But Mercer shook his head. “No, you can’t.” Definite. “You don’t share with a man you hate. You share your secrets with those you love.”
Sydney.
“He’s tried to kill her,” Gunner said, gritting his teeth. “I’m not risking her—”
“It’s Sydney’s life. She gets to decide the risk. Not anyone else.”
“And she’s carrying my babies,” Gunner snapped right back. “So that means I get to—”
“Uh, babies?” Logan murmured, and coughed. “As in more than one?”
Gunner gave a grim nod.
“Hot damn,” Logan said.
“So you see why I’m not risking the woman I love.”
“You just—” Logan sputtered. “You just admitted to loving her? Who are you? Where’s the real Gunner?”
Gunner ignored him. “She won’t come in the line of fire. Use me. Set me up as bait, but not her. Not...her.”
“I think that’s my call.” Sydney’s voice. Sydney—pushing back a side door in Mercer’s office.
Gunner shook his head. “Where the hell does that door even lead?” he muttered. Every time he’d been in there, that room had been blocked.
“In case any of our other staff members have been compromised,” Mercer said as his gaze cut to Sydney, “I took the liberty of having Sydney come in the...uh...private entrance. I didn’t want to advertise her presence with us.”
He knew that Sydney had worked closely with Mercer on a few other cases. It appeared she was privy to more than a few of the man’s secrets, too.
“You heard it all?” Mercer asked her.
Sydney nodded. Her gaze stayed on Gunner. “Slade isn’t going to come clean with you.”
“And he’s been trying to kill you!” All while wearing that fake mask of concern. He’d been playing them from the first.
Gunner had known for sure when he spun around in the hospital and met his brother’s gaze. The tragic concern there... Slade had worn that same expression at Sarah Bell’s funeral. But an hour after the funeral, Gunner had caught the guy making out with another girl.
So much for his grief.
“Am I supposed to die, too?” Those had been Slade’s words, and the memory of them had stabbed into Gunner, sharp like a knife, as he stood in that hospital corridor.
“Slade didn’t withdraw his application to the EOD,” Sydney said.
Gunner shook his head, trying to banish that memory.
“I found his original file—”
“And I remember rejecting him,” Mercer added, voice like a bear’s growl. “I never forget men I think can be a threat.”
Sydney moved closer to Gunner. “He was turned away from the EOD. I found his drug test. He didn’t pass it then. He was on an unknown drug at the time, one that our labs couldn’t identify, but it raised red flags.”
“That’s why we rejected him and stopped using him on freelance work,” Mercer added.
Sydney’s hand touched lightly against Gunner’s arm. “I got Tina to compare his old drug test with the result that we had on the muerte...he was on muerte back then.”
“Bring him in here,” Gunner said, his heart feeling as if it were encased in ice. How had this happened? His brother. “We can show him the tests, make him talk—”
Mercer shook his head. “You don’t think I’ve already run at him, again and again? This guy isn’t going to break for me.” Before Gunner could speak, Mercer added, “Or for you.”
“That’s where I come in.” Sydney’s smile was a little sad. “If he thinks that I believe him, if he thinks that I’ve lost faith in you, then he will come to me.”
“More likely, he’ll kill you!”
“Not with you, Cale and Logan watching my back.” She seemed so calm. How did she seem so calm? He was about to go crazy. “I know you’ll keep me safe.” So certain.
“This won’t work.” He wasn’t talking to the others. They didn’t matter. Just her. “He’ll kill you. He won’t talk.”
“He asked me to run away with him before that last trip to Peru two years ago. Before his plane crashed.”
Gunner was too conscious of the pounding of his heart. Too loud.
“I didn’t go with him because...things were getting difficult between us, so I told him that I needed more time. He told me that he wanted to offer me a brand-new life. One that I wouldn’t be able to imagine.” Her shoulders rolled. “He wanted to bring me into the new world that he was creating. Into the new life that he was starting for himself.”
A life as a drug cartel leader?
“Do you know why they call the drug muerte?” Logan asked.
Gunner shook his head.
“I did some digging with a contact at the DEA. The drug is named after the guy who’s spreading it through South America...a man who reportedly rose from the dead to take over one of the biggest cartels in Peru.”
Slade. Rising from the dead...
“If Slade truly wanted to kill me,” Sydney said, “all he had to do was walk up to me and put a bullet in my heart.”
Gunner’s hands fisted.
“Instead, he’s been playing with me. Punishing me. Punishing you. Hell, maybe he’s even been testing us, to see how far we’ll go in order to survive.” Her lips thinned. “I won’t be tested again. Mercer is setting up my house in Baton Rouge. We’re getting out of D.C. Making him think that I’m turning my back on you and on the EOD. Making him think that I only want—”
“—him,” Gunner finished for her.
“And if I’m right on this, he’ll come after me. He’ll think we’re alone, and I will get him to tell me the truth.”
“Or what—die trying?”
Her hand lifted. Her fingers feathered over his cheek. “That’s where you come in, Gunner. It’s your job to keep me alive. To keep all of us alive.”
He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. “There’s another way....”
“No, there isn’t. I’m the only one who he might trust here. I’m the one who can get to him. I’m the one who can end this.” Her hand dropped, and he immediately missed the warmth of her touch. “You can have me in your sights every moment,” she whispered. “If you think I’m threatened, if you think I’m in danger—”