece of his heart. He’d gotten momentarily caught up, he supposed. In the romance of the moment, in the adrenaline of victory. He’d almost told her everything. That he loved her, that he wanted her. Not just for a night or for a dozen nights, but for the rest of his life, in whatever capacity she’d allow him.

  Christ, he’d almost begged. And wouldn’t that have put her in an awful position? He didn’t doubt that she loved him. Even if he hadn’t trusted what he’d heard in her voice, seen in her eyes, he’d go to his grave feeling the press of her body against his, shielding him from a madman’s knife.

  What kind of man would force her to choose between the two things she loved most in the world?

  Patrick met Bernard’s eyes, found an unexpected compassion in them. It made it easier somehow to muster up the nonchalant smile he’d perfected all those years ago. “I fear you’ve misunderstood my interest in Agent Brynn,” he said lightly.

  Bernard nodded. “I must have,” he said. “I assumed you were planning to stay in town.”

  “No. I’ll be flying back to California tonight.”

  “I see.” Bernard extended a hand. “The FBI appreciates your service.”

  Patrick took his hand, shook it. “My pleasure.”

  He glanced over the man’s shoulder, saw Liz shake off the EMT and stalk over to her team. Bruises stood out starkly against that gorgeous, creamy skin, but her eyes were clear, and every line of her body exuded purpose and calm authority. She was doing what she’d been made for, he knew. His heart swelled with pride, then broke with regret.

  He slipped out the door before she could turn back to him.

  Chapter 28

  One month later

  Patrick stood in his darkened living room and considered fate’s elegant way with a backhand while he gazed out the window. The view was spectacular—black, rolling hills stretching out toward the twinkling lights of a distant city, all of it neatly framed by an entire wall of glass. He’d worked damn hard for this sprawling almost-castle in the desert. He couldn’t have cared less about the house; it was the view he’d wanted. Needed. The feeling of space, of isolation, of miles and miles of empty air between him and the world.

  It soothed something restless in his soul to stand in front of this window night after night drinking in the view, but tonight he didn’t even see it. Tonight, he was watching the window itself, and the reflection it showed him of the surveillance monitor embedded in the opposite wall. He didn’t turn to study the monitor itself; he didn’t need to. He’d have recognized her anywhere, his little housebreaker.

  The irony of it made him smile. Liz Brynn, of all the damned people, was blowing through his security system with a panache that would have made better thieves than he propose without a prenup. His heart leapt painfully, joyfully at the sight of her, and he gave a self-deprecating chuckle.

  Had he really deluded himself so badly? Had he really thought that just because he couldn’t say with exact certainty how many days it had been since he’d left her in that dank little basement room that he was making progress? That his heart wasn’t quite as broken?

  He tossed back a mouthful of whiskey with a brief, violent motion. What the hell was she doing here? He watched while her reflection made short work of his intricate security system.

  She was good, he thought wryly, powering down the monitors. But then she always had been. Wasn’t that just the problem?

  The monitors sank back into the wall and polished maple panels, complete with origin
al if incomprehensible oil paintings, slid silently into place over them. He heard her enter the room—she made no apparent effort to muffle the click of her high heels against his gleaming wood floors—but he didn’t turn. She wore heels for breaking and entering, he thought a little wildly. He took another sip of whiskey, let it burn down his throat and reached for self-control.

  “You’re slipping, Patrick,” she said, and he could hear the smug grin in her voice. “Your security system is for crap.”

  He took a moment to study her reflection in the window, to prepare himself. She wore sky-high heels and a knee-length trench coat, and from her wasp-waisted silhouette, he’d lay decent odds that the coat covered up some amazing, vintage dress. He told himself he didn’t want to know which one.

  He pulled in a breath, then turned to face her.

  “Liz,” he said, infusing the single syllable of her name with just the right degree of polite reserve, as if she’d crashed a cocktail party rather than broken into his house. As if it hadn’t been a viciously painful month since they’d last spoken. “How delightful to see you. Care for a drink?” He tilted his glass toward the Waterford decanter on the sideboard.

  Her eyes stayed sober and dark, but her voice was airy when she said, “Don’t mind if I do.”

  She stepped into the room like the seasoned debutante she was, running her gaze lightly over him, then over the surroundings. “Quite a place you have here.”

  Patrick lifted an eyebrow at the noncompliment. “A bit modern for your taste, I imagine.”

  “Mmmm.” She skirted the sharp edge of a low glass table, then paused to study a canvas full of the slashing blacks and reds his obscenely expensive decorator seemed to favor. She threw him a pitying glance over her shoulder. “It’s a bit modern for your taste, if I recall. When are you going to let yourself settle down, Patrick?”

  “I am settled,” he said easily. “I even know where the nearest Home Depot is. Not that I’ve ever been in it.” He moved toward the sideboard to pour her a drink. Refreshing his own held a certain appeal, as did turning his back on the full impact of her gaze.