Chapter 12

THE BATHROOM DOOR opened, and Nadia padded out barefoot in a cloud of scented steam that triggered a memory of his mother’s garden, not lilacs, but herbs he couldn’t name. He pictured his mom kneeling among her plants, weeding, gathering herbs she’d use in lasagna or chicken primavera. Basil maybe, or something lemony, like now. Mom would’ve liked Nadia.

The memory faded as he registered faint purple bruising surrounding the cut on her cheek. At least she didn’t seem bothered by the injury.

Even with her face bare of makeup and her hair wound in a towel, she was so beautiful he went hard in a nanosecond. The sleep shirt reached mid-thigh, giving him an eyeful of toned legs. On the shirt, a cartoon cat winked, and a speech balloon read Naughty Dreams. Damn straight.

He raised his uninjured knee to hide his condition, knocking the ice bag off his right. Clearing the scratchiness from his throat, he pushed up higher on the pillows. “Feel better?”

“Definitely.” She sat on the side of her bed facing him and swept off the towel. She scrubbed at her hair with it. “And you, how’s the knee?”

“Better. Swelling’s down.” But only on the knee. Having her sitting there drying her hair like they were damn college roommates was somehow more intimate than their almost sex of five years ago. He wanted her so bad, he ached. At this rate, he’d need ice on more than his knee.

“And the eye? You’re rubbing at the scars and still no eye patch. Do you want me to get it?” She moved as if to go for his pack.

He lowered his hand. Hadn’t realized. “I don’t need the patch.” At her raised brows, he heaved a sigh. Why not? “Haven’t needed it since they took off the bandages.”

A puzzled expression creased her forehead. “I see.” She winced. “Sorry for the choice of words.”

But she probably didn’t see. He wasn’t sure he did. “The patch made it easier for other people. My eye, the scars looked damned ugly at first. And then…” Why did he keep wearing it after that? He couldn’t think of a good reason. He shrugged. A grin should hide his ambivalence.

“Can you tell me how the injury happened? Or is that classified?”

“I can tell you most of what happened. It didn’t get wide coverage.”

“I remember something about it. Not much,” she said. “But generally we don’t know about all the attacks security agencies prevent.”

“Sad but true.” He held up his glass and widened his grin. “My Jack needs refreshing.”

Instead of the disapproval he expected, she draped the towel over one shoulder and picked up both glasses. With her hair loose and messy, she looked sexy as hell.

When she returned, her hair was combed and she’d poured them both new drinks. “The mission?”

“This one involved a cell of New Dawn.”

“The same ones cozying up to Cardona?”

“The very same. A nice bunch of assholes. They were led by a Belgian national named Pierre Orland, a petty criminal calling himself Saleh. They planned to detonate a bomb outside the European Union Council building.”

Her eyes widened. “On the Rue de la Loi, right in the center of Brussels.”

“Lots of traffic, lots of people, not far from the metro station that ISIS bombed.”

“I remember. Another attack at the airport too, men with bombs in suitcases.” She swallowed a big gulp before setting her glass on the night stand and gazing at him, head tilted.

After a slug of liquid courage, he took a deep breath. “Intel didn’t pick up on those in time to stop them, but our resources have improved. Members of the council would’ve been arriving for a big meeting when Saleh planned to set off their bomb. A suitcase filled with explosives, nails and other projectiles. We located the terrorists two days before the scheduled attack. Cleared the corner building except for their flat. We calculated they hadn’t had time to put the explosives and parts together. We deployed around the building. Eurocorps agents went inside. They broke in, got three men down on the floor. Saleh wasn’t one of them.”

He liked that she didn’t interrupt, chatter away. She nodded encouragement and watched him, the same intensity and need to know in her pretty green eyes as during her video interviews. Her legs were crossed, and her foot swung back and forth, drawing his gaze. Not looking her in the eyes made it easier to recount what happened next.

“I spotted Saleh climb out a basement window and hustle to the sidewalk. My team and I went after him. When he saw us, he reached for a cord on his backpack. I fired my weapon. As he dropped, he pulled the cord. The bomb detonated.” Matt didn’t remember anything afterward until he woke up in the hospital. He met her focused gaze and gestured at his scars. “That’s how I got this. My body armor saved me from worse.”

Her forehead crinkled, and her eyes softened with sympathy. “So they’d had time to create the bomb after all.”

“The backpack held a smaller device. Their fail-safe, we decided. In the flat, agents found the components for a much bigger bomb. We were lucky.”

After recounting the experience so many times in official reports, he could recite it, at least the short version, without his gut churning and his chest seizing up so his lungs hurt. Even that took him back.

He could smell his sweat and feel the press and weight of the Kevlar wrapping his body. He could hear, muffled through his headset, the noises of struggle and metal cuffs from the conspirators’ flat. He could see the fury in Saleh’s eyes when Matt raised his MP5 and his triumphant grin the millisecond before he detonated the bomb. Damn, Matt wished he could’ve seen the dumb fuck’s face when he realized there were no forty virgins waiting for him. Not even one. And no Paradise.

“I see,” she said, unease edging her words. “Were you the only one hurt? No one except the terrorist was killed?”

He should’ve known that as inquisitive as she was, she’d press him for more details. “I woke up in the hospital with the news that two members of my DARK team were killed. Kirby Nashota and Sara Malik. They’d run too close to the damn terrorist. Their body armor wasn’t enough to shield them.” The photos of their bloodied and mangled bodies on the paving stones were burned into his brain. “We all carried nine mil submachine guns. If I’d raised mine faster….”

A sympathetic murmur came from Nadia. “I’m so sorry. Something you never forget, just as we won’t forget what happened this morning. And then you learned about the damage to your eye.”

Thank God her next words had veered back to him. He’d shared all he could stand about his dead friends. He lifted his gaze from the melting ice in his drink. “Hey, but my vision’s coming back. I can see shadows and faint light.”

Her concerned gaze turned speculative. She tilted her head. “Odd, but I don’t hear much enthusiasm in your voice.”

He’d said enough about his vision and the deaths. “What about your film after this morning? Delays, a new crew, what? Here’s to healing.”

He held out her glass. When she took it, he clinked his against it.

Nadia’s heart set up a clatter. The question had come out of the blue, but she should’ve expected he’d ask. She drew a deep breath. “What happens? In a word, ruination.”

“Nadia, this will all be cleared up in a few days. You won’t be blamed, you’ll see. And you have insurance, right?” Matt’s voice as well as his gaze was warm and sympathetic. Could he really understand?

“Yes, of course. Equipment can be replaced.” She traced lines in the glass’s condensation. “But I needed this project on the Modena royals. The king needed it and was being very generous. All that’s up in the air now. The contract guaranteed double the money if we wrapped early. It would’ve meant—” she might as well tell him “—enough to start another appeal for my dad. Enough for me to move to more meaningful films. All that may be gone now. And I was looking forward to seeing my mom’s homeland. I wanted to go when we were in college, and Sari even invited me, but her family never agreed. I never learned why.” She took a sip of her drink and set it away again.

“So you have family on Modena?”

“I don’t know for sure. Mom never would say more than that she didn’t get along with her family. Dad’s the only family I have left. He’s seventy-three, his health isn’t the best and now he’s injured. I need to get him out of that prison.” Her breath hitched, and she bit her lower lip on that last note of hopelessness.

“Don’t give up.” Matt set down his glass and collected her shaking hands. “I’ll do what I can to help. When this whole mess ends, the king will still want the documentary. Be grateful you have your dad. More than I have.”

His words, his sort-of promise soothed her. “I’ve told you more than I usually share about my family and my dreams. We have this stolen time together, so we might as well understand each other better. Tell me about your parents — before.”

His shoulders wagged in a barely-there shrug of acquiescence. “Sure. My dad was on the job, a Boston police detective. Mom was a police social worker, involved in crisis intervention and mediation, lots of work with domestic violence and kids. That’s how they met. My dad’s folks celebrated when he found an Italian girl to marry.” He looked away, memories curving his lips, as if he could see his parents. Then his expression darkened.

“Tell me what you most remember about them.” It was the kind of question she often asked in interviews, but this time she felt invested in a personal, not professional, way.

His gaze seemed to turn inward before he met hers. “Dad gave me my first baseball bat and mitt. He never lost patience with me when I struggled to hit even his fat pitches. And I like to look back at when Dad took me to Red Sox games. We’d go once a season.”

“And your mom?” She longed to tuck back a lock of hair that straggled onto his forehead, but she didn’t want him to release her hands.

“Even as busy as she was, she had a garden and was a great cook. Mom was a people person. The house was always full of neighbors and friends — hers and dad’s and mine. She always had cookies for my buddies and me.” He turned his head, and his jaw worked. “In the afternoon she baked for a charity auction, and then, that evening—” His grip on her hands tightened almost painfully.

“You don’t have to tell me the rest.”

“Yeah, I do. You didn’t believe me before, so I want you to know it all.”

“Matt—”

He opened his hands and let hers go. Immediately she missed the warmth and assurance.

“Dad was lead detective on a money-laundering and drug case. They had evidence that would put away the top gang members. He and Mom went out to celebrate their wedding anniversary. As they were leaving the restaurant — Antonio’s on the South End, their favorite — they were shot from a black car that sped away. Both of them. They died on the sidewalk.” His shoulders drooped, and he shook his head.

Murder. The tragedy of it squeezed her chest. “I’m so sorry. Did... did the police catch them?”

“That’s the only good thing. Surveillance cameras caught the license number and the face of the shooter. He spilled on his bosses. So in addition to the other charges, three men went down for murder.”

“And you went into foster care? No aunts, uncles, grandparents?”

“Grandparents had passed. No one else. Funny, huh, a bare-bones Italian family? Money from the police fund and the folks’ insurance gave me college money, and I joined the Boston PD after.”

Murder had taken away his family, and foster “no-care” made him an outsider. Anger and resentment had blurred her understanding of how hard he worked, how dedicated he was. Now she got it, but did he? He wanted to make a difference, to contribute, but more than anything, he needed to belong.

“And then DARK,” she said. “From one team of comrades to another. Fighting crime, corruption and now terrorism. No matter what you’ve said about needing freedom and control over your life, I don’t see that you have much of either. DARK is your family substitute, a group to belong to, and you go where they send you and do what they order.”

“That’s not how it is at all.” He slugged down a hefty drink of Jack and turned away his gaze.

Denial, but she’d touched a nerve. No point in poking the bear. He was a good man, doing what he thought was right, protecting her and trying to figure out how to stop the Modena rebels even if it put him at risk. “Why are you doing this now? Risking your career to go on the run with me?”

There it was, that boyish grin that sparked her nerve endings. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Beats me.” At the shock that must be on her face, he shook his head. “Not a time to joke, sorry. You got a raw deal from DARK before. I couldn’t let that happen again. It looks like Cardona framed us for the bombing, and I can’t be sure he wouldn’t use you again, whether you’re here or in DARK’s hands. And... I do care about you.”

Warmth suffused her belly. Care about her? What did that mean? And did she want him to care about her? She couldn’t return the feeling, she couldn’t. No matter how hard she tried not to care, she felt more than sexual attraction for him too. The few days of working with him had awakened all the old emotions that tangled up her mind and heated her body. And now he was risking everything to protect her.

She’d thought to allow herself only to trust him to keep her safe. But now…. “I trust you to know what you’re doing,” she said, “and I trust you to protect me. I care about you too, but I don’t know if I can give you a pass on five years ago. My dad—” Her voice broke.

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Enough with the walks down memory lane. It’s nothing but a mine field. It’s late, time we turned in.” He picked up his now-sloshing ice bag and stood. “Now I’m the one who needs a shower.”

“The cuts on your back, you should have antibiotic cream and—”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Just fine.” The bathroom door closed quietly behind him. But the soft click hit her ears like a slam.