Honey was frog-marched to Pollack’s location. Shaking off Baldy and Skinny’s cruel grips on her upper arms after a nod from Savage, she sank to her knees, her back to the room.

  Pollack was eighty-six years old. His hair was as white as dandelion fluff and his one vanity. Fit and athletic, he was no feeble old man. Still, if he’d been gut-shot…Honey placed her fingers against the artery under his jaw. His pulse was a little fast but normal for a man his age. He opened one rheumy blue eye. Relief swamped her.

  “He needs emergency medical treatment!” She let a hint of urgency tinge the words as he looked down at his shoulder, then back up at her.

  She frowned, puzzled. He did it again. “Seriously, Catherine. How fucking cooperative do you think I’ll be if Pollack dies? Have one of these goons take him upstairs to his nurse, Kimberly. We’ll negotiate from there.”

  “I’m okay,” he mouthed.

  No, he wasn’t. She had no idea how badly he was hurt; his belly, his hand . . . He certainly wasn’t his usual robust self. Without moving her torso, Honey slid the tips of her fingers under his shoulder and felt an unexpected lump. She raised a brow. He had a gun? Pushing against the fabric of his ever-present blazer and edging the gun free, she turned to look at Savage. “Did you hear what I said? Let him go, and I’ll help you.”

  Not just a gun, her baby SIG, that she’d slid along the floor when Savage had instructed they throw down their weapons.

  Three bullets left.

  Including Savage, they faced eight opponents. Now, add herself and Navarro to the three-bullet equation, and they had a damn good shot at making it out of here alive, and keeping T-FLAC’s data inviolate. It took considerable self-control to keep even the suggestion of hope off her face.

  “Move it, Princess and stop wasting my time.” Savage leaned back in the chair, her feet still up on the console as she ripped at her throat piece. “I’ll think about it.”

  Shifting to balance on her haunches, Honey rested her forearms on her knees, settling in to wait, the small gun now hidden by her hip. One thing she had in spades that Savage did not, was patience. “I’ll stay put until you decide. But if Pollack dies, all bets are off. I die, and you’ll never get in.”

  “I’m hurt. And here I’ve gone to so much trouble to get us to this point.”

  “Who was your inside man?” Rafael asked, clearly to distract Savage. “Nielson?”

  Savage turned away from Honey to look at him with a coy and grotesque smile. “A girl never tells all her secrets.”

  Ten feet separated Honey from Rafael now. There were so many weapons in the space, that no matter what the end results were, her precious array was going to take a major hit when the inevitable shit hit the fan. Goddamn Savage.

  “Bombings, stealing millions?” His eyes flickered briefly to her, then back to engage Savage. Too bad they weren’t telepathic. “Attempting to frame Winston for what you’re doing? All pointless and not that well executed in the end.”

  “God, you are so fucking obtuse, the both of you! Do you think all this—” She waved a finger in a circle as if stirring a pot. “This. You and you. Together? Think it was synchronicity? An accident? Of course not. I made sure there was just the right situation to require a team combining cybercrimes and a bomb tech. A terror event widespread enough, newsworthy enough, for good old T-FLAC to send their best. Just like Noah and his ark, I chose wisely. And two by two, you walked right into it.”

  Honey turned her back on Pollack, and without missing a beat, he tucked the small pistol into the designated fold on the back of her LockOut. Now all she had to do was wait for just the right moment, or realistically, a moment that was almost right.

  “You couldn’t have kn—You killed Jack?”

  “We’re all part of the ultimate statistic, Princess. Ten out of ten of us die eventually. I just helped Hansen reach his expiration date a little early to expedite things. You were next in command.” Savage clapped her hands like an exuberant child, clearly delighted with her cleverness. “And voilà!” She spread her hands wide. “My dream team.”

  “For what?” Rafael’s question ensured Savage turn her head, to look from one to the other as if she were watching a tennis match.

  “Andriy is too set in his ways, he’s getting old—”

  “Actually, Kobevko isn’t getting older at all.”

  A sly smile crossed her face. “Ah, you killed him. Exactly as I’d hoped. Black Rose needs new blood. We’ll make an unbeatable alliance.”

  “You do realize I’m on the side of the good guys, right? And while it might be a small point, I dispose of bombs, I don’t build them.”

  “Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it. You’ll have unimagined wealth. But even more of a rush, is the absolute power. Intoxicating. Your talents are wasted with T-FLAC, Navarro. You have the skill set I require and the expertise in the bedroom to keep me happy. Enough incentive and every man will switch allegiance. You married Rachel, but it was my bed you should’ve shared the night you found her dead.” Savage’s eyes lit.

  “Four months preggers,” she murmured dreamily. “If I’d known beforehand, I would’ve dragged out the torture that much longer. Maybe handed you your baby once I’d dug it out of her. What a cream puff.”

  Honey wanted to vomit, but Rafael’s face remained impassive. “The bombings killed hundreds of people, damaged millions of dollars’ worth of property, and destroyed businesses. Overkill. With the necessary skills, you could’ve accessed the backup sites, taken the money, and no one would’ve been the wiser.”

  While Savage was looking at Rafael, Honey inched closer so she could see how far Savage had gotten inside the protocols that would lead her into the T-FLAC data. Satisfied by what she saw, she knew Savage wasn’t even close.

  “What’s the fun in that?” Savage swiveled on her chair to encompass them both. “This way, I had the unpleasant knowledge that you were fucking your way across Europe while I manipulated the strings. That pissed me off, I must admit. You’re a dick, Navarro, but, but you’re my dick! I wish you’d stop trying to pretend otherwise. You know the best part?” She demanded of Honey, tuning her head so fast her long red braid slapped across her ravaged face. She flung it over her shoulder impatiently.

  “Everyone thinks you’re responsible, Princess. Am I brilliant? Or brilliant? Yes. I think so.”

  Honey had to wait while hatred flowed through her like a poison. No emotion, she told herself. Not an ounce. Savage was trying to rile them. She couldn’t allow it to work.

  Focus. Breathe. Do your job. Honey repeated her mantra. She might have her SIG, but it only held three bullets. Her aim had to be fast and it had to be true.

  Knowing Savage was this crazy had been academic before. But now, hearing her, seeing her face to face—the reality was nothing short of stunning. The hard pounding of her heartbeat thrummed against Honey’s eardrums as her blood heated her skin.

  Focus. Breathe. Do your job.

  She took a deep breath. “So I get blamed for what you did? Go to prison like you did?”

  “A very unpleasant place. I have no fondness for Colorado, and even less after experiencing their hospitality. At first, I thought I’d just piggyback off your skills and have your ass fired, Winston. Can’t have you dogging my footsteps, you’re just too conscientious and, honestly? Too good to let something like this go. Navarro’s right. You’re a terrier with a bone.”

  “Why do you care if I’m out of a job?

  “Because you’ll have nowhere else to go but to me.”

  Honey motioned to Pollack. “This is your way of making me a job offer? Seriously? With my superior skills? There are dozens of places that would take me in a heartbeat.”

  Savage shrugged. “Not when they discover you’re a traitor and a rogue operative.”

  “The private sector wouldn’t give a crap. And maybe I don’t want back in this business. Maybe I want to stay home and raise cattle and babies.”

  “You?” Savage scoffed. “You don’t have a maternal bone in your body. Your lack of emotion is what brought you to my attention in the first place. Who do you think coined the sobriquet Ice Princess in the halls of T-FLAC?” She picked bits of throat make-up away. “Somewhere between toying with you in Dresden and London and watching Andriy play with you in Prague, I reconsidered your true value. I realized you’d be more of an asset to me dead than alive. And with your electronic fingerprint, I can be you whenever I like. Honey Winston will be dead, long live Honey Winston. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a crazy bitch who should be shot.” Honey pulled the baby SIG from the small of her back and fired in one fluid motion. No hesitation, no adjustment to her aim, just the way her firearms instructor had taught her. Textbook.

  At that close range, Savage didn’t even have a nanosecond to look surprised before she crashed backward into the computer monitors, a small hole between her eyes.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  J esus fuck. He hadn’t expected that. Rafael didn’t have time to contemplate the wonder of Honey taking matters into her own hands so efficiently.

  With perhaps a couple of seconds to make good on the element of surprise, he twisted to knee the Greasy-faced guy in the nuts, then spun his now free arm in a leopard punch, similar to a snake striking, to Scarface’s eye, driving his knuckles deep into the eye socket, his entire body weight behind his arm. Both of his opponents went down, writhing.

  A rapid pair of shots and screams indicated she’d made good use of the bullets she had. Three shots and Honey tossed aside her weapon. Rafael grinned as he turned just in time to see her perform a graceful and wicked-fast roundhouse kick, her leg arcing up. Her boot struck the lantern jaw of the tall bald guy and he went down. Skinny tried to grab her around the waist and pull her off her feet, but she was ready and head-butted him right on the nose. He howled, backed away. Bled.

  Rafael swung around, grabbed the barrel of Pockmark’s AK-47, and rammed it into his gut, driving him back against the racks. Shit cascaded down on top of them as they wrestled for control of the weapon. The guy couldn’t get off a shot at that angle, but he sure as hell tried. Rafael held firm. Pockmarks slammed him into the racks. Pain radiated up his spine as more electronics, computer crap, and wires rained down. He turned the tables, using the barrel of the gun as a fulcrum, and jettisoning the guy across the room. He retained the weapon and used it to efficiently get off several shots. Dropping Baldy, Skinny, and Scarface, all of whom had managed to stagger to their feet, in one fell swoop. The sweaty guy made it to one knee before Rafe shot him. They were all down – Rafe had punched Scarface in the eye, and Honey kicked Baldy and head-butted Skinny.

  “How’re you doing, Winston?”

  “Couldn’t be—Ow! Shit!” Pockmarks had recovered from his fall and now had a Ka-Bar in his hand. He danced toward her, backing her against the console, right beside Savage’s slumped body. Waiting until he was just close enough, she kicked out, striking him in the chest with her boot. He staggered back, then fell on his ass, but jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and came for her with a roar of rage and blood in his eye.

  Rafael ran to help her, just as she grabbed one of the giant monitors off the console and brought it down on the bastard’s head with the dull thud of a watermelon hitting the pavement.

  Chest heaving, she grinned over at him. “I never really liked that monitor, anyway. Now—” Several white-garbed operatives poured into the room, guns at the ready.

  “Well, hell, guys. You just missed the party!” She took a quick inventory, then raced over to Pollack and dropped to her knees. “Ambulance?” she demanded, ripping at his shirt.

  “Minutes away. Secure this garbage,” Rafael instructed their men, watching Honey from the corner of his eye. Activating the earpiece on his goggles, he contacted Savin, who was at HQ. “Ambulance and make it fast.”

  “Stationed at the perimeter. ETA two minutes.”

  “Take Nielson into custody,” he told the other man, his gaze still on Honey. “Check the bitch’s DNA. Out.”

  One of the Garbage crew held up Savage’s limp arm. “Hey, Navarro? What do you make of this?” A small, electronic wristband blinked a red, steady beat and the numbers on the digital display were counting backward.

  “Honey? Honey, where a—Oh, thank God!” A woman he recognized as one of the female hostages, the nurse, emerged from the elevator, her eyes scanning the huge room before she settled on Honey. Racing to her side, she was stripping off her down coat as she ran.

  Honey looked up, stark relief in her face. “Oh, God, am I happy to see you, Kim! Pollack’s been shot at least twice.”

  “Let’s see what we’re dealing with here, okay? Here, tuck my coat around him while I look.”

  Rafael took a quick look at the device on Savage’s wrist, while his men secured the Black Rose tangos. They needed more body bags than handcuffs.

  Fuck. A pulse-point detonator. “Clear the house,” he told the team leader, who nodded and got on his own mic. Rafael linked with Dolan. “Savage has a last hurrah planted somewhere, set to go off in less than thirty minutes. Alert team leaders. Over.”

  A trigger that had been set off the moment Savage’s pulse stopped beating. But a trigger of what? He did a quick survey of the room and didn’t see anything that looked remotely bomb-like. No wires. No blocks of detonation material. But God only knew, the place was vast enough, filled with millions of dollars’ worth of high-tech computer equipment—it could be any-fucking-where.

  Rafael crouched beside the two women. It looked as if Pollack couldn’t be moved. Honey wouldn’t leave without Pollack. Rafael wasn’t leaving without Honey. “Let’s get him, upstairs,” he said evenly, his heart pounding with urgency. “We’ll meet the medics when they arrive.”

  Honey’s face was pale, her mouth pinched as she tore at the buttons on the old man’s shirt while trying to keep him covered with the coat. They needed to get out of here until Rafe determined where Savage had hidden the bomb now ticking down the minutes.

  He made eye contact with the nurse. “How is he?” What he really wanted to say was, ‘can we move him?’

  Honey’s fingers were bloody, and her fingers trembled. “He’s—”

  “Shot and it hurts like blue blazes,” Pollack snapped, voice robust and annoyed. “But he’ll live. Give me some air and a shot of whisky, and I’ll be right as rain.” He reached up and brushed his arthritic fingers over Honey’s cheek as she leaned over him then whispered gently, “Don’t let your partner see you cry like a girl, sweetheart. Come on now, I’m fine. Kim’s here, you go be a super spy. Do whatever you need to do and don’t fuss.”

  “I’ve been a super spy for hours,” Honey teased, touching his face with her fingertips. “We’re all done. The bad guys are being taken in for questioning, the Queen Bitch of the Universe is dead, and all’s well that ends well, right? That’s what you always used to tell me. I just want you fixed up because you know how I hate holes in things. Especially things I l-ove.”

  Rafael put his hand on the small of her back as she dragged in a watery-shaky breath. “I want a nice glass of wine, a hot fire, and to beat your ass at chess, so don’t tell me you’re fine when you have—When you’ve been shot. You will be fine, but right now, let us take care of you, okay? Allow us to fuss. It makes us feel better, okay?”

  He wasn’t fine. His lips were white, his skin clammy. The rule of thumb was ten minutes from injury to ambulance transport. It had been considerably more than that. Bullets were unpredictable, and there was the possibility that the bullet to his belly, chest, or wherever Savage had shot him, had bounced around inside him, causing even more damage. The nurse hadn’t even turned him to check for an exit wound. But they needed to get him, hell all of them, out ASAP.

  “He’s lost some blood,” Honey’s friend told Rafe calmly, wrapping her scarf meticulously around his bleeding hand. “There’s a roll of plastic Honey uses to cover—A roll, top right hand drawer. Move it!”

  Jolted into action, Rafael found a roll of plastic wrap in the drawer and brought it back. The nurse wrapped the sheet of wrap tightly around Pollack’s chest to keep air from being sucked into the wound. It would temporarily prevent the development of a collapsed lung.

  The basement was suddenly a hive of activity, as the Black Rose agents were hauled out double-time and the paramedics came in. In minutes, Pollack was strapped to a gurney and on his way to the hospital house, underground at the T-FLAC facility twenty miles away, followed by the nurse. Rafael suddenly found himself alone with Honey.

  Crouching beside her, he took her cold face in both hands, smoothing his thumbs over her cheeks to bring back some color. “You did good, Winston.” He kissed her softly, loving the way she kissed him back. Warmth seeped into her skin beneath his palms.

  She lifted her head, her eyes looked bruised. “I want to go to the hospital—”

  “Yeah, we will. But first we need to get out of here.”

  “Navarro? Winston? We have a situation.” The disembodied voice of Dolan echoed against the concrete basement walls.

  “Did you find her package?” Rafael demanded, shoving his goggles back over his eyes as he helped Honey to her feet.

  “Fixed installation GTGM.” Dolan told them grimly. “Target heading is HQ. Secondary system, one kilometer south, aimed at the house. Called in C. K. Mitchell to take point on one. Her ETA is sixteen minutes. Which one do you want?”

  Jesus. Not just a bomb. A ground-to-ground missile. Even dead, Savage had to have the last word. The bitch was still a menace. “House,” he said, meeting Honey’s eyes. They hastily grabbed whatever weapons were closest to hand, a couple of AK47s, pulled up the cowls to protect their heads, and pushed their goggles back in place.

  The new coordinates popped up on the screen in her goggles, as Rafael told Dolan, “Confirm visual. Patch in Mitchell when she gets there.”

  “I’ll rendezvous at your location. Move it, Navarro. This whole thing will be more of a clusterfuck if we don’t disarm these bastards. Out.”