A hidden door.
I yanked it open and stepped through. There were narrow stairs that led down into a dark cellar. And there was Jesse, sitting in a heap in the corner, her mouth filled with some sort of cloth, her hands tied behind her back.
“I’m Hayden Dubois,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m a friend of Rhett’s.”
She moaned, sobs immediately following. She fell into my arms as I reached her, crying against my shoulder.
“Looks like you’ve got another one falling for you, Hayden,” Dominic quipped.
I shot him a dirty look and awkwardly patted the terrified girl’s back, whispering words of reassurance that finally got through enough so that her tears slowed and she huddled against me, shivering
***
Rhett was waiting at the hospital. We stepped out of the car and Jesse ran to her, nearly bowling her over when she fell into her arms. Rhett cried—that was something I never thought I’d see! Rhett actually crying!
They clung to each other as a nurse led the way inside. Then another came and grabbed my wrist.
“I hear you have a gunshot wound that needs to be attended to.”
“It’s fine. I can sew it up myself.”
“Why don’t you let me do it?”
She smiled, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement. Had she been talking to Megan?
I followed her inside, gritting my teeth as she unwrapped my poor bandaging job. She touched the wound, frowning as she felt the bullet pressed up against my bicep.
“You must have a high tolerance for pain.”
I glanced out the window of the small exam room into a corridor that looked all too familiar. In fact, I would never forget standing in that corridor, being told that the woman I loved hadn’t survived the gunshot wound to her chest. That her heart had been weakened by disease and failed before they could even try to save her.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I have a fairly high tolerance for pain.”
***
I couldn’t bear to go home alone that night. Waverly must have been waiting for me because she didn’t seem to have a hint of sleep in her eyes. She looked at me, her gaze falling to the torn shirt sleeve—why they had to tear it when I could have just taken it off, I had no idea—and the bandage underneath. She silently stepped aside, gesturing with the wine glass she held in her hands.
A quiet night on the couch wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
No doubt she saw the needy aggression in my eyes, and reached for me before I reached for her. I kissed her hard, then pressed her up against the door, ignoring the sound of the wine glass shattering on the hard laminate floor.
“You could’ve been hurt today too,” I growled in her ear, tugging at her ever-present skirt. “I hate that!”
“I wasn’t, though. Forget today, Hayden.” She dragged her nails down my back. “Forget everything except this right now. Except this. Me. Us.”
I hadn’t been part of an us in years. I didn’t know if I could risk my heart to being a plural again, but Waverly had given me so much, so often, that I didn’t contradict her. Instead, I kissed my way down her neck and shoulders before ripping her thong away as I impatiently sought out that pot of gold that was the only thing on earth that had the power to take a man outside of his head, to help him forget his hurts and his pains.
Waverly wrapped her arms around my neck, sighing heavily against the side of my face as I thrust inside of her.
“You feel so good,” she whispered against my ear.
I palmed her face toward mine and kissed her, burying myself inside of her body and her lips and trying to forget everything.
Chapter 26
Rhett
I stood in the doorway of my spare bedroom and watched my sister sleep away the sedative the doctor had ordered for her. She made a soft mewing sound like she used to do when she was a little girl. I smiled, remembering her as a small child, as the annoying baby sister who took away my freedom to go to the Girl Scout meetings once a month and play with my friends after school. Kari was finally big enough to care for herself. Why did they have to go and have another one?
But Jesse … I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.
I closed the door and turned, making my way back down the hall to the kitchen. At times like these—not that there had been many times when my baby sister was kidnapped and the man in my life gave himself up as a hostage and then promptly disappeared—when I wished I was a drinking woman. But watching my mother drink away her life my entire childhood, I couldn’t make myself do it. A nice cup of coffee, maybe.
But it didn’t seem like it would have the same effect.
Megan called and told me they’d taken Xander into custody, determined to figure out once and for all what side of the equation he fell on. I had no doubt they would find him innocent, but I couldn’t know that for sure. And I couldn’t make this knot in my stomach disappear.
I settled down on the couch, a hot mug of coffee in my hands and a stupid reality show on the television. I put my leg up on a cushion, the ache almost forgotten in the rush and emotion of everything that had happened today. But it felt better, thanks to Sara. I’d have to find a way to thank her sometime.
I couldn’t concentrate. All I could think about was Xander.
Would I see him again? Would he keep his promise to never leave me? Would I want him to keep that promise?
I was … I never thought I would be that girl, the one who lived for the look her man gave her. I was strong. Independent. A little wild. And then I was raped, and the attack left me a little more cautious, a little more wary of the world around me. But I was still independent. Maybe even more so. But Xander gave me a look and I suddenly melted.
What was wrong with me?
He was handsome. He was kind. He was … shit, he was everything I’d always wanted in a man and never really realized I wanted.
I was gone. It was hopeless.
Chapter 27
Megan
“We’ve never talked about it.”
Luke glanced over his shoulder at me as he brushed his teeth at the bathroom sink. He was shirtless, his tattoos clear in the mirror. He’d had them restored, the tattoos I knew and loved. He’d had to alter them when he was pretending to be Dante, but he had them restored, giving me back that little piece of the Luke Murphy I’d fallen in love with when I was a sophomore in high school.
I loved him for it. I loved him for all the thoughtful things he’d done.
“What haven’t we talked about?”
“Your part in Olsen’s schemes.”
He froze for a second, the toothbrush paused inside his mouth. Then he spit and rinsed, setting the wet brush on the counter carefully before he turned and stood in the doorway.
“What is there to talk about?”
“That man, Nick, said some things that made me wonder.”
Luke shook his head. “You can’t take everything these people say to heart, Megan. They’re rogue CIA agents, men willing to turn their back on their country for their own profit. They will say anything to save their own skin.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Then what could he have said to make you question me?”
“He said that you didn’t know what you were doing until Xander clued you in.”
Luke stiffened, his body like a marble statue for a moment. He turned slightly, blocking his face from my view.
“Megan—”
“Did you do all those things to protect me? Or did you do them because Olsen told you it was the best way to protect me?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me. We might have found Peter sooner if you hadn’t impeded us. We might have saved Dominic from that madman who chased him off the road. We might have found our way back to each other sooner.”
“And we might have been apart longer. I might have gone to jail! There are a lot of might-haves here, Megan.”
I nodded, aware that he was right. But I stil
l … I wanted to know.
“Hayden thinks you were working for Olsen until you realized how serious I was about finding Peter. And then you cut your losses and turned on him.”
“How would Hayden know what I was doing? He wasn’t a part of this.”
“He was. He was my partner.”
“He was trying to steal you away from me. If not for Sam—”
“Stop! Don’t even go there, Luke.”
He studied my face for a long moment. “You want the truth, Megan? I did what I thought I had to do to protect you. If it was wrong, if it was for the wrong side, the end result was the right one.”
“I know.”
“Then what does the rest of it matter?”
I stood up and crossed to him, pressing my hand against his bare chest. I touched the tattoos, my finger tracing the outlines.
“I love you, Luke. I would forgive you anything you did, you know that. I just … I feel like there have been too many lies between us.”
He touched my face. “I trusted Olsen. He was my superior. But he was more than that. He was my friend. He understood me and where I came from. When he asked me to do something, I jumped, because that was the right thing to do. It didn’t matter if it went against instinct, if it went against all logic. He was Edgar. I trusted him.”
“And when you learned the truth?”
“When Xander told me the truth, I wanted to fucking kill him.” Luke shook his head. “I couldn’t believe Edgar would do those things. I didn’t want to believe it. But when I met with him face to face, when I saw the lies in his eyes. I couldn’t believe it and then …” He stopped, his shoulders bowing a little. “Do you know what a burden it was to know that I left Peter with him, left my best friend with a madman who used him to do horrible things?”
“I know.”
“If I had known sooner …”
“I know, Luke.”
“I never meant to hurt you or to hurt Peter. I thought I was protecting him.”
I reached up and kissed him. “You’re a good man, Luke. It’s time to forgive yourself.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he whispered.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I just touched him and kissed him, hoping my presence, my touch, would be enough. And, I think, for just that moment, it was.
Chapter 28
Rhett
I walked out of the office, the weight of the day on my shoulders. Jesse had moved back into her dorm last night after staying with me for just over a month. And then she called me three times during the night, afraid of the noises she heard coming from the hallway. I ended up going over there, sleeping beside her in her narrow bed. She was ashamed of herself in the light of day, but I was afraid the same thing would happen tonight.
Lack of sleep was no stranger, especially after raising two sisters who were five and ten years younger than me. But I’d assumed I was past that stage of my life now.
I pressed the button to unlock the doors on my car, thinking about a pizza and an episode of How to Get Away with Murder when a hand touched my arm.
“Rhett.”
I turned, already launching myself at his chest. I touched him, touched his face, his shoulders, his chest, tears welling up in my eyes.
“How long have you been here?”
“Just a few minutes.”
“When did they let you go?”
Xander ducked his head slightly. “It’s over,” he said. “It’s all over.”
“Thank God.”
I kissed him, pressing my lips almost roughly to his. He hesitated a second and that frightened me, but then he drew me hard against him, returning my kiss with more passion than I’d imagined possible. But then he was pulling away, separating himself from me.
“We need to talk.”
Fear gripped my heart. “About?”
“The future. I couldn’t offer you a future when I didn’t know who I was. I know now, most of it anyway—there’s still a few blank spots—so now I’m ready to ask you if you’d be willing to share your future with me. But I realize it’s been a month—”
“Do you think I had a bunch of guys just waiting on the sidelines for you to disappear?”
He smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
I slapped his arm. “I like you, Xander. I’ve been waiting for the longest time for you to keep your promises to me!”
“Like me?”
He seemed a little put off by that phraseology. I moved into him again and ran my hand over his chest.
“Tell me what happened.”
“They finished their investigation. I showed them the code I’d written, where I’d hidden information about Olsen’s people. And then I told them about Peter Bradford, how he was hiding information in his code, too, that his code was where I got the idea to do what I did.
“They arrested the people still free and interrogated them, interrogated me, interrogated Peter—they seemed awful interested in my money, assuming I couldn’t have made it day trading … boy, were they wrong—and then it was over. They sent me home with a smile and a handshake.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. Seems a little anti-climactic, doesn’t it?”
“Things like that usually are.”
“Then I went home and sold my house. I gave Hannah the money. And then I came straight down here to find you.”
“Just like that? A little presumptive, aren’t we?”
I felt him stiffen, and I couldn’t hold back the laughter.
“Rhett,” he said, burying his fingers in my hair. “Tell me you want me here. Tell me I didn’t just give up my life and piss off my sister for nothing.”
“You didn’t do it for nothing.”
He kissed me, pushing me back against the side of my car. His hands were in places they shouldn’t have been in such a public place, but I didn’t care. I’d missed him so much that I didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to breathe without tasting his lips on mine.
“I love you,” I whispered softly against his mouth.
He sighed with relief.
“That’s what I was waiting to hear.”
Epilogue
Brian
I slapped Kasey’s arm, snagging his sleeve and jerking him back from the window.
“Give them a little privacy.”
“They’re making out in front of the building. They have no expectation of privacy.”
“Perv,” Amelia said. I just laughed.
“Brian!”
I turned, jogging across the room to the secretary’s desk.
“What can I do for you, Mag?”
The secretary, Mag Bishop, was a middle-aged woman who treated us all more like children than professionals.
“You have a phone call. Line two.”
Back at my desk, I snatched up the receiver.
“This is Brian McKinsey. What can I do for you?”
“I can’t believe I’m making this phone call. You are the last person on earth I thought I would ever ask for help!”
“Kinsey?” I asked, unable to imagine anyone else who would greet me over the phone in that fashion. Only my childhood nemesis, my next door neighbor, the daughter of my mother’s best friend. Kinsey Kramer. She had made my life a living hell in high school. And maybe she’d decided she wasn’t quite done.
“Who else? I need your help, Brian.”
“Doing what?”
“It’s not about me. It’s Dallas. My sister is about to make the biggest mistake of her life!”
KEVIN
Prologue
Kevin
“Come on, Jason, it’s a little late to get cold feet now!”
I banged my fist on the heavy door, glancing down the hallway at the maid who was slowly making her way toward me. She smiled politely before turning to the door directly across from this one. I banged the door again.
“Jason! After everything the two of you put me through this weekend, you had better not be late for this damn wedding!”
There was no answer, no sound, nothing.
“Need some help?” the maid asked a moment later as she stepped out of the room across the hall.
“I guess so,” I said, stepping out of her way. “My friend is getting married in fifteen minutes. We need to head over to the church.”
“I can unlock it, but you can’t tell anyone.”
There was a flirt in her voice, an expectation that I had no intention of fulfilling. But I smiled back, my most charming smile.
“If you could, I’d be eternally grateful,” I said.
Her smile widened. She turned to the door and unlocked it with her universal key, pushing it open and moving out of the way so that I could enter. But she didn’t move far enough away. Our bodies brushed as I entered the room.
“Thanks.”
I stepped around her, aware the smile was already beginning to fade.
Jason had rented himself a nice suite, one with an intense view of downtown Miami. The curtains were open, so it took me a moment to allow my eyes to adjust to the bright light. When they did, I saw a foot sticking out from behind the couch. Just a foot, twisted at an odd angle. I knew … I knew I wasn’t going to like what I was about to see. But I had to look.
And then the maid was screaming behind me.
Chapter 1
Kevin
Life at Dragon Security was never a bore, especially when the owner and most of the executive staff were credited with bringing down a rogue CIA agent five years ago. It gave us a reputation that we worked daily to live up to. But today the excitement seemed to revolve around the fact that one of our fellow operatives was currently standing in the parking lot, making out with a former client. To her credit, he was no longer her client. His case had ended more than a month ago.
But that didn’t stop another operative from getting his thrills by watching.
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