But he hadn’t even known what the hell had been going on. Now he couldn’t understand how he’d missed it all.
“Are you going to tell me?” Young asked.
Mitch’s mind returned to the foyer. To the heavy, carved entry doors. To the chill coating his skin with gooseflesh. “What?”
“Her power,” he said, irritation stretching his voice. “What’s her power?”
Mitch blew out a breath, the shock in his belly slowly transforming to anger. She’d had all this information all this time and she’d held it back. Kept it secret. Risking everything that was important to him. Risking his family.
“We’re not clear on that yet.” His voice sounded cool, like it did in court when he was detached. “She seems to see pieces of the future, but when and how is sketchy. Quaid thinks she’s seeing alternate realities, not concrete futures. All these brainiacs keep talking quantum physics and probability schematics and electromagnetic energy gradients and shit. It’s all just . . . guesstimates at this point.”
“Don’t tell me, after taking down dozens of military top brass, cutting through the most secretive levels of espionage and conspiracy for the little enlisted guy, that you can’t figure out one fucking woman. One goddamned paranormal power when you’re surrounded by them.”
Young’s cut-through-the-bullshit approach stunned Mitch right back to stark reality.
“Get on your game, Foster. I’ve given you a hell of a lot to work with here. Maybe even everything you need to tie a big bow around Schaeffer’s fat neck and walk him into the AG’s office. All you have to do is get Beloi to cooperate.”
Young’s voice was the darkest, the most serious Mitch had ever heard it.
“What’s going on, Owen? You’re tweaked beyond capacity tonight.”
“I’m sick of this shit. I want my life back. I’m not getting any younger and I’m only living once. The longer this goes on, the less life I have to reclaim. Get me something solid on Schaeffer so I can take down both him and Abernathy before they do any more damage. Then we can all move on.”
The phone went dead in Mitch’s ear. He stayed there, ass on the tile foyer floor, elbows on knees, and let the cell fall away from his head. He didn’t want to believe Halina had held all this knowledge back. Didn’t want to acknowledge she could have been allowing both him and his family to suffer unnecessarily by harboring evidence of Schaeffer’s compulsive manipulation. Didn’t want to believe she’d walked out on him when she’d had the evidence to free herself and stay.
But . . .
“They should hate me.”
Now he understood just why she believed that.
The depth of hurt that lunged up from the shadows of his soul overtook him as he imagined a demon would. Pulling him into the dark. Drawing out all his bad—anger, viciousness, malice. Every painful thing she’d ever done filled his mind. And with the hurt of her betrayal and abandonment threading through seven years of his life, he had plenty to think about on his way to the bathroom where her shower ran.
FOURTEEN
Halina rested her head against her arm on the shower’s tile wall and let the hot water pour over the cuts on her shoulders. They were sparse and shallow thanks to the way Mitch twisted at the last minute, shielding her, Dex, Kat and Mateo from most of the glass. She should be out there with him now. Taking care of him. Wished she could be—the way Alyssa and Teague, Keira and Luke, Jessica and Quaid took care of each other. The way she and Mitch used to take care of each other. She hadn’t recognized that element of their relationship as something she’d missed until she’d come here, met these people.
But in light of what had just happened, that was so minor. What she lacked in her life was worth giving up to keep them safe.
Her fingers tightened around Dex’s collar. She opened her eyes and glanced sideways at it. She fingered the deep brown studs. Tears of pride burned her eyes when she remembered how he’d reacted in the chaos and protected Kat and Mateo. That one incident was worth every hour of training over the last four years.
The bathroom door opened. Halina didn’t hear it. Only knew from the shift in the steam. Her delayed alarm sensors kicked on just as she heard, “Halina.”
Mitch. His deep voice husky with frustration.
The tension drained from her shoulders. The burn of alarm melted from her belly. Resignation welled into some emotion she couldn’t describe or explain. Inside, a combination of failure and fear coiled deep in her gut. She wasn’t ready to do this. To give up everything that had kept him safe for so long.
But it wasn’t keeping him safe anymore.
He pulled the curtain aside. The rake of metal rings against the rod made her flinch. One look at the darkness of his eyes, the pull to his face, the tightness of his mouth, and she closed her eyes and rolled her head back toward the wall.
“Just . . . let me finish my—”
Mitch stepped over the edge of the tub—still in his khakis—and grabbed her biceps. “You have all the evidence we need to put Schaeffer away, don’t you? You’ve had it all this time and you’ve hidden it.”
The trained, strong part of her wanted to knock his hands away and hit back. But another part of her felt guilty and ashamed and mortified over what had happened to these good people. And that part of her wanted him to shake her and shake her until her brain rattled in her skull.
“No. I mean, yes, I have had some, but—”
“You’ve put my family at risk—”
“I know, Mitch. I . . .”
“—all these years just to save yourself,” he spoke over her.
“No.” She couldn’t gather any anger, only desperation. “No, I didn’t know . . . I didn’t understand the risks until—”
“Until I found you. You’ve had a hundred opportunities to help over the last twenty-four hours.”
She closed her eyes as shame ravaged her. “I . . . I didn’t realize . . . I was trying to—”
“Kat and Mateo were almost killed, Halina.”
The torture in his voice stabbed at her. Guilt overwhelmed her until she wanted to cave under its weight. “I know. I know.” She choked on a sob. “I didn’t want to come here. I tried to tell you . . .”
She pulled out of his grasp to shut off the water. Trembling with the grief and pain of her guilt, she pulled the towel off the shower curtain rod and buried her face.
She had to accept that she’d hit a wall. There was nothing she could do to help him anymore. She’d successfully kept Schaeffer away when she’d had control over her research and her cover. But Mitch wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t protect any of them with him interfering like this.
When she lifted her eyes to his, there was so much hurt, so much anger there, she wanted to crumple. She stepped from the tub and wrapped the towel around her body.
A swamping sense of failure made her reach for the sink to help her stand.
She pushed Dex’s collar into his hand. “Here’s everything. Everything I have. All my research, all Rostov’s and Gorin’s. And more. Lots more. It’s in there. Alone it’s not enough to destroy Schaeffer. But maybe with what you have now . . . maybe . . .”
She turned away, reached for the doorknob, and paused. With her back toward him she took a deep breath. “The moment Schaeffer discovers I’ve given you these files,” she swallowed past the terror and tears in her throat, “you’re as good as dead. He knew I had the incentive to keep them hidden. And he knows you don’t. Like you told me, Mitch, when he sends men after you, there’s no escaping. Your only chance now is to do something with them before he—or one of his men—finds you.”