That’s what Marcus was the most happy about. That Mari had a family again. A real one. She was a part of this ragtag group as much as any of them. He looked around at the kitchen. Tia sat on Eli’s lap, her head on his shoulder and her fingers messing around with her own engagement ring.
Jace sat on the kitchen counter and Laura stood between his knees, leaning back on him. And even Ryan and Kat were holding hands. They’d started being much more open about their relationship, although no one had outright asked about it yet, as far as Marcus knew.
He sighed to himself. And then there was him. Alone as usual. He didn’t mind being lonely in any given moment. It was the lifetime of loneliness thing that wore away at him. He wasn’t into that.
Marcus could feel Eli’s eyes on him but he didn’t look up. He and his friend hadn’t talked again about what Marcus had told him in Hawaii. About his failures with women. And that was fine by Marcus. He wasn’t looking for advice or pity. But it had been good to get it off his chest.
Especially since he’d decided that the best course of action was to throw himself back into work full force. He hadn’t wanted to take the glorified babysitting job; it was too low action for his taste. But honestly, it was better than a desk job and not as likely to get him on the business end of a gun. So it seemed like a happy medium.
Marcus felt his phone beep in a familiar pattern and he knew it was the bureau contacting him. He’d agreed to take the job that morning, more than a month after it had been offered to him. He was surprised it was still up for grabs, honestly. But he’d felt a sense of relief when he’d taken the assignment. Pretty soon he was going to have something else to think about besides a lifetime of mistakes.
He looked down at his phone and saw an encrypted file had been dropped to him. Wow. They were giving him the case details already? They must really need to get someone on this chick immediately.
Marcus rose from the kitchen and went into the living room to review the file in peace. He glanced over the file, scrolling over the duty description. He already knew what he was supposed to do, stick to this chick like velcro, make sure she didn’t have to open a jar of mustard on her own. Make sure she didn’t so much as trip on a crack in the sidewalk. He frowned, hating that that was going to be his reality for the next few months.
“Better than desk work,” he muttered to himself as he continued to scroll down the file. He got to the personal information, including a series of pictures of the target herself. Marcus’s eyebrows shot up. “Way better than desk work.”
She was cute. Really cute. He couldn’t tell her height or her figure from the head shots, but she had a face that could break your heart. Delicate and pale and heart shaped. Hair so light it was almost white. Like a doll. For some reason, looking at her picture made him feel funny. Oddly protective of her. He figured that was a good thing, considering he was the one who was charged with protecting her.
He saw her name was Iris Stanton. And for some reason knowing her name gave him a funny little feeling as well.
He’d just scrolled past her pictures and down to read the FBI’s description of her connection to the mob when another notification popped up on his phone. A call.
“Marinos,” he answered lowly.
“Good evening, Agent Marinos,” a smooth voice he recognized very well spoke to him. It was his handler on the inside of the Bureau.
“Evening.”
“There’s been an incident with your most recent assignment.”
He stayed quiet, though his hand clenched on the phone. An incident already? The damn thing had been assigned thirty seconds ago.
“Yes?”
“She was on her way to you, in full escort, when she was abducted about ten miles from where you are right now.”
Something clenched in Marcus’s chest as he thought of that pale, delicate face. The sweetheart of her chin. He thought of men grabbing her, fear marring her perfect features. “Copy,” he growled.
“Obviously, your assignment has changed.”
“Search and rescue Iris Stanton,” he guessed, already switching into full-on agent mode, everything in him hardening as he prepared to do his job.
“Exactly. New case details will be messaged immediately.”
“I’m ready,” he growled again. And he was.
PART THREE: Marcus
PROLOGUE
Iris Stanton thought there was a good chance that she was dying. That’s how bad the pain was. She clutched her broken arm in front of her chest as the sun set over the hills. It was a shame. She’d never even been in love before and she was gonna die out in the woods behind her house.
She sat up from where she’d tumbled onto the forest floor. She knew she must look a mess right now, leaves and sticks in her hair and…shoot, she’d ripped her new sweater right down the middle. Her mother was going to burn her alive. If the pain in her arm didn’t do the job first.
Iris was scared to look down at her injury. She knew it was bad. And if there was blood, there was a chance that she’d pass out right here in the middle of the woods as the sun was setting and then she’d really be in trouble.
Stupid Owen. Stupid, hilarious, charismatic, always-gets-his-way Owen. Talking her into climbing that dang tree in the first place. She should have known that branch couldn’t hold both of them. How many times was Owen going to get both of them in trouble before she learned her lesson and started telling him no?
A groan sounded from behind her and Iris whirled, wincing as she clutched her hurt arm to her chest even tighter. And what she saw had her gasping and skittering across the forest floor toward her brother.
“Owen!” she whispered, through a mouth that felt like it was filled with cotton balls.
Her brother laid awkwardly across the spongy forest floor, one leg bent underneath him and his ribs splayed across the thick roots of the oak tree they’d been foolish enough to climb just minutes before. He had the beginnings of two black eyes and something dark was staining the side of his t-shirt. Iris didn’t look too closely because she knew she’d pass out if she did.
“Owen!” she whispered again, this time kneeling right next to him, her arm clutched in front of her like it was a baby doll.
His eyes blinked blearily open and they were blurry with pain and confusion. But he saw her. Somehow, Owen always saw her. “Iris,” he groaned. “It hurts.”
“I know, O. I know.”
Iris looked around, trying to figure out exactly where they were in the woods. They hadn’t walked for more than ten minutes before they’d come to the great Oak tree he’d convinced her to climb. But she really wasn’t sure she could find her way back to this exact spot if she had to. Which meant that she wasn’t leaving Owen behind. Not when the sun was setting and he was losing consciousness. So that meant that she stayed right there with him, or she carried him out.
Iris sighed. Even though they were twins, Owen had always been bigger than she was. Carrying him was hard enough when she had two good arms. But, spilt milk. No use. She allowed herself one more sigh and a great, wincing gasp of pain as she anchored an arm under Owen’s shoulder and started to yank him up.
“No,” he groaned, his face crumbling into tears.
“We have to, O. We have to get out of here.”
“No,” he cried again, but this time he gathered his feet underneath him and helped her haul him to standing. Immediately, he lifted one of his legs like a puppy with a thorn in his paw and Iris gritted her teeth. It was going to be a long walk out of the woods if he had a broken foot.
But there was no use whining about it. It was reality. It was what they had to do. They had to drag themselves out of the woods. And then came the hard part. Telling her mother what had happened. Shelly Stanton was a hard woman. She was sharp and often frustrated and always tired. And no matter that her two children were only eleven years old. It always seemed that they should know better, no matter what lesson they’d learned the hard way.
Iris’s eyes blurred w
ith tears of pain and frustration as she took the brunt of her brother’s weight and started slowly hauling them through the woods. She knew what she was in for. It didn’t matter that it was Owen’s idea to get in the tree. It would be Iris’s fault for allowing it to happen. According to their mother, Owen didn’t know any better and besides, he was a boy—he was supposed to be wild. Iris was the girl, she was supposed to be reserved and take care of everybody else, especially her brother. No matter how many times Owen got the two of them in trouble, it never felt less unfair that Iris was the one in trouble every time. And as she looked over at the bruises darkening her brother’s eyes, his perfect face, so handsome even at age eleven, Iris knew she was really in for it this time. Her mother’s perfect baby, her favorite child, had gotten seriously hurt.
Iris tried not to jostle her hurt arm, knowing full well that her own injuries would only serve to irritate her mother. They would serve as a distraction to her mother while she tended to Owen.
“I’m so sorry, Iris,” Owen moaned as they slowly hobbled across the soft forest floor. “I’m so sorry. I’ll take care of you.”
Owen knew as well as Iris did that she wouldn’t receive any sympathy from their mother. That he, with his fumbled attempts and short attention span, would be the most love and affection and care that Iris would receive while she recovered from her broken arm. Owen, on the other hand, the good looking twin, the charming twin, the breathtakingly talented twin, he would get all the love and care that either of them could ever hope for.
“It’s okay, O,” Iris grunted as he put more weight on her shoulders to step over a particularly large root in the ground. “Don’t think about it now. Let’s just get home. Here, let’s sing. That’ll distract us.”
Iris lifted her voice, wincing with the pain of filling her lungs with air. She might have broken ribs, she realized. But no matter now. Her voice, sick with pain and fear, trembled before she found her note. But find it she did. Owen wasn’t the only talented one in the family. It just so happened that he was more talented than she was.
She’d gotten a few notes into a song they’d written together a few months ago. It was a silly song, about running away and a new life where they could live in a tree house. She’d written the lyrics and most of the tune, and Owen had helped make it special. The way he always did with everything. He’d taken her finished project and somehow made it just a little better. Elevating the song from good to perfect.
And the same thing happened when his voice finally twisted with hers as they hobbled across the forest floor. Even in excruciating pain, his voice was crystal clear and unerring. The two eleven year olds, wincing and sniffling at tears, made their way toward home, leaning on one another.
Never again, Iris swore to herself internally. Never again would she let her brother get them into trouble like this.
CHAPTER ONE
Eighteen Years Later
This was all Owen’s fault. She had no idea how, exactly. But there were only so many reasons why Iris Stanton would be handcuffed to a chair in a freezing cold basement. And she knew, without a doubt, she wasn’t responsible for any of those reasons.
She could only imagine what mess her brother had gotten them into now. She was sure that whatever he’d done, he’d convinced himself that it was only his own head on the chopping block. Iris tested the handcuffs at her wrists, felt the bite of cold steel. Hadn’t he realized at this point that they came as a freaking package? That if he was in trouble then so was she?
She hadn’t seen him in weeks, which wasn’t altogether unusual. He was in-between albums and in-between tours. He was often known for disappearing from the face of the planet during those dead times. While Iris was hard at work writing his next hits.
But she’d been rudely jarred from that routine she’d grown accustomed to when four men in suits had shown up at her door that morning. They’d shown her the proper identification that proved they were FBI agents, and then they’d escorted her from her house. She scoffed to herself as she reflected on the word escorted. That wasn’t barely what had happened. Bullied was more like it. She’d barely had a chance to get her tennis shoes laced up before one of them had taken her by the elbow and led her directly into the gigantic black gas guzzler they’d strapped her into the back of.
Seven silent hours later, none of them had explained a word of what was going on. Not why she was being sped away from her life as she knew it or what was going to happen next.
All she’d gotten was a simple, “The bureau has cause to protect you, Ms. Stanton. You might be in possession of valuable information regarding a recent case.”
Well. Fine. Whatever that meant. Iris had already figured that it had something to do with her brother. And then, when three cars had flanked the SUV and she’d been dragged out of that vehicle by a group of masked men, Iris was absolutely positive that Owen was involved.
How many back room poker games had she dragged him out of? How many debts had she paid off? How many times had she called hospitals looking for him when he didn’t come home?
Even when one of the masked men had smacked her across the face hard enough for her to see stars, to feel like a child who’d fallen out of a tree again, Iris didn’t absolutely panic. She was scared for herself, of course, but she knew that Owen was alive. She knew it in her bones. Call it a twin thing, but she could feel that Owen was somewhere, alright.
She, on the other hand, was locked in a basement, masked men right outside of the single door. And her left eye was throbbing in pain. She hoped that it was just a hell of a shiner, that there weren’t any broken bones.
Iris knew that fear and confusion, panic and disbelief, were making her cloudy. She knew that anyone in their right mind would be crying and shaking, calling out for help, attempting to bargain with her captors. But she just sat there. Quiet as a cucumber, waiting. What she was waiting for, she had no idea. But she knew that she was starving, thirsty as hell and so tired she could barely focus her eyes. It wouldn’t make any logical sense to exhaust herself doing something as dumb as struggling against the handcuffs that were never going to budge.
Iris let her head fall back on the chair and closed her eyes, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep right now, but she did her best to gather up some strength for whatever was coming next.
Moments later, her eyes snapped right open as she heard a muffled thump from outside the steel door in front of her. Iris froze, every muscle in her small body tense and tight.
Long minutes passed while she waited. No other sounds came. Until she heard it. Two more quick thumps and a long dragging sound.
Iris held her breath as her eyes zeroed in on the doorknob of the steel door. She could have sworn she saw it turn. The next second, the door banged open and Iris flinched as if she’d been shot.
Her hands cuffed to the chair behind her, all Iris could do was to fling her head to one side, exposing just her cheek to whatever horror was slamming through the door.
It was two long seconds before she realized that she wasn’t in any more pain than she had been before the door had exploded open. She was still sitting in the chair. She hadn’t been shot or stabbed or even smacked.
Taking a jagged breath, Iris looked up to see a shadow darkening the door. The shadow was in the shape of a man. A very large man. She could only see him in silhouette as light poured into the darkened room from the hallway. She couldn’t see any of his features, but she could tell he was built like a tank. He had shoulders like bowling balls. The man practically filled the doorway, and Iris couldn’t help but shrink backwards when he stepped into the room. He held something in his hand, and though she was having trouble focusing, she was almost a hundred percent sure it was a gun.
Owen! Iris couldn’t help but scream his name in her head. Half in rage and half in fear. She was furious with her brother for putting her in this situation. But she was also calling out for him. For help. As much of a screw-up as he often was, he’d never before left her in such dang
er on her own. For as long as she could remember, he’d always been there for her in the crucial moment. She knew that he’d put his life on the line for her.
But here she was, cuffed to a chair in a freezing cold basement, staring down a man with a gun.
Iris wasn’t scared of dying. She never had been. It was a fact of life that she’d never had trouble swallowing. Death and taxes. But she had to admit, she hadn’t thought it was going to be this way. Slaughtered like an animal and completely alone except for her killer.
Well. If this was it, this was it. She took a deep breath, blew it out in a shaky string and flicked her eyes up to the huge man who was now stalking toward her, gun held down at his side.
She still couldn’t make out his features, but she could feel him staring at her. She squinted against the shock of light that was falling across her face from the hallway. She wanted so badly to see his face. She couldn’t explain the urge, the need. But she needed to see the eyes of the man who was about to take her life.
Just as he got close enough for her to make out a wide nose and mouth, a dark, shadowed brow, the man ducked to her side and he was out of her line of vision, behind her. Iris yelped and jumped about a foot in the air when she felt his roughened hands at her wrists. Pain shot up from where the cuffs dug into her.
“Easy,” a deep voice growled into her ear and Iris stiffened and pulled away from him as hard as she could. The move had pain rocketing up her arms and seemed to echo and pool in her throbbing eye.
The man froze behind her. “I won’t hurt you, Ms. Stanton.”
Ms. Stanton? Who the hell was this guy? Iris sincerely doubted that an assassin or mobster would bother referring to her so politely if he was about to slit her neck.
“Who are you?” she asked in a voice she barely recognized as her own. It was husky and trembled like a drop of water at the jagged edge of a leaf.
“I’m FBI. Stay quiet and do everything I say and we’ll be leaving this building in less than three minutes.”
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