“This is a throwaway?”
“For all intents and purposes.”
“But you didn’t buy this at a convenience store.”
“No. A friend gave it to me.”
I touched the power button and watched as the phone displayed a collection of things that I’d never seen a phone do before. Then it asked for Luke’s thumbprint. He reached over and touched his thumb to the home button. A second later, the phone lit up and scrolled a personal message.
“Good morning, Luke.”
“Your phone knows you.”
He shrugged, turning his attention back to his food.
“Who made this for you?”
He glanced at me. “My friend, Edgar. He has a friend out there in California who helps him out with this sort of thing.”
“Edgar?”
He inclined his head. “The one who warned me about the massacre Garner was planning on our wedding day.”
The name sounded familiar to me, but I wasn’t sure why.
“Can I call Hayden on this?”
“Text messages only.”
I touched the phone icon as he spoke, but got the same message on the screen of the phone. I touched the messenger app and found myself looking at a series of messages between Luke and someone with the initials BT. The messages were about me, about the information Luke thought I’d stumbled over.
“You knew we’d unscrambled Emily’s notes?”
“I suspected.”
“How?”
“Because of the way you were acting. You wouldn’t have gone to Sam’s house unless you knew there was something there for you to see. Something important.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because it took you nearly a year to go through Peter’s things after his accident.”
He took the phone from my hand and pulled up a fresh page, inputting Hayden’s number himself.
“Talk to him.”
I took the phone back, hesitating a second. “You’re sure they can’t trace this?”
“They probably have a bug on his phone, but they won’t see these messages.”
“You’re sure.”
“Positive.”
I took a deep breath and composed a message.
“Hayden, it’s Megan. Lots to explain. Gather everyone, including family, and meet me at St. Michael’s church at nine.”
It was only a minute before the answer came.
“Dante’s house swarming with cops. Same with Dragon office. Moved loved ones to hotels.”
I showed the message to Luke. He inclined his head slightly.
“Garner works fast. At least Hayden was on the ball.”
“He always is.”
I typed again, sending Hayden this message:
“Stay safe. See you soon.”
When I was done, I held the phone in my hands, studying the screen, the case. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Before I could figure it out, Luke snatched it out of my hand and slipped it into his pocket.
“Finish eating. We need to move on.”
We drove back into the heart of Houston, driving slowly past Dragon’s offices. There was nothing happening at the moment, but the lights were off. It was pretty obvious it was closed down for the time being. I remembered Sam’s insistence that the business continue to thrive, that it become my main focus. I felt as though I was letting her down in a way. But this was temporary. When we took these people down…
Luke pulled into the lot of a small, mom-and-pop sort of motel. He paid for a room with cash and led the way inside.
“We need sleep.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I fell onto the bed, kicked my shoes off, and I was gone in an instant.
***
Memories of Dante played over and over in my mind, warped and fevered in my dreams:
The first time I met him:
“The new candidates are waiting.”
I looked up, distracted by the report on my computer. Dominic just finished a case involving some guy who thought he could use his employer’s plane to smuggle drugs in and out of the country. I was reading the report, wondering what trouble Dominic might be in this time.
“Okay.” I slowly stood, switching off the monitor. “How many?”
“Four today. Two were in the Marines, one was a SEAL, and one worked for the New York Police Department for five years.”
She handed me four file folders with names and pictures clipped to the front. Two stuck out to me right off the bat. Marcus Hanson. He was one of the Marines, active around the same time Cole was in the service. The other was Dante Saladin.
“What kind of name is Dante Saladin?” I asked as I walked into the breakroom where Sam had stashed him, the first of the potential candidates. “Your mom a fan of Dante’s Inferno or something?”
“Something like that.”
My head jerked up at the sound of his voice. It was deep, but silky, very much like Luke’s voice had been. But this man looked nothing like my missing fiancé. He was just as tall, just as dark. His hair was a longish black that curled at his collar and his eyes were a caramel brown that seemed to sparkle in the fluorescent lights. But his jaw was a little wider, his chin heavier. And his nose was narrower.
Not Luke. But the voice was almost too much to bear.
Dante Saladin.
Dante’s Inferno.
It was something of a joke between Luke and me. We read it in high school together because he had to do it for English class, but he didn’t understand any of it. But when we read it together…
Saladin was a character in the story, a Kurdish leader of the Islamic army.
Luke had a quote from Dante’s Inferno on his chest...
The first time we were together:
I yanked the door open and nearly fell over as much from the sight of Dante filling my doorway as from the excess of wine I’d drunk.
“What do you want?” I asked, forming my words carefully so he wouldn’t hear the drunkenness.
“I just wanted to check in and let you know we got the stolen car taken care of.”
“Good.”
I started to close the door, but Dante put his arm up, forcing it back.
“You okay?”
“Peachy. You?”
He studied my face for a long moment. “You’ve been drinking.”
I turned, pointedly looking at the bottle of wine on the coffee table. “Brilliant deduction.”
He walked into my house, striding across the room like he had every right to be there. He’d done that the last time he’d stopped unexpectedly at my house, offering to have his former buddies in the NYPD run an accident analysis on my brother’s accident.
That ended badly.
“You shouldn’t drink alone.”
“Is that your way of asking for a glass?”
“It’s not healthy, Megan. People who drink alone are just trying to bury emotion that should come out in other, healthier ways.”
“If you’re worried that I’m not going to show up on Friday to sign your paycheck, don’t worry. I only drink enough to help me sleep.”
He lifted the bottle off the table, tipping it over to show how empty it was.
“It takes a whole bottle?”
“Better than a whole bottle of pills.”
His eyes narrowed. I just shook my head, ignoring him as I resumed my seat on the couch and turned my show back on.
“It’s really none of your business, you know,” I said without looking at him. “I’m your boss. I get to judge your behavior, but you don’t get to judge mine.”
“Who judges yours?”
“God.” I leaned forward, partially aware that I was exposing the top of my bare breasts to him and not really caring. “You should go. Don’t want to do or say something that might leave us both embarrassed tomorrow.”
“I think we’re beyond that.”
There was something about the way he said that
that made thoughts of Luke suddenly explode in my head. It shook me a little, especially when I looked up and found myself staring right into his dark eyes, eyes that were nearly the same color as Luke’s. No. The same color as Luke’s.
“Go home.” I jumped to my feet. “It’s all done now. We’ve wrapped up most of our cases. Dominic’s back and safe, and that other little thing…the computer virus sort of left us high and dry on that. So there’s nothing more to do. Go home.”
“I can’t leave you like this.”
I laughed. “Do you know how many nights I’ve spent this way in the last two years? I think I can handle myself.”
“It’s not like you to use a crutch.”
“What do you know about me? You’ve known me all of, what, two months? You don’t know shit about me. You don’t know what my life is.”
“No,” he said slowly, his eyes falling to the floor briefly. But then they were back on my face, filled with emotion that made it impossible for me to breath.
He approached me and…I don’t know how it happened. I could make up lots of excuses, find lots of reasons—the alcohol made my inhibitions disappear, the lateness of the hour and my disappointment over the computer virus left me feeling vulnerable, the basic attraction between us was simply too much to deny—but in the moment, there were no excuses. Just need bursting to the surface after having been pushed down for far too long.
My arms were around his neck and his were around my waist. Our tongues were dancing a dance more primitive than fire, the tip of his touching me in places that hadn’t been touched since Luke. I’d never been with anyone but Luke, yet this felt so familiar that I could almost make myself believe Luke had finally come back to me.
And then the many moments I tried to convince myself that it was nothing, just a mature, adult arrangement:
“We can’t keep doing this.”
“Why not?”
“Because you work for me.”
He nibbled my throat. “So?”
“It’s not ethical.”
“So?”
“What if someone found out? They’d all think I was showing you favoritism.”
“Aren’t you?”
“And if it ended, would you accuse me of sexual harassment?”
“Do I look like that kind of guy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know you that well.”
He slid past my clit, spreading my lips with just the width of his long finger. I closed my eyes, moving my hips back against him as he pressed forward against me, his cock sliding between my thighs. I groaned, reaching down to push his hand tighter against me, grinding my clit against the base of his hand. He kissed my jaw, his lips sliding slowly up to the bottom edge of my ear.
“I want you.” He nibbled at my earlobe a little. “I know you want me. Nothing else really matters.”
“Why do you want me?”
He made a sound that was something between a chuckle and a moan. “Have you ever looked in a mirror? You’re a fucking sexy woman.”
“I don’t love you. You know that, right? This won’t ever become more than this.”
His movements stopped, his hand stilling between my legs. I felt tension in his body, but then he relaxed, molding his body around mine again.
“Maybe this is all I want.”
“Is it? Can you be satisfied with just this?”
He was quiet for a long minute. “I know about Luke,” he said, his voice doing something funny when he said the name of my former fiancé. “I’d have to have my head in the sand not to know about him. I know you still love him, and that you still hope he’ll return. I get that.”
“Yeah?”
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach; this man, this new lover, was giving voice to Luke’s name. It didn’t seem right that he would know it, let alone speak it. But he was right. Everyone at Dragon knew about Luke.
“I get you, Megan,” Dante said against my ear. “I’m here as long as you need me. And I’ll be gone the moment you ask.”
All these memories played through my mind as I slept restlessly. When I finally woke, they were still there, clearer than they had ever been.
I knew. From that first moment, I knew he was Luke. The evidence was there. His voice. His eyes. He’d grown out his hair, but it was the same hair. Even the name he chose…I’d known all along. My heart just couldn’t convince my mind.
I rolled onto my side and watched him sleep, noticing how sleep relaxed his features and made them seem even more artificial than they’d seemed before. Why was it that Sam figured it out before I did? Why hadn’t it finally sunk in when I saw that the same nursing home that Luke’s mother lived in was calling Dante? Why hadn’t it sunk in the first time he touched me? Why didn’t I realize it the first time I heard his voice?
What kind of a person was I that I didn’t recognize the love of my life the moment he walked back into my life? Was I too afraid? Was I not in love with him enough anymore?
Or was it just fear?
I’d lost so much by the time Dante came into my life. I’d lost Luke and all the dreams we’d had. I’d lost my brother Peter. I’d lost the things that anchored me to this world. All I had left was my business and my best friend. Then there was Sam…if she hadn’t gotten sick and begun to drift away from me, would I have seen it?
I touched the side of his face and ran my finger over the implants that made his jaw wider, wondering about what he’d endured to protect me—all the pain, both physical and emotional. And I, so ungrateful, had pushed him away, trying to make things right but turning on the one person I should have been running toward.
It was my turn to endure a little and make this right. I needed to put myself out there for the people I loved this time.
I climbed out of the bed and snuck his phone out of his pocket.
I knew exactly whom we needed to contact to fix this. I’d made friends in Afghanistan during my time there. And not all of them were above doing a favor like this.
I would fix this if it was the last thing I did.
Chapter 13
Hayden
There was no number. I had never gotten a text message before that didn’t have a number attached to it. But these messages from Megan had no number. I was able to text her back immediately after receiving her messages, but when I tried later, it came back with an error message.
What the hell?
I’d seen a lot of odd things when I was with the SEALs. But this was the oddest.
Dominic moved Amy to a no-tell motel, then joined me in collecting up everyone else. We’d already sort of figured that our phones were compromised. At the very least, whoever was after Megan and Dante would be able to use the GPS, so we’d gotten rid of all but mine. We only kept mine so that Megan could check in again, but I turned it off when I wasn’t using it.
Megan’s parents weren’t happy, but they agreed to go to the same hotel where Cole had his family holed up. Marcus’ girl, Cadence, was struggling with morning sickness, so she wasn’t terribly thrilled to be moved away from the comforts of her home. And Vincent’s girl had a daughter who’d already gone through a stalker situation, so she wasn’t thrilled, either. But they all did as we asked, checking into hotels with cash so that they wouldn’t be easily contacted.
All we had to do now was wait.
I was never very good at waiting.
I went back to Sam’s. I hadn’t been inside the condo since the day she died until Megan called yesterday and asked Dominic and me to meet her there. I thought it would be okay, being there with two other people. But it wasn’t. I had to shove all these feelings down and pretend that it didn’t hurt worse than a bullet to the belly to stand in those rooms without Sam there. Everywhere I looked, I could see her face, see her smiling at me.
I walked slowly through the living room, remembering the first time I’d seen her fully naked. I could almost see the shame burning on her face as she tried to deny me what I wanted. But it slowly disappeared as she saw the ne
ed in my eyes. She had never been wanted like she'd been when I looked at her. It was a shame, really. She was a beautiful woman who deserved to be worshipped. If her mother hadn’t been such a cunt…but, again, if she’d been worshipped the way she deserved, she might never have taken the time to be with a man like me.
It was funny how life worked. There were so many probabilities that it was a miracle anyone ever found their soulmate and the happiness they deserved.
I missed her. I missed the future we could have, and should have, had together. But I was so intensely grateful for what little time we had that it kept me from falling into the dark abyss of anger and grief and pain that I was standing on the edge of. I loved her. And she loved me.
She loved me.
I held that close to me and it kept me warm. It kept me in the light.
Someone as wonderful as Sam loved me. That was really something.
I sighed as I sat in her chair and studied files that meant little to me on her computer. But then I found this audio file…
Chapter 14
Megan
We showered together, a long, slow soak in the surprisingly clean motel bathtub, our hands wandering to places they’d already been so many times—familiar places that still ached for that touch despite strong knowledge of it.
I big part of me just wanted to curl up there for the rest of my life, to stay in this little haven and forget about the rest of the world. But whenever that thought crossed my mind, I thought of the warnings Luke had made, the dangers that existed out there for my family and my friends.
We had to fix this before we could lose ourselves.
I could feel him watching me as we dressed.
“The scars…they’ve lessened.”
I looked up. He was studying the thin, white line of scar tissue that crossed my right hip. I glanced at it, the memory of that day always right there on the edge of my thoughts.
I was a Marine. I was with a unit in Afghanistan assigned to a little village on the edge of known Taliban territory. I was walking the perimeter of a farm early one morning, distracted by some kids playing just outside the fence. They were about eight or nine years old, three kids playing with a small ball they’d found somewhere. I knew better than to let myself get distracted, but there was something about one of the smaller kids that reminded me of Cole. I don’t know what it was. Maybe because he was so small, yet he was giving hell to the other kids, taking the ball and running with it more than the others. I remember calling out to him, cheering him on.
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