Shatter (4 page)

“Hali,
stop
.” The voice penetrated. Male. Distant. Angry. “It’s me. It’s Mitch.”

Mitch.
Mitch.

Her heart thumped hard. Swelled with relief.

He pulled her around, his hands gentle, arms strong. He swiped hair from her face, clearing her eyes, and gazed down at her with so much concern, a cold place inside her warmed.

“Look at me, baby.” His voice had turned husky. Deep and sexy. He was breathing hard and held her so tight, but tenderly with one arm around her back, one hand behind her head. Those beautiful eyes shimmered in the strange lights coming from different angles. “Are you with me? Are you all here?”

“Where?”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” He released her head and gripped one side of her face tight, pressing his forehead to hers. His eyes drifted closed. “Damn, you know how to scare the hell out of a man.”

She laughed. Or thought she did.

“Honey, the neighbors are out. Sirens are coming. We have to get out of here.”

He pulled her into a sitting position. Took her face, gently this time, in both hands. In the aftermath of the attack, the sweet gesture, his presence, his strength, urged her to lean into him. She relented, and sighed at the feeling of having someone to lean on. Finally.

It had been so long.

She covered his hand with hers. Color flashed in her peripheral vision and she glanced sideways. Red . . . on her skin. Blood.

Urgency dribbled in. Uneasiness followed. His words—“baby,” “honey”—didn’t fit. But her brain hurt. She couldn’t think. And Mitch pulled her close, holding her forehead to his shoulder. Emotion pushed wetness into her eyes. She fisted the T-shirt over his rigid abdomen and took a shaky breath.

“Tell me where the safe is and the combination,” he said. “I’ll get the research.”

Ice slid down her spine. Then the gunman’s words pushed into her head.

Betrayal cut like fire down the center of her body. She dulled the pain by calling herself stupid. Naïve. Foolish. And a dozen other nasty words for dragging hope from its grave.

“It’s not there,” she said. “I lied to him.”

“What?”
he snapped. “Why?”

She tensed and the sudden movement made her stomach roll. “I . . . don’t feel so good.”

Mitch lifted her head from his shoulder. “We’ll get one of your neighbors to take care of the dog for a while—”

“Wait, no.” She pulled away, closing her eyes when the street spun. “No one else needs to take care of him—”

“Halina, we can’t take a dog when we don’t know—”

“He comes with me. He
always
comes with me.” Why did she have to explain this? “I won’t leave him behind. Ever.”

When he remained silent, Halina tried opening her eyes again. The warmth that had turned Mitch’s eyes such a stunning shade of golden-green just minutes ago had transitioned into irritation that made his irises bright green and as shiny as glass.

He gripped her arms and pushed her back. The movement sent a wave of pain through her head, making her wince. “Nice to see you’ve developed a sense of loyalty over the years.”

“Heather?” The voice of an older man came closer. “Heather, heavens, sweetheart, what happened?”

She forced her eyes open and found Mr. Holland, a man in his seventies and her neighbor directly across the street, crouching in front of her. He was wrapped in a dark robe, his face creased in concern, gray hair in scraggly tufts.

“Home invasion,” Mitch said, pulling away from Halina. “The other one got away. You should tell your neighbors to go back inside until the police get here.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Mr. Holland frowned at Mitch. “We don’t pry into Heather’s business, but we watch out for each other in the neighborhood and I’ve never seen you here before.”

“A friend,” he said, clearly irritated with the inquiry.

Mr. Holland leaned back, a look of confused suspicion growing before he glanced over his shoulder at the car and Dex still lamenting in the backseat. “Heather, do you want me to ask Jacey to help with—”

“No.” An offer to have their neighbor take Dex would only give Mitch leverage, and there was no way in hell she was leaving the best thing in her life behind. “Thank you, but no. I’d like to keep him with me.”

Holland nodded and called to the other neighbors loitering on the sidewalk, “She’s okay. Go on back to bed. I’ll wait for the police.” Then to Halina, “Honey, maybe you should stay put for a few more minutes. We’ve got an ambulance coming.”

Mr. Holland’s gentle voice, his steady warm hand on her shoulder, made suppressed emotion bubble to the surface and tears burned Halina’s eyes.

“Can’t take chances with a head wound.” Mitch’s curt delivery and cold tone directly opposed the nature of the comment, making him seem like a careless prick. He stood, pulling Halina to her feet. “Every minute counts.”

The street tilted and Halina slanted with it. She gripped Mitch’s arms.

“Heather?” Mr. Holland stood back, darting an unsure glance between Halina and Mitch.

“I’m . . . I’ll be okay.” She pulled from Mitch’s grasp, her emotions in a knot. She didn’t want to go with him, but she didn’t like the idea of staying here to see who followed this blue-eyed attacker, either. “I’d rather go to the hospital on my own than in an ambulance.”

Mitch turned her toward the street. They were halfway down the driveway when she realized they were headed toward the wrong car. She stopped, muttering, “Wait, my car’s—”

“Your car has been inhabited by Cujo.”

She twisted away from Mitch and forced herself to remain standing. The growing anger helped. “I should have known this wouldn’t work.”

“Halina, we don’t have time—”

“I guess I’ll
make time
.” She moved toward her car, pressing a hand to the pain in her head. “Mr. Holland, would you mind moving my friend’s car to the curb if he’s not willing to do it?”

The jingle of keys tinkled in the night, then Mitch was beside her again, his voice softer. “Halina, we don’t know how many of these guys are out there.”

“I don’t need you. I can take care of myself.” The truth of the words dug holes in her heart. She was so tired of taking care of herself. Of isolating herself. Of being so completely
alone
. “I’ve been doing it for”—
my entire life
—“seven years.”

He trapped her against the car, covering her hands, the front of his body pressing against the back of hers. Touching her. Everywhere.

“That was your choice, Halina.”

His murmur hummed in her ear and shivered across her skin, reminding her of all she’d given up. All she’d let go. All she’d handed to all those other women. Woman after woman after woman. All within weeks of Halina’s departure. All the most accomplished, the most gorgeous, the most well-bred women.

As if he’d had enough of the ordinary with Halina and was ready for the truly spectacular. As if he’d been taking advantage of all he’d realized he’d been missing. As if her leaving had been the best thing that happened to him.

He couldn’t know how that clawed at her deepest insecurities from childhood, or that she would even know he’d moved on, or that she would care even if she did know.

And it was all irrelevant to what really mattered: his happiness, his health, his safety. That’s why she’d done all she’d done—and she’d been wildly successful.

But she’d never expected to have to witness him doing it all so publicly. So flamboyantly. So . . . excessively. She’d never expected to have to watch other women get to enjoy all she’d given up.

Her chest squeezed, yearning for so many things she couldn’t have. But he was standing here, touching her, and it was
so hard
not to lean into him . . . and just . . . let go . . .

“You can’t drive, Halina,” he said. “And you can’t stay here. Sorry, baby. You’re stuck with me.”

 

M
itch closed the passenger’s door, breathing hard, his heart slamming against his chest wall.

Note to self:
Don’t stand that freaking close to her, dipshit.

The shepherd had crawled halfway into her lap, and she had her face pressed into his thick fur. She looked so . . . vulnerable.

How could she look
vulnerable
after he’d just witnessed her disarm and pummel a guy who had two weapons?

Mitch’s brain was twisted two hundred degrees and flipped on its axis. This woman was a complete stranger; if she didn’t look so much like Halina, he wouldn’t believe them one and the same.

Then she turned her head and laid it on the dog’s shoulders. Blood spattered her cheek. Matted a section of her hair. Still, with her face relaxed again, she was so clearly the woman who’d lain beside him in bed for nearly a year. The woman who’d loved to press herself against him when she slept. The only woman who’d ever made him think of the future.

A lead weight lay at the bottom of his stomach. He knew better than to jump to conclusions—especially in this convoluted situation—but it was pretty clear she hadn’t been working for Schaeffer. Even though she might have been hiding from Mitch, it sounded like she’d been
running
from Schaeffer.

He rounded the hood and waved to the scowling Mr. Holland as he emerged from Mitch’s rental at the curb. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be back for it as soon as I can.”

Mitch paused to crouch beside the gunman and grimaced at his appearance. He patted the guy’s pockets. Empty. Pulling his phone from his jeans pocket, Mitch photographed the unconscious man’s battered face, then pressed the man’s blood-laden fingerprints to the glass front of his phone.

By the time he opened the driver’s door, the huge dog was trying to climb into Halina’s lap. The bottom half of his body was hidden beneath the dash as he sat on the floorboard. The upper half was draped across Halina, his big head resting in the crook of her elbow where she had her arm wrapped around his neck. The beast had to weigh well over a hundred pounds.

His golden-brown eyes sharpened and a low growl hummed in the dog’s throat as Mitch slid into the driver seat.

He paused before closing the door. “Halina, order him not to bite my dick off or go for my jugular.”

She turned her head toward Mitch, but kept the side of her face against the dog’s neck. “
Tikhiy,
boy.”

Mitch shut the door and backed out of the drive. “Where’s the nearest emergency room out of town? You need to get your head looked at.”

“In more ways than one,” she muttered. “But I need to get to my storage unit first.”

“What’s in your storage unit?”

She only gave him an address in the neighboring town of Bellevue.

Before he searched for directions, Mitch tapped into an app on his phone and sent a scanned image of the fingerprints on the glass to Kai, who’d been the one to share this cool toy. Through his military contacts, Kai would get answers on this guy’s identity faster than any other source. And the sooner they discovered who their attacker had been, the sooner they could uncover the root of this danger.

The attacker had said he was the new game in town, but Mitch believed this would ultimately end at Schaeffer. Just because the man was lying in a military hospital in Washington, DC, in a coma didn’t mean he hadn’t put this plan into action before his accident.

After retrieving directions from his phone for the storage unit, Mitch set a safe and sane pace through the mostly sleeping neighborhood to avoid notice.

He was completely off balance now and needed a million answers to as many questions. Stopping at the red light marking the intersection of the main road, he rubbed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath to get himself back on track.

His lungs filled with . . . Halina—a unique musky sweetness beneath the gentle scent of perfume. One Mitch had given her so long ago. The very first perfume she’d ever owned.

Why that memory hit him like a fist in the solar plexus, he didn’t know. But the gentle floral scent of jasmine and roses, laced with a hint of leather, ambushed him. His nostrils flared. Fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Gut squeezed a hot line toward his groin.

The realization of how easily he reacted to her clashed with the memory of how quickly she’d taken him down at the hotel and then run, whipping up anger. “
Why
did he call you Beloi?”

“Because it’s my name.”

“Which name? You went by Sintrovsky when I met you. Same name as your ambassador
husband,
who you originally claimed as your cousin. Schaeffer referred to you as Dubrovsky. You go by Raiden now.” He slanted her a glance and found her eyes open, but distant. “Interesting choice, by the way. Now, this guy is calling you Beloi. How many freaking names do you have? You’ve probably got a split personality to match every one.”

She rubbed her forehead near the injury and winced. “You’re not helping this headache.”

“Why did you tell that guy to let me and the dog go?”

Halina let out a long, heavy sigh. “I was hoping you’d run so he’d have a reason to shoot you.”

His gaze shot to her face again. The little curve of her lips spiked his irritation. “Halina.”

“What happened to your sense of humor?”

“What research was that guy talking about?”

“So many damn questions,” she said. “Do you not see the blood gushing from my head?”

“You’re not even bleeding anymore.”

“Do I need blood pooling beneath my body before you take pity?”

“You may be in that exact situation if we don’t figure out their next move before they make it.
What research
?”

“The genetic research I was doing at DARPA before I left.” She snapped the words, her voice harsh, nudging Mitch’s temper.

“Why did you tell that guy you’d get the research from the house if it’s not there?”

“Because I could fight him easier inside. And I knew Dex would be out of danger that way.”

Mitch jerked his head back in surprise. “Dex?”

She rubbed her face against the dog’s fur. It reminded Mitch of the way she used to cuddle deep into her pillow. The way he used to watch her sleep, study the beautiful lines of her face, the curves of her lips, the texture of her skin, the contrast of her dark lashes on blushed cheekbones. All the time thinking what a lucky bastard he was.

Now all he could think of was what a damn fool he’d been.

“Mitch, this is Dex,” Halina said. “Dex, Mitch.”

The dog looked at Mitch as if he understood Halina’s words and whined.

The light flipped green and Mitch turned onto the main road headed toward the freeway. “Dex is a
dog
?”

“What did you think . . . ?” Her voice trailed off, followed by a soft, throaty laugh that drifted over his body like a touch. “Oh, okay, that’s funny. You thought he was a boyfriend, didn’t you? You must be letting your paralegals do your research again.”

No, worse. A freaking clairaudient, who wasn’t exactly wrong—Halina obviously cared deeply for Dex—but who’d led Mitch in a totally different direction. He couldn’t fault Keira, really. This situation hardly met optimum conditions, and according to Keira, Halina was the worst possible subject—totally shut down and blocking Keira’s ability to hear.

Two cops and an ambulance passed, headed the opposite direction, all lights and sirens.

“What I’m sure your paralegals didn’t tell you,” Halina said, “since they couldn’t even get his species right, and what you might have already figured out, is that Dex is not just a dog. Dex is an attack-trained German shepherd from a line of champions.”

“Oh. Excuse me.” He looked out the side window, feeling as competent as an armadillo. “A damn dog . . .”

Sonofabitch. He’d spent weeks turning himself inside out with jealousy—which in itself was completely irrational—because of a freaking
dog
. Mitch sighed, propped his elbow on the windowsill, and rubbed his forehead.

“Where’s the research?” he nearly yelled.

“I don’t have it. I destroyed it. I decided when they did come for me, if I couldn’t get away, having to re-create it would give me time to escape or make a deal.”

The utter chaos of this situation, the way every element spun out of his control, only made his fury mount.

“Where the
hell
is your husband?” Mitch would have smacked himself in the head for even mentioning the guy if Halina hadn’t been in the car. “You remember, the guy you left me for?”

“I’m not going there with you.”

Focus. Focus.
He ground his teeth to hold his temper
. That’s not what matters now.

“Not going there with me? Too late, sweetheart. You
went there
with me
more times than I can count
for nearly a damn
year
while you were
married
to him.”

Halina sat up, her glare like a laser. “Don’t be a bastard, Mitch.”

Way
too late for that. “Did you dump him too? Or are you two on another hiatus? Planning on giving your marriage another go once you’ve got some other pathetic idiot snagged? Just FYI, baby, it ain’t gonna be me this time.”

She sighed, the sound heavy with disgust, looked away, and shook her head.

“Look, Halina, you may not want to deal with me, but that’s too damn bad. And guys like the one you jammed back there are following higher orders. He may have said he was on his own, but in my experience, Schaeffer doesn’t play that game. And whoever he was, whoever’s in this with him—because we both know it’s too big for one person—they won’t quit.

“And the guy was wrong about me coming to find you only after Rostov and Gorin were dead. It wasn’t until Gorin was dead that I discovered a promotional video of you with Schaeffer, Rostov, and Gorin, while I was collecting evidence against Schaeffer. It was taken right after you arrived in the U.S. and started working for the DoD. That’s how I discovered the beginning of your lies. Until then I had no reason not to believe everything you’d told me all those years ago. But since you’ve got so many identities, and because the history of those identities has been so carefully covered, I can’t get any answers. So here I am.”

When she didn’t reply, Mitch cut a glance toward her. She had a strange, distant, distracted look in her eyes.

“Evidence?” she said, her voice soft as if she were thinking of something else and only now coming back to the conversation. “What kind of evidence? Can you convict him of anything?”

“Sure I can,” he said. “Just enough to really piss him off. Just enough to complicate his life enough to send an assassin squad against the team and me. Not enough to shut him up. Not enough to shut him down. Shitty, pissant stuff—campaign fraud, bribery, misuse of public funds, all on a minor level that he’d get a slap on the hand and community service for. At worst, a few years at Club Fed,” he said, using the universal term lawyers and law enforcement used for federal prison.

Halina didn’t respond, which was fine with Mitch. He wasn’t ready to talk business. His hurt, betrayal, and anger had been stewing for days and had finally boiled over.

He pounded the steering wheel. “
Goddammit,
Halina. Everything was a lie, wasn’t it?
Everything
between us.”

When she still didn’t answer, he shot her a glare. But her gaze had gone completely distant, her brow was drawn in concern, and her rhythmic stroking of Dex’s fur had stopped.

“At least have the decency to tell the truth about it now. You owe me that much.
Halina.
”

She sat up, darting frightened looks out the windows. Dex whined as if sensing her distress.

“What’s wrong now?” he asked, exasperated he couldn’t even get enough info to begin to put that short period of his life—one that had defined who he’d become—behind him once and for all.

She shook her head slowly, as if her mind were still somewhere else. Then she gasped and stiffened. Her eyes went wide and her body shuddered as if something inside her had broken.

She slammed a hand against her chest, fisted the other in Dex’s collar.

“Mitch, pull off the freeway.” Her words came breathless and raspy, barely audible.

“Are you sick?” He scanned her, looking for a problem. She was too young, too fit for a heart attack. She’d stopped bleeding. She wasn’t throwing up, wasn’t writhing in pain—

“No. No.
Now
.” Her voice grew stronger with conviction. “Pull off the freeway,
now
. Right here.” She hauled Dex closer with one arm and pointed frantically to the exit Mitch was about to pass with the other. “Here, Mitch,
here
.”

“Jesus,” he muttered while checking his mirrors, hitting the brakes and swerving to make the exit. He took the ramp, glancing back at the freeway. “What the hell is—”

His words cut off as a gray Chevy SUV darted along the fast lane. Within a fraction of a second, the vehicle cut across three lanes of traffic to make the next exit. Then events slowed to half time in front of Mitch’s eyes.

The SUV swerved in front of a big rig, one that had been traveling just ahead of their car in the next lane. The rig braked hard and skidded. The cab jerked, turning ninety degrees to the trailer. The trailer skidded sideways, across all four lanes of traffic, slamming into vehicles while other vehicles swerved and braked, unable to stop in time and crashing into the trailer. Smoke and dust exploded into the air. Metal screeched. Glass shattered. Then
crunch, crash, squeal
. And it started all over again.