Staying Cool (6 page)

"Yes, boss." Bogdan, literally the elephant in the room, had the look of a puppy caught peeing on the carpet. "Am sorry. Mistake."

"Sorry..." Coleman snorted enough disgust to paint the room. "Jesus, for a big guy, you've got a brain the size of a goddamn pea. Good thing too. You won't miss it when I blow it the fuck out!"

Bogdan took a shuffling step forward, raised a ham-sized hand, and pointed at Gina. "Woman. She got book, boss." He looked down, probably to avoid the murderous look in Gina's eyes.

Her butt pressed against the kitchen island's counter, Gina clasped the cash and journal tight to her breasts. Her gaze lasered another strip off the big guy before settling a frigid glare on Coleman. If the Bog was a puppy, trying to redeem itself, Gina was pure Alpha wolf.

Standing plumb straight, her expression fully loaded with contempt and defiance, she turned to Coleman and said, "Hello, asswipe."

Patrick winced.
This was going to be bad. Real bad.

Coleman's chest heaved and his gaze narrowed to lethal. "Ah, Silver, my beautiful, conniving, thieving whore. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to discover your unfortunate allegiance to the Raven Force." He shook his head, in the manner of a sad uncle. "What am I to do with you?"

"I don't know, but—thank God—it won't be what you had in mind last night. Because I much prefer what comes out of that—" she nodded at the gun in his hand "to what comes out of you."

Chapter 8

Coleman's eyes flared. Instant rage. Then he sneered. "I must say, Silver, you do have a pair of balls on you. Unfortunately, I hate that in a woman." His expression went flat, and he put out his free hand, palm up. "Give me the journal."

Gina held it over her heart. Patrick saw her knuckles whiten. "Why don't you come and get it?" She smiled, a smile that was tight, cold, and fearless.

Patrick was impressed—and frozen by concern. She was poking a stick in a viper nest and didn't seem to care.

Something in her face, her utter calm, made Coleman pause. "How about I take it from your cold—" he raised the gun "dead hand?"

"You disappoint me, Coleman. Don't you want to torture me first? Maybe pull out a few fingernails?"

"I admit that would be fun, but unfortunately, I don't have the time. Besides, I already had that pleasure with your brother."

Gina swallowed visibly, but kept her focus. That—" she gestured with her chin at the gun in his hand "is going to make a hell of a mess of your kitchen."

Patrick noted her knuckles weren't so white now; she'd eased her grip on the money and journal.

Jesus, the woman was crazy cold, crazy unfazed. Or, maybe just flat-out crazy. Patrick tried to get into her head. He knew she wasn't seeing Coleman or his gun; she was seeing her twin brother, tortured and left for dead by the man in front of her, an image that left no room for rationality. Patrick's blood chilled in his veins. She was going to make a move. Brilliant or dumbass, he couldn't guess, but he shifted to the left, inches closer to Gina. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Big Bog do the same
. Shit!
No way could he take them both on—and get the gun.

"Mess? Not to worry," Coleman said. "Idiot fat boy here will be happy enough to clean up." He made a come-hither gesture with his extended hand, the gun rock steady in the other. His voice cracked ice, he added, "The journal.
Now.
"

Gina sighed, arched a brow. "If you insist."

In the next second, Gina took a step toward Coleman, let the cash bundles fall to the floor, and in the split second that Coleman's eyes dropped, she threw the journal at his face.

The woman was damn hard on books!

Within that same second, Bogdan, with the grace and speed of a hundred-pound cheetah, moved toward Gina, and put his bulk between her and—

Coleman fired. Twice.

Gina went down.

Bogdan spun away from Coleman and went down on top of her, covering her like an outsized tarp.

Patrick hit the floor, rolled, grabbed the Glock, and tackled Coleman at the knees. Before Coleman hit the floor, his forehead slammed into the edge of the fridge. Instant blood river. Running down his face, it was a perfect match for his red PJs. Out cold.

A moan came from behind him.

Patrick ripped the Smith & Wesson from Coleman's limp hand and scrambled across the floor. "Gina. Gina! Are you okay?"

Her voice was muffled, "...will be when you get Igor off me."

Bogdan got to his feet. "Not Igor."

"Jesus." The guy's shirt was blood-soaked.
Gina!

Kneeling beside her, Patrick looked her over. Blood everywhere. He scanned for the source, started unbuttoning her blouse. "Where are you hit?"

She batted his hands away. "I'm not." She pushed him aside and jumped to her feet. "But he is." She bolted to a towel rack near the sink. In the next second, she was holding a towel to the Bog's side.

"He needs a doctor," Patrick said. Easy enough diagnosis, considering the blood seeping through his sausage-sized fingers.

"You're right. Hold the towel. Press hard."

While Patrick followed orders, Gina pressed a number into her cell phone. "Tanner. It's done. I've got Coleman and the journal. I've also got a man down—" She listened. "Yes. Security's off. No problem. We'll wait—" She nodded. "Five minutes then. Bottom of the driveway." She clicked OFF and looked at Patrick. "Tanner wants us out of here in five. Says he'll take it from here."

"He's got a plan?" A major cleanup operation, he hoped, of the blood and slugs now forming part of the decor in Coleman's kitchen. In a matter of seconds, they'd created a CSI playground.

"Tanner always has a plan." She replaced his hand with hers on the towel he was still holding to the Bog's side. Then she slowly pulled it away from the wound. The guy winced but didn't make a sound.

Gina looked at the wound, then back at him. "What do you think?"

"I think he'll live—just needs some stitches. But it looks far enough away from any main organs."

She nodded, got a fresh towel, and put it over the wound. "Keep the pressure on this," she said to Bogdan. "Can you do that?"

"Yes." He covered the towel with one giant hand.

When her hands were free, Gina put them on her hips, and looked up at Bogdan. Way up. "You saved my life. Why?"

"Him," he gestured toward the heap on the floor that was Coleman. "Bad guy. I don't like. You, okay lady."

"That's good to hear, Igor—"

"Name not—"

She smiled. "I know." With that, she got on her toes, grabbed his huge head, pulled it down, and planted a kiss on his unpretty mug. "Thank you."

The big guy blinked like someone had turned a strobe on him.

Patrick knew the feeling. And to get past it, he rummaged through the kitchen drawers. He found some twine and did a quick job of trussing up Coleman. "If he tries to get up, Bog, sit on him."

He nodded.

Gina scooped up the money from the floor—God knows how many thousands, but a hell of a lot more than the twenty grand Bogdan had bargained for. "Take this." She stuffed packets into his pockets, into his hand. "Go home and see your mother."

Standing back from him, she added, "Patrick and I have to go. There are some men coming. Good guys. You can trust them. They'll get you to a doctor—and out of the country. Just do what they say."

When Bogdan nodded again, she turned to Patrick.

"Let's go."

Chapter 9

Patrick wanted to meet this Tanner guy, but it didn't happen. All he saw was a hand emerge from a limo parked on the street at the bottom of the driveway. Gina put the journal in the hand, said a few words he couldn't hear, the window went up, and the limo drove off all sleek and silent.

Game over. Definitely over for Coleman.

Patrick spotted six shadowy figures making their way up the driveway to the main house. The cleanup crew. Tanner was nothing if not effective.

Gina came back to where he was standing under a dripping chestnut tree. She stood in front of him, but said nothing.

He pointed in the direction of his Ford half a block away. "Where to?"

She chewed on her lip for a time, then said, "Your place?"

He nodded, and they walked without touching toward his car.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Good. It's all good."

"Your brother?"

"Tanner has a line on Safi. Once he lets her know Coleman's been neutralized, and the Ravens have the journal, Marco will call."

In the short time it took to drive to his apartment, there was no more conversation. Gina spent the ride staring out the window, as far away from him as she could get in the front seat of a car.

She looked beat. No surprise. It was long past four in the morning.

At the bottom of the stairs leading to his place, which were on the outside of the old, two-story building, she took his hand. They climbed together.

Once inside, he flipped on a single lamp, then asked, "Hungry? Want a drink? What?"

"Sleep. I want sleep." She met his eyes. "Preferably with you."

Something crumbled inside his chest. "Probably not a good idea."

"Just sleep, Patrick. It wouldn't be the first time we've... just slept with each other."

"Yeah, but it's been a long time. And right now I'm not up for a character test." He nodded to one of two doors in his small apartment. "That way lies a bed. Take it. I'll take the sofa."

She stared at him a long time, then gave him the barest hint of a smile. "I could change your mind."

He thought about that. "You could. But you won't." He jerked his head toward the second door. "That's the bathroom. You can get at it from the bedroom too. I'm going for a walk." He felt as much like heading out into the rain and wind as downing a razor-laced vodka martini, but if he didn't get out of here, he'd explode. Heading out the door, he thought this had to be where the expression "cock-of-the walk" originated—from a guy and his untrustworthy dick, walking away from trouble.

He gave her half an hour, and when he got back, the lamp was still on. The living room was empty. Heart-in-mouth—thinking she was gone—he checked the bedroom.

Gina lay sprawled across his bed on her stomach, wearing one of his T-shirts. Her ridiculous blond hair covered her face and one arm dangled over the edge of the bed. All he could do was stand there and listen to her deep, slow breathing. Like a song, it was. It took a minute or two—or five—before he managed to turn away and close the door behind him. He did some deep breathing and shoved the heels of his hands against his burning eyes.

Fuck if his damn heart didn't hurt like a wounded beast.

Patrick had never expected to feel this way about a woman, and he'd surely never expected to love someone who didn't love him back.

* * *

A feeble sun woke the world the next morning, and Gina woke with it. Her next sensory perception was the smell of coffee. But, as drawn to it as she was, that coffee meant Patrick was up—and she wasn't sure she was ready to face him. She owed him the truth, about a lot of things, and she had no idea where to start.