Breaking Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

everything.”
    Max couldn’t answer that. What could he possibly say?
Actually, no, I left out quite a bit . . .
    Silence seemed to surround them both, stretching on and on.
    Rita interrupted it. “Gina, if you could say anything to Max right now, anything at all, what would you say?”
    “Stop treating me as if I might break. Even when we make love, you’re so . . .
careful.
Like you bring that entire 747 into bed with us every single time. . . . Aren’t you ever going to just . . . let it all go?”
    Max couldn’t begin to put it into speech—his anger, his rage over what she’d lived through. Let it go? Let it
go
? How could he let go of something that had him by the balls? There were no words, and if he so much as tried, he’d just howl and howl and howl. Instead, he cleared his throat. “I can’t do this,” he said again.
    He started for the door.
    But Gina beat him over there. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think this would help. I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she told the therapist.
    “Gina, wait,” Rita got to her feet. Now they were all standing. Wasn’t this fun?
    But Gina closed the door behind her. Quietly. Firmly. In Max’s face.
    Well, that went about as well as could be expected. Max reached for the doorknob. And wasn’t this going to be one grim, silence-filled ride back to the physical rehab center?
    “Have you ever told her how much you love her?” Rita asked him.
    He managed to hide his surprise. The answer to that question was none of her goddamn business. He also didn’t ask why in God’s name would he tell Gina that, when what he really wanted, really
needed
was for her to find happiness and peace? Which she’d never do until she’d succeeded in leaving him behind.
    “Although, to be honest,” Rita added, “she certainly seems to know, doesn’t she?”
    “Sometimes all the love in the world just isn’t enough,” Max said.
    She made a face. “Oh, dear. If you’ve allowed that to be one of your defining beliefs, that world of yours must be a terribly dark place.”
    Christ. Spare him from psychoanalysis by people who didn’t even know him.
    She didn’t let up. “What are you so afraid of, Max?”
    Leaning heavily on his cane, Max just shook his head and followed Gina more slowly out the door.
    FBI H EADQUARTERS , W ASHINGTON , D.C.
J UNE 20, 2005
P RESENT D AY
    Peggy Ryan was in talking to Max. Jules could hear her, laughing at something their boss had said, even as Max shouted, “Come in.”
    They both looked up as Jules opened the office door, as he stepped halfway inside. “Excuse me, sir.”
    And just like that, Max knew.
    It was a little freaky, but Jules saw it happen. Max looked at him, glanced down at the document Jules was carrying, then looked back, hard, into Jules’s eyes, and he somehow
knew.
    He’d been leaning back in his chair, but now he sat up, holding out his hand for the news that he already knew was coming, his face oddly expressionless. “Gina?” he asked, and Jules nodded.
    There was no way Max could have known that Gina was in Germany, let alone anywhere near that car-bombed cafe.
    And although Jules admired the hell out of his boss and thought the man brilliant, highly skilled, and capable of outrageous acts of bravery as he employed his frontline method of leadership, Jules was firmly grounded in reality. Despite popular belief, he
knew
that Max was not capable of mind reading.
    Which meant that Max had been waiting for this.
    It meant that every single day since Gina had left, he’d been waiting for—fearing and dreading—this very news.
    What a hell of a way to live.
    Peggy Ryan was oblivious. In fact, she was rattling on about some case she was working on, even as Jules handed Max the dreaded list of civilians killed.
    Jules turned to her and cut her off mid-utterance. “Ma’am. You need to leave.”
    She blinked up at him in shock, her expression rapidly morphing to outrage. “Excuse
me
—”
    “Now.” Jules