“And why were you looking into Cortez?” Alec asked.
“Because I was doing a job for Knight,” I answered, thinking that was pretty obvious. “Don’t you people talk to each other?”
“Fucking Knight,” Hunter growled. “It figures that he’s involved in this.”
“Yeah, well, he tracked me down and practically begged me to do his dirty work for him.”
“What did he promise you?” Hunter asked.
I sighed and leaned back against the table. “He said that Cap could put forth a recommendation on my case.”
“You mean your DD?” Hunter surmised.
“Yeah. Not that it fucking matters now. The woman took off with the information I needed. Well, I assume she has the information.”
“Well, Knight’s hunting her down as we speak,” Florrie smirked. “He’s gonna beat her ass when he finds her.”
“Why?”
“Because she rammed her car into his wife’s to escape the property.”
I shook my head in disbelief. It shouldn’t shock me, but somehow, I was fucking surprised that she had the balls to do that. “Even I knew the first time I looked at Knight that he wasn’t someone you fucked with.”
“Yeah, well, she has him searching all over the fucking place for her. She screwed up big time when she ran.”
I stood from the bed, ignoring the pull in my side, and pulled the shirt over my head. When I looked down, I sighed at the large hole in my shirt and the dried blood that made me look like something out of a murder scene. I tore the shirt over my head and took the one that Alec held out to me in his hand. After pulling it over my head, I moved toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Hunter asked.
“To find Knight. I have to stop him from killing the woman.”
“Why would you do that?” Alec asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure. The woman beat my ass, threw me through a window, and ran out of here when she should have stuck around. I didn’t owe Knight shit, but part of me felt responsible for what happened. I was the one that brought her here, and now I had to make sure that Knight didn’t kill her, and that he got the information he had been after to begin with.
“Call me crazy, but I don’t want her death on my conscience.”
“It’s your funeral,” Gabe said, stepping away from the door to let me through.
I felt someone behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Hunter was walking behind. “Is there a reason you’re following me?”
“Yeah, I don’t want Knight to end up dead.”
“And what makes you think that would happen?”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Normally, I wouldn’t think anyone could get to Knight. But then again, I’ve never seen a woman throw a grown man through a window.”
I sighed as we stepped up to the elevator. “Why do I have a feeling that’s going to be written on my gravestone?”
We made our way upstairs and into a conference room where Knight and Cap were arguing. Cap turned to me, his eyes flicking to my wound and then back to my face. “I’m kind of glad you decided not to join our team.”
“Why?” I asked curiously.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Knight asked. “You got your ass handed to you.”
I rolled my eyes, irritated that this was brought up again. I knew I would never live this down. I needed to just get the damn information back and get the fuck out of here. I would go back to living my sad existence, but at least I wouldn’t have to listen to this bullshit anymore.
“Look, it’s not like I got taken down by a four year old. The woman is trained by the fucking FBI, and if I had to guess, she knew what the hell she was doing long before she ever entered the academy.”
“Military?” Cap asked.
“No,” Hunter cut in. “She said she wasn’t, but she did fail to mention her name. Not sure how she knew your name and how to get here, but you didn’t think to get her name,” he said accusingly.
“I had been thrown through a fucking window. I was bleeding out.”
“You had a minor cut,” he scoffed.
“I had glass sticking out of my side,” I said incredulously.
“Yeah, around here we call that a cut,” Knight said. “If you don’t pass out immediately from blood loss, you pick up your shit and move on with the job.”
“You guys are not gonna believe this,” a guy said, storming into the room. Whoever he was, he wasn’t military, that much was clear.
“Ryan, what’s going on?” Cap asked.
“So, I was driving down the road, minding my own fucking business when I see this woman walking on the side of the road. So, I pull over to ask if she needs a ride, and she fucking snaps at me!”
“Because you offered her a ride?” Hunter asked.
“Right? Seriously, what is wrong with people nowadays. She pulled a fucking gun on me all because I was trying to help her.”
“What road was this on?” I asked curiously.
“Cemetery Road. Why? Are you in the mood to get bitched out?” Ryan asked.
I glared at Knight, who apparently was thinking the same thing I was. But why would Blake be walking down the road?
“Anyway, do you guys know where Lola is? She said she was going to be home an hour ago and I haven’t heard anything yet.”
“She’s in the training center,” Knight responded distractedly. I saw him pull out his phone and shoot off a text before returning to the conversation. Ryan walked out in search of his wife, leaving us alone again.
“Back to the job at hand, how is it that you didn’t get the information?” Knight asked.
“What I want to know is why you had Parker doing a job for you. Since when do you hand out jobs, Knight?” Cap asked.
I saw his jaw tighten in response. He didn’t want to give away anything yet, but if we had any hope of finding out what the fuck was going on, we needed to know what he knew.
Knight turned to me, his eyes hard and unforgiving. “I’m about to tell you shit that you don’t repeat to anyone. If I find out that you have told anyone, even under the worst form of torture, I’ll hunt you down and kill you. And then I’ll fucking revive you and kill you again. Got it?”
I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. I was in the military. I knew all about keeping secrets. “Just say it’s confidential, asshole.”
“A little over a year ago, we had a kid that came to stay here. He was a runaway, hiding out from his step-father. That step-father turned out to be someone I happened to be acquainted with. He wasn’t at all a good man, and I knew personally that he was involved in many soldiers losing their lives due to false intel.”
Something niggled in my brain, like I had heard that story before. I thought back over the years and tried to piece shit together, but all I could come up with was a story that was way before my time in the military. And most people in the military thought it was legend more than actual facts. The story was just too unbelievable.
“How was he involved?” I asked.
“There were certain people, higher ups, that were taking bribes to hand out false intel. This guy was just on the edge of it all. He was still new enough that he wasn’t as deeply involved, but he had his fingers in the pie. Soldiers were dying left and right, and these guys didn’t care. They were just in it to make money.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out where he was going with this. “You knew the senator was dirty. So, what happened to him?”
“Someone broke into his house and killed him,” he said coldly.
I wasn’t buying that. The way he was so relaxed, like he didn’t give a shit that someone had killed a senator, not that I had any sad feelings about the whole thing, but most people didn’t wish death on anyone else. He was too calm. Too okay with everything, and I had a sinking feeling that was because he was behind the senator’s demise. The question was, did he hire someone to take the senator out, like he had hired me, or had he done it himself? Most likely he had done it himself
. Knight seemed like the type of man that took care of the bad shit on his own. I glanced around the room at Hunter and Cap, who stood there stoically, not letting on to a single fucking thing. And that right there was my answer.
“So, you were pissed about something the senator had done, and you killed him. Why?”
“I never said I killed him.”
“No, but they did. I can see it, the way they stand by and don’t say anything, like they aren’t going to give away a secret that they’re trying desperately to protect.” I tilted my head as I examined his facial features closely, the slight tick in his jaw, the way his body was strung tight, even though he was really good at disguising it. He was on edge just talking about this conversation and it bled deeper than just this one senator. He was pissed about the entire situation, like he had a stake in it. This went deeper than just the actions of a few people. He knew the men that died. He had fought alongside them. He was one of them.
I thought back to the stories I had heard and tried to remember all the details of the case. There had been a lot of soldiers’ deaths. Men were going out and they were coming back in body bags. The missions had seemed on point. Everything had pointed to the intel as being solid, until the guys went out and were ambushed.
I smirked slightly as the pieces started coming together. “There was a rumor that one man took the law into his own hands and started eliminating the people responsible for the bad intel. Of course, the military said that the man had lost his mind, had gone on a killing spree because of some fucked up notion that men were being killed for money. They caught the man and found him guilty on multiple counts of murder. That man was supposed to be sent to prison, but someone broke him out. Actually, I believe it was a team of three men. Now, if you believe the stories, that man died a few years back, about the same time that I was entering the military. Apparently, he was killed after he came back to finish off a few of the men he missed the first time he went on a killing spree.”
“What’s your point?” Knight asked.
I shook my head, laughing to myself. If this was the same man, it all made total sense. Knight had admitted that Cap had gotten him a new identity so that he could have a life with his new wife. He was working for a company that could protect him, keep his identity a secret by only having him work in training. And he lived on the property, which kept him out of the public eye. But if that was true, then everyone in the company was in on it. They had to know who he really was, because they would have to agree to protect him.
“You did a good job of hiding. The real question is what were you doing all those years between breaking out of prison and faking your death?”
His jaw ticked and I knew that I was right. No one admitted it, but they didn’t have to.
“So, that’s why you’re so willing to help me. You’re a crusader, fighting against the people that would screw over the good guys. And when you found out that all those people not only knew about soldiers dying for profit, but they were in on it, you decided that you would take care of it yourself. And that’s why you’re offering to help me, because you know that I was royally fucked over.”
“I don’t know that,” Hunter shrugged. “Just thought I’d point that out.”
I turned to him and grinned. “And you’re very protective of Knight. Maybe a little too protective. What’s your stake in all this?”
Hunter didn’t say anything, his whole body hard and rigid. He had skin in the game with Knight, but I wasn’t sure how yet.
“And you all said nothing when Knight killed a senator. That’s some true loyalty. But the question is, why? Why would all of you do nothing when he killed someone in cold blood all these years later?”
“I think that’s enough show and tell for now,” Cap grumbled.
“No, I think I have a right to know. Knight dragged me into this fucked up situation.”
“You don’t work for us,” Cap reminded me.
“No, but he dragged me into a situation that could easily get me in trouble with the law, something that I can’t afford right now. So, why don’t you tell me why the fuck I should not only ignore all the shit I know, but also help you retrieve that information from the FBI agent. Because I know that if you found something out about this Senator Cortez, and you want it that badly, it has to be linked to this other senator.”
“You don’t know shit,” Knight snapped. “You can spin as many stories as you want, but that doesn’t make them true. I asked you to do a job, and you fucking failed. Now, you’re either in this with us or you can fuck off.”
None of them were going to budge an inch, but neither was I. Lies were what got me a dishonorable discharge from the military, and there was no fucking way I was putting myself in another position where people would lie to me and get me in deep shit. If they couldn’t be honest with me, I was out of here.
“You know what? I think I’ll pass. I’ve been brought down by lies already and I’m not going there again. Whatever you’re looking for, find it on your own.”
I turned on my heel and headed for the door. I was pissed. I thought for just a second that I had a chance to get my life back, but it was clear that whatever Knight had going on, he was keeping it to himself. And people that had their own agenda were dangerous, because they only looked out for number one. Someone in reception led me down to the parking garage and showed me to my truck. I got in and headed for the exit, trying to figure out where I went from here. I still had a boxing career, if you could call it that. It wasn’t much, but it was better than being lied to.
I drove out of town, headed back to Pittsburgh. I was fucking pissed that once again I had been used. And with the injury that I got being thrown through the fucking window, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get in the ring anytime soon. I needed to heal up first or I would lose my next fight. Which meant that for the next few weeks, I needed to rest up and let myself heal.
I drove past a group of trees with a small dirt road and glanced to see where it headed. A car was parked in the trees, and if I wasn’t mistaken, that car looked awfully familiar. I slammed on the brakes, the dust kicking up behind me in a cloud, and backed up to the dirt road. I checked the crossroads sign, and sure enough, I was on Cemetery Road. This had to be Blake’s car. I pulled down the road and drove up slowly, just in case my mystery woman was in there and ready to pull a gun on me. But when I got out, I had a feeling that she was long gone. The inside of her car was clean, a little too clean, which meant she wiped it down to leave no trace behind. Heading back to my truck, I thought about where she could go from here, but there was only one logical place she went- back into town. Pittsburgh was too far to walk on foot in the middle of the night. And if she ran from the FBI, she wasn’t stupid enough to call anyone she knew for help. They would be tracking anyone she would contact.
I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to make up my mind what to do. I shouldn’t go after her. It wasn’t any of my business. Besides, if Knight caught up with her, that was on her. She drove her car into his wife’s. She’d be lucky if he let her walk away when he found her. And he would find her. Whatever information she had, he wanted it. No, he needed it. He wouldn’t go after it unless he felt that there was something bigger going on. And now that I knew what a prick he was, I wanted to be the one to find her and make sure that whatever she had, she was protecting herself. She had no clue who he was, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to end up dead.
I turned around and headed back for the main road. I glanced right, back toward my apartment and Pittsburgh. Then I glanced left, back to town. If I turned left, I could be getting myself into so much fucking trouble, something that could potentially land my ass in jail for the rest of my life. But she had pushed me through a window, and as a man, I just couldn’t let it go down in history that a woman had kicked my ass. I turned fucking left.
Chapter Nine
Blake
I dug through the files some more, but it was all gibberish to me. I knew th
ey were accounts and transfers, but I couldn’t follow the trail. I had been working on this all day, and nothing made sense to me. There was so much I was missing, and this little bit of information wasn’t telling me anything. I picked up the key off the bed and started researching what type of key it could be. Turns out, it was a very popular safety deposit key that could literally belong to any fucking bank in America.
I slammed the lid of my laptop closed and flopped back on the bed with a sigh. I didn’t know where to go from here. Without more information, I couldn’t move forward, but I knew it was important or my boss wouldn’t have told me to back off. He wouldn’t be hunting me down right now unless he knew I would catch on to something eventually. But I didn’t know where to look. I needed an account specialist or something so that I had at least a person or a company to look into.
Sighing, I sat up from my bed and decided to visit the ladies downstairs. Maybe I could find out some more information on the company. There might be someone that the company contracted with that could help me out. I rounded the staircase, going down the last set of stairs when the front door opened and none other than Parker himself walked in. I froze, unable to move as my heart picked up at the sight of him. He was so fucking sexy, but he was also deadly, and if he was here, it meant that he was after me. His eyes flicked up to mine, then glanced away before coming back to mine with a screeching halt. A slow grin spread across his face, and I knew I was screwed. I spun around, running up the stairs even though I knew that he was right on my heels. With my ankle still hurting there was no way I could outrun him. If I could just get to my room, maybe I could keep him out. He wouldn’t break into someone’s room at a bed and breakfast, right?
I pushed my door open and turned to shove it closed, but his arms shot in, blocking me from closing it all the way. I pulled back and slammed the door against his arm. He let out a loud shout and then pulled his arm back, right before slamming his shoulder into the door and pushing me back. I flew back on my ass as he stormed into the room, his eyes taking me in like prey. I scrambled backwards, moving quickly until my ass was against the wall and I had nowhere to go. He stalked toward me, running his tongue lightly along his lower lip as he moved. I saw blood seeping through his shirt where he had been wounded last night and made my decision.
Parker: A Reed Security Romance Page 7