DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “What?”

  She slammed her hands on the keyboard, a little scream slipping from between her almost puritan lips.

  “It’s a virus. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s a virus. I must have tripped something when I opened that last document.”

  “Can you recover it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. But it’ll take a while.”

  “Damn it!”

  I suddenly felt claustrophobic. I pushed Hayden out of my way, moving around him toward the front doors. I needed some air. Dante was there, his cellphone in his hand. He pushed the door open for me, his expression almost knowing. Almost…sad. I brushed past him and walked onto the sidewalk outside our little building, pacing the half block or so that spread out to the left of us.

  I couldn’t believe we were facing another setback. I’d almost given up on finding Peter’s killer after everything went so cold. But this…this had given me hope. I believed that we were close. Emily Greene and Dominic were working the same case Peter had been, he just didn’t know it. I’d thought I was on the verge of finishing this for him. I thought Emily might have—not only the answers to who was behind the terrorist cell—but also who had ordered Peter’s death. But now it was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “I’m sorry, Megan,” Sam said, coming out to watch me pace.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  But she didn’t believe that. I could see it written all over her face.

  “It’s not, Sammy.” I went to her, placing my hands on her shoulders. “I love you, you know that. I know you’d do everything you can to help me on this.”

  “I would.”

  “It’s just bad luck. Emily must have put something in the file to prevent the wrong people from looking at it.”

  Sam looked doubtful. “If that was it, I would have found it when I ran that program on it before we opened it. I don’t think it originated from Emily’s files. I must have come from somewhere else.”

  “Okay. So we start again in the morning to figure this thing out.”

  “Yeah.”

  I was pulling away when Sam grabbed my wrist and held my hand against her shoulder.

  “You should know, the list Emily had of the CIA agents involved in the case one way or another…”

  “What?”

  “Luke’s name was there.”

  I felt the blood rush from my face. My head started to spin, searching for explanations.

  “Peter talked to him about it.”

  “After his name, she had question marks where she should have had his official position on the case. All the others—they were agents and handlers and researchers. There was nothing after Luke’s name.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But I thought you should know.”

  I just nodded. I pulled away, needing to get away from there. I needed time to think, to process.

  I’d promised myself that I would make sure Peter was avenged, one way or another. And every time I looked at my nephew, PJ, I felt like I was letting him down. However, I would solve this if it was the last thing I ever did.

  Chapter 16

  Dominic

  I woke with a start. It wasn’t unusual. I often had nightmares that caused me to wake suddenly, especially when I was sleeping somewhere unfamiliar. But then I felt Amy stir just slightly beside me and the unfamiliar became very familiar.

  I slid my hand over her upper thigh, loving the silky feel of her skin. I remembered waking at night while we were apart, missing her so much that I actually reached for her body before I remembered that she wasn’t there. And then that hole that enveloped me at the realization that she might not ever be there again.

  But she was here, even if it had taken Emily dying to bring us back together.

  There was grief with that thought. I’d been so consumed with finding Amy and keeping her safe, that I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about Emily, about what I’d lost. She was more than just my lover’s sister. She was my friend, my partner, my confidant. She was my lifeline in more ways than one over the last few years. I loved her like she was my sister, like she was my best friend. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without her in it.

  But, at the same time, I could feel her smiling wherever she was. She would be pleased to see Amy and me together again. It was something she’d wanted almost as much as she’d wanted to finish the case we’d been working on together when our lives both imploded.

  We’re going to fix all of this. You and Amy, this case…we’re going to expose what those bastards did to us, and we’re going to make it all right.

  “We’re almost there, Em,” I whispered into the darkness.

  I was hoping Megan and Sam could do something with the files Emily had left behind. I was the brawn, not the brains in our little arrangement. I got some of the connections, but not all of them. I knew Megan would be able to make heads and tails out of it all. And I trusted her. In fact, she was the only one I knew I could still trust.

  If there was really a bad apple in the CIA, someone who was helping this terrorist cell working out of Paris…if there really was a conspiracy between this agent and the hierarchy there, we could all be in danger. And if they’d been able to track down Emily…

  There was a soft sound that came from the direction of the living room. I sat up, my ears straining. It could have been my imagination, but it sounded like someone brushing against the back of the microfiber couch. It was that sort of soft swish of denim on microfiber. I glanced at the clock. It was a little before midnight. Not too late for Hayden to stop by. I’d half expected him to. He was…Hayden was a complicated fellow.

  I got up and tugged on my jeans, pausing to consider the rifle in the bottom of my duffle. It was probably Hayden, but it never hurt to be safe rather than sorry. I dug it out, checking quietly to make sure it was fully loaded.

  I left Amy lying naked on the bed and made my way silently down the hallway, careful not to drag my bare feet on the carpet. The living room was dark, but there was a small light on in the kitchen that pushed back a few of the shadows. I didn’t see anything at first, just lots of lumps that could have been a man hiding or just the way the light reflected off the array of furniture.

  And then one moved. It was a very small movement, but enough for me to catch it.

  It wasn’t Hayden.

  I raised the rifle.

  “Who are you? What do you want?

  For an answer, a piece of plaster exploded close to my head. I immediately fell into a squat, sliding back behind a table that sat oddly beside an armchair. Another silent bullet whizzed past where I’d been standing and ricocheted off the carpet. I turned and fired quickly, slamming two round into the wall beside the television, causing it to fall slightly sideways from where it was hanging.

  Another couple of shots. That was four. He could have anywhere between five and eleven shots left.

  I crept along the back of the couch, keeping my head down. I could hear him moving, too, moving in the same direction as me. If I could get him to the other side of the house, away from Amy, that would be ideal. I fired again, the sound of the rifle firing almost deafening. There was a noise that made me think I’d gotten him, but then he fired again, and I had to duck down as one of the shots went right through the back of the couch, showering me with little pieces of flaming material and stuffing.

  He fell into a table at the other end of the couch. I rushed over and dropped my rifle as I fell into him, the full weight of my body crushing him to the ground. I got in a couple of good punches before he managed to slam his fist into my jaw, then my stomach, knocking the wind clear out of me. He raised his gun and I knocked it back, managing to grab onto the huge silencer screwed onto the end of it. We struggled for a minute. Just as I was about to get the advantage, to get the gun from him, Amy called out from the bedroom.

  “Dom? Where are you?”
>
  That was enough of a distraction that the guy managed to knock me back on my ass. He scrambled to his feet, rushing toward Amy. I grabbed his ankle, forcing him back onto the ground. He twisted, trying to fire his weapon at my head, but he couldn’t quite get the right angle. He ended up shattering a lamp with his first shot, the corner of a table with his second.

  I yanked on his ankle, pulling myself up enough to slam my fist into the side of his face multiple times. He fought for a second, but then he fell back, losing consciousness. I hit him one more time for good measure.

  “Dominic?”

  There was growing panic in Amy’s voice. I got to my feet, snatching up the man’s gun and my rifle as I went. She was in the hallway, my t-shirt pulled over her nakedness.

  “We have to go,” I said as I rounded the corner.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We have to go,” I repeated, sliding the pistol into the back of my pants to free up my hand so I could grab her.

  “We can’t leave the house. We’re not dressed.”

  I didn’t listen. All I could think about was getting her out of the line of fire. We burst through the kitchen and were nearly out the door that connected to the garage when I heard the stranger in the living room gurgle as he started to come to. We didn’t have much more time.

  The keys—thank God!—were hanging from a peg beside the door. I popped the locks and shoved Amy into the car through the driver’s side door, slipping in behind her. I had just started the engine when the man appeared in the doorway, his face an ugly, pulpy mess.

  Amy pressed her hand to her mouth, barely holding in a scream.

  “Seatbelt,” I demanded, as I threw the SUV into reverse and hit the gas, smashing through the still-closed garage door. There was a dark sedan parked in the driveway, off to the side of the space I emerged into. I sped past it and took off, not familiar with this part of the Houston metroplex, not entirely sure where I was going. The only thing I could think of was that I needed backup.

  I pointed the SUV in the general direction of Dragon’s offices.

  Chapter 17

  Megan

  I had my trusty bottle of wine, and I was clicking through the ridiculous reality shows that I somehow couldn’t resist watching. It was a guilty pleasure, one of those things I liked to do when my own reality became too much to bear.

  Tonight, I couldn’t shut things off. All I could think about was Peter and Luke. I kept wondering what they’d gotten themselves into. Peter went to Luke about the investigation he was running into the company software, and Luke simply disappeared. Now Sam says his name was listed on the page of Emily’s research. Did that mean it was this case that forced Luke to leave?

  Luke had been a part of the CIA for almost five years when he suddenly came home and said it was all over. He was ready to settle down, take a normal job, and marry me. For months, we were brilliantly happy, planning out our wedding and our lives together. We were going to live in this house and raise a couple of kids together. Share our lives with my brothers and parents, watch over his long-suffering mother. It was supposed to be perfect.

  But nothing ever is truly perfect, is it?

  I poured myself a glass of wine and sat back, trying to concentrate on MasterChef, not the disaster that had just happened at the office. Dominic was fine. The charges were dropped, the hit called off. Surely, in a day or two, he and Amy could leave the safe house and things could go back to normal. That was good news. Peter’s case…I had faith that Sam would be able to fix her corrupted computer. And, if not, we still had the notes she’d taken. We could piece together what we knew with what we didn’t.

  Maybe.

  And Luke…it simply hurt to think about him anymore.

  When I found that note seven months ago, I was convinced he would show up on my doorstep at any moment. But then weeks went by, and then months. I was beginning to wonder if something had happened to him after that day. He promised not to leave me, but he couldn’t control the people around him. And what he did was dangerous. Had he been killed and no one bothered to notify me? The government had done crueler things.

  I sat up again, agitated. I poured another glass of wine, thinking how funny it was that I never used to drink when Luke was here. We’d even argued over the necessity of a good wine at our wedding reception. He wanted to pay almost a thousand dollars on a couple of cases of this merlot, and I kept telling him we could use the money on something more meaningful. He won out in the end. Half a case still in my spare room, waiting to be added to the collection I’d already disposed of.

  Here was to dreams crushed and hearts broken.

  I took a long drink, beginning to feel the effects. It did nothing to ease my thoughts or the pain that came along with them, but it dulled my desire to scream as each thought swam through my mind. I poured another glass and then…the doorbell rang.

  Great. The one time I really didn’t want company.

  I got up, tugging my thin bathrobe around myself as I did. I hadn’t meant to strip the moment I came home, but I was still suffocating. The collar of my blouse, the waistband of my pants, they seemed to be choking the life out of me. I stripped them away so quickly that I might have torn my blouse. And then I didn’t bother to put anything else on, just this robe. I lived alone and it was after midnight. Who was going to want to see me now?

  But, apparently, someone did.

  I yanked the door open and nearly fell over as much from the sight of Dante filling my doorway as from the excess of wine I’d drunk.

  “What do you want?” I asked, forming my words carefully so he wouldn’t hear the drunk.

  “I just wanted to check in and let you know we got the stolen car taken care of.”

  “Good.”

  I started to close the door, but Dante put his arm up, forcing it back.

  “You okay?”

  “Peachy. You?”

  He studied my face for a long moment. “You’ve been drinking.”

  I turned, pointedly looking at the bottle of wine on the coffee table. “Brilliant deduction.”

  He walked into my house, striding across the room like he had every right to be there. He’d done that the last time he’d stopped unexpectedly at my house, offering to have his former buddies in the NYPD run an accident analysis on my brother’s accident.

  That ended badly.

  “You shouldn’t drink alone.”

  “Is that your way of asking for a glass?”

  “It’s not healthy, Megan. People who drink alone are just trying to bury emotion that should come out in other, healthier ways.”

  “If you’re worried that I’m not going to show up on Friday to sign your paycheck, don’t worry. I only drink enough to help me sleep.”

  He lifted the bottle off the table, tipping it over to show how empty it was.

  “It takes a whole bottle?”

  “Better than a whole bottle of pills.”

  His eyes narrowed. I just shook my head, ignoring him as I resumed my seat on the couch and turned back on my show.

  “It’s really none of your business, you know,” I said without looking at him. “I’m your boss. I get to judge your behavior, but you don’t get to judge mine.”

  “Who judges yours?”

  “God.” I leaned forward, partially aware that I was exposing the top of my bare breasts to him and not really caring. “You should go. Don’t want to do or say something that might leave us both embarrassed tomorrow.”

  “I think we’re beyond that.”

  There was something about the way he said that that made thoughts of Luke suddenly explode in my head. It shook me a little, especially when I looked up and found myself staring right into his dark eyes, eyes that were nearly the same color as Luke’s. I was suddenly very aware of how lonely I was, how desperate I was to feel the touch of a man. When Dominic hugged me earlier…maybe I was just…I was drunk and I was tired and I was shamefully attracted to Dante.

  “Go home.”
I jumped to my feet. “It’s all done now. We’ve wrapped up most of our cases, Dominic’s back and safe, and that other little thing…the computer virus sort of left us high and dry on that. So there’s nothing more to do. Go home.”

  “I can’t leave you like this.”

  I laughed. “Do you know how many nights I’ve spent this way in the last two years? I think I can handle myself.”

  “It’s not like you to use a crutch.”

  “What do you know about me? You’ve known me all of, what, two months? You don’t know shit about me. You don’t know what my life is.”

  “No,” he said slowly, his eyes falling to the floor briefly. But then they were back on my face, filled with so much emotion that it made it impossible for me to breathe.

  He approached me and…I don’t know how it happened. I could make up lots of excuses, find lots of reasons—the alcohol made my inhibitions disappear, the lateness of the hour and my disappointment over the computer virus left me feeling vulnerable, the basic attraction between us was simply too much to deny—but in the moment, there were no excuses. Just need bursting to the surface after having been pushed down for far too long.

  My arms were around his neck and his were around my waist. Our tongues were dancing a dance more primitive than fire, the tip of his touching me in places that hadn’t been touched since Luke. I’d never been with anyone but Luke, yet this felt so familiar that I could almost make myself believe Luke had finally come back to me.

  He lifted me, stumbling backward as he did. Somehow we ended up against the wall, first his back pressed hard against it, his hands slipping in the silk of my bathrobe. My fingers played in his hair, feeling the shape of his skull, tugging him closer to me. And then he turned, rolled until I was the one with my back to the wall. Then his mouth slid down my throat, his hands everywhere at once, tugging away the material of my robe. It slid from my arm as his lips found my nipples, his teeth sending shivers of pain and pleasure through my body.

  I ached so deep down inside that I wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to make it go away. But the heat of him and the moisture of his kiss made promises that only made that ache grow and grow, burning like a rogue flame inside of me. And then he was capturing my mouth again, his hand sliding between my thighs, his fingers grazing swollen parts of me that hadn’t been touched by a man in much too long.