Hot Rebel (32 page)

“Go out with me,” he said and then felt ridiculous for saying it. How the hell was that supposed to work? But he had this idea that she’d go back home and he’d see her in the States. Somehow, they’d work it out.
 

She blinked at him. And then she laughed. It felt like she’d dug a rusty knife into his heart and twisted.
 

“Date you? How am I supposed to do that? You’re in Qu’rim at the moment, and I’m about to head back to the States with my sister. And even then, you live in DC and we’ll be in New Orleans.” She shook her head. “No, we can’t date. It’s impossible.”

Sudden anger swirled in his gut. How could she just blow him off when she claimed she loved him, even if she hadn’t said the words?
 

“What do you want me to do? Propose? Is that what it takes to get you to be with me? Goddammit, fine.” He dropped to his knees while she looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Hell, maybe he had, because what the fuck was he doing? He’d just asked her to date him and now he was fucking proposing? How insane did that make him, especially since he was trying to be noble and let her be with Emily?

“Nick—”

Someone rapped on the door, startling them both. He got up and went over to yank it open.

“Interrupting something, soldier?” Colonel Mendez stood there with an arched eyebrow and a knowing look on his face.

“No, sir,” Nick said, pulling the door open wider. His heart was pounding, and he felt like an asshole. A confused, contradictory asshole. “I was just leaving.”

Mendez’s eyebrow lifted a fraction higher. “Why don’t you stay? You’ll want to hear this too.”

He strode inside, and Nick closed the door. Victoria was flushed, but she did her best to look cool and calm.
 

Mendez pulled out a chair and sat. Then he looked at Nick until he sat too.

“Glad I’ve got you both here,” he said. “Thought you should know that Ian Black is gone.”

Victoria gasped.
 

Fury rolled deep in Nick’s gut. After all they’d fucking gone through?

“He abandoned his compound a few days ago. We sent a team in. There was a server room, but the server was gone. Bastard had a Faraday cage to prevent electronic eavesdropping. This wasn’t just chicken wire wrapped around supports either. Not a surprise, really, but he’s certainly well funded.”

“Ian’s gone,” Victoria said numbly. Then she laughed. “I guess even if he’d tried to call me first, I wouldn’t know it.”

They’d both lost their phones in the desert. He’d been issued a new one, but it was a little different for her. Still, she looked like she’d been abandoned by a friend. He hated that she felt that way about Ian Black, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least he knew it had never been more than that.

“Any idea who he was working for?” Nick asked.

Mendez leaned forward. “No, but I’m not done trying to figure it out.” He looked pensive for a moment. And then he shook his head. “He left something.”

Mendez took his phone from his pocket and pressed a couple of buttons. Then he held it out to Nick.
 

Nick took it—and his jaw nearly hit the floor. Inside the abandoned Faraday cage was a table that held three vials sitting on top of a small case.
 

“The smallpox?” It was unbelievable. Unimaginable.

“Yes. And there was a note.” Mendez took his phone back and showed Victoria the picture. Then he called up the note and read it. “
See this is disposed of, will you? Thanks, Colonel.
”

“I told you he wasn’t dirty,” Victoria said.

Mendez’s gaze slewed over to her. “Not sure I believe that, Miss Royal. But he’s smart. Letting this into the world isn’t wise, even for someone who only cares about profiting from others’ misfortune.”

But Nick was focused on something else. “How did he know about us?”

He didn’t think for one minute that Victoria had told Black. Nor did the colonel, apparently.
 

“Good question.” Mendez sat back, tucking his phone into his pocket. “And I plan to get an answer, though it may take some time.” He shot an intense look at Victoria. “You want to help?”

Nick blinked. Victoria looked taken aback.
 

“I… What do you want me to do?”

“Work for us.”

“My record…”

“Fixed.”

She looked puzzled. And then she looked angry. “Is that only if I work for you? Or is it fixed now and there’s no obligation?”

He huffed out a breath. “It’s fixed. There’s no obligation.”
 

He stood and looked down at her like a stern father. It was the softest look Nick had ever seen him give to anyone. Even Lucky MacDonald hadn’t gotten that soft of a look, and God knew she’d gone through some hell for HOT.
 

“You got a raw deal, Victoria. But you’re a helluva shot and we could use you—and yeah, your knowledge of Ian Black. You’d be doing your nation a great service.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m a traitor, or didn’t you know?”

He laughed. Nick nearly fell out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard the colonel laugh before.
 

“You’re as much of a traitor as Brandy here.” He shook his head. “No, you’re a rebel, Miss Royal, not a traitor. There’s a difference. I think you know what it is.”

She lifted her chin. “And my sister? What’s she?”

“She’s a woman who’s been through hell. I can’t promise she’s going to have it easy from here on out, but I’ll do my best for her.”

“And will you do that regardless of my decision?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He barked a laugh. “You don’t give up, do you? This is why I want you on my team, Victoria. You don’t fucking give up.”
 

The colonel turned to Nick. “Solve your differences with this woman, Brandy. We need her.”

“Sir?”

He stood and walked over to where Nick sat. “I’m fucking serious. Tell her you’re sorry and beg her to stay. It’s the only sensible course of action.”

Nick waited until the colonel was gone. Then he looked at Victoria. “Why the fuck does everyone always blame me?”

*
 
*
 
*

He looked adorably confused. She wanted to laugh, but that was rather difficult when your heart was breaking. She got her crutches and stood. She could see him blinking, maybe working up to doing what his colonel had said.

But there was no way she was going to let him sit here and beg her to stay when he was only doing it because he’d been ordered to do so.

She wasn’t that pitiful, for God’s sake, though a part of her wanted very much to hear him ask her to stay and mean it.

“I think you should go,” she said.

He got to his feet slowly, as if he ached in a thousand places. His expression was intense—confused, pissed, determined.

“The colonel’s right. We need you. You could work for HOT, do what you’re best at… but I don’t want you to.”

She closed her eyes. She could almost picture herself there, being one of the best of the best. An elite operator, working at the side of the man she loved. The man who did not love her and didn’t want her there.

“Emily needs you,” he said. “You should be with her.”

Victoria opened her eyes, shuttering the pain in her gaze. “I know.”

His jaw flexed. “I want it to be different, but there’s nothing I can say that would make it worth your while to stay.”

“No,” she said, her throat aching, “I suppose there’s nothing.”

Because if it didn’t come from his heart and soul, then it wasn’t enough. Yes, he’d dropped to his knees earlier, and God knows what he would have said if Mendez hadn’t arrived, but it hadn’t been real. It was done out of anger and a need to win, not out of any true feeling. If he felt it, she would know.
 

He
would know.

But he didn’t, and that wasn’t good enough for her.
 

“You’re a good partner,” he said, “a good shooter.”

“Thanks.”

He blew out a harsh breath. “Fuck, Victoria, at least consider seeing me when we’re Stateside. I want to see you. We’ll figure it out.”

Her heart squeezed. She hopped over to him and steadied herself. Then she laid a hand against his cheek. She hadn’t touched him since that day at the hospital when she’d held his hand. It was like touching a match to dry tinder, because her skin sparked and caught, and her nerve endings sizzled with heat and need.

His eyes dilated as if he felt the fire too.

“You’re a good man, Nick. A decent man. I love that you have such strength and passion and that you do the right thing no matter the cost to yourself. But I can’t be with you anymore. It’s not good for me, and it’s probably not good for you either.”

He caught her to him and kissed her. It was a hot, tender kiss, tongues stroking, teeth clashing, mouths feeding off each other. And it was also a good-bye kiss. She could tell that it was by the way he kept her at a distance, not melding her body to his, not melting into her.
 

He ended it and stepped back abruptly. “You’re the most amazing woman I know, Victoria. I want you to live, and I want you to be happy. Go back to the States. Take care of Emily. Find happiness.”

He backed up, his eyes on hers while she stood with her heart hammering in her throat—and then he turned and walked out the door, taking her happiness with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Maryland

Two months later…

Victoria walked into the gun range with her new rifle and a couple of pistols. She’d started working part-time at the range because it gave her something to do while she figured out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
 

Besides, working here came with bonuses. First, she got a discount on weapons and ammo. Though she had plenty of money set aside after working for Ian for two years, it wouldn’t last forever and she had to be careful. Second, she got to use the range for free when it wasn’t busy, like now. It was nearly nine o’clock at night, and the only shooter was a fat man at the end who stopped and leered when she walked by.

She ignored him, same as she ignored every guy who’d tried to ask her out over the past couple of months. She wasn’t ready, and that was fine with her. One day, sure. But not now.

Victoria set up her equipment in the middle stall and lifted the rifle to her shoulder. It wasn’t the long-range shooting she needed, but she had to drive farther out into Maryland for that particular sort of range. The next time she had a full day to spare, she would do that.

Which would probably be soon since Emily was getting tired of her hovering.

The rifle was smooth and solid in her grip, the stock almost soft against her cheek. She sighted downrange and then squeezed the trigger on the exhale. The gunfire from the fat man stopped abruptly, as if he was suddenly interested in what she was doing. She fired again and again, making a tight grouping in the bull’s-eye. She didn’t have to see it to know that’s what she was doing.

She lowered the rifle and huffed out a breath. It felt good to shoot something. Good to work out some anger and aggression.

“You fired wide on that last one.”

Victoria gasped and spun around. Nick stood there behind her, dressed in faded jeans and a black T-shirt that showed his muscled arms. Her heart thumped and her throat felt suddenly tight.

Two months since she’d seen him. Two months since she’d spoken to him. She’d thought her stupid heart was getting better by now because she could go entire hours without thinking about him.

Without thinking about lying in bed with him, his body a part of hers, making her dissolve into a pleasure so deep she lost herself inside it for the hours they were together.

“I did not,” she said, remembering his statement. She heard the door to the range close, and she knew the fat man was gone.

He shrugged. “No, probably not. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

“How about hello?”

He grinned. “Hello.”

She gripped the rifle where it lay on the shelf, needing something to hold on to. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a shooting range, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I came to shoot.”

Her throat tightened. “Fine, go shoot. Leave me alone.”

He didn’t move. “How are you, Victoria?”

“I’m fine, thanks. You?”

“I’ve been better.”

Fear worked its way into her belly. “Are you sick? Did something happen?”

He laughed. “Yeah, something happened. But no, I’m not sick. I’m not in imminent danger of dying, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Jesus, I suck at this.”

“It’s been two months, Nick. I’m not sure there’s anything you can say that would make this less awkward than it already is.”