Hidden Heat: Hauberk Protection, Book 4 (26 page)

“That’s not what I’m afraid of.” More like terrified she wouldn’t stay.

“She’s not going to run out on you. Not Sandy. She may say that she’s not interested in marriage, and maybe she doesn’t need the piece of paper, but she wants a home. She wants stability whether she realizes it or not. She needs someone she can count on to be there for her. But next time you lie to her? You’d better listen to the damned news and phone her to let her know you’re okay because I gotta tell you, man, Sandy was fucking worried about you when she saw the news report about the riots in Kinshasa last night.”

Shit on a stick. “What tipped you off that I wasn’t in Africa?” More importantly, did Sandy suspect he’d lied?

“You told her you were watching the sunset. It would have been almost midnight in Kinshasa when you phoned.”

Damn it, talk about a goddamned rookie mistake. “Did Sandy catch it?”

“Nope, not as far as I know. So where’d you really go? And what was happening that dragged you away from an entire weekend of sex with your lady?”
 

Showtime. “I was in Val Varde.”

“Val Varde? What the fuck’s in Val Varde?”

“Garcia.” The blood drained from Scott’s face. “He’s dead. I got him for you. And for Dev.”

Scott’s expression didn’t change but he released a breath in a long slow blow. “You should have told me that’s where you were going. You should have let me come with you.”

“You couldn’t come. It wasn’t my op. I had to pull a few strings to go myself.”

“You should have tried harder. I wanted to kill him. To watch the life drain from him the way I watched him kill Dev.” Scott’s voice gradually rose until he was shouting. “It was my right to kill that fucking bastard. Mine.”

Shit. This was degrading. Fast. Keep things calm. Matter-of-fact. “I told you, it wasn’t my op.”

“Fuck that.” Sweat beaded on Scott’s forehead and his cheeks turned bright red despite the stark pallor of his skin. “Fuck. That. You could have found a way. I could have flown there myself and met you. You could have told me what you were planning. You owed me.”

Troy braced himself when Scott shoved him. “I couldn’t. Everything was done on a need-to-know basis, and kept compartmentalized. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Not you, not Sandy, not even Sam.”

“I wanted to do it. I wanted to be the one to pull the trigger.” Scott’s voice fractured. “I wanted that fucker to know it was me killing him. I wanted to watch him die.”

If he’d been in Scott’s place, he’d have demanded the same right.

At Scott’s second attempt to push him, Troy caught Scott’s hands and twisted him around, using his whole body to restrain him against the wall. “Listen to me. Who pulled the trigger, whether it was you or me, doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the bastard’s dead. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

“Tell me it wasn’t a quick death.” Scott’s voice was so fucking rough, betraying the pain tearing him apart. Damn it, Garcia’s death was supposed to stop him from hurting, not make it worse. “Tell me he suffered like he made Dev suffer. Like we all suffered.”

Troy stayed silent.

“You should have shot him in the knees. Then cut off his balls. Gutted him. Hurt him the way he hurt us. The way he hurt Dev. Oh God, Dev!”

As Scott’s body heaved with his sobs, Troy held tight. “Garcia’s fertilizer now. And you’re alive.” Thank God.

Scott shoved himself from the wall, out of Troy’s hold. “I have to…I gotta go. I need to get some air.”

“I’ll go with you.” Troy snagged his jacket from the bed.

“No.” Scott swiped his hand over his face. “No. I gotta go. Alone.”

“Scott.” Shit. Alone was not good. “Let me come with you. Let me drive you to Doc Hayes’s.”

“No. I’m not gonna off myself, all right. I gotta think about this. Without you. Without shrinks. I hafta…I gotta go.”

Troy followed when Scott hurried from the bedroom, nearly running into Sandy who stood in the hallway, her eyes wide and face pale.
 

“Scott?” Sandy caught Scott’s arm as he passed.

“Sorry, Sandy. I gotta go. I can’t explain, I have to get out of here.”

“Call me if you need to talk to someone or need a ride or anything, all right?”

The wan smile Scott graced her with gave Troy heart. “Thanks. You’re a sweetheart, you know that?” He glanced over his shoulder at Troy and the smile died, replaced with a blank stare. “I’ll see you later.”

Before Scott moved, Sandy hugged him. “Remember, you’ve got friends who will do anything for you. Who care about you and worry about you.”

“Thanks.” Scott disentangled himself and opened the door.

Divided between greeting Sandy and following Scott, Troy hesitated. He settled for calling out, “Scott. Call me if you’re thinking of…”
killing yourself.
The door slammed shut before he could finish.

“Fuck.” Troy scrubbed his hands over his face. “I should go after him.”

A strange expression on her face, Sandy stared at him for at least ten seconds. She pulled out her cellphone and had a quick conversation with Andy, giving him the details on Scott’s retreat. “Andy will find him and make sure he’s okay.”

“Thanks, but it’s not the same.”

“Andy will look after him. And before you thank me, you should know I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Scott. Right now, I wouldn’t lift a hand if you were lying on the floor bleeding.”

Fuck.

“I heard you talking. You lied to me about being in Africa. You lied on Friday night when you left and you lied again this morning when we talked on the—” Comprehension reached her eyes. “When you phoned here, you weren’t phoning to talk to me, were you? You didn’t think I’d still be here. You were expecting Scott to answer.”

Shit. There was no use lying. “Yes.”

“You let me think you wanted to talk to me.”

“I didn’t have to
let
you think anything. I was glad you picked up. I liked talking to you.”

“You lied to me about where you were, and yet you let me continue to think you were in Africa. You let me worry about you when you were safe the whole time.”

Not safe exactly. The op could have gone very differently if Davis’s source had been discovered. “I didn’t lie this morning. I told you I was safe. What more do you want from me?”

“Lying by omission is still lying.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You could have said, ‘I’m not in Africa.’ Instead you told me about being out in the country, watching the sunset.”

He could almost see the wheels in her head turn as she replayed the conversation, see the moment she realized his error.

“It couldn’t be helped. I wasn’t allowed to say where I was, or anything about the mission.”
I’m still not supposed to.
“It’s part of my job, Sandy. It’s what I do and who I am. You know that.”

“Look, I know you can’t give me details when it comes to stuff with Hauberk. I get that.” She took a step back when he moved toward her. “Okay, maybe I didn’t get that, exactly. But do you know how scared I was when I thought you were in the middle of that coup? And you let me think you were still there.” Damn, her eyes were glistening. He’d done that to her. Yet here she was standing so proud, so strong, refusing to give in to the tears.

If she was going to be part of his life, she’d have to learn to deal with it. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and sighed, knowing she was about to walk out the door. Out of his life. “It’s part of the job, sunshine. If you can’t deal with it, you know where the door is.”

The sadness in her eyes, the pain in her voice tore through him. She reminded him of a puppy dog someone had kicked to the gutter and abandoned.

Unable to face her any longer, he walked into his bedroom and stopped beside the bed. He smoothed his hand over the quilt. Even if she left, she’d still be here. Long after her scent faded from his sheets, she’d still be there in the quilt. She’d be in the pictures she’d so thoughtfully framed and hung on the wall. Anytime he saw that dark green she’d painted his walls, he’d be reminded of her.

The shadow in the doorway betrayed her presence seconds before she spoke, “I don’t like that you can lie to me so easily. I need to be able to trust that you’re telling me the truth. Even if it’s just to say, ‘I can’t tell you where I’m going or what I’m doing.’ I could take that.”

She said that now but soon she’d be throwing it back in his face. “I thought you were leaving.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

No. But she’d leave anyway. She should leave. “I can’t change who I am, Sandy.”

“I’m not asking you to. I feel like I don’t know you. That you don’t want me to know you. I learned more about you talking with Scott this weekend than you’ve ever told me about you.” She caught his hand. “I’m simply asking that you let me in. That you trust me enough to be honest with me.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking. You haven’t a clue who I am, or what I’ve done. Scott doesn’t even know.”

“So tell me. Who are you, Troy? What have you done?”

For such a simple question, the answer was so complicated. Yet it wasn’t, was it? “I’m an assassin. Oh, a government-sponsored one, but I killed—kill— people for a living. And I’m very good at my job.” He faced her. “Last night I put my gun barrel to the forehead of an unarmed man and pulled the trigger. I put two bullets in his chest to take him down, and then I walked over to him and waited until the light went out of his eyes and put another in his brain just to make sure the fucker was dead.” He finally looked her in the face and found compassion, along with tears, filling her eyes. “I’d do it the same way if I had to do it over again. Is that honest enough for you?”

“You did it for Scott. And for Dev. I heard what you told Scott, remember?”

“Why I did it wouldn’t make a difference to the courts. He was unarmed and I shot him anyway. Face it, I’m a murderer.”

“I’ve read the reports both from our people and from the newspapers. Garcia was responsible for dozens of deaths.” Her voice was soft but sure. “You probably saved dozens if not hundreds more. He was the murderer.”

“So am I.” He’d killed so many times he’d lost count. No. That wasn’t true. He knew each and every kill he’d made. He may not have known their names but he could tell her their hair color, their age. He could still see the looks on their faces when they’d died. Surprise. Shock. Anger. Hatred.

She grabbed his forearms and shook him, surprising him with her strength. “You are different than him. You killed people who deserved to die. He killed innocents.”

So have I.
The trust in her eyes, the softness of her voice forced him to look away. His gaze landed on a picture she’d framed and set on his dresser. The one of him and his father, taken a week before he’d died. Before he’d been murdered. Not that his father was innocent, but his father’s death, and his part in it, had been the start of that slippery slope.

“Let me in, Troy. Tell me who you are. What you want, what you think. Your hopes. Your dreams.”

“I don’t have dreams. I am who I am, Sandy.” He held out his arms. “What you see is what you get.”

“I don’t believe that.” She wasn’t lying; she didn’t see what he really was. How could she? You had to have evil inside you to understand evil. There wasn’t an ounce of evil in her body.

“Trust me on this. I’m not the type you take home to introduce to the folks.” Shit. That wouldn’t help him convince her to stay now, would it? Guess he’d given up that dream the minute he’d left for Val Varde.

Sam was right. He never should have gotten involved with her. Because now he knew what he could have had, what others had. And he’d never have it again.

“I’m not leaving, Troy. I’m not.”

No one had ever stuck around long enough to care.

“Please. Talk to me. Let me in.”

“Why?” he shouted. “I lied to you about where I’d gone. I can guarantee you I’ll lie to you again.”

“As you said, it’s part of your job, Troy. I should have remembered that.”

Jesus fucking Christ. He speared his fingers through his hair at her steadfastness. “You don’t get it. Troy McPherson’s not real. He doesn’t exist. I’m really Colin. Colin Fitzgerald. And I’m a murderer, Sandy. I kill people for a living.”

“You kill people the government’s asked you to kill. People who deserve to die. You wouldn’t hurt me. I know that.” She took a step forward, and another, until she was inches away from him and laid her hand flat on his chest. “Please, Troy. Colin. Let me in.”

Shaken by her implicit trust, he stared at the photos once more. The one of Scott and him at Buckner Academy, of his mother and father with him as an infant. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. How about we start with simple things like what’s your favorite color? Or your favorite dessert? What’s your ideal vacation?”

“Navy. Sherry trifle, and snorkelling in the British Virgin Islands.” Oh Christ. He couldn’t do this. “What do you really want to know, Sandy? Cut the bullshit circling around. Just ask me what you want to know straight-out.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper, “Do you still blame yourself for your father’s death?”

She knew about that? Ah, yes, she’d spent the weekend with Scott. Who had told her the sanitized, official Brannally version. She deserved the truth about him and all his ugly secrets. She needed the truth, if only to open her eyes as to who he really was.