by Jen Talty
Not good.
“My husband is right about most things.” Leandra continued to squeeze his hand, only he wasn’t sure if it was to calm him.
Or her.
Nick let out a long breath, trying to ignore his brother’s glare of either concern or amusement. Didn’t matter. Logan was going to have a field day with this after the op was over.
“I’m told that Fielding needs more evidence to warrant the search, so it could be a few more days.”
Leandra’s eyes went wide. “We still need to move the merchandise tonight.”
“Agreed,” Ramos said. “I was thinking it would be better if you rode with me rather than with your husband.”
Logan pointed to his wrist, then waved his hand in front of his neck.
“Not going to happen,” Leandra said, nodding in Logan’s direction. “Now if you excuse me, I have a few things to take care of before we exchange money for merchandise.”
She tapped the phone then leaned back on the sofa. She scrolled through her email and one caught her eye. “I’ve got an email from Nick Manovich.”
“What?” Nick asked. “That’s my alias and I didn’t send you anything.”
She tapped on the attachment, which opened the PDF. She resized the document and her pulse shot up when she realized she was looking at. “These are the blueprints for the warehouse.” She held the phone up to Nick. “And a list of titled merchandise, which has nothing to do with the business run out of that building.”
Nick snagged the phone from her hands. “That’s got to be from the agent working undercover.”
“I think you’re right.” Leandra pointed to the signature line which read: This is what you’ll need for tonight… a friendly…
Nick tossed the phone toward his brother, who caught it midair. “Can you get Mia to hack into Ramos’s shit and this email account, and maybe decipher the names and descriptions on that list?”
Logan nodded.
“Who’s Mia?” Leandra asked.
“My fiancé and she’s about the best hacker in the world,” Logan said with pride. “She’ll have this done in a matter of minutes.”
Nick swallowed his breath, but at the same time puffed out his chest. The way Leandra handled herself with Ramos, and her determination to get the job done, had impressed Nick long before he’d snatched her from Ramos’s house.
“Mia’s a great hacker, but in battle, I’m glad I’ve got Leandra to watch my back.”
Did he just fucking say that?
“Are you implying your girl is better than mine?” Logan laughed pointing toward Leandra, then tapped his neck. “Aren’t we a little old to be marking our territory?”
“What!?” Leandra bolted up right, twisting her body. “You didn’t?” She rubbed her neck, her sexy gaze locked with his.
Nick brushed her hair to the side, staring at the spot on her neck, just under her earlobe, where he remembered sucking as hard as he could in the throes of passion, leaving a giant, dark red, hickey. Something he hadn’t done since he’d been in high school.
“I kind of did.” Nick cupped the side of her neck, rubbing his thumb over the mark. He wasn’t proud of it, necessarily.
But he was proud of the woman who sat next to him.
“Wonderful,” she said quietly.
For a moment, Nick forgot all about his brother as he leaned in and brushed his lips across hers in a brief, but tender kiss.
“How bad is it?” she questioned.
“Let’s just say there is no way to cover it up.” Nick told himself to pull away, but his heart pounded in a way it hadn’t in years, and he’d be damned if he didn’t admit he liked it.
Or that it felt good.
“Consider it a play on being married,” Logan said, jostling Nick out of his trance. “What is up with the married cover anyway?”
“Quickest way I could think of for Leandra to bring me on as her partner.” Nick continued to stare into Leandra’s eyes, getting lost in her dark pools of warm honey, making him turn all gooey like an excited puppy.
She curled her fingers around his wrist while his hand still cupped her neck. He studied her face, wondering if she could ever move beyond the pain of her past.
He blinked. What was he thinking? He hadn’t moved on and he probably never would.
“I think the hickey sealed that cover,” Logan said, laughing.
It sealed more than that, Nick thought.
Chapter 5
THE SUN DISAPPEARED behind the horizon, leaving a fiery glow across the Florida sky. Leandra never thought she’d enjoy the south, but if she were being honest with herself, she missed it.
Even the damn heat.
The only reason she’d moved back north was to be near her family for their support after Kent had passed, but she’d fallen in love with the south almost as much as she loved Kent.
She sat next to Nick, in the front seat of a dark-colored, luxury SUV. Logan was situated in the back. She found their relationship to be filled with a loving angst that only brothers could share. Of course, she had no idea, considering she had no siblings herself, and neither had her husband.
She loved their sarcastic banter and was humbled by the way Logan seemed to drop everything to help his brother, which in turned helped her, and that thought gave her a warm shiver. She understood why Nick’s brother had his back, but why did Nick have hers? The thought he might care about her sent a different kind of shiver across her body.
She’d fallen so hard and fast for Kent that she’d barely had a chance to catch her breath before she found herself walking down the aisle in a white dress on her father’s arm.
Stealing a glance at Nick, her breath hitched. He looked her way and smiled. Her heart pounded so fast against her chest she figured it had jostled her breasts.
Nick pulled the SUV into a parking garage about five miles from the warehouse where Agent Fielding and his team had set up a meet to go over their part of the plan.
“You really think this is a good idea?” Leandra asked. Her interaction with the FBI had always been antagonistic in nature. Being a PI wasn’t always valued by various law enforcement agencies.
Not to mention, she had a tendency to bend the law.
Just a tad.
Nick backed into the designated spot, across from three dark, government cars. “I don’t like bringing in the Feds, but he’s got a man in Ramos’s camp, and we need to know who that is and how to protect him.”
Logan shifted in the backseat. “They had Ramos dead to rights on the casino’s, but until Leandra here showed up, almost nothing on the trafficking, at least from what we’ve dug up on their investigation.”
“According to Fielding and his agency,” Leandra muttered. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange they had an inside guy for this long and he barely knew about the human trafficking ring?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Nick said.
“I’m happy to help take this asshole down, but I don’t want them getting in the way of me finding my client’s daughter, or trying to shut me out.” Leandra reached out and touched Nick’s forearm. “I’m not stopping until I find her.”
He curled his long fingers over hers. His gentle smile sucker-punched her lungs.
She swallowed.
“Neither am I.” He stared into her eyes with such deep intent it made everything around her blur.
Except him.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Mia hasn’t been able to decipher the merchandise list, which also makes me skeptical that maybe it’s a distraction,” Logan said, snapping Leandra from her trance. “And worries me that Fielding is in contact with the agent, who might be giving us a line of crap.”
“What does she say about the email?” Nick asked.
“She’s still tracing it back to…” Logan paused for a moment… “something about finding the IP address where the email was created and tracking it through that.”
Leandra nodded. “Any luc
k getting blueprints of the warehouse from the town?”
Nick rested his hand over hers. She stared at his thumb caressing her skin. It had a calming effect on her mind, but the opposite in her heart.
She’d felt this intense pull once before.
Jerking her hand away, she turned her head and stared at the concrete wall.
“I should have them shortly and Dylan has a guy who will compare them with what you were sent and let us know any discrepancies,” Nick said. His tone had remained even, but she thought she heard a hint of disappointment.
Or maybe she made that up.
Focus on the case.
Another SUV backed into the spot next to them. A tall man, with the same smile as Nick stepped from the vehicle. Tall was an understatement. He wasn’t quite as broad as the other two brothers, but he had the same confident swagger as he strolled toward the car.
Nick hit the button that rolled down the passenger and rear side window.
“This must be Leandra. I’m Dylan, the tallest and best looking of the Sarich brothers.”
Both Nick and Logan coughed.
“Correction,” Nick said. “Meet Baby Dyl who has yet to hit puberty.”
“Screw you, hickey boy.”
Leandra’s cheeks went hot as she covered the mark on the side of her neck, which she realized wasn’t the side that Dylan stood on, which meant he hadn’t seen it…but knew about it.
“Christ, Logan,” Nick muttered. “You’ve got a big fucking mouth.”
Dylan laughed. “Yeah, he does. But I enjoyed telling Mom you got a girl in your life. She’s planning your children’s names right now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nick said under his breath.
“Kidding you? I just entered the goddamned Twilight zone,” Leandra said, glaring at Nick, who had the audacity to shrug. “And this—” She pointed to her neck. “—does not make me your girl.”
“When a Sarich leaves his mark—”
She poked the center of Nick’s chest with her index finger.
“Ouch.” He smiled as he rubbed his chest. “That’s going to leave a mark. Does that mean—”
“Oh, my, God. You’re impossible.” Leandra’s embarrassment quickly turned to amusement, which didn’t make sense and sent her stomach on a roll. “Really? You had to give me a hickey?” She looked over her shoulder, giving Logan the evil eye. “And you had to tell your brothers?”
Turning her attention to the youngest man, she waved her finger at him. “What is wrong with you people?”
“You have to understand he was known as Hickey Boy in high school,” Logan said laughing. “It was like he saw a neck and had to suck.”
“At least I didn’t get caught by my girlfriend’s father in nothing but my birthday suit right after having sex for the first time,” Nick said, with a dark and playful tone.
“No, you just got caught by Dad in the patrol car with your ass in the air,” Dylan said, with a stupid smile.
Leandra opened her mouth, but no words came out. Only a high-pitched screech.
“This coming from the guy who sent his crazy ex-girlfriend a dick pic who then preceded to plaster it all over Facebook,” Nick said.
“Oh…my…God. Is the other Sarich boy as perverted as you three?” She blinked a few times, staring in Nick’s warm blue eyes, wondering why the hell she found their banter endearing.
“We’re not perverts,” they said in unison.
“And Ramey is worse,” Nick said.
“I used to hate being an only child, now I’m tickled pink,” she said, her hand still covering the hickey.
“More like a dark red,” Nick said.
She punched him in the shoulder.
“Ouch, geez, hon.” He rubbed his arm. “Are you trying to brand me?”
“Yes.” That was not the answer she expected to come out of her mouth.
“Sorry about my butthead brothers.” Nick smiled, curling his fingers around her wrist. “But I can’t say I’m sorry about anything else.”
The brothers laughed.
She shook her head. “I imagine there are no secrets in your family.”
“Nope.” Nick rested his hand on her leg, his fingers entwined with hers. The weirdest part of the entire conversation was that it didn’t feel weird. Nor did holding his hand while his brothers exchanged funny glances.
She glanced across the parking lot and stared at the dark sedans. “Why are they still sitting in their cars?”
“I suspect trying get us tossed off, officially” Dylan said, resting his arm against the window.
“So much for wanting our help,” Leandra said.
“They wanted our intel,” Nick said. His touch was like a feather floating in the air.
“They want my team to stand down,” Dylan said. “But that isn’t going to happen. We’re so much better at this than those idiots are and if the Omega Team can get officially hired, then we just become a part of that and we can show the FBI how it’s done.”
“Is everything a pissing contest with men?” Leandra shook her head.
“Pretty much.” Nick tapped her thigh, then pointed across the parking lot as six men, all in dark suits and all wearing wires in their ears, stepped from their vehicles.
“Why do I feel like I just went from the Twilight Zone to Men in Black?” she asked under her breath.
Dylan opened the car door, but Nick grabbed her arm. “We’ll be out in a sec,” he said.
She let out a long breath. “We need to get out there. The clock is ticking.”
He nodded. “I wanted to apologize properly for the way I behaved, along with my brothers. It’s just that our mom has had it in her head that we all need to get married and have babies. For years we’ve enjoyed harassing and tossing each other under the bus with our mom to deflect her constantly telling us we need good women in our lives.”
She cocked her head. “And you boys tell your mother everything?”
“No, but my mom has got a blind date set up for Dylan tomorrow night, and he’s using this op to get out of it and that hickey to deflect attention from him to me.”
“You do realize you’re all grown men, right?”
He laughed, squeezing her hand. “You’ll understand when you meet my mother.”
Before she could say another word, he was out the door. She pushed hers open, and followed him across the parking garage where Dylan had pulled out a map and was pointing at it while the other men stood around him and nodded.
She’d deal with the idea of meeting his mother another time.
“Leandra?” a shorter man said as he stepped from the crowd, his hand stretched foreword. “I’m Agent Fielding and while we’re not thrilled by how you came about your intel, we appreciate it.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Now let us do ours.” Fielding’s voice rang out with an authoritative and aggressive tone.
Leandra arched a brow as she planted her hands on her hips, noticing that all the Sarich brothers had stopped talking and focused their attention on her. “All right, but if you think I’m sitting this one out, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“You’re a civilian and this a federal operation.”
“Being headed by a private, civilian team,” Nick said. “One you agreed to work with.”
Leandra appreciated him coming to her defense, but she didn’t need him to.
“I didn’t agree to working with a PI who has no background in law enforcement.” Fielding raised his chin.
“Yes, you did,” Nick said, but she stepped in front of him.
“I’m not going anywhere but in that warehouse as planned, so let’s just move forward, shall we?” she asked.
“Happy to, as soon as you leave.” Fielding pointed to the SUV she’d rode in.
Leandra opened her mouth, but Nick spoke before she could.
“She’s an integral part of our plan.” Nick stood next to her, hand pressing against the small of her back. He stared d
own at Fielding. “If I walk in there without her as my business partner in this deal, the entire plan falls apart and we’ll have a shit storm on our hands and I’m not good with that. We stick with the plan we presented you.”
“You’re plan, not ours, and we’ve made some changes.” Fielding rolled on his feet, as if to make himself taller.
“What kind of changes?” Leandra asked, fisting her hands.
“We’re not at liberty to share with you, so please, we need you to leave so we can discuss the new plans.
“Like hell,” Nick said. “She’s—”
Leandra raised her hand, covering Nick’s mouth. “I’m the sole reason you’ve got anything on Ramos’s trafficking. I’m the one who brought these fine men and their teams in, so back the fuck up. I’m going in with Nick and you can’t stop me.”
“Yes, I can,” Fielding said with a stupid grin. “I’ll arrest you.”
Dylan laughed. “Try it and I’ll have my boss call your boss and I think we know how that will turn out.”
Nick tugged her hand from his mouth, dropping their entangled fingers to the side. She should pull away, but wouldn’t.
Or maybe couldn’t.
“Look fellas,” Nick said giving her hand a good squeeze. “We invited you into this sting and you’re welcome to stay and play, but we’ve got operatives in the field, with a plan, ready to go.”
Fielding shook his head, shoving his fists in his pockets. “This one is a dangerous woman with a death wish and our agent tells us she’s a loose cannon.”
“That’s bullshit,” Leandra said behind gritted teeth. “Whoever your agent has only seen or known me for less 48 hours and doesn’t know dick about me.”
“Who’s the agent?” Nick leaned forward, forcing Fielding to look up at him.
Leandra bit back a smile, enjoying that a little too much.
“I won’t compromise my agent’s cover.”
“You mean her cover,” Logan said as he took the five steps from the government car. “The one you had send all the intel we have right now to Leandra.”
“Alicia?” Leandra mentally went over every encounter she had with the woman, which weren’t many.
Logan nodded. “Just heard back from Mia.” He pointed to Fielding. “Why would your agent send us intel from Nick’s alias and a bogus email?”