by Diana Downey
“You are armed and dangerous,” I say, coming up behind Willa while she puts away her guns. “How do I know yer won’t take advantage of me?”
She laughs. “Do you want to shoot my gun?”
“Heck yeah,” I say, “but I want the big one. It’ll make me feel more masculine.”
She hands me the assault rifle and a loaded magazine. “The safety’s on.”
I’ve been watching her all day, so I shove the magazine into its slot and point the rifle down at the ground. I surprisingly wait on her praise.
Willa circles behind me and rests her hand on my waist. This is much better than adulation.
“Yer getting a little frisky there,” I say. “If your hand goes any lower, I may misfire.” I can’t believe my dirty mind spilling out of my mouth to this sweet girl. I need to put a lid on it. She’s so different from my usual lasses—innocent, and yet here I am acting like a wanker.
Scared to look at her after my remarks, I glance over my shoulder, and she’s smiling. “I should keep my cake-hole shut.”
“Somehow your accent makes it sound charming,” she says.
“Charming? I’ll take that.”
She raises the butt and nestles it into my shoulder, her touch like silk on my skin. “Use the sight to line up the target.” Her voice is as sugary as sweet cake, and my mind wanders over the hills of her soft lips.
God, this girl gets to me. The closer she stands, her hands whispering light on my arm and waist, the more excitement bubbles in my blood.
“Go ahead,” she says.
I’d actually forgotten I was holding the rifle. I fire off a few shots since we’re the only ones at the outdoor range. After several more rounds, she and I walk to the target where I didn’t do half bad. No holes are in the middle, but most hit the target.
“That’s good,” she says, and I take the approval as encouragement to kiss her honeyed lips.
“If you tasted any sweeter, I’d have a toothache.” My tongue languidly circles her sensual lips and then her mouth. Willa Diaz has stolen all my good sense, and I will blindly follow her.
“Let’s go,” Cyn shouts, startling us both.
Willa jerks us apart, and I already miss her tantalizing lips.
I don’t know if the anger flaring in Cyn’s voice and eyes is aimed at Shane or me, but I quickly help Willa pack her gear to leave. I don’t want to take any chances since Cyn is Willa’s guardian.
Chapter Cyn
Driving his truck, Shane follows Willa and me back to our townhouse. From the way he was shooting earlier, he’s practicing for a war, and I don’t want him to get hurt for me. Fighting Manny is my problem.
Seeing him kiss Nikita last night ripped me apart. I want to hate him, but I can’t. If he does it again, I don’t think I can go through the feds’ stupid game plan.
Shane carries all of our gear, and I trudge up the stairs behind Willa. Stepping inside, Willa screams, and I jump back. Shane scoots around me, drawing his handgun.
As he enters the house, he doesn’t say anything, so I cautiously follow him inside.
The townhouse has been ransacked. Furniture upended, dishes and lamps broken, and every cabinet and drawer opened and their contents scattered on the floor. My body collapses against the wall. Oh God. I feel like my stomach has been yanked out of my throat.
Shane checks the house before he lets us go past the foyer. My throat closes and squeezes the air from my lungs.
This is our home, and now it’s destroyed and defiled. I haven’t really cried since Mom’s funeral, but I want to now. Willa sobs onto my shoulder. I should put on a brave face, but how can I? This angers and terrifies me. Did Uncle Manny do this or was it his rival gang, Juarez? We’re so exposed living in Austin.
What are we going to do? It’s crazy to think I can take on any cartel.
While Shane calls the feds, I go into my bedroom. Some of my clothes have been shredded, and I won’t say that the destruction of the designer labels doesn’t hurt because it does.
I walk into Willa’s room and it’s been trashed too. She’s sobbing into her pillow. We don’t have the money to replace any of our personal belongings.
Losing them hurts, but what if we’d been home? Gangs rape women and shoot them in the head. How am I going to protect Willa? I can’t. Not even Shane can. Hopelessness wafts up inside me, shaking away what little confidence I have.
What the hell are we going to do? I return to the living room where Shane ends his call.
“Shane?” I bury my face into his strong embrace. “This could be a host of people who did this to us. How will I care for Willa?”
He’s shaking his head. “I don’t know. I’ll stay here every night. We’ll do this together. However this ends, I need to be with you, Cyn.” His calloused thumb brushes against my cheek while his large hands hold my face.
Feeling emotionally drained, I nuzzle against them.
“What about Nikita?” I bite out.
“You know I have to see her but not for much longer.”
More tears flow. “I can’t see you kiss her again.” It seems unimportant compared to Manny’s attack on Willa and me, but I want Shane to belong only to me, not the IRS, not the feds or Nikita.
He rubs the stubble on his sexy face. He’s all man, and I need him. “Fuck. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t think I can take that again.” What am I supposed to do now?
“We should go to my place. I’d like to see how the decryption is going.”
“I can’t leave Willa here alone,” I say. She’s in her bedroom, crying.
The fed show up shortly, and Timmons surveys the damage.
His team takes fingerprints along with the local police. Timmons sighs. “This is probably your Uncle. What do you have that he wants?” He studies my lying eyes.
I can’t tell him about the flash drive or else the feds would tell us to hand it over and then we’ll have no insurance. Manny would go to prison but not until he put me six feet under. It probably wasn’t smart for me to allow the feds in here as it is.
“It could be Nikita and her gang,” I say sarcastically. “Shane is spending most nights here. Maybe she knows that.”
Timmons scowls at Shane. “Sleeping with Cyn won’t help your case.”
“I’ve been making payments to the IRS, so they’re almost happy,” Shane shoots back.
I didn’t know that, so it appears he’s working his way back to me. I shouldn’t complain.
After they dust the place for prints and take copies of ours, we head over to Shane’s.
On the way over, Willa asks, “I know this isn’t the best time to ask, but if Aedan asks me out, can I go?”
It isn’t the best time, and her impropriety grates on me. “He’s too old and we’ll lose our contract,” I say. We need the money more now than ever.
“He’s only five years older. That’s no different than Shane and you. Please.”
“You’re eighteen, so I can’t tell you what to do, but we need this money. Our contract explicitly says no dating studio employees. Please don’t make this harder than it is. I can’t be worrying about you. What about the other cowboys? Wyatt’s in college. He seems nice.”
She slumps in her seat. “I like Aedan.”
It’s not like Willa to be grumpy, but she’s the baby and I’m all she has. I’m no substitute for Mom.
“I know, but now’s not a good time.” Not knowing who destroyed our townhouse is worse than being hunted in Alaska. We’re sitting ducks in Austin. In Alaska, we had trees, boulders, and a vast wilderness for cover.
By the time we get to Shane’s, the Thai restaurant delivery has arrived at his place. Willa fixes herself a plate and sits down with her schoolbooks to work on a paper.
Shane and I go to his bedroom where he removes a print to expose a fake wall. His safe is embedded into the concrete slab and contains holes and a fan for aeration. Another smaller safe sits inside the bigger one.
“Th
e safe weighs over 500 pounds,” he says, opening it by using his fingerprint. Inside is a small server.
He takes his laptop and connects to the server. “It’s coming along nicely. The program should crack the key on the hidden file in the next day or two.” He scans the hidden folder he’d found on my flash drive. “This is interesting.”
Weird characters fill his screen. “What is it?”
He does a search on the Internet. “Hold on. I need to try a few different UTF-8 encodings on the folder and its files.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an extended encoding primarily used for special characters, like foreign languages.”
When we retrieved the drive, he talked about the character sets, and I’d forgotten.
He punches into the keyboard. A program interprets the filenames. “They look Asian.”
I’d read the Chinese were stealing US commercial technology, along with the Japanese and the French, but why would my father have those files? What did they have to do with the drug business?
“I should’ve taken over the security for my last company. I just don’t have the time. I’ve kept a better eye on it lately. Thanks to you.” He kisses me, and it’s not a simple peck, but a bone jarring, scintillatingly, breath-stealing kiss.
My whole body quivers and burns. I can’t share him with Nikita or any other woman, yet I can’t keep worrying about them, not when I need to protect Willa. If it weren’t for Riches to Rags, Willa could’ve been home by herself today.
“What do you think is in the other files?” I ask.
“What about opium dealing?” Shane asks. “Would the other cartels be concerned?”
“I don’t know. Manny only deals in marijuana and cocaine. Why would he care about opioids?”
“Maybe his rivals do. Maybe it cuts into their business.”
I shrug. I don’t know anything about drugs, other than I don’t use them. “The Juarez cartel wants to meet with me.”
Concern embeds into his brow. “You can’t meet with them. Isn’t that a Columbian cartel?”
“Yes. I don’t have a choice. He knows I have the flash drive, and apparently, he must be on it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Shane says, looping me into his arms. “I’m sure he’ll have backup when you meet him.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Shane grins. “Between my embezzlement and your family, we’re in a lot of shit. You are nothing but trouble, princess.”
He kisses me again and pulls me closer to him. “Let me backup everything, and we’ll live tonight like it’s our last.”
Jesus. I can’t let anything happen to Willa. Tonight or any other night can’t be my last. “I don’t want to think that way. I have to worry about Willa.”
Shane’s cell rings, and he picks it up. “What the hell do you want, Lindsey?”
Why would he talk to that crazy bitch?
He listens for a few minutes, and I can’t believe his ex-girlfriend would call him. He shot her brother in self-defense. She tried to slice his throat, and she attacked me. The scar she left under his jaw twitches while he talks to her.
“You can stay at my place, and I’ll be at Cyn’s but only until your mom gets back.” He ends the call and swears.
“Why can’t you tell her no?” She was his first and he can’t seem to get rid of this girl. I don’t want her here. I don’t want him seeing any girl except me.
“I can’t let her little boy sleep in some homeless shelter, and I feel guilty over her brother.” Shane locks up his guns but carries his 10mm with him plus three clips. “I’ll wait here for her and meet you back at your place in a few minutes. She’s on her way.”
“Don’t you worry about her staying at your place? She could steal from you.”
He throws some clothes into a bag for the week to stay with us. “I’ve known her since we were kids. She may try to kill me in my sleep, but I don’t think she’d steal from me, and I’ll keep my bedroom locked.”
“What about Nikita?” She must hate that he lets an old girlfriend stay at his condo. I know I do.
“I don’t give a fuck about her.” He kisses me. “I only care about you. I’ll be over in a bit.”
“Don’t let her slash your throat again?” I’m being dead serious too.
Chapter Shane
I impatiently wait for Lindsey to show up. She’s always late.
Her little boy is really cute, and I look forward to having kids with Cyn someday, if we live that long. Having a family with her and settling down on the banks of Kenai is my dream. Given that she’s being followed, and now a Columbian drug lord wants to talk to her, our ultimate goal of peace and quiet is not looking too good.
As soon as I open the door for them, Remy runs over to me, so I pick him up to swing him around. He’s eight now and getting big. “Do you want to go to the zoo with us?” he asks.
“Maybe another time, Remy.” For a while there, Lindsey had told him I was his dad. It hurt to let him down. His real dad is long gone, and it’s tough on Remy.
Carrying her luggage, Lindsey tosses back her strawberry blonde hair before entering my condo. Remy grabs his backpack, and I help them into the spare bedroom. After Cyn left, I locked my bedroom door.
Lindsey may be my first, but I don’t trust her, even though I haven’t forgotten that we had fun growing up in Alaska. Our mothers were best friends, and Lindsey and I hunted and fished in the wilds. She also was pretty damn wild in bed. She’s a naturally pretty girl, free of makeup and likes comfortable casual clothes, so different from my princess.
Cyn is classy. She’s stunningly beautiful with the ebony hair and fiery dark eyes. I knew I was in trouble the moment I met her and then I had to wait until she turned eighteen and then another three years because she married the douchebag.
She isn’t the girl I imagined I’d want to spend my life with, a pampered spitfire. But the moment she kissed me after her mother was abducted, I knew she had me by the balls. Through her veil of tears, I saw an inner strength resonating in that girl. Her feet were a bloody mess, her hair and face dirty, but yet she’d escaped from her abductors. Underneath her sizzling tight dresses and makeup is an invincible, fiery flame of a woman, and I love her.
“Can Remy use your laptop to play games?” she asks.
I usually let him, but I don’t have spares anymore. “No. I need it for work.” I hand her the controls for the Xbox. “He can use this.”
“He really likes the games you have on your computer.”
“Lindsey, no. I have to go. Here’s a key. I’ll be by to check on my condo.” Everything’s locked up, so I should be good. I now use my fingerprint or a key to open my safes as an extra security measure.
“There’s food in the refrigerator,” I say before leaving.
She sits Remy in front of the electronic babysitter and sees me to the door. Her hands reach around my neck. I clasp them and pull them away.
“I only do this because my mom and yours are close friends, but you and I were through years ago. Don’t go there.”
“First loves never die.” She sucks on her finger, and all I feel is disgust. I need to get rid of all these crazy women, so I can focus on my princess.
On Monday, Willa’s at school all day, so I tell Cyn to come into the office. I can’t keep an eye on her at home, and I don’t want her meeting with Juarez without me. The studio is filming Fay on a date with Tanner. The yahoo seems to really like her, and I don’t get that. She’s more of a princess than Cyn.
Agent Timmons interrupts me first thing. “We need you to meet with Niki for lunch today.”
Shit. Cyn isn’t going to like me taking Niki to lunch. “Why?”
“She’s been meeting with other tech industry leaders, and we believe she’s going to meet with her contact in the next few days. We need you to wear a wire and up your game with her and stop seeing Cynthia Diaz.”
I need to tell Niki goodbye in a text, so I don’t have
to see her again. “I’ll meet with her, but I’m not breaking it off with my girlfriend.”
“We make the rules here.”
“Fuck you, Timmons. Get the hell out of my office.”
Timmons waves his hands. “Now hold on. We can negotiate.”
I don’t know where he got the impression that he owns me. Within the next month, I should be able to make enough payments to keep the IRS off my back. “I’ll wear a wire and talk to Niki later today, but that’s it.”
“Do you have anything for me?”
I hand him the latest information from the sniffer on a thumb drive. “You’ll have to identify the IP address owners and work from there. The routing trail that I’ve gathered is listed too.”
“We’ll have the lab in DC look at this right away.”
After he leaves, I take a couple aspirin and then walk into Cyn’s next-door office.
“I need a drink,” I say. “Let’s go for lunch. Timmons wants me to meet Niki later.”
Cyn frowns but remains silent.
When we reach the garage, we aren’t far behind Timmons. We catch up to him before he gets into his nondescript navy four-door sedan. Oil or some other liquid pools underneath the car.
“Something’s wrong with your car,” I say.
“This car just came back from being serviced,” Timmons complains.
I get down on my back to look under the car. Some liquid leaks from the car, but it’s the strange box with wires running into it that stops me.
“Oh fuck.” It looks like a bomb.
“What’s wrong?” Timmons asks.
“You better call a bomb squad,” I say.
Cyn tugs on me to move me away from the car and toward the exit.
Sweat pours off his forehead while Timmons calls in the troops. “Someone doesn’t want me to look at your data.”
I sent everyone home before the police cordoned off the garage. My programmers can work from home anyway. Cyn and I don’t get to leave until it’s almost dark, so Timmons cancels my meeting with Niki.
Now I really need a drink. I leave my truck at the garage and walk Cyn to an outside café. I’m on my second bourbon when Niki strolls up to us.