by Julie Leto
Maybe that’s why Brynn had gravitated toward her. The first time they’d met, she’d put her uneasy relationship with her brother on the line to save Marisela’s job. He’d wanted to fire her for being insubordinate. Brynn wanted to keep her around for precisely the same reason.
But her time with Marisela was coming to a close. Once Sean was out of the woods, Dante’s orders dictated that both the doctor, who would accompany them to Spain, and Marisela, had to leave. She owed him big, so she was in no position to argue.
Anxious for something to take her mind off her looming responsibilities as nursemaid and bodyguard, Brynn watched Marisela select a banana from the basket, strip off the peel and toss it over her shoulder so that it hit the bin with perfect accuracy.
“So,” Brynn said, “what did you do to annoy your family this time?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Marisela demolished the fruit in four quick bites. “But the funniest part? This time, it wasn’t even my fault.”
Brynn leaned forward, listening intently while Marisela retold the story, riveted by each revelation, confession and joke. Not that the situation was the least bit funny. Secret pregnancies, a kidnapped sister and the Japanese mob didn’t ordinarily inspire punch lines, but Marisela had a knack for storytelling and Brynn desperately needed a laugh.
“So you owe Max for a blown-up ambulance?” Brynn asked, her abs aching as Marisela downed half a bottled water in one, long gulp.
Marisela smirked. “I’m assuming so, unless he charged it to Titan.”
Brynn waved her hands. “That expenditure isn’t in the budget, although something might be arranged once we deliver Mr. Devlin to…wherever I’m supposed to deliver him, once he’s recovered.”
Marisela scooted her chair closer, her voice suddenly hushed but insistent. “His last name is Devlin?”
“Apparently.”
Dante hadn’t given her much information beyond coordinates to his location. The name hadn’t meant anything to her, but as color leached from Marisela’s naturally olive-tinged skin, she realized it clearly meant something to her agent. Brynn had been more focused on blueprints of the building and potential attack points than she had been on the identity of the person they were rescuing.
“Devlin? As in Leo Devlin?”
Brynn’s stomach dropped. Dante’s orders had come in such an urgent rush, she hadn’t had time to make the connection. But Marisela would. She knew the names of every person she’d killed. She was an effective agent, but not a heartless one.
“He can’t be—” she began, but cut herself off before she made a claim she couldn’t substantiate.
Marisela had killed Leo Devlin, a Boston pharmaceutical giant, and Brynn had used Titan’s resources to ensure that no one, particularly not the authorities, ever found out. The killing had been justified, but Marisela’s record would have worked against her. And if she went down, she’d take Titan with her.
Brynn had done what any smart businesswoman would have. But if the man they’d rescued had some connection to Leo Devlin, the entire game, already dangerous, had ratcheted up to potentially explosive.
Marisela stepped nearer to Sean’s bedside. Her dark eyes widened with a mix of revulsion and recrimination, two emotions Brynn would never associate with her up-and-coming agent.
“Marisela,” Brynn said, standing.
Marisela waved her off then gingerly pushed aside one of Sean’s bandages to get a fuller view of his face. His features were too swollen, too disfigured, for her to find any family resemblance. Brynn wasn’t sure if this was good or bad.
“Do you think—?” Marisela asked, turning so quickly her sea legs wobbled.
“I don’t know,” Brynn replied. “Even if he is somehow related to that bastard, nothing’s changed. You did what you had to do, then and now.”
“But if he is—” Marisela continued, her voice flat.
Brynn grabbed her partner’s arm and squeezed, forcing her fully into the present.
“Then you just repaid your debt. If I learned anything from my father, and from Ian, it’s that dwelling on the past serves no one.”
Marisela’s gaze lingered on Brynn for a moment but then drifted back to the man they’d rescued. There was no way Marisela could understand what Brynn meant, not unless she told her about how her and Ian’s father had been driven to exact revenge and, in his grief, had pitted his only daughter against his only son. He’d wanted them to be tough, isolated and estranged so that one could never be used against the other.
The tension between the siblings was no secret, but the reasons behind the acrimony? That was a carefully guarded family secret—one Brynn desperately wanted to put to rest.
Their father was long gone. Her rivalry with her fraternal twin had caused more damage than any outside force ever could have. After Leo Devlin’s death and the subsequent cover-up, which Ian had fully supported, they had spent the Christmas holidays working out their issues. If they were going to save their business and what was left of their relationship, they had to put aside the past.
Now, Marisela had to do the same. Her ability to do what needed to be done without dwelling on the emotional fallout made her invaluable, both as a Titan asset and as a friend.
“Would you change what you did?” Brynn pressed. “If you had to watch Leo murder Yizenia again, after he’d manipulated her into breaking her sacred vow to never kill without cause, would you—?”
Marisela’s unnerving uncertainty disappeared with a nearly visible poof.
“I’d kill the bastard a hundred times if that’s what it took to even the score.”
“Good,” Brynn said, cupping Marisela’s shoulder. “Luckily for both of us, killing him once was enough.”
“But you know, this can’t be a coincidence,” Marisela said.
“I agree. And considering the price we’ll have to pay if anyone finds out the truth, we’ll proceed with caution. Which is never a bad idea when you’re dealing with the CIA.”
Marisela bristled but nodded. Beyond local cops, she hadn’t dealt with any government agencies. As top-tier management, that was Brynn’s job.
“Why don’t you stop by the galley and order us a real meal? Steak with a nice red wine? Ring me up when it arrives. We’ll eat in here. We need to keep Mr. Sean Devlin in our sight at all times.”
Even Marisela had learned to never question Brynn when her voice snapped. She left immediately, leaving Brynn alone to search Sean’s face for any sign of inbred evil.
Leo Devlin had been a heartless, cruel son of a bitch. As far as Brynn was concerned, he’d signed his own death warrant when he’d ordered Yizenia Santiago to execute four innocent people. The freelance assassin—and Brynn’s friend—had not hesitated to breach Devlin’s extensive security to make him pay for his crime. But he’d killed her before she had the chance.
The task of exacting justice had then fallen to Marisela. She’d taken the shot. Brynn had tried to express her thanks but hadn’t yet found the words. Instead, she’d made it her mission to ensure that her agent endured no consequences for her actions. Leo Devlin’s Machiavellian machinations had forced Brynn and Ian to relive the most painful memory—their mother’s kidnapping and death. Rallying after that emotional blow had been rough, but they’d made progress, which never would have happened if Leo Devlin had been left alive.
She wasn’t sorry that Marisela had put a bullet in his brain. She was glad that she’d protected her agent by covering up the crime. But if her collusion was the reason why Dante had chosen her to rescue Sean, then the fallout could be catastrophic.
Personally and professionally.
She grabbed the untraceable cell phone Dante had sent her and checked for messages. Nothing. She threw the phone back into her bag and cursed.
He’d ordered her not to contact him until she reached the safe house and, for now, she had to follow his rules. He’d saved her life once. She had no reason to believe he’d done that simply to turn around and destroy
it. Not when she had what he wanted—Sean Devlin—in her care.
She pumped antibacterial gel onto her hands and then smoothed his hair away from his face, surprised by the soft texture of the dark brown strands now that the blood and mats had been removed. Everything else about the man seemed hard. The square shape of his jaw. The curve of his mouth. The tilt of his brow, even when he was unconscious.
Sean hadn’t said much during his rescue, but Brynn trusted he was a good guy caught up in a bad situation. Why else would Dante send her to rescue him?
Why else was the question she desperately needed to answer.
Three
“You have a case to take care of,” Brynn said. “You have to go.”
“I can farm the job out to someone else,” Marisela argued. “I only agreed as a favor for the pastor of my mother’s church. Basic security. Titan won’t even get paid.”
“You’re allowed to do pro bono work. Besides, you’ve done all you can here. Go back to Florida. I’ll play nursemaid until Dante signals that it’s safe to release Mr. Devlin back into the world.”
“Safe for you or for him?”
Brynn’s reply was a grunt, concurrent with the sound of flesh meeting flesh. Sean forced himself to focus. He’d been awake for a half hour, but he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t made a sound. Why would he when every man’s fantasy was playing out on the deck directly across from his bedroom’s sliding glass doors?
This was no ordinary cat fight with hair pulling, nail scratching and voices pitching to piercing decibels that had to be endured on the off chance one chick would tear the shirt off of the other and expose a flash of boob.
Oh, no, this was much, much better. Marisela was clearly a master of Krav Maga while Brynn had her training in what he thought might be Muay Boran or another form of ancient Thai kickboxing.
Brynn was outmatched, but she wasn’t rolling over without a battle.
And as icing on the cake, both of them were wearing nothing but tight bike shorts and sport bras.
Sean may have died, but he’d woken up in heaven.
Unfortunately, the activity in his imagination was the only action he’d be getting anytime soon. He was exhausted, not from too much action but from a lack of it. The doctor had only started weaning him off the pain meds the day before. Had he been fully conscious when Brynn and Marisela had dragged him out of the hellhole where they’d found him, Sean would have refused a doctor’s intervention, preferring to heal on his own, stay sharp and narcotics-free.
But if he’d done that, he’d probably be dead.
Drifting in and out over the past two weeks, he’d heard enough of the doctor’s reports to understand his current condition. His broken bones were mending. The swelling in his eyes had gone down and the bruises on his face, chest, legs and feet were now all a nice, mustard yellow, indicating that his skin would soon be free of any evidence of what he’d endured.
The biggest hurdle—the bleeding in his gut that had resulted in a removed spleen—had not only been fixed with surgery, but the doctor had seen no evidence that he wasn’t recovering well ahead of expectations.
To prove how good he was doing, if only to himself, Sean ripped out the needle that had been filling his system with hydration. If he needed water and nutrients, he’d take them in the old-fashioned way.
The smacks, yelps and grunts that drifted in from the patio shifted back to conversation. He tilted his head to listen, unnerved by the way the voices drifted in and out as if someone was fucking with his internal volume control.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone,” Marisela said, her accent more pronounced the longer they sparred.
At first, her accent had confused him. The Spanish lilt in her voice had been stripped down and trampled on some dirty South Florida street. Hot, sultry Miami? Maybe Tampa. Nothing farther north than Orlando or south of Key West, that was for sure.
Brynn, on the other hand, sounded so much like Jayda. Every time she spoke while he was half-conscious, his drug-induced dreams had been haunted by the woman he’d loved and lost. But with each waking moment, Sean realized that Jayda and Brynn had next to nothing in common. Yes, they were both whip-smart and emotionally icy, but Brynn was infinitely more sophisticated, reserved, and yet, surprisingly caring. She’d given him his sponge baths and changed his bandages with the efficiency of a seventy-year-old trauma nurse, but she never missed a spot. And though he wasn’t sure if he’d been awake or indulging in fantasies when he’d noticed, she seemed to tend to his old scars as much as the new.
She had the capacity to be soft, where Jayda had not. But despite this lingering vulnerability, Brynn Blake had earned unwavering respect from tough-as-nails Marisela.
That alone told him all he needed to know. The beautiful Ms. Blake wasn’t going to be easy to manipulate.
Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.
“We covered our tracks,” Brynn reassured, grunting as she kicked high, aiming for Marisela’s head. “No one will look for us here.”
Marisela caught Brynn’s foot and shoved her backward so that her bottom hit the mat with a painful-sounding plop.
“No one but the head of a secret government agency,” Marisela countered, instantly reaching out her hand to help Brynn to her feet. “You don’t even know what Dante Burke wants. With him or with you.”
“His orders were clear. Rescue Sean and keep him here until further notice. Easy enough orders to follow. Now, show me what you did there. How’d you anticipate my kick?”
As the women dissected the particulars of their fighting styles, Sean indulged in a moment’s worth of guilt for his misguided rescuer. Under other circumstances, Dante’s orders might have been easy to follow. But Brynn was ignoring one important factor. Sean had no intention of staying put.
But to facilitate an escape, first he had to figure out where the hell he was. His side of the room was dark, but sunlight shimmered around the edges of his bed. When he inhaled, briny air seeped into his tight lungs. If he stopped panting long enough, he could hear the distant cry of seabirds and waves rushing against what sounded like a sandy shore.
He definitely wasn’t in Birmingham anymore. Wherever he was now, it was nowhere near the chilly English coast.
He shifted in the bed, keenly aware of the plush mattress pillowing his bare skin. His bandages scratched against what he suspected were cotton sheets with thread counts in the thousands.
“He’s awake,” Brynn said.
When had she gotten so close? A straw teased the edge of his lips. He sucked it in, drinking greedily.
“Comemierda,” Marisela cursed. “He pulled out his IV.”
Brynn sighed. “Of course he did.”
The water was lukewarm, but the effect was not unlike a shot of aged bourbon in relieving his bone-deep thirst.
But it wasn’t enough like his favorite whiskey to keep him quiet.
“Where are we?” he asked, his throat burning.
She offered him the straw again, and he drank while she answered, “Spain.”
“Flew?” he asked.
“Your eardrums were too damaged,” she answered. “We took a boat.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m not surprised. Marisela pushed the button on your morphine whenever I wasn’t looking.”
“I didn’t want him to suffer,” Marisela explained, though Sean instantly recognized that she sucked when it came to lying. At least, when she didn’t care if anyone knew that she wasn’t telling the truth.
“She hates doctors,” he said, not entirely sure how he’d gleaned this piece of information.
“See?” Marisela snapped. “I told you he was listening to what we were saying. Cabrón.”
Brynn ignored her. “Which explains why she’s been so generous with your drugs. Luckily, the doctor kept track and started switching you to something lighter a couple of days ago. You’re still banged up, but you’ll live.”
“You don’t sound happy about it,
” he pointed out.
She moved the straw out of his reach, and in the darkness, he couldn’t tell if she was being cruel or just trying to limit his intake of fluids.
“I’m supposed to be happy that Dante sent me in to rescue a man who was being tortured in the back of a warehouse of a disgusting slum? That’s not exactly my idea of a good time. But I am glad you’re recovering. I’m glad you’re alive. And I’d like you to stay that way.”
Though every molecule in his body ached, Sean chanced movement. When adjusting his position didn’t result in unmanageable pain, he pushed harder, attempting to sit up. Stars shot into his eyes, blinding him from anything except visions of sickening bursts of color.
“What are you doing?” Marisela shouted.
Something clattered to the floor. A splash of liquid sprayed across his arm.
“Pissing me off,” Brynn answered for him, tugging the blanket away from him to sop up the spilled water.
A second later, Marisela took over, pushing Brynn out of the room. Sean made a game out of trying to translate her bilingual rant—anything to take his mind off the nausea that roiled through him as his equilibrium battled with his body.
He recognized the word for stupid. And maybe the one for bastard. Trapped in a miasma of leftover narcotics and agony, he figured neither was unearned. He was stupid for trying to get up so quickly. And he was a bastard for lying around while two strangers took care of his sorry ass.
“You just wanted to see what would happen to her white bra if you spilled water on it, didn’t you?” she accused.
The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but now that it had, he wished the room wasn’t so damned dark.
“How long have I been in this bed?” he asked, his throat aching.
“Couple of weeks, but you’ve had physical therapy. The doctor taught Brynn how to—”
