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The bitterness in his voice silenced her, but only for a minute. “Why would he bother looking for me? I was just the cook, right?”
He made a derisive sound. “Where do I start? He didn’t get a chance to fuck you, for one thing. That’s reason enough right there.”
“Never mind. Sorry I asked.”
“And you saw him,” he went on relentlessly. “You saw his new business partner, too. You were scheduled to get snuffed the minute you got a good look at Zhoglo’s face, Becca. Let alone all the rest of it.”
She kneaded the silvery blanket with desperate, nervous strength. “Who is he?” she whispered.
“You don’t want to know. The other reason he’ll want you is because he’ll want me. He’s capable of chopping my dick off and feeding it to me piece by piece. Not exaggerating.”
She winced.
“Given what happened tonight, he’ll assume that you’re the path to me. And he’ll be coming for me. Like a freight train.”
She was quiet for a long time. He was almost lulled into thinking that she’d conked out into a swoon of exhaustion and would leave him in blessed peace. Then she cleared her throat. No such luck.
“Um, this is kind of a hard thing to say, so please don’t get mad at me, OK?”
He braced himself. “Have at it.”
“Ah…you did what you did to those men to save me. To get me away from the island before that guy…before he could…”
“Yeah,” he broke in, impatient. “And?”
“Well, first off, thank you,” she said, in a breathless rush. “I don’t know why you did that for me, but thank you.”
The pause after those words begged the question, so he thought about it for a second. “I don’t know why I did it either.”
He got the sense that what he’d said was not the answer she had hoped for. This did not surprise him. The reality of Nick Ward always shocked the ladies, once they got a clue what they were dealing with. Usually, he fled the scene before that development.
“Well. Hmmph,” she said, with a disapproving cough. “What I’m trying to say is that, ah, considering your work, and, um, the people you associate with, I understand why you don’t want to have anything to do with the police. But I’m very grateful to you for saving me, and therefore, when I make my statement, I won’t mention you. If you just take me to the station and let me go, I won’t say one word about you. If they have me look at pictures, and I see yours, I won’t ID you. It’s not like I know…hey, stop that! What’s so funny?”
So Becca thought he was one of Zhoglo’s goons. It was inevitable, but for some reason it struck him as funny. Dry laughter snorted out of him, racking his chest, making his throat hurt, his eyes sting.
“Oh, that’s good,” he said, wiping his eyes. “That’s great, Becca. Tell them you took out four armed mobsters and fled the island all by yourself. The naked girl commando. Sounds like a video game. They’ll be coming in their pants when they take your statement.”
“Do not make fun of me.” Her voice had gone chilly. “There’s nothing amusing about this. At all.”
“Oh, no,” he agreed. Laughter jolted his ribs. “Not at all.”
She waited, radiating disapproval, until he got himself under control. “Are you finished?” she asked. “Can we discuss this like adults?”
Becca had nerve, talking like that to a guy she took for a bad-ass criminal. “I was infiltrating that organization,” he said. “I’m not one of his thugs. I was undercover.”
She gazed at him, agape. The silence was sweet. He savored it, for as long as it lasted. Which wasn’t long.
“Oh. So by getting me out of there, you, ah—”
“Blew my cover? Wasted years of preparation? Trashed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring that motherfucker down? Yes, yes, and yes. Lives were at stake, sweetheart. I traded them. For yours.”
Her eyes were huge, her mouth pursed into a shocked O.
“This evening, I was supposed to kill you,” he went on, his voice hard. “After the big festive gang-bang, of course. That would have been my entry fee to Zhoglo’s exclusive club. I had to get you out. So here we are, babe.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath, pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. So you’re from the police—or some agency—?”
The flinch was involuntary. He could only hope she didn’t notice. “Not anymore,” he said. “I used to be.”
