Shadow Hawk

2

THE BASTARD HAD shot him, point blank, and given that it felt like his lungs had collapsed, he assumed he’d taken the hit in his chest. God bless the bulletproof vest. Stunned, gasping for air, he tried to remain conscious, but his vision had already faded on the edges and was closing in as he lay on his back, staring up at the night sky as a whole new kind of hurt made itself at home in every corner of his body….

“Hawk? Check in,” Abby said in his ear.

Check in? He felt like he was checking out…. But the radio was back, good to know, and man, did she sound hot. Too bad he was floating…floating on agony, thank you very much, and utterly unable to move.

Or speak.

“Hawk.”

Ah, wasn’t that sweet? She sounded worried. He was touched, or would have been if he could get past the searing pain. He needed to get up, to protect himself—

A foot planted itself on his throat, and then the fire in his body sizzled along with his vision as his air supply was abruptly cut off.

By Gaines. Regional director.

Traitor.

Hawk tried to lift one of his arms to grasp at the foot on his windpipe.

“Don’t bother.” Gaines pressed harder. “You’ll be dead soon, anyway. I just wanted you to suffer a little first, you know, for screwing with me for so long.”

Hawk found himself shockingly helpless, an absolutely new and unenjoyable experience. He simply couldn’t draw air, and good Christ but he felt like his chest was burning.

“Hurts like a mother, doesn’t it?”

What hurt the most was that he couldn’t remember if he’d managed to spit out Gaines’s name before he’d gone down. In case this all went to shit, he wanted Logan to know they’d been right. That is, if the radio was even back up. “Logan—”

“Sorry. It’s going to be a tragic evening all around. You’re both going to die trying to double-cross the agency.”

Through a haze of agony as he choked on his very last breath, he realized he was still gripping his gun. Now if only he could get the muscles in his arm to raise it. As he struggled, he heard everyone checking in.

Watkins.

Thomas.

Logan. Thank God, Logan.

Any second now they’d realize Hawk hadn’t checked in as well.

That he couldn’t…

“HAWK? COME IN, HAWK.” Abby said this with what she felt was admirable calm, even as a bead of sweat ran between her breasts. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t just that their equipment had failed—even the backup equipment—for five long minutes.

“I don’t see him,” Thomas radioed.

“Me either.” This from Watkins.

“I’m going back up to the roof,” Logan responded. “Maybe he never got down.”

She expected Hawk to jump in here with laughter in his voice to say that everything was good. But he didn’t. Oh, God. She needed to sit down. For several months. Because he would not joke, not at a time like this. He might be surprisingly laid-back and easygoing considering the constant, nonstop danger the job put him in, but he knew protocol. He’d been a soldier, Special Forces. He lived by the rules, and to her knowledge, always followed them. “Hawk.”

When he still didn’t answer, she visualized him. Her therapist had taught her that picturing the cause of her grievance helped.

Of course her therapist had meant the men who’d taken her hostage, but the idea behind it was the same. Hoping it would work, she concentrated on the image of Conner Hawk.

It took embarrassingly little time—like one-point-two seconds. He came to her shirtless, which she didn’t—shouldn’t—speculate about. The only time she’d ever seen him that way had been six months ago, on her first day. He and Logan had spent hours lying beneath a truck in the broiling hot sun, surveying a house. After the arrests, Hawk had come into the office for a change of clothing he kept in his locker.

Abby had been sitting at a table in the employee room eating lunch, her fork raised halfway to her mouth, her salad forgotten as he’d stalked past, eyes tired, several days worth of growth on his lean jaw, sunglasses shoved up to the top of his head. He’d ripped off his sweaty shirt and stood there in nothing but jeans riding dangerously low on his hips as he and Logan laughed about something while he fought with his locker door.

Ever since the hostage situation, her therapist had been promising her that her physical desire for men would eventually return, probably when she least expected it. She’d traveled a bit, visited her parents and sister in Florida, where they’d busily set her up on all the blind dates she’d allow, and yet nothing had really taken. But sitting there in that room, it had not only returned, it came back with bells and whistles.

Holy smokes.

Conner Hawk had it going on.

Unable to help herself, she’d continued to stare at him, soaking in his tanned, sinewy chest, the tattoo, the various scars that spoke of how many years he’d been doing the hero thing. His jeans had a hole in one knee and another on the opposite thigh, exposing more lean flesh.

Then he’d glanced over and caught her staring.

Unnerved, she’d dropped her fork in her lap. Unfortunately it had still been loaded with the bite she’d never taken. Ranch dressing on silk. Nicely done.

Those melting chocolate eyes had met hers, filled with that cynical amusement he was so good at. He hadn’t said a word as he’d yanked a fresh, clean shirt over his head, the muscles in his biceps and quads flexing, his ridged abdomen rippling as he’d pulled the material down. His eyes, even heavy-lidded from exhaustion, had still managed to convey a heat that had exhilarated her in a way she hadn’t wanted to think about.

After that, he’d never quite accepted her icy silence for what it was—a desperate cry for him to stay away, because she needed her distance.

Oh, boy, had she needed her distance. And she couldn’t blame him for not really buying it. Hell, she’d definitely, at least for that one moment, given him the wrong impression. She’d given herself the wrong impression, because she’d wanted him—wanted his arms to come around her, wanted him to dip his head and kiss her, long and deep and wet as he slid his hands over her body, giving it the pleasure she’d denied herself all year.

But she’d come to her senses and hadn’t let herself lapse again.

At least not publicly.

As the newcomer to the division, she’d made a big effort to fit in, to get to know all her co-workers, while definitely staying clear of Hawk. She’d been aloof and stand-offish with him and him alone because she’d thought it best for her to keep far away until she was ready for the feelings he evoked. Which she still wasn’t.

That didn’t mean she didn’t care, because she did. Too much. Therein lay her problem.

From that salad-in-the-lap moment, Abby had taken one look at him, past the bad boy physique, past the knowing grin, and had known.

She could care too much for this man.

Now she sat in the van, with the night whipping around them, desperately visualizing Hawk checking in because she had to believe he was okay.

Please be okay.

“Someone’s down,” came Watkins’s voice. “Repeat, agent down.”

Oh, God. Once upon a time, she’d been the agent down, and just the words brought back the stark terror.

Dark room.

Chained to a wall.

Cold, then hot, then fear like nothing she’d ever known when she’d realized her captors wanted information she didn’t have, and that they were going to torture her anyway….

But this wasn’t then. And what had happened to her wasn’t happening now. Concentrate, damn it. Focus. “Where is he?”

The men behind her, Ken and Wayne, already in high alert from the equipment failure, worked more frantically, trying to get feed on him.

“Watkins,” she said. “Clarify.”

Nothing.

“Thomas, are you with Watkins?”

More of that horrifying nothing. Whipping around, she looked at the two men in disbelief. “Are we down again?”

Wayne’s fingers tapped across his keyboard. “Fuck. Yes.”

Was it possible for a heart to completely stop and yet pound at the same time? “They need backup.” She stood to yank off her blazer.

“What are you doing?” Ken demanded.

“Getting ready.” Abby tossed her useless headset aside.

“No. We’re not supposed to—”

“We have at least one man down and no radio.” She slapped a vest over her shirt, and then grabbed a gun, emotion sitting heavy in her voice. No cool, calm and collected now. No, all that had gone right out the window with her last ounce of common sense, apparently. “We’re going in.”

There was some scrambling, whether to join her or stop her she didn’t know because she didn’t look back as she opened the door to the van.

LOGAN BOLTED ACROSS THE ROOF of the barn, dodging the icy spots and the shadow he’d seen. Not Gaines, but one of his paid goons, coming back from where he’d last spotted Hawk.

He sped up, high-tailing his way toward Hawk, because that’s what they did, they backed each other up. They’d been doing so for years in far tighter jams than this one. And in all that time, he’d never once felt anything but utterly invincible.

But at this moment, all he felt was terror.

Hawk was down.

Rounding a corner of the roof, Logan headed toward a vent. As he crouched down behind it to survey the situation, the air stirred, and he felt a blinding pain in the back of his neck. As he whipped around to fight, he was hit again, by a two-by-four, or so it felt, and then he was flying off the roof toward the ground.

Shit. Now both he and Hawk were down….

THIS WAS RIDICULOUS, ABBY TOLD herself as the cold, icy night slapped her face. She’d taken herself out of the field. She’d vowed that nothing could get her back to it. And yet here she was, off and running at the first sign of trouble because she couldn’t stand the thought of an agent down.

Ken caught up with her, both of them gasping in the shockingly bitter wind. They took the long, winding dirt path up toward the ranch. The place sat on a set of rolling hills that looked deceptively mild and beautiful by day. But by night the area turned almost sinister, steep, rugged and dangerously isolated. Fallen pine needles crunched beneath their feet. The patches of ice were lethal spots of menace that could send them flying, but still they ran.

The wind didn’t help. It was picking up, if that was possible, slicing through to the very bone, kicking up a dusty haze that nothing could cut through, not even the night vision goggles.

When they reached the dark farmhouse, they stopped to draw air into their burning lungs.

“Around the back,” Ken said. “The barn’s around the back.”

She was already moving that way but came to a stop at the corner of the farmhouse, where she had the vantage point of what should have been a woodsy clearing, but with the dark and the driving winds, seemed more like the wilds of Siberia.

She knew the barn lay beyond the trees, but in between there were no lights, no sign of human life. Abby went left, Ken right, both skirting the edges of the clearing, using the trees as cover.

Where was everyone?

As she came through the woods, the barn loomed up ahead, nothing but a black outline against a black sky. And then she saw him.

Hawk.

He was standing, holding his gun pointed at someone standing in the door of the barn.

Abby watched in horror as the gun flashed, and she caught a glimpse of the man he’d aimed at flying backward like a rag doll.

Gaines? Elliot Gaines? What the hell? Why was he here? Everything within her went cold. Had Hawk just shot Gaines?

3

WINNING WAS EVERYTHING. Knowing it, Gaines pushed down harder on Hawk’s windpipe, barely feeling the blood running down his arm. He’d been nicked before, a year and a half ago in Seattle as a matter of fact, while wrestling in the dark with one of his own ATF agents.

Hawk, in fact.

See, that’s what happened when one hired the best, and Hawk was the best of the best. He was a fucking pitbull, and he’d all but publicly promised to stop at nothing until the leader of the Kiddie Bombers was behind bars.

He might as well have signed his own death certificate.

And goddamn, he’d actually gotten a shot off. That was a pisser. But the explosions Gaines’s men had rigged would go off soon, and Hawk would be lost in them. Logan also, because it had become clear tonight that there was no other way.

And though it killed him, Abby, too.

No loose ends.

And there wouldn’t be. Thanks to his crew, which included Watkins working on the inside, everything had been perfectly choreographed. Already Tibbs would have received an anonymous tip that would raise enough questions about Hawk’s “role” in the theft of the rifles from the ATF to enable Tibbs to get a search warrant for Hawk’s place. There he’d find a computer memory stick with Kiddie Bombers’ information, including purchases, sales and contacts, password-protected and encrypted just enough to make it look legit.

Hawk framed, check. Hawk dead, almost check.

And then, retirement time. Good times. The only thing that would have made tonight perfect would have been if he hadn’t been forced to take out Abby. He regretted that, and he’d miss her like hell, but he couldn’t risk the rest of his life for a piece of tail, no matter how badly he wanted that piece.

He was so close now. Close enough to taste it. God, he loved to win. And tonight, he planned to win big. “Got any last-minute prayers?”

EVEN WITH HIS VEST, the after-effects of taking a slug in the chest were brutal. His muscles were spasming, his body twitching, and it was sheer agony to get his limbs to obey his mind. But Hawk managed to grab Gaines’s ankle and yank him to the ground, leveling the playing field, though not by much. Jesus, even his brain hurt, feeling as if it’d been used as a pinball within his skull. Gathering his thoughts was an exercise in futility, but he had to fight off Gaines—then he caught the flicker from within the barn. Flames. Ah, shit, the whole thing was going to—

Blow.

The explosion knocked them both backward. The barn roof blew sky high, catching the grass in the clearing on fire, as well as the trees.

Surrounded. He was surrounded by unrelenting heat, scorching him both inside and out. Gaines came up on his knees, looking like death warmed over as he staggered to his feet, pointing his gun. “You’re hard to kill.”

“So are you.” Hawk’s gaze locked on the dark spot blooming out from the shoulder of Gaines’s jacket. “Missed your black heart, unfortunately. I blame the hit to the chest. Threw me off.”

The smoke rose from behind Gaines’s head, making it look like steam was coming out of his ears.

“It’s going to get worse,” his own personal monster said.

It was true. If Gaines chose to shoot Hawk in the nuts, there was nothing he could do. His body was shit at the moment.

Gaines pointed the gun between Hawk’s eyes.

“Go to hell,” Hawk said.

Gaines grinned. “Tell you what, I’ll meet you there.”

Hawk’s life flashed before his eyes. His parents, gone now, but so proud of him when they’d been alive. Special Forces, where he’d had a good run—no, make that a great run—before moving to ATF.

Another great run.

Until now.

Maybe he should have added some more personal touches to his life’s canvas. A wife. Kids. But he’d always figured there was plenty of time for that.

Helluva time to be wrong. “Do it,” he said, coughing from the smoke. “And die.”

Gaines laughed. “You have no idea how right you are. Now give me your gun.”

Hawk tossed it over, then attempted to keep breathing. Not easy when his chest was still on fire, and actual flames were leaping all around them. He had no idea why he was alive but just in case it didn’t last, he kicked his foot out and again swiped Gaines’s legs from beneath him. They rolled, and he got two strong punches into his superior’s gut before he lost the element of surprise and Gaines clocked him in the jaw, and then his ribs.

Unlike Tibbs, Gaines had no soft middle. He was built like a boxer, one who trained 24/7. On a good day, he’d be a tough opponent in a fight, but tonight, with Hawk in agony, was not a good day. They fought dirty and hard, and the bitch of it was, Hawk had no idea what the hell had happened—why had Gaines come after him? He fisted his hands in Gaines’s shirt, and the material ripped, revealing…

A puckered scar over his collar bone. From a bullet. Goddamn, his proof had just literally appeared. “I did hit you that night,” he breathed. “I did. I fucking hit you.”

“But I lived.” Panting heavily, Gaines grinned. “Guess you need more target practice, huh?”

The heat from the blast and the flames licking at them had sweat streaming into Hawk’s eyes. He couldn’t see anything but Gaines’s face and a wall of flames.

They had to finish this thing off now, one way or another, or they were both going to die. Hawk swiped more sweat from his eyes and gasped to draw air into his taxed lungs. “So running the whole division wasn’t good enough for you, you had to put illegal weapons back on the street? Why didn’t you just kill a bunch of innocent people yourself?”

Gaines’s jaw tightened. He was holding onto his shoulder with his free hand, assuring Hawk that he’d been hurt more than he wanted to show. “I’m going to kill you instead.”

“I’m not dying tonight.”

“We’re both dying tonight. Only difference is that my death’s going to be fake. Well, that and the fact that you’re going out as the bad guy.”

“You’re insane. No one will ever believe that.”

“Abby will.”

Abby. Abby? What the hell did she have to do with this?

“She’s out there, you know.” Gaines jerked his chin in the direction of the clearing.

Hawk was just stunned enough to crane his head and look, but all he saw were those flickering flames coming ever closer, so close he could feel the hairs on his arm singing. “What are you talking about? She’s in the van.” Safe and sound.

God, please let her be in the van, safe and sound.

Gaines shrugged. “Let’s just say the hero worship I’ve built up with her is going to finally pay off for me, however briefly. Along with the news that Tibbs has just discovered evidence that you’ve been running the Kiddie Bombers.” He tsked. “Shame on you.”

Hawk had no idea what the hell Gaines was talking about. He couldn’t see Abby. Hell, he couldn’t see anything beyond the smoke, but Abby wouldn’t leave the van.

And yet he remembered how she’d lost her 1-900 voice when she’d sounded worried about him.

Or so he’d assumed…

He hadn’t survived all he’d survived without seeing the ugly side of human nature. Maybe she hadn’t been worried for him at all, but for Gaines. Ah, God, the thought of her in cahoots with the bad guy put a sharp pain right through him. A new pain, over and above the others, and that was saying something.

“Once Abby realizes I’m here and that I’m missing, she’ll want to save me,” Gaines mocked. “Too little, too late, of course.”