Sydney shook her head. That bubble burst. “Gunner?”
He spun toward her. “It’s not true. It’s a setup!”
The nearby hospital staff started to ease back.
Sydney searched Gunner’s face. Then looked at Logan. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because your life matters. I don’t know what kind of game he’s playing...” His jaw locked. “But it’s ending.”
Cale and Slade waited behind them, both watching with tense faces.
Sydney could only shake her head. “Gunner isn’t the one playing this game. He’s been saving me.”
Slade stepped forward. “That’s what he wanted you to think! He’s not a hero. He never was.”
Gunner’s face seemed to have turned to stone.
“I won’t believe this!” No, she wouldn’t. “I trust Gunner.” More than she trusted anyone else.
“Mercer wants him back at the office. Now.” Logan’s voice was grim. “I’m sorry, but I have no choice here. Gunner’s been termed a threat, and I have to take him in.”
“Then I’m coming, too.”
But Slade stepped in her path. “Why won’t you see him for what he is? He’s playing you.”
Someone was playing her, all right.
“You can’t have this much blind trust in him!” Slade’s voice rose. “You’re smarter than this!”
Yes, she was. The rest of the EOD should be, too.
She caught Logan’s gaze. Read the message that her shock had almost blinded her to before.
Then she gave a quick nod. “I—I’m coming.” But she let the faintest quiver slide into the words.
Gunner’s eyes widened.
Slade’s lips curved.
She realized that she’d just used the same quiver in her voice that Slade had used in his words a few times.
Maybe they were both good actors.
They were about to see who was better.
She wasn’t letting Gunner go down for these attacks. No way.
“I think...I remembered hearing my captors talk about the American,” Slade whispered as he rubbed his chin. “I told Cale on the way here.”
He’d just remembered? Wasn’t that convenient?
And bull.
“I think Gunner’s been working with them all along, using his ties to the EOD to bring the drugs into the country.”
“Enough.” Logan’s fierce voice. “We say nothing else until we’re back in the office.”
But Slade thought he’d said plenty. Enough to have her turning her back on Gunner?
The man didn’t know her at all.
Only fair, since she’d just realized that she never knew him, either.
* * *
“SYDNEY CAN’T KEEP being in the line of fire.” Gunner leveled his stare at Mercer. “She needs to be taken out of the equation now.”
“Sydney’s a woman with a very strong mind. Is that what she wants?” Mercer demanded.
Gunner flattened his hands on Mercer’s desk and leaned toward him. “Sydney’s not being risked anymore. Someone is using her to get at me.” And he knew just who that person was.
Did Slade really think he was so smart? That no one saw through his lies?
Even being blood wasn’t going to protect him.
“Haul his butt in here,” Gunner demanded. “Lock him up. Keep him away from her.” And me. Before I tear him apart.
“The house sitter did see you at Sydney’s—”
“Really? Then where the hell was this person when the house was burning? Because no one came running out—no one tried to do a damn thing.”
“She said she was scared. That she kept the doors bolted. She was just a kid, barely over sixteen.” Mercer assessed him. “Why were you waiting outside Sydney’s house?”
“Because I was getting up the damn courage to go and talk to her!”
Mercer raised a doubting eyebrow.
“And the witness who saw you tampering with her brakes?”
“I think the witness is already dead.” Brutal, but true. “After he told you what he saw, he was dead. Because his words were a flat lie, and the real killer here isn’t going to let him keep breathing.”
Frowning now, Mercer reached for his phone. Gunner’s teeth ground together as he listened to Mercer on the call. The big boss was demanding that the witness to the tampering be brought in, only...
Mercer glanced back at him. “He convulsed in holding, just a few moments ago. Tina’s on scene. Says it looks like the guy overdosed.”
“Get Tina to do the blood work,” Gunner said as his mind whirled. “Because I’m betting you’ll find muerte in his system.”
Mercer gave the order, then hung up the phone.
“That’s why he was making all those charter flights,” Gunner muttered as he rose to his full height. “They were drug runs. He was making connections down there. Setting everything up.” He raked a hand through his hair. “His accounts were cleaned out because he didn’t plan on coming back to the U.S. He was leaving everyone—”
Leaving Sydney.
“Then he got into trouble down there.” As if there wouldn’t be enemies in the drug cartels. “He wanted us to bail him out.” Only he and Sydney had almost died in the process.
Somehow Slade had survived. Thrived.
“He wasn’t their captive.” No, Gunner didn’t think that had been the case at all.
The door opened behind him. A quick glance showed Logan coming into the room.
Logan, whose whisper-thin voice had ordered him to “Play along” at the hospital because he wasn’t turning his back on him. The EOD stuck together.
Always.
“He was working us, the whole time. Slade wanted us down there so he could have an in at the EOD.” So he could search their files. Make contacts to distribute the muerte. They’d thought he was an addict.
When he was the drug lord.
“Are you sure about all of this?” Logan shook his head. “We don’t have proof, man. Every piece of evidence is pointing to you. We can’t even bring in the FBI because they’d want to lock you up, not him.”
“Because he’s smarter than we realized. He’s been working us all along.”
“We need more evidence.” Mercer stood behind his desk. “If Slade is behind the muerte spread, we have to bring him down and stop his whole cartel.”
“Let him come at me,” Gunner demanded. “Give him a straight shot at me. He hates me.” That had to be obvious to them all. Otherwise, why plant all the evidence against him? “I can get you what you need.”