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  The valet arrived with our monstrosity-mobile, Nick handed him a hundred-dollar bill, and then checked the trunk, the back seats, the front end, knelt and glanced at the undercarriage, even popped the hood to examine the engine.

  "The truck is clean, babe. I'm not saying we're home free, because Vitaly's not dead. But we're okay for now. All right?" He dropped the hood with a loud slam and brushed his hands on the front of his jeans.

  Time distorted then.

  I felt my blood thicken and slow, and my heart stop. My eyes lifted as if in slow motion.

  Vitaly was walking toward me. Arm extended. Huge silver pistol in his hand, eyes dark and cold and deadly.

  Stupidly, my last thought as Vitaly pulled the trigger was: Well...fuck.

  18

  THROUGH-AND-THROUGH

  I heard the BLAM! as if through a cloud of cotton: dense, distant, muffled, thunderous.

  I braced for an impact that never came.

  BLAMBLAM!--BLAMBLAM!

  Harris fell in slow motion to the ground at my feet. Bleeding.

  People were screaming, but I barely noticed.

  Vitaly was stumbling backward, pistol hanging down, blood welling in four spots on his chest, clustered in a tight group dead center, right over his sternum.

  Harris, one large scarlet flower blooming wet over his heart. On his knees, one hand flat on the ground, head held up, right hand leveling his pistol at Vitaly. Harris's whole body shook, but his gun hand was steady as a rock. BLAM! Vitaly's left shoulder jerked backward, spouting red.

  Vitaly turned in a clumsy circle, pistol dangling at his thigh, and ran in a lurch. No one stopped him, and he vanished around a corner.

  Sirens howled.

  Harris twisted, his elbow giving out, and he fell. He landed awkwardly, on his face and his side. He was bleeding front and back.

  "NICK!" I heard myself scream, and felt myself fall to my knees beside him.

  It was all happening in slow motion, and as if it was happening to someone else. I felt nothing, just vacant, numb, disbelieving. Outwardly, however, I was hysterical. Shrieking. Screaming. Sobbing.

  "Lay--Layla." Harris gasped. "Shut...shut the fuck up."

  I took his head onto my lap and stroked his face. "Nick. You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay."

  "I--I know." He handed me his phone. "Call...Thresh."

  Things happened to me, around me: an ambulance arrived and I was pried away from Nick--it took four men to get me away. I was piled into the ambulance, and two men in the blue paramilitary medic uniforms were operating on Nick, doing something to his back and then his front, trying to stop the bleeding.

  I felt the phone in my hand, stared at it blankly. What was I supposed to do with this? Nick was unconscious.

  Oh yeah, call Thresh.

  I found his name under "favorites" and called him. It rang twice.

  "Thresh," came his chasmic voice.

  "Thresh...It's Nick. They shot Nick. He--Vitaly. He shot Nick."

  A pause. "Who the hell is Nick?"

  I felt something hot and violent erupt inside me. "HARRIS! NICHOLAS HARRIS! Your fucking boss! Nicholas goddamned Harris, you fucking ape!"

  "His name is Nick?" Thresh seemed truly baffled. "Huh."

  "THRESH!"

  He sounded utterly unmoved. "Is he okay?"

  "No, he's not fucking okay!" I screamed. "He's dying! He took--it was--Vitaly was trying to kill me, and Nick--Harris, he--"

  "That's what he does. It's who he is." I heard a motorcycle engine roar to life. "Have you gotten him medical attention?"

  "Yes, I'm in an ambulance right now."

  "Where are you? Are you in Miami?"

  "Yes, we're--" I turned to one of the medics. "Where are we going? Which hospital?"

  "Jackson Memorial," came the terse answer.

  "We're going to--" I started to relay.

  "I heard. I'm ten minutes away. I'll meet you there." The sound of the chopper engine being feathered. "Layla, did Harris get him?"

  "Yes. He shot him five times. Four in the chest, one in the shoulder."

  "Did he drop? Did you see Vitaly die?"

  "No--he...he got away. He was shot five times, though. Could he--? He couldn't survive that, could he?"

  "Never count a man dead unless you watch him die with your own eyes." Thresh could have been discussing his breakfast cereal preference. "Look, I'm gonna let you go. I'll see you in ten minutes. And Layla? Harris is the toughest motherfucker I've ever met. One puny little bullet won't stop him for long. Okay? He'll be fine. He's survived worse."

  "It went straight through. He's bleeding from the chest and the back."

  "That's better, actually. It means the bullet isn't stuck inside him and didn't fragment. That's when shit gets nasty. A through-and-through is good news. Unless it stops his heart on the spot, fucking nothing will kill that man. I'm not worried at all."

  "You're not the one watching him bleed."

  "I have, though. I carried him over my shoulder fifty miles through the fucking rainforest, with a bullet lodged in his gut. He was screaming bloody murder the whole way because the stomach acid was eating at the wound. I got fucking malaria carrying his bleeding carcass to a doctor. I know how it feels. And I know he'll be fine. All right. Goodbye, Layla. I'll see you in a few minutes." Click.

  I don't know what happened next. It was all a jumble of images: the medics tending to Harris, doing whatever it was they had to do to keep him alive, Harris being pulled out of the ambulance, the clatter-clack of the stretcher's wheels locking open and into place. A hallway. A doctor--who looked all of twelve--in a lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck and those weird bent medical scissors attached to his nametag lanyard. ER-style urgent medical shouting, something about BP and a single GSW and I didn't know what else. Doors closing in my face, hospital security trying to keep me out of the operating room, four or six pairs of hands holding me back as I screamed bloody murder.

  Finally, huge paws, a giant's hands. Lifting me bodily, easily. Cradling me in burly arms like a baby, carrying me away. "Easy now, girl. They gotta fix him. I'm here. I won't let anything happen. To you, or to him. He's going to be okay. I promise." Thresh's voice in my ear was the rumble of diesel engine heard from far away, a grumbling trembling bass thunder.

  I went limp and let him set me on a chair in the emergency room waiting area, hard plastic under my ass. I fell asleep against Thresh's mountainous shoulder.

  After an endless time--two or three hours at least--the same young doctor approached, looking tired and a lot older than my first estimation. He had to be sixteen, at least. He took a seat beside me. "Miss Campari?"

  "That's me." I sat up, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms.

  "Mr. Harris is going to be okay. He's got a long road ahead of him, a lot of healing to do. He won't be going anywhere for a long time, and he may never operate at the same capacity as he used to, but he'll live. Of course, judging based on the sheer number of scars on his body, not to mention his rather astounding medical record, he's an insanely tough human being. So I would guess he'll probably make a liar out of me. I'm hoping he will."

  "Can I see him?"

  Thresh spoke up. "There's only one correct answer here, Doc." His voice carried a hard note of warning.

  The doctor hesitated a moment, regarding Thresh coolly. "He's resting at the moment. But if you promise to not disturb him, I don't see why you couldn't be in the room with him." He stood. "This way, please."

  We followed the doctor through a maze of hallways, the antiseptic smell acrid in my nostrils, steady beeping coming from the rooms we passed; a male nurse in pale blue scrubs ran past us, dodging nimbly around us. The doctor stopped at a room, pulled open the sliding glass door, and tugged aside the curtain, revealing Harris in a bed, clad in a loose hospital gown.

  I collapsed into the chair at his side, fighting tears at the sight of him: he had an oxygen cannula in his nose, an IV taped to his arm, a thin
white blanket across his lower half. His right cheek had a bandage on it where he'd scraped it when he hit the pavement.

  "He doesn't belong here. This is all wrong." I wasn't sure what I meant even as I said it.

  "No, he doesn't," Thresh answered. "But when he took the bullet to the stomach, they said he would need something like six months to heal. He was on his feet and running three miles within six weeks. Shouldn't have been possible, but Harris is...I swear he's not even human. The things I've seen him just shrug off like nothing would crush lesser men."

  "He's saved my life so many times already. He has to be okay."

  Thresh was quiet for a moment, waiting for the doctor to leave us alone. When he was gone, Thresh circled to the other side of the bed and stood staring down at Harris. "When we were in the Rangers, we had a mission go belly-up. Just totally FUBAR. All our intel was wrong. We got ambushed, our unit was taking heavy casualties. He and I were pinned down, and I took three rounds. I was bleeding out, helpless. He returned fire and managed to slow the bleeding at the same time. And then he stood over my body and fought off the tangos, fucking twenty of them. Depleted mags, switched to his sidearm. And then he stood there over my body for the next sixty hours waiting for S-and-R to find us. Fuck of it all was the mission was off the books. Volunteer only. Never happened. He should have gotten a Medal of Honor for that shit, but no one will ever know about it. The guys who never went home, only their wives and parents even remember their names."

  "What was the mission?"

  "Terrorists were holed up in an orphanage. Had a whole bunch of kids held hostage." Thresh went silent for a moment. "We went in HALO insertion. Hit the ground weapons-free, immediately started taking fire. We lost three-quarters of the unit on that SNAFU, but we took down every single fucking one of those piece-of-shit motherfuckers. I personally double-tapped each one, just to make sure they were really dead. We thought we were home free, but the ambush hit us at the EZ. That's when I took the hits. The helo ate a rocket, leaving us stranded and surrounded. Which is when it got real fucking hairy. Harris is the only reason I'm here. And I will stand outside this room until we can move him somewhere off the grid."

  I had no idea what most of that even meant. Weapons-free, SNAFU, double-tapped, EZ...military mumbo-jumbo. What it meant, at the bottom of it all, was that Harris was a hero. I knew that, though. And I knew I felt better knowing Thresh was loyal to the death, and would be standing outside.

  "You know how to get hold of Roth?" I asked.

  Thresh grunted a wordless assent. "Already did. He and Kyrie are en route. Alexei and Sasha are with them. With Vitaly wounded, we should be fine for a while. But I'm not taking any chances."

  "I want that man dead," I snarled.

  "All of us do. He's caused enough trouble. All of us are loyal to Harris, so hurting him was a big mistake. They woke the beast. Once we get you, Harris, and Kyrie and Roth somewhere safe, the shit's gonna get real fucking ugly for Vitaly."

  "I'll help you. Shit, I'll pull the trigger myself."

  Thresh eyed me with respect. "I believe you." He glanced down at Harris, and then headed toward the door. "I got calls to make. I'll be right outside. No one gets in without talking to me first, and showing me their orders. You rest. Your only job for right now is to be there for him. Got it?"

  I could only nod.

  When Thresh was gone, I took Harris's hand in both of mine, leaned back in my chair, and watched him sleep. Watched the heart monitor, the oxygen machine huffing and pumping, his chest rising and falling, mouth slack, stubble darkening his jaw.

  Eventually, a nurse showed up and moved us to a recovery room. I resumed my station at his side, his hand in mine, fighting sleep and tears.

  Eventually, exhaustion won out.

  19

  WORTH IT

  I jerked awake, hearing Thresh's deep voice just inside the door. He had his cell phone on speaker and looked at me as he spoke. "Sasha. Talk to me."

  "I hear chatter on police radio. A man was found with many gunshot wounds, not yet dead. No identification, not able to communicate. He is at the university hospital."

  "Take care of it."

  "How?"

  "I don't fucking care. However you want. Just take care of it. Da, comrade?"

  "You are stupid gorilla," Sasha growled. "I am from Georgia, not Russia. "

  "You sound Russian," Thresh pointed out.

  "I speak Georgian, Russian, Armenian, Arabic, and English. I serve in the Russian Army for ten years, so I speak Russian most frequently."

  "You speak five languages?" Thresh sounded grudgingly respectful. "I'll have to pick up another language so we're even."

  "Americans are lazy. You expect everyone to learn your language, but most of you do not even speak it properly. Is embarrassing."

  "Can't argue with you there. Get going. Give our friend Hell's welcome."

  "I will get kill bonus?" This was so low I barely heard it.

  "You get this done, Roth will give you a bonus so fucking huge your kids' kids will have more money than they'll know what to do with."

  "I would do it for free. But I still want the bonus."

  "No shit. You'll get it. And Sasha? I need photographic proof of completion. There's no room for error with this one."

  "I do not fail."

  "I know, buddy. That's why I'm sending you." He tapped the screen to end the call, shot me another glance, and then went back outside to stand guard.

  I glanced at Harris, and saw that he was awake, sort of. Looking at me. He squeezed my hand, once, weakly, and then fell back asleep. I wondered if he'd heard any of that.

  *

  When I woke next, Harris was sitting up, awake, and spooning the last of a pudding cup into his mouth. Roth was sitting in the chair on the other side of the bed, Kyrie standing behind him, her hand on his shoulder.

  "Layla! You're awake!" Kyrie rushed around the bed and I barely had time to stand up before she slammed into me, arms going around my neck. "I was so worried, hooker. I never thought I'd see you again."

  "Sorry to disappoint you, slutty-buns." I peeled her off of me, and then kissed her cheek. "I was worried you wouldn't see me again, too. For a minute. And then Nick found me and everything was fine."

  "Nick? Who's Nick?" Kyrie asked.

  Thresh, standing just inside the door again, laughed. "That's what I said!"

  I rolled my eyes, and gestured at Harris. "He's Nick. To me, at least."

  Kyrie eyed me with suspicion. "Nick? Since when do you call Harris Nick?"

  Harris was suspiciously silent, studiously scraping every last drop of chocolate pudding out of the cup. I poked his leg. "You want to tell them...babe?"

  He shook his head. "Nope. It's all you."

  Kyrie and Roth exchanged perplexed glances.

  "Tell us what?" Roth asked. "What's going on, Harris?"

  Harris shrugged. "Nothing."

  I glared at him. "Nothing? Fucking really?"

  He glared back. "I don't owe anybody any explanations as to who I fall in love with."

  Kyrie shrieked so loud we all flinched. "I knew it! I FUCKING KNEW IT!" She collided with me again, squeezing me so hard my breath left me and I saw stars. "Tell me everything! How long has this been going on?"

  "Calm your ass down, bitch." I untangled myself from her arms. "Strangle me, and I won't be able to tell you dick."

  "Sorry. Sorry. I'm just excited. I knew you and Harris had a little somethin'-somethin' going on. This is awesome!"

  I took Harris's hand and twined our fingers together, and wonder of wonders, he let me. Right there, in front of both Kyrie and Roth and Thresh. "It was kind of a surprise for both of us."

  "I had to all but club you over the head to get you to admit you even liked me," Harris said.

  I shrugged. "I may be easy, but I'm not an easy person to like."

  He growled at me. "You're not easy."

  "Not any more. At least, not for anyone but you."

&
nbsp; Roth wiped his face with both hands. "I feel like I've fallen through the rabbit hole into Wonderland."

  At that moment, we heard the door open and Thresh speaking in low tones to someone on the other side. "I hear what you're saying, Doc. We'll let him rest. But this is important."

  "He shouldn't even have one visitor," a female voice said, sounding frustrated, "let alone four. And just because you're a fucking giant doesn't mean you can tell me what to do in my ward."

  "Actually, it kind of does. You don't have enough security guards in this entire building to handle me. Which means when I say it'll be fine, it'll be fine. Our meeting will be over in a few minutes and we'll all leave him to rest. All right?"

  "Shit." This was mumbled, exasperated and defeated. "Fine. But you all need face masks and you have to sanitize your hands. His immune system is weak right now. The last thing he needs is to catch something from one of you."

  "Chuck Norris doesn't get a cold, the cold gets Chuck Norris."

  "What?" She sounded utterly puzzled.

  "Nothing. It's a joke. Never mind. We'll wash our fucking hands, okay?"

  "Face masks too. Or I'll shoot your giant ass with an elephant tranquilizer and drag you out of here myself."

  "I've been shot with an elephant tranquilizer, actually. It just got me high. Kind of fun actually. You wanna try that, you'll need two or three." I heard the grin in his voice. "And babe, you want to drag me out of here, you won't need a tranquilizer. It'll be more fun if I'm conscious anyway."

  "Jesus. You're a piece of work, you know that?"

  "Been told that, yes."

  "I'm going to lunch. When I come back in thirty minutes, I want this room clear. Or we really will see how many security guards it takes to subdue your freakishly oversized carcass."

  "Honey--"

  "You say one damn word about bondage, and I'll stab you with my shears."

  Thresh just chuckled. "We'll be gone in fifteen minutes. You have my word."

  "You'd better be." And then she and Thresh left the room.

  The door opened once more, admitting Thresh with Sasha behind him. Thresh had a handful of paper masks, which he handed to everyone, and then made us all use the hand sanitizing foam from the dispenser just inside the door. Thresh took up position in front of the door, and Sasha moved into the interior of the room, standing at the front of the bed near Harris.