Bullet to the Heart (35 page)

Whether she was Bullet, Remi, or Gretchen, he needed her with a passion that eclipsed sanity. She’d threatened, argued and shot him, but Rand was convinced, his future lay within her.

And he’d kill Joseph Bombardier and anybody else who dared threaten what Rand had marked as his.

Remi woke soundlessly, confusion swamping her thoughts and pain vice-gripping her body. She stayed still, breathing slow and even lest anyone be in the room with her. Knowledge was power, and she’d prefer to know who was watching.

She felt no eyes watching her, no warning prickle under her skin to let her know someone was in the room with her. She took a slightly deeper breath, pushing all the pain aside as she tried to sift through scents for clues.

The air was cold, but not bitterly so. Artificial, it floated over her skin and caused gooseflesh, but she wasn’t freezing. She was naked, and there was light beyond her closed eyelids, not bright, but there just the same.

Remi tried to move her arms, but found herself tethered and wondered at the heaviness of the left one. She attempted to move her legs, and found them free.

Not with Joseph then. He’d never have allowed her any freedom. Her brow wrinkled and she slit her eyes open, nearly hissing as the low light cut into her retinas. Behind the light were pictures burned into her memory, and they too bit deep. All the punishment she’d taken under Joseph’s direction, the taunting and cruelty dished out to the young ones as she watched.

She wanted to sob and wondered where the need to do so came from. Not pain and certainly not fear . . . or was it?

“I did not break,” she whispered, so very sure she was alone, wherever she was.

A man cleared his throat and chuckled. “No, Bullet. You did not break.” She recognized the voice, opened her eyes wider, and encountered Dmitry Asinimov’s blue eyes. He smiled, and it was kind.

Had anyone ever smiled kindly at her? She could not remember.

“But I have to be honest,” he said gently. “You did bend a little.” He tapped her left arm, and her head swiveled to look.

She wore a cast from shoulder to wrist. The pain of that memory took her breath, but she caught it back and made sure to breathe deep so she would not hyperventilate.

“If I untie you, will you promise to move easy? You have so many stitches you look like Frankenstein’s bride, and if you stand, it will have to be with assistance. The bottom of your feet are bound to be tender.” He moved to her bonds and began undoing them.

“Why are you being nice to me?” The words flew from her mouth before she could contain them. She was appalled at her lack of control.

Maybe Joseph
had
broken her.

“I tend to be nice to people who save my life,” he murmured as he unhooked the second tether and let her begin to move slowly.

“How long have I been here?”

“Two weeks. We had begun to worry you wouldn’t ever wake up. Do you remember anything after you shot Rand?”

Agony shot through her abdomen, and it didn’t come from any physical hurt.

“I remember everything.”

Dmitry winced. “Do you feel like sitting up? I’d like to look at your back. It’s time to change the dressings and apply some salve to the cuts and bruises there.”

“I can sit up on my own,” she bit out.

She turned to her side, white-hot throbbing accompanying every single move she made. Even blinking hurt. She hissed as she pushed up with her right hand. She heaved, unable to stop the gorge from rising. Her stomach was empty, but gastric juices dribbled from her lips and fell on her leg.

“Take it easy, here—” He lifted a hand to help her.

She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “Don’t touch me.” Cold, vicious, and definitive, she never wanted anybody to touch her again.

She’d allowed Rand to, and it had nearly destroyed her.

“Okay, uh, look, I’ve got to take care of those cuts. I’ve been doing it for two weeks now, and I’m afraid if I stop, infection will take advantage.” There was a plea in his voice she couldn’t understand and really didn’t want to try.

“I’m not hurting, and I don’t need your help. I need to leave.” She shook her head, her sluggish thoughts bothering her greatly. “Where are we?”

“Virginia.”

She looked around the room. It wasn’t familiar, but the smell of the place was. They were in Rand’s house . . .
Lily’s
house. Regret carved viciously into her soul. She’d not given him the revenge he’d so desperately wanted. Instead, she’d shot him and almost gotten herself killed in the bargain.

Dmitry reached for her again. She shrugged away, desperate that she not be touched. She nearly fell off the hospital bed, and then groaned as all of her hurts cascaded and slammed into her at once.

“I do not hurt,” she said between clenched teeth.

“Like regret, pain is for pussies,” he responded ruefully, and her gaze shot to his.

He smiled and she couldn’t help it. Where it came from, how she could do it, she had no idea. She laughed. And once it started, it refused to abate. Before long, she was gasping for breath, her broken and casted arm snug against her belly as she struggled for breath.

He winked at her. “It’s all shits and giggles until someone gets an infection. So come on, let’s get some salve and new bandages on those injuries. If you feel like leaving after that, I’ll hold the door for you, but until then, please don’t undo my handiwork with stubbornness.”

She gave it serious thought. She took so long, he sighed. Finally, she relented, notching her chin in the air and waving him to do what he would. He set about doing it. She ground her teeth together and tried to hold in her gasps of pain.

When he finished, he wrapped a soft cotton gown around her. “I don’t know if it’s me or that you’re insanely uninhibited, but I hardly ever see you with clothes on—what’s that all about?”

She ignored him and looked out the window instead. Remi was off-balance. She had no idea what she was doing here, how she’d gotten here, or what they wanted with her. Until she knew those things, she needed to remain quiet. That she could genuinely like Dmitry mattered not. Remi had no business liking anyone.

“Okay,” he chimed into the awkward silence. “You ready to go?”

Everything went fuzzy for a split second. “Go where?”

“To your room,” he said, and it sounded like he was getting farther away from her.

The room began to spin and she looked down, noticed the IV in her arm, and cursed loudly. “I’ll fucking kill you, Dmitry.”

He leaned over her, and he helped her down, down, down, back to the bed. “You may try when you are a hundred percent. I’d hate to think I’d get anything less than your very best.”

“Such a funny man,” she said, and knew her words slurred.

Her vision dimmed, and right before she winked out, she heard someone call her name. It was the same voice that had called to her from the water pit.

Rand
.

Remi came awake on a scream. The memory had followed her into wakefulness, and before she could draw a breath to purge it, she felt a hand on her head.

“Relax. It’s just a dream,” Rand said above her.

“I don’t dream.” Her response was automatic. The sound of it in her ear was off.

He pulled away from her, and she looked up. Sitting beside her was the one person she’d never regret her bullet missing.

Rand.

He was still beautiful, still made her heart thud, and he was still a no-no.

Her hand rose of its own volition, stroked along his lips, over his cheekbones, and outlined the scar at his temple. “I shot you,” she whispered.

His gaze searched her face. She felt the tactile caress of it, wishing it was his fingers. “And can I just say how glad I am you missed wide to the left?”

She shook her head. “I never miss.”

He leaned closer, his scent, sandalwood, male, and all Rand, enveloped her, and she barely contained a shiver. “I know.”

She started to speak,
needed
to speak the words, but they refused to leave her throat. There was nothing she could say, and she dropped her hand from his warm skin. Held by his deep blue-purple gaze, she wanted to be one who dreamed and didn’t remember.

Rand Beckett made her want impossible things.

“I know you said you had no plans for after Arequipa.” He cleared his throat, his strong hand wrapping around the side of her throat, his fingers toying with the base of her skull.

She raised a hand, ran it over her head, and closed her eyes. Like Blade, Bullet had been marked. Hair shorn from her scalp, she’d been wiped of the only thing she had of beauty . . . her hair. It was the one thing Joseph had let them all keep, telling them it was their only beautiful asset.

And he had taken even that from her.

She swallowed. “There is a question in there somewhere, Mr. Beckett?”

He wiped a thumb over her cheek, and Remi realized she was crying.

“No, more like a request,” he murmured.

She opened her eyes then and cocked her head. Though the movement hurt a bit, she overcame it. It was a small hurt compared to the one in her heart.

“Okay.”

“I haven’t said what the request is,” he said with a small lift of the corner of his mouth.

She took a deep breath and ignored his baiting. “What is the request?”

“I want you to stay here, with me as you heal. I want you to become a part of Trident, and I want you to help me defeat The Collective,” he said in a low tone.

Stay?
Here
?

“I cannot. He will not stop coming for me. I must find my sisters and we must—”

He pressed a finger against her lips, cutting off her words. His face went hard for a second, and then smoothed out.

“What you must do is heal.”

She shook her head and pushed the pain that threatened to overtake her down deep. “People die around me.
I
will die. I would not bring that to you. He has tried once, Mr. Beckett. Did you not learn anything?”

He stood abruptly, gaze hard and fiery as he stared down at her before he ran a hand through his hair and turned away from her. She glanced around the room then. It wasn’t one she’d been in before. Maybe his? Sparsely furnished, the bed was huge, but besides the chair he’d been sitting in, it was the only furniture in the entire room.

He stared out the window and her heart constricted. His big, beautiful body outlined by the falling sun took her breath. “You know what, Gretchen? I did learn something,” he said softly.

She sighed. “Feel free to enlighten me as to what that is, because you asking me to stay here and bring more killers to your door tells me you’ve learned nothing.”

“I learned that you cannot be broken. I’ve learned that you would give you own life to right a wrong that wasn’t yours to begin with. And I’ve learned that you are the strongest person I’ve ever met and I want that. I want
you
here with me, healing.” He returned to her side and sat down.

When she would have scooted away, he put his hand on her unbroken arm and restrained her. His touch was everything she craved.

“Do not do this to me,” she whispered.

To stay would be lunacy. She would not do it.

Would she?

“I will keep you safe. I’ve already begun to strike against the members of The Collective. Stories to reporters, shipments interrupted, money gone missing from overseas accounts, and other ventures have thrown them into a whirlwind. They are even now trying to pick up the pieces before they scatter to the wind. If they are running from us, they will not be able to attack.”

She shook her head, denial whipping through her. “Joseph will never stop. We are his and he won’t stop until we end him. I cannot allow you to be in the middle of that. I will have a difficult enough time keeping you safe as it is.”

Anger flushed his cheeks. She felt the change in him. His body hardened imperceptibly, and the air charged with his fury.

“You can barely keep yourself safe!” he spit out before he took a deep breath and began again. “I don’t need you to keep me safe. But I’ve had time to think the past couple of weeks as you’ve lain there, almost lifeless and unmoving.”

Her gaze sought his. That was a long time. Much could’ve happened. Probably had happened, and she’d been out for it.

“Yeah, I’ve had plenty of time to think and act on the things I’ve been thinking about.”

He went silent, and she just stared at him, unable to comprehend what he was obviously trying to tell her.

He chuckled then and her own anger bubbled up
. “Ne me moquez pas!”
she muttered.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, and there was weariness in his voice. She ached, both body and heart.

“Then who the hell are you laughing at? Wait, did you understand what I said?” She’d woken up in an alternate universe apparently.

“Well, I’ve had nothing to do these past two weeks but study French,” he said with a grin. “You sleep like the dead.”

“You learned French in two weeks?” Amazement floated through her, and then she laughed. Of course, he had.

“If I can pull the woman who found my heart and then stole it from the jaws of death, surely I can learn French in two weeks?
Vraiment?
”