Rowan spoke easily, his shoulders loose and relaxed, all indicators he was telling the truth. “This killer has been using the dating app, SiR, which connects people who are involved in the BDSM lifestyle, and is abducting women.”
She studied the firmness in Rowan’s gaze. While she believed what he told her was the truth, she got the feeling he wasn’t telling her everything. “I take it the CIA is on the case now because the FBI has hit a dead end?”
Rowan gave a slow nod. “This killer is smart. The FBI cybercrime division has hit a wall over and over again. Every time they get close, the fucker diverts them. I need you to succeed where others have failed.”
She pondered what she’d heard and tapped her fingers against the chair. The killer was real. She’d heard that a week ago another young woman had been abducted by the Casanova Sadist, which led her to believe the FBI was getting nowhere on the case. That must be why Rowan was on the case now.
“Let’s say I believe what you’re telling me, why didn’t you go through proper channels to get me to work this case?” The CIA, as well as the FBI, had her ass. She couldn’t refuse any work they sent her way, or she’d get thrown into jail. The truth of that was depressing, and maybe partly why she still had no private life. Nothing in her life could really be private.
Rowan didn’t even miss a beat, his expression going stone-cold. “Because the CIA doesn’t know I’m working this case.”
She cocked her head, watching him very closely. “Now why exactly would one of their top agents not be on the case?”
Darkness stole over any warmth in his expression, and she recognized that emotion as he went on. “Because the last victim is my little sister, Mia, and by this killer’s MO, she has only two weeks before he kills her.”
Alex’s breath caught and her heart twisted. She knew the pain of a missing sister intimately. And when Lena had gone missing, Alex did everything to find her. She stared into the warm darkness of Rowan’s eyes and lowered the gun to the coffee table as Rowan pleaded, “Alex, please, will you help me?”
CHAPTER 3
THE ROPE BURNED against Rowan’s flesh, and not in a good way, while he sat bound to the chair. He gave Alex the chance to process what he told her, noting during the passing seconds the dark worry in her gaze indicated she believed him. The fact that she finally set the gun down told him she understood his reasoning. But he still reeled in the knowledge that she thought she’d left him in Paris. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. It eased his guilt that he’d hurt her. Though he couldn’t quite shake the tension in his chest that she didn’t trust him enough five years ago to be honest with him. It bothered him more than it should.
“This killer that’s all over the news has taken your sister?” she eventually asked slowly.
Rowan nodded. “Yes, he did, and the only person who is going to find her is me, and hopefully you.” Nothing mattered as much Mia, an innocent who didn’t deserve the brutality of the Casanova Sadist.
Alex watched him closely, tapping her fingers against the armrest. “You’re in a desperate spot, then?”
“Extremely desperate,” he agreed, reading between the lines of what she was getting at. “I didn’t want to hurt or betray you, Alex. But there is nothing I wouldn’t have done to get you on my side to help me find Mia.” He paused to consider how different tonight would have gone if he’d known she’d also left him. “Time is counting down. I thought you’d hate me. I needed you to want to help me and thought reminding you of the good moments between us would soften you up.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Sex wouldn’t have been on the table otherwise?”
He grinned with all the heat burning inside him since he put his hands on her again. “Sex most definitely would have been on the table, just after we found Mia.”
“Hmmm,” she said, then reached for her laptop next to her weapon.
Saving her the time, he offered, “If you log into my home computer, you’ll find the FBI files on this killer there.” He rambled off his IP address. “I’ve got all the evidence and notes in a secured folder on my database.”
Her fingers began flying over the keyboard. Within minutes, she had the file up and was scanning through the documents. Rowan had no doubt she was learning all the things about this case, seeing dead end after dead end. And Rowan didn’t question in the least that she spent even more time reviewing information about the last victim, Mia Hawke, his twenty-five-year-old sister. She’d been the unexpected surprise to his parents who came seven years after him.
When Alex finally shut her laptop, she let out a long sigh and said, “Well, it looks like you’re not going to die for ruining my vacation.”
The crushing hopelessness that had been weighing him down lifted. “Does that mean you’re agreeing to help me find my sister?”
She cocked her head to examine him, and Rowan saw the hesitation on her face. She now believed him, he was sure of that, but she was smart enough not to trust him. This time, he deserved that. Five years ago, especially considering she apparently left him too, he didn’t. She finally said, “Before I answer that question, tell me: How did you gain access to the FBI file, considering you don’t work for the FBI and you’re not on this case?”
He realized the answer wasn’t going to help gain her trust. “A buddy I served in the military with now works for the FBI and has been working the case. When Mia was taken, and the CIA wouldn’t authorize me to join the case, and the FBI shut me out completely, he gave me access to what he had.”
“He could get in a lot of trouble for that,” she pointed out.
Rowan inclined his head. “We’re both aware, but without the CIA’s approval for me to work the case, I have no access.” He hesitated, and then continued with a trembling voice. “It’s my sister. Those close to me are doing what they can to help.” Were there risks? Certainly, but Rowan would risk it all for his military brothers too.
Alex let out another long, deep breath, her eyes searching his while her fingers tapped against the armrest. “I take it the CIA wants you to stay out of this because of your personal relationship?”
He nodded, still frustrated over that call. “That was their decision, yes.”
“A decision you obviously don’t agree with, since here we are.”
Rowan had always followed rules, protocol, authority. The military had raised him into a man. He knew when to talk and when to shut up. But not when it came to his family, blood or otherwise. Everything he honored, believed in, all fell apart when Mia went missing. “There is no rule I won’t break to get my sister back. Mia is a sweet girl with her whole life ahead of her. I am her brother, and there is not a damn person who can stop me from trying to find her.”
“Even if it costs you your job?”
He gave a firm nod. “Even so.”
She tapped her finger against the chair again and exhaled another long, deep breath, both actions of which were tells of hers when she was deep in thought. He’d remembered that from their week together. “I saw in the case files that their suspect list has fizzled out,” she finally said. “What do you think I could do to find this person that the FBI hasn’t done yet?” Her clever eyes lit up with speculation.
Rowan understood that energy and rush. Hunting killers, running top-secret missions, he got a high from it too. “Every damn thing they haven’t tried,” he told her simply. “They’re not digging deep enough, if you ask me. The killer knows police procedure. The crime scenes are clean. There’s no DNA evidence. There’s no trail. There’s nothing. The only link they’ve found is that all the victims, including my sister, have used the dating app, SiR, but all the men who had been chatting with the women have been ruled out.”
She reached for her laptop again. “But you’re suspicious about that?”
Rowan liked that she could read him so well. That was one of the reasons things with Alex were different. No one read him. They couldn’t see past his shield. She was the only one, and that had certainly been the bi
ggest reason he’d left her in Paris. She was too close, too dangerous. “The killer is there somewhere on the app,” he explained, stretching out his toes that had begun to tingle. “It’s the only link between the women. The FBI has missed something, whether they want to admit that or not.”
Her fingers began flying across the keyboard, her gaze firmly set on the monitor. “Are you and your sister close?”
“Why is that important to this case?”
Alex’s gaze flicked up, and she gave a small smile. “Protective. Okay, so you’re close.” She glanced back at the monitor and continued typing. “The reason I asked was to find out if she told you anything about the men she dated on the app?”
“Just one.”
Alex’s fingers froze atop her keyboard. Her eyes searched his, and his expression must have revealed a lot, since she said, “And then she went missing?”
“That’s right,” he said, having come to the same conclusion she had that the last guy was their suspect. “Mia didn’t tell me much about him, except for a few details in passing. They’d been texting back and forth for about a month. She’d never met him in person, and she’d never say much because she signed a nondisclosure agreement that all participants of the app must sign.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “An NDA for a dating app?”
“The app connects rich, successful Dominants with submissives,” he explained.
“Ah, gotcha,” she said, continuing to type on her keyboard. “The men using this app are in powerful positions, I take it?”
Rowan inclined his head. “Men who can’t risk their kinky fetishes being revealed to the public, but I suspect this might be the very reason this case is not getting solved. Money and power can make truth disappear.”
Alex nodded in agreement, keeping her gaze on the screen, and moved along. “What else did Mia say about him?”
“She let it slip once that he’d told her he had a military tattoo on his back of a solider with a gas mask and a helicopter beneath it.” He remembered that talk so vividly. Could picture his sweet sister with her long blond hair and warm blue eyes smiling at him. “She wondered if I knew him.”
“I take it you didn’t.”
He shook his head.
Alex glanced back to her monitor, her fingers continuing to fly across the keyboard. “All right. Is that it?”
“She told me he says, balls to the wall.”
Alex stopped typing again to stare incredulously at him. “Balls to the wall?”
Rowan nodded, stretching out his fingers that were going numb now. “Apparently that’s his go-getter saying.”
“And just how did that come up in a casual conversation?”
Rowan remembered that day in the diner over breakfast. He’d flown in after he worked a case in Portland to spend the day with Mia back home in New York City to catch up. “Mia said it. I called her out on it, then she explained it was something the guy she was talking to texted a lot. She guessed it rubbed off on her.”
Alex watched Rowan again intently, obviously things on her mind, before letting out another heavy sigh and typing once more. “Well, it’s not a lot to go on, but it’s at least some way to identify him.” She glanced Rowan’s way, setting those pretty, inquisitive eyes on him, making the world disappear a little. “The FBI hasn’t been able to locate this guy by those identifying markers? His tattoo sounds unique.”
Rowan knew the reaction he was about to get, but he couldn’t hold back anything. Not from Alex. Not when he needed her to find Mia. “I haven’t told the FBI about the tattoo or the saying.”
Her hands dropped flat down on her laptop. “Want to explain why?”
“Because as far as I’m concerned, they’re giving me the run-around.” Rowan explained the frustration he’d been feeling for days. “This bastard has taken my sister. I stopped playing by the rules when they shut me out, refusing to give me access.”
“The FBI and CIA never do work seemingly together, do they?”
“Not even on a good day,” Rowan said dryly.
“And especially when they’re probably reacting to you telling them they’re doing a shitty job.”
“They are doing a shitty job,” Rowan retorted. “My sister is not home safe, and this killer isn’t behind bars.”
“Valid point,” Alex said before turning her focus entirely onto her monitor.
With the reminder of Mia’s life on the line, he forged ahead. He considered Alex’s mood. Her shoulders were relaxed, posture calm. Now or never. “It’s time to answer, Alex. Will you help me? I know this will eat up your vacation—”
“It won’t take me that long to find her.” Alex made the statement without arrogance, basically stating a fact they both knew was probably true.
While he appreciated her confidence, he snorted. “The FBI can’t find this killer.”
Her mouth twitched, and her gorgeous eyes flicked to his face. “Why do you think the CIA and FBI keep me in their pockets? I’ll find this killer.” She placed the laptop aside on the coffee table next to her. “I’ve got some scripts running on SiR’s databases. They’ll take a few hours to run before we know anything more, so we’ll need to hang tight. But if there is anything to find there, I’ll find it.”
Rowan realized how much he needed her reassurance. He’d seen Alex work in Paris and catch one of the most ruthless hired hitmen that Rowan had ever heard of. Her legendary hacking skill was not anything he doubted. That brought a sliver of hope that had slowly drained out of him since the FBI hadn’t gotten anywhere on finding his sister in the last week. He became hyperaware he was still tied to the damn chair, and very much at her disposal. “While I appreciate your help, do you ever plan to untie me?”
“Not yet,” she stated, giving him firm eye contact. “Since this isn’t a CIA or FBI op, I don’t work for free.”
He breathed deep, albeit surprised she wanted money. She never seemed the material type. He had a good fifty grand in his savings account that came from years of working instead of living, and he’d give it all to her. “What’s your price?”
She held his stare in an intense way he’d never seen from a woman before. She had no fear, total confidence, and fuck, was she sexy. She bit her lip, drawing his entire focus to her mouth, and his cock hardened that easily. That’s what had fascinated him back in Paris. His control was ironclad. Except when it came to this twenty-seven-year-old, five-foot-four fireball of a brunette. “The way I see this,” she said with a sexy smile, “you have taken the vacation that I desperately needed and stolen it away. You need to rectify that.”
Rowan felt his muscles quiver in need. He wanted her as much now as when he first set his eyes on her in Paris. And he wasn’t a man who didn’t indulge when life put a sexy woman in front of him. He saw the worst in people. He dealt in murder, misery, and lies. He took the good when he could, and he never apologized for it. “And how shall I rectify that, luv?”
She leaned forward a little, showing a hint of cleavage through the opening of her robe. “We’ll get to that, but first, I need to be clear about a few things. Before you woke up, I had a call with my boss, Ryder Blackwood, whom I’m guessing you probably know about.”
“I’m aware of him, yes.” Blackwood was a retired Army Ranger. Apparently, he’d taught her to protect herself. But deep down, Rowan thought a lot of what Alex could do was a result of her instincts. Before he met her in Paris, he’d seen the CIA videos of them interviewing her as a teenager. Plus, he’d witnessed it in her during their seven days together. He liked her smart mouth, as much as he liked her sharp mind.
“Good,” she went on. “I showed Ryder your face and explained the situation.” She looked as if she wanted to ravish him and bury him both at once. “Not only is he checking into you now, but Ryder and I are very close. Put me in any danger, and he will kill you.”
“I have no intention of hurting you,” Rowan told her gently, noting the sudden shift in her mood. He caught the building heat in her eyes, tell
ing him her mind was now on something else entirely. And he understood the need to dip into this passion. There was an energy between them. A pulse that only seemed to intensify since he’d been bound to this chair. Wanting to play along and show her he wanted exactly what he expected she did, he gestured to his bindings. “In fact, if you take these off, I’ll show you just how good I want to make you feel.”
A building smile rose to her face as she stood, her robe coming undone a little more, showing off her lacy bra. “We haven’t negotiated those terms yet.” She moved to her purse and reached for something inside. When she turned back, he realized she held onto a condom. “While those scripts run, let’s negotiate, shall we?”
Blood filled his cock so fast, making him so hard, he bit back a groan. “Name your terms.”
She watched him for a long moment, giving him a very thorough once-over that caused quivering in his muscles before she moved to the closet. When she turned around, she held a black scarf in her hands and sent her robe to the floor. “No one keeps me in the dark, Hawke.” She stalked forward, wearing only her lingerie. He hungered for her, building deep in his gut, until a growl spilled from his chest as she went on. “Secrets are things I find out.” When she stopped in front of him, she tied the makeshift blindfold around his head. “Do you like being in the dark, Hawke?” she whispered huskily in his ear.
He gritted his teeth at his erection pressing against his jeans. “I’d rather see all of you,” he muttered.
She gave a soft, throaty laugh that had his cock jerking, but then she grabbed his chin firmly and declared, “Keep secrets from me again, and you better get used to this darkness because I’ll erase you. For good.”
A ragged groan was yanked from deep in his chest when she opened his jeans and shoved them down enough to free his throbbing cock. His eyes rolled back into his head when she applied the condom, stroking him perfectly, all to tease. He forced words out from deep in his throat. “Are those your terms, Alex? No more secrets between us?”
Her thighs brushed across his legs when she straddled him, and he grunted when she pressed herself against the tip of him. “The terms are this: Don’t cross me. Don’t lie to me again. No tricks. It won’t end well for you. Understand?”
Sexy Liar Page 3