“Mom?” His hesitant tone had me stepping forward, blocking Declan from Liam’s view.
“Come on out, bud,” I instructed before Eva could answer. “I want you to meet my friend, Declan.”
“Your friend?”
Liam’s shaky tone made me wish Jay Dawkins was still roaming the streets somewhere so I could be the one Tex called on to put his ass six-feet under.
“Yeah. Declan and I work together. He came over to check on us.”
Liam came out of the shadows but stopped at his mother’s side. Eva’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and she held him close.
“Declan’s here to help Max watch over us,” Eva told Liam.
“Hey, Liam.”
My body jolted and my eyes cut to Dec. Never had I heard him talk so gently.
“Hi.”
“Bet you’re happy to be out of that car.” Dec continued to blow my mind with his soft tone.
“Yeah. It was long.”
“Looks like Max hooked you and your brother up with lots of stuff.” Dec motioned to the bags that were still on the floor and I wanted to throat punch him for the reminder.
“Mom says we’ll go through them tomorrow. She said we’ll keep what we need but it’s not cool to waste Max’s money on stuff we won’t use since we won’t be here very long.”
“Sounds to me like your mom’s pretty smart. No sense in being wasteful.”
Huh? What?
“Eva. Liam. It was nice meeting you both. Sorry to have disturbed you.” Dec tipped his chin. “Max, a word in private?”
I followed Dec to the sliding glass door off the dining room when Liam spoke, bringing me to a halt.
“Are you leaving?”
“No, bud. I’m just gonna step out back with Declan.”
“You won’t—”
“Liam, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying with you, your brother, and your mom. Promise.”
Liam nodded and wrapped his arms around Eva’s middle. I couldn’t miss her tight features—she felt her son’s attachment and uncertainty and she felt it deep.
Dec and I stepped outside, and before I had the sliding door closed, Dec started.
“It’s too bad that motherfucker’s already in the ground.”
I felt the same way but was taken aback Declan had voiced his thoughts.
“What?”
“That kid in there is jumpy as a rabbit. Doesn’t want you out of his sight. Kid doesn’t behave like that unless he’s been traumatized, scared, or both. I reckon that boy’s both.”
“He is,” I confirmed.
Declan knew all about childhood trauma, not that he spoke about his past. However, everyone knew he and his twin sister, Violet, had been separated and placed into foster care after their parents’ deaths. In a cruel twist of fate, Violet had not remembered she’d had a brother.
“Seems pretty attached to you,” he noted a second time.
I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Declan was smart, he was also observant. He didn’t need me to confirm what he saw.
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me in private about?”
“Tom’s people got Landry to talk.”
“Tom’s people?”
Tom Anderson was the president of the United States. He was also a personal friend of Zane’s; they were such good friends they were on a first-name basis. Something I still wasn’t used to calling him even after several years, but the man became cranky if someone on the team addressed him by anything other than his first name. And a cranky Tom Anderson didn’t make for a good day.
Harry Landry was a scumbag of the highest order. He trafficked most anything of value but his favorite was the human market, and he’d been extremely successful until Anaya and Emerson took him down. Even thinking about it now, pride hit my chest. Those two fierce women had done what we couldn’t—find and capture one of the major players in the Omni organization.
Declan’s gaze turned dark when he continued, “He didn’t give Zane specifics, just an update. Landry’s started to talk. We should have something to work with soon.”
“You know as well as I do, intel collected under duress isn’t always reliable.”
“Duress?” Declan barked out a harsh laugh. “You mean torture. Everyone is well-aware Landry could be fucking with us. Apparently, Ashaki Maloof has confirmed—”
“Seriously? Ashaki Maloof? Who knows if that bitch is on the up and up?”
Ashaki was supposedly undercover CIA agent. When we first met the woman she was allegedly posing as the daughter of an antiquity dealer, Tatiana, Brooks’ wife, was tracking. Ashaki’s cover was solid until Tatiana and Brooks saw the agent in a compromising position with her “father”. And in the time since then, Ashaki Maloof hadn’t done a damn thing that made me trust her or the intel she’d supplied. Either the woman was seriously committed to the cause and she had no issues with terrorists, traffickers, and dirt bags fucking her or she’d turned. I couldn’t figure the woman out therefore I didn’t trust a fucking word that came out of her CIA-trained mouth.
“She got Emilio Ruiz to talk,” Declan informed me.
It would seem a lot had happened while I’d been out of the office, so to speak. Ruiz was a member of Omni, however his daughter had been the target of a kidnapping plot and he was no longer feeling the love for the organization he was once balls deep in.
“Oh, yeah? And what did Ruiz give up?”
“He confirmed Icon Fashions was a major player in the Omni organization. The way Ruiz explains it, Icon is the upper echelon.”
“So Garrett was right?”
Our in-house intel specialist, Garrett, had been adamant Icon Fashions was involved with Omni. I trusted Garrett’s information the same as I trusted Tex’s—that was to say explicitly. Neither man had ever led us astray. However, Garrett had been working on a hunch, which wasn’t unusual; we’d all learned to listen to our instincts. But Garrett nor Tex had been able to find a link.
“Yes. Zane gave him the green light to start digging.”
“Like Garrett wasn’t already tunneling his way through Icon.”
“Yeah, well, now it seems the CIA boys are feeling generous. They have an agent in Icon and kicked some intel Garrett’s way.”
“Never gets any easier dealing with those dicks,” I mumbled. “No offense.”
“None taken. One of the many reasons I walked away.”
There was a story there, one Declan had never fully shared. We knew he’d been undercover for the CIA in Brazil and shit had gone sideways. Enough that it tweaked Declan and he left but other than that, he’d never shared. Or at least, he’d never shared with me. And if Zane Lewis knew what happened, he’d never tell.
“First things first,” Dec continued. “Zane was clear that Eva’s top priority. Omni’s not going anywhere. We’ll handle Eva’s situation for Tex, get the three of them safe and set up somewhere new then we’ll finish off Omni.”
Safe and set up somewhere new. Why did the ‘somewhere new’ in that statement make my gut clench?
“Surprised Zane’s setting aside Omni for Eva,” I noted.
We were at war with Omni. The operation had started with clear and concise parameters; that was, until things turned personal. Emerson, Thad’s wife, had been kidnapped and all the women attached to a man who worked for Zane Lewis had been threatened, and that included the president’s daughter, Erin Anderson-Doyle.
Now Zane, Tom Anderson, and every member of Z Corps wanted a piece of the men in charge of Omni.
“It shouldn’t surprise you. After everything Tex has done for Zane over the years—never asking for anything in return. No way the first time Tex asks for a favor, Zane’s not gonna drop everything and give it his full attention.”
“That’s not the surprising part. You know what Eva did to Bubba. Zane’s loyalty to the brotherhood is unshakable. It doesn’t matter to Zane he never served beside Bubba—brotherhood is brotherhood.”
“And yo
u’re a part of that same community. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL and all that shit.” Declan paused and narrowed his eyes. “You have a problem with this mission?”
“Nope.”
“Then why’d you bring that shit up? We all know who Eva is and what she did. We’ve all also read the reports so we know why she did it. Bubba and Zoey agreed with Tex that she needed help. You don’t have to trust her to protect her.”
“Come again?”
“Don’t bite my head off, brother. I know you and that’s to say you don’t trust anyone but Brooks, Thad, and Kyle. You don’t—”
“You do know you’re on that list, too. And I trust Anaya, Emerson, and Tatiana.”
Declan crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.
“You held Tatiana at gunpoint—”
“We were in the middle of a fucking mission when she suddenly got involved and that same fucking day my head almost got blown off. What the fuck was I supposed to think?” I defended my actions even though I now regretted them.
“You called Anaya out in front of the whole company,” he reminded me.
Thankfully, I had not pointed a gun at the woman, but I had been a dick.
“Again, Dec, she shows up in the middle of a mission and has ties to one of the men we were investigating.”
“She took a fucking beating for me and Kyle,” Dec snapped and I flinched.
“Part of why I trust her,” I noted. “And just to say, I backed Emerson from the start. I understood why she ghosted Thad and I took her back in that shitshow. Just because I’m an untrusting dick doesn’t mean I’m stupid and incapable of seeing reason. I know why Eva did what she did, but more than that, I fucking understand. That woman loves her children and she’ll do anything to keep them safe.”
“Is there something I need to know about you and Eva—”
“How ‘bout this, Dec? I unload all the shit that’s swirling around in my head when you explain to me how in the actual hell you think it’s a good idea to fuck Autumn Pierce.”
Declan’s torso jerked then stiffened. “What the fuck?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah, I did. And how the fuck do you know—”
“I followed you. You’ve been disappearing a lot. I was worried—”
“Worried about what? That I was somehow fucking over the team?”
I reared back in disgust that my teammate would think I’d doubt his loyalty.
“No, you asshole. I was worried about you. You and Kyle came back from Timor-Leste and you were even more withdrawn. Then Ivy and Violet gave birth and you went even deeper into yourself. I know nothing about you, except you carry a heavy burden and you’re hellbent to carry that alone. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Declan went still and remained silent.
“Your past isn’t my business, I get it. But what you’re doing with Autumn is gonna hurt a lot of people. Emerson is gonna be devastated her sister has been living close and she’s been denied the knowledge. Thaddeus is gonna be pissed his wife is hurt, and Brooks is gonna take his back. You’re risking the team for a piece of—”
“If you finish that, you and me got problems,” he growled.
“So it’s like that?”
“It’s not—”
“If you think that it’s not my business, then you’d be wrong. My team. My business. I get it, brother. The need to let off steam, bury your problems, even if it’s for a few hours, but Autumn Pierce is not the woman to do that shit with.”
“Is that what you’re doing with Eva? Burying your problems for a few hours?”
I had to admit his question held merit, which was part of what was swirling around in my head. It sure didn’t feel that way, but her situation was extreme. Someone was trying to kill her—and now me—and I was trying to prevent that from happening. I didn’t know if I could trust what I was feeling, what I did know was it felt damn good to be around her.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But Eva is not Autumn—not even close. Autumn means something to this team. She means something to me—she saved your sorry-ass life and every time I see that scar on your neck, I’m reminded that if she hadn’t taken out the fucker whose blade sliced your throat, none of us would’ve gotten to you in time.”
Declan lost none of the harshness in his voice but he did something I hadn’t expected.
He shared.
“She’s the only person who gets me. I don’t need to tell her shit because she just knows. Not the details, not the circumstances, but she knows my loss. She understands the demons that live inside of me because she has them, too. She doesn’t try to fix me or talk to me because she knows what’s broken will always be broken. And in exchange, I give her the same. I know who she is, I understand why she’s compelled to do what she does. We know who we are and what we have—when we’re together, everything else falls away. We don’t have to pretend to be anything but who we really are—two lost souls that are emotionally bankrupt and dead inside. What Autumn is not and never will be, is a piece of ass.”
“And what loss is that, Declan?”
“The kind that eats you alive—every single day it gnaws itself deeper. The kind that never goes away. A version of what lives inside of you and colors your world. You think every person is out to get you, when in reality the only person who’s preventing you from living a life that doesn’t include you putting everybody around you through a series of tests before you let them in even a fraction is you.”
Declan moved toward the sliding glass door but stopped before he opened it.
“I’m not going to insult you by asking you twice, but if you need to take a step back to get your head sorted, I can—”
“I’m good,” I bit out.
“Right. Then I’m gonna do a walk-through of the neighborhood.”
Declan let himself into the house but I didn’t move.
I needed a minute to clear my thoughts.
I should’ve been thinking about the Omni case and the new intel that had come in while I was in Florida—but I wasn’t. The next best thing would’ve been to figure out what the hell was going on with Eva and why I was drawn to her—but I wasn’t doing that, either.
Instead, I stood alone in the darkness and thought about what Dec had said about me testing those around me—and damn if he wasn’t right. I did do that. I did it to protect myself because he’d also been correct when he accused me of thinking everyone was out to get me.
But everyone was, weren’t they?
Everyone had an agenda, even me. Some were more fucked-up than others but everyone was using someone to get what they wanted.
The question was, what was Eva using me for?
What was it that she wanted?
And an even bigger question was, what was it I was using her to get?
Chapter 19
“Is that what you’re doing with Eva? Burying your problems for a few hours?”
“Maybe. But Eva is not Autumn—not even close. Autumn means something to this team. She means something to me.”
So, I’d overheard Max and Declan talking.
Eva is not Autumn.
Autumn means something to me.
I’d hurried Liam back into the bedroom after I found a bottle of water in the kitchen, which incidentally was where I was when I heard Max telling Declan that I didn’t mean anything to him. And after that, I tossed and turned all night, falling into spells of sleep, then I’d wake up and it would start all over again. Me replaying what Max had said until the sun started spilling through the window.
Now I was up and I still couldn’t stop thinking about it.
All that shit he’d said to me on the drive was just that—shit.
He was a liar.
But I couldn’t understand why he’d lie.
Why would he say he wished he could be the man to give me the life he thought I wanted if I didn’t mean anything to him?
But you aren’t that, Eva, you’re a fuck of a lot more.
I guess more than strangers wasn’t much.
Giving up on going back to sleep and not wanting to wake Liam and Eli, I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could and made my way into the kitchen.
Once I had the coffee set to percolate, I moved into the dining room and looked out into the backyard.
It was much bigger than the yard I had in Florida, complete with a swing set, something I wished I could afford to give my boys.
“You’re up early.”
Deep, rumbly, and gruff.
Only this time, Max’s voice didn’t send chills down my arms, it churned my stomach.
“I wasn’t sure Brooks could find a place with a decent backyard and play set but he pulled it off.”
My already stiff body went stiffer, then I whirled around and came face-to-face with Max. But this time I wasn’t dazzled by his blue eyes or his handsome face. I was even impervious to his bare chest that I had the misfortune of getting an eyeful of.
“Just stop.”
“Stop what?”
“The bullshit,” I spat out.
Then I watched with more attention than I should have as Max crossed his arms over his chest, every muscle flexing and jumping, reminding me how powerful his large body was.
“What bullshit?”
“You know, I didn’t take you for a man who played games. Guess I was wrong.”
His blue eyes sparked. This Max I could handle. This Max, the pissed-off one that frowned and breathed fire, was easier to deal with.
“Woman, straight up, I don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re talking about. But I do not play games.”
“You know the part I just don’t get? I’d already proved I was easy so it wasn’t like you had to sweet talk me to get me into bed, so all that shit you said in the car was meaningless. You didn’t have to say it, I would’ve fucked you again.”
“Nothing easy about you,” Max growled and stepped closer. “And never once have I sweet talked a woman to get her under me.”
“No, not you. You just sweet talk after the deed’s done—spouting bullshit about wishing you were the man who could give me something more. When we both know that’s just not the case. I’m nothing—just a woman to bury your troubles in for a few hours. And you know the fucked up thing, Max? I was okay with that. I knew that’s what I was. Hell, I knew that’s what you were. Once I pulled my shit together, I understood what we’d done and why we’d done it. But then you ruined it. You fed me a line of bullshit and lied.”
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