ALSO BY LIZ MAVERICK
The Crimson City Series
Crimson City
Crimson Rogue
A Time to Howl
Crimson & Steam
The Wired Series
Wired
Irreversible
Others
Hot & Bothered
The Shadow Runners
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 Liz Edelstein
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or by photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477822609
ISBN-10: 1477822607
Cover design by Jason Blackburn
This is for my dad, who always believed in me and used to say (with a big grin), “Today is a day in which to excel.”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
I’m not the kind of girl this is supposed to happen to.
Diesel fumes stung Cecily’s nose, and her head pounded from the incessant swish of speeding traffic. It was just after morning rush hour. A Greyhound much like the one she’d arrived on twenty minutes ago zoomed past, this time having no reason to stop at the crumbling freeway cutout that passed as a bus shelter. She was the only passenger to get off here, and hopefully the four she’d left behind were still hunched in their seats, lost in their dreams of a better tomorrow; as far as she could tell, not a soul saw her drag her suitcase to the gas station through that hole in the rusting chain-link fence bordering the freeway.
Cecily coughed on another whiff of fumes and mildew, tears pricking her eyes as she tried unsuccessfully to keep the past in the past. He said if I ever left, he hoped I’d step in front of a bus, she thought grimly. That’s how bad a judge of character I am. I picked a guy who would rather I step in front of a bus than be happy. She itched to call Dex again; seeing her brother on video chat was the only time she ever remembered what being safe felt like, but James had done something to her phone.
She desperately, desperately wished Dex were coming to get her himself, but no way was she going to blame him. If anything, she should blame herself for listening when that bastard told her she couldn’t go visit her brother after his accident. It would have all come out, and I’d never have come back here, and all of this wouldn’t have spiraled out of control like it did.
Cecily shook out her right hand, which had gone pins and needles from clutching the handle of her suitcase like a life preserver. It wasn’t working. The throbbing patch under her left eye still hurt, but she’d done a great job of camouflaging the ugly. If her plans in New York City didn’t work out, maybe she should consider beauty school. Ha-ha, Cecily. Anyway, by the time her brother saw her, the bruising would be gone.
Of course, that was a couple of days from now, and this was now now. And as a car came into view, snaking down the lonely off-ramp, Cecily grew more self-conscious. The humidity was pretty intense; tendrils of hair clung to her face, her makeup was sweating, and her T-shirt was stuck to her skin.
Her brother’s friend wasn’t late; she’d come early. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—get out while the gettin’ was good—but maybe she ought to have picked a rendezvous point with people around.
Cecily plastered on the plucky smile she’d perfected in her bathroom at home, but it faltered as the car neared the station and pulled in, window down. A BMW. A really big-looking, really, really nice-looking BMW. And a really big-looking, really, really not-so-nice-looking man at the wheel.
Is this Shane? My brother’s a total nerd. His friends always drove cars that had parts falling off at every stoplight. His friends didn’t wear mirrored sunglasses and have tattoos covering well-developed muscles on arms that hung out car windows like machine guns.
Cecily took a step back, her sneakers hitting her suitcase. Her head was spinning. Dex is too late; James has found me. He’s found me and sent someone to take me back to him.
“You Cecily?”
The car door opened, and the man stepped out of the car. Unfolded himself, really, to reveal a massive frame wearing shitkicker boots, jeans, a T-shirt, and lots more muscles.
A sob caught in Cecily’s throat. She didn’t know what James’s worst looked like. She’d only just realized that she hadn’t really known him at all. Maybe the worst looked like this. She froze, her world turning to slow motion as the man removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes as dark as the scowl on his face. Oh, god. He’s going to do something to me.
Their eyes locked, something flickered in his expression, and a rush sliced through Cecily’s bloodstream. That’s your survival instinct, stupid.
RUN!
She bolted, knocking the suitcase over to buy time, even though he probably crushed it with one step, like Godzilla stomping a tiny human. Behind the gas station was nothing but abandoned decay. Cecily raced through the weed-strewn parking lot, past a mess of faded lines, smashed windows, and flapping strips of awning. There was nothing here and no one who could help her.
He was calling her name and “Not gonna hurt you . . .”
Sweat blurred her vision, and she stumbled on a dandelion patch poking through broken pavement.
“Hey, kid!”
Not even going to look. You look back, they always win. They nip you at the finish line. The ground literally jumped from the weight of his boots pounding behind her; she could feel his heat against her back, and then he had her, one arm around her waist, and she tripped.
“Please,” she begged. “Please make it fast.” Cecily closed her eyes, though absolute panic and fear already made her blind. The smell of gasoline stung her nose as the damp, jagged pavement came up to meet her, and they hit the ground and rolled. No longer fighting, she felt every muscle in her body clench as she anticipated the pain of whatever he had in mind. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you alone, Dex,” she mumbled, blood in her mouth, tears stinging her eyes.
I’m not the kind of girl this is supposed to happen to . . .
Cecily woke up with her face smashed into some pretty nice leather in the backseat of a car. The engine purred, and judging from the crisp temperature and swishing sounds, the window was open and they were moving fast down a freeway. She kept her eyes closed and pretended sh
e was still asleep and took a moment to gauge the situation. Nothing new hurt, she wasn’t bound, and there was a blanket on top of her.
Maybe James didn’t send him; he didn’t hurt me, and I’m not dead.
And then, Points for intelligence!
And then, Hey, I may have lost my common sense and dignity, but I still have a sense of humor. That’s promising.
“Go ahead and sit up.”
Cecily’s eyes widened. Her fake sleep face always fooled James.
“Sit. Up.”
She sat up, and the blanket fell to the seat beside her. It was a beige-and-black plaid cashmere blanket that coordinated with the tan interior of the car—not the sort of blanket you’d use to wrap up a dead body. This gave her comfort. What didn’t give her comfort was the pair of unblinking dark eyes gazing at her in the rearview mirror. At least one day of scruff roughed up the driver’s jaw, and his hair was longish and kind of messy.
Did he look like one of her brother’s old friends? Hell, no. Did he look like a Shane? Definitely. But with the odd exception of a pair of brown suede driving gloves, he didn’t look like the owner of this car. Maybe she was asking too much of the plaid cashmere. She should have learned every lesson in the world about judging a book by its cover. James looked like a nice, attractive, wealthy businessman. “Shane” looked like a hot badass cowboy in a stolen car. He was either an angel in disguise or he had an entirely different dead-body blanket waiting for her in the trunk.
Safe or not safe?
“Seat belt on,” the driver said, a note of exasperation in his voice.
Being ordered around left a bitter taste in Cecily’s mouth like it always did, but (a) given they were in a moving vehicle over which she had no control and (b) this would have been an unquestionably reasonable request under pretty much any other circumstance, she buckled herself in where she could see his eyes in the mirror and at least some of his profile. This gave her another opportunity to take his measure. Unfortunately, the only new piece of information she gleaned was the hilt of a knife poking out of a camouflage-patterned ankle holster where the bend of his knee lifted the hem of his jeans. Lovely. Just great. Cecily adjusted the belt strap and looked out the window for a useful freeway sign. Still in Minnesota. That told her nothing, since she wasn’t a native and hadn’t left Minneapolis much during her stay.
Okay, keep it together until you’re sure. Don’t panic unless it’s really time to panic. “Who are you?” she asked. She hoped he was her brother’s friend. She prayed he was. But she didn’t want to offer up the name to this guy if he wasn’t.
“You knew Dex was sending a friend to take you back to New York. Why’d you run?” the driver asked by way of response.
You didn’t answer my question. Cecily swallowed hard. “How do I know you’re the one Dex sent?”
Something came flying over the front seat; Cecily flinched as a worn yellow bunny planted headfirst in the seat next to her. She squealed and pulled the bunny to her chest.
“I’m Shane,” the driver said. “Dex said the rabbit’s name is . . .” He paused, sighed, and shook his head. “Bun-Bun. That good enough for you?”
Only my brother would know that. Only my brother would even know where that box of stuff was. A wave of tension left her body. “Yeah, Shane,” Cecily whispered. “That’s good enough for me. Thanks for picking me up.”
The eyes narrowed, studying her as she clutched the bunny with trembling hands. Cecily was suddenly unable to get enough air.
“Just know you’re safe on my watch,” Shane said.
Safe. Finally out of there. Safe. Cecily buried her fingers in the bunny’s fur and broke.
Through her tears, she saw Shane’s eyes watching her in the mirror. He finally blinked.
CHAPTER 2
Fuck. The girl was crying. Shane would definitely not have waited an extra day in Salt Lake City for an overnighted bunny that was gonna make a girl cry. Particularly since he was supposed to get Cecily back to New York and under Hudson Kings protection as soon as humanly possible. But Dex insisted on sending it as a kind of code word for his sister, since he couldn’t come himself, and it was technically on Shane’s way—if you consider Utah an errand on the way to Minnesota from California.
If this kinda bullshit wasn’t exactly what it meant to be loyal, Shane didn’t know what it meant, because he sure wouldn’t be doing it for just anybody. It wasn’t just the big ops that counted; it was also the personal stuff. Dex and Roth and the other guys were the closest thing he’d ever have to family, and he wasn’t inclined to lose his home for the holidays. Didn’t always make it home, but he liked knowing it was there.
He sighed and adjusted his driving gloves. She was not what he’d expected.
Dexter’s sister was about ten years old in the picture on her brother’s desk back in Manhattan. Shane vaguely remembered a kid in overalls and sneakers, messy brown hair, and wide eyes, with her big brother’s arm slung around her shoulders.
What she looked like now shouldn’t have been a surprise, since she and Dex were still blue-eyed, brown-haired color copies of each other, except that Shane hadn’t factored in what it would look like when that ten-year-old waif turned into the twentysomething-woman version of her younger self.
One big difference was that she wasn’t smiling now like she had been in the picture. She was completely alone at an abandoned gas station, and she looked every inch a girl looking for life’s nearest exit: vulnerable, nervous . . . but luckily, like maybe the last bit of fire hadn’t been beaten out of her.
That fire hit him immediately—socked him in the gut when he got his first look at her trying to stand her ground. She appeared to have a lot of leg for her height, but she was tiny; a man could wrap his arms around her in a bear hug and she’d probably vanish from sight. She was pretty; he could see that even though she was a mess between the nasty bruise and the humidity. Shirt plastered against her showed she had a cute little bod that needed some extra meat. Whether she was on a diet to impress the asshole who beat her or the asshole made her lose her appetite, he knew she was far too light because he’d carried her to the car when she’d passed out.
She’d bolted before he could explain, and the next thing he knew, she was lying in his arms, her lip dotting blood where she’d opened an old cut, and her skin pale with fear except for the makeup blotches that weren’t fooling anybody. It was nothing to lift her over one shoulder, grab her suitcase on the way to the car, and be on his way. But now that he was on his way, he was beginning to realize this was not even close to business as usual, and he didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with her and all her . . . feelings.
This was new; this was not welcome. Typical freight didn’t have emotions. Typical Shane didn’t either.
Her jag ended pretty quickly, so the sick feeling in Shane’s stomach at the sound of her quiet sobs didn’t stick around. “Sorry about that,” Cecily said, swiping at her tearstained face with her T-shirt.
Shane watched a slice of skin appear at her midriff as she pulled the fabric up; he tightened his grip and stared at the road.
“Did Dex tell you what happened?” she asked.
“He didn’t give me details. As he likes to say, it’s binary.” Some asshole treats you like crap, gotta get you out the mess. End of story. He didn’t need to know more. Didn’t want to know more.
“That sounds like my brother,” she said, and then blurted, “Short version: I told James it wasn’t working. He told me it was. So then I told him I was leaving. He told me I wasn’t. That’s how I got this. It’s the first time he ever hit me.”
A long pause. Shane looked in the mirror; she was staring out the window. He didn’t prompt. But it was clear she had no idea how much bigger this situation really was. She understood James was an asshole, but she didn’t know the one label didn’t even begin to cover it. That her entire relationship with that shit was just a setup to get intel on Dex and the rest of the Hudson Kings mercenaries.
<
br /> She also didn’t know Shane suspected someone was watching when he went to pick her up. Unfortunately, when he’d had to run after her, he’d lost the mark: a white beater sedan.
All of a sudden, her eyes were back in the mirror, a sad, bewildered expression on her face. “I never would have thought I’d be the type. I never would have thought something like this could happen to me. But after he cut me down so many times . . . well, I guess I started to believe him. I know Dex is surprised I believed him. And he feels shitty he believed me when I said I was fine all those times.” Her cheeks flushed. “Anyway . . . do you hang out with him a lot in New York?”
“Yeah, I hang out with Dex when I’m in New York.” Shane watched, fascinated as his answer sparked a grin. Holy shit. Smile lights up everything around her. A total disaster, she’s still effing gorgeous. He ripped his gaze away, scowling. Dex’s sister. Just had a bad experience. Whole thing is off-limits, man. Even if you were up for something, which . . . You. Are. Not.
“Is something wrong?” she asked uncertainly.
“No.” He took his hands off the steering wheel and stick long enough to crack his knuckles and shake out his fingers, which had gone uncharacteristically stiff. No good driving tense. Shake it off. Sure, Shane’s priority was the big picture, the Hudson Kings mission to take down Yakov Petrenko, a.k.a. James Peterson, a Russian handler who was acting as the middleman for a cell of Russian sleeper agents living in New York. Agents who were really good at pretending to be people they definitely were not. But, man, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to take a shot at James just for roughing up Cecily.
“Uh, are we driving straight through to New York, or is there any chance we could stop and, you know, shower and stuff?”
Shane grimaced. He was a drive-through-the-night guy. But this wasn’t a professional gig. The correct answer would be stop at a hotel on the way. That’s what you do. You stop so she can shower that asshole off her once and for all. So she can rest and fix her pretty face and put on some clean clothes and stop feeling like a pile of shit.
The problem was that he’d been driving hot since California, with a delivery sitting in his trunk destined for the Chicago area. On the one hand, if he had to make a stop anyway, he might as well give her an opportunity to shower and rest. On the other hand, Shane mused as he checked his rearview mirror, his gut was telling him to keep driving and avoid noncritical detours.
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