Consumed by Fire (Fire 1)

Jesus, he was an asshole, Bishop thought. Evangeline had it right in the first place, along with the other insults she’d hurled at him. He couldn’t remember a more intense twelve hours—from the moment he discovered her missing, right through to her falling into a damp, exhausted sleep in his arms. He always thought he’d had the best sex of his life when he was with her, and yet somehow it always managed to get even better. Last night had damned near killed him.

He hadn’t been counting, but it seemed as if he’d come three times on the same erection, something he would have considered a physical impossibility. But Evangeline managed to confound the laws of physics. If she hadn’t seemed on the edge of passing out he could have kept going. He was as sexually driven as any man, but his wife took him to places he’d never known existed.

She’d laugh if he ever tried to tell her that. She’d never believe him. He’d worked so hard to keep her at arm’s length that she had to think he was nothing more than some horny bastard who shagged anyone he could find.

No matter how cruel it was, this was still the best possible thing to do for her. There was no way he could ever stay with her. It may have worked for Madsen, with the full power of the Committee behind him, or for Taka and Reno with their Yakuza connections. If he tried to keep Evangeline with him, it would be putting a target on her back.

Now that Claude was dead, there was no reason to let the marriage stand. Breaking the connection would only help when it came to people like the Corsinis and all the other enemies he’d racked up in a lifetime of doing bad things for good reasons. Madsen could arrange the annulment, no questions asked, and she could go on to a life of academic boredom and another jackass of a husband, this time a real one.

And he’d snap the bastard’s neck.

It was no wonder he was such a jerk—he couldn’t keep her and he couldn’t let her go.

He wasn’t going to have to worry about it. He’d been such a bastard to her that there was no way she’d forgive him, no reason she’d want to. He’d made sure of that, and the only thing he could do as penance was to let her keep Merlin.

He hadn’t been brought up to love anyone. His father had been an even bigger bastard than he was, a lieutenant colonel in the military with the compassion of a snail. Too bad his mother had died in a car wreck coming home from a night spent with her lover—she might have softened the old guy. It was just as well Bishop had had no siblings for the colonel to take his rage out on—it was easier taking the punishment himself than worrying about others.

Last time he’d checked, his father was still alive somewhere, but that had been long ago, and he’d probably succumbed to a lifetime of cigarettes somewhere along the way. If he was still alive, he’d think his only son had died in Afghanistan. Bishop had tried to talk Madsen into making it look as if he had deserted because of cowardice, a final blow to the old monster’s pride, but Madsen had refused, telling Bishop he’d eventually regret it.

Madsen hadn’t known his father.

Merlin was the first creature Bishop had allowed himself to love. No, maybe that wasn’t quite true, not if he wanted to be strictly honest with himself, something he’d rather avoid. Merlin was only four years old—he’d met Evangeline more than five years ago.

Not that he loved her, he reminded himself. He couldn’t afford to love anyone, not even his damned dog.

The door to the bathroom opened and the RV was filled with the aroma of gardenia soap, the same that had been in the farmhouse. He’d told Madsen’s assistant what to stock in the camper—he remembered everything about Evangeline, and in those intervening years, she still favored the same toiletries. The familiar scent that filled the interior of the camper made him hard.

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were red. The cut on her cheekbone from last night was blossoming into a black eye, and he wanted to kill Claude all over again. At least Merlin had ripped away half his right hand before Bishop’s bullets had sent him over into the raging river.

He could mock the tears she tried to hide, just to be even more of a prick, but he kept his mouth shut, focusing on the highway ahead. They’d be on the outskirts of New Orleans by early evening, and he could let go of her, place her in Ryder’s capable hands. Not only could, but had to.

Ryder had already established a safe house while he scouted locations for the new office—Evangeline would be safe there until they finished with His slimy Eminence and the men who were literally his acolytes. The Corsinis’ sex trafficking couldn’t be crushed that easily—it had been going on for decades—but the center of operations could be smashed, and the person in charge eliminated.

Once the endless ordeal was finally finished, she’d be free. No one but the Corsini crime family could connect her with the shadow operative who sometimes went by the name of James Bishop, and that connection would be severed.

He glanced back at her. She was wearing cutoffs and a baggy T-shirt, and he could see the outline of her breasts beneath the loose fabric. He yanked his gaze back to the road. He couldn’t afford to get distracted. Last night had been as good a way to end things as possible. Each time he touched her, he went a little farther down a path that could destroy them both, and his cruelty this morning would keep her away from him. What was the good in hurting her if he only . . .

He pushed the thought out of his mind. They were as safe as they could be right now. The Corsinis might guess that Clement was dead but they couldn’t be certain, nor could they know whether he’d managed to kill Evangeline or not. Bishop had made sure they’d left absolutely no trace behind, and by the time Claude’s battered body washed up, he’d be unrecognizable. There were no DNA, fingerprint, or dental records on file for him anywhere. He’d be a John Doe, the worst kind of epitaph for a prima donna like Claude.

He smelled coffee, and he would have given his left nut for some, but chances were if he asked Evangeline, she’d put rat poison in it. He could make it the final six hours without caffeine, though it would be harder.

He was acutely aware of her coming closer, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter for a moment before relaxing his hands. From his peripheral vision he could see the insulated bottle she held out to him. “What’s this?” he said. “A peace offering?”

“Insurance that you don?

??t fall asleep at the wheel and kill us both,” she said. Someone else might have thought her gesture was completely casual, but he could hear the rawness in her voice, both from her recent tears and her screams last night. Screams for help when Claude had taken her. Screams of pleasure when he’d . . .

“Thanks,” he said briefly, taking it. “Sure you didn’t add rat poison to it?”

“I’m trying to stay alive, remember? And I didn’t see any rat poison in the cupboard, or I might have been tempted.”

Against his will he laughed. No matter how bad things were, she always managed to summon up some fight. Here was a woman who wouldn’t let life get the best of her, even if it brought a scaly bastard like himself.

“I’m going to sleep,” she said with an entirely unconvincing yawn. “Wake me when we get to New Orleans.”

He nodded, sipping at the coffee. One sugar, lots of cream. The way he’d always taken it, something she had to have remembered from Italy. If he had any choice, he would have jerked the wheel to the right, parked by the side of the road and grabbed her. He didn’t glance at her.

“Sweet dreams.”