“I need you to read her,” Ian ordered, his words cutting across my moment of hopeful happiness. “Tell me what she was thinking when she died.”
“Fuck you,” Nicky snapped, his expression going deadly. “She’s not doing shit for you. If you wanted to know what Sophia had in her head, you shouldn’t have killed her.”
“She attacked us,” Ian said, his tone infuriatingly reasonable. “I couldn’t allow her to kill my men.”
“What the hell are you doing here, Ian?” I spat.
“Same thing you were, I imagine,” he smirked. “Oh, yes. I saw you sitting there in the woods. Nice try, though.” He blinked at me expectantly. “Now, the tigress?”
“Not until you show her the respect she deserves,” I insisted, squaring my shoulders. “I’ll call in the FMA to take care of her and the guards I’m assuming you knocked off to get to her, and then I’ll read her.”
Ian’s lips flattened in an angry line, but he forced a smile and inclined his head. “Very well then.”
I tried calling Red first, but the call went to her voice mail and I hung up before leaving her a message. I tried Al next, and he picked up on the first ring. “Hi, Al,” I said, sniffing when the sound of his steady voice brought tears to my own. “I need a team out at Tim Halloran’s place.” I pegged Ian with a furious glare. “His girlfriend Sophia was murdered by the Agency.”
“Murdered?” Ian hissed, as I pocketed my phone, not having waited to hear Al’s response. “I told you—I had no choice!”
I ignored him and squatted down by Sophia. I hadn’t known the tigress. Hadn’t really even liked her when we’d chatted with her in Halloran’s study. But as I looked down at her now, I felt such a weight of sadness, it nearly knocked me on my ass. She didn’t deserve to be gunned down by these Agency assholes. No one did. And as I gently tilted her head toward me and looked into her eyes, a horrible foreboding began to creep just beneath my skin, making my muscles twitch with apprehension. I tried to shove the feeling aside and waited for the connection to begin with Sophia’s mind, but it didn’t come.
“That’s weird,” I muttered. I shifted positions and tilted her head at a slightly different angle. But had the same result. She was completely and totally blocked from my sight. I shook my head a little, trying to clear my own muddled thoughts, but the movement cost me my balance, and the next thing I knew, I was face-down in the snow again.
Nicky was there in an instant, helping me back to my feet. “You all right, doll?”
I tried to nod, but I swayed again. “Shit. I guess not.”
“That’s it, I’m getting you to the hospital,” he informed me, bending to scoop me up into his arms. As much as I would’ve loved the whole romantic carry and snuggle back to the Escalade, I wasn’t about to leave Sophia in the Agency’s clutches. I wiggled out of his hold, dropping back to my feet.
“I can’t leave yet,” I told him.
“Trish—”
“I’m not leaving her, Nicky,” I insisted, blinking rapidly to try to bring him back into focus.
“Nicky?” Ian repeated, a smug grin slowly curving his mouth. “Nicky Blue?”
Nicky eyed him warily, his muscles visibly tensing, preparing for a brawl. “In the flesh.”
Ian pegged me with that cocky grin that I’d once, in a brief moment of weakness and profound naïveté, found so charming but which now turned my stomach. He jerked his thumb at Nicky. “So, this is the guy you were talking about in your sleep?”
My eyes went wide, but before I could really sink into my humiliation and get all comfy, Nicky snapped, “How the hell do you know she talks in her sleep?”
Ian’s grin widened, and he shoved his hands in his pockets, puffing his chest out a little. “You didn’t know I fucked her?”
“Shut up, you bastard!” I hissed, my heart shattering at the look of shock on Nicky’s face.
“Oh, yeah,” Ian drawled, apparently reveling in my complete and utter mortification. “I totally hit that.”
I grabbed Nicky’s arm and tried to pull him away, but he was anchored where he stood, his expression taking on a deadly look that frightened me a little, but apparently had no effect on Ian, who leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “She might look innocent, my man, but she’s a freak for it. You get a piece of that sweet ass yet?”
Nicky struck lightning-fast. His arm shot out, his hand grasping Ian by the throat and lifting him from his feet before he slammed him down on the hood of his car. Ian kicked wildly, clawing at Nicky’s hand around his throat, ripping into Nicky’s skin, but Nicky didn’t even flinch. He narrowed his eyes at Ian, the rage in his expression twisting his features into a frightening mask. And for one brief moment, he was unrecognizable to me.
“Nicky, let him go,” I said, trying to pull his hand away from Ian’s throat. But his fingers only tightened. Ian’s lips were beginning to turn an alarming shade of blue. “Nicky!”
He suddenly released the Ordinary and took a step back, pegging Ian with a murderous glare, letting him know that he’d take him down in a second if the asshole pissed him off again. “Apologize to her,” Nicky hissed. “Right. Fucking. Now.”
Ian coughed and sputtered and sent an unrepentant glare Nicky’s way. “Go to hell.”
Nicky took a menacing step forward, sending Ian stumbling backward into the car’s grill. “Wanna try again, dickhead?”
Ian’s mouth twisted into a furious frown, but then he straightened to his full height and smoothed his sleeves to regain his composure before forcing a mirthless grin. He inclined his head toward me briefly before grinding out, “Forgive me, Trish. What I said was in poor taste.” Then he gestured to his men. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We’re not going to get anything from these stiffs.”
I managed to stay on my feet long enough to watch the Agency bastards pile into their vehicles and take off. But the second they were out of sight, the world seemed to shift, and I listed, throwing out my arms to catch myself this time. Luckily, another set of arms was there to keep me from hitting the ground. And this time when Nicky scooped me up, I didn’t protest. I rested my head against his chest, suddenly so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
Nicky gave me a little shake. “Stay awake, doll. You need to keep those pretty eyes open. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded even as my lids began to drift closed again.
“Trish,” he said, jostling me again. “Wake up. Come on.”
“Can’t,” I muttered, alarmed to hear my words slurring. “So tired . . .” He somehow managed to get the car door open and set me inside, buckling me in. I squinted at him, trying hard to stay coherent. “So sick . . . of getting my head knocked around.” I lifted some of my curls out of the way to show him the scar on my forehead from where one of Sebille’s followers had slammed my head into the dashboard of his car last fall and split my skull open. It would’ve been a deadly blow if Sebille hadn’t healed me just so she could try to kill me later.
Nicky smoothed his thumb over the scar, a soft look coming into eyes that had been murderous just minutes before. Then his hand cupped my face and his thumb smoothed across my cheek.
“You’re bleeding,” I murmured, catching a glimpse of a thin trickle of crimson where Ian had clawed at the back of his hand.
Nicky shook his head. “It’s nothin’, doll. Don’t worry about it.”
“Put pressure on it,” I murmured, reaching into my coat pocket and pulling out the handkerchief I kept there, too foggy to realize what I’d grabbed until Nicky had already taken it from me.
He grinned a little as he smoothed his thumb over the NB monogram. “Where’d you get this?”
I narrowed my eyes as he went all fuzzy on me. “From you,” I told him, suddenly feeling a little nauseated. I closed my eyes. “You gave it to me that day in my lab.”