Well, shit. Audrey was right. He had never paid attention to it before, but Quinn was one very sad man. Lost. Drifting. Alone.
And days ago, someone might have used the same words to describe him. Not sad, because while he was no roses and sunshine optimist, he’d always done his best to retain an ounce of humor even when his world looked the bleakest. But drifting, lost, and alone? Oh yeah, he’d been the poster child.
Until Audrey. Odd that he’d find such a solid anchor in a woman most people considered flighty.
Of course, her anchoring effect was only temporary. Despite her confession of love—yeah, he’d been out of it, but he’d heard that nonsense loud and clear—he had no illusions that whatever he and Audrey had would last past the end of this mission. They hadn’t talked of a long-term commitment, or short-term for that matter, and even if they wanted to give it a go, she lived in Costa Rica, which was three-thousand-plus miles from his home in D.C. How would that work?
Quinn cleared his throat, wiped a hand over his face, then finally looked at Gabe. “You should be lying down.”
“Nah. I’m fine.”
“Gabe, you were shot.”
“Believe me, I know. How bad was it?”
“All considering, Jesse said it should have been worse. It tore up some muscle, but missed all your vital organs and only needed stitching. You got lucky. An inch over would’ve been a direct gut shot. His biggest concern was the amount of blood you lost, which is why you need this.”
Quinn grabbed the bag of blood from Gabe’s hand and returned it to the IV pole. He eyed the two other disconnected IV lines, but said nothing about them. “So don’t fuck around with this until it’s gone.”
Hearing how close he came to death, Gabe sat on the edge of the bed. Better not to press his luck any further. “Where’s Audrey?”
“She’s in the waiting room down the hall. She didn’t want to leave your side and threw one hell of a hissy fit until Jesse poured a mild sedative into her.”
Ha. He’d have paid to see his men handle one of Audrey’s hissy fits.
Quinn was looking at him with an odd expression. He shoved aside thoughts of Audrey. “What’s wrong?”
“You.” He frowned. “You’re…different.”
“I’ve been hiked all over Hell, beat to a shit, and shot. Yeah, I’m not exactly in top form.”
“No. You’re…” He made a rolling motion with his hand as if looking for the right word, but then gave up and glanced toward the hallway. “What’s with you and her?”
Ah. That’s what this was about. Probably should have seen it coming. Since he hadn’t, he’d blame whatever was in those IV bags for addling his brain. “Nothing.”
“Did you fuck her?”
“Jesus Christ.” Anger exploded inside Gabe, so hot, so primal, that it took him by complete surprise. He didn’t get angry. Or if he did, he converted it into cool motivation. Always calm, unflappable, a rock, a stone wall.
But he definitely wasn’t feeling very stone-like right now and rolled his hands into fists in the sheet on either side of his hips to keep from hitting something. Or someone.
“Don’t go there, Q.”
Quinn stared back, unrepentant. “It’s a legit concern. For all we know about her, she could be behind her brother’s kidnapping.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“No, I don’t. And neither do you.”
Silence stretched taut between them. Gabe didn’t care what Quinn thought. He knew down to his bones Audrey didn’t have it in her to mastermind something like this, nor did she have the connections to do it, and he was not budging. Neither, it appeared, was Quinn. So they could sit here trying to stare each other down and waste time, or move on to another more relevant topic.
Gabe bit the bullet and spoke first, even as he inwardly continued to seethe. “Are we in Bogotá?”
After a second more of stubborn silence, Quinn nodded. “Affirmative.”
“The address I gave you. You check it out?”
“We have visual confirmation that Jacinto Rivera is staying there with an as-of-yet unknown kid of about sixteen,” Quinn said, sliding flawlessly from the role of concerned best friend to XO giving his superior officer a sitrep. “Harvard’s checking into the property, but he’s running in circles chasing aliases and dummy corporations. Whoever owns that house does not want it known. We never would have found it. We just don’t have good enough equipment. Or enough manpower.”
Something Gabe planned to fix. If they were going to do this whole private contractor thing, they were going to do it right from now on. No more of these half-assed, trial-by-fire missions.