There was only one other member of their SEAL unit currently in Baltimore. Everyone else had gathered in the DC region to track down the leads they had garnered from investigations down there. Bones Jackson had been born and raised in the Baltimore area, and whenever they had leave, this is where he returned to lick his wounds and recharge. It was also where he had met a survivor of the human trafficking operation.
Bones was the one to text Sparks with a request to meet in person. Sparks had no doubt that Bones would just show up in the pub downstairs whether Sparks agreed to meet with him or not. But for some reason Sparks really wasn’t in the mood for company.
He flopped down on the bed and immediately wished that he hadn’t. Jaipriya’s scent was everywhere. The rich feminine spice of her skin seemed permanently branded into his consciousness. He had made fun of his SEAL brothers for their recent string of romantic entanglements. Sparks didn’t believe in long-term relationships, yet his buddy Romero was currently in the process of retiring from active duty just because he wanted to start a life with Cassidy Cross. Yates—a man who had never stayed with a woman long enough to learn her last name—had found a private detective who was almost as much of a badass as he was. Then Bones had started working with Marina Reyes, and whenever Sparks was in the same room with them he felt like the biggest third wheel ever.
Maybe it was just time. Maybe all of these things went in cycles. It happened when soldiers were home on leave. They would all return to active duty—except Romero, the bastard—and things would go back to normal. They would depend on each other and no woman would come between them.
JAI CREPT BACK into her father’s house and eased her way up the back steps. She couldn’t believe she had managed to get through the back door without anyone noticing. Of course, it might have been because of all the clean up from the party. She could hear her mother in the kitchen directing their staff, as well as the additional catering staff that had been hired for the occasion. Perhaps the door had been left unlocked and even ajar so that the catering staff could load their equipment into their van.
One of the steps squeaked loudly, and she froze. Barely breathing, she listened carefully to see if anyone moved in her direction. She counted to thirty, but there was no sound of footsteps. She continued up the steps and made it to the upstairs hallway on the third floor where her bedroom was located.
It was impossible not to hurry when she was so close. She saw her bedroom door and felt her heart leap into her throat. Was she actually going to get away with sneaking out for nearly three hours? She had attempted to sneak out two nights before for her birthday and had been shut down and caught almost instantly. It all seemed rather unfair.
She pushed the handle on her bedroom door and slipped inside. Closing it securely behind her, she rested against the cool slab of wood and closed her eyes. She had made it. Now she could focus on trying to get out of this stupid wedding and forget about all of the nonsense Sparks believed about her father.
“Hello, Jaipriya.”
She nearly leaped a foot in the air at the sound of her father’s voice. “Pita?”
“Now that you are back, we can have a little discussion.”
He was sitting in the white chair in one corner of her room. He looked utterly at ease. Still in his party clothes, the rich midnight blue of his turban seemed to gleam in the soft glow of her desk lamp. He had one leg crossed over the other and was staring at her with an unusual amount of intensity.
There was really no point in trying to pretend she hadn’t been gone. “I’m surprised you noticed, since you were entertaining your guests.”
“They were your guests,” her father pointed out.
Jai snorted. “Those were no guests or friends of mine. I would rather they take themselves back to the Middle East and pretend we never met.”
Her father leaped to his feet, his face an ugly mask of anger. “You had better watch what you say, you foolish child! The princes are men well worth pleasing.”
“To you, perhaps.” Jai refused to back down. “Anyone who condones the way their baby princeling of a brother treats women is nothing more than a bully. I hate them, and I will not marry their brother.”
In two strides her father had closed the distance between them. Jai’s stomach clenched in instant and completely unfamiliar fear. She’d never been afraid of her father before this moment. What was happening to them? But when he grabbed her face in his hand and pinched her chin, she felt tears spring to her eyes.
“Never again say such things in my presence,” her father snarled. “You know nothing, you insolent girl! We must keep the princes happy in order to safeguard our family. If they want you to fuck their brother in front of the entire family on your wedding night, you will do what you are told.”
SPARKS SLOUCHED INTO the seat in a booth in the back corner of the pub. Across from him, Bones and Marina sat together. The subtle closeness of their bodies spoke volumes about their relationship. Once upon a time Bones would have never allowed anyone that close to him in such tight quarters.
“So what did you find out?” Marina leaned forward eagerly.
Sparks raised his eyebrow. She was a pretty enough woman, with her dark skin and a long black braid that hung over one shoulder. Her eyes were bright with intelligence, and she certainly had a vested interest in bringing this crime ring down. But Sparks wasn’t used to bouncing his ideas off a female brain.
He looked to Bones instead. “I broke into Bhatia’s home earlier today.”
“In broad daylight?” Bones whistled. “That’s bold.”
Sparks snorted. “They were having a party. It was by far the best time to get in and out. There were so many people in that house I would have made it in and out, if the daughter of the house hadn’t been having a little lovers’ spat out in the hallway in front of her father’s office.”
“A lovers’ spat?” Marina looked thoughtful. “When Yates and Tasha said that they suspected Rohan Bhatia was the money man, Romero felt like there was something we were missing because The Broker was rumored to never work with anyone that didn’t possess a family tie.”
“Bhatia’s daughter is supposedly marrying the princes’ younger brother,” Sparks said flatly. He still couldn’t stomach the thought of Jai and that spoiled brat. “She was the one fighting with the youngest prince out in the hallway. The woman kneed him in the balls and nearly took his head off.”
Marina gave a hard nod. “Smart girl.”
“Hey!” Bones looked affronted. “Going after a guy’s balls is serious stuff, woman.”
“Look at his family tree,” Marina reminded Bones. “You can’t say the guy probably didn’t deserve it.”
“The woman”—Sparks sucked in a deep breath and tried to pretend that she was just a generic person—“she’s the one that brought me the files.”
“Excuse me?” Bones growled. “Did you say that Bhatia’s daughter showed up here and brought you info on her father?”
“Yeah.” Saying it out loud like that did add another layer of incredulity to the story. “I met her inside the house. I told her what her father was likely doing. She said she believed it about the princes and wanted them out of the way.”
“She doesn’t want to marry the spoiled Arabian prince,” Marina guessed.
“Nope.”
Bones scratched his chin. “Can she be brought over to our side?”
“I don’t think so.” Sparks shifted, feeling uncomfortable. “She won’t believe that her father is really knowingly involved.”
“Would you want to?” Marina asked him softly. “Can you even imagine finding out that your father had done such things, or even stood by while they were done to other people? It would kill me.”
A sudden jolt of empathy left Sparks almost unable to breathe. He’d been so overbearing with Jaipriya. She must think him a total ass. Great.
Chapter Six
Jaipriya paced back and forth in her bedroom. She had been locked in for nearly twen
ty-four hours now. As much as she hated to admit that Sparks had most likely been right, at this point there was no way for her to reconcile her father’s behavior. It was as if he had lost his mind. All of that raving about keeping the princes happy? What was that about? Her father was a respected man. He had plenty of money and clients. He was a banker, a mortgage broker, and a financial planner. Why would he care about a couple of spoiled princes from the United Arab Emirates? As far as Jai knew, the princes didn’t even have a throne. They just had money.
Staring into space, she tried to imagine what her life might be like in this far-off place. Her parents had both grown up in India. Her mother told her stories of living in the massive city of Amritsar and growing up as a privileged daughter of a high-caste family. As far as Jai was concerned, it sounded horrible. There were over a million people living in the city. She preferred Baltimore any day of the week.
“I am not property,” she said breathlessly. “I wasn’t raised in Amritsar like Maa. I’m American. I was born here. I have an American passport. I’ve only been to India once in my life.”
Her pep talk was bolstering her courage. Jai marched to her chest of drawers and pulled out a set of the American clothes that her mother hated so much. Jai pulled on a pair of skinny jeans, a T-shirt, and her favorite pair of sneakers. She grabbed a hoodie and stuffed her wallet and passport into the zippered pocket.
Methodically emptying her hidey holes, Jai came up with a little over five hundred dollars. It wasn’t much if she was going to try to live on it, but at least it would get her away from here.
After one last look around her room, she walked to the window and flung it open. Her room was on the second floor, but there was a huge tree she had often used to sneak out during her prep school days. Since starting university she had thought her days of sneaking out were over. Apparently that wasn’t the case.
Creeping to her bedroom door, Jai pressed her ear to the wood and listened closely. There had been a flurry of activity earlier. Not just the caterers, but other people tromping in and out of the house as well. After her father had shut her in her room she had heard him yelling at someone down the hall in his office. Now everything was silent. This was the best chance she was going to have for escape.
SPARKS ADJUSTED HIS binoculars to better see what was going on in Jaipriya’s house. The place seemed quiet after the hubbub of caterers, florists, and guests that had been present the last time Sparks had observed the house. There was still more activity than he had noticed in his previous surveillance. As far as he was concerned, it proved that there was definitely something going on now that the princes were on American soil for a short time.
Perhaps that was what he should be focusing on. Finding out where the princes were staying and what they were up to while they were here to check in on their operation was critical to the investigation. Right now the only thing Sparks could think about was Jaipriya. He’d acted like an ass, and now she was right back in the dragon’s lair.
He saw movement at her window and tensed. Would her father beat her for disobedience? Bhatia had never seemed to be a particularly violent sort of man, but open defiance from a daughter might have pushed him over the line.
“What the hell?” Sparks muttered.
It was dark outside. Had he not been equipped with night vision binoculars, he would have never noticed Jaipriya getting ready to jump from the window sill in her bedroom to a rather large oak tree a few yards away.
“No.” His admonishment was futile since she couldn’t even hear him. He was a good thirty feet away in a copse of bushes near the exterior fence. “No. Sweet… Really?”
She had jumped all right, but she hadn’t made it quite all the way. As Sparks sprinted toward her poorly chosen exit, she hung precariously over the branch of the large old oak tree. Her legs dangled, and he could see that she was slipping. He ran faster. Darting from cover to cover, he cursed the exterior lights that made it impossible for him to simply take the most direct path to offer assistance.
“Jaipriya!” he whispered harshly. “Pull yourself up, dammit! You can’t drop from that height. You’ll break your legs!”
“Who is down there?”
Her voice drifted on the breeze, and he realized that she would have no clue that he had been watching her. Worse, she was craning her neck around trying to see where the voice was coming from. It was making her situation even more tenuous.
JAI HEARD A voice, but couldn’t identify it. In her anxiety she even thought for a moment that she was hearing Sparks’s voice. That would have made no sense, however. She could not imagine a scenario that would have him hanging about her parents’ house. The man was probably knee-deep in investigative materials from this case.
She started to slip. Her belly burned as the rough tree bark abraded the sensitive skin even through the cotton of her T-shirt and hoodie. She slipped some more. Suddenly she was dangling by her hands. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax. The only way to get out of this stupid tree was to drop to the ground. She’d done it a thousand times. But that had been several years ago when she had still been dancing and doing competitive cheerleading in her spare time. Now she wasn’t in such great shape.
Her hands gave out, and Jaipriya prepared herself to roll and hopefully not break her head. Except when she hit the ground, she landed on something that was both soft and hard. In fact, it felt a lot like a body.
There was a loud grunt, and she was suddenly pressed against a very familiar chest. “Sparks?” she asked, confused.
“Are you insane?” he groused. “I swear you must have a death wish. I know for damn sure you don’t have a lick of sense.”
“Hey!” She wriggled until he let her go. Gaining her own feet, she tried to straighten out her clothing. “Nobody asked you to stand underneath me when I fell, you know? Perhaps you should try keeping your nose in your own business instead of sticking it where it isn’t wanted.” There. She had certainly done her best to tell him off. Of course, she was truly glad to see him, so it was all rather pointless. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I couldn’t let you come back here and just forget about it.” He sounded extremely grouchy about that fact. “Come on. The guards will be back in just a second for another tour of the property.”
“Guards?” She raised her eyebrows. She was sure that she had heard him wrong. “We don’t have guards at our house.”
“You do now.”
She was about to start arguing when she saw two big, burly Sikhs come walking around the corner of the house. She had never seen them before. Sparks grabbed her hand and yanked her down behind the oak tree that had provided her escape route. Peering out from behind the trunk of the tree, she tried not to get scratched by the bushes at its base.
The men were pointing to her open window. It was obvious that they were concerned over what they probably saw as a breach. The idea that her house was being watched like this was staggering. Why? What was wrong with her father that he’d suddenly become so paranoid and worried about what others thought?
The Sikhs continued at a rapid pace around the corner of the house, which left her and Sparks to escape their hiding place amongst the thorny bushes. Sparks took her hand and practically dragged her toward another copse of bushes. In fact, they jumped from bush to bush all the way to the fence that surrounded her father’s property.
SPARKS COULD NOT get Jaipriya out of this place fast enough to suit him. The entire situation was driving him insane. She was utterly clueless! How was that even possible? Her father had hired guards and there were armed men strolling around the property, and she didn’t even realize it?
“I don’t know them,” she whispered once they stopped moving for a few seconds. “Why are they walking around the house? We don’t have guards. We’ve never had security. The fence was always enough. We don’t even have a dog.”
“Apparently your father didn’t feel that was enough anymore,” he pointed out. “You really didn’t
notice them?”
“No!” She sounded outraged. “Stop making it seem like I’m some naive bimbo who just buys shoes and sits around twirling my hair. I have a brain, you know?”
“I never said you didn’t.”
“No, but you certainly implied that you think that I don’t have a brain!” Her righteous indignation was sort of amusing, although really ill-timed since they still had to find a way through the fence.
“Jai, we really don’t have time to argue about this right now.” He took her hand and pointed to a spot in the fence where the construction of the thing had left an oddly spaced section that was just big enough to squeeze through.
“No.” She yanked her hand away. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you acknowledge that I am not a moron!”
“Fine.” He chuffed out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re not a moron. Now can we get out of here before those guys come back? I really don’t want to tangle with them.”
“I still don’t get why they’re here,” she muttered.
Sparks tried to hide his amusement at the obviously disgruntled woman. She was too damn adorable to take seriously. Perhaps that was the major problem. Plus, she was gorgeous. If she had been stunning in her sari, the woman could rock a pair of jeans. Her ass was perfect, and he was getting a hard on just thinking about those shapely legs and hips.
“Are you staring at my butt?” she accused.
He shot her a grin. “Would you be pissed off if I admitted that I was?”
She squeezed through the fence and then gave him a derisive sniff. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Then yes. I’m totally staring at your ass. You have a great ass. If you want me to stop staring you’re going to have to wear something other than jeans.”
She made a squeak that he took to be more righteous indignation. He slipped through the fence behind her and then set off down the road in the direction he’d left his car.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“You want to walk to the pub?”
Even in the dim half-light cast by the streetlamps and the full moon he could see that she was feeling wary. She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I could walk, but if you want to drive I’m not going to turn down a ride.” Then she slugged his upper arm. “Although it’s really dangerous to accept a ride from a stranger.”
SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series Page 50
