Redemption Read online

  Then Zach had to go and get himself nearly killed!

  Damn him for tearing her in half a second time! Damn him for everything he was! Damn him and all his lies and smiles and—she sobbed—damn him for making her love him and hate him as passionately.

  She didn’t want to feel any more. Especially for Zach.

  She stepped closer. His handsome face was swollen and bruised. Small cuts dotted his forehead. His right hand was wrapped in a soft cast. Several different bags hung from a pole and dripped into the IV stuck into the back of his right hand.

  Jammed into his throat was a life-giving trach tube. All she had to do was reach over and slowly pull it out. Take his life. As he had hers. Watch him slowly suffocate. As she had.

  Could she?

  Three years of pushing down her anger, her frustration, her heartbreak, reared. Yeah, she could do it. She welcomed the opportunity to stand by and watch him die a slow agonizing death just as he had stood by three years ago and watched her die. Watched the career she’d worked so hard for yanked out from underneath her in one simple, selfish tug. He could have stopped what he’d set in motion, but he stood silent. The final blow was the day he turned his back on her and walked away. No heartfelt goodbye, no reason for his actions. He’d just simply cut her out and moved on.

  Bastard!

  She laughed, the sound brittle. And to think she was engaged to him at the time. Danica took another step closer and glanced at the monitor that began to beep faster.

  So, he knew she was there.

  Good. Perfect payback. Attached to tubes and machines, he was completely at her mercy. She’d be happy to give back. An eye for an eye. He sold out their love and the life they built together. She reached out to his throat. He’d suffer as she continued to do.

  • • •

  He sensed her presence long before he heard her short caustic laugh. Zach struggled to open his eyes. It felt like bags of sand weighed them down. The ache in his throat burned. His right arm throbbed. He tried to swallow but the agony of the pain was too much to bear. He groaned. His hands fisted. Pain shot up his arm. His chest heaved as he tried to gulp in air but the pressure in and around his throat was excruciating. His pain so thorough he ached to his marrow.

  Her soft rose scent wafted to his nostrils, the antiseptic odors of the hospital room fading. He moaned. Despite the pain it caused, his hand opened toward her, where he knew she stood.

  Had he died? Was Danica here with him? His angel of mercy?

  His heart quickened. It didn’t matter if he was dead, so long as she was by his side. And she was. Here. Now. She must still care.

  Zach forced his eyes open, the grainy scrape of his lids over his eyes agonizing. He pushed harder, wanting to see his sweet Dani. He could see her as she was in his dreams. Soft and golden. Her thick chestnut-colored hair haloed in the sunlight. Her big blue eyes smiling at him with love.

  Walking away that day had been the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. And it was also his biggest regret. Yet, he’d had no choice.

  His eyelids slowly opened, his eyes mere slits in his swollen face. The Danica who stood beside him was not haloed. Her once bright hair was darker, pulled back into a snug bun. He hated her hair like that. He loved it long and thick between his fingers. Dark circles framed once brilliant eyes. Her golden skin looked sallow, taut. The dark sweep of her eyebrows drew heavily over her eyes. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, the gesture adversarial. Her hand hovered near his shoulder. Slowly she lowered it.

  “I had to see for myself you were alive. How unfortunate for me, you are.”

  Zach closed his eyes and swallowed, the pain jarring his senses. He wanted to speak, to tell her he was sorry. To ask for a second chance. He opened his eyes and stiffened. The hard edges of her face, the rigid set of her jaw, and the flash of her eyes told him she meant each word she said. He opened his lips, and hoarsely whispered, “Dani—” He grabbed her hand, flinching in anticipation of the pain it would cause. Instead, warmth radiated from her skin to his.

  She gasped and pulled her hand away, stepping back. “I hope you burn in hell.”

  She turned and walked away from him. He reached out, and called to her, the effort severe. He started to cough, his chest tightened. His throat flamed in pain. She didn’t hesitate. When the door closed behind her Zach pushed his head back into the pillow and winced. Gritting his teeth he carefully swallowed, this time welcoming the pain. It didn’t compare to the devastation in his heart.

  The door opened and he flinched. She’d come back! Instead, from beneath swollen eyelids he watched a man dressed in green scrubs walk in. Intuitively Zach knew he was not a nurse. He squinted and tensed.

  “How are you feeling, Zach?” the man asked, the voice rough. Familiar. He’d seen him recently. Was he a collar? A snitch? Was he here to finish Zach off for putting his ass in jail? Zach didn’t care. He welcomed death. He closed his eyes. Heat infiltrated his body, like flames licking at his skin. Sudden realization dawned. Zach’s eyes flashed open.

  “I’m Raiden,” the man said. “We met at Mike’s?”

  He shook his head. Denial hot on his lips. No.

  Images crashed in his brain. Hot, warm, cold, more heat. A man in black. A white room. A video of the crash.

  It was a dream!

  He’d dreamt going to hell then to where? Not heaven, he’d gone to—

  “Michael sent me to keep an eye on you. We need to move fast, there isn’t much time, and you’re one broke fuck.”

  Zach only nodded in stunned silence. Maybe this was the continuation of the dream. Maybe he hadn’t woken yet. That would sure as hell explain Dani’s presence.

  He closed his eyes and relaxed back into the pillows. Go back to sleep, man, and when you wake up you’ll see the light of the real world.

  “It doesn’t work, man,” Raiden said. “The longer you hide in denial the more miserable you’ll be.”

  Zach opened his eyes, the pain of the movement secondary to his dread. “It wasn’t a dream,” Raiden told him. He moved closer to Zach’s side. He reached out a hand to Zach’s face. Zach flinched. Raiden laughed. “Stop being a girl.” Then for a man so big and menacing, he gently pressed one hand to Zach’s throat and the other to his right hand.

  A soft tingle began at the points of contact. It went from cold to warm to hot. It intensified, then eased into soothing warmth that infiltrated his skin. His bruised and battered body lightened, the throb of pain lessening. Raiden removed his hand and stood back, a half smile twisting his lips.

  “Say something,” he said.

  “Something,” Zach said, shocked he could speak and more shocked there was little pain involved. “How the hell?”

  “Company secret. Get some rest. The docs will be amazed at yet another miracle. Get them to sew up that hole in your throat and get out of here ASAP.”

  Before Zach could respond Raiden started for the door. He turned abruptly and walked back to Zach’s bedside. “You forgot something, man.” He reached behind his back and withdrew the golden sword Michael had given him. The same sword Zach had thrown across the room.

  “You’re going to need it.” He set the hilt of the blade in Zach’s repaired right hand. Zach hesitated to accept it. His gaze swept the sleek lines of the weapon, admiring the damage it could do in the right hands. Michael’s words reverberated in his brain. “Only in the hand of a Caladian warrior can this blade destroy an Immortal.” His fingers wrapped around the handle, he looked up to Raiden, wanting reassurance, but he had disappeared.

  Zach lay quiet for a long moment. Images and emotions swirled in his head. His brain was telling him it must all still be a dream. He was a practical man. A man of action. He’d never been a religious person, hell, with the exception of funerals he’d never set foot in a church. So, how had this happened? Was he being played for a fool? Had someone drugged him, and this was the result?

  He looked down at the sword. His heart pounded. The sword warmed i
n his hand. He tried to let go of it, but it cleaved to his fingers, heating up, as if in protest of his thoughts. It felt real. His hand tightened around the warm metal. And with clarity he knew it was all real.

  The sword cooled, and his fingers opened around it; releasing it, he slid it beneath the sheets and sat up. He needed to get the hell out of the hospital.

  Tentatively he swallowed, anticipating the pain, and was surprised there was only a faint dull drag along his throat.

  Zach looked down at the soft cast around his arm and IV in his hand. He pulled the useless cast off then yanked the tape and needle out of his vein. The tube flopped to the floor. Fluid puddled. Before he disconnected himself from the machines and had every doctor and nurse on duty rushing into his room, he rifled through the drawers next to his bed looking for his clothes. Empty. Shit!

  Realization hit him. He wouldn’t have any clothes. Fire would have cut them off.

  He stood motionless for a moment, and thought. The last thing he remembered was being in the car with Santos and trying like hell to get his seat belt fastened. They’d hit another car and then the lights went out. The bastard had tried to kill him! Why? Did Santos know Zach was going to see to it he not only lost his badge but did jail time?

  Zach sat back on the edge of the bed. He moved farther back, then sank into the pillows. It occurred to him he was in no rush to get back to the job. For the first time since he’d decided at the age of ten to become a cop it didn’t hold any attraction.

  It had tarnished. But so had he. He was not the supercop he’d dreamed of becoming. The one who was bigger than life, who delivered damsels in distress from evil villains. He wasn’t a stand-up cop putting the bad guy behind bars the old-fashioned way—by following the justice system. No, he had more than strayed across the line. He’d sold out when the system didn’t do its job. He’d had noregrets at the time, and if he were honest with himself he had no regrets now, except one. And from what he’d experienced, it would take hell on earth to make it right.

  He pulled down the hospital gown and ripped the heart monitors off his chest and flung them away from him. He touched the tube attached to his throat. It was the only thing keeping him from walking out the door.

  Zach pressed the call button. He needn’t have; the machine tracking his vitals started to furiously beep. The door to his room was flung open. A rather attractive blonde, who back in the day would have spent more than one night in his bed, rushed in. Panic distorted her features.

  Zach pointed to his throat and hoarsely said, “Get this out and sew me up.”

  “Mr. Garett, you need to get back in bed, you’ve had severe trauma to your entire body. Please!”

  Zach put his hand to the tube and wrapped his fingers around it. He started to pull. “Stop! Please,” the nurse shrieked. “I’ll get the doctor.” She scurried out of the room, giving him a quick look over her shoulder to make sure he had released the tube.

  Zach nodded, grabbed the stand the damn thing was attached to, and started to walk himself but was pulled up short by a tug on his dick.

  Fuck! A catheter. Just as he was about to yank the damn thing out a tall thin man in his early fifties hurried in. “Mr. Garett, you are in no condition to have the trach tube removed. Your larynx is too swollen for air to pass through.”

  “If I can talk, enough air is getting through.”

  The doc’s jaw fell open. “How?”

  Zach shook his head and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know how or what or why, all I know is if you don’t take this thing out of my throat, and this hose out of my dick right now, we’ll have a bigger problem.” While the words came slowly and his voice was husky, his words were clear.

  “Lie back in the bed and let me examine you.”

  Zach obeyed.

  After some poking and prodding Dr. Samuel stood back and shook his head. “Fucking amazing.”

  “Fucking get the tube out.”

  “There is more involved than sewing up the hole.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’ll have to schedule surgery—”

  “Do it here. Get what you need, or I’ll walk like this.”

  “But you’re signing your life away. I won’t be responsible for any relapse. Your throat can swell up in less than thirty seconds and you’d be up shit creek. It’ll be the end.”

  “So noted, now get these tubes out.”

  Less than thirty minutes later the tubes were removed and the hole in Zach’s neck and trach sewn shut. “Take it very easy, Mr. Garett. I want to see you in my office tomorrow, the nurse will give you the info.” He went on to give Zach a list of dos and don’ts.

  As he listened to the doctor’s droning voice it occurred to Zach for the second time he didn’t have any clothes. “Where are my clothes and belongings?”

  “I—” The good doc looked at the nurse.

  She hurried to answer. “You went to the ER then to ICU before you came down here. I’m not sure what happened to them. I’ll go look.”

  Zach nodded.

  Zach just wanted out, and would have put on a dress if that’s what it took. After the doc left with stern warnings, Zach jumped into the shower in his room, brushed his teeth, and just as he wrapped a towel around his waist the nurse came in with a plastic bag.

  “All I could come up with was scrubs and a pair of size thirteen plastic clogs.”

  Zach nodded. The nurse’s gaze ravaged his body and he felt a heat begin at his groin. But it wasn’t for the buxom blonde standing in front of him with hungry eyes drinking in his body. No, it was for the haggard-eyed woman who was devastated he wasn’t listed in the weekly obit.

  Zach smiled, the gesture tugging at his lips. Another time and another place and he would have nailed Nurse Betty right then and there. Now? He had no interest.

  “I get off in about twenty minutes, I’ll be happy to drive you home,” the nurse offered.

  Zach nodded. “Thanks.” He took the bag from her, dropped the towel, and walked naked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He heard her sharp intake of breath, and his dick flexed in response. Maybe he wasn’t as dead as he thought he was after all.

  Less than an hour later he was standing in front of his modest single-story house. It nestled snugly in the Oakland hills with a stellar view of the bay and San Francisco, which was why he’d paid a small fortune for it. That, and Danica had had her heart set on it. It was supposed to be the house where they lived happily ever after and raised their children.

  He walked around to the side gate, pushed it open and made his way to the alarm keypad hidden beneath a faux dryer vent. He pushed in the code to open the garage door. The eerie creaking of the heavy wooden door as it rose grated on his nerves. Despite Raiden’s healing, he was still one fucking bruise. He wanted to soak in the hot tub, take a few Vicodin, chase them with a couple of beers, and sleep for a week.

  The sword he’d taped to his back warmed. Zach cursed at it. Reaching behind him, he pulled it out. Staring at it in his hand, he scowled.

  Memories of Michael and his crazy mission erased any thoughts of rest and relaxation. It was just as well; he’d never been one who could just take it easy at will—another character flaw Danica routinely pointed out. He knew how to relax, he just liked to work more.

  When he entered his house, stark walls greeted him. After he and Danica broke up he removed every remnant of her from the house—he wanted no reminder of her. Yet every time he entered his bleak house it was a constant reminder of what he’d had to give up.

  He tossed the key and the sword onto one of the few pieces of furniture he had, an oak piece that had belonged to his grandmother. Zach kicked off the offensive clogs and padded his way down the hallway to his room. Despite his beat-to-hell body he moved quickly.

  He dressed in comfortable jeans, a black T-shirt, and worn cowboy boots. A few Motrin later he realized his car was most likely still at the PD. He shrugged. It was a perfect day for a bik
e ride. Five minutes later he roared down the street on his Harley. It didn’t get much better than the roar of a V-twin between his thighs, the power of the engine, the speed, the rush, the thrill of a precision piece of machinery.

  He smiled. He could think of one thing that beat the thrill of a Harley ride, an altogether different kind of ride. He opened the throttle, his blood warming to the chase.

  Twenty minutes later he rolled up in front of the Hope Chandler Museum of Ancient History. He’d only visited here once before.

  Three years ago, to return his fiancées few belongings she had left at his house. She’d nearly torn him in half a second time. If was the only time in his life he hadn’t returned a blow.

  He’d stood unmoving as she lashed out at him with her fists and her words. He stood silent while her heart tore into a million little pieces. Pieces he alone could put back together by telling the truth. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. There was too much at stake. He wanted to explain that to her. To let her know she was collateral damage in a very deadly game, and that maybe she should be grateful she got out, or as she so bitterly corrected him, was forced out. Fired.

  Zach breathed in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He hung his helmet from one of the handlebars, then strode into the dark building. Quiet greeted him. The exhibition part of the building was closed for renovations. He walked farther into the cavernous hallway. He heard her voice long before he saw her. Farther down the hall, next room to the right. His booted footsteps landed imperceptibly on the black marble floor.

  Her voice became louder, more defined. It was a strong voice, a voice that carried authority. It was also all female. He remembered the low throaty timbre of it when she begged him for more. She was insatiable in bed. He missed that. He missed a lot of things.