Now she was going into her house.
Well, it was now or never.
He sent a text to Alex, telling him it was time. They could make their move.
This was more than an interview to him. It was all about proving to Elizabeth that he was a good bet.
It was about proving that he was going to be an asset, and that he was going to be productive to the team.
She’d given him a second chance when no one else would, and that meant the world to Noah. There was no freaking way he was going to let her down.
NEVER.
Heading up the walk, he knocked on the door.
When Alfie opened it and saw his badge, she glared at him.
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you about the case,” he stated. “We aren’t done working it, so…”
“Make it fast.”
“You want me to do this out here?” he asked, worried about anyone overhearing them.
“You are not coming inside.”
Well, that said it all.
“Okay. Did you know that the president of the United States was raping women in his office? We have two victims, who have come forward, and you were in charge of his Secret Service overall. No one came to you to alert you that there were screams coming from his office?”
She paled.
Noah caught it. The look on her face was that of a person ready to make a break for it.
“Miss Steiner,” he began.
“You should go!”
“I need you to…”
He didn’t get to finish.
Alfie Steiner decided she was done with the interview when she slammed the door in his face.
Noah knocked again.
Nothing.
He kept knocking.
When she still didn’t answer, he took that as non-compliance. Plus, it spoke louder than words.
Someone was well aware of what had been going down right under her nose.
There was no doubt that she was privy to it. Alfie didn’t seem all that shocked to hear there were two women who’d come forward.
Too bad.
He didn’t get to ask her what she was yelling at Tiegan and the president for on Friday. He was pretty sure that would have been a fun question.
Well, she wasn’t out of the woods. There was no doubt who would be back.
Not him.
Elizabeth.
Noah put his sunglasses back on, and he hopped back into his car. Pulling away, he knew he’d gotten more than she thought she’d given him.
The old mojo was back.
He could feel it.
He was an investigator, and he was going to report in with an excellent tidbit.
It was his opinion that Alfie Steiner had covered this up for the president.
She was as guilty as hell.
Now to prove it.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
From down the block, he was seen arriving and leaving her house. It looked like the FBI was on the trail.
Well, that wasn’t good.
Getting out, Alfie’s fate was now about to be decided. She was about to have her reckoning.
Heading to the door, the doorbell was rung repeatedly with a gloved finger.
When she opened the door, she was pissed. Then that anger turned to confusion.
“What are you…?”
The baton swung out with very little force needed to knock her off of her feet and to her back. As she landed on her foyer floor, it was about to begin.
The door was closed and locked.
As she moaned from the tile, the pillowcase was placed over her head, and the beating began.
It took three hard whacks. Before long, Alfie had paid for her aiding in what happened.
She had paid for her sins, and his.
Heading out, Alfie was left to lie there in her blood.
Payback was a bitch.
And this foul dog had her day.
Chapter Thirteen
Forty Minutes Later
Across Town
Tiegan Blackett’s Home
A ll he wanted to do was interview the woman in charge of the president’s Secret Service detail. All he wanted to do was find out what Alfie Steiner had said to her, and the president on Friday when she was seen fighting with them. What ended up happening was anything but that. Somehow, despite his ability to know right from wrong, Alex was in bed with her.
It had started out so innocently enough too. He’d received the text from his partner, so they could time their interviews, and then it ended with her in his lap on the couch.
Shit!
He knew this was going to go bad.
Elizabeth was going to neuter him. It was a good thing he was able to use his dick one last time.
Yes, Alex was balls deep in the woman he didn’t even know, and who was a suspect.
Jesus!
He had issues.
What started as her crying, and him trying to calm her down, had escalated into a frenetic mating of mouths. As Alex tried to soothe her, he found himself trying to ease the loneliness that lived in him. Before he knew it, the line was crossed.
A HUGE one.
In her bed, Alex worked the woman over, using all of his best moves, and they both came.
A few times.
She screamed his name, he shouted hers, and they both fell into that last delicious pleasure.
When he was done, he untangled her legs from his body and dropped to her bed. When he rolled over, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Wow.”
He laughed.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
What was bouncing around in his head was far more sobering.
“I’m a dead man.”
Tiegan Blackett looked over and was confused. The lighter was halfway to her mouth.
“Uh, why? It was only sex. Are you married?” she decided to ask.
“No. I’m not married, but my boss is going to peel my skin off my bones and make me into suit to dance around the office in.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that about her,” she stated. “I thought it was just a rumor.”
He laughed.
“No, it’s the truth.”
“That sucks to be you, but hey, you have a really energetic cock. Thank you for cheering me up,” she offered. “I really do feel better.”
Funny, he didn’t.
It was always a bad thing to be thinking about Elizabeth during sex—with a suspect. Oh, he’d cum a couple of times, but now that the frustration was abated, his fear wasn’t.
It should have been his sign when he was thinking about Elizabeth killing him the entire time.
Damn her and her Mom mojo.
“Just don’t tell her. I won’t,” she stated. “I don’t plan on calling her up to tell her about what you can do with your dick. Your secret is safe with me.”
At some point, this was going to be a nightmare, and he had no choice.
“I have to tell her.”
She snorted and took a long drag of her smoke.
“Bad idea.”
Oh, he was aware.
“Are you sure you didn’t kill the president?” he asked, covering his bases.
“I swear on the sex we just had. Can you normally get off that many times?” she asked, curiously.
“What? I mean, yes, sometimes, I guess. Focus.”
She laughed her ass off and passed him her lit cigarette so he could have a drag.
“I didn’t kill him. I swear on a stack of Bibles that I was NOT there in that room when he was killed, and I didn’t hire anyone to off the man.”
He let a long breath of smoke out, and it floated to the ceiling. His gut was telling him she wasn’t lying.
Still…
Something felt off.
“Can I grab a shower before I leave?” he asked. “Director Blackhawk has the nose of a bloodhound. If she smells sex or perfume on me…”
She laug
hed.
“Help yourself,” she said, pointing at the bathroom.
He rolled out of bed and crossed the room. At the door, Alex glanced back at her.
“Thanks for the break. I needed it.”
Tiegan grinned.
“Oh, not as much as I needed it. This has been a bad week for me. I needed the distraction.”
He laughed.
“I bet.”
When she heard the water turn on, she put out the cigarette and picked up his clothes.
Then, she found the little paper notebook in his suit jacket. As he showered, she flipped through it, seeking some ‘intel’. She read all of his notes.
Then she took one of the pages.
Before he came back out, she placed his things on her bed and then got dressed.
Yeah, she really needed this interlude.
Desperately.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Parking Lot
They’d been looking for him the better part of two hours. While they searched for Scott Rogers, Max had learned a lot about the woman beside him.
She was tough.
Tenacious.
Max was crazy about her. He knew it was stupid to fall for a woman this fast, but he’d never been in love before.
Ever.
There was something about the blonde beside him. She was jazzed up, edgy, and focused on work.
Then she’d smile at him, and his whole world would flip upside down.
She tied him in all kinds of knots, and Max didn’t think he could get loose.
In fact, he didn’t want to.
“That’s him,” she said, pointing at the Capitol Police car not far from the Mall.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to roll up on the wrong cop. Talk about awkward.”
She laughed.
“You’re funny, Maximus. It’s sexy.”
He actually felt his heart flip.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t worry. I’d recognize his profile anywhere. Before my assault, we had a pretty good relationship. We spent all of our time together outside of work.”
While Max was fascinated, he was also jealous as hell. A part of him didn’t want anyone near her.
That would be the crazy part of him.
“What was it like?” he asked. “Your relationship with him?”
Hopefully, that would come across work related, and not a reconnaissance mission to learn more about her.
She thought about it.
“We had a lot in common. I think the most important part of any relationship is not only the chemistry but that we were friends.”
Then she got quiet.
“Hey, what’s going on in your head?” he asked.
“We were solid until that day. Then everything changed. For the longest time, I hated him.”
He was curious.
“Why?”
“He bailed. It’s why I was pissed at you after our first date. I wanted someone to stick. I wanted someone to stay and fight for me.”
Max got it.
“I came back. Does that count?”
She smiled.
“Yeah, Max, it does.”
She gave him a soft kiss.
“I need to get this over with,” she stated. “This is going to suck.”
Max held her hand.
“Want me to wait here or have your back?” Max asked, willing to give her some privacy.
Did he want to let her go anywhere near her ex?
No.
Why?
They were just starting something, and he didn’t think he could compete with a man she was with for a year. He needed time. Max wanted what the man had once had. He wanted that connection with Harmony.
“You can come with me, Max, in fact, I need your support through this. The whole thing opens wounds. Seeing him again…”
He leaned over and pulled her mouth back to his. The kiss was like the one they’d shared the night before. While he knew they were working, he needed that moment.
When he finally set her mouth free, she blinked at him.
“Yeah, please come with me, and later kiss me like that again so I can feel better.”
“Always, Harmony.”
She appreciated that.
“He’s not going to talk here. I know him. He’s going to want to talk somewhere less ‘workish’. Scott was big in the separation of work and personal.”
Good.
Max wanted the man out of her personal, and only in her work life. There wasn’t going to ever be room for anyone else.
That was his plan.
Together, they both exited the FBI vehicle and headed toward the police car. Once there, she leaned down and tapped on the frame. With the window open, she could see him, and he looked the same.
Scott Rogers hadn’t changed at all.
When he turned his head, he was shocked.
“Harmony? Is that you?” he asked, taking off his mirrored sunglasses.
“Yeah, Scotty, it’s me.”
He hooked his glasses on his shirt and checked out the woman before him. She hadn’t changed. She was still beautiful.
“Jesus. I haven’t seen you in years,” he said, finally finding his voice.
Yeah, she was aware.
There was a reason for that. A part of her hurt seeing him. There was a piece of her that was damaged, and that was her past.
He was her past.
This man was who she was with when her life was turned upside down, and she hadn’t been able to hold onto him.
Or herself.
Now, she was glad it happened. She could feel Max’s hand on her lower back, like when they’d gone through that door a few months ago. It cemented her.
It healed her.
“I know, Scotty,” she stated. “Do you have a few minutes to take a break and have a private talk?” she asked.
He looked at her.
“I’m working…”
And that was how all of this happened. When she was raped, she only told him she had been hurt. That was it. Her tears and panic had been clear. The man was a cop, so he had to have known. Wasn’t that what Max had said?
As a cop, he should have known, and he should have tried to heal her. Instead, he got this veneer of iciness. It was part of what destroyed them.
She’d been broken, battered, and emotionally destroyed, and while he tried to stay in her life, he’d been so angry.
Angry at the world.
Angry at her.
Scott had never looked at her the same. God knew they stopped having sex, and until the last year, she’d not been able to even think of it.
Now with Max, she found her strength.
She was strong.
Before, the pity from him was too much. With Max, there was none of that. He let her mourn, he let her cry, and he just tried to cheer her up.
That had been the difference, and it meant the world.
“Scott, please? It’s work related. I’m helping the FBI with a case. It’s either talk to me, or Elizabeth Blackhawk is going to hunt you down.”
He glanced at his watch.
“I can clock out for a few. Meet me at our place.”
She nodded as he turned the car on and pulled away to escape her.
“Wow, he’s something…,” Max stated.
Yeah, and she was pretty sure Max didn’t mean that in a good way. The chill was back.
“He’s angry at me and the whole situation. My rape ruined his plans and unordered his perfect life.”
Max touched her cheek.
“His loss. I like to believe everything happens for a reason. If my father wasn’t killed, I wouldn’t have met Elizabeth, and had I not met her, she wouldn’t have offered me a job. Then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet you, Harmony. Life is funny. We don’t understand most of it, but the universe has a plan.”
Yeah, and she was his plan.
He knew it to his soul.
She
smiled.
“Let’s go. I know where he’s heading. It’s time to take a walk-through my past. How awkward can this be? My ex, and a guy I’m dating, talking about my rape by the President of the United States. This whole week…”
Yeah, he got it.
For her, it had to suck.
Only, for him, he’d made a connection with an awesome woman, so he wasn’t nearly as disappointed.
At all.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Wednesday
Afternoon
After checking in with the team, Elizabeth knew it was time to face the music.
By music, she meant the media. She couldn’t hide inside all day, so she was heading out.
Honestly, there was no one else she’d rather be trolling strip clubs with than Callen. The entire time, he amused the hell out of her.
He’d joke, he’d say something funny, and he’d make her day. It was not always easy working with the person you were married to, but in her case, she’d lucked out.
A part of her was curious why he’d needed to talk to Ethan, but she gave him space. When he wanted to tell her, he would. Until then, she’d respect his privacy.
What couldn’t she ignore?
How handsome he looked. His hair was pulled up, knotted at the top of his head, he was sporting some fancy shades, and she couldn’t love him more.
“You’re sexy,” she stated, out of the blue.
He glanced over as he was driving.
“I am?”
“Yeah, you are. I can’t wait to see what you look like in twenty years. We know Ethan will look like Wyler, but you’re a mystery. We all know how I love them. I think there will be something so hot about you aging. You’re a really attractive man, Callen James.”
He picked up her hand and kissed her on the knuckles.
“Well, I happen to have a hot wife, so I’m lucky I found her, and she digs Indians.”
She leaned over and whispered in his ear.
“I really dig them.”
It made him smile.
“Well, then we are in good shape. I plan on staying Native—especially now.”
All the King's Henchmen Page 49
