He kept counting in his head. Concentrated on the image of her face and how good it would be to see her, touch her, again.
Something clamped around his waist and smashed him into the floor. He kicked out and struggled, trying to lift his arms and legs despite the fact that they suddenly seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds each. The battle got away from him. His ability to fight drained from him.
In his smoke-induced stupor he swore he saw Cam’s face, filled with concern through the mask. Then his body floated. Shane couldn’t explain it and feared he verged on passing out. Hallucinations and sliding into unconsciousness. If those happened together he sensed he’d die.
With one last kick of adrenaline he surged up, thinking to throw himself into the nearest wall. Instead he slammed into something that felt like a body. Arms wrapped around him and pulled. The smoke drifted over him, and then he broke free. He could see the ground and fire.
“Shane, talk to me.” Connor’s voice washed over him.
He chalked it up to one last strange vision. Connor wasn’t exactly the last person Shane thought he’d see before he lost it. Connor held something. Then Shane inhaled and his senses cleared. A mask covered his mouth, and fresh air pumped through him, burning him. He had to throw the mask off to cough.
He doubled over as the painful hacking overtook every muscle. He felt as if he were being sliced and torn from the inside out.
The roughness in his throat made it difficult to swallow. But he was alive. Connor stood in front of him with Cam off to the side, stripping out of a blanket that had been wrapped around him.
They’d gone in after him and yanked him out. Probably never even weighed the risks. Cam had performed the rescue, but Connor had likely choreographed it. Bottom line: without them, he’d be dead. Corcoran had saved him in every way possible, including here and now. The move humbled Shane and he was filled with gratitude, but there was one piece he needed to fit in with the rest. Her.
When he straightened again, he felt weak and exhausted, as if every last ounce of strength had been used up and expired. One thought kept going through his mind. “Where’s Makena?”
Cam and Connor glanced at each other as the flames danced all around them. A gnawing sensation started in Shane’s gut. A new burst of energy hit him and drowned out everything else.
“Connor, where is she?”
Cam stepped in next to him and they stood there like an impenetrable wall, blocking his view of anything else and his line to the fire. Anxiety welled inside Shane and he had to fight to keep from tearing down the burning structure with his bare hands.
Connor held up a hand. “We need you to stay calm.”
“Where is she?” That was all he wanted to know. He could take another step, another breath, once he knew.
Connor’s hand didn’t fall. “Listen to me.”
“Just show him.” Cam stepped to the side and pointed. In the distance, on the other side of the wall of flames, a figure crouched down. Large and male. He lifted something... Shane blinked and tried to get his sore eyes to focus. Makena. Tyler had Makena.
He surged forward, intent on yelling and running. Strong hands held him back. Cam and Connor wrestled with Shane, dragging him to the ground as they covered his mouth and held on. His reduced strength was no match for their combined attack. He struggled to break free, shoving at them and landing more than one punch.
“We have to get her.” The words echoed in his brain as desperation washed over him.
Cam held him from behind and Connor knelt in front. Their will pounded into Shane, but he tried to wave it off. There was no other play here. They needed to start shooting and not stop until Tyler dropped to the ground.
“We’ll follow,” Connor said in a tighter voice than usual.
Not good enough. Shane wanted her away from that guy. He’d walked right into the safe house and planted a bomb. Had done it like a pro. No sweating or panic. In Shane’s mind that made the guy some sort of psychopath and put Makena in even bigger danger. “Now, we go now.”
“We’d never make it in time thanks to the fire.” Connor shook his head. “And we’d put her in the middle of a shootout.”
“She’ll lead us right to Tyler.” Cam said the words right into Shane’s ear.
“She is not a decoy. She can’t...no.” He looked from Connor to Cam. “Would you agree to this for Jana or Julia? No way. This is the same thing.” Words tumbled out of him. “And if you don’t care about how I feel, think about Holt. He’ll kill us all for letting her be in danger for even one second longer than necessary.”
They would fight for the women they loved, and so would Shane. Even if it meant knocking out two of his closest friends.
“She’s going to be fine. I promise you.” Connor sounded so sure, as if he believed every word he said and that by saying them he could make them true.
But Shane knew better. His mind started to clear, and the list of things that could go wrong piled up. “You don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that.”
Connor stood up. “You don’t have a choice.”
Shane had never felt so desperate or helpless. “Connor, please.”
Cam lifted Shane to his feet and stood with Connor. “Let’s go.”
It hurt to stand up. Hurt to breathe in. Shane vowed to suck it all up and take it if it meant saving her. “If this doesn’t work...”
Connor handed Shane a gun. “It will.”
* * *
TODAY HAD ROLLED out like a nightmare in her head, and it wasn’t over yet.
Makena needed a hospital before the dizziness overtook her and she passed out. She also needed some word about Shane. Her insides felt shredded. Panic ran through her like air. Her mind kept zipping back to the moment of the explosion. She tried to remember pulling him out through the window with her, but feared that was wishful thinking. That it had never happened.
If she were anywhere else, if she had minutes to think, she might be able to put the pieces together in her head. Instead she sat at Tyler’s kitchen table and played house. He walked around serving coffee, acting normal. Or some version of normal.
“Tyler, please listen to me.” She tried to move her arm and bit back a scream when the bindings cut into her skin.
She couldn’t move her legs or arms. She tried to wiggle her hands behind her, get a little bit of give in the rope so she could slip a hand through, but they were so bound so tightly her fingers had started going numb.
He sat down across from her and opened his laptop. “We’ll go to dinner soon, and then you should go to bed early.”
He spoke as if this were their routine instead of some messed-up delusion in his head. He’d suffered some sort of break. No question. The anger he’d had back when Shane confronted him had disappeared. This Tyler acted as if they were locked in a twisted form of domestic tranquility.
She would have ached for him if she could conquer the terror buzzing in her head long enough to think about anything else. She didn’t think he would hurt her, but she didn’t know. This Tyler was not a man she knew. He’d been pushed to the edge and now he lived in a world she didn’t understand. One that had fear crashing through her so hard that she had to fight back tears.
“Could I go to the bathroom?”
Tyler peeked up at her. Fury highlighted his features. One minute he looked ready to tuck her into bed and the next he looked as if he could kill her. This was one of those latter moments. “No.”
She wanted to reason with him, bring him back to reality. She didn’t even know if that sort of thing was possible. “You can untie me.”
“So you can go to him?” Tyler snapped the laptop shut. “No.”
Shane. She thought about him and sadness rolled over her. She had to fight back the tears and pain, and push through. “We can talk about this.”
Tyler shook his head. “You gave me no choice.”
Okay, she could handle this. “I did.”
His gaze narrowed. “We had someth
ing and you threw it away.”
She had to assume this was part of the delusion. A piece where he viewed whatever they’d had as more than a working relationship. “I didn’t know how you felt. You never told me.”
“You knew.”
Some part of her sensed that she needed to keep him talking and prolong this as much as possible. It would take forever for the team to discover her missing. And if they were busy mourning Shane...no, no, no. She dragged her thoughts back from that abyss and kept pretending. “How could I?”
The legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back and stood up. “That’s not possible. I gave you more and more responsibility. I risked everything for you.”
“Tell me how.” She tried to lure him in while she spent every spare second visually searching the room for a weapon. “What did you do for me?”
“You researched cases that came so close to me. You almost wrecked all I built, but I forgave you.” Tyler dumped out his freshly poured coffee in the sink. “I had it handled until that request came through the website. I got them all, but that one slipped through to you.”
She remembered the day well. She’d been looking for a response to something else and had seen the request. Stumbled over it, really. “You were in DC doing research.”
He smiled at her. “Just my luck.”
“Why did that one matter so much?” The subject of the email inquiry had claimed to be Special Forces and a combat veteran. There was talk about sacrificing everything for his men and saving lives. The usual. Nothing exceptional that would have tipped her off or led her back to Tyler.
He shrugged. “We both borrowed the same life story.”
The admission, so subtle and delivered without any emotion, left her breathless. He acted as if his deception didn’t matter. She didn’t know if that was the sickness talking or something evil. “You’re saying...what are you saying?”
“The man you were to investigate told a story much like my own because we both knew a man named Roger Culp. We all grew up in the same small town.”
The truth hit her then. “But only one of you actually went to war.”
“He was a local hero.” Tyler leaned back against the sink and glanced at one of the small monitors attached under the counter. “There was no reason I couldn’t enjoy some of those accolades. Outside the town, of course.”
The justifications sounded so familiar. She heard them every day from the men they listed on the site. That her own boss, the man who had started the project, was one of them hit her like a sharp kick to the stomach.
He nodded toward the monitor. “We have company.”
She followed his gaze, hoping to see Shane ready to storm in, but Tyler didn’t show any fear. From this distance she saw a fuzzy figure outlined in black and white hanging around the front door. A man, but not her man.
As if she’d willed him to do it, he lifted his head. Jeff. The man she’d grown to be more and more uncertain of as the attacks kicked up in intensity. He showed up without warning and his anger festered just under the surface. Now she knew why. He was Tyler’s contact. Likely his way onto the loop, where he could watch and contain the information passed around.
“Your partner is here.” In that moment, she hated them both.
Tyler’s eyebrow lifted. “Not mine.”
Not what she’d expected him to say at all. With his narcissism she’d waited for some sort of self-congratulations. She got something very different. “What do you mean?”
“Your failure to keep up makes me second-guess my faith in you.” Tyler tucked his gun behind his back. “I’ll invite him in.”
He walked away, out of her line of vision. She tried to turn in the chair, but the rope dug into her and burned her skin. Moving her head from side to side, she tried to pick up some clue. She didn’t hear any conversation, just footsteps.
Then Jeff appeared in front of her. His eyes were glazed over with fear and Tyler had a gun pointed at his head. The hold Tyler had on Jeff’s arm didn’t make any sense. If they were working together...she didn’t get it.
“Jeff stopped by to say hello.” Tyler smiled as he said the horrible words.
Jeff’s gaze traveled around the room, over her. “You tied her to a chair.”
“What did you think he would do?” After all the killing and all the attacks, this ending could not be a surprise. It wasn’t to her. She’d seen it coming and tried to avoid it, but failed.
“I thought you were working.” He let out a startled gasp as Tyler threw him in a chair. “I wanted to talk.”
Tyler used his free hand to wrap a rope around Jeff’s chest. The movements proved awkward and ineffective, and he finally let the bindings drop to the floor unused. “You won’t be alive that long anyway.”
“What is going on?” Jeff sounded confused and lost, and both emotions were mirrored in his eyes.
For whatever reason—the fear, the panic—she believed him. “I found out Tyler lied. That he’s one of you.”
Jeff spun around and stared at the man looming over him. “You weren’t in the military.”
A crazed look of desperation lit Tyler’s face. “Stop talking.”
All she needed was a free hand, but she couldn’t get one loose, so she kept the men talking, saying anything to avoid a bullet to her heart. “You didn’t know?”
“I would have used it against him.” Jeff shook his head. “I can’t believe this. After all this time—”
“I said stop.” Tyler shifted until he stood at the head of the table between them. He slipped a knife out of the block and pointed at one of them, and then the other. “Let me explain what’s going to happen. Jeff, you are going to kill Makena in a horrible revenge-filled frenzy.”
The color drained from Jeff’s face as he tried to slide his chair away from Tyler. “I would never—”
Tyler linked his foot around the chair leg and dragged Jeff closer to the tip of the blade. “Makena, you’re going to get one good stab in, and it’ll wound poor Jeff here. But I’ll deliver the final blow with the gun I keep for protection.”
He’d clearly written the sick scene in his head. She’d failed to play her assigned role and now he gave her another one. “Like a hero.”
He glared at her. “I am one.”
“This will never work.” Possible solutions ran through her head. She could crash her chair into him... She ran out after that.
“You had your chance. I wanted you to be my partner.”
Her mind flashed on another scenario. One that would save Jeff, too. Her gaze flicked to him. “How did you get here?”
“I followed you.”
She hoped that meant the Corcoran Team had as well. “I blamed you.” The apology stuck in her throat. She couldn’t get it out, not yet.
“He’s a liar,” Tyler said in a reasonable voice that carried over the mix of shuffling and chair moving happening on the floor.
She tried to pick up each sound and figure out what was happening. Jeff kept looking at her and then staring at Tyler’s stomach. She wasn’t sure what he wanted her to do, but she sensed she and Jeff were in this one together.
Jeff shot her one last intense stare. “No one will believe it. I’m not a killer.”
“Unfortunately for you, I am.” Tyler drew back the knife and stabbed it into Jeff’s side.
She closed her eyes but not before seeing Jeff’s pop open. He groaned and his body doubled over. Blood seeped through his white shirt. The room broke into chaos. The window on the side of the family room shattered and a male figure crashed inside. She turned her head to avoid the flying glass and saw the front door explode off its hinges.
Her eyes refused to focus, but she thought she heard Shane’s voice. The yelling ran together with the banging. The last thing she saw was Tyler reaching for his gun, and then a weight knocked into her, sending her and the chair in a free fall to the floor.
Everything happened at once. A drumbeat thundered in her ears and she strug
gled to loosen her hands, but it was too late. Her body bounced and her head knocked against the hardwood. She heard gunshots as Jeff’s heavy breathing echoed in her ears. Then she couldn’t see or hear anything at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Shane had waited a beat too long. He’d wanted to race in the second Tyler shoved Jeff into the chair. Shane saw the two of them as partners. Sick men who deserved whatever happened next. The full wrath of the Corcoran Team could fall on them and Shane would not suffer one minute of regret. He valued life but not their lives.
Then he saw the blade and Tyler’s gun and silently declared, “Go time.”
The explosives tore the front door apart. Shredded it into sharp pieces and sent them flying. He didn’t wait for the smoke to clear or the space to open, or even for Connor’s signal. Shane ripped the debris out of his way, ignored the cuts to his hands and marched through the door.
He headed for Tyler and didn’t stop. Not when he lifted the gun. Not when he fired at Jeff, who was a blur streaking across the table to cover Makena. Not when Tyler adjusted his aim and the barrel pointed at the general chaos.
He could shoot anyone, looked ready to kill without spending one second thinking about it. He wasn’t a man on the edge. He’d gone careening off it at rapid speed.
Shane didn’t waste time trying to fix Tyler or reason with him. They’d passed that point long ago. To whatever extent he’d ever dealt in reason, he didn’t now. Shane had no choice but to take him down.
He came in firing over the heads of Jeff and Makena, trying to get them to duck and stay down. He wanted to draw Tyler’s fire and keep his mind off the bodies on the floor. In Tyler’s obsessive state, anything could trigger him, and Shane didn’t want to test him.
But Tyler didn’t stick with the plan. He dropped down but kept shooting. He crawled toward Makena, and Shane increased his speed. Breaking every rule and ignoring protocol, he crossed right in front of Cam’s line of fire, heedless of the danger and desperate only to get to her. All those hours of practice and drills faded into the background.
Connor swore and Cam yelled. Shane blocked it all. He had to, because she lay tucked and unmoving. Blood covered her, but he couldn’t tell if it was hers or Jeff’s, as they were piled on top of each other.
Tamed (Corcoran Team: Bulletproof Bachelors Book 3) Page 16
