by Kat Martin
“Bran, stop!” Jessie grabbed his bicep, which was bunched hard as steel, ready to deliver another brutal blow.
He shook his head, fighting for control. “He’s lucky I don’t kill him.” Instead, he jerked Petrov upright. “I need a name. Who hired you?”
Petrov spit out a wad of blood. “Weaver. That’s his name. Just Weaver.”
“How do I find him?”
More blood trickled from Petrov’s nose. The way it was swelling, by tomorrow both eyes would be black.
“I don’t know. He phones us on a burner, tells us what he needs, we call him back after the job’s done. Weaver tells us where to pick up our money. That’s the way it works.”
Bran swore foully. “What’s going to happen when Weaver finds out you didn’t finish the job?”
Petrov grimaced. “He ain’t gonna like it, that’s for sure.”
“Then I’d strongly suggest the first chance you get, you and your buddy leave town. I’ve got friends on the base. I’ll be texting them your photos. You don’t leave, I’ll know, and you’ll be dealing with me instead of your buddy, Weaver. You won’t have a second chance to walk away.”
Petrov stared up at him. Jessie knew Bran was talking about soldiers in the 10th Special Forces stationed at Fort Carson, where he had friends.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
Petrov swallowed and nodded.
Bran turned to Jessie. “Time to go.”
“What about them? We can’t just leave them out here. They could die of exposure.”
“We’ll call the sheriff once we’re on the road.”
“I thought you were letting us go,” Petrov complained.
“You’re lucky you’re still alive.” Bran closed Jessie’s car door, rounded the hood, and slid in behind the wheel.
“Maybe we should call the MPs instead of the sheriff,” she suggested as the engine roared to life. “Since it involves a CID investigation.”
Bran shook his head. “These guys aren’t active duty, plus we don’t know who we can trust on the base.”
Unfortunately, that was true. Her dad had been murdered on the base. The military was somehow involved.
As soon as the SUV reached the highway, Bran called 911 and anonymously reported that two men had assaulted him and were now tied up in an empty field. He gave the location using GPS coordinates.
“Sheriff will be there in ten,” he said, ending the call. “We need to be long gone by then.” He punched the gas and the Expedition picked up speed, heading back to Colorado Springs, forty miles away, and their hotel.
“What will the sheriff do to them?” Jessie asked.
“For starters, they’re probably driving with a stolen license plate. There’s also a good chance there’ll be warrants out for them. Guys like that...could be anything from a speeding ticket to a felony. Might get them locked up for a while.”
There were few cars on the back road Bran was driving toward town. The wind had picked up, blowing dust and dry leaves into the air. The night was dead black, no moon and no stars. Jessie shivered, though it was warm in the SUV.
She thought of the men who’d come after them. “Once they’re released, do you think they’ll actually leave town?”
“I’d say chances are better than good. Men like that go after the easy money.” He cast her a glance that held a trace of arrogance. “Turned out getting to you wasn’t as easy as they thought.”
She almost smiled. No, not nearly as easy with Bran Garrett acting as her bodyguard.
“I’ll text those photos to a couple of SF guys I know, have them spread the word to their buddies, keep a lookout, give me a heads-up if anyone spots them.”
She nodded. At least they might get some kind of warning if the two men stayed in the area.
Silence began to stretch between them. Neither spoke until town drew near and Bran’s gaze slid back to her.
“You okay?”
Was she okay? Men had been hired to stop her—one way or another—from finding out what had happened to the stolen munitions and clearing her father’s name. Since she had no intention of quitting, no, she wasn’t okay. But she didn’t say that.
“I will be. Once we clear my father’s name.”
“Be smarter to quit before things get worse.”
“You think they will?”
“Good chance they will.”
She fixed him with a stare. “You sticking?”
His mouth faintly curved. “If you are.”
As Jessie leaned back in the seat, she found herself smiling. “Glad that’s settled.”
Bran just shook his head. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t boring.” He flashed one of his devastating grins. “Can’t remember when I’ve had a better time with a lady.”
Jessie scoffed. “Not counting sex,” she said dryly.
His look turned scorching the instant before he glanced away. “Yeah,” he said. “Not counting sex.”
Jessie’s whole body went warm, and in that moment she made a decision.
She decided she was going to seduce him.
FOURTEEN
It was late when they got back to the hotel. Jessie went straight into the bedroom, but Bran was too jacked up to sleep. He rubbed his bruised knuckles and chuckled to imagine what story the two men had told sheriff’s deputies when they arrived to find them tied up like a pair of stuffed turkeys.
He thought about finding a late show on TV, but instead went over to his laptop and downloaded the photos he had taken of the men. A separate picture showed the tattoo on the side of Digger’s neck. A shamrock with 666 inside.
It didn’t take long to find the symbol on Google. Aryan Brotherhood prison tat, not really much of a surprise.
He glanced up as the bedroom door swung open, and Jessie walked into the living room in the short white terry cloth robe she had worn over her swimsuit. A memory of her in the orange-striped bikini popped into his head, and his mouth actually watered.
“Pretty sure the pool is closed,” he said a little gruffly.
Jessie glanced at the clock as if she had no idea it was almost midnight and walked right up beside where he sat in front of his laptop at the dining table.
“That’s too bad.” She smiled. “Since we both enjoy it so much.”
She was tossing his words back in his face. It had been torture to watch her in her tiny bikini and not be able to touch her. But it was sweet torture.
When she didn’t back away, Bran came up out of his chair, which put them just inches apart. “What’s going on?”
Instead of answering, she untied the sash on the robe and let it fall to her feet, leaving her in the orange-striped bikini he fantasized about every night. His pulse kicked up and arousal stirred through him. She had left her hair loose around her shoulders, a mantle of gleaming fire-touched gold. He wanted to run his fingers through it, see if it felt as silky as it looked.
He stood frozen as her palms flattened on his chest and she went up on her toes and settled her mouth over his. A groan locked in his throat, and for an instant he could only stand there, entranced by the feel of those plump pink lips moving over his and the brush of her breasts against his chest. His arousal strengthened, turned rock hard.
The groan broke free as he gave in to the need pounding through his blood and kissed her back, taking control, slanting his mouth over hers, tasting her, allowing himself a few forbidden moments of pleasure.
Then reality struck. This was Danny’s sister. Aside from that, she had suffered enough trauma already. Setting his hands on her shoulders, he eased her away, reluctantly ending the kiss.
“We can’t do this,” he said.
Jessie smiled up at him. “Why not?”
She was so damn pretty with her lips moist from his kiss and her big green eyes liquid with desire. He clamp
ed down on a fresh shot of lust.
“You know why not. You told me yourself you have hang-ups. I don’t want to make them worse.”
“What if you can make them better?”
An idea he had actually considered. “What if I can’t?”
Jessie reached behind her and pulled the strings holding her bikini top in place. His eyes widened as the striped top tumbled to the floor.
“Jesus,” he said, automatically reaching out to cup the enticing fullness that tilted slightly upward, his thumb stroking over the hard little berry at the tip. Perfect.
He wanted to settle his mouth there, taste that smooth perfection. He wanted to lay her down on the sofa and bury himself to the hilt.
Jessie cupped the back of his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers for another searing kiss, this one slow, deep, and lingering, making his erection throb.
Christ, he wanted her.
Jessie just kept kissing him and he kept kissing her. He was kneading her pretty breast, lifting and caressing, when he felt her stiffen against him. Too far gone to think clearly, he cupped the other breast and stroked her nipple till it hardened, slid his hand into the back of her bikini bottom to cup her sweet little ass and pull her closer, fitting her snugly against his erection. Damn she felt good.
“Bran...” she whispered. “Bran...I’m sorry, please...don’t.” Through the haze of his lust, the pain in her voice finally reached him. It hit him like a bucket of cold water that she wanted him to stop.
Sucking in a breath, he forced himself to move away, his body aching from the strength of his arousal. “Christ, Jess, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I knew better. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Her lips trembled. She gathered up her white terry robe and slipped it on. “Don’t say that. It wasn’t your fault and you know it. It was my fault. I planned it. I tried to seduce you. I thought I could make it work.”
She looked at him and tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I just...I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
He told himself not to touch her. That she would probably pull away if he tried to hold her, comfort her, but the next thing he knew he was easing her against his chest, her arms were around his waist, her head tucked beneath his chin. He felt a faint tremor move through her body as she fought to hold back tears.
“It’s okay, baby, don’t cry. I wanted you, too. So much.” He kissed the top of her head, felt fine strands of red-gold hair against his cheek. He wanted to say that if it were anyone’s fault, it was Ray Cummings. But he didn’t want the specter of Cummings’s past deeds anywhere near her.
“I shouldn’t have done it. I knew better. I just...I wanted to feel normal again.” She shook her head. “At least now I know the truth.” She turned and started walking.
“Jessie, honey...”
But Jessie just kept walking. Disappearing into the bedroom, she firmly closed the door.
The sound was like a gunshot straight to the heart.
* * *
Jessie lay awake in the darkness. She had taken a risk tonight and she had failed. She brushed a humiliated tear from her cheek. In a way, it was worth it. Because now she knew for sure that she would never be a normal woman again. She wanted Bran Garrett with a soul-deep hunger unlike anything she had ever known. If her body couldn’t convince her mind to accept him as a lover, no other man stood a chance.
She rolled onto her side and looked at the red numbers on the digital clock. Nearly 3:00 a.m. She needed to get some sleep, but every time she started to drift off, she remembered the heat in Bran’s amazing blue eyes, remembered the way he had looked at her, as if she were the only woman in the world.
She remembered the exact taste of his kiss, the soft-firm feel of his lips melding with hers, the warmth of his tall, hard body. She remembered the touch of his big hand caressing her breast, his thumb sliding over her nipple.
Yearning arose, swift and unrelenting, coming from somewhere deep inside her. She didn’t understand it, couldn’t figure out how she could experience such intense sexual desire and not be able to act on it.
In time, she would learn to accept things as they were, to deal with the reality—just as she’d dealt with the trauma of surviving three days with Ray Cummings.
Instead of thinking of him, she fixed her thoughts on Brandon and eventually fell into a deep, drugging sleep. It was late morning when she emerged from the bedroom in skinny jeans and a forest green cable-knit sweater to find him working on his laptop at the dining table.
She looked like crap and she knew it. She was beyond embarrassed about what had happened last night, and yet, as she watched him, a curl of heat tugged low in her belly. It seemed none of the lust she’d felt for him had disappeared.
“Good morning.” Determined to brazen it out, she walked toward him. “What are you working on?”
Bran leaned back in his chair. With the scruff of beard along his jaw and those amazing blue eyes, he looked like every woman’s fantasy, especially hers.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “So I guess we aren’t talking about last night.”
Warm color rose in her cheeks. “No.”
Bran made no comment. She couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed. She wandered over and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter and took a sip. “So where are we in the investigation?”
He straightened in his chair. “I’ve been going over some of the things we’ve found so far, and I’ve come up with a theory.”
Picking up his cell, he brought up a photo he had taken of the tat on Digger Graves’s neck and held it out to her. “Shamrock with a 666 inside. You were right about it being a prison tat.”
“Really?” She moved close enough to see. “Have you figured out which gang?”
“Aryan Brotherhood. One thing we know, stealing those weapons took a helluva lot of planning. Everything from computer hacking to murder—if you’re right about your father, and I think there’s a good chance you are.”
She ignored the ache of grief that moved through her.
“Money seems to be the common denominator,” Bran continued. “The one thing necessary to make everything work.”
“I see what you mean. They needed an initial investment of capital in order to get everything done.”
“Exactly. Even if they were expecting a big payoff from the sale of the weapons, somebody put up a lot of cash in advance. The driver of the truck had to be paid. Someone deposited a hundred grand into a phony offshore account in your father’s name. And if my theory’s correct, there were others.”
“Someone in the prison kitchen was paid to put something in my father’s food to make him sick. Someone in the ambulance or at the hospital was paid to administer the lethal drug that caused his heart attack.”
“The question is, how would you find enough people willing to do that kind of dirty work and keep their mouths shut?”
Her mind spun. She thought of the tattoo and the obvious answer hit her. “They all share some kind of bond. In this case they’re all in the same gang.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Maybe not all, but a lot of them. Aryan Brotherhood has members in the army stockade where they were holding your dad, as well as people on the outside. Gang members, former gang members, they all live by the same rules. Number one being, if you talk you wind up dead.”
“You think Aryan Brotherhood gang members pulled off a theft this complicated?”
He snorted a laugh. “Hell, no. I think they’re in it for the money. I think those weapons were sold in advance. I think whoever planned to steal them got at least a partial up-front payment, enough to buy the help they needed to make it happen.”
“What about this guy, Weaver?”
“He’s involved up to his neck, but I don’t think he’s the mastermind. More li
ke he’s at the top of the Aryan food chain. We need to find him, figure out what he knows.”
“How do we do that?”
“We start by calling Tabby.” He picked up his phone and punched a contact number, then put the phone on speaker and set it back down on the table.
“Hey, Bran,” Tabby answered in a buoyant female voice. “I’m glad you called. I’ve got something for you.”
“Tab, I’ve got you on speaker. Jessie Kegan is with me.”
“Nice to finally meet you, Jessie,” Tabby said.
“You, too, Tabby.”
“Listen, Bran, I’ve got some info on that money deposited into Colonel Kegan’s offshore account. I was hoping I could track the money backward, find out where it originated, but it was transferred from another offshore account, one that was highly protected. I wasn’t able to get in so I can’t give you any names.”
“That’s not good news.”
“No, but I was able to track the deposits to an email address. It’s closed down now, but I followed the messages and get this—the messages indirectly led to an online auction on the dark web.”
“An auction,” Jessie said, her gaze shooting to Bran. “That’s how they sold the chemical weapons?”
“That’s right,” Tabby said. “The digital black market allows buyers to access a large assortment of arms and explosive material. Crypto bazaars, social media channels, e-commerce sites, that kind of stuff. Lot of potential buyers out there, Pakistan, Iran, Republic of South Africa, Somalia. In this case, the terms of the auction required twenty percent up front, the rest on delivery.”
“How much did they sell for?” Bran asked.
“Either of you wanna guess?”
Jessie tried to imagine what such an amount of deadly weapons would be worth on the international market. “Let’s see...fifteen thousand pounds of mustard agent stored in projectiles and mortar rounds. I’m thinking...fifteen million dollars?”
“Nope. These days fifteen million is chump change.”
“Twenty million,” Bran guessed.
