by Pam Godwin
That was how he’d learned the identity of the hitman. He’d convinced someone, a lot of someones, to feed him innocuous pieces of information until he had enough to put it all together.
Fucking mind-blowing.
Tomas pushed back from the table and rubbed his hands down his face. He’d been bent over documents for hours, and the words were blurring. Stiffness knotted his neck, and his body screamed for exercise.
The house was equipped with a weight room, and they all used it daily. But they weren’t accustomed to this type of work. They were the feet on the ground, the fingers on the triggers, and muscle on the front lines. They weren’t analysts.
Cole sat beside him, flicking that coin-shaped GSM bug between his fingers, eyes on his laptop. He’d been focused on the bug’s technical components, reaching out to unknown contacts, subtly asking around about it, and collecting data. He was convinced the tech in that device held all their answers.
Tomas looked around the living space, taking in the bodies sprawled on couches and chairs, holding laptops and reading through reports. In the kitchen, Tiago and Van prepared lunch while arguing the finer points on how to properly chop cilantro.
Definitely not a typical day for this group. But not once in two weeks had anyone suggested going home.
They didn’t know who the enemy was, what this entity wanted, or if it had anything to do with them. Maybe his emails were out there somewhere in the hands of someone who intended to exploit them. Maybe his emails didn’t factor in at all.
It didn’t matter. They were here, sticking together like wet on water.
His gaze fastened on his favorite brunette across the room. She lay face-down on a rug, her fingers clicking on a laptop and legs bent, rocking her delicate feet in the air. It was a girlish thing to do, reminiscent of Caroline lounging lazily on his bed. But that was the only similarity between the two.
The feelings Rylee stirred in him were so much deeper, darker, and deliciously grown-up.
He rose from the chair and prowled toward her. She hummed as he stretched out over her prone body, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders and lowering into a push-up position.
“Take a break,” he said at her ear.
“I could use some fresh air.”
Outside, they took the bridge that led from the terrace to the dock below. The tree-lined shores wrapped around calm water that stretched for miles. Several boats bobbed on the horizon, too far to venture near this inlet.
As they made their way to the water’s edge, her hand slipped into his, and he felt a pull in his chest, a breath of undiluted happiness.
At the end of the dock, benches faced the water. He lowered onto one and guided her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her, warming her skin in the chilly air.
He’d fucked her on this very bench yesterday. Over the past two weeks, he’d taken her in every corner of this property, in every position. His need for her was unquenchable, and she had the enthusiasm to match.
Being cooped up together had given them a lot of time to explore. Not just their bodies. He’d never been one to vocalize his feelings, but she had a way of opening him up and riling not only his temper but also his fears, joys, and hardest memories.
She’d demanded to hear every detail of his mission with La Rocha Cartel in California, including an explanation about the girl on the meat hook. He didn’t want to revisit that, but after he shared the story, he realized he could tell her anything. Not just in an email, but in person, while looking into her eyes.
It was another first for him.
They talked a lot, argued plenty, and sometimes, they communicated without saying anything at all.
She curled up on his lap, her nose buried in his neck, choosing the view of him over the stunning vista of the lake. She loved him. The words hadn’t left her lips, but he felt them. He felt them in the weight of her stare, the caress of her constant touch, and the sigh of her breaths.
She leaned up, her gaze fastening on his. “I’m going to sell my house.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll need a place to live.”
“I’m your home.”
She nodded, smiled, and her chin quivered.
He kissed her lips. “Scary, huh?”
She nodded again.
Her dirtbag of an ex-husband had put that fear in her.
Deep down, he hoped that Mason Sutton was behind the hit on her so that he would have an excuse to murder the son of a bitch. He might just gut the fucker anyway.
“Which is scarier?” he asked. “Living with me? Or living alone?”
“I don’t want to live without you, so I’ll take the scary. I’ll take whatever comes as long as I’m with you.”
“I know you will.”
He kissed her, deeper this time. Then he removed her clothes and filled her until every drop of fear deserted her.
The fear would return again, and when it did, he would fight it with her. Fuck it out of her. Break through it piece by piece.
With every word, every touch, every passing hour, they were moving forward. Together.
Two days later, they were sharing an early breakfast alone in the kitchen when Cole darted in from the hall, carrying a laptop.
“I found the last link.” He set the device on the table and pointed at the screen, his eyes tired and bloodshot.
“The last link?” Tomas knew Cole was making progress with the data they’d collected, but he had no idea how close they were. He squinted at the screen, which displayed some kind of ledger. “What am I looking at?”
“Mason Sutton’s bank records.”
“We already scoured those.”
“This isn’t his personal bank account.” Rylee leaned over Tomas’ shoulder, eyes on the laptop. “These are financial records for his orthopedic practice. I can’t believe you got your hands on this.”
“Look.” Cole moved the mouse, highlighting a ten-thousand-dollar withdrawal listed under miscellaneous. “Six months ago, he wired this money to another account.” He switched the screen to Paul Kissinger’s bank records. “There. Ten-thousand dollars came into Paul’s account on the same day.”
“Goddammit!” Rylee straightened, her eyes aglow with fire. “Mason paid that man ten-thousand dollars? To do what? Kill me?”
“No,” Cole said. “Mason hired Paul to watch you and report back your activities, specifically who you were fucking. That’s all Paul did until the night Tomas left him in the desert.”
The night Paul tried to rape Rylee.
A torrent of emotions flooded Tomas’ chest, but regret from killing that man wasn’t one of them.
“Mason didn’t put a hit on me.” Rylee released a slow breath and lowered into the chair beside him.
“I’m still going to kill him.” Tomas gripped her knee.
“No, you’re not.” She ground her teeth. “I’m really fucking angry that he hired someone to stalk me for six months, but you’re not going to kill him, Tommy. He’s not worth the effort.” She turned back to Cole. “How is Paul Kissinger connected to the hitman?”
“He’s not. Paul was a run-of-the-mill private detective, skirting around the law and doing dirty jobs to make an extra buck. No question, he was a sleazeball, but he had nothing to do with the hitman.” Cole looked at Tomas. “Daniel Millstreet worked for someone else, and he arrived in Texas on the same day that I did.”
“How do you know?” Tomas asked.
“Data from the phone we found on his body. Someone dispatched him to Texas. For one reason only.”
“To kill you?”
“No. To kill everyone close to me, starting with Rylee.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even know you before all this started.”
“They bugged your house the day you drove to the desert. The moment you walked into Tomas’ life, they connected you to me.” Cole paced in front of the evidence board, motioning at it. “I’ve been linking all the data you collected, putting the findings together
, and the facts are these.” He stopped and met their eyes. “Someone from my past, someone related to Thurney Bridge, wants to hurt me or pull information from me. Maybe both. If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve sent the hitman after me, not Rylee. I’ve been in hiding for the past seven years, retired from the activity, and they’ve been patient, waiting for me to return to the United States.”
“You’ve been outside the country all this time?” Tomas pressed his fingers to his brow. “No, wait. You were here a year ago when Tate contacted you.”
“I came here twice for Tate, staying only hours each time. And I joined the rescue mission last month to retrieve Luke and Vera in California. Again, I was in and out within hours. This visit is the longest I’ve been stateside in seven years.”
“Why?”
“I’ve always worked abroad, and I’m always working.” Cole released a slow breath. “Someone has been waiting a long damn time for me to return, and they know I’m connected to you.”
The hairs rose on Tomas’ nape. “They’ve been watching my house.”
“Yes. They knew when we turned up there. You, me, Rylee, and Paul Kissinger.” Cole resumed pacing. “The hitman called Paul’s phone when he showed up at your house, which suggests that Paul was on the hitlist. Good thing, because that’s how I was able to track the hitman’s location the night he found Rylee.”
“Jesus.” Tomas leaned back in the chair, his mind spinning.
“I assume they have eyes on Mason Sutton and Detective Hodge, too.” At Rylee’s gasp, Cole shook his head. “If they were in danger, they would already be dead. Whoever is watching knows you’re not close to them.”
“Evan…” Her face fell, and she dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, God, they killed him.”
Because she was close to him.
Tomas reached for her, pulled her onto his lap, and rested his lips against her brow.
“I was able to trace the tech on this.” Cole held up the GSM bug he’d removed from her house. “Bad news. It’s only available to the activity.”
“What are you saying?” Tomas froze, because he knew. He knew exactly what that meant.
“Someone on the inside is behind this.” Cole’s expression contorted, etched with barely concealed rage. “Someone inside my old group is after me.”
“Someone you know?”
“Maybe. They could be retired, still employed, a rogue, who fucking knows? It’s a long, classified list.” His lips curled into a smile void of humanity and mercy.
“I don’t know if I like that look on your face.” Tomas tipped up a brow. “I take it you have a plan.”
“I’m going hunting.”
Two weeks later, Rylee followed Tomas up the stairs that led to the top floor of her house in Eldorado, Texas. Every room had been swept for bugs and threats, the property deemed safe by Cole and the team. But her spine tingled anyway, her mood sullen and twitchy.
The place writhed with memories of Evan. She hadn’t loved him, and in her heart, she’d said goodbye the day she drove away and left him standing on the porch. But he was a good man, an amazing friend, and hadn’t deserved to die.
Pushing away those thoughts, she rubbed her chest and focused on her future.
Her future looked delicious as he strode down the hall in front of her, his gait steady and confident, his muscles flexing through the glide of his strides. Corded arms, narrow waist, chiseled ass—he was sexual heat and male potency, dominance and devotion, utterly loyal and all hers.
Turning his neck, he glanced over his shoulder. Eyes of gold, reflecting the color of his heart.
He wasn’t always good-natured, but that mighty heart of his made hers beat like nothing ever had before.
“This closet?” He paused at the door at the end of the hall.
“Yep.”
He opened the door to shelves of towels and cleaning supplies. “Where is it?”
“If you were a bad guy—”
He gave her a glare that closed her throat.
“Fine.” She coughed. “Since you are a bad guy, where would you look for a thumb drive?”
“Not in a linen closet.” He glanced at the other doors. “I would search the underwear drawer first.”
“Of course, you would. Panty-sniffer.” She crossed her arms. “But I already told you it was in the linen closet.”
He scanned the bottles of cleaning products and random clutter, his expression quickly transforming into boredom.
“You win.” He grabbed her, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Show me where you hid it.”
Wriggling out of his arms, she removed the vacuum from the closet and opened the dirt bin.
“You’re kidding?” His brows climbed, widening his eyes. “How have you not accidentally thrown it away?”
“I don’t use this vacuum. It’s broken.” She dug through the powdered dirt in the collector, removed the tiny stick, and blew off the debris. “My working vacuum is downstairs.”
She handed him the thumb drive, which contained all the photographed copies of his emails. Nine years’ worth. She’d started snapping pictures of his messages after his captivity in Van’s attic.
“Have you ever gone back and reread them?” He palmed the thumb drive, regarding her with affection.
“Never needed to. Your words stuck inside me on the first read-through.”
His lips tipped up, taking hers with them. They stared at each other. Smiled at each other. Stared some more. These were her favorite moments, the private eye contact they shared. It wasn’t a game to see who would look away first. It was a game to see who would move first.
This time, they moved as one, coming together with arms, breaths, and open mouths. He backed her against the wall, and she gripped his hair with greedy hands as his tongue chased hers, caressing and rubbing and drowning her in warmth.
The potency of his kiss was enormous, his love even greater. She threw her arms about his neck, mouths locked, holding him close, knowing she would never let him go.
When their lips melted into panting sighs, he touched their brows together. “The team is waiting.”
Everyone had left Missouri to return to Texas. They weren’t in her house, but they were in the neighborhood, in the shadows, watching and waiting.
Cole had a crazy plan, which involved baiting and hunting his unknown adversary. This stop at her house was just a detour to grab the thumb drive and her personal belongings.
She was going with them, wherever that took her. It was terrifying and thrilling, but for the first time in her life, she’d found her home.
“I forgive you.” She slid her nose astride his.
“I forgive you, too.” He dropped the thumb drive on the floor between them and crushed it with his boot.
“I need you.”
“I need you, too.
“I love you.”
A rush of air escaped his lips, and he grinned. “Wow, that’s a great feeling.” His grin widened. “I love you, too.”
They were back to staring and smiling again.
“You,” she breathed.
“No, you.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Not enough.” He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
Someone, probably Cole, had decided this was the ideal window of time to enter her house. She needed to pack the few things she wanted to keep. The rest would be donated and the keys turned over to a real estate company.
“Twenty minutes.” He kissed her lips and stepped back. “Pack what you want from the bedrooms. I’ll do the downstairs.”
“You don’t know what I want to keep.”
“You sure about that?” He winged up a brow.
“I’ll check your work.”
With a chuckle, he pocketed the broken thumb drive and ambled toward the stairs. She watched him go with a flutter of hummingbirds in her belly.
He stopped on the top step and gave her a strange look.
“Wh
at?” she asked.
“I live a crazy, filthy, dangerous life.”
“I know.”
“Reading about it in emails isn’t the same as living it. I make decisions and do things that sane people would never fathom.”
“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not the sanest person in the world. You’re not going to scare me away.”
“Prove it.”
“Oh, I will.” She pushed back her shoulders.
He nodded, smiled, and vanished down the stairs.
Maybe he was a bad guy, but he’d committed acts of bravery and self-sacrifice and made inconceivable progress in his efforts to decimate human sex trafficking. His victories weren’t celebrated or recognized in the news. No one knew what he and his team did in the shadows of the underworld.
Many might consider him a ruthless thug. A villain, even. But in her eyes, he was an unsung hero.
Her hero.
Nightfall darkened her bedroom. She turned on the lights and went to work, sorting through clothes and collecting keepsakes. She didn’t own much, hadn’t kept anything from her life with Mason.
When her twenty minutes were up, she’d filled five large duffel bags. Grabbing two, she made her way downstairs.
She dropped the bags in the entry, turned the corner into the living room, and slammed to a stop.
Masked men. Armed. Three of them, all aiming rifles at a naked man who was gagged and restrained on her couch.
It takes three seconds to make a life-or-death decision.
She blinked, paralyzed, unable to believe her eyes.
Mason.
His bulging, watery gaze fastened on her, his cries muted behind a wad of cloth. Rope bound his arms and legs, crisscrossed his chest, and tied around the sofa.
Why was he in her house? Why the fuck was he naked?
Where was Tommy?
Her heart sprinted as she jerked her attention to the three gunmen. Black ski masks covered their faces and hair. Black jeans and shirts molded to muscular builds.
Familiar statures.
Safe.
The masked head in the middle turned in her direction, staring through the narrow eye opening. She knew him intimately, from the tips of those boots to the glint in those golden eyes.