Okay, so he did sound like he might have a pole up his ass. I snickered behind my hand.
“He didn’t write that himself, bro,” Monty pointed out. “Some PR expert trying to make the bank sound fancy did.”
“Maybe.”
“Besides,” I added, “being an arrogant prick doesn’t usually warrant a contract for murder.”
“It does sometimes,” Monty said absently. “Ah-ha. We’re in.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Home network.” Monty leaned forward, eyes glued to his screen. “Give up all your secrets, you arrogant prick.”
We all held our breath, but unfortunately for us, Sullivan was smart about security. Guess he had to be in his line of work, although as with the profile page on the bank website, likely he hadn’t set it all up himself. A couple of hours later we were no closer to breaking into the guy’s private financial information.
“Keep working,” I told Monty and Maris. “We’re going to meet Rhys to check out the location he’s found. We’ll be back.”
And hopefully they’d have more for us than the somewhat embarrassing images Maris had found saved to a cloud server connected to Sullivan’s computer. There had to be more. Someone seriously wanted this guy dead if they’d gone to the trouble to sniff us out to do it. There were easier, less dangerous ways to off someone than blackmailing your killer for hire into doing it.
Something they’d regret as soon as we could find the trail back to them. No one threatened my family, and this team was my family. Had been for longer than the five years we’d been on the run. Just the thought of someone targeting them made my blood boil.
The four people sharing this hotel room with me were my responsibility. Yes, Monty, Titus, and Rhys had the military experience, but they’d watched for years as my father put me through the same paces they’d had to endure. Watched him groom me to be a soldier when I was with him, leaving me to be a mother when he was away. Joining the military had been my dream, a dream I’d inherited from my father, but when Maris’s mother—my stepmother—died in childbirth, that dream took a back seat to caring for the tiny, vulnerable creature Kerry had left behind. Leaving on assignment had no longer been an option. So I’d worked with a company outside Atlanta, Georgia, Global First Security, doing backup and logistics until Maris had turned eighteen. Only then had I begun to take missions with GFS teams.
That had changed five years ago, when my father’s closest soldiers became targets of the same people who’d taken my father from me. From us. I’d vowed to keep them safe just as I’d kept Maris safe. As the oldest, I’d become the de facto head of our team.
We’d been together ever since. And no Anonymous1234_5 asshole was going to tear us apart.
Chapter Four
Eli —
“Bram, dude, no! Just no.” I forced myself to take screenshots of the images Sullivan had stored on his cloud, images no self-respecting man should have associated with himself. “What would your board members and shareholders think about that onesie, man?”
The cutouts were enough to make my stomach turn over.
Finished cataloging the evidence, I returned to Sullivan’s private computer, accessing file after file, Internet exchanges, online servers, everything. It was close to two a.m., and I’d been at this for almost five hours. Levi hadn’t returned home yet. Before he did, I had an errand to run; then I’d be back to begin the delicate process of worming my way into the financial records Sullivan had such tight security on.
Accessing the computer’s event log, I scanned the remote log-ins to ensure my IP didn’t appear—which was when I saw it. As I watched, the access logs changed, one line disappearing, then another. It took a moment for my brain to comprehend what I was seeing.
Someone else was accessing Sullivan’s computer.
Maybe Sullivan was online? But no—I’d turned on his webcam earlier to be certain he wasn’t at his desk. The image was grainy, dark, but I could see there was no one in front of the monitor.
That meant someone was remotely logged in. Or had been. They were gone without a trace now.
“Who are you, unlucky fucker?”
I spent a few minutes trying to hack the log, see if I could come up with the IP the intruder had used. When that proved futile, I embedded a tracker in the remote access log, erased the evidence of my own rooting around, then backed out of the system. I’d receive an alert if anyone got in again. It was the best I could do for now. If Sullivan had done something worthy of a hit—something more than the things that involved the diapers-and-crib party I’d happened upon—then it was possible I wasn’t the only one watching him.
The new arrival might also be X tracking my progress. Whoever it was, finding out if they were a danger to us was the next order of business.
With a quick glance at my watch, I shut down the computer and grabbed my backpack from its spot beside the desk. August was a bitch whether we got rain in Georgia or not, though most years it was more not. I could never get through the summer months without remembering the days we spent sweltering in barely there shade, a hundred degrees heating the asphalt and brick walls until I thought for sure my fingers and feet and everything else would burn completely off my bones. All those nights on the streets when taking off enough clothes to cool down was impossible, and finding water was barely a godsend when it was hot the second you got it on your desperate tongue. Even now, cool beneath the flow of chilly air-conditioning, I could feel phantom heat creeping in, threatening to steal my strength. My body. My breath.
I shook the feeling off as I climbed into the SUV and cranked it up. My brothers and I had managed as best we could all those years, knowing a shelter would identify us and put us right back into our uncle’s greedy—and murderous—hands. There’d been no risking it, but it hadn’t been easy to keep all three of us alive.
Which made tonight’s errand all the more important to me.
Abe’s Place was closer to Atlanta city lines than the mansion was, but the bar nestled into a solidly middle-class, active neighborhood that guaranteed business would never be slow. With closing time only a half hour away, I pulled straight into a front-row parking space and made my way inside.
A blast of cool air and the scent of hops hit me with the first step through the door, and something in my gut relaxed in a way only walking into Abe’s could ever accomplish. Maybe it was the richness of the wood dominating the barroom, the dark greens and reds on the walls. Maybe it was the familiarity of the one place that had been a constant in my life for eight years. My brothers and I hadn’t had that, not until we’d moved into our family’s mansion.
I didn’t know what made me love Abe’s Place, but I did.
The walls on each side were lined with booths, the wide, open space in the center dotted with tables of various sizes, some even now occupied with customers here and there. I strode down the middle, the sound of classic rock reaching my ears as I approached the center of what made Abe’s, well, Abe’s: the long bar at the back.
Behind the solid oak slab he refused to say he was proud of but never stopped polishing, Abraham Carter dried a beer glass, the pendant lights over the bar gleaming off the dark skin covering his head. A frown and narrowed eyes greeted me as I stopped in front of him.
“You’re not going to make me dirty up another glass, are ya?”
Never mind that the bar and everything in it was half mine. I ignored the man’s gruff exterior and moved behind the counter to help myself. “Gotta have something to keep me cool.” A shiver ran the length of my spine. “It’s a godawful furnace out there.”
“Then stay home.”
I snorted. Bringing my beer up to my face, I gave Abe a look over the foam gracing the top. “And miss seeing your ugly mug? No way.”
He’d been like this forever, probably even before I met him on the streets when I was twelve. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Abe had come home without the bottom halves of both his legs and no means to pay for the extensive me
dical care he’d needed after his discharge from the army. Like my brothers and me, he’d done the best he could without a roof over his head.
When we’d gotten on our feet, I’d made sure Abe got on his too—figuratively and literally.
I moved back around the bar to sit directly in front of Abe. One glass went onto the shelf, and Abe picked up another. “You’re not here to see me.” He wiped the cloth lazily over the dripping mug. “When are you gonna realize some wild things were never meant to be tamed?”
“Do you need taming, darlin’?”
The soft voice was accompanied by the scent of cherries, followed by the brush of a soft body against my side. Bridget usually occupied a corner stool with her girlfriends on Friday nights. She’d flirted, and sure, I was interested—any red-blooded man worth his dick would be interested in this woman. Maybe midthirties, with a body full of lush curves and intriguing hollows, red hair and green eyes shouting her Irish ancestors like a neon sign. She drew men like flies to honey.
So why hadn’t I taken her up on her offer?
“I’ll always need taming, Bridget,” I told her, flashing a smile that had been known to drop a woman’s panties at ten paces. “That’s not gonna change.”
“He don’t know much, does he?” Abe asked.
Bridget’s laughter rang out as she eased onto a bar stool. “He’s young yet.”
Not much younger than Bridget, but I didn’t bother correcting her. It wasn’t me I was interested in taming tonight.
“Sweetheart, you know I could never handle you.”
Cherry-red lips quirked into a smile few men could resist. “Of course not. But I’d let you try.”
I laughed. I just bet she would.
“Abe, hand me that bag below the cash register, would ya.”
The knowing look in the man’s eye said this plan wasn’t going to work, but he grabbed the bag I’d kept replenished there for the past month and handed it over. Bridget wrinkled her nose, a question passing from her gaze to her lips.
“Dog treats? I didn’t know you had a dog, Abe.”
Abe rolled his eyes—at me, not Bridget. “I don’t.”
The answer was more of a growl than words. I gave Bridget another smile to smooth my partner’s angry response. For Abe, there had only been one dog worth having. When Puppy died a couple of years after we met, he’d refused to consider a new companion. He’d been alone ever since.
“These aren’t for Abe’s dog,” I told Bridget. “They’re for mine.”
“Yours?” Abe let loose a startled laugh. “Not likely.”
“Not yet, you mean.” I winked at Bridget as I slid from my bar stool. “I always win the heart I’m going after.”
A slow pink flush rose across her cheeks. “I’m absolutely sure you do, Eli.”
I left the two of them to finish out their night and made my way through the back storeroom to a steel door leading to the dark alley behind the bar. It had been a month since I’d come out that door one night with several bags of trash, headed for the dumpster at the end of the alley. I’d done the same chore a million times, but that night was different. That night I’d caught a quick glimpse of a black body huddled in a far corner, the sound of panting breaths desperate to cool off in the humid summer night. It had been impossible to see details. Impossible to know much of anything beyond the fact that the dog was hot and likely hungry.
A week had passed before Diesel let me get a good look at him. That’s right; his name was Diesel. He even wagged his tail now when I called him that. A black male, medium build now that he’d gotten some meat on his bones, with a gray muzzle that told me he’d seen a lot of years. I’d slowly gained his trust, but he still kept his distance. I was trying to change that.
The minute I saw him, I knew he belonged with me; I just had to convince him to believe it too.
In the back alley I let out a whistle in the dark. The scrabbling sound of paws told me Diesel was nearby. I squatted down near the door and opened the bag of dog treats, shook it a little to let him know his reward was waiting. Normally he’d hurry forward, only to stop a few yards away and gaze longingly at the bag, refusing to come any closer. I usually ended up leaving a couple of treats on the ground for him, along with the bowl of food I refilled every night. Bracing myself as he trotted into the circle of light surrounding the back door, I waited, holding my breath, hoping against hope that tonight would be the night he came all the way.
He didn’t. Stopping three yards away, the dog eyed me with caution and a good bit of greed when he spotted the bag in my hands.
“That’s right; you know what’s in here, don’t you?” I crooned.
Diesel cocked his head. Took a couple of steps forward.
I struggled to contain the sudden bump of exhilaration.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, boy. Just wanna take care of you.” Carefully I fished a treat from the bag. “It’s hot tonight. Don’t you wanna come inside where it’s cool?”
For a good thirty minutes I coaxed him, my entire being straining toward the shivering creature I wanted so desperately to take care of. And finally, finally, he took those last few steps to where I waited, and snagged the bone-shaped goodie from my palm. It took another two treats to get him to stay by my side. My heart thumped hard in my throat as I rubbed behind his ears, holding my breath in anticipation of him darting away. When he didn’t, I offered up another treat.
It distracted him enough that he didn’t notice the collar going around his throat until it was a moment too late.
“There we go.” Long, heavy pets soothed his initial panic, and my heart finally stopped racing when he sat quietly, staring up at me. I stared right back, deep into his dark brown, confused eyes. “You’re all right, buddy, I promise. I won’t hurt you. It’ll be all right.”
I have no idea what all I babbled at that point, but whatever it was kept us both calm as I led him to the SUV. When he jumped into the passenger seat without much fuss, I rewarded him with a rawhide bone. As if he’d known all along that our relationship would come to this, as if he’d finally accepted that he belonged with me, he settled down and was happily gnawing away as I cranked the car and headed toward home.
I’d call later and rub that fact in Abe’s prickly, wise-ass face.
Chapter Five
Levi —
The night had gotten away from me.
No shit, Sherlock.
Yeah, understatement of the fucking year. I dragged a rough hand down my face, trying to ignore the stench of the god-awful pink gas-station standard soap I’d used to wash up with on the way home. Abby would already be angry with me; no need to add by the way, there’s one less asshole in the world trying to rape a woman in a back alley behind a sleazy club, and did I mention I took him on alone?
The woman had been fine. The blood had to go before I came home to Abby. My woman.
Mine.
The animal that constantly prowled inside me, the part of me that got off on the kill, on blood, stirred in my chest at the thought of her upstairs, waiting for me. She never slept well when I had to be gone, which was why I tried not to slip away for more than a few hours. Glancing at the Patek Philippe wrapping my wrist, the one Abby had given me for my thirtieth birthday a few months ago, I winced—it had been far more than a few hours. More like most of the night.
There’d be no creeping into the room we shared, the king-size bed that made her look tiny in its massive spread. No cuddling up behind her, lifting her soft, supple leg, and sliding my aching cock into the wet warmth always waiting for me. It wasn’t going to happen because, if Abby was asleep, I was too damn intelligent to wake her and let her see what time I’d crept into bed.
If she was awake... I barely refrained from bashing my head against the door in front of me. Pissed was probably gonna be the understatement of the century.
“I’m a bastard,” I growled under my breath as I shoved my key into the lock.
Ya think?
Telling my
only-hyperactive-with-Abby conscience to shut the hell up, I entered the darkened basement by the light of the moon, careful to lock the door behind me.
The farther into the room I moved, the brighter it became. At the far end I made out the cracked bathroom door, spilling light toward me. A man’s voice, an odd mixture of low noises and cursing, came with it.
“Eli?” Then a little louder. “Hey, Eli?”
The sound of what I could’ve sworn were claws scrabbling against tile, then my brother’s voice shouting, came from the bathroom. They were followed by a black streak shooting through the door, headed straight for me. I rushed forward, determined to contain whatever threat was advancing.
Next thing I knew, a shit-ton of bricks hit my chest and I was flat on my back, wondering a bit desperately where my fucking breath had run off to.
“Levi? Shit.” More scrabbling, a low whine, and more cursing reached me before Eli’s face appeared above mine. “You all right, bro?” Gripping my hand, he tugged me upright, his other hand slapping my back—presumably to get my lungs working again.
Good luck with that.
“What the hell?”
Eli grinned. Motherfucking grinned. “Packs a punch, don’t he? Still needs to put on a few pounds, but he’s strong.”
He, who? “What the hell are you talking about?”
Eli gave my back a final slap, nearly knocking me over onto my face, then stood up. “Diesel.”
Diesel. I knew Diesel wasn’t a guy, so... Dread started a tight squeeze around my rib cage. “Who. The fuck. Is Diesel?”
If my youngest brother felt any hesitation at my tone, he didn’t let it show. “My dog.”
He turned away without waiting for me to comment, leaving me to wheeze through the vise doing a number on my chest.
“Tell me you didn’t,” I demanded. I already knew it was true—whatever had knocked me flat had definitely been dog shaped, and not a smallish dog either—but that didn’t mean I had to accept it. I’d accepted too much lately: the mansion, my father’s company, Remi with his fiancée and a freaking six-year-old that, while cute as hell, was one more responsibility, one more person in what seemed like a sea of them that I couldn’t control. Couldn’t keep safe.
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