by Cynthia Eden
Maddox gave a grim laugh. “That’s obvious.”
No, he didn’t get it. It wasn’t just lust. He’d felt lust plenty of times. Fucking was natural. But when he was close to Savannah, something else was happening. Something he didn’t understand. Something he sure as hell couldn’t explain. “I’m not being pulled from the mission.” There was no way he could walk away. “When she’s safe, when those men are caught, then I’ll leave.” The way he always had to leave. He’d slip from Savannah’s world, and she’d never see him again.
Unfortunately, he had the feeling the woman might just haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
Chapter Five
As soon as Savannah walked through the massive front doors of her father’s house, she was swept into his arms. He held her tight, his body shaking.
“I thought you were going to die.” His words were gruff. “I was trying to get the money ready. I would have paid anything.”
Behind her, Jett cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t have mattered what you paid, sir. This particular group of kidnappers never released their victims alive. But then, you know that.”
Her father let her go. No, he stopped hugging her. He kept a tight grip on her wrist, as if he was going to chain her to him.
“Who in the hell are you?” her father demanded.
“Senator Jacobs.” Jett inclined his head. “You know who I am. You should have received a dossier on me this morning.”
“I never requested any sort of Black Ops help with her—”
“And you fucking should have.” Jett’s voice cut like a knife.
Savannah gave a little shiver. He sounded absolutely deadly.
“You have pull,” Jett continued grimly, “why the hell didn’t you use it? Why didn’t you use every connection you had to get her home safely?”
The senator’s face flushed. Her dad—Senator Phillip Jacobs.
“I was told,” her father said flatly, “that if I contacted any of the authorities, my daughter would die. I didn’t want her dying. So I did what those bastards ordered me.” He straightened his thin shoulders. “Thank you for bringing my daughter home. I appreciate—”
“You’re not kicking me out.” Jett was dressed from head to toe in all black, and his dark hair gleamed. His eyes—cold, angry—raked over her dad. “I’m staying with Savannah until the bastards who took her are apprehended. Two of those men got away from the crime scene.”
“But—the local cops, I haven’t—”
“Right. You still haven’t called anyone. You don’t have to. My team is taking care of things. We’ve got people back at the crime scene at this very moment, and those men are the best damn trackers you will ever encounter.” His body seemed rock hard. “Until I am certain that Savannah is safe, I’ll be sticking to her like glue.”
She felt the tension in her father’s body. “Son, I’m sure you are—”
“I’m not your son,” Jett cut in flatly. “I’m Jett Bianchi. I’m in charge of your daughter’s safety. But you know all of this. Like I said, it was in the dossier you were given this morning. It should have been delivered by courier.”
Her father patted her hand. He wasn’t looking at her. She hadn’t said a word to him yet. Did Jett notice that? Did he have any idea just how screwed up her relationship was with the man standing so angrily near her?
Probably not.
When she’d told Jett that she’d wanted to go home, she hadn’t meant to the mansion. To the cold, mausoleum-like place that her father lived in for a few months out of the year. No, she’d meant her place. Her little cottage on the beach.
“I have security members who can watch Savannah.” Her father jerked his head toward the two men and one woman who stood nearby. They were all in dark suits, white shirts.
“Yeah,” Jett drawled. “They did a bang-up job before. Good thing I’m on the case now.” His gaze swept the foyer. A gleaming chandelier hung over the black and white floor. “I’ll be in charge of her security until the case is closed.”
“Now listen here…” her father began.
“No, you listen.” A muscle jerked in Jett’s jaw. “I brought her to you, and I can take her away. Savannah’s safety is my number one priority. I can take her out of here faster than you can blink.”
“You aren’t taking my daughter anywhere.”
“Dad.” Now she spoke because she was just tired of this BS. It was making her head ache again.
Her father’s gaze snapped to her.
“Jett is staying. I feel safe with him. I want him here.”
“But…but you don’t know anything about him.” He squeezed her hand. “I barely got any details on this man in the so-called dossier I was sent.”
“He was a SEAL.” She glanced toward Jett. “He can kick ass. And he got me out of a nightmare. All of that means…” Her stare slid back to her dad. “He stays with me.”
“Savannah—”
“And I’m not staying here.” She could never stay there. Not in that cold house with all of the memories of the dead that surrounded her. She could hear her mother’s voice in that house. Hear her brother’s laughter. “You know I can never stay here.”
Pain flashed on his face.
Her father couldn’t stay there, either. She knew there was a reason he spent so much time in D.C., and, no, it wasn’t just for the job.
“I had to see you.” Because whatever else happened between them, there was love. She knew he loved her, just as she loved him. Now she hugged him again. “I’m okay,” Savannah whispered into his ear. “But I want Jett.”
“I always give you what you want.” His voice was gruff. Low. “You know that.”
No, he hadn’t always given her what she’d wanted. When she’d been sixteen, and she’d begged him to believe her stories about the voices she heard, he’d locked her up. He’d stared at her with anguished eyes, and then he’d left her in the facility. Left her with the shrink who’d seemed to turn her in to his own, personal experiment. Dr. Anthony Rowe. Sometimes, she swore she could still feel his icy blue eyes on her.
When she’d gotten out, she’d sworn to never be a prisoner again.
She’d kept that promise, until Patrick had locked her up. Tied her up.
“Savannah!” Her name burst out as a cry of joy, and she pulled back from her father. Pulled back so she could see her cousin Sam come running down the stairs. Sam was just a year older than her own thirty years. Tall, with broad shoulders and a quick grin, Sam had always helped to keep her sane.
He was being groomed to take her father’s place as senator. Sam was the heir apparent.
Because she’d never been interested in that spot.
Sam scooped her into his arms. Held her in a bone-crushing grip as he spun her around.
A growl sounded behind her. “Put her the fuck down.” Jett’s lethal voice. Only Jett didn’t wait for Sam to let her go. He pulled her from her cousin’s arms. Carefully but firmly. “She’s got a damn concussion,” he added, his voice a hard rumble. “You don’t yank her around like that.”
“Concussion?” Her father’s voice rose. “Savannah—”
“I’m okay.” She glared at Jett. “Really.”
But Sam had caught her hand. He stared at her bandaged wrist, obviously seeing the dark bruises that extended out from the bandages, and an angry curse tore from his lips. “The sonofabitch is dead.”
Her father flinched.
“Not yet, he isn’t,” Jett said, voice so cold that Savannah actually felt a chill slide down her spine. With a careful touch on her, he eased her away from Sam. Kept her in his arms. “My team has been scouring the scene, and we have reason to believe that the ring leader of the operation—the guy Savannah identified as Patrick Zane—is still out there. He had an escape plan in place, and the guy hauled ass. He was accompanied by one of his men.”
Her father was sweating. Sam was glaring. And the knot in Savannah’s stomach was just getting worse. Jett had told her—before t
hey entered her father’s house—that Maddox believed Patrick had fled the scene. She had thought Patrick might have burned in the flames, but Maddox had apparently searched the scene and determined that Patrick had escaped. She didn’t know what Maddox had found at the crime scene that led him to that conclusion, but Jett seemed certain of his friend. Maybe Patrick had left a trail of blood courtesy of his knife wound? Didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was that Patrick was alive and on the loose.
Savannah was scared.
“Will he come after her again?” Her father’s voice was low.
But Sam shook his head and answered before Jett could. “The guy is probably on his way to Mexico. Why the hell would he bother—”
“I think he will come after her again.” Jett’s voice cut right through Sam’s blustery words. “And that’s why I’ll be staying at her side until he’s either locked in a cell—or he’s a dead man.”
Her father’s gaze met Savannah’s. She could see his fear. He usually hid it from her, but this time, it was different. This time, she could see the same fear in his eyes that she’d seen so long ago. When she’d woken in the hospital room, when she’d opened her eyes and found her father staring down at her, the same terror had been in his eyes.
“Baby, what do you remember?”
Screams. Pain. Death.
“Let’s take this into the study,” her father murmured. He turned and led the way, and when they entered his study, he went straight to his bar. Right to the whiskey. His fingers were shaking as he poured the amber liquid, sending it raining over the edge of the glass.
She’d followed, Sam had followed, and Jett—but Jett had stopped her father’s security team from entering. He’d shut the door very deliberately as he closed them out. And now…now Jett came to her side.
Was it strange that she felt better when he was near her? No, he’d saved her. Perhaps she was getting some huge hero complex where the guy was concerned. Maybe she was starting to think he was invincible.
No one was, though. No one.
“I’m sending you out of the country,” her father announced after he drained the whiskey way too fast. “If this freak is coming after you, if he’s really killed all of those other women like it said in that damn dossier—”
“He has killed those other women,” Jett interjected flatly. “Five other women. And as I said, I do believe he will come after her. He made it quite clear that he feels Savannah belongs to him. I’m not a fucking shrink or a profiler, so I can’t tell you some clinical BS about his behavior.”
Her father turned to face him. The whiskey had made two bright spots of color appear on his cheeks.
“But I can tell you what I think.” Jett’s body was tense beside her. “I think he’s obsessed. Obsessed with killing. Obsessed with money. Obsessed with your daughter. A man like that won’t stop on his own. He has to be stopped.”
Her father glanced down at his empty glass. “That’s why I’ll send her away,” he murmured. “Out of the country. You can go back to Paris, Savannah. You always loved it there.”
She’d studied in Paris a year during college. Yes, she did love it there, but—
Jett shook his head. “Leaving the country will put her at greater risk. She’ll be in an uncontained environment. We don’t know how big this guy’s network is, and I can’t allow her to be placed in additional danger.”
At those words, at Jett’s tone, Sam surged forward. “You can’t allow, buddy? Seriously, where the hell do you get off? Who do you think you—”
“Sam, stop,” Savannah told him quietly. “Jett has helped me. He got me out before Patrick could hurt me.” She swore she could still feel his blade against her skin. “Jett knows what he’s doing in these situations, all right?”
Sam gazed at her, his expression hard. “You trust this man? A guy you just met?”
He was a guy who’d gotten her out of hell. “I trust him to keep me alive.”
“You also trusted Patrick. That didn’t exactly work out for you, did it?” As soon as the words left his mouth, horror flashed on Sam’s face. “Oh, shit, Vannie,” her old nickname burst from him. “I didn’t mean that.” He hurried toward her. “I’ve been scared as all hell, and I didn’t mean—”
Jett placed his body in front of her. A protective pose. “You trusted the bastard, too. So, don’t throw that shit off on her. I’ve read the intel reports on you, Sam. You’re the guy who is supposed to clear everyone this family comes into contact with. The guy who is supposed to make sure scandals don’t happen, that lying, dangerous SOBs like Patrick never get touching close to Savannah. But you were the one who introduced them.”
Those intel reports must have been very, very thorough. She wondered when Jett had read them. And he was right. Sam had introduced her and Patrick at a gallery opening.
“He’d donated to her father’s campaign.” The faint lines near Sam’s mouth deepened. “He looked fine on paper.”
“Did he?” Jett crossed his arms over his chest. “You were asking before…I believe the question was who do I think I am?”
Sam hadn’t finished that actual question but…
“I think I’m the man who found Savannah. I think I’m the man who got her out. And I think I’m the man who is going to keep her safe from the bastards out there.” He glanced at Savannah. Held her gaze. “I swear, I will keep you safe.” His voice had lowered, softened, just for her.
She had to swallow to clear the lump in her throat.
He turned his head and seemed to focus on her father and Sam once more. “Any other fucking questions?”
***
She was too quiet.
Jett had finished the search of Savannah’s home. The only cameras and security devices in the cottage were his—the ones he’d installed because no way would anyone get the drop on them. She stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows in her den, windows that looked out at the pounding surf of the Gulf.
She hadn’t spoken since they’d left her father’s house. She’d been right beside him in the SUV, but seemingly a million miles away. She still seemed so very far away, even though she was right there.
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like feeling that if he reached out, his fingers would just slide right through her. “Savannah.”
She didn’t move when he called her name. Just kept staring at the waves.
So he moved closer. Lifted his hand. Touched her shoulder. His fingers didn’t pass through her skin. He touched her. Felt her warmth and felt the long shudder that slid over Savannah’s body.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered.
“You won’t.” Not on his watch.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and there were tears in her eyes. “You said I was victim number six. All of those other women—they really all were killed?”
He wouldn’t lie, not about this. “Yes.”
She sucked in a quick breath.
He wasn’t going to tell her that those women had been cut into pieces. She didn’t need to know that shit. Once you got some images in your mind, you could never get them out.
“And…you truly believe Patrick will come after me again?”
“I do.” Because if there was one thing he knew, it was a predator. He’d heard the obsession in the man’s voice when Patrick had raged that Savannah was his. “I’ll be here.”
She turned to fully face him. “For how long, though? You have a life waiting, I know you do. What if it’s days, weeks, what if it’s—”
“I’ll stay as long as you need me.” She was the mission. Top priority. His team hadn’t ever handled a case quite like this one. Usually they took out targets. Retrieved people of importance. Then disappeared into the wind. Minimal contact. A protection detail wasn’t normal Lazarus work.
But this wasn’t a normal case.
His hand lifted, and he tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll stay with you until this is done.”
“Don’t you
have a life waiting? People who need you? Family? A lover?”
He didn’t have a life waiting. He had a fucking cell. Because when they weren’t on missions, the Lazarus subjects didn’t just get to come and go as they pleased. They stayed at a government run facility. They were studied. They were trained. They were monitored.
He was being monitored right then, Jett knew it. Their handlers always knew where they were because a tracking device was implanted beneath the skin of Lazarus subjects.
He wasn’t free. The handlers made frequent promises, though, said that maybe one day—one day—he and the others would truly get their lives back. Jett just wasn’t sure if he believed them.
“No one is waiting. My family is gone.” That much, he knew. The lab coats had showed him records of his parents’ death. His mother…the dark-haired beauty from Hong Kong. She’d been a celebrity there, a star in the Cantonese opera. And then she’d met his father…an Italian with a dark past. With secrets. A man who’d taken her to a whole new world.
A world that had been filled with pain.
His mother had died from cancer a few years back. According to the paperwork he’d read, Jett had been with her at the time.
His father was another story. The crime boss had been murdered twenty years ago. And, once more, according to the damn paperwork, Jett had been with him at the time. He’d been found, holding his father’s hand, after the guy was gunned down in the streets of Chicago.
“What about a lover?” Savannah’s voice was hesitant. “Someone who is waiting—”
Since he’d woken up in Lazarus, there had been no lovers. The other test subjects—sure, they’d hooked up with civilians on missions. Their handlers encouraged the hook-ups. Wanted the test subjects to let off some of the dangerous, dark tension that could gather within them. But he hadn’t gone for the fast encounters. Hadn’t wanted the women who’d been placed in his path.
Not like I want her.
Because he did want Savannah. He should just be focused on protecting her, but he kept thinking about fucking her. “No lover,” he rasped.
Her gaze fell. Her shoulders trembled. “I…have a secret.”
