Cut and Run (13 page)

She kissed the center of his strong spine. “Sure. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as I’m showered.”

He broke out of her loose hold and gestured to the table where her purse and bag sat beside his black backpack. “I brought everything down from the bedroom. My burner phone is in the pack. If you want to call Hoshi do it now, on the burner. Keep the details to a minimum and don’t say where we are. I know we can trust her, but the less she knows for certain the safer she’ll be.”

Tori nodded as he poured her a cup of coffee.

“We’ll trash the phone before we leave,” he said, handing her the cup and then sticking a slice of bread in the toaster on the counter. “Better to start fresh with a new one at our next stop. Hopefully we can trade the van for another vehicle at the same time.”

After the incredible night they’d spent together, it was easy to forget that the morning would put them back on the run, trying to stay ahead of Ethan’s enemies. Her enemies now too, because wherever he was—whatever he might face as a former member of the Phoenix program—Tori intended to be with him every step of the way.

He smoothed her hair off her forehead and placed a tender kiss on her brow. “I’m going to clean up now. Have your toast, call your friend. Then we need to get out of here.”

“Okay.”

He caught her face in his hands and brushed his lips over hers. He groaned as the affectionate meeting of their mouths sizzled with renewed desire. She felt that very obvious, very enticing desire swell firmly against her abdomen as he kissed her.

When he broke away, his breath was ragged and heavy. “I’m gonna have to take a cold shower now. Make that glacial. Otherwise, I’m not going to make it more than a few miles today without pulling the van over to attack you.”

She laughed as he kissed her again, then gave a little yelp as he palmed her ass in both hands and gave her backside a possessive squeeze over her clothes. As he strode out of the kitchen to head for the bathroom, Tori let herself admire the fine form of her man.

She would let him drive in peace today, but as soon as they stopped to rest, she intended to indulge in every delectable inch of him.

With that thought buoying her, she retrieved her slice of toast and nibbled at it as she sipped her black coffee at the small kitchen table.

She was about to pick up the phone to call Hoshi when she heard shuffling footsteps behind her. Ethan’s father walked into the kitchen, giving her a short nod of greeting.

“Good morning.” Tori offered him a brief smile over the rim of her cup. “There’s fresh coffee in the pot.”

He grunted noncommittally, but made his way over to the machine and poured himself some. “Imagine you two will be heading out soon.”

“In a few minutes,” Tori replied. “Ethan’s just taking a shower before we go.”

Another grunt, this one quieter, thoughtful. He took a drink of his coffee, pensive for a long moment.

“I won’t ask where you’re heading, because I know he won’t want me to know. Not my business anymore what he does, or where he is. I know that.” There was no animosity in his words, only a frank understanding that he wasn’t part of Ethan’s life and probably never would be again.

Tori heard a softer note in the sickly old man’s voice too. And when he turned his head to look at her, she saw sorrow in his cloudy eyes.

She saw a father’s deep, unspoken regret.

She saw the man Ethan said he couldn’t hate, the man who had driven away or destroyed every precious thing he once had.

But she also saw a stubborn, irascible man who might have felt all those things, yet would never put them into words. Not with her.

Most certainly not with the son he’d wronged so terribly, for so long.

Tori felt sorry for Ethan’s father all the more because he would never know the good, honorable man his son had become in spite of the way he’d been raised.

“Well, I gotta get on with my day,” he murmured. He took another swallow of his coffee, then dumped the rest down the drain. “Not gonna hang around and wait on goodbyes, and I don’t wanna be in the way as Ethan and you head on out. I have work waitin’ on me out back, so I’m gonna get on to it now.”

He wiped his hands on a dish towel and glanced over at Tori for a long moment. “You look out for the boy, all right? Let him know I wish him Godspeed, to the both of you, wherever that road is gonna take you.”

“I will,” Tori said. “And…thank you, Mr. Davis.”

He gave an abrupt nod. Then he turned away and strode out the back door.

As his heavy boots clopped down the stairs of the porch and faded into silence, Tori picked up Ethan’s backpack and drifted outside to call her friend.

21

Ethan stood under the sputtering metal showerhead in the small guest bath’s tub.

As the lukewarm water poured over him, he considered the road that lay ahead—both the physical route he’d need to resolve, and the journey he was about to embark on with Tori at his side.

She was his, and that fact made everything else seem insignificant.

Even the assassin they’d left behind in Seattle.

Christ, he hoped they’d left the hired killer behind.

Unfortunately, Ethan knew too well the way these men operated. They were relentless machines, driven by the need to finish their lethal tasks—perhaps even more so than by any reward promised to them upon completion.

There would be no rest for Tori and him unless the killer was stopped permanently. And regardless of the chase, Ethan knew he would have no lasting peace until he had answers about his nightmarish vision and what it was that he was supposed to prevent.

And for that, he knew he would need help.

No matter the risk in placing his trust in anyone besides Tori, Ethan had to find the other members of the Phoenix program.

The only question was, where to begin?

Mentally weighing the options, he squirted a dollop of shampoo into his palm, then soaped and rinsed his hair. He closed his eyes and let the water sluice down his face and shoulders, suds sliding down his abdomen and limbs.

When the first flash of premonition hit him, he staggered under the spray.

Holy fuck.

The vision hit him again—sharper now, a clear image of the property outside.

He saw the old gray farmhouse and the dirt drive. Saw the faded red barn where he’d hidden the minivan last night. The door stood wide open. Then his father emerged, the nose of a pistol held tight against his head.

Ah, Christ.

No.

They didn’t have to hope to outrun the assassin from Seattle today.

He’d already found them.

“Tori!” Ethan roared as he scrambled out of the tub and yanked on his jeans. Barefoot, his hair still dripping, he raced out to the kitchen where she’d been a few minutes ago.

She was gone.

So was his backpack. The bag that held his own gun and the one he’d taken from his assailant back in the city.

He had no weapons. No immediate means to face off against the threat he knew was about to play out.

And then he realized he didn’t even have the benefit of time.

Out on the porch off the back door, Tori let out a terrified-sounding whimper.

The premonition he’d seen in the shower was taking place right this very second.

Woodenly, he walked to the screen door and pushed it open. Tori’s cry just about killed him, it was so thready and fearful.

“Ethan, don’t,” she whispered from the other end of the porch. “Don’t come out here.”

As if he would leave her out there to face this danger alone? It was him the assassin came for, not Tori. And not his father either.

But as Ethan stepped out, he saw his premonition manifest in reality.

His father was being walked out of the open barn door, the hit man holding a pistol in his left hand, the nose of the weapon jammed up hard against the old man’s temple. There was a clear warning in the assassin’s narrowed, unfeeling eyes. He would use whatever means necessary to get Ethan in his sights.

He would kill anyone who tried to thwart him.

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Mr. Jones.” The assassin smiled ruthlessly. “Or do you prefer I call you Mr. Davis?”

Ethan’s blood chilled. Somehow this son of a bitch had been given access to classified information on Ethan’s background. Information that had been buried years ago and not resurrected since.

Which meant Ethan’s dread that his kill order had been issued from within the Company or somewhere else in D.C. wasn’t far off the mark.

No, more like dead-on.

Ethan lifted his hands, even as he assessed the situation before him. In his peripheral vision, he spotted his black backpack lying unzipped at Tori’s feet on the porch. His burner phone was on the wooden floor nearby, no doubt dropped on the killer’s command.

Both much too far for him to reach.

He could dive for the pack and hope he might wrestle out one of the weapons, but by the time he did, his father would have a bullet in his skull. Hell, by that time, Tori might too.

No fucking way can I risk that.

“Step forward,” the assassin ordered him. “Step forward now, or the old man eats a bullet meant for you.”

“Don’t do it, boy!” his father shouted. “We both know I ain’t worth it.”

Maybe he wasn’t, but Ethan would be damned before he let anyone be used as a pawn to get to him.

And he needed the time, however fleeting, to run his odds. To calculate his chances of somehow reaching his backpack.

He edged a bit farther onto the porch. “Let my father loose first. Then it’s you and me.”

The hit man grinned, white teeth gleaming like a jackal’s. “Did I say anything about bartering? I only see one of us with a gun. That means the only one making demands is me.”

Ethan felt a growl rumble in the back of his throat. He’d never be able to reach his own weapons. Not without someone losing their head.

As if the killer knew Ethan was stalling for time, he gave the old man a shove, walked him farther out onto the dirt driveway.

Closer to where Tori stood at the other end of the porch.

“Step forward, Mr. Jones,” the killer said tonelessly. “Let me do my work here. I’m sure you would prefer a clean shot as much as I do.”

Ethan saw his father’s anguish written all over his gaunt, weary face.

He couldn’t see Tori’s expression, but he knew it would be twisted in worry for him, ashen with fear.

But Ethan saw no other choice.

His hands held up, he walked all the way out onto the porch.

22

Panic stabbed Tori as Ethan crossed the width of the porch on the assassin’s command.

“Oh, my God. No!” Heart lurching, terror spiking, she turned to run for him—to physically stop him from doing it. “Ethan, no!”

He held her back with a halting hand, his bare feet paused at the top step. The look he gave her was both courageous and resigned.

He really was going to do this. Ethan was left little choice but to obey, or see his father shot in front of him for his son’s inaction. And Ethan was not the kind of man to let that happen, no matter the complicated tangle of feelings he had for the man who raised him.

But there was something else shadowing his hazel eyes. Something dark and rueful. A secret knowledge that pained him, conflicted him. Tori didn’t know how to read him now. She simply had to trust.

Even if her heart was breaking in the process.

“Son, don’t do this. Not for me,” his father pleaded now. “Goddamn it, boy!”

Ethan began to descend the short steps, down to the unpaved drive.

And then, everything happened in an instant. Yet it played out in Tori’s mind, frame by agonizing frame.

Ethan on the first step, the second.

Tori looked to the man with the gun, saw the cold intent on his face. The chilling triumph.

The pistol at Ethan’s father’s temple started to relax. Started to move away from his head.

But then the ominous black barrel of the weapon pivoted forward.

The assassin set his aim on Ethan.

Tori screamed.

At the same instant, she saw a look of defiance cross his father’s weathered, weary face. His eyes were fixed on his son, unflinching. Tori saw a grave and fearless understanding in William Davis’s gaze.

She saw love.

Rusty, late-arrived, yet selfless parental love.

And she saw sacrifice.

On a bellow, Ethan’s father reared with all he had, his arms going up and back. The assassin’s gun jerked wildly in his hand, but he held fast to the weapon.

The old man wheeled on him, slamming head and shoulders into the hit man’s torso.

They went down in a struggle, dust kicking into a yellow cloud around them.

Ethan was back on the porch before Tori realized he was moving. He grabbed the backpack. Pulled out one of the pistols.

Out on the driveway, a shot rang out.

The assassin got to his feet, pistol aimed down at Ethan’s father. He didn’t get the chance to shoot again.

Ethan stalked forward, blasting rounds into the killer in rapid fire, even after the body had dropped in a lifeless heap on the ground.

“Ethan!” Tori ran down and wrapped herself around him, tears streaming down her cheeks as her fear receded and a flood of relief swamped her.

Ethan was safe. He was unharmed.

But his father…

Together they walked over to where the old man lay. He was bleeding profusely, one obviously mortal shot to his gut. He had moments left. A few short minutes at most.

“Dad,” Ethan said thickly as he stuck the spent pistol in the back of his jeans, then hunkered down beside his father. He tried to say something else, but his words seemed to dry up in his throat.

“Was heading this direction anyway,” his father rasped. “Might as well put both feet in the damn grave and get it over with.”

Ethan shook his head. “If I’d known…I wouldn’t have come here.”

“Don’t you dare, son.” The old man wheezed, blood sputtering out of his mouth as he panted and struggled to speak. “Don’t you…go apologizin’ to me. I’m the one owed you that…never gave it. So you take it now. You take it now…and you…you and your girl…go on now.”