by Vicki Tharp
“Complicated,” was what she decided on, but when Spinks’ expression went flat at her non-answer, she added, “He’s my ex, sir.”
Spinks scrubbed his face with his hands as if it was midnight, but it was only a little after eight in the morning.
“What is this about?”
“Massey found a money trail. We have reason to believe Bradley Martin is The Wolf.” His words landed like a harpoon to the gut, yanking her insides out.
Tessa let those words sink in as she tried to catch her breath. Then she shook her head. “He’s a lot of things. Brash, cutthroat, arrogant, total bastard, being the first ones that come to mind, but The Wolf? Nuh, uh.”
“What do you know about his business dealings?”
“Not much. He’s in some sort of finance, I think. I don’t really know much. He’s my ex. We aren’t close, and he’s been out of my life until the past few months.”
“Then why is he here?”
“He wants my son and me back. He doesn’t like to hear the word ‘no.’ Surely, Bradley isn’t the only man with money to have moved to the area in the past few months.”
But how many of them had business problems pop up over the weekend like Bradley had? Was the gun buy the reason he couldn’t take Jack last weekend?
Could Spinks be right?
If Bradley is The Wolf, what kind of danger did that put Jack in?
More importantly, Tessa didn’t know if Bradley was the type of man who would protect his son or use him as a shield.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Brant’s on the inside,” Spinks said. If he’d expected it to surprise her, it didn’t. “He’s part of Martin’s new security detail, but he’s the FNG.” Fucking new guy. “He’s having trouble getting close and gathering any actionable intel. You. You could get close.”
Tessa laughed. “We’ve been separated six years. Divorced for three of them. I’m the last person Bradley would trust.”
Spinks leaned forward. “This is important. Massey has picked up some chatter on the Dark Web. He has reason to believe The Wolf is building a large stash of weapons to send overseas. Somalia is heating up. With the prices the way they are, selling to Syria is also a possibility. You have M-4s going for as much as six thousand dollars each over there.”
“Jesus.” It didn’t take a mathematician to calculate that you could make big money selling on the black market.
“Can you get inside? Can you earn his trust?”
Her and Bradley’s conversation in the courthouse ran through her head.
You just want me under your thumb.
No, Tessa, I want you under my roof.
The air seemed thinner. Tessa took a couple of deep breaths. “Yes, sir. I think I can. As soon as IA is done with me, I’ll see what I can do.”
Spinks waved her off. “The investigation is on hold. Let me deal with the mayor and the public backlash. The Wolf takes priority.” Then he pulled two cell phones out of his desk. “Encrypted phones, courtesy of Agent Finn. Slip one to Brant when you see him.”
The heat rose to her face, and it wasn’t from embarrassment. Anger pitched her voice into the next octave. “You sent Gil in without means of communication?”
“There was a mishap.” Spinks’ gaze slid from hers.
Her heart dropped in her chest, and she had that floaty, disconnected feeling she got when her helo dropped from sudden wind shear. “What kind of mishap? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.” She didn’t like the way Spinks emphasized ‘he,’ but by the closed look on the SAC’s face, he wasn’t going to elaborate. “Better to let him fill you in.”
Spinks didn’t look at her. Something was way off, and he wasn’t going to tell her. She opened her mouth to press him, but he beat her to it. “Dismissed, lieutenant.”
She pocketed the phones and hadn’t even made it to the door when he added, “Lieutenant Sterling? Why didn’t you tell me that it was Brant in the helo with you?”
Gil must have seen the papers. Must have told Spinks that he was the guy. Further proof of the honorable man Gil was. Tessa took a shallow breath, her lungs refusing to expand. “Would it have mattered?”
Spinks shrugged, not in an indifferent way, but in a you-should-have-trusted-me way. Then his expression softened as much as it ever did. Which meant you had to be paying close attention to notice it. “You should have told me, though I do respect that you didn’t throw him under the bus to save their own ass.”
It was early yet as Gil rubbed the last of the gun oil off and reassembled his Glock. The phone in the apartment only had a direct line to the house, requiring Gil to wake up early to find a phone in the main house that had an outside line to give Spinks an update. Turned out that line had been in Martin’s office.
He’d wrestled all night with his concerns over Tessa’s involvement with Martin and had concluded it had less to do with Martin possibly being The Wolf and more to do with Martin being an asshole ex. He’d given Spinks the skinny on how he’d taken his phone for a swim as well as Tessa’s connection to Martin. If nothing else, she might have insight or a way for him to get closer to his new boss.
Burton came through the front door of the apartment, a scowl etched so thick on his face it might never come out.
“Martin wants to see you.”
Gil slid a full magazine home, racking the slide to chamber a round. He replaced his weapon in a spare shoulder holster one of the other guys had lent him until his dried out. “Anything I need to know?”
“He’ll fill you in.” Burton’s hands were on his hips, and he stared at Gil like there was more he wanted to say.
“What?” If Burton had something to say, Gil didn’t want it festering.
“You sure you’ve got no connection to the kid?” Burton met Gil’s gaze head-on. Watching for any kind of tell that he was lying. Gil would be doing the same if the roles were reversed. Burton had good instincts, Gil had to give him that.
“None. Why?” The key to lying for a living was remembering that the less you elaborate, the less you need to keep straight.
“Kid keeps asking for you. The little shit doesn’t shut up.”
What else had Jack said? Had he given him away? Is that why Martin wanted to see him? Gil hid his concern behind a broad, guileless smile. “I saved the kid’s life. Hero complex. That makes me better than Batman, and Optimus Prime all rolled into one.”
“Opti-what?”
Gil clapped Burton on the shoulder as he walked by. “Man, you gotta expand your horizons. There’s more to life than targets and gunpowder.”
A half-hearted ‘fuck you’ followed Gil out the door and into the glare of the early morning light. The sky was blue and bright. The kind of sky without a cloud and visibility that would go on for miles and miles. The kind of sky Tessa would love.
He didn’t run into any of the other security guys this early in the morning. After they’d all had a late night with the party, everyone had been sent to bed leaving only two on guard for the rest of the night. One patrolling the outside and one roaming somewhere inside the house.
Martin’s office door was open as it had been in the past. Gil wasn’t sure if it was because he had an open-door policy for his staff or if he was paranoid and wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything significant.
Martin was on the phone but waved Gil in as Sloan brushed past Gil with a short stack of papers for his boss to sign. Martin scrawled his signature over the documents without reading them.
“I assure you,” Martin said to whoever was on the other end of the line, “It doesn’t matter what NASDAQ or the bond market is doing, I can get you double their return. Yeah. Yeah.” Martin pointed to one of the black leather chairs in front of his desk, and Gil took a seat. “Have your secretary send the money by Wednesday at the latest. You won’t be sorry.”
Martin hung up, the lines around his eyes tight as if he were fighting a headache and wanted to press his fingers into his temples and massa
ge the pain away. Gil didn’t know if it was a hangover or the phone call that was making his boss’s head hurt.
Martin plopped in his chair behind the desk. He was one of those obsessively neat guys that only had a keyboard, computer monitor and a couple other necessary odds and ends on his desk. On the bottom right corner sat a leather-bound journal, the attached silk ribbon marking a page a third of the way through.
Gil’s fingers itched to open it. Martin didn’t seem like the type of man who trusted technology with his deepest, darkest, rankest secrets. Those he would keep close at hand.
“I’ve been thinking.” Martin leaned back and crossed his ankle over his knee in a move that appeared relaxed, but somehow wasn’t. “I need another man I can trust. One who’s observant. One who isn’t afraid to put his life on the line.”
Martin didn’t seem like a man who tolerated being interrupted, so Gil didn’t speak. “You saved the kid.”
Finally. Some sort of verbal acknowledgment of what had happened. Not that Gil needed any validation from Martin, though it was a surprise to see that the bastard wasn’t the Tin Man. Maybe he did have a heart and a soft spot for his son.
“Anyone would have done the same.” Standard, no-I’m-not-a-hero response. Sounded legit.
Martin inclined his head, conceding. “That would have been a headache. One I don’t need right now.”
This prick was cold.
Really fucking cold.
How had Tessa ever fallen for him? How had an intelligent woman like her been taken in by his bullshit?
“Burton said you wanted to see me?” Gil’s most delicate way of getting Martin back on point. He knew he had to get closer to his boss, it was part of his job, yet Martin had quickly reminded him how great it would feel to resign.
“Effective immediately, I’m putting you on my personal detail. Good work has its rewards.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Martin glanced at his watch. “I have meetings all day. Starting in fifteen minutes. Take a break. Get some coffee. Then come back here. It’s going to be a long day.”
Gil excused himself and made his way into the kitchen. After his late night, the early morning, and all the tossing, turning, and mind racing in between, he could certainly use another jolt of caffeine.
He stopped short at the sight of Jack sitting alone on a tall stool at the black granite kitchen island. Jack looked up from a comic book he was reading, a spoonful of milk drenched Fruit Loops in one hand.
“Whatcha reading?”
Jack shoved the spoon in his mouth and held up the cover of the comic book, smiling around the spoon in his mouth. Batman and Robin. Appropriate.
Gil glanced at the clock on the oven and went to pour his mug of coffee. “Shouldn’t you be at camp already?”
Jack pulled the spoon out of his mouth and quickly chewed and swallowed. “I got to stay home today on account of I almost drownded.”
Taking a fortifying sip of coffee, Gil pulled out the stool next to Jack and sat. “How are you feeling?” Then, Gil noticed Jack’s bloodshot eyes. “You get any sleep?”
Jack shrugged. “I kept coughing and waking up, and then I heard a noise and got scared and went to find my dad only the hall was dark and then I didn’t know where his room was. I hid in the closet.” His words ran together, the emotion made Jack’s chest hitch, which made him cough. He sounded like a winded seal.
Jesus Christ.
Before Gil could say anything, Jack said, “Can you keep a secret?”
“If you’re going to tell me Santa Claus isn’t real, I’m not going to believe you.”
Jack giggled, then coughed. Gil handed him the glass of milk next to his cereal bowl. Jack took a couple gulps and said, “Everyone knows Santa is real.”
“Bet your bottom.” Gil winked and leaned in. “What’s the big secret?”
The smile slipped from Jack’s face. “Don’t tell mom, but I always wanted to live with my dad, because dads are cool and fun and play catch with you. Billy said they don’t even make you eat your vegetables.”
“I get it,” Gil said.
“But, living with a dad isn’t as fun as I thought it would be.”
Tessa rolled up to Bradley’s mansion a little before noon after getting home from her meeting with Spinks and shoving clothes into a suitcase. Even though Bradley had said he wanted her at his house, she wasn’t sure what he would do when faced with that option, so she’d decided against calling first, hoping it would be harder to tell her no to her face.
Instead of jeans and a T-shirt—that Gil and the rest of her friends were okay with—she’d thrown on a casual day dress that accentuated what curves she had. She’d even applied a little makeup. All for Bradley. All for the game she was playing.
If Spinks wanted her to get close, then she’d get close, no matter how much the idea made her skin crawl.
She knocked on the thick wooden door and was led into some sort of sitting area off the main hall while she was ‘announced.’ Like a peasant waiting for the king to grant her a scrap of his time.
Bradley hadn’t had much money when they’d married, but somehow, the ostentatiousness of the house and the doorman/assistant guy seemed to fit what she’d expect of Bradley. He had to have a red Lamborghini stashed somewhere as well. Maybe a smoking robe and a Playboy Bunny or two for those lonely nights.
She heard footsteps coming down the hall. An older gentleman with a briefcase, and a younger, fitter, I-may-be-wearing-a-suit-but-I-can-still-kill-you kind of man trailing a few steps behind.
Then one of Bradley’s men, Sloan she thought he’d said his name was, saw the men out and escorted her through the den—complete with the soaring ceilings and requisite mounted animal heads—and then down a hall on her right.
They rounded the corner of Bradley’s office as her ex closed the door on a wall safe. Her eyes shot to Gil. He stood with his back to the large plate glass window.
He was all suited up and clean shaven. His eyes followed Tessa, but his expression never wavered. He swallowed hard behind his buttoned-up dress shirt and tie, but that was the only indication that he’d recognized her.
Her heart sped up, blood pooled low in her belly, and she stopped her hand before it could cover her womb where his baby might be growing. But now wasn’t the time for that.
She must have made some primal sound in the back of her throat at the sight of Gil, because Bradley turned, and said, “Don’t worry. He looks like a beast, but I assure you he’s perfectly tame when required.”
“Do you always talk about your employees like they’re the gum beneath your shoe, or is he special?”
Bradly closed the gap between them, grabbing her lower jaw, his grip a hair shy of painful.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gil’s hands unclasp and fist at his sides. “Don’t.” Though her eyes never left Bradley’s edgy gaze, the words were meant for Gil. He wasn’t the lion on a chain Bradley thought he was. At least not where she was concerned.
Bradley released her, the smile on his face as slimy as an oil slick. “Don’t forget who’s in charge here.”
“I didn’t come here to argue.”
Bradley stepped away and gestured toward the chairs in front of his desk. She took a seat as he settled against the front of his desk with his back to Gil. “Why did you come then?”
“To stay. For Jack.”
He stared at her, a finger stroking his chin the same way her father had always done. Had Bradley spent so much time with her father that the gesture had rubbed off on him, like a father to a son?
Dread danced up her spine at seeing her father in her ex. She’d always known that Bradley had admired her father, envied him.
“What do you want with this game?” she demanded. “Taking Jack? I’m not a fool. We both know you don’t want him. Tell me what you do want?”
“You. Reconciliation.” His arms went wide as if encompassing the whole house. “All this could be yours. You wouldn’t have to w
ork. A full staff to do your bidding.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of women who would love to spend your money and order your staff around. I’m not that woman, so why me? Because I’m the one that got away?”
Bradley shrugged one shoulder covered in beautiful Italian fabric. “All men have goals. Dreams. Desires. Otherwise what is the point?”
“I’m not a prize you can mount on the wall above the fireplace.”
That’s how you’re going to get closer to your ex? By antagonizing him?
Bradley smiled. It was softer, more real than any of the others that she’d seen over the past few months. “I have missed you, you know.”
She couldn’t say the same, but in the interest of the assignment and more importantly, her son, she dropped the edge in her voice. “Maybe this will give us time to get to know each other again.”
When she stood, he had a schooled look of triumph on his face she would never forget. Bradley had changed since their divorce. But not for the better.
Bradley stepped into her personal space, brushing the back of his hand along her cheek and down her jaw. Over Bradley’s shoulder, Gil shifted and stretched his neck from side to side as if readying for a fight.
She took a step back before Bradley could try to kiss her and Gil went ballistic. She didn’t like that she had to worry what Gil might do to Bradley if provoked, but she didn’t hate it either.
It meant that he cared.
It meant that she mattered to him, the same way he mattered to her. Whatever Gil had started out being in her life, a distraction, a little sexy fun, he had quickly become much more than that.
Bradley glanced at his watch—which had probably put a Swiss watchmaker’s kid through college. “Time for some lunch.” He turned to Gil. “Bring the lady’s luggage in and show her to the Blue room. I wasn’t expecting guests. I’ll have Sloan send someone in to make up the room.”
Gil cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.” He stepped away from the window and gestured toward the office door. “After you, Mrs. Martin.”
“Sterling. It’s Miss Sterling.” Gil gave her elbow a light squeeze. Tessa cut her eyes to Bradley. “For now.”