“It’s over,” he said, and he heard the hoarseness in his own voice. Exhaustion would hit him later, along with a lot of pain, because they’d beat on him like a frigging piñata, but for now, there was this. “It’s done.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She started to get up, and when he helped her, he thought she was like a mannequin, stiff and rigid. She shifted her gaze to the door, where Marcie and Dana stood by the mezzanine rail, watching them. “One of you should call Rachel. Tell her we’re on our way. Hopefully neither Max nor Marcie will need hospital care, but if you do, we’ll figure out what to tell them. Luckily, no one was shot, because the police…” Her voice cracked.

“Janet.” Max closed his hands over her shoulders. “Look at me. Janet.”

She shook her head, put both palms on his chest. Closed her fingers on his flesh, digging into his chest hair, the chest hair he knew she liked. Then she was tugging, clawing, striking, her face screwing up in pain and rage, like an oncoming tornado.

When Marcie murmured to Dana, and Dana began to step forward, he spoke sharply. “No. Let her go. Get out of here. Let me handle this.”

He didn’t know how they responded to that, because everything but Janet disappeared for him as she started screaming at him. Incoherent but terrible sounds, accusing, enraged, despairing. She punched at his face, his torso, hitting bruised ribs, but he didn’t let her go, kept grimly hanging on as she fought him, hammered on him.

Her screaming became a cry of rage so visceral it reminded him of a savage creature, driven mad by pain. Until one word slipped out. “Why. Why. Why…”

Why did she keep ending up to her elbows in blood? Why had any of it happened? Why did he insist on this? He didn’t know. All he could do was let her punish him the way she needed to do, until she was sobbing. That one word had broken something inside her. Now he could bring her to his chest, hold her there. Despite the pain she’d just exacerbated, he couldn’t imagine any balm sweeter than her body against him, especially as the rage drained from it. But she was still tense, rigid. He held on to her anyway, unable to let go.

“No more, Mistress,” he murmured against her hair. “It’s done. I’m all yours. I promise. Forever. Long as you want me.”

The hard ball in his gut told him there’d be a fuckload of fallout to handle from this night though. He owed all of them, big time. It had been way the hell over a line, even for what SEALs did for each other. And Marcie…Dana. Fuck, Peter and Ben were going to fucking kill him. Matt would take his own piece of flesh for putting Janet in harm’s way, no matter that she’d chosen that course herself. To say he was fired was probably going to be the least of it. He might be sharing a shallow grave with Dino.

But she was all right. That was what mattered. His heart had nearly choked him when she’d walked into that warehouse, cool-eyed and calm. It was as if she could put on any mask needed, even that of a sociopathic whore who would taste the blood off his forehead, wiggle her ass against his thigh, while the woman inside that mask, the woman he loved, dropped a knife into his hands.

Now that same woman was shuddering, face pressed to his chest, hands still gripping him there. He wanted to scoop her up, carry her down the steps and out of this place, hold her cradled in his lap until she stopped shaking, but his ribs weren’t going to let him do that. He’d probably drop her down the steps, and that was no way to impress a girl.

He’d been in a lot of ops far more intense than this, but this one had been the most personal. She’d warned him of that, hadn’t she? But he hadn’t expected her to be part of it. They were like two leaves on a thin branch, shaky as hell. Lawrence might be right about the pussy part, at least on Max’s side of things. His Mistress had balls of steel.

“Let’s get us all to Rachel’s,” he said. “Though we might have a problem. I think Dana’s in the best shape to drive us.”

She nodded without a smile, wiped at her nose with her bloodstained knuckles. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, held her close. “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. And considering the women I know,” he thought of his mother, Marcie, Dana, all the K&A women…Amanda, “that’s saying something.”

She didn’t say anything.

Chapter Sixteen

In fact, he might say technically it was the last time she spoke to him. Really spoke to him. Rachel had taped his ribs, recommended an x-ray, which he’d declined. Marcie had a bad sprain, but beyond that and a little bruising that she and Dana had sustained in their scuffle with Leo and his buddy, all was good. When Rachel had turned her attention to Janet, Janet shook her head, that cool look fixed on her face like a vacuum-sealed jar lid. “I wasn’t injured.”

After a searching look, Rachel had made her tea instead and slipped a warm blanket on her shoulders. She’d also recommended a hot shower and that Janet sleep at her and Jon’s place for the night. Janet had accepted the offer with a simple “thank you”. Max followed her up the stairs, but at the guest bedroom door Janet turned, her expression anything but welcoming.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Max.” Though she was staring into his face, he didn’t feel like she was connecting to his gaze. It was more like he was transparent, or she was blind like Dana, aware of him but not focused on his features. “But I’ll need space for a while. I’ll do what I can with Matt.”

“I don’t care about that. I—”

She shut the door in his face, and he heard the lock turn. He stood there, vibrating with helpless frustration, and turned to see Rachel at the top of the stairs. The blonde with compassionate hazel eyes gestured to him to come back to her, away from Janet’s door. “I’ll watch over her, Max,” she murmured. “I promise. As self-possessed as she seems, she’s in shock right now. Overwhelmed. You all saw a lot tonight. Marcie is pretty shook up as well.”

“Damn it. Can I—”

“She’ll be fine,” Rachel assured him. “There’s a reason Marcie’s a good match for Ben,” she added. “The death and killing was new for her, and would put anyone in a tailspin, but she’s a Southern girl through and through. Taking out drug dealers to protect someone she considers her family is something she can live with.”

But she shouldn’t have been put in that position. He understood what Rachel was saying, even agreed with it, knowing what he knew about Marcie. But he also knew exactly what every decent person went through to learn to live with things like that. If he could do it over, he would have made them kill him right off, rather than making her and Dana a part of this. And then there was Janet, who’d been there before, who’d tried to leave it behind… Fuck.

He lowered himself to the top step, not yet willing to be that far from her. Rachel sat down on the step next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He felt the strong nurturing vibration in the touch, a woman who was a healer in a lot of different ways, but he was afraid what was wrong with Janet was beyond her influence. “She went through something once, Rachel. Something she got through by locking everything down until it was over. Do you think…can you get stuck that way?”

Rachel’s brow creased. “Not knowing her circumstances, I can’t say for certain, but if that’s what’s happening here, you need to give her time to break out of it.” She ran a soothing hand down his arm. “I suspect, when things are calmer, she’ll come out of it on her own, or you’ll have a better sense of how to help her out of it. Tonight is not the night.”

“We’d just started…” He looked up toward the closed door and felt the ache of it then. What price had he paid for finally ridding the world of Dino? For settling his need for justice…for vengeance. It had put the woman he loved in the middle of something violent and dangerous, but more than that, he’d put her back into a scenario she’d spent years trying to put behind her, to control her environment and life so bloody chaos wouldn’t be part of it anymore. In order for her to get past it again, would he be left behind as a casualty? Christ, she’d been standing right above him when he killed that one guy.

Rachel tightened her grip on his arm. “I know. Give it time, Max. Why don’t you bunk down here—”

He shook his head. “I’ll go on home. Check in with Dale and see if he needs anything. Truly.”

If he stayed, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. He’d push, and he remembered what had happened the last time he did that. He knew Rachel was right, even if another part of him howled against it.

He put his hand over hers as she began to protest. “I’m fine, thanks to your nursing skills.” He glanced around at the tranquility of the home she and Jon shared. The Japanese maples, the quiet fountains, the clean, simple layout. Clean and simple. Something he hadn’t thought about having in so long, and tonight he might have killed any hope for it.

Janet had said he had great intuition. The weight on his chest told him this wasn’t just shock for Janet, but something deeper. It brought back the helpless feeling he’d faced when he realized his mother was gone, and Amanda was never going to get any better, barring a miracle.

No. He wasn’t losing Janet like that. Even if it had gotten fucked up because of him, he was going to figure out how to fix it.

“I have Dale’s truck. I’ll take Marcie back to Cass’, get it back to him and then head to the office. My vehicle’s there.” In fact, it was likely he’d sleep in it, unrolling the camo quilt and lulled to sleep by the drip through the parking deck ceiling pipes. Tomorrow was a freaking work day, wasn’t it? The guys weren’t back until Friday, so it was fairly light duty, unless Janet needed him to run an errand. But he’d lay good money she wasn’t going to be back tomorrow either.

* * * * *

She wasn’t. In the morning, he decided to go home for a scalding hot shower and half a bottle of aspirin. Headed out of her office, he ran into Randall. The security chief had given the cuts and fist marks on his face a close look, but Max had discouraged questions and the man had fortunately respected his privacy. On the way to his house, Max tried Janet’s cell, received no answer. Checking in with Rachel, he found out Janet had gone home about an hour ago. But she’d left him a message—through Rachel.