by Julie Miller
“There are KCPD rules and regulations to consider.” She nibbled on his chin, kissed the grooves of laughter beside his eyes. “You’re a superior officer. You have to uphold them.”
“I’m going to marry you even if I have to fire you. Understood?”
Elise blinked the rain from her lashes and framed his face, too, smiling up at him. “You could just transfer me to another office.”
“I’m in charge of that stuff, aren’t I. I could do that.”
“Yes, you could.”
“It might mean a cut in pay. For now. Or getting stuck with some tyrant for a boss. But I will fire his ass if he gets out of line—”
Elise pressed a finger against his lips to hush him. “Do you think money is what I want? Do you think I can’t handle some grumpy old curmudgeon? Do you think there’s an office out there I can’t run?”
“I’m going to miss you at work, Elise.” His smile faded for a moment, and the man who never minced words seemed unsure of what to say. “But I’ll see you in bed every night and across the breakfast table every morning. Right?”
“Is that an official proposal, Deputy Commissioner?”
“Yes. If you’ll have an old man.”
“I won’t.” Elise stretched up on tiptoe to kiss his lips into a smile. “But I’ll have you.”
* * * * *
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Prologue
“You should’ve walked away and dropped the charges. Hell, you should’ve just given the case to someone else to prosecute. To anyone else.” Sadness coated his words.
So did fury.
Rachel Mancini jerked against the ropes that held her. Terror clawed through her body. He’d tied her to the chair, secured her so completely.
After he’d drugged her.
The drugs were still in her system. They made her limbs feel sluggish, but the drugs did nothing to numb the terror coursing through her body.
“You should have listened!”
She blinked and found him right in front of her. Adam Wright. The man she’d been dating for the past three months. The man she’d fallen for so easily. He was charming. He was handsome.
He was also a killer.
His hand lifted and she tensed, expecting him to hit her. Instead, his fingers skimmed lightly over her cheek. It was a familiar caress. He’d touched her that way dozens of times. This time his touch seemed to burn her.
“I didn’t count on you, Rachel,” Adam said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “The kills are always so easy. I do the work. I get the cash.”
This couldn’t be happening to her. She and Adam were supposed to go away this weekend. Their first vacation as a couple.
She’d just finished prosecuting her latest case earlier that day. Rachel was a Marine Corps Judge Advocate, and she’d been working on the biggest case of her career. Private First Class Quincy Langam had been accused of murdering two senior officers. Rachel was sure the man was guilty, and she’d done everything possible to give justice to Langam’s victims.
Adam’s hand dropped away from her face. He pulled out the gun that had been holstered at his hip. “I was paid to kill you.”
Her hands twisted against the ropes. Her wrists were bleeding. The flesh had cut quickly against the thick, hemp rope. Rachel ignored the pain. Maybe the blood would help her to slip free of the binds. “I thought you cared about me.” All of those months. The flowers. The dates. The laughter and the talking that had gone late into the night. Everything had been a lie?
“I don’t care about anything.” His words were cold now, hollow. The emotion that had blazed in his voice and eyes just moments before was gone.
Adam lifted the gun and aimed it at her.
“Please!” The cry broke from Rachel. This was the man who’d kissed her? Who’d talked to her about a future, a new life? They were supposed to build a life together. “Don’t do this, Adam!”
“It’s your fault.” His jaw hardened. “You should’ve let someone else handle the case. I could’ve killed that prosecutor, and you’d be free.”
She latched on to what he’d said as she realized just who had sent Adam after her. “Quincy? Quincy Langam hired you?” Keep him talking. If Adam was talking, then he wasn’t shooting her.
He nodded and didn’t lower the gun. He also didn’t shoot her. “Quincy’s family has a lot of money. Money can hide so much.”
“Like the fact that Quincy is a cold-blooded killer?”
Adam smiled at her. “No, he’s not cold-blooded. He attacked in the heat of the moment. One of those passion kills. He found his girlfriend with another man, and he erupted. He killed them both. The fact that they were senior officers never mattered to him—it was all personal.” Adam gave a little shrug. “All passion, like I said.”
Was the rope starting to give around her left wrist? It was! And with another yank, Rachel thought she might be able to slip out of the rope that twisted around her right wrist, too.
“I’m the cold-blooded one,” he told her, “and I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you’re dead.”
No. No! Her wrists slipped free of the binds, and Rachel didn’t waste any more time begging for her life. She leaped out of that chair, attacking him with all her might.
They collided. Hit the floor. The gun slid from his fingers. She tried to lift her elbow and ram it into him—
But the drugs still had her muscles trembling and weak.
Adam caught her hand easily and he yanked her arm back down. He rolled them on the floor, locking her body beneath his. His green eyes gleamed down at her. “Such a fighter.” He yanked her hands above her head and pinned them to the floor. “Some don’t fight. They just sit there, crying, as they wait for me to kill them.” He flashed the wide smile that used to make her heart skip a beat. “That’s just one of the things I love about you.”
He dared to speak about love even as he prepared to kill her? Rachel slammed her forehead into his nose. She heard the crunch and knew she’d broken cartilage. The sound gave her a savage satisfaction. “You know nothing about love.”
He swore at the pain, and his hold weakened. Rachel was a marine, first and foremost, and she was not about to be easy prey. She twisted beneath him, struggling desperately, and she escaped from him as she heaved across the floor.
The gun. She had to get the gun that he’d dropped.
“Yes, I do know about love....”
His voice was so soft she barely heard it.
Rachel grabbed the gun. Her bloody fingers made holding the weapon hard.
Before she could spin toward him with her weapon, Rachel felt the tip of a knife press into her back.
“Do you think...” Adam asked her, seemingly curious “...that you could really do it? Do you think you
could kill me?”
Her heart was about to burst out of her chest.
He leaned closer to her. That knife pressed a little deeper into her back. “Because I don’t think you can, Rachel. I think that I got to you. The controlled, all-business prosecutor. The brave soldier. I got beneath your skin, and I don’t think you’ve got it in you to actually kill me.”
She spun, ignoring the burn of the knife as it sliced over her skin. Rachel brought the gun up and aimed it right at him. “Get away from me,” Rachel ordered. Because she would pull that trigger. She would.
He dropped the knife, eased back. “I marked you.”
Her back throbbed, and she could feel the wetness of her blood soaking her shirt. “And if you come at me again,” Rachel told him, “I’ll kill you.”
He laughed. Adam didn’t seem to care that blood was coming from his nose or that she had a gun aimed dead-center at his heart.
“Get your hands up!” Rachel shouted.
He slowly lifted his hands. “A fighter,” he whispered again, and he sounded pleased. “But I guess you had to be, right, Rachel? Once a marine, always a marine.... A core of steel hidden beneath the silk.”
She stiffened. “Who are you?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve got quite a few names....”
She was in a nightmare.
“Most folks just call me Jack,” he said, as his eyes narrowed on her. His fingers slid into the pocket of his jeans.
“What are you doing? Stop!”
But he didn’t pull out a weapon. He pulled out what looked like...a playing card? He tossed it toward her. The card landed at her feet.
The Jack of Hearts.
Her fingers were trembling. That card... Two cards just like that one had recently been found at the scene of two murders in the area. One of the dead had been a witness in the Langam murder case. The other had been Quincy Langam’s ex-roommate.
“I’m surprised you’re able to stand now,” he continued as he rubbed a hand over the line of his jaw. “I hit you with enough sedatives to keep you out for a while. I’d thought about even killing you while you were unconscious...” He hesitated then shook his head. “But that just didn’t seem right.”
“You’re insane.” She needed a phone. She had to call the police and get help.
“No.” Anger flared in his eyes, turning his gaze into green fire. “I’m the man you need to fear.”
Her gaze darted around the room. Where were they? The place—it looked like some kind of old, abandoned factory. The room was huge, cavernous, and she was terrified.
But a marine didn’t let terror stop her. She just kept marching forward.
“What are you going to do?” Adam asked her. “Shoot me?”
“I’m going to call the authorities. You’re not going to hurt anyone else.”
His eyelids flickered. “So noble. Trying to do the right thing, but you should know...no prison will ever hold me. If the cops come blazing in, then I’ll escape, and I’ll come back for you.”
The words were chilling in their certainty.
“You’re mine,” he told her. His hands lowered to his sides. “Either mine to kill or mine to love. The choice is all on me... I knew it from the beginning.”
“Put your hands back up!” Rachel yelled.
He didn’t. He took a step toward her.
“Stop!”
“You can’t do it,” he said, his expression certain. “I know you can’t. Because I got to you. I made you feel, didn’t I, sweetheart?”
He’d lied to her. Used her. Drugged her. “I can. I will.” Her finger tightened on the trigger.
“It’s not loaded,” he said.
Rachel paused. Her gaze darted down to the gun.
And in that instant, he bent down and yanked a second weapon from his ankle holster.
“No!” Rachel’s shout seemed to echo in that huge room.
He fired at her.
She shot back at him.
Rachel fell, hitting the floor. She held on to her gun. She hurt. Hurt.
“Such a fighter...” His whisper drifted to her. “All the way to the end.”
Rachel tried to bring her gun up.
Then she heard his footsteps, running away.
“Adam?”
He didn’t answer.
She didn’t let go of the weapon. Rachel tried to pull herself up. The bullet had sunk into her left shoulder. Blood dripped down her arm.
There was no sign of Adam. No, there was no sign of Jack.
She stood on her feet, body trembling, wondering if she would be able to chase after him.
But then Rachel heard the pounding thud of footsteps. A lot of footsteps. And that thundering sound was coming toward her.
She turned, aiming her weapon even as the door on the right flew open. Men swarmed inside, men wearing all black and armed with guns of their own.
“Rachel Mancini?” One of the men barked.
Her gaze flew up to his face. He had the darkest eyes she’d ever seen. And the lines of his face looked so hard. So dangerous. Deadly.
“Wh-who are you?” She didn’t lower her weapon. So what if a dozen guns were trained on her right then? The weapon was the only thing she had.
“She’s hurt.” These terse words came from another man. An older man who stormed into the room with an unmistakable air of command surrounding him. “Get a medic in here now.” He pushed through the guns. Headed toward her and acted as if she didn’t have a weapon locked on him. “Ms. Mancini, I’m here to help you.” His gaze slid around the room. “But first you have to tell me...where is he? Where’s Adam Wright?”
Rachel felt a tear leak down her cheek. She never cried. Never.
But her entire world had just changed. I changed. “I shot him,” she heard herself whisper. “But he ran away.”
The commander, a man with gleaming eyes, gave a hard nod. He turned back, speaking to the others as he said, “Get a search out now. I want every inch of this building checked.”
The team broke up, rushed out.
Except for the commander—and for the man who’d first pointed his weapon at her. The man who’d known her name. His voice had been hard, rumbling, devoid of any accent.
That man came toward her now.
Rachel tensed.
“Easy.” His voice was softer than it had been before. “I’ve got medical training. I can help you.” He holstered his weapon and advanced on her.
Her world was falling apart. Rachel wasn’t sure that anyone could help her then. She gave a short, negative shake of her head.
Her knees buckled then, and Rachel knew she’d hit the floor soon.
But he caught her. The man with the dark eyes. His hands were strong, callused at the fingertips, but he held her gently.
“Who are you?” Rachel asked him again. The world was spinning and that man—the stranger with the dark eyes—was the only thing that seemed solid in that instant.
“Dylan,” he told her, his voice a bare rasp of sound.
Over his shoulder, she saw the commander frown at him.
“I’m going to take care of you,” Dylan promised her. “We’re the good guys. We’re going to keep you safe.” A pause. “I’m going to keep you safe.”
But Rachel didn’t believe him. Adam had just taught her the danger of trusting a man. “He’s going to come back.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “And he’s going to kill me.”
Dylan’s face hardened. “I won’t let that happen.”
She still had the gun. Rachel gave him her weapon, but Dylan immediately passed it to the commander. Then she was in Dylan’s arms. He carried her out of that room. Carried her out of what was, indeed, an old, abandoned factory.
When the ambulance arrived, Dylan was still there, right at her side.
But no one had found Adam. He’d escaped. Vanished into the night.
I’ll come back for you.
Chill bumps rose on Rachel’s arms. She knew that, sooner or later, she would be seeing Adam again.
Copyright © 2014 by Cindy Roussos
ISBN-13: 9781460337264
KCPD PROTECTOR
Copyright © 2014 by Julie Miller
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