by Katie Reus
Her breathing increased slightly as the doors whooshed open on the top floor. “You’re a jackass,” she whispered.
“I’ve been called worse.” There was no guard at the door today which could mean any number of things.
Zac tensed, going into operator mode, putting everything else into a tight mental box when the door opened and Kyle stepped out.
His lips pursed at Savage but he didn’t seem surprised to see him. “I said come alone.” His words were dry.
“Where she goes, I go.”
Almost absently, Neely nodded. “Get inside and toss your phones into the bowl by the door.” Stepping back, he impatiently motioned for the two of them to enter.
Zac kept his body half blocking Olivia’s as they entered the room. The same guys from the day before were there, including Maxwell. He nodded once at the guy, who nodded back. There was someone else there—and by the way Olivia stiffened, he didn’t think the man was a good addition.
Though he hated to do it, he dropped his phone into the bowl and Olivia did the same. At least Gage was on the comms. If shit went sideways, they had backup. It would just be a matter of overpowering any threat and staying alive long enough for the cavalry to arrive. And in his experience, he was his own damn cavalry.
“Go stand over there with the others.” Neely’s voice was sharp.
Zac looked at the window where the unknown man stood and at the others sitting on the couch or loveseat. Neely wanted them all in the same area—which meant they’d all be easy targets. Yeah, he did not like this setup at all.
Maybe he was overreacting but Zac didn’t care. He slapped Olivia’s butt. “Grab me a drink?” If he could get her closer to the bedroom door, it was something. There was another exit door through that bedroom so she had a better shot of escaping than anyone.
Right now there was a tension in the room and he wasn’t sure what it stemmed from. Maybe Neely was pissed about losing Martina as leverage. But no, he had leverage on Olivia now. Something else was going on. He could feel it.
Olivia looked as if she wanted to argue with Zac but nodded and strode toward the minibar, the sway of her hips too much of a distraction so he looked away.
“You, stand with the others.” Neely nodded, not moving far from the door.
Something was definitely off, but now wasn’t the time to push anything. He’d been in enough tense situations that he’d learned to play things out. To be patient.
As soon as he’d crossed the room, Neely withdrew a pistol and pointed it at everyone—except Olivia.
“Turns out we have a Fed in our midst,” the man snarled, moving his gun over everyone until he paused on Zac.
Chapter 13
—Fuck.—
Zac realized the weapon wasn’t trained on him, but Alonso. The man looked just as he had yesterday—black jacket, black everything else right down to his boots. Like a biker version of Johnny Cash.
“You’re gonna want to move that thing away from me.” Alonso’s voice was deep if slightly disinterested.
Zac noticed the others in the room shift nervously, but Alonso was calm, his body relaxed. Interesting.
“Not happening.” Neely took a step forward, but there was still plenty of distance between him and everyone else. So he could take a shot—however stupid it would be—and not miss Alonso or worry about anyone disarming him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Zac noticed Olivia had moved a step closer to the bedroom. Good. He didn’t look at her directly, however, wanting all his focus on the current threat.
“I learned something very interesting,” Neely continued. “Someone—from an unknown branch of government—called the local PD yesterday and told them to hold off on looking into the jewelry heist. Now, I can hear what your argument is going to be. It must have been the new guy.” He swung his pistol toward Zac, held it there for a long moment.
Zac stared coldly at him. It wasn’t the first time someone had held a weapon on him and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
“But that fucker has worked with Morales. And if he was a Fed, I’d be in jail right now on kidnapping charges and he wouldn’t be here. I know it’s not Olivia.” He snorted as if the thought was utterly ridiculous. “And everyone else I’ve worked with before. Except you. You were recommended to me by an acquaintance. Sure, you’ve got the reputation, and what I’ve seen so far of your skills is solid. But something is off. I can smell it. And I never ignore my instinct—and you were by yourself for a while yesterday while we were gone.”
Zac’s heart rate kicked up a notch. Neely was either going to call the whole thing off and bail town and the unknown job—which meant Olivia would be a target any time in the future Neely wanted to blackmail her. Or Neely was about to kill Alonso. And Fed or not, that wasn’t happening on Zac’s watch. Even if the guy was just a regular criminal, Zac wasn’t letting Neely shoot him right here. Some part of him simply couldn’t let that happen. He’d killed before. More times than he wanted to think about. But things had changed since he’d started with Redemption Harbor.
“So what’s the plan? Kill the Fed here?” Zac snorted, making his derision clear.
Neely jerked slightly, seeming surprised by the interruption. His gaze narrowed.
Zac lifted a shoulder. “If you’re going to get rid of him, do it away from the hotel. There are too many cameras here. And if you shoot him, they’ll find blood. It doesn’t matter how good of a job you do cleaning it up. Not to mention someone will hear the shot—unless you have a suppressor lying around. Either way, this is sloppy. I don’t care what you’ve got on my girl, we’re not working with someone sloppy.”
Neely’s eyes narrowed even more, fully sizing Zac up. “I know,” he finally said. “That’s why you’re going to get rid of him.”
Well, he had told Neely he was a cleaner. This was a test. He either got rid of Alonso, thus solidifying his reputation. Or he refused. And Neely would shoot him and probably Olivia, and just back out of the job entirely.
Next to him he sensed Alonso shift slightly, his arm muscles tensing as he prepared for whatever was about to happen.
Fuuuuck.
Zac shook his head and stood. “Look, I’m not—” He struck out with his boot, slamming into Alonso’s knee. He just needed to disable the guy, not kill him. From there, he’d figure things out. One step at a time.
Alonso grunted in surprise even as he rolled back and off the couch, landing on his feet like a cat. Okay, so the guy might have some training.
Zac lunged, tackling him around his middle. They crashed over the leather ottoman. Alonso slammed a fist into his ribs even as Zac swung at his jaw. The man was strong and fit.
Pain ricocheted up his arm as he made contact. The man’s head jerked back and Zac used that moment to get the upper hand. Striking out again, he pummeled the guy in the stomach before flipping him over.
Alonso grunted, reaching back and grabbing at Zac’s face, but he wrapped an arm around Alonso’s neck and squeezed tight. Shifting, he tightened his legs around the man’s body, holding him as still as possible.
The man grunted, struggling under his hold, his body flailing around. Zac had a hard grip on him and ignored the slaps and hits raining down on anywhere Alonso could reach. He hated doing this, especially in front of Olivia, but there was no choice.
Ignoring the pain of the man’s blows, Zac counted, knowing exactly how long he could hold the man before he killed him. It was a fine line, however. And too easy to cross. Too easy to accidentally kill this man.
As the seconds ticked by Zac willed the guy to pass out. He needed him unconscious so he could bind him. Then…he hoped that Neely went for what he wanted to do. Otherwise he was going to have to break cover and attack Neely. Because no way in hell was he actually killing Alonso.
The man eventually went limp but Zac held on for another five seconds. When he was certain Alonso was actually unconscious, he let go, dropping the man to the blue and green rug with a thud. “You have
zip ties?”
Neely frowned, but nodded and retrieved a handful of them. Working quickly Zac bound and gagged the man. Then he looked at Neely. “I need my phone.” He’d already made it known he had people in town—or had at least hired someone to rescue Martina. It stood to reason he’d have someone he could call.
“I’m going to watch you dial.”
He shrugged and made a phone call to one of the team’s burner phones. There wasn’t a protocol for this type of situation but he trusted his team to know what to do. That was why they all worked so well together. They knew how to think outside the box in all situations.
Leighton—who no doubt had heard everything over the comms—answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“It’s Savage. I need a cleanup detail. Now.” He rattled off the name of the hotel. “Penthouse suite. Use a cleaning cart to haul away the garbage.” He paused, as if waiting for a response, then said. “One body.” He paused again. “Extract whatever information you can get.” Then he hung up and handed his phone back to Neely who tossed it into the bowl after turning it off. “My guy will find out who he works for and dispose of the body. Normally he charges five hundred K,” he informed Neely.
“Since you took the whole cut from yesterday, you can pay him.” The dark look in Neely’s eyes told Zac that now was not the time to play dominance games.
He nodded. “That’s fair.”
Neely tucked his weapon away and turned to the others. “As soon as this piece of shit is out of here we’re relocating. And we’re all going together. No outside communication until the job is over.”
Which meant that the job was most definitely happening tonight. Or tomorrow morning. It would be very soon, no doubt about it.
Zac finally looked over at Olivia—and found her staring at him as if he was a stranger. The look in her dark eyes was unreadable so he glanced away, not wanting to see judgment or recrimination.
Maybe she’d been right to keep her distance from him after all.
Chapter 14
—Manners cost you nothing.—
Gage stared at the hooded man bound to the steel chair Leighton had found God knew where. Alonso, last name unknown, was awake, even if he was pretending not to be. They’d put a hood over him so he wouldn’t see their faces.
Because holy fuck, this had just turned into a shit show. Maybe not completely, but if this guy was a Fed, he didn’t need to know their identities or what they were doing.
Leighton and Brooks looked at him, both with expression as grim as he felt. Leighton had picked Alonso up from the penthouse using a cleaning cart and a stolen uniform from the hotel. Gage had hacked into the security and erased the fifteen minutes Leighton was in the hotel at all, recording it over with a loop. Unless someone looked closely, even their own security wouldn’t know about it.
Gage pointed at Leighton, indicating he should stay put to watch the man while he and Brooks headed outside. They’d brought the guy back to the safe house, which for the most part was secure. Similar to the home they’d rescued Martina from, it was surrounded by palm trees and a lot of green overgrowth. Unless the guy had a tracker on him they hadn’t found—and Gage had personally scanned him—no one was coming after Alonso.
“We need to make a decision,” Brooks said.
Gaged nodded. “The less he sees and hears from us, the better.”
“We can’t let him go until Savage and Olivia are done.”
Gage nodded in agreement. If this man was a Fed, he wouldn’t give a shit about protecting Olivia and Savage. And if Neely found out that this man was actually alive, he’d be likely to just kill Savage. So, no, they couldn’t let him go. Not yet. “I just don’t like the idea of having a captive.”
“No shit. The info on him come back yet?”
Gage shook his head. He’d been careful about the programs he’d used to run the man’s fingerprints. Just as he’d been careful when he’d run Kyle Neely’s. In case their captive was government and his files were flagged, Gage didn’t want to alert anyone that he was looking into him. Because he could find out who the man in their kitchen was without anyone knowing it was him who’d dug into it. Easily. Covering his tracks wasn’t the problem. Unfortunately he could set off an internal alarm that someone was interested in Alonso.
Not good for anyone right now. He hadn’t reached out to any of his contacts either. He’d done this all under the radar, never wanting any of this to come back to Redemption Harbor Consulting. So far they’d done well to stay off the government’s radar since starting their business. He planned to keep it that way.
“I’m going to call Skye and Colt,” he finally said. They’d put it off long enough. And if they were going to back Savage and Olivia up on whatever was going to go down, they needed more people here, especially if someone had to babysit the man in the kitchen.
Brooks nodded his agreement.
“Skye Arévalo’s phone, how may I help you?” a sexy female voice answered, taking Gage by surprise.
“Who the fuck is this!” He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. But who the hell was answering Skye’s phone?
There was a short pause. “When you learn how to speak with manners you should have learned in kindergarten, feel free to call back. Good day, sir.” The line went dead.
He stared at his phone for a long moment.
“What’s going on?” Brooks asked.
“I have no idea. Some woman just answered Skye’s phone.” Then had politely told him off in the sultriest voice he’d ever heard. He called Skye again.
And got the same response. “Skye Arévalo’s phone, how may I help you?”
“This is Gage, one of Skye’s partners. I apologize for my rudeness. May I please speak to her?”
Brooks gave him a weird look but he ignored the man.
He couldn’t be sure, but he swore the woman snickered. “One moment please, I’ll connect you.”
A moment later Skye came on the line. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Why is someone answering your phone?”
“Oh, I had my calls transferred to the office. Trying something new with the new girl.”
He’d go back to the new girl bit in a moment. “You set up call transfers yourself?” Skye was good with explosives and weapons but usually wanted to take a golf club to anything technology related that she couldn’t fix in two seconds. She had the patience of a toddler in non-life-threatening situations.
“I’m not just a pretty face, my friend. And no, Nova did. Colt and I just hired her as the company’s assistant. Which we probably should have run by everyone but holy shit I can’t handle all the filing or admin stuff anymore. She’s also taking over all of our marketing. With Savage gone I have no one to con into doing it for me. We need someone and there’s no telling when we’ll all be in the same location at the same time.” She sounded a little defensive, as if expecting an argument.
And right now, there was no time for any of that. Not that he cared anyway. He trusted Skye. “We’ve got an issue. Not sure how big it is but it could turn into something.” Gage quickly laid out everything for Skye, knowing she’d relay everything to Colt and together they’d decide whether to come to Miami or not.
As soon as he was done, Skye was silent for a long moment. “I’m going to talk this over with Colt but get ready for us. We’ll be there in a few hours.”
“All right. So…the new girl? She single?” Because her voice alone was enough to get him hard. Even her name was sexy.
Skye hung up on him.
Chapter 15
—Out of the frying pan, into the fire.—
Olivia sat next to Savage in the back seat of the SUV, trying to remain calm when she felt anything but that. At least she still had her earpiece and knew that Gage and the others were listening.
For a moment back in that hotel room she’d wondered if Savage had actually planned to kill Alonso—or whoever the man was. The fight between the two of them had been so brutal an
d unexpected. Just…shocking violence in a plush penthouse suite. One moment Savage had been standing up, as if to tell Kyle no, then he’d attacked like the tiger he was.
Everything had been over before it had started, with Savage quickly subduing the other man. Now she was sitting in between him and her ex-freaking-husband. Seriously.
What. The. Hell.
Kyle was in the front passenger seat with Maxwell driving. The other man, Smith, had left on his own, not saying much other than he’d meet up with them soon.
From what she remembered that was pretty standard for Kyle. Keep everything close to the vest. But not telling her that her ex-husband would be here was just a dick move. No surprise, since Kyle was a massive douche kidnapper/blackmailer/murderer.
Gah.
“It’s been a long time,” Heath said, breaking the silence.
Next to her Savage stiffened. He’d actually wanted to sit in between them but Kyle had said no. Which was probably because he was worried Savage would attack Heath.
She wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Not after what she’d seen. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Olivia just scooted closer to Savage. He might be a jerk too, but the devil you knew and all that. And at the end of the day, she might be hurt by what he’d said to Brooks, but she still trusted him to have her back. And she couldn’t say he’d lied to her. He’d been honest about what he had to offer: nothing. She decided not to respond to Heath because why bother?
“How’s Valencia?” he asked a few minutes later.
“The daughter you abandoned? She’s fantastic.” Okay, so much for keeping her mouth shut. It was taking all her restraint not to lash out at him. If anyone deserved a good throat punch, it was Heath.
Savage put his arm around her, and screw it—she leaned into him. Not because she was acting either. She missed her daughter, was terrified she might not make it home, and now she was stuck in a vehicle with her ex-husband and a monster who just might kill them all given the chance. Her life had gone from PTA meetings to this.
