Bowie: The Sinner Saints #5

by Adrienne Bell

“And what exactly do you do at Macmillan Security, Mr. Tamatoa?” Eloise asked.

  “Whatever is needed,” Bowie said.

  “That’s a very mysterious answer,” she said, leaning forward a touch in her chair.

  “Oh, don’t let Mr. Tamatoa fool you,” Trevor said. To Charlie’s astonishment, he stepped out from behind the protection of Henry’s chair. But apparently his courage only went so far. He stopped short the moment Bowie pulled his shoulders back and pressed out his chest. “He does plenty. He’s the one Carter Macmillan sends in when a job is too dangerous, or too messy, for anyone else on his team.”

  Charlie stiffened at Trevor’s words. She was right. Trevor had been looking into Bowie. But why? More importantly, why was he admitting it to everyone? What game was the man playing?

  Her mind tried to search for answers, but unfortunately all it found was the warm fog of rum she’d filled it with back at the pub.

  She gripped Bowie’s arm a little tighter.

  “You claim to know a lot about my work, Mr. Bishop,” he said, his voice low and steady, even as the look in his eye sharpened.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Trevor asked. “After all of your run-ins with Darktide you’d have to know that your name has passed over my desk more than once.”

  “Run-ins?” her mother asked. “So your companies don’t often work for the same people?”

  “Not always,” Bowie said.

  Charlie bit into her cheek. That was the understatement of the year. Hell, most times they didn’t even work on the same side of the law.

  “Hopefully this won’t cause any tension between you two before Henry’s wedding,” her mother said diplomatically. Her gaze flashed back and forth between the two men as they stared each other down.

  The room went silent. For a moment, the only sounds Charlie heard were the crackle of the fire and the rush of her own breath. After another second, she gave Bowie’s arm a hard squeeze.

  He didn’t say a word, but nodded once. That seemed to be enough for her mother, who turned her attention over to Trevor. A second later a wide, fake smile spread across his face.

  “Of course. After all, I have far too much respect for a man of Mr. Tamatoa’s talents.” The smugness in Trevor’s voice was so thick that it made Charlie’s stomach churn. “I would be too afraid of what he could do to me.”

  Eloise’s eyes widened. She was obviously intrigued. “What he could do?”

  “Oh, security isn’t Mr. Tamatoa’s first career. Before Carter Macmillan was his superior in the private sector, he was his commanding officer in the Army.”

  “An Army man, eh?” her father said, suddenly rejoining the conversation. “The Keswicks have always been a proud Navy family.”

  “Dad, maybe we could talk about this in the morning,” Charlie said. “It’s been a long day, and Bowie and I—”

  “Did you serve in Afghanistan?” her father said on top of her.

  “I did,” Bowie answered.

  Her father’s eyes narrowed. “Did you see action?”

  “Dad!”

  Bowie hesitated for a half-second, just long enough for the muscles lining his jaw to tighten then almost instantly relax.

  “Some,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t let Mr. Tamatoa’s modesty fool you,” Trevor jumped in. “He saw plenty. His file is brimming with the tales of all the missions he was sent on. And those were just the ones that the government are willing to admit.”

  Heat began to burn Charlie’s face. “You looked at his file?”

  All right, she may have more than said it. She may have yelled it. With as cloudy as her head was there was no way to be sure. All she knew was that one moment, she’d been the one holding on to Bowie’s arm, and the next he was the one holding on to hers.

  Not that it mattered. Trevor didn’t seem to be paying her any mind. His attention was focused squarely on Bowie.

  “You see, Bowie was no ordinary soldier,” Trevor went on. “He was special ops. And not just in any unit. He was with the best of the best. They were called the Sinner Saints, because they always found a way to get the job done no matter the cost. Isn’t that right, Mr. Tamatoa?”

  Deep furrows etched into Bowie’s brow. Charlie could barely breathe as the air in the room thickened uncomfortably. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked loudly, the sound echoing off the walls.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said slowly and clearly. Every syllable dripped with warning. “Besides, my file is highly classified. Accessing it without proper clearance would be a felony.”

  Trevor tilted his chin to the side. “That’s why working at a large, well-connected firm like Darktide has its benefits. I’m in contact with all kinds of powerful people…including those who are in a position to authorize the kind of clearance you’re talking about.”

  Charlie ground her back teeth together. She knew that kind of person well. The kind of corrupt politician that was willing to abuse their power in order to refill their election accounts.

  She’d had a hand in bringing down men like that before, and, God knew, she was more than happy to do it again.

  “But I didn’t bring any of this up to upset you, Bowie,” Trevor said. “May I call you Bowie?”

  “No.”

  Trevor’s smile grew. The bastard knew he was winning.

  “All right, Mr. Tamatoa,” Trevor said, casually shifting his weight. “After all, I’d have to be an idiot to deliberately anger a man like you.”

  “Well, there’s one thing you’re not lying about,” Charlie muttered.

  Now it was Bowie’s turn to give her arm a squeeze.

  “The truth is we’ve been interested in recruiting you for a long time. You’re exactly the kind of man we’d love to have at Darktide Security,” Trevor said.

  Bowie’s eyes narrowed. “That’s never going to happen.”

  “All right,” Trevor said slowly, his gaze sharpening. “But if you ever decide that you’re done playing in Macmillan’s kiddie pool, you should come by my office. We always have a position for a man with your unique talents.”

  “He said no, Trevor,” Charlie said…maybe a little too emphatically.

  “Charlene,” her mother chastised her. “Trevor is a guest in our home.”

  “It’s fine,” Trevor said, his gaze slowly sliding over to hers. “I didn’t mean to offend anyone by singling Mr. Tamatoa out. Of course, the door is always open for you as well.”

  Charlie’s lips pulled down hard as cold disgust raced through her veins. “Why? Do you have a file on me too?”

  Trevor’s eyes swept up her for a second as malicious glee played along his lips.

  “Of course not.” His laugh was light, but Charlie didn’t miss the cruel glint in his eyes as he stared her down. “That would be illegal.”

  “You son of a—” The words poured out of Charlie’s mouth before she could think about what she was saying.

  “Charlene.” Her mother’s voice echoed in the empty space of the room.

  Bowie’s grip on her tightened and this time it wasn’t in warning. He was holding her back, actually keeping her from launching herself at Trevor.

  Charlie forced herself to draw in a deep breath. She pulled herself back and inched closer to Bowie’s side.

  Maybe he had been right. Maybe four drinks hadn’t been the best idea.

  But then again the alcohol was just an easy excuse for blurting out what was already in her head. After all, Trevor Bishop was a son of a bitch. A smug, self-centered, and quite possibly dangerous one.

  And now he was staring at Charlie like there was nothing she could do about it. Like he was untouchable.

  But Charlie had brought down untouchables before.

  Plenty of them. However, none of them had given her as much pleasure as she was going to get from tearing Trevor down to the ground.

  She’d never been more certain of anything in her life.

  ***

  “I told you this w
as a terrible idea,” Charlie said as she stepped onto the third floor landing. Bowie ground his back teeth together at the way her exaggerated whisper carried down the steps, but he resisted the urge to remind her to keep her voice down.

  Knowing Charlie, the statement probably wouldn’t quiet her down. More likely, it would only make her shout louder.

  “Epically bad,” she went on, her voice rising. “I mean, we were supposed to be running away from Trevor, but instead we managed to run straight to him.”

  Suddenly, Bowie was willing to risk her anger.

  “Charlie,” he said under his breath. When that didn’t get her attention he quickened his steps until he was at her side.

  “Come on,” she said, looking up at him. “Even you have to admit that’s a special kind of failure.”

  “And maybe it’s a discussion that should wait until we’re somewhere private.” He gave her a pointed look, and her red-rimmed eyes widened.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, stopping short, her voice dropping back down to a whisper. She poked her finger into the center of his chest…and let it linger there. The air froze in Bowie’s lungs. “Well, my room is right at the end of the hall.”

  A second later she pulled it away with a wink and laugh. Bowie slowly let out his breath and followed a step behind as she wobbled her way down the rest of the long, dark wood-paneled hallway.

  He should have stopped her from slamming all those drinks back at the bar. Though, deep down he doubted it would have made much of a difference. Charlie probably would have been just as reckless with Bishop tonight if she’d been stone cold sober.

  It was who she was. She couldn’t abide injustice. If they had been back at Macmillan, she would’ve locked herself in the safety of her office, surrounded herself with her computers, and refused to emerge until she’d found a way to single-handedly bring Bishop down.

  But they weren’t at the office. They were in the field.

  And, while they might be in the house she grew up in, this was his turf.

  There were no safe, comforting spaces she could run to, no distancing computer screens she could hide behind. The enemies they fought out here were tangible, they were real, and, in the case of Darktide, they could be deadly.

  She needed to be sharp. She needed to be in control. She needed to listen to him.

  Charlie stopped at the last door at the end of the hallway. She stood in front of it for a long moment before wrapping her hand around the doorknob and looking up at him.

  “Welcome to my adolescence,” she said as she finally pushed it open.

  Bowie couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips as he stepped inside. She wasn’t lying.

  The room itself was like every other he’d seen in the house so far—big. Much larger than the one he’d had growing up. But, at the same time it also felt unusually intimate.

  Maybe it was because of the giant black four-poster bed that jutted out from the far wall. Maybe it was the walls covered with band and movie posters, all of them dark and severe. Or maybe it was all the white Christmas lights strung across the ceiling in lieu of a lamp.

  “This was your room?” he asked.

  “What can I say?” She shrugged as she went over to the window seat directly across from the door. She jumped up on top and crossed her legs. “I was a moody teenager.”

  “Apparently.”

  Bowie started moving around the perimeter of the room. He ran his hand over the top of the door. He looked underneath a desk at his right.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie asked.

  “Sweeping for bugs.”

  “Don’t bother. You’re not going to find any.”

  Bowie lifted his head. “Why not?” After all, Bishop had been in the house for hours, and he didn’t exactly look shocked at Charlie’s return.

  “I’m sure he has the house and everyone in it under surveillance, but there’s no way he’d risk planting the devices himself. Not when he could easily have someone at Darktide hack into my parents’ security system and have live audio and video streams of almost every room in the house.”

  “Almost every room?”

  “Well, not the bedrooms, of course.”

  “You’re certain?”

  Charlie’s brows shot up. A hint of pink rushed into her cheeks. “Why? What were you thinking of doing in here that you don’t want Trevor to see?” she teased.

  He wasn’t in the mood. “You’re certain that he wouldn’t plant any other devices.”

  Charlie nodded hard enough to make her bright hair bob back and forth against her face.

  “Positive. Trevor isn’t really a hands-on guy,” she said. “Besides, it’s what I would do,” she said.

  Bowie straightened up. Her word was good enough for him. Still, he didn’t feel totally at ease.

  “We should still keep our voices down,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “This is an old house. The walls could be thin. Sound could carry through them,” he said. “Even without a bug, there’s a good possibility that someone could be listening to every word we say.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said, leaning forward over her bent legs. Bowie struggled not to let his gaze dip down to the swells of her breasts pressing against the top of her soft black sweater. “This place is built like a vault. One night, back when Henry was in high school, he snuck half the girl’s gymnastics team into his room, and no one heard a thing.”

  “If that’s true, then how did you find out about it?”

  Her sapphire eyes sparkled in the hundreds of tiny lights hanging above her head.

  “I had my ways. I might have been a kid, but I was still me.” She bit into her lower lip as she smiled. “The point is, even if I start swinging naked from the ceiling, we should be fine.”

  Bowie stiffened at the picture her words painted in his head. He tried his best to push the image out, but it was surprisingly tenacious.

  “Well, then, I’ll call Carter and let him know the situation. I’m sure he’ll want to get the team working on this as soon as possible,” he said. “You should get some sleep.”

  Charlie shook her head. “I’m not tired.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But you are drunk.”

  “I am not. I’m just a little tipsy is all.” She angled her chin. “Does that upset you?”

  “No.” He glanced up at the ceiling as he gave a single, stiff shake of his head.

  Her eyes widened. “It does upset you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And now you’re lying about it,” she said, sounding intrigued. “Why? Come on, tell me why.”

  Why? Because the rum hadn’t just loosened her lips around Bishop. It had relaxed every part of her. And this room was just too damn small for the way she kept licking her lips, and sweeping him up and down with her twinkling blue gaze. Not to mention the way her voice kept dipping lower and lower, until he felt it rumbling through his very core. There was no way a man could ignore the seductive promise in her voice. No way at all.

  “Because this isn’t a game, Charlie,” he said. “Darktide is a dangerous organization.”

  She laughed again. “You think I don’t know that.”

  “Not the way I do.” Bowie crossed the room toward her. He couldn’t even count how many times he’d followed leads that died at Darktide’s doors. “You don’t want to be a thorn in their side.”

  The twinkle in her eyes dimmed a little. “Oh, come on, we’ve taken down worse.”

  “I’m not talking about we, Charlie,” he said, stopping right in front of her. “This is about you. Darktide has a habit of getting rid of anything that stands in their way—buildings, laws, people.”

  Her brows pulled down. “You think that my brother’s best man might actually try to kill me?”

  “If he thinks you might cause trouble,” Bowie said. “I’ve seen firsthand how Darktide operates. I know how they think. They’re used to immunity. They don’t giv
e a damn about laws. Only results.”

  His stomach turned at the idea of Charlie’s name ending up on a Darktide hit list. He knew how easy it would be for someone with Bishop’s power and connections to have her taken care of. A flash, a second, a blink of an eye—that’s all it would take for some nameless Darktide operative to tear her away from him forever.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to let that happen. He’d always blamed himself for not being there the first time someone had tried to take her life. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake again…no matter how small the room he had to share with her felt.

  “All right then,” she said, unfolding her legs. She jumped down from the window seat. Her feet slipped out from under her as she hit the floor, and he threw his arms around her waist to catch her. She tilted her head as she leaned her body against his to steady herself. But then she didn’t pull away. Her eyelids drooped low over her seductive eyes. “What do we do now?”

  Bowie pulled in a deep breath. His chest expanded against hers, and for a brief heavenly moment he felt every soft curve and plane of her body molded against his. His eyes zeroed in on the elegant column of her neck.

  What he wouldn’t give to press his lips against her warm skin just there. That sensitive spot where her neck met her collar. What sound would she make? A sigh? A moan? Would she grab on tighter, or relax deeper into him.

  Damn it.

  This was ridiculous. He wasn’t some undisciplined teenager. He could control his emotions. He could cage his desires. He’d been doing it every day for the last three years. Every time he was alone with Charlie. Every time he was close to her side. Every time she smiled at him with those sparkling eyes.

  This moment was no different.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Now you go to bed,” he said.

  She bit into her lower lip again, teasing it with her teeth. “Alone?”

  The knot in Bowie’s core twisted even tighter.

  “Alone.”

  He slowly pushed her back so that she rested on her own feet. His stomach plummeted as he watched the look in her eyes shift from seduction to shame. By the time he pulled his hands away her cheeks were as bright as glowing coals.