Nash Security Solutions

by Lola Silverman

  Instant irritation made Ralston curl his lip with disdain. “Then why are you making me hang around here to be questioned?”

  “You were standing around?” Biggs suggested. Then he looked at Michaelson. “I don’t really believe the story about the sniper on the other building though.”

  Ralston took a breath to say something derogatory about Biggs’s intelligence, but Wrath suddenly appeared at that moment and clapped Biggs on the arm. “Hey, guys. I really hate to ruin your party, but Ralston here is with me and my security firm. You remember us, I’m sure.”

  Michaelson looked clueless. “We do?”

  It was Biggs’s reaction that Ralston found fascinating. The big detective’s face grew pale, and he looked almost embarrassed. “Mr. Hyde-Pierson is with… Right. This is all part of that investigation that Mr. Nash briefed us on—well—before.”

  “Exactly.” Wrath gave Biggs a swat on the back of his head. “So, we’ll be going now. Thank you.”

  Wrath gestured to the door, and Ralston gratefully exited with the big former marine pacing at his side. Ralston waited until they had cleared the mess of police personnel gathered by Dara’s desk and scattered down the hallway.

  Once they were safely in the elevator, Ralston pointed to Wrath. “What was that about?”

  “When this all started, I chased down the assassin that was after your sister. I didn’t catch him, but I managed to snag the weapon carrying case he had on his shoulder. The Boston PD caught me and immediately arrested me as the shooter. They thought they had the case all nice and wrapped up.”

  “I’m guessing that Nash set them straight,” Ralston mused.

  “Actually, it was your sister.” Wrath’s smile was so sappy sweet that it looked a little strange on a face far more suited to grunts and intimidating expressions that promised violence. “I love that woman. Have I ever told you that? She is amazing.”

  Ralston held up his hands. “Okay, that’s enough about my sister. I still have difficulty with the whole Tegan and you dating thing. It’s more than I want to think about.”

  Of course, there were a lot of things that were more than Ralston wanted to think about. At the moment, he was pretty preoccupied with trying to stop himself from asking about Analise. Where was she? Had she avoided him on purpose? Had she been reassigned? And if she had, did he really care? It was all very confusing and difficult to navigate.

  “Where’s Analise?” The words slipped out before Ralston could get a hold of his tongue. He cleared his throat and hoped he sounded nonchalant and not rabidly interested.

  Wrath made a vague gesture that seemed to point to the other side of the building. “She’s across the street looking around to see if she can figure out where the bullets came from. If we can find casings, we might be able to link it to the earlier attempts on Kayla’s life. Nash is pretty sure that mob-sanctioned assassin is still hiding out there somewhere.”

  “Great.” Ralston could not help but feel like this whole thing was starting to spiral down the toilet. “So, we’re looking for a sniper who potentially took a few potshots at my cousin, is probably gunning for me, and just murdered the president of Boston Bank & Trust.”

  “Let’s hope she finds something,” Wrath agreed. “We’re running out of plays to make in this game.”

  Chapter Ten

  Analise squatted on the rooftop and tried to put herself in the place of a sniper. There was only one building directly across from Boston Bank & Trust’s enormous structure of steel and glass. It hadn’t been difficult to gain access to the roof. In fact, Analise could see evidence that someone else had done so very recently. Several of the knobs showed scratches indicating that the locks had been picked by someone in a hurry.

  There was quite a lot of breeze at this height. The wind ruffled her hair and sent her ponytail whipping around her neck and face. Whoever had taken a shot from this point had been using a high-powered rifle with one hell of a scope. And the shooter had most definitely known what they were doing. There was no other way that an individual could have managed to pull off that kind of hit.

  Analise peered over the railing at the street far below. She would bet that nobody heard much of anything. It was, in many ways, the perfect shot. But how was the shooter able to see that Croft was in the office and in position? The building’s windows were tinted.

  “Heat signature,” she muttered. “That’s high-tech stuff. Military grade, maybe.”

  The thought was disconcerting at best. She stood up with the full intention of heading back downstairs. Turning back toward the doorway, she was taken completely by surprise when it burst open and she found herself face to face with what was obviously a Boston PD detective.

  “Hey!” He looked indignant. “What are you doing up here? Can I see some ID?”

  Analise snorted. “No. You can’t. It’s not illegal to be up here. The doors were unlocked,” she lied. “I just came up for a breath of fresh air.”

  He looked her up and down and lingered over her hips and breasts without bothering to hide his rudeness. “This is part of a crime scene. I’ll have to ask you to submit to a search.”

  “Is that right?” Analise didn’t even believe the guy was paying attention to the fact that she wasn’t dressed at all like someone who worked in the building. He pretty much just wanted to get his hands on her boobs. The cretin. She sighed. “You can try to search me, but I’m warning you right now. You’re going to lose a hand.”

  His gaze jerked back up to her face from its blatant perusal of her chest. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I don’t know,” she sneered. “Are you ogling me? Because I feel like I need to complain to your department chief. Can I see your badge? Because you never identified yourself as police, but I can tell that’s what you are.”

  The ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Am I?”

  She registered the danger just in time. Jerking sideways, she managed to evade the hand that shot out to grab her by the neck. His fingers slid past the delicate skin of her throat and left scratches in their wake.

  Striking back without thought, Analise chopped at his exposed neck. He made a choking sound and pivoted on the foot closest to Analise. She felt the air move as he spun lithely in a tight circle and used both hands to shove her back. Quickly bracing her back foot, she held her ground and cartwheeled her arms to maintain her balance. Unfortunately, the momentary shift in weight gave her opponent an opening.

  He reached forward quick as a wink and snatched her front calf out from under her. Pulling it hard, he lifted it high above her head, giving her no choice but to go down. Her shoulders bounced off the unforgiving concrete, but Analise wasn’t about to give ground just yet.

  She braced both hands on the ground and levered her weight into a handstand position. Suddenly, all of those handstand pushups she did in her workouts paid off. Gaining balance almost instantly, she kicked out and felt her boot connect with his face. The fake detective fell back a step. She took a chance and wrapped both calves around his neck. Using every ounce of her weight, she pulled him to the ground.

  Twisting her boots together, Analise scooted into a better position to hang onto his head. He was clawing at her legs with his hands, but her thick black cargo pants protected her exactly as they were designed to do. Bracing one elbow on the ground for leverage, she really tightened her powerful legs and put the pressure on his neck. She could have ended it right there. One twist in the right direction would have broken his neck, but she needed information.

  “Who sent you?” Analise demanded. She followed up the question with a smart downward punch with her closed fist that landed right on his sternum. “Who are you?”

  “Fuck. Off!” he grunted breathlessly.

  “Not a good answer.” She bore down hard. His face turned bright red, and he started to gasp and choke. The hands pushing at her legs in protest grew weaker. “I’ll break your fucking neck if you don’t tell me what I need to know. Either you talk
or you’re no good to me alive.”

  She loosened up just enough for him to suck in air. He was trying to cough but couldn’t because of the placement of her legs. “Sokolov!”

  “Sokolov sent you?” It wasn’t exactly a surprise. They had already established that Sokolov’s second-in-command—Anton—wasn’t out to kill the Hyde-Pierson family members.

  “Sokolov wants everyone who worked on the bank deal dead.”

  The man started to squirm again, and she renewed the pressure. She could see the guy trying to get his feet under him enough to push her off. If he could think that much, he was getting too much air. She squeezed her legs together and watched his face start to turn purple.

  “Sokolov doesn’t want the family dead,” the man gasped. “We’re supposed to scare, not kill!”

  Surprise caused Analise to let up too much with her legs. Her captive yanked his head out from between her calves and flung himself backwards. She pushed herself to her feet, thinking that he was going to come after her, but it never happened. He bolted toward the rooftop access and away from her.

  “Shit!” Analise groaned and sprinted after him.

  Unfortunately for her, she heard the lock click just as she slammed into the hard, flat metal surface of the door. She had lost her captive for today, but she had gained some very interesting information.

  *

  Ralston sat in his armchair and watched his foot tap impatiently against the floor. He could not stop moving the thing. It felt almost as though the movement of his foot was keeping his mind from completely cutting loose.

  Wrath turned away from staring out the window and stared pointedly at Ralston’s fast-moving foot. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” Ralston snapped. “Where’s Analise anyway? Shouldn’t she be back by now?”

  Wrath only shrugged. He looked completely unconcerned. “She does things on her own time. She’ll be back when she’s through looking at that scene for evidence.”

  They had been back at Ralston’s building for what seemed like hours, even though the clock told him that it had only been about forty minutes. He was agitated beyond belief and could not understand why. This whole thing felt completely out of proportion. How was it possible that his father was now murdering bank executives in an effort to hide his illegal machinations at Boston Bank & Trust?

  “Here she is.” Wrath was pointing to the street outside with an expression of obvious relief on his face. “I’m going to go ahead and leave. I need to get back to your sister.”

  Ralston made a face. “By all means, go.”

  He was really tired of thinking about his sister and Wrath and their blatant public displays of affection. It was rather disturbing, in its way. Tegan was like him. The two of them had always been expected to marry within their social circle in order to further expand the family fortune. Then Tegan had attached herself in a permanent way to a former marine who worked security jobs and likely had no long-term financial plans or goals. It was odd. Very, very odd.

  Wrath disappeared down the stairs, and Ralston was left briefly alone. He didn’t like it. For some reason, alone meant that the image of Croft’s dead body kept popping into his head. He saw the man lying on the floor of his office. Blood bubbled up between his lips, and his eyes grew glassy. The pool of thick blood soaking the carpet had just gotten bigger and bigger with each passing second in what seemed like a horrendously short period of time.

  “Hey.”

  Analise trotted up the steps and strode into the living room. She appeared to be a little worse for wear. Her clothes were covered in dust and dirt, and she had a series of scratches on her neck.

  “What happened?” Ralston shot to his feet and pointed at her neck. “You’re hurt! How did it happen?”

  She drew back a little. Her brow furrowed, and she gazed at him with an expression of wariness. “Calm down. All right? I met up with a man I think was the actual shooter on top of the building across the street. The two of us had a little altercation. I wanted to know some things and he didn’t want to talk. It was all very normal.”

  “You’re hurt.” Ralston spun in a circle. “I think I have a first aid kit around here somewhere. We need to get those cleaned off and bandaged.”

  “Ralston.” Analise started walking toward him very slowly. “I’m fine. I’ll take a shower and wash off, and everything will be just fine. What’s wrong? You’re acting very odd.”

  “He was shot in front of me!” The words finally busted out, and Ralston did not even want to take them back. “The window shattered and then he was dead! It was so fast!” He was yelling. Why was he yelling? Although Analise didn’t look particularly irritated by his tone or volume.

  “There was so much blood.” Ralston sank down onto the couch and put his head in his hands. “So much, Analise. You have no idea.”

  Her lips quirked, and she walked over to sit beside him on the couch. “Actually, I do. I’ve seen more than one man bleed out and die in front of me. Some of them died in my arms because I was the only person that they knew who could give them just a little bit of comfort in knowing that they weren’t alone.”

  “You were a soldier,” he murmured. “I forgot.” How could he have forgotten that she had very likely seen such a thing many times in her tours of duty overseas?

  She touched his shoulder and leaned against him. “It isn’t something that anyone should get used to, Ralston. I wouldn’t expect you to be unaffected by the sight of someone dying in front of you.”

  “I checked for a pulse,” Ralston whispered. He was staring at his hands and seeing his fingers brush against Croft’s pale skin. “There was no pulse, but he was still warm. It made me feel so odd to touch him.”

  “Death is like that.” She stood up and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go take a shower.”

  “What?” He wasn’t certain he had heard her correctly. “A shower?”

  “Yes.” She nodded emphatically. “You. Me. Some really hot water. It will help.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Analise closed her eyes and let the water sluice down over her back and shoulders. From the first moment she had stepped into Ralston’s bathroom, she had loved his shower. The rainwater spigot overhead had just the perfect blend of volume and pressure to help ease away the aches and pains of each day. It was funny, but you could tell a lot about a man from his shower.

  The minute she had walked into the big, tiled shower stall and she had seen the overhead spigot and the bamboo bench, she had known that he was a man who played hard. Guys who played hard knew the value of relaxing in comfort at the end of the day.

  Now she could practically see the tension leaving Ralston’s body. It circled the drain like the water dripping down over his bare shoulders and sliding down his spine. That was good. He was obviously overwrought from what had happened at the bank. Anyone would have been. Analise had seen death more times than she liked to think of, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  “Better?” She picked up a sponge and started rubbing his shoulders.

  He groaned. “Much better. Your hands are like magic.”

  “Is that right?” She felt strangely playful.

  After everything that had happened, this shower was probably the worst idea she had ever had. The last thing she should be doing was encouraging any kind of intimacy with Ralston. She needed to shut that shit down and look the other way. There was no future for them. There couldn’t be. Yet she was powerless to stay away.

  Ralston raised his head and turned to look at her. “You are so beautiful, Analise.”

  “You’re just saying that because I’m naked in the shower with you and I’m female.” The flattery made her cheeks flush red hot, and she wished he would just shut up.

  “No.” He turned to face her and put his hands on her upper arms. He slid them lower, over her forearms and then to her hands. He lifted her arms and gazed at her with such heat that she could not hold his eyes. “You are gorgeous whether you are naked or have
clothes on. I suspect you’d be gorgeous in a sackcloth.”

  “Nice,” she said wryly. “I’ll remember that the next time I go dress shopping. I’m sure a sackcloth would be cheaper than that dress I had to rent.”

  “I told you I would buy you a dress,” he reminded her quietly.

  Analise sighed. “And I told you that I wasn’t comfortable with you buying me stuff.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” He leaned in closer. The water beaded on his eyelashes and looked like diamonds.

  Analise’s eyes slid shut automatically as Ralston’s lips touched hers. The kiss was gentle at first but turned carnal only an instant later. He slid his arms around her body and pulled her hard against him as he plundered her mouth with his tongue.

  She moaned as everything below her waist went down in flames. The hot water caressing her skin only seemed to amplify the amazing feel of having Ralston pressed against her. He was warm and hard. Every plane of his muscular body was hers to touch and stroke. She could not keep her hands still. They roved over his shoulders, down his arms, and up into his wet hair. She scored his scalp with her nails and gently tugged at his hair. He made a growling noise and pushed his tongue insistently between her lips to mate with hers.

  She wanted him so badly. There was no doubt in her mind that her body was made to fit his. Her pussy was wet. Each movement of her legs made the slick folds of her sex slide together in a maddening way. She stood on tiptoe and pressed herself more firmly against him. Ralston pushed his knee between her legs. She felt the top of his thigh like a cool pressure against her hot pussy. Lowering herself just a little, she ground against him and moaned at the delicious friction the movement caused. She needed more. She needed everything.

  “I want you so badly,” Ralston murmured hoarsely. “Can I have you? Can I slide my cock into your pussy and feel you come for me? Are you ready for that? Are you ready for me?”

  The erotic words made her body come alive with sensual need. Unable to resist, she put her hands flat on his belly and slid them down until she felt her fingers brush the root of his cock. He was so very hard. She loved the feel of him against her hands. The skin was so very taut and yet felt like the softest silk. The tissue beneath was hard and hot. His erection arched up toward his belly button as though it were begging her to pay attention to it. She would not have denied him for anything. She wanted him too badly for that.