by Pam Godwin
“I know you will.”
He kissed her, deeper this time. Then he removed her clothes and filled her until every drop of fear deserted her.
The fear would return again, and when it did, he would fight it with her. Fuck it out of her. Break through it piece by piece.
With every word, every touch, every passing hour, they were moving forward. Together.
Two days later, they were sharing an early breakfast alone in the kitchen when Cole darted in from the hall, carrying a laptop.
“I found the last link.” He set the device on the table and pointed at the screen, his eyes tired and bloodshot.
“The last link?” Tomas knew Cole was making progress with the data they’d collected, but he had no idea how close they were. He squinted at the screen, which displayed some kind of ledger. “What am I looking at?”
“Mason Sutton’s bank records.”
“We already scoured those.”
“This isn’t his personal bank account.” Rylee leaned over Tomas’ shoulder, eyes on the laptop. “These are financial records for his orthopedic practice. I can’t believe you got your hands on this.”
“Look.” Cole moved the mouse, highlighting a ten-thousand-dollar withdrawal listed under miscellaneous. “Six months ago, he wired this money to another account.” He switched the screen to Paul Kissinger’s bank records. “There. Ten-thousand dollars came into Paul’s account on the same day.”
“Goddammit!” Rylee straightened, her eyes aglow with fire. “Mason paid that man ten-thousand dollars? To do what? Kill me?”
“No,” Cole said. “Mason hired Paul to watch you and report back your activities, specifically who you were fucking. That’s all Paul did until the night Tomas left him in the desert.”
The night Paul tried to rape Rylee.
A torrent of emotions flooded Tomas’ chest, but regret from killing that man wasn’t one of them.
“Mason didn’t put a hit on me.” Rylee released a slow breath and lowered into the chair beside him.
“I’m still going to kill him.” Tomas gripped her knee.
“No, you’re not.” She ground her teeth. “I’m really fucking angry that he hired someone to stalk me for six months, but you’re not going to kill him, Tommy. He’s not worth the effort.” She turned back to Cole. “How is Paul Kissinger connected to the hitman?”
“He’s not. Paul was a run-of-the-mill private detective, skirting around the law and doing dirty jobs to make an extra buck. No question, he was a sleazeball, but he had nothing to do with the hitman.” Cole looked at Tomas. “Daniel Millstreet worked for someone else, and he arrived in Texas on the same day that I did.”
“How do you know?” Tomas asked.
“Data from the phone we found on his body. Someone dispatched him to Texas. For one reason only.”
“To kill you?”
“No. To kill everyone close to me, starting with Rylee.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even know you before all this started.”
“They bugged your house the day you drove to the desert. The moment you walked into Tomas’ life, they connected you to me.” Cole paced in front of the evidence board, motioning at it. “I’ve been linking all the data you collected, putting the findings together, and the facts are these.” He stopped and met their eyes. “Someone from my past, someone related to Thurney Bridge, wants to hurt me or pull information from me. Maybe both. If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve sent the hitman after me, not Rylee. I’ve been in hiding for the past seven years, retired from the activity, and they’ve been patient, waiting for me to return to the United States.”
“You’ve been outside the country all this time?” Tomas pressed his fingers to his brow. “No, wait. You were here a year ago when Tate contacted you.”
“I came here twice for Tate, staying only hours each time. And I joined the rescue mission last month to retrieve Luke and Vera in California. Again, I was in and out within hours. This visit is the longest I’ve been stateside in seven years.”
“Why?”
“I’ve always worked abroad, and I’m always working.” Cole released a slow breath. “Someone has been waiting a long damn time for me to return, and they know I’m connected to you.”
The hairs rose on Tomas’ nape. “They’ve been watching my house.”
“Yes. They knew when we turned up there. You, me, Rylee, and Paul Kissinger.” Cole resumed pacing. “The hitman called Paul’s phone when he showed up at your house, which suggests that Paul was on the hitlist. Good thing, because that’s how I was able to track the hitman’s location the night he found Rylee.”
“Jesus.” Tomas leaned back in the chair, his mind spinning.
“I assume they have eyes on Mason Sutton and Detective Hodge, too.” At Rylee’s gasp, Cole shook his head. “If they were in danger, they would already be dead. Whoever is watching knows you’re not close to them.”
“Evan…” Her face fell, and she dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, God, they killed him.”
Because she was close to him.
Tomas reached for her, pulled her onto his lap, and rested his lips against her brow.
“I was able to trace the tech on this.” Cole held up the GSM bug he’d removed from her house. “Bad news. It’s only available to the activity.”
“What are you saying?” Tomas froze, because he knew. He knew exactly what that meant.
“Someone on the inside is behind this.” Cole’s expression contorted, etched with barely concealed rage. “Someone inside my old group is after me.”
“Someone you know?”
“Maybe. They could be retired, still employed, a rogue, who fucking knows? It’s a long, classified list.” His lips curled into a smile void of humanity and mercy.
“I don’t know if I like that look on your face.” Tomas tipped up a brow. “I take it you have a plan.”
“I’m going hunting.”
Two weeks later, Rylee followed Tomas up the stairs that led to the top floor of her house in Eldorado, Texas. Every room had been swept for bugs and threats, the property deemed safe by Cole and the team. But her spine tingled anyway, her mood sullen and twitchy.
The place writhed with memories of Evan. She hadn’t loved him, and in her heart, she’d said goodbye the day she drove away and left him standing on the porch. But he was a good man, an amazing friend, and hadn’t deserved to die.
Pushing away those thoughts, she rubbed her chest and focused on her future.
Her future looked delicious as he strode down the hall in front of her, his gait steady and confident, his muscles flexing through the glide of his strides. Corded arms, narrow waist, chiseled ass—he was sexual heat and male potency, dominance and devotion, utterly loyal and all hers.
Turning his neck, he glanced over his shoulder. Eyes of gold, reflecting the color of his heart.
He wasn’t always good-natured, but that mighty heart of his made hers beat like nothing ever had before.
“This closet?” He paused at the door at the end of the hall.
“Yep.”
He opened the door to shelves of towels and cleaning supplies. “Where is it?”
“If you were a bad guy—”
He gave her a glare that closed her throat.
“Fine.” She coughed. “Since you are a bad guy, where would you look for a thumb drive?”
“Not in a linen closet.” He glanced at the other doors. “I would search the underwear drawer first.”
“Of course, you would. Panty-sniffer.” She crossed her arms. “But I already told you it was in the linen closet.”
He scanned the bottles of cleaning products and random clutter, his expression quickly transforming into boredom.
“You win.” He grabbed her, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Show me where you hid it.”
Wriggling out of his arms, she removed the vacuum from the closet and opened the dirt bin.
“You’re kid
ding?” His brows climbed, widening his eyes. “How have you not accidentally thrown it away?”
“I don’t use this vacuum. It’s broken.” She dug through the powdered dirt in the collector, removed the tiny stick, and blew off the debris. “My working vacuum is downstairs.”
She handed him the thumb drive, which contained all the photographed copies of his emails. Nine years’ worth. She’d started snapping pictures of his messages after his captivity in Van’s attic.
“Have you ever gone back and reread them?” He palmed the thumb drive, regarding her with affection.
“Never needed to. Your words stuck inside me on the first read-through.”
His lips tipped up, taking hers with them. They stared at each other. Smiled at each other. Stared some more. These were her favorite moments, the private eye contact they shared. It wasn’t a game to see who would look away first. It was a game to see who would move first.
This time, they moved as one, coming together with arms, breaths, and open mouths. He backed her against the wall, and she gripped his hair with greedy hands as his tongue chased hers, caressing and rubbing and drowning her in warmth.
The potency of his kiss was enormous, his love even greater. She threw her arms about his neck, mouths locked, holding him close, knowing she would never let him go.
When their lips melted into panting sighs, he touched their brows together. “The team is waiting.”
Everyone had left Missouri to return to Texas. They weren’t in her house, but they were in the neighborhood, in the shadows, watching and waiting.
Cole had a crazy plan, which involved baiting and hunting his unknown adversary. This stop at her house was just a detour to grab the thumb drive and her personal belongings.
She was going with them, wherever that took her. It was terrifying and thrilling, but for the first time in her life, she’d found her home.
“I forgive you.” She slid her nose astride his.
“I forgive you, too.” He dropped the thumb drive on the floor between them and crushed it with his boot.
“I need you.”
“I need you, too.
“I love you.”
A rush of air escaped his lips, and he grinned. “Wow, that’s a great feeling.” His grin widened. “I love you, too.”
They were back to staring and smiling again.
“You,” she breathed.
“No, you.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Not enough.” He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
Someone, probably Cole, had decided this was the ideal window of time to enter her house. She needed to pack the few things she wanted to keep. The rest would be donated and the keys turned over to a real estate company.
“Twenty minutes.” He kissed her lips and stepped back. “Pack what you want from the bedrooms. I’ll do the downstairs.”
“You don’t know what I want to keep.”
“You sure about that?” He winged up a brow.
“I’ll check your work.”
With a chuckle, he pocketed the broken thumb drive and ambled toward the stairs. She watched him go with a flutter of hummingbirds in her belly.
He stopped on the top step and gave her a strange look.
“What?” she asked.
“I live a crazy, filthy, dangerous life.”
“I know.”
“Reading about it in emails isn’t the same as living it. I make decisions and do things that sane people would never fathom.”
“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not the sanest person in the world. You’re not going to scare me away.”
“Prove it.”
“Oh, I will.” She pushed back her shoulders.
He nodded, smiled, and vanished down the stairs.
Maybe he was a bad guy, but he’d committed acts of bravery and self-sacrifice and made inconceivable progress in his efforts to decimate human sex trafficking. His victories weren’t celebrated or recognized in the news. No one knew what he and his team did in the shadows of the underworld.
Many might consider him a ruthless thug. A villain, even. But in her eyes, he was an unsung hero.
Her hero.
Nightfall darkened her bedroom. She turned on the lights and went to work, sorting through clothes and collecting keepsakes. She didn’t own much, hadn’t kept anything from her life with Mason.
When her twenty minutes were up, she’d filled five large duffel bags. Grabbing two, she made her way downstairs.
She dropped the bags in the entry, turned the corner into the living room, and slammed to a stop.
Masked men. Armed. Three of them, all aiming rifles at a naked man who was gagged and restrained on her couch.
It takes three seconds to make a life-or-death decision.
She blinked, paralyzed, unable to believe her eyes.
Mason.
His bulging, watery gaze fastened on her, his cries muted behind a wad of cloth. Rope bound his arms and legs, crisscrossed his chest, and tied around the sofa.
Why was he in her house? Why the fuck was he naked?
Where was Tommy?
Her heart sprinted as she jerked her attention to the three gunmen. Black ski masks covered their faces and hair. Black jeans and shirts molded to muscular builds.
Familiar statures.
Safe.
The masked head in the middle turned in her direction, staring through the narrow eye opening. She knew him intimately, from the tips of those boots to the glint in those golden eyes.
She pressed her lips together, angry, worried, and intrigued.
Don’t say his name.
Whatever this was, he’d masked himself to remain anonymous. Every word she spoke in front of Mason would need to be chosen carefully.
Looking closer at the other two men, she recognized Van’s arrogant posture and Luke’s towering height.
Tommy, Van, and Luke. Masked and armed. Terrorizing her ex-husband.
A sheen of sweat glistened on Mason’s body. His belly, softer and rounder than she remembered, quivered with the heave of his muffled sobs. His dick shriveled between his legs as if retreating in fear.
The team wouldn’t have lured him here. It was too risky. If she had to guess, he’d showed up unannounced to pester her again about coming back to him.
He didn’t have Paul Kissinger to report her activity. She’d quit her job—a phone call she’d made two weeks ago—and she’d vanished after she’d called him from the motel room last month.
He had no way to track her anymore. But the team was tracking him.
They would’ve known he left El Paso, which was a five-hour drive away. The window of time to pack up her house made sense now. Tommy knew Mason was coming and wanted to make sure they were here when her ex showed up.
For what purpose?
It took her a few seconds to put this much together and another few seconds to force her feet into the living room.
Tommy’s eyes followed her, studying her reaction.
She’d told him not to kill Mason, but she’d never put a limit on anything else. Threats? Torture? There were many levels of pain.
Blood whooshed through her veins as she stepped closer.
Mason bucked and thrashed, howling soundlessly behind the gag. From his perspective, they were both in danger. There were armed, masked men in her house, and he couldn’t protect her.
Fuck him. He’d given up that right ten years ago. Besides, if she were truly in danger, he was helpless, naked, and shaking in terror. She would have to save him.
She paused by the couch and looked at Tommy expectantly.
Your move.
He lowered the rifle. Then he lowered into the chair behind him.
Van and Luke spread out, taking up positions on either side of him, guns trained on Mason.
“You hired Paul Kissinger to monitor this woman.” Tommy leaned forward, his mouth moving behind the mask. “Paul got a better offer and handed off the job to us.”
Mason’s eyes widened, and his thrashing went ballistic.
She remained quiet, uncertain where Tommy was going with this lie.
“I want my payment in advance.” Tommy turned his cruel glare on her. “Undress.”
Her heart stopped, and her limbs turned to ice.
What was he doing?
I make decisions and do things that sane people would never fathom.
That conversation had been deliberate. He was warning her. Testing her.
Was this a test?
He reclined in the chair and lowered his zipper. The fly opened, exposing the thick, swelling root of his cock.
Sex was the destination. In front of Mason, Van, and Luke, he expected her to undress and ride his lap.
I live a crazy, filthy, dangerous life.
His team lived openly in their sexuality. They had monogamous partners now, but they hadn’t started that way. Tommy had watched Luke fuck Vera in California. Van had fucked half of the guys. They weren’t shy about sex. If she was going to live with them, this couldn’t be a sticking point.
It wasn’t. Not for her.
She looked at Mason, taking in his traumatized misery.
This wasn’t a test. It was punishment. Revenge. Tommy had set this up for Mason, the man who destroyed her trust and continued to harass her for the next decade.
She reached down deep and searched for something, a scrap of a feeling inside her that wanted to save Mason.
All she felt was heat. Fire. A burning desire for justice.
An eye for an eye.
“I watched you fuck another woman.” She stepped toward him and removed her shirt. “Do you know how that feels to watch someone you love betray you so cruelly?” She unbuttoned her jeans and kicked them off with her shoes. “I’ll show you.”
She stood before him in a black bra and panties. A matching set. Lacy and sexy. She’d chosen wisely when she dressed this morning. But she hadn’t selected her underwear for Mason. She was interested in one reaction, and it was searing a line of fire down the length of her back.
Pivoting, she found his eyes in the mask, and oh, Jesus, they smoldered.
Luke and Van kept their guns and their attentions on Mason as she made her way to Tommy. She circled his chair, savoring the track of his gaze. It stayed with her, turning his head until she stepped out of view behind him.
