Close to the Edge

by Dawn Ryder

He pressed the accelerator down harder, speeding along the road as first light broke. They came around a bend and skidded to a stop as they ran into the flashing red lights of police cars. There were dozens of vehicles, spread out on the side of the road. An entire battalion from the fire department as well as what looked like an equal number of federal agents.

  And at the center of it all was his truck.

  The girls from the truck were being treated and loaded into ambulances. The drivers were escorted to squad cars.

  “Fuck,” Mack muttered.

  Kirkland fumbled to put the car in reverse but patrol cars had already boxed him in.

  “Federal agents!” someone yelled. “Put your hands up!”

  He looked around but all he saw were the rifles being aimed at him and Mack.

  Compliance was the only option.

  At least until he got to a place where his lawyers could work their magic. Kirkland followed orders, frustration drawing him tight as he was shackled and picked up to be walked to a patrol car.

  And then the cheering started. The women moved forward, shouting and celebrating his capture. The officer taking him to a car pausing and dragging his feet to make sure they got a good long chance to cheer over his arrest.

  Carl Davis was going to pay for the humiliation.

  Kirkland intended to make sure of it.

  * * *

  “You used Jenna as bait. Sending her to that concert so I’d think she was in with Kirkland.”

  Kagan didn’t shirk. He returned Dare’s stare without flinching.

  “Shadow Ops is my family,” his section leader said.

  “And that doesn’t extend to the woman I love?” Dare inquired softly.

  Kagan’s lips twitched. “You were determined to walk away from her. What should be coming out of your mouth is a thank you.”

  Dare raised an eyebrow. “For almost getting her killed?”

  “For making you see what you were about to lose.” Kagan slowly drew in a breath as he looked across the way to where Jenna was sitting on the edge of a lowered tailgate. “What you were going to walk away from because of your choices made when you didn’t realize how empty life is when you’re alone.”

  There was a note in Kagan’s voice Dare had never heard. It hinted at a secret, hidden somewhere in the past of his section leader.

  “Don’t ask,” Kagan advised him. “The only heart any man has the right to manage is his own. I suggest you focus on the opportunity you scuttled. Thank me for making sure she came back into your spree of operation. You wouldn’t have acted on it if I didn’t make it snare your attention. I did you a favor.”

  Dare found himself staring at Jenna. Someone had given her a bottle of electrolyte water.

  “I love her,” Dare said.

  “You’re welcome,” Kagan replied. “You’re not going to the nest. I have other plans for you.”

  Dare turned his attention to his section leader.

  “We need more than one location to bug out to, because Carl Davis is looking like he’s going to win this thing.” Kagan sent him a hard look. “We need to be prepared to shelter the men who have placed their lives on the line for this country.”

  Kagan offered Dare a small bag. “Details of your assignment. Take your wife and keep your head down. The storm is just starting to hit.”

  It was and yet Dare found himself viewing Jenna as a safe harbor where everything was just about perfect.

  * * *

  Carl ducked out of sight, taking the opportunity to wipe his brow. As far as the voters knew, he never broke a sweat. His security detail fell into step around him, shepherding him up a ramp and toward the presidential suite private elevators. They piled inside with him as his assistant babbled on about notes.

  “Yes, thank you,” Carl mumbled as the doors slid open and he took off toward the privacy of his suite. With only a few short weeks left, he’d be up at dawn.

  So he planned to enjoy his privacy.

  He was used to his men following him. It had become a way of life. He offered them a half-wave as he went through the door of the suite and let it close behind him.

  “Fuck,” he mumbled on his way through the meeting room and on toward the wet bar. He was reaching for the top of the ice bucket when he froze. A man was watching him in the mirror.

  “Don’t reach for your panic button,” Kagan advised softly. “It won’t help you anyway. My men replaced yours hours ago.”

  Carl turned and faced Kagan. “You said you wouldn’t kill me.”

  Kagan was dressed in a suit complete with cufflinks. “Good men … are men of character.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Carl gestured with his hands but he was really using the motion to hide the fact that he was pushing the little lapel panic pin he wore.

  “Men of character will adjust to fit the circumstances, Carl,” Kegan advised him softly. “Are you sure you want me to reevaluate my choices?”

  Kagan had his back to the hallway. Carl enjoyed the sweet rush of relief as he watched two security men come toward him.

  But they stopped at the entrance to the dining area and stared at him.

  “The men who protect you are men of character,” Kegan stated firmly. “My men.”

  Carl was at a loss for words. He floundered as he tried to grab his composure. “What are you trying to prove with this … this … display?”

  Kagan walked closer to him. “You need to consider changing the type of people you associate with.” He held up a tablet, showing a live feed of Kirkland sitting in a holding cell.

  Carl felt his temper spike but there was one thing he’d learned over the years and it was to hold his true feelings inside.

  “To your type?” Carl offered. “I presume that’s what this little lesson is intended to be.”

  “It’s a demonstration,” Kagan explained. “One made necessary by threats you’ve made to shut down my Shadow Ops teams. Now … something like that would rearrange the order of my life.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Carl said. “Whoever you’ve been listening to has twisted my words.”

  One of the men in the hallway pulled a tablet from his jacket. He tapped it and held it up.

  * * *

  “What the fuck is going on with this bitch?”

  Kirkland’s voice played back.

  “She can cause a whole lot of trouble for me,” Kirkland informed Carl. “I need her cleaned up before she fingers me for that night on the docks. Servant set me up or I’d have killed her then.”

  Carl shoved the phone down. “Don’t be stupid. You know how powerful some of those camera lenses are.”

  “If I go down, you do, too,” Kirkland’s voice came again.

  “Servant and his team are fishing with her,” Carl exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “Showing her off and seeing who surfaces. I brought you here to keep your head down. If she had anything of any value to add to the investigation, you’d already be facing a judge. Stay here, smile and be seen unaffected by her little press event. Don’t be stupid enough to make a move towards her.”

  “But she knows my voice. Knows I’m involved in shady dealings down on the dock. There was a fucking body laid out next to her. One she knows I knew about,” Kirkland growled. “I give you a healthy share of the profits from my empire. When are you going to get these Feds off my ass?”

  “When I’m president, I will shut them down,” Carl answered.

  “That’s five months away.” Kirkland scowled.

  “That is a Shadow Ops team,” Carl said under his breath. “As it stands, shutting them down will have to be done carefully or they could darken my reputation.”

  “I pay you to take the risk.”

  “And I make sure you stay in business,” Carl cut back. “I can find someone else who will pay for my partnership. How long do you think you’ll be running those prostitution rings if I don’t shelter you? I can make it so you never get another load of girls in to staff your
places. That will leave you with nothing but crack heads and runaways,” Carl sniffed.

  “Don’t threaten me Kirkland, we’re too deep in bed with each other for one of us to pull out now. Do it my way.”

  * * *

  “What … what do you want?” Carl asked. He was shaking, collapsing back against the edge of the wet bar.

  Kagan came closer, so that he could loom over him. “To protect and serve.”

  Carl shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Sleep on it,” Kagan advised. “Think about who you want guarding you. Men like me … who still measure their actions against their conscience or men such as Kirkland, who is currently selling you out to lessen the charges against him.”

  “But … I’ve done too much…”

  “And yet”—Kagan started to move away—“I’m more interested in what you could do, with the right information on the table.”

  He moved across the room, stopping in the hallway with his men.

  “Don’t disappoint me, Carl,” Kagan advised.

  Eric Geyer found his boss white-faced and sitting on the floor in front of the wet bar.

  “Sir?” Eric was there, on one knee, searching Carl’s wrist for a pulse. “What’s wrong?”

  Carl turned a haunted look toward Eric. “Kagan was here.”

  Eric stiffened. “What do you want me to do?”

  It was a good question. The only one of any true importance. Carl let Eric help him up and place a soda in his hand. He sipped at the sweet beverage, feeling his blood sugar rise and with it, his determination.

  He’d never backed down before.

  No matter the odds.

  No matter the risk.

  “I want to make sure Kagan understands he isn’t the only one who can bite.”

  Eric was listening intently. Carl put the glass down and stood, pacing around the dining room for a moment.

  “Get a hitman,” he said. “A really good one. I want Miranda Delacroix silenced forever.”

  “Are you sure?” Eric questioned. “She’s sweet and kind and if it comes back to you, the stink will cling.”

  “She’s just really good at playing the part the voters like to see,” Carl spat. “That bitch recorded me talking to Kirkland at her benefit and she gave it to Kagan.”

  Eric’s face reflected his horror.

  “And you’re tied to me,” Carl hissed. “I go down, you go down alongside me. Kagan isn’t the only one who can make people sweat. We kill Miranda and Kagan will get the message. I’m not going to become his puppet.”

  No, he was going to president.

  And Miranda would be dead. It would be a warning to anyone else who got any ideas about trying to catch him with dirt on his hands. Kagan wasn’t the only one with old-school values. Washington had a long history of sweeping the dirt under the rug if you wanted to survive. No one was above it either. Carl was going to make certain no one misunderstood what he expected from them in return for his favor.

  * * *

  “Home, sweet, home.”

  Dare spread his arms out wide. Jenna offered him a smile as she took in the vintage-era command center. Deep in the side of a mountain, it was like a time capsule from a sixties-era movie.

  “It continues on for two miles into the bedrock.” Dare informed her as he opened a roll of blueprints that cracked with age. “Ours for the remodeling.”

  Her new husband was looking at the yellowed paper, anticipation glowing in his eyes.

  “You sound like retirement isn’t going to be too terrible after all.”

  Dare looked up, a gleam in his dark eyes. “There’s a whole lot of rooms for us to break in.… wife.”

  He dropped the blue prints and rushed her. Catching her around the waist and clasping her against his body. She squealed before relaxing and purring when he stroked the side of her face.

  “I love you, Dare Servant.”

  “You’d better,” he muttered. “Because otherwise, I’m going to become your stalker and chain you up in my mountainside complex because I can’t live without you.”

  “Hmmm,” she purred. “I understand stalkers are very devoted to their subjects.”

  “We are,” he assured her as he stroked her face. “We definitely are.”

  “Get a room,” Greer informed them as he came in with a tool box in hand. “Some of us have work to do.”

  Jenna rose onto her toes to press a kiss against Dare’s mouth. The connection was soft and yet it sent a charge through her system that curled her toes.

  Live in the moment …

  Yeah, and she planned to savor every last one of them.

  Read on for an excerpt from Dawn Ryder’s next Unbroken Heroes romantic suspense novel

  Don’t Look Back

  Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  Thais remembered the bubble bath.

  She felt a blush staining her cheeks but at least she was alone.

  At last.

  Working a case meant skimming through data. Tons of it. Looking for that one odd fact, which might lead to another and one more to form an evidence chain. They had the bullet and a short list of people who would put a hit out on Amanda. Finding the money, well, Thais stretched her neck and heard it pop. She’d been looking for the money all day.

  She rubbed her eyes on the way towards the bedroom Dunn had pointed out as hers for the night. Working data had never been as hard as it was with Dunn in the room. The guy was a distraction but he wasn’t lazy, she’d give him that. He’d been working as hard as the rest of the team.

  The bubble bath …

  With the doors of the suite closed behind her, Thais looked at the large slipper tub. It had gold feet and sat in front of floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a section of red rock. The spa town of Sedona was just over the ridge, the private residence nestled into a section of private estates that came with enough land to ensure privacy.

  The tub sat in a hexagon section of glass so it could overlook the rocks.

  You baited him …

  She had. Thais couldn’t stop the memory from rising up to play across her mind. She might have called Dunn a civilian justly but he’d been involved in cases from time to time over the last two years. Shadow Ops teams needed to operate off grid, an action which was becoming harder and harder to pull off in a world of cell phones and social media junkies.

  Dunn’s reputation as a recluse was the perfect resource. He invested a small fortune in keeping his planes flying so no one really knew his location.

  There was a rap on the door a moment before it opened to reveal Dunn. She felt his arrival as much as she witnessed it. All of her senses rippling with awareness. He was better than a double expresso when it came to waking her up.

  And she couldn’t allow it to keep growing. She dug deep, looking for the professional persona she’d perfected over the years of working with Shadow Ops.

  “I agreed to work a case with you, Dunn.” She sent him a hard look. “You don’t like me calling you a civilian but coming in here tells me you aren’t getting what it means to be team mates. This isn’t play time. I’m working and you should be too.”

  He came forward, stopping for a moment near the tub. “We’ve finished the day’s work.”

  “A case is finished when it’s closed,” she replied. “A good agent doesn’t take time off when lives hang in the balance.”

  Her retort earned her a half grin. He was devastating enough without his lips in that cocky grin. “And yet,” he trailed a finger along the edge of the tub. “You’ve made use of down time on cases in the past.”

  Her cheeks warmed. “I shouldn’t have.”

  “Why not?” he asked in a husky tone. “There is only so much we can do on this end. It’s a waiting game now.”

  “One which would have been better served if you’d left me where my Section leader did.” Thais latched onto the topic to avoid the issue of the tub.

  And the fact that you knew Dunn was watching
when you took that bath … teased him …

  She had. Switched in as bait while Saxon Hale took their real witness off grid, Thais had indulged in a bubble bath in Dunn’s cabin. She’d only suspected he’d been watching.

  Now, she knew for certain he had.

  “I won’t apologize for getting you out of Homeland.” His tone had sharpened. “Ever.”

  She felt their gazes lock, felt a reaction inside herself that was uncontrollable. She’d gone to a great deal of effort to make certain she wasn’t the weak link of her team. She protected others but Dunn was making it clear he’d decided to cover her when she needed it. She shouldn’t like the feeling but denying it was impossible and he knew it.

  He was closer than she realized, making it necessary to tip her head up to maintain eye contact. He reached out and brushed her lips.

  Straight across them, the connection sending a ripple of awareness through her.

  “You can’t deny the attraction between us, Thais,” he whispered.

  She turned, facing him head on. “I’m not. Just doing the logical thing and walking away. Neither of us are looking for more than release.”

  Professional and cold.

  Her delivery lacked none of the sharp edges she was known for in the field. She should have felt a sense of mild satisfaction, instead, Thais realized she felt hollow.

  Like she was denying herself something she needed.

  She drew in a sharp breath, pushing back a step.

  She couldn’t need.

  “It’s for the best, Bateson,” she added.

  The gauntlet was down now. Dunn’s eyes narrowed, confirming her assessment of the situation a moment before he was coming towards her. She retreated, reacting to his approach, moving back until she was against the wall, his hands flattened on either side of her head.

  He was going to kiss her.

  The certainty of it crashed down on her like a wave. Stunning her with the force of the connection and wiping out everything except the feeling of the force of the water.

  Only, he didn’t kiss her.

  Thais opened her eyes, and found Dunn’s emerald ones fixed on her.

  “I want to,” he rasped out, his fingers flexing on the wall beside her head. “I want to smother you in a kiss hard enough to drown out your ideas of what should be between us in favor of what we both want.”