Heart Shot (13 page)

There was a slight pause, but it was so brief she wondered if her paranoia was getting a hold of her again. “Yes, of course. That’s perfect. I can duck a meeting and be there by three.”

“I’ll be there.”

Emily hung up, took a shaky breath and sighed in relief. Finally, she met Fin’s warm gaze.

“That was magnificent. Even only hearing your end it sounded like you played him perfectly.”

“I must be demented. It’s like I can see the flip side of two totally different scenarios. Either I’m about to shoot myself in the foot and destroy the only career that’s ever made money for me, or James has been playing me all along and I’m the biggest fool in the universe.”

“What do you mean?”

Emily pulled the sheet over her thighs and sat cross-legged on the bed. “Before today I’d have thought there was this unwritten rule between James and I. We never meet. Ever. Logic and a million reasons back up that rule, but yet it took me almost no effort to convince him. So on the one hand maybe he is trying to kill me and sees this as an opportunity. The other side to that coin is perhaps he is so adamant, so personally convinced that Keyton is dirty and selling our government out he’s willing to risk everything—
everything
—to convince me of this.”

Fin remained silent and she was grateful for that. He didn’t try to sway her, or offer his own thoughts on the matter—just let her thoughts hang on the air. She glanced at the clock, sighed and rose to her knees. Kissing him tenderly, she then moved down so she could lay her ear over his heart. She listened for a minute to the steady rhythm, enjoying the sound of his life pumping beneath her. It soothed her jangled nerves, calmed her the way no words could have managed.

“We need to get ready,” she said without moving a muscle.

“Well we could always turn up to the Market stark naked, I’m sure plenty of the patrons would enjoy the view.”

They both chuckled, and Emily loved how the sound reverberated through his chest. It sounded as if a deep, rolling thing were alive within him. She promised herself that as soon as they were done they’d return and she’d talk to him all through the night, listen to his heart thump and make him laugh so she could hear that lovely noise all over again.

Sitting up, she took one last mental picture. Fin, splayed out on her bed, his hair mussed, eyes shining. He looked beautiful, perfect.

Hers.

“Okay, let’s go.” She climbed from the bed, mentally preparing herself for the confrontation to come.

* * * *

Fin couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so nervous. He felt positively naked without his usual array of toys and gadgets to back him up. He had to resist the impulse to touch his ear. Fin had insisted they swing by his flat on the way out here. He’d grabbed a small microphone and an ear-piece receiver he’d ‘borrowed’ from the tech division and never returned.

“It’s so I can stand a stall or two down from you but still hear what you’re saying,” he’d explained. Emily had dressed in a cashmere sweater and overcoat. Fin hadn’t bothered to ask if she carried a weapon—he couldn’t imagine her going to such a thing without one. He just assumed the heavy coat hid what he hoped would be a large gun tucked somewhere she could easily access it.

And so now they were at the part he hated most—the waiting. Emily stood outside a small craft table, sipping a steaming takeaway cup of tea. He was two stalls down, trying on a variety of hats and scarves and using the mirror to continually check behind him. One of the joys of having his looks and colorful outfits was people expected him to be excessively vain. No one would think twice at him continually checking himself out in the mirror. It wouldn’t cross their mind that he might be checking their tail and assessing others who lingered a bit too long or showed undue interest in either himself or Emily.

It was a perfect cover.

Time seemed to crawl by. Fin marveled at how Emily genuinely didn’t seem like she waited at all. She sipped her tea and appeared patient enough as if she could stand there until midnight. Fin had to resist the temptation to check his watch every fifteen seconds. His inner antennae quivered as a tall man in a knee-length black coat paused a few paces behind Emily. Something about the way he coolly assessed her, his gaze roaming and simultaneously dismissing her, captured Fin’s attention.

Discreetly, Fin pulled out his phone. He tapped the pad of a finger onto the camera app, turned so he could see the man clearly in the mirror, and snapped a photo of him. Zooming in from a full-body shot to just his face, Fin waited until the man looked up—checking his surroundings—and gave Fin a perfect head shot.

Darkly tanned, the man was exotically foreign. With shoulder length brown hair, thick eyebrows and eyes so dark they appeared almost black, he looked as if he should be wearing a loin cloth and playing Tarzan somewhere, not dressed in an impeccable suit and long, woolen Burberry coat.

“Emily,” the man said. Both Fin and Emily jolted at the sudden noise. Fin assumed Emily was taken by surprise because she hadn’t seen the man behind her, but Fin was shocked how well the transmitter worked. The man’s voice in his ear sounded as if he stood right next to him.

“James, sorry, my mind was wandering.” Emily held out a hand and they shook. Fin wondered if it was all an act on her behalf—if she’d actually been aware of him all this time. He couldn’t imagine her letting her mind stray at a time like this.

“I’ve brought those documents,” James continued. “But I admit I became curious on my way over here. You’ve always insisted on retaining the right to decline any job, you won’t even accept a non-refundable deposit up front like most of your competitors. Why the meeting?”

“You’re quite persuasive. You seem determined to follow this through. I also feel you’re correct, you have earned my trust. You deserve the right to prove your point and convince me.”

“You’ve never indicated that as an option before,” James insisted. “And you’ve never struck me as a woman who lets herself be convinced of anything.”

Fin frowned and forced himself to select a different hat and try it on. His instincts knotted his stomach. Something really wasn’t right here. Why wasn’t James showing her the so-called evidence? Why was he questioning Emily like this? Was he merely suspicious, or was there some deeper game being played here?

“You asked me to trust you, and that’s what I’m doing,” Emily said dismissively. “I’m perfectly happy not to take the job, but you insisted, so here I am. We can leave it right here if you prefer.”

“Oh no, my dear,” James replied smoothly. Something in his tone had Fin turning around. He could sense something…but he had no idea what. Everything inside him said the whole deal was going south, but he couldn’t put a finger on what. It was like the feeling he’d had mere seconds before something disastrous occurred, that devastating knowledge he was missing something and not being able to spot it.

James reached inside his jacket and alarm shot through Fin like a bolt of electricity. James’ large body angled into Emily, the breadth of his shoulders protecting his hand from anyone’s view.

In Fin’s earpiece he heard the muffled
wisp
of a silenced bullet.

Emily gasped.

Her knees crumpled.

Fin’s heart stopped beating.

Dimly, he was aware of James walking on as if he’d merely exchanged a few pleasantries with a stranger and they were done. But Fin only had eyes for Emily.

She sank to her knees on the dirty ground.

She clenched her hand to her breasts, right above her heart.

Fin could all too easily imagine her holding in the pumping blood, the pain she must be feeling. An ache unlike anything he’d experienced rammed into his chest. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He wondered if he was suffering a heart attack.

He raced to Emily as she crouched forward, clearly struggling to breathe, her shoulders and back shaking with the effort dragging air into her lungs caused her.

The thought she might be dying galvanized him. He couldn’t have jolted to attention faster had someone jabbed him with a cattle prod.

“
Help
!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Somebody help me. Please!”

Taking one last look, Fin realized those few seconds of frozen shock had cost him any chance of following and catching James. Writing him off instantly, Fin sank to his knees in front of Emily, clasped her shoulders and lifted her so he could assess the damage.

People leaned over them both, asking in a confusing cacophony of voices and noises what was wrong and what did they need.

Emily labored for breath. Fin pulled her hand away, shocked there was no blood.

He ran a hand over her chest, finding the bullet hole exactly where he expected it, between her breasts and directly over her heart. There was a singed tear in the soft cashmere of her sweater, proving his ears hadn’t deceived him. She had been shot. Sticking a finger through the small hole, he then pushed against a hard plate.

She wore an armored vest.

“Oh, thank fuck for that,” he panted, sagging with the intensity of his relief. Emily grimaced in his arms, still struggling to draw breath. Her face flushed darkly and it seemed to take everything she had just to wheeze in a few pants.

“…hurts…” she barely managed to squeeze out.

He huffed a laugh, swung her into his arms and stood in a smooth motion. “I’m sure it does. I’m also sure you’re going to have the mother of all bruises marring that beautiful skin of yours for weeks to come. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Vest,” she puffed, still winded and clearly in pain.

“I can see you’re wearing a vest, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. Undoubtedly you’d be dead if not for that.”

“Didn’t realize it would hurt so much,” she groaned. Fin kissed her forehead and carried her to the car. Her color was returning to normal and she still struggled to catch her breath, but he could see now that she was fine.

“No one could possibly explain how great the pain is,” he agreed. “I’m tempted to spank you though. What if he’d gone for a head shot? Or your neck? A vest only covers your heart.”

“He’s arrogant.” Emily wobbled as he put her on her feet so he could open the car door for her. “He also knew he’d need time to escape. A heart shot is quick, silent and gives him time to leave before people would have noticed I’d fallen.”

Fin helped her into the seat, buckled her in and came around to the driver’s side.

“Heart shots can be fatal,” he agreed, smiling at her. She’d certainly shot him directly through the heart, her aim perfect. He couldn’t imagine his life without her. Starting the car, he took her hand in his, pressed his foot to the accelerator and peeled away.

“They’re not that bad.” Emily grinned back at him, seeming to think along similar lines to herself. “Yours was shocking, but it hit me dead center.”

“And your aim is always true,” he agreed.

They linked their fingers together and he drove them to the hospital. He knew she’d be fine, but would feel better once she had been checked over and cleared by a professional.

“James is still out there,” she said.

He nodded. “I know. We’ll get him.”

Showing more than words could express her trust in him, Emily relaxed back into the seat next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. She sighed happily and closed her eyes.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We will.”

Coming Soon from Totally Bound Publishing:

The Agency: Knight Takes Queen

Elizabeth Lapthorne

Released 20
th
March 2015

Excerpt

Chapter One

“Oh. Well aren’t you a sneaky little bastard?” Jane Harvey muttered to her computer screen as she flew her fingers over the keyboard. Clacking filled the air of her tiny office. Leaning closer to her monitor, Jane moved her eyes as code scrolled past rapidly.

“Oh yeah, didn’t expect that, did you, you jerk?”

As one of the technology experts for the Agency, Jane enjoyed regularly pitching her talent against all sorts of twisted new systems. This one, however, took her by surprise at just how ingenious it was. Even as she watched, she saw the hacker mutate the code she’d inserted.

“Hmm, that’s new,” she murmured.

“Talking to your screen again, Jane?”

Jane turned for a moment and saw Peter leaning casually against her doorframe. Even as her cheeks flushed warmly, she forced her attention back to her computer. Though how she was to ignore how tall and well built he was she didn’t know. Peter was far too handsome, Jane had been crushing on the blond, blue-eyed man for months now. In pinstriped suit pants with a matching charcoal vest and blue shirt, Peter should have looked old-fashioned or stodgy but somehow managed to look sexy.

“Sometimes it’s the only one who understands half of what I say,” Jane replied lightly as she continued to try and thwart her opponent’s attempts at slipping a Trojan into the Agency’s secure network. “I know I haven’t made the next move on our chess game. I’m sorry. I thought you were on leave. Isn’t Maria due to pop any day now?”

“No worries, I just wanted to duck in and see you. It doesn’t always have to be about our little game. But yes, I’m hoping they reassign a new partner to me before she gives birth. I’m a lot harder to fob off if I’m present rather than hassling on email or something,” Peter said.

Their online chess game—a thoroughly against the rules one to boot—had started out as a bit of a lark. Peter had been bored and roaming around. He’d noticed her playing a game by herself. That had been the first proper, non-mission related conversation they’d had. One thing had led to another and when she’d narrowly beaten him he’d immediately challenged her to a rematch.