The Lost (Sin Hunters)

by Piñeiro, Caridad

  “I’m sure you can, judging from what I saw this afternoon. But my father raised me to be a gentleman.”

  She hugged him hard and said, “I appreciate the offer, but I need my car in the morning.”

  “I’ll make arrangements so it will be there first thing,” he said. She recognized that he was determined, and in a way, she kind of liked it. It was nice to have someone who cared. With a dip of her head and a playful shake of his hand, she accepted his kindness.

  He smiled, a broad and relaxed grin with a playful dimple that only made him even more handsome and caused a hitch in her heartbeat.

  “Let me get a shirt and keys,” he said. He rushed upstairs and loped back down the steps, shrugging on a pale blue polo shirt that brought out hints of teal in his eyes and hugged the muscles of his upper body. Then they walked hand in hand toward the kitchen. At the far end, by a door that must lead to the garage, his keys sat on the counter.

  He snatched them up as they walked out into the space where the Bentley sat, bright, shiny, and almost red.

  “Nice car,” she said as he walked her to the passenger side.

  “It’s a sweet ride,” he replied, dragging a chuckle from her and causing him to raise an eyebrow in question.

  “A family joke. Let’s just say, it’s comforting to know that you’re actually human despite the money.”

  He arched up the other eyebrow. “Is that a problem for you? The money?”

  Facing him, she ran her hand along the side of his head, smoothing down an errant spike of sun-bleached hair. “It is if you’re not a nice guy.”

  He narrowed his gaze and examined her. “Am I a nice guy?”

  Bobbie shook her head and chuckled. “So far, Adam. Only time will tell.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  Nobody fucked with Salvatore Bruno. Not the assorted slime balls he had dealt with as a Texas Ranger. Not the overseas mobsters whom he had infiltrated in his first stints in his special CIA unit. Not even the other people in his group who had come to understand he could be one badass motherfucker if they messed with one of his investigations.

  As he paced back and forth in his bedroom, he contemplated why Alexander had decided that it would be better to snag Adam on his own rather than continue with their plan. Up until tonight, Salvatore had thought that they were all in agreement that it made more sense for Salvatore to introduce Adam to a potential mate and eventually reintegrate him with his people to advance the Genesis project.

  He had thought that both Alexander Sombrosa and he were on board—that this was one time finesse would work better than force.

  Given Sombrosa’s apparent double cross, Salvatore had obviously been mistaken. Which meant that he had to watch not only Adam’s back, but his own. He didn’t put it above Sombrosa to attempt to eliminate him so that he could do what he pleased with Adam.

  To safeguard himself and Genesis, Salvatore needed more information about what had transpired that afternoon so he could set his trap for Sombrosa. Since Adam had mentioned that the incident had happened in the SolTerra parking lot, Salvatore used a back door that he had implanted to access the company’s network. He quickly found the security videos and reclined in his chair as he fast-forwarded through the day’s recordings until he got to the section that showed the attack.

  Via the silent color videos, he observed as Adam and Bobbie fought off the two attackers who had emerged from the nondescript van. He snapped off screen prints of the two men. As he did so, it occurred to him that one of them seemed familiar, but Salvatore had a hard time matching the face to anyone he had met in Alexander’s cadre. Maybe Sombrosa hadn’t been involved in the attempt.

  Was the man familiar because he was from an old case? he thought and printed out the photo so he could study the man’s face more carefully. Grabbing the photo, he rose and poured himself a scotch on the rocks. He took a long, slow sip, and the warmth of the alcohol traveled down his throat as he returned to his desk, his eyes glued to the photo. Something about the man’s face continued to drag worrisomely on his memory.

  With a quicker, almost impatient swig of the scotch, he paced, alternating the sips of scotch with a swirl of the ice and liquor in the glass while he searched his brain for a clue.

  Suddenly it came to him.

  “Shit,” he said, and slammed the almost empty glass on his desk. He unlocked the side drawers on his desk and pulled out his files, which included a highly classified National Security Association archive available to only a chosen few. He was one of the select individuals with high enough security clearance, in light of his participation in his clandestine CIA team, a team that had been involved in this particular NSA mission because of the peculiarity of the crimes.

  Opening the file, he flipped through the papers and cursed once again when he confirmed why the attacker looked familiar. Twenty years earlier the man had been a prime suspect in one of Salvatore’s cases when he had been with the Texas Rangers, a twenty-year-old case involving a series of mysterious murders in the South Texas desert.

  Twenty years, Salvatore thought, and tossed back the remainder of the scotch.

  Sombrosa had to be involved in the attack. Why else would there be a link to the case in which he had taken Adam from his people? Anger returned at Sombrosa’s duplicity, but Salvatore knew he had to keep a cool head. Sombrosa would be furious that his men had failed. If they were still alive—he suspected Alexander dealt harshly with failure—plans were probably already underway for another attack.

  Sombrosa would also likely be playing it cool, waiting for a call from Salvatore with a report on his matchmaking progress. Salvatore wasn’t going to disappoint him. As long as Sombrosa thought he was clear of suspicion, Salvatore was one up on him.

  Dialing, Salvatore baited the trap, nonchalantly advising Sombrosa that he was still working on setting up the date with Maya and earning a rather offhanded reminder from his supposed partner that time was running out. The reply wasn’t unexpected, but its too-blasé tone bothered him.

  Not even Sombrosa could be that good a liar, could he? Salvatore wondered.

  Before Sombrosa’s duplicity, Salvatore had been determined to arrange for Adam’s peaceful return to his Hunter clan and the commencement of Genesis. Now another objective would take priority: determining whether Sombrosa was behind the attempted kidnapping. If he was, there was no way Salvatore would trust Sombrosa with both his son and his precious project.

  As Adam drove her home, Bobbie kept vigilant for anything unusual, but it was a quiet and uneventful ride to her condo. Adam eased into a spot by her front door and killed the engine, seeming hesitant to leave.

  In truth, she wasn’t in such a rush for him to go. He fascinated her, and not because of his powers. Possibly in spite of them. She was more interested in finding out about the lonely boy who had grown up into such a seemingly confident and successful man. But then again, adversity often bred strength. She had seen it in the Marines. She had lived it.

  “Would you like to come up?” she said, at the same time that he asked, “Can you do lunch tomorrow?”

  They both smiled, and because she realized it made sense to sleep on their attraction and take a step back from what had transpired that day, she quickly replied, “I’d love to have lunch.”

  His smile broadened and a playful dimple emerged on the right side of his face. “I’ve never eaten at your family’s place.”

  Although she loved her family, she thought about all the conjecture that would occur if she brought in a man. The last time she had done so it had been Gil, at a time when they thought their relationship would lead somewhere. It hadn’t, and she wasn’t sure if whatever was going on between her and Adam would lead anywhere, either. Because of that she said, “Unless you want a replay of the Spanish Inquisition, we might be better off going somewhere else.”

  “How about I pick you up at twelve and then we can decide where to go?”

  She nodded and opened the passenger door,
hesitating, but he quickly put an end to her doubt about how to end the night.

  Leaning over, he whispered his lips against hers, the kiss filled with possibilities rather than the unbridled passion of before.

  It still managed to curl her toes.

  “Number 301,” she said with a shaky caress of her hand along his cheek, and forced herself to leave the cockpit of the car.

  Adam watched her enter the building and immediately felt her absence, almost as if she was a part of him that had been missing and suddenly found. Ridiculous, he thought. It was just an overreaction to spending too much time working and not enough time with the right kind of women. But as he pulled away from the curb, he couldn’t deny that Bobbie was just that—the right kind of woman.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Bobbie had awoken to a beautiful spring day. The cloudless sky was a brilliant cerulean blue, and a refreshing breeze off the ocean had blown away the heat and humidity from the day before. It was too beautiful a day to spend inside.

  Bolstered by the renewed strength in her arm and hand, she had taken a long stroll along the boardwalk, enjoying the solitude of the early morning. She pushed herself as long as she could before heading back for a wickedly steamy shower that melted any achiness from her body but only added to the excitement of seeing Adam as she recalled his kisses and imagined where they might lead.

  He rang her bell precisely at twelve and she tamped down the rush of eagerness as she advised over the intercom, “I’ll be there in a second.”

  She hurried down in the elevator and out the door to find him leaning against the bumper of his car. The Bentley gleamed in the bright spring sun, but so did he, she realized. An intense aura of deep royal blue shot through with bits of silver and red limned his body. His eyes had gone from that amazing rain-forest green to an almost neon shade.

  She approached him, and as she grabbed hold of his hand, the hum of his power greeted her. Glancing down, she noticed a pale blue surrounding her own hand—the aura he had mentioned the night before. Rising on tiptoe to brush a quick kiss across his lips, she playfully whispered, “Does this mean you’re glad to see me?”

  He left no doubt about that as he encircled her waist with his arm, dragged her close, and kissed her. Warmth and power washed over her, immediately dragging forth intense desire. Almost unable to control herself, she rubbed her hips across the erection nestled tight to her belly.

  A low growl erupted from him, rumbling through her body. The vibration strummed the parts of her that were already aching for more. With a shaky exhalation, she put some needed distance between them and said, “How about we walk to lunch?”

  He grinned and said, “I think that’ll give us time to cool off.”

  Although Bobbie suspected an Arctic nor’easter wouldn’t do the trick, she nodded, grateful that he hadn’t questioned her ability to do the walk. She was tired of being coddled all the time.

  Holding hands, they pushed away from the car, and as they did so, she said, “I can see it this time. Your aura and part of mine.” She glanced down at their joined hands to emphasize her point.

  With a measured breath, Adam said, “Emotion makes me lose control.”

  A second later she could feel him reining his power back in, and the glow that had surrounded him disappeared, as did the weaker shimmer of her aura at their hands. With that, some of the intense need within her abated as well, and in a way she was thankful. She wanted to get to know him better without the specter of need interfering.

  Adam breathed a relieved sigh as he gauged that his power was back where it should be, nestled deep inside him and not visible to Bobbie or anyone else. He hadn’t realized just how much being with her could affect him. Restraining the power had also tamed the need that had been ravaging his insides from the moment he had laid eyes on her. He supposed that was a good thing, since he didn’t want to be a powder keg with a short fuse, ready to blow the moment she touched him.

  And she would touch him. Make love to him. He was sure of that, because there was just too much attraction for it not to happen. It was only a question of having it occur when the time was right and not before.

  For now, as they walked hand in hand toward the center of town, he would enjoy the kind of quiet human time that couples were supposed to share—something he hadn’t done before, but he suspected being with Bobbie would provide him with a lot of delightful firsts.

  As they strolled up Main Avenue, they opted to eat at one of the outdoor tables at Nagles in light of the gorgeous day. After they ordered, Bobbie tilted her head up to the skies and with a heartfelt sigh said, “Can you feel that? How wonderful the sun is on your skin?”

  He realized that she didn’t even recognize that she was gathering power. It was obvious to him from the way the rays of the sun brightened the pale blue of her aura as it grew stronger. It made him wonder why she didn’t know and what she was, because as similar as they were, he was certain she didn’t possess the same abilities that he did.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, and trailed his finger along the smoothness of her cheek, which came alight at his touch.

  She gazed at him then, those amazing golden eyes alive. “If you keep that up, we may need to get our food to go.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Are you always that direct?” he said, not that he would want her any other way. In the short time he’d been in business, he had spent too much time with people who were too afraid of losing his favor to be honest.

  “Life is too short to be anything else.” With her words, some of the joy faded from her eyes, and he knew without asking that she was thinking of her platoon. Of the men who would never come home.

  The quick service of the waitress spared him from having to reply, because in all sincerity, he didn’t know what he could say to her that wouldn’t be just like the platitudes she had likely heard thousands of times before. A few minutes of silence followed as they both dug into their meals, but then she brightened up and started asking him the kinds of questions that he suspected most people asked on a first date.

  A first date, Adam thought, the idea warming him inside, since it was such a normal concept. He had never done normal, and maybe that was part of Bobbie’s appeal. Even knowing what he could do, she wasn’t treating him differently.

  He answered the routine questions and asked some of his own, but as he did so, he noticed that her attention was pulled toward the street off and on in a way that was more than just a casual glance. The third time she did it he tracked her gaze and realized why.

  A Jeep Wrangler with two men in it crept slowly past the restaurant. Even across the distance separating them he saw a faint hint of murky red surrounding them. Not as powerful as that of their attackers from the day before, but definitely there and impossible to ignore.

  “When did you first see them?” he asked, after the waitress had taken away their empty plates.

  Bobbie’s lips thinned into a tight line and a ridge of worry wrinkled her brow. “About fifteen minutes ago. The first time I didn’t think much of it. The second…”

  And this made a third, he thought. “Direct and observant.”

  Bobbie shrugged. She had been a Marine for too long and some things never left you—like being uberaware of your surroundings. Maybe if she had been more aware that Christmas morning in Baghdad her men would be alive, but she drove that guilt away. It wouldn’t change the past. It wouldn’t help her now.

  “Semper fi,” she said, and then added, “Always a Marine, Adam. Some things just become part of who you are.”

  Her hand was resting on the tabletop and he gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Whenever you need to talk, I’m here, Bobbie.”

  While she appreciated the gesture, she wasn’t ready to unload on him. It wasn’t in her nature to show such weakness, just as it wasn’t in her nature to run from a problem.

  Adam was definitely a problem.

  Or at least, the people following him were. If they want
ed to grab him again, he had to be ready. Or better yet, he needed to head off the attack in the first place, and the one way to do that was find out where their home base was.

  “You need to tail the tail to find out who sent them,” she said, and he nodded.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  Leaning toward him, she whispered close to the shell of his ear, “They need to think we didn’t see them, so act naturally.”

  “Like this?” He cradled the back of her head in one big hand and urged her close, nuzzled her nose with his before taking her mouth with a kiss that had her forgetting everything but him.

  When she finally broke away to take a breath, she murmured, “Like that.”

  He chuckled, and when the waitress approached with the bill just a second later, the knowing smile on the young girl’s face said that at least she had bought the lovey-dovey act.

  Adam tossed several bills on the table, rose, and offered Bobbie his hand. She took it, experiencing again that rush of his power that had her heart racing. As they had earlier, they strolled slowly back toward her condo, only this time they were vigilant. She caught sight of the Jeep one other time before they reached the door to her building.

  Once there, she walked with him to his car and said, “You’re not going back to the office. You have errands to run.”

  “I do?” he asked, and leaned on the bumper, hauling her close once more.

  “You do. Pick up some dry cleaning. Go to the drugstore. You park this very obvious car somewhere and spend a few minutes in each place. I’ll be watching, and once I make them, I will call you.”

  He reached into his pocket and said, “Let me call you now so you have my number.”

  He did, and she ignored the buzz of the phone in her back pocket. “I want you to make a few stops. I’ll make contact when I think it’s time and you’ll have to find a back way out of whatever building you’re in. Then I’ll pick you up so we can tail them once they realize you’re not coming out.”