Fire Burns Hot ((An FBI/ Romance Thriller~ (Book 5))) (75 page)

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Julian grabbed some coffee from the break room for him and Elizabeth. When he arrived a few minutes earlier, he found her pacing her office. She looked worn down and on the edge of falling asleep. Maybe coffee would help.

“Here you go,” he said, handing her a cup. “What can I help you with?” Julian offered.

“I feel like we’re missing something. I’m going to eat as soon as the men return and then re-read the files. Why aren’t you with Tori?” she asked.

“I think it’s over between us. She’s pulling away from me.” Julian didn’t know why he spilled it to her. It just came out.

Elizabeth could hear the pain in his voice. “What can I do to help?” she asked, wanting them to both be happy.

“Are you shipping her to Walter Reed?” he asked, suddenly.

Honestly, she didn’t have a return call on a vacancy anywhere yet. “I don’t know.”

“Could you get her into a facility around here?”

The pure pain on his face was making her want to cry for him. “I’ll do everything I can.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“Julian, do you want me to talk to her? Say something to maybe help her out?”

He shook his head. “I need her to decide if she wants to be with me, Elizabeth. I need her to come to me now. I’ve done all I can, and I told her how I feel. I don’t want her to be forced. Please just stay out of it. I appreciate you wanting to help, but if it’s not meant to be, then you can’t push it.”

“What will you do
, Julian?”

“When this is over I’m going home.
I’ll get my paycheck and leave until the next time you hire me. I have a life there and I need to start living it. I want her with me, but she’s not ready.”

“Will you wait for her until she is?” Elizabeth began formulating what
she could do to help them both, despite Julian asking her to not intervene.

“I love her more than anything. I’ll wait the rest of my
life for her to figure this out, but I have pride too. I can’t crawl if there’s no hope. If I had one little sign that she loved me, I’d kiss my ego goodbye.”

Elizabeth hugged him. “Don’t worry Julian. Have faith,” she said, offering him comfort.

“I do. It’s all I have right now,” he said, hugging her back. “Now, what can I help you with?” he asked again, changing the subject.

Elizabeth glanced back at the board. “Can you look over the tox reports again for me?”

“I can do that,” he said, grabbing the files and taking a seat at her desk.

“We’re back,” said Blackhawk from the doorway.

Elizabeth turned smiling, and then saw the mess they both were. “What the hell?” she said. Her mouth hung open as she crossed the room to them both. “Was there an accident?” she suddenly felt sick.

“There was an incident at the police station,” began Whitefox, grinning.

Looking back and forth at the two of them, she noticed they both had cut lips, Callen’s cheek was red and swelling and Ethan’s dress shirt had a tear in it.

“Oh my God, you had a fight.”

Both men started laughing.

“I’ll go get some ice,” offered Julian. He had a feeling there was going to be another fight at any moment, and he didn’t want to witness a murder.

“Did you both do this to each other?” Elizabeth was appalled.

Blackhawk grinned. “Hell no, baby. We had a run in with four cops.”

She stared at him. “You need to explain that, Ethan,” she said, first going to Callen and checking his face. “Oh, Cal. You’re a mess,” Elizabeth said, kissing his lower lip gently, and then dropping a kiss to his cheek.

“If you think we look bad, you should see Detective Leto and his beefy friends.”

Elizabeth turned to her husband and hugged him. “Are you okay, Ethan?” she asked, running her fingers across his lip.

“Yeah baby, we’re good. Just a little banged up.”

“Good, because I’m going to kill Detective Leto,” she stated, angrily.

“No you’re not,
angel,” interjected Callen. “We were defending our woman’s honor. You aren’t killing anyone. Let the men handle this one.”

She stared at him. “This was all about me?”

Both men laughed. “You think we run around getting into brawls in parking lots, at night, in the dark for just any old reason?” Blackhawk placed the Chinese food down on her desk.

“You beat the hell out of four men to defend my honor?”

“Yep,” they said at the same time.

Elizabeth was ridiculously touched by that. She should be very angry, but how could she get mad when the men were protecting her.

She went up on her toes and kissed Ethan gently. The kiss was filled with so much love for him. Her warrior deserved that moment as a reward. Slowly, Elizabeth broke the kiss. “Thank you, Ethan,” she whispered.

He grinned, surprised she didn’t get angry. “Any time,
baby.”

Next she went to Callen, and did the same thing. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground in one of their hugs, as she kissed him. Breaking away she smiled at him. “My heroes.”

“Just so you know, my guys were bigger,” he added.

Blackhawk snorted as he stripped out of his destroyed suit jacket.

“Oh well then.” She kissed him again.

“You know he’s full of shit, right?” stated Blackhawk laughing.

Elizabeth ended the kiss and patted his unbruised cheek. “Yeah, I know.”

Julian came back in with two ice packs. “Here you go,” he said, tossing them to the men. “I hope you look better than the other guys.”

Blackhawk laughed. “They were lying on the ground, so yeah, we came out of this on top.”

Callen grinned. “Ethan broke Leto’s arm
as a parting gift. He’s going to be out of work for a long time.”

She stared open mouthed.

“What?” he asked, looking around.

Elizabeth started laughing. Now she knew how both men felt every time she did something like this. The shoe was on the other foot. “Nothing, Ethan,” she
continued laughing, as she left the room and gathered a new shirt for Ethan from his stash in his closet, and one for Callen from his closet. Both men were a mess. When she came back they were taking Chinese out of the bag.

“Julian you want some?” Blackhawk offered.

“No, I ate but thank you.”

Elizabeth handed the men their shirts. “Toss the ruined ones, boys.”

Both men began stripping and Elizabeth tried to not focus on them, but it was incredibly hard. Pregnancy hormones started firing and right then and there she wanted to climb over both of them.

Hell!

Blackhawk started laughing, knowing what his wife was thinking. “You should eat, Lyzee,” he stated, trying to distract her. She was staring at the black raven tattooed on his chest, and the look in her eyes was unmistakable. He’d seen it before when she was pregnant with CJ.

Her focus shifted to Callen and his body. He was just as delicious as Ethan, and t
he room suddenly got very warm, as eyes wandered down his body.

Callen winked
, as he slowly buttoned his shirt. He sincerely wished Julian wasn’t there at that moment. He’d let her climb all over him willingly. Thank God for her sex drive.

Elizabeth sat on the couch with her Chinese food and the file from Captain Gilman
, trying to focus on anything but the men. “Shit, the ME report needs to be translated,” she muttered, looking at her watch. It was too late to bother Chris. First thing in the morning he was going to have to stop at her office and decipher it.

“How bad is it?” asked Whitefox sitting beside her closely. When she rested her hand on his thigh and leaned against him, his whole body tensed.

“I can understand the drawings and about thirty percent of the medical talk.” Elizabeth closed the file and started eating her food.

“You should eat and then crash on the couch for a while, Lyzee. Once Chris comes in we’ll start back up early.” Ethan suggested. “Julian, you can crash on Callen’s couch.”

The man nodded. “Thanks,” he said, standing up. “Can I take a few of these files in case I can’t sleep?”

“Absolutely,” answered Elizabeth. “Have at them. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will help me out.”

Julian sauntered away and closed the door.

“He looks
like hell,” muttered Blackhawk, “which is funny since we’re the ones that had the fist fight.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yeah, he’s having woman issues.
Unrequited love on Tori’s behalf,” she added. “He’s already stated he’s going home when this is all over.”

“What about her?”

Elizabeth leaned her head on Callen’s shoulder. “I plan on stacking the deck.”

Blackhawk watched his wife
, lifting a brow. “What are you planning on doing?”

She shrugged. “I’m going to get her into a VA hospital as close to Julian as possible, and just trust that love will figure it all out.”

“You’re such a hopeless romantic,” grinned Whitefox.

“
Everyone deserves love, and I hope they figure it out.” Elizabeth handed her take out to Callen.

The men sat there eating in silence. Blackhawk was flipping through the files. When he glanced up, he noticed Elizabeth was asleep on his brother’s shoulder. His heart skipped in his chest.
Ethan tapped Callen on the leg and pointed. “Let’s keep working and let her sleep for a while,” he whispered.

His brother handed him his food, and gently slid down the couch, letting her head rest in his lap. Gently he stroked her hair. “We need to find something for her,” Callen said, worrying about her.

“We will,” reassured his brother. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

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He paced his living room wondering what to do next. The place where he liked to get his women from was now off limits. The FBI was onto him. Now his choices were limited. He needed to make amends for screwing this one up too. Had she not hit the dumpster so hard, maybe they wouldn’t have come running and right now he’d be enjoying himself.

But no. It was all starting to unravel. Then there was the fire ax. He left it there purposely, to point the suspicion away from him.

He had a plan, and tomorrow he’d take care of it. But first he had one person to take care of before then. It shouldn’t take long; after all, the man was an idiot.

It was time to get rid of
the loose end and toss him to the wolves.

Yeah, he was more than ready.

                                *    *     *

Tossing and turning, she clutched the bed sheets in her hands. The dreams were back, and the skeleton Quinn was there too. He was leading them through the streets of the tiny desert town. Again she followed him and listened to his babble.

“You need to get as far away from him as possible,” he said, aiming his M4 at all the slight sounds.

“What if I don’t want to leave him?”

Quinn laughed. “Don’t you get it? You’re a disaster Tori. You cost me my life. You’re going to cost him his too. It’s only a matter of time.”

She said nothing back, because it was probably the truth.

“Your best bet is to walk away and let the man find someone that isn’t fucked up.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

The insurgent rounded the corner and looked right at her. This time she was slow, and the bullet hit her in the chest. Gone was her Kevlar, and all the pain washed over her as she realized the bullet hit her heart.

“What’s wrong Tori? Does your heart hurt?” inquired Quinn, laughing. “It’s about time you felt some pain for all the hurt you’ve caused everyone.”

Tori closed her eyes and didn’t speak. Why fight with a dead man over lies.

She knew
pain; she was living it every second of every day.

Quinn’s sick laughter jolted her
awake and her hand went to her chest to make sure it was a dream. Lying back against her pillows she let the tears come.

Now she could cry, because she was alone and no one would know the truth.

The cold hard fact was that Victoria Christensen was destined to die alone.

~
Chapter twenty ~

Thursday
Morning

The rest of the night Tori paced her house like a caged tiger. All she really wanted to do was call Julian and talk to him, but she knew it was better this way. Hell even dead skeleton Quinn knew it was for the best.

Just the fact she was having conversations and justifying a figment of her dreams was proof. Tori needed help and soon.

Dropping onto the couch she closed her eyes and thought back to the space behind ‘
The Pussy Cat Club’
, when she opened the back door. Ethan had asked her if she remembered anything, saw anything, or smelled anything.