by Skye Warren
“I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
He didn’t care if it was rude to order Ford out of his own fucking room. He owed Nate a whole stack of favors, and Nate was going to collect on a few of them today. Besides, if he looked at Sofia with those hungry eyes for one more second, Nate was going to lose his shit.
Ford grinned, completely at east. “Don’t stop on my account.”
“Out.”
He put up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m going, I’m going.”
Once he was gone, Nate tossed Sofia’s backpack onto the bed. “Take your time getting ready. I need to talk to him.”
Sofia raised her eyebrows. “A present?”
He shrugged as if it didn’t bother him. “He’s a dick. I called to let him know we were crashing at his house.”
Not waiting for a response, he left the room and gently shut the door behind him so she’d have some privacy. Ford was waiting for him with a cup of something caffeinated and potent. Nate swallowed it, embracing the scalding heat down his throat. At least it distracted him from the ache in his knee. He forced himself to walk without a limp to the table. Ford was a friend, but he wasn’t the kind of person to show any weakness.
He slung himself across one of the tiny kitchen chairs. “Jesus. Did you have to stare at her like that?”
Ford gave an exaggerated sigh. “I didn’t know you were possessive, Nathaniel. Why’d you bring her if you aren’t going to let her play?”
He kept his expression blank. “I told you in the message. Some shit went down; we needed a safe place.”
“Care to elaborate on this shit?”
Ford could be a thorn in his side, but he was damned good at operations. Nate was counting on that.
“Sofia works at the Austin Daily.”
His friend’s eyes sharpened. “The explosion. It’s all over the news.”
“Yeah. And when she went home, there were three professionals in her apartment. I took two of them out. The third is in APD custody.”
His gaze flitted down to Nate’s knee, but thankfully he didn’t comment on it. “So, you brought her here for a little slumber party. What’s the plan now?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I want your firm to protect her.”
“While you bow out gracefully?”
His smile was wry. “As gracefully as I can with a fucked-up knee. That’s why I need you to do it. I’ll hire you if I have to.”
Ford rolled his eyes. “You know I can’t take your money after the number of times you’ve covered my ass.” His grin widened. “In more ways than one.”
Great. All he needed was Ford coming on to both him and Sofia, like a threesome was the answer to their security problem.
Nate set the mug down, leaning forward and looking him right in the eye, a meeting of the minds. “This is important to me.”
“Hmm.”
“And like you said, you owe me.”
Ford looked speculative. “When’s the last time anything was important to you?”
His psychobabble intuition made him a good boss at Maven Security. It had also made him a great soldier, back in the day. They’d met in Nate’s first tour, Nate fresh out of training, Ford commanding and mysterious. They had kicked ass in the field and gone wild when they’d had leave. Getting blackout drunk, having threesomes. It had been more than a hobby; it was a survival mechanism. A release valve for when he’d seen too many things—and done too many things.
Ford had made a respectable business back home, but he’d never quite abandoned his party ways. And now Nate had made it worse by bringing Sofia here. Except he would rely on very few people to protect Sofia, and Ford was unfortunately at the top of the list.
“Will you take the job?” he asked.
A soft sound alerted him to Sofia coming out of the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Her satin black hair was pulled behind her head in some sort of braid, but strands escaped the confines, framing her face.
She sat across from him. “Shouldn’t I be consulted if I’m going to be left with strangers?”
She looked soft and pretty. Like prey. Nate knew how the world worked, how cold it could be, how harsh. Sofia would be used up, hurt, killed—but he wasn’t going to let that happen.
“No,” he answered curtly.
“I’d like to hear what she has to say,” Ford drawled, a wicked glint in his eyes.
That fucker better not lay a finger on her. Nate would make that clear enough when Sofia wasn’t in earshot. “You can hear what she has to say when I’m gone.”
Sofia’s dark eyes blazed. “Where are you going?”
She was a mix of strength and fear. Her strength was what had attracted him. Her fear was natural, considering what had happened. Which was why he’d find the fuckers who’d threatened her and put them down.
“Ford specializes in personal security. You’ll be safe with him while I figure out who’s behind this while you’re here.”
“Why can’t I come with you?” Her eyes were clear, guileless. He loved that about her, but he never really knew what to do with it. Like holding a priceless vase; he could marvel at its beauty, but his first instinct was to put it out of reach, away from his clumsy hands.
He tried to explain. “I wouldn’t be able to focus if you were with me—”
“Why not?”
“Yeah, Nathanial,” Ford drawled. “Tell us why you can’t focus when she’s around.”
He scowled at Ford, then turned to Sofia. “They’re after you, not me. They’ll be on the lookout for you.”
“What are they going to say, aim for any dark-haired girl in Austin? That would be half the female population.”
If she thought she didn’t stand out in a crowd, she was more naive than he’d realized. “A gorgeous young woman with a press pass from the newspaper just bombed, asking pointed questions about campaign finance reform,” he corrected. “I doubt there’ll be a crowd of people all doing the same thing.”
“Nate.” Sofia leaned forward, eyes intense, and he was startled for a minute, caught by how he must have looked to Ford just a minute ago, seeing his reflection in the woman he loved. “This is my story. I didn’t give it up when a more senior reporter came sniffing around, and I’m not giving it to you either.”
He was impressed…and quietly, deeply terrified. She wasn’t going to quit. Her curiosity, her unquenchable sense of justice—they were going to get her killed. She would die, and he would be helpless to protect her. Like his teammates.
“This isn’t up for debate,” he said roughly. “You’re staying here.”
“You can’t make me,” she said. At the stubborn expression on his face, her eyebrows rose. “That’s kidnapping.”
“Only if you try to leave,” he said reasonably.
Sofia made a frustrated sound and pushed away from the table. Ford smiled into his coffee cup, the bastard. Nate needed to figure out some way to convince Sofia to stay here. Her own safety was apparently not important enough, but to him… God, to him it was everything. She was everything. How could he let her march into a land mine? She thought he was worried about kidnapping? He didn’t give a fuck about anything but keeping her safe.
He struggled for the words, which always, always failed him. He was good with his hands, in combat or in bed. But he couldn’t say the things he wanted in just the right way—that was Sofia’s strength. Her articles exposed corruption and shone light on people working for positive reform. She spent her time making things better, while his only skill set was tearing them down with violent efficiency. She focused on the future while he was chained to the past by a wound that would never heal.
Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair. His cell phone buzzed on the kitchen table. He flipped it over. Tony, his computer guy. He’d prefer to take the call in another room, but aside from the fact that there almost were no other rooms in this cavernous house, his knee felt swollen and completely stiff.
He leaned back in the chair and
closed his eyes as he answered the phone. “Yeah.”
“Know any travel agents?” Tony always cut right to the point.
“Should I?”
“You’ve got an itinerary, real detailed. Expense reports. Pages and pages of the stuff.”
Nate leaned forward. “Mexico?”
“Bingo. The scanned images of those reports were layered underneath the original images.”
“What kind of knowledge would it take to pull that off?”
“This is some advanced level tech. High encryption, the kind the NSA doesn’t want to admit they can’t crack. That’s why it took me all night.”
“So we’re looking at a pro.”
“A pro? There’s only a few people in the country who could have rigged this. But there’s something else in here, an Easter egg. Looks like this was set to unlock all by itself in seventy-two hours.”
“Shit. What happens in seventy-two hours?”
Sofia looked at him, dark eyes full of worry. Worry, because some shit was likely going to go down. And the person who had left this thought they might not survive.
He spoke into the phone. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”
“You know I’ll collect. I’m sending you the embedded images now.” The call ended.
Both Sofia and Ford watched him expectantly. Damn, if he weren’t careful, these two could end up ganging up on him. Then he wouldn’t stand a chance. Though if he was honest, he realized he was already lost.
By the time he filled them in on the contents of the files, Sofia had commandeered the laptop, scanning the files with her reporter face. He wouldn’t admit it, but her reporter look was the sexiest of all. He loved her bedroom eyes and her sweet smile, but when she focused on a story, she took his breath away.
Forcing his attention to the screen, he saw locations on maps in Mexico. He suspected the DEA might be interested in this, but Nate was more concerned with getting Sofia out of this mess—not pushing her deeper into it.
Sofia clicked through the maps until she found a series of sepia-toned photographs with a young Moreland standing with groups of men, shaking hands and smiling. Always the politician, even before he’d run for office.
If there’d been illicit pictures, she would have expected them to be from Mexico, doing whatever shady dealings she expected from him. Or maybe in his headquarter offices in NYC. Instead these were clearly set right here in Austin, the rolling hills behind them, the iconic 360 bridge still under construction in one of them—giving her a timeline, at least.
“You recognize any of them?” he asked her.
She shook her head, squinting. “One of them…maybe. No. Damn it, I don’t know.”
There were a few men in the pictures, some of them blurry, some of them already old two decades ago. One man was young, possibly younger than Moreland, with thick glasses and a striped shirt. He looked like more of a computer geek than a shady drug dealer.
Nate bent close to her. “Who uploaded these files?”
“My intern,” she said absently, studying a photograph of two men, Moreland and another man in slacks and a buttoned shirt. Then she looked up. “You think he was the one who added these other images? But why would he need to hide them? Why not just put them next to the other files he uploaded?”
He just shrugged. “Someone did.”
She still seemed skeptical. “He doesn’t have any ties to the campaign. He goes to school full-time, works in the library, and does research for me a few hours a week. I don’t see why he’d do this.”
“I just had a great idea,” Ford said. “Why don’t you find him and ask?”
Goddamn it, no. He needed to keep her safe, to wrap her in layer after layer of glass and plastic and metal until no one could ever get at her, to hide her with darkness and shield her with apathy, so that no one could hurt or corrupt her—not even him.
“I’ll go find him,” he said, turning to Sofia. “You stay here.”
“He’s not going to talk to you. He doesn’t know you. And like I said, it’s my story. I’m going. Besides, no one will recognize me on campus.”
“Actually,” Ford said. “You’ll blend in just fine with the students. He’s the one who’s going to stick out like a sore thumb. Especially with that beard. And his wild hair. I swear he looked more civilized in Macedonia.”
Nate didn’t know how to stop this. They were talking, but he couldn’t hear a thing. This was the eerie quiet, when he wondered where everyone had gone. And later there’d be a high-pitched whine, the signal too little and too late. He might as well tie his hands behind his back too. They were going out in public. He’d do his best to protect her, but there was that chance, that horrible fucking chance that it wouldn’t be enough.
Chapter Twelve
Ten years ago
After the flood they had moved to Houston, where their father had found work at a construction company. Her mom had cleaned an office building downtown. They had a small apartment instead of a house, but things had been okay. Then the car accident happened.
A drunk driver. Diego had been seventeen then. Sofia, thirteen. They had gone to live with their grandmother in San Antonio, the three of them bound mostly by grief.
Diego had gotten involved with the gang early on, but he had still lived at home.
Sofia had still pretended they were a family, instead of just leftover people. Survivors.
All that changed the night that Diego went to a party, flirting with some girl from the wrong side. His own gang brothers had decided to teach him a lesson using Sofia. She tried to block out the memories, but they still came to her at night—sweaty bodies and urgent grunts and red bandannas.
She survived that too.
The sound of drunk shouts came from outside the window, making her jump. She curled up in her closet, underneath the hanging dresses and jeans, beside the tennis shoes she wore for track.
A tall silhouette filled the doorway. Diego.
“I can’t,” she said urgently, panicked. Panting. “I can’t. I can’t.”
Silence. Then, “They won’t touch you. I won’t let them.”
They had already touched her. He meant they couldn’t touch her again, but she didn’t see how that was possible. They’d been willing to hurt her even when he had been one of them. What protection would she have when he had tried to leave the gang?
There was only one way out; he knew that.
And then what would happen to her?
Some kind of blast came from the front yard. A small yelp escaped her. It wasn’t a gunshot, she didn’t think. But she knew they were armed. Maybe an explosion. A fire? Oh God.
He handed her something. Moonlight from the window glinted off the blade. “Take this.”
“I can’t,” she repeated, praying for the numbness to come back.
“Fucking take it.” He ran a hand over his head. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I need you to have this. And lock your door after I leave. I already called the cops, but they may not get here in time.”
He’d called the cops? That wasn’t something anyone did around here. Even her grandmother had taken her to the free clinic when she’d seen her bruises. The people there had called the cops anyway, but Sofia had just shook her head. She didn’t know them, couldn’t recognize them. A lie, but it would keep her alive.
Except that her brother couldn’t live with what had happened to her. So he’d told the gang he was leaving. Even though he still had the gang tattoos across his chest. Even though he still wore the red bandanna tucked into his jeans. You could take the boy out of the gang, but not the gang out of the boy.
For two days he’d sat around the house with a bottle of Jack in one hand, his gun in the other. Sofia hadn’t known what to say to him. Abuela had pretended nothing was wrong, cooking all their favorite meals until the fridge overflowed.
Now it was midnight, and their reprieve was over.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I’ll hold
them off long enough.”
She blinked, fear creeping up like rising water, drowning her. “They’ll kill you.”
He laughed. “How else was I going to die, hermanita? From someone else’s gun. Better than mine.”
Her throat clenched. “Stay here. With me.”
“In the closet? They might come through the door. If it happens, I’ll shoot for the biggest, toughest assholes and hope the rest will scramble like cockroaches. I don’t want you near that.”
Upstairs wasn’t far enough away. “I’m scared.”
“No matter what. They’re crazy fuckers, but they aren’t stupid.”
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re the stupid one if you’re going to go down there alone.”
His voice softened. “I know, Sofia. I’m stupid and I’m crazy, but I’m your brother. This time I’m going to act like it. Lock the door behind me.”
He dropped the knife on the carpet beside her. Then he turned to leave, the red bandanna in his jeans a streak of color against the dark, blurred by her tears. She watched him go, her heart a hard knot, knowing that would be the last time she saw him. And no matter what he had done before, he was a hero now.
Chapter Thirteen
Nate didn’t speak to her as they drove to campus. Actually he hadn’t said much since he’d come out of the bathroom looking like a different man, his beard shaved and hair trimmed short. That way he could walk around campus without standing out, Ford said.
The man must be blind.
Nate’s cool blue gaze felt like a spark, sharp and hot. The rest of his six-foot, muscled body was the thunder that followed. He would never blend in. Sofia had been struck by electric lust the first time she’d seen him—digging through the trash, no less.
She’d wanted that trash.
They were both looking for a scoop, him for a client and her for the paper. The mayoral candidate that year had been hiding some serious money from his ex. They’d gotten together almost immediately and managed to track down the bank accounts.