by Amber Malloy
Similar to any normal human being, hospitals freaked him out. Walker stepped out of the room.
“Hey, boss.” Tank walked in line with him. They headed past the nurses’ station and out of the emergency room sliding doors.
“Did they show up?” Walker asked once they were outside. He’d called his partners to cancel the dinner. Unfortunately, the entitled fools never listened.
“Yep, and I don’t know if we should thank or kill your neighbor, Sir Nosey Boots,” Tank told him.
“Tom?”
“Chads and their wives got in your house.”
“Really neat trick,” Walker said, wondering how Frick and Frack would explain away breaking and entering.
“Yeah, your neighbor refused to let them go anywhere in the house alone. If the two dumbasses wanted to do anything, they couldn’t, because of him.”
“Shit, now I really do owe Tom a night in front of the big screen.”
“Sounds sexy.” Tank chuckled. Walker followed him to his truck. He opened the door and pulled out his tablet. “The security and the Wi-Fi on your grandparents’ house are antiquated. I updated everything. Feel free to search Ashe’s case without being hacked.”
Tank handed over his tablet. “I put a camera on the front door, back door and office.”
On the screen, Walker’s partners and their wives walked by the den. Chad snuck back and planted something under the wood desk. “A bug. That little prick bugged me.”
“Yep, he only had time to do one room. You know, because of—” Walker peered down at the screen to catch Tom doubling back to shoo Chad from the office.
“Shit, now we’re way past a beer and the big screen.” Walker handed over Tank’s tablet. “Still think they don’t have anything to do with Ashe’s case?”
“No, but there’s no connecting thread.”
“So, what now?” Walker asked
“Bottom line, those shits are trying to gut the company and leave us holding the bag.” Tank’s eyes grew dark. “That’s just my guess.”
“Got to be something else,” Walker replied. “It’s too sudden.”
“I’m going to loop the feed and show them what we want them to see. How’s the lawyer?”
“Appendix.”
“Ouch!” Tank said before he got into his truck. “I’m going to do some more digging and figure out a way to protect our assets.”
Tank didn’t need the money. He was one of the wealthiest men Walker knew. Walker, on the other hand, had to stop the bleeding before the Chads wreaked havoc on his bank accounts. For the time being, he’d set aside enough cash to float him. However, it appeared Tank didn’t want to let the Chads off that easy.
* * * *
Morty lounged on her lap, purring. Ashe rested on the couch, while an epic storm whipped and wailed around the house.
Of course, the sexy man rocking a full suit had other plans. “Remote, check. Tea, check. Do you need anything else?” Walker scanned the room, probably in search of something else to put in front of her.
“Don’t worry about me.” It was past time for him to go back to work. He patted his pockets for his keys and stepped out of the room before he came back again. “I can stay. Just say the word and I can st—”
“No, I’ll be okay,” she lied. Ashe hadn’t been fine in forever. Her anxieties were getting the better of her, big time. The appendix scare had put everything in perspective. “I have tea and Morty. We’re good.”
He stared at her for a moment then nodded. Apparently, a silent decision had been made. Bending down, he pecked her on the forehead.
“I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
Walker left the media room. Ashe waited to hear the front door shut before she slipped her burner phone from under the fuzzy blanket. Since her five-star stay at the hospital, Ashe hadn’t had a second to herself. Hopefully, she could still get the job.
“Women’s Unity, how may I help you?”
Ashe had set up a job interview with the not-for-profit agency. She needed a way to search for information without it seeming suspicious or getting traced back to her.
Merely seconds after she’d hung up, the storm outside turned into a full-on rager. Over the harsh wind and rain, she barely heard the front door.
“What happened?” she asked, hiding the phone back under the blanket. “Did the Wicked Witch scare you?” She was not surprised to see him come back, as Walker hadn’t left her side in weeks.
“Yep.” He loosened his tie. “She took a header off that broom. It’s going to take forever to clean that green goo off the streets. I figured I can watch Netflix and chill with you.”
Chapter Twelve
WLK Security was providing protection for Jasmine Magazine’s Charity Gala. According to the New York Times, it was the most coveted event of the fashion season. Walker didn’t know anything about the industry but was using the affair to get Ashe out of the house for a few hours.
“Are you sure about the guest list?” More than a little nervous, Walker suppressed the urge to make the driver turn around. Stuck in the arrival line, their limo pulled up to The Daugherty Hotel. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips to kiss. Six months in the Cape had sailed by at a phenomenally quick rate.
“We went through the list with a fine-toothed comb,” Ashe reminded him. “Relax.”
The driver stopped the car for the valet to open the door. He’d worried that soon Ashe would lose her well-educated mind within the confines of suburban life. They were no closer to finding her partner’s killer, which in turn meant someone was still hunting her.
Walker stepped out of the limo and placed his hand on her back. Ashe shrugged out of his touch. Finding that strange, he figured she must have been jumpy. Instead, he took her hand and steered her away from the paparazzi’s photo flashes.
It occurred to him that the only picture he had ever seen of Ashe obscured her face. Why? Surely her choice of careers couldn’t have been further from modeling, but there had to be something more.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.
“Uh, fine,” he admitted, before he ushered her through the door with the other guests. “I promise to take you out for the best hot chocolate after this.”
“Are you trying to bribe me, Mr. Knight?”
“Of course. You’re going to meet the Chads and their wives. You deserve a huge amount of incentive to ever come out with me again.”
“Straight to the veins.” She tilted her head and smiled in his direction.
He couldn’t stop that uncontrollable falling feeling she always seemed to cause inside him.
“Trust me. Once you meet them, I’ll officially owe you your weight in gold.”
Overhead lights twinkled throughout the Japanese maple and magnolia trees that highlighted the historic hotel, while the wealth and money overran the posh surroundings. Women in designer gowns lit up the room, but none of them could hold a candle to Ashe.
Walker scanned the crowd for anything out of place. “Hey,” he said, once he felt Ashe’s hand slip from his.
“It couldn’t be.” She took a few steps away, focusing on something across the room.
“Someone you recognize?” he asked. Wanting her to get out of the Cape didn’t mean he was willing to risk her life.
“Wine, sir?” A server crossed in front of him with her drink tray.
“No, thank you. After this, I was thinking about spending the weekend in the city…” He stopped once he realized Ashe had left his side.
“I’m going to have to politely decline,” the server said before she lowered her tray, revealing her face.
Hissing out a curse, Walker tried to scoot around, but J8’s most deadly spy, Lola, blocked him.
“It’s been a long time, sweetie. How’s it going?” She grabbed a drink and swigged the contents down in a single gulp.
He sought out Ashe in the crowd and caught Eden leading her away.
“Don’t make me embarrass you,” Lola sang,
sounding downright cheerful.
“What the hell? You guys couldn’t have picked a worse night.” Walker bitched about J8’s bad timing and tried to make a move, but the deadly woman nearly tripped him.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Lola said loudly enough for everyone at the event to hear before she helped him straighten up. “You weren’t exactly open to having a sit-down. Here.” She offered him a glass of a wine. “Don’t worry. We’ll get the target back to you all in one piece.”
“She has a name.” Walker snatched the glass from the evil spy’s grip and downed the dry spirits.
“Forgive me. Who knew the target had a name?” Lola’s wicked smile morphed her pretty face into something purely sinister.
He cursed himself for the slip-up. Walker had already given the spy too much.
Ashe stepped into the powder room. Black lacquer covered the walls in a vintage 1920s style. It was empty except for the two of them. She stepped behind the woman who wore her emerald green gown better than any Eastern empress.
The beauty opened her clutch purse and pulled out her black lipstick. Ashe waited for her to touch up the dark shade that highlighted her rich mahogany skin. Admiring the perfect curls that were thrown into a haphazard bun on top of her head, Ashe fought the urge to fidget.
Their eyes met in the mirror.
“Don’t say it,” she pleaded, once she settled herself onto the chaise-lounge that sat opposite the spy.
“Say what?” Eden smiled. She finished with the matte color that set off her high cheekbones. “Heard about your surgery. How are you feeling?”
“Not bad. I probably should have taken care of it when you first told me to,” Ashe confessed to the one person she could honestly call family.
“And?”
“If you think for one second I will fall on my sword”—Ashe pushed out her chin in defiance—“and admit you were right…”
“About?” Eden hitched her hip against the porcelain sink and tilted her head to the side. “What am I right about, sweetie pie?”
“How is this possibly fun for you?”
“You’d be amazed,” the mom of two pressed. “Now, continue.”
Dropping her head against the wall, Ashe blew out a huge breath. “Fine. Eden Morgan, you were right. I should have never taken on the Karhi Algharb. I thought their leader, Tariq Afia, was dead and it would be safe to go after the militia—”
“But we didn’t have all of the facts, and even now, we still don’t know everything.”
“Which brings us back to ‘I told you so.’” Ashe hurried to throw out a bone in hopes of ending the conversation. “Just say it and get it over with,” she begged.
“You’ve known me forever. Do you really think it will be that easy?” The dangerous woman tilted her head to the side.
At the age of eleven, Ashe’s family had moved to Sierra Leone for missionary work. After she’d turned twelve, a religious militia had taken over the village, killing all the adults and her little brother. They’d forced the remaining children into the army. Beaten and tortured for years, she’d been made into a foot soldier. When Walker had noted she’d looked as if she’d had training, he hadn’t had a clue how right he’d been.
Months after her fifteenth birthday, Eden and her crew had come across the militia’s jungle hideout and saved her.
Orphaned, and with no place to go, Ashe had been lucky Eden had taken her in.
“Tariq Afia’s status is unknown,” Eden told her.
“But according to the intel we received—”
Eden held up her finger to stop her. “He was just the face of the militia.”
“What?” The information hit her in the gut. She fell back onto the plush sofa cushion. For years Ashe had believed that the man who had brutalized her had been calling all the shots. That was why she’d mounted an all-out campaign against the militia. Tariq Afia had become her one and only reason to present the United Nations with the case.
Clenching her hand into a fist, she felt her self-control slipping away. Anger boiled in her gut. “Do you know who is funding them?” she asked through clenched teeth. Ashe had put too much time and energy into this case for everything to fall apart so fast.
“Like I told you,” Eden spoke slowly, “before you decided to include the United Nations in this mess, we are working on it.”
“It’s been more than seventeen years! How long was I—”
“Look at what it cost you,” Eden said.
Ashe glanced away from the spy’s penetrating stare and took a deep breath. It would do no good to fight with her. Besides, Eden would win. “What about C.T.? Was she in on it?”
“Maybe she took payments to keep an eye on you, but nothing else. A senior at your firm paid for information, but once she started digging—”
“C.T. realized she was in over her head,” Ashe finished for her. “What if she isn’t dead?” When they’d arrived at the event, Ashe could have sworn she’d glimpsed her former partner in the hotel. More greedy than ambitious, C.T. would have been ripe for a payoff.
“When you found her, did she look dead?”
“Hard to tell. I was running for my life,” Ashe spat back sarcastically.
“She was screwing one of the senior partners.”
Ashe prattled off a shaky laugh before she blew a curl out of her face. “Yeah, I had an idea. Does that mean the firm has something to do with this?”
“We haven’t found anything yet.” She shrugged. “They’ve hired WLK Security for an upcoming event, speaking of Walker—”
Before Eden could finish her thought, the bathroom door flew open with a hard thud.
“Did you ask her?” Lola panted out of breath. “Did she tell you if she’s banging the Boy Scout?”
“We were just getting to that,” Eden said to her evil half.
Ashe rolled her eyes at the gossipy spies. “A girl never kisses and tells,” she mumbled in hopes they would drop their line of questioning entirely.
Lola ventured closer. “It’s just that he’s so uptight, and I can’t imagine—” the Latina stunner nearly sang with that hypnotizing inflection she had perfected.
“Mind-blowing, amazing,” Ashe blurted in an effort to shut her up. Lola’s fishing would only get worse.
“Wait a minute,” Eden joined her on the chaise. “Did you tell him about your past?”
“No.”
“Then how do you explain your back? You know, when you’re—”
“Doing it, screwing, bumping uglies,” Lola offered with a wicked grin.
“I have my tricks.” After having been whipped daily, the skin on Ashe’s back overlapped in a tortured and mangled fashion. Her tattoo didn’t hide her abuse but magnified it. Strangely enough, she didn’t want to forget the pain. It had become part of her journey. On the other hand, she didn’t want anyone to view her as damaged goods. “My hair hides it most of the time. I sleep on my back, and—”
“Got it,” Eden stopped her. “You’re a back-hiding professional.”
She joined in their laughter, despite her childishly combative feelings toward the spies.
“We think we have the country of origin narrowed down.”
“That’s it?” Ashe hopped up, pissed they were no closer to arresting the murderous psycho.
“Calm down. It doesn’t mean we’ve foiled the crime,” Eden told her.
“Can you at least tell me who’s on the list?” She sounded petulant, even to her own ears, and she hated it.
“No. You wouldn’t be hiding out in the boring-ass Cape if you hadn’t jumped the gun with those sanctions.”
Ashe stood in front of the mirror and caught the face of a once-well-respected lawyer and former kidnap victim staring back. Behind her, two sexy spies came into view. She sincerely didn’t know how everything had gone so wrong.
From the time Eden had saved her, she’d promised herself to destroy the men who’d put her in this position. Every therapist and counselor had encouraged her to
forgive and forget. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. All roads led back to her abusive childhood. She wanted to bleed them dry.
“Walker’s partners are up to something.” Eden’s words brought her back to the present. “They’re tanking the security firm and will do anything for money.”
“So, what does that mean for Walker?” As a sinking feeling hit her stomach, Ashe turned around to face the two women.
“We’re not sure yet, but they’re desperate.”
“Thing One and Thing Two need cash,” Lola chimed in, while she loosened the tie to her servant’s uniform. “Next time, you play the damn maid. I’m getting tired of this stereotypical bullshit.”
“We’re all POC here.” Eden made a circular motion with her finger. “If you haven’t noticed.”
“Who cares? What the hell is a POC anyway?” Lola asked.
Eden rolled her eyes. “People of color… Oh, forget it.”
With a deep groan, Ashe directed the spies back on topic. “Are you sure this has nothing to do with my firm?” Frustrated by all of the roads that led nowhere, she bit her bottom lip to avoid screaming.
Eden continued, “Since two lawyers have gone missing from Poplin and Hayes International, they feel they are under attack. Hiring the top security firm in New York will allow the attorneys to feel safe. The human rights summit will be taking place in—”
“May,” Ashe blurted. She’d completely forgotten all about the event.
“Which means whoever fronts Karhi Algharb will be very interested in what lawmakers have in store for traffickers,” Eden added.
“In other words, if Walker and his good dick-down skills mean anything to you, you’re going to have to tell him the truth.” Lola pointed one purple-painted nail in her direction.
“Oh no,” she cried. “No, no, no!”
“Yep. We need him. The summit is the only shot we’re going to have,” Eden told her.
“Why can’t you do it?” she asked her surrogate mom in the most syrupy tone she could muster.
“Uh-oh,” Lola interrupted her with a teasing laugh. “Someone caught fee-fees.”
“What does that even mean?” Ashe asked.
“Feelings,” Eden translated for her partners, “and if you tell him sooner, it would be better. Don’t forget that Walker already doesn’t trust us,” Eden admitted. “And if you don’t tell him how this all came about, he won’t trust you either.” Grabbing her arm, Eden steered her back to the couch. “Now, how are you doing with your anxiety?”