“This is the first time I’ve ever met Corbin,” I said with a smile. “How on earth can we possibly be lovers if we’ve never met? Surely even the most gullible of police aren’t going to buy a story about a jealously raging Corbin when I am, in reality, a total stranger.”
Paul laughed again, and careful to keep the gun trained on all of us, sidestepped to the nearest computer. A couple of taps on the keyboard, and a video came up on the computer screen, showing a couple sitting naked on a bed.
“I know what it is. I researched all the food used here,” the man said, frowning at the woman as she held a bowl in front of her. “You’re going to eatnow? I have the commute from hell, Amy. I don’t have a lot of time before I have to leave.”
The woman gave him a look that would have melted iron. “Oh, yes. I’m going to eat now.”
I gasped, not just at recognizing myself and Corbin on the computer screen, but at the horrible, skin-crawling knowledge that Paul had somehow used the program to watch us while we were making love. “You bastard! Stop it!” I yelled, moving forward to stop the computer. Corbin grabbed my arm and pulled me back as Paul leveled the gun at me.
“What’s wrong, dearie? Object to me making your little cyber-sex games with Corbin public? I’m afraid there’s no way to help that. It’s the proof I need to convince the police that not only did you have an intimate relationship with him, but also of his murderous intentions toward me.”
I looked at Corbin. “I want that hard drive reformatted the second the police grab Paul.”
“If not before,” Corbin agreed, his eyes twinkling at me.
“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” Holder asked, trying to look around me at the screen. “Is that a fruit cobbler of some sort?”
“Holder!”
“Sorry,” he said, giving me an apologetic look. “My bad.”
“Extremely!” I agreed, glaring.
“If you three are finished, I’d like to get to the fun part where I kill you all,”
Paul said, glancing at his watch. “I still have to transfer the funds from the Cayman Islands to my Swiss accounts, so if you don’t mind—”
“Now you’re the one being stupid,” Corbin told him. “You’re not killing any of us.”
“Oh, really?” Paul asked, looking amused. He pointed the gun at Corbin’s chest. “You seem to forget that I have the gun.”
“Yes, and I have this,” Corbin answered, pulling my scimitar out from where he had been holding it tight against his leg.
“Me, too,” Holder said, showing his. “Two against one, Paul.”
“Indeed,” Paul said, smiling. “Two swords against my Glock; how very frightening. Is anyone else here reliving that tragic moment on the sloop? It’s a remarkably similar situation, except, of course, that injuries here are not so easily ignored. That being so, I suppose I should follow the script and do something like this.”
He fired the gun at Corbin. I screamed and threw myself forward toward him, but Corbin yanked me backward, sending me crashing into the computer chair behind us as he lunged to the side. I was so involved with disentangling myself from the chair that I didn’t see what he was doing, but I heard Paul’s scream of rage and fury and smiled grimly to myself as I kicked the chair away from me.
Corbin had skewered Paul’s right arm to the wall behind him, the gun dropped helplessly on the floor. Holder kicked it aside as he held the tip of his curved scimitar to Paul’s throat.
“Ha!” I yelled, getting to my feet to stalk forward. Blood was pouring out of Paul’s arm, but with Holder keeping the tip of his sword to Paul’s jugular, he clearly didn’t wish to tempt fate by trying to remove the sword in his arm. I got as close as I could and waved my hand toward Corbin. “We beat you again, you bastard! You missed him!”
“Er… sweetheart?” Corbin asked, slowly turning from where he had been facing Paul. His left hand was clutching his side… his blood-soaked side. “He didn’t actually miss me, I’m afraid.”
“Noooooooo,” I wailed, rushing to him, trying to pry off his hand to see his wound. “Goddamn it! It’s in the same spot where he shot you the last time! It’s never going to heal at this rate!”
Corbin started laughing, causing me to read him a little lecture about laughing while he was gushing blood from a gunshot wound, but I had to stop in order to call the paramedics and the police.
“Are you going to tell me it’s all mind over matter?” he asked ten minutes later as the paramedics loaded him into the aid unit. I didn’t release the hand I was holding, walking alongside him as he was carted out of the house. Behind us, police were hauling a bandaged Paul out to another ambulance. I ignored the obscenities he was screaming at us to focus on the only thing that mattered.
“Absolutely. You can do anything. You’re Black Corbin,” I said, allowing my love for him to fill my eyes.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but are you family?” one of the paramedics asked as I was about to climb into the back of the aid unit with Corbin. “I’m afraid only a family member is allowed to come with us.”
I opened my mouth to tell her what she could do with that ridiculous rule, but Corbin spoke before I could. “Yes, she’s family.” His eyes held mine for a minute, a wicked glint visible even through the pain dulling them. “She’s my wife.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, you know,” I whispered as I knelt beside him, brushing my lips over his in a quick kiss.
