He patted his stomach. If he wanted to have even half a chance with her, now or ever, he was going to have to do even more sit-ups.
For her, he wanted to be perfect. Everything she could possibly want and need in a man—at least the man she had said she wanted in the days and nights they had spent together in the field.
He thought about the last time he had seen her. It had been the night everything between them changed... A night from which there may well be no coming back, but damn it...after seeing her in Billings, and seeing her face every time he closed his damn eyes, maybe he had to try. Perhaps they couldn’t or wouldn’t end up together. His life hadn’t been anything like some well-scripted romance, but maybe he could set things right and make sure that everything in her life was okay and she had started to heal—especially since she’d once again lost someone she loved when Trish had died.
He knew how close she had been with Trish. She was the only person that Zoey had ever seemed herself with—besides him. With her sister, she opened up and laughed...really laughed...the kind that made stars dance in her eyes and her cheeks redden.
Zoey was always beautiful, but when she really let herself go and laughed...damn, she was like a sunbeam that could burn away the clouds of anger and loneliness that settled into the valley of his soul.
He found himself staring at the red flickering bar on the Protection 1207i device mounted on the dashboard.
It was possible that she had been tracking him as he was tracking her. He certainly wouldn’t have put it outside the range of possibility. And maybe once he had gotten close, she had called “No joy” and bugged out. She was and had always been clever like that, capable of keeping him just close enough and yet just far enough away to keep herself safe.
He peered into the back seat, hoping to see anything that would definitely tie the car to her. There was no hot pink bulletproof dress, no luggage or bags of freebies from a weekend spent at a conference. Hell, there wasn’t even a stray straw wrapper.
He pulled the plate number on his phone. It was registered to a shell company out of the Caymans.
Just as he thought. This was the car of someone who knew it was going to be dumped—someone who didn’t want the car to be tied to them in any way.
But when he’d worked for STEALTH, they didn’t use the Caymans—or Chevys. Either things were changing, or this wasn’t actually Zoey’s drop car.
His stomach clenched. If it wasn’t Zoey’s car, then it had to be someone else’s...someone who was also tracking her...and it wasn’t a wet-behind-the-ears mercenary. They weren’t great, leaving the car here and all, but they at least knew the right end of the gun. Which meant that his longtime friends were being hunted, and they were in trouble.
He had heard word of their comings and goings with the Gray Wolves in Turkey, and Trish, but he didn’t know the ins and outs of what exactly had happened. Operations like theirs were always kept pretty close to the vest. But, given the fallout, they had to have known that hell was coming in a wave of highly paid killers. Killers without honor—killers that were nothing like him.
He shone his flashlight at the tracks on the dirt road. There were only tire tracks heading down the road and away from the highway. If he acted fast, maybe he could still find whoever had dumped the car.
Hopefully Zoey’s phone going black had nothing to do with whoever had left this car.
His mind raced with all the things that could be happening to Zoey right now, ranging from kicking the merc’s ass all the way to her tied up and moments away from death somewhere.
He ran back to his truck and, with a spray of gravel, raced off in the direction the tracks were going. Though he had no idea where the road led, or who it would lead to, he had to move. He had to save Zoey. He had to keep her safe.
Using Google Maps, he pulled up a street image of the area around him as he tried, and failed, to weave around the ruts and potholes that littered the dirt road. As he drove, a thin dusting of white snow skittered down from the sky, forcing him to slow down. It was almost as if there were some higher power that wanted to stand in his way, making what he hoped wasn’t a life and death situation that much more perilous.
The maps showed a private ranch less than a mile up on his left. Beyond was US Forest Service—public lands.
Crap.
If someone had kidnapped her, or taken her hostage, they very well may have taken her up into the mountains that hugged the valley. If they were up there, and it was starting to snow, it was more than possible he would lose track of them. A matter of a few minutes and a hard snowfall could cover any evidence of her location.
He tried to talk himself down off the ledge of panic. She always complained that he had a way of blowing things out of proportion and being overly dramatic. He could have almost sworn that her favorite thing to say to him had been, “The sky isn’t always falling, Eli.”
And oh, the look she always gave him when she said it.
He had to see that look again. He had to see her again.
The snowfall quickened, coming down in a blizzard of early season white, nearly blinding him thanks to his headlights. As he ascended a hill, his tire connected with a rut, sending his truck to the right and nearly striking the wooden fence post next to the road. He slowed down even though all he wanted to do was hit the gas and not stop until he saw Zoey. Ahead, not too far, was a streetlamp set in the center of a parking lot. It seemed out of place, like a stoic sentinel bravely holding a beacon for weary travelers.
Huddled around the parking area was a barn and, tucked in closer to the mountain, a ranch-style house. This must have been the ranch he had seen on the map. The place was buttoned up; the only sign of life was a deserted pickup parked haphazardly at the edge of the drive, a car behind it and a horse that was skittering back and forth at the fence line.
Zoey had always loved horses. But it seemed like a far stretch that the woman he had known would be settled down enough to buy a horse, live on a ranch and still have time to work with a military-grade weapons manufacturer with worldwide ties to create a line of ballistics gear—and to top it all off, combat Turkish terrorists. Damn, if she was living here, she had one hell of a life.
Unsure whether he should stop or not, he pulled under the light and shut off the engine. Snow landed on his windshield and melted, leaving a smattering of droplets of water as the only reminders of the unique beauty that had fallen from the heavens. It struck him how, in a single instant, something so special could simply be struck from existence.
He tried not to see it as a sign of anything that had to do with Zoey. She was fine. She was going to be all right. He was making something out of nothing.
She was probably inside the ranch house, having a cup of coffee and making plans for her next mission. That was it. He tried to control his thoughts as he stepped outside. The cold bit at his skin and burned his lungs as he drew in a long breath.
There was a rattle of metal on metal and a thud coming from inside the barn. He moved toward the noise. The barn’s door was open, but the lamp overhead made the darkness inside the barn even more abyssal.
As he grew near, there was the unmistakable sound of a round being jacked into a gun’s chamber.
He rushed toward the sound, pulling his Glock and flicking on his weapon’s light, being careful to keep out of sight. He took a moment, scanning the grounds in an attempt to secure the outer perimeter. His only witness was the horse.
Fear threatened to creep in on him as he moved behind the door. He channeled it, forcing it to submit into aggression. Whoever was inside this barn, whatever they were doing, it was going to come down to him or them. Kill or be killed.
His finger moved on the trigger guard, ready. The cool steel against his finger calmed him, centering his focus back to his objective.
He moved around the side of the barn, clicking off his light to stay undetected
as he carefully slipped under the pasture fence. Most barns had a Dutch-style door in the back for horses and livestock to come and go. From that vantage, he could enter the scene undetected. As he hustled, the door came into view. Though it was cold, the top of the back door was open. The closed bottom wouldn’t provide a great deal of protection in the event of a firefight, but if he played his cards right, things wouldn’t go that far. If he was called upon to use deadly force, he felt confident that it would be one and done.
From inside, he heard a woman’s muffled groan. “Why?”
He slid open the lock on the bottom of the back door and wound his way inside. The sliding front door let in just enough of the streetlight so that he could see the edge of a silhouette ahead, but remain unseen in the back. He did a quick scan of the stalls as he moved silently to get out of the fatal tunnel created by the barn. The stall just behind the silhouetted man was open, creating the perfect place to hide. He rushed forward, hoping to remain in control and undetected.
As he stepped into the stall, the man in front of him kicked, his foot striking a body that lay on the floor. The woman moaned, the sound wet and gurgling, but muffled by the ground.
He prayed the woman wasn’t Zoey—that somehow, he had just come upon a random attack.
“Who sent you?” she asked.
This time, he recognized that voice, her voice.
He pointed his gun at the objective’s center mass. A light clicked on in the objective’s hands. A cell phone. He clicked away, typing something. His face was lit up by the blue light. From where Eli stood, he could make out the dark complexion of the man. He had a tribal-style tattoo that wrapped around his neck and disappeared beneath the dark shirt he wore.
“Where’s Chad?” a robotic voice sounded from the man’s phone.
It was all the confirmation that Eli needed.
As he pulled the trigger, the bullet ripped from his barrel.
The man didn’t even know what hit him.
Chapter Five
Zoey had never been the kind of woman who had hoped for a man to save her, but right now, staring up at Eli’s face in the dim light of her attacker’s cell phone, she could have kissed him.
It was crazy how one little decision had nearly gotten her killed. That was the last time she would go into a barn without using a light switch.
“Eli,” she said, his name dripping from her lips like nectar.
“Is there anyone else?” he asked, moving to clear the rest of the barn. He walked to the front of the barn and flicked on the lights that she had struggled to find.
“I don’t think so,” she said, lifting her head up from the mud of the ground and glancing around. She moved her hands, which were zipped to her feet behind her back. “Hey.” She motioned toward them with her chin.
Taking her unspoken direction, Eli pulled a knife and cut her free.
“Thanks.” She sat up, rubbing her wrists where the clear plastic had cut into her flesh. She wiped the dirt from her lips, spitting the remnants of mud and guck from her mouth.
“You okay?” he asked, walking over to her as he holstered his weapon.
She thought about standing to make a point of how strong and unaffected she was by the attack, but her body refused to comply. As she breathed, her ribs ached and her head felt as if it were about to explode. The best she could do was lie. “I’m fine.”
Or, at least she would be in a day or two.
He knelt down, coming face-to-face with her as he assessed her well-being.
“Seriously, I’ll be okay.”
He reached up and his fingers grazed against her cheek where she could feel a lump swelling on her skin. “Your eyes are bloodshot.” He looked down to her neck. “You’re lucky you broke free of his grasp.”
If she was feeling a bit better, she was sure she would have said something about him stating the obvious, but as it was, she could only agree with him. The man’s body lay at her feet and, as she glanced in his direction, his body twitched. His head rested on the ground, just feet from where hers had been only moments before. There was a red hole at the center of his forehead and blood was dripping out, twisting down his temple and oozing to the floor where it nearly disappeared in the black dirt and spent hay.
She touched her neck, feeling the hot bruises where the man’s hands had wrapped around her neck and nearly ended her.
“Where’re your brothers?” Eli asked, pulling her back to the reality that waited just outside the barn.
His question put her on alert. It was too similar to her attacker’s robotic “Where’s Chad?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, trying not to sound suspicious.
“Are they inside?” He motioned toward the house.
She shook her head and felt some of the tightness recede from her body as she slipped her hand into Eli’s. Squeezing his warm fingers, she tried to force a smile. “I just got here. I don’t know about Jarrod and Trevor.” She slowly moved to standing with Eli’s help.
He brushed her hair out of her face for her. The action was intimate—he was far too close. She let go of his hand and stepped back from him. As much as she loved his touch, it had no place in her life.
“Wait,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced away. “That’s not important. What are we going to do with this bastard’s body?”
He wasn’t getting away from her question that easily, but they did need to focus. The only good news was that, out here in the middle of Mystery, Montana, gunfire wasn’t something that was feared. The ranch was close enough to public hunting lands that if anyone heard it, they would write it off as a successful hunter.
Her thoughts turned to the dead guys in the shanty her brother had found and she grimaced, thinking about how often her family found themselves in need of body removal.
“I would say he could stay in here, but I don’t want my horse to spook at the smell.” She nudged the body with the toe of her boot.
Eli patted the body down, pulling a wallet from the guy’s back pocket. Opening it up, he pulled out a military ID card. “Smitty Foster. Know him?”
She shook her head.
“Is he one of your brothers’ friends?”
There was little chance that this bastard wasn’t connected with the Gray Wolves—not that they didn’t have other enemies. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to open up to Eli about everything that was happening in their lives right now. However, the hit man market was a small world. He had known about Trish, which meant it was likely he knew about the Gray Wolves.
“Are you just fishing for information? Or do you really not know what’s going on here?” she asked, trying to sound as nonconfrontational as possible. She didn’t want to push him away, just get an idea of what they were working with.
He gave her a guilty smile.
“That’s what I thought.” She wiped off the front of her shirt. “How much do you know?”
He stared at her for a long moment, almost as if he were trying to decide how much information he wanted to give her. His silence ticked her off, but it also drew in memories of what it had been like to be with him day in and day out.
Spontaneity was something she couldn’t live without.
“You know about Bayural? About what exactly happened with Trish?” she said, not waiting another second for him to answer.
He nodded. “I got the highlights through the grapevine.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, holding out her hand and motioning for the guy’s wallet so she could give it a quick once-over.
He handed it to her. “Sounds like you ticked off the wrong people.”
“You can say that again.” She flipped open the wallet. It was definitely bare bones. ID—probably fake—one credit card with the same name as ID, and two hundred dollars in cash. “But we were just doing our jobs.”
/> “When you take out the CIA’s trash, you’re bound to get your hands dirty.”
She closed the wallet and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Getting elbow deep in the muck is fine, but it’s an entirely different thing when I’m facedown in the crap in my own home.”
He stepped closer to her and wiped a bit of mud off her cheek. “If you want, you don’t have to face these bastards alone.”
“I...” she began, not sure exactly what to say. It was a generous offer and she wanted him to stay, but he had a life of his own, a job that required him, probably a girlfriend everywhere he went, and that was to say nothing of her own life and roadblocks she had carefully put in place when it came to him. “I’m honored that you would offer, but—”
“Stop, Zoey.” He put his hands up like he was a street cop controlling traffic—but this was one wreck he couldn’t avoid.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he continued, talking over her feeble attempt to mutter her protests. “I know you. I know what you’re thinking. I know that you think my being here is a bad idea. And I agree.”
She wasn’t sure what hurt worse—the fact that he thought he knew her mind but wasn’t trying to make a move on her, or that he agreed it was a bad idea they spend any time together.
“You can’t possibly know what I’m thinking.” If he could, he would have been running for the hills.
“I think I get the gist. Regardless, though, you need me here.”
“I have my brothers,” she argued.
“If that’s true, where are they now?” He waved around the barn and to the dead man on the floor. “I know you love them, and they love you, but didn’t Trish’s death show you the limits of what family can actually do?”
“How dare you come after my brothers? My team? My sister?” She threw her arms over her chest to keep her hands from striking him. He had no business calling out her family, or what he perceived as their mistakes. Trish’s death was a tragedy, and sure, mistakes had been made, but it was none of his business.
Her Assassin For Hire Page 4