by Cynthia Eden
“You’re not…you’re not really going to kill Jazz are you?” Hesitation slowed Saxon’s words. It was the only time Maxwell had ever heard hesitation in the man’s voice.
Saxon had been the one to first bring the lovely Jasmine to Maxwell’s attention. Saxon and Jasmine had worked together before. Smaller jobs. Little heists.
They were friends, of a sort.
“If it weren’t for Jazz, the Arrow would be nothing more than a pile of rubble in Vegas.” Anna Jean would’ve liked that. She would’ve laughed as the flames hit the sky. “She turned on me. She must have hacked my computer, and she told Archer everything she knew.”
Saxon was sweating. “But…”
Maxwell waved his hand in the air. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle Jazz.”
“She’s going to suffer?”
It was such a shame. Saxon seemed almost concerned for Jazz. But then, Jasmine had a talent for getting to people. For slipping right past their guards before they even realized it.
Maybe it was those eyes of hers. So deep and dark. Or it could’ve been her dimples. The woman had a beautiful smile.
He’d caught himself watching her smile once or twice. Waiting for those dimples to flash. Perhaps in another time…another place…
He shook his head. He only had this time. “Jasmine isn’t who you think she is.”
He’d recently uncovered more intel on her.
Saxon backed up a step.
“So the hell, yes,” Maxwell narrowed his eyes on the guard. “I will make her suffer.” He would make her beg, bleed, and burn. “And if you have a problem with that, then—”
“N-no problem,” Saxon managed.
Good. Because if it had been a problem, then Saxon would’ve been dead.
In his organization, people either followed Maxwell’s orders completely—or those people were eliminated.
***
She watched the sun rise over the city. Sleep hadn’t exactly been an option for Jasmine, not after Drake’s big reveal during the hours of darkness.
And not with his endless questions.
Where is his money—all of it, Jasmine. Off-shore accounts, properties…
I want his business associates. Every name that you know.
Why did he pick you? Why you?
He’d seemed enraged when he asked that question.
Her answer hadn’t exactly thrilled him. Because I was convenient.
She’d worked with one of Maxwell’s bodyguards before. Saxon had been the one to tell Maxwell about her particular skill set.
“He’s out there.” Drake’s arm brushed against hers as he came to stand with her on the balcony.
A dull headache pounded behind her eyes. “Yes, he is.” Waiting. Planning to strike. How would he attack first?
He’ll come after me.
Jasmine figured that Maxwell would save his big game for last.
“I answered all of your questions.” She’d given Drake as much information as she—safely—could. “Now, I need you to answer mine.” Squaring her shoulders, she turned to face him. “Who was the woman?”
He was staring at the rising sun. She knew just how that sunrise looked—like blood flashing across the sky. “Anna Jean. Beautiful Anna Jean.”
The name meant nothing to her. That would be changing as soon as she got near a computer. “Did the beautiful Anna Jean have a last name?”
His gaze slanted toward her. “That doesn’t matter.”
It did. Everything in this vendetta mattered.
“How did you meet her?” Jasmine pressed.
“We worked…covert operations together. After I got out of the military.” His lips twisted. “She was my friend’s girl.”
Hold up, wait, that didn’t make—
“But I had sex with her. One drunken night.” He ran a hand over his face. “Because that’s what a good friend I was to Tucker.”
She backed up a step. Her hips hit the balcony’s railing. “Did you…did you love her?” Jasmine held her breath as she waited for his answer.
He kept staring at the sun. “Maybe.”
That wasn’t really an answer.
His head turned. “But that didn’t stop me from killing her.”
Those words were supposed to terrify her. Okay, they did terrify her. And after dropping that big bombshell, the guy just turned around and started to head toward the bathroom.
“No!” So she’d yelled. That yell had stopped him in his tracks.
She ran around and faced him. Jasmine jabbed her index finger into his chest. “I deserve more than that. I talked until I was hoarse for you.” That would be why her voice sounded so husky. Not because she was scared and sad and close to breaking on the inside. “So don’t just spout a line about killing her. Tell me what happened. Everything that happened.”
“Why?”
Seriously? He made her want to yell, again. “Because I want to know! I want to see past this cold mask you’re giving me! You didn’t kill her in cold blood. You couldn’t have.”
“How would you know that?”
“I think you’re more than that.”
“You want me to be more.” His lips twisted. “You need to accept that I’m not.”
Her heart shook her chest. “What happened?”
“She betrayed me. I killed her.”
She grabbed him and she shook him. Okay, she tried to shake him, but the guy was an unmovable object of stone. “Stop it!”
He blinked at her. Then his gaze lowered to her clutching hands. A furrow appeared between his eyes. “Why are you drawn to the danger?”
She didn’t let him go.
“I tell you that I killed the last woman who told me that she loved me, and you…you hold on to me as tightly as you can.” He looked back up at her. “Something is wrong there, princess.”
Something has been wrong with me for a long time. “There’s more to the story,” she said stubbornly even though his words had hurt. “You’re trying to scare me, but you don’t have to do that. Don’t you get it? I was scared of you before we even met.”
His head cocked to the right as he seemed to study her. “Yet you came to my bed.”
“I’m scared every single day of my life.” If he lived her life, he would be, too. “Fear can’t stop me.” If it could, she’d be hiding in a closet some place, with her eyes squeezed tightly shut against the darkness. “Now drop the bullshit, and tell me what really happened.”
“You’re so sure I’m not a monster?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong.”
She wanted to slug him. “Tell me.”
At first, she didn’t think he would. That glittering gaze of his seemed to weigh her and judge her. How many times had she been judged before and found lacking? Too many. She tried to stiffen her shoulders and straighten her spine. If he closed her out, then fine, she’d walk away. She wasn’t going to just hang around for nothing.
“The first time she died, we were in a wasteland of snow and ice. On a mission gone bad, bad because she’d betrayed my team. She’d set us all up to die so that she could make away with a fortune.”
“The…first time?” Just how many times could one person die?
His gaze stared into the past, and, judging by his expression, she knew it wasn’t a pretty sight. “I was taken on that mission. Held. Tortured because they wanted more intel on my team.”
“Your team?”
“My buddies and I formed our own covert reconnaissance group after our tours were over.”
His buddies…Trace Weston and Noah York.
“Trace and Noah came for me. They got me out—them and Tucker.” His voice roughened on the last name. “Anna Jean was supposed to be Tucker’s girl. Of course, he didn’t know that I’d taken her behind his back. One time.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I was drunk and I woke up afterwards, hating what I’d done. But Anna Jean…she was the kind of woman who could get beneath your skin.”
She pulled her
hands away from him.
“She wanted me to be with her. Only I wasn’t going to betray Tucker like that again…hell, maybe that was why she was so eager to sell us all out. I pissed her off, and she got her payback.”
“The scars on your back…” The scars that she’d felt in the darkness. Felt but hadn’t seen. Her hands had stroked more scars, too. On his stomach. His chest. So much pain. So much hell.
“Those scars are mementos from my captivity. They remind me of the price for betrayal.” He exhaled on a rough sigh. “Noah and Trace got me out of there, but before we could make it to safety, we came under enemy fire. Enemies were all around and Anna Jean…she used that moment to come at me. I turned and saw her gun, and I did the only thing I could…”
She couldn’t breathe.
“I stabbed her. She fell back into the snow, and Tucker—he went crazy. He shot me. Cause I deserved it.” He raked a hand over his face. “I don’t remember much after that. Noah and Trace got me out, but…they had to put Tucker down because he wouldn’t stop. He was too crazed over Anna Jean. Even knowing that she’d sent us all to die, he still loved her—and he…he died with her that day.”
Goosebumps rose onto her arms. “So you stabbed Anna Jean. It…it was self-defense—”
“Anna Jean was an unusual woman.”
Did he even realize how he sounded when he spoke of her?
“Beautiful, deadly. She could fly any plane or chopper, and she could bat her eyes and make men fall at her feet.”
Men like you?
“Somehow, she even managed to make it out of that pile of snow and death in Russia.”
What?
“She survived and came looking for her vengeance. Only she didn’t realize that I’d been the man who put that knife in her chest.” His lips curled in a humorless smile. “Funny thing about those life or death moments…when you’re bleeding out in the snow, your mind will play tricks on you. She blamed Trace for what happened. She thought he’d attacked her and killed Tucker.”
Jasmine wet her lips. Her muscles were aching because she held herself so still.
That mocking smile slipped away. “She went after Trace’s fiancée, Skye. Anna Jean was going to kill her. His whole life, Trace has only loved one person on this earth, and no matter what I had to do, I wasn’t going to let Anna Jean take Skye away from him.”
Her lips were bone dry. She licked them and managed, “You talk about him…as if he’s a brother to you.” The emotion in his voice revealed so much about his relationship with Trace and Noah.
“Brothers in battle,” he muttered. His shoulders rolled back. “Anna Jean wanted some payback. She nearly gutted me with a knife, then she went after Skye. I was Skye’s protection, and I’d promised Trace I would keep her safe. That I would do anything necessary to protect Skye.”
She nearly gutted me.
“I could barely move, and she was attacking Skye right in front of me. There were only seconds left. Seconds. And I had to make a choice…”
“Drake…”
“When I stabbed Anna Jean that time, I didn’t miss her heart.”
Jasmine’s body swayed a bit.
“I killed her, and I didn’t hesitate.”
She blinked away the moisture that wanted to fill her eyes.
He turned away from her, giving her the broad expanse of his back. “Still think I’m some kind of hero? Because I’m betting heroes don’t go around killing women like that. Heroes don’t do half the shit I’ve done.”
In that instant, she could only stare speechlessly at him. Jasmine just didn’t know what to say. Because he was right. Heroes wouldn’t do half the shit he’d done.
“That’s what I thought,” Drake murmured.
A loud peal of—a doorbell?—reached her ears and Jasmine jumped at the sound. Drake just slowly sauntered off the balcony as he headed back inside. He walked toward the apartment’s front door. Jasmine ran to keep up with him, hurrying through his quarters.
The pealing cry was soon followed by a fierce pounding on the door. Drake glanced through the peephole at the entrance, then swung the door open.
Swung it open…
As if he didn’t have a care in the world.
As if he hadn’t just confessed the darkest secret of his past to her.
Maybe that’s not his darkest secret. Maybe there are more secrets.
Jasmine wasn’t sure she could handle more right then.
“Janet,” Drake said softly to the woman in the well-cut suit who stood there, wringing her hands and looking terrified, “why are there cops behind you?”
Jasmine backed up a step.
“Because a body was found on your property this morning,” another woman said as she pushed into the suite. A woman with light blonde hair and a cold, gray gaze. “I’m Detective Nancy Taggert, and I’ve got a few questions for you, Mr. Archer.”
Not so much as a ripple of surprise crossed his face as he looked from Nancy Taggert to the two uniformed officers who still shadowed the woman he’d called Janet.
“A body?” Drake repeated. “At my home?”
Jasmine was pretty sure her blood had turned to ice.
“Um…yes.” Detective Taggert was watching him like a hawk. “Seems a bounty hunter named Wayne Hardin was shot on your property. A neighbor called to report hearing shots fired, and then we found Hardin spread-eagle on your walk.”
No, no.
“Were you acquainted with Mr. Hardin?”
“Our paths may have crossed.” Wow. Talk about having no emotion in his voice.
“It appeared as if Mr. Hardin had been the victim of a recent…physical altercation. His nose was broken. Bruising clear on his face, and well, I can’t help but notice…you’ve got some bruising, too.”
This couldn’t be happening.
“That bruising is right along your knuckles,” the detective murmured. “As if…as if you’d recently given someone a beating.”
“I box,” Drake said flatly. “Sometimes I go bare-knuckled. So, yeah, I bruise, and I don’t even notice it.”
This wasn’t going to end well, and Jasmine couldn’t let Drake be pulled into Hardin’s murder investigation. “Drake didn’t shoot Hardin.” Jasmine stopped backing away and forced herself to approach the cops. There was no way she was going to let him get railroaded for this.
“It’s all right, Jasmine,” Drake said, and there was a bite in his words.
“No, it isn’t.” Did he think she was just going to stand there and let him get interrogated? Or worse—hauled away to jail?
Detective Taggert’s gray gaze focused on Jasmine. “And you are…?”
“I’m the woman that Hardin was after. It’s me that you should be questioning, not Drake.”
“Jasmine.” Drake’s voice was downright lethal then.
“He didn’t have anything to do with Hardin’s death. Drake was with me all night long. I swear that he was.”
Taggert’s eyes were cold and flat. “Why was Hardin after you?”
“I…”
Drake stepped in front of her. “Don’t say another word.”
Detective Taggert marched to Jasmine’s side. “You just confessed to having a bounty hunter on your trail. That’s making me think you might be a wanted fugitive, ma’am.”
“I’m not. Not wanted at all.” She glanced at the detective. “But I’m afraid I can’t tell you more here.”
Taggert’s face hardened. “I think we need to take a little trip down to the station.”
“Probably,” Jasmine agreed. “We do, but Drake doesn’t. He wasn’t involved at all in what happened.”
There was enough fire in Drake’s eyes to singe Jasmine.
“I think we should all go downtown,” Taggert said.
“No.” Drake caught Jasmine’s wrist and pulled her away from the detective. “You want us downtown, you get an arrest warrant. But that won’t be happening and we both know it.” He flashed the cop the tiger’s grin that always m
ade Jasmine feel nervous. “So you need to leave now, and any further communication can be conducted through my attorney.”
Taggert’s own gaze flashed. “You listen to me. You can’t just—”
“I’m coming with you,” Jasmine said, cutting through the cop’s words. Because she knew her time had run out. If Hardin was dead, then she’d be next on Maxwell’s hit list.
Surprise rippled over Drake’s face. “The hell you are.” His hand tightened around her wrist as he leaned in close to her. “Do you know what she’ll do to you down there?”
“Question me? Toss me in a cell?” Jasmine shrugged. “A girl can’t run forever.”
He shook his head. “What are you doing?”
Ah, this was the crazy part. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to keep you safe.”
Judging by the floored expression on his face, that possibility had obviously not occurred to him. Jasmine leaned up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “It’s my turn to protect you,” she whispered. “Consider it payback.”
Then she stepped away from him. She’d known that she was living on borrowed time, but that time was gone now. Hardin is dead. A cold chill had wrapped around her spine. She didn’t want to wind up like him.
Her gaze connected with the detective’s. “You’ll be needing to put a call in to the FBI. Ask for Agent Victor Monroe.”
“The FBI?”
Jasmine nodded. “And I won’t be answering any more questions. Not until Victor arrives.”
She sent Drake one last smile. Thank you. For a little while, she’d felt so good with him. Safe.
But safety was a lie.
And her death…it had been a certainty from the very beginning.
“I’ll miss you,” she told Drake.
She meant the words. She wouldn’t miss much about the con that was her current life but…she would never forget him.
He didn’t say anything back to her. Not surprising, really. No lover had ever really missed her when she left.
Story of my life.
She turned and walked away.
***
What. The. Hell?