Carter jerked away. “I’m strapped into this thing. If I try to take it off, it blows. You have to go. Now. Please, baby.”
“I’m not fucking leaving you.”
“You can’t leave Elena.”
“I can’t leave either of you!” Determination burned in his honey eyes.
Burned.
Carter groaned, the last of Dr. Fear’s mind games registering. “It’s fire, Lincoln.”
“I know that,” he snapped, a visible tremor wracking his body. “And now I’m gonna fucking face it, just like I played that song. Twice. The fucking asshole made me play it twice.”
That amazing song in Lincoln’s pitch-perfect voice, that haunting melody from the guitar Lincoln played so skillfully, had been what pushed the darkness back far enough for Carter to round on Dr. Fear. But the blackness was encroaching again, fast. So fast.
“Go, baby, please.”
“You know how to do this, Carter. You aced the explosives module in Academy.”
“How’d you . . .” Focus was getting harder. “How’d you know that?”
“Because I wanted to know who I was working with.”
Carter scoffed. “You can’t. I don’t even know.”
“Fuck, he got inside your head.” Gentle hands cupped his face. “Which wire, Carter?”
“I’m not good enough. I’ve never been good enough. I couldn’t get away before he got me here.”
“You were beaten and drugged. Which wire?”
“I was wrong about Larry. I didn’t see it was Ryan until too late.”
“It was his best friend, and Larry knew. Your instincts were right. Which wire?”
Carter shook his head. “If I tell you the wrong wire, and you die, by fire, I can’t?—”
Lincoln’s grip on his face became firmer, holding him in place, forcing his gaze. His world was filled with honey and heat. “Listen to me, Carter Warren. You were the best student I ever had. You made my life hell, but you were the best. Just like you are the best agent I have ever worked with, even if you leave your shit everywhere. And you—not me, not Ollie, not anyone else who has touched this case over the past twenty-five years—found the lead that brought us to Apex. We caught Dr. Fear because of you. You were right, Carter, just like you were right about this cover.”
Warm lips landed on his. Lips he’d dreamed about for eight years, lips that had become familiar over the past week. Lips he wanted to spend the rest of his life kissing, that felt so right pressed against his own.
“Which wire?” Lincoln whispered against those lips.
Carter answered without thinking. “Blue.”
Twenty-One
The number of agents in the FBI’s makeshift command center at the hospital had multiplied significantly since Lincoln had woken here yesterday. No longer just O’Shea’s team, agents scurried between four different rooms, a pair of guards standing at the entrance to each. No surprise with three individuals in custody—Clyde, Larry, and Ryan—the last one on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Curiously, guards also stood outside the command room. Lincoln understood why once he entered and saw a certain senator standing among the whirling activity.
“Ollie,” he called, and his mentor rotated toward him. “What are you doing here? You should be with your family.”
“Which is exactly why I’m here.” He crossed the room and pulled Lincoln into a hug, same as Lincoln had done for him last week. “You and Agent Warren helped save my kid. It was the least I could do.” He drew back, giving Lincoln a concerned once-over. “How are you?”
“Hanging in there. Ruby and Chase?”
“Recovering, but good. And Agent Warren?”
“A little worse for wear, but the doctors said he’ll be fine.” Broken arm, multiple contusions, some cranial swelling. Pain, exhaustion, and the sedative Ryan had given him had caused Carter to pass out in the ambulance on the way here. The additional painkillers administered after his arm was reset were keeping him under longer. “They expect him to sleep through the rest of the night,” he told Oliver. “His body needs it.” Never mind that Lincoln needed his partner to open his eyes so he could actually believe Carter was okay.
