Eagle's Heart (16 page)

The condescension in his voice steadied her. She was used to dealing with assholes. They usually weren’t trying to kill her, but this was something she could deal with.

“What makes you think I don’t?” she asked. “Do you know whether or not my dad was a military sharpshooter who took me to the range every weekend? Or whether I am?”

She clicked the safety off, mimicking what she had seen Julian do to his gun earlier, and realigned her aim. “Let him go,” she repeated.

The man started to reach into his jacket, and for one terrible second, Salomeh thought she’d have to pull the trigger. And then some intuitive part of her brain reacted to his movement, and she did.

He cried out and dropped to the ground, his hands clamping over his thigh. Blood seeped through his fingers, staining his gray pants a dark vermillion.

“You shot me, you fucking bitch,” he said in disbelief, glaring at Salomeh before squeezing his eyes shut against the pain.

I did, Salomeh thought with a mixture of pride and disgust.

There was a sudden gurgling noise, and then Julian was no longer being restrained and was launching himself toward the man she had just shot. One hand clamped onto the man’s head and the other on his neck, and then Julian twisted. The movement was ruthlessly efficient. There was a dull crack, and Julian let the body fall to the floor, its movements sickeningly awkward.

She glanced over at the man who had been holding Julian. He was on the floor as well. A gun lay at his side where he had dropped it. His hands were clamped around one of her expensive kitchen knives, a housewarming gift from her parents, that was now lodged in his throat. She pulled her gaze away from the macabre scene to focus on the gun on the floor, which had probably been trained on her while she had obliviously stared at the man she’d shot.

“Salomeh, we have to go,” Julian said. It was strange. His voice was still warm and caressing, still made her want to run into his arms and forget the world. But he had lied to her, and he had killed these men right in front of her with no hesitation.

Salomeh stared at him for a long moment, into green eyes bright with concern, and finally lowered the gun.

She felt nauseated yet again, but Julian slipped the gun from her grasp, replacing it with the warmth and comfort of his hand. He was breathing heavily, and there were small cuts all over his face, but they had survived.

Salomeh squeezed his hand hard, as if the pressure was the only thing keeping her from flying to pieces.

He turned and shot through the lock on her window gate, his initial goal finally achieved, and then dragged her toward it.

Salomeh avoided thinking of the carnage strewn about her cozy apartment. She watched Julian’s movements as he pried the gate open and hopped out onto the fire escape. Just as he took her hand to lead her through, another man stepped in through the front door, gun in hand.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Julian muttered. He pulled her off her feet and through the window with one arm, placing her behind him as he fired off two shots at the new intruder.

“Start heading down,” he told her, and Salomeh rushed down the rusted metal steps, hoping that the fire escape was strong enough to hold both their weights. Julian fired off another shot, and then she felt the vibration of someone scrambling down behind her. She looked up, relieved to see it was him.

“Keep going,” he said. “Does the alley lead to the street?”

“Yes,” she said, and then her feet were on concrete instead of metal, and she was making a break for the street with Julian close behind her. The end of the alley was in sight when a man stepped out from a recessed doorway.

No, Salomeh thought. We’re so close!

Something wild possessed her, and instead of slowing down, she sped up. In a few steps, she was an arm’s length away from the man. She stopped short and delivered two quick jabs, one to his throat and one to his nose, followed by a hard kick to his groin. She did it so fast she surprised herself. She had obviously surprised him too, since he had put up no resistance. The man fell to his knees, and Julian came up from behind her and finished him off with a hard right to the jaw.

Julian turned to look at her, eyes wide. “What the hell was that?”

“I took self-defense classes at the YMCA,” she said and suddenly found herself laughing. Despite the man she had hit with the pan, the man she had shot, and the man on the ground in front of her, she laughed. The events of the morning were catching up with her, threatening to overwhelm her, and her body was releasing that stress in the strangest of outlets.

Julian looked at her dubiously and then headed cautiously for the exit to the alleyway, but she stood rooted to the spot, panic rising within her as her laughter tapered off.

“Besides, are you seriously questioning me after you just snapped a guy’s neck?” she asked in a high voice. “You just killed people! In my apartment!”

“People who were trying to kill us. Would you have preferred that I let them take you to Bardhyn?”

“No, but I would have preferred that it didn’t happen in my apartment. The newspapers are going to have a field day with this.
Sex Scandal Teacher Adds Murder To Her Lesson Plan
!”

She waved her hands about in his face, and he stared at her as if she were insane. Obviously he’d never been hounded by the local news media before.

“That’s what you’re worried about? Not the fact that people are dead?”

“I’m keyed up on adrenaline right now. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to reflect on the dead jerks who tried to kill me when I’m suffering from PTSD a week from now.”

He tilted his head quizzically, and then it was his turn to laugh. “I knew I liked you,” he said. His words were said in jest, but they reminded Salomeh that although Julian had saved her life, he did so for his own purpose. The same purpose that had driven him to seduce her.

A beige minivan pulled to a halt at the foot of the alley, making Salomeh jump. Not more of them, she thought with resignation, not sure she had the will to fight and wondering how many bullets Julian had left in his gun.

The back door opened automatically, and a tall blonde poked her head up in the driver’s seat to observe them.

“Hey there, loverboy,” she said in a tone that Salomeh didn’t appreciate, looking at Julian in a much-too-familiar way. “Get in. And bring your friend with you.”

“Who is that?” Salomeh asked, surprised at how calmly she asked the question.

“My partner.”

Salomeh stood staring at him, unable to make sense of his words. “Like, life partner?”

“Julian, you know I don’t like to be kept waiting,” the blonde called out, obviously enjoying his discomfort. Sirens wailed in the distance. “And I don’t feel like dealing with the paperwork or the explanations the police are going to want just yet, so come on.”

“I’m not getting in the car until you tell me what is going on,” Salomeh said.

“Even though I just killed, like, four guys to save your ass?” he asked, annoyed.

“You killed two, and you were saving your own ass,” she said.

“I could have left you if I wanted to, you know,” he countered.

Salomeh’s eyes grew large with indignation.

“I didn’t want to!” he said. “I’m asking you to please trust me and get in the car. Then we can go down to headquarters and figure out how to clear your name.”

Something clicked for her then. She was angry with him and confused, and she felt worse than used, but she finally understood the truth of what he had told her before they had been rudely interrupted.

He had known who she was all along. He had lied to her.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I guess I should reintroduce myself.” He held out his hand. “Agent Julian Tamali, special liaison to the Balkan Gangs Squad Special Task Force.”

All their secret-agent-man banter from the night before came rushing back at her, and she felt shame for so stupidly participating in her own betrayal. It wouldn’t be a first for her, of course. Unknowingly assisting people in taking advantage of her was quickly becoming her forte.

“This isn’t funny anymore,” she said, ignoring his proffered hand.

“I know,” he said, somber. “But we really do need to get out of here.”

She glanced back into the alley, contemplating making a run for it, but the truth of the matter was she had no one else to turn to, no one that she could risk involving with the men who wanted to hurt her.

She pushed past Julian and clambered into the back of the minivan while he took the front seat. The door slid closed, and the blonde caught Salomeh’s eye in the rearview mirror as she pulled off with a screech of tires.

“Did you get any good intel, Julian?” she asked when she looked away. “About Birdie. I don’t want to know what else you’ve been up to.”

Salomeh winced at the words, fighting the hot tears burning at her eyes, fighting the sadness that threatened to engulf her. Despite being attacked by Alexi this morning, and despite the melee that had just gone down in her apartment, realizing just how Julian had used her was the most horrible thing to happen to her that day. Even his coworker was in on it.

Salomeh had thought she couldn’t discover new levels of humiliation, but she had been wrong. After taking a deep breath, she gazed imperiously out the window—perhaps looking as though she was above petty emotions like sadness would make it so—and tried not to think about just how wrong she had been about
everything.

“Just shut up and drive, Yates,” Julian said in a clipped tone.

“Yes, sir,” Yates said congenially as she eased into traffic.

Chapter Fourteen

The woman—
agent
, Salomeh reminded herself—that Julian called Yates took them on a joyride down the inevitably traffic-gnarled Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. If Salomeh hadn’t already nearly lost her life more times than she could count that morning, she would have probably feared for it. At this point she was just annoyed at how she kept tumbling around the backseat as Yates jerked the car this way and that. Salomeh shot a glare toward the front of the vehicle as she pointedly buckled her seat belt.

“You think this is bad, you should see Tamali over here behind the wheel,” Yates said, her elbow pointing in Julian’s direction. “They didn’t teach him about things like speed limits and stop signs back in Albania.”

Salomeh saw Julian’s head move toward her, just a slight tilt and shifting of his dark hair. She flashed back to the night before, to the way his hair felt under her hands, the strands smooth and cool between her fingers.

Being with him had made her heart beat erratically. The way he held her, moved against her and inside her, had touched some heretofore unknown part of her.

And it had all been a lie.

The way he had looked at her was all part of a role he was playing, she his unwitting pawn. She felt the pressure of tears building behind her eyes again but forced them back.

“Where are we going, and how much longer do I have to spend with you people?” she asked, her voice sharp as a scalpel. It was the same voice she used on students who disappointed her in the extreme, and she knew it was effective.

Yates pulled the car to the right, crossing lanes to cut in front of a semi before answering. “We have to go back to headquarters, where you’ll both be debriefed, and then we’ll have to figure out what to do with you.”

Salomeh flashed back to Julian’s jest at the Fourth of July party.
“Rule number two: if you do blow your cover, make sure to take out whoever knows your secret.”
She had just seen him kill more than one man without blinking. And she had thought his spy lines were just a joke too.

As if sensing her apprehension, Julian finally spoke. “Because Birdie is an imminent threat to your safety, you may have to be in protective custody for a period of time.”

“I don’t want to spend a moment longer with you than is necessary,” she said. The thought of being forced into Julian’s proximity caused a feeling near hysteria to rise within her. “I’ll answer your questions, and then I’ll go. I can find someplace to hide out on my own, thanks.”

Julian sighed and shifted in his seat. “I’m afraid that’s neither logical nor wise,” he said.

“I’ll leave the state,” she said. “The only reason he wants me is because he thinks I’m a threat to him. If I’m out of the picture, I’m no longer a threat.”

“Birdie has connections to gangs all over the US,” Julian explained as if he were talking to a child. “He’s set you up, smeared your reputation via the media, and today, attempted to have you executed. You aren’t going anywhere on your own.”

“Dammit, Julian, you can’t tell me what to do,” Salomeh nearly yelled, knowing she sounded like one of her students having an outburst. Julian was right, but every time she looked at him, she burned with humiliation and something worse: latent desire. Anything was better than being stuck with him for who knew how long.

Julian turned in his seat and locked his green eyes on hers, his expression inscrutable. “Actually I can. I hereby remand you into the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation until further notice.”

“You wouldn’t. After what you’ve already done to me, you wouldn’t,” Salomeh said. Did he really care so much for his case and so little for her that he would treat her like this?

“I would. In case you didn’t notice, three large men showed up at your apartment to
kill
you,” Julian said, his voice rising. “And if you think I’m stupid enough to let you go running right into Birdie’s arms, demanding to know where Yelena is—because that’s exactly what you’d do—you’re out of your mind. I know what that man is capable of.”

“I know what he’s capable of too, Julian,” Salomeh said acidly. “And I’d take him over you right now, no question. At least he’s honest about what a monster he is.”

Julian scrubbed at his stubbled jaw in frustration. When he spoke, his voice was low, for her ears only. “Salomeh, I’m sorry. I did not plan last night—”

“You’re saying you didn’t show up at that party to get information from me?”

“I didn’t, but you were there, and I thought I could just talk to you and see if you knew anything. I didn’t think you would be so…”