by Lora Leigh
An hour later, Noah made his way through Mike’s underground tunnel and cracked open the panel that led into the office. He checked for audio and video security, read the readout on the electronic device he brought with him and shook his head. The office was wired but deactivated. Keeping the unit he carried turned on to ensure it stayed that way, Noah moved into the office.
Mike had always been an arrogant son of a bitch, but Noah had never thought he was stupid. Attacking Sabella had been stupid, and perhaps not as out of character as Noah had believed if Mike was indeed a part of BCM.
If Noah remembered correctly, when Sabella had worked at the bank, before their marriage, Mike had always been a little too friendly and Mike’s wife had always been a little too cool to Sabella. It made sense why now, when at the time, Noah had tried to push back the warnings with the excuse that he was a suspicious man. Mike wasn’t the cheating type, he’d thought. Maybe he had been wrong.
He moved to the office desk first and the laptop that sat on top of it. He slid the flashdrive Tehya had sent into the USB port, then quietly powered up the computer. The program on the drive would slide into bootup according to Tehya and take care of all their problems.
He watched as it powered up, as security protocols were bypassed, password was automatically logged and added to the drive Noah had inserted before the program itself quickly uploaded.
When it finished, the laptop powered down, turned off, and Noah slid the drive free before tucking it into the zippered pocket of his mission pants. He looked around the office, eyes narrowing as he began checking the room.
Silent in the darkness, he paused after picking the lock on the bottom desk door and stared inside coldly.
There, with an extra handgun, ammo clips, and a black hood, were three black scarves. There had been black scarves tied around the necks of all the victims that had been hunted and killed in the past months.
Noah closed the drawer, relocked it, and slipped back through the panel. After securing it, he made his way through the tunnel again, careful to clear his tracks from the dusty floor. It didn’t appear that the passage was ever used.
One thing was certain, a Black Collar Militia member was now on the short list.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What had made Sabella think she could hide from Duncan that night with the lame excuse she had given him, she wasn’t certain. Maybe it was because Duncan had never argued when she had to cancel before, maybe it was the fact that the more she thought about it, the more she realized herself how the relationship they had had was so platonic as to be laughable.
It was late when she heard his car pull into the driveway. Sitting in the living room finishing the bottle of wine Duncan had opened days before, Sabella stared at the window where the lights were reflected and realized several things at once.
One, for some reason, men thought she was a pushover. Nathan had seen her as the helpless little wife he had to protect. Duncan often patronized her over her “hobby” at the garage. And even Rory seemed to question every move she made lately. And now, she couldn’t even break a date without someone thinking they needed to question her decision.
She rose from the couch, straightened the loose T-shirt she wore over silky shorts, and then, wine glass in hand, moved to the door. Pulling it open she stared at Duncan’s handsome though irritated expression as he lifted his knuckles to rap at the door.
He was dressed as precisely and unwrinkled as ever. A white short-sleeved polo shirt and tan slacks and black loafers. He was always clean-cut and perfectly groomed and now was no exception.
His gaze took in the wine glass, then her face, before he focussed on her chin and neck. Yeah, she knew those marks were still there. One on her jaw, one on her neck. Tiny bite marks, and the thought of the pleasure they had given her was curling her stomach with guilt. And hunger.
“Can I come in?” he asked, his smooth voice suddenly at odds with her senses.
He sounded patient, warm, but she saw anger in his eyes.
“Sure.” Sabella stepped back as she sipped at her wine and he entered. “It’s midnight. Isn’t it late for you to be out?”
“I don’t have a curfew.” That vein of anger wasn’t as hidden as it had been moments before.
Sabella pushed her fingers through her loose hair before heading back into the living room. This was her sanctuary, a room Duncan rarely liked coming into. He preferred the kitchen. He had never made it upstairs.
He followed her though, stopping just inside the doorway across from the fireplace and staring at the mantel as Sabella sat down in one of the chairs, curling her legs beneath her.
There was a hint of discomfort on his face, a quiet, flash of hurt that made her chest ache. He had been a good friend over the years, he would have made a good lover or husband. If her body, her heart, had been willing to accept him.
“You keep his pictures out like he’s coming home,” he said quietly. “As though you think he’s just going to walk in the door any day with open arms.”
Sabella glanced over at the mantel, then to the long table beneath the window where other pictures sat. She probably should have put them away a long time ago; she just hadn’t been able to do it.
“Letting him go hasn’t been easy.” She finally shrugged uncomfortably. “But I’m sure you didn’t show up here at midnight to discuss whether or not my husband is coming home.”
“Nathan’s dead, Belle,” he said roughly, impatiently. “You’ve never accepted that. It’s why our relationship never worked, isn’t it? Because you can’t accept he’s gone.”
It had taken her three years to accept that Nathan was indeed forever gone. That long for her to get past the horrific nightmares she lived through for over three years. First the ones full of blood, then those full of pain and fury. Sabella had been convinced he was alive, in pain, and in those nightmares he begged her to come to him. And then they stopped. One night, they were just gone, and Nathan had left her entirely.
“Yeah.” She finally nodded. “I’ve accepted that, Duncan. And I warned you when we started seeing each other, I’m not looking for love.”
His lips thinned angrily.
“Or sex,” he bit out. “You barely let me kiss you, yet apparently the rumors that you’re sleeping with your new mechanic are true.” He flicked a finger toward her. “I know a hickey when I see one.”
“I’m not sleeping with Noah Blake.” She had to bite back her frustration, her irritation. “No matter what the gossips are saying.”
“You’re sure as hell not sleeping with me,” he argued, moving farther into the room. “Tell me, Belle, do all these pictures keep you warm at night?” He lifted his arm to indicate the mantel, the table. “Will they give you children? Will they hold you when you cry for him?”
His voice rose, the anger building inside him. Duncan was finally realizing that the warnings she had given him over the past months had been sincere. She didn’t want anything more than his friendship.
“Do you want to hold me while I cry for him?” she asked in frustration, jerking from her seat and grabbing the wine bottle and her glass before moving to leave the living room. “Is that what you want, Duncan?”
She set her glass and the wine on the L-shaped kitchen counter that doubled as a bar before turning to face him.
“And when Noah’s marking your face and your neck, are you crying for Nathan then?” Duncan sneered hatefully, shockingly, as he followed her into the kitchen.
“Stop, Duncan.” She threw him a wary look over her shoulder as she entered the brightly lit kitchen and moved to the counter. Where she felt safer.
She had never seen Duncan upset. Actually, she had never heard of Duncan becoming angry much at all. But it was obvious he was just a little pissed off right now.
She stared at him across the counter, seeing the edge of growing anger in his face as well as his eyes. His lips were thin, his expression flushed
“Do you think I don’t know why that mechanic m
ade it this far, and I haven’t?” he accused furiously. “You’re fooling yourself, Belle. You know you are. And you’re making a mistake.”
“It’s midnight, Duncan,” Sabella argued back. “I don’t want to discuss this with you tonight or I would have asked you over. You’re not in a position to make any type of decision for me, or to question the decisions I make.”
“He’s like Nathan.” He glared back at her. “That’s why you want him. That’s why your skin is marked by him, because he reminds you of Nathan. And he’s not Nathan.”
Sabella stared back at him in shock. “He’s nothing like Nathan,” she informed him, beginning to grow angry herself now. “Nathan was nothing like him. Nathan loved me, Duncan.”
“He loved you so much that he wouldn’t even consider leaving the SEALs.” Duncan said, sneering. “Do you have any idea how often I told him he was going to end up dead? That he’d leave you alone suffering. Did he care?”
Nathan had just been Nathan. A man and a SEAL. He would have expected her to go on, and it was that simple.
“You could end up dead climbing those damned cliffs you enjoy so much,” she shot back. “Nathan was a SEAL, Duncan. It wasn’t a job choice for him. It was who he was.”
“And you were the helpless little Southern belle to pamper his ego whenever he was home. That used to make me so sick I could barely stand it.” Disgust laced his voice, his expression, as she stared back at him in surprise.
“I was his wife,” she said, confused now by the direction of his fury. “I gave him what he needed, just as he gave me what I needed, Duncan. That was none of your business, nor was it your place to judge it.”
“ ‘Oh Nathan, the oil in the car needs changing’,” Duncan mimicked in a high-pitched, furious voice. “ ‘Oh Nathan, could you check my tires?’ You’d bat your lashes and act like you didn’t know shit. Then he died and you walked right into that garage and hit those cars like a professional. Hell, Belle, didn’t you feel just a little guilty, lying to your husband like that?”
She hadn’t. Nathan had needed to take care of her while he was with her. She had needed that single-minded focus he had given her between missions. Would it have changed as their marriage progressed? She had no doubt it would have. But the two years they had been together, it hadn’t mattered. Working on cars wasn’t her life’s work. She might have enjoyed it, but she enjoyed Nathan more. While he was on missions, she tinkered on her own car, sometimes she tinkered with his precious truck.
“I never lied to my husband,” she answered him quietly. “And I never lied to you about how I felt. I told you I didn’t want what you obviously wanted from me. I told you that a year ago and I’ve repeated it, several times.”
“But you do want it from that shiftless son of a bitch that stinks of oil and grease?” he snarled.
Sabella stared back at him, her own anger rising now. “I think we’ve both pretty much accepted the fact that’s one of my favorite scents.”
“No shit,” he snarled. “You stink of it continually. Maybe I’m sick of smelling the stuff while I’m trying to eat my dinner.”
She had never seen this side of Duncan, had never suspected it existed.
“You thought you were getting Nathan’s wife.” A bitter smile curled her lips. “The little woman that sat at home and, you thought, did as she was told.” Sabella shook her head. “You didn’t live in this house, Duncan. You have no idea how little I did that Nathan tried to order me to do. And it’s more than obvious that you never cared to see beyond the surface.”
He flicked her a furious look before turning and pacing to the window.
“Get rid of him!” He turned back to her, his voice strengthening, turning hard and cold. “Fire him, Sabella.”
Her brows arched. “Rory hired him, I can’t fire him. But I wouldn’t now simply because I don’t follow anyone’s orders, Duncan, least of all yours.”
“Get rid of that bastard or you’ll end up regretting it.” His expression twisted into lines of bitter fury. “He’s dangerous. You can see it in his face and in his eyes. That’s the only reason you want him and you don’t have the good sense to see it. He’s just as dangerous as Nathan was.”
“Leave.” Sabella straightened slowly, edging closer to the phone as Duncan glared at her. “I want you to leave right now, Duncan.”
“Because you can’t handle the truth?”
Suddenly, he wasn’t nearly as handsome as she had once thought he was, not that handsome was one of her requirements. But Duncan had always appeared sophisticated, possessing an almost male elegance that was now marred by a severe temper tantrum.
“Because you’re out of hand.” She picked up the phone and stared back at him. “Leave.”
He glanced at the phone. “Go ahead and call the son of a bitch,” he told her. “Go on, Belle, I dare you. How much you want to bet he’s not even there. He’s out screwing someone else because you’re not woman enough to hold a man at the house. Not a man like Nathan and sure as hell not a drifter like Noah Blake.”
That should have hurt, Sabella admitted. It should have, but she knew better. She had married a SEAL, not an accountant. She had known when she married her SEAL what she was getting. There were no guarantees and she had lost early in the game.
“Then you won’t mind walking out, will you?” she told him coldly.
“Like hell!” He surprised her when he moved for her. When she finally realized Duncan was more furious than she thought, it was too late.
She had hit the first digit of 911 when the phone went flying from her hand. She threw herself back, trying to evade the hand that attempted to latch on to her wrist.
Just as his fingers curled around her flesh, she heard a furious growl, and a larger, broader, darker hand latched onto Duncan’s wrist and, before Sabella’s shocked gaze, bent his wrist back and twisted it so that Duncan went to his knees with an almost girlish cry.
Noah was icy. Sabella stared at him in shock, taking in the T-shirt and leather vest, the faded jeans and black chaps. The motorcycle boots and the chiseled, emotionless expression.
If she didn’t do something, then Duncan was a dead man. The icy rage went deeper this time than when Noah had had his hand around Mike Conrad’s neck.
“Noah. I’m getting tired of you manhandling men around me,” she told him firmly, no anger, just a simple observation. “I could have hit him myself, you know?”
His gaze turned to her as Duncan gasped at his feet.
“Let him go.” She wrinkled her nose at him as she had done with Nathan the few times she had seen him really pissed. “He’s not worth getting blood on my floors. That would really make me angry.”
“I know how to get rid of the body,” he told her, his gaze flicking over the T-shirt and shorts she wore. “It wouldn’t be hard to do.”
“Yeah, but then I’d have to feel guilty and I’d have to tell Rory. Of course.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “I could use it as an excuse to get Rory to fire you.”
“He’d help me,” Noah promised her, but there was the barest hint of a crack in the ice. “And you’re playing games to get me to let him go. What do you really want to say, Sabella?”
“That you’re being a damned moron and I want you to let him go before I have to kick both of you out of my house and call the sheriff,” she yelled back at him, letting the mad show, because she was sick of dealing with thick-headed males.
His brow lifted.
“Let him go, dammit.” She picked up the phone then hung up again as she shot both of them a disgusted look. At least Noah’s grip on Duncan had eased. “He’s going to puke if you don’t and I don’t want to clean it up.”
Duncan had that look on his face. Of course, the pressure on his wrist had to be agonizing, and Noah was holding it there as though it were no effort at all.
He let him go slowly.
“Get the fuck out.” Noah stepped back as Duncan struggled to his feet.
Duncan�
��s shirt was wrinkled now, his slacks might even have been a little damp at the crotch, but she didn’t bother to look.
She felt as though she were going to throw up herself as Duncan rushed from the house. Noah followed him as far as the door, slammed it closed then stalked back into the kitchen.
Hands propped on the counter, Sabella lowered her head and fought the hurt and anger churning inside her. Damn. She’d liked Duncan. And she could have sworn she had discussed all those irritating little subjects like love and sex and her reasons why she wasn’t ready.
“You should have never let him in the house.” Noah stopped in front of the counter. “For God’s sake, Sabella, I thought you would know better than to confront that son of a bitch while you’re carrying my mark.”
She kept her head down. How many times had she laughed at Nathan when he had said something similar? When he had been irritated with her, or was just being a man.
She should have known better than to go four-wheeling with Sienna that first year they were married, without him, because when she wrecked, she wrenched her ankle and he hadn’t been there to make sure she was okay. She should have known better than to try to fix a busted pipe in the basement on her own, because she’d ended up drenched and the basement had gotten wet. So many instances. And she should have always known better.
She lifted her head. “Now you can leave. You should know better than to piss off an already angry woman.”
She should have known better than to give Rory a say in the hiring.
“Sabella, sweetheart, look at me.” His voice roughened. “If he had hurt you, I would have had to kill him. I would have enjoyed killing him.”
“And it would have been my fault.” She nodded with a bitter smile. “Sure, I understand.”
“No, it would been his fault for being stupid enough to touch you. But haven’t you figured out yet that men aren’t always smart enough to keep their hands off things that don’t belong to them?”
Her head jerked up in surprise. “So you think I belong to you now?”