Hard Case (12 page)

“Oh please. I’m no assassin,” Leland insisted scornfully. “James and I have set it about that you are, Mr. Thompson. I don’t know what’s keeping those bloody guards so long. They should have identified you by now.”

“Wait. Me? What?” Steven felt like he was falling through a damn rabbit hole. What the hell was going on?

“It was simple really, hacking into the hospital’s personnel files was a breeze. It’s their clients they protect, not their staff. I got your photo and leaked it as a potential match to the person everyone’s looking for. Soon half the staff and all of security should be here, ready and willing to subdue you with ‘all necessary force’. In all the kerfuffle, it should be a simple enough task to knock off Keyton.”

Steve’s gut clenched. Sure, after a prolonged inquest, weeks of investigation and unraveling of emails, memos and whatnot, his name would be cleared, but it would be a lengthy, painful and invasive process. Worse, it wouldn’t be just him who’d be affected. Troy would get dragged into this, too.

He could think of nothing worse than being labeled a traitor, unless it was the potential ramifications this would bring down on his partner’s head. Troy’d never work again, never be trusted with any kind of case or investigation. His life had suddenly become a house of cards threatening to topple over and destroy him under the crushing weight of guilt.

Now it was he glancing up at the security cameras, wondering when his face would be recognized. If some gung-ho eager officer shot him, possibly even killed him, his reputation would be tarnished beyond repair. Regardless of what the investigations discovered, the media would brand him a murderer and that would stain Troy irreparably.

Adrenaline surged through Steven’s body.

No fucking way would he go down and take it without trying to fight.

“It’s been you all along, hasn’t it?” Steve said, wondering if Providence would grant him there being a recording device nearby, or perhaps Troy and Keyton would open the door right now and hear their discussions. “You’ve been working with James from the start. Why? You’re at the beginning of your career. You have whole mountains to climb. Why would you be willing to throw it all away for a traitor? For the premise of what? Money? Glory?”

“Power, of course,” Leland said in a soft tone. “Now, attack me.”

Steve blinked, stunned. It took him a minute, but he understood. If it looked like he made the first aggressive move, the cameras would capture that and Leland’s story would have further weight.

“I said, attack me,” Leland snarled. “Or I’ll simply claim you were about to and I shot you in self-defense.”

Time seemed to slow down for Steven. Years of working in the hospital and needing to think clearly when seconds were all he had to take stock of a situation and make a judgment call came in handy.

Right now the gun had only Leland’s prints on it. They were standing so close, it didn’t matter how aggressively he attacked, ran or screamed for help, regardless of what he did, he’d be shot. With an icy calm Steve never knew existed inside him he accepted that devastating but simple fact and moved on.

He was going to be shot.

If he could disarm Leland and if Troy could get here fast enough, Leland wouldn’t be able to wipe the gun and plant Steven’s prints on them—which was the logical thing for Leland to do to finish the frame job.

So Steven
had
to bring Troy back out here immediately. He couldn’t shout, couldn’t run to the door. He’d never make enough of a commotion before Leland could react and stop him—permanently.

Steve looked wildly around. Then he was struck by inspiration. There, on the wall only a few feet away, was the legally-obliged, regulation small glass box covering a silver button. Suitably stenciled letters labeled it, all in capitals.

FIRE ALARM.

Praying he’d have enough time and strength to do what he must, Steven took a deep breath. He wasted only one more second to steel his nerves. He didn’t relish the understanding that he was about to be shot—and extensive first-hand knowledge of the variety of ways a gunshot could go wrong didn’t help him any, either.

Knowing there was no other way, Steven didn’t think about the ramifications of his actions. He knew it would devastate him should Troy lose his career, his reputation and his
raison d’etre
because of him. In a blinding flash, Steven realized he was falling in love with Troy.

Pushing that thought away too, he bunched his hand into a fist. Steve bent his knees and crouched into the most powerful boxing stance, like he’d only left the ring a day ago. With no time to warm up or throw a few practice jabs, he let muscle memory and almost fifty amateur fights guide his body’s movements.

Moving to the side in a quick step-shuffle, Steven simultaneously dodged and punched his fist out, landing a punishing blow to Leland’s jaw. Pain radiated from his hand as he felt the resistance from his knuckles up his wrist and arm. He could tell it was one of the better left hooks of his career.

Leland only needed a second to depress the trigger, however. Even as the young man sank to the ground like a dead weight, rocked by the blow, Steven could feel the agonizing burn of a bullet sink into his flesh. Fire exploded across his skin, his senses reeling from shock, even though he’d braced and fully expected it.

Gasping, winded by the pain of the shot as well as the minor inconvenience of his now-raw knuckles, Steven ignored the hysterical screams of a secretary who had just walked in from the corridor.

Steven forced his mind into tunnel vision. The only thing battering at his brain was to sound the alarm. He shuffled to the wall then broke the glass with a tight fist. Gasping in a deep breath, pain burning with every millisecond that passed, he pointed a finger and pressed the fire alarm.

The world came alive around him, as if someone had turned the volume up painfully loud. Sprinklers activated, a siren wailed and everything became hazy in the onslaught of water soaking everything in the room.

The door from Keyton’s office burst open and Troy raced through, taking in the scene at a glance.

“The gun,” Steven insisted, amazed how weak the croak of his voice sounded. His body was racked in pain, but he could think and knew exactly what had gone on. Indeed, if it weren’t for the billion fire ants trying to eat his body alive, he felt remarkably okay for a man who had just been shot.

Steven made the mental note to think about that more later on. Adrenaline mingled with desperation was certainly a far more potent drug than he’d ever realized. Leland was shaking his head, cupping his jaw but raising his gun once again.

As if he were in a dream, Steven sank to his knees. Soaking wet from the sprinklers, he couldn’t feel his blood—his life—running out of his body. His vision narrowed to that gun, to the twisted, angry features of the young man in front of him. Gone was the dapper, charismatic, elegant youth.

Part of Steven wanted to throw himself at Leland, wrestle the gun from him and protect Troy. The thought and heroic intention was there, but he was soaked in water and felt like a lead weight. Energy seemed to seep from him, despite his best intention.

Resigned, Steven understood he’d done what he could. Both Keyton and Troy had seen Leland in possession of the gun, pointed toward him now. They would be firm witnesses and the truth would come out.

Troy’s reputation wouldn’t be stained.

As he came to acknowledge that, it was as if a wave of exhaustion crashed over him. Troy was safe. Leland, the traitor, had been exposed. Steven no longer had the energy to do anymore.

A body blurred into Steven’s vision. A howl, angry and like that of a rabid wolf, filled the air. Steven blinked, gazed down at his stomach, shocked to see blood so thick and red it appeared black coating the front of his shirt.

Damn, that was my last clean shirt.

The tiny part of Steven’s brain that was still working understood it was his own hand holding the flesh of his flat belly together, trying to stem the ravaged wound, but he couldn’t feel any sensation. It was almost as if someone else had control of his body.

Above the sound of rushing water, Steven heard pained cries.

Troy
.

His muscles shook, trembled as he tried to put enough energy into his hands, his arms, his legs to move, to help his partner. The shaking became worse and Steven fell onto the wet, squishy floor.

Come on, man. You’re a boxer to the core. Get up and finish the fight.

Glancing up, his head the only part of his body he had enough strength to control, he saw Troy beating the shit out of Leland. The gun lay a few feet from their struggling bodies. Blood and water soaked both men, though to Steven’s fight-experienced eye, he could tell Troy had the upper hand and the frustrated, raw energy to finish it.

“Troy,” Steven spoke, his voice barely a whisper. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Troy. The gun.”

A particularly hard punch knocked Leland out entirely. Had it been under any other circumstance, Steven would have applauded the solid jab. It wouldn’t be a hardship to teach Troy to box properly.

Troy crouched above Leland’s body, heaving with harsh breaths. His long, dark hair dripped down into his collar and clung to his pale skin. When Troy turned to catch Steven’s gaze, his silver eyes were wild with a mixture of fury and pain. Steven smiled, even though the muscles in his face twitched in protest as he did so.

Troy crawled over to him, adding the fierce strength of his hands to place pressure on his stomach wound.

“Keyton, call the hospital. Right now. It’s an emergency,” Troy shouted. Security men poured into the room. Steven gasped, knowing he needed to explain to Troy.

“Leland framed me,” he panted. His words were thready but Steven was determined. “He’s given security pictures of me… Says I’m the bloody assassin…the gun…self-defense. Leland and James…”

“Shh, Steven, I’ll fix it. I swear to you,” Troy soothed him.

Bulky security guards surrounded Keyton as an armed escort. Two of them grabbed an arm each and they started to hustle him from the room. Keyton shouted at them, or possibly to the Emergency operator at the other end of his phone. In the bedlam, Steven could hardly make out what was going on, exactly.

“Sir, I need you to step away from that man.”

Steven lifted his head to find an overly muscled man in uniform pointing a gun at him and motioning for Troy to get away. Steven laughed weakly, the absolute insanity of the situation striking him as rich.

Really? He needed to be covered with a gun? He couldn’t even lift a hand to stroke Troy’s cheek, to brush his silky soft hair one last time before they took him away. Was a gun seriously necessary?

“Sir, I won’t repeat myself,” the policeman said. “That man is a dangerous criminal. We need to—” the guard stepped forward, but Troy snarled and cut him off.

“This man has just saved Keyton Marshall’s life. Leland is working with a traitorous bastard and has framed Steven. Leland shot him in cold blood. Keyton and I are witnesses to that fact. If I don’t get my fucking medics in here
right now,
you will regret it. Keyton?”

Dimly Steven heard Marshall ordering the security guards to take Leland into custody and rush the paramedics through to them.

“Medics always get clearance,” Steve muttered, but he thought it might have been so soft no one heard him above the wail of the alarm, the hiss of the sprinklers or just the mayhem currently going on.

Steve lay back into the sopping carpet, energy trickling out of him and draining quickly away. He just couldn’t keep it up. His adrenaline had run out.

“Steve, stay with me. Steve…?”

He could hear Troy’s voice, but it sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. A warmth encompassed his hand, the tangy scent of blood filled his nostrils and for a moment, he thought he was lying on one of the hospital cots, exhausted after another double shift and catching a quick nap.

“Steve. Steve?”

He wanted to rouse himself—longed to press his body along Troy’s and soak up his partner’s warmth. He felt cold, but he couldn’t move. Knowing there was something he needed to say, but unable to find the words, he sank deeper into the stillness within him to search for the elusive words.

Like the sneaky bitch she was, the darkness of unconsciousness took him before he could work it out.

Epilogue

Twenty-four hours later

“The doctor says I’ll be fine,” Steven insisted for what felt like the dozenth time.

“The doctor said you’ll be off solids for a fortnight,” Troy replied, unimpressed.

“Everyone knows doctors over-state these things,” Steve argued. “It’s in case something goes wrong, so their arse is covered. Trust me. Nothing will slow my recovery.”

Troy snorted and remained impassive. Steve sighed. At any other time he’d be pleased by the fact they already bickered like an old married couple. Right now, though, he needed to remind himself how bloody painful it currently was to laugh.

Even doped up on the maximum dose of morphine he could wheedle from his colleagues, it still hurt like a fury when he laughed. Or gasped. Or clenched his stomach for any other reasons.

“You could have brought me a six-pack of beer,” Steve groused. He didn’t really mean it, but anything to keep Troy’s mind occupied was currently a good thing. “Or even some Guinness. What happened to alcohol solving every problem?”

“That Matron would take anything remotely looking like contraband from me,” Troy insisted. “She still hates me from when it was me in that bed, shot.”

Steve had to agree. Besides, he knew all too well what alcohol would do mixed in with the cocktail of medication he was pumped full of.

“Well then, you’ll need to tell me everything that happened after I pulled the fire alarm,” Steven insisted. “I’m sure you’re chock full of information. How’d it all play out? Evidently some of it got figured out, since I’m not in jail right now.”

Troy twined their fingers together and collected his thoughts.

“Well, I’ve had some gaps filled in myself. I was rather hysterical for a while there, what with you bleeding all over some bloody expensive carpet and a dozen people running around firing off questions. From what I can gather, they found your picture in a text on Leland’s phone. The message was cryptic, but fairly recognizable as meaning ‘this is the man you need to frame’ and with your details. So you’re off the hook in that respect.”