The Only Way Out. Susan Mallery

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       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Jan. Okay, so it was tough at first. It’s turned out

       to be more than worth the trouble. I wish I could

       find the words to say how much your support and

       friendship have meant to me. You’re terrific. (I know

       it’s supposed to be a secret, but hey!) Here’s to being

       R&F, to maids, summer homes and bright futures.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      He was less than twenty feet from the car when it exploded. The deafening blast threw Jeff Markum up against the side of a clothing shop. Glass, chunks of wood from a corner fruit stand and pieces of twisted metal from the car itself peppered his body like buckshot. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything except the powerful echo of the explosion. The blackness around him grew, humming louder and louder until he felt himself losing this world. Not yet, he thought desperately.

      He forced himself back to consciousness, driven by the need to rescue the two people inside what had once been a small red Ford. As he tried to push himself to his feet, pain ripped through his left leg. A quick glance confirmed the injury. Blood seeped from a tear in his trousers, and his knee bent at an awkward angle. Broken.

      Around him, people stirred to life. He heard faint cries and louder screams. The uninjured scurried for cover in case the blast came again. Jeff knew they hid in vain. There was no need for another blast.

      He gathered the little strength he had left and crawled along the littered sidewalk. Glass cut his hands. His broken leg dragged behind him. His shoulder was dislocated, but he couldn’t worry about any of that now. He had to get to the flaming, twisted heap that had once been his car.

      Toward the inferno that housed his wife and child.

      Fury drove him. Sorrow and guilt fueled his need. He was less than five feet from the car when he heard the sounds of the sirens.

      They were too damn late, he thought looking at the flames licking skyward as if they could consume the heavens. No one inside could have survived. Even as he tried to comfort himself with the thought that they would have died instantly, he imagined he heard their screams.

      Each high-pitched shriek of terror pierced him deeper and deeper until his soul started to bleed. He stared at the wreckage as black smoke began to obscure it from sight.

      Then the siren stopped next to him and the medical team jumped out. Strong hands pulled him away from the fire, away from his wife and son. He fought the medics, but he had no strength. All too soon he was in the medical van and on his way to the hospital.

      Jeff closed his ears against the clanging of the siren, and closed his eyes against the medic’s penlight. He would get the report tonight, but he already knew what they would find.

      A car bomb. Nothing odd about that in a city that claimed hundreds of lives each year. Yet he’d been arrogant enough to assume that the statistics would never touch him. That he could pursue his enemy with all the fervor of a saint chasing the devil and that it would never get personal. Jeff had known Kray had marked him for death, but he hadn’t thought his family would have to pay because he loved his job.

      “J.J. needs to be near his father,” Jeanne had insisted when her plane had landed in Lebanon. “And I need to be near my husband.”

      Jeff had tried explaining the situation to her, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d resorted to anger. Jeanne had listened quietly, then continued unpacking. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter to her that she was in the middle СКАЧАТЬ