The Professional

by Addison Fox

  “I’m a woman of many facets.”

  He ran a hand over her cheek, pleased to have avoided the blunt edge of her questions. “Each one more fascinating than the one before.”

  “You do realize this is the oddest postcoital conversation I’ve ever had.”

  “Coital?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s the clinical terminology that tripped me up.” He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Yet another fascinating facet.”

  She shot him a dark look that promised future retribution, and Max marveled once more at how good he felt. He enjoyed being with her. It was just that simple.

  From the silly to the stubborn and a million other stops along the way, she engaged him and refused to let go. Her mind. Her dry wit. Even her temper. They all combined to create a woman of passion and ambition and true beauty.

  And if bitter memories lurked in the shadows, well...they could damn well stay there.

  Violet Richardson was a bright, vivid light, and he’d be damned if he was going to do anything—confess anything—that would mar that warm glow.

  * * *

  Alex made the last turn onto the Baldwin property, the monotony of the old farm-to-market road they were on and the poorly marked turnoff causing a near miss. He swung the SUV hard right and followed the recently paved drive.

  Yep. This had to be the place.

  The information he’d secured had indicated Baldwin had finished the house after coming out of active duty, and the fresh paving of the driveway only reinforced they were in the right place. The drive had taken them a few hours from Lange’s compound, and the sun was just coming up on the edge of the horizon.

  “You’re sure my wife’s in there?”

  “Yes, sir.” Alex had provided the same answer, in a variety of ways, for the past two hours.

  “And you know to retrieve her at all costs.”

  “Of course.”

  And so it had gone, over and over, the same conversation. Yes, he’d retrieve Mrs. Lange. Yes, he’d ensure her safety. Yes, he’d be gentle.

  Alex relaxed his grip on the steering wheel, the drive and the ceaseless questions nearly at an end.

  “We’ll get inside and subdue the old man and the landlady. The plans I found for the house have two bedrooms on the east end and a third on the north side. We’ll secure them, and then you can deal with Mrs. Lange.”

  “That’s my wife, Alex. Deal with sounds like such a dirty term. Have more respect.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alex drove over the smooth path, the thin strip of sunlight on the horizon his sole focus.

  Respect?

  If Lange only knew how badly he’d damaged that and how tenuous his own position was, the man would be bargaining for his life.

  But Alex remained silent and left Lange to his illusions. There was plenty of time to enact his plan. In the meantime, he needed to set each piece in motion.

  The gleam of a police car stood sentinel, parked about ten yards from the house. Alex slowed the SUV and kept his hands visible on the wheel. He even added a small wave and smile as two cops stepped from the car.

  He didn’t miss their shift in stance, each quickly slipping guns from their holsters.

  “Who the hell are they?” Lange’s protest lit up the inside of the SUV.

  “Imagined protection.”

  Alex waved once more and rolled down the window, extending an empty hand in friendship. “Good morning!”

  One of the cops hollered for them to stop. His free hand went up while the other maintained a firm grip on his gun.

  “Why are you listening to him?”

  Alex barely glanced at Lange, just nodded and kept his smile firm. “Due time, sir. Due time. Follow his instructions for the moment.”

  Alex imagined the timing in his mind, mapping out the charade. He stopped the SUV and turned off the ignition, making a large show of placing his keys on the dashboard and then leaving his hands in plain view. With quiet instruction he whispered to Lange. “Step from the car, sir, with your hands up. And trust me on this.”

  A hard grunt was his only answer as Lange stepped from the car. Alex followed suit, his demeanor easygoing and friendly. Although the cops didn’t lower their guns, their stances relaxed slightly at his acquiescence.

  Just the signal he’d waited for.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting friends. Heard old Mr. Baldwin’s been cooped up with nothing to do.”

  “And what would you know about it?” the second cop asked.

  “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Alex didn’t even take the time to answer. In a move he’d practiced over and over with his old partner, he charged low on the cop who was closest, gambling on surprise and fear to make any possible shot go wild. With his other hand, he had his side piece out of the back of his slacks and firing before the second cop had even reacted to his movement.

  His first shot still echoing, he wasted no time in planting a bullet in the cop who’d given the order to get out of the car. Without slowing his movements, Alex pointed toward the front door, his orders as crisp and clear as a drill sergeant’s. “Let’s go get your wife.”

  He stepped over the second fallen cop, ignoring the wide-eyed gaze still locked on the brightening sky.

  Chapter 15

  Violet glanced at Max, his broad form stretched across the bed. She’d stood at the window for the past half hour, watching the barest glow of dawn work its way toward morning. A soft yellow now lit the room, lending a warm golden sheen at odds with the coldness that gripped her.

  She’d originally figured it was just the blow of the air conditioning from the overhead vents, a necessity in Texas in August. But as her thoughts had twisted and turned, she knew it was something more.

  Beneath the horror of the past few days—from the fear while in Lange’s clutches to the race away from Alex to the new, more questionable threat posed by MI5—she’d hung on. She’d believed she could survive—could even get her life back—and ultimately move beyond the horrific circumstances that had descended into her life.

  But now she knew there was something even more threatening—and a million times more hurtful—on the horizon.

  Max held something back from her. Something big and terrible and life-changing.

  She’d sensed it since their first meeting but had continued to ignore her instincts. His naturally gruff personality made it easier to chalk up his reticence or quiet to general surliness, so she’d left her impressions there and avoided probing any deeper. It was an effective cover, she knew now, and one that allowed her to place him neatly in a box, compartmentalized in her mind.

  But there was no hiding from it now.

  She loved him.

  Heart-and-soul love. Deep and committed love. The have-coffee-together-every-morning love.

  He’d painted the image in her mind as they’d ridden the train, and she’d been unable to shake it—or dismiss just how badly she wanted that reality. That daily commitment to another, through life’s ups and downs, highs and lows. Always dependable.

  Always there.

  Accepting that sort of love in her life was a scary leap into the unknown, but more, it was acceptance that perhaps she’d been wrong all this time. That maybe there were people who wanted a relationship for all the right reasons. Not to have a partner as a showpiece or to advance their own social rank or to keep themselves company against the unbearable thought of loneliness.

  Instead, there were people who believed in a relationship for the long haul.

  Like Max.

  So how daunting, then, that she’d finally opened herself up to the possibility, only to find a door slammed in her face.<
br />
  Max did have something in his past. Something that haunted him in ways he likely didn’t even realize.

  She’d seen it on the train. How he’d shut down when she’d probed into his past. And earlier tonight, when they’d spoken of Knox St. Germain. Yes, Max had been a soldier. One who’d seen the horrors of battle and wartime. But the thought continued to press at her that there was something more.

  Something else that haunted him.

  “You’re a man who’s comfortable with the power in his body and comfortable with unleashing that where necessary. Why are you getting so prickly?”

  “I’m not getting prickly. But I do find it odd you seem so enamored with my ability to destroy things. For a woman accustomed to helping others build things, it’s an odd juxtaposition.”

  Even at that moment, lying in each other’s arms, as she’d provided him an opening to share, he’d avoided it. Oh, he’d been deft about it. He’d lightly teased her but then turned the conversation firmly back toward her.

  With an abstract rub at her shoulders, Violet turned back toward the window. How did she get herself into these things? She was smart. Secure in who she was. She didn’t need a man to make her whole. And she damn sure wasn’t ready to share all of herself with a man who gave her only a portion of himself in return.

  Yet here she was, all the same.

  In love. Wildly, fiercely, heart-breakingly in love.

  The jingle of a landline echoed from down the hall, and Violet was almost happy for the interruption of her circuitous thoughts that took her everywhere and nowhere all at once.

  Max’s voice, thick with sleep and oblivious to her roiling emotions, followed her down the hall. “Tell Buck to leave us alone. Just because he gets up at the crack of dawn to go running doesn’t mean anyone else cares.”

  The ringer pealed again, drawing her toward the spot where the cordless phone lay on a bar, dividing kitchen from living room. “Hello.”

  “I suspected it was only a matter of time until you’d screw Baldwin.”

  If Violet had believed herself cold earlier, she knew now that was only an illusion. Ice—bone-deep with edges like razors—ran down her spine. “What do you want?”

  “What I’ve always wanted.”

  “They’re not mine to give.”

  Lange’s tsk echoed off her ear with the slippery finesse of a snake. “You persist in this notion that ownership matters to me, Miss Richardson.”

  “And you persist in this notion that I’m going to change my mind.”

  “It’s hardly a notion.”

  The retort had nearly spilled from her lips when Violet heard the cry in the background. Soft and aged, the cry was distinctly feminine. And as Josephine Beauregard’s voice traveled down the phone line, Violet knew Lange had gotten the upper hand.

  “Violet! He’s here. He’s got us.”

  * * *

  Violet stared down at the same cache of weapons she’d noted on their drive the previous day and had to admit, once again, that Max’s skill and experience with violence was as foreign as it was reassuring. After Lange’s call, they’d contacted their friends, and in less than an hour, they had all mobilized at Dragon Designs. The large, spare industrial space only added to the gravitas of the moment, and Violet found her gaze wandering, sizing up what Max and Tucker had built.

  She’d been here before—several times—but the presence of enough firepower to take down a small city, all laid out on a large common table that dominated the center of the main design area, had her restless.

  “What did Lange say again, Violet?” Reed asked.

  She knew he was scared for his mother and trying to hide it behind action, but no matter how many times he asked, she had no other answer to give him besides the one she’d already shared.

  Lange—and she assumed Alex in tow—had penetrated Max’s ranch house. He had everyone under his control and expected her and Cassidy to arrive later that day with their rubies.

  “And you couldn’t hear anyone besides Mrs. B.?”

  “No, not at all. And at the end, I tried to ask her about your mother and Max Senior, but Lange disconnected. We tried to dial the number back, but it came up unknown.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Max ground out. “They’re at the ranch and they want us there this afternoon.”

  “Yeah, but how’d they find it?” Tucker looked up from a laptop he’d settled on the corner of the table.

  “How the hell does anyone find anything these days?” Max shot a dark look at Tucker and pointed at the laptop. “Information is everywhere. And Lange and his man Alex have proven themselves industrious. Clearly, thinking I was off their radar was the worst thing I could have done.”

  “Max—” Violet attempted to comfort him, shocked and more than a little hurt when he flung her hand off his arm.

  “Damn fool I’ve been about this. Taking the damn jewels in the first place and now this. I’m responsible for them. I promised them they’d be safe.” He stalked off before any of them could respond, closing himself in a small conference room in the back of the office.

  Violet caught Cassidy’s sympathetic gaze, but it was Lilah’s harsher one that caught her unawares. “What?”

  “Go to him.”

  “After he acted like a bastard?”

  “Especially since he acted like a bastard.”

  If told at that very moment an alien had descended and taken over her best friend’s body, Violet might have believed the description. “What is wrong with you? Cass I’d have expected it from, but not you. He’s acting like a jerk.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have expected you to act like such a superior, cold-hearted bitch. You care for him and he’s hurting. His grandfather is in danger. The least you could do is have some understanding.”

  “I do have—” Violet stopped, the truth more than evident. But it was only made harsher in the light of her best friend’s dark glare. “I do have compassion. And I know he’s hurting.”

  Lilah refused to budge, any and all of the usual traces of warmth in her gaze gone. “So why are you still standing here?”

  Violet stalked off, following the same path as Max, her strides practically matched to his. Just because Lilah was correct didn’t mean she had no right to be upset.

  Max had shaken her off.

  Who sat still and just accepted that?

  She dragged on the door of the glass-walled office, diligently ignoring the pain that washed Max’s face in a sick pallor. The urge to go to him suffocated every last ember of anger, but still she held back.

  And waited to see how he’d react.

  Comfort was one thing, but with sudden understanding, Violet knew if she gave in now, she wouldn’t follow through. and she needed him to see reason. Needed him to understand he wasn’t alone, nor was he solely responsible for all that had happened over the past few weeks.

  So she’d use her lingering anger and hurt to make her point and hope like hell it was the right strategy.

  “Go away, Violet. I just need a minute.” He turned to stare at the whiteboard that filled one side of the walled-in space, his shoulders so stiff she wondered they didn’t shatter.

  “Nice attitude.”

  He whirled on her. “I want a minute. Is that so damn hard to understand?”

  “And there’s that old Max Baldwin double standard again.”

  “What the hell?”

  “You hike off, leaving everyone staring after you, and have the nerve to want to be left alone.”

  He stalked back and forth in front of the whiteboard, the movements so indicative of a caged lion that her thoughts came to a grinding halt.

  All save one.

  And as realization flooded over her so quickly she could barely catch her breath—Violet knew. She knew
the secret he carried and protected as if his very life depended on it.

  He was a predator.

  And someone very important and high up had used that. They’d seen that quality, too, and had taken advantage of him.

  Yes, he was upset right now. And fear for his grandfather and the others under his protection was a living, breathing fire burning in the belly of the beast.

  But it wasn’t the answer.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Three vulnerable people under my protection have been kidnapped.” He hesitated for a moment, then rubbed a hand over the back of his head as if trying to scrub out his frustration. “Three people who trust me and who I told would be safe.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Max stilled, the utter lack of movement only reinforcing her impression of a predator waiting to strike. Then Violet stilled, curious to see if he’d say anything and suddenly apprehensive that if he did speak, neither of them would ever be the same.

  In that pause, Violet finally had to acknowledge the truth. Whether voiced or kept in the shadows, Max did hold something back from her. And until they brought it into the light, they had no hope for a future.

  So when he remained silent, she asked once more.

  “What happened to you?”

  * * *

  Blood thundered in his ears, obliterating everything around him with a steady roar. The urge to rabbit from that unceasing gaze consumed him, even as he remained rooted in place.

  “Please don’t make me ask again.” Her voice was quiet, all the more powerful for that fact.

  “How did you know?”

  The light of battle faded from her eyes, but she remained still, standing firm across the narrow width of the conference room. “On some level, I think I’ve known for a long time. Your reticence about some things. The expectations you place on yourself. Even little things like how you size up a situation or watch a room. But just now, it all came together.”

  And there it was, Max thought ruefully. No matter how hard he tried to run and hide from his past, it was always there. Lurking. Waiting. Watching.

  And always more than willing to stamp out any possibility for happiness.