Wicked Intentions (Steele Secrurity Book 4)

by A. D. Justice

  “When he asked me out, I was ecstatic. Out of his pick of all the girls, he chose me. We went on several dates before he asked me to officially be his girlfriend. We were perfect for each other—we were interested in similar things, we had plans to go to the same college, our families became friends. I was so in love with him I didn’t feel like I could breathe without him.

  “Our senior year, we debated about going to the prom. I wanted to go because it was the last one we’d ever have. He didn’t want to go because our junior prom wasn’t any fun at all. But because I wanted to go, and he loved me, he gave in.

  “I was so excited. It was a night to dress up in a formal gown, go out to eat, dance in the arms of the love of my life, and at least pretend to be adults. Mom took me to get my hair, makeup, and nails done. My dress and shoes were a perfect fit. Dad had the camera out, ready to take more pictures than we could ever use. All the things that seemed so important at the time were working out perfectly.

  “While we waited for him, Dad took several individual pictures of me. He had me doing so many poses in so many different places around the house and the yard, I didn’t realize how much time had passed. When I saw the time on the clock, I knew something was wrong. Chris knew how important that night was to me, he wouldn’t have intentionally made us miss our dinner reservation time.

  “Mom called his house, and Chris’s aunt answered, crying hysterically. Mom had to break the news to me that Chris wasn’t coming. We weren’t going to the prom together. We weren’t going off to college together. He’d planned to make that night extra special for us, and that’s why he’d tried to talk me out of going to the prom. He had planned to propose to me, but he wanted it to be in a more intimate setting. So he’d arranged to do both. We’d spend a while at the prom, then leave and have the more romantic evening he’d envisioned.

  “He had a job after school and had gotten off late. So he was late picking up his tuxedo, late getting home to shower and change, late to pick up the ring he was going to use to ask me to marry him. His car had been acting up, and I remember he’d told me he needed to check it out after work…but he was late. It broke down in the middle of the road on his way to pick me up. He had his head stuck under the hood when another car came flying up behind him on the wrong side of the road. Kids who had been drinking, having fun on their way to the prom, and not paying attention to the road.

  “Chris died at the scene with my ring still in his pocket. The teenage driver of the other car was charged with vehicular manslaughter, and because he had a significant blood alcohol level, he went to prison. The others in that car never recovered from what they saw, what they felt responsible for causing. And I never forgave myself for insisting we go to the prom. Because if I hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have been there at that exact time.

  “I understand the pain you feel, like you’ll never be happy again. Like you’ll never have a normal life. Like you’ll never experience an entire night of sleep from now on. It won’t be anytime soon, but it will get better. It’ll become more tolerable because you’ll learn to live with the pain, but it’ll never completely go away.

  “Heather, what you need to take from my experience is none of us, no matter what age, has a promise for the next breath. If you love Braxton the way you say you do, and he loves you, then you need to fight for your marriage. Not sit back and wait. The longer you go without talking to him, the more damage you’ll have to repair and the more risk you run that you’ll never have the chance at all.”

  Tears soaked Heather’s face as she grabbed her mother in a full embrace. Her own grief had blinded her to the pain her loved ones felt. That included Braxton, as much as she hated to admit it. He’d been her rock for so long, she took for granted that he’d save her from this nightmare, too. She’d selfishly never considered that he may need saving just as much as she did.

  “I love you, Mom,” was all she could manage to squeak out.

  She knew Kay was right, though. She and Braxton had to talk. They had to reconnect. There was no other way to begin to heal.

  Making the decision to reach out to Braxton lifted a huge weight from her heart and gave her a reason to live again. They’d still have bad days; she wasn’t naïve enough to believe it would be perfect, but they loved each other. They’d figure it out together.

  She ate with her parents, feeling like part of the family again for the first time in what felt like forever. Even though she enjoyed the time they spent together, she was eager to get home and write down everything she wanted to say so she wouldn’t forget a single word.

  It was time for her to right a few wrongs and reconnect with her husband, the love of her life, before it was too late.

  5

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Present Day

  Noah put his phone back in his pocket and turned to Brianna. “Dad’s back in the hospital after running a high fever. Mom sounded different this time, though, and I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

  “Different how?”

  “She’s usually so upbeat, with her staunch belief that he’ll beat this. Maybe it’s just that she’s seeing him as a mortal man for the first time. It’s like her denial is fading, and she’s finally facing the reality that he may not make it.”

  “I can’t say I blame her, Noah. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t accept losing you. I’d do anything it took to keep you with me.”

  “You know I feel the same.” He leaned over and kissed her softly. “We’ll see when we get there, I guess. It feels like this flight is taking forever.”

  “Now that we have a little privacy, it’s time for you to do a little explaining.” Brianna poked him with her index finger as she spoke.

  “What?” Noah’s smile covered his face though he tried to appear clueless. “What are you referring to?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that Rebel just dropped a bomb on us when he said the lady in the picture is his wife. Did you know about her?”

  “Of course I knew,” Noah replied.

  He bit back a laugh when she turned in her seat to face him and narrowed her eyes in threat. “Are you really not going to tell me?”

  “You’re putting me in a really bad position, babe. It’s part of my job to know everything about every man who works for me. And they know about me. But we also have to be able to trust each other with our most intimate information. Rebel really needs to be the one to share his story when he’s ready to talk about it.”

  “But I am your wife.” Her brows drew downward as she cocked her head to the side. “So you’d keep secrets from me?”

  “That nosy investigative reporter is coming out in you. I don’t have any secrets from you, Bri. You know everything there is to know about me. But the facts I’ve learned through my top secret security clearance can’t be shared. I take the promise I made to protect that information very seriously. Rebel’s circumstances are very personal, and I think he deserves the right to keep it to himself if that’s what he chooses.”

  “Fair enough. Rebel is one of my brothers, too, so he must have a good reason for keeping it secret. He’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

  “Or when you use your own counterintelligence techniques against him and start interrogating him,” Noah quipped.

  “Right. Whichever comes first.”

  Brianna chuckled as she settled back in her seat. Her eyes strayed over to where Rebel sat, and her heart broke from his pained expression. His demeanor changed the instant Rashad threatened his wife. Gone was the level-headed, easygoing man she was accustomed to seeing. This version of Rebel was the one she presumed only his enemies had the misfortune of experiencing. Rashad’s threat had wounded him in a way she’d never seen before. And just as a grizzly bear becomes more dangerous when it’s wounded, Rebel obviously did as well.

  Judging by the intensity of Rebel’s stare, Rashad had just signed his own death warrant when he issued that threat.

  Rebel’s gaze drifted up, and he locked eyes with
Brianna. She gave him a small, understanding smile and hoped he remembered through his pain and anger she loved him like a brother. His arm stretched over to the seat beside him and he patted it, asking her to join him.

  Brianna nodded, unbuckled her seat belt, and leaned over to Noah. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Rebel asked me to come sit with him. Keep an eye on Amelia.” Their month-old baby was sleeping soundly in the infant car seat strapped into the seat next to hers.

  “Be certain you really want to know the answer before you ask a question, princess. You may not like the answer. Once it’s spoken, there’s no way to unhear it,” Noah cautioned.

  “All I’m going to do right now is offer my shoulder or my ear, babe. He doesn’t appear to be in the frame of mind to take a stroll down memory lane at the moment.”

  Brianna moved across the spacious aisle of the Steele Security private jet and took her seat next to Rebel. Movement caught her eye, and she looked over at her vacated seat just in time to catch Noah in the act of waking up Amelia.

  “Ahem.” She forcefully cleared her throat.

  Noah’s head jerked to meet her incredulous expression. “What? I’m lonely. You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “I literally just left your side.”

  “Really? It seems longer than that.”

  Brianna’s heart swelled with more love than she thought possible when Noah’s muscular arms wrapped delicately around their tiny baby, held her close to his chest, and placed soft kisses on her little cheeks. With his lips puckered to steal another kiss from Amelia’s baby skin, he glanced up at Brianna and quickly flashed a smile before finishing what he’d started.

  Rebel’s chuckle from beside her drew her attention back to him, focusing her attention on how her friend was dealing with the latest blow. Because she knew him well, she recognized the mixture of worry and anger in his eyes even though he tried to hide it.

  “Being a mom looks good on you, Sunny.”

  “Thank you. It feels good, too. I never knew I could love someone other than Noah this much. It’s amazing.”

  “Being a father agrees with Reaper, too.” He jerked his chin toward where his friend sat. “Don’t tell him I said that, though.”

  Brianna laughed and leaned in toward Rebel. “Don’t think he doesn’t already know that.”

  “Don’t think I can’t hear both of you,” Noah chimed in, causing Brianna and Rebel to both laugh out loud.

  “When we get to Houston, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Of course.”

  “Sit this one out.”

  “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “I mean do not get involved in this case. Don’t try to help find Rashad, don’t put yourself in danger, and don’t take any chances. That’s our job, one we’re extremely well-trained to handle. The risks we take are calculated, with a plan for every possible scenario that may occur and the ability to modify as needed on the fly. This case just turned very personal, and the possibility of collateral damage is very high.

  “Reaper brought you and Amelia along because he wouldn’t be able to concentrate if you two weren’t close by where he can reach you. You’re his whole world, Sunny, and I know he’s yours, too. But you’re my little sister, and I can’t even stand the thought of losing you and Amelia on top of everything else. Promise me I have one less thing to worry about.”

  She heard the ominous tone of his voice and saw the undeniable deadliness lurking just underneath his calm demeanor. His request was both a forewarning and a plea, one she knew he wouldn’t make lightly. He’d never asked for anything in all the time she’d known him, and she couldn’t deny him this peace of mind.

  “I promise I’ll stay out of it. I’ll only get involved if he comes after me and I have no other choice.”

  “Thank you, Brianna. You know you’ll have a full protection detail that will never leave your side. You haven’t even been released from your doctor’s care yet, so don’t even think you’ll get away with doing anything strenuous.”

  “How do you know I haven’t been released yet?”

  He tilted his head and slowly arched one eyebrow. “It’s my job to know. So don’t make me have to put you in a safe house until this is over, because I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my family.”

  “I don’t doubt that for one second, Rebel. After all these years, I think I know what kind of man you are. So, I can honestly say I’m blessed to be part of your family.”

  “And if I know my little sister as well as I think I do, I’d say she’s trying to figure out how she didn’t know this very important bit of information about me.”

  “That has crossed my mind, yeah,” she replied with a hint of jest.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t told you about her,” he started. “I just don’t think I can right now.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry, Rebel,” she replied sincerely. “One thing I’ve always loved about you is how you don’t always go with the grain, but you always weigh the pros and cons first. So, whatever you haven’t shared with me about your life, I have no doubt you have a good reason.”

  Rebel drew Brianna into his strong arms and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “I’m always here if you need someone to talk to or if I can help in any way, Rebel. Whenever you need me,” Brianna assured him as she returned his embrace. “By the way, do I get to meet her while I’m locked in the hotel room?”

  Rebel couldn’t help but laugh at her tenacity as he released her. “We haven’t driven that reporter instinct out of you yet?”

  “Never.” She grinned proudly in defiance.

  “I’m sure you’ll get to meet her. In the bomb-proof, escape-proof, underground bunker of a safe house that we lock you both in until this case is over.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  “I love the idea. Can we make it a reality within the next couple of hours?” Noah interjected.

  “We don’t need your help. We weren’t talking to you,” Brianna retorted with a smile.

  Noah shrugged, showing he didn’t have a care in the world. “My wife. My jet. My team. My call.”

  “Uh, boss, you know you have to go to sleep at some point, right?” Rebel asked, feigning worry for his friend.

  “Good point. Maybe I should stay in the underground bunker with a protection detail instead of putting the ladies in there.”

  “You probably should. For your safety.”

  While the guys continued their playful harassment, Brianna took Amelia from Noah and settled in her seat to nurse her. “Did you reach Shadow, Bull, Chaise, and Silas?”

  “Chaise replied to my message a few minutes ago. Those three will meet us in Houston later today. Shadow hasn’t replied yet, but he will as soon as he can. He approaches every assignment like it’s a deep undercover case,” Noah replied.

  “Did you say Shadow is deep under the covers? I’d better help him out,” Liz jumped into the conversation. “I just had a very refreshing nap in the bedroom back there, so I have plenty of energy now. Let’s make a pit stop in LA first.”

  “Houston is nowhere near LA, Liz,” Noah replied, stony-faced.

  “I know that. What’s your point?”

  Noah stared at her disbelievingly. “Should I be concerned at all that you’re our nanny and have unrestricted access to my daughter?”

  “Nope. Not at all,” Liz replied before turning her sights on Rebel. “It’s time you and I had a talk.”

  “What’d I do?” Rebel asked, visibly taken aback by Liz’s stern tone.

  “I don’t mess with married men, Rebel. So I really don’t appreciate how you’ve carried on with me the last few months.”

  “What? How’d I do that?”

  “Oh, you know exactly what you did. Don’t play games with me. All your flirting, sneaking glances, insisting on sitting close to me so you can touch me. If I’d known you were married during all of that, I w
ould’ve kicked your ass. You need to understand there’ll be no more of that if we’re to be friends now.”

  “I need to understand there’ll be no more of that?” Rebel couldn’t believe what he just heard.

  “I’m glad to hear you agree.” Liz nodded. As she turned to sit beside Brianna, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Brianna, I don’t really know how to say this. Well, actually, yes, I do. Your boob is hanging out.”

  “Amelia is hungry. I can’t feed her with it inside my clothes,” Brianna chuckled and shook her head. “It’s okay, Liz.”

  “In that case…” Liz began to pull her shirt up from the hem.

  “What are you doing?” Noah jumped up from his seat and put his hands on hers to stop her.

  “Brianna said it’s okay.”

  “That’s not what she meant,” Noah insisted. “It’s okay for her to feed Amelia. It’s not okay for anyone else to show their boobs. Are we clear?”

  “We’re clear that this isn’t the party plane I was promised,” Liz huffed and plopped in the seat facing Brianna, who was biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing. When Liz winked at her conspiratorially, Brianna nearly lost her composure. She quickly covered it with a cough. Liz continued when Noah’s suspicious gaze cut toward Brianna. “Brianna, maybe you and Amelia shouldn’t try to drink at the same time. You two need to take turns. One at a time, so you don’t get choked again.”

  Noah’s conflicting feelings were written all over his contorted face. On one hand, he couldn’t just leave his wife and his baby to fend for themselves. That went against every fiber of his being, the code by which he lived his life, and the vows he took when he married Brianna. On the other hand, sitting with Liz for the remainder of the flight was detrimental to his mental health, and he needed his full mental capacity to stop Rashad.

  Every war has casualties, he assured himself as he took a seat across from Rebel.