Rules in Blackmail

by Nichole Severn

  Jane’s resulting laugh dissolved the knot of tightness behind his sternum, and it became easier to breathe. His smile vanished. This wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be trying to make her laugh, to help her cope with the situation. Shouldn’t want to hike her into his side like he had some kind of claim.

  “We’re here.” Anthony swung the SUV into Blackhawk Security’s parking garage. The gate locked down behind them the second the bumper cleared. Four other vehicles had been parked close to the elevator doors. The rest of the team had already arrived and were waiting for orders. Good. The sooner he wrapped up Jane’s case, the better. He might’ve led some of the blackest operations the US government had ever ordered during his time as a SEAL, but Sullivan only had so much control when it came to the woman determined to surprise him at every turn.

  “Stay behind me. Use my body as a shield.” He locked his gaze on those beautiful hazel eyes before Jane could climb out of the SUV. “If you feel threatened in any way, run for the emergency exit next to the garage door and don’t look back.”

  “Okay.” Her hair hid one side of her face. His fingers itched to put it back where it belonged. But he wouldn’t. No matter how many times he’d thought of touching her, getting mixed up with a client—with her—only complicated the situation. He wasn’t about to take that chance. For her own safety and his brother’s memory, he couldn’t do it. “What about you?”

  Sullivan cleared his head. Keep her safe. Eliminate the threat. Nothing more. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “As you clearly showed on the way to your cabin.” A smile brightened her features.

  “I knew you were going to throw that almost dying thing back in my face,” he said.

  Her smile disappeared. She shot her hand out to rest on his arm before he could climb from the SUV. Sullivan sat paralyzed, hypnotized, as an uncontrollable rush of desire raced up his arm. Despite their past, he was beginning to like it when she touched him. Too much. “Promise me something before we get out of the car.”

  One hand on the door handle, the other on his weapon, Sullivan narrowed his eyes. “Anything.”

  He meant it, but he swallowed hard. What was coming his way?

  “As a lawyer, I took an oath to uphold the law. Promise me we’re going to bring this guy to justice.” Determination unlike Sullivan had ever seen sharpened her jawline, and a chill swept down his spine. “Legally.”

  “That is the one thing I can’t promise, Jane.” He stepped out onto the pavement. He controlled his actions. God-given agency prevented him from doing that for someone else. So whether or not Christopher Menas saw the inside of a jail cell rather than the inside of a coffin was up to him. Not Sullivan.

  He took point, with Jane close on his heels and Anthony taking up the rear. They moved as one toward the elevator doors, the only way into the main building from the garage. Blackhawk Security was one of the most protected buildings in the world. Then again, Jane had walked right into his office last night without setting off the alarms.

  Which begged the question, how had a JAG Corps prosecutor gotten past his security? And how had she uncovered his true identity to blackmail him in the first place?

  * * *

  SOMETIMES MEMORIES WERE the worst form of torture.

  Jane dropped her head against her palm and brought her knees into her chest while she sat on the couch outside Blackhawk Security’s main conference room. Sullivan’s team had been holed up in there for two hours now. Coming up with a plan. She had wanted to be part of the meeting, but Sullivan wouldn’t budge—Blackhawk agents only.

  She closed her eyes against the flashes of all those photos on Christopher Menas’s wall, photos he’d taken of her.

  Her stomach rolled. Exhaustion tore at her from the inside, her clothes smelled of smoke and she hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. How much more before the nightmare ended? She wanted her life back.

  Raised voices—male voices—penetrated through the glass doors. Jane studied movements between the closed blinds just as the door to the conference room swung open. She straightened.

  A thin woman with long blond hair and stiletto heels threw her a sad smile as she sauntered down the hallway in her pencil skirt. She carried files with her, but hollowness in the woman’s cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes kept Jane from asking if the files pertained to her case. Grief, thick and strong, clung to the woman, and Jane wouldn’t stop her in the middle of her escape.

  A handful of Sullivan’s team trickled past the door frame and down the hall. She’d met Anthony, the tall, silent statue of muscle who wouldn’t spare her a glimpse from behind those dark sunglasses of his, but the others weren’t familiar. Another woman, this one with shoulder-length brown hair and a strong jawline, kept her head down in her own files as she followed the blonde. Had to be Elizabeth, the NSA analyst Sullivan had called to trace the call to Jane’s cell phone. The lone man left behind—muscular, handsome with wild brown hair and tan skin—headed straight toward her.

  Sullivan trailed the group out of the conference room, staring at her as she stood. “Jane, this is Vincent Kalani, our forensics expert.”

  “Nice to finally meet you.” His Hawaiian accent surrounded her in a trusting vice as Vincent offered his hand. The peacoat he kept drawn up around his neck attempted to cover the dark tattoos flowing artistically down his neck but failed. Deep lines creased his forehead as he studied her from head to toe. Not sexually, but almost as though he’d been waiting for this moment between them for a long time. “I feel like I know you already.”

  “Oh?” Jane took his hand. Rough. Worn around the edges. Just like his dark brown eyes. Dropping his grip, she crossed her arms over her midsection. Something about Sullivan’s forensics expert raised her defenses. Like he really did know her...and all of her secrets.

  “Vincent is the one I sent to your town house to collect evidence your stalker had left behind after breaking in. He worked for the NYPD, so he’s familiar with cases like yours.” Sullivan maneuvered to her side, his hand planting on her lower back, and she couldn’t help the tiny flood of comfort from his touch. “Tell her what you found.”

  “Aside from the fact you hide massive amounts of chocolate-chip cookie dough in a drawer at the back of your fridge,” Vincent said, straight-faced, “nothing.”

  “What?” Jane uncrossed her arms. Pressure built behind her sternum the longer the forensics expert refused to elaborate. “What do you mean ‘nothing’? He was in my house. I have the proof on my phone—”

  “Everything in your home has been wiped clean.” Handing her a manila file folder, he nodded toward it. “No fingerprints. No hairs. Nothing in your carpets left from shoes. No fibers left around.” Vincent shifted his weight as she read the file, lowering his voice. “Not even yours.”

  “That’s not possible.” She snapped her head up. Checking the address at the top of Vincent’s report, she closed the file. Her gut instincts kicked into overdrive. She didn’t have to read the rest of the report to figure out where this was going. It was written all over the forensics expert’s face, in the way he’d held her hand a little too tightly a few moments ago, in the way he studied her now, looking for a crack in her expression. She was a lawyer. She’d attended her fair share of interrogations over the years. Pointing the report toward Vincent, she leveled her gaze with his. “You think I’m hiding something.”

  Not a question. She’d heard part of an argument from outside the conference room while the Blackhawk Security team deliberated what to do about her next. Her grip tightened on the folder, and she slid her attention to Sullivan. Did he trust her? Or Vincent? “And you? I assume you read the report. After everything we’ve been through the past day and a half, the accident, the fire, what do you think?”

  “I can’t forget you kept Christopher Menas’s name from us.” Arms crossed over his chest, stance wide, Sull
ivan’s expression turned defensive. He exhaled hard, but refused to look at her, attention on Vincent’s report. “I have to look at every possibility and, as of right now, we don’t have the evidence to confirm Christopher Menas is after you. Both the tow truck and the photos could’ve been used to frame him.” His eyes shifted to Vincent. “This could be someone’s way to get back at Menas for skipping his sentencing and not paying for what he did ten years ago.”

  Not someone. Her. An invisible knife twisted in her stomach. Jane held her ground, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand there. She rolled her fingers into the center of her palm to keep the betrayal working up her throat at bay. “I see. So I hired someone to T-bone us in that intersection, putting my life at risk, took all those photos of myself and hung them in his apartment, then set the fire while you and Elliot weren’t looking?”

  “You’re a smart woman, Ms. Reise,” Vincent said. “Top of your class at University of Washington School of Law, instant promotion during your enlistment. It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario where you might want revenge on a man who ran from his crimes.” He took a single step toward her, most likely trying to intimidate her with his six-foot-plus frame, but it wouldn’t work. She was the Full Metal Bitch. Her gaze flickered to Sullivan, and Jane’s insides froze. It wouldn’t work. “Is that why you came to Blackhawk Security?”

  “It’s Captain Reise.” Jane notched her chin higher, her voice more confident than she felt inside. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about. I already told Sullivan why I came to him. He has the skills to catch whoever is doing this to me.”

  “See, now, I think it’s more than that.” Vincent shoved his hands into his coat. “As Sullivan has just informed us, you were the lead prosecutor on Marrok Warren’s case. You hated the fact Sullivan blamed you for his brother’s death, and now you’re here to make it look like you’re the victim. Or is it a coincidence you moved to Anchorage shortly after Sullivan was discharged from the navy?”

  Her jaw wobbled, but Jane clamped it tight. This wasn’t about Marrok. This wasn’t about her and Sullivan. This was about survival. Turning to Sullivan, Jane pushed every ounce of strength she had left into her voice and stared straight into those sea-blue-colored eyes, the eyes she’d started to trust. Foolishly.

  “If blaming victims is how you insist on running your security firm, then I made a mistake in relying on you for help.” Jane headed for the elevators down the hall, but stopped alongside a fake ficus tree and turned her attention over her shoulder. “Run my phone records, check my email or get my financials. Do whatever you have to do. Do it and then call me when you figure out who’s trying to kill me.”

  Sullivan’s eyes widened a split second before she turned, forcing her feet to slow as she headed toward the elevators. He followed after her. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not standing around here waiting for whoever is after me to find me again. I haven’t slept or eaten in over a day.” She punched the button for the elevator to take her to the main floor but refused to look back at him. Instead, she watched the red LED lights shift into different numbers and focused on keeping her eyes dry. “I’m going home. Don’t follow me.”

  Chapter Six

  Jane wasn’t responsible for any of this.

  He’d known the second she’d given his team permission to run phone records and financials, and to sift through her laptop. Vincent had pushed too hard, but questioning her motives had been the only way to clear Jane’s name from the suspect list. There’d been too many coincidences so far in this case and too many ways it’d gone south. How had Menas known to wait for them at that light? How had he found them at the cabin? And how the hell had he gotten the upper hand on them at the apartment?

  A short growl resonated deep in his chest as Sullivan pounded his fist into the door three times, his face square in the peephole’s focus. Interrogating Jane had been the last thing on his mind when he’d stepped into that conference room, and he’d made that perfectly clear to his team. But the evidence—or lack thereof—spoke volumes. They were dealing with a professional.

  The door ripped open. And time froze. Damn, she was a sight for sore eyes.

  “I thought I told you not to follow me.” Jane leaned against the door, showing off her lean, athletic shape and a hint of skin from under her T-shirt, which she realized and straightened.

  “Can I come in?” His insides vibrated with the need to touch her, to ensure he hadn’t broken the trust they’d forged over the last couple days, however ridiculous that sounded.

  “Let me guess.” She crossed her arms over her chest, accentuating the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra, but didn’t move to let him past the door. “You’re here to tell me you uncovered something else that points to me framing Christopher Menas so I can have my own sick revenge.”

  “I’m sorry about before.” And Sullivan meant it. “You’ve officially been taken off our suspect list. It won’t happen again.”

  Nodding once, Jane moved aside to let him in.

  Mentally punching himself in the face, he pushed past her and scanned the town house for signs of forced entry. A window, the back French doors, anything. But Jane had everything locked up tight. The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom rental reflected a vibrant personality. Lots of color, fake flowers, geometric-style pillows. Nothing like the bare walls of his cabin or the emptiness of his office. The thick scent of vanilla surrounded him. The entire house smelled of it. Of her. He spun back toward her, determined to say what he’d come to say and get out before he didn’t have the mind to leave. “If it makes you feel any better, I had Elizabeth scour your records, and everything checks out.”

  A loud beep filled the living room. She brushed against his arm on her way toward the kitchen and opened the microwave. “Someone has tried to kill me two times in the last two days. Nothing short of my stash of cookie dough will make me feel better, if Vincent didn’t steal it.”

  Slamming the microwave door closed, she stuck a fork into whatever she’d nuked and blew on it to cool it down, which shouldn’t seem so damn sexy, but right here, right now, Jane was home. She looked relaxed in her sweatpants and T-shirt, hair slightly wet. He’d obviously caught her coming out of the shower. Too bad his own self-hatred had kept him parked outside her house until a few minutes ago. He could’ve—

  “How is Elliot doing?” she asked.

  “He’ll pull through. He’s too stubborn to let a little blow to the head get the best of him, but that’s not why I’m here.” Resting his hands on his hips, Sullivan focused on her eyes instead of the way her sweatpants hung off her hips. “I need to know how you broke into my office two days ago and where you got your intel on my real name.”

  Her gaze snapped to his—alarmed—but she covered her surprise faster than he thought possible for a woman who chased the truth for a living. “Because you still think I’m bent on revenge or you’re genuinely curious?”

  “I’ve installed a top-of-the-line security system, rigged hundreds of cameras and have around-the-clock security on every floor in that building.” Sullivan slowly closed the space between them. His heart rate sped up as though he’d just run a marathon, and he couldn’t slow it down. She held her ground but tilted her head back to stare straight up at him without giving anything away. Her sweet scent washed over him, and Sullivan couldn’t help but lean into her further. He’d been shot at, tortured, endured physical nightmares and watched men on his team die right in front of him. All without his pulse raising a single beat. How was it possible Jane affected him like this? “There’s no way you could’ve gotten past that system without triggering one of my alarms. Not to mention I buried the files on my old life and my family so deep, not even the CIA could get their hands on them.”

  “You’re right. You have the best security in the world. It’s impossible. But the files? That didn’t take very much digging at all.” Th
ose hazel eyes stayed glued to him, her voice rich and gravelly with exhaustion. A playful sweep of her fingertips across his shoulder froze the air in his lungs. “But I’m not about to give away all my secrets until I can trust you.”

  Sullivan straightened his spine. “You seem awfully confident for a woman who was accused of orchestrating her own stalking a few hours ago.”

  “If you believed Vincent’s report that I set this whole thing up, that I moved here to change your mind about me—” the playfulness disappeared from Jane’s expression “—then you wouldn’t have stood up for me against your team in that conference room.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. The instincts that’d been beaten into him during his enlistment in the navy screamed her innocence. She didn’t have anything to do with Christopher Menas or whoever was behind this trying to make her life a living hell. She was the victim here.

  “Now, if you’re hungry, I have more microwavable mush in the freezer. Unless you’re into peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.” Putting some distance between them, Jane held up a thin black tray with what looked like chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes and a warm brownie. “That is, if you don’t want to go back to sitting in your SUV all night, eating beef jerky.”

  “You saw me?” Tingling spread across his chest. Another smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as Sullivan drove his hands into his jacket pockets. Of course she’d seen him. This wasn’t just any client he was dealing with. This was a woman who’d received death threats every day of her career. That brand of work required her to keep her instincts on alert and a gun under her pillow. His kind of woman. “And here I thought I had good surveillance skills.”

  “I’ve been stalked across the world by a crazed psychopath for the past three months. I’m bound to notice one of your SUVs parked for a couple hours two blocks down the street. Besides, I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t have come home and let my guard down long enough to shower if I hadn’t known there’d be backup.” Jane shoved a forkful of dessert into her mouth, eyes bright, her delectable mouth curling into a smile. “Would you judge me if I said I only bought these meals for the brownie?”