by Lexi Blake
There was a gorgeous bank of oleanders at the top of the hill, thick and tall. It would be the perfect cover for an assassin.
She could see it play out. Alex wouldn’t wait long before he looked for her. She gave him five minutes tops before he realized she was taking far too long. He would come down the elevator and retrace her steps and then he would look outside. He would stand right outside the door, and he would be the perfect target. He would be so worried about her that he wouldn’t take any defense. He would be vulnerable.
“Please don’t shoot him.” It was the off-season for tourists. One of the things she’d noticed was how few people were actually in the building. During her walk to the common area, she’d seen no one. The building had been quiet and empty.
She bet the roads were the same at this time of day. There would be no crowds of people to scare Jesse away from what he obviously wanted to do.
He sat in the front seat of the car. She couldn’t see his face, but his fist kept clenching and unclenching. “You don’t understand because you’re a civilian. You don’t understand that sometimes things get dirty, but this is the right thing to do. This is the right thing to do.”
He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “It’s not. It’s murder.”
“A soldier’s job isn’t black and white, and sometimes hard choices have to be made. I don’t make decisions. I just follow orders.” He took a long breath and reached into the back, grabbing the rifle. “No one’s on the roads this early, and I doubt they would hear you if you screamed anyway. You can thrash about all you like because these windows have a nice tint on them, but you should save your strength. It’s all going to be over in a few minutes and then we’ll talk about how to set up your new life.”
“Someone’s going to see you.” It was very unlikely, but she had to give him any reason to not do this. Her heart pounded, threatening to burst against her ribs. Alex. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t live in a world that didn’t have Alex McKay in it. The very thought of his big body silenced forever played at her sanity.
He looked back in the SUV as he pulled up the hood on his black jacket. “People see what they want to see. They always do.”
He slammed the door. She had a single look at him as he turned away. All anyone would see was a flash of a face. In this light, they wouldn’t even be able to tell what his skin color was. He was wearing gloves. All a witness would be able to give was a vague height and weight and the fact that he drove away in the victim’s SUV.
The victim. Oh, god. Alex was going to be the victim.
She couldn’t lie here. No. Fuck no. She wasn’t going to be submissive here. No fucking way. She couldn’t reach anything with her hands, but she had her feet. She scooted down the leather seat and kicked off her shoes. Lying on her back, she found the door and the driver’s side backseat console. He’d locked the doors. She felt for the buttons blindly. The way her feet were tied, she couldn’t use her toes and her heels weren’t exactly sensitive.
Nothing. Panic threatened.
She moved her foot down and tried again. Nothing. Damn it.
And then the ball of her foot hit metal. The door handle. Yes. A little to her right and there was the manual release. She pressed, her foot slipping a little, but she heard a beautiful click. She was running out of time. She needed to distract Jesse, needed to scream out to Alex.
She found the handle and managed to grasp it with her right toes. She pulled back hard and the door opened just the tiniest of bits.
She kicked out, adrenaline pumping through her system. Scooting along the seat, she felt her feet hit the ground.
And heard the one sound she didn’t want to hear.
Gunfire cracked through the air.
“Alex!” She screamed with everything she had as she fell out onto the concrete. There was no way to balance, no way to stop herself from falling. She hit her head on the door as she fell and rolled, her shoulder striking the unforgiving road. Pain exploded along her skin, but she had only the briefest moment to process it before she was hauled up.
“Damn it, I didn’t want to do it this way,” Jesse said with a frown just before he brought the rifle down on her head.
The world went black even as she tried to call out for her husband one last time.
Chapter Sixteen
Alex stormed out of the elevator, his only thought on finding Eve.
“The common rooms are on your right.” Kristen jogged to keep up with him. “No one can get her in this building, Alex. I made sure I picked a very secure location. No one can get in without a key fob.”
There were so many ways around that it was silly. He stalked down the hall praying he would see Eve coming the other way. She would be in the common room messing around with the coffee maker. Deep breath. Move.
“And no one knows we’re out here,” Kristen argued.
“Someone could have easily followed us from the club.”
“But we’ve been driving different cars and switching at the apartment in town. I had protocols in place. No one should be able to find us here.”
If he’d been on the other side and new faces had shown up right around the time that Evans was scheduled to visit, he would have put a twenty-four hour ghost on them for a couple of days, but then Chazz was kind of an idiot.
“Here it is.” Kristen pushed the door open.
It was a small kitchen, the scent of coffee still lingering in the air.
No Eve.
He checked in the trash. There was a single-use cup tossed into the can. It was a dark roast, exactly what Eve would have selected. She’d been here and now she wasn’t.
“She went outside.” She’d talked a lot last night about enjoying the mornings here. She loved the waves and the scent of the ocean. Which exit would she have used? The main exit was closest, but there was an exit just a few feet from the private elevator. It was closer to the building’s pool and had a spectacular view of the ocean.
He was going to spank her ass red if she was sitting out on the patio sipping her coffee. Please let her be sitting out on the patio sipping coffee. Please. Please.
“You think she left? Alex, we should go and grab some ordinance,” Kristen said, worry creeping into her tone. “Maybe something bad has happened. I’m not carrying.”
Neither of them was carrying because he hadn’t gotten dressed for the day, because he’d been too busy luxuriating in his wife to take care of her. “Call Adam. I’m going to search the grounds.”
“Damn it,” Kristen cursed behind him.
He made it to the side door and immediately saw something that set his heart to racing.
A cup on the ground, coffee spilled all over the concrete.
He pushed through the door, his eyes searching for Eve. “Eve!”
“Shit. McKay, let’s get back inside.” She had a cell in her hand. “Adam, Eve’s not here. Turn on the locator to her cell phone now.”
“Where’s our SUV?” He looked out over the lot. He knew damn well where he’d parked last night, and the vehicle was gone. But Eve’s keys were upstairs. She didn’t have them on her. So where the hell was the car?
He forced himself to calm down. He needed his brain working, not pondering every bad possibility.
“Shit and fuckballs, is that her phone?” Kristen walked onto the lawn and bent down, picking something up. She turned, showing him the phone in her hand. Eve’s phone. She wouldn’t have just lost it.
“He made her get rid of it.” And then it was easy to follow the bastard’s line of thinking. “He’s in the car we rented. Have Adam start a trace on the GPS. The rental company will have some way to track it down.”
Kristen stepped out, speaking to Adam, but she had a hand over her brow as though trying to see in the distance. “Yes, get someone on it. And pull the feed from the CCTVs. At least we’ll know when she stepped out of the building.” Her arm came down in a quick motion. “Alex, drop!”
He saw it, but briefly, a littl
e flash of light, the sun hitting the scope of a rifle and reflecting off of it.
He started to move, but there was a crack in the air. He needed to drop, but Kristen had moved faster than he had, and she covered his body.
Alex felt the bullet hit her, her frame jerking against his.
He put his arms under her and pulled her back, his hands going for his key fob. He had to get them out of the line of fire.
In the distance, he was almost certain he heard someone scream, but he couldn’t make it out.
There was another flash and he ducked, covering Kristen’s body as much as he could with his own. The bullet zinged past his ear, fire grazing along his skin. He covered her head with his hands.
“Fuck that hurts,” Kristen said. “Oh, god. Oh, god I can’t breathe.”
Her words came out in tortured pants, and he could feel blood covering his arm.
He needed to run like a madman toward the man with the gun. The man with the gun had Eve. Was she dead? Was her body lying somewhere just waiting for him to find it? Had Evans come in early and somehow discovered they were here? Was he back to finish the job?
The door behind him came open, and Alex felt two arms go under his own, pulling him back. He held onto Kristen, his hand on her wound.
“She’s hit bad, Adam.”
“Already called a bus. I heard the shot over her phone. Are you hit?” Adam’s voice held none of his normal sarcasm. As always in a crisis, Adam became deeply competent.
“No, she jumped in front of me.” Why the hell had she done that? She didn’t have to. It was obvious who the fucker was going for, but this woman who didn’t really know him had leapt to save his life.
“This is so much worse than the first time. First time, he was here.” Kristen was talking nonsense as Alex moved her away from the glass door.
He heard a car screech away and knew, just fucking knew, that Eve was moving away from him. He needed to get to her, but he couldn’t just run after them. It would give whoever had shot at him another chance and it would be Kristen’s death sentence if he pulled his hand away now. He had to stop. He had to think. He had to trust that she would stay alive. “He’s got Eve.”
He laid Kristen down, twisting his body to keep his hand over her wound. Whatever happened, he couldn’t dishonor his wife by allowing Kristen to die. Eve would have his fucking head.
She was alive. He would have felt it if she was dead. She lived and he would move heaven and earth to find her.
“I think her right lung is collapsed.” Alex pressed down, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. They needed to get that lung to inflate or she could die before the paramedics made it. And he had no idea how close the bullet was to her heart. One false move could nick something and she would bleed out on the floor, her unique flame doused.
Well, her loyalty had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“I’ll be right back.” Adam took off down the hall, leaving Alex alone with Kristen.
“Why did you do that?” Guilt was going to plague him. She’d taken a bullet meant for him.
Her skin paled past the normal ivory to something sallow and dull. “All for him. All for him.”
A cold chill went up Alex’s spine. The women in Evans’s cult had a saying. They did it all for their lord.
“He doesn’t want you dead. He wants you alive. He always wants you alive.” She mumbled something he couldn’t quite make out.
“Where is he?” He pressed down hard on her wound, and Kristen groaned. If she knew something about where his enemy was, he had to find it out.
“Love him. Love him.” Her strength was fading.
“Where is he?” Had he been played? Had he been living with the fucking enemy?
Her hand came up, next to his, over her heart. “Here. Since the day I set eyes on him. He’s been here. Tell him I did good. Tell him I was good. I was good for him. I was good. He can have a thousand other women, but I was his only true wife.”
Oh, god, she was as insane as the rest of them. He should pull his hand back and let her bleed out.
But she might know who had Eve.
His brain churned, as wild as the ocean in a hurricane. If Evans had just tried to take him out, why would Kristen throw herself in front of him?
How many factions was he fighting? Or was she just that crazy?
No. A calm came over him. If Kristen had been truly insane, Eve would have seen it.
“Are you working with Evans?” He checked himself. His wife’s patient voice was working in his head, telling him to stay calm and sort through the problem. Nothing could be gained by killing Kristen.
Her eyes fluttered open. “What?”
“Evans. It’s okay. He has a way with women.”
A slightly drunken grin came over her. “Oh, he does. So beautiful. And he’s such an asshole. Why do I love such an asshole?”
Footsteps pounded down the marbled hallway. Adam was coming back. Thank god. He ran down the hall, a box of plastic wrap in his hand. “The bullet’s definitely in her lung. You can hear her trying to compensate. We need something that will form an airtight seal. Lift her shirt up. I need skin.”
“You’ll tell him I did good?” Her hands came up, but she was so weak.
Adam fell to his knees, pulling off a hefty piece of thin plastic. He caught Alex’s eye and nodded.
Alex brought his hand up, and Adam immediately moved in, closing the wound. He brought the heel of his hand right over the bullet hole in her chest, and a low moan came out of Kristen’s throat. Her eyes flared and then she passed out, going utterly limp in Alex’s arms.
But her breathing sounded better.
“Can you take her?” Alex asked, his voice tense. Eve was gone and he’d very likely been sleeping in the home of his enemy. He needed to get to Sean. He needed to talk to Chazz. A nice little chat that would end with Alex’s gun up Chazz’s anus and hopefully bring him some answers.
Adam moved into position. “What was she talking about?”
“I’m not sure, but she might be aligned with Evans.” Although it didn’t make sense. He tried to wrap his mind around it.
“No.” Adam held his hand tight to her chest. “She cares about us. I don’t know why, but she gives a damn.”
She’d thrown her body in front of his, but someone—the same someone who had taken a shot at him—had taken Eve. If Evans was the one who had taken Eve and Evans was the one who wanted him alive, why would he have taken that shot?
Something else was at play and it had to do with that missing file.
He heard the sirens in the background. He needed to clear out or he would end up spending hours at the police station. He glanced to Adam. “Can you handle this?”
Adam nodded. “Yes. Call Serena and Jake. The police will try to take me in as a witness, but I have a plan to stay out of it. Tell Serena to get her sweet little self down here, and have Jake watch your back. Once I’m back up at the condo with my pregnant wife, who is likely going to need to lie down after all the trauma, I can get you the information you need. I walked out and found her this way. I’ll handle the cops and I’ll be back at my station before you know it. You need to go because there’s blood on your shirt, and they will ask questions. Go and clean up. If Jake’s not here by the time you need to leave, just take my car and he’ll go to the club. Find Sean. I’ll get you the info on the car and anything else I can find. She won’t be gone long, Alex. You have a new team now.”
“I want everything you can find on Carmen Garcia and my old team.” He stood up, his gut somewhere in his knees. “Call Ian. Get him out here as soon as you can.”
Ian would drive if he had to. If there was one thing he trusted in the world, it was that Ian Taggart had his back.
He glanced down at the woman who had just saved his life and wondered if she would pull through. The sirens were closer now and he let himself in the door, hopping on the elevator before the ambulance pulled up. Adam was right. He had very little time, and
he couldn’t get caught up in a police investigation. Kristen might have given her life to save his, and he wasn’t going to question it right now.
Later he would ask all the relevant questions, but until she was conscious and able to talk, there was nothing she could do to help further. He had to make sure her sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.
When he got to the condo, he changed and cleaned himself up. He called Jake to meet him. Sean was already in place.
They needed to talk to Chazz, and he was pretty sure Chazz wasn’t going to be happy with how they talked to him.
As he waited impatiently, he glanced down at the notes Adam had pulled up on Carmen Garcia.
Just another victim, like his Eve. Just another life Michael Evans had wasted. She’d been a Georgetown student, chasing a career in the law and politics, working on political campaigns and going to parties.
Maybe getting pregnant by someone who had a lot to lose.
His fists clenched. Garcia had been young and attractive and a volunteer on campaigns. Which campaigns had she worked for? Who had the most to lose?
And who had ties to a man who could make it all look like an accident?
A new anger rolled in Alex’s gut because he’d just figured out who had truly betrayed him.
* * * *
Pain. Her head ached as she started to come back to life. She groaned a little. Where was she? She tried to move her right hand, to bring it up to ease the pain in her skull, but it was tethered to the left.
She opened her eyes. How long had she been out? Light streamed in through a window, but it was a bit murky, the glass opaque. There was a couch under her, but she was pretty sure it had seen better days.
It was so quiet. So unlike the condo where she could always hear the ocean. The condo where she’d last seen her husband.
Everything came back in one horrific flash. He’d tied her up and then left her in the backseat of her own vehicle, and he’d moved into position to gain a kill shot. She’d heard one blast and then another.
