the risks he’d taken in life, he might have. “I don’t want to be buried. I want to be burned. I don’t need a marker. My actions are my legacy. Not some chunk of rock.”
She opened her eyes to study his disturbingly earnest face. “I don’t need to know that. If you make me mourn you, I will never forgive you.”
“Same here.” He pressed his forehead against hers and sighed. “I need to tell you something. I don’t know what Odin did last night. You were bleeding out, and I let him take over. I don’t know how he fixed you.”
As disturbing as that was, Jolie was glad to be alive. “I like my insides inside. You did the right thing.” She gave him a quick squeeze. “You can put me down now.”
A bear hug of a squeeze, and he set her down slowly, as if reluctant to let her go.
The morning was just beginning, and the gentle noise of birdsong and sparse pre-work traffic filled the chilly graveyard. Hauk closed the crypt behind them. Without another word they headed for his motorcycle to see what was left. The pieces were gone, but the pavement was scorched black where the explosion had occurred. Hauk grabbed her again as he stared at the charring with a greenish expression.
Jolie gulped. “My car it is.”
They trudged around the outside of the fence to the other entrance, where Jolie’s GT-R waited, covered in morning dew. She pulled out her key fob.
Hauk scooped it out of her hand. “Wait.”
She frowned, ready to be anywhere but here. “Why?”
His eyes were guarded as he said, “I just want to check something.” He ducked his head beneath the car and inspected the undercarriage.
“You think there’s a bomb here too?” That had to be Hauk at his most overprotective. Surely her father’s organization wouldn’t plant a bomb on her car.
“Since that bomb went off in the factory,” he said, his voice mumbled by the metal between them, “I decided to spend some of my recovery time studying them. I’m no expert or anything, but... Damn.”
She paled. “What?”
A minute later he came out from under the car, holding an electronic box with wires.
“No. My dad wouldn’t.” She and her father had their differences—a lot of big ones—but to want her dead? He couldn’t hate her that much. Could he?
“Your dad’s not calling all the shots.” He put the bomb on the grass, popped the hood and stuck his head in. “He’s in Houston. You pulled a successful run while I was out of commission. I’m not the only problem they’re ‘dealing’ with.”
Jolie’s chest, which had started to unclench, squeezed up again. “Are you looking for a second one?”
“Yeah. Sometimes there’s an obvious one for people to pull and get all relaxed so they don’t find the real one. I don’t see anything, but I’ll take the car for a quick drive to make sure. Unlikely, but we’re playing this safe.” He opened her car door.
“Wait, you’re taking it for a drive? To see if a bomb goes off? No. No, that’s not the plan.” She hustled around the car and opened the passenger door. “If you drive, I’m in, too.”
He propped his elbow on the roof of her car and cocked his head. “What purpose would that serve?”
“The purpose of me not standing here freaking the hell out waiting for you to explode.”
“It’s unlikely there’s a problem. I’ve checked all the places I’ve read about.”
“You said you weren’t an expert.”
He motioned at the car. “Hence the driving.”
She raised her chin. “Then we do it together.” She got into the passenger seat.
Hauk kneeled in the doorframe without getting in. “You will get out of this car and let me do this.”
“No.”
“You will get out or I will physically remove you.”
She shot him an incredulous look. Hauk never did that. Not to her.
His eyes were clear, his voice level. “Call me whatever kind of misogynistic caveman asshole you want. I don’t care. You’re not riding in the car. In the unlikely event there is a second bomb, there is no sense in both of us going up. So get out, or I will take you out.”
He sounded utterly serious. She balked at being bossed around. Especially on this. “Then I can drive it while you wait.”
“No.” The word came out with a predatory growl. “Get out of the car.”
Without a doubt, she knew she was getting out of that car one way or another. Angry and flustered, she made her stiff joints