Harlequin Intrigue June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: To Honor and To ProtectCorneredUntraceable

by Debra

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Evan Karcz woke up the same way he had almost every day for the past year and a half: with Juliet Branson’s terrified sobs echoing through his dreams.

  Evan didn’t jump out of bed and grab his Glock as he had in the early days. Nor did he have to rush to the bathroom before he lost the contents of his stomach.

  Now he just breathed in and out slowly, calming his pounding heart, staring up at the ceiling. He threw the covers off his body in an effort to chill down, even though it was early spring and the temperatures were still cool here in southern Maryland, near Washington, DC. Evan wiped with his arm the small amount of sweat that beaded on his forehead.

  He didn’t lie there long. It was early, not even close to 5:00 a.m., but the possibility of going back to sleep was pretty much nonexistent. He might as well get up and start moving. He slipped on shorts and sweats and packed a gym bag with clothes for the rest of his day.

  He’d head in to Omega Sector Headquarters and get in a workout before work officially started. Exercise in order to exorcise, Evan thought, and smiled grimly. Anything would be better than staying in that big bed by himself with nothing surrounding him but his own guilt.

  Given the day ahead and all it had in store, he shouldn’t be surprised that the dream had resurfaced with such vividness. Today he’d be unable to avoid seeing the subject of his troubled dreams—his ex-partner, Juliet Branson. Although avoid wasn’t really accurate. Evan never tried to avoid seeing Juliet; the opposite, in fact. He’d been trying to talk to her for eighteen months, with no real success. Today, Juliet would be unable to avoid seeing him.

  Evan drove to Omega Headquarters, thankful that the early hour at least helped shorten the notoriously ugly commute. He pulled into the secure parking garage of the nondescript building that housed Omega Sector—a covert interagency task force made up of the best personnel the country had to offer. Evan had worked here for eight years, ever since his recruitment out of the FBI when he was twenty-seven.

  The heaviness from this morning’s dream lingered as he walked through the doors of Omega’s main building. Strange how these halls had once thrilled him, how he had loved everything about his job as an undercover agent. But since Juliet’s...incident he couldn’t seem to find the same passion he’d once had for the work.

  Passionate or not, he was going back under. And he wasn’t looking forward to the team meeting that would take place later today, when Juliet would learn the details of the assignment. Evan rubbed a hand over his face. He knew Bob Sinclair, his undercover persona, was a name Juliet would never want to hear again. Nobody blamed her for that.

  Omega Headquarters stood largely empty at this hour except for the security personnel. Evan passed through the extensive checks to confirm his identity, then jogged down the stairs into the large gym area. State-of-the-art workout equipment stood side by side with old-school metal weights, a fitting metaphor for Omega: the best blend of new and old techniques, working in unison. There were also rooms for sparring, for yoga, and a full-size track for running. Evan left his gym bag in the locker room and walked into the main workout area.

  Sparring definitely topped the agenda for this morning. Evan decided he might as well take his aggression out on the almost-human plastic dummies and leather punching bags, since the individuals he really wanted to take his aggression out on were well beyond his reach.

  He grabbed a pair of gloves meant to save his knuckles from the worst of the damage, and was reaching for the doorknob of the sparring room when he heard noises from someone already in there. Who the hell would be up and going at this hour?

  Evan let the door shut and walked around the corner so he could see through the small window of the room. Juliet Branson...

  Evidently he hadn’t been the only one with nightmares this morning.

  Evan couldn’t help but watch, enthralled, as she danced among the targets with grace and precision. The black tank and tight workout pants she wore gave her the freedom to move as she wanted, stopping sometimes midair and pivoting in a different direction. Her five-foot-four-inch frame was average in height—at six-one Evan was a full head taller than her—but the way she fought belied her smaller stature, the litheness of her muscles evident. Her long blond hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail, so as not to impede her actions.

  The power behind her kicks and punches was impressive. Had these dummies been live people, each would’ve fallen to the ground, gasping for air. She showed them, and herself, no mercy. Rapid-fire strikes. Over and over, at a punishing speed and rhythm. Sweat dripped and flew with each of her assaults. You’d never be able to tell she’d been out of the field for the past eighteen months.

  Evan watched from the shadows of the hallway, where she wouldn’t be able to see him. As a trained operative, he recognized and appreciated Juliet’s talent in close-quarter fighting like this, although admittedly, fighting dummy targets was completely different than fighting a real opponent.

  She attacked the dummies as if she were warding off a demon army from hell. Evan’s arms hung at his sides and his shoulders slumped. Fighting demons was probably an apt description for her actions.

  He wished he could fight them for her. Or at least with her, but Juliet had no interest in being anywhere near him. Not that he could blame her. A partner was supposed to have your back, to protect you, even in dire circumstances. Evan had failed her in the worst possible way. And Juliet had paid a horrible price for his failure.

  He turned and walked the other way, leaving her to her battle. Entering the room would just cause her to tense up and rapidly vacate, anyway. But not before fear and distrust suffused her features when the door first opened. It wasn’t just him she distrusted, Evan knew, but he hated the look, anyway.

  Plus, he’d be seeing it soon enough, later today in the conference room, when he mentioned Bob Sinclair.

  Evan headed up the stairs to the indoor track. It seemed as if he would be trying to outrun his own demons today rather than fighting them. But no matter how fast he ran, he knew they’d still be there when he finished.

  * * *

  JULIET SWUNG HER LEG around in a powerful round-house kick, hitting the target one last time. She took satisfaction in how hard the dummy fell to the ground before its weighted bottom slowly brought it back to a vertical position.

  Yeah, she could take down a target dummy like a champ. Too bad that didn’t really do anybody much good. In a fight with a real person these days, she was damn near useless.

  Of course, Juliet wasn’t an active agent anymore, so it wasn’t as if she was going to use her hand-to-hand fighting skills anytime soon. But it would be nice to know she’d have them if she needed them, rather than freezing up or cowering in a corner if a real person came at her.

  Juliet backhanded the dummy again for good measure.

  She grabbed a towel and mopped up her sweat from the past hour of pounding everything in sight. It was now just before 5:00 a.m., and there’d be other people around soon, if not already. Dedicated Omega workers—agents and otherwise—would come in to get a good workout before going upstairs to their jobs.

  Juliet would like to think that was what she was doing, too. That she was here at Omega HQ sometimes eighteen or twenty hours a day because of her dedication to an important job and stellar organization. That she worked long hours because she wanted to do her part in keeping her country safe from criminals and terrorists.

  Not because of the fear that seemed to pour over her like some sort of suffocating ooze every time she left this place.

  It was so much easier to stay here at Omega than to go home alone to her house. Juliet felt safe here, even when she was by herself. There
was no chance someone was going to throw a sack over her head and drag her out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night. Of course, there was very little chance that would happen at her home, but Juliet couldn’t quite seem to convince her mind of that as she lay awake at night, terrified, remembering. So she stayed here at Omega as much as possible.

  It had been eighteen months since her attack. Things should be getting better, not worse. But that wasn’t the case.

  She glanced down at her phone, which had begun vibrating in her hand as she walked toward the locker room. Her stomach rolled when she saw the screen.

  A new email. Not for Juliet Branson, but for Lisa Sinclair, an undercover role Juliet had played in her last mission as an active operative. The one where she’d lost nearly everything.

  Sweetheart, I’ve been thinking about you all night. Soon we’ll be together, just the two of us. Sooner than you think.

  As usual, no signature or notification of who’d sent it. Juliet leaned against the wall for support and brought her hand up to her suddenly aching head. This email was benign compared to the graphic nature of some of the others. She closed her eyes briefly, pushing those thoughts away. She couldn’t let this overwhelm her, not today.

  But she knew she’d be thinking about the message all day. And the fact that the emails were starting to come more frequently and become more personal.

  Juliet had given the emails to Omega tech support, of course, but they hadn’t been able to provide any insight about where or from whom they were coming. Never the same IP address—it seemed to bounce around all over the world.

  And she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone about how much the emails upset her. She knew there were people here who cared about her. Two of her three brothers worked at Omega, for goodness’ sake; she saw them almost every day. But they were the last people she wanted to talk to about this. Being the only daughter in the family, Juliet had always been surrounded by overprotective, alpha-male testosterone.

  Talking to her brothers about residual issues from her attack and rape? Um, no. Not in this lifetime.

  Nor did she want to talk to them about creepy emails. Her siblings had work to do, real cases to worry about.

  “Hey, Jules, you okay?”

  Juliet pushed herself away from the wall at the sound of Evan Karcz’s voice. He, like her brothers, always called her Jules. She mashed the button to delete the email notification and turn her phone screen black. She didn’t want to have to explain it to Evan.

  “Um, yeah, I’m fine. Just going in to clean up after my workout. You’re here early.”

  “I was about to run, but I forgot my headphones and was coming back to grab them. You sure you’re okay? You look a little pale. And you must have been sparring because you have something in your—”

  Evan moved toward her, hand upraised, and before Juliet could stop herself she took a step back, flinching. He froze, then dropped his arm to his side, shoulders drooping.

  “Evan, I’m sorry—”

  “No, it’s okay. Um, you just have some lint or something in your hair.” He backed up another step. “I’ll see you.” He turned and walked off, away from the locker room. So much for getting headphones.

  Juliet wanted to hit something, even though she’d just spent over an hour doing just that. She hadn’t meant to flinch, especially not from Evan; she’d just been in a particularly vulnerable state of mind because of that email. It didn’t take a genius to figure out her reaction had hurt him.

  She and Evan had worked together for years. She’d known him most of her life. He was her brothers’ best friend. Hell, he was one of her best friends—more, if she was honest. Or had potentially been more. It seemed so long ago that she and Evan used to flirt with each other, secure in the knowledge of someday.

  But someday never came.

  Now whenever she thought of Evan all Juliet could recall was that moment when he’d found her. Of how he’d covered her broken, mostly naked body with his own clothes, actually crying as he had radioed in for an ambulance.

  Juliet knew it was unfair to keep Evan frozen in that moment. To keep herself frozen there. But she couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

  So she’d basically avoided him for the past year and a half.

  Which hadn’t been too difficult, considering her cowardly choice to leave active work and stick herself behind a desk instead. Part handler, part analyst, part strategist. A little too good to be any of them, but not fit to be back out in the field. Juliet couldn’t see a time when she would ever be ready for agent work again.

  Her job might not be thrilling, but it was safe. And safe was the most important thing to her right now. Although she wished those job changes hadn’t hurt Evan.

  Juliet made her way to the locker room, showering and changing into her work clothes of black pants and a matching black blazer over a white blouse. The jacket was specially fitted to hold her shoulder holster and firearm. Although Juliet wasn’t an agent and wasn’t required to be armed at all times, she was rarely without her Glock 9 mm.

  Normally she wouldn’t be dressed this way. Unlike the FBI, with their daily suits and loafers, Omega tended to be a more casually dressed workforce. But today Juliet had an important operational-specifications meeting. Her boss, Dennis Burgamy, would be there, which made her a little uneasy. Burgamy did not tend to dirty his hands with the day-to-day planning of undercover operations. Thus her more professional suit: armor for battle.

  Something was up; she knew it. Juliet was going to need as much armor as she could get.

  Chapter Two

  Juliet already sat in the conference room between her brothers Cameron and Sawyer, chatting with both, when Evan arrived at the meeting. He wasn’t surprised to find the two men flanking Juliet. If Cameron and Sawyer had their way, she’d be wrapped in cotton wool and hidden away somewhere.

  The Branson men were brothers to Evan in every way but blood. He’d known them most of his life—Sawyer, Cameron, and their older brother, Dylan, who no longer worked at Omega—and would do anything for any of them. But their overprotectiveness when it came to Juliet frustrated Evan.

  Juliet had strength none of the Branson family wanted to admit, including herself. Right now it lay hidden under layers of fear and regret. But the strength resided inside her. He’d seen it multiple times during their tenure as partners in the field. He wished Juliet would trust him to help her find that strength again, but he couldn’t force it to happen. Could only wait and hope.

  Evan deliberately took the seat directly across from Juliet. She nodded at him and gave him a polite smile before looking away. He decided to engage her brothers instead.

  “What’s up, Tweedledum and Tweedledummer?”

  Neither brother was up to his normal speed. Both were recovering from gunshot wounds received in action over the past few months, Cameron from an undercover operation gone wrong, and Sawyer from an attempt to fix that. They would recover fully, but were manning desks until they were cleared for field duty.

  Not that either seemed to mind desk duty right now. It gave them each more time to spend at home with the loves-of-their-lives, also recently acquired in the cases. Having met Cameron’s Sophia and Sawyer’s Megan, Evan wholeheartedly supported his friends wanting to stick close to home.

  “Watch it there, shorty. I can still kick your butt even with my arm in this sling,” Sawyer told him. The “shorty” barb had been around since they were all teenagers and Evan had been the last to hit his growth spurt, so he’d been a head shorter than the Branson boys for a time. Even though they now were all around the same height—each over six feet— Evan still got called shorty from time to time. But it brought the slightest of smiles to Juliet’s lips, so he let it slide.

  “Yeah, I’d hate to put your other arm in a sling,” Evan retorted.

  “Why are we having a big powwow with Burgamy?” Cameron cut in, referring to their boss, Dennis Burgamy. “Since when does he sit in on normal op-specification mee
tings?”

  “I was wondering the same thing myself.” Juliet glanced briefly at Evan before turning away.

  Evan knew he had to tell her about him going back undercover as Sinclair. He didn’t want her to hear it for the first time in the middle of the meeting.

  “I don’t know why Burgamy wants to be in the meeting exactly,” Evan said. “But you guys should know that I’m going back under as Bob Sinclair.”

  Cameron muttered a curse. Sawyer didn’t say anything. He’d already been aware that the Sinclair persona had been resurrected a few weeks ago. Evan had posed as Bob Sinclair to help Sawyer out in a case.

  The color washed out of Juliet’s face and she stood, her chair rolling back from the table forcefully. All three men stood, as well.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured.

  “Jules—” Sawyer reached for her, but stopped when she flinched away.

  “No, I’m all right. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Evan watched as she all but fled from the room. He gave a heavy sigh and sat back down.

  “Should one of us go after her?” Cameron asked.

  “No, let her go,” Evan said. “She just needs to pull herself together.”

  Sawyer and Cameron looked as though they might argue, but decided against it. Evan knew he was right. Juliet would not want any of them coming after her, crowding her space. She’d be back when she was ready, which would probably be sooner than either of her overprotective brothers suspected.

  Evan hated Juliet hearing about the Bob Sinclair situation this way, but knew it would have upset her no matter when or how she heard about it. There was no way around that.

  Dennis Burgamy, head of operations at Omega, entered the room along with his assistant, Chantelle DiMuzio, who looked harried. Of course, poor Chantelle always looked harried. Anybody who worked that closely with their boss day in and day out couldn’t help it.

  Burgamy took the seat at the head of the table, glanced around, and turned to Evan. “Where’s Juliet?”

  “She had to step out. She’ll be back soon.”