Beauty and the Bounty Hunter (32 page)

Suddenly the bush under which the sniper had been concealed shook, then shook some more. The barrel of the rifle jerked backward. Cat didn’t think; she ran, expecting to hear the echo of the report an instant before, or maybe after, a bullet slammed into her back. She reached a curve in the rock alley and slipped around it unharmed.

Cat set her shoulders to the wall just outside the wide-open space. She’d planned to do some sniping of her own, sneak close, put a bullet in his brain before he put a bullet in someone else’s. Now that he knew she was here, that plan had fallen apart.

Should she go in, guns blazing? There was a good chance everyone in the canyon would die if she tried it. Would she risk an innocent life to have her vengeance?

No.

Would she risk Alexi?

Never.

She’d done a lot of things she wasn’t proud of, but Cat still had a line she wouldn’t cross. Until today she hadn’t been quite sure of that.

“Send the woman out,” she shouted.

“I suppose you want to trade? You for her?”

Those words were similar enough. Cat didn’t even have to close her eyes to know.

It was him.

“Yes,” she agreed, keeping her response short.

Her throat had gone tight. She swallowed, then rubbed her sweaty palms against her legs. She could not let him see or hear how finding him at last affected her. She was no longer Cathleen Chase; she was Cat O’Banyon, and Cat was never afraid. If she could only make him, and herself, believe that.

“Come on in.”

“Not until you send her out.”

He laughed. “Ain’t gonna happen.”

“But you said—”

“I said that I supposed you wanted to trade. Didn’t say I was going to.”

Cat tightened her lips over vile obscenities. If she left now, he’d kill his captive. She’d already decided she wouldn’t sacrifice innocence, or Alexi, for vengeance. She’d have her retribution—she’d come too far to give up now that she’d found him—but she was going to have to fashion a better idea. And the only way to do that was to go inside.

Cat stepped into the light, half expecting a bullet to the chest the next instant. Instead, she stared at an ugly little man. Large nose. Pockmarked skin. Lips far too wide for his face. Paunchy. Bowlegged. Bug-eyed. He held a gun to Alexi Romanov’s head.

“Hell,” she muttered. She should have known. She
had
known on some level. She just couldn’t understand why. Alexi wasn’t the type to sacrifice himself for anyone but Mikhail.

But times had changed.
They
had changed. Would those changes be the death of them?

“Toss your gun belt behind you,” the man ordered.
Cat tossed. “The knife too.” Cat complied. “Step away from them both.”

Though she didn’t like leaving the weapons, she really didn’t have much choice with that blasted pistol so near Alexi’s clever brain. She moved closer. “Let him go.”

Alexi rolled his eyes heavenward. She’d obviously ruined his plan—though it hadn’t been a very good one, considering the gun to the head. “Larsen—” he began, but the other man shushed him, still staring at her.

Cat’s hands clenched. At least now her nightmare had a name: Larsen. A face: ugly. However, neither the name nor the face changed anything. The only way anything would change was if he died.

“Where’s your idiot henchman?” Larsen asked.

Alexi’s lips tightened. He never took it kindly when people called Mikhail an idiot. Cat didn’t much like it either. Although she had been wondering the same herself, minus the idiot part.

“I sent him on an errand,” Alexi answered.

Cat heard what he wasn’t saying. Mikhail would never have allowed Alexi out of his sight. He would never have allowed him to attempt a dodge like this. If he were anywhere near, he would have joined her, helped her. Which meant—

Alexi
had
sent Mikhail away. They were on their own. No one would ride to their rescue anytime soon.

Well, she’d managed tricky situations in the past. She wasn’t certain how she’d manage this, but she wasn’t going to give up without a damn good try.

“What kind of woman are you?” Larsen’s voice twisted with hatred and anger. “I kill your husband, and instead of crying—”

“Oh, I cried.”

“Most women, after what I did, would have killed themselves.”

“Not until I kill you,” she muttered, although the idea of killing herself no longer held much appeal. She’d survived this long, and there was no way in hell she was going to let the bastard win. If she had to strangle him with her bare hands or maybe…

Cat considered the creek. Definitely deep enough to drown him in. If he would just lift that gun away from Alexi’s temple. “You really need to keep that barrel against his head? Or are you that poor a shot?”

Alexi cast Cat an exasperated glance at her pathetic ploy, but Larsen did what she wanted. With a curl of his lip, he shoved Alexi in Cat’s direction.

He probably thought Alexi would sprawl on the ground, maybe knock Cat down too, but he underestimated the man’s grace. Alexi didn’t even stumble. Cat caught him by the arm anyway, then stepped between the two of them. She let her gaze wander over Larsen, then allowed her lip to curl the same way his had. “I thought you’d be taller.”

Alexi made a strangled sound—between a laugh and a cough—and Cat had to fight not to laugh herself. She was furious to find him here. She was also so glad to see him she was having a hard time not pulling him close and covering his face with kisses.

In view of the situation, and who stood in front of her, she should be shaking and trying not to puke. Oddly, she had no desire to do either one. Alexi was near. He hadn’t left her. She wasn’t alone. Together, they could accomplish anything. Even this.

“Why did you do it?” Larsen demanded.

“You think I’d just let you kill Billy and move on?” Cat inched forward. Alexi muttered something in Russian and followed. She wanted to tell him to stay where he was, but that would alert Larsen to their movements. The man glared at Cat’s face so intently she didn’t think
he’d noticed, and she wanted to keep it that way. If she could just get close enough to—

“I meant, why’d you send him?”

“I didn’t,” she said, advancing another tiny step. “I followed Ben and someone I knew wasn’t me.” Cat paused. If Larsen thought she’d come for Alexi, that she’d go to great lengths to make sure no harm came to him, Alexi would be dead. “I couldn’t let Ben sacrifice an innocent woman in my place.” Which begged the question: “Why did he?”

Larsen knew what Cat looked like; he wouldn’t be fooled by another woman. He hadn’t even been fooled by Alexi for long.

“Ben knew,” Alexi said. “That it was me.”

“Then why—?”

“He thought the damn foreigner would kill me, and he’d be free,” Larsen interrupted.

“Free?” Cat glanced over her shoulder in confusion.

“Ben has—” Alexi peered at the exit. “
Had
a gambling problem.”

Suddenly Cat understood. “He
sold
me?”

“
Oui,
” Alexi murmured.

“Ass,” Cat muttered, facing Larsen once more.

“Oui.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” Larsen spread his hands. The contrast between his stubby, clumsy digits and Alexi’s long, graceful ones was so great they appeared two different species. He stared past Cat to Alexi, gaze narrowed. “You might walk and talk like her. You might even look like her for the first minute. But when a man’s been as close to a woman as I’ve been to Cathleen Chase…” His chuckle was hellfire billowing out of a crevice. Cat could have sworn she smelled brimstone. “He knows.”

Alexi growled. Cat threw out an arm to keep him from charging forward. “Stay,” she ordered, and Larsen’s eyes flicked to hers.

“You didn’t tell him?” Larsen laughed. “And here I thought you fools were in love. Him trying to save you, you trying to save him. Then again…” He licked his thick lips, and his gaze crawled all over her. “Love might have nothing to do with it.”

Cat, who was still amazed she hadn’t felt ill just by being in the man’s presence, suddenly felt ill at the thought of what he meant to reveal, what he already had.

Alexi had taught her how to become someone else. His method had worked very well to keep Cat moving forward and not falling back, to keep her sane and not a shrieking lunatic. She was Cat O’Banyon—a woman without a past. Cat had not been in that farmhouse. She had not heard the shot that killed her husband. She had not listened to him die as the man who killed him tore off her clothes and did things she remembered only in nightmares.

But Larsen wasn’t going to allow her to pretend anymore. He was going to torture her with words before he no doubt tortured her with the same deed. She wasn’t sure she’d survive this time. And maybe that was okay. As long as Alexi did. She would not stand idly by while another man gave his life for hers.

Alexi moved in front of her. “She didn’t have to tell me.”

In the process of stepping in front of
him
, Cat whirled. “What?”

He shrugged. “I knew.”

“You…knew?”

“Of course. Why do you think I taught you what I taught you?”

“I asked you to.”

He lifted a brow, and she understood. He was not the kind of man who did anything merely for the asking. Alexi Romanov required something in return. The question was why, if he’d known the truth, he had asked for her.

Cat tried to come to terms with this revelation. She still could not quite believe it. Alexi had never given any indication, by word or deed, that he’d known she was ruined. Then again, so was he.

“What was done
to
you does not define you,
il mio piccolo assassino,
” he murmured. “What defines you is who you became because of it.”

“What the hell did you just say?” Larsen demanded.

Alexi’s lips twitched, a smirk just begging to break free. Cat had no idea how he could remain so calm when they were both going to die soon if she didn’t do something.

“I called her my little killer.” Alexi’s gaze went hard as it settled on Larsen. “She will kill you; I will watch.”

“Jesus,” Cat muttered. “Shh.”

“He’s coming,” Alexi said calmly. “He will soon be foolishly close.”

Cat spun even as Alexi tried to push her out of the way. Her hand brushed cool metal. Without thought, her fingers closed around it and she twisted.

The gun went off. Alexi grunted. Crimson spread across the front of his shirt.

Though the explosion, and the result, were not as planned, Cat still managed to turn the pistol in the other direction and cock it. But Larsen was already running hell-bent for the narrow rock exit. She sighted, took a shot, missed. Then Alexi toppled over, and she got distracted.

She lifted her gaze from the man at her feet, who needed her, to the one speeding away, who needed a bullet.

Hell.
Cat dropped the gun and went to her knees.

“What are you doing?” Alexi tried to push away her hands as they unbuttoned his shirt.

“Undressing you.”

“Later,
mo chroí
. Don’t you wish to go after the man who ruined your life and shoot him too?”

Cat narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t shoot you. He did.” Or at least she thought that was what had happened. Things had been a little confusing with both her and Larsen holding the gun.

“Does it matter who shoots, once the shot hits home?”

She’d thought so, but—

Another shot rang out. They both glanced toward the narrow rock entrance. “His men are morons,” Cat muttered.

Alexi’s eyes flicked back to hers. “That wasn’t his man.”

Her lips curved. “Mikhail didn’t go anywhere.”

Which might explain Larsen’s odd dearth of companions. Mikhail had been eliminating them one by one.

“He had an errand,” Alexi said, his answering smile telling Cat her assumption had been correct. “Now he is up there.”

Which meant Larsen was as dead as Ben. She wished she had time to think about that. Instead, Cat yanked on Alexi’s shirt, to which he’d somehow attached fake breasts, spraying buttons across the ground. The wound was high up on the right side, more a glancing blow off his shoulder, though far too close to his pretty face for comfort. Cat felt a little sick.

She tore free a strip of her own shirt and pressed it to
the seeping hole. “Speaking of morons…” She lifted her gaze as Alexi lifted a brow. “What if Larsen had shot you on sight?”

“I would have died on sight.”

“Alexi,” she began.

“A man like that…once he had you to himself…” He turned a palm faceup. “He wouldn’t have wanted you dead right away.”

“You were willing to bet your life on that?”

His gaze met hers. “Better mine than yours.”

“No!” Cat stood, then found herself captured by the blood on her hands. Alexi’s blood. Blood he’d shed for her. She wiped her palms against her pants, but she could still feel it there, see it too—shiny and bright, like him. “It was supposed to be me this time,” she whispered. Not the man she—

Cat glanced at Alexi, and her heart lurched. Oh, no! When had that happened?

“I’m not Billy,
bébé.
”

She set the heel of her hand against her chest and rubbed at the sudden ache. “I know who you are.”

“You think I’d die and leave you alone?”

Cat swallowed. “No.”

“Damn right, no.” Alexi sat up, the muscles in his belly rippling beneath a trail of blood. He reached into his pants, the movement a bit obscene, considering the location, then withdrew his long, skinny knife. Apparently, he’d not only stolen her shirt but also her habit of adding a concealed pocket for weaponry.

“I was going to get in close and stick this through his heart,” Alexi continued. “Then watch as the light left his eyes forever. Because of what he did to you, he deserved nothing less.”

“
I
wanted to kill him.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Would you have strangled him with your bare hands, or shoved his face into the water and held it there until he stopped struggling?”

How did he know her so well? Because they were two of a kind. That used to bother her, but it didn’t any longer. The world was a difficult place. Only people like Alexi, like Cat, survived.