Hard to Let Go

by Laura Kaye

  That was the moment it hit her.

  If something happened to Beckett, it would tear her heart out. Because . . . because . . . Oh, my God. She was falling in love with him—had maybe even fallen all the way. It was crazy and fast and probably even reckless, but no less true for any of that.

  She was in love with Beckett Murda. And he was in danger. She just knew it.

  AS HE FACED whatever was coming at them, Beckett’s body shut down all the nonessentials. His anger at performing any sort of burial honors for Garza? Gone. His sympathy for Emilie and her mother? Gone. His thoughts about whether he and Kat could work out and whether he should’ve stumbled through expressing his feelings last night? Gone.

  All gone, for now.

  Hand at the small of his back, he gripped the handle of his weapon, his muscles braced for anything.

  Three doors slowly opened. Two men emerged from the passenger side, one from the driver’s. Beckett didn’t recognize either of the men nearest them. One was older, hawklike, wary, with mostly black hair despite his age. The other was younger, African American, his expression full of all kinds of Oh shit. Both looked like they wanted to reach for their guns, but for some reason, they didn’t.

  And then the third man stepped around the back of the Suburban, hands slightly raised in a gesture of surrender. “Gentlemen,” he said. John fucking Seneka. “I don’t think weapons will be necessary, do you?”

  Beckett stared at the man for a long moment, scrutinizing every little thing he could take in. The guy’s stance was relaxed. He made easy eye contact. He kept his hands in plain sight. Nothing threatening. Nothing suspicious.

  Except, of course, for showing up at Manny Garza’s funeral. Was this his plan all along? Only, to what end? Beckett scanned the three-sixty all around them. Everything appeared quiet and still, just as it had moments before. Not that he trusted that for one second.

  “What are you doing here?” Nick asked.

  Seneka gestured to the other two men. “Same as you, I expect. Paying our respects. Garza was one of my employees and worked with both of my colleagues here. I’d ask the same thing of you.” He arched a silvery eyebrow. Despite his rather wiry build, the man commanded respect, attention, notice.

  “We’re friends of the family,” Nick said. He holstered his gun and gave a quick nod to the others that told them to do the same.

  Sonofabitch. Beckett didn’t like it, but he followed Nick’s directions. For now.

  The older of the two “colleagues” made a disbelieving noise under his breath.

  Seneka nodded as if his subordinate hadn’t said or done anything. “Then perhaps some introductions are in order. This is Gene Washington.”

  The younger man gave them a single nod and scanned their group, guarded and confused.

  “And Gordon Wexler.”

  The older man gave a tight nod, his expression dark but unreadable, his gaze fixed on Beckett’s hand behind his back.

  And the morning went from Jesus Christ to What in the actual fuck. GW—the man whom Merritt noted as his main contact with whatever the hell WCE was—stood before them. Six degrees of separation, Beckett’s ass. It would take all of six steps for him to close the distance between both of these assholes and take them out. The only question was which man was their GW.

  When Nick didn’t offer introductions in return, Seneka held out an open hand toward the gathering by the tent. “We were a bit late arriving, so let’s not hold things up anymore.”

  Except no one wanted to go first, putting their backs to the others. Tension hung like a thick fog between them. Finally, Seneka put a hand on Nick’s back and urged him to walk next to him and lead their combined group back to the grave.

  It was all absolutely and completely surreal. Which was a goddamned problem, because confusion muddied your thoughts and slowed your reactions. But it was clear in the set of their shoulders and the way everyone on the team held their hands by their sides that they were ready to act. Ready for anything.

  Of course, Seneka’s guys were ex-SF, too. And they looked the exact same way.

  Anything went down here, and it was going to be a fucking war of attrition.

  Seneka leaned in and whispered something to Nick that Beckett couldn’t hear, and then the older man stepped ahead to Mrs. Garza and Emilie and went down to one knee. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Both of you,” he said, looking between the women. “My name is John Seneka. Manny was a valued member of my company and a good man. You have my sympathies.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Garza said, her eyes glassy and her breath halting. “And thank you for coming.”

  “Of course,” he said, patting her hand.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “Are we . . . uh . . . ready to begin?” the funeral director asked in a pinched voice.

  “Yes, sir,” Seneka said, rising and walking behind the row of chairs to find a place to stand at the far side. His men followed and stood beside him, watching every movement of the team.

  Except for Marz, who warily lowered himself into the seat next to Emilie, the rest of the team took up standing positions behind the other end of the seats. The women all stood to Easy’s right, just outside the shelter of the tent. But that placed the men’s bodies between them and Seneka’s group. Which did goddamned little to make Beckett feel better. He wanted to bundle the lot of them up, tuck them away in the safety of that probably armored Suburban, and hightail it the hell out of there. No doubt he wasn’t the only one fighting those urges.

  The officiant began the service, and Beckett barely heard a single word. Angling his body to the side, he ran his gaze in repeated surveys from the tree line to the field beyond their grave site to the road as far as he could see it from their location. Fuck the blur in his right eye, too, but at least he knew he wasn’t the only one who had gone vigilant.

  The man droned on for what seemed like forever, heightening the tension like steam in a teapot until Beckett was almost surprised it didn’t lift the tent right off the ground. Because except for John Seneka himself, the other two men with him appeared every bit as tense as Beckett felt. Was that because his team had met them at the curb with guns drawn? Because something was about to go down? Or because one of these men was their GW and knew exactly who the fuck they were, too? Which was entirely possible.

  When the officiant finally stopped talking, he grasped a triangularly folded American flag resting atop the casket and presented it to Mrs. Garza. It occurred to Beckett then that there should’ve been some other military honors bestowed here. An honor guard. A rifle team to fire off a twenty-one-gun salute. Something. But he remembered Marz saying that Emilie was keeping the proceedings as basic as possible for the sake of safety and simplicity. It wasn’t like she was in any position to make the full arrangements someone normally would anyway.

  And then it was over.

  No one moved. Hell, Beckett wasn’t sure anyone even breathed. And he didn’t let up running his scans for even a second.

  Finally, Mrs. Garza rose with Emilie’s help and took halting steps toward the casket. She leaned heavily on the edge of the dark gray box, head bowed, lips moving, her shoulders shaking. Beckett wasn’t sure how long she remained like that, and he felt like a total asshole for wishing she’d wrap it up. But every minute they stood out in the middle of this field was making his skin crawl. And one thing you tried really fucking hard not to disregard when you did what he’d done most of his life was ignore that feeling.

  He’d had it out on that dirt road in Afghanistan that day. And he hadn’t listened hard enough.

  Now, with Kat and the other women standing a few feet away—equally exposed—his nervous system was like a live wire. Raw, exposed, and full of explosive energy.

  Mrs. Garza pulled a rose free from the arrangement on top the casket, kissed it, and laid it by itself on the shiny gray surface. “Take me to the c
ar now,” she rasped. “Please.”

  “Of course, Mama,” Emilie said. She pressed her hand to the lid for a long moment, then gently grasped her mother’s arm to offer support. Marz went to the older lady’s other side, clearly torn between going with the women and staying in case something happened between the men. The officiant departed with them.

  “Head back to the vehicles,” Beckett said to Kat and the other women.

  Kat frowned, and her expression was mirrored on the rest of their faces, too. “But—”

  “Kat, please,” Beckett said.

  Her gaze flickered between him and the Seneka men, and Beckett could see by the flash of heat in her eyes and the set of her mouth that it took everything inside her not to argue and instead to walk away. But he also knew it was because she didn’t want to leave him there. That was plain in the last pleading glance she gave him.

  “Come on, everyone,” Vance said, escorting the group away.

  Beckett met Nick’s gaze, and it was clear in the other man’s eyes that he was debating the best way to play this. Just go about the day as planned? Or do what they’d planned to do in that parking garage this afternoon without the benefit of choosing the most advantageous arrangements for themselves—and without the support of the Ravens? The only saving grace was that between their team and their allies, they outnumbered Seneka’s men—assuming he hadn’t dropped others off to surround them before coming here.

  “Jeremy, you and Charlie, too,” Nick said, nodding off to the side.

  The thing that most caught Beckett’s attention in that moment wasn’t the discontent rolling off the younger Rixey at being told to return to his Jeep, it was the flash of awareness in Gordon Wexler’s eyes. At the name Charlie.

  Hello, GW. A soul-deep desire for vengeance and justice flashed through every cell in Beckett’s body.

  Seneka stepped forward and nailed Nick with a hard stare. “Like I said before, I’m as surprised as you are to run into you here. Had no idea you had any connection to Garza. But since we are here, maybe we should talk.” Now seemed implied in his tone.

  Nick met the gazes of each of his teammates and nodded. “I think—”

  Two shots rang out, shattering the morning air, and everything at the tent turned to shit.

  Chapter 22

  Goddamnit! Seneka double-crossed them after all.

  Shouting. Screams. Hurled accusations. Another gunshot, so close this time it pinged off the frame of the tent right above Beckett.

  Everyone scrambled for cover, but where the hell was the best place to train their weapons? In the direction from which the shots had been fired over at the tree line? Or at the three Seneka operatives right in their midst?

  Men scattered—going down on their stomachs, diving behind the chairs, racing for the limited cover. Seneka shouted as Wexler bolted for the pile of dirt, drew his gun and fired in the direction of the tent. Someone cried out, but Beckett couldn’t tell who it was as he whipped behind the casket. Nick dove there with him. Easy went for the lone tree off to the left, drawing fire as he moved.

  Beckett peered to his left to find that the women had just reached the vehicles. He provided covering fire toward the tree line as they scrambled to get in the cars, while Jeremy and Charlie stood midway between the tent and the Jeep, frozen like deer in the headlights. More shots rang out, at least one pinging off the casket. Trapped in the open, the two men went flat on the ground.

  Beckett’s gaze searched for Kat and found her huddled on the road behind Shane’s truck. Son of a fuck, she was still out in the open, because the road ran parallel to the grave site and the trees. “Kat, stay down!” he shouted over the fray.

  “Stand down! Stand down!” Seneka called, his voice sounding odd, almost slurred, but loud enough to draw Beckett’s attention in the other direction. He caught Washington crouching at the corner of the tent and aiming his weapon at Shane, who was crawling toward the shelter of the casket.

  Beckett didn’t hesitate. He squeezed off a shot and hit Washington square in the chest. Red bloomed across the man’s shirt as he toppled over.

  More shots from the woods. From Wexler. From Seneka . . . at Wexler? What in the motherfuck was happening here?

  Beckett grabbed Shane’s hand and hauled his body behind cover.

  “Thanks, man,” Shane said. “Jesus. Seneka’s got a GSW to the abdomen. It was Wexler.”

  “Shit,” Beckett said, but being on that side of the coffin exposed him on the woods’ side. “Let’s end this, then we can help him.”

  “Roger that,” Shane said.

  And then Beckett heard something that chilled him to the bone.

  Kat yelling, “Stop! Stop! Cole, stop!” Beckett whirled to find her crouching at the curb, hands cupped around her mouth.

  “Stay down!” Beckett yelled. Following Kat’s gaze, he looked across the field . . . and saw a shooter at the edge of the pond. Was he the only one?

  “He’ll listen to me! Cole, no!” she shouted. Marz grasped her to drag her behind the truck. “Please! I’ll talk to you now! I promise!”

  Wait. Cole? Narrowing his gaze, Beckett focused on the man’s details. Brown hair. Brown shirt. Blue jeans. Ice rushed through Beckett’s veins. Her stalker . . . was the same man who’d shoulder-checked him on the street last night. So it hadn’t been any fucking accident. Holy fucking psychopath.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Nick yelled from behind him. But Beckett didn’t have time to answer. He barreled out, hoping to draw any fire toward himself and away from Kat. He fired two shots at the asshole, but the guy disappeared behind some cover.

  “No! No!” came a man’s voice from behind him. Jeremy’s. Beckett glanced over his shoulder in time to see Wexler dragging Charlie off the ground by his hair and Jeremy scrambling after them.

  With shit coming at them from opposite directions, the operative managed to haul Charlie’s body in front of him before Nick got off a shot. Nick and Wexler shouted at one another as the latter dragged Charlie backward and warned Jeremy away.

  Beckett had to trust that Nick would handle that situation, because neither of them could focus on both fronts.

  “He’s behind that rock,” Easy yelled, pointing to a boulder at the closest edge of the pond.

  Cole fired off three shots.

  “Cole, talk to me!” Kat yelled. Marz hooked his hands under her arms.

  “Too late for that, Katherine!” came distant, shouted words. Pop. “You reported me!” Pop, pop. “And I know you fucked him in our bed!”

  Shouts from behind them, too. Jeremy. Wexler. Nick.

  “We gotta draw him out!” Easy yelled.

  “Noooo!” Jeremy screamed. Beckett gave a quick glance and found that Jeremy had somehow wrapped himself around Charlie’s feet, apparently surprising Wexler, because Charlie dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  Jeremy gave him a hard shove. “Run, Charlie! Go!”

  Charlie scrambled on his hands and feet toward Nick—and in Nick’s way.

  Wexler kicked Jeremy in the head—hard. Once, twice, until Jer went mostly still. He shook his head as if dazed. “You’ll get me, but I’ll get him!” Wexler screamed, muzzle of a gun against Jeremy’s skull. Using brute strength, he dragged Jeremy up with one arm, using him as a shield the way he had with Charlie.

  From Beckett’s other side two shots fired at once. One closer, one farther away. Sirens wailed in the distance.

  “Shooter’s down!” Easy yelled. “I got him. Go help Nick.”

  Relief flooded through Beckett. Now to deal with Wexler, who was backpedaling quickly toward Vance’s sedan with Jer. Where the hell was Vance anyway? Shaking off the thought, Beckett bolted toward Nick, his mind strategizing—

  “No, no, no! Beckett!” Marz said.

  What the hell? Beckett froze in place and followed the sound of Marz’s shout.

  Kneeling behind her, Marz held Kat against his chest. A circle of blood soaked the gray silk at the center of her
blouse. She stared down at it as if surprised.

  “No!” Beckett cried, taking off in her direction, his heart lodged so far up his throat he could barely breathe. Not Kat. Not Kat. Not Kat.

  He moved as if in slow motion. Despite his strides, the distance between them stretched out. Sounds warped and warbled behind him. Everything blurred out around the edges. Everything but Kat.

  Finally, finally, he reached her. As Beckett went to his knees in front of Kat and Marz, the sound of peeling rubber squealed out from somewhere. A moment later a car roared past. But Beckett hardly saw it, because his eyes were riveted to her face. Her beautiful, pale face staring down at her rapidly soaking shirt.

  “Kat?” Beckett grasped her cheek and gently tilted her head toward him. Her skin was cool to the touch.

  “Beck-ett. Sor-ry.” Her eyes wouldn’t quite focus.

  He peered over his shoulder, needing help. Wanting a miracle. “Becca! Shane!” He came right back to Kat. “No apologies. You’re fine. We’re fine. Okay? Let’s lay her down, Marz.”

  Marz’s gaze was rock solid. “You got it.” Gently, Marz eased himself out from under her and lowered her to the blacktop, his hand cradling her head.

  “You hit?” Beckett asked him, scooting closer to Kat.

  “I’m fine,” Marz said. “Here’s Shane now. Keep her talking, B.”

  Beckett grasped her hand as Shane went to his knees. “I’m going to look at the wound, Kat. Okay?” Shane asked.

  “ ’Kay.” Her whole body trembled.

  “Tell me a story,” Beckett said.

  “Wha’ story?”

  Shane ripped the pearly buttons open down to Kat’s belly.

  “Anything, Angel. I want to know every damn story you’ve got,” Beckett said as Shane pulled the silk apart. Oh, God, no. The entrance wound sat just right of center on her chest, blood welling up and out.

  Shane removed a blade from a holster on his boot and hacked a square piece of cloth off the bottom edge of his dress shirt. He covered the wound, but her blood soaked through immediately. “Need more cotton,” he said to Marz. “And plastic, if you can find it. We need to keep this sealed.”