by Sybil Bartel
“He said he tried you first.”
I remained silent.
Luna frowned. “So you really aren’t on speaking terms with him?”
I evaded Luna’s question. “What did he want?” Last I’d heard, Vance was in Europe.
“He’s working for Adam Trefor’s outfit, Alpha Elite Security.”
I knew who he was working for. AES, a private military contractor, billed themselves as the world’s leading provider of security solutions, but they were mercenaries. High stakes, higher price tag. Vance had served, same as me, and we were identical, but that’s where our similarities ended. Vance fed off of anything high-risk, but he didn’t like to get his hands dirty. “If it’s related to AES, Trefor would’ve called you.” I knew Adam. Despite hiring my brother, he was solid.
It was Luna’s turn to evade. “Maybe.” Scanning the office, he paused.
I waited.
Luna’s gaze met mine again. “Vance asked for a favor.”
Hiding my surprise, I made a calculated guess. “Security for a client.” Vance wouldn’t ask for a favor for himself, not from me, not from Luna, not from anyone. It wasn’t his MO. He was religious about not getting into any situation he couldn’t resolve himself. Or he used to be. A problem with a client seemed the only logical reason he’d call Luna.
Luna snorted. “How’d you guess?”
I may not have seen Vance in years, but he never changed. “What was your answer?”
“He asked to be met at the executive airport.” Luna glanced at his watch. “In thirty-seven minutes.” He looked back at me. “I said we would.”
“We,” I stated.
It wasn’t a question, but Luna answered it anyway. “He specifically asked me to bring you.”
“And you agreed.” Again, it wasn’t a question. Luna was a professional first, loyal second, and a shrewd businessman third. He would not only take the call, he’d do the favor because it would ensure quid pro quo.
“Yes,” Luna confirmed.
I didn’t blame him. Luna didn’t know the reason I didn’t keep in touch with my brother. He only knew there wasn’t any love lost when I filled out the hiring paperwork. In the in case of emergency contact section and the next of kin section, I’d listed Luna himself. When he’d asked why it wasn’t Vance, I’d said we weren’t close. Luna hadn’t pried, and I didn’t offer any more information.
Resigned, I stood. “With traffic, it’ll take thirty minutes to get there.”
Luna pushed off the desk. “You good with this?”
“Yes.” No.
“You lying?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I took my Sig Sauer P320 X5 Legion from the desk drawer, holstered it, and asked specifics. “Parameters?”
“He didn’t say to gear up, so I’m assuming it’s a client meet and greet.”
I gave Luna the full weight of my stare in a single glance. “Never assume anything where Vance is concerned.” It wasn’t a warning. It was the best advice I could ever give him.
“I get it.” Luna nodded once. “Point taken.”
He didn’t get it, but he would. Probably before the day was out. “Let’s go.”
THE GULFSTREAM TAXIED TO THE terminal.
Luna checked his watch, then his gaze cut to a jet already parked. “No one’s come out of the Falcon.”
“I know.” It’d landed seven minutes ago.
Luna glanced at the counter behind us. “Customs isn’t going to meet them, so they didn’t come from anywhere international.”
I didn’t like assumptions, so I pulled out my cell and dialed base.
Tyler answered on the first ring. “What’s up, Pyro?” he asked, chuckling at the dig.
I ignored the nickname I despised. “I need a tail number run.” I gave him the N number off the Falcon. “Then check the most recent flight plan filed.”
“On it. One second.” I heard Tyler typing. “Okay… well shit, that’s interesting.”
Interesting was never good. “What?”
“It’s registered to Adam Trefor, as in personally. Not AES,” Tyler added. “Is he in town?”
Ignoring Tyler’s question, I glanced at Luna. “It’s Trefor’s personal plane.”
“Mierda.” Luna cursed in Spanish under his breath. “Ask Tyler who’s not on assignment right now.”
“I heard,” Tyler replied, typing again. “At the moment, no one, but Christensen was just here. Took Harm with him. Said he needed security at a jobsite. Want me to call him and redirect or come meet you myself?”
“Hold on.” I glanced at Luna again. “Christensen’s with Harm, Tyler’s on site, everyone else is in the field. Do you want backup?”
“No, leave it.” Luna’s gaze cut back to the Falcon. “Movement. Come on.” He headed toward the tarmac.
“We’re good,” I told Tyler.
“Copy that. And the flight plan says the Falcon just came in from New York. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Will do.” I hung up and shoved my phone in my pocket as I followed Luna. The automatic glass doors of the small terminal slid open, blasting us with south Florida midday heat. We were halfway to the Falcon when Adam Trefor appeared at the top of the steps.
In a custom suit and aviators, his dark hair way past regulation, Trefor looked more like a philanderer than a lethal killer. Scanning the airstrip and terminal with a military-hardened countenance, he stepped off the plane and held his hand out to Luna. “It’s been a long time, André.”
“Too long,” Luna agreed as they shook.
Trefor held his hand out to me. “After all these years, if you weren’t in a Luna and Associates shirt, I still wouldn’t be able to tell you apart from Vance.”
“You aren’t the only one.” Most people couldn’t.
In a rare show of emotion, Trefor half smiled. Then his expression locked back down. “Did your brother brief you?”
“No.”
Trefor nodded once, but he didn’t elaborate.
“He called me a half hour ago.” Luna tipped his chin toward the Gulfstream. “Who’s the client?”
Trefor’s vigilant gaze swept across the tarmac, and he took in the terminal again. “Not a client.” He glanced at Luna. “More like a favor.” His gaze cut to me. “An old friend of you and your brother.”
We didn’t have any of the same friends. We never had.
Trefor watched me for a reaction. When I gave him none, he nodded as if in appreciation. “Still keeping it close, I see.” He turned toward the Gulfstream and glanced up at the pilot, giving him the hand signal for enter. “Let’s talk on the plane, gentlemen.”
The pilot disappeared from the cockpit window, and a moment later, he opened the door. With his hand on a 9mm in his shoulder holster, he took in the airport and the three of us in a single glance. “All clear?” he asked Trefor.
“Affirmative,” Trefor answered, ascending the steps. “André Luna, Ronan Conlon, this is one of my men, Zane Silas.”
Luna eyed Silas as he held out his hand. “I think we’ve met.”
Silas nodded. “Once. Helmand Province. Helped your unit out of a jam.”
“We got into a few,” Luna admitted.
Silas smiled. “Seemed to happen a lot when Neil Christensen was around.”
Luna chuckled. “That would be true.”
“How is Christensen?” Silas asked.
“Exactly the same,” Luna replied.
“Not surprising.” Silas turned to me. “Heard a lot about you over the years. Nice to finally meet you. The resemblance is uncanny though. Not sure I could tell you two apart.”
“Don’t listen to him,” someone with a pitch and timbre identical to mine piped up from behind Trefor. “I’m better looking.” His smile wide, Vance stepped toward the front of the cabin and slapped me on the shoulder. “It’s been a minute, brother.”
Three pairs of eyes took in me and my twin standing next to each other.
Vance chuckled. “The way they�
��re staring, you’d think they all saw a ghost.”
A female voice, lilting and haunting, one I never thought I would hear in person again, spoke from behind Vance. “Maybe I’m looking at a ghost.”
Vance moved aside, and my heart fucking stopped.
Stunning and regal, my past stared at me.
Sanaa Narine.
Known simply as Sanaa.
The single biggest female recording artist in the world took me in with her dark-eyed gaze. “Hello, Ronan.”
MY HEART FALTERING WORSE THAN at my first sold-out concert, my eyes drank in the one sight that could bring me to my knees.
Ronan Conlon.
My first love.
My only love.
Taller, darker, angrier, and more muscled, he stood before me a man.
A man who’d gone to war thinking I’d betrayed him in the worst way possible. A man who’d defended me even after I’d hurt him.
Knowing how to perform, my voice didn’t falter. “Hello, Ronan.”
The place on his throat I used to hold my hand over every time he spoke, because it was so mesmerizing as the vibrations tickled my fingers, moved with a swallow.
Dark, quiet, my name passed his lips. “Sanaa.”
The five letters my mother had given me didn’t leave his mouth with reverence like they used to, but instead with the force of a sin said aloud.
All the air left my trained lungs, and I wondered if he called out for me late at night like I did for him. After all my words had been poured onto paper, after I’d worked my fingers raw strumming my guitar, after shedding tears and giving every hurt into the only thing keeping me sane—that’s when I ached for him the most.
Wondering if he slept alone, wondering if his skin still tasted like hot Miami sun and promises, wondering if his embrace would still feel like the only home I’d ever had—I drank him in.
But Vance had lied.
He wasn’t the better-looking one. Vance never was. His brother was everything he wasn’t. Beautiful, harsh, and darkly quiet, his whispered compliments could slice you as easily as his intense stare. Ronan had been my everything. My future, my escape, my heart.
Now there was nothing except regret and broken words I wanted to shower over him like I’d poured my shattered soul into my songs. The very songs that’d been responsible for every dollar, decision, and heartache that’d brought me here to this very moment—standing before the man I didn’t deserve to see again.
Lord help me, I shouldn’t have been taking in every inch of his reserved dominance, but I was.
I wanted to apologize for it, apologize for what walking onto this plane meant, and tell him I was sorry for everything right before I asked him if he still thought of me, but I didn’t. I said none of the words I’d been aching to say for ten years, because I’d already sung them to millions of fans.
Instead, I stood proud. Then I said what was both the biggest lie and single greatest truth of my life. “It’s good to see you, Ronan.”
“Right.” Vance grinned, taking my arm as if I was his. “Let’s have a seat, love, and we can all have a catch-up.”
When a man holds you in his arms under the stars and looks into your eyes and says the very words every girl dreams of, something in your soul breaks apart. Pieces irrevocably fall away from your grasp and become his. But in the same breath, those fragments of his soul break away from him and become yours as surely as your own name.
Even though the decade between us was now an insurmountable lifetime, my connection to Ronan Conlon was as unbreakable then as it was now, and that’s how I saw it.
When his brother called me love, my Ronan, the one who’d held me under the stars, he reacted.
No one on this plane would see it, but I did.
His nostrils moved slightly with an inhale when they normally didn’t, and his beautiful eyes shut down. Then the frown creasing his eyebrows narrowed infinitesimally.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s talk.” Adam Trefor, the man I’d called in desperation three months ago, unaware that Vance worked for him, motioned for Vance, Ronan and the newcomer to take seats as the pilot brought the stairs back up and closed us all in before returning to the cockpit.
Vance’s hand moved to my lower back. “After you, darling.”
Masking my repulsion at his gentle touch, at any man’s touch, I moved to the farthest seat. Vance and his expensive cologne sat next to me, but Ronan took a seat toward the front of the plane. Adam sat in the middle, and the newcomer, a handsome dark-haired man that Adam had introduced to Zane as André Luna, remained standing as he assessed everyone on the plane.
“All right.” Vance clasped his hands as he rested them on his knees. “Per Miss Narine’s request, this conversation stays between the four of us, yes?”
Mr. Luna glanced at Adam, then addressed me. “With all due respect, Miss Narine, if Luna and Associates is being brought in as personal protection for you, I cannot guarantee the services of my company, nor promise successful execution while operating at a deficit. As I’m sure Mr. Trefor and Mr. Conlon informed you, a person with your level of fame and visibility needs a security team that encompasses more than four men on a grounded plane.”
“He did.” Adam had told me almost the exact same thing three months ago when I’d told him I didn’t want anyone else brought in on this. Then he’d said he already had someone in London and he sent the last person I’d been expecting. “With all due respect to your expertise and experience, I am only sitting here because Vance caught something none of my eighteen-man security team had.” I paused. “Twice.”
His shrewd gaze shifted with comprehension, and Mr. Luna nodded. “Understood. Continue, please.”
My hands steady in my lap, my posture straight, I forced my breathing to slow. “I’ve been threatened.”
Vance let out a sound of disgust. “It’s more than a threat. First it was one of the tour buses, then a hotel room, but the last one was in the stadium, under the stage.” Leaning back, he eyed his brother and André Luna. “Three bombs, ramping up in sophistication, all came with a written warning that got past security.” His gaze settled on his brother. “I need an explosives expert.”
When Vance had said he knew an explosives expert in the States, I never imagined it to be Ronan. And when he’d told me it was his brother, I’d refused to involve him. But then a second and a third note showed up, and we no longer had a choice. Vance had come up with a plan and arranged for the private jet. My stomach had been an impossible twist of knots the entire flight over, but when I saw Ronan on the plane, it cruelly felt like I was taking my first full breath in ten years.
Addressing Vance, André Luna crossed his arms. “How did the notes get past your security?”
“It’s security hired for the tour,” I corrected. “Not anyone from Mr. Trefor’s company. I called him in after I received the first note.” Feeling Ronan’s eyes on me as sure as if he was touching me, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as I defended his brother.
Mr. Luna asked the next question without hesitation. “Do you know who it is?”
“No,” Vance lied.
Mr. Luna’s eyes narrowed. “No leads?”
“Nothing solid,” Vance replied dismissively. “But we’re working on it. That’s where you and Ronan come in.”
Mr. Luna stared at Vance for a moment, then he glanced at Adam before looking back at Vance. “Trefor has people for this.”
“Demo’s on assignment,” Adam interjected. “The handful of other people I know who are qualified to handle this are active duty. That only leaves one other person I know who can identify what we’re dealing with and find this bomber’s signature.” Adam looked at Ronan. “We have the detonation devices from the defused bombs for analysis. This is in your wheelhouse.”
Staring at me with his eyes that weren’t green or brown, Ronan quietly spoke to Adam. “Homeland Security has qualified people.”
“I am not involving the authorities i
n this.” I knew what would happen.
André pointed out the obvious. “If there’s an explosion at one of your concerts, you won’t have a choice. Many agencies will get involved.”
“That’s why I need help.” I hated asking, but I especially hated asking Ronan. “I need to protect my fans and stop this before anything bad happens.”
The angles of his exquisite face sharper than when he was younger, and his impassive expression even more difficult to read, Ronan’s intense stare continued to hold me captive as this time he spoke directly to me. “Vance has already defused two bombs.”
I felt the words as if they were a physical blow. Nothing in Ronan’s aloof manner changed, and maybe it was all in my head, but I shrank from his statement as if he were accusing me of a reproachable offense. Which I was absolutely guilty of. Being here with his brother, after what had happened ten years ago, it wasn’t honorable.
Before I could reply, Vance gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Yes, well, not without difficulty and sheer luck. Which, frankly, I’m hoping to not have to push that luck again.”
Looking as if he was put out, André turned his attention to Adam. “You should’ve called me before this meeting, Trefor.”
Pouring on the charm, Vance smiled and answered before Adam could. “My apologies. I jumped the gun and beat him to it.” His expression turning serious again, he absently took my hand as he glanced between André and Ronan. “We could really use both of you on this.”
Shifting out of his hold, I fought back a mountain of regret as I selfishly, greedily stared at the only man I’d ever given my heart to. “I’m asking for your help, Ronan.”
LUNA TIPPED HIS CHIN AT Trefor and Vance before turning his attention to Sanaa. “Miss Narine, Mr. Conlon and I will confer and get back to you by end of business today.” Glancing at me, he turned toward the exit.
I stood.
“Ronan.”
No other woman had ever said my name like she did. Her voice had changed from a girl’s to woman’s in ten years, but it was still the same—sultry, lilting, deeper than you expected when you looked at her.
I gave her my attention.