by Shandi Boyes
Brandon’s throat works hard to swallow. “Yeah. I’m fairly sure—”
“Fairly sure? Or one hundred percent sure?” My tone advises I will not accept a pansy-ass reply. We don’t run on assumptions here. We work with facts—stern, unapologetic facts.
“I’m confident.” His voice doesn’t relay this. “He had an electrician logo on the back of his overalls.”
Leaning over my body, he taps on the keyboard three times. It brings up the image responsible for my panic. At precisely 9:16 PM a man approximately five foot eight with light sandy hair and a dark cap glides down the corridor separating Regan’s apartment from Isaac’s. As Brandon advised, there's an electric company logo emblazoned on the back of his overalls.
Although he's carrying a large metal toolbox, the veins in his hand aren’t showing the exertion you’d expect if it were brimming with tools. Come to think of it, his hands are dainty and smooth—unlike any tradesmen I’ve seen.
“Run his company through the system. We can track his movements from there,” I suggest to Brandon, hoping his knowledge of the FBI database is more extensive than mine.
It doesn’t even take Brandon thirty seconds to run the electrician’s details through our system. It isn’t because he’s brilliant at what he does. It's because the search comes up empty. There's no company of that name in the world database, much less the state of Florida.
I swallow away a bitter taste in the back of my throat. “Are you sure you didn’t miss his exit?”
You can hear desperation in my voice. Regan entered her apartment twenty minutes ago. Isaac knocked and didn’t get an answer. That hasn’t happened once the past four months I’ve been tailing them. This can only mean one thing: Regan is being stalked as she presumed months ago.
When Brandon remains quiet, I growl, “Did you take a break? A piss? Fall asleep? At any time tonight were you away from these monitors?”
When Brandon shakes his head at each of my suggestions, I leap to my feet. “Where's your service weapon?” I throw open compartments surrounding his computer station before half my sentence leaves my mouth. I need to get to Regan, and I need to get to her now.
Brandon shocks me by removing his gun from a holster on his waist. Standard technicians don't carry their guns like normal agents. Some don't even have government-assigned weapons. Realizing now isn’t the time to discuss semantics, I check that Brandon’s weapon is loaded before hightailing it out of his van.
“What do you want me to do?!” Brandon shouts, slowing my steps down the still-bustling sidewalk.
A few of my fancy-dressed sidewalk companions balk when I reply, “Maintain surveillance. If you hear gunfire, call in back up.”
I should be advising him to summon back up now, but since I don’t want Regan to discover my secret life with a circus act in tow, I’ll go in alone. I’m armed and confused—a lethal combination in itself. The electrician better hope Brandon failed to notice his departure, or he's in for one hell of a fright.
I thought fleeing Regan’s apartment building would be the only record I’d smash tonight. My return is just as dramatic. I’m sprinting down the corridor of Regan’s floor with forty seconds still under my belt.
“Rae!?” I bang on the gleaming white door of Regan’s apartment. “I know you’re pissed, and I’m more than happy to take an ear bashing, but you need to open the door first.”
Whoever said “silence is a good answer” is a moron. I’d give anything to hear Regan’s voice right now. I’d even hand in my badge.
I press my ear against her door, praying she’s just being stubborn.
I can’t hear a fucking thing.
“Rae?! If you don’t open the door, I’ll kick it down.” My low tone indicates the honesty in my threat.
Silence—I get nothing but heart-clenching silence.
Recalling the cautionary countdown Regan did on me months ago, I growl, “Five. . . Four. . . Three . . .”
I don’t make it to two. I’m too fucking impatient.
After taking a step back, I rear up my leg and kick at the lock on her door. The thick white material is sturdy, but it has nothing on my determination. It pops open nicely under my boot, the safety latch coming away just as easily.
“Rae.” I enter her apartment with my gun held high and my heart rate out of control.
It marginally settles when I fail to spot any ruckus upon entry. Usually, if you are attacked unaware, it happens during entry. Regan’s keys and purse are resting on an antique table on my right, and her shoes are kicked off halfway down the elongated foyer.
Earthy tones of blue bombard me when I enter her massive living room. Regan’s apartment spans one half of the top floor of Hector. I love space, but it comes at a cost. An impressive eyesore is a bitch to keep clean, much less sweep for a suspected intruder.
Confident the triple-sized living area is empty, I direct my focus to the left. Although I’ve never been inside Regan’s apartment, her floorplan appears to be an exact replica of Isaac’s—it’s just mirror-reversed.
“Rae?” A faint hum jingles through my ears. I’m shocked I can hear anything with how hard my pulse is thrumming through my body. I feel like I’m trapped underwater, submerged by worry.
When another groan filters through my ears, I quicken my pace. It was a moan laced with painful frustration.
After sweeping a guest bedroom on my right, I continue down the hall. I know which room is Regan’s as it has a light beaming through a partially cracked open door.
“Rae?” I call out again, praying she's alone, but petrified of scaring her. “Are you in here?”
The door creaks when I push it open. No signs of human life are seen or heard. Her bedroom is a similar palette to her living room, although I don’t have time to admire it. A tormented scream shreds my eardrums. It's closely followed by a loud bang.
I charge for the door the noise bellowed through, my steps as hurried as my heart rate. Although her bathroom door could be unlocked, it suffers the same fate as Regan’s front door. It buckles under the force of my foot, its elegant design wiped in an instant.
With my finger curled around the trigger of Brandon’s gun, I merge deeper into the steam-filled space. The fact Regan neglected to voice anger at the demolition of her door has me worried. That isn’t something she’d take sitting down. She’d be up in my face, demanding immediate repair.
I understand why she’s not complaining when an image breaks through the fog surrounding me. Regan isn’t being held captive by a gun-toting swindler with a death wish. She’s taking a bath. The earbuds lodged in her ears have music pumping through her veins as rapidly as her bubble-covered skin has blood pumping to my cock.
Although the image of her unharmed cools my turbines, it doesn’t completely quell my worry. The steam vaping from the scorching hot water adds a whole new dimension to my unease.
Forgetting Regan has noise-cancelling instruments wedged in her ears, I demand, “Rae, get out of the bath.”
When she remains in place, humming a tune, I tug an earphone out of her ear before repeating my request. Wish for my own noise-cancelling headphones engulfs me when Regan screams blue murder. She darts out of the tub, the slippery oils coating her skin not hampering her efforts in the slightest.
Though she’s issuing me every death threat I’ve been given the past six years in under a minute, I snag a fluffy towel off the towel rack and hand it to her. Usually, it would be the fight of my life to keep my eyes off her naked frame, but since I can’t remove my eyes from the death threat messily scrawled across her large vanity mirror, the fight isn’t as torturous.
“What the hell?” Regan murmurs, finally spotting the cause of my concern. “Who did that?” She tugs her towel close to her body as if it will protect her more than my gun.
I start my interrogation like always, “Did you notice anything out of place when you arrived home tonight? Missing articles of clothing? The TV turned on when it should be off?”
Regan shakes her head, her eyes unable to leave the threat guaranteeing brutal mutilation of her body. I step into the path of her vision, blocking the horrifying words from her view. When I’m given the devotion of her wide-with-terror eyes, I ask, “Has anything like this happened before?”
She shakes her head once more, its juddering as violent as the shake of her hands.
“It’s okay,” I assure her, my tone calm even though I’m feeling anything but. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She accepts my pledge more quickly than I expected. It's probably more because of the fear enveloping her than blind faith.
I stop removing my cellphone from my pocket when Regan garbles my name. My eyes jackknife to hers, stunned by the sheer terror radiating in her voice when she asks, “Did you arrive with company?”
Before I can respond, a flurry of black captures my attention. Someone is darting away from the door I just kicked in.
“Stay here,” I demand of Regan before taking off after a shadow. They were so quick, I didn’t register any details of their face, much less what they’re wearing.
When I enter Regan’s living room, I head to the right, the groan of someone crashing into a firm surface directing my steps. As expected, the assailant is hightailing it down the corridor of Regan’s apartment building. He's wearing the same overalls Brandon mentioned during surveillance, but the straps have been undone, exposing a spotlessly clean wife beater shirt.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” I warn, lining up my target from the doorway of Regan’s apartment.
He tests my patience by continuing down the hall. He shouldn’t. This is the first time I’ve mixed business with pleasure, and I don’t see it ending well. He was conspiring to hurt Rae. If his threat is anything to go by—badly!
“Fuck!” I curse when he throws open a laundry chute halfway down the hall and dives inside. Because of his svelte frame, he fits through the trap door with ease.
I nearly fire off a shot, but years of experience tell me my effort will be too late. While charging for the emergency stairwell, I raise my hand to my ear. Because I’m so accustomed to being on the job, it takes me several long seconds to recall why I don’t have access to my usual equipment. My feet stomp faster when I realize I don’t have the ability to radio in assistance.
Just as I throw open the fire exit door next to the elevator bank, Brandon barrels into the corridor. He's wheezing and out of breath. “Assailant. On. Camera. Saw. Him. Re-enter.” He breathes deeply through each word, showcasing why he's a technician instead of a field agent. He’s extremely unfit.
“Where do the laundry chutes exit?” The hammering of my heart echoes in my tone. It’s not racing a million miles an hour because I am weak like Brandon; it's the fear enveloping me responsible for its frantic beat.
Brandon attempts to speak through his pain. “B. . bas—”
“Basement,” I fill in, hurrying him along.
When he nods, I demand, “Send a crew to the basement before calling in forensics. I doubt he left any evidence, but we won’t know if we don’t check.”
Brandon peers at me as if I asked him how long his cock is.
“The basement, Brandon. Send men to the basement,” I repeat as if he's stupid.
“We don’t have any men,” he advises, “much less ones I can boss around.”
I wish he were lying. I wasn’t being deceitful when I said Theresa’s crew was sliced to a few men earlier this month.
“By the time either of us get to the basement, he’ll be long gone.” Brandon’s eyes drop to the ground, unsure how to voice his next set of words. I can understand his worry when he stammers out, “I also don’t think it’s wise to bring Theresa in on this. She’ll arrive with a truckload of questions—ones I’m certain you don’t want to answer.”
Although he's being honest, his words aren’t easy for me to stomach. I want the person responsible for the pain that tore at my chest when I spotted Regan’s death threat held accountable for his actions. I want to pound him as mercilessly as my heart is smashing into my ribs. He wants to hurt Regan, so you can be assured I will hurt him.
“Then what do you suggest I do, Brandon?” I articulate his name with a sneer, annoyed just at the prospect of seeking his advice. I don’t ask for advice, and definitely not from a man beneath me.
Shockingly, Brandon doesn’t balk at my threatening tone. His cheeks flush, but I’m certain that’s more from his marathon stair climb than my angry snarl.
“Do what you’ve been doing the past four months.”
I growl. This time he balks.
His throat works hard to swallow several times in a row before he mutters, “I mean run your own investigation. Theresa is bad news. You don’t want her or her crew on this.”
His reply stumps me. That isn’t something a standard technician would say. He’s more deeply involved in the Bureau than a standard techy. I just can’t fathom how?
Before half a notion can filter through my brain, a sweet voice interrupts it. Regan is calling my name. It isn’t the way I want to hear it shouted. She sounds scared.
Wanting to end one fight before taking up another, I instruct Brandon, “Remove the last ten minutes from the surveillance log and call in a disturbance. If Theresa believes the incident of the electrician’s failure to leave requires further investigation, let her men come in.”
“And if she wants to leave it alone?” Brandon asks, intuiting my thoughts.
“Then I’ll handle it.”
He nods, preferring our second solution.
I hand him back his gun, suddenly wishing I was armed twenty-four-seven. He takes it before pivoting on his heels and stalking away. While waiting for the elevator to arrive to Regan’s floor, he calls in a disturbance.
I wait for him to be given further instructions before shouting his name. When he turns around to face me, I say, “Although this investigation is taking a slight turn, I expect to see your report on my desk first thing Tuesday morning.”
He looks at me strangely, as if to say, you have a desk?
“Theresa may do things dodgy around here, but not all of us are like her,” I explain, hoping he’ll see sense through the madness. “We’re agents before we are anything.”
My last sentence doesn’t come out as strong as my first, probably because it was laced with dishonesty. I don’t know what I would have done if I had caught Regan’s assailant tonight. A dark, wet basement seems rather enticing right now, all the more so when Brandon’s exit coincides with Regan’s entrance.
Her towel has been replaced with a silky black negligee she’s thrown on in a hurry. The uneven hemline isn’t the only evidence of her quick dressing. The fact her negligee is inside out is another indication.
After scanning the corridor to ensure we are alone, Regan locks her eyes with mine. Her brows tack together as she clenches her fists into tiny balls. She’s not scared like I anticipated earlier. She's downright fuming mad.
Chapter Fourteen
“An accountant, my ass,” Regan grumbles under her breath as her eyes drop to where my gun was holstered the afternoon she recognized I was carrying a weapon.
Anger curtails my windpipe when her eyes return to my face and I see the apprehension behind them. She’s afraid I can’t protect her, worried I’ll let her attacker make true on his threat. With or without my gun, she has no cause for fret. I’ll protect her until my dying breath.
Before I can assure her of that, she sneers, “Is this a set up? Did you arrange this so you could gallop in like some kind of savior on a white horse?”
What the fuck? Shouldn’t she be hostile with the man who snuck into her apartment with the intent to harm her, not the one who stopped it from happening?
“This wasn’t my doing,” I fire back, shadowing her to her apartment door.
My words don’t come out as strong when she attempts to slam her door in my face. Thankfully, the wood is too warped to shut without extreme force.
/> “That was me,” I admit somewhat cockily. “I came back to apologize for the way I behaved. I heard moaning and groaning. When you failed to answer my numerous calls, I found my own way in.”
“Because all accountants carry guns, break down doors, and harass women until they can’t get themselves off!” She freezes, stunned she vocalized her last confession.
“I’d strap napalm to my chest before I let anything happen to you, Rae.”
Hearing the honesty in my words, Regan’s angry stance weakens.
I take a step closer to her. “You’re scared. That’s okay—it’s perfectly natural in these types of situations to release your adrenaline in a negative way.”
“I’m not scared,” she assures, her low tone hindering her objective. “I’m annoyed. Frustrated.” Our eyes meet before she says, “Sick of being lied to. Tell the truth, Alex. Are you an accountant?”
My eyes stray to the flashing contraption hanging in the corner of her hallway. The vein thrumming in Regan’s neck pulsates when she follows my gaze. Realizing this isn’t a conversation she wants recorded by her boss’s surveillance camera, she reluctantly invites me into her apartment with a wave of her trembling hand.
Within seconds of us entering the foyer, I cup her jaw in my hands. The violent quiver of her lips relaxes from my gesture. She’s putting on a brave front, but she's petrified. I understand. The threat was one of the most intense I’ve seen. It didn’t just threaten mutilation; it mentioned numerous body-degrading things.
After three gentle strokes of her white cheeks, I shake my head to her earlier question.
She releases a sharp breath. “You’re not an accountant?” She sounds disappointed, as if she’d grown accustomed to the idea that I’m just a standard, regular guy.
“No,” I reply with a twist of my lips. “I’m similar to an investigator.”
I wish I could tell her the truth, but since I can’t, this must do.
“An investigator?” When I nod, she adds on, “Like a PI?”