Chapter 40

Weapon. She needed a weapon.

Audrey looked around and spotted the bedside lamp. It had worked when she thought Jean-Luc was attacking her in Bryson’s apartment in Bogotá, but Jean-Luc hadn’t really wanted to harm her. Somehow, she didn’t think the man banging against the door that she’d barricaded with her dresser felt the same way. His sole purpose was to harm.

Where was Gabe? Had this man harmed him?

Oh, God.

Okay, think. There had to be something in here she could use as a weapon.

Steadying herself with a fortifying breath, she took another look around. Besides the lamp, she had framed photos of Bryson, her nephews, and her parents on the nightstand. Bottles of perfume and lotion rattled on her dresser, more falling with each heave of the man on the other side of the door. The scent from the broken bottles was cloying, flowers and fruits and spices filling her head, making her dizzy, and she promised she’d never put on another drop of the stuff if she lived through this.

Her closet. She must have something in there. She ripped open the door. Hangers. And none of them were even metal. An iron and ironing board. She grabbed the iron and plugged it in. If all else failed, she could hit him with it when it was still hot.

The banging on the bedroom door stopped. She paused for a half second and listened. Didn’t hear anything on the other side but didn’t dare hope that he was gone. That was how people got killed in horror movies. She dived back into the closet and found a broken palette knife missing half of its wooden handle.

Better than nothing.

Up on the shelf: Plastic containers filled with all the miscellaneous junk that she had shoved out of sight, out of mind to sort on some rainy day in the future. Loose screws, plastic doodads, and cords to who knew what. Old birthday cards, tax returns, random junk mail she never threw away.

None of this was going to help her.

Oh, why couldn’t she be in the kitchen? She had all sorts of weapons in there. Butcher knives, frying pans. Her X-Acto knives, carving sets, files, and palette knives three times the size of the one in her hand. Shards of sculpture metal and welding supplies.

Primers, glues, and?—

Paint thinner.

Audrey froze. Despite the overwhelming odor of the perfume, she caught the pungent, piney stench of turpentine, heard the splash of it hitting her door, saw the puddle oozing underneath.

No, no, no, no.

She scrambled backward, away from the growing puddle.

Fumes burned her nose and eyes, and she curled into a ball in the farthest corner of the room, burying her nose in the edge of her shirt. Something fell behind her and hit her shoulder. Gabe’s cane. She snatched it up, hugged it to her chest like a child holding a teddy bear to fend off the boogeyman.

Gabe.

She remembered the fear and wonder in his eyes as he told her how much loving her scared him. Scared him, her brave SEAL. God, the thought of what he might do when she was gone frightened her more than the thought of dying.

No, she couldn’t die and leave him to his own devices. He needed her.

Audrey gripped the cane like a baseball bat and stood, tiptoeing around the spreading pool of turpentine. The easiest way out was the window, but she didn’t dare, too afraid the intruder was waiting for her out there. He probably didn’t expect her to charge out the door, brandishing a cane like a maniac, so that was exactly what she’d do.

She listened but didn’t hear anything in the hallway. Made sense. If her intruder planned to burn her to death, he’d get out before lighting the match. Which he could be doing right at this very second.

Fear threatened to freeze her. The chemical-heavy air threatened to choke her, and the room morphed into a funhouse mirror before her eyes, all stretched and wobbly. The floor surged and pitched under her feet, and the short trip to the door was a feat of equilibrium that would turn any gold medal gymnast green with envy.

Next up on the balance beam: Audrey Van Amee.

She giggled. Stopped. Shook her head. Nothing about this was funny. Stay focused. If she let the chemicals get to her, she was dead.

She shoved the dresser aside, its legs scraping loudly across the wood floor. She didn’t let herself think about how that might alert him and flung open the door. He was there in the hallway, tossing aside an empty can of turpentine, grinning at her as he dug in his pocket.

A flash of silver.

A lighter.

She charged and brought the cane down hard on his head. He staggered but didn’t collapse. With her forward momentum and the slippery turpentine covering the floor, she couldn’t have stopped even if she wanted to. She slammed into him, taking him to the floor. He was small. So much smaller than an attacker bent on burning her alive should be. A boy, not a man.

He cursed in livid Spanish, jarringly foul words in a voice that was still more child’s than man’s. She reached for his hand, stabbing her fingers into the fleshy part, hoping he’d drop the lighter.

He did.

She snatched it up and scuttled away from him as he rose to his feet. Oh God, he had a gun. Why did she not think that he’d have a gun?

He pointed the muzzle at her head and advanced toward her, his shoes slipping in the turpentine. “?Levántate!”

Audrey remained frozen, her hand clenched around the lighter.

“I said, get up!” he snarled in English.

She held up one hand in a show of surrender and used her other one to push herself upright slowly. The turpentine had soaked through her clothes, making her skin prickle with coldness despite the adrenaline raging through her veins. She tried to keep her breathing as steady as possible, not wanting to let on just how terrified she really was.

“Give me the lighter,” he demanded, eyes gleaming with a mad kind of desperation.

She couldn’t make herself open her fingers and hand it over. It was inconsequential compared to the gun in his hands, but it was all she had. There was no way she was giving it up.

“?Obedéceme!”

She saw his finger tighten on the trigger and stared at the gun in horror as something oily dripped from the muzzle…

Turpentine.

He was as smeared with the paint thinner as she was.

She opened her hand and stared at the silver lighter with the initials R.S.V. engraved in extravagant letters on the side. One of those fancy kinds that light when the lid flips off. She pressed her thumb against the lid and met his widened eyes.

“Don’t make me do it,” she told him in Spanish. She flicked open the lighter and watched as a tiny flame erupted from the small device.

For a second, he looked like the boy that he really was. Then he firmed up his grip on the gun and raised it again. “You won’t.”

The sight of him standing there, sneering at her, ignited a fury inside her.

She was not a victim.

If he was going to kill her, then he was damn well going with her.

Audrey threw the lighter at him, and at the same moment, he squeezed the trigger. She didn’t feel the shot. Didn’t know where it went—if it hit her or thudded harmlessly into the wall behind her. She was too focused on the terrifying fire. It almost moved in slow motion, sparking in the paint thinner at his feet—and then it roared, consuming her attacker’s body in a fireball. He staggered back, crashing into a small table and knocking over a lamp, which shattered on the floor. He fell with it, screaming, writhing in agony. The acrid stench of burning turpentine and flesh filled the air.

Flames licked up the wooden walls, jumped to her furniture, consumed her paintings, and devoured everything they touched with a wild hunger.

She choked on the fumes, her heart pounding as she backed away. The heat burned her face, drying out her eyes and stealing away every breath. The man was still shrieking on the floor, his cries growing fainter, his body writhing in the orange flames until he finally stilled and curled in on himself like a slug sprinkled with salt. It was a horrifying sight that would haunt her nightmares…

If she survived.

Audrey stumbled back, a scream trapped in her throat. The heat was unbearable now, the flames an oppressive monster closing in on her. She turned to run but tripped over something solid. She crashed onto the floor hard, gasping as her shoulder took the brunt of the fall. Pain exploded up her arm, and she cringed, squeezing her eyes shut to try and block it out. Gabe’s cane had tripped her, and it now sat on the floor next to her. She picked it up and held it to her chest as her eyes burned and smoke clogged her lungs.

Gabe.

The thought of him made her heart ache. What would he do when he found out she was gone? Would he blame himself? Would he retreat into the hard, impenetrable shell she’d noticed the first time she’d met him?

She couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him smile again, never hearing his rare, full-bodied laugh that warmed her from the inside out. With a surge of adrenaline, she forced herself to her feet, clutching Gabe’s cane tightly.

She needed to fight. To breathe. To live. For Gabe.

* * *

He’s going to kill her.

The words echoed inside Gabe’s head, a gruesome mantra that played over and over and over as he hobbled up the driveway in a ridiculous lopsided run. Earlier, when confessing to Audrey he’d screwed up because he was afraid of loving her, he said it terrified him more than anything else he’d ever faced as a man or a SEAL. At the time, he’d been telling the absolute truth.

Not so anymore.

This terrified him more. Knowing that she may be in trouble right now, that he could be losing her at this very second, and he couldn’t get to her fast enough because he’d left his cane in the bedroom and his damn foot didn’t want to hold anymore.

Bang!

A gunshot.

Gabe staggered and almost went to his knees there in the driveway. “Audrey!”

No answer.

Screw the pain in his foot. He didn’t care if the fucking thing fell off.

Redoubling his speed, he leaped onto the porch and slammed through the front door. Smoke. It clogged his nose and assaulted his eyes. Flames danced in the hallway, eating their way across the floor and ceiling into the living room.

“Audrey!”

He spotted a body in the flames, grotesquely withered into a husk, and his heart stopped.

“No!” His voice was a raw gasp. He lurched forward, reaching out towards the charred remains, determined to get her out of the fire, even though he knew it was too late.

Except…

The body was too tall, and what was left of the clothes were all wrong. Dark hair still clung to the charred skin in dark hanks.

It wasn’t her.

His heart started beating again, and he looked around, pulling his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth. “Audrey!”

The roar of the flames swallowed the echo of his call, and the house groaned in protest all around him as it succumbed to the fire. Then, a cough—faint, muffled. It came from the right, away from the raging inferno, toward the bedroom.

Gabe staggered towards the sound, his instincts overpowering the sharp pain radiating up from his ankle and the fire blistering his skin. He heard another cough, weaker this time, and burst into the room.

“Audrey!”

The sight that greeted him made his breath hitch. There she was, slumped against the far wall under the window, his cane clutched in her hands like a lifeline. It looked as if she’d tried to open the window but hadn’t had the strength to get it all the way up.

He scooped her into his arms and tried not to think about how limp she was, tried not to worry about whether she was breathing. He just hugged her close and got her out of that hell.

Outside, Gabe carried her to the edge of the beach and sat her down where the waves rolled up and kissed the sand. No doubt the salt would sting like a bitch in her burns, but he had to get the chemicals he smelled on her off her skin. She moaned when the ocean rolled over her and struggled against his hold.

“I got you, Aud. Shh, honey. I know it hurts, but I’m here.”

Her lashes, caked with soot and ash, fluttered open. “Gabe?”

Scooping water over her singed hair, he tried to smile. “Hi, honey.”

“You’re okay. He didn’t… hurt you. I thought…”

“No, he didn’t hurt me.” But he had damn well hurt her and if the bastard wasn’t already a charred lump of flesh, Gabe would’ve hunted him down and made Rorro regret ever laying a finger on her.

“Oh my God.” Suddenly, her eyes cleared. She looked at her burning house. “He’s dead. I started the fire. I threw his lighter at him, and he… He’s dead.”

Bile surged up Gabe’s throat. She lit a fire, knowing she was soaked in flammable chemicals. She was lucky she hadn’t gone up in flames the moment the spark flared.

“Christ.” His whole body started to shake from the mix of adrenaline afterburn and gut-wrenching fear. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it. Gathering her up, he held her tight. “Don’t do that again.”

“Didn’t want to… first time. He was going to kill me. Why?” Her voice broke. “Who was he?”

Jesus, she hadn’t even known who was attacking her or why.

“Later, honey. I’ll explain it later.” He just wanted to hold her now. And never, ever let her go. “You did good, Aud. You fought him off.”

“My house is gone,” she sobbed.

“We can build another. Bigger, with a workshop for you and an office for me. Maybe a guesthouse for when your brother and nephews visit. Or, God help us when Raffi visits.”

“But my paintings…”

“You can paint more.”

“I guess so.” She sounded unconvinced.

“Audrey…”

“All that work—gone.” She tried to sit up and winced, a faint hiss escaping from between her teeth.

His heart twisted. “Don’t move too much.”

This, Gabe thought fiercely, was why he had never wanted to feel. It hurt too much when the people you cared about suffered. He shouldn’t have let himself love her. But dammit, the woman was impossible to resist.

And he was never, ever letting her go again.

She released a ragged breath and relaxed against his chest. “You’re right. My paintings don’t matter. The house doesn’t matter. I’m safe, and you’re safe, and we’ll build a new life together.”

“Absolutely. We’ll make this work, okay? I promise.”

He felt her lips curve in a small smile against his shoulder. “And my SEAL never makes promises he can’t keep.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

As they sat there on the beach watching her house burn, Gabe heard the unmistakable beat of a helo’s rotor over the crackle of flames. The bird swung in low over the treetops and hovered over the beach nearby.

Audrey squinted and raised a hand to shield her eyes against the prop-wash of sand. “Is that…?”

A rope fell from the chopper, and one by one, six men slid down, armed for war.

“Yeah.” Gabe grinned and helped her stand as Quinn and the others ran toward them. “Our knights in shining armor have arrived.”