by Dawn Ryder
He was there to win.
“Kagan isn’t the only one who can pull resources from those looking to spend their lives in prison,” Carl said as he came to a conclusion. “Get someone … on their way to Leavenworth … someone who can do a job and keep their mouth shut better than Pullman did. Have them deal with Thais Sinclair. Miranda will get the message.”
“Sure you want to mess with Bateson?” Eric inquired. “He’s got major resources.”
“This is about Miranda,” Carl clarified. “I need her to switch sides, and she’ll do anything for her children. Bateson might get his feathers ruffled but that will only make Miranda bend for fear we’ll go after Damascus next.”
Eric considered Carl for a moment before he nodded. “Agreed. I’ll find a resource.”
* * *
She’d lost control.
Again.
Dunn was stroking her nape. In spite of how heated they’d both gotten, she was curled up on his chest, unwilling to disconnect from the skin-on-skin contact. But her senses were returning to normal, like she was emerging from the bubble they’d been inside of while their passions raged. She heard the traffic on the street outside the windows, caught the sound of someone sliding a keycard into a door on the other side of the hallway.
“I suppose you’re right,” Dunn grumbled. He pressed his face against her hair, inhaling deeply before he shifted and released her.
Thais sat up, slipping off his lap as she felt the unmistakable tingle of a blush staining her checks.
Was she ever going to stop blushing for him?
He was looking at her cheek, his gaze the stain coloring her cheek. She ducked her chin and turned, slipping her feet onto the floor.
“You can’t fake that, Thais,” he muttered as she heard him picking up his clothing and dressing.
“I can’t seem to control it, either.” It was a good thing she was looking away from him as she found her underwear and got into it. Because her jaw actually dropped open as she realized she’d spoken out loud.
Dunn chuckled behind her. “I understand the lapse in self-control. You have a similar effect on me.”
She really should have reached for her dress. Instead she discovered herself turning her head to look back at him.
Why?
She caught only a glimpse of him looking back at her with a guarded expression before she snapped her head around and fumbled to get the garment over her head and tugged down into place. Being clothed didn’t give her the feeling of security she was searching for though. “I’ve got to get back.”
“Me, too.” Dunn pulled his tie off the back of the sofa where it had landed. “Your boss has a unique way of ensuring operations go his way. In this case, I’m in his corner so … as you say, duty calls.”
Dunn had pulled something out of the pocket of his suit jacket. Thais forgot her shoes as she felt recognition flash through her brain.
“Is that—”
Dunn flipped it open to reveal a badge card. “Yes.”
Thais was dumbfounded again. Dunn chuckled at her expense. “I like surprising you, Thais. Truth is, I think you enjoy it, too.”
He leaned forward to kiss her but she pulled back, still absorbing the fact that Kagan had given him a badge. “That’s … insane.”
“Not really”—there was the sound of silk against silk as he put on his tie—“your section leader knows how to ensure he has the resources he needs. I just happened to be in a category he couldn’t find anyone else in.”
Thais slipped into her shoes. “What category is that?”
Dunn turned from where he’d been inspecting himself in a mirror. “The category Miranda Delacroix listens to.”
Thais had opened her lipstick but she flashed him a look. “Sounds like Kagan.” She applied the lipstick to her mouth and capped it before dropping it back into her purse. “This isn’t a game, Dunn.”
She turned in time to see him tucking a gun back into his waistband.
A gun she’d never noticed he was carrying.
“You don’t know very much about me, Thais,” he offered with confidence in his tone. “But you know Kagan isn’t a fool.”
“You’re right,” she muttered. “We need to get back.”
And she didn’t know very much about him.
It was the hard slice of reality arriving right on cue. A blunt splash of icy water that felt like it penetrated all the way to her core.
He knew things about her. Had likely had someone in his employ gather information on her and present it in a nice, neat little file.
It wasn’t the first time.
No, she’d been a target of men like him before. Her badge gave her the ability to be herself, when everyone—including her bed partners—was busy trying to reduce her to someone who did exactly what their data said she would.
She wanted to be more.
It was a yearning so deeply embedded in her. Maybe it was the true definition of who she was. But what had her fighting to control her emotions was the fear that she might never be anything more than the need to be something else.
“Thais?”
She ducked through the front door without answering. Dunn cursed but the door shut between them as he was fighting to put his shoes on. She pushed into a stairwell, pulling her heels off before heading down the metal steps.
Reaching the lobby, she slipped her shoes back on and flashed her badge as she emerged. The dark-suited man assigned to the stairs looked her up and down before allowing her to move near where the ballrooms were.
Thais headed toward the doors. She’d done her job.
You’re running …
Yes, she was. There was no point in denying it. But her reasons were the ones that kept her sane in a world where she couldn’t seem to find meaning beyond her badge.
It wasn’t Dunn’s fault.
Everyone was searching for meaning in life and the truth was, it wasn’t found anywhere but inside oneself.
At least, that was the way it seemed to work for her.
No matter how much she longed for something else.
* * *
Dunn tied his shoe with another word of profanity.
He jerked the door open but Thais wasn’t in the hallway.
He looked toward the stairs. But his phone buzzed. Dunn felt the bite of duty as he realized the badge that gave him access to Thais’s world also came with a leash and collar. One that made it necessary to answer Saxon Hale instead of going after Thais.
“Miranda’s moving to the roof,” Saxon said. “You’re on detail.”
Dunn cussed again. Leaving wasn’t what he wanted but even in his anger he realized Thais wouldn’t be anywhere to be found.
No, she’d run.
And he didn’t fully understand just why.
He felt something inside him shift as he went toward the stairs and started to climb to the roof.
He’d find her.
And when she wasn’t expecting him to surface in the world she’d sacrificed all of her personality to encase herself inside of.
Miranda lit up as he came across the roof to where she was making ready to climb into a helicopter. Saxon Hale contemplated him from behind a pair of shades before he opened the door for Miranda.
Dunn went around the helicopter and climbed aboard as Saxon made sure Miranda was strapped in. His mother flashed him a smile, one he returned as he enjoyed knowing Thais was going to run right to him.
They were far from finished and he was going to enjoy telling her so.
* * *
“Sinclair checking in.”
Thais waited for Kagan to respond to her.
“We’re in a holding pattern. Check in schedule Delta.”
The line went dead. Thais was accustomed to it. She turned her phone off and dropped it into her purse.
Twelve hours had never seemed so long or empty before.
The Lynx was also in her purse. A light on it was blinking, telling her she had a message.
; Thais shut her purse.
Chicken …
Not really. It was more a matter of self-preservation. She crossed the street and made it onto a corner in time to climb onto a city bus. The driver looked at her, surprise flashing in his eyes as she dumped change into the meter.
He was going to watch her butt in his mirror, too.
Well, he wasn’t alone.
Thais made her way down the scuffed up aisle, stepping around the pieces of trash. She kept her eyes forward as the occupants tried to make eye contact with her. The bus jerked and swayed as it started forward. She never sat down. Just curled her hand around a pole as the bus lumbered down the block toward its next stop.
She ducked out of the door in front of a nightclub just opening for the night. A pair of young women was getting out of a Kia Soul, clearly marked with the Lyft symbol. Thais slipped into the backseat.
“Take me to the airport?” she asked sweetly.
“Sure thing!” the driver replied, eager to get more than a four-mile fare. “Just check in and—”
Thais offered him a hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
The kid’s eyes widened before he was nodding and turning around to pull into traffic. Thais slid into the center of the backseat, keeping her face away from the windows where a traffic camera could pick her up.
The Lynx vibrated inside her purse.
She dug it out, looking at the screen.
“Running?” Dunn asked her.
“You knew it was only for the moment,” she replied. A cold, rehearsed, safe response that she hated for the first time. Solitude wasn’t offering the comfort she was so used to finding.
“It can be more. Let’s discuss.”
She was tempted. It felt like little pieces of the fabric of her being were tearing as she battled which way to go. She wasn’t giving him a chance.
You mean, you’re not taking the risk of trusting him …
She wanted to. But between want and reality lay a minefield of scars from past experiences. Maybe if they were only her scars, she might have made a try for it. But Dunn had his own past, one he wasn’t interested in sharing. She couldn’t just be his.
* * *
Eric Geyer was good at his job.
There was a skill level necessary when dealing with security but there was also knowing when to listen to his gut. He felt something nagging him. Something picking at the back of his brain because he hadn’t applied enough brainpower to realize he knew something important.
He surfed through pictures of Dunn Bateson late into the night. Press releases. Mentions in society columns. Carl was already snoring by the time Eric clicked on enough links to find the one that triggered his brain.
Lynx.
The very exclusive product being developed by Bateson and a private Chinese firm with enough satellites in orbit to make the Lynx untraceable. The two-hundred-grand price tag came with assurances of privacy, but Eric slowly grinned.
Bateson was a recluse and Thais was a shadow agent. If they were in a relationship, he’d have given her one of the test models. The Lynx was still in the test phase. Which meant there weren’t many of them active at the moment.
Eric picked up a phone and called one of Carl’s supporters who was very interested in making certain China remained able to export into the United States without tariffs.
* * *
Thais redirected the driver of her car before they got close enough to the airport for the security cameras to pick her up. If the kid thought her request strange, the promise of cash under the table kept him from questioning her.
She ended up on a corner as the kid left. Behind her was a block of homes with boarded-up windows. They were waiting to be flattened so a new section of interstate could be built. It was the sort of thing Shadow Ops teams used to remain off grid. She slipped into the backyard of one and picked the lock.
Someone had loved the house. In spite of its age, the walls were painted and the carpet clean. Thais went into the bathroom and turned the tap. Water flowed freely, confirming that the residents hadn’t been out long. An older bed had been left behind. She tested it before finding it clean enough for the night.
In the dark, she was tempted to use the Lynx. Turning it over in her hands, she swept the screen with her finger and reread the text messages from Dunn.
Pathetic …
Yes, and as she put it down she told herself that a good night’s rest would clear her thinking.
* * *
“You think I was born yesterday?”
Eric didn’t answer the question. The man in front of him lost some of his mocking confidence as Eric allowed his offer to stand. Standing in an alley a block from the prison, the guy was still looking around, waiting for someone to realize he’d been released by accident. Eric gave him a few more seconds to soak up the unexpected freedom.
“That simple?” the guy asked.
“It could be, if you’re up for the work,” Eric said, trying to tempt him. “Otherwise … feel free to take off. I don’t care. Someone with a badge will run you down in a bit, once I release your real criminal record. Got it in a holding pattern for the moment. That’s why they let you walk away.”
The guy looked both ways before lowering his voice. “You said you’d wipe my record clean permanently.”
“I said we could help each other,” Eric confirmed.
“Why?”
Eric shot the guy a hard look. “I need a job done. It’s just your lucky day to be in a position to be useful to me. You’re facing a double murder charge with special circumstances.”
“They were fucking drug dealers,” the guy retorted. “They’d done a lot worse.”
“They were your competition,” Eric said, laying out his position. “I get it. So are you and I doing business? That’s all I need to know.”
“What’s this chick done?”
Eric offered the guy a piece of paper with an address on it and a picture of Thais. “Nothing’s free. You want your record bleached, you’re going to deal with something I need to go away. I didn’t pick you for your virtue. If I wanted that, I’d have selected the guy sitting on the bus because he killed his sister’s abusive boyfriend.”
“Judge already likes him enough to offer military service instead of prison,” the guy said. “And you left out the part about you picking me because you know I can’t talk without messing up my own life.”
Eric only shrugged in response. The guy looked around again before taking the picture and paper. He looked at the shot of Thais and let out a low whistle. “Very nice.”
“Think twice before you leave any evidence behind,” Eric advised softly. “I’m only bleaching the record on file. Be stupid enough to get too close to her and you’re on your own when they track you down with DNA.”
The guy stiffened. “Right. No mixing business and pleasure. Consider it done.”
“Your record will be clean right after I hear about another mindless killing in the streets.”
Eric swept the street with his gaze before he left the alley and walked away.
CHAPTER SIX
Sleep was elusive.
Thais had spent more than one night in an off the grid location. It was fairly standard operating procedure for Shadow Ops teams.
Tonight, she was restless.
She sat up just after midnight, reaching out for her gun that was next to her on the bed. With the windows boarded up, the house was dark.
She clearly heard the rap on the front door.
A solid connection of knuckles against wood that sent her onto her feet, her back against the wall as she held her gun up.
“It’s Dunn.”
Thais knew how to wake up alert; still, it took a moment for her brain to fully register what she heard.
There was a flicker of light as a cell phone illuminated the darkness.
“Are you looking to get shot?” she demanded.
His face was set in a hard expression. “I could ask you the same
thing. This is a notorious neighborhood.”
“I know what I’m doing, Dunn,” she informed him. “It’s called staying off grid.”
“This is a dump,” Dunn replied. “And you’re lucky there aren’t junkies in these boarded-up houses.”
“Did you think Shadow Ops meant high-class accommodations?” Thais asked him. She had to tip her chin up because he was looming over her.
“You aren’t with your team,” he argued. “You should have come to me.”
“Then I wouldn’t be off grid,” Thais said.
Dunn’s jaw tightened. “Yes, you would.”
As much as she wanted to argue, she had never been one to keep at a fight when logic proved she was wrong. Dunn was a recluse and he knew a hell of a lot about being off grid.
“What are you doing here?” With one topic exhausted, her brain latched onto the next question brewing in her mind. “You’re on duty with Miranda.”
“I left Kent with her.”
Thais felt her jaw drop. “That isn’t how this works, Dunn!” She reached out to grab his shirt. A little pop went off somewhere in the backyard and her shoulder stung.
Dunn flattened her on the floor in the next moment. Thais growled as she tried to pull her gun from her waistband but discovered her arm protesting as she worked her fingers to grip the butt of the pistol.
“Stay down!” Dunn had his gun leveled as he moved toward the bed. The next pop sent a bullet into the bed. There was a little sound of impact from the mattress before Dunn was moving around the foot of the bed.
“Dunn—”
Her voice brought more bullets her way. Thais rolled as she drew in a harsh breath and gritted her teeth against the pain.
But she closed her hand around her gun and returned fire.
Behind the plywood over the window, she heard the glass shatter as her rounds went through what had once been the bedroom window. Dunn was against the wall and fired off a couple of rounds. There was a grunt and the sound of a body hitting the ground.
“Stay down, Thais,” Dunn ordered as he kicked the back door open and went out with his gun in front of him.
