Her Alpha Avengers [The Hot Millionaires #7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Zara Chase

  “What the hell’s going on?” Sabine asked the guy when he cut the call, too angry to feel afraid or even think about trying to escape.

  “I was rather hoping you’d be able to tell me that.” He stared straight ahead, his brow furled as though he had more important things on his mind than talking to her. Like how to duck a murder rap, or dump a live body at sea. “Hell, where are my manners?” he asked, turning his attention back to her and flashing another glamorous smile that made her damned knees tremble. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Fin Landon.”

  He stuck out his hand and Sabine stupidly shook it. A frisson of excitement that eradicated her dwindling fear shot through her when his long fingers curled round her palm. She quickly extracted her hand. There was a time and a place for everything, and right now she could do without this distracting thug playing mind games with her. She needed to think rationally.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “Somewhere safe.” He looked directly at her, and Sabine realized she’d miscalculated. He wasn’t just good looking, he was every woman’s fantasy. Just her luck to get abducted by a guy who looked drop-dead gorgeous. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Chapter Two

  Anxious to be well clear of the national park before the cavalry arrived, Fin drove the boat as fast as he dared. There were a few early morning fishing boats out, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself by acting like a boy racer and causing too much wake. At the same time, he kept a weather eye on Sabine Hilton. Not that she’d introduced herself, but then, she didn’t need to. He knew pretty much all there was to know about her already, barring a few crucial facts.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said, not turning his head to look at her.

  “Trying to control my thoughts now, are you?”

  “I could lock you in the cabin if you’d like.”

  She squared her shoulders and placed a hand on the stupid dog’s harness—like he’d protect her. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Don’t test me, Sabine. One man’s already died today.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Just so that you know, there are gators in these waters. I wouldn’t recommend jumping in.”

  “Gators only inhabit freshwater,” she said with a triumphant smile. “You haven’t abducted a complete dummy, you know.”

  Fin couldn’t help chuckling, even though he didn’t have much to laugh about right now. Sabine was a surprise. He’d seen a couple of grainy pictures of her, but they didn’t do her justice. She was tall and athletic looking, and he liked that she wasn’t stick thin, had decent curves, a cute butt, and endless legs. He’d discovered that much, even under such dangerous conditions, when he carried her to the boat. He hadn’t seen her eyes yet because she’d kept her shades on, but he was willing to bet that they were as fiery as the rest of her. She had a long tangle of brunette hair that ended halfway down her back and features that were interesting rather than beautiful. He almost smiled again, imagining her reaction if she could read his thoughts. Telling a woman she looked interesting was like saying a Picasso painting was “nice.” It was neither sensible nor an accurate description.

  One thing he did know was that she was smart and didn’t lack courage. She’d come over to the States to look for Pearson and had gotten a damned sight closer than Fin and his buddies had so far managed. Okay, so she’d been at it for longer, but Fin was a professional and had the sorts of resources at his disposal that she could only dream about. Spencer had been the break they’d all been waiting for, and Fin had allowed him to be murdered on his watch.

  Hell, he’d screwed up big time!

  Preferring not to dwell upon his inefficiencies, he returned his thoughts to Sabine. She must have been scared shitless when she came upon him, standing over Spencer’s body. Of course she thought he’d done it. In her position, he’d think the same thing. But she hadn’t had hysterics or gone all girly at the sight of blood, and now appeared curious about him, rather than scared. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t make a break for it, so he didn’t carry through on his threat to lock her out of sight.

  His cell buzzed. He checked the display and answered it.

  “Yeah, Otto.”

  “Her place has been turned over, and recently.”

  “Shit!” He turned to Sabine. “What time did you leave your condo this morning?”

  It must have been something about the urgency in his tone that made her answer him. “Six o’clock. Why?”

  “She left at six,” he said to Otto, “so it must have been recent.”

  “Her computer’s gone, if she had one.”

  “Hang on, I’ll ask her.”

  “Your condo’s been broken into,” he said.

  “Yes, by your buddy.”

  “No, before that. Did you have a computer? If so, it’s gone.”

  She flashed a superior smile and patted the large bag that hadn’t left her person. She appeared to be annoyed with herself for revealing her secret, because although she turned away from him, he still heard her mutter a few choice swear words.

  “It’s okay, she’s sensible enough to keep it with her. Just collect up all her personal things and bring them on over.”

  “On my way,” Otto said, cutting the connection.

  Fin didn’t meet her curious gaze after that, and she made no attempt to speak to him. He admired that about her. She must be brimming with questions but didn’t know if she could trust him and wasn’t about to volunteer anything about herself. Well, she’d find out they were the good guys once they got back to base.

  He slowed to just above idle speed as he turned the boat into the watery cul-de-sac that led to their house. When he arrived at their private dock, Gabriel was there to take the lines.

  “Hello,” he said to Sabine, the inevitable sexy smile springing to his lips as he clocked her physical attributes. “I’m Gabriel Yorke.”

  “Another guardian angel,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It must be my lucky day.”

  “Lady,” Gabe said, his smile widening, “you have no idea.”

  Mulligan leapt onto the dock and wagged at Gabe, who gave his ears a rub.

  “That dog has lousy judgment,” she muttered. “We’re gonna have to have a little chat about that.”

  “Come on.”

  Fin took her arm to help her out of the boat, but she shook him off and managed on her own.

  “What is this place?”

  She looked up at the house and couldn’t quite hide the fact that she was impressed. Fin tried to see it as though it were new to him and could understand why. In one of the best streets on St. Pete Beach, Florida, it occupied a double corner lot, offering additional privacy. In stark contrast to the compact condo in a rough part of downtown St. Pete that she’d been living in, the large house was spread over three floors and enjoyed spectacular views from every room.

  “Be it ever so humble,” Gabe said, “we look upon it as home.”

  She sniffed. “The murder business must pay well.”

  Gabe looked at her askance. “Come again?”

  “Let’s get inside,” Fin said, “and convince the lady that we haven’t knocked anyone off today.”

  Sabine offered him a sarcastic smile. “You’re certainly welcome to try.”

  Gabe shrugged and led the way with Mulligan bounding ahead of him, sniffing out this new territory. He paused to lift his leg against an expensive shrub in full bloom. Finally, Sabine found something to smile about, but Fin wished he hadn’t noticed. When she smiled it lit up her entire face and caused her lush mouth to momentarily lose its tight grimace of disapproval. Even with the damned sunglasses still covering her eyes, her smile was enough to make his mind go off on a detour and for his dick to sit up and take notice. Damn, he absolutely didn’t need to be thinking that way about their temporary guest.

  They entered the house through the sliding glazed doors that led directly into the vaulted living area. Sabine could barely h
ave had time to look round before the front door opened, and Otto came in with her things.

  “This is Otto Prentice,” Fin said.

  Otto shared a glance with Fin and Gabe before telling Sabine he was delighted to meet her. He offered her his hand, but she didn’t take it.

  “What am I doing here?” she asked. “I don’t associate with criminals.”

  “Criminals?” Otto shot Fin a look. “What’s she on about?”

  “She found me standing over Spencer’s body, so, not unreasonably, she thinks I killed him.”

  “We’d best set her straight, then.”

  “Why would I believe you any more than I believed him?” she asked, jerking a thumb at Fin.

  Otto said nothing but disappeared into the kitchen and returned almost immediately with fresh coffee for them all.

  “Sit down, Sabine,” Fin said firmly.

  “I don’t want to sit down. I just want to get away from you.”

  “You’re free to leave any time you like.”

  “How kind.” She stood up, still holding her satchel like a body protector. “I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure. Where’s my car?”

  “It’s in our garage, but you can’t go back to your condo. They’ll be waiting for you.”

  “I’ll find somewhere else.”

  “Okay,” Fin said, “but before you go, you should hear what we have to say.”

  She dealt him a defiant stare. “Why?”

  “Because you’ve come all the way from England to find Pearson—”

  Her incredulous gasp caused his words to stall. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “The same way that I know you’ve spent the best part of two years trying to track the man down because, and this is the guessing part, he conned someone in your family.”

  He sensed some of the antagonism drain out of her as she sat down and accepted coffee from Otto. “Okay, you’ve got my attention. What’s your interest in Pearson?”

  “We’ve been hired to find him,” Gabe said.

  “Who hired you?”

  “We’ll tell you that later, once we’re sure we trust one another.”

  “You haven’t given me much reason to trust any of you up until now.”

  Fin smiled at her, but she refused to meet his gaze, clearly not ready to believe him. “Sabine, if I’d really killed Spencer, do you think I’d have let you live?”

  “Tell her all of it, Fin.” Otto grinned. “Your legendary charm obviously isn’t going to cut it today.”

  Sabine grunted but said nothing.

  “Okay, here’s how it is. We work as investigators.”

  She glanced round the room. “Nice office.”

  “We don’t advertise our services. People come to us. People who want the best and can afford to pay for it.”

  “Good job they don’t need modest.”

  Otto laughed. “Yeah, we don’t do that one. Well, Fin doesn’t.”

  She had removed her glasses at last, and Fin saw that her eyes were silver, flecked with agate. As suspected, they were large and intelligent and lent character to her face. Character? Christ, that wasn’t a whole lot better than interesting. She was still wary of them, that much was obvious, but they’d obviously piqued her curiosity and she was no longer in a tearing hurry to leave.

  “Bottom line,” Fin continued, “is that we’ve been hired to find the guy you know as Pearson.”

  “I see.”

  “I doubt that you do, but stay with me. We’ve been on this for two weeks now, and Spencer was our best lead.”

  “How did you get on to him?”

  “Through you.”

  “Me!”

  “Yeah, you haven’t been too subtle, running a blog about Pearson, making it clear you’re looking for him, asking other victims to come forward. Plus, as soon as you got over here you started asking questions in all sorts of places, flashing the picture you have of Pearson everywhere you go, putting ads in the local paper.”

  “It got me this far,” she said defensively.

  “And damned near got you mixed up in a murder rap.” When she turned to look at him with an expression of cool disdain, Fin was tempted to shake some sense into her. She still didn’t get it. “You were supposed to be found on the beach at the crack of dawn, alone, kneeling over a dead ranger.”

  “That wouldn’t have happened.”

  Fin elevated a brow. “What, you wouldn’t have found him there and bent down to see if he was still alive?”

  “Well, I suppose—”

  “The police were on their way before his blood had congealed.”

  She shivered. “There’s no need to be quite so graphic.”

  “There’s every need, if it makes you see sense. The only reason it didn’t happen that way is because I was there. The killer didn’t know that. I was hidden in the dunes, waiting for you to arrive. I saw the killer strike Spencer and called out to try to distract him.”

  “That’s the noise I heard,” Sabine said, lifting a hand to cover her mouth.

  “Right.”

  “Did you catch sight of the killer, Fin?” Otto asked.

  “No, he came from behind the dunes.”

  “The grass I saw waving about,” Sabine said softly.

  “Right, I had to choose between chasing him and seeing if I could do anything for Spencer.” Fin scowled. “I should have gone after him because Spencer was already beyond help.”

  Sabine shook her head. “Why kill Spencer and try to frame me for it? He was bashed over the head. I couldn’t have done that.”

  “Yeah, you could. It’s not a woman’s preferred way of killing, but you’re taller than he was and probably heavier.” He grinned at her. “I should know.”

  She tossed her head, but Fin was convinced he caught the trace of a smile slip past her guard. She smothered it before he could be sure. “Hope you didn’t put your back out,” she said sweetly, sounding as though she hoped he had.

  “He couldn’t afford to use a gun, even a silenced one,” Gabe said. “They still make a noise and frighten the birds, and the killer couldn’t know who else might have been about. Dog walkers tend to turn up early in this heat.”

  “All right, I’m Superwoman, accustomed to clouting weedy men over the head and letting them bleed to death. That still doesn’t explain why I’d want to.”

  “If you were arrested, the police would seize your precious computer and find your connection to Spencer.” She opened her mouth, presumably to ask how he knew there was any correspondence to find, but Fin silenced her with a gesture. “They’d assume that he didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear, and you lost it, or that you argued and got into a tussle…something like that.”

  “Put it this way,” Otto said. “If they found you with a man they knew you’d arranged to meet, and he was dead and you weren’t, they probably wouldn’t look too hard for anyone else to pin it on.”

  “I suppose.” Sabine reluctantly acknowledged the point. “So someone killed Spencer to frame me.” She encompassed each of them in turn with one sweeping gaze. “Why?”

  “To stop Spencer from telling you what he knew. And to stop you, full stop.” Fin briefly touched her hand, and this time she didn’t snatch it away. “You’re obviously getting too close.”

  “But I don’t know anything,” she cried passionately.

  “You must, otherwise they wouldn’t have searched your condo in the hope of finding it.”

  “You think that was Pearson?”

  “Or someone employed by him,” Otto said.

  Sabine’s mouth fell open, and a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions chased one another across her face. Surprise and fear quickly gave way to a steely determination that Fin found admirable. Most women would have run for cover long before now, given what Sabine had already witnessed that morning. But it seemed she was made of sterner stuff. Somehow Fin wasn’t surprised.

  Chapter Three

  “You okay?” Fin asked.

 
Was she? Sabine didn’t answer him immediately. The situation was so surreal that she felt like pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. This morning she’d thought she might finally be getting a little closer to the man who’d screwed her mother for just about every penny she owned. Two hours later, and she was arguably a prime suspect in a murder enquiry, surrounded by three muscly hunks who could be axe murderers for all she knew. And yet, they made her feel safer than she had since setting foot in this foreign country. They were either the most convincing criminals in the world, or they were telling her the truth.

  Time to find out which it was.

  “You said you found Spencer through me,” she said. “How?”

  “Er, that was me, I’m afraid,” Otto said. “I hacked into your e-mail.”

  She gaped at him. “You did what?”

  “Sorry.” He spread his hands and sent her a sheepish smile. “You were here, making yourself conspicuous by asking questions.”

  “Ever heard of asking?”

  “Yes, but we needed to know what you knew so we could decide whether to trust you first.”

  “You had trust issues with me?” She placed her hands on her hips and glowered at each of them. “Geez.”

  Otto quirked a brow. “Would you have told us anything if we had asked you?”

  “No, probably not, but—”

  “Look, Sabine,” Fin said, once again taking control. An alpha male if ever she’d met one. The other two weren’t too shabby, but there was always a leader in every pack, and Fin was it—no question. “We’re on the same side here, both trying to find the creep who ripped you off.”

  “Actually, he swindled my mother.” Sabine wondered why she felt so ready to confide in them. Not that there was much to confide. They seemed to have gone prying into her affairs and found most of it out for themselves. “But, of course, if you’ve checked me out online, you already know that. I’m English, as you will also know from your snooping.”