“Let her go.” He trained the gun on Cole. “They’re coming.”
Cole shifted and set her on the seat behind Mike. As he pulled back, her heart tore. Another retreating step, and her trembling hands slid off his shoulders, down his biceps, her fingers curling, hanging on.
He slipped free, and her palm came away wet. Soaked in blood.
“Oh my God.” Her eyes darted to the hole in his arm, her bloody hand reaching for him. “You were shot?”
Footsteps stampeded toward the truck.
Cole’s gaze stayed with her for another second before he tore it away, spun, and fired the pistol.
“Hold on!” Mike opened the throttle, and the motorcycle lurched forward. She wrapped her arms around him and twisted, watching as Cole shot into the fray and sprinted toward the second bike.
Her hair whipped around her face, obstructing her view as Mike put more and more separation between them and the gunfight. She didn’t breathe until she heard the roar of another engine. She didn’t straighten her neck until Cole appeared off in the distance, bent low over the bike as he sped through the desert in the opposite direction.
Twilight approached, streaking the horizon in ribbons of orange and violet. Within seconds, the swirling shadows swallowed his form. He was safe.
Gone.
A painful clot amassed deep inside her, and a terrible burn bubbled from her chest, forming a lump in her throat and searing the backs of her eyes. Everything she felt was irrational and wrong, but it was real.
What she felt for him was real and raw and unbearable.
She screwed her eyes shut and rested her cheek against Mike’s strong back, her arms holding him tight.
They survived. All three of them. And Cole had given her a name. Now she knew the location of the hard drive.
This wasn’t over.
Not the job.
And not this other thing…this unresolved connection.
She knew at gut level she hadn’t seen the last of Cole Hartman.
Drenched in sweat and trammeled by exhaustion, Cole stood at the bathroom sink in Tomas’ vacant house and patched up the gunshot wound.
It was a clean shot through his bicep, with an entry and exit point. It would hurt like a bitch for a while and fuck with his muscle movement. But it could’ve been worse.
He could be lying beneath the stonecutter in a hundred sliced-up pieces.
Once he finished treating the injury, he slumped onto the couch and contemplated who to call first.
Maybe because the image of red hair was heavy on his mind, he dialed the only ginger he knew.
Luke answered with a heavy exhale of relief. “Holy shit, you’re alive.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“The doubt was real.”
“I’m safe, in case you’re wondering.”
“Where are you?”
“Making a pit stop at the house in the desert.”
He couldn’t stay here. Lydia knew about this place, which meant the person she’d just betrayed knew about it, too. He just needed to grab some gear. Shit, shower, and shave. Then he would be on his way.
“You’ve been missing for a goddamn month,” Luke growled. “Where have you been?”
Despite the overload of fatigue and unease, Cole managed a smile. It was nice to have people who cared enough to worry about him.
“Calm down.” He chuckled. “I made it out with all my parts intact.”
“We thought you were dead.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“We had a funeral service and everything. Van cried. Huge crocodile tears. It made everyone uncomfortable.”
“Fuck off.”
“Seriously, man.” Luke’s voice sobered. “We’ve been freaked the fuck out. What happened?”
“I spent a month in a pitch-black cell, eating hot dogs and listening to thrash metal music.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“Wish I was.”
“What about the freaky Russian pin-up girl? Did she do that to you?”
“She isn’t Russian.” His heart drummed at the mention of her, his thoughts a conflicting jumble of anger and desire. “She restrained me, fucked me, and saved my life.”
A stretch of silence ensued, followed by Luke’s exhale. “I can’t tell by your tone if you participated or if it was torture, so I’m just going to come out and ask. Were you raped?”
Coming from Luke, it was an earnest question. He’d been raped by Van, and most recently, by a strap-on worn by a crazy bitch in La Rocha Cartel.
“Dubious,” Cole said. “In the end, I fucked her in the ass.”
He gave Luke a rundown of the events, walking through the details, and answering one-hundred-and-one questions.
Once Luke was up to speed, Cole asked, “Is everyone back in Colombia?”
“Yeah, we’re all here. We stayed in Texas for a few weeks. When we couldn’t find you, we assumed you’d been transported out of the state. Or out of the country. We didn’t know. So we returned home where we could regroup in a safe place and wait for you to make contact, per your orders.”
“You did good.”
“Now what? There’s a lot you don’t know about these people. What are you going to do?”