Pissed, Noah came back with a fist that nailed Stevenson beneath the chin. The man dropped out cold to the floor.
Heading for the garage, he went checking for Clair’s car. He stepped into the den and slipped on the slick floor. He landed hard, cracking his elbow. A thick, sticky substance covered the floor. Gazing up from his bloodied palms, he saw Clair. Laying on her stomach, she lay completely still, eyes open, lifeless, and in the middle of her forehead was a single bullet hole.
Tears welled, followed by a quick-fire rage that blinded him. Scrambling to get to her, he gently brushed the matted and bloodied hair away from her face. Her skin felt cool to the touch. She lay frozen, unnatural in death, dead before he’d ever made it home. Her car keys were resting nearby, her cell phone crushed, dead before she could call for help.
Stevenson coughed, spat blood, and rolled to sit up against the wall in the dining room before struggling upward. The man managed to get upright on his feet but swayed where he stood. The cell phone Stevenson held clattered to the floor, drawing Noah’s empty gaze from Clair. The phone’s screen was lit up, signaling he had sent a text to someone.
“Help isn’t going to save you,” Noah said, turning deadly.
“Come back, Noah, join the family.” The man’s chest heaved, one hand holding on to the wall for balance.
“She.” Noah pointed to Clair’s body. “Was my family.” Abruptly, everything seemed to slow down; his breathing, his pulse, the grandfather clock in the dining room, even the fucking air became sluggish. Noah felt his face slipping into a cold mask of controlled fury. He knew he became all the more terrifying because of it, and he was glad. He wanted to put terror into Stevenson.
The man’s defensive hands were no match for Noah’s advancing fury, and he yanked the man into the downstairs bathroom. Rage lent him strength and he slammed Stevenson down into the porcelain bathtub, ripping the shower curtain off with a violent jerk.
“Feel familiar?” Noah felt a deep satisfaction at Stevenson’s horrified expression.
“Don’t do this,” the man pleaded, sprawled with his ass in the tub, legs hanging out, and a look of horror on his face.
“Is that what she said?” Noah snarled and flipped on the overhead shower and watched as the cold water rained down, soaking the man.
It took Noah seconds to remove the Glock from his ankle holster and screw the suppressor on the end. Lifting one booted foot to the top of the toilet seat next to the tub, Noah shoved every bit of emotion aside and did what he was trained to do.
“Did you seriously just say, ‘don’t do this?’” He tipped his head and leaned his arms on one knee and studied the sorry piece of shit in the tub. “I remember saying those same words to you through the years, begging you to stop.” Noah studied the end of the silencer. “So, you tell me, how many times did you listen to me?” His voice dropped to a raging, whispered growl.
“What the fuck, Noah?” Stevenson eyed the silencer at the end of the gun and sputtered beneath the water, but the man remained smart and didn’t attempt to get out of the tub. Or maybe that made Stevenson stupid. Noah didn’t much care. The guy was already dead, he just didn’t know it yet.
“Tell me where Manning is.”
“Fuck you,” Stevenson said, and then screamed when the bullet shattered his kneecap. The tub water sloshed and turned red as Stevenson flailed about. “You fuck! I’ll kill you!” Stevenson shouted and heaved forward, but Noah stood and stomped on the hand on the rim of the tub. Fingers crunched beneath his boot. The guy sprawled back in the tub, screaming with pain.
“Stevenson.” Noah repeated the man’s name until he stopped struggling and gazed wide-eyed up at him. “Focus, tell me where the fuck Manning is.”
“I… I can’t.” The man gulped. “He’ll kill me.”
Noah sneered and waived the gun. When the man shuddered, Noah advised him with deadly calm, “I don’t think it’s him you need to worry about right now.”
He brought the gun up again and it didn’t take long to get some information but not what he needed. The sound of trickling water followed him out of the room.
Outside, Havoc barked savagely. Stepping to the window, Noah slipped the curtain aside and glanced out, but the yard stood empty except for the dog yanking on the end of the chain that kept him in the yard.
Dragging a blanket from the hall closet, he returned to Clair and gently covered her. Placing one hand on her shoulder, he bowed his head. He’d been too late to save her, and he vowed that Manning and everyone involved would pay.
He moved then, fast and efficiently. Picking up Stevenson’s cell phone, Noah punched at the screen for a minute, scrolling through the information. Once he completed his task, he crushed the phone beneath his foot and left the house.
Time to disappear.
Mac
A door at the end of the office opened. “Mackenzie, Coleman, my office, now!” Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal Scott Buller growled. Leaving his office door open, the man returned to sit behind his desk.
“What the heck?” Jake whispered, getting to his feet.
Mac hid a smile. Even after years of working together, Jake still cringed when their captain called them into his office. Buller was a gruff, no-nonsense-type man. Jake still struggled with their captain’s personality, which was calm when things were going good and a tsunami when they weren’t. Nobody could tell, though, because the captain always called his men into his office loudly. Buller liked to keep them caught off guard. They never knew if their asses were going to be handed to them or not.
“Marshals.” Buller, pushing forty, eyed them over the top of his reading glasses. Clean shaven, Buller’s hair was black with a few threads of gray. Their captain had the physique of a much younger man due to his rigid workout schedule. He was tall with wide shoulders, and his muscles strained the seams of the shirt he wore.
The man’s desk held a shit-ton of files, pens, two half-empty coffee cups, the brew probably cold, as well as a picture of a group of young men in military uniforms. Mac knew Buller was ex-Marine, Special Ops. Recognizing a fellow soldier, they had shared with each other a bit about their pasts.
“Sir,” Mac and Jake said almost in unison and sat in the chairs the captain motioned toward.
Buller studied them for so long, Jake began to fidget. He stilled when Buller’s gaze leveled on the man.
“Something to say, Coleman?”
Mac hid his smile. Buller was out to intimate.
“No, sir.” Jake gulped beneath the captain’s hard, blue gaze.
Pinning Jake in place with just a look, Buller dropped his voice to a mere rasping whisper. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.” Jake swallowed and shifted in his chair.
Mac almost snorted and found himself on the receiving end of Buller’s stare. “Something to add, Marshal Mackenzie?” the man growled.
“No, sir.” Mac smiled and Buller grunted.
“We have a situation,” their captain said. “I just got off the phone with Agent Kane Quintana. It seems that Ricky Stevenson has surfaced.”
Mac’s heart slammed in his chest. “Where?”
“That’s what Agent Quintana is trying to find out,” Buller answered.
Mac nodded and glanced at Jake. The man seemed to have lost his ability to speak, his gaze riveted on Buller.
Buller scowled at Jake. “Are you with us here, Coleman?”
“Yes, sir.” Jake blinked slowly, and Mac coughed and elbowed his partner. This may be their first big break. Jake jerked around to look at him, then flushed bright red.
Buller’s gaze landed on Jake, and Mac thought he saw something flash in the captain’s eyes before it was shuttered away.
“Now, both of you get the hell out of my office.”
They didn’t hear anything from Kane for the next twelve hours. Unable to sleep, Mac was back at the office by six the next morning.
This lead on Stevenson could be the key to finding him and Manning
and ending this whole thing.
He sat clicking through the Manning/Stevenson file for what seemed like forever. They’d found out years ago that Terrance Manning was ex-special forces and left under shady circumstances. The USMS had been able to add on the additional charge of first-degree murder to Manning’s sheet.
Manning must have been helping Stevenson stay on the down-low because Mac couldn’t see any other way that Stevenson would have had the means to stay underground for this long. After so many years of not spotting either man, they assumed the two men had left the country.
Ten o’clock that morning crept around, and there was still no word from Kane. Mac had spent the past few hours restlessly going crazy playing out every scenario he could think of in his head. One, however, kept replaying over and over.
If they arrested Stevenson and then got the guy to turn on Manning, Noah would be free. Well, not technically, but free enough for Mac to… to what? Mac couldn’t get his head around how much he wanted to see Noah. He wanted to talk to Noah again if for no other reason than to see the man Noah had become. He wanted to say he was sorry for … he wasn’t sure, but he felt that sorry was a good place to start.
He opened the Brandenburg/Brown/Bradford file, and as usual, each entry was checked off that Clair had submitted her reports. Of course, Mac hadn’t opened any of the reports. He sighed, very much wanting to read about Noah, but closed the screen before temptation won out.
“Mackenzie,” he said abruptly into his cell when it rang.
“I found out more. And Mac, it’s not good,” Kane said.
“What?” Mac sat upright in his chair, his hand squeezing the phone.
“It seems that Manning’s sister is connected,” Kane replied.
“That’s old news.” Mac frowned. They’d had a detail on Manning’s sister for years.
“Yeah, but she recently started dating a guy by the name of Will Smith.” Kane sounded like he was reading from a file.
Mac blinked. “Will Smith? Like the actor?”
Kane snorted. “Check out the photo I just emailed you.”
Mac clicked the email open and the next second, he was staring at an older Ricky Stevenson with his arm draped around Manning’s sister. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Where and when was the picture taken?” There was part of a sign in the background, but he couldn’t make out the name.
“Penny’s Biker Bar, just off of Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County. Mac, the picture was taken yesterday.”
Mac found it suddenly hard to breathe. “That’s only a few miles from Noah’s safe house.”
“What?” Kane yelled, and Mac heard keys jingling and a door slam. “I’m on my way down to the biker bar, but it’s going to take me a few hours.”
“Wait…Jesus, fuck! They might know where the safe house is!” Mac stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair with shaking hands.
“I don’t know how close this bar is to the safe house,” Kane said. His breathing was hard, as if he were running.
“It’s close, about an hour away. I’ll call the marshals up there and have them check on the house,” Mac said over a dry throat. Nobody but the Marshals database had the location of a WITSEC person.
“Sounds good,” Kane replied.
“I’ll grab Jake and meet you in Ventura.” Mac ended the call, pulled on his jacket, and ran for the door, grabbing a surprised Jake coming out of the break room.
“Noah’s safe house may have been compromised,” Mac barked, and Jake slammed his coffee cup down and grabbed his coat from the rack by the door. They headed for the parking garage and jumped in Mac’s SUV.
“Call dispatch and have them issue a vacate alert to Clair Holt at the Bradford safe house,” Mac barked as he peeled out of the parking structure and took a sharp turn.
Jake looked stunned, but lifted the radio and made the call. “What’s going on, Mac?”
“Stevenson was spotted yesterday at a biker bar a few miles from Noah’s safe house.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
Mac nodded. “I just can’t figure out why he would be so close to that area. Unless…” His voice trailed off. He couldn’t even voice the thought for a moment. “Unless he knows about the house.”
Mac’s knuckles turned white around the steering wheel. Jesus, he now wished he’d kept in contact with Clair.
“Want me to drive?” Jake tossed him a worried look.
Mac drew in a deep breath and sped down the onramp and onto the freeway. “No, Jake. Thanks, though, I’m good.” And he was good. Cold resolve filled him. If Stevenson touched a fucking hair on Noah or Clair’s head, the guy was fucking dead.
Noah
Noah didn’t need to break skin anymore, but the twisting of the leather band burned just enough to serve as a reminder of the habit he’d quit years ago.
The dam had broken just after he entered the dark apartment. He unclipped Havoc’s leash and dropped it to the floor.
Robotically, he flipped locks and set the alarm before leaving a trail of clothing in his wake on his way to the bathroom. Blindly, he looked down at the leather band around his wrist and the tiny angel’s wing winked at him as he removed it and set it carefully on the bathroom sink.
Numbly, he yanked back the shower curtain, leaving it wide open, and stepped beneath the hot spray. Sliding down the tiled wall, he folded in on himself, wrapping his arms around his knees and drawing them tightly to his chest. It had been years since he’d let himself feel. Afraid of getting too attached, he’d kept himself aloof.
Clair was dead; he’d been too late. Regret squeezed his chest. The water swallowed his tears and muffled his sudden, harsh breaths.
He’d seen the damage. Clair had fought with every ounce of strength but in the end, Stevenson had killed her. Even watching the life fade from the fucker’s eyes hadn’t sated the hate growing in Noah. Resting his cheek on the top of one knee, he watched the water trickle down the drain.
He held one person responsible. Stevenson’s dying words gurgling from the man’s bloody lips had been a confession. Terrance Manning had ordered the hit on the safe house. Not only had they taken Clair from him, but they’d also taken Jenny.
Memories came crashing back. They’d been at the beach the day Manning’s gang had hit the safe house. He and Mac had spent the day laughing, laying in the sand, and gazing at the sky. They’d eaten lunch, and Noah dared to brush a crumb of food from Mac’s lip. He loved seeing how the man’s eyes darkened.
All the while, back at the safe house, Jake and Jenny had been attacked. Noah knew that Mac held himself responsible. He also knew Mac’s guilt was one of the reasons the man had left him with Clair. Clair had joined them shortly after the first year. She took over when Mac and Jake were needed elsewhere. The woman hadn’t been there the day the safe house had been hit. This time, she hadn’t been so lucky.
Noah held his face up and closed his eyes, letting the water rain down. When he stepped out of the shower fifteen minutes later, he stood in front of the steam-covered mirror. Wiping a hand with a long, sweeping arc, he cleared the moisture from the glass. His tired eyes looked back at him. Placing a small bandage tape over the cut above his right eye, Noah snagged a bigger bandage to treat the bullet graze he’d received in Moscow. It was only a scab now and would soon be nothing but a mark and a memory.
Running a hand down his flat abs, he rubbed a towel over his damp hair. The rest of his body held a series of scars, tokens from his line of work. They were blemishes that only a few men had ever seen in private. He never stayed long enough to answer curious questions; he just satisfied his needs and quickly left afterward. He refused to dwell on his choice of burly, dark-haired men with chiseled jawlines. If they had blue eyes, all the better.
Hobbling into the living room, Noah felt soreness in almost every bone in his body. His job was taking a toll. A soft nose nuzzled into his leg, and Noah crawled onto the
bed, patting the spot next to him. In seconds, Havoc was up on the bed and curled up at his side.
That last phone call, the one Stevenson had made before his death, had been to call for backup. He’d heard them coming through the front as he headed out the back with Havoc. They’d released the bound perps out front. By now, Manning would know that he was in the wind, just another scared WITSEC kid on the run. Manning was in for a rude awakening.
Unable to sleep, he called his unit leader from a disposable phone.
“Ghost?” Stefano Esposito sounded relieved.
“Yes,” Noah replied, juggling the phone with one hand. He rubbed gentle fingers beneath Havoc’s muzzle.
“You really went off the grid,” Stefano sputtered. The man sometimes struck Noah more like a concerned father rather than his commander.
“You told me to take some personal time,” Noah said, exasperated. “And, something personal came up.”
“Are you hurt?” Stefano asked.
“No.”
“I talked to Allison.”
“I know.”
“We’ll address your need to keep secrets at a later time. Are you still in the States?” Stefano countered smoothly.
“Yes.”
“Need assistance from the team?”
“No.” Noah rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want the team involved.
“I’m at my California residence, and I need you to handle something for me,” Stefano said. It was an order, and Noah wondered how many things Stefano could come up with to keep him here. Probably a shit ton.
He sighed. “You like dogs?”
Mac
The dash board flashed with an incoming call, and Mac pushed the button on the steering wheel.
“Mackenzie.”
“Hey, Mac!” Static filled the ear piece and Kane’s voice sounded as if the man was in a tunnel.
“Hey, Kane. What did you find out?” Mac asked.
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