then she grasped his head in both hands and slammed it down onto the floor until he was nearly unconscious.

"p.j., p.j., baby, you got him."

cole's soothing voice filtered into the haze wrought by her rage. she glanced up, for the first time connecting with cole. he was alive. bleeding, but alive. then she glanced down at brumley, whom she was still sitting astride. naked.

she felt no shame this time. she was the victor. she'd taken this motherfucker out. her. just a helpless woman he'd once raped.

she bent low, hissing so he'd be sure to hear. "how's it feel, asshole? to know i'm not so helpless now and i kicked your fucking ass."

she picked up the knife she'd dropped and casually popped the buttons on his expensive, bloodied, silk shirt. panic entered his eyes when he figured out her intention.

the door to the room flew open and she scrambled for the gun lying close to cole. it was slippery and she damn near dropped it, and then heard cole's voice, soothing. calming her from the panic that had taken hold.

"it's all right now, p.j. it's just steele and the rest. they're here now. it's all right."

but it wasn't all right. she didn't even spare her teammates a glance. she returned her attention to the bastard she had pinned to the floor. she didn't care what her teammates were seeing. that she was naked and bloody. she'd sacrificed all pride in her pursuit of justice. and now it was hers for the taking.

she finished cutting off his shirt and brumley started babbling and pleading for his life.

pathetic, ball-less worm.

"don't kill me," he begged.

she laughed, and the sound was cold in the room. not at all like p.j. this was a different p.j. this was the cold-blooded killer she'd become.

"give me one good reason i shouldn't cut you up like you did me and then let you die a long, painful death," she spat.

"p.j."

it was steele. that one word cut through the haze and brought her back to reality.

she turned, expecting censure. expecting him to tell her to stand down. what she saw were her teammates with rage in their eyes.

steele was at the forefront, his eyes brimming with understanding.

"it's your call," he said quietly. "resnick wants him alive, but fuck resnick. whatever you decide, we're behind you one hundred percent."

it was then that brumley broke down, weeping like a distraught child. maybe he saw the promise of death in p.j.'s eyes. and after hearing her team leader all but sanction his death, he started babbling faster than p.j. could keep up.

"i'll give you whatever you want. money. i have money. information."

he latched onto that greedily. "i have names and contacts. i have records of every deal i've ever made. you could take out a lot of very important people who deal in child trafficking. i'm just the middle man. i'm nothing."

p.j.'s lips curled into a snarl. "yeah, you'd probably love to be turned over to resnick. you'd cut some cushy deal, sing like a bird and then be free in no time. i don't trust you, brumley. you'd say anything to save your own ass."

dolphin and renshaw ran to where cole was still sitting, tied to the chair. they quickly untied him and started applying a pressure dressing to the wound.

steele and baker stood by the door, guns still drawn, their gazes never leaving p.j.

"i can prove it," brumley gabbled. "in my safe. there in the wall. i'll give you the combination. you can see. i have records of everything. recorded conversations. details of deals. when and where. it's all there, i swear it!"

"baker, check it out," p.j. ordered.

baker removed the painting and then waited as brumley stuttered out the combination. a moment later, baker started pulling out stacks of currency and with it a ledger and several memory chips.

baker flipped through the ledger and let out a low whistle.

"apparently our asshole here does business with some very important people. resnick would come in his pants to get his hands on this."

"see!" brumley panted. "i told you!"

p.j. looked at him in disgust and then pressed the blade into his throat until a line of blood appeared.

"wait! you said you wouldn't kill me!" brumley said in panic.

she slashed deep, cutting his windpipe, air escaping in a long hiss.

"sue me."

chapter 37

p.j. let the knife fall from her hand, clattering to the floor. numbness had crept in along with the realization that she'd done it. her revenge was complete.

her rapists were dead. her mission was done.

a shiver took over, and she realized that she was still astride brumley, naked and cold, shaking like a leaf.

and then her team was there, surrounding her.

mortification gripped her and she clutched her arms to her in an attempt to cover her body.

steele wrapped a blanket around her shivering form and pulled her up and away from the blood and the sight of brumley's dead body.

"are you hurt?" steele demanded, his hands on her shoulders, holding the blanket in place.

it seemed a senseless question when she was bleeding all over and her face must look like a train wreck.

"cole," she croaked out. "how is cole?"

she broke away, uncaring of anything but cole. she rushed to where he still sat on the chair he'd damn near torn apart in his desperation to get to her. there were rope burns at his wrists and a bulky pressure dressing on his shoulder. but he was alive.

as soon as she pushed her way past dolphin and renshaw, cole staggered to his feet and met her halfway.

ignoring his injuries, ignoring hers, he crushed her to him, holding on as if he'd never let go.

"my god, you scared me, p.j.," he whispered against her ear. "don't ever do that to me again. swear to me you'll never do that again. i almost lost you. i can't lose you again. never again."

she clung fiercely to him, fearing what would happen if she let go. she could literally feel the threads holding her in place loosening and starting to fray. she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to keep it together.

"baker, get everything out of that safe," steele ordered. "we need to clear out of here double time. i don't want any sign that we were here."

renshaw snorted. "i think the dead bodies will give it away."

steele pinned him with a glare. "they may speculate as to who and what, but i don't want them to have irrefutable proof. i want everyone out and this place clean on the double."

"yes sir," baker said.

baker gathered everything from the safe and began stuffing it into his pack.

renshaw began a wipe down of all the surfaces that could have been touched and then started working on the doorway, the knobs and the frame.

p.j. was still holding tightly to cole, knowing if she let go, she was a goner.

steele walked over to them.

"can you make it down without help?" he asked cole.

"yeah, i'm good. but she's not."

"i know," steele said quietly.

he gently pried p.j. away from cole. she went ballistic, stretching her arms out to cole, not wanting to be separated from him for even a moment.

"shhhh, p.j.," steele said gently. "it's over now. you're safe. cole is all right."

but her shattered mind couldn't process anything but her need to be close to cole.

she was still struggling when steele swept her into his arms. after ordering baker, dolphin and renshaw to complete the cleanup, he headed out the door with cole following closely behind.

p.j. went limp, the pain from her struggles overwhelming her. she laid her head on steele's shoulder and closed her eyes, so many different emotions bombarding her until she was utterly overwhelmed.

relief. pain. sadness. grief. vindication.

justice.

she clung to the last word knowing it was the most appropriate of all. justice had been served. brumley would never pose a threat to another woman or child again.

steele carried her out of the gates that had been blasted open, and she gazed at the twisted iron, the carnage that had been wrought when her team had blown their way in.

a moment later, steele set her down into the back of an suv and eased her into a sitting position. he carefully pulled the ends of the blanket around her, tucking the ends like she was a child incapable of doing even the simplest task for herself.

"i'm going back to round up the others so we can get the fuck out of here," steele said. and then he strode away, leaving her and cole alone.

she sat hunched over and cole closed in, pulling her into his arms. she closed her eyes and simply inhaled his scent. the blood, sweat, dirt. she didn't care. he was alive. they'd made it. brumley was dead.

"it's over, baby," he murmured. "it's finally over. you kicked the ever-loving shit out of him. you scared me to death, but i never doubted you for a moment."

she sighed and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. her voice trembled and shook when she spoke. she had to work to get the words past her stiff, cold lips.

"it's over, but will i still see him at night when i close my eyes? will i still see him in my dreams and relive that moment of helplessness again and again?"

he slipped his fingers under her chin and gently nudged it upward until she met his gaze.

"i'm going to be right beside you every step of the way, and every time that asshole enters your mind, i'm going to push him right back out again. for every bad dream you have, i'm going to replace it with something wonderful."

she leaned her forehead against his chest again. "i love you, you know."

he put his mouth to the top of her head, and she could feel his smile. "yeah, i know. and i love you just as much. what do you think we should do about that?"

she made a garbled sound that could have been panic or satisfaction. maybe a little of both. it was so hard to get her thoughts together and this was so very important. she had to get this right.

she raised her head so she could look him in the eyes, so she could see that love-for her-shining like the warmest light in the darkest corner of hell.

"it probably means we should do something stupid like move in together. but i draw the line at popping out babies."

he laughed softly, his bloody mouth working into a semblance of a smile. "what, you don't want to raise a brood of little snipers?"

she shuddered. "no."

he hugged her fiercely. "i'm fine with that. as long as i have you. we make a good team, penelope jane. on and off the job."

she pulled back again and eyed him suspiciously. "no demand that i quit my job so you can shut me away and keep me safe?"

"hell no. who would save my ass on a mission? i'm counting on you to protect me!"

she laughed, despite the gut-wrenching pain it caused her, and let go of some of the horrible tension knotting her gut. "i'll do my best."

she hugged him again because she just couldn't stop touching him. "i love you," she said fiercely. "i'm sorry i couldn't say it before. but it was there. maybe it's always been there. it'll always be there, cole. i swear it."

he stroked her hair, raining little kisses over her brow and head. "we would have gotten there eventually. our dating time just happened to be over bullets, grenades and hostage rescues. we'll never be normal, but screw normal, eh?"

"yeah, screw normal," she said, her voice muffled by cole's shirt.

"let's go and load up."

steele's voice penetrated the warm glow that p.j. existed in and brought her crashing back to reality all too soon.

they still had to face the music for their actions, and it could very well mean that she no longer had a future with kgi.

chapter 38

for the first time since she'd come to work for kgi, p.j. openly defied her team leader. technically what she'd done before hadn't been defiance, since steele hadn't specifically told her not to do the things she'd done. he couldn't very well have told her since she didn't let him in on her plans.

and technically she'd resigned from the team so anything she'd done in that six months had been done solo, not as a member of the kgi organization. never mind that steele had told her where to stick her resignation.

but when steele announced his plan to dump his team back home in tennessee and go alone to meet with sam, garrett and donovan to turn over the intel collected from brumley, p.j. had drawn a hard and fast line in the sand.

she refused to allow steele to take the rap for her actions and her decisions. cole had stood firmly beside her on that count, stating that he and p.j. would both give an accounting to the kellys. no way in hell they were throwing steele under the bus.

steele hadn't been happy about the matter, but there wasn't a lot he could do when faced with two determined people who would go to sam, garrett and donovan with or without him.