CROSSFIRE (31 page)

"I won't make that mistake again," he said, then turned and walked away. He'd survived growing up the son of a woman who'd had to compromise her dreams just to put food on the table. He'd survived betrayal and loss. He'd survived
Mogadishu
.

He would survive Elizabeth Carrington.

* * *

Slowly
Elizabeth
closed the door. She leaned against the dark maple and tried to breathe, couldn't. Her heart bled in ways she'd never known possible. Tears slipped over her lashes and fell unabashedly down her face.

I love you.

Three little words, but they devastated.

Her doing, she knew. Her doing for thinking for even one fractured second that Wesley had used her. Her fault. For hesitating, for doubting the fledgling feeling that scraped at her heart, even after the way he'd made love to her.

Through the beveled-glass window that bordered her door, she saw him standing at the end of her walkway, tall, rigid, dark blond hair blowing softly in the late-afternoon breeze. His bike sat waiting, but she knew he wouldn't leave, not so long as Aaron was absent. But he wouldn't be back, either. She'd seen to that.

All she had to do was turn the knob—

"Well done," came the silky voice from the other side of the door. "You were magnificent, a very convincing liar. Too bad you weren't as good a judge of character."

Her stomach pitched. With a calm she didn't come close to feeling, she turned from the window and lifted her chin. "You'll never get away with this."

With a sleek little semiautomatic trained on her heart, Nicholas smiled. "I already have."

She'd been more annoyed than alarmed when she'd first found him standing in her doorway. Then she'd seen the gun.

You've been a very bad girl,
he'd said in an oddly mechanical voice.
And those who misbehave must always, always be punished.

Shock and horror had collided, for a moment paralyzing her. Then she'd realized he was serious. And that they were alone.

Opening the door to Wesley had been the hardest thing she'd ever done. To see him standing there, to hear that voice of his give her the words she'd longed for, to feel his roughened hands on her body, had shredded beyond imagine. She'd wanted to step into his arms, to tell him somehow, warn him, but Nicholas had made it very clear what would happen if she had.

Kneecaps make good targets. And then he'll have no choice but to watch all the ways I can punish you. And him.

"I really am sorry," he said now. "I had such plans for you and me, if only Wesley hadn't dragged you into the crossfire."

Revulsion churned. "Don't blame this on him."

He made a soft clucking noise. "I can't let him win. Surely you see that. I can't let him have what belongs to me."

"I belong to no one, especially if I'm dead."

"Don't bore me with technicalities." Nicholas hesitated, his eyes going from flat to full glitter. "He won't have you, but he will have guilt, the kind that will eat at him the rest of his miserable life. And so long as he doesn't have you, I don't care if I don't, either."

She'd once idolized Nicholas. As a teenage girl, she'd thought him Prince Charming in the flesh. But after Kristina's death he'd seemed different, changed somehow, twisted by grief. She'd tried to console him, help him, but someplace deep inside had always known something wasn't right.

And then Wesley had blazed into her life.

She'd run from the out-of-control feelings he inspired in her to the predictability of Nicholas's arms. But the second Nicholas had tried to touch her in the ways that Wesley had, she'd known she couldn't marry him.

Now she knew why.

Instinctively she looked through the beveled glass, to where Wesley stood at the iron fence that separated her yard from the sidewalk. True to her prediction, he'd not looked back at the house. She didn't know whether to be thankful or to cry.

"He was warned," Nicholas said, backing her away from the door. "He was warned to stay away from what was mine. But what did he do? He crawled into bed with you." At the kitchen table he picked up the butcher knife he'd set down earlier. "That won't do. You're going to die,
Elizabeth
, while lover boy stands guard outside the door."

Light reflected off the edge of the blade. "Nicholas—"

"All he's ever wanted is what's mine." He turned the knife over in his hands, pricked it against his thumb. "My father, my sister, my future."

She stared at the blood welling, tried to understand the incomprehensible. "Your father?"

"He wanted to adopt him—can you believe that? He wanted to marry his mother, call her kid son." His features, once the picture of Southern refinement, twisted. "I couldn't let that happen."

There was no emotion in his voice, not hatred, not passion, just a cold, almost robotic indifference that chilled her to the core. "What do you mean you couldn't let that happen?"

A bitter, broken sound tore from his throat. "No one makes a fool of me,
Ellie—
that's
what he calls you, right? No one betrays me. Not my father. Not dear sweet Kristina, not you, and certainly not a nobody like Wesley Monroe."

The room started to spin. "Kristina?"

"I tried to warn her," he said, turning the knife over in his hands. "I tried to tell her. But she wouldn't listen. She gave me no choice but to follow her that night, like I'd done so many other nights when she'd lied to me, sneaked off to meet the mechanic who fixed her Mercedes." He stepped closer, streaked the dull edge of the blade down the side of her face. "What is it about the Carrington women that makes you hot for trash?"

Elizabeth
wasn't sure how she stayed standing. Her heart staggered. "Oh, my God," she whispered. All these years. All these years they'd believed Kristina's death an accident. And Nicholas's father. A hunting accident, the police had determined.

Now, though. Now the string of accidents littering his past glared like a light turned on too late. Not coincidence, the way they'd thought. But pattern. Premeditated.

Sickly she backed from him. Sociopaths walk among us, she remembered a college professor saying. They look like us and dress like us, but they don't think like us. They have no moral compass. No conscience. No regret.

You killed my sister!
she wanted to rage, but instinct warned her not to rattle his cage any further. He was clearly unstable. There was no predicting when he could come completely unhinged.

"Ah,
Elizabeth
," he said, tracking her into the main room. "I can see what you think of me in your eyes. You think, I'm a monster."

"No, I don't. I think you need help, that—"

He lunged for her, dropped the knife and grabbed her wrists, rammed her against the wall. "You don't have a damn clue what I need."

She tried to breathe. "Nicholas—"

"But you will," he promised. "Soon." He lifted the gun to her face, traced the barrel along her mouth.

It took every ounce of strength she had not to gag.

"We could have been happy, like Krissy and I were. I would have treated you like a queen. But then you wouldn't let me touch you, and I knew, I knew you'd let someone else into your bed." He pulled her joined hands above her head and pinned them against the wall, forced her chest to thrust outward. "Imagine my disgust when I realized who you'd been with."

Another wave of revulsion, this one sharper, deeper.

"You had to be punished, sweetheart. Both of you." He slid the gun lower, used the barrel to circle one of her breasts. "You were never supposed to make it back from
Calgary
. Either of you."

One word jumped through the haze of horror. "
Calgary
?"

Nicholas's mouth curved into a cutting little smile. "Zhukov made a convenient smokescreen, wouldn't you say?"

And finally, at last, it all made sense. No coincidence, she thought again. But cunning and deliberation. The pieces clicked together, fit perfectly. "It was you."

Now he laughed. "I could do anything to you right now, to your family, and no one would ever look beyond Zhukov."

It was true. Oh, dear God in heaven, it was true. "But how—"

"Money, my love, can buy anything."

And he had loads of it, had inherited a bundle after his father died in an accident that was no accident at all, before he could carry out his promise to Wesley.

"Mimicking a known terrorist is barely more than child's play," he said now, "and the sweetest part of all, no one even suspected. Not even big bad
Monroe
. Looks like you chose the wrong side, darling."

But he had, she remembered sickly. Wesley had said repeatedly something wasn't adding up. He hadn't understood why Zhukov had honed in so fully on
Elizabeth
. Now she knew.

Zhukov had never been involved at all. He'd merely provided the perfect smokescreen for Nicholas.

"They'll figure it out," she insisted.

"No," he said in a sing-song voice. "They won't. Not when the obvious answer is right in front of their noses. They—"

The ringing of the phone killed his words. They swung toward the receiver sitting on a small table.

"Ethan," she whispered.

He narrowed his eyes. "Are you expecting him?"

No. But she knew. Deep in her heart the twin connection flared and flowed, and, God help her, she knew. He knew, too. Somehow he always, always knew when something was wrong. "He'll get worried if I don't answer."

Nicholas jammed the gun to her temple and steered her toward the phone. "Make it fast, and so help me God," he said, sliding his finger against the trigger. "Don't do anything stupid."

She swallowed, but her mouth remained sandpaper dry. "Hey, Eth," she said by way of greeting.

"Liz?" her brother asked, and her heart jumped. "You okay? You sound … odd."

"Just tired."

He swore softly. "I know, but
try
not to worry. This nightmare will be over soon. Hawk would give his life before he let anything happen to you."

Emotion broke from her heart, flooded her eyes. "That's not going to happen." She wouldn't let it. "Look, Eth, I have
to go."

"Liz'beth—"

"I love you," she said, then clicked off the phone. Her family. God, her family. They'd already lost one daughter to this monster who'd disguised himself as a gentleman.

"Good girl," he said.

Her composure slipped another notch. "You're disgusting."

"No, sweetheart," be corrected glibly, "I'm patient. Two years,
Elizabeth
. Two years I waited. Two years I planned. Do you know what that was like for me? Pretending I didn't know you'd gotten naked with that man? Listening to you lie to me. Seeing you smile. While all the while I knew you'd crawled into
Monroe
's bed?"

She glanced toward the front door, no longer close enough to see through the beveled glass. "What are you going to do to him?"

He laughed. "What he did to me, of course. I'm going to hurt him the only way I can. I'm going to take from him, forever and always, what he took from me."

She lifted her chin, narrowed her eyes. "He didn't take me from you." She'd given herself to Wesley freely, wholly.

Nicholas reacted so swiftly she never saw the blow coming. He backhanded her, knocking her to the hardwood floor. She landed hard, tasted blood.

He towered over her. "We can do this the easy way, or it can be difficult. The choice is yours."

She scrambled back from him, looked frantically toward her fireplace. The toolset… "What choice is that?"

He tracked her across the floor. "A kiss before dying, isn't that what they say? Make love to me, and maybe the end will come a little faster, a little less painfully."

Instinctively she pressed her knees together.

"You owe me,
Elizabeth
. You owe me for all those promises you made but never kept." He had the butcher knife again, though she'd not seen him pick it up. And he moved closer, stood straddling her. "Don't you think I knew, all those years when you would watch me and Kristina with those lovesick eyes? Don't you think I knew what you wanted, what you were offering?"

She pushed back, closer to the poker.

"So tell me, Lizzy. How do you like it? Gentle?" he asked, lowering himself to his knees. "Or rough?" He put the knife to her breast. "I bet
Monroe
gives it rough, doesn't he?"

She couldn't do it. She couldn't just lie there and let this sick man play with her body. She bucked beneath him, stretched for the set of iron tools.

He caught her hand and pulled it above her head. "Good try," he chided, "but not good enough." Dropping the knife, he reached for the hem of her shirt. "Now the final act begins."

She braced herself, but the low roar stopped her breath. She barely had a chance to turn her head before a blur of movement streaked in from the kitchen and crashed against Nicholas, knocking him from her body. She rolled from him, saw the two men wrestling on the floor, both their hands curled around the gun.