“There were two explosions. Get your ass all the way up here.” We were on borrowed time.
“Only heard one in the stairwell, and my ears are still fucking ringing.”
“Second was in the elevator shaft. They happened back to back. That ringing should dissipate over next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” If he was lucky. If not, he’d have some permanent hearing loss. “Come on. What’s left of the landing should hold.”
Harm nodded and tested the concrete before inching himself, on his stomach, onto the ledge. “The explosion in the stairwell took out the steps between the top two floors, but not much else. I was trying to figure out how to get back up to you when that fuck appeared where you are now and stuck the plastic explosives under the ledge I’m hanging off of now.”
“You didn’t shoot him?”
Harm eyed me. “Maybe you crazy EOD guys would shoot a man with C4 and a handheld detonator, but I was standing on three feet of concrete and I wanted to keep it that way.”
“Keep coming. You’re almost secure.” I nodded at the rope. “But watch the line.”
“Trust me, I’m watching it.”
He wasn’t. “How’d Abernathy get on this floor without you seeing him?”
Grabbing the rope closer to me, he heaved himself almost all the way up. “I was wondering the same damn thing. I figured his one-flight walk was a misdirect intended to get one of us off post. Then he probably took the elevator from the sixth floor to the floor below the penthouse where there’s no card key access needed for the elevator before he used the stairs to get to the top floor while I was still coming back up. I was trying to text you to warn you when a huge piece of the stairwell gave way and came at me. All I had room to do was turn before the impact hit. It’s a miracle I woke up still on the ledge.”
I agreed. “Wasn’t your time.”
“Anyway…” He pulled himself the rest of the way onto the ledge and rolled to his back. “My leg’s jacked up, I can still barely hear you and I’m fucking halfway pissed.”
The tension in the rope had gone slack, but I didn’t let go. Until I had him in the corridor, I didn’t trust it. “Let’s get you this side of the door, then you can tell me your secret, because I’m all the way pissed and I already shot the motherfucker.”
Harm tipped his head back to look at me. “There is no secret. A woman’s involved.”
Still holding the rope, I risked reaching out for him and grabbed him under the arms. “You need a woman to make you all the way pissed?” I hauled him into the hallway.
“No, a woman being involved made you all the way pissed,” he corrected.
I let go of the rope and gave him the truth. “My brother pisses me off.”
“I noticed.”
I didn’t know why, but I fucking laughed.
Then Harm smiled.
I got up. “All right, let’s get you into the suite, then figure out a way to get the hell out of here.” I offered him a hand.
He took it, but once he was upright, he refused more help by shoving me off.
“Good, glad you’re mobile,” I hazed. “You can help me throw a body off the balcony.” I was only half kidding.
Harm glanced at me as he limped down the hallway before looking straight ahead. “Stairwell’s a better bet.”
I heard voices, then Ronan called out. “Stay where you are, Sanaa. Give me a minute.”
I wanted to ask why, but I thought I’d heard Harm’s voice, and he frightened me, so I didn’t say anything. I heard some shuffling, and as promised, a minute later, Ronan lifted the edge of the mattress.
A gust of wind blew in, and I was never more thankful for fresh air, tropical force winds or not.
Holding the mattress up with his shoulder, he turned the light on his cell phone on and shined it down as he held a hand out to me.
For the first time since I’d seen him again after all these years, there was a spark of the man I used to know in his eyes. Suddenly shy, I took his hand, and he pulled me out. But when I was on my feet, he didn’t step back.
Slipping a finger inside my face covering, he lowered it and brought his mouth almost against mine, but he didn’t kiss me. He whispered two words that