Shatter (2 page)

That was very true. And Mitch didn’t like the way this information was shaping up. He’d walked into this planned confrontation on solid ground: Halina was a traitor. And even while 80 percent of the information still pointed in that direction, he was getting undercurrents of something amiss.

Mitch joined light traffic on the main street, still alive with college students. “She hasn’t gone to the store since I’ve been following her. But she’s at the gym every day. What kind of classes does he teach there?”

“Krav Maga,” Kai said. “Luke says her instructor is an expert. Learned the techniques directly from Israeli Defense Forces during his time in the military.”

Mitch’s mind flipped back to his last sighting of Halina in a sports bra and shorts before she’d disappeared into the bathroom, then emerged in a silk slip of nothing before turning off the light for the night. The memory of all those sleek lines, the hint of ab and arm muscles created by subtle shadow, the fullness of her breasts against that dark silk . . .

At a stoplight, he squeezed his eyes shut and shook the image from his head. Yes, she definitely had the toned body of someone training hard. But the radical nature of Krav Maga, an aggressive self-defense technique focused on brutal counterattacks and utilizing a myriad of fighting techniques from street-grappling to judo was extreme, to say the least.

“Ryder, are you just screwing with me again?”

“No, dude, what I’m telling you the woman Dubrovsky was before is very different from the one we’re collecting information on now. This shit isn’t adding up. Which is why I think I’m getting these bizarre vibes.”

“Vibes.” Mitch rubbed tired eyes. “Really? You can’t give me something better than vibes?”

“She has two weapons registered in Heather’s name.”

Mitch swerved to the side of the road and stopped. He couldn’t drive with all this shit flying.
“What?”

“Twenty-first-century update,” Kai said. “Chicks shoot guns. Even chicks who aren’t freaking snipers like Keira. And, I have to say, it really turns me on.”

“TMI. I don’t want to know what twisted shit turns you on, Ryder.” Mitch’s fingers had gone white around the steering wheel. “And Halina wasn’t any chick. I had
one
nine millimeter seven years ago and she hated that thing. When she found out I owned a gun, she got really weird for, like, days. Kept breaking dates with me. Refused to sleep with me until the damn thing was locked in a safe in the closet.
She
bought the freaking gun safe for me. Wouldn’t look at the gun, let alone touch it.”

“Aw,” Kai said as if he were talking to Mitch’s niece, Kat, about a skinned knee. “That really chinked your mojo, didn’t it, dude?”

Mitch slammed his palm against the steering wheel—tired, frustrated, confused. “Are you hearing me?”

“What?”

Mitch’s temper split. He opened his mouth to blast Ryder, but the guy burst out laughing first.

“God,” Mitch said, “you are
such
an asshole.”

“It’s so much fun to watch you unravel, Foster. I can’t wait to meet this chick.”

That wasn’t even funny. Mitch didn’t like the fact that others could see how Halina’s involvement in this mess and his impending confrontation with her unnerved him.

“Dude, you’d better be sleeping with one eye open when I get back.”

Kai’s laughter dimmed, but the humor remained in his voice when he said, “Both weapons are Heckler & Koch handguns. A forty and a forty-five.”

Mitch put a hand to his forehead and rolled his eyes. Those weren’t self-defense weapons. Those were killing weapons.

“You know how to pick the feisty ones, Foster. I’ve got to get back to work. Oh, but Luke told me to tell you to keep your smart-ass tongue in check when you talk to her. He said, and I quote, ‘Foster can’t afford to let her take his last ball.’ ”

Kai disconnected before Mitch could snipe back. He slammed the phone into the console between the seats with the same thought that had been rolling around his head for weeks. “Who the hell is this woman?”

Mitch passed a retail district near his hotel. He wanted to stop at one of the bars. Wanted to get just drunk enough to take some hot young thing back to the hotel and pound out this building stress. It was dulling his edge.

He glanced at the inviting neon as he passed, his body wound tight. This damn mess had kept him out of circulation for over two months. Way the hell too long for him to go without sex, which was contributing to his shitty mood. Only, he knew it wouldn’t help this time. Or worse, after watching Halina for the last thirty hours, sex with a stranger would backfire and his mind would go where it absolutely could not go.

He turned into the Summit Hotel’s parking lot, jogged to his suite, and headed to the shower. Turning it on hot, he stripped, set his gun on top of the pile, and stepped directly into the center of the spray. He groaned at the feel of pounding heat on his skin and angled the water so it poured over his neck and shoulders as he tried to stretch out the tension.

Krav Maga. Heckler & Koch handguns. Who the hell knew what else she was up to? Mitch tried to figure out this twist in the puzzle as he washed off. But by the time his temperature had risen to normal, and he’d compared the Halina he’d known to what he knew of this woman who now went by the name Heather, he was convinced he’d never known her at all. That he’d spent their almost-year together in a fantasy-laden fog. There was no other explanation for the drastic differences. At least none that added up to fit the evidence he’d collected.

Shit, he wasn’t looking forward to this confrontation. He didn’t want to see her. Didn’t want to talk to her. Didn’t want to fight with her. The more he learned, the more he wanted to stay as far the hell away from her as possible. Yet in the next instant he wanted to get in her face. God, just thinking about what he’d gone through after she’d walked out made him livid.

A sound tugged at his ear. A sound outside the shower.

Mitch’s thoughts evaporated and the hair on his neck prickled into tiny needles. The skin across his shoulders rippled with gooseflesh.

He eyed the clothes piled on the floor through the gap between the curtain and the wall, and eased his hand through the space, reaching for his gun.

Gone.

The shower curtain whipped aside.

“Sonofabitch.” A mixture of shock and fear zipped up his spine and he straightened, peering across the steamy room and through the water dripping in his eyes. “You don’t even have the decency to wait until a guy is dressed? That’s seriously chickenshit—”

His next word, “dude,” melted in his mouth as his vision cleared and he focused.

On Halina.

Halina. Pointing one of those Heckler & Koch cannons at his chest.

 

H
eather was already breathing hard when she’d finally forced herself to enter the bathroom. Now, she could barely keep from hyperventilating. And her hands were shaking. Maybe she didn’t have much cold-blooded killer running through her veins after all.

Or maybe it was just the sight of Mitch Foster, standing a few feet away. Completely naked. Dripping wet.

“Mitch?”
Heather barely breathed the shocked word before darting another glance around the empty bathroom.
Reality check.

She refocused on him with narrowed eyes. For some insane reason, her gaze darted to his right shoulder and searched his skin. The sight of that familiar tattoo—the Major League Baseball Association logo inked in red, white, and blue glory—confirmed that Mitch Foster was the man glaring back at her from the shower.

“What in the
fuck
are you doing here?” Her mind cleared and a million questions hit her at once, but she could only get out the most important one. “And
why
have you been
stalking me
for two days?”

“I wasn’t
stalking
you, for God’s sake.” He slammed off the water controls.

Heather startled and realized she’d lowered her weapon. She took aim again, her heart skipping as she stepped back.

Mitch leaned down and swiped the towel off the floor. Before he swung it around his hips, her gaze swept over him again. Just a quick once-over, soaking in the sheer male beauty of his body. That’s all it took for his raw sexuality to sink into her consciousness and take hold. Her breath eased out of her lungs with a low sigh of pained pleasure.

“I was watching you so I could find a time, an
appropriate
time, to talk to you, Halina. Unlike some people, who decide to jack a man in the middle of a shower, I have manners.”

“You call watching me through my windows at night ‘manners’? Have you forgotten how to use a
phone
?”

Hands on hips, he glared at her.
He
glared at
her
.

“And you would have returned my call, right? And we would have met at Starbucks like normal people, right? Had a regular, civil conversation,
right
?” He gestured between them, making a point to stare at the gun. “Because
normal
people always use
silencers
on their forty-fives during civil conversations.”

“You’re not pulling that lawyer shit with me. You’ve been watching my house for two damned days.
What
are you doing here? How did you . . . ?” Fear singed her nerve endings. “How did you find me? And
why
?”

One part of her mind scanned for her misstep even as another kicked up in alarm. He stepped out of the shower.

“Don’t move, dammit.”

“Or what, Halina? You’ll shoot me?” A cynical grin cut across his face. Bright white. Gorgeous. He was simply gorgeous—a perfect blend of godly and devilish. “Give me a break. And stop waving that thing around before you shoot me by accident.”

“If I shoot you, it won’t be an accident.” What an ass. “Are you working for him? Are you here to bring me back? Because I’m not going. And what I do next depends on your answer.”

His gaze went hard and dark. All humor vanished, replaced by taut anger. “So you
were
working for Schaeffer. Then what, Halina? It went bad? He turned on you? Like that would be a big surprise.”

“I don’t have time for this.”

She stuffed the gun into her waistband and turned, exiting the bathroom and skirting the bed on her way toward the front door.

Mitch followed and grabbed her arm just before she reached the handle. He jerked her around hard. “Make time.”

She moved automatically. A kick to his shin, a jerk of her arm, and she was free. Her stance instantly settled again, hands up and ready for a longer, harder fight. “Bring it on, Mitch, but make it fast.”

A familiar edge of excitement lit his eyes. She’d looked into so many opponents’ eyes over the years; she recognized the rush of adrenaline. But if she thought too much—about who this was, what was at stake—she might just cave.

His hands came up, palms out in partial surrender, with a half-assed grin of sardonic apology. “Whoa, whoa. Forgot I’ve got a little martial arts expert on my hands.”

“
How
do you know that?” Her mind scattered as the implications of his presence sank in.

He dropped his head and raked all ten fingers through the too-long, deep black mass of his hair, pulling it off his face. The muscles of his biceps and pecs rolled with the movement, and her thoughts pinged in another direction. Damn, he was beautiful. So much more beautiful in person. The newspapers and magazines didn’t begin to do his looks justice. High cheekbones and deep-set eyes from his Japanese mother. Straight nose, square jaw, olive-toned skin from his Italian-Irish father.

Her stomach squeezed as a flash of want seared her body.

“Halina”—he looked up, his gaze flat, serious—“Max Gorin and Andre Rostov are dead.”

Panic trilled along her nerves, a violin off key.
I’m next
.

“Wh—? How do you know their names?” She couldn’t think straight. Could barely think at all. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.”

She reached for the door again. Frantic for air. For space. Her vision doubled and she almost missed, but plunged the handle and jerked on the door. Mitch slammed a hand against the wood above her head and the door shut with a loud
pop
.

Heather gritted her teeth against rising panic. She hadn’t been prepared for this. For
him
. She could fight anyone else.
Anyone.

“But it
does
matter, Halina. It matters to
me
.” He was breathing hard, his minty breath fluttering the hair that had fallen from her bun. “It matters to the people I care about. Because whatever you did seven years ago, whatever alliances, enemies, promises, or lies you made, are now messing with
my
life.”

Confusion drained some of her fight. She turned her head and found his lips nearly touching her temple, outlined by a full day of dark whiskers. He smelled clean, a little spicy, all male, all Mitch.

She leaned her forehead against the door. For an instant, just an instant, her mind flashed back to his body, dripping water. Desire flashed through her system, so explosive and hot she groaned. Her eyes closed. She swallowed. That strong body was stretched the length of hers at her back, heat pouring off him.

“No,” she said. “That’s . . . not possible.”

“Tell that to the dozen other people who’ve been suffering Schaeffer’s wrath for the last five years.”

Her eyes opened to the warm wood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it can’t have anything to do with me.”

“I already know it does, Halina.
That’s
why I’m here.”

And
that
stunned her silent. Trapped her in a damned-if-she-did, damned-if-she-didn’t scenario. But she’d been here before, and her past decisions had kept them both alive.

“I’m sorry, Mitch. I can’t help you.”

“You can and you will,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere until you answer my questions, Halina.”

“Heather. It’s
Heather
.”

“I am
never
calling you Heather.” His tone ground back into glass. “Fuck that. And
fuck you
while I’m at it. What the hell happened to going back to Russia with your
husband,
Halina? You’re a little far from
home
.”

He wasn’t going to let this go. Wasn’t going to let
her
go. Heather gritted her teeth. “Mitch . . . step back. Please. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment. Long enough to envision one of her sparring partners standing behind her, pushing her to give it her all.

He gripped her arm and pain shot along her biceps. “Hali—”

“Sorry,” she whispered, and threw her elbow into his ribs. He grunted and his air released against her shoulder.

She pushed up on her toes, squeezed her eyes closed on another whispered “Sorry, sorry,” and slammed her head back, connecting with his forehead. Pain flashed in her skull, but as soon as he stumbled backward, she turned to face him. She waited half a second, hoping that hit would take him to the floor, but he lifted his head, his eyes dazed and hot with anger. Blood trickled down his forehead, making Heather’s stomach pinch.

“Mitch, stop,” she said. “You have to let me go. You have to stop looking for me.”

He gripped the bed’s footboard with one hand, pressed the other to his forehead. If she’d thought he was pissed when she’d surprised him in the shower, he was now homicidal. Nostrils flaring, eyes darker than Heather had ever seen them.

“I won’t stop following you until I have all the answers to this clusterfuck, Ha—”

She stepped in and kicked out, aiming for his solar plexus.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
But Mitch saw it coming and grabbed for her leg. Heather pulled the kick, trying to keep from breaking his ribs or—God forbid—stopping his heart, and escaped Mitch’s hand. He grunted, flew back, and hit the wall.

Halina turned, hauled the door open, and raced down the stairs. She had to grip the handrail to keep from tripping herself. Her mind raced in every direction. She didn’t start thinking in a straight line until she was halfway home.

She sped down the main boulevard, squealing around corners. “Okay, okay, it’s okay.” She strangled the steering wheel with both hands. “If he was followed, they’ll know where I am. They’ll come after me, not him. They want me. If he’s not with me, he’ll be fine.”

On her street, she slammed the remote opening the garage, jumped the curb, and skidded to a stop in the driveway. She bolted from her car, door open, engine running. She just needed Dex. He was the one and only thing she’d never leave behind. Nothing else mattered.

She ducked under the garage door as it opened and rushed into the house. Dex was there to greet her as always. Halina didn’t pause to snuggle like she always did, but raced past, using her momentum to ricochet off the far wall on the way to her bedroom.

Dex gave an excited bark and followed.

“No, baby, not playing,” she said, breathless, as she jerked Dex’s favorite blanket off the bed, grabbed a couple of chew toys nearby, and shoved her hand between her box spring and mattress. Her second Heckler & Koch touched her palm, cool and smooth, and she jerked it out and pushed it into her waistband—where the weight of three weapons now nearly took her pants to her knees. At her feet, Dex whined and pranced in place. His nails tapped on the floor and clicked against Heather’s nerves.

“Okay, come on.” She pivoted and nearly tripped over him in the tight space alongside her bed. “Shit, Dex,
out
.”

He danced out of her way, tail swaying, eyes bright. She rushed into the garage and ordered Dex to load up with a breathless “
Zagruzka.
”

He beat her to the car and jumped in the back. Heather slid into the front seat, slammed the door, dropped her three weapons into the center console, and jerked the transmission into reverse.

A dark car swept in from the street like a rabid raven, screeching to an angry stop and blocking Heather’s driveway. She slammed on the brakes, Dex slid along the smooth leather backseat.

Her stomach plummeted. “No.” She slammed her hand against the steering wheel.
“No!”

A low growl vibrated in Dex’s throat.

“Dammit.” She pushed the gear into park and left the car running. If she had to, she’d smash that rental to get out of here without him. “Dammit, he doesn’t understand.”

And she couldn’t make him fully understand without risking everything.

By the time she’d opened her door, Mitch was rounding the hood of his car. The combination of moonlight, streetlights, and headlight side beams turned the rage on his handsome face into shadows of menace. Skin taut, brows pulled low over fiery eyes, he advanced up her driveway. He’d pulled on a T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, but hadn’t bothered to fasten the jeans or tie the shoes.

“Don’t pull any of your self-defense shit on me, Halina, because I won’t hold back from hurting you this time.” His voice was as threatening as Dex’s growl. So much fury rasped through his tone, the hair on Heather’s arms rose. “And don’t even think about pointing a gun at—”

Dex launched into a ferocious barking fit. His attack bark, enraged and vicious, included glaring teeth and guttural snaps that made even Heather flinch.

Mitch froze midstep. His gaze darted past her and held on the car. She didn’t have to look to know Dex was clawing and snapping at the windows. She’d trained him. Hours and hours of training, just like her fighting. And her shooting. She should have spent more time developing emotional barriers to Mitch. Would have if she’d thought this confrontation was ever a possibility.

“What the hell is
this,
Halina?” he demanded from several yards back.