Leave out the emotions.
“Get what you came for and let’s get out of here,” he said, stalking toward flats of water piled high against one wall. He pulled one from the top and returned to drop it near the trunk of the white BMW.
She eyed him from beneath the shade of her hand. “Can you not see that I’ve suffered a head injury, or do you seriously just not give a flying fuck?”
His jaw tightened. He straightened. “That guy is going to regain consciousness and I can guarantee his head injury won’t stop him from coming after us.”
“Well, Hooyah! for him.” She covered her eyes again. “He won’t find us here, so cool your jets and stop talking. My head is killing me.”
“He may not find us in here, Halina, but he’ll be calling in buddies to help him now. And they’ll find us the minute we go out there. So we can’t wait for your head to feel better before we move.”
She put a hand up, arm straight, palm out in an aggressive gesture. “Stop talking.” Her face scrunched in pain. “You’re right, okay. I just . . . need a few minutes.”
She covered her face again, shoulders slumping. Mitch collected dog food, blankets, MREs, and two small suitcases Halina already had packed.
“Okay,” he asked, staring at the pile he’d created. “What else?”
When he got no response, he turned and found Halina asleep on the sofa.
“Perfect,” Mitch muttered.
FOUR
Halina wobbled on the edge of an uncomfortable sleep. Everything hurt, especially her head. She curled closer to Dex for warmth.
“Time to go, printcessa.”
The deep, sexy male voice and his use of the Russian term made a memory of joy stream through Halina’s chest. A shake of her shoulder interrupted the sensation and instantly soured her mood.
“Halina, just let go of Dex so I can pick you up.”
That voice and Dex’s whine wiped away remnants of sleep and dragged Halina into reality. All those complex emotions she’d been fighting before she’d fallen asleep filled her up again.
She opened her eyes. “What?”
“Car’s packed. We need to get on the road.”
Dex jumped to the floor and Halina sat up slowly, holding her head against the pain. Get on the road. With Mitch. No. So not happening.
“I don’t know what I said before, but I’m not going anywhere with you. We have two cars. You take one. I have to figure out . . .” Shit, she didn’t have the brainpower or the energy to figure out anything right now. She only knew she needed to put miles between herself and Mitch. “Another plan.”
Mitch dropped into a crouch, hands tight on her thighs. He gazed at her with hard green eyes of glass. “You must have forgotten while you were sleeping, but there is no other plan. We’re staying together until I get to the bottom of how you fit into this mess. And you’re going to help make it right, Halina. We’re not splitting up anytime soon.”
Anger punched out in front of the emotional pack. She dropped her hand from her head and stood. “You must have forgotten that you led those people to me after seven years of successful hiding. I now have to go back into hiding, which is a whole lot harder than it sounds. Take my car back to the house and get your rental. After that, I don’t give a shit where you go. Or what you do. Just stay the hell away from me.”
She turned past him for the BMW, gritting her teeth as her head threatened to throb right off her neck. Mitch grabbed her arm from behind. Without thought, Halina turned and stepped back, pulling Mitch toward her. She twisted her hand, grabbed his wrist, and rolled her opposite forearm over his elbow joint, pushing him to the floor with a continuous turn of her body. But she didn’t have the strength to hold him there when he fought the position.
He was fast and strong and the pain in her head made her vision blur. He twisted out from under her grasp, and yanked her down on top of him, slamming her against his body. Her head swam and everything in the storage unit tilted on a diagonal.
“Enough,” he growled in her ear, his breath hot on her cheek. “Enough, Halina. Dammit. You have a head injury for God’s sake, and I’m sick of getting ambushed. Knock it off.”
“I won’t stop.” She sounded pathetic, panting, weak, trapped against a man nearly twice her size. He pushed her back, stood, and picked her up all so fast her brain banged against her skull and she squeezed her eyes, moaning. He lowered her into the passenger’s seat, but she put her hand on the door to hold it open. “And I’m not going with you.”
She gave the door a good shove, but it barely moved. With a growl, Mitch dropped to a crouch and gripped both her hands in his. “Let me make this very clear—for the last time. You are going with me. And, this time, printcessa, you’ll leave me when I decide to let you go.”
She pulled at his grip, but got nowhere. Mitch clenched both her wrists in one big hand and reached into his back pocket. He tossed something onto her lap—the two fake IDs she stored here. Passports, drivers’ licenses, credit cards, both in neat little wallets.
“If you leave before I say you can leave,” he said, his voice low and calm, but loaded with an underlying intensity that made Halina’s limbs tingle with ice, “those identities and every other one you’ve used will be tagged with every law enforcement entity across the country. Across the world if necessary. You won’t get through an airport, a train station, a bus station, so you can forget about running . . . anywhere.”
She swallowed and looked up, searching for a sliver of the man she’d given up any chance at a normal life for. But his gaze was hard. Resolute. Remote.
Even though he believed Schaeffer’s men would kill her like they’d killed Rostov and Gorin when they found her, he still threatened to expose her to law enforcement, virtually guaranteeing Schaeffer’s discovery of her whereabouts. And by the look in his eye, given the lengths he’d gone to this far, considering Alyssa’s safety was involved . . .
In essence, the man she’d sacrificed everything to save was now taking everything she’d rebuilt and deliberately putting her life at risk. The skin of Halina’s face chilled as the blood drained. Her throat squeezed hard. She still couldn’t quite believe what he was doing.
“You’re blackmailing me?” she whispered. “With my life?”
“I’m doing what I have to do. You’re forcing me to put unnecessary pressure on you.”
She turned away, facing the windshield. Tears burned her eyes as she crossed her arms. “How fucking ironic is this?”
Mitch drove south on the freeway and Halina seethed in silence. She didn’t ask where he was headed, because she didn’t want to start a conversation and because it didn’t matter since she had no other plan. But once they’d been driving for ten minutes, Mitch glanced over at her.
“Since I know getting you to talk when you’re angry is like bending cement,” he said, “I’ll bring you up to speed on the events of the last seven years, at least those that I know concern us—”
“You,” she said. “Concern you.”
“Let me start by telling you that I recognize your . . . powers, gifts, paranormal abilities. Whatever you want to call them. And I also know they were brought on by your work at DARPA.”
Her mouth dropped open. It happened before she could hold back the reaction. She covered with a forced laugh. “The caliber of your paralegals has taken a severe drop. You might want to rethink your research strategies.”