"The passive-aggressive jerk," I said. "If he wants to break up with me, he'll have to do it face-to-face."

Jack grinned. "I almost pity the bastard. Okay — you handle Cates, and I'll set Dad straight on a few things."

"No," I said automatically, "don't do anything about Dad. You can't fix my relationship with him."

"I can block or run interference."

"Thanks, Jack, but I don't need blocking, and I really don't need any more interference."

He looked annoyed. "Well, why did you waste all that time complaining to me if you didn't want me to do something about it?"

"I don't want you to fix my problems. I just wanted you to listen."

"Hang it all, Haven, talk to a girlfriend if all you want is a pair of ears. Guys hate it when you give us a problem and then don't let us do something about it. It makes us feel bad. And then the only way to make ourselves feel better is to rip a phone book in two or blow something up. So let's get this straight — I'm not a good listener. I'm a guy."

"Yes you are." I stood and smiled. "Want to buy me a drink at an after work bar?"

"Now you're talking," my brother said, and we left the office.

It was early evening when I returned to my apartment. I felt better after a drink and a couple of hours in Jack's easygoing presence. The thing that surprised me was his lack of condemnation for Hardy, especially given his earlier stance on the subject.

"I'm not for or against him," Jack had informed me, tilting back a long-necked beer. "Here's how I'm looking at this deal with T.J.: Hardy's either done the wrong thing for the wrong reason . . . " Another big swallow. "Or the wrong thing for the right reason."

"How could there possibly be a right reason for what he did?"

"Hell, I don't know. Give him a chance to explain himself, is all I'm saying."

"Todd thinks Hardy is conniving and twisted," I'd said morosely.

For some reason that had made Jack laugh. "Well, you oughta be used to that, coming from the Travis family. There's not a one of us — with the exception of Gage — who isn't as twisted as a duck's dick. And the same goes for Todd."

"You're scaring me," I said, but I hadn't been able to restrain a rueful smile.

I continued to smile as I went into my apartment, but I was nervous, thinking about seeing Hardy. As I saw the continuous blinking of the answering machine, my heart gave a little jolt. I went to the machine and pressed a button to hear the message.

Hardy's voice. "I need to see you. Please call me when you get in tonight."

"Okay," I whispered, closing my eyes briefly. But I opened them right away, because something had caught my attention. A glitter and gleam next to the phone base. Perplexed, I reached out for the object, and was astonished to discover it was a charm bracelet. Aunt Gretchen's. But how had it gotten there? It had been in Nick's possession. Nick —

Before I could make a sound, someone came up behind me, and a hand clamped on my neck. The barrel of a handgun pressed cold and hard against the side of my head. I knew who it was even before I heard his gloating voice.

"Got you now, Marie."

CHAPTER TWENTY

When you suddenly find yourself in a dangerous situation, your brain splits into two parts, the part that's actually going through the situation, and the part that stands back and tries to understand what's happening. And those parts are not necessarily sharing information with each other. So it took a few moments for me to focus on what Nick was saying." . . . can't ignore me, you bitch. You can't keep me away if I want to see you."

He wanted me to know he was all-powerful. He wanted to prove I couldn't beat him.

My mouth had gone so dry I could barely talk, while sweat broke out on my face. "Yeah," I said in a suffocated voice. "You definitely found a way to see me. How'd you do it? You couldn't have figured out the combination."

"I used an override key."

Each apartment in the building had two override keys, in case of emergency, or in case someone forgot his or her touch-pad number. One set of all the residential keys was kept in a room behind the concierge desk. The other set was locked away in the management office.

"Vanessa gave it to you," I said in disbelief. That was illegal. It could get her prosecuted. Did she hate me so much that she would risk going to jail just to stick it to me after she'd been fired?

Apparently so.

"I told her I needed to drop some things off."

"Well, you did," I said faintly. "Thanks for the bracelet. But you didn't need to bring the gun, Nick."

"You've been ignoring me — " I m sorry.

" — treating me like I mean nothing to you." The gun jabbed my temple hard enough to leave a bruise. I stayed still, my eyes watering. "I sure as hell mean something now, don't I?"

"Yeah," I whispered. Maybe he had come here with the sole intention of scaring me. But he was working himself up as he always had, letting his temper build. Once he started getting angry, it was an avalanche. You couldn't hold it back.

"You fu**ing ripped me off in the divorce, and left me in Dallas, with everyone asking about what happened, where you were . . . What do you think that did to me, Marie? Did you give a shit about what I was going through?"

I tried to remember what Susan had told me, that a narcissist needed to walk away feeling like the winner. "Of course I did," I said breathlessly. "But everyone knew you could do better. Everyone knew I wasn't good enough for you."

"That's right. You'll never have it as good as you did with me." Nick shoved me hard, and I slammed against the wall, my breath knocked out. The gun pressed against my skull. I heard the click of the safety being turned off. "You never tried," he muttered, urging his h*ps against my backside. A wave of nausea went through me as I felt the bulge of his erection. "You never did enough. It takes two to make a marriage, and you were never fu**ing in it, Marie. You should have done more."

"I'm sorry," I said around fitful gulps of air.

"You left me. Just walked away from that apartment in your bare feet, like goddamn white trash, to try to look as pitiful as possible. To make me look bad. And then you got your as**ole of a brother to push a divorce through. Just throw a handful of cash at me, and expect me to disappear. Legal papers and all that shit don't mean a thing to me, Marie. I can still do what I want with you."

"Nick," I managed, "we'll sit down and talk as long as you want if you'll just put the gun aw — " I broke off with a grunt of pain as I felt a blunt white explosion behind my ear, and heard a tinny high-pitched sound. A thin, hot trickle of liquid ran behind my ear and down my neck. He had hit me with the butt of the gun.

"How many men have you fucked?" he demanded.

No good answer to that one. Anything I said would lead to the subject of Hardy, and Nick's sense of humiliated fury would go into full swing. I had to pacify him. Soothe his injured ego.

"You're the one who matters," I whispered.

"Damn right about that." His free hand gripped my hair. "Dressing like a whore, cut your hair like a whore. You used to look like a lady. Like a wife. But you couldn't handle that. Now look at you."

"Nick — "

"Shut up! Everything you say is a lie. Every time you took one of those pills, it was a lie. I was trying to give you a baby. I wanted us to have a family, but all you wanted was to leave. Lying slut!"

He used his grip on my hair to drag me down to the floor. His temper had heated to full boil, and he was shouting more filthy words, jamming the gun against my head. My mind, my emotions, disengaged from what was happening, the intimate violence that was coming. Just like before, only now with a gun at my head. I wondered dazedly if he would pull the trigger. His body crushed mine as he used his weight to pin me down. His breath was rank and boozy as he muttered near my ear. "Don't scream, or I'll kill you."

I was stiff, all muscles bitterly tensed. I wanted so badly to survive. My mouth flooded with the flavors of salt and metal. The familiar-awful touch of his hand paralyzed me as he started to drag the hem of my skirt up.

We were both so absorbed in our savage struggle, one bent on inflicting harm, one resisting body and soul, that neither of us heard the door open.

The air vibrated with an inhuman sound, and the entire room exploded, chaos unfolding. I managed to look up, my neck twisting painfully, and a brutal form was rushing toward us, and the gouge of cold metal left my skull as Nick raised the gun and fired.

Silence.

My ears were temporarily numb, my body resounding with the force of my terrified heartbeat. The smothering weight was gone. I rolled to my side and opened my blurry eyes. Two men were brawling in a pounding, choking, jaw-cracking dogfight, sweat and blood flying.

Hardy was on top of Nick, pummeling over and over. I could see the fight draining out of Nick as damage accumulated, bones fracturing, skin rupturing, and still Hardy wouldn't stop. There was blood everywhere — Hardy's left side was drenched and welling crimson.

"Hardy," I cried out, lurching to my knees. "Hardy, stop." He didn't hear me. He had lost his mind, every impulse and thought bent on destruction. He was going to kill Nick. And judging from the rate his own blood was pouring out, he would kill himself in the process.

The gun, knocked out of Nick's hand, had skittered a few yards away. I crawled over and picked it up. "Hardy, leave him alone now! That's enough! It's over. Hardy — "

Nothing I said or did was going to matter. He was on an adrenaline-fueled rampage.

I had never seen so much blood. I couldn't believe he hadn't passed out yet.

"Damn it, Hardy, I need you," I shouted.

He paused and looked over at me, panting. His eyes were slightly unfocused. "I need you," I repeated, staggering to my feet. I went to him and pulled at his arm. "Come with me. Come to the sofa."

He resisted, looking down at Nick, who had passed out, his face swollen and battered.

"It's okay now," I said, continuing to tug at Hardy. "He's down. It's over. Come with me. Come on." I repeated the words several times, coaxing and commanding and hauling him to the sofa. Hardy looked ashen and haggard, his face contorting as the murderous instinct faded and pain began to hit him. He tried to sit, ended up collapsing, his fists suspended in midair. He'd been shot on his side, but there was so much blood, I couldn't see the exact location or extent of the damage.

Still holding the gun, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed some folded dishtowels. I set the gun on the coffee table and ripped Hardy's shirt open.

"Haven," he said through thready breaths, "did he hurt you? Did he — "

"No. I'm fine." I wiped at the blood and found the wound, a surprisingly small, neat hole. But I couldn't see an exit wound, which mean the bullet had gone in and possibly ricocheted, doing damage to the spleen, liver, or kidney . . . I wanted to burst into tears, but I forced them back and placed the pad of dishtowels over the wound. "Hold still. I'm going to put pressure on your side to slow the bleeding.

He let out a groan as I pushed downward. His lips were turning gray. "Your ear — "

"It's nothing. Nick hit me with the gun, but it wasn't — "

"I'll kill him — " He was trying to rise from the sofa.

I shoved Hardy back down. "Stay still, you idiot! You've been shot. Do not move." I put his hand over the folded dishtowels to maintain the pressure while I dashed to get the phone.

I called 911, David, and Jack, while keeping the dishtowels clamped tightly on the wound.

Jack was the first to reach my apartment. "Holy shit." He took in the scene before him, my ex-husband stirring on the floor, Hardy and me on the sofa. "Haven, are you — "

"I'm fine. Make sure Nick doesn't do anything else."

Jack stood over my ex-husband with an expression I'd never seen him wear before. "As soon as I get the chance," he told Nick in a deadly quiet voice, "I'm going to drop you in your tracks and gut you like a feral hog."

The paramedics arrived, followed soon by the police, while the building security guards kept anxious neighbors from coming in. I wasn't aware of the exact moment Nick was taken out of the apartment by the police, I was too absorbed in Hardy. He drifted in and out of consciousness, his skin clammy, his breathing weak and fast. He seemed confused, asking me at least three times what had happened, and if I was okay.

"Everything's fine," I murmured, stroking his tumbled hair, gripping his free hand firmly while a paramedic inserted a large bore needle for an IV. "Be quiet."

"Haven . . . had to tell you . . . "

"Tell me later."

"Mistake . . . "

"I know. It's okay. Hush and be still."

I could tell he wanted to say something else, but the other paramedic put him on high-flow oxygen and applied patches for a cardiac monitor, and fitted him with a stabilizing board for transport. They were fast and efficient. What EMS professionals call the "golden hour" had started: the time between when a victim was shot and the time he arrived at a trauma center for treatment. If more than sixty minutes passed before he got treated, his chances of survival started to drop.

I rode with Hardy in the ambulance while Jack drove to the hospital. It was only for Hardy's sake that I managed to stay outwardly calm. Inside, I felt an anguish that seemed too great for a human heart to withstand.

We arrived at the ambulance entrance, and the paramedics lifted Hardy on a gurney up to the building floor, which was slightly higher than the floor of the ambulance.

Liberty and Gage were already at the trauma unit, having been alerted by Jack. I guessed the rest of my family wouldn't be far behind. I hadn't given a thought to how I must have looked, all wild-eyed and bloodstained, but I gathered from their expressions that my appearance was a cause for concern. Liberty put her jacket over my shirt and cleaned my face with some baby wipes from her purse.

When she discovered the lump behind my ear, she and Gage insisted that I get it looked at, despite my howls of protest.

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to stay right here until I find out what's going on with Hardy — "

"Haven." Gage was in front of me, his steady gaze boring into mine. "It's going to be a long time before they've got any news. They're checking his blood type, doing CT scans and X-rays . . . believe me, you're not going to miss a thing. Now let someone look at that hard head of yours. Please."