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He wasn't surprised to hear Mira right behind him as soon as he took his first step in the corridor outside, but he was far from pleased. "What are you doing?" she demanded at his back, running to keep up with his furious gait. "Kellan, where are you going?"
The sound of his name on her lips - his true name - put a dangerous edge in his answering growl as he wheeled around to face her. He grabbed her upper arms and steered her back against the nearest wall. "One of my men is dead back there. Another of my crew could bleed out in a few minutes, if Doc doesn't work some kind of magic on her leg. And a captive under my watch has been taken by one of my own - right under my fucking nose - likely to be sold to the highest bidder or killed before sundown tonight. You think I'm going to sit back and let this go unmet?"
"It's the middle of the day. You can't go anywhere - "
"Let me deal with that," he snapped, knowingly harsh as he let her loose and pivoted to leave her behind him in the hallway.
But Mira had never been one to give in that easily. No, not her. She marched right after him, bare feet padding in determined strides at his back. It took her only moments before she was in front of him, blocking his path with her body. A body that looked entirely too damn good in his T-shirt and overlong sweatpants, rolled up at her ankles.
"Don't be an idiot," she said, eyes flashing behind the purple tint of her contact lenses. "You'll die out there right now."
"I've got a good half hour before I need to worry about exposure," he pointed out. "I can be in the city in less than ten minutes on foot."
"Then what?" she countered hotly. "Twenty minutes to turn Boston upside down looking for Vince and Ackmeyer before you're toast? It's suicidal and you know it."
He scoffed, even though she was right. "You got a better idea?"
"Yeah. I'll go after them. If I don't find Vince myself, I'll work my way through every rebel piece of shit in the city until someone rats him out."
Kellan barked out a caustic laugh. "Forget it. This is my mess to clean up, not yours. You're not a part of it, Mira. And I'll walk into the sun itself before I put you in the middle of this shit."
If he'd had any kind of honor, he would have done that eight years ago, ensuring that he'd never have the chance to hurt her the way her vision showed him he would. But he hadn't been able to cut himself off from Mira, not totally. He'd stayed close, closer than was wise. He should have put continents between them, anything to make certain their paths would never cross again.
But he hadn't done any of those things.
Even now, it was nearly impossible to keep from reaching out to touch her. He crossed his arms over his chest when the temptation to smooth her outraged scowl proved almost too much to resist.
"You bastard." Mira drew in a breath, then pushed it out on a sharp exhalation. "God, you are still the most infuriatingly pigheaded male I've ever known. You're going to stand there and tell me I'm not a part of this - that you would rather kill yourself than let me into your world - when you just had your cock inside me? You said a lot of sweet things to me, things I was almost fool enough to believe - "
Kellan cursed. "I meant everything I said. Every word, Mira. But that was before."
She gaped, stricken and breathing hard. "Before what?"
"Before everything that went down in that cell back there," Kellan replied. "Before what happened with Vince just now reminded me that this is never going to work. It can't work."
He uncrossed his arms and ran a hand over his scalp, trying to figure a way off the path that fate seemed determined to place him on. But there wasn't one. Vince defecting with Jeremy Ackmeyer in tow had all but made sure of that fact.
"Whatever happens now, whatever Vince ends up doing with Ackmeyer, I want you out of it. To anyone outside this bunker, you're still my captive, an unwilling participant in anything I've done. I intend to keep it that way. I won't have you jeopardizing your future, thinking you can help me. You can't, because I'm not going to allow it."
Her slender blond brows lowered even farther over her flashing eyes. "That's not your decision to make. I don't need your permission to care about you, Kellan. You don't get to decide what's important to me."
God help him, but it didn't take much to remember the stubborn little girl who'd told him pretty much the same thing in word and deed time and again when he'd been a withdrawn, stupid teen who didn't know how to accept her friendship, let alone her love. By sheer force of will, she'd made him participate in life when grief and anger over his family's annihilation had all but crippled him inside. As a girl, Mira had held his hand and led him out of a dark place. As a woman, she'd held his heart, despite his efforts to protect himself from caring for someone he could never bear to lose.
Now he only hoped he'd find the strength to push Mira away, when all he wanted was to pull her close and never let her go.
He kept his voice quiet, the words as gentle as he could make them. "This time I do get to decide. Bad enough I couldn't stay away from you, even though I knew damn well where this would take us in the end." He lowered his head and held her searching gaze, needing her to hear him now. She needed to understand. "When I go down, I'll be damned if I take you down with me."
Mira had gone utterly still in front of him. She didn't blink, barely drew breath. "What do you mean, you knew where this would take us in the end?"
Kellan stared into her eyes, those muted mirrors that had cursed him on what had so briefly been a perfect morning eight years ago. Now they looked up at him imploringly, searching for a truth he hoped she'd never need to hear.
"Tell me," she said, a slight tremor in her soft voice. Her anger was gone now, replaced with a gravity - a tangible dread - that caught his heart in a stranglehold. "What did you mean by that, Kellan?" She spoke hardly above a whisper, hardly breathing, for all he could discern. "Tell me what you know, damn it."
He reached for her, but she flinched away from him. Gave a slow shake of her head, her eyes never leaving his. "Tell me."
"That morning," he said, the words coming out of him dry and rusty. "The morning before the warehouse explosion . . ."
"We made love," she murmured.
