“Hey, Baas. How ya feeling?” his partner asked, leaning over him.
He forced a hard swallow and struggled to force the words past his lips. “Where…where’s Taylor…”
“She’s okay. They’re just cleaning her up. They’ll bring her in shortly.”
A quiet sigh of relief escaped him. Giving a slow nod, he looked to his partner in question. “What…how is she?”
Josh shrugged. Leaning back, he scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. “She’s a tough one, Baas. It was a little touch and go at first. She had some sort of allergic reaction that kept messing up her heart. We’re not sure if it’s something the team gave her or if it was a side effect of the neurotoxins Laychee’s men injected her with, but she’s out of the woods now. Like you, she’s got a few cuts, a concussion, and some cracked ribs, but it’s not that bad.”
A soft snort escaped him. “Not that bad,” he repeated in a strained whisper.
The pain and reluctance on his partner’s face lent him pause. His stare bore into Josh for a long moment. Uncomfortable beneath its weight the other man squirmed, making the chair creak.
“What is it?” Sebastian asked. “What aren’t you telling me?” His heart sank and he clenched his jaw. “Did they rape her?”
“No. No, they didn’t rape her, but I…” Josh blew out a shaky breath.
“Spit it out.”
His partner shook his head. “They found traces of gunpowder. They think--”
Sebastian cut him off with a shake of his head. “Don’t,” he warned. “Stop. I’m capable of drawing my own conclusions. I don’t want to hear anymore.”
Gritting his teeth so hard his gums ached, he forced his attention back to the ceiling. Rage detonated like a bomb inside his chest, making his lean muscles quiver beneath the sheets. Shaking, he fought to keep a tenuous hold on his emotions. More than anything, he just wanted to be left alone.
“Baas, tell me what to do. How to fix this.”
“I want them dead,” he rasped. “All of them. Anyone who had anything to do with this. I want them buried. I don’t care what it takes or what you have to do. Find them. That includes whatever survivors are left on my pathetic excuse for a security team. Find a new one. They can’t be trusted.”
“Sebastian…”
“You asked what you could do,” he said coldly, turning his head to pin his partner with an icy glare. “Now do it.”
“What do you want me to do about Henderson? The guy is barely holding on, but he saved her life, Baas.”
“Saved her?” he asked, his voice hitching with disbelief. “No, Josh. He didn’t save anything. If he had done his job in the first place, those men would have never set foot in my house. Someone should have called the authorities. Something. How do I know this wasn’t some ploy where he could come out looking like the hero? Those men infiltrated my security before. Why not now?”
“Sebastian…”
“No,” he said, cutting him off. His glare pierced the darkened shadows cloaking the room. “How do I really know?”
Josh lowered his head with a sorrowful shake. “You don’t, Baas.”
“One of my own teammates stuck a knife in my back and tried to kill me.”
“I know,” Josh said softly.
“Do you?” he asked. His shoulders jerked with feigned humor. “They put a plastic bag over my head. It’s not the first time we’ve experienced that, though, is it?” He turned his attention to the ceiling. “It’s just different somehow when it’s not an exercise. I know I have enemies. After all the things we’ve done, I’d be a fool to think people didn’t want me dead. I just never expected one of them to be a member of my own team—a man that I looked after and considered my family. Do you know why he did it, Josh?”
“No, Baas. I don’t.”
“He did it because I did my job. He did it because in the process of watching his back and looking out for every other member of this team, I had to put one sorry excuse for an agent down. And now,” he said, trailing off with a sorrowful laugh, “now I have to do it all over again. So you tell me, where does this end? At the end of the day, who can I really trust?”
A long, tense silence ensued.
“I’ll always have your back. You know that.”
He stared at Josh for a long moment then nodded. “I sincerely hope so. Marx was right. Mercy and compassion have gotten me nowhere and brought me nothing but a world of pain. From now on, if someone so much as breathes in the wrong direction, I will have his head on a stick.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know what bothers me the most?”
“What’s that?” his partner asked, hanging his head.
“We tagged that son-of-a-bitch. Someone somewhere along the way had to know he was at my house. Even if just for a minute, yet no one made a move to stop him. Tell me why that is.”
“I don’t know, Sebastian,” Josh admitted quietly. “It was late. Maybe no one noticed. Maybe they did. Maybe they showed up, but it was too late. That would explain how Marx knew to search for her on the way to the hospital.”
His shoulders jerked with a humorless huff. “He knew this was coming. Marx wanted it to happen. The only reason Taylor is here is because he realized things went south and he was scrambling to cover his ass. He wanted her out of the way. Don’t think I’ve forgotten what he said. I will never forgive him for this.”
Josh stood and patted his arm. “You’ve had a long night. I’ll take care of everything, Baas. You need to rest up and try to get some sleep.”
“Not until I see Taylor again. And Josh?”
Turning from the door, his partner paused. Hesitancy flickered across his shadowy features.
“Yeah, Baas?”
“Thank you.”
Chapter 15 ~
Taylor fought her way through the comforting arms of sleep to find Sebastian looming over her. His eyes searched her face, the mesmerizing sage pools offering both reassurance and familiarity. They were a welcome sight among the cold grey walls and sterile linoleum floor that had permeated her dreams and the sparse moments when she’d been awake. The harsh tang of disinfectants hung in the air, giving the impression of a hospital, but the undercurrent—the general feel of the room itself was much more menacing.
She felt like she had spent a lifetime there, sleeping but not living. Sebastian toyed with a tangled lock of her hair. Reaching up, she trailed her fingers over the strong ridge of his cheek, a tired smile dangling from her lips. He dropped a wink in her direction and snared her hand, pulling it away from his face to plant a kiss against her palm.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured. “How are you feeling?”
She smothered a yawn and blushed. “Exhausted.”
“It’s the medication. It will wear off soon.”
“How long have we been here?”
He hollowed his cheeks for a moment, his gaze shifting beyond her to the heavy metal door. “Three weeks.”
Numbness and confusion spiraled through her. At least it explained how the bruising on his face was mostly gone, leaving only faint yellow traces in its wake. Three weeks though? That was such a long time. Time they would never get back. She sighed, sinking deeper into the pillows as she did the math in her head. They’d missed Saint Patrick’s Day. The onset of spring. Her birthday. It had all slipped by while they lay trapped in some drug-induced slumber.
Taylor felt the weight of his stare grow even heavier and more pronounced. Sebastian was watching her, gauging her reaction. Releasing the breath she’d been holding, she forced a smile she didn’t quite feel.
“At least most of the pain is gone. Can we go home soon?”
He stroked her hair, his expression unreadable. Taylor searched his eyes, needing some small indication that he wanted their life together to continue as badly as she did. She turned the diamond ring on her finger as his words that night wormed through her brain, twisting her stomach in knots. He hadn’t meant them. She needed to believe that. They just
needed to get out of here and go home where they could be a normal couple again.
“Soon, baby.”