“Some information will just be old news after a certain deadline, Miss Hutchens. Now, do we have a deal?”
Amber looked at her watch. “We have a deal, but Brad—that’s Chief Sun, if you don’t know who that is—will be here very soon to pick me up. I don’t think he’ll be too happy to see all your cars around my place, Dragan.”
“I’m not so happy with him, either. He raided mykafenathis morning. One of these days, my dear, you’ll find another one of your boyfriends gone.”
“Then they will send another one and this time he might not be someone I can get close to, Dragan.” Amber glanced at Greta. “I like the sound of the word ‘classified.’ You’re either American or have lived there a long time. I’m guessing you’re privy to so much information because you’re either married to a diplomat or you’re working inside. Someone like me can’t run a café forever, so please explain to Dragan here how our line of work progresses.”
“She certainly does sound more concerned about this chief than Hawk,” Greta said to Dilaver. She nodded at him, a satisfied expression on her face. “All right, tell her about the bomb and the decoy.”
He refused the painkillers. Where the hell was Amber? She was late.
“What time is it?” Hawk asked. He scowled from the bed. “Can I get up now?”
“It’s five minutes since you last asked, and no, you can’t get up till Amber’s here,” Lily said. She sat at the far end of the room, by the door, with a gun pointed at him. “Be good, will you?”
“I’ve eaten. I’ve subjected myself to being prodded by women who don’t really know me. And you took a shot at me and I haven’t retaliated.” He scowled at the dark-haired woman. She had really used that weapon when he had tried to get out of the house. “Haven’t I been good enough?”
“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t have had to use this,” Lily said, waving her gun. “You just sit there and rest up. How am I going to explain to Amber where you are when she shows up and you’ve gone off?”
That had been his plan after sitting there at the safe house for a while. He just couldn’t wait any longer. What if Dilaver…? He didn’t want to imagine what Dilaver might do to Amber.
“She’s okay, Hawk,” Lily said quietly. “Brad was going over there to pick her up for their vacation, remember? Dilaver wouldn’t hurt her.”
“How can you be sure?” Hawk challenged.
“Not so calm and cool about not killing the scumbag now that he has someone of yours, are you, Mr. McMillan?” Lily asked softly.
Hawk became still. “Meaning?”
Lily leaned back, resting one arm on the back of the chair. “You know what I mean. You and Brad. Both of you wouldn’t take down Dilaver when he wasn’t hurting someone you know. Look at you now. You look like hamburger meat, yet you want to go after him and his men. Brad, too. He took off like a maniac the moment he heard that Amber might be in danger from Dilaver.”
If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Lily was jealous. But surely not of Brad and Amber? “That’s what happens when a friend’s in trouble, Lily,” Hawk said, eyeing her closely. She appeared relaxed, as if she were trying to distract him with conversation. “Wouldn’t you take off after Dilaver if he had Amber?”
Lily smiled. “Are you trying to get me all defensive about my friendship with Amber?”
“Not at all. But I notice you still haven’t answered my question.”
She looked at him seriously for a moment. “For me, it all depends on the situation,” she said. “I mean, sometimes you have choices to make, you know. I love Amber very much, but what if one of the girls is in trouble at the same time? I can’t be at two places at the same time, can I?”
Hawk reached for the peanut butter sandwich by the bed, carefully chewing it, since his gums seemed to have swollen. “So what are you saying?” he asked in between bites. “Sounds like you’re saying you might abandon Amber.”
Lily’s smile widened. “I’m saying that everyone has priorities and they rewrite their rules around them. For example, Brad won’t arrest Dilaver. I’ll bet you, if Dilaver had Amber as a prisoner, he would break all sorts of laws to rescue her. Then there’s you. You’re on a special mission to retrieve something and won’t get rid of Dilaver because that isn’t part of your operation. But you’d help Amber by sneaking in the two reporters, which probably was what got you caught. And now you just want to go after Dilaver because he might have Amber, too. So the two of you rewrote your rules when it suited you. I, on the other hand, have very few rules and try never to break them.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Do you want to know why?”
“Why?” Hawk finished the sandwich. He was still worried about Amber, but at least the conversation was making time go a little faster.
“Because when you break a rule, there is no more order. The center doesn’t stand without order and the world around you collapses.”
“You know, Lily, that’s too damn profound for a beat-up guy right now. I’ll tell you something, though. I don’t know what your rules are, but life isn’t order or chaos because of people who make or break them. And if you were in trouble with Dilaver, Brad would do the same thing for you. More, I suspect.” Hawk carefully sat up. His whole body was stiffening up from not moving about. “Are you going to shoot at me again if I take a piss?”
“No. I just don’t want you to attempt rushing out of here like before. Looks like you’re in too much pain now, though. Are you still not going to take the painkillers?” Hawk shook his head. “Nope.”
“Why? It’d make you feel better.”
Hawk got off the bed. “One of my rules,” he said with a smile. “Never take medication when someone in the room is pointing a gun at you.”
“That is, if you have a choice,” Lily pointed out.
“That goes without saying,” he said.
