Chapter 10
10
NATHAN
“ C an I ask you a question?” Considering how perilously close Nathan was to squealing and clapping his hands together like an excitable preteen, the squeak in his voice was forgivable. He was trying very hard to keep it casual, so maybe she could overlook the personal nature of most of his questions and answer.
“Shut up, Savage.” She huffed and finally decided to stop pretending to sleep.
Sure, the actual plan of escape wasn’t all that... reasonable in the whole ‘staying alive’ scheme of things, but at least it was something. What actually had him repressing his squeals of glee and going for the more manly and acceptable nod of approval was the fact that Caden Quinn now had two feet firmly on the right side of the veil.
It was like… hell, he didn’t have a proper comparison for the swirling sense of relief and victory in his chest. She’d quit her kamikaze nose dive and was set on escaping.
“Come on—it ain’t gonna be that personal.” Try as he might (okay, so he didn’t at all) to swallow all the questions burning his tongue, he just couldn’t keep quiet. If there was even the slightest chance that he’d get any kind of info on her, he would. She flopped an arm over her eyes and then hissed as her cuts pulled, but otherwise ignored him.
“Okay, how about a trade?” Nathan watched her lips purse and couldn’t help but wet his own.
“What is it you think that I want from you?” She lifted her arm and narrowed her eyes at him.
“I’m sure there is something you want to know about me, or my job, or how I keep this body so delectable.” He tried for a sinuous hand glide down his front but hit his bruised side and tried not to visibly wince. She only rolled her eyes at him. There was something. She was biting at her lip and looking even more apprehensive of him—like she was trying to figure out why the hell he cared so much. “So how ‘bout it? An answer for an answer.”
She mulled it over, chapped bottom lip under her teeth.
Damn it, he was fixating. She was gonna notice and then get all uncomfortable and defensive around him. The man focused on her hands instead. Dry, bruised, and scraped knuckles. Raw wrists. Busted fingernails. Red crusted in the tiny crevices in her hands. They moved out of his line of sight and pushed her upright.
“Okay.” She sat forward. “What’s she like?”
“Who?”
“Your mother.” Her eyebrows arched up, and she eyed him as if he was slow. Like, who else in the world could she possibly be talking about? “Your adopted mom.”
“My mama?” Nathan blinked and paused to glance down at her face, half in surprise and half in suspicion that he was being mocked.
“Ya know, your southern drawl gets really pronounced when you’re surprised.” Another half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes pulled at the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t know...” Nathan shrugged and tried to figure out where the hell that came from. “She’s a mom, ya know?”
He’d expected a question about busts or other thieves—hell, even something more about his Special Ops days. Not questions about his mother.
“No.”
Surprise kept him quiet for a long moment.
“You don’t have a mom?”
“I...” Her voice was hesitant and after a moment, she let out a resigned grunt and continued. “I think she either split or died before I was old enough to remember her. My dad never said anything about her—other than that she was a whore, of course.”
“Oh.” Nathan absorbed that and tried to fit it in with the short and vague history of this woman. “You didn’t ask about her?”
“You didn’t purposefully draw attention to yourself in my family.” Her voice turned grim. “So no.”
“Why not?” The old scars, the ones under all the others, on her back and neck and arms popped into his head and suddenly he understood why she wanted to know.
“Are these your questions, Savage?” She let out a pointed huff and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Oh, no. Sorry—I—my mom. She’s—” How did he explain his mother? “She is the mother of seven boys—no girls, all boys. Adopted us all, her and my dad couldn’t have kids, so they did foster care and adopted. And we were hellions.” God, they were the worst kids. “She is always doing something—yelling mostly, cooking—though we’d beg her not to. But even her cooking is better than three weeks in the middle of nowhere on nothin’ but water and MREs.”
It was really ridiculous how horrible his mother was in the kitchen. It was like she didn’t have taste buds and lost her concept of time when she put something in the oven. They’d actually developed a system that involved plastic bags tucked into jeans and frequent visits to the bathroom and then raiding the kitchen for snacks when they were supposed to have been sleeping.
“Our complaining got so bad when we were little that Bobby, my adopted dad, took a bunch of cooking classes—he still does, actually. They were supposed to take them together, but Ellen refused to take ‘em.” That dark thing that was so hard and impenetrable in her eyes melted and she seemed almost warm. “She said that Bobby had been living with her cooking for years and he was still alive, so it couldn’t be as bad as we were making out. But Bobby’s the designated cook now and everyone’s much happier.”
Hell, he’d talk about his mama all day if she was going to be all human about it and not the hollowed-eyed robot that was her default response.
“It was always a controlled chaos at home when we were kids—still is, really. She is always in motion... she’s tough, bossy, loud, and stubborn. And god help ya if you forget your manners.”
“She’s sounds... nice.” A small smile pulled at the corner of her lips.
“I don’t know if nice is the proper adjective for her, but she’s something.” He grinned at her and she smiled back, looking... wistful. It kind of killed him.
“How many questions do I get?” What he wouldn’t give for mind powers. How many times had he pressed into the back of his closet or hid under his bed and fervently believed that he’d had the ability to turn invisible when he was a kid? Now he’d give his right arm to read the Hitter’s mind.
“Is that one of your questions?” Her eyes narrowed and instantly cooled again.
“I just needa gauge what I should ask.”
“Damn, Savage—there ain’t that much to know about me! There’s gotta be something wrong with you—no one in the world asks as many questions as you! Is it some kind of compulsion you’ve got no control over?”
“Is that one of your questions?” So it wasn’t exactly mature to mimic her, but he was starting to feel a bit defensive.
“No.”
“How many?”
“A few.” She huffed at him, looking almost as annoyed as he was.
“As in two, three, four...?” It was like pulling teeth trying to get anything out of her.
“A few,”she growled and shoved to her feet.
“What are you—do you need help?”
“I swear to god Savage, I’m gonna bust your kneecaps if you keep doing that.” Scowling, she gingerly tested each limb.
“Doing what?”
“That—that—that good ol’ boy scout let’s help this woman across the street and rescue fucking puppies thing that you do!”
“You mean trying to help you to your feet?” Was she insane?
“Yes, I am not a quadriplegic—I can get to my own goddamn feet without your help.” Slowly, as if testing her limits, she moved one arm at a time until they were both over her head. It was at that point the ex-special ops soldier’s brain turned to liquid and poured out his ears.
She stretched for a full minute and Nathan had a hard time remembering just where the hell he was and why it was so imperative for them to leave. So it was doubly easy for him to forget about how incredibly annoying and frustrating the woman was.
And holy Christ, why was it now that he was zeroing in on the fact that she was indeed a woman?
Usually, her ten-foot-tall-grenade-munchin’-assassin swagger and the body armor she wore pulling jobs and going into combat hid it. But clad in only his tattered t-shirt and purple panties, he could see every feminine curve.
There had to be something wrong with him. She was all kinds of tortured and beaten and there he was, getting hard just watching her stretch.
So Nathan did the only thing he could do in defense: flopped onto his back, stared at the ceiling, and thought of how unsettling and creepy small children were. And how unpleasant electrocution felt. And that one time his dad had worn a speedo to the beach. And when that wasn’t working, he dug deeper and thought of combat, firefights, good men dying, and the smell of burning flesh. Absolutely anything other than how Caden Quinn’s long legs would feel wrapped around him—or straddling him.
Holy hell. He had to pull it together.
Questions—he was supposed to be asking a question. It was a onetime offer that he wasn’t gonna waste. Somehow, understanding how she stole a statue was no longer at the top of his list. There were so many he was burning to ask.
Like, where did she come from? Asking about her childhood would most likely incite some kind of violence. What had she been doing in Oregon? He’d had his suspicions, but he needed them confirmed. Who the hell had failed to slit her throat—was it even a combat wound—how had she survived that? Who was Ezzy? What was that horrible nightmare that made her, the inhumanly stoic mercenary, cry and beg?
All of which were personal questions, and she’d either respond by sucker-punching him or ignoring him altogether. Although she’d asked about his mother so maybe he could assume that she’d be up for answering family-related ones as well.
Under control now, Nathan turned to watch as the woman moved to the far side of the cell, by the half-eaten rat, and breathed deeply for a bit. Without opening her eyes, she moved slowly and deliberately: block, duck, hit, dodge, hit. Katas, she was going through routine martial arts moves. She repeated it twice, faster each time, before it finally struck home for him.
She wasn’t the innocent little civilian woman turned mercenary that he’d assumed for years now. Holy hell, because she was a woman, he hadn’t even thought to entertain the notion. How many times had he simply brushed aside or ignored the obvious? Mentally, the man connected the dots and then resisted the urge to kick his own ass.
First: because, well, it was physically impossible and being all drama queen about it wasn’t going to change anything.
Second: there was that time in Greece and then Syria and hell, even that time on the borders of Canada. But Christ, why the hell hadn’t he even caught on in Syria?
He’d caught up to her in Syria, was waiting on the other side of the window for her when she emerged, winnings in hand, and arrested her for the third time. He hadn’t had time to report in before a car bomb (unhappy civilians protesting their government’s rule via homemade bombs and Molotov cocktails) went off. She’d been barking out orders left and right and making barricades while he’d laid there with half the car door sticking out of his leg. They’d made it out okay, but the newbie agent she’d been handcuffed to did not. By the time the full-out civilians versus soldiers mayhem moved streets, she’d escaped.
“Where did you receive your training?” Attempting to swallow that pill, the one where he’d blatantly ignored the obvious for—hell, how many years? He wanted to know under which flag she’d served. Maybe Israel?
“The United States Military.” Her lips pulled into a grim line and she moved faster in her routine.
“What?” And Savage was once again shocked by the mercenary. “How do we have nothing on you, then? I don’t...”
“I spent a couple of years in the army before I got snatched up by CIA Black OPS. Spent five years as a government-sanctioned attack dog. Five years doing all kinds of... wet work for god and country. One of our missions went to hell; we were set up from the start. Didn’t have a fucking chance in hell. And then you know how it goes. Big Brother denies any involvement and either scrubs you from the database or names you a rogue agent.” She’d stopped moving and just stared at the wall beside his head, eyes glazed, reliving the horror.
“Someone in management sold us out. We... my team—everyone was slaughtered. They blew us up first; I took five pieces of shrapnel to the heart and back, and then they moved in to deliver headshots to anyone still breathin’. Garth, he’d had his leg blown off—blood was spurting everywhere, and little bits of his leg were dangling. He couldn’t fucking walk, let alone crawl. But he somehow got to me and shoved me over the bridge. He was always doin’ shit like that... always putting everybody’s life before his own. He was my team leader... he was a good man. They all were.”
Once again, Nathan was awe-struck by the amount of sheer fight she had. No matter what she faced or how dead she was supposed to be, the woman always came out on top. Nathan felt a swell of pride at that thought and then promptly shook himself.
Admiration, yes, he could understand. All you had to do was meet the woman to feel awe. But pride was something he shouldn’t be feeling when it came to Quinn. She wasn’t his family or a colleague. The man should not be feeling pride at the thought of the things his woman had done and survived doing. Because she wasn’t his woman. She’d probably beat the living hell out of him if he ever let that thought slip.
But Nathan did not lie to himself; it was an integral part of what made him so adaptable. So he laid it out quite clearly in his mind. Sure, he was attracted physically to the woman—who the hell wouldn’t be? But he liked, he realized with a degree of surprise that was almost unsettling, her as a human being. Always had. Damn, it was impossible not to like her.
She was tough with all kinds of sharp angles and could probably kill him with a flick of her pinkie finger. Which maybe would have put off another man, but it seemed to have the reverse effect on him. She was funny, even if she didn’t realize it, and quick-witted. The level of intelligence she possessed was equal parts intimidating and thrilling. Her fight, though, the thing that made her Caden Quinn through and through, was probably what clinched it for him.
“Woke up on the shore later being operated on by this in-fucking-sane—fuck, I don’t even know what he is. He claims he’s got a PHD and was a surgeon, but he also has an invisible friend named Marty and lives in a cave to keep the aliens from finding him... so who knows? I eventually got out of that mother fucking jungle.”
He didn’t just like her. Hell, he was half in love with her. He’d always been half in love with her. Maybe it was when she’d hit him with the car, or the first time she grinned at him with that ‘come and get it’ look. Maybe there was no half about it.
“I’m sorry about your team.” Nathan knew firsthand all about betrayal and death.
“Me too.” Her face twisted into cynical angry lines; her lips curled and her chin jutted out like she was resisting the urge to speak. “You know what the real kicker was, though? After he slaughtered my team... he informed the families—my sister that we’d fallen in combat. Not MIA or even rogue, just dead.” Rage crawled into her voice. “Do you know what dead does to people? I was too late—she’d already—fucking dead—like I’d failed—like I didn’t keep my promise.”
“What did she do?” He was pretty sure they were talking about Ezra or Quinny. From what he’d gathered, both were dead and he could probably guess what her sister had done after being told of Caden’s death.
“Tried to kill herself.”
Tried. As in, she tried but didn’t succeed. And hell, it seemed suicide was a Collins family motto. Did none of them have anything to live for outside of each other?
“So, does that mean—is she still alive?” Maybe he’d misinterpreted. Maybe there was actually something in her life that wasn’t tragic and horrible.
“No.”An empty laugh that had his skin crawling burst from her lips. “Think I’d be here if she was still... She found out she had cancer during the same visit. Breast cancer. I came home and there she was, wrists all bandaged and cuffed to the bed like some kinda... Breast cancer. I mean, after everything thing she’s been through, after everything she’s survived—how is it fair that she gets—” Rage melted away and she was back to being nothing more than a sack of organs that somehow still functioned. “She fought it for a while, a few years. She’d be in the clear for a few months, but it always came back. She... I buried her six months ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Nathan could say nothing to make it better, so he didn’t try. He couldn’t fathom losing one of his brothers. He understood the dangers of each of their jobs and knew there was a possibility that any one of them might not make it home, but still, it was a foreign concept that he did not want to even consider.
But to have to watch as one of them withered with cancer. To watch for years as they fought and fought, only to lose and die before their time. Before they could make fun of each other for going gray and getting wrinkles and pot bellies.
“She’s dead.” Something in her voice jerked his attention back to her. She all but fell to the ground. “She died. I haven’t told anyone—there was no one to tell. I was holding her hand. Promising her that she wasn’t gonna die—that I would make the doctors fix her. She’s dead.”
Like she hadn’t accepted it before. Like she hadn’t let the truth of it touch her. Like she’d been on autopilot for six months and her mind was just catching up with the rest of her.
She sat still for a long while and just stared at the cement below her. Nathan wanted to hug her or maybe just hold her hand, but he knew she’d attack him if he tried to touch her. So he did the only thing he could. Nathan scooted on his ass until he was right beside the mercenary, shoulders almost touching, and waited. She tensed beside him, but when he made no move to touch her, she relaxed.
“She was four when her mama tossed her at our doorstep.” After a long minute, she curled her fists and lifted her head. “She was always so smart. I mean, Quinny was the brave one and Ezzy was the genius. She could read and count money by the time she was four—I shit you not. If I was too beat to move, she’d swoop in, at age four, make dinner, put Quinny to bed—pay the damn bills even. Honor Roll every year, all top marks and honor classes. She graduated at fourteen and got scholarships. She had just broken up with her boyfriend when...”
“She sounds nice.” What could he say to a heartbroken sister that could make it hurt less? Nothing. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“She was nice,” Caden acknowledged and shot him a grin and then slid back the barest inch as if just realizing he was all but on her. She shifted awkwardly and cleared her throat. “It’s about time for ‘em to come.”
Nodding, the man gave her space and moved to the other side of the tiny room. Mentally stowing all the sudden realizations and the Quinn backstory for later, Nathan stretched his limbs for a bit. He had to focus. They were going to get out and then he’d be able to put his full attention on wooing. Or maybe he should just drag her to his home and let his mother at her.
“See, this is the part I don’t understand.” Nathan felt the need to express some kind of distaste as he positioned himself on the concrete.
“What don’t you understand? Lie there and convulse. Try to work up a froth.” She frowned at him and stood straight.
“What are you gonna say? I mean, I understand that you’re a woman and therefore seem like the lesser threat, but how the hell are you gonna get them to come in? As appealing as your feminine wiles are—don’t you think they would come in earlier if they were going to come in at all?”
If it went the way she’d predicted, Caden, being the more injured and handicapped of the two, would be the one taking all the risk. Which made absolutely perfect sense to Nathan.
“It doesn’t matter what I say—all that matters is how I say it and what language I say it in.” Caden turned to grin at him from her position at the door. “And hope to hell they aren’t Irish.”
“You speak Gaelic?” Was there anything she couldn’t do?
“Eh,” she shrugged and then grimaced at the movement. “Enough to get by. I can ask where the bathrooms and sandwiches are.”
“Ya know, Quinn, you’re kinda amazing.”
She cocked her head, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders like she was conceding the point. Two sets of boots sounded in the hallway, right on time. Nathan watched as she pivoted, stuck her face in the square cut into the solid metal door, and promptly turned into a quivering mess of snot, tears, and sniffling.
It was a soft and scared voice he’d never expect to come out of her mouth. She sounded delicate and fragile and very much like a damsel in distress
Nathan did his part by working up a good froth and letting it drool down his chin while he jerked and shook and won a fucking Oscar in seizing. He’d wanted to play the part as already dead, but Caden had insisted saying there was a difference between already dead and getting there.
Nathan kept on seizing as they yelled at the helpless woman.
He couldn’t see her as it was but she was still doing a very convincing freaked out woman.
“Do you speak English?” A heavy Russian accent sounded over her fake sobs.
Caden didn’t answer in any language he could understand. She just kept repeating the same phrase over and over.
“Back away.” Metal creaked on metal and adrenaline spiked in his system. She’d done it. Nathan would have smiled if he wasn’t foaming at the mouth and trying to convince the slop dealer and his guard that he was dying.
Cold metal nudged his side. He kept on convulsing. A steel-toed boot kicked him. Nathan could see the man’s face when he leaned over to peer at him. “Can you speak?”
Nathan shot up, shoved the barrel of the AK-47 aside (so as to avoid getting gut shot), and jerked it out of the man’s hold. The guard reeled back, tried to regain his balance, and threw a clumsy fist at Nathan’s neck. Nathan blocked the blow with his forearm and sent a right hook to connect with the man’s jaw. It was a solid hit, but he must have had a reinforced jaw because the man didn’t go down; he just kinda stumbled around for a bit. So Nathan helped him to the ground by aiming a kick at his kneecap. It crunched under his bare heel and the man let out a pained screech before he collapsed.
“Wait!” Caden was at his side, gripping his arm. “He called it in.” She bent to retrieve the AK-47 and pointed it at the moaning man’s head. She said something threatening in Russian.
Nathan wasn’t sure what that meant, but he could connect the dots. Something about calling it in and a time frame to do it in.
“Odin.” One.
The guard did some especially pathetic groaning and bleeding, but otherwise remained still.
“Dva.” Two.
Shaking his head, he started sputtering and looking terrified.
“Tri.” Three.
“Okay—friend—okay?” He held up his hands and nodded his head like it could save his life. “Friend. Please, do not kill me. Okay? Friend. Okay?”
He kept on nodding, took a deep breath, and called it in. As soon as he was done, his hands went back up and Caden bashed him in the temple with the butt of his own gun.
Both were big men. One man, however, had some girth on him so Nathan got to stripping him of his dirty jeans, weird sweater vest thing, and his shoes. Christ, it would feel so nice to wear things like socks and shoes again.
“You think these will fit you?” She tugged off the unconscious man’s boot and chucked it in his direction. “They sure as hell ain’t gonna fit me.”
Step one: get clothes and weapons. Check.
Step two: stealth it out and hope no one is the wiser.
Not a real rock-solid plan, but it was the only one they had. Suited up and armed, they started for the door.
“Wait,” Caden halted abruptly, and Nathan had to move left to avoid plowing her over.
“What?” He breathed, trying to listen for the approaching threat, but all he could hear was the steady beat of his heart in his ears.
The Hitter whirled around, got on her toes, gripped a handful of his hair, and dragged his head down to kiss him full on the mouth. Nathan froze in shock, but that quickly dissolved when her teeth nipped at his lip and she fisted his hair.
The torture, escaping, men with guns, rats—it all melted away and a fire lit in his gut. It was hot and hard. There was no gentle and sweet with Caden. Dazedly, Nathan wondered where the gun that had been in his hand went but that didn’t matter because her tongue was in his mouth lighting a fire that went straight to his dick.
She pulled away first, panting and grinning up at him like she was privy to some secret.
“You can put me down now.”
Nathan was surprised to realize that he had her shoved up against the wall with his knee between her thighs. Apparently, he had no control or presence of mind when it came to Caden.
Guilt ate at him; here he was, losing control and shoving her around like she hadn’t been beaten and cut and whipped within an inch of death. Taking deep breaths to calm himself, the former soldier removed his hands from her body and reluctantly set her back on her feet.
Caden Quinn had just initiated physical contact. Initiated intimate physical contact. With him .
There was a god.
Unwilling to be the one to break contact first, Nathan stayed where he was (which was all up close and in her personal bubble) and cocked an eyebrow at her.
She only shrugged, “Just in case,” and pushed past him.
That brought reality right back, like a punch in the face.