by Cynthia Eden
* * *
THEY TOOK NATE WESLEY—or, the man known as Nate Wesley—into the McGuire Securities office. Grant and Sullivan kept a tight hold on him. Sullivan...this had been her first encounter with the youngest McGuire brother. For some reason, she’d expected him to be a bit softer than his siblings. He wasn’t. If anything, he seemed even harder, even more dangerous. A deadly intensity clung to him like a second skin.
Jennifer didn’t go into that office with them. She retreated to the bathroom as she tried to settle her ragged nerves. When she stared at her reflection in the mirror, Jennifer hardly recognized the woman with the haunted eyes and pale cheeks.
Nate came to betray me.
She’d trusted him, worked side by side with him for so long. She’d been trying to protect him, but he’d been in the hunt for her all along. It was really true... Her former life had been nothing but a lie.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the sink. She wasn’t going to let Nate see her tears. She wasn’t going to let him see her pain at all. So she stood in that bathroom, and she didn’t make a sound as the tears fell. Those tears...they were for the friend she’d thought she had. They were for the life that had been hers for too many years...a life that was dead and buried now.
When the tears were done, she swiped her hands over her cheeks. Her eyes gleamed in the mirror. There’s still too much pain there.
She pinched her cheeks, trying to bring back some color. Never let them see your weakness.
That had been Nate’s advice, the first day that she’d been paired with him. She’d been so nervous. Her legs had been shaking like crazy. But he’d smiled at her, tapped her on the chin. Told her...
We’re in this together. An old pro and a rookie... They’ll never see us coming.
And they hadn’t.
Just as... I hadn’t seen Nate’s betrayal coming.
“Jennifer?” Brodie called. A light rap sounded on the door. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” Her voice was too flat, but at least it didn’t tremble. One more swipe of her hands over her cheeks, and then Jennifer turned away from her reflection.
Her head was pounding as Jennifer opened the bathroom door. Brodie was waiting in the hallway, and he straightened when he saw her. “You okay?”
No. She wanted to collapse some place, but Jennifer made herself nod. “I’m fine.”
“The hell you are.” Then he was wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. She wanted to sink into him and pretend the nightmare around her wasn’t real.
But it is. And I can’t escape from it.
“You don’t have to go in there,” he said as his arms tightened around her. “Grant and Sullivan can handle the interrogation. They’ve got backup coming. I called in Shayne Townsend.”
Shayne, right, he was the Austin police detective that she knew Brodie had contacted before.
“He’ll be here within twenty minutes—”
“I need to talk with Nate.” She pulled back as she stared up into his eyes. “I have to face him.” She’d face Nate and his betrayal head-on, even if it ripped out her heart. “I can get to him—I know I can.”
Brodie’s face was grim. “He wants you dead.”
Apparently, there was a line of people who did. She eased away from him and immediately missed the reassuring warmth of his body. “He’s not getting what he wants.” But she would get her answers. “He knows the man who is after me. I’ll get him to talk. I’ll get him to tell me everything he knows.”
“You’ll play nice with him—is that it?” Brodie asked her.
No, there wasn’t going to be anything nice about what was coming.
“Fine,” he said softly. “But if he doesn’t talk, then my brothers and I will get our turn with him. I assure you, there won’t be anything nice about the way we play.”
She believed him.
Brodie shook his head. “You’re trembling.”
Nate betrayed me. When would the pain from that blow lessen?
But how she felt didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter, not then. She and Brodie both needed to be safe. They needed the threat gone. “I want to talk with him now,” she whispered as she stared up into Brodie’s eyes.
His sigh was rough. “Fine. But you need to know...whatever he says in there, whatever he reveals, you’re safe, got it? I will be with you every moment, and I need you to know that you’re safe...with me.”
Her hand lifted, pressed lightly to the stubble that lined his jaw. “I already do know that.” Why else would she have come to Austin in the first place? She’d always felt safe with Brodie. He was the one who shouldn’t feel safe with her.
“I’m staying by your side,” he told her, voice gruff. “Every moment,” he said once more.
“That sounds like a good idea to me.” By her side—that was exactly where she wanted him to be.
“First, though,” Brodie muttered, “I need this.” And he kissed her. A soft, light caress of his lips against hers.
Tears stung her eyes again. She leaned into him, let that kiss linger. Her lips parted beneath his, and Brodie deepened the kiss. He seemed to savor her, and she just needed him. So much. The kiss had passion, but it also had...more. Emotion seemed to swell in the air around her, and there was a tenderness, a care to his touch that had her whole body tightening.
When he pulled back, his hand lifted. The back of his hand slid over her cheek. “I don’t like to see you cry.”
She hadn’t realized that the tears had escaped. She should have been more careful, but she’d been lost in him for a moment. “Brodie...”
A door opened down the hallway. Grant stuck his head out and frowned at them. “Are you two all right?”
She was shattering on the inside, but Jennifer managed, “Yes.” Brodie was at her side as they walked down that hallway and as they headed into Grant’s office.
Nate had been handcuffed to a chair. He sat there, glaring at her when she walked into the room. Grant moved to stand on Nate’s left. Sullivan, looking like an even rougher, angrier version of Brodie, stood positioned at Nate’s right.
“You’re going to let them do this to me?” Nate shouted at her as he yanked at his cuffs. Each wrist was handcuffed to the chair. “After all I did for you?”
Brodie was right at her side, just as he’d said he would be. “What you did for me?” Jennifer repeated, head shaking. “We worked together because we were assigned that job.” She tried to take slow, even breaths. Tried to look as though she were controlled, when really her heart was racing like mad in her chest.
“I could have let them kill you in the Middle East! I’m the one who called in the favors. I’m the one who got lover boy over there—” Nate’s eyes flashed at Brodie “—to go in and save you.”
Brodie’s shoulders rolled. “That’s lie number one.”
Nate tensed.
“We’ve been doing some digging of our own,” Grant murmured, never moving from his guard position near Nate. “You see...we have quite a few government contacts, too.”
Jennifer didn’t know if Brodie and Grant were bluffing or not, but the quick break in Nate’s expression told her plenty. Her stomach knotted. “You didn’t want to save me. You wanted to save yourself. You were afraid that my captors might break me, and I’d tell them about you.”
He glanced away from her.
“I wouldn’t have done that to you,” she whispered, and the words were the absolute truth. “I would have protected you.”
His gaze was directed just over her shoulder. He won’t look me in the eyes. “Nate!”
He jerked. “You don’t know what you’d do if the right pressure was applied. No one ever knows, not until it’s too late.”
She stepped toward him. “Is that what’s happening? Is someone applying pressure to you now?”
There were monitors to the right of Grant. Security feeds that showed different interior and exterior shots of the building. She saw Grant glance over at them.
A man had just appeared in the feed on the lower right.
“Detective Townsend is here,” Grant said with a slight roll of his shoulders. “Sullivan, go let him in.”
Sullivan gave a curt nod and slid from the room.
Nate laughed. “A cop? What’s a cop going to do? I haven’t broken any laws! He can’t do a thing to me!”
Brodie’s glittering stare raked Nate. “You’re working with the man after Jennifer. You already admitted that you called him.”
Only the guy pulling Nate’s strings must have realized that they weren’t falling for his trap. He hadn’t shown at the parking garage.
Nate’s mouth clamped closed. Then his lips twisted. “There a law against making a phone call?”
Brodie took a step toward him. Jennifer put her hand on Brodie’s arm, stopping him. Her gaze stayed focused on Nate. “Talk to me,” Jennifer told him. “Tell me how things got so twisted.”
Nate shook his head.
“You’re supposed to be married. You and Shelly...you were going to start a new life together. Settle down, forget everything that had passed before. You were going to be free. We both were.” Shelly had been one of their government handlers. She’d wanted out, too, and she’d retired from the business with Nate. Jennifer had thought those two were really in love.
His jaw hardened. “I’m not talking about Shelly.”
That knot in her stomach got worse. “What happened?”
No answer.
“Nate!” She wanted to grab him. Shake him. “Why would you sell me out?” Then she remembered what he’d said to her in that parking garage. I won’t die for you. “He came after you,” she whispered. “Did he come to kill you? Is that what happened? Did he track you down and try to kill you first?”
His eyelids flickered, and Jennifer knew she was right.
“It’s someone we put away, isn’t it? He blamed you, just like he blamed me. Only...he came after you first.”
Nate turned his attention to the shut office door. “The cop isn’t going to do anything to me.”
Her head tilted. “Where is Shelly?”
He flinched.
“Nate...where’s Shelly?”
The door opened. She turned her head. Saw a tall, broad-shouldered man with sandy-blond hair follow Sullivan into the room. A badge was clipped to the man’s belt. The guy took one look at the scene before him and froze.
“Please, please tell me there’s a reason that man is handcuffed.”
But Nate wasn’t looking his way. Nate’s head had sagged forward. “Shelly’s gone.”
Chill bumps rose on Jennifer’s arms.
“He wanted me to suffer. Said I deserved it because of what I’d done.” Nate’s breath heaved out. “There was a fire...”
Her hands gripped his shoulders. “Nate, you should have contacted me!”
He shook his head. “She was gone in an instant, and he said I’d be next...if I didn’t give him you.”
Her hands tightened on him. She needed him to look up at her. “That’s how he knew I was in New Orleans. You told him I was down there.”
“What is going on?” The detective demanded.
Jennifer’s gaze jerked toward him.
“This man—” Brodie glared at Nate “—is working with a killer. The man who set that Mustang to blow, the man who torched the Montgomery stables.”
Nate started to laugh. “The man who is going to kill Jennifer.”
Jennifer backed away from him.
“The hell he is,” Brodie said, voice lethal.
Nate cocked his head as he seemed to study Brodie. “Is your family worth her life? Because that’s what the choice is going to be. He won’t stop.”
“Who is he?” Jennifer asked. “Give me his name.”
Nate laughed. “You don’t even remember him. Neither did I at first. All the people we worked to put away, and he’s the one who comes gunning for us? Sure never saw that coming, not until it was too late.”
She needed the guy’s name. “His voice was familiar.”
“I think he was falling for you,” Nate said, nodding a bit. “Maybe that’s why he went off the deep end. He thought you were perfect...that you were going to be his...and then he realized you were stealing his secrets.”
Jennifer stiffened. And the pieces clicked for her. Because there had been only one man that she’d walked the line with during her years as an agent. One man that she’d thought, Maybe he’s innocent, but then the evidence had shown just how guilty he really was. Just how evil. Her blinders had come off just in time. “Stephen?” She barely breathed the name. Stephen Brushard.
Nate laughed again. “I’m dead now. You realize that, right?”
“Okay,” the detective barked, and he strode forward with sudden aggression. “We’re taking this downtown. We’re talking murders...espionage... This is going downtown.”
Brodie caught Jennifer’s arm. “Who’s Stephen?”
She opened her mouth to reply—
But Nate beat her to the punch. “Rich boy, psychotic killer.”
Jennifer wet her lips. “He was...he was the first case I worked. I was so scared. Didn’t even think I could pull off being...her.”
Brodie frowned at that.
“Stephen Brushard was an American businessman with suspected ties to the Russian mob. It was believed that he was providing them with drugs, with weapons, but on paper he seemed so clean.” On paper and in person. He’d been so charming, so caring. She’d never had a man like him show any interest in her. As Jenny Belmont, no one had been interested in anything about her.
Stephen had been different. He’d been her assignment, but Jennifer knew he’d become more. She’d even gone to Nate in those early days and told him that she thought they were after the wrong guy. Stephen had to be innocent.
No one’s innocent. Nate’s reply had been flat. You’ll learn that truth soon enough.
And with Stephen, she had.
“They always do look good on paper,” Nate muttered. “That’s what covers are for. Then you rip past those lies and you see that no one has clean hands. They’re all stained with blood.”
She pulled in a quick breath and kept her focus on Brodie. “Stephen took an interest in me. I...I got access to his computer. Personal files.” That was when she’d learned the truth about him. She’d actually thought those files might exonerate him, but...they’d just nailed the coffin shut on his case. She’d learned about the monster hiding behind the man’s face. “I found out about an upcoming drop. I tipped off our handlers, and Stephen was caught in the act.” And Prince Charming had been locked up.
Nate yanked at his cuffs once more. “Prisons in Russia aren’t exactly known as paradise.”
The US agents had been working with their Russian counterparts. The bust had gone down so easily—almost too easily. And she’d been out of the country even before the bust had been made. “Stephen shouldn’t have known I was the one involved.” They’d been so careful. Her gaze slid back toward Nate. “We both should have been covered.”
Nate shrugged—or shrugged as much as he could in those cuffs. “The guy was smart. He put the puzzle pieces together... Guess he had plenty of time to figure things out while he was rotting in that Russian cell.”
And now Stephen wanted her to suffer, just as he had.
“Our cover is blown,” Nate said grimly. “And even my supposed death couldn’t stop him from finding me.”
But it should have stopped Stephen. With his “death,” Nate had more protection than she’d been given. A new name, a new identity. Yet Stephen had found him. How? Did Stephen have government contacts? Sources that had turned on her and Nate?
Grant and Sullivan had been watching the interrogation in silence, but now Grant stepped forward. A frown had pulled his brows low. “You said you called him,” Grant said, “and we found your smashed phone right outside of the parking garage.”
Nate swallowed. “Stephen told me to get rid of the phone and
wait for him.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed on the man. “But you have his number. You called him.” A brief pause. “And you’re going to do it again.”
Frantically, Nate shook his head. “No way, that’s not happening. You think I’m going to set that guy up? After what he did to Shelly?”
“You should do it because of what he did to Shelly,” Jennifer nearly yelled at him. “Stephen has to be stopped!”
“Downtown,” Detective Shayne Townsend muttered again. “We are taking this mess downtown. Where are the handcuff keys?”
“He’s not leaving,” Brodie said, voice lethal, “not until he makes that call.” He stalked toward Nate, leaned forward until they were eye level. “You think this Stephen Brushard is scary? Wait until you have me and all of my brothers gunning for you.”
“You can’t say things like that!” the detective nearly shouted.
Brodie ignored him. “I’m betting you did some digging on me. On my family. You might even know about some of our missions.”
Nate’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
“You will make that call,” Brodie said, “or you’ll be dealing with us...and the hell that we will bring to you.”
Nate’s gaze flew to her. “Jennifer, come on. For old times’ sake, help me.”
Old times’ sake... Had he really just gone there? “You were going to let him kill me, weren’t you?” Not just her, though. In that garage, he’d been prepared to attack Brodie.
“Uh...” She could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out what lie to tell her.
“The old times are over.” She glared at him. “Now make the call.”
* * *
“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Are you thinking?” Detective Shayne Townsend demanded as he grabbed Brodie and hauled him into the hallway. “You can’t threaten to kill a man right in front of me! Damn it, does the badge I wear mean nothing to you McGuires anymore?”
Brodie sucked in a hard breath and held tightly to his control. “It still means something. That’s why we called you and didn’t just go after this killer, Stephen Brushard, on our own.”
Shayne yanked a hand through his hair. “What have I walked into here? Sullivan only gave me skeleton details...”