Avenger (Impossible #3) (2 page)

“You
bastard,
” I hissed.  I couldn’t believe that Clayton would go this far.  Was he trying to hurt me for backing out on our deal?

“It wasn’t my call, Claudia,” he insisted, frustration lending his voice a hard edge.  “We can’t just let criminals walk free when we have hard evidence against them.  I don’t get to pick and choose who we do and don’t arrest.  Without having reasonable cause to hold off on pressing the charges, I was forced to act on what we had.  He’s being remanded without bail, Claudia.  He won’t be able to protect you from Bradley.  Please, let me put a security detail back on you.  Let us help -”

I ended the call.

My hands gripped my steering wheel as rage washed over me, my knuckles going white with the intensity of my grip.  This couldn’t be happening.  It just couldn’t.  Yes, I had felt mildly disgusted by Sean when I learned that his father was the man who murdered my parents.  I had recoiled from him, sensing his father’s taint in his blood.  But that wasn’t fair.  Sean was nothing like Ronan, and it was clear that he had suffered at his hands.  He was just as much a victim of his father’s callous violence as I was.  And now I had betrayed him.  I buried my face in my hands, pressing my palms against my closed eyelids as though I could shove the image of Sean’s infuriated, anguished expression when he had realized what I had done to him from my brain.

He might hate me – and deservedly so – but I was still hopelessly enamored with him.  The loss I felt was keen and cutting, blooming in my chest.  I tried desperately to maintain my emptiness, but it was no use.  With this new knowledge, all of my tangled, agonizing feelings came roaring back, filling up my entire being, torturing me.  I jerked my fingers through my hair, and a strangled, frustrated cry escaped me as I voiced my rage and pain.  A part of me realized that I was becoming hysterical, coming apart at the seams.  I had to fix this.  I needed to calm down and formulate a plan.  I forced myself to take several deep breaths.  It wasn’t enough to push back my jagged emotions, but my mind was clearing enough that I could think.

The first thing that I had to take care of was killing Ronan.  That way, he couldn’t hurt Sean when I got him released.  I was taking care of him tonight, so Sean wouldn’t have to be incarcerated for much longer.  When Ronan was dead, I would go back to the FBI and somehow convince them of Sean’s innocence and Bradley’s guilt.  I would say that I felt safer with Ronan out of the picture, and I wanted to help again.  Would my testimony be enough to sway Agent Vaughn?

It would have to be.  I traced the outline of the gun again, centering myself.  It would all be over in a few hours.

Chapter 2

I watched as Ronan pulled into the garage, and I got out of my car, closing the door behind me as softly as possible.  I crouched beside the front wheel, keeping him in my line of sight while concealing myself as much as possible.  When he stepped out of his car, I trained the gun on him.  My pulse was racing, and my hand shook as I felt a moment of hesitation.  I saw Hector Garcia’s blank aqua eyes, those eyes that haunted my dreams, and my gut twisted.  But this wasn’t the time for second-guessing myself.  I gripped the gun with both hands, steadying it.

A hand clamped over my mouth, and something hard pressed against my ribs.  I instantly knew what it was; I had felt this before.  Someone was holding a gun on me.  Terror shot through me and my pulse sped impossibly faster.  My heart hurt with the intensity of its palpitations.

“Don’t make a sound,” a man’s voice whispered in my ear.  “Put the gun down slowly.”

I hesitated.  Ronan was exiting the garage.  In a matter of seconds, he would be out of range.  Was it worth sacrificing my own life to end his?

“Now,” the voice growled.

Hating my captor, I did as he said.  I needed to live so that I could get Sean free.  If this man allowed me to survive.  I carefully set the gun on the ground in front of me as Ronan disappeared from sight.

The hand left my mouth and the gun left my ribs.  But my wrists were instantly caught up in a hard grip.  There was an ominous clicking noise, and I felt cold metal encircle them.  I was familiar with these too: handcuffs.  I closed my eyes, tears beginning to leak from the corners.  I had missed my chance, and now I was a captive again.

A hand reached around me and quickly grabbed up my gun, clicking the safety back on.  My captor grasped my upper arms and pulled me to my feet.

“Claudia Ellers, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Ronan Reynolds.”

“Clayton!”  I gasped and jerked in his grip, but he held me firmly.

“You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

No no no no no!

My vision was tunneling as I gasped for breath.  I sagged back against Clayton as my knees began to give out, but he held me up, supporting my weight.  He guided me away from my car, and I stumbled before him as he forced me to move on unsteady legs.  I felt like I was walking to the gallows as we approached the telltale black sedan.  He opened the passenger door, and I had no choice but to get in.  I leaned forward awkwardly, trying to keep my weight off my cuffed hands as he fastened the seatbelt around me.  Tears were streaming down my face now.  Ronan was going to live, and I was going to go to jail.  The world really was a fucked up place.

I couldn’t look at Clayton as he settled himself in the driver’s seat, and I stared resolutely down at my feet.  I was flooded with feelings of terror, resentment, hatred, even.  How could he do this to me?

His fingers gripped my chin, turning my head and forcing me to face him.  His gorgeous blue eyes were blazing with a furious light as they regarded me censoriously.

“What the fuck are you thinking, Claudia?”  He demanded angrily.

“How did you find me?”  I asked shakily.

“You have GPS on the phone we gave you.  I knew that something was wrong with you, so I tracked you down.  But I never imagined that you would be doing something so goddamn stupid and reckless.”  He released me, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.  “Why, Claudia?  Why would you go after Ronan on your own?  If you had just helped us, you could have put him away for life.  But now I’m going to have to arrest you.  Fuck!”  His eyes snapped open, glaring at me as he half-shouted the last word.

“Clayton, please.”  My voice was ragged, desperate.  “He killed my parents.  He ruined my life.  And Sean’s.  Please…”

His brow furrowed.  “Why do you think he killed your parents?”

“Sean told me that the gun used to belong to his father,” I explained quickly.  “And when I confronted him about it, he figured out that I had been spying on him.  Now he hates me.  And I’m the reason he’s in jail.”  I wanted to hug myself, but my hands just jerked against the cuffs.

Clayton’s eyes softened ever so slightly.  “I understand how much you must hate Ronan.  But this isn’t the way, Claudia.  If you had just trusted me, Sean wouldn’t be in jail and Ronan would have been arrested.”

God, I really had fucked up.  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.  The words were laughably insufficient to rectify the clusterfuck that I had put myself in.  That I had put Sean in.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Clayton said, his voice hard-edged.

“I know,” I whispered.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.  “God damn it!”  He turned the key hard in the ignition, over-cranking the engine.  The cold, hard reality came down on me: he was going to take me to the FBI.  This time, he really was going to interrogate me.

I sat beside him in silence, no longer able to look at him.  I couldn’t even bring myself to hate him for what he was doing to me.  This was all my own doing, and all I felt was self-disgust.  I was supposed to be smarter than this.  But it seemed that ever since I had met Sean, I had fucked up over and over again as my life crumbled around me.  I was self-destructing, spiraling out of control, and I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

I stared out the window, hardly seeing the city passing us by as I retreated into myself.  But after a while, it registered with me that we had been driving far too long to be headed to the FBI offices.

“Where are we going?”  I asked.  I saw Clayton’s grip on the steering wheel tighten, and he grimaced.  He didn’t answer me.  But it soon became apparent where we were headed: he was taking me home.

What was going on?  Hope welled within me at the prospect that he might let me go.  Would he really betray the FBI for me?  After everything I had done to him?  I pursed my lips, holding back further questions.  I didn’t want to push him lest he change his mind and turn around.

When we parked up outside my house, a long moment passed before Clayton pried his fingers from the steering wheel and turned to face me.  I swallowed hard, but I forced myself to meet his eyes.  His expression was closed off, enigmatic.

“Let me see the cuffs,” he said, his voice gruff.  I twisted awkwardly in my seat to give him access to them.  I couldn’t hold in my sigh of relief when he released me from their cold bite.  The feeling of them around my wrists had dredged up memories of the early days of my abduction, of my abuse at Bradley’s hands.  It made me recall how Sean had stood up for me, revealing his protective side.  Had he been as entranced by me as I was by him even then?  Maybe.  But I knew that he was goodhearted, and he never would have stood for Bradley hurting an innocent.  I felt a pang in my heart as the injustice of what was being done to him struck me all over again.  He didn’t deserve to be locked up; he was a good person.  And it was all my fault.

Clayton was opening the passenger door for me.  I was surprised when he took me by the hand to help me out of the car.  He maintained the contact, gripping me gently by the elbow as he walked me to my front door.  I was grateful for the support; I was shaking like a leaf.

I paused when I got to the door, remembering that my house keys were in my purse, which was currently on the floorboard of my car.  I hoped to hell that no one would break a window to steal it.  I didn’t want to have to get new keys, new locks, a new cell, and change my credit cards again.  Sighing, I extricated myself from Clayton’s grip and retrieved my spare key that was hidden in an innocent-looking rock beneath my azalea bushes.  The beeping of my new alarm system as I entered the house made me jump slightly.  I still wasn’t used to it.  But it was a necessary precaution.  No way was anyone breaking in without the cops being notified.  I punched in the code and the shrill warning noise stopped.  Clayton followed me into my living room, where he situated himself beside me on my couch.  I was grateful that he hadn’t sat in the armchair across from me.  Despite the strained atmosphere around us, I found comfort in his closeness.  He had proven time and again to be someone I could rely on, who I could trust with my secrets and my grief.  And now that I was in his presence once again, it dawned on me just how out of control I had been without him being there to steady me.  I should have gone to him as soon as Sean had thrown me out.  Then maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess. 

My hand reached out for his as though of its own accord, seeking his warmth.  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath when we touched.  He turned his hand so that our palms were pressed together, and his fingers entwined with mine.

“Thank you,” I whispered.  When I met his gaze, I found him regarding me seriously, but there was a hint of doubt, of trepidation in his eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered to himself.  “We need to talk, Claudia,” he said solemnly.  “You need to tell me what you’re going through, explain to me why you decided to go after Ronan on your own.  It was dangerous and reckless, and I know you’re smarter than that.  Do you know how much danger you’ve put yourself in by forcing me to take my security detail off of you?  What if it hadn’t been me who found you in that garage?  What if it had been Bradley?  What if you had missed and Ronan saw you?  He would kill you, Claudia.  Even as it is, it’s highly likely that he’ll come after you once he finds out why Sean and Bradley were arrested.  You have to let me help you.  You have to trust me.” 

“I do trust you,” I said quietly.  “I know that I fucked up.  It’s just…  I went a little crazy when I found out that Ronan killed my parents.  He ruined my life.  He’s the reason I was in foster care, the reason that I’ve been alone for fourteen years.  And when Sean threw me out…  Oh, god, Clayton.  I just couldn’t handle it.  I completely fell apart.”  I was crying again, and Clayton squeezed my hand reassuringly.

“I can understand that, Claudia.  But I wish you had come to me.”  Then his brow furrowed, lines of anxiety appearing around his eyes.  “This is my fault.  If I hadn’t kissed you…  That was wrong of me, Claudia.  I know that that’s why you stayed away.  I just…  I can’t help caring about you.”  His voice was strained.  “Even though I know how you feel about Sean, I allowed myself to act rashly and selfishly.  I’m sorry.”

Now it was my turn to squeeze his hand.  “It’s okay, Clayton.  I never should have said those nasty things to you.  I didn’t mean them.  I was just desperate for you to stay away so that I could get at Ronan.”  I lowered my voice.  “And I care about you too.  Just not in that way.  I’m sorry.”

The lines of his face tightened further, but he just nodded.  “I know that we haven’t known each other very long, but our relationship means a lot to me.  I don’t want to lose you, Claudia.  I hope we can repair what I’ve damaged between us.”

I looked at him earnestly.  I wanted nothing more than to wipe the pained expression from his handsome visage.  “There’s no damage.  Clayton, I haven’t had a friend since I was thirteen years old.  Other than Sean, you’re the only person that I’ve trusted since then.  I’m not going to give that up.  I’m not going to give
you
up.”

He let out a long breath, some of the tension leaving him as he gave me a small smile.  “Thank you.”  He regarded me gratefully for a moment, but then he turned serious once again.  “Now please explain to me what you were thinking going after Ronan.  I can understand that you want revenge and that you want to protect Sean from his father.  But you were so distraught after what happened with Garcia.  What changed?”