Surrender (The Command Series Book 3) (32 page)

And like then, there was the rumble of hope in the distance. The same sound that had signaled she was going to make it. As it grew louder, she considered weeping with joy. Helicopters. More than one.

The strict hand holding her handcuffs seemed to be gone and there was a burst of language. The couch was knocked back, banging to the floor as Ethan suddenly stood. Handcuffed and stabbed, yet these men were no match for him. Shit, he was dangerous. Ethan disarmed the guard closest to him in an instant, and the other guard was laid out with the grip of the gun to the face.

Without a weapon, the first guard ran. Vitale seemed to want to run, too, but the gun in Ethan’s hand went off, aimed at Carlo, and fixed back on Vitale right after. In a single breath, Ethan became the most powerful person in the room.

Carlo folded unnaturally sideways as his knee erupted in a burst, and fell in a heap, screaming in agony. Outside the front windows, the rotors of the landing helicopters beat the bushes against the house, and Ethan’s gun was outstretched in his bound hands, pointed dead center of Vitale’s chest.

Under Ethan’s cold gaze, Vitale turned to stone.

She slid off the desk like she’d been poured over the side, collapsing to her knees on the unforgiving floor, cradling her wounded arm to her chest like a bird with a broken wing.

“Do you want me to kill him?” Ethan asked.

Her brain refused to comprehend the question. “What?”

“If you want him dead, I need to do it now.”

The icy pinpricks down over her skin were paralyzing. He waited for her command, to give him permission. Her broken arm definitely wanted the bastard dead. But what about Ethan? What about his soul?

She was a survivor, but she wasn’t sure how they
could survive this.

“No,” she said on a shaky breath. “No.” She didn’t want to lose Ethan now that he’d found her, but her gaze shifted to the Italian king who had put them, and the Dunns, through hell. He needed at least some amount of pain. “Tell him what you did to Constantine.”

It wasn’t the same smile she loved that crossed Ethan’s face. This was more of a satisfied smirk laced with evil as he announced Vitale was looking at the man responsible for the death of one of his sons. If Gio didn’t get medical attention soon, she suspected she’d killed the other. She’d dumped the whole bottle of Ethan’s drug into the glass.

Just beyond the wall of the office came the sound of the front door breaking open and men poured into the entryway, looking like a strike team with military-grade weapons and armor, shouting in both Italian and English. Ethan dropped his gun and held his bound arms up, grimacing in pain, his face pale.

The first guy through the office door pulled up short upon seeing Ethan, lowering the weapon in his hands.

“Foster?” he said.

Ethan’s hand balled into a fist and he unleashed a ferocious punch that landed in the guy’s jaw and knocked him sideways.

“Where the fuck have you been, Tragar?”

The man righted himself, putting a hand on his jaw, his other still gripping the gun. Was it really a good idea to punch someone armed? This impulsive action from Ethan was shocking. Then, the man Ethan referred to as Tragar noticed her hunched beside the desk and rattling in the aftermath of adrenaline, and his focus flew back to Ethan, something like sympathy edging his expression.

He used a pocketknife to cut Ethan free, and he asked it with a touch of restraint, probably still annoyed about being blindsided. “Everyone okay?”

“Does she look okay to you?” Ethan’s question turned Tragar’s eyes back on her. That was the moment Ethan must have remembered she was barely dressed. He peeled off his suit jacket carefully—

“So,” Tragar said, flatly, “you need medical, too.”

The white dress shirt that clung to Ethan’s back was soaked in blood, but he barely seemed to notice. His gaze flicked to Vitale with a sneer, and returned to Tragar. “Can you clear the room?”

“I need some hands in here,” Tragar announced to the men outside the office while stepping over Gio’s body and approaching Vitale. Ethan knelt in front of her, and slung the bloody jacket gently around her shoulders, taking care not to bump her arm.

“You have a key pick?” Ethan asked one of the men who filed in, and the man handed over a skinny tool that looked like a screwdriver. He said nothing while the men hauled the Italians out the door, two men hefting Gio’s body. Instead he focused on undoing her cuffs as delicately as possible, gauging her reaction for pain when he freed her damaged wrist. He dropped the metal cuffs to the floor and it was like everything around them didn’t exist for Ethan. He focused on her. And, holy shit, he had her attention, too.

He was shaking.

“What the hell is this?” she asked, her teasing voice quiet and soft. “Pull yourself together, Foster.”

He gave her a sad, lopsided grin. “I’ll try.” He smoothed his hand over the back of her hair, and he leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead.

“How are you still able to move?”

“Adrenaline.” He shifted so he was no longer kneeling, but now sitting on the floor, and the face he made announced the move wasn’t without side effects. “I think it’s beginning to wear off.” He looked down at her arm held against her, the hand hanging limp. “How bad does it hurt?”

“Not that bad.”

He exhaled slowly and gave her a look that made the pain fade away. “I appreciate the effort, but you’re aware I can tell when you’re lying.”

“Yeah, okay. How’s your back?” she asked, challenging him not to lie right back to her and spare her the concern. She watched the muscles along his jawline flex, and the need to touch him propelled her forward, desperate to have that connection. She sighed in satisfaction when she pressed her left palm to his chest to feel the drum of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips. She felt like they were alone again, even when two men approached, both carrying boxes with medical symbols on them and began snapping on latex gloves. Finally, she pulled the hand back to let them work.

“They’re cutting off your shirt,” she said, her gaze following the scissors as they separated the already-ruined shirt from his body.

“Yes,” Ethan said. His hardened chest came into view as the fabric was pulled away.

“Can’t say I mind that,” she whispered. The medic working on stabilizing her wrist shot her a sideways glance, but the comment worked, and she got the smile from Ethan that she loved. She tried to focus on that rather than the pain. She needed to think about something else.

“I never asked, which language is your favorite? Besides English.”

He didn’t hesitate. “My mother’s language, Croatian.”

“Okay, say something in Croatian.”

This time he did hesitate, searching for the right phrase, and his breathing picked up. She expected something long and beautiful, and he didn’t disappoint. It sounded heavenly rolling out of his mouth. Plus, the tone was hushed and sexy, like a lover’s whisper.

“You’re right, it’s pretty,” she said, trying to look unaffected. “And it means?”

His smile was diabolical. “My father is a ski instructor.”

“What?” He knocked her down ten thousand feet, and that’s where she leveled off. “You’re lying.”

“You’re right. Randall Foster is not a ski instructor. He owns a construction company that builds custom homes in the Ohio River Valley.”

“Ethan,” she started, and then gasped with pain as the man working on her arm pulled the strap tight on the temporary brace. “Tell me what you just said.”

“No. You can try to get it out of me . . . later.”

So, it
was
something sexy. She couldn’t wait to work it out of him.

Ethan had to stay on the floor while the guy finished bandaging his back. He watched as the other medic helped Olivia sit up on the desk and then fetched her pants from the floor, guiding her feet to step into them. He was grateful for the amount of care the man gave her, when he couldn’t right now. As she waited for someone to raid a mistress’s wardrobe for a top, she threaded her good arm through the sleeve of Ethan’s jacket, which hung down to mid-thigh on her.

It reminded him of when she’d put on his gray sweatshirt in Africa, zipping it all the way up like she could keep him away. Futile, that’s what it had been. He couldn’t stay away. It had been nice to say that out loud.

Tragar brought him a shirt that was much too small and he left it unbuttoned, rolling the sleeves back.

“Hendrix wants you two out of Italy,” Tragar said. “The helicopter will take the both of you and Giovanni to Landstuhl.”

She gave a sharp gasp.

Fuck. It was not like Ethan could argue with Tragar, but he wished it were different. He didn’t want to put her through those hellish memories again. But her wrist was broken and resetting the bone might require surgery, and Ethan was going to need a CAT scan to make sure the knife hadn’t done anything serious.

She was tough, though, sucking it up. They limped together on their bruised knees to the chopper and climbed in, staring at Gio who looked dead, but the medic watching the IV in Gio’s arm claimed he wasn’t. Olivia sat on Ethan’s left, but as soon as he was seated, she leaned close, setting the flat of her palm against the bare skin of his chest where the shirt wouldn’t close. The vibration of the chopper made everything ache, but the warmth of her hand on him made it bearable.

When they landed on the helipad at Landstuhl, she drew away, tension seizing her. She was retreating into herself, overwhelmed by the long, unbelievably intense day, or the memories of her past. There was nothing he could do about it. They had to part only minutes after walking off the helipad, and he told her he’d find her as soon as he could.

While he waited for his CAT scan results, he called Laurel.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “Is Olivia—”

“She’s safe. We’re all right,” he said. “How’s Jason?”

“Surgery went well. He’s awake now, kind of grumpy.” In the background, a male voice replied in German, something about showing the asshole that shot him what grumpy looked like.

“Yeah, getting shot will do that to you.” Ethan went serious. “You can tell him it’s been taken care of.”

There was a pause. “How?”

He told her the story, as much as he could, and when it was done, it was as if he could feel the weight rising off of her shoulders, even down in Munich.

“It’s over. You and Jason should be able to go home.” Home to the U.S. if they wanted.

She took a deep breath. “I think we’re already home, but . . . thank you. God, thank you for everything.” The sincerity in her words stayed with him long after the call was over.

The scan cleared him, and as he lay on the table with a technician stitching him closed, the director of his field office, James Hendrix, waltzed in.

“I’m fucking done,” Ethan said.

“Don’t worry, this stunt made it clear you can’t be operational right now.” Hendrix, in his late fifties, had done fieldwork for years before moving to the administrative side. It made him a good director because he could relate with his agents and it gave him insight when making tough calls. But it also made him a straight, direct man who didn’t like messes or mistakes, and Ethan had made plenty of both.

“What happens now?” he asked, eying Hendrix’s casual attire. The director’s weekend had been interrupted. When was the last time Ethan had a weekend off?

Hendrix pulled a pair of gloves from the dispenser and snapped them on. “I need to speak with this man alone,” he said to the tech.

The door swung closed. Hendrix picked up the tools and resumed the tech’s work, stitching Ethan’s wound.

“You go to Langley, and I’ll let them figure out when you’re ready to come back into the field.”

“I’m not kidding, Hendrix. The Juric job was supposed to be the end, and that was over a year ago.”

“I don’t want to hear this again.” Hendrix sounded annoyed. “Yeah, you wanted to keep Juric close, and you got overruled. But I did whatever the hell I could to fix the mess, so now you go to Langley for me. Take some time and get your head on straight. We’ve put too much into you for you to walk away from the Agency.”

“I almost killed Vitale Abramo.” Ethan wanted his boss to know just how unstable he’d become, the emotions he couldn’t handle. “He’d be dead if she’d let me.”