by Katie Reus
Heart racing, she eased down the hallway toward Ellis’s bedroom. The door was cracked open, muted light spilling out onto the hardwood floors of the hallway.
Dylan motioned that he was going in first and there was no way she could argue with him right now.
Dylan tapped the door open with his foot, weapon up.
Evie was right behind him as they went through the doorway.
“Hands up!” Dylan snapped at the guy wearing a ski mask.
Evie knew immediately it wasn’t her brother. The man’s build was too small. Before the guy could respond, there was a shuffling behind her, the sound so faint she might have missed it as the guy in the ski mask lunged at them.
Turning, weapon still in hand, she jerked backward as a fist came straight at her face.
Shit. There were two of them.
She ducked, barely avoiding the blow from the meaty fist as Dylan grappled with the other guy. She collided with the door in her attempt to avoid getting punched. She was worried about Dylan but knew he could take care of himself.
The second guy rushed her, body-slamming her against the door. He was too damn heavy, pinning her arm in place. She released the weapon, cringing as it clattered to the floor. But she needed her hands free.
Adrenaline pumping, she lashed out, slamming her fists into the middle of his chest.
The guy cried out, releasing her. Without giving him a chance to recover, she landed four quick blows—to his throat and gut—even as she kicked at his inner knee.
It was clear the guy had no training. He was huge, but slow.
“Bitch!” he shouted as he swung at her again. “You’re gonna pay for that!”
This time she wasn’t as quick and his fist grazed her jaw. Twisting her head to the side, she barely felt it as she nailed him in the balls with her knee. She inwardly grinned as he fell to the floor. Then she jammed her knee up into his nose for one final blow. Blood spurted everywhere as she slammed him to the floor.
She wrenched his arms behind his back as he moaned out in pain, making pathetic blubbering sounds.
An instant later Dylan was beside her with a phone cord, wrapping it quickly around the guy’s wrists. She glanced up to see the other guy, knocked out cold, flat on his back.
She whipped off the ski mask of the guy underneath her but didn’t recognize him. He had thick, dark hair, brown eyes—and a broken, bloody nose. He glared at her, muttering curses about how she was going to pay for this.
“Now we’re calling the cops,” Dylan said.
She nodded because he was right. “Shut up now,” she snapped at the whiner.
The guy’s dark eyes went wide but he stopped.
She looked at Dylan. “Call them, but I’m taking their fingerprints first.” Reaching into a little zipper pocket at the bottom of her cargo pants, she pulled out a device she’d swiped when she’d left the Agency. Some habits definitely died hard.
He lifted an eyebrow at the high-tech device but didn’t comment as she scanned in both men’s fingerprints.
As Dylan called Detective Duarte, she bound the unconscious guy’s hands and started scanning the array of papers the two men had been digging through.
They’d busted open the safe in her brother’s closet and emptied out what looked like one of her brother’s filing cabinets from his office. She knew that nothing of importance was in the safe. The DEA had seen to that weeks ago. And hell, she’d done a scan of the house herself and found nothing.
Of course she didn’t know what the heck she was looking for so if there was something that could help her brother, she could have missed it.
“He’s on his way,” Dylan said a few minutes later. He paused, looking at her, then motioned that she should step out into the hallway with him.
“What?”
“Your…appearance. How are you going to play this?”
Hell. “Stay with these guys. I’ll take care of it.” While she’d done nothing wrong by wearing a disguise, it was better not to stand out to Detective Duarte in any way. She hurried to the bedroom she’d been staying in and stripped off the wig and glasses. Then she made quick work of the makeup and pulled on a ball cap. Not perfect, but it would have to do.
She was going to find out who the heck these guys were. And if they had anything to do with her brother’s trumped-up murder charge, she was going to get some answers.
Chapter 10
“You’re not very good at being patient, are you?” Dylan murmured. Both he and Evie had been waiting in Carlito’s office for over two hours with no word from the detective. He was frustrated just like her, but she’d been pacing like a caged tiger.
“Normally I am. Not tonight.” Sighing, she sat in the chair next to him, but on the edge of it, not fully relaxing.
She was wearing a ball cap with a hockey team’s logo on it, her long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. All her muscles were pulled taut, her forearms tense as she held on to the edge of the seat. He could practically see the wheels in her head turning.
“He’ll see us when he’s done.” Dylan assumed Carlito was questioning the two guys from Ellis’s place right now. The detective had dumped them in here, then disappeared.
Evie stood and started pacing. Again.
He rolled his shoulders once. “You get any hits on their fingerprints?”
She paused, glanced at the door, then nodded. “I’ll tell you about it once we’re out of here,” she murmured.
He doubted that Carlito’s office had listening devices but…she was right. Before he could respond, the detective opened the door, his gray eyes flashing in anger as he shut the door behind him. Uh oh. Dylan knew whatever the man had to say wasn’t good. He straightened in his seat.
“I’m sorry you guys had to wait so long.”
“What’s wrong?” Evie asked, sensing the same anger rolling off Carlito.
The detective sighed and leaned against the edge of his desk. “The DEA took them out of our custody. Said they’ve got jurisdiction. I fought it with my chief but there’s nothing we could do about it.”
“The DEA and not the FBI?” Evie’s question was neutral enough, but Dylan was pretty sure he understood why she was asking.
The FBI were the ones investigating Ellis Bishop’s alleged crimes. Because of the nature of the crime and suspect—a DEA agent—it would have been a conflict of interest for the DEA to investigate their own agent… But now the DEA was taking two men into custody who’d broken into Ellis’s house? That surprised Dylan too.
“Yep. DEA,” Carlito confirmed.
Dylan watched as Evie’s hands balled into fists, but just as quickly she shoved out a breath. “Okay, then. Do you need us for anything else?”
Carlito blinked once in surprise, maybe at her quick acquiescence. “At this point, no. Though…I do find it interesting that you were both armed when you entered your brother’s house.” He lifted an eyebrow, looking between the two of them.
Dylan stood. “We both have concealed weapons permits and Evie received an alert on her phone that someone was inside. Why wouldn’t we go in armed?” And that was all he was going to say about that. They’d given their statements.
“You should have called the police.” Carlito’s tone was admonishing.
Dylan simply shrugged. “We’re done here. Thank you for your help.” He took Evie’s elbow, glad that she leaned into him.
“Yes, thank you for your help, detective.” Evie’s voice was almost too polite as they headed toward the door.
Carlito simply sighed. “Call me if you need anything…and call us if you’re in trouble,” he muttered as they stepped out into the hallway.
“You let that go quickly,” Dylan murmured.
“If the DEA took them, there’s nothing we can do about that. I’m not going to waste time arguing with a Miami detective about it. He certainly can’t do anything about it.”
“They showed up awfully fast.”
“Yeah.” Evie frowned at that. Then her fr
own deepened as they stepped into the lobby to find Leo waiting for them. “What’s he doing here?”
“Driving us home.” After tonight Dylan was damn sure increasing their security.
Leo spoke for the first time as he steered them out of the Miami PD parking lot. “Trouble seems to follow you around, Ms. Bishop.” His tone was admonishing…judgmental.
“Leo.” Dylan’s voice was sharper than he’d intended. But he didn’t want his head of security—his friend—giving Evie any grief right now. She’d hoped to find her brother tonight and instead they’d run across what was definitely not a simple breaking and entering.
Leo met his gaze in the rearview mirror for a moment before he faced the road.
“He’s not wrong,” Evie murmured, laying her head on his shoulder.
The action took him by surprise and her too it seemed, because she jolted up, looking almost embarrassed before she pulled her cell phone out. He wasn’t shy about watching who she texted either. Very clearly an FBI agent—and she told the woman what had happened tonight with the DEA.
“Who is that?” he asked, motioning to her phone. “The agent in charge of Ellis’s investigation?”
“No, another one. She’s running the investigation into the bombing. But I know she’ll make sure the right people find out about this.”
“You think the FBI doesn’t know yet?” he asked as she slid her phone back into her pocket.
“I don’t know who those guys were.” Yet was the unspoken word. “But I find it hard to believe the FBI would let the DEA take some guys breaking into the house of someone they have an active criminal investigation on. No…they won’t be happy at all.”
Dylan wasn’t either. Not about any of this. His world had been upended since the moment he’d met Evie but this was a whole other ballgame.
For some reason, he didn’t mind the chaos. Not as long as Evie was in his life. But he wanted to know the real her. All of her.
* * *
Dylan froze in the entrance to his private gym. After checking on Cooper—and finding him shamelessly dozing on Samara’s bed—he’d come looking for Evie and now he’d found her. She was pounding away on a punching bag, wearing a black sports bra and little black shorts. He didn’t think she was aware of him, because her focus was solely on destroying the punching bag. At ten p.m. it was late to be working out, but he understood her need to release frustration.
Her jet-black hair was pulled back in a braid and sweat rolled off her arms and down her back as she hit the bag over and over. Her muscles flexed with each movement, her arms and legs lean and toned. This was the real Evie Bishop. This driven, focused woman. A woman who was hunting for the truth.
He took a small step inside and she must have heard or seen him out of the corner of her eye.
Turning, she let her hands drop. “Hey.”
He crossed the distance between them, fighting the urge to touch her, to cup her face, to take her onto the mat right here. To kiss her senseless. “How are you feeling?”
She stripped off the gloves and hung them neatly on the hook by the towels. Then she grabbed a white towel and ran it over her face and head. “Frustrated. Angry.” Her jaw tightened once as she wrapped the towel around her neck, holding on to the ends as she watched him. “I can’t find Seamus. I can’t find my brother. I don’t even know if Seamus is the one targeting us. I have a whole lot of unknowns and limited resources. And pounding on this punching bag is doing nothing to alleviate my stress. I want to find whoever bombed Evan, and beat their head in.” Her voice rose slightly as she continued. “I also want to kick the ass of whoever set up Ellis. And I really want to know who shot my friend and took a shot at me.” Her expression was hard, her hands in tight balls again, but she took a deep breath, then expelled it before sitting on the bench next to the towels. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear me whine.”
“It’s not whining. And I might be able to help you on the Seamus front. I set up an appointment with the friend of mine I told you about. The hacker. I gave her the details on Seamus we got from the security feeds. She’s doing a search for him.” He hadn’t had much to give his friend but the images should be enough.
Her head snapped up as she stood. “You did that without telling me?”
“Yes.” They hadn’t had time to talk about it since leaving the security office so he’d simply taken care of it.
“It’s dangerous to run his information. Did you think about that?”
He narrowed his gaze at her tone. “No. I didn’t think about that. Because I’m a dumbass.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You’re implying it,” he snapped. “Of course I took precautions. The woman I asked is a friend. I would never put her in danger.”
“A friend?”
Was that jealousy in her tone? Frowning, he took a step closer. “Does it matter?”
“Nope.” She started to walk away from him but he reached out, grabbing her forearm.
“She is just a friend.” He tugged her closer, not caring that she was sweaty. “A very happily married one.”
She placed a hand on his chest, gave a weak push. “You still should have asked me. I don’t want to put anyone in danger.”
He tugged her even closer. “Yeah, well I didn’t.” And he wasn’t sorry. Evie needed the info, needed to find this guy. And he was damn sure going to help.
“What do you want from me?” she whispered when he still didn’t let go.
He wasn’t sure why she was even asking since he hadn’t said anything. Maybe the question was rhetorical because he was still holding her arm. Regardless, the answer was that he wanted everything. The truth, the real her, which he was only just starting to see—and he liked what he saw. His gaze dipped to her mouth, and when she licked her lips a slight groan escaped. Hell. He shouldn’t want her so much, shouldn’t be so obsessed with her. But he couldn’t help it—he’d never gotten over her. And he wasn’t sure he ever would. She was in his blood.
He wasn’t certain who moved first but suddenly they were kissing, his tongue teasing against hers as she wrapped her entire body around him. Her legs tightened around his waist as she dug her fingers into his shoulder.
They needed a flat surface. Now. The mat would do. It wouldn’t take long to strip her down. All he would have to do was slide his hand down the front of her little shorts, cup her mound and slip a finger inside. Would she be wet for him?
He hoped so because he was already rock-hard for her. Seeing her working out turned him on. Knowing she was in his house, under his roof, turned him on. Everything she did turned him on. It was beyond reason.
But that was just the way it was and he was going to have to accept it. Because he didn’t think there was another woman for him other than Evie Bishop. She was his not-so-secret addiction.
At the sound of someone clearing their throat, they both froze. He tore his gaze to the doorway, glared at one of his security guys. “What?” he snapped out. Something better be on fire.
“A detective is here to see you. Detective Duarte. He’s got something important to tell you.” The man wasn’t looking directly at them, but slightly off to the side as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.
“Give me ten minutes,” he growled.
Evie let her legs drop from around him and he bit back another growl. “We’ve got to talk to him,” she said, immediately putting some distance between them.
“Not sure why he didn’t just call.” Dylan rolled his shoulders once. They’d been moments away from both being naked, from him being deep inside her. Maybe the interruption was for the best. For…reasons.
Evie grabbed a dry T-shirt and tugged it over her head. “I’ll shower after we talk to him.”
He frowned at her. “You want to put on different bottoms?”
She glanced down at herself, then looked up at him and frowned. “I can. Why?”
He didn’t say anything, but looked at the shorts again. They didn’t cover anything
. Some caveman part of him didn’t like her showing off so much skin. Which he knew was ridiculous but he was ridiculous where she was concerned.
She gave him a strange look, but grabbed a pair of long jogging pants and tugged them on over her skintight shorts. “Let’s get this over with.”
Dylan and Evie found Duarte waiting in the foyer, hands shoved in his pants pockets.
He straightened when he saw them. “I could’ve just called but I wanted to tell you in person. I was headed home when I got a call from my boss. The two guys who were taken into custody by the DEA were both killed during transport.”
Evie let out a low curse as Dylan rubbed a hand over his face. If the two guys were dead, there wasn’t a threat of them coming back and trying to get revenge on him and Evie for interrupting their B&E and getting them arrested. But he guaranteed those two guys had been working for someone. Someone who had decided they needed to die.
“How were they killed?” she demanded before Dylan could ask the same thing.
“Another prisoner. Not sure how they managed to sneak a weapon on board but they did. That’s all I know—except the prisoner who killed them is dead now too.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but then cleared his throat. “I thought you deserved to know,” he finished.
Thankfully the detective didn’t want to make small talk so he left after a short goodbye.
“This is bullshit,” Evie muttered as soon as the door shut behind him. “That’s a setup if I’ve ever heard of one. Whoever set my brother up has to be involved in this. Involved in killing those guys. It’s gotta be a dirty DEA agent because no one else would be able to smuggle a weapon in during transport. And now that prisoner is dead too? No way.” She let out a growl of frustration then turned and left, stalking away from Dylan and down the hallway.
His instinct was to follow after her but he let her go. She needed to work out whatever was going on in her head and he was going to reach out to some more contacts. She’d run the information from the fingerprints on her device and he had their names. Soon, he would find out who those two guys had been. He might not be hacker-level like his friend Lizzy Caldwell, but he would do some searches of his own.