Nauti Enchantress

by Lora Leigh

  Dawg made a sound somewhere between a growl and a snarl.

  Natches crossed his arms over his chest and grunted in irritation.

  Rowdy breathed out heavily. Lyrica had missed Graham by only moments when she’d arrived at Timothy’s office earlier.

  “Suggestions?” he asked when neither of them commented.

  “Shoot him!” Natches and Dawg spoke at once.

  “We have a plan, remember?” Rowdy growled, then he glanced at them both thoughtfully. “How long would she grieve for him, do you think?” Rowdy asked as though he were actually considering the prospect.

  “Would the three of you really like a suggestion or are you just considering it for appearance’s sake?” Chaya asked as she, Christa, and Kelly stepped into the room.

  Rowdy bit back his grin as the other two gave him a long-suffering look.

  “A suggestion we could live with would be nice.” Dawg was the one who answered, his voice morose as he lifted his coffee to his lips.

  “Do what you always do,” his wife said softly as she bent to kiss the top of his head lovingly. “Track the danger, keep a close eye on it, intercede if you have to, torture the hell out of Graham, and keep to the original plan. Just make sure he realizes the future discomfort he’ll face if he breaks her heart. But let Lyrica make the choice, and if the fall hurts, then let her hurt, Dawg. Let her live.”

  “Or she’ll hate all three of you.” Mercedes Mackay stepped into the room then, with Timothy close behind her.

  “Geez, Timothy, we didn’t invite your ass,” Natches snarled, though with a lack of heat that actually indicated his respect for the other man.

  “Nice to see you, too, Natches,” the other man said with a grunt. “And as always, your hospitality overwhelms me.”

  Moving to Christa and Chaya, Mercedes hugged them briefly, thankfully, then gave each man a hard, firm look. “She’s your sister—cousins or not, I count each of you her brother, not just Dawg. But she is my daughter. If I can bear her broken heart, then so can you.”

  “Who called them?” Natches muttered, despite the affection in his gaze as he glanced at the dark-haired beauty Timothy Cranston had managed to fall in love with.

  “Rowdy invited me before he left the office,” Timothy answered. “It seems Graham’s made a point to come to each of us to protest his lack of involvement in the investigation concerning the attack on Lyrica.” Timothy’s face held no evil smile, no wicked anticipation. He was far too somber. “Which, coincidentally, gave me an idea.”

  “Oh Lord.”

  “God save us.”

  “What did we do to deserve this?” Natches groaned as though in pain.

  Timothy grunted humorlessly.

  “Tell us and get it the hell over with.” Dawg sighed.

  “Why, we let him become part of the investigation,” Timothy replied instantly. “A very intricate part. The attack on her doesn’t sit well with any of us, especially considering that we all suspect the poor girl who actually died was no more than an attempt to allay our suspicions.”

  Rowdy watched him speculatively now, as did Dawg and Natches.

  “The attempt was too professional,” Timothy explained. “Especially for such sloppy execution. Either we’re being played with, or, according to the call I received just after Rowdy left, Graham is the least of our worries. We’re looking at something potentially more dangerous to her than we first imagined.”

  “What’s happened?” Rowdy beat the others to the question.

  “Just after you left the office, Tracker contacted me. He says he accepted the contract on Lyrica some months ago with the express purpose of learning who offered the contract. The hit was attempted and deliberately botched. He’s certain he can flush the backer out, but once again, he’s been pressed to make another attempt or the backer will rescind the agreement and put the contract out for bids once again.”

  The muttered, explicit curse that slipped past Dawg’s lips didn’t surprise any of them. Rowdy plowed his fingers through his hair with restless concern. Natches’s gaze iced over, its cold emerald depths stone hard.

  Tracker.

  No one knew his real name, where he came from, or his true loyalties. All they knew was his apparent disinterest in getting in Natches Mackay’s crosshairs. There was a strange sense of loyalty from the other man toward the Mackays, though a confusing one considering the fact that the Mackays hadn’t even known of him until long after they’d gotten as far out of DHS as possible.

  “Son of a bitch,” Dawg whispered as the women who stood behind the men held on to them as though to steady themselves.

  Rowdy could feel the trembling fear in Kelly’s grip and reached up to hold her hand in assurance.

  “Send the girls to Texas.” Natches looked around the room, the hard-eyed assassin he had once been clearly apparent now. “Bliss, Laken, Erica, and the others. Send them to Cade and Marly. Cade, Brock, Sam, and their boys will make damned sure they’re safe. They’ll take care of them. See if we can get Zoey to go with them. They’ve been begging to visit again since last year.”

  “I’ll have John Senior dispatch his plane immediately for the trip,” Timothy said quietly. “We get the girls as far away as possible until we know what the hell is going on and who’s behind the contract.”

  “I’ll contact Alex and the others,” Dawg said. “We’ll meet with them this afternoon. They’re not going to send their kids with ours without an explanation.”

  Dawg wasn’t just a brother now; he was a weapon honed by years in the Marines and having to make choices that required he set his emotions and his fears aside.

  “I’ll contact Tracker and set up a meeting, then call Graham once we have a time and a place,” Timothy injected, eyeing them all steadily. “Keep him in the loop this time. Lyrica’s life is more important at this point than anything else.”

  “And we’re supposed to let Graham help us, how?” Dawg growled as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Dammit, my stomach is burning. I’m getting too damned old for this shit.”

  “I told you days ago to get her out of sight and none of you wanted to listen,” Natches snapped. “Your indigestion and my acid reflux acting up at the same time? No way in hell. We listen to our guts, Dawg, like we used to, before we lose her.”

  “Graham will do what no one would ever believe we’d allow him to do.” Timothy’s gaze hardened, causing each of them to watch him in narrow-eyed suspicion. “Place Lyrica back with him for protection. If, as Tracker and I suspect, the backer is someone in Somerset, then they’d never expect us to deliberately place her there. They won’t suspect we’re searching for them.”

  “What do we tell Lyrica?” Natches was the one to ask the question they were all avoiding.

  “The truth,” Mercedes declared, her tone commanding, the strength her daughters had inherited echoing in her voice. “You will tell her the truth.”

  —

  Tracker was six feet, five inches of hard, merciless power. Rumor had it he’d been a Navy SEAL before arriving on the soldier of fortune scene eight years before, though no one could confirm the rumor.

  He’d been approached by damned near every security firm in the world, offers had been made to back a security company led by him, and the leaders of several different countries had met with him, willing to pay any price to have him head their emerging forces.

  He’d turned down every offer, as had the six-member team he led.

  Whoever he was, wherever he came from, no one could deny he was a force to be reckoned with.

  Stepping into the darkened offices across from Lyrica’s apartment to face the man, Graham couldn’t help but feel a familiarity when he looked into the striking blue eyes of the man leaning casually against the wall, facing not just the Mackays, but also their extended male family members as well.

  Among them were Alex Jansen, chief of Somerset Police and husband to Natches’s sister, Janey; Brogan Campbell, the FPS agent who recently married Daw
g’s sister Eve; Jed Booker, Brogan’s partner and the fiancé of another of Dawg’s sisters Piper; and Zeke Mayes, a close friend and the former Pulaski County sheriff, who had turned over the reins to his son, Shane, in the last election and now ran an electronic security firm headquartered outside Somerset with his wife, Rogue. Shane Mayes was there as well. Though unmarried and unrelated, the younger man, who was closer in age to Graham than to the Mackays, stood sure and confident at his father’s side. John Walker Jr., Zeke’s brother-in-law and one of Timothy Cranston’s unofficial agents, was there as well, along with Timothy himself.

  Cranston was the man they all had in common. He’d first commanded the group the Mackays were a part of through DHS about twelve years before. He’d manipulated and tricked the Mackays and their friends in various ops that eventually built them all into an intelligent, unbeatable force. Then he’d met Dawg’s sisters and fell in love with the woman who had given them life. He was now bringing men into the Mackay females’ lives as though he were born to direct their destinies.

  What part Tracker would play in the schemes that filled Timothy’s head, Graham wasn’t certain. What plans the former agent had for Lyrica, Graham intended to learn. What he did know now, though, was that Tracker was a man of many talents, and though his reputation suggested he could be convinced, for the right price, of course, to kill a man, that wasn’t exactly the truth.

  “Graham.” Tracker nodded his shaggy dark head as Graham locked the door behind him and stepped fully into the room. “Good to see you again.”

  Stepping forward, Graham accepted the mercenary’s handshake with a nod.

  “You, too, Track. And I’m damned glad you’re the one we’re facing rather than another party.”

  Tracker gave a mocking snort at the comment. “I turned it down at first,” he admitted. “But I was too curious, I guess, because the mark was from Somerset. Once I learned it was one of Dawg Mackay’s sisters, I reconsidered.”

  “Took you long enough to come forward,” Alex Jansen commented coolly. “One might say a little too long.”

  “One might,” Tracker agreed, his lips kicking up at one corner wryly. “But one might be unaware of the fact that trust isn’t my first inclination and that having my reputation as a merciless killer smeared by a shadow of compassion isn’t exactly the compromise I’m looking for here.”

  “We’re not here to snipe at his background, Alex,” Timothy stated from where he sat behind the bar on the other side of the room. “Let’s hear what he has to say, then we can plan accordingly.”

  As though agreement had been voiced, Tracker moved from the wall to step behind the bar with Timothy as the rest of them converged on the bar stools in front of the wide teak counter.

  “Two million dollars,” Tracker stated as Timothy passed out a file folder to each of them. “The hit has to appear to be either an accident or a case of mistaken identity. When that girl the drug cartel killed showed up, I decided to use it to try to flush out whoever’s backing the contract. So far, it hasn’t worked. At last contact I was given one more chance before the down payment has to be returned and a new offer will go out.”

  Graham opened the file to find pictures of Lyrica, notes on her various jobs, schedule, friends, and family. Along with it was the Mackay itinerary for the weeks they were on vacation.

  “In checking out her background I learned that Graham Brock’s sister was a close friend and that her number was on Ms. Mackay’s contact list. They talked daily, so I took a chance that if she couldn’t contact her friend and her phone appeared to be malfunctioning then she would turn to her brother. Thankfully, the plan worked.”

  Graham glanced up from the file. “You could have just called.”

  “Not until I learned exactly whose phones were compromised.” Tracker shook his head before leaning back against the empty shelves of the former bar. “When she disappeared, my employer demanded the records of a tracking and jamming program he provided that would ensure no one accessed her phone. I sent it and waited. The only encrypted number he couldn’t pinpoint on the report was Graham’s.” He nodded in Graham’s direction. “For the rest of you, I was sent call logs, though text and discussion logs weren’t tracked, it appears.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Timothy exclaimed. “How was the encryption cracked?”

  “From what I can understand about the program, it’s usually hidden in a download of some sort,” Tracker answered. “A picture, website, whatever. Backtracking, I was able to identify a URL common to the unencrypted numbers of those on Lyrica’s contact list. How it got into the encrypted numbers, I haven’t ascertained just yet.”

  “A lot of work,” Alex muttered. “A hell of a lot of money. The question is, why? What does Lyrica know that has her marked?”

  “My question as well,” Tracker answered. “And one of the questions I initially asked upon taking the job. I’m known to be the nosy sort.” A mocking smile tugged at his lips, though his gaze remained stone cold. “The answer I received was that the contract was a vendetta, not a personal strike.”

  “Fuck!” Natches hissed, his voice low, vibrating with menace. “Our old enemies perhaps?”

  The homeland terrorist group had been silent for years.

  “My sources say no.” Once again, Tracker answered the question. “I’ll be honest, gentlemen, I’ve spent more time trying to track who, what, and why on this contract than I’ve spent on any other. There are no answers, though I have managed to cross out every Mackay enemy I could identify.”

  “What about my enemies?” Timothy asked.

  “That one I can’t answer,” Tracker informed him. “You have far too many, Timothy, and even more than even I can identify.”

  “It’s not Timothy,” Natches stated.

  “Then who?” The question came from Rowdy, who was sitting at Timothy’s right, every line of his body tense and filled with fury.

  “I don’t know.” A quick shake of his head was the only indication of Natches’s confusion. “But it’s not Timothy. There’s something familiar to this program, though; I just can’t identify what. It’s as though I’ve seen it somewhere else, heard of it, or something.” He tapped one particular page. “Lyrica’s phone went off-line here.” He pointed to the included graph as he turned to Graham. “Is that where you had her pull the battery?”

  Graham checked the graph then.

  “That was it.” He confirmed the time. “I kept the call brief, just long enough for my GPS to pinpoint her, before I had her disconnect and pull the battery from the phone.”

  Natches frowned again, shaking his head. “That shouldn’t have worked.” He sighed. “Not with the program I’m thinking of.”

  “Good luck tracing it,” Tracker retorted. “My second in command has been working on it nonstop for the past three months since we were given the contract, and even her sources haven’t been able to identify it or its creator.”

  “Angel?” Graham asked him, remembering the tiny bundle of dynamite that had fought viciously with the mercenary. “She’s still putting up with you?”

  Tracker flicked him an irritated glance. “Stay the hell away from her, Graham. Angel’s no flavor and I won’t have her become one.”

  What the fuck? He blinked back at Tracker as the Mackays and their friends glared over at him.

  “The ‘flavor’ comments are starting to piss me off,” he told them all. “And I never had any intention of inviting Angel into my bed. That woman knows her way around a knife far too well.”

  “If the comments bother you, then stop sleeping with those rich, spoiled little heiresses with too much money and too little brains,” Natches snorted.

  “Really?” Graham grunted at the comment. “Are we going to go there, Natches?”

  The other man looked up and the calculated menace in his gaze had an answering expression that tightened Graham’s own expression.

  “Enough,” Rowdy warned them both.

  “Angel has been in the apartm
ent next to Lyrica’s since we accepted the contract,” Tracker informed them then. “She’s also been shadowing her wherever she goes when she leaves the apartment. And I should tell you all, she just left again.” He glanced at the watch he was wearing. “That woman doesn’t sleep a lot, does she?” He glanced at Graham as he made the comment.

  Graham gave him a level stare in return until the other man gave another of those crooked, mocking little grins.

  “Angel couldn’t have been shadowing her or I would have known about it,” Dawg stated, his voice hard as one finger tapped soundlessly against his open file. “I’ve had someone following her since she moved back to her apartment . . .”

  Tracker stared back at him knowingly. “Jim Bailey. A hell of an investigator and bodyguard, but he has nothing on Angel. Hell, she even rode with him a few nights after convincing him he was the best thing since sliced bread. He’s not taking the job seriously and spends more time on his cell phone than he does watching for tails. His belief is that only a fool would go after a Mackay and risk their wrath.”

  “Fucker!” Natches breathed out, fury lending a dark roughness to his tone that had his cousins flinching. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “Leave him in place,” Tracker suggested. “Whoever the contract’s backer may have in place to follow Lyrica won’t be watching for anyone else, though Angel hasn’t detected anyone yet. When this is over, discuss your bill with him maybe. Until then, use him.”

  That was what he would have done, Graham admitted.

  “What information is coming to you from your backer?” Timothy asked.

  “It’s in the back of the file,” Tracker informed him. “I convinced him I had to complete another job after my first attempt on Lyrica fell through. As far as he knows, I’m not due back for another week. I had hoped my time here would reveal the backer’s identity, but that hasn’t happened yet. That’s why I came to Timothy. I have two weeks after my supposed return to complete the job and give this man Lyrica’s lifeless body. If I don’t, he’ll find another team. If that happens, there won’t be a warning. She’ll just be dead.”