Mark Vincent has risen from senior special agent to Director of Interior Affairs in the WBIS. Lately, life has been sweet for him -- in addition to his promotion, he's found a partner in Quinton Mann, who can almost match his ability in the intelligence field, in spite of the fact Quinn's CIA. Mark has also found a condo in Alexandria with the help of Portia Mann, Quinn's mother, and it's closer to Quinn's town house than Mark's present apartment. Sweetest of all, Mark plans to take Quinn to his island in the Caribbean for the holidays.<br><br>Quinn's glad he has the holiday with Mark to look forward to -- something is going on at Langley, and he feels he's being kept out of the loop. To make matters even worse, useless missions and sleepless nights filled with nightmares are leaving him exhausted. But then his mother's life if threatened, and Quinn discovers the accident that resulted in her hospitalization was no accident. The obsessively self-absorbed Senator Wexler is involved, and while Quinn considers himself a civilized man, now he's out for blood.<br><br>Up until this point, Mark has stayed out of Quinn's CIA business. But hurting Quinn and those he loves isn't a smart move, and Mark has every intention of seeing Wexler pays. Quinn demands to come along, and while Mark isn't happy, he finally agrees, and they set out together to deal with the senator. There's just one catch: this will be the first time Quinn sees Mark at his deadly best, and Mark isn't sure how his lover will react.

Forever

The chauffeur was nowhere to be seen, but maybe, like Novotny, he’d already been transported to the hospital.


An ambulance was parked a few yards away from the vehicle, and two men worked on the female victim, who was screaming nonstop and trying to clutch at her face.


“Ma’am, please. Ma’am, you can’t…Dave?”


“Ma’am, if you keep trying to touch your face, we’ll have to restrain your hands. You have to stop…. Goddammit! Bob, hold her hands. I’m gonna get—” He went into the ambulance.


I couldn’t tell how badly the woman on the stretcher had been injured, although I could see that one eye appeared to be sunken in her skull, as if the bones around it had been shattered. Her face was covered in blood.


The paramedic returned with straps and fastened her wrists to the sides of the stretcher. Her screams finally stopped, but I didn’t think she was smart enough to realize that screaming wouldn’t make the pain go away; she was probably on the verge of passing out.


Chapter 62