The Price of Winning: London Calling Book Four (6 page)

Sebastian looked up. A police sniper stood in the doorway of the building, gun lowered. Sebastian raised his hands, palms out.

“Step away from the bodies. Walk slowly toward me.” The sniper unsnapped the chin guard to his helmet. Speaking into his radio, he said, “Subject down. All clear.”

He patted Sebastian down then faced him. “You were going to kill him.”

“Yes.” There was no denying it.

“Then you can thank me for saving you a trial.”
 

Sebastian nodded, outwardly calm but riding high on an emotion that was as recognizable as repugnant to him.
 

Disappointment.

***

Madeleine dreamed of them.

Hands linked with hers on either side. Her parents laughed along as they swung her up from the ground to hang suspended between them. Still laughing, they were suddenly at an ice cream truck, buying bomb pops to stain their lips blue. Then they all melted back into the living room of their Cincinnati house, her father pinning a tender corsage to her pretty pink dress before they set off for a father-daughter dance.
 

She’d been eight.

As dreams do, one scene morphed into another, and then another.
 

Next came a night at the play—her debut on Broadway. There were roses, dozens of bright red roses. Again, she saw her parents laughing and hugging each other. Crying with joy.

Or was it sadness?

The kaleidoscope images of her dream melted again, this time to the other flowers—bright orange and russet—because he said they matched her hair. Her mother was crying again. Why was her mother weeping? And who was he—the one who sent her flowers and presents every day?

The lilies, once beautiful, curled and died, dropping blackened petals everywhere.
 

Then there was blood, scarlet and dripping from her hands, hair, and body. She looked down to see her father, covered in bullet holes that welled and overflowed as he lay dying. His gaze fixed on hers.
 

Madeleine screamed, her eyes flying open. Blankly, she took in the sterile hospital room with its ecru walls, cream linoleum tile floors, and tan privacy curtains. Blankets covered her from neck to toe.

A nurse pushed open the door to her room, her white shoes squeaking on the clean floor. With her caramel colored hair and light brown eyes, she unintentionally echoed the comforting blandness of the room.

“Ms. Price, you’re awake.” Even her voice was neutral. Monotone.

Yes. Madeleine had been dreaming. She looked down to see her hands were bandaged.
 

And then she remembered.
 

Her building. The explosion. Her parents.

She dug her fingers into the blankets, anchoring herself. She read the nurse’s nametag.
 

Connie.

“Connie.” Her voice was weak. Madeleine shifted, trying again. “Connie,” she began. Her voice was still trembling, but it was enough. “What happened?”

The nurse dropped her eyes. She walked over to Madeleine’s IV equipment and began fiddling with dials, adjusting then resetting them to where they started. Finally, she looked up.

“A man, a former employee, walked into the bank next to your building and started shooting. When everyone was down, he started setting off explosives.” Connie swallowed hard. “There are few survivors.”

Madeleine stared. “So…so that was him. In my building.” It wasn’t really a question but Connie nodded.

“Yes. He ran out of the bank, saving himself.” Bitterness edged her tone and she frowned. “The police were already arriving, so it seems he slipped into your building to hide out. More explosions went off next door, blowing out windows and doors down the block. He was completely visible. They think that’s when he started to panic.”

Pressure was building in Madeleine’s chest to the point where she thought she might hyperventilate. Gasping, she practiced an old counting exercise. First breath in was one. Breath out was two. Breathing in, she counted three.

And so on.

Her psychiatrist taught her the technique the last time violence erupted and tore her life apart. It had worked then, but Madeleine couldn’t find solace in it now. She slumped, feeling as if a great weight were crushing into her. Panicked, her eyes darted to the nurse.

Another nurse came rushing in. Apparently, Connie had pressed the call light.
 

“Get a sedative.” Connie’s voice was brisk. Direct.

The room was spinning, making Madeleine afraid she’d be sick. She shut her eyes, trying to will away the dizziness and nausea. Her father stared back at her.

She snapped them open again. Her breathing was ragged, desperate. She couldn’t get any air. She gasped, struggling for oxygen. She could feel her heart pounding as if to escape her body.

She was going to die. Just like all the others.
 

She felt a jab in her arm then a burning sensation. She was pushed back onto the bed then a mask was fitted over her face. Almost immediately, her heart slowed its desperate beating. Her chest felt lighter, and her breathing eventually calmed. She looked up through watery eyes to see both nurses peering down at her.

Distantly, she could feel Connie rubbing her forearm in slow comfort.

Madeleine was ashamed. No doubt, mass casualties along with the critically wounded were also in this hospital. Yet she used up valuable nursing help by having a damned panic attack.

She felt her face heat. She needed to be strong.
 

And she also needed answers.

She flexed her arm, and Connie stepped back a little. Madeleine raised her hand to her face. Her aim was off, so she briefly fumbled until she could find the mask and lift it away. Connie nodded at the other nurse, who slipped out of the room.

“Take it easy.” Connie’s voice was soft but firm.

Madeleine’s tongue felt swollen. She turned her head on the pillow, trying to bring the other woman into focus. A little drunkenly she said, “My mother.”

Connie pulled up a chair that sat alongside the bed. She eased herself into it with a deep sigh. She met Madeleine’s gaze with a thoughtful one of her own.

Oh God.
 

Madeleine knew this routine. She’d gone through it all during the events over seven years ago. The sympathy. The compassion. The gentle, tentative explanations of something that was inexplicable. Illogical.
 

She’d thought things couldn’t be worse. Now she knew better.

Connie cleared her throat. “I’m sorry Ms. Price. Your mother didn’t make it.”

Her mind flashed back to her father’s dying eyes. She already knew that answer.

Madeleine didn’t allow herself to react. She tightly leashed her feelings, knowing if emotion crept through then she’d lose all control. She couldn’t afford that now. She needed the answers.
 

Tears clogged her voice, making it deeper. “Danny? The concierge to the building?”

Connie blinked. “Gone.”

Madeleine breathed through her nose, letting the sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital clear her thoughts.

“So—” Her chin wobbled dangerously. She bit her lip. “So I’m it? The only survivor?”

 
“No, no.” Connie was urgent. “Mr. Payne survived too. I think he saved you.”

Madeleine remembered.
 

He’d shielded her, tried to keep her back from the gunman. And when she broke free, he’d bodily tackled her, knocking her to the ground. Before all that, she’d been in his arms upstairs, losing herself in the feel of him. She’d simultaneously felt safe and protected, alive and sexy.

Sebastian
.

“Madeleine.” The tone was low, a deep murmur.

Her head jerked up. There he was, the object of her thoughts, standing tall and vital inside her hospital room. She must have said his name aloud because he was coming close, hand outstretched. Distantly, Madeleine noticed Connie moving out of the way.
 

His hand came around hers, and she clutched onto him, squeezing his fingers hard without realizing it. For the first time since waking up, she felt a measure of peace.

A yawn caught her unaware. Sebastian’s mouth quirked a little before flattening out again. He sat down in the same chair Connie had occupied.

Madeleine’s hand slipped a little, curiously heavy. He simply turned her wrist so she lay with her palm upward. He gently linked his fingers in hers.
 

“What—”

“Shh, shh.” He stopped her. “Rest, Madeleine. The world will still be waiting when you wake up.”

Tears filled her eyes, blurring his features. “But—”

“Not now.”

Her lids drooped, impossibly heavy. But she had to make sure. “No one else?” The words were slurred, hardly recognizable.

Sebastian brought her hand to his lips where he pressed a chaste kiss on the underside of her wrist. “You have me. I will not leave you.”
 

Despite the grief tearing through her, Madeleine’s eyes drifted shut. The last thing she saw was Sebastian Payne sitting beside her, a solid reminder of life and survival.
 

Deeper and deeper, she fell into sleep. Finally, her mother’s screams were silenced and her father’s eyes closed in repose.
 

The blackness was complete.
 

On some level she welcomed the void with relief.

She heard nothing. Saw nothing. Felt
nothing
.

Madeleine Price became nothing.

CHAPTER THREE

S
EBASTIAN
LEANED
AGAINST
the wall in Madeleine’s hospital room, just left of the closed door. Silent and brooding, he’d stood for nearly twenty minutes with absolutely no acknowledgement of his arrival.

Madeleine sat in the only chair available near the window. She stared outside, rarely blinking and never moving. Her hands lay linked in her lap, a hospital-issued blanket draped over her knees.

This had been the routine for days.

Sebastian knew he could easily fetch a chair for himself. The nurses on the floor had come to know and like him. They plied him with hot tea and checked on him nearly as much as they did their patients. As for Madeleine, she was doing well, physically at least. Sebastian winced, thinking about her concussion and two broken ribs. She also had various cuts and abrasions, a result from landing on a floor littered with broken glass.

All of which was his fault.
 

He sighed, straightening. His experiment in silence had failed, so he walked around to prop himself on the side of her bed. He deliberately let his knee bump her chair.

Nothing.

Usually this was when he talked about nothing, basically filling the air with his voice in a useless attempt to engage her. He brought in magazines, the sort he normally hated, filled with celebrity news and nothing much more. It was all fluff, not news at all, because the news was filled with the tragedy in Chicago. As the days passed, more and more was divulged about the man who was guilty of the violence. His past was analyzed, dissected, and exposed, looking for reasons behind his atrocious act. He wasn’t a religious extremist or a terrorist in the modern sense. Rather, it appeared he was just a man who lost his job and spiraled downward into an abyss of bitterness and hate.
 

Sebastian could care less about all that. He refused to give time to someone who didn’t deserve for his name to be immortalized. Regardless of his troubles, there was no excuse, no possible reason to explain or justify what he’d done to the forty-three innocent people who’d been killed while going about their day.

“You’ll make me famous.”

The words whispered through Sebastian’s mind, bringing a chill up his back despite the overheated room. They were the words the shooter uttered just before aiming his gun toward Madeleine in some crazed bid for notoriety.
 

What a sack of shit.
 

Shaking off his black thoughts, Sebastian gave Madeleine his full attention.
 

Even in the hospital, injured and fragile, she was lovely.
 

The sun caught the myriad colors in her hair, highlighting the vivid oranges among the darker reds. It was a living mass of color, coiling down her back into riotous waves.

His hand twitched, itching to touch the springy curls. They would circle his fingers, ensnaring him in their soft vibrancy. Abruptly, he realized what he was thinking and stood up, tucking both hands into the front pockets of his trousers.

He had no business fantasizing about Madeleine—her hair or any of the other hundred gorgeous parts of her. She was vulnerable and grieving and his self-appointed job was to protect her from any further harm.

Pacing across the room, he came to a decision. He returned to face her.
 

“This isn’t working.” She continued to stare out the window, unresponsive. “Not for me, but especially not for you, Madeleine.” At the sound of her name, she blinked, which gave him all the encouragement he needed. “You can’t stay here, you know. You’re overdue to be discharged.”