Smoke and Sin (The Perfect Gentlemen 4)

Gus knew that might not be enough to save this situation, though. She might have to make a choice whether to save the incriminating recordings of Constance Hayes that could bring down an entire presidency or Roman.

She would choose her man in a heartbeat.

Kemp moved so slowly, not making a single sound as he carefully released her.

“Somehow I think I’ll take my chances. They won’t want to lose such a valuable asset,” Darcy insisted. “Speaking of losing, Augustine Spencer, do you know what you’re going to lose if you don’t come out and give me what I want?”

Gus tensed at the words but held her tongue. She could certainly guess what—or who—the bitch was referring to.

“Give me whatever you found in this bloody barn. I’d rather not put a bullet through Roman’s skull,” Darcy threatened in a nasty snarl. “It’s such a shame to waste a man like him. He’s so pretty, isn’t he?”

But she would do it, whatever happened. Now that she’d tipped her hand and admitted she worked for the Russians, Darcy couldn’t afford to keep him alive.

Kemp shifted to her right, inching his way out from behind her. The thud of Leon’s shoes against the wooden floor coming ever closer masked the sound. The flick of his flashlight darting back and forth made Gus’s heart race.

“But he won’t be quite so lovely when I’m done with him. In fact, he’ll be a bloody corpse if you don’t stop hiding like a coward and save him.”

“Even if she was here and not up at the main house, she would be far too smart to trust you.” Darcy might think Roman’s words were directed at her, but Gus knew who he’d really been speaking to. “We both know you’re going to kill me anyway. You have to. There’s no way out, so it would be so much smarter for Gus to run as fast and far as she can because she can’t change the outcome. She can only get herself killed and lose the evidence.”

Kemp crouched lower as the light zipped closer to their hiding spot in the dark.

“Why would that crazy cat lady store anything here?” Darcy’s voice had gone from menacing to eager in an instant. “Of course. She’s the daughter of the nurse who looked after Hayes’s mum. That’s what the Russians want—her mental health records.”

“The Bratva didn’t get rid of the files?” Roman sounded confused, which he rarely was. But he was likely buying them time, too. Every second he kept Darcy talking was one more she wasn’t shooting him.

Gus refused to even consider running. She wasn’t leaving him, either. And she definitely wasn’t above using the recordings to bargain for his life. He’d called her too smart to give into Darcy’s emotional blackmail, but she was far too in love not to give into it.

And if their roles were reversed, Roman would never leave her.

At that realization, she knew exactly what he’d meant when he’d said he wanted a house in the suburbs. He hadn’t been rattling off some passing notion. He hadn’t been randomly kicking around some ideas for his future because they’d had nothing better to talk about. No, he wanted a house in the suburbs for a family. His family. This was his “too scared to openly talk about his feelings” way of asking if she might want to have a family with him. If she might want to live with him in that house.

If she would marry him.

She had to save him first—now more than ever.

“I don’t know anything about the files, but I would assume if my contact had stolen them in the first place, they would have been smart enough to take any other evidence, too,” she mused. “Unless the Russians didn’t realize something else existed.”

Or if Marjorie House had swiped the recordings before anyone else could. The physical files had been subject to the hospital’s storage and privacy policies until they’d been added to the database. What if automating them had tipped off their enemies about the files’ existence?

None of that mattered as Kemp gripped her shoulder and urged her back against the wall, switching their positions.

He was putting his body in front of hers? She could see the light from Darcy’s goon coming dangerously close, stalking them with ruthless certainty. She supposed Kemp wouldn’t take her bag and run if he was working in Zack’s best interest. But why did it matter to him if she lived?

It would be so much easier to create some chaos, grab the tapes from her, and run. He didn’t know that she had a gun. He didn’t know she’d taken self-defense classes. He was far bigger and stronger and could probably crush her. But instead, he was being protective. Why?

“Who do you work for?” she breathed the question so softly, she was almost certain he hadn’t heard her.

“I’ll tell you everything when we get out of here. Stay behind me.”

So, Kemp really wasn’t the bad guy. An agent working on Zack’s behalf to catch another traitor in their midst? Or maybe the redundancy Deep Throat had talked about? That was an interesting possibility. But then what about Mad’s plane and the fact that Kemp had been there before Mad had taken off?

Gus was still looking for an answer, her head whirling with implications, wrapping itself around the problem. She came up with an impossible solution.

Oh, my god.

In the distance, a loud crack split the air. She jumped at the sound. The stray beam from the flashlight almost caught them before flipping up and back at the noise, then Leon ran toward the front of the barn.

“What the hell was that?” Darcy asked.

“That was Gus,” Roman lied. “My baby’s packing, and it sounds like she took out your guy at the main house. I told you she was there.”

“Did Sparks come?” Kemp asked quietly. “I caught someone following me and figured it might have been him. If so, we may have a chance to come out on top.”

“Yes, but we can’t leave Roman,” she whispered back.

“We have to run. Sparks will save him.”

That was not happening. “I won’t leave him.”

Kemp cursed under his breath. “Well, I heard you were a badass bitch. Guess that means you’re stubborn, too. All right, we’ll fight. Keep your head down and don’t lose those tapes.”

Kemp didn’t wait for her confirmation before uncurling from his crouched position silently. Then he popped up like a cobra.

Suddenly, gunfire split the world around Gus. So close. So loud. Rat tat tat. She couldn’t see anything more than Kemp’s outline as he loomed above her and intermittently pulled the trigger. She didn’t know who was firing and when, but she knew she had to get in the battle and make sure they won.

As she reached into her purse and curled her fingers around her own weapon, Kemp grunted and looked down at his chest. He coughed. Then his body went slack and he crumbled to the floor beside her.

“Damn,” he managed to eke out, sounding weak and wheezy. “Lucky shot.”

She scrambled to her knees, but it was so dark. She couldn’t see exactly where he’d been hit. It didn’t matter now. She had to find her weapon and defend herself or she’d likely end up with a new hole or two, like Kemp. And what about Roman?

She reached for the gun in her bag again, but she had so much crap inside that she fumbled to grab hold of it as footsteps thudded in the outer part of the barn. Who was that?

She had no idea how many of Darcy’s goons were left. Had Kemp managed to hit anyone? Who had been shooting up at the main house? Connor? Or had Gene gotten in his own lucky shot? If so, Gus would have to explain to Lara why she no longer had a husband. And what if she’d lost the man she loved, too?

She felt sick.

“Move it, Calder,” Darcy ordered.

Gus almost sagged in relief that Roman hadn’t been caught in the crossfire—so far.

“You’re going to leave Leon lying in a pool of his own blood?” he asked, giving Gus the information she needed.

So Leon was down. She only had to kill Darcy and Gene, if he’d managed to survive the firefight at the main house.

“Shut up,” Darcy snapped.

“You’re hell on henchmen

.”

“I think it’s time I take you with me and see how much the president values his chief of staff.”

Gus’s eyes widened in horror. That couldn’t happen. She felt around for Kemp. She still couldn’t see anything, but he seemed frighteningly still.

“Matthew?” she murmured somewhere near his ear.

No answer.

Trembling, she groped him until she found his wrist. Frantically, she laid her fingers over his pulse point.

Nothing.

Oh, god. He really was dead.