Rules in Deceit

by Nichole Severn

“Right. Shooter. Trap.” Her short exhales beat against the underside of his jaw, those brown eyes swirling with confused desire. She blinked then dropped her hands away from him. “I need to change out of my sweats. My shoulder holster doesn’t exactly work with this shirt.”

  “You look good in anything you put on.” A laugh rumbled from deep in his chest. His fingertips grazed over the bare column of her throat before he put a good amount of space between them. He had to. Otherwise, they might never leave the safe house. Notching her chin higher, he forced her to meet his gaze. “I won’t let him touch you, Sprinkles.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “Good.” He needed her to believe him. “Then let’s catch us a bomber.”

  Chapter Six

  When he’d kissed her, she’d lost all restraint.

  One second, she’d been working out her frustration at putting an innocent man in danger, at not being able to hold up her emotional guard against Braxton, on the burner phone, and the next his mouth had been on hers. Her heart had thundered so hard, blood pouring through her ears, she’d felt as though she’d been underwater. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear. But she hadn’t been able to pull away.

  Pushing the memory back—a memory she’d never let go—Elizabeth cracked her knuckles as she walked east down the sidewalk toward the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. She stuffed her shaking hands into her now empty coat pockets and hunkered deeper into the faux-fur folds as a blast of frigid air fought to chase the heat from her skin. They’d handed off the bullets from the SUV’s windshield to Vincent as soon as they’d arrived, but she doubted he’d be able to glean anything useful. Whoever had tried to kill her had been planning this from the beginning. He wouldn’t slip up unless he meant to slip up. She scanned the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. And the chances of that seemed slight. “No sign of our target yet.”

  Anchorage’s snow-covered Town Center stretched a half acre in front of her. Blue and white Christmas lights had yet to be removed from the branches of pines decorating the grounds, even though the holiday season had ended three weeks ago. Her boots fought for purchase on the icy sidewalk. Or was it the possibility she might be centered in a shooter’s crosshairs unbalancing her? Cloud cover made it hard to see into the shadows, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  “He’ll show. You’re too good of an opportunity to pass up.” Braxton’s voice in her ear settled the rush of nervous energy shooting down her spine. Well, that, and the fact he’d taken position thirty yards to her right in case he had to get to her fast. Mostly settled her nerves. There was still the issue of a possible ambush, and the conversation they would have to have after this little operation was over. About him leaving again. The open line between their earpieces crackled as the wind kicked up. A haze of snow danced in front of her. “Remember, I’ve got a giant bowl of ice cream and rainbow sprinkles waiting for you when this is over. So you better make it out of this alive.”

  “You always know exactly what to say.” Studying the park for a second time, she fought the urge to look in Braxton’s direction. The caller had told her to come alone. He should’ve tried convincing her bodyguard. She slowed her progress as she approached a single snow-covered bench in the middle of the park. With January temperatures dropping by the minute, most visitors had gone inside to warm up. Lower risk of putting innocent bystanders in danger if things went south.

  “The cavalry has arrived, and guess what? I brought the big guns.” Elliot Dunham’s voice penetrated through the stiffness gripping her shoulders and neck, and a smile automatically stretched across her lips. What would they do without Blackhawk Security’s con man turned private investigator? Rescued by the CEO and founder of the security firm from an Iraqi prison on fraud charges, the reformed criminal with a genius-level IQ never failed to amuse her. No matter how many times his compulsive sarcasm grated on her nerves, he’d never failed to have her back in the three months they’d worked together. And she’d always have his. “Admit it, Dawson, you missed me.”

  Gratitude flooded through her. Calling in Blackhawk Security had been her idea, but Braxton had taken point in getting them in place. She buried her mouth in the lining of her coat to hide her response in case the shooter had already arrived and was searching for signs she hadn’t come alone. “If by big guns you mean Vincent and Glennon, then yes, I missed you.”

  “They won’t let me touch the sniper rifle without taking a class first.” Elliot’s lighthearted attitude and the additional backup helped alleviate the nausea building in her stomach. Short exhales said he was still trying to get in position. “Personally, I think they like being the only ones with the heavy-duty weapons.”

  “Does this guy ever shut up?” Braxton asked.

  “No.” Vincent Kalani entered the park to her left, head down, barely raising his attention to her before he cut across the open terrain. Hands stuffed into his coat pockets, he moved with lethal grace. The former cop hid his face beneath a mane of wavy dark hair, but the tattoos climbing up his neck stood out. If the shooter had done his research, there was a good chance he’d recognize Blackhawk’s forensics expert. “Trust me, we’ve tried.”

  “Head in the game, gentlemen.” Glennon Chase, the firm’s newest recruit and recent wife to their weapons expert, slid into sight at the edge of Elizabeth’s peripheral vision. Armed with her own rifle, the former army investigator nodded as Elizabeth took a seat on the bench. Planting her eye against her scope, Glennon shifted out of sight along the rooftop of the building overlooking the park. “I’ve got movement at the north end of the park.”

  Elizabeth fought against the urge to look. Instead, she surveyed the area as a whole before redirecting her attention to the man stumbling toward her. Stained jacket, ripped jeans, thick gray hair and beard. Recognition flared, and she pushed off the bench. Wild eyes locked on her as Brolin Levitt reached for her, a prominent limp in his left leg. “Don’t shoot. He’s not the target.” Slowing her approach, she lifted her hands, palms facing him. “Brolin, it’s me. Elizabeth. You remember me? I’m friends with your son, Braxton.”

  Same introduction. Same approach. Every time. Over the past few months, the chances of him recognizing her steered toward sixty-forty. Sixty percent of the time, he didn’t remember his own name. He closed in on her faster than she thought possible for a drug-addled old man.

  Brolin didn’t answer.

  “Liz, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Braxton’s concern echoed through the earpiece, but she didn’t pay it any attention. He’d made his feelings for his father perfectly clear, and there wasn’t any scenario in which he’d trust the man in front of her. She didn’t care. Brolin was innocent in all of this and had obviously been injured.

  “I’m wearing Kevlar, I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it,” she said. “I’m only helpless when my nail polish is wet, and even then, I can pull a trigger if I have to.”

  “While you make valid points, the shooter drew you here using Brolin as leverage. So why let the old man go?” he asked.

  “I think I know why.” Elizabeth caught a glimpse of two wires coming from the bottom of Brolin’s stained old jacket. Her breath caught in her throat. Every cell in her body froze. One second. Two. Too long. “Braxton, your father is wired.”

  “What?” he asked.

  A gunshot echoed off the surrounding buildings.

  She spun toward the sound.

  Braxton broke away from his position at her left, his ball cap flying off his head as he pumped his arms and legs hard. “Liz, get down!”

  Pain splintered across her left arm and she spun, clamping her hand over the graze. She hit the ground hard. Snow and ice worked through her clothing as she scrambled toward Brolin. The shooter had used Brolin and the bomb strapped to his chest as a distraction. Long enough to get her in his sights. Fisting her hands around his jacket, Elizabeth wrenched the old man i
nto her and pushed him forward. Her boots slid against the dusting of snow covering the sidewalks. They had to get moving. They were still out in the open. “Find that damned shooter.”

  “Got him. Suspect is rabbiting across the roof of the building to the south. There’s a car waiting in the alley between buildings. Alaska license plate echo, uniform, sierra, six, eight, seven.” Vincent’s calm did nothing to ease the adrenaline surging through her veins. “Can’t get a clean shot. Glennon?”

  Braxton wrapped his hand around her arm and hauled her and Brolin their feet. He shoved them ahead of him as a black GMC pulled up to the curb fifty feet away.

  The front passenger window lowered, revealing Elliot Dunham’s dumbass smirk. “This never would’ve happened if they let me have a sniper rifle.”

  “Now’s not the time, Elliot!” They reached the SUV. Elizabeth wrenched the passenger side door open and threw Brolin inside. No time for hellos. There was a shooter on the loose. “Meet your new assignment. His name is Brolin Levitt. He dies, you die. Understand?”

  Elliot’s deep gray eyes widened. “Is that a bomb?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s fake, but you might want to take a look at it just in case.” She slammed the door closed, not waiting for an answer.

  “I’ve got a shot.” The familiar sound of Glennon loading a round into the rifle’s chamber echoed in Elizabeth’s earpiece as Braxton forced her to take cover behind a park bench. The SUV fishtailed away from the curb, shooting down the street. Brolin was safe. “I’m taking it.”

  The thunderclap of another bullet leaving the barrel of a rifle thudded through her. She held her breath as Braxton wrapped her in a tight hold against his chest. Waited. Silence settled around her. Her pulse throbbed at the base of her throat, the pain in her arm pulling at her attention. The second shot hadn’t been meant for her, but a rush of relief escaped from her lungs all the same. Sirens filtered through the pulsing in her head.

  “I missed him.” Glennon hauled her rifle off the edge of the rooftop above and disappeared from sight. “If anybody tells my husband I missed that shot, you’re dead.”

  “How are you going to kill us when you can’t even hit your target?” The growl of the SUV’s engine filtered through Elliot’s earpiece. Good. Brolin would be safe as long as he stuck with Blackhawk’s private investigator. Although getting him to stay might be a challenge, but she was sure Elliot would figure something out.

  “I’m starting with you, Elliot,” Glennon said.

  Squealing tires reached her ears as Elizabeth caught sight of a high-class Mercedes sedan fishtailing out of the alley across the street. The windows were too tinted for her to make an identification, but her instincts said that was their shooter. She dug her nails into Braxton’s jacket. “He’s getting away.”

  “No, he’s not.” Braxton wrapped his hand around hers, tugging her after him. “You remember that license plate number?”

  “Yes.” Puffs of her breath crystallized in front of her, freezing air reaching down to the bullet graze on her arm through the new hole in her jacket. The pain slid to the back of her mind as she forced her legs to work harder.

  “Good.” Braxton pulled her around the south corner of the park, toward another Blackhawk Security SUV. “Get in.”

  * * *

  HE WASN’T GOING to let Liz become a victim from circumstances he’d created. If he hadn’t tried to keep her in the dark in the first place, she wouldn’t be in this situation. And if that bullet hadn’t only grazed her arm, he’d have had to live with that the rest of his life. The idea pushed his foot against the accelerator harder. Everyone was created by a defining event. Something that changed them just enough. A loss, a trauma, the end of a relationship. Liz would be his. Always his. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Focus on the road.” She clamped a hand over the wound in her arm, swaying as he forced the SUV around a tight turn. Downtown Anchorage blurred in his peripheral vision as they closed in on the Mercedes’s bumper. A minivan pulled out in front of them, and he swerved. She grabbed onto the handle above her head with one hand and the dashboard with the other with a groan of pain. “If I ever need a skilled getaway driver, you are not the person I’m going to call.”

  Uneven roads lifted them out of their seats. The shooter barreled through a construction zone ahead of them, taking a sharp right.

  Liz tapped her earpiece with bloody fingertips. “Vincent, we need Anchorage PD to set up a roadblock. We can’t let this guy get away.”

  “Copy that,” Vincent said.

  “Hang on.” Braxton made the turn, the SUV’s fender barely missing a car pulling out of an underground parking garage. Checking back over his shoulder, he shook his head. “Don’t people know how to drive anymore?”

  Liz swiped her hand across her face, attention out the windshield. “For crying out loud, it’s not this psychopath who’s going to kill me. It’s your driving.”

  Those words hit him like a hammer fall. Braxton sobered, knuckles tight around the steering wheel as they cleared downtown, and sped up the ramp onto south Seward Highway. If the bastard thought he’d be able to lose them by disappearing into the trail entrances along the coast, he was wrong. Braxton had had to know them better than anyone else in this city in order to survive on his own. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “You guys realize your coms are still online, right?” Elliot’s voice in his head was not what he needed right now. “This seems like a private moment.”

  “All you need to worry about is keeping Brolin alive, Elliot. Leave the rest to me.” Liz shot a quick look in his direction. While putting his old man under Blackhawk Security protection hadn’t climbed its way to the top of Braxton’s priority list, the drug addict could at least do some good to identify the shooter who’d taken him. “Vincent, we’ve turned south onto Seward Highway, and this guy isn’t showing any signs of stopping. Where are we at with Anchorage PD?”

  “There’s a pileup downtown, thanks to your driver there.” Vincent’s disappointment echoed through the earpiece. “And any other available units are closing in on the park due to a wave of calls about shots fired. I’m having the chief send as many as he can your way, but that could be up to an hour.”

  Braxton picked the device out of his ear and tossed it into the back seat, eyes on the prize ahead. He maneuvered around a fifty-two-foot semitruck, losing sight of the Mercedes for three seconds. Four. Cloud cover made it that much harder to keep their target straight, but he soon had a lock on the shooter again. The bastard wasn’t going to get away. Not when they were so close to ending this nightmare. Desperation clawed up his throat. He’d vowed to protect the woman in the seat beside him. He couldn’t let her down now. “Guess we’re on our own.”

  “You want to be the one to catch him.” Her voice worked to ease the tangle of tension coiling tight at the base of his skull. The Mercedes swerved to maneuver around a group of three cars ahead, but she’d always been able to consume his attention with a single look. A word. “Why?”

  The engine growled in protest as he pushed the SUV harder, trying to close the distance between them and the shooter. He had no idea what they were going to do after that, but he’d always been good on his feet. The sun would start going down in the next hour. They’d lose him altogether if they didn’t end this.

  “You know why. I told you I’d protect you, and I meant it. Catching this guy is the only way to do that.” He locked his jaw against the lie, the muscles along his neck and shoulders straining. Chancing a quick glance at her, he read the questions carved into her expression.

  “No, that’s not it. It’s something more than that.” The weight of her attention pinned him to the back of the leather seat. She’d never been an analyst, but she could make a damn good career out of reading people. How the hell did he think he could keep secrets from her? “What aren’t you telling me?”
/>   The Mercedes disappeared in the midst of four cars ahead of them.

  Braxton sat forward in his seat as he sped around a small sedan. Narrowing his gaze, he studied car after car as he backed his foot off the accelerator. “He’s gone.”

  “What?” She turned her attention back to the road then twisted in her seat to inspect the cars behind them. “That’s not possible. There aren’t any exit ramps in this section of the highway.”

  Didn’t make the shooter’s disappearing act any less real. Braxton checked his rearview mirror as a pair of headlights flared to life behind them. “He didn’t get off the highway. Get ready—”

  Two gunshots broke the soothing sound of tires against asphalt, but the bullets ricocheted off the glass. Bulletproof windows were a nice touch. Braxton swerved into the next lane, narrowly avoiding another sedan, but the maneuver did nothing to distract the shooter. The hood of the Mercedes closed in fast.

  “He’s going to try to run us off the road.” Panic tinted Liz’s words, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. Keeping her alive. That was all that mattered. She could panic all she wanted as long as she was alive.

  The first hit to the bumper thrust them forward. The steering wheel jerked in his hand, but Braxton kept a tight hold. Civilian cars slowly backed off as another collision to their bumper forced them onto the highway’s shoulder. The grooves cut into the shoulder to keep drivers awake drowned out another gunshot to the back of the SUV. He fought to keep the SUV on the road, but slowing down, pulling over even, would put Liz directly in the shooter’s sights. Not an option. Time to end this, but with the Turnagain Arm waterway on one side and nothing but thick wilderness on the other, he only had a small window to make this work. “Hang on to something.”

  Her hand shot to the handlebar above her head just before Braxton slammed on the brakes. Tires screeched in his ears, the smell of burned rubber filling the interior of the SUV as momentum thrust them forward in their seats. The Mercedes’s headlights disappeared behind the bottom of the back window. His lungs seized half a second before the shooter rammed into the back of their vehicle. The third collision forced the SUV to one side despite how hard Braxton pulled the wheel in the opposite direction.