Tamed (Corcoran Team: Bulletproof Bachelors Book 3) (15 page)

Rocks and dirt dug into her palms, and the fire burned hot enough to scorch her cheeks. She kept backing up as her mind switched to one concern—Shane. She searched the landscape, looking for his shoulders. For a shape. For some sign of him.

He’d been right there with her. He’d climbed out...or had he? The memory replayed in her mind, and the horror struck her. He was still inside.

She scrambled to her knees. The hard ground bit into her skin, but she was too busy searching for an easy path back into the raging flame and inside the falling-down building to find him. He could not die. She would not allow it.

Her breath hiccupped in her chest and she choked back a sob. Despair threatened to swamp her, but she pushed the dread away. She had to believe. He was the strongest, most competent man she knew. If anyone could beat a fire, it would be him.

She tried to stand up, but her legs didn’t hold her. She crumpled back down in a heap as every muscle turned to jelly. She’d turned boneless and the shock of what had just happened began to settle in. She rotated between hot and cold as she sat there, listening for the sirens and rocking back and forth.

He could not be dead. The words screamed through her head. She wanted with all her soul for them to be true.

A rumble of noise drew her attention. Fire was so loud as it consumed and destroyed. The sound of the flames rolling over everything in their path had taken on a human vibe. Smoke lifted into the sky and settled around her as she tried to figure out what to do next and how to get in there. Her mind went blank and her heart cracked in two at the idea of Shane not getting out.

Then the pity drifted away and determination moved into its place. She could not just sit there. He had to be alive and she had to find him. She looked around, spinning in a circle and adding to her dizziness. This time she had to get up. She balanced on her palms, then lifted herself. Her knees buckled, but she eventually stayed up.

She took two steps before holding an arm over her head to fend off the mix of smoke and heat. But she couldn’t wait. She forced her legs to move. Slow and sure, she got closer, but not close enough to break in or for her frantic screams to be heard over the roar of the flames.

She stumbled and her ankle turned. Somehow she managed to stay on her feet. One more step and then a new round of confusion started. The whack to her back had her pitching forward. She put out her hands just in time to keep from landing on her face.

Her knee hit the ground first and then her hands. A shot of pain moved through her as she tried to figure out what had hit her. A piece of the house or something. The smoke made it hard to see much of anything and kept stealing her breath. With every inhale, she’d double over hacking.

She needed air to fight this fight. Rolling over to her back, she opened her eyes and tried to breathe in semifresh air. She saw something. A few blinks and it didn’t disappear. There, off to her right, she spied jeans and a man’s legs.

Her heart did a grateful flip.
Shane made it out!
Her gaze lifted and she saw that face. The wrong face. Tyler stood there, holding a gun.

“What are you...” It hurt to talk and she doubted he could hear her over the thunder of flames and crackling and falling debris.

He reached down and lifted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. He brought his face in close to hers.

She tried to focus and listen to whatever he was saying. She picked out one sentence and her blood turned from burning to icy cold.

“This would have been easier if you’d chosen me.”

Chapter Eighteen

The explosion dropped Shane to his knees. The ground shook beneath him, and the walls caved in over his head. He braced his body for the blows to come. The rafters would break and wood would tumble down on him.

But he’d gotten her out. He’d shoved her out the window and heard her scream and the explosion ripping through the small house. Cam and Connor would grab her. They’d find her wandering around and take her in. Shane refused to believe anything other than that. She hadn’t been injured and wasn’t stuck in harm’s way.

With her safely tucked away in his mind, he concentrated on saving himself. He wasn’t sure that was even possible. Smoke obscured his vision, and the fall had him doubting which way led to the outside and which led to the flames.

Heat pulsed all around him. He felt his clothing singe and the hot air tear through his throat and lungs. He covered his mouth and kept low, tried to remember all of his fire training. It had been a while and he was rusty, but he looked for light. For any sign of the world outside the burning walls.

Something smashed into his shoulder as he struggled to drop to his stomach so he could crawl. Pain seared his neck and he jerked. Saw a piece of burning wood fall to the floor. That had been on him, and he knew the amount of falling debris would only increase in the next few minutes. If he was going to crawl, he had to do it now.

His face hugged the floor as he fought for the last few breaths of untainted air. Every move hurt, but he kept going. Crawled in the direction where he thought he’d last seen Makena. Noise roared around him in a deafening cadence. He twice fell to the floor when the walls crumbled around him and threatened to flatten him.

He somehow kept going even though he felt as if his progress amounted only to inches. He couldn’t draw in enough breath to focus. His strength waned as his last reserves of energy petered out on him.

He kept counting in his head. Concentrated on the image of her face and how good it would be to see her, touch her, again.

Something clamped around his waist and smashed him into the floor. He kicked out and struggled, trying to lift his arms and legs despite the fact that they suddenly seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds each. The battle got away from him. His ability to fight drained from him.

In his smoke-induced stupor he swore he saw Cam’s face, filled with concern through the mask. Then his body floated. Shane couldn’t explain it and feared he verged on passing out. Hallucinations and sliding into unconsciousness. If those happened together he sensed he’d die.

With one last kick of adrenaline he surged up, thinking to throw himself into the nearest wall. Instead he slammed into something that felt like a body. Arms wrapped around him and pulled. The smoke drifted over him, and then he broke free. He could see the ground and fire.

“Shane, talk to me.” Connor’s voice washed over him.

He chalked it up to one last strange vision. Connor wasn’t exactly the last person Shane thought he’d see before he lost it. Connor held something. Then Shane inhaled and his senses cleared. A mask covered his mouth, and fresh air pumped through him, burning him. He had to throw the mask off to cough.

He doubled over as the painful hacking overtook every muscle. He felt as if he were being sliced and torn from the inside out.

The roughness in his throat made it difficult to swallow. But he was alive. Connor stood in front of him with Cam off to the side, stripping out of a blanket that had been wrapped around him.

They’d gone in after him and yanked him out. Probably never even weighed the risks. Cam had performed the rescue, but Connor had likely choreographed it. Bottom line: without them, he’d be dead. Corcoran had saved him in every way possible, including here and now. The move humbled Shane and he was filled with gratitude, but there was one piece he needed to fit in with the rest. Her.

When he straightened again, he felt weak and exhausted, as if every last ounce of strength had been used up and expired. One thought kept going through his mind. “Where’s Makena?”

Cam and Connor glanced at each other as the flames danced all around them. A gnawing sensation started in Shane’s gut. A new burst of energy hit him and drowned out everything else.

“Connor, where is she?”

Cam stepped in next to him and they stood there like an impenetrable wall, blocking his view of anything else and his line to the fire. Anxiety welled inside Shane and he had to fight to keep from tearing down the burning structure with his bare hands.

Connor held up a hand. “We need you to stay calm.”

“Where is she?” That was all he wanted to know. He could take another step, another breath, once he knew.

Connor’s hand didn’t fall. “Listen to me.”

“Just show him.” Cam stepped to the side and pointed. In the distance, on the other side of the wall of flames, a figure crouched down. Large and male. He lifted something... Shane blinked and tried to get his sore eyes to focus. Makena. Tyler had Makena.

He surged forward, intent on yelling and running. Strong hands held him back. Cam and Connor wrestled with Shane, dragging him to the ground as they covered his mouth and held on. His reduced strength was no match for their combined attack. He struggled to break free, shoving at them and landing more than one punch.

“We have to get her.” The words echoed in his brain as desperation washed over him.

Cam held him from behind and Connor knelt in front. Their will pounded into Shane, but he tried to wave it off. There was no other play here. They needed to start shooting and not stop until Tyler dropped to the ground.

“We’ll follow,” Connor said in a tighter voice than usual.

Not good enough. Shane wanted her away from that guy. He’d walked right into the safe house and planted a bomb. Had done it like a pro. No sweating or panic. In Shane’s mind that made the guy some sort of psychopath and put Makena in even bigger danger. “Now, we go now.”

“We’d never make it in time thanks to the fire.” Connor shook his head. “And we’d put her in the middle of a shootout.”

“She’ll lead us right to Tyler.” Cam said the words right into Shane’s ear.

“She is not a decoy. She can’t...no.” He looked from Connor to Cam. “Would you agree to this for Jana or Julia? No way. This is the same thing.” Words tumbled out of him. “And if you don’t care about how I feel, think about Holt. He’ll kill us all for letting her be in danger for even one second longer than necessary.”

They would fight for the women they loved, and so would Shane. Even if it meant knocking out two of his closest friends.

“She’s going to be fine. I promise you.” Connor sounded so sure, as if he believed every word he said and that by saying them he could make them true.

But Shane knew better. His mind started to clear, and the list of things that could go wrong piled up. “You don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that.”

Connor stood up. “You don’t have a choice.”

Shane had never felt so desperate or helpless. “Connor, please.”

Cam lifted Shane to his feet and stood with Connor. “Let’s go.”

It hurt to stand up. Hurt to breathe in. Shane vowed to suck it all up and take it if it meant saving her. “If this doesn’t work...”

Connor handed Shane a gun. “It will.”

* * *

T
ODAY
HAD
ROLLED
out like a nightmare in her head, and it wasn’t over yet.

Makena needed a hospital before the dizziness overtook her and she passed out. She also needed some word about Shane. Her insides felt shredded. Panic ran through her like air. Her mind kept zipping back to the moment of the explosion. She tried to remember pulling him out through the window with her, but feared that was wishful thinking. That it had never happened.

If she were anywhere else, if she had minutes to think, she might be able to put the pieces together in her head. Instead she sat at Tyler’s kitchen table and played house. He walked around serving coffee, acting normal. Or some version of normal.

“Tyler, please listen to me.” She tried to move her arm and bit back a scream when the bindings cut into her skin.

She couldn’t move her legs or arms. She tried to wiggle her hands behind her, get a little bit of give in the rope so she could slip a hand through, but they were so bound so tightly her fingers had started going numb.

He sat down across from her and opened his laptop. “We’ll go to dinner soon, and then you should go to bed early.”

He spoke as if this were their routine instead of some messed-up delusion in his head. He’d suffered some sort of break. No question. The anger he’d had back when Shane confronted him had disappeared. This Tyler acted as if they were locked in a twisted form of domestic tranquility.

She would have ached for him if she could conquer the terror buzzing in her head long enough to think about anything else. She didn’t think he would hurt her, but she didn’t know. This Tyler was not a man she knew. He’d been pushed to the edge and now he lived in a world she didn’t understand. One that had fear crashing through her so hard that she had to fight back tears.

“Could I go to the bathroom?”

Tyler peeked up at her. Fury highlighted his features. One minute he looked ready to tuck her into bed and the next he looked as if he could kill her. This was one of those latter moments. “No.”

She wanted to reason with him, bring him back to reality. She didn’t even know if that sort of thing was possible. “You can untie me.”

“So you can go to him?” Tyler snapped the laptop shut. “No.”

Shane.
She thought about him and sadness rolled over her. She had to fight back the tears and pain, and push through. “We can talk about this.”

Tyler shook his head. “You gave me no choice.”

Okay, she could handle this. “I did.”

His gaze narrowed. “We had something and you threw it away.”

She had to assume this was part of the delusion. A piece where he viewed whatever they’d had as more than a working relationship. “I didn’t know how you felt. You never told me.”

“You knew.”

Some part of her sensed that she needed to keep him talking and prolong this as much as possible. It would take forever for the team to discover her missing. And if they were busy mourning Shane...no, no, no. She dragged her thoughts back from that abyss and kept pretending. “How could I?”

The legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back and stood up. “That’s not possible. I gave you more and more responsibility. I risked everything for you.”

“Tell me how.” She tried to lure him in while she spent every spare second visually searching the room for a weapon. “What did you do for me?”

“You researched cases that came so close to me. You almost wrecked all I built, but I forgave you.” Tyler dumped out his freshly poured coffee in the sink. “I had it handled until that request came through the website. I got them all, but that one slipped through to you.”

She remembered the day well. She’d been looking for a response to something else and had seen the request. Stumbled over it, really. “You were in DC doing research.”

He smiled at her. “Just my luck.”

“Why did that one matter so much?” The subject of the email inquiry had claimed to be Special Forces and a combat veteran. There was talk about sacrificing everything for his men and saving lives. The usual. Nothing exceptional that would have tipped her off or led her back to Tyler.

He shrugged. “We both borrowed the same life story.”

The admission, so subtle and delivered without any emotion, left her breathless. He acted as if his deception didn’t matter. She didn’t know if that was the sickness talking or something evil. “You’re saying...what are you saying?”

“The man you were to investigate told a story much like my own because we both knew a man named Roger Culp. We all grew up in the same small town.”

The truth hit her then. “But only one of you actually went to war.”

“He was a local hero.” Tyler leaned back against the sink and glanced at one of the small monitors attached under the counter. “There was no reason I couldn’t enjoy some of those accolades. Outside the town, of course.”

The justifications sounded so familiar. She heard them every day from the men they listed on the site. That her own boss, the man who had started the project, was one of them hit her like a sharp kick to the stomach.

He nodded toward the monitor. “We have company.”

She followed his gaze, hoping to see Shane ready to storm in, but Tyler didn’t show any fear. From this distance she saw a fuzzy figure outlined in black and white hanging around the front door. A man, but not her man.

As if she’d willed him to do it, he lifted his head. Jeff. The man she’d grown to be more and more uncertain of as the attacks kicked up in intensity. He showed up without warning and his anger festered just under the surface. Now she knew why. He was Tyler’s contact. Likely his way onto the loop, where he could watch and contain the information passed around.

“Your partner is here.” In that moment, she hated them both.

Tyler’s eyebrow lifted. “Not mine.”

Not what she’d expected him to say at all. With his narcissism she’d waited for some sort of self-congratulations. She got something very different. “What do you mean?”

“Your failure to keep up makes me second-guess my faith in you.” Tyler tucked his gun behind his back. “I’ll invite him in.”

He walked away, out of her line of vision. She tried to turn in the chair, but the rope dug into her and burned her skin. Moving her head from side to side, she tried to pick up some clue. She didn’t hear any conversation, just footsteps.

Then Jeff appeared in front of her. His eyes were glazed over with fear and Tyler had a gun pointed at his head. The hold Tyler had on Jeff’s arm didn’t make any sense. If they were working together...she didn’t get it.

“Jeff stopped by to say hello.” Tyler smiled as he said the horrible words.

Jeff’s gaze traveled around the room, over her. “You tied her to a chair.”

“What did you think he would do?” After all the killing and all the attacks, this ending could not be a surprise. It wasn’t to her. She’d seen it coming and tried to avoid it, but failed.