He punches a line on his phone, “Royce. Problem.” He relays the information and hangs up. “We’re handling it.”
“Jacob—”
“I called him.”
“And you talked to him.”
“Yes. I talked to him.”
Because Jacob could always get my messages. He just didn’t want to talk to me. “Okay. Tell him he’ll have to endure a conversation with me. I’m not talking to you.” I turn and walk into the bedroom and shut the door. I lean against it and try to think. I’ll have to leave. God. I may have ensured I have to go into witness protection. And my father. Oh no. I turn to open the door and suddenly it opens, and Jacob is standing there, just as big and intense as ever.
He steps forward and I back up, giving him room to enter. He shuts us inside and I hold my breath, not even sure what I expect. “My father—”
“I already sent someone to stay with him in Italy,” he says, his voice as hard as his eyes. “Tell me what you did.”
Anger sparks, right along with a lot of everything else. “What I did? I didn’t do anything. When I first found out about Jesse Marks, I made calls. I forgot about them. I never touched the case after I told you I wouldn’t. But a records guy took interest. He called someone at the state department. He—”
“The state department,” he says, his tone sharp as a whip.
“Yes. I had Adam put his family into protection.”
His lashes lower and he pulls his phone from his pocket, dialing a number. He listens to the line and then gives them a series of codes. For five minutes I wait until he finally says. “Code black message. Stand down. The problem is neutralized.” His jaw sets harder. “I need confirmation.” He listens. “I need fucking confirmation or I will not stand down.” He ends the connection, inhaling sharply and turning for the door, obviously about to leave. Just leave.
“Do not even think about walking out of that door without talking to me first.”
Just seeing her, just being in the same room with her, is driving me crazy. I cannot be with her and not touch her. I cannot be with her and be me though.
“Jacob,” she says again, my name a plea on her lips that I can’t refuse.
I turn and look at her. “What?”
“What happens now?”
“We wait for me to get the confirmation that any action is called off.”
“Here or at the Walker building?”
“Royce has a baby and a recovering wife at the Walker building. I’m not putting them through that hell.”
“No. Of course not. I shouldn’t have suggested that.” She wets her lips, and fuck me, I want to kiss her. I want to fuck her. I want to just hold her one last time.
“I really need you to talk to me,” she says, and talking is exactly what I don’t want to do.
A barely contained eruption is rising to my surface and I close the space between us, stopping just in front of her. “You want answers? You want to know what door to hell you opened?”
“I want to know about you.”
“If I tell you my story, I’ll have to kill you. Do you still want to know me?”
“Very much,” she says. “So very much.”
I should walk away. I should tell her nothing, but I still stand there. I fucking stand there and words come out of my mouth. “I was pulled into a special task force that was off the books. I became the go-to guy to take out hard-to-reach targets. I felt like I made a difference. I kept wars from happening. I kept villages from burning. Until I discovered one of my superiors, and a portion of my team, were running an illegal arms operation and I could tie back some of my kills to the support of that operation.”
“What did you do?”
“Myself and Jesse Marks went to a high-level member of government who helped us take down the team. Some of them ended up dead. Others in prison. We both exited the army, but we were both told that if we ever talked, we were dead, and so was everyone close to us. Not long after I exited, I got a call to eliminate Jesse. His family was already dead. They said he killed them. I found him. He said they killed them. But I found his plans to blow up a government building. He was a rabid animal. He’d lost his mind and I put him down. Because that’s what I do. I kill people. And the only reason I left your slayer alive was because I didn’t want you to hate me more than him.”
“I never believed—”
“That I killed that family? You say that, but I saw the look on your face.”
“I had just faced that man and learned that you were—”
“A killer?”
“That you didn’t trust me enough to tell me. It’s like you wanted to shock me and push me away. I’ve thought about this a lot. You were so quick to leave. To ignore my calls.”
“You damn sure packed your bag and got the hell out of my apartment quickly.”
“Because you didn’t want me there,” she hisses. “I went looking for you at the hospital. I begged for a number to call you. They told me I couldn’t reach you. The message was clear. I blinked for one moment and that was it. In other words, you didn’t really mean it when you told me it was okay to be human when I’m with you. That was a lie.”
“I guess it was all a lie, now wasn’t it?”
I turn and cross the room, and this time when she calls my name, I don’t stop. I get the hell out of that bedroom.
I should have told him that I love him.
I am back to pacing, this time in my bedroom with male voices coming from the living room. Adam and Asher, if I’m correct. Actually, I think I hear Savage out there too. I now have two SEALs and two Green Berets guarding me, from what must be a massive threat. Or maybe they’re here to guard him from me? It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to talk to me. He has to talk to me. I have to talk to him. I open the door and I find Jacob in the center of the couch, with Savage and Asher on either side of him. Adam on the floor. Some kind of sports is on a laptop they are all watching. A bottle of tequila is sitting on the table—no, make that two. Jacob is holding one of them. There are also two handguns on the table, though I doubt any of them are sober enough to use them.
I storm toward them, shut the laptop and step between the table and Jacob. “I guess the threat is over and you forgot to tell me?”
He gives me a hooded stare. “No news. I’ll let you know.”
“So bad guys might be coming to kill us and you’re drinking tequila.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve killed more men drunk than sober. I’m just that good at killing.”
Now, he’s just trying to push my buttons. I point at Asher and Savage. “Get up and leave.” I glance at Adam. “That means you too.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Asher says.
“I have to agree,” Savage says.
“What they said,” Jacob adds.
I grab the two handguns and point them at Asher and Savage. “Get up and leave.” I look at Asher. “Asher, yes I can shoot left-handed. Try me.”
Asher looks at Jacob. “We’ll be just outside.”
“Yep,” Savage says. “Just outside.”
I wait for them to leave, and I let the guns lower to my sides. “Now what?” Jacob asks. “You gonna cuff me and then shoot me with those guns?”
I set them both on cushions on either side of him, and shove his legs part, stepping between them. “No, you asshole. I love you. I loved you before I knew you were an assassin. I love you now. You’re killing me. I hate us like this. I don’t want to be like this.”
“Do you know what they say about loving an assassin?”
“That he’ll stab you in the heart and leave you to bleed? You’re already killing me. I’m sorry. I obviously read us wrong.” I start to leave, and he catches my hand.
“I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the point.”
“The minute you let go of my hand, it will hurt. I don’t know how else to explain how much you made me need you.”
“Come here,” he says, and right when he would pull me to
his lap, there is a huge blast through the window. Jacob takes me down to the ground, sheltering me with his body. “Are you okay?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I—”
The front door bursts open and bullets splatter the walls, the sound muffled by silencers.
“Go to the bathroom and lock yourself in,” Jacob orders. “I’ll come for you.” He lifts off of me, and in a blink of an eye, he’s firing. I grab my sidearm just in time to shoot the man in black who is jumping through the window. Everything is an adrenaline rush from there. Jacob is wrestling a guy on the island. Savage is on top of another man, shoving a blade in his chest. Another man is on top of Asher. I shoot him. Asher looks at me and gives me a nod, just in time to shoot another intruder as he enters the window. It feels like it will never end, until it does. Everyone on our side is alive. Bodies are clustered on the floor, and Jacob is kneeling next to a man who is bleeding out.
“Was it Emerson?” he asks and then leans down, speaking to the man in a tone I can’t hear. The man murmurs, “Emer-son.” Jacob stands up and shoots him, his gaze rocketing to me, as if he feels me watching him.
He studies me a moment and then eyes Savage. “Call the number I gave you.”
Savage nods and heads for the door. Jacob closes the space between us and stops. “Everyone leave,” he orders, and the room clears, the door shutting, leaving just me, Jacob, and a mess of dead men.
“You don’t take orders well.”
“Is that news to you?”
“No. No, it is not news to me.”
Suddenly his fingers are diving into my hair and then he’s kissing me like a starving man who can’t survive without me. I sink into him, mold myself close and I don’t want to let him go, but he pulls away. “I love you, too. It killed me not to be with you.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I can’t have this conversation now. I have to go kill someone, because you know I’m good at that.”
“Can you do it quickly, because I really need to finish this conversation?”
He strokes my cheek. “I’ll be back soon. Savage is going to clean all of this up. Do what he tells you to do.” He kisses me again and when it’s over, his mouth lingers above mine, as if he can’t bring himself to leave. But he does. He releases me and heads for the door.
“Do not die!” I shout after him.
He turns and looks at me. “I have too much to live for now, sweetheart. I’ll come for you, soon.”
And then he’s gone.
And I’m alone.
I’m sitting in a chair in the dark bedroom of my target when he enters his house. The door opens. The door shuts. The locks flip into place. I sit, patiently waiting on him. Frank Emerson. Fifty-five. Five-star retired general. The man who helped me take down my own team. The man who ordered the hit on myself and Jewel, despite telling me on the phone, not an hour before the attack that he was cancelling any action against Jewel. After the fact, he’d had the balls to call his team rogue. He’d called them dirty. He’d let them die to protect his program. The one with so many dirty kills, too many that I made before I knew they were dirty at all.
Every single one of us involved in that program will go to hell. There’s no saving any us but I’ll be living longer than he will.
It’s a good hour before he heads to the bed, and the clank of ice and glass tells a story. With three glasses of vodka down him, he enters and turns on the light and stops dead in his tracks. To his benefit, he doesn’t show fear. Not even when he looks at the gun I have sitting on the bed, on top of a file. “What are you doing here, King?”
“I wanted to say goodbye in person.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not. You are. See, your commander in the attack on myself and my woman didn’t die right away. I promised to give his daughter half a million dollars if he told me how to take you down. It was a long shot, but David People had been with you since before me. And since I knew him, I thought he had to be loyal to you for you to send him after me. But he wasn’t. He told me to go to an address.”
“Where?”
I wait a few beats to let him suffer. “It was in Alaska,” I finally say. “You know the place, right? That hidden spot in the mountains you keep. I took photos of everything. And then my tech, he’s real good, he used that and found proof of every dollar you stole from some very nasty people. Iran? Did you really think you could survive stealing from Iranian royalty?”
He pales. “You win, then. No one will ever come after you or her again.”
I cross the room to stand in front of him. “Not good enough. If I wake up tomorrow and you’re alive, I’m sending everyone you stole from a gift with your name on it. Inside will be your confession and proof of what you stole.” I step around him and start walking. He doesn’t follow. I’d know.
I walk down the hallway and I stop at the front door. I stand there, giving him time to see how damning the information in that folder is. One second. Two. Ten. A gunshot sounds. Operation fuck-you-once-and-for-all is complete. I open the door and exit, heading into the woods where a motorcycle waits on me. I climb on it and rev the engine, and I know I should disappear. I should walk away from Jewel. Give her space to find another guy. But then I’d have to kill him.
It’s been five long days since Jacob left and I’ve been staying in his apartment—our apartment again, I hope—without him. The only reason I’m not losing my mind is that Savage has assured me that Jacob is alive and well, and that radio silence is a necessity of mission safety. My survival is staying busy. I run. I run some more. I work a cold case. By ten p.m., I’m dreading the empty bed, so I have milk and Pop-Tarts. I’m about to pour chocolate into the milk when the door beeps. That means Jacob or one of the Walker clan, and none of them would just come right in.
My heart leaps and I set the chocolate down. I turn toward the entrance and stand there, waiting until it opens, and he appears. He steps inside and kicks the door shut, and just that easily he consumes the room and me. He stops when he sees me, and he looks good, so very good, in black jeans and a snug black tee. I’m in sweats, and potentially have Pop-Tart crumbs around my mouth, because apparently, I don’t know how to do a sexy welcome home greeting. I just stand there, frozen, afraid to find out where we stand. And he does the same, like he feels the same. “Jewel,” he says softly and that is all it takes to jolt me into action.
I move toward him and he does the same and we come together in a collision of bodies. “You’re home,” I say, because I’m brilliant like that.
“You’re home,” he says, the words telling me everything, while his mouth seals the deal. He kisses me, oh how he kisses me, a deep drugging, forever kind of kiss. I forget everything. I want everything. I think I say that and somehow my shirt is off, and I got one thing right. I’m not wearing a bra. I get another thing right when I get his shirt off.
He lifts me and carries me upstairs, and the minute we’re on the bed, our bed, we’re kissing again. Touching each other like we want to crawl under each other’s skin. Somehow, some way, the rest of our clothes come off, and then we’re on our sides, facing each other, and he’s pressing inside me. “God, how I missed you,” he whispers, settling in the deepest part of me.
“I missed you, too. Tell me it’s over.”
“It is,” he promises. “But we aren’t. You used your one chance to get away.”
I open my mouth to tell him I don’t want to get away, but he’s kissing me again, and cupping my backside to mold us closer. Our bodies are swaying, slow and soft, and then wild and hard. I want to live in this bed, in this moment, forever, but I shatter anyway, and I smile when he shakes with his release. He holds me so hard I think I might break, but I want him to hold me tighter.
“I love you, woman,” he whispers.
I pull back to look at him, my fingers curling on the stubble of his jaw. “I love you, too. But I don’t understand why you shut me out.”
“I’m
no Royce Walker. I will never be the good guy who always does good. I need to know you can handle that.”
“I’d tell you that you’re one of the good guys, but you’d think I had on rose-colored glasses. So, okay. You’re a killer. I know it. Now what?”
He seems to consider a moment, and then kisses me. “Get dressed. I want to take you somewhere.”
I hurry to the closet and pull on jeans, a T-shirt and boots and join Jacob back in the bedroom. “Where to now?”
“To the airport. I have a private jet waiting on us.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Italy so I can ask your father if I can marry his daughter.”
I suck in air. “You want to marry me?”
“Yes. I do.”
“The detective and the assassin, happily ever after?”
He goes down on one knee, and presents me with a box, which he opens. I suck in a breath at the stunning sapphire and diamond ring. “I wanted it to be unique, like you. Like us. Will you marry me, Jewel?”
“Yes. Yes. I will marry you.”
He slides the ring on my finger and then stands up, and we end up back in bed, because the plane will wait, but the assassin will not.
THE END
***
Looking for more breathtaking suspense? Flip the page to check out MURDER NOTES, book one in my Lilah Love series coming in March!
MURDER NOTES (Lilah Love book one)
March 27, 2018
PRE-ORDER NOW HERE
ABOUT THE BOOK
Deep in the heart of the night, there is always murder, passion, and lies, even when we don’t see it. But FBI agent Lilah Love has seen more than most. Years ago, while at her family’s home in the Hamptons, back in the days when she loved the wrong man and trusted the wrong people, she lived a nightmare she can never forget. That horrible night, some think that she saw a little more than she should have. It was a night that changed her life forever and made her abandon the man she’s never gotten over, and a future a future in New York near her family, for a one in L.A. as an FBI profiler. But now, a series of brutal murders connect to her home, forcing her to return to the Hamptons, where her father is the mayor, her brother is the police chief, and her ex is now running an empire believed to be as corrupt as he is powerful.
Falling Under: a standalone Walker Security novel Page 26