Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen)

by Burrows, Tonya

  “No, I’m not,” he agreed and shot one last glance at the bed. “I’m leaving.”

  Vaughn wasn’t in their room when Cam got there, which he counted as a blessing. Boiling for a fight, he wasn’t fit for public consumption at the moment, and it wouldn’t have been fair to take all of his frustration out on his twin. He stripped as soon as the door clicked shut behind him and gave serious consideration to tossing his clothes in the trash. He could smell Eva and sex on them, and he wanted no reminder. But in the end, he folded them into his suitcase, then headed for the bathroom to start the shower.

  The near-scalding water cleaned away the blackest part of his mood. He even felt marginally human again when he stepped out. By the time he dried off and dressed in a fresh T-shirt and his favorite pair of blue jeans, his headache had dulled and his stomach had settled enough that food sounded like a good idea. Preferably something greasy and artery clogging.

  He grabbed his key card from the dresser and made his way down to the restaurant attached to the hotel’s lobby, all the while hoping he didn’t run into the maid again. Nothing like having a witness to your morning after walk of shame.

  At the restaurant, he found Vaughn sitting in a corner booth with his SEAL buddies, Gabe and Quinn. None of them had much left on their plates, so they’d been there for a while already.

  “Hey,” Gabe said when he joined them. “Thanks for your help last night with Seth.”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah.” Cam waved a hand and took the empty spot on the bench seat next to his twin. With everything else, he’d almost forgotten about that whole incident. “I didn’t do anything but talk to him.”

  “At least he’ll talk to you,” Quinn said. “He shuts down around us.”

  The scent of food made Cam’s stomach howl, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen. He reached over and stole a slice of bacon off Vaughn’s plate. “Well, you guys are technically Seth’s bosses. He’s not gonna want to air his dirty laundry in front of you. Does he have anyone else to talk to? A peer?”

  Gabe and Quinn looked at each other, then Quinn shrugged. “The other guys on the team…they haven’t quite accepted him yet.”

  “He’s being diplomatic. They don’t want him,” Gabe said in his typical blunt way. “They think he’s dangerous. Frankly, so do I.”

  Yeah, that was an argument Cam wasn’t about to get in the middle of. And yet, he couldn’t stand the thought of Seth having nobody neutral to talk to on the team. “If he ever needs to talk, send him my way, okay? Jude has my number.”

  “Thanks,” Quinn said.

  From there, the conversation veered into lighter topics until the waiter finally showed. Cam ordered a double stack of pancakes, bacon, and some black coffee. The two former SEALs settled their bills and stood to leave, but Gabe paused and turned back to the table.

  “Cam, you were Air Force, weren’t you?”

  He lifted his coffee in a salute. “Four years, Security Forces.”

  “Know of any pilots looking for work in the private sector?”

  “Why, you hiring?”

  Gabe nodded. “We need one before we take on anything more serious than bodyguard jobs.”

  Cam thought about it, running through a mental list of his pilot friends. Most wouldn’t qualify for the kind of mercenary work Gabe dealt in, being either married with families or in stable careers as commercial airline pilots—except for Jace Garcia. The guy was a hothead, known for charging into situations like a bull, earning him the nickname Toro. He was smart, capable, and a bit crazy. Come to think of it, he’d probably fit in well with Gabe’s team. “There’s only one guy I can think of right now. Last I talked to him, he was flying corporate big wigs around Texas and hating every minute of it. I’ll give him a call, gauge his interest. Is there a way he can get in touch with you?”

  Gabe produced a business card and handed it over, then after a round of goodbyes, the SEALs left.

  Vaughn waited all of a half second before nailing Cam with a look that said, all right, spill it, and his hackles rose.

  “What?”

  “Where were you all night?”

  Cam’s jaw locked. “You know damn well,” he said through his teeth.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. That was a huge mistake, bro.”

  “I kinda figured that out when I woke up and found her gone.”

  Vaughn shook his head and picked up his coffee. “Now what are you gonna do?”

  “Can’t do anything till we get home.”

  “And then?” Vaughn prompted.

  He shrugged, pretending all kinds of nonchalance that he didn’t feel. “Then…I don’t know.”

  Chapter Seven

  Washington, D.C.

  Cam turned up his collar against the icy November wind chasing dead leaves across the pavement and fought down a surge of envy as he waited for his informant to show. Jude and Libby had stayed in Key West for their honeymoon and were probably sitting together on the beach right this very minute, being all lovey-dovey with each other as they soaked in the beautiful weather.

  Three days home, and Cam would give anything to see the sun again. Winter had arrived early and brutally, pounding the east coast with ice and snow storms and shutting down several major cities in the process. Luckily, D.C. had avoided the worst of it, but the weather forecasters were not optimistic about that trend continuing and gleefully spoke of an impending Snow-pocalypse.

  He just hoped to be cozy at home before that happened.

  Cam glanced up and down the quiet street dotted with abandoned warehouses and boarded up buildings. This part of the city was dying, struggling for every breath, but cities needed places like this. In a few years, some politician would probably see the potential charm and get it in mind to clean up these streets and revamp the warehouses into condos for yuppies, leaving the homeless squatters like his informant, Soup, without a roof over their heads once again.

  Man, he wished he could get Soup some help, but if there was one thing he learned in his nine years on the force, you can’t help those that don’t want it. Soup was perfectly happy with his lot in life. Then again, Soup had all but pickled his brain and ruined a good career in banking with drugs and alcohol, so maybe he wasn’t the best judge of what was good for him.

  Happiness was relative anyway.

  Look at him, for example. He had a roof over his head, clothes on his back, food to eat, and a decent job that made him a comfortable living, and he was wallowing in misery.

  Three days home, and not a word from Eva. After several texts and the once-a-day messages he’d left on her voice mail had gone unanswered, he was starting to wonder if he’d ever hear from her again. Maybe he could drive by her place again when he left here—

  No, that was a little too stalker-ish for comfort. He’d already spent way more time thinking about her than was probably healthy. Which, really, was par for the course. Sometime early in their partnership, his affection for Eva had blossomed into something much more dangerous, something he absolutely shouldn’t have felt.

  Love. He was completely, head-over-ass in love with her.

  He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened. It was more like a bunch of little moments that added up over the years, like that time she got so excited at a Redskins game she accidentally dumped her beer over his head. Or the first time she kicked his ass in a sparring match, then spent the rest of the day gloating about it. Her watery smile after that asshole Preston stood her up when she had tickets to a Blake Shelton concert, and Cam had arrived decked out in a cowboy hat and boots to take her, even though he hated country music. Or all the late nights at work, when they were so exhausted they were running on caffeine and fumes, and they’d burst into hysterical laughter over something as juvenile as the squeak of a chair sounding like a fart. Each of those moments had chipped away at his heart, bit by tiny bit, until she held the whole damn thing in her hands.

  He’d spent the past five years being so careful not to jeopardize their relati
onship, but now he’d gone and fucked everything up for one drunken night of sex. He’d be lucky if she ever talked to him again.

  Cursing under his breath, Cam studied the street again, desperate for a distraction from his current train of thought. Still empty. Where was Soup? After all the panicked messages the guy had left him while he was gone, you’d think he’d be on time.

  Five more minutes, Cam decided, then he was out. He had better things to do than stand here, stiffening up in the wind.

  The five minutes came and went.

  “And that’s a wrap.” He turned to trudge back to his 4Runner and that’s when he finally spotted Soup peeking around the corner of the nearest building.

  “About fucking time,” Cam said.

  “Bad, bad news,” Soup replied. He had a persistent twitch, a simultaneous jerk of his oily head and fast blink, and it got worse when he was upset or in withdrawal. Since he had a very fresh set of tracks up both of his bare arms, Cam assumed the twitch was from nerves.

  “What bad news?”

  “S-S-Someone…” Teeth chattering, he wrapped his arms around himself, which was going to do a whole helluva lot of nothing to fend off the chill since he wore only a ratty T-shirt.

  Cam sighed, slipped off his coat, and draped it over his informant’s shoulders. “Take this.”

  Soup huddled into it gratefully. “I-I-I always like you, Detective. G-g-good man. Good friend.”

  There was that friend word again. “Yeah, so I’ve been told.” He straightened the collar, then zipped it up around the guy’s skinny frame. “Keep this one this time, okay? No trading it for dope. I’m running out of jackets.”

  Soup nodded, twitched, and snuggled deeper into the flannel lining. After a moment, his shivers subsided.

  “All right,” Cam said, ignoring the wind that had gone from brutal to flaying without the protection of his coat. “Give me the bad news.”

  “Someone’s asking around about you, man.”

  “Who?”

  Soup lifted his shoulders in shrug. “Some white dude. Mean. Nice clothes.”

  Okay, then. That narrowed it down. He tried a new tactic. “What’s the guy asking?”

  “He asked me to kill ya for money.”

  Cam backed up a step, unsnapped the strap holding his gun in his shoulder holster, and drew the weapon in a smooth, practiced move. “Back the fuck up. Now.”

  Outrage rippled over Soup’s weathered face, but he held up his hands and backed up until he stood against the brick wall of a warehouse. “You think I’d do you like that, man?”

  “I think you’ll do just about anything for your next hit.”

  “Not that.” Genuine hurt flickered through his glazed eyes. “I ain’t no killer, man. You’re my friend. That’s why I tell you.”

  “All right,” Cam said, but wasn’t ready to lower his weapon just yet. “If you’re a friend, you’ll get me more info if he shows again, right? A name would be useful. A description of what he looks like and what he drives. How much he’s asking.”

  “I can answer that!” Soup said and twitched in excitement. “A thousand big ones.”

  That’s it? Wasn’t his life worth a bit more than—

  Cam gave himself a mental shake. It didn’t matter. Yeah, a thousand wasn’t a lot in the hired killer business, but to a guy in Soup’s position, it might as well be a million. “Did he give you a reason why he wants me dead?”

  “Said you did him wrong. I didn’t axe no more questions after that.”

  “Well, I want you to ‘axe’ more questions,” Cam said. “Talk to people, see who else he approached.”

  “Ah, man…”

  “And you’ll let me know the second he convinces someone to do the hit.”

  Soup shifted on his feet, gaze darting around the empty street like he expected a SWAT team to rush out of one of the buildings. Ignoring the gun, he sidled a step closer, and even in the cold and the wind, his body odor was amazing. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Gonna cost more.”

  Yeah, what a pal. “Of course it is.”

  “Guy’s gotta eat.”

  “Twenty now. Twenty for every additional relevant piece of info about this man.” Cam finally lowered his gun, but didn’t feel confident enough in Soup’s intentions to holster it. One-handed, he slid two tens from his pocket. Soup tried to snatch them with scarred, dirty hands, but he pulled the cash out of reach. “No dope. You buy dope with this, I will know. It’ll be the last payment you ever see from me. Deal?”

  In full sulk mode, Soup mumbled something under his breath.

  “Deal?” Cam said again.

  “Yes,” Soup said, louder.

  “You know I’m not fucking around about the dope.”

  He nodded, eyes wide. “You see everything.”

  “Damn right I do.” Cam finally relinquished the cash and watched as Soup squirreled it away into a pocket before scampering off.

  Even though Cam was no longer on the force, he still had his finger on the pulse of this city, and it didn’t hurt to remind the natives of that once in a while.

  With the wind slicing through his long-sleeve T-shirt like a saw, he sprinted back to his SUV, parked out of sight a block away, and cranked up the heat as soon as the engine purred to life. He held his stiff fingers over the vent until the air started to blow hot and he could feel his extremities again, then found his phone charging on the dash where he left it and dialed his twin. As much as he’d rather not mention this conversation to anybody, Vaughn had to know about the hit because a drug addict looking to make a quick buck might not be able to differentiate between them.

  “Hey,” he said when Vaughn picked up. “You home?”

  “Office,” Vaughn answered.

  “Stick around. I’ll be there in fifteen. We have a situation.”

  …

  The Wilde Security office sat in a rundown strip mall that was otherwise hopelessly vacant. Reece had bought the graffiti-covered building cheap and had set up shop in one of the seven empty stores with plans to restore the remaining six into office spaces they could rent out for extra income. But while it was a good idea in theory, none of the Wilde brothers knew the first thing about restoration, and most of the building was still boarded-up. The only cosmetic changes they’d accomplished so far were the darkly tinted front windows and the neat, white lettering that spelled out “Wilde Security” on the glass.

  At least the neighborhood wasn’t half bad anymore. It had experienced a revival over the past several years as young professionals flooded the area looking for cheaper rent, which in turn, had driven up housing costs and chased most of the gangbangers farther east. All of the graffiti was old, faded, and starting to chip and gave the building the look of an eighty-year-old with regrettable tattoos.

  Cam guided his 4Runner into the parking lot, which had been freshly paved during the summer and glowed like an oil spill in the yellow splash of the street lamps. He parked next to Vaughn’s Hummer, somewhat dismayed to also see Reece’s new Scion FR-S and the ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee Greer drove when it was too cold for his Harley.

  Damn. He’d really hoped only his twin was burning the midnight oil at the office tonight. Should have known better. Since they’d all been in Key West for the past week, things had piled up. Now, with Jude on his honeymoon, they were a man short and playing catch-up. To top it off, a new missing person case had come in this morning, which had fallen to Vaughn, who had an uncanny ability to track people.

  No doubt, Vaughn was already on the trail, which explained why he was still at the office on a Friday night. Reece was always at the office because, workaholic that he was, he didn’t have a social life outside of Wilde Security and his other business ventures. And if Greer had one, he didn’t talk about it.

  So, yeah, should have known they’d all be here.

  Greer and Reece both had offices in the back of the building, while Cam shared the front area with Vaughn and Jude, so maybe he’d get lucky
and his oldest brothers would be shut away doing expense reports or whatever they did. Then he could talk to his twin in private.

  Or…not.

  He pushed through the front door to find everyone gathered there, waiting. Figures. “Oh, lookie. A welcoming committee.”

  “What situation?” Greer demanded. “And where the hell is your coat?”

  Cam barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. What was it about his oldest brother that made him feel like a teenager again? “Okay, Dad.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Reece said. “That’s Jude’s job.”

  “Well, he’s not here, so I guess I’ll do the honors this week.”

  Reece shook his head. “Fucking younger brothers.”

  “Enough.” Greer made a slicing motion through the air with the blade of his hand, effectively shutting everyone up. “Vaughn said you went out to meet an informant, and now you have a situation. What is it?”

  Yeah, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to share said situation with his brothers just yet. At least not until he had something more substantial than a drug addict’s word. They’d blow the whole thing all out of proportion when it could be nothing. Hell, it probably was nothing. And even if it was something, he’d handle it. They didn’t need to be involved.

  “It’s no big deal, guys. Really.” He shrugged out of his shoulder holster, locking it and his firearm in the top drawer of his desk before grabbing the hoodie hanging from the back of his chair. He stuffed his arms in and zipped it half way, then faced his brothers again. “I just wanted to give Vaughn a heads up.”

  “About what?” Vaughn asked.

  Cam met his gaze. As much as he’d rather skirt around the issue, it was pointless to keep evading because his twin could read him like a preschooler’s alphabet book. It was only a matter of time until they all found out anyway. “Someone’s been shopping around Soup’s territory looking to put a hit out on me.”

  The room exploded with noise.

  “What?” Reece said.

  “You call that no big deal?” Greer asked.

  Cam held his twin’s gaze throughout, silently conveying how sorry he was for putting Vaughn in danger. If the threat was real, which he wasn’t completely convinced of yet.