Bullet to the Heart (7 page)

She was so small, weighed next to nothing, and she was passed out cold. Rain dotted his skin, dripped on her face, caught on her long brown eyelashes. They looked like silken fans against her wan cheeks. Her lips were bloodless, the bottom one looking like it’d taken a round in a meat grinder. Another rumble of thunder, and she twisted. He nearly dropped her she was so quick, but she settled back down, curving into his chest as he walked toward the house.

His heart thumped heavily, the blood in his veins hot, but for what reason? Anger or something more insidious? He rejected those thoughts. There was only room for vengeance in Rand now. When they’d taken his wife and daughter, they’d left him empty of anything save the desire to destroy Joseph Bombardier and his entire group.

And this woman, out of all of the women in the world, was his enemy. She’d killed. If she were left alive, she’d kill again. He glanced down, gaze sweeping over the curve of the cheek not pressed against his chest, and his heart tripped.

Mother fucker!
He increased his pace, legs eating up the distance to the house as his mind whirled. He entered through the portico, swiftly moving down the steps near the doorway and taking a left at the bottom.

When he’d built this house, it had been with the intention to keep his family safe. Rand had never been an overly paranoid guy, but he’d seen things during his tours that confirmed the world was a nasty place. With Lily bringing their future into such an unsafe and trying time, he’d wanted to make sure his family had someplace safe to go in the event of danger. So he’d dug the basement, and more specifically, created a panic room.

He’d had such plans. He’d returned at his daughter’s birth and immediately known he couldn’t be away from her for very long. He’d determined to resign his commission after that last tour, set up a security firm with his brother-in-law, and live a life for his wife and child.

He came to the room that had once been created to protect life, and he placed the woman, the
assassin,
on a stone slab in the middle of it. The floors were tile with drains inset periodically for easy cleaning. The walls were brick and there was no window. He’d dug this out of the earth himself and it had once been a place he and Lily had been proud of.

Now it was a place of death. This woman wasn’t the first killer he’d brought here. If he had his way, she wouldn’t be the last.

Though pain, rage, and guilt rode him hard, he found himself positioning her for maximum comfort on the raised platform. Her left arm slid off the slab and as he picked it up to move it, his hand came away tinged crimson.

He lifted his finger to his nose, the metallic, iron smell making something greasy move through his gut.

He unzipped her hoodie, found another beneath it, and yet another beneath that. Nothing could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him once he unzipped the last sweat jacket. The tank molded to her frame was thick and cloying with her blood. She moved then, some instinct awakening a long-bred need to fight.

She swung out with her right arm and clipped him in the temple, rendering him stupid for a few seconds before his vision cleared. But by the time he got his bearings, she was huddled in the far corner of the room, head down, body shuddering as she hunched into herself.

What. The.
Fuck
.

He walked toward her, and it seemed the closer he got, the further she tried to meld into the brick wall. The eeriest thing about her actions was the lack of sound accompanying them. She was silent, not a grunt or groan of pain with any of her movements, though he damn well knew she was hurting.

What kind of discipline did that take? What the hell had she been through to condition her to that type of silence? Red hair, lank with sweat, covered her face, and she looked a wild thing, dangerous and scared.

He approached slowly, heard the door open, and waved Ken to remain where he was.

“What the hell?” Ken said into the quiet of the room.

Not even her breathing could be heard in the absolute stillness. Goose bumps broke out on his arms. He moved toward her, careful to be slow and non-threatening. She was still wearing clothes, and he had no idea what she had on her.

Shit! He hadn’t even checked her for weapons, so wrapped up in thoughts of the past he’d been lost to the present. She squatted in the corner, fisted hands on her knees, face turned into the wall. Her back rose and fell as she took desperate breaths, but there was no noise to mark the passing of the air through her body.

“Let me come from the right, Rand,” Ken said.

Rand shook his head and made a motion with his hand. Ken’s footsteps whispered against the tile as he left. Something warned Rand that both of them coming at her would be a bad mistake. The woman before them was a weapon, trained and molded for one thing . . . destruction. If that annihilation was her own because she’d been captured, he had no doubt she would take care of it.

But she’d come to him. He harbored no illusions about her agenda, but self-termination was a very real threat. He had no idea if she’d broken enough to kill herself. She was obviously rogue. How rogue was the question.

He came to within three feet of her, and gave it another minute to see if her breathing slowed and she calmed. It didn’t take that long.

“Stand up,” he ordered.

“Fuck you,” she breathed out.

He rolled his eyes at that even as his mouth kicked up at one corner. It wasn’t in amusement, never that with this woman . . . this
killer
. It was anticipation. She may not be broken yet, but when he finished with her, she would be.

“I said stand up!” Louder now, more forceful, accompanied with a sharp clap.

She didn’t even flinch, just lifted her light blue gaze to his and stared. He watched as understanding broke over her features. Her mouth closed, tightened into a thin line. Fire flashed in the clear depths before her eyes went carefully blank.

In the silence after his clap, the drip-drip-drip of her blood on the floor pulled his attention.

Rage filtered through him, poignant yet vicious. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

She stood finally, swayed, and locked her knees. Goddamn, she was strong willed. Something niggled at him, bit deep into his mind, and he pushed it away. This was no time for pity, and he refused to feel it for a woman who had blood on her hands.

His gaze dropped to her left arm, which still dripped blood onto the tile beneath their feet.

“Never seen blood before?” Her voice was weak, as if her strength dropped to the floor along with the red liquid.

He grunted. “I’ve never seen yours, and while it should bring me joy, I simply find it distasteful that the blood of a killer dots my floors.”

“
Touché,
” she whispered and turned to face him, arms going loose as her stance widened. She tossed her head, hair moving away from her face, and for a split second, it was Rand who lost his breath.

She had the smoothest skin and it glowed opalescent in the low lighting of the panic room. Pearl smooth and dotted with sweat, it shone magnificently in the meager rays, and his fists tightened at his side. Her brow wrinkled for a moment and her eyes narrowed. What was she thinking? He damned himself for wondering, and still his gaze tracked across her face.

Her eyes were tilted up ever-so-slightly, and dark brown eyebrows framed the brilliant blue gems. Her pixie-like nose turned up slightly at the end. Her cheekbones were high, but her face was rounded with a stubborn chin. Her lips made him have evil thoughts. He cursed loudly, and almost turned away.

She chose that moment to lick them, and the ever-present angst he felt around her reared its ugly head. For a second red hazed his vision, and he wanted to smash things, namely the woman in front of him.

Any other time, he’d not have hesitated. She worked for an organization that had crushed his dreams. He hardened himself against any remorse for her and stepped closer.

“I have it.” Ken had returned.

Rand nodded, and felt more than heard Ken move further into the room. The woman didn’t look away from Rand, yet her body stiffened imperceptibly, repressing a shudder as she prepared herself.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

“I thought for some reason you’d play fair.” She shook her head slowly and clicked her teeth. “No compassion, eh, Mr. Beckett?” She smiled then, the curve of her lips ugly and mean.

He almost lost his composure, retaining the leash by a thread.

“I believe I told you it would be ten-fold,” he said in a low, guttural voice.

She cocked her head, and to his amazement, she winked. “Then we should get started I’m guessing?”

She was fucking crazy. “Lady, you do realize you won’t leave here?”

She shifted, going on the balls of her feet, face hardening, spine straightening. “Oh, I know I’ll not only leave here, I’ll do it much sooner than either of you think.”

Rand moved then. Anticipating she’d step right because of her obviously hurt left side, he went to his left and was stunned when she took a shot with her left hand to the side of his neck. He went to a knee, and he heard Ken engage her.

The sound of a fist meeting flesh was distant as Rand sought to gain his feet, struggling to overcome the pain in his neck and loss of air. She’d knocked him down with one punch, and it’d been a punch with an arm that was nearly immobile! Ken fell then, knocked out cold, and the syringe he’d been holding fell to the ground.

Rand moved and grabbed the needle before she could. He flipped onto his back as she came over him, and within the space of a second he’d uncapped the needle and jabbed it into her calf. He pressed the syringe, heard her whisper “Shit,” then winced as she fell right on top of him.

She was out. Ken coughed, staggered to his feet, and limped over to help Rand.

“Son of a bitch, she’s lethal.” He coughed again and pressed a hand to his temple.

Rand nodded and shifted the woman off him. She fell limply to her side, head thudding against the hard tile. He wanted to be okay with that, but something in her gaze as she’d come over him just a second ago had been remorseful. The same emotion he’d tamped down just moments ago.

And Rand knew better. Joseph didn’t allow remorse. No, she was a stone-cold killer. He had to believe that or all of this would be for naught.

He would not soften.

He damn well would not.

She woke silently. The cloying effects of nausea and pain combined and threatened to pull her back under. Her brain was mush, but she’d been here before. Gooseflesh broke out over her naked body and she tried to move, but found herself bound at the wrist by what seemed to be leather cuffs. Her legs were the same way.

She was staked out. The bile that had just taunted her rose again. She couldn’t control it and within moments she’d wretched, turning her head sideways so she didn’t suffocate. Her head was heavy, her vision blurred, but her throat burned as the acid churned and crawled its way up her esophagus.

She was a child again, cold and shivering though there was no blue, blue sky. It was wooden rafters and darkness that held her now.

“I will not break,” Remi whispered. Tears tracked down her cheeks and into her hair. She could cry a river, but it would never free her. Never.

She drew away from the memories, took stock of her surroundings, and tried to piece together what was going on. Her left arm was numb, and she tried to lift it, but she was tethered by a long rope to a spike set deep into the tile beneath her. Both arms and both feet were staked the same way.

She let her gaze unfocus and centered herself, readied for the inevitable. She counted seconds and minutes, which turned into three hours. Pain radiated down her left side, but the skin pulled at her shoulder, so she assumed she’d been seen to. She moved periodically, feeling the dull ache in the abused muscle. Yeah, they’d cleaned up her wounds, but she was still naked, and the scent of her own flesh made her cringe. Sweat and blood were not the best smells in the world.

Her skin felt stretched across her bones and she was so damn cold she knew she was feverish. The floor above her creaked and vibrations translated into the sound of footsteps headed her way. The door squeaked and she opened her eyes though she trained her gaze on the ceiling.

Rand Beckett walked toward her, settled down on his haunches, hands relaxed as his gaze looked her up and down.

“You’re awake,” he said needlessly.

She didn’t answer. It hadn’t been a question.

He chuckled, and the sound made her stomach jerk. “Who shot you?”

“You were there, surely you remember,” she managed to get out from her dry throat.

Silence reigned. She’d surprised him.

“No way you knew I stayed,” he bit out.

Yep. He was surprised. She would’ve shrugged had she not been tethered. She had her pride. She kept quiet.

“Why did you come then? Why not just finish what you started?” Curiosity and something else threaded through his tone.

She waited long moments trying to determine if his question necessitated a response. She looked at him, gave him the full force of her gaze, and when their eyes met something rearranged in her chest. She panicked for a split second, the feeling so foreign, so very alien, that she had zero capacity to deal with it.

She wanted to tell him, this man she’d been sent to kill but hadn’t. She swallowed hard. “If my luck holds, it will not be finished until they are all dead.” Her voice trailed off, a mere croaking gasp at the end of her sentence.

Surprise flickered in his gaze, pupils going wide for a split instance as his nostrils flared. He looked away, his gaze moving down to her chest before flying back up to meet hers. Red tinged his cheeks, and his indigo colored orbs flinched. Was the sight of her so distasteful then?

She pulled back her thoughts. It couldn’t matter. What he thought of her absolutely could not matter.

A hard mask settled over his handsome features. He sneered. “And who is ‘they’?’

“The same ones who had Lily and Anna killed.”