Mine to Have (Mine #5)(26)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Drop them!” The man screamed. Sweat had formed long, dark lines on his white shirt. “Throw down all your weapons or I will kill him right now.”

Victor kept his gun up.  “You kill him, and you’ll be dead one second later, Gary.”

Gary?  Even the name was normal.  Ordinary. Not the name of a-a killer.  A killer that Victor apparently knew.

“Send out the girl!” Gary ordered. “Or you can watch me put a bullet in your brother’s head.”

“He’s been f**king listening to my phone conversations,” Victor muttered. “Asshole.” He went right on with pointing his gun at Gary.

Hadn’t Victor heard the guy? He was going to shoot Saxon! That can’t happen. Elizabeth raced forward. “I’m coming out!” she shouted. “Please, don’t hurt him—”

She’d barely taken more than a few steps when Victor grabbed her and pushed her back into the cabin. He slammed back against the nearest wall, taking her out of Gary’s sight.

“Are you insane?” Victor demanded. “He is here to kill you.”

She got that but… “I’m not going to let Saxon die in my place!”

“Saxon is an agent! He’s trained for shit like this—”

His words were drowned out by the thunder of gunfire.

Saxon!

Then she heard laughter. “I just put a bullet in Saxon’s shoulder,” Gary said, voice carrying easily. “Since he wasn’t dropping his gun, I had to convince him. The next shot will be in his head.”

Victor’s forearm pressed over her chest. She saw the fury burning in his eyes.

“Send her out!” Gary’s voice was close to a shriek now.

She strained against Victor’s hold, but he wasn’t letting her go. Please, she mouthed the word to Victor.

His eyes were slits of fury. “I guess there was a rat in the FBI all along,” he shouted to Gary. “Fuck, you were the one with all the technical intelligence—and you were just, what? Selling it off to the highest bidder?”

“That’s what I do…now.  But two years ago, before I was transferred to your team, I worked a slightly different beat.”

A muscle flexed along Victor’s jaw.  “What beat was that?”

More laughter. “Come on out, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Victor still didn’t move.

“Victor!” Gary shouted.

“You fed me bullshit about that police report on her parents’ car crash, didn’t you?” Victor yelled back. “They didn’t think Luther Bates had set up that hit—”

“They should have thought that,” Gary blasted back. “Who do you think hired me to kill them?”

Her heart seemed to splinter. That man out there…he’d killed her parents?  An image of their mangled bodies flashed in her mind.  Nausea twisted her stomach, and, for a moment, Elizabeth thought she’d vomit.

“Guess who else is about to die?” Gary’s voice came again. Sharp. Angry. “Give you a hint…he’s an ass**le undercover agent who is about to get a bullet in his head.”

No, that couldn’t happen. “We have to help Saxon,” Elizabeth whispered to Victor.  “He needs us!”

“Saxon is a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

Everyone needed help sometime.  “He’s been shot! Twice!”  She kicked at Victor. “Let me go to him!” Because she was terrified that she’d hear another shot soon—a shot that had been fired into Saxon’s head.  No, no, he can’t die for me.  Her parents—Saxon—no!

Saxon…with his dark eyes and his scarred knuckles. His sensual touch and the laughter that seemed far too rusty. He couldn’t die. This couldn’t happen.  She struggled against Victor with all of her strength. She kicked, she punched, she clawed, and she got loose.

“No!” Victor yelled.

But she was frenzied.  Elizabeth ran through the open door and outside.  “Let him go!”

Saxon was on the ground, slumped forward with his hands in the dirt, and the man—Gary—now stood behind him, the gun at the back of Saxon’s head.

At her cry, Gary’s head snapped up. He stared at her, then smiled. “You have been so much trouble. You should have just been in that car two years ago—you were supposed to be in the car—and all my loose ends would have been tied up.”

She ran toward him. “Don’t hurt, Saxon!” That man—she’d seen him before.  She knew it. But she couldn’t remember where or when. She just couldn’t place him.

Victor’s footsteps pounded behind her.

Gary smiled. “Too late for that…”

His fingers were squeezing the trigger. She could see them.

“No!” Elizabeth screamed.

Victor tackled Elizabeth.  They hit the ground and she waited to hear the sound of a gunshot, a shot that would end Saxon’s life.

His smile…I loved his smile. So beautiful. It changed him, made him look so—

She heard a strangled cry.  Victor eased his hold on her and when he looked up, she rolled away from him as tears streaked down her cheeks.

But she wasn’t staring at Saxon’s prone body.  Gary was the one on the ground. The gun had fallen from his fingers, and a knife protruded from his throat.

“Hell, yes,” Victor muttered as he leapt to his feet.

She staggered up and rushed toward Saxon. He’d just grabbed one of the discarded guns—Elizabeth didn’t know if it was Saxon’s weapon or Gary’s—and, as she watched, Saxon put the gun to Gary’s forehead. “My turn,” Saxon rasped.

She froze. Her knees locked, and Elizabeth couldn’t move.

“Saxon, no!” Victor roared.

Gary was still alive, still making some horrible gurgling sound.

“He planned to kill us all,” Saxon said. His shirt was soaked with blood.  “You know that. He was going to kill me, kill you, kill Elizabeth…then go right back to the FBI. Keep selling the…good agents out.”  He was on his knees over Gary. “No more…selling them out, Gary.”

Victor didn’t rush up to Saxon. He approached the other guy slowly, cautiously. “We need him alive. If he’s alive, he can tell us who he’s been working with. He can tell us what the hell he has been doing all of these years. The dead don’t talk, man, you know that.”