He moved into the living room and dropped to a crouch, quickly scanning the room. The second level, the vibrations, should have alerted him. Instead, he was too focused on the vibrations ripping through his body as he buried himself deep inside Bree.
The third alarm finally triggered. By then, it was too late. Whoever broke through the front entrance had already made it inside the building. Checking the kitchen, and then the bathroom, and seeing nothing, only increased his concern.
Where the hell was Jason? Rand? The rest of TREX? Something wasn’t right. Rushing into the bedroom to find Bree fully dressed, eyes wide and no color in her face, he pulled her into his arms. He had to feel her, to know she was okay. Moving to the nightstand, he kept her in his arms as he grabbed his phone and dialed Shaw. If anyone had an eye on the building, and specifically the suite, it was TREX’s top hacker.
“Ja,” the German barked into the phone.
“Shaw, what the hell is going on? The alarms are—” he stopped abruptly as the alarms did the same. A deep foreboding settled in his brain and stiffened his muscles. He wouldn’t silence the alarms unless… “Why’d you trip the alarms?”
“I tried calling.” Like that was any sort of justification.
“You son of a bitch, I should come over there and—”
“Was ist den los? You should be protecting her, not sexing.” Shaw growled out several expletives in his native language. “Du bist ein dumm kopf.”
“I had it under control.” Even as he said it, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was wrong, something much bigger than Shaw disapproving of him and Bree together. “What is it? What’s really wrong?”
“McKoy wants you to call him. Jetzt!” He ended the call just as pissed as when he answered.
Jeremy didn’t have time to be grateful it wasn’t a real threat. He hugged Bree and kissed her forehead. “Stay put.”
“Is everything okay?”
He certainly hoped so. “It’s fine. False alarm.” He forced a smile.
“You sure?” Clearly, she didn’t believe him.
“Would I lie to you?”
“About this?” She spiked that eyebrow. “Or in general?”
“I have to make a quick call.”
“I’m going to take a shower then.” Her lips quivered in a failed attempt to return the smile. They then wilted as she gave up and walked out of the room. Once the bathroom door closed, he stepped out of the bedroom and moved down the hall into the living room before dialing. McKoy would have to wait. Jeremy wanted to know where the hell his brother had disappeared.
Jason answered on the last ring before it went to voice mail. “Yo, bro. Did you two hash it out? Is it safe to come back to the suite?”
“Where the hell are you?” He didn’t know whether to scream at him for leaving the apartment or wring his neck when he got back. Hell, he’d just do both and be done with it.
“I went on a beer run. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Goddamn it.”
“What is it?” Jason’s voice grew even, cool. “Talk to me.”
“The alarms went off.”
“Shit. I can be there in two minutes.”
“Don’t bother,” Jeremy ground out. “It was Shaw.”
“That son of a bitch.”
“That’s what I said.”
“So, everything’s okay?”
Until he got his hands on Wolfgang Shaw. “Yeah, for now.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” The ungrateful bastard.
“You already knew I was okay,” Jason shot back. “The instant you knew it was a false alarm, you knew I was fine. So, why are you really calling?”
He blew out a breath in an attempt to get his heartrate under control. Jesus Christ. He was close to stroking out here. The walls danced around him. No matter how deeply he breathed, they kept closing in. Dots invaded his vision. “I just… I…”
“Breathe,” Jason ordered. “In. Out. In. Out. That’s it. Are you sitting down?”
Jeremy collapsed into a chair and placed his head between his knees. He hadn’t had a panic attack in over two years. Why now? Why tonight?
He knew why. He’d just had sex with the only woman with the power to bring him to his knees, and he’d done it without Jason as his anchor. His support. He’d lost control. The room spun violently. “I’m going to be sick.”
Bree dropped in front of him and grabbed the phone, bringing it to her ear. “I got this.” After ending the call, she tossed the phone aside and took his hands. She kissed him hard, without mercy. It stole his breath for another reason entirely.
When she pulled back, her intense smoky eyes held his. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Just the sight of her, her touch, soothed him. Several minutes passed and still they stared into each other’s eyes.
Reality hit. Oh, no. Oh, shit no. Did he just completely meltdown in front of her? “Damn it. I’m really sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry. You used to get like this before every final.” She licked her lips, drawing his attention.
“I don’t remember you ever doing that to calm me down. Besides, I remember some pretty impressive, full-on meltdowns from you.”
“Maybe you should have tried kissing me.” She rose to her feet. “Better?”
Maybe he should have. “Other than being embarrassed as shit I broke like that, especially in front of you.”
“Oh, please.” She waved it off. “I’ve seen you in a lot worse shape.”
“When?” As soon as he asked and caught that challenge in her twinkling gaze, he knew he was in trouble. Adjusting his glasses, he waited for her to deliver the ultimate embarrassing story.
“Senior thesis.” She grinned when he rolled his eyes, remembering this story all too well. It wasn’t one of his prouder moments. “The week before it was due, you decided to change your topic from the rise and fall of lottery winners to money laundering. Gripping stuff, let me tell you. I had to prop my eyes open to listen to you ramble on and on and on about following the money.” She used air quotes.
That thesis had caught TREX’s attention. They watched him throughout college and had approached him his final year. He highly doubted they would have taken much interest in him had he gone through with how winning the lottery had destroyed lives.
“You had a full-on panic attack complete with puking and the shakes the night before it was due. Remember?”
“How could I forget?” He hadn’t slept, instead pulling an all-nighter to polish the paper and practice his presentation. “I nearly passed out during my speech.”
“No one would have noticed,” she quipped. “Everyone fell asleep. Believe me when I say, no one finds numbers nearly as fascinating as you find them.”
His phone rang. He glanced at the screen and clenched his jaw as he recognized the number. He forgot to call his boss. Grabbing the phone, he brought it to his ear. “Bowman.”
“Are you alone?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a pretty simple question,” Chris McKoy ground out, clearly annoyed. “Can you talk? Or are you in mixed company? Because, honestly, that’s the only reason I can think of for you to ignore Shaw’s message to call me. Now, I’ll ask again. Are you alone?”
“No.”
“I’ll wait.”
“I need to take this,” he said to Bree and stood. She nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. Once the shower started, he brought his attention back to the call. “Go.”
“Prints came back on our driver. Edward Munson. Had a rap sheet long enough to pave the way from here to LA, but nothing big.”
“Nothing like killer-for-hire,” Jeremy concluded, practically spitting.
“Not even close. The bigger question is how did he get tangled up in a contract killing?”
Good question, and one he really wanted to know the answer to. “Why are you delivering this? Bailey is our intel agent on this fi
nd.”
“Because of what I’m about to tell you,” he answered. “No one is to know what I’m about to disclose. Not even your brother. Especially your brother. Is that clear? Any change in the way he approaches this could blow the entire op.”
“You have my word.” He hated keeping secrets from Jason. His twin had a way of getting the truth out of him. It would only be a matter of time before Jeremy slipped up. Yet another reason why he’d make a lousy field agent.
“While you work the subject, I want Jason on the sister-in-law. Between the two of them, someone has to know where that money is.”
“Why tell me? Why not call Jason and tell him yourself?”
“I’m not his boss,” McKoy snapped. “Apparently York thinks sitting on his ass instead of loaning me his asset is his idea of interdepartmental cooperation. We need to press them hard. From what Shaw tells me, you’ve already got a handle on Bree Harrington.”
Shit. He fisted his free hand, digging his nails into his palm. Goddamn Shaw. He was dead after this. “Sir, about that.”
“Save it. How do you think I reconnected with my wife? I’m not about to fault you for breaking under the pressure of a find.”
Breaking was right. It embarrassed the shit out of him that he’d lost control like that in front of her. “Yes, sir.”
“With Jason giving Whitney Harrington the full-court press, he’ll be focused on her and not protecting the subject. That means you’ll have to. Are you okay with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He hated how everyone treated him with kid gloves as a result of that attack.
“I read the file. I know how you hate field work after what happened. You pretty much hate everything now, don’t you? Bailey has told me stories. What kind of man gets a second chance at life and wastes it feeling sorry for himself?”
“You have no idea—”
“What you went through?” he interrupted, his voice low and even. “Really? You can say that to me? You of all people know what I went through. I’ll never walk again without using a cane after that piece of glass sliced through my spine. You don’t think I wanted to give up? I did. You know what stopped me? My wife. Bethany was in my face day in and day out, pushing me more and more every day. She’s the reason I’m still here.”
Jeremy’s mind drifted to the way Bree had dropped to her knees in front of him and brought him back from the darkness threatening to consume him. She was so much stronger than she knew. He glanced at the door separating them. Maybe he’d sneak in there after this call and join her in the shower to show his gratitude.
“She’s also the reason I’m in this chair when I’m not fighting my own body to do something as simple as walk.”
That comment shocked Jeremy back into focus. “You blame her?”
“No. I blame me. It was my instinct to protect her that blinded me to the dangers right in front of us on that op. Be careful, Bowman. You can’t find whoever’s after her if you’re lost in her. You get what I’m saying?”
Jesus and Christ. The realization slammed into him like a sledgehammer to the chest. He’d have to keep it platonic until this was all over. He couldn’t protect her buried inside her. The alarms tonight proved that. For the second time in less than an hour, the walls closed in.
No, goddamn it. He would not let his anxiety beat him. He’d find the threat and eliminate it. If they had any sort of future together, they’d have to get through these next few days. Bree would be safe with him no matter the cost.
“Understood, sir.” An uncomfortable silence settled between them. He had to say something to draw the attention from him. “I still don’t see why you want me to keep this from Jason.”
“Jason tells Bailey everything. I pay attention. It’s why I didn’t go through her on this request and why I won’t tell him. If I did, he’d tell her. I love my sister, but she doesn’t think straight when it comes to your brother. Those two have a very weird relationship.”
Tell me about it. “Do you think she’d try and stop him?”
“I think she’d find some way to talk him out of it, and we’d be back at square one. Bails says they’re just friends. If they were, she wouldn’t have cried and insisted on driving all night after Jason told her about getting shot. I think she’s in love with him.”
Well, shit. So much for them being casual. “How do you know he’ll be able to get Whitney to talk?”
“There are few agents with the, shall we say, charm of Jason Bowman. If she knows anything, he’ll get it out of her. It’s what he does best.”
Didn’t he know it? It was another reason why he couldn’t keep secrets from his brother. “Anything else?”
“We found the car Bree bought on her corporate card. It was the black sedan Munson used to try and take her out.”
“That’s good news,” Jeremy pointed out. Finally, something he could use to help prove her innocence. “It proves she didn’t buy the car after all. She wouldn’t buy a car and then give it to the guy trying to kill her.”
“My thought exactly and why I want Jason on the SIL. Someone else has access to her corporate card. The SIL makes the most sense.”
“Does this mean I no longer have to keep my real role on this find from Bree?”
“You mean can you tell her about the missing money? I’ve been thinking about that, actually. Maybe if you said something to her, it’d trigger a kneejerk reaction. She may make a mistake and lead us right to it.”
“She didn’t do it.” He knew that without a doubt and would defend her to the death if it came to that. “The car proves it.”
“No, the car proves someone else got a hold of her corporate card,” McKoy countered. “There’s still a shit ton of money missing. That’s the target of our find. We’ll keep Mrs. Harrington out of danger, but she has to come clean about the money.”
“You want proof?” he growled, pissed and tired of everyone accusing Bree of being capable of something like stealing from her own company. “I’ll get you your proof. Maybe then you’ll focus on who’s really behind this. If Whitney has anything to do with the missing money, Jason will find it. Bree didn’t do it.”
“Then find me who did.”
“Yes, sir.” He ended the call and spun around at the sound of the front door closing. Jason stood there, his gaze one-hundred percent focused on Jeremy, his mouth slightly open. “Hey, bro.”
He narrowed his gaze. “That’s my line. You can’t pull it off. Where’s Bree?”
“In the shower.”
“Did you two make up?”
“Yes.” And then some. “Thanks for giving us a little space.” Just please, don’t do it again.
“I told you that you didn’t need me, not with her.” He set the beer on the kitchen counter before returning that knowing look on him. “Is everything okay?”
Shit. He already knew. Jeremy needed a beer and tore into the half-rack, grabbed one, and twisted off the top. Once he took a long drink and came up for air, he regarded his brother. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know, Jer. You tell me.” He popped the top off a beer and faced him, that damn gaze searching his.
“Don’t pull your cryptic bullshit on me. That may work on your subjects, but you know better with me. If you have something to say, say it.”
“Fine. Do you want to tell me why you had another panic attack?”
“Another?” he chuckled bitterly. “I haven’t had one in years.”
“Exactly my point. You’re regressing. You had a handle on your PTSD up until a couple of months ago. What changed?”
“Nothing changed. I’ve been this screwed up all along. Thanks for noticing.”
“Bullshit. Something changed. It wasn’t the breach at HQ. It wasn’t McKoy’s injury like everyone thinks. It’s like you flipped a switch the minute you…found…out…” he trailed off and dropped his jaw. “The reunion. That triggered it.”
“It didn’t trigger anything.” He took a pull off the beer. It wasn’
t nearly strong enough. Nothing would be.
“Liar.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. He wasn’t fine. He barely slept anymore. Images of the attack appeared as soon as he closed his eyes. He never went out anymore. Hell, he hadn’t gone back to that area of Seattle since that fateful night.
“Remember what I said before we left for the reunion? I told you not to lie to me. It pisses me off.” He set his beer on the counter and stepped toward him.
“Get used to disappointment.” Jeremy set his beer next to Jason’s and challenged him. Yes, it was stupid. Yes, his brother could take him out with a single blow. He just hoped it didn’t come to that.
Jason studied his eyes, darting his back and forth before narrowing them. “What are you hiding?”
“What makes you think I’m hiding anything?” He swallowed hard and kept his damn mouth closed.
“Because you never puff out your chest like this unless you’re hiding something.” He fell silent as he continued to watch his twin. After several tense seconds, he nodded. “McKoy wants to divide us and put me on Whitney while you work Bree.”
How the hell did he do that?
“I, uh…” Shit. Shit! He had a choice to make. Go against a direct order and tell Jason the plan, or lie. Since he clearly sucked at lying, he conceded to his first choice with a muttered curse. Glancing behind him to make sure Bree hadn’t snuck out of the bathroom without him knowing, he gave Jason a nod. “McKoy wants you to find out if Whitney Harrington knows anything. He said no one could charm information out of a woman like you could.”
He kicked his lips into a crooked grin. “He’s not wrong. I’ll take the SILILF. With pleasure.”
“I told you to stop calling her that.”
“You also told me you’d stop lying to me,” he shot back. “Guess we’ll both have to get used to disappointment. Have a good night. Oh, and this idea you have of putting it back in the friend zone won’t work. You push her away now, you lose her forever.”
“I have to. It’s the only way to keep her safe.”
“You’re an idiot if you really believe that. You’ve passed the point of no return, dude. There’s no going back after that.” He walked into his room and closed the door behind him.
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