Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Jordan nodded along with him, unsurprised by any of what he was saying. She knew that she had violated agency rules. “I know. I understand.”

  “Ryan did something similar, although on a much smaller scale,” Barrett said. “He shifted to pull Angela—or Leanna or whoever—out of a dangerous situation back when he was working on her case. He only exposed himself to one person, unlike you. But I want you to know that I did speak to him about that, and that I didn’t just let it go that Angela was brought into the agency and our secrets. Ryan and I had a long talk. So, I’m not just coming down hard on you.”

  Jordan held up a hand, dismissing his concern. “I have no doubt about that, and I don’t need Ryan to be in trouble with me. Not at all. We all made our choices, Barrett. I made mine. And you need to know that I would do it again, if I thought that was what was necessary to get Wes out of that situation alive. There were armed guards—lots of them—between me and Wes. And a door that was locked. And he was screaming. He was literally being killed. Even right now, while I’m here with you, he’s not completely out of the woods yet. He should pull through, but he is badly, badly injured. I couldn’t let him die.”

  “Because you love him.”

  Jordan looked steadily at her friend, not replying. She did, of course, love Wes more than she had ever known she could love someone. But that was between her and Wes—it wasn’t Barrett’s business and no matter how much she loved Barrett in a different way, and no matter how much he was family to her, she wasn’t going to give him the details of her feelings before she’d even had the chance to talk to Wes about them.

  Seeming to understand that she wasn’t going to tell him more, Barrett nodded. “Look, Jordan, you’re one of the best. I asked you to join me here at the agency for a reason—and it wasn’t just because you’re my friend. You’re as hardcore as it gets, and I know how much you respect the agency and what we do here. So, I know you didn’t make your decision lightly. But the fact of the matter is, we have to clean up the mess now.”

  “Yes,” Jordan said, nodding. “I know. I can’t apologize to you for what I did, Barrett, but I absolutely apologize for the consequences that fall on you. You know that I would never want to do anything to undermine you here. I hope you know that anyway.”

  Barrett smiled at her, although it was a tired smile. “Of course I know that, J. And don’t think you’re going anywhere. I met with my dad and grandfather last night, and neither of them want you gone either. Some of the other members of the clan …the older generation …they have some concerns, but I’ll deal with them.”

  Jordan felt some small part of her relax inside. She should have known that she could trust Gideon and Norman—especially Norman, who she loved with all of her being—to have her back. The others …she wasn’t surprised by that. There were always people looking for trouble in every clan. But it was only a small part of her that relaxed because she knew the trouble she had caused for Barrett at a time when his leadership was already being questioned because of missing money, incorrect paperwork, and leaked client information.

  “Thank you,” Jordan said. “Now, what can I do?”

  “Well,” Barrett said, reaching for a piece of paper on his desk. “Ryan and I went back to the site immediately after making sure that you and Wes were safe. The building was still burning, and there was no one around yet. We were lucky in the sense that it was late at night, and the building was pretty isolated. Dragon flames don’t last forever, either, so the fire hadn’t spread beyond the building. We put out the flames and looked around. We counted eleven dead bodies.”

  Jordan swallowed hard, shifting in her chair. Those men had all been terrible people who were bent on following orders to kill her, standing by while Wes was brutally tortured, part of an organized crime ring willing to kill to preserve its monetary interests. They were hardly a loss to humanity, but Jordan was not so callous that the death of eleven people had no impact on her.

  “There was a Jake Upton,” Barret said. “Sal Amar. Alana Slatten. Matthew Vance. Wyatt Brown. Alex Lang.” He read through a list of a few more names. “Those were the IDs that we found. A few bodies didn’t have wallets with IDs on them.” He looked up at her. “There were more than eleven, weren’t there?”

  Jordan tried to think back, seeing the whole night flash before her eyes again. “There were,” she said, nodding slowly. “I would say closer to fifteen. And …did you find anyone with the name Russ?”

  Barrett started to sort through the papers on his desk until he grabbed another one. “Russ,” he said, tapping the paper. “I have a message from a Russ. Was he there last night?”

  Jordan nodded, glad that Russ was alive because she didn’t think that he deserved to die but knowing that he had seen everything and would be a problem for the agency. “He was. He’ll know. He’d seen everything.”

  “Well,” Barrett said, rubbing his forehead. “Let’s call him back, then.”

  As Jordan waited, Barrett dialed the number for Russ and put the phone on speaker. They watched each other while it rang twice, then three times. Then Russ picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Russ,” Barrett said, in his professional voice. “I’m returning your call. This is Barrett Rockwell, with the Rockwell Agency. I understand you’d like to meet with me.”

  “Is she there?” Russ asked. “Jordan. Is Jordan there? I looked her up, and it says she works there.”

  “I’m here,” Jordan said, speaking to Russ. “Listen, I can explain everything.”

  “Nothing can ever explain what I saw last night,” Russ said. “I don’t want any part of it. And I don’t want you people coming after me because I know.”

  Barrett leaned toward the phone. “No one is coming after you, Russ. But we would like to talk. When can we meet in person?”

  “No way,” Russ said. “Jordan? I found Natalie. I’ve got her. I’m getting her out of the country and away from all of this shit. You hear that? I want you to know—I’m leaving the country, and I’m taking her with me, and I don’t want anything to do with any of you. I’m not going to tell anyone, and I don’t want you contacting me, and I don’t want you coming after us. I helped you out, Jordan. I want your word—you’ll let us be. Natalie deserves a fresh start.”

  Jordan looked at Barrett, who nodded. “Okay,” Jordan said, speaking loudly so he would be sure to hear her. “I promise you, Russ—if you never say a word to anyone, you’ll never hear from us again. I hope that you and Natalie are happy, wherever you’re going.”

  The line went dead without a response from Russ, and Barrett set the phone aside. “Well, not a foolproof solution, but …I think we can let that lie for now. Do you trust him?”

  “I don’t know him,” Jordan said, “but he helped me, and all he cares about is Natalie. I think he’ll keep his mouth shut to keep her safe.”

  Barrett nodded. “All right. We’ve already got our hand in the investigation into the burned-down building. That’s been officially reported now. I’ll be able to keep my eye on their conclusions. What I need to know from you is whether there are people out there who are eyewitnesses to what you did—or, God forbid, people who have videos or pictures of it.”

  “I’ll find out,” Jordan said, standing up and walking over to him. She stuck her hand out. “I swear, Barrett. I’ll clean up my mess.”

  He took her hand, standing, too, and smiling down at her. “I know you will, J. You always do. That’s what I love about you. Let me know what you need.”

  “Same,” Jordan said, pressing his hand firmly. “What I need right now is to go be with Wes.”

  “Then go.”

  Chapter 38

  Wes

  A soft kiss on his forehead woke him from an already restless sleep, and Wes opened his eyes, staring up into Jordan’s beautiful face. He couldn’t help but smile, despite the pain he was in. He had thought, when he closed his eyes in that building that was on fire, that he would never see Jordan again, but here she
was. Just like she had been here the day before and the day before that. She was always here, beside him, holding his hand even when he was too doped up on medication to talk much at all.

  But he felt better today. “Hello, gorgeous,” he murmured, leaning his head towards hers.

  “Hi, handsome,” she said, pulling a chair up beside his bed and holding his hand. “How are you doing today?”

  “Good,” he said, looking down at his bandaged torso. “Day three, right? I’m basically a new man. Raised from the dead.”

  Jordan smiled, slightly. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You’re doing great, but you have a long way to go before you’re a new anything. But you do look much better today.”

  “Are you saying that I’ve been looking bad?” Wes asked, affecting mock offense. “How dare you. I thought we had something special.”

  Smiling again, Jordan leaned in and kissed him. “Oh, we do.”

  He slowly lifted one hand, ignoring the pain, and cupped the back of her head. They hadn’t had much time to really talk since he had first woken, shocked to be alive and in his own bed. But there was so much he wanted to say to her. “I love you,” he murmured, as she looked down at him. “I really, really do.”

  “I love you, too,” Jordan said, surprising him with the tears that filled her eyes. “I thought that I was going to lose you.”

  “You didn’t,” Wes said, stroking her cheek with his thumb before letting his arm fall down by his side again. “I knew you would come through for me. My dragon superhero.”

  Jordan winced. “About that. I left a little bit of a mess that I’ve been cleaning up while you’ve been recovering. I really risked exposing us all. I think I’ve got it mostly managed now, but it could have been a real problem.”

  “You did that for me,” Wes said, pressing her fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t insist on going with you that night—that I couldn’t keep them from taking me out of the hotel room.”

  Jordan shook her head. “Don’t apologize for that. If I hadn’t had a moment of panic about being independent, you would have been with me. There was no way I was going to lose you, Wes. No way that I was going to be the one who sent you into the situation that caused your death. Even if I had exposed the Rockwell Clan, I would consider it worth it, if it saved your life.”

  Wes shook his head carefully, amazed that a woman like Jordan could love him that much. She sat there with her hair framing her lovely face, and her wide blue eyes staring down at him. He thought she was the most incredible sight he’d ever seen.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For fighting for me.”

  “Always,” Jordan said. “I’ve wanted to ask you …do you still want me to take away your transposed thoughts?”

  “I don’t have them now,” Wes said, realizing it for the first time. “I haven’t heard thoughts at all since I’ve been back here. I can’t hear you now.”

  “I’m not that surprised,” Jordan said. “I don’t know what triggered them, but near-death experiences can both trigger and take them away. Are you happy they’re gone—if they are gone?”

  Wes thought about it for a moment. “Yes and no. It’s a heavy burden, but it also could be a blessing. I still remember that one night that I heard the sad thoughts of that girl in the bar. I could have helped her. Maybe no one else knows what she’s really thinking. If I hadn’t been so focused on who I was looking for, I could have struck up a conversation with her. Just spent some time with her. Maybe made a difference.”

  Jordan laced her fingers through his, pressing warmly. “I know that seems like a blessing. And it is, in a way. But it would quickly become a burden. We’re not meant to be so far into each other’s heads. It would take over your life if you tried to reach out and help each person whose destructive thoughts you heard.”

  “I know,” Wes said, laying his head back against the pillow. “You’re right, and it’s good if it’s gone, probably. I still wish I had talked to that girl.”

  Bending her head down, Jordan kissed the back of his hand. “You have a good heart, Wes. Better than mine. Better than most.”

  He smiled and squeezed her fingers. “You have a good heart, too, because my heart is your heart now. I belong to you.”

  “And I belong to you,” Jordan murmured back to him.

  He knew—he knew without a doubt just how unlikely it was that she would ever get to the point where she could say something like that and be comfortable with it. But she was there, and she was his, and whether he was laid up in bed or not, life was pretty sweet.

  Jordan

  Walking into the dining room, Jordan balanced the enormous turkey that she, and Angela, and Quentin had spent all day baking perfectly. She leaned over the long table in Barrett’s dining room, setting the bird directly in the middle of it amidst cheers all around. Everyone was gathered for Christmas dinner, and there were savory scents floating in the air, music in the background, and lots of chatter all around the table.

  Having delivered her bird, Jordan took her seat next to Wes, his hand reaching for hers under the table. She pressed his fingers warmly, and he leaned over to whisper a kiss against her cheek.

  He wasn’t completely healed yet, but he had made incredible progress in the two weeks since he had been shot and then attacked with a knife. Jordan spent time healing him every day, and her doctor friend had overseen all of Wes’s medical care. He was going to have some impressive scars, but it wouldn’t be long before he was out working in nature again, just like he loved to be.

  “Okay, everyone dig in,” Hannah said, flittering about the table to make sure that everyone had all the right silverware, and napkins, and refills on wine. “Everything looks so delicious. Oh—Angela, your green-bean casserole. I can’t wait to try it.”

  Angela smiled, leaning her shoulder against Ryan’s, as he kissed her hair. Over the past few months, Angela had become even more apart of their group, and Jordan could only hope that Wes would follow along the same path. Everyone had embraced him when Jordan had announced that they were together, and that he knew everything about her life—including being a dragon shifter. And he fit right in.

  Norman Rockwell stood up, dinging a fork against his wineglass to get everyone’s attention. “I’m glad to have you all here with me today …”

  “Uh, Gramps,” Barrett said. “This is my house, remember?”

  “Yes, but you’re still here with me,” Norman said, not breaking stride. “It is a beautiful thing to have family gathered together. My wonderful wife, Grace, would have loved to have seen you all here, like this, so good to each other. I’m glad that I can still spend days like this with my son, Gideon, and his wife, Nola, and my grandson, Barrett. And of course, all of you.” He lifted his wineglass. “To another year of good health.”

  “Cheers,” they all chimed in, lifting their own glasses.

  But Norman wasn’t done. “And to a year without any more issues at the agency.”

  Jordan cut her eyes over to Barrett who winced, but only good-naturedly. They all knew how Norman was. He spoke his mind, regardless.

  “And …,” Norman continued. “To no more attempts to out dragon shifters to the community as a whole.” He lifted his glass once more and then took a generous drink and sat down, reaching for the next dish of food to be passed.

  Jordan had to laugh. “That one was aimed at us,” she told Wes.

  “I figured,” he said, spooning mashed sweet potatoes onto his plate. “But that’s all taken care of now, right? I mean, you found the two people who had escaped that night.”

  “We did,” Jordan said, “and let’s just say …we made sure they forgot what happened. And we checked their phones for media. It was all clear. A very, very close call. But all clear.”

  Wes handed her the sweet potatoes. “It seems surreal that two weeks ago we were taking down a gem theft operation.”

  “Oh, it was much more than that,” Jordan said, spooning a generous helping of potatoes onto her pla
te and passing it to Ryan, next to her. “Remember? Once we actually started digging into Sal Amar …he was involved in much more than just gem theft. And so were his men. They were running an entire crime ring.”

  “Hey, no shoptalk at Christmas dinner,” Quentin said, from across the table. “Just keep those casseroles moving …right on down to me.”

  Jordan passed the food along, eating more than her fair share of all of the delicious dishes that they had come together to make. She noted that Barrett seemed to be having a good time, and that there was no tension between Barrett, Gideon, and Norman. She was happy to see that, and she knew that the three generations of Rockwell men cared for each other deeply. The fact that the agency did continue to struggle with missing items and paperwork and money wasn’t going to keep a family from thoroughly enjoying each other on a holiday meant for family.

  They all ate until they were stuffed, and then cleanup began.

  “You’re released from cleanup duty,” Wes said to Jordan, taking her hand and pulling her away from the table. “You did the cooking.”

  “We all did the cooking,” Jordan started to protest, until Wes pulled her into the hall and pressed her up against the wall, his lips lowering to claim hers. Her protests flew from her mind, and she wrapped her arms around him, stretching up onto her toes to return his kiss with eager desire. Wes might have been laid up with injuries, but they had found their own ways to be intimate, and now that he was so much more mobile, they could hardly keep their hands off each other.

  Jordan slipped into the bathroom with Wes, and lifted herself up onto the sink as Wes lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. His lips began to devour her skin, and Jordan let her head fall back, enjoying his kiss and his touch, as he claimed her over and over again. And he had claimed her—completely. She had known the moment she thought she had lost him, that night when she had burned down Sal’s headquarters, that nothing was ever worth being without Wes. She couldn’t bear to lose him. She loved him. She loved him more than she loved her independence. She loved him more than she didn’t like the idea of being beholden to any one person.