by Joss Wood
Oh... oh, shit. “Are you saying that there was a tracking device on my clothes?” Sam asked him, pumping her legs to keep up his rapid descent down the stairs.
“Only logical explanation,” Jett replied as they hit the bottom floor. He immediately turned right and eyed the back exit to the building.
Stopping at the door, he sent Sam a hard, cold look. “So, who was at the mansion that could’ve placed a tracking device on your clothes, Sam?”
Her mind wasn’t working as fast as his so Sam shook her head, confused. “I have no idea.”
“Jesus, keep up, Red!” Jett said, opening the back door to the building and pushing her into the cold night. “Who had access to that coat, your dress? Mary, Fern, Carla? One of your friends, someone you love and who professes to love you, is working for or with The Recruiter.”
Chapter Ten
Kelby, equally but quietly furious, drove them back to Stone’s house and as Kelby turned down the street, Jett’s crew materialized out of the shadows to surround the car, each man holding what looked to be a semi-automatic weapon.
Sam scrambled out of the SUV and, with Jett holding her arm, half ran and half jogged up the stairs to Stone’s front door. The wooden door opened as they hit the top step and Sam and Jett ran into the house, Kelby on their heels. In the hallway, Sam placed her hands on her knees, her heart wanting to jump out of her chest. In her periphery vision, she saw Stone placing his pistol in his shoulder holster. She’d never seen her brother carry a weapon. Even more of a surprise was how at ease he looked with it digging into his shoulder, his movements suggesting that it was something he did, and often.
Her brother was more than the billionaire philanthropist the world wanted to see him as. Oh, he was familiar with the nuances of military operations, he ran a company who took on assignments for individuals, corporations, and governments needing sticky situations resolved. Sam always assumed her brother managed the business end of Pytheon, that he wasn’t actively involved in the nastier side of the business. Stone didn’t put his ass on the line...
But then, looking at him tonight, maybe he did.
With Jett’s hand on her back, Sam wished her world would go back to the way it was, that her life could return to normal. It had only been a couple of days and she was over this craziness. People were dying because of her and it had to stop.
Immediately.
Sam sent Stone a hard look. “Raul died tonight because of me.”
“Who is Raul and how did he die?” a cool voice said from behind her.
Sam turned around and her eyebrows lifted. Waist-length, black hair pulled into a ponytail, deep brown eyes, and a face like Heidi Klum; yep, this woman, through luck or help, had won the genetic jackpot.
And who the hell was she? The brunette looked at Stone and the two of them exchanged a long look, short on words and heavy on meaning. And a whole lot of sexual tension. Black-haired Barbie and Stone were either having bed-breaking sex or wanted to have bed-breaking sex.
“Stone and I are dating. I’m Sydney Moriaty.” Her tone was cool and Sam saw a touch of amusement in her eyes.
Dating, my ass. She’d watched Stone’s dates stroll in and out of his life for more than fifteen years and he never, ever brought women back to his house unless he felt heart attack serious about them. In fifteen years, only one women had taken up residence here and Sam knew her for six months before she moved in.
“Oh, bullshit!” Sam retorted, tired of the lies and needing the sweet taste of truth. “Who are you, really?”
Stone shook his head at Sydney when she started to speak and ignored her warning look. “Sydney and I are not dating but I can’t say much more than that.”
“Alphabet agency?” Jett asked.
Sydney gave him a scorching look. “Like I’m going to answer that. Let’s just say that I am a liaison between Stone and a company who wants Pytheon’s expertise.”
“That all you’re going to tell me?” Jett demanded, sounding pissed.
“That’s all I can tell you.” The “or else I might have to kill you” was implied.
Jett rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He sent Stone a look. “Does she have anything to do with our current situation?” Jett impatiently waited for Stone’s response.
“No,” Stone said.
Sydney looked intrigued. “But I’m very interested to know why you and your sister are being so heavily guarded and who died.”
Jett walked toward the door and placed his hand on the handle. “You need to go.”
Sydney smiled at him, a practiced smile that was pure sex and no warmth. She playfully tapped her finger on Jett’s chest and pouted. Sam was pretty sure the sex-kitten look had men spilling their secrets on six continents.
“You don’t play nice.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t play at all,” Jett said and lifted the collar of his shirt to speak. “Guys, I’ve got a female coming out in a minute. Try not to shoot her. If you do, bury her body where it can’t be found.”
Instead of pouting, Sydney sent him a full blown, genuine smile. Sam found it interesting the stunning woman had absolutely no effect on Jett; he seemed oblivious to the supermodel face and toned, tight, stripper body. She was frickin’ gorgeous, but Jett seemed not to notice. Just for that little action, Sam fell a little deeper in love with him.
“Ha-ha,” Sydney replied, looking from Jett to Sam and back again.
Her eyes softened and Sam caught a hint of sympathy on her face. “If you didn’t kill the man then his death wasn’t your fault, Dr. Stone.”
Sam nodded but couldn’t help thinking it really was. She was Stone’s weak point, his Achilles heel. If she wasn’t around, then she couldn’t be used as a way for The Recruiter to exact revenge on Stone and their father.
Revenge for what? Jasper was dead. What did The Recruiter want? Sam hugged herself, feeling like her world was spinning out of control.
Raul was dead. He’d been killed because The Recruiter was looking for her.
His blood would always be on her hands. Sam’s throat constricted, her stomach lurched and she spun on her heel, heading for the potted, ornamental lemon tree in the corner of the hallway.
She dropped to her knees, gripped each side of the pot and vomited.
Jett stood in the doorway to Sam’s old bedroom, looking at the bundle in the darkened room. Sam’s head was covered by a blanket, as if she were hoping she’d be safe in her little cocoon. There was only so much a civilian could handle and Sam was at her limit.
This had to end, and soon. Partly because, with every day that passed, the Sam-in-danger quotient escalated and her nerves and anxiety rose as well. Psychologist or not, that wasn’t good for her, or anyone’s, mental health. The second reason was that he’d like to be able to put some distance between them, he’d like a little more normality. Dangerous situations amped emotions and he was wary of any emotions that were born under pressure. Who knew how real they were?
In the real world, the one without crazies chasing them, he and Sam could take it slow, real slow. If he was around, and available, they could, maybe, go out on the occasional date and they’d quickly—hopefully—realize they weren’t suited, that there was no chance of anything happening between them.
Then again, normality could also reinforce the vague idea she might be his soul mate, the one person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Jett rubbed the back of his neck. He’d thought, with Gemma, he’d known what desire was, what he wanted but his feelings for his ex were an insubstantial swell when he compared them to the maelstrom Sam managed to churn up inside him.
But that could be a side effect of the danger they were in.
Jett silently released a string of creative curses before closing her door. He walked back to the stairs, jogging down the steps to meet up with Stone and Kelby in the study. Focus on what you can control, what’s important.
Keeping Sam in one piece, protecting her, was all that was important. Everythi
ng else—sex, pesky feelings, thoughts of forever—could wait until she was safe.
Do your goddamn job, Smith-Jones.
Jett walked into the study and gratefully took the cup of coffee Kelby thrust in his direction.
“Raul?” Jett asked, after taking a reviving sip.
“His folks will be notified by an NYPD officer. We’ll go visit them when the mission is finished,” Kelby said and Jett nodded his agreement.
Jett took a seat on the leather couch, placing his cup on the coffee table. Stone sat opposite him, next to him, Seth. Kelby stood behind Stone, his hands gripping the back of the sofa. Like him, their expressions were a mixture of sadness, frustration, fear and a healthy dose of “fuck this.”
“This ends,” Stone said, echoing his thought.
Jett agreed with him but how to reach that goal wasn’t clear. Picking up his coffee, he leaned back and placed his ankle on his opposite knee. “Tell me about the tracking device?” Jett asked Kelby.
“I managed to get there a minute before the first responders arrived and I did a quick search. I found it under the collar of the dress she left on the seat.”
“Thanks for suggesting that she change,” Jett said, his eyes on Kelby’s face.
He hadn’t thought of it and Kelby’s trade craft, and precaution, saved their lives.
Kelby shrugged his thanks away. He picked up his phone from the table and, after scrolling, handed the phone to Jett. The matte black tracking device in Kelby’s palm was little more than the size of a baby’s thumbnail. “The device is military grade.”
Seth took the phone from Jett and, after looking at the picture, his face darkened into a scowl. “It’s the same make we, and all the other security firms, use. Light, reliable, small, it’s a perfect device to slip into a tiny space.”
“Did it have any serial numbers? Something we can trace?” Jett asked, with little hope.
“First thing I checked. The numbers were filed away,” Kelby replied sounding irritated.
Dead end.
“Who had access to Sam’s dress?” Jett asked and proceeded to answer his own question. “Her friend picked up the dress for her...” He looked at Stone, snapping his fingers because he couldn’t remember her name.
“Carla Crane.” Stone supplied the name. “She dropped it off with Fern and Fern brought the dress here.”
“Carla and Fern, that’s two. Who else was in the house?” Seth asked.
“Mary. And Sam’s godparents and their son and daughter-in-law,” Stone said, looking and sounding tense.
“Have we done background checks on these people?” Jett asked, looking at Seth.
“Not on her friends or the godparents but Mary is subject to the yearly background check that I, personally, do on all Pytheon employees,” Seth replied in his laconic way of speaking.
Stone frowned. “You do background checks on everyone in the organization?”
Seth held his hot look. “I designed a program. It runs and flags anything I should know about. As an employee of Pytheon, we can eliminate her. Even if she didn’t come up clean, she’s not computer savvy enough to be involved with The Recruiter.”
“She’s not computer savvy at all,” Stone grumbled. “She totally scrambled my online calendar today. It took Jackie two hours to sort it out.”
“We need to do a dark web background search on the others,” Jett told Seth, who nodded his agreement.
“Fern has been her friend since they were kids, Jett!”
Jett ignored Stone’s protest and kept his eyes on Seth. “Can you do it? Dig deep, relationships, ideologies, financials, criminal charges, the whole works.”
Seth nodded, his expression resolute.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree and wasting time,” Stone said, radiating annoyance.
Stone released a long stream of creative invectives and when Jett heard some of his creative cursing, he knew for sure Stone had spent some time in some army somewhere. A person didn’t learn those words in a preppy, Ivy League college.
“We’re going to keep Sam here, within your house, with the entire crew guarding the three of you.” Jett looked from Seth to Stone and back again. “I don’t need to tell you that no one has access to Sam so no phone calls and no visits until we get to the bottom of this, okay?”
God, he needed sleep, a solid few to recharge his brain. He was missing something; he was sure of it. Something about the last few minutes didn’t sit right with him, his gut instinct was screaming that he was off track. Allowing his head to drop back onto the couch, he stared up at the ornate molded ceiling.
Jett closed his eyes and allowed the conversation between the three men to wash over him, allowing his mind a minute to drift.
A serial killer knocking off people to protect her and an international criminal mastermind, all gunning for Sam. God, the woman had shitty luck.
Redheads were so much trouble.
Pity that he really, really liked her type of trouble.
Two days passed and Sam, sick of being cooped up in the brownstone, was going off her head. Standing at the window of one of the many guest rooms, she looked across the bare trees in Central Park, thinking the last time she felt this cooped up was when she was ten and had chicken pox.
Unlike then, no one, and especially not Jett, was making much of an effort to entertain her. Sam rested her forehead on the cold window and sighed. On Jett’s orders, and for her safety, they’d moved into Stone’s enormous house where she was isolated and saw no one apart from Kelby, Stone, and Seth. And Jett.
But, since Jett was treating her like she had a communicable disease, she only saw him at meals and they’d exchanged no more than five sentences in two days. Fern, Carla, and Will had been asked to stay away, she didn’t have a phone and she had a safe, sterile, secure computer to work on. And no access to the Internet.
If she wanted to send an email, she had to ask Seth to send it for her so her whereabouts couldn’t be traced.
How long could this go on? She wanted her life back. She wanted to return to her career, she had work to do. Ross wanted her to visit a crime scene with him in Florida—a scene that was, apparently, very weird and totally twisted—and she had to decline. That irritated the hell out of her. He told her he’d send detailed photos of the crime scene but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t breathe the air, examine the area, soak in the energy.
She wanted to go back to Pilates, to run through Central Park, to meet Fern and Will for cocktails, to go clubbing.
She wanted a life, her life back, dammit.
Tears burned the back of her throat and Sam cursed her constricting heart. She wasn’t the most sociable person in the world, but she missed her friends. She missed Fern’s hugs, Mary’s fussing and Will’s sarcastic quips.
But most of all, she missed Jett. At night, she lay awake, praying he would come to her, that he would slide under the covers with her. They’d known each other for less than a week but he was her favorite pillow, her chief source of heat, her source of energy. And safety. When she was with Jett, she felt like everything was going to be alright.
Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday.
Sam heard the light knock on her door and turned as the door opened. Think of the sexy devil and he arrives. She pulled up a smile, her hands gripping the windowsill behind her.
“Are you okay?” Jett asked, leaning against the doorframe in the slouchy position he seemed to favor.
“I’m under house arrest,” Sam retorted. “I’ve been better.”
“House arrest is better than being dead,” Jett calmly replied, with irritating logic.
“I know that!” Sam muttered. “I’m going crazy, Jett.”
“You’re going to have to find a way to deal with that because you’re gonna stay here for as long as it takes to develop new intel.”
Sam turned her head to look out of the window, sighing at the gentle snowflakes. “Can’t you take me outside? Just for a quick walk? I need some fres
h air.”
Jett walked over to her and Sam tensed, thinking he was finally, finally going to touch her. Okay, if she couldn’t go for a walk, she’d settle for some attention from Jett. Sam watched as he nudged her elbow out of the way and opened the window behind her.
“Fresh air,” Jett said, walking away to put her out of touching distance.
The bite of the snow touched air, a direct contrast to the flame of anger hurtling through her. “Are you freaking kidding me?” Sam yelled.
Jett frowned. He lifted his hands as if he wanted to placate her. “Sorry?”
“I want to go outside! I want to taste the snowflakes on my tongue. I want to walk or run. I want my damned life back.”
“We’re working on it, Sam,” Jett said with annoying patience. “I know that you are frustrated but I’m not going to risk your life because you’re having a temper tantrum. Calm the hell down.”
Sam rocketed up and headed straight for Jett, slapping both her hands onto his pecs. “It takes a special kind of stupid to piss me off and then expect me to be calm!” she shouted, lifting her hands to slap him again.
Sam opened her mouth to yell at him again—she wanted to go out, she wanted her life back, why was he ignoring her?—but before she could fire her first word, Jett’s lips were covering hers and his tongue was inside of her mouth, swallowing what she wanted to stay.
Sam tried to pull her mouth away. He was not going to distract her from their fight by kissing her, but his hand held the back of her neck, keeping her head in place. She couldn’t move and then, honestly, she didn’t want to. This was exactly where she wanted to be, in Jett’s arms, being kissed by him. Jett banded one arm around her back and lifted her, walking her backward—his mouth still fused on hers—before stopping to close to the door. Kicking it shut, he reached behind him to fiddle with the lock, turning the key so they wouldn’t be interrupted.
She had to get her hands on him, she had to feel his warm flesh under her fingers, feel his heartbeat. Temper and lust and frustration combined into a determined force and Sam slid her hands under his sweater, pulling it and the T-shirt he wore underneath up his chest. Unable to resist, she dropped a hard, hot, open-mouthed kiss on his chest, hoping he understood she needed him hot, she needed him hard but, most of all, she needed him now.