Chapter 7

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T ristan’s comment surprised Amarylis, but more than that was the sincerity behind it. Once inside, they were met by a waitress. He smiled, but it was a congenial smile, the type you would use with almost anyone. They were seated at the back, where lit candles were part of the decor. She smiled at the romantic setting. “Now this feels like a date.”

He pulled off his jacket and draped it over his chair. “Okay, it’s a date then.”

“Is it though?” she asked, with half a smile in his direction. “It’s not as if we’re dating.”

“But maybe we are,” he stated cheerfully. “Maybe you just didn’t get the memo.” She burst out laughing at that. “So, we are treating this as a date,” he announced. He sat across from her and smiled. “Besides, why shouldn’t we take a few moments in all this chaos to enjoy ourselves?”

She didn’t know what to say to that, but recognizing that she did want to view this as a date, she wouldn’t argue. “Thank you. It’s nice to find a bit of normalcy in this world gone nuts.”

“It is, indeed. How is Dr. Cox doing?”

She shrugged. “He seems to be mostly okay, though you never know with him. He seems to take things in stride, but I think he internalizes a lot of it, then doesn’t know how to let it go.”

“Most people don’t, you know,” he replied. “You get into a stressful situation, do the best you can, then hope there’s enough time for everything to sink in and to change all on its own.”

“Maybe,” she murmured. “It’s definitely a strange scenario involving Mason’s shooting.”

“It is, but it’s more or less over.”

As an answer, Amarylis felt it was more of a toss it out there response, hoping she wouldn’t delve any deeper, but that wasn’t her style. The waitress came before Amarylis could address that issue, so she held off as they placed their orders, until the woman disappeared. She asked, “Do you think it is over?” He hesitated, and she waited to see what he would say. When he shook his head, she smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, with a smile.

“For not treating me like some bimbo who just needed an answer to make her happy. I’m all about finding the truth, even if it isn’t a truth I particularly wish to find.”

“You and me both,” he agreed. “It’s just that a lot of people aren’t used to the truth, and don’t like it when it rears its ugly head.”

“That’s very true, but I deal in the truth, whether people like it or not. It’s a part of my job that I’m acutely aware of and that people prefer to hide from.”

“Sad, isn’t it?”

“Yet it allows everybody to live their life,” she noted. “A life where they don’t have to face the effects of everything that you and I deal with—you with the living horrors and me with the dead ones.”

He smiled at that. “That’s a good way to look at it. I’m sure you get a lot more routine cases than this current one, with all the dead bodies surrounding Mason’s shooting.”

“I do. I get a lot of normal cases, and normal is good. Though in Chicago, normal was a very different term.”

“I’m sure deaths from shootings, gang fights, and murders were part of your regular daily business there.”

“Absolutely, and sometimes there are no good answers, but you still do everything you can. You know, like when the ER fixes somebody up, sends them back out, and still they end up on my table within a few weeks.” She shook her head. “That happened more than a couple times.”

“That in itself must be frustrating,” Tristan noted, “and a circle that’s so hard to break, but it’s not just our problem. It’s a global issue these days.”

“It’s an everybody problem because it’s almost always either gang or drug related,” she shared. Then she shrugged. “This is another reason why people of our professions don’t normally have dates. This conversation is one that most people can’t handle.”

He smiled at her. “I’m sure you’ve already recognized that I’m not most people.”

She laughed at that. “Now that I know you’re not most people, and you’ve had a couple close brushes with marriage,” she added, “tell me more about yourself. Tell me about your family, your friendships, your childhood.”

“Any particular reason?” he asked, eyeing her.

She shrugged. “I just want to know more about you, the real you, not necessarily the you I’ve been seeing at work up until now.”

“That is the real me, you know?”

“It absolutely is,” she agreed, with a smile, “and I get that. That’s the protective you. That’s the man who’s always on duty, but what about the child where that man came from? What sent you into this… field?” She waved her hand, not understanding exactly what his field even was.

He sat back, and, when their waitress delivered a glass of wine, he slowly twirled it in his hands and told her his life story. When it finally came to an end, he took a sip of his wine and admitted, “Wow, I haven’t talked that much about myself in a very long time.”

“I wonder if you ever talk about yourself that much,” she teased.

“No, I don’t. It’s not considered to be good manners.”

“I’m the one who asked,” she protested.

“Maybe.” He gave a shake of his head.

She realized that he was a bit on the shy side. She smiled and patted his hand. “I love the fact that you have siblings and that you were a typical terror growing up. I’m sure your parents are very proud of you.”

“I think so,” he said, with a smile, “but I also know they live in fear that someday they will get that phone call that tells them I’m not coming home again.”

As someone who’s dealt with making those phone calls, she nodded. “The thing is, that’s a phone call that can come at anytime, anyplace, and for any reason,” she shared. “It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the work you do.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Sure, you’ve certainly got a heightened number of things that could go wrong in your world, but it wouldn’t be because of that as much as the reality that we’re all heading to the same place.”

“It’s comforting to think that though,” he replied, with a chuckle. “I was very close to my grandmother, and, when she passed away, I found it very, very difficult.… Then I had this moment of an almost peaceful passing in my head, where I heard her telling me to be good and that she would be watching over me.”

Amarylis smiled. “I’ve heard stories like that before. I think it’s wonderful, and, for whatever reason that these things happen, either for your sake or for hers, I think it helps all of us in the end.”

“I can imagine the horror in that too,” he admitted, as he lifted his wineglass. “What about you?”

“Oh, dear, are you sure it isn’t time for food?”

He laughed at that. “No, absolutely not. Come on. Talk to me.”

So, she filled him in on her childhood, which compared to his was lonely and empty. She shrugged. “My dad was a doctor, who ended up in pathology.”

“Is that why you went into it?”

She shook her head. “No, but I always had a fascination with the dead,” she murmured, and the conversation carried on between them.

With dinner well underway, a relaxing peaceful atmosphere had settled between the two of them. She laughed when they were almost done. “Maybe we didn’t intend for this to be a date, but it ended up nice regardless,” she shared.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he replied, with a warm smile. “And you’re right. It morphed into a nice date, but I intended to ask you out at some point anyway.”

She shrugged. “That’s nice to know.”

“Hey, it’s not all business.”

“Maybe not, but it feels like a lot of it is.”

“That’s just because of the crazy circumstances we find ourselves in at the moment, but good things are on the way.”

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” she said, chuckling, “because it’s been a pretty rough go so far.” Then she asked, “How is your friend doing?”

“The one in the hospital?”

“Yes, Tesla’s husband.”

“Apparently he woke up today, but I don’t know how he is doing. I haven’t had an update from Jasper yet. I was hoping for one but haven’t had any news, which is concerning.”

“If he just woke up after all this time in a coma, chances are he may have gone right back under almost immediately. It takes a lot of energy for a body to heal from that kind of an injury, and he’s got to be on powerful medications as well.”

“I guess I was just hoping for an update and some good news.”

“Maybe Jasper can’t give you an update because there isn’t one to give.” Tristan smiled at her, and she just laughed. “I get it. I probably sound like I’m constantly smoothing things over and making everything seem as if it’ll all work out.”

“It’s not a bad trait,” he pointed out.

“Maybe not, but sometimes I think it’s more of a peacemaking trait.”

“Which, considering you didn’t have any siblings,” Tristan noted, “is an interesting trait for you to have.”

“I may not have had any siblings,” she conceded, “but my parents weren’t exactly the kind to get along.”

“But I thought you just had your dad.”

“My mom was in the picture, just not very often, so he had custody and raised me,” she explained.

“Ah, so there’s the other side of that childhood.”

“Yep, there’s always another side, isn’t there?” When they finally got up to leave, his phone rang.

He looked down at it and frowned. “They have good timing, don’t they?”

“I don’t know about good timing,” she acknowledged as they walked outside, “but it is interesting when you consider that we just finished an entire meal. We should be thankful they let you eat properly for once.”

“Exactly. It’s my boss.” He answered the call. “Jasper.” Tristan walked out beside her, his hand on her lower back, guiding her through the crowd that was just coming in. “How’s Mason?”

She couldn’t hear all the conversation, but it continued for a few more minutes. When he got off the phone, he nodded. “You were right. He was back asleep again once Jasper got there. Still, Mason was awake long enough to confirm that he should be okay.”

“At least he’s taken a turn for the better,” Amarylis pointed out, “though I would be cautious about celebrating too much, too soon.”

Tristan winced. “Let’s not tell them that. Tesla and Jasper were pretty well counting on this being a fairly positive note.”

“It is a firmly positive note,” Amarylis confirmed. “I never said it wasn’t. I’m just more of a cautious person.”

“Right, well again, let’s keep it more promising than cautious,” he suggested, with a smile. “Everybody is hoping Mason will recover just fine.”

“And he probably will. Keep that thought anyway.”

As they settled into his car, he asked, “Are you ready to go home?”

“I don’t know about ready to go home, but I probably should. It’s been a stressful few days, so some good sleep would help a lot.”

“Good enough. And you’re not nervous at all in your place, are you?”

“No, I haven’t been,” she replied, “and I don’t want you making me nervous either.”

He laughed. “Not my intention at all. Let’s just get you home.”

As he drove up to her place, she asked, “Do you think it’s safe for us now at the morgue, or should we expect to have more issues?”

“I don’t know about expecting more issues,” he replied, “but I certainly hope our beefed-up security would discourage others at this point.”

“But we don’t know for sure, do we?”

“No, of course not,” he said. “We have a higher dead body count than we expected as well, which is never a good sign.”

“ Right .” She winced. “Can’t say I expected that either.”

“No.” He smiled at her. “Anyway I’ll walk you up and confirm everything is okay, if you don’t mind.” She nodded her consent. As they took the stairs to her apartment, he asked, “What was your day at the office like? And how was Dr. Cox?”

“He was fine, until it came time to leave. I think he’s lonely,” she shared, sorrow in her tone.

“In what way?”

“He lost his wife several months back,” she replied, “and he hasn’t gotten back out into the real world of the living.”

“No, especially after a happy marriage—at least I presume it was a happy marriage,” he said, glancing at her. “I’m sure that’s got to be a tough thing to handle.”

“He’s a good man though, and everybody there appreciates him. They all seem to like working with him, and there hasn’t been very much in the way of turnover. So I think that makes him a good boss.”

“Yeah, either that or he threatens them,” Tristan teased, with a laugh.

“Oh, I don’t imagine so.” At her door, she turned and said, “Thank you for dinner. It was a lovely evening.”

“It was, but I’m still coming in and checking out your place.”

Wordless, unable to respond, and wondering how the hell she got here, she opened the door and led him in. Sure enough, he walked right through the entire place and then came back to her. “Good enough.”

She had to laugh. “You are concerned, aren’t you? You try hard not to show it, but you’re still concerned.”

“It’s not that I’m concerned or that I am not concerned,” he replied, with a cheerful smile. “I call it being cautious, since there’s been way too much going on. Now, when I leave,… you lock that door. Got it?”

“Got it,” she said, a twinkle in her gaze.

“I’m glad you can laugh about it,” he noted. “That means the upsets of the last few days haven’t been too rough on you.”

“No, and I hope that they don’t become any worse,” she noted, with a smile.

He nodded. “You know what I will do now, don’t you?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “No, I’m not exactly sure what you will do at all.” She frowned at him, but his smile deepened, and he leaned forward and kissed her ever-so-softly. “And then you still look at me with surprise on your face.”

“The surprise,” she began, finding her words, “was that it was only half a kiss.” He laughed as she proceeded to give her full argument. “If you are kissing somebody good night, you should do it properly.” And, with that, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled his head down, and laid a kiss on him with all the heart and passion she could muster. When she stepped back a few moments later, delighted at the cross-eyed look on his face, she whispered, “Now that’s a proper good night.”

And then she shut the door in his face.

*

Tristan walked out to his car, turned, and stared at the sky. He had a silly grin on his face, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t wipe it off. If she hadn’t closed her door on him, he would have walked right back in and given her a real kiss, and that was still on his mind. Instead he stood here outside, looking like an idiot. With a headshake, he turned back to his car, and, as he went to open his door, he heard an odd sound.

He crouched down, turned to look back where the sound had come from. Something disturbed him. Maybe the thought of a bullet wheezing past his head. As he sat in the parking lot, he heard a whisper.

“We need to go in.”

With his head tilted, Tristan slowly crept around his car, until he could see two guys sitting on the ground beside a car, smoking a cigarette. He studied the two men but didn’t recognize either of them.

One looked at his watch and whispered, “She should be home by now.”

With those words out of his mouth, Tristan’s heart froze. He realized that a lot of other females surely lived in this apartment building, but he doubted that very many of them would be mixed up in something that would necessitate guys sitting around, waiting for them.

“Maybe we should give her a little longer.”

“How the hell long can she take?”

“She might have had a date or something.”

“Who would date her?” One guy snarled. “Nobody wants her. She deals with bodies all day,… dead bodies, and that’s just gross.”

That sealed it for Tristan. He moved farther away from those two and phoned her.

“What’s up?” she asked, a smile in her tone. “What is it now? Was it that kiss?”

“That kiss was enough to knock me on my six,” he replied in a bare whisper, “but then I heard two guys out here, talking about waiting a few more minutes before they come up and visit you, hoping you’ll be back now.”

“They may be talking about someone else,” she pointed out, but panic clearly rose in her tone.

“That could be, but I doubt many other gals in your building deal with dead bodies all day long. When one of them suggested that you might be out on a date, the other made it quite clear that he thought it was disgusting that anybody would date someone who dealt with bodies all day.”

She sucked in her breath. “Who are these men?”

“I don’t know, but I will find out. Now, you stay put, and, unless you hear my voice at your door, you don’t open it. Got it?”

“What are you doing?”

“Leave that to me, and I’ll call you as soon as I know more.” And, with that, he quickly ended the call. Not wanting to take the chance of more things happening that he couldn’t control, he quickly texted Jasper about this trouble in Amarylis’s parking lot. Then he pulled out his weapon and headed to where the men were. His heart froze when he noted they were gone. Somehow they had slipped away.

He raced back to the building and headed up to her apartment. When he got there, he called out to her.

She opened the door and frowned. “What was that all about?”

“Get in,” he snapped, quickly closing the door behind him. He leaned his back against the door and took a deep breath. “I lost them in the parking lot.” She paled as she stared at him. He nodded. “So, my assumption is that they’re on their way up here.”

“In that case, I’m glad you came back.” Her words faded slightly, as she turned to stare at the door behind him.

“Yeah, me too,” he murmured. “Now we have to figure out how to deal with two of them.”

She shook her head. “I still don’t understand why they are interested in me.”

“I think somebody knows that you found the USB key or that the key was held there at the forensics lab, and you work nearby. I hate to say this, but, out of everybody, you probably look like the easiest option, someone more likely to cooperate without giving them too much trouble.”

“Easiest option? I can take them back to the lab—which obviously if it came to that I would—but what are they expecting to find there?”

“Answers, and, if you don’t give it to them, they will try and get it from you.”

She paled as she understood. “What the hell did I get myself into with this job?”

“I don’t think it’s the job,” Tristan noted in a calm tone, “although I can see how that might be your first instinct. I’m pretty damn sure it’s whatever the hell else is going on,” he shared, with a smile. Just then he heard a noise on the other side of the door, so he pulled her back slightly. When she stared at him in horror, he nodded. “We need to catch these guys alive,” he whispered. “If they go back outside emptyhanded, and they were expected to come back with you, they may get shot dead. So look at us capturing them as doing them a big favor.”

“We need to let Jasper in. He’s downstairs.”

“It could be Jasper but…”

She frowned at him. “Are you expecting that he’ll get followed?”

“I don’t know, but we’re not taking any chances.” Sure enough, a knock came on her door a few minutes later, and he heard Jasper’s voice on the other side. She opened the door to let him in, only to find him being pushed forward, a gun at his back. The man behind him slammed shut her door.

“Ah, Tristan,” she called out, although he was standing just behind her.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

She pointed. “We’ve got a problem.”

He looked up to see Jasper staring at him.

Jasper grimaced. “Sorry, this one caught me just outside in the hallway.”

Tristan nodded, noting the code for I only saw one .

Then the gunman slammed his weapon into the side of Jasper’s head, and he dropped just inside her apartment. The gunman stood, staring at Amarylis, with a grin on his face. “It took two of us and one prisoner to get in here,” he stated, with a slimy smile, “but I’m here now, and you can bet I’m not leaving without answers.”

Tristan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the new arrival. “I see you know how to make yourself real popular,” he murmured.

“I don’t give a shit about making myself popular or not. I want that damn key, and I want it now.”

At his side, Amarylis stepped forward and announced, “Look. We don’t have the damn key.” Her tone of voice revealed her pent-up frustration. “What the fucking hell is with that key? If you would listen to the guys that you’ve sent beforehand, instead of just killing them, you would understand that. The key went into forensics, got locked up, and then it was removed,” she shared in an exasperated tone, “and we don’t know by whom or how or where it’s even gone.”

He grimaced. “At least that sounds more like the truth.”

“It is the truth,” she declared. “So why don’t you guys believe us?”

“Because people want that key, and it doesn’t matter what you say. Nobody’ll believe you because they want it too badly.”

“Why is it you want that key?” Tristan asked. “Seems to be a ton of interest in this, so maybe it should go to the highest bidder.”

At that, the gun turned quickly in Tristan’s direction. “So, is that what this is about then? You just want money for it?” he asked, with that same smarmy smile. “If that’s the case, we can talk. Of course I would have thought a bullet in your head would have been enough of a payment, and negotiating not putting that bullet in your head will become your bargaining chip.”

“Maybe.” Tristan shrugged. “I’m not saying that I have any access to this damn key, but it seems like a lot of people want it pretty badly. So it must have something pretty interesting on it.” The gunman glared at him, and Tristan snorted. “You can’t argue the fact that we have a lot of interest here.”

“I don’t care what you’ve got,” he snapped. “It’s not for you to wonder.”

“Jeez, are you serious? Think about what you just said.”

“I don’t have to think about it. I already know what I said, and you can just forget about the damn key.”

“I would love to, but shits like you keep showing up because of all this interest in what’s on that key,” he replied, keeping his tone cool, as he watched the gunman’s movements, while having a peripheral view of Jasper. He just moved ever-so-slightly, which was enough to know he was alive but possibly not enough to help them in this situation.

“You don’t get to take an interest in anything. You will now forget about the damn thing.”

“We would love to,” Amarylis snapped, glaring at him. “But you people keep forgetting that we don’t have it. We don’t have access to it, and we can’t get access to it.”

“Why can’t you?” he asked, pointing the gun at her.

“Because it was taken out of evidence, and we don’t know by whom, we can’t tell you who’s got it.”

The gunman glared at them in frustration. “The problem is,… I almost freaking believe you. It would be just so typical of this whole nightmare.”

“If there’s anything else we can help you with,” she suggested, taking it down as notch, “we would, but we don’t know what’s going on with this damn key, except that a hell of a lot of people want it.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything, just staring off in the distance, as if sorting out something in his head. He turned his gaze back to her and added, “You seem to be the more sensible one, so maybe I’ll take you with me.” And he motioned at her to move.

Immediately Tristan stepped in front of her and stated, “You’re not taking her anywhere.” His voice was quiet, but the threat in his tone confirmed he meant every word.

The gunman laughed. “You do see what I’m holding in my hand, right?”

“I don’t give a shit. How many guys are you all planning on killing before this is over?”

The gunman stared back. “As many as it takes. You are obviously too dense to get what’s going on here, aren’t you?”

“What? So you can stop being blackmailed, or so you can go blackmail somebody else?” Tristan asked, with a sneer. “Is that the only way you make money? You sit here and pick on people, upset their lives, use snipers to take out patsies, and then turn around and make even more people miserable?”

“If making people miserable was all I had to do, my life would be a walk in the park,” the gunman muttered. “Listen. I don’t give a shit either way. I just want what’s on that key.”

At his side, Amarylis shifted suddenly and asked. “It’s got stuff about you on there, doesn’t it?”

His face turned grim, as he pointed the gun right back at her face again.

She nodded. “That’s the only reason anybody would be so adamant about getting it.”

“You could be wrong there,” he snapped, with a warning, an evident threat in his tone. “Guesses like that can get you killed.”

“According to you, I’m apparently already in danger of getting shot anyway,” she spat back in a bitter tone. “Do you know how many people have held guns on me lately? I came here to work on the dead, not to be a pawn for the living.”

He snorted at that. “That’s a pretty good line. Let me know how it works for you.”

Amaryllis snorted. “It hasn’t worked yet because assholes like you keep on coming.” The gunman glared at her, and she shrugged. “Am I wrong? The body count is going up, and now, with that guard, you’ve hurt another person. If he dies, that’s another one dead already, not to mention all the injuries.” She shook her head. “That’s just insane.”

“Nothing is insane about it, but it’s a good reminder that there’s no life after this if we get caught. So we might as well just take out everybody we can.” He gave her a knowing smile. “After all,… dead people don’t talk.”

“So you will shoot us right now?” she asked, her voice rising in shock. “Without the USB key? Just like that? It doesn’t matter what we have planned for tomorrow or the next day? My life isn’t worth anything to you? I’m just a piece of garbage to be taken out?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty damn accurate, princess.” He stared at her with amusement. “What world do you live in that you think anybody gives a shit about you? If they tell you differently, well, news flash, it’s just all lies to make you feel better.” He sneered. “That’s the god-awful truth. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

“And yet you’re not giving me a chance to learn it,” she noted bitterly, glaring at him. “All you’re concerned about is shooting me.”

“If you can get me the damn key, I’ll keep you alive. However, you just said that you don’t have any way to get the key.”

“I don’t,” she repeated. “And I don’t think the people who have the key want anything about it to become public knowledge.”

“Ah”—he nodded—“now that makes more sense than anything you’ve told me so far.”

“What does?” she asked curiously.

“About nobody wanting that to be public knowledge.” He smirked. “Unfortunately that means you’re quite likely telling the truth.”

“Of course I’m telling the truth,” she declared in outrage.

He snorted. “Most people lie. They’ll tell you anything they think you want to hear, just to stay alive.”

“Do you blame them?” she asked, looking at him askance. “People are just after a chance to live, to go on about their lives with some level of harmony. She glared at him. “Until you come along, and all you give a shit about is taking them out.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. I’ve been dealing with the aftermath of all this death, but I don’t get you guys taking people out in the first place.”

He looked over at Tristan, with amusement on his face. “Does she not get it?”

“She wants to believe in Santa Claus still,” Tristan replied. “She wants to believe in puppies and rainbows, all the good things in life.”

“That’s just bullshit,” he said to her. “You’ll learn very quickly that all of that is just a big lie.”

“No, you don’t get to choose,” she argued. “You can make it what you want it to be, but I make my own choices for me. You could also choose to make good choices instead of bad. Everything doesn’t have to turn to crap.”

At that, the gunman started to laugh and laugh. “Oh my God, she does believe it, doesn’t she?”

Tristan nodded. “You could let her live. She’s doing a good job here.”

“What? Looking after the dead?” he asked, with a sneer toward her. “What the hell kind of work is that for a woman?”

She stiffened at that and glared at him. “What do you mean, it’s not work for a woman? When you guys are done playing your little war games, who has to clean up the damn mess you all leave behind and find a way to restore some order?” She was fuming. “It’s always the women who have to set things right, after assholes like you have flexed your egos twenty-four hours a day.”

He glared at her and then laughed again. “You know, under different circumstances, I would probably like you.”

“In different circumstances, I would still hate your guts because you’re still trying to force me to do something against my will. You’re still threatening my life. I have a life to live!”

“Why?” he asked, with a sneer. “You don’t even have a partner.”

She studied him. “So you know that, do you?” she asked calmly, eyeing him, her head tilted. “You have access to my personnel file?”

“Files are easy to get access to, and it sure as hell should be a whole lot easier.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” she murmured. “We’re supposed to have a secured system, so people can’t get a hold of that stuff.”

“Doesn’t take much to blackmail somebody into giving you the information you need,” he pointed out, “and, after they’ve done it once, you’ve got them for life. When I realized you guys picked up that evidence, I wanted to know everything about you.”

“Good for you,” Amarylis snapped.

“Yeah, and you didn’t disappoint. Goody Two-Shoes all the way. It’s also how I knew I could turn around and make you do what I wanted because you’ll do anything,… everything to stay alive.” He gave her a hard glint. “Women like you… always do.”

“What do you mean, women like me ?” she asked curiously.

“It’s your nature.”

“People do whatever they can to stay alive. We share this theory that, if you can survive, you might live and enjoy your life,” she explained. “Only when assholes like you take everything away that they understand it’s not so simple.”

“So then I’m serving a good purpose here,” he replied in a bored tone, as he looked around the small apartment and shook his head. “Look at this place. You even live like you’re some pious being.”

She stared around her apartment, and Tristan could see the confusion in her gaze. He didn’t take his gaze off the gunman though—or off Jasper, who was slowly waking up and assessing the scenario. Tristan pointed out, “You and I both know that, if you can’t get that key,… you’re doomed, a dead man walking. So, for you, getting the key is everything.”

“I’m glad you understand that, so you won’t fight me about it.”

“There is no point in targeting us,” Tristan stated calmly. “We don’t have it. We don’t have access to it, and we cannot get it.”

“That just means you’re completely useless to me,” he snarled, as he lifted his weapon.

A single shot was fired, and Amarylis cried out, as she threw herself into Tristan’s arms. He held her close, holding her trembling body against his, as he whispered, “It’s okay.”

She stared up at him. “How can it be okay?” She looked around Tristan to see the gunman on the ground, still alive but cursing up a blue streak, with Jasper now on his feet, glaring down at him. Jasper had just shot her intruder in the shoulder.

“Asshole,” Jasper muttered. “Did you think I would go down that easily?” Jasper asked their gunman.

“I should have shot you, you little fucker,” he snapped.

“You should have, but you didn’t,” Jasper pointed out cheerfully, “and now guess what?… You’re ours.” And, with that, he slammed his fist into the gunman’s face, knocking him out cold.

Tristan nodded at Jasper. “Nice job.”

“Not me so much as her.”

Tristan laughed. “She didn’t even realize what she was doing.”

She looked from one man to the other, clearly confused. “What was I doing?”

“Keeping our gunman busy,” Tristan replied, “while Jasper got his wits about him.”

“I didn’t even realize you were okay,” she admitted, staring at him. “How did I not see that?”

“I’ve got a hard head,” Jasper shared, with a smiling yet pained expression. “Besides, when you take a blow like that, if you go with it, recovering is a whole lot easier.”

She just shook her head, as she stared at him. “Did you just give me a lesson on how to handle being attacked?”

His smile was as gentle as possible, and he nodded. “You never know when you might need that little tidbit of information.”

She swallowed and nodded, then added in a whisper, “How about just… never ?”