Page 89 of Unexpected Complication

He lifted his head and studied me for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll arrange it.”

“What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“Orson stabbed me, and he had my gun.”

“He shot you as well.”

“And Skylar?”

He sighed, leaning closer, resting his elbows on his thighs. “The bullet went right through you, Cian. Skylar was behind you. It struck her temple.”

My heart began to pound so hard, I thought it would beat through my chest. “I thought…I thought you said she’d be okay? She was shot in the head?” I gasped as I attempted to get up, the need to see her screaming through my body.

Sean stood, holding me to the mattress by my shoulders. The pain stopped me cold. “Cian! Calm down. She is fine. I swear she is.”

“But…”

“The bullet slowed down going through your thick, stubborn flesh. The way she was angled behind you, it hit her head, but only grazed it—luckily. It was deep, but it didn’t enter her brain. There was a lot of blood and it took stitches to close it, but she’s recovering and she’ll be okay.”

I stared up at him, searching his eyes to be sure he was telling me the truth. I saw only honesty in his tired gaze. He smiled at me. “She’s tough, Cian. She fought them all the way here to be close to you and caused such a scene in the ER, they finally brought her to you. The only way she’d let them stitch her up was to have it done while you were in surgery. She’s barely left your side. The doctor had to threaten her today to get her to rest. Between the gunshot and the knife cut on her neck, she lost a lot of blood. But she is going to heal.”

A shuddering sigh of relief left my body, and I sank back down, fighting my own smile. That sounded like my Kitten. Stubborn as all hell.

Sean sat down. “Are you calm enough to listen now?”

My hand was shaking as I reached for another ice chip. I popped it into my mouth, letting the cold soothe the burn. “Yeah.”

“After I heard your warning about Larry, I was waiting. I knew something had happened. He only made it in the room a few steps before I put a bullet between his eyes.” Sean smiled grimly. “He barely had time to reach for his gun, that fucker.”

I nodded, letting him talk.

“When I realized Skylar was in the building, I knew our cover was blown or at least in jeopardy of being blown. I contacted Frank, who told me Skylar wasn’t at the farmhouse when he got there, and they couldn’t locate her. I told him to bring in the reinforcements stat—that we were in trouble. He said they were already on their way. Then I got busy and started all the destruction, before trying to get to you.”

“Rex…” My voice trailed off in thought.

“A good guy—like us—but with a different arm of the law. He’d been undercover way longer than we were. He was trying to figure out who else had infiltrated.” Sean shook his head. “A perfect example of bureaucracy gone bad. Neither organization would share information or confirm they had someone on the inside.”

“How?”

“The fire Rex was in? He never recovered. It was the perfect cover—the loss of voice, the changes to his face, some of his missing memory—all could be explained by the accident. They put in Agent Clark while Rex was still on life support. Orson never suspected a thing. Agent Clark had been slowly gathering evidence until you showed up.”

“Wish I’d known. It would have saved us a lot of work.”

Sean barked out a laugh. “What did you want him to do? Shake your hand and ask if you were undercover like him? Both of you were far too good at your job. He was as convinced you were really Anthony as you were he was Rex.”

I grinned a little—he was right. “That’s why he didn’t give Skylar up.”

Sean nodded. “When Orson sent him to get her, she opened the door, expecting Frank. When he saw her, he knew right away what was happening. Skylar was, ah, not happy to see him.”

“Did he do that to her face? The bruises?” I asked, planning on returning the favor, regardless of how it had happened.

“No. Orson did those, and the rest was an accident. She was so panicked when she saw Rex, she tried to run. She tripped and hit her face on the step, splitting her lip. But it added a convincing note to the story he told Orson about having to subdue her. He told her the whole story before he took her to Orson. He helped her—and us. He took the first shot at Orson.”

“There was a second?” I rasped.

“I took the kill shot,” Sean stated smugly. “I was done with that fucker.”