by Dawn Ryder
Okay, she’d been a fool. He’d never misrepresented who he was.
So maybe it was better.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that …
Unshed tears were stinging her eyes again. It pissed her off, making her more determined than ever to make her feelings bend to the will of her mind.
She would tell herself … over and over … and over.
She would push Dare Servant into the same category he’d put her in.
She would.
* * *
“I told you,” Thais said, pushing away from Kirkland. “Sex is boring.”
He was sitting in the middle of the back seat of his limousine, his pants open as he tried to get her to suck him off.
“Don’t play the bitch,” Kirkland said.
Thais offered him a flutter of her eyelashes. The limo was stopping at a traffic light. “I told you, my daddy is rich. I don’t have to be your pet.”
She opened the door and stepped out. There was a word of profanity from Kirkland, but it was drowned out by the whistles from other drivers. Thais made it to the sidewalk in spite of the Jimmy Choo stilettos on her feet.
Her mother had made her practice often enough.
The personal memory was unwelcome. Thais banished it as she made her way in the opposite direction. Even if Kirkland told his driver to turn around, they wouldn’t make it around the corner in time to see her slipping into the back of the van her back-up was driving.
“The car is bugged,” she said. “But I didn’t risk putting one in his clothing where he might find it.”
The agent driving offered her a nod of approval. It was grudging, which made her enjoy it all that much more. Ploys were ploys. Thais rather enjoyed knowing hers were put to use some place where it truly mattered.
Of course, in her old life, there were plenty of friends and family who would have argued that making sure they were secure in a rich man’s bed was something that mattered.
It had left her so empty, she’d realized she preferred death.
So she’d learned to use her talents for Kagan.
And she was happy with the arrangement.
There would be no looking back.
* * *
Jenna’s newest accommodations came complete with cells. As in a whole cell block of old-style jails. Bars ran floor to ceiling, the doors swung out and there were only little windows along the upper edges of the cells to let in sunlight. There was a chill in the air that never quite diminished, and the air was beyond stale. Dust clung to the floor like paste.
Concrete and more concrete. The cell she was in had a cot that someone had tossed a pile of bedding onto. Just rough, army issue wool blankets and a pillow. Meals were just as dreary. A dry sandwich was sitting on the cot across the cell from her with a bottle of water. Even after sitting in the cell all day long, Jenna still wasn’t inclined to sample it.
Maybe that was because the toilet was sitting between the cots, open to view.
At least the concrete was good for something. She heard anyone coming into the cell block. A creepy sort of crunching sound as the dirt on the floor was smashed beneath their shoes.
Creepy is the word alright …
Jenna looked around, pretty sure she could hear the whispers of the inmates who had been locked away and forgotten by the world. Maybe some of them deserved it but that didn’t keep her from feeling sorry for the waste of life the cells represented.
Crunch … crunch …
Jenna stiffened as she heard someone coming.
Not someone, Dare.
It really pissed her off that she still felt a buzz when the guy came close.
“Remember her?” Dare tossed an 8 × 10 glossy print down on the end of the cot Jenna was sitting on.
Jenna didn’t really need to take more than a quick look because the face of the dead girl from the container on the dock was still branded into her mind.
“She has friends,” Dare continued as he dropped a few more photos. “That’s what motivates me Jenna. This guy treats them like slaves, disposable humans.”
Jenna jerked her attention away from the photos. “I went back into that container to help you take him out and I don’t know everything you do.” Jenna looked at the girl she remembered. “Seeing her was enough for me.”
Dare hadn’t unlocked the door of the cell. Just tossed the pictures through the bars. “I do what I have to in order to catch the sort of men who do things you can’t imagine.”
Jenna stood and faced him. “If that was some sort of apology, it fell really short of the mark.”
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t apologize for working a case.” He stepped close enough so he could point at her through the bars. “Not ever, Jenna.”
“What you did,” she cut back at him, “wasn’t working a case. I would have told you whatever you wanted to know. But you didn’t ask. You wanted to break me down, and you used the trust that had been established between us to do it.”
“I am working a case, Jenna.” He pointed at the pictures. “Their case. I told you, my life will go on after anything that happens between us. You were warned not to ask for anything.”
“The only thing I asked from you was for you not to be a dick,” she replied. “And you’re so far into dick territory, you’ve earned the title of flaming dick.”
She turned around, so full of rioting emotions, facing him was impossible. But it afforded her a view of the photos.
Damn it!
He was a good guy at heart.
But a real dick.
Yeah, a flaming dick. Jenna heard him walking away as she started walking in circles.
* * *
“She might be on the level.”
Dare didn’t care for Vitus’s comment. The cell room was linked to their command center with black-and-white video. The old facility was in the midst of a remodel. Above their heads, the five stories of the vintage court house were being stripped and readied for new plaster board and top-of-the-line internet.
For the moment, the formal holding cells were a prime location for their team while the construction crews took the holiday weekend off.
“The evidence chain is there,” Dare replied.
“So is the fact that she has a solid background of being a law-abiding citizen.” Greer turned away from his workstation to look at Dare. “Someone working with Kirkland would have a thicker skin when it comes to intimacy.”
He knew it.
“Let’s hope Thais brings in a case cracker,” Dare said.
They needed a solid link. Just one. Dare had seen other cases succeed with just the right piece of information. Kirkland’s wouldn’t be any different.
The only difference was how personally involved he was with the case. Vitus was right, he’d made the fatal error of getting involved with his witness. There was a reason Special Ops called their civilians “packages.”
It was to desensitize them from the human element involved.
He’d failed and it was ripping him up because being uncertain about any aspect of his life wasn’t something he enjoyed.
“I was a dick,” Dare admitted.
Greer grunted approval, and Vitus offered him a thumbs-up. Zane, on the other hand, sent him another one of the agent’s judgmental looks.
“But I meant what I said to Jenna, I’ve still got three dead girls and I will do anything to bring Kirkland in. If any of you think that’s going to happen without a fight, you need to have Kagan reassign you.”
His teammates shifted. They nodded in the way only men who went up against the darker elements could. It was an imperfect solution but the only one they had at their disposal.
Dick?
He was.
And yet, part of him hoped Jenna would understand the necessity of it. Not that he was planning on ever sharing his feelings with her. Nothing had changed about that part.
Bull shit.
He was lying to himself. A habit that seemed to have appeared along with Jenna. Hopefully it would
vanish with her departure as well.
She deserved that from him.
* * *
Eric Geyer picked up his phone. “Yes?”
“We have a hit on Dare Servant and Jenna Henson.”
Eric grinned. “Send it to me.”
He killed the call and waited. The current era with its lightning fast internet didn’t disappoint him. An email hit his in-box almost instantly. A quick tap and he was looking at surveillance photos that had been fished out of a secure network with the help of face-recognition software and the Patriot Act laws that allowed Homeland Security to browse freely.
Got you …
Eric printed off some copies before going to look for Carl Davis. In the home stretch of the campaign, the plane they were on had several members of the press aboard. Eric made sure he smiled as he passed them on his way to Carl’s office.
“We’ve got Servant and the girl.”
Carl looked at the photos for a long moment. One of the pictures showed them in the elevator, kissing passionately.
“Getting rid of her will be a bigger problem than I thought,” Carl said gravely. “Servant won’t let anything go if it touches his girlfriend. I’ve had this problem with Kagan’s teams before. My advice is drop anything to do with her.”
Carl was drumming his fingers on the desk top. “I need Kirkland’s money.”
Eric kept his face expressionless.
“Use the slush fund. Hire someone to get the job done. Completely this time. Get a fucking team,” Carl insisted.
Eric hesitated. “A professional hit will draw the Hale brothers into action.”
“I’ll be president by the time they can prove it’s linked back to me.” Carl’s face was flushed. “I’m so fucking sick of these ass wipes. It’s going to be a pleasure to sign an executive order to disband them.”
Carl slapped the table top.
“Get it done or I’ll find someone with the balls to deal with business.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened. Eric still didn’t care for it but there were more important matters. Like being given free access to a slush fund.
Sure, he’d perform the duty Carl asked of him.
And Eric was going to make sure he got paid handsomely for his services. The money would be his nest egg. A fall back plan in case he needed to disappear.
So long as doing business with Carl Davis was lucrative, Eric would be his dog. Carl was just stupid enough to forget that dogs could kill their masters from time to time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dare woke to a phone buzzing.
But it wasn’t his.
It kept buzzing as Greer woke up and dug into the pocket on his shirt that was beneath his chest harness. They were bunked down together in close quarters. Something Dare expected his team to roll with when circumstances demanded comfort and personal privacy be cut in favor of security.
“Sorcha, slow down…”
Dare had rolled over but he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the cot as he caught the sound of Greer’s voice.
“I do believe you. I’m your brother, I’ve seen you work before,” Greer said.
Greer was pushing his feet into his boots as he spoke. It was enough action to have Dare and Vitus doing the same.
“I’ll do my best to convince them.” Greer was on his feet. “I can’t leave my team, Sorcha. I won’t.”
Greer killed the call and faced off with them. “Sorcha says we have a problem heading our way. A really big one.”
Vitus pulled a military-grade rifle off the floor.
“What’s her source?” Dare demanded as he checked the monitors giving them a feed from outside the building.
“Herself,” Greer stated flatly. “My sister is a precognitive psychic.”
Dare turned on him, but Greer was dead serious.
“You saw it yourself, Dare. Why would a woman like Sorcha be so important to a unit of Rangers? I’ve seen her work. If she says someone is heading out here to kill us, you’d better listen.”
“She’s an Unperson?”
Vitus asked the question. Dare turned and sent a questioning look at his fellow agent.
Greer nodded. “You’ve heard of them?”
“Crossed paths with one, once,” Vitus said as he looked at Dare. “Did she give you details?”
“More than one coming after us. We’ve got minutes,” Greer answered.
Vitus looked at Dare, waiting for him to make a decision.
“You and Reid out the front,” Dare instructed. “Vitus, with me.”
He didn’t have time to ponder the validity of the warning. If there was even a sliver of a possibility of it being valid, he needed to act.
He was left with regrets over what he hadn’t said to Jenna.
Dare pushed the thought aside as he put his back to the concrete wall, another rifle in his hands as he waited for Vitus to make the first entrance into the hallway that connected with the cell block. His senses were heightened, adrenaline surging through his bloodstream, making time slow down.
* * *
Jenna opened her eyes.
Crunch … crunch …
She heard it, knew what it was, and yet she blinked as she tried to clear her brain and decide what it was that seemed different.
Crunch …
And then a different-sounding crunch.
There was a full moon. The yellow light was coming through the thin windows above her head making a weird sort of ceiling lighting.
She caught motion in the shadows.
But from the wrong direction.
Crunch.
She rolled over the side of the cot, landing in a push-up position and rolling right across her cell until she was under the metal cot attached to the wall.
Maybe she was over-reacting. Dare could certainly enter the cell block from a different door.
Please let her be wrong …
The darkness was split by a flash and pop. The cot she’d been sleeping on shredded as bullets tore through it.
She jerked and shoved her hand into her mouth to stay silent.
And answering shot came from the direction Dare usually came from.
“Federal Agents!”
Gunfire flew through the area. Suddenly the concrete she’d found so dull and lifeless was keeping her alive by giving her a shield to hide behind.
There was a gasp and a dull sound as someone hit the floor. Whoever he was, he’d died right next to the door of her cell, a shiny fluid flowing out from his body.
He’d come closer to make sure she was dead.
It was a sickening thought, but it sent her forward across the dusty concrete floor, reaching out for the rifle that had fallen from his grip.
There was more gunfire. Dare and his team were still thirty feet away, and she watched the approach of whoever was coming from the opposite side.
Jenna rolled onto her back, pulling the rifle through the bars and turning its muzzle toward the oncoming threat.
She loved Kagan at that moment.
Her lesson yielded enough confidence for her to lift the rifle into position and fire. There was a grunt and a word of profanity as one of the assailants was hit. He was a dark form in the semi-darkness, dropping heavily to his knees before he pitched forward and lay sprawled next to his companion.
“Jenna…” Dare was suddenly there, pushing a key into the lock and turning it.
She rolled onto her feet, clutching the rifle in a death grip as she stepped over the two bodies.
She didn’t have time to think about the fact that she’d just killed someone.
It was him or you …
Dare pulled her toward a door, his fellow agent going through first, the muzzle of his rifle pointed forward. Vitus raised his fist and Dare was pushing her forward with a hard grip on her shoulder. The outside of the building was cast in eerie moonlight and darkness. Vitus hugged the wall, only peeking around the corner with one eye before rounding it.
G
unfire erupted behind them.
Both agents turned but they fell back, taking her into the underbrush and over-grown trees.
“Run Jenna…”
Dare grabbed her hand and tugged her as they started over rough ground. Branches and tree limbs slapped into her, leaving cuts and welts all over her arms and face. She ducked her chin to protect herself but never flinched.
The need to escape was far stronger than some stinging cuts.
She was breathing hard, but the instinct to put distance between her and the men trying to kill her was more important.
It was the only thought in her head.
Dare suddenly pulled her to a stop, dragging her down behind a berm of some sort. Just on the other side there was a set of railroad tracks. In the distance, she could hear the rumble of a train making its way toward them. She slid the safety on to the rifle as she panted softly.
“Where did you train, Jenna?” Dare demanded.
Dare was recovering his breath faster than she was.
“Don’t give me shit either,” he warned her. “That’s a military-grade weapon, and you knew how to work it.”
Vitus had his head turned so one ear was aimed at her but his sight was on the direction they’d come. “Kagan taught me,” she said.
Her answer gained an immediate reaction from both men. Vitus turned to stare at her as Dare’s eyebrows rose.
“What did you say?” Dare asked incredulously.
Jenna wiped her forehead with her arm, suddenly feeling every ache and pain. “Kagan,” she said as she realized both men were glaring at her. “The guy you sent me up a riverbed to … know him when I saw him. He said his name was Kagan and he showed up a couple of nights ago and took me out to some military base thing and showed me how to use one of these…” She lifted the rifle. “Or one like it. I’m no expert.”
“Describe him,” Dare demanded.
“Big, impossible to read, but even so, he’s the kind of guy I wouldn’t get his martini order wrong if I was serving him.”
“He just showed up and took you shooting?” Vitus asked.
“He was in my house when I got home. Even packed me a bag,” Jenna answered. “He took me shooting and sent me to a concert and that’s how I ended up at the casino. Know something? I got the feeling he was there because things weren’t as finished as things appeared. Kagan didn’t look like the sort to waste his time making sure I had some buddy time.”
