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.”
* * *
TODAY 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.”