DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  I glanced at Rhett as I deleted the message from her phone. I couldn’t let her hear that. I needed her.

  I was going to figure this out. And I was going to walk away from this without losing her. I instinctively knew that I’d lost a lot in my life. What kind of a man joins the CIA besides a man who has nothing to lose? I was done giving up the things that mattered to my country. If we had to run, if we had to take that money and disappear, that’s what we were going to do. No truth was worth losing everything.

  ***

  Rhett woke a little before dawn. I was sitting in a chair beside her, watching her, much like I had done the night after she was shot. She didn’t say a word, just reached out her hand to me.

  “I don’t want to hurt your leg.”

  “I don’t think it can hurt more than it does.”

  I brushed the hair from her face. “Sorry.”

  She reached up and kissed me, her lips lingering on mine. And then she drew me down to her, her hands tugging at my shirt, my jeans.

  There was no question about what she wanted. I returned her kiss with just as much heat as she offered it with. It only took a second for the heat to build, like a fire ignited on the head of a match. I wanted her like I wanted to breathe. But it was her need that drove me over the edge, that pushed me to the edge of sanity.

  I pulled her body up under mine, slipped her panties from her hips. I was careful with her wound, but I could still see the pain dancing in her eyes, dancing there with the need she had for me. It was a sight I wouldn’t soon forget. And then …

  If I’d ever had anything like this in the past, I didn’t think I would have forgotten it. A man didn’t forget feelings quite this strong.

  Chapter 16

  Rhett

  I did the best I could not to hobble as we made our way through the crowded parking lot to a black BMW. Sara held my arm, her fingers shaking a little as she scanned the area. I didn’t know what she thought was waiting for us out there, but she was clearly not happy with the situation. I wished I knew what she and Xander had whispered about while I was in the shower.

  “Just a couple more feet,” she said.

  We got to the car and she helped me into the passenger seat. And then we sped out of the parking lot like the devil himself was after us. I was about to ask what the hurry was when I spotted an SUV—my SUV—parked in a back corner of the lot, Luke’s face peering out from behind the wheel. He was watching the front of the motel, clearly more interested in Xander than Sara and me. But he wasn’t going to see him.

  Xander was gone. He’d slipped out through the bathroom window.

  “He knew Luke was here.”

  Sara glanced at me. “He told me your ex-boyfriend was after you and that he needed to get out before the guy came and beat him up.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my boss’ husband.”

  Sara’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Well, either way, Xander was convinced that you’re in danger. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “To have that leg properly treated. And to get you out of harm’s way.”

  “No.”

  Sara glanced at me again. She was so jealous that it was falling from her expression like rain from the sky.

  “He’s worried. I promised I’d protect you.”

  “Where is he?”

  She shook her head. “He said something about Austin.”

  He was going to Gray Wolf.

  I turned in my seat and searched for the sedan. It was still there, meaning he’d stolen a car or called a taxi. Probably stole a car. I’d never catch up with him now.

  But I had to try.

  Sara slowed for a stop light and I jumped out of the car, running on my sore leg as fast as I could, ducking into a small coffee shop in case she decided to come after me. After a moment, however, it was clear that she’d done as much as she was willing to do. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t know if I would have been too excited to help a former lover help his new lover.

  I limped to a table that looked out over the whole city block and watched the front of the motel. Luke was still there, having not noticed my escape, I supposed. And the sedan was still there.

  Where was Xander?

  I turned on my phone and scrolled through the messages. Hayden had called me several times during the night, but there were no voicemails. I called him, wondering if … no. Xander wouldn’t have done that.

  “Where the fuck are you?” Hayden demanded.

  “We’re outside of Austin, not far from the hospital where he was taken the night of the accident.”

  “What are you doing back there?”

  “He wanted to see the accident site.”

  Hayden was quiet for a second. “Rebecca Hamilton was killed in jail last night. They say it was a fight with another prisoner, but it looks like a hit to me.”

  My heart sank. That must have meant that whoever Rebecca and Xander were working for knew that Xander was still alive. Or maybe she was hiding, too, and they just happened to catch up with her because of her arrest. Either way, this couldn’t be good news for Xander.

  “He’s not who you think he is, Rhett. He’s CIA.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s more than likely a bad agent. He was mixed up with all that Edgar Olsen stuff five years ago. We have evidence that he was working the wrong side of the case.”

  “No. You have evidence that he was involved, but you don’t know which side he was on. Not even he knows that.”

  “And when it turns out that he was on the wrong side?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “Rhett, it couldn’t be a coincidence that he chose Dragon to ask for help. And it can’t be coincidence that our investigation is uncovering all this stuff related to a case we worked and blew wide open five years ago.”

  “I wasn’t involved.”

  “No, but you represent us.”

  “Xander isn’t a bad guy, Hayden. And I’ll prove it.”

  I disconnected the phone before he could say anything more.

  I would prove it. Xander was a good man. He was honorable. A man who would open doors for women was not the kind of man who would kill a woman where she stood for nothing more than trying to learn the truth about her brother’s death. That wasn’t Xander. I knew it deep in my heart.

  I would prove it.

  Chapter 17

  Xander

  I stood across the street from the small diner, my hands tucked into the front pockets of my jeans, the collar of my leather jacket turned up against my face. I looked like a guy who was waiting for someone … at least, that’s what I hoped I looked like.

  It wasn’t hard to trail Ingram Porter. He wasn’t a careful guy. And there he was, having lunch with his petite wife and their two kids, a towheaded little boy and an infant, a baby girl not much younger than the baby in the picture the rental guy had given us. Beautiful family. Too bad I was going to have to interrupt their quiet meal.

  I’d considered running. I’d seriously thought about taking the money and Rhett, driving over the border to Mexico and living the rest of our lives down in South America somewhere. I’d considered it so seriously that I nearly spoke the words to Rhett as we lay tangled in the early morning light. But then I realized that whoever sent Rebecca after me a year ago wouldn’t just give up. We would be running for the rest of our lives unless I remembered who I was and put an end to the whole thing.

  And this man had the last bit of answers I needed. He knew the person who had cared enough to hire him to look for me.

  I needed to know who that person was. I needed to see that person’s face. A part of me believed that being near someone who loved me and who I loved would help jog my memory. It was a long shot. But this whole thing had been a long shot, and look how far we’d gotten.

  I waited until they were just about to finish up. Porter got up and went to the restroom and I figured that was my chance. I crossed the road quickly
, slipping into the diner as a couple was coming out, completely unseen by the people inside. The bathrooms were down a long hall next to the front door. I pushed the door open just as Porter was pulling it to come out.

  “What the …?”

  I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, shoving him hard up against the flimsy wall of the bathroom stall.

  “I need to know who I am.”

  “King.”

  “Yeah. Who hired you? Who sent you after me?”

  Porter snorted. “I’m here with my family, asshole. You could have just come to the office.”

  “And risked you calling the CIA or Hamilton or whoever else is after me? No thanks.”

  “Where’s Ms. Dennings?”

  “Gone. Tell me who hired you.”

  Porter jerked his arm and I let him go, allowing him to think he was taking the upper hand. I needed him to trust me. I needed him to believe that I meant no one any harm.

  He didn’t need to know about the gun tucked into the back of my jeans.

  Porter looked me over, like he was assessing a rival. He took a deep breath and sighed.

  “There’s someone you should probably talk to. Her name is Knox Adams. She was like you, went to the Marines and then entered the CIA for a short time. She knows things that might be helpful to you.”

  “Bring her here.”

  Porter tilted his head. “To the bathroom?”

  “To the diner. I want to talk to her in a public place.”

  He seemed to think about it for a while, but then he nodded. “Let me take my family home and then I’ll be back with Knox. In about an hour?”

  “If you don’t show up, I’ll come looking for you again. And it won’t be this pleasant then.”

  Porter just nodded.

  I sat in a booth near the front of the diner so that I could watch people coming and going. A pretty waitress kept coming by to ask me if I was okay, a sweet little smile on her face. I watched her coming toward me at one point and wondered if the man I used to be would have considered doing something about her flirtation. Maybe. But when I looked at her, all I saw was that she wasn’t Rhett.

  Was it possible for a man to change? If I was a criminal, a bad guy, could I be a good guy now? Or would my memories bring back that personality that likely was responsible for all the darkness Hayden was spreading about me?

  I kept running it through my mind. Hayden Dubois, Megan Bradford-Murphy, Peter Bradford, and Luke Murphy. The moment Rebecca said their names, I knew I knew those people. I knew they were important to me for some reason. Several other names popped into my head, too, names I never heard anyone speak, people I was pretty sure I’d never met. Dominic Gil. Amy Greene. Emily Greene. Colin Watson. I didn’t know them, but their names seemed just as important.

  I needed answers. I needed to know who I was.

  Porter returned after an hour, just like he promised. Accompanying him was a pretty redhead, a small woman who reminded me of Rhett somehow. She strutted right up to the table, clearly not afraid of me.

  “Xander King. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’ve heard a lot of stories about you. I joined the CIA just about the time you retired.”

  “Did we ever meet?”

  “No. But the stories made me feel like I knew you.”

  She slid into the bench across from me, her eyes moving over my face like she was trying to memorize every inch of it. It was making me nervous.

  “What do you know about me?”

  She sat back. “Well, when you first joined the CIA, you insisted on working terrorism even though they wanted to put you in computer analysis. They said you were a genius when it came to computers, which was why they recruited you. But you wanted to be out in the field, to make a difference.”

  I inclined my head slightly. That sounded noble.

  “You were in Afghanistan for quite some time, working side by side with soldiers there, trying to identify terrorists. And then you moved to other places all around the world—Libya, Beirut, Iran, Iraq, Egypt—anywhere they needed you. I heard you had a pretty impressive record. Pulled down more terrorist cells than anyone else in a comparable position.”

  “And then Paris.”

  Her eyebrows rose slightly. “You were in France. You were working with Edgar Olsen and his elite group of agents. They’d identified a terror group right there in Paris thanks to a young agent’s interview of a kid in Afghanistan. I don’t know exactly what happened, but you went to Paris to handle Emily Greene and Dominic Gil’s undercover infiltration of the terror cell.”

  There were those names. They were CIA?

  Knox sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “And then things got muddy. The operation went south because Ms. Greene’s sister showed up and broke her cover. Multiple people were arrested, but it turned out they were just lower level and not really part of the hierarchy of the cell. But the CIA wasn’t aware of that fact for some time. It wasn’t until Emily Greene died a few years later that research she’d been doing on her own exposed the rest of the cell.”

  I tilted my head slightly. None of this sounded familiar to me.

  “I was just a lower level agent,” Knox continued, watching me closely. “But I have a friend who’s still with the Company and he told me a few things last night that you might find interesting.” She leaned forward, her hands braced on the table top. She looked me in the eye as she continued. “You never really believed the terrorist cell was done, either. But the people in charge at the Company didn’t want to hear it. And then you were reassigned to a case in Houston. A man working for a telecommunications company was making waves by investigating some software from his company that had gone missing. You were supposed to keep an eye on him, see if his suspicions panned out.”

  “I can’t imagine that was a very glamorous assignment after the ones I’d had before.”

  “Yeah.” Knox straightened up again. “The Company can be quite vindictive sometimes. That’s why I left.” She sighed, her thoughts clearly going elsewhere for a moment. Then she focused on me again. “My guess is, you were given a puff job in punishment for things going astray in Paris. But while you were watching this guy, he suddenly died in a car accident. Only it wasn’t a real car accident. It was staged by a former CIA agent working with Edgar Olsen.”

  “That got my curiosity up, I’m guessing.”

  She nodded. “But you were moved off the case and reassigned. Seven months went by and the sister of the guy in the car accident started looking into the software first and then the accident. She started making people nervous in the Company. They sent you back to find out what she was up to. And that’s where things got complicated.

  My friend told me that the Company suspected you’d gone rogue, that Edgar Olsen had approached you—though they didn’t know it was him at the time—and offered you a cushy deal if you’d work with him. Olsen had his own reasons for wanting the software investigation squashed. And the investigation into the car accident could have revealed that he’d been holding the guy hostage for some time, so he really didn’t want that investigated. And he got help from a surprising source: the sister’s former fiancé.”

  Luke Murphy. The name just jumped into my head.

  Knox studied my face for a long moment. “Any of this ringing any bells?”

  “No.”

  She glanced at Porter. He gestured for her to continue.

  “The next little bit is still pretty cloudy. The CIA is still investigating who was working for Edgar Olsen, who wasn’t, and who knew who they were working for. It seems that Olsen used his influence as an agent to get legitimate agents to do his bidding without realizing they were working on the wrong side of the equation.

  This one guy, Colin Watson, thought he was working for the good guys. He honestly believed what Olsen told him about this Dominic Gil being a terrorist. Olsen convinced him that Gil went over to the dark side while he was in Paris working with Emi
ly Greene and that he was trying to hide evidence that would prove who the real traitor was. So Watson went after him and ended up dead as a result.”

  None of that was familiar even though it felt like it should be. I had no memory of this Colin Watson, no memory of his death. No memory of Dominic Gil or his partner, Emily Greene. None of it was familiar.

  How could that be?

  “Olsen used his position with the CIA to not only create this terror cell that he used to make money off of failing economies, but he used his position to get good agents to work for him. To hurt innocent people thinking they were doing something good?”

  “A lot of good agents retired after this thing went public because of what they’d done to help Olsen. Olsen had a stellar reputation within the CIA. If it hadn’t been for the work Emily Greene did in researching him, and the efforts of Megan Bradford-Murphy and her team at Dragon Security, Olsen would likely still be using his terrorists to make money and the CIA would still be searching for him.”

  I nodded, something clicking in my head when she mentioned Dragon. Had I gone to Dragon because there was some memory locked in my head that told me they were trustworthy? Or was it just a coincidence?

  “You and Rebecca Hamilton were on the case from the beginning. You were tasked with watching Megan Bradford-Murphy, so it was kind of your fault that she stumbled on the truth and was able to identify Olsen. If you’d done your job, she never would have gotten Emily Greene’s files and never would have been able to identify Olsen through them. And she never would have rescued her brother. My friend …”

  She studied my face again, like she was looking for something that told her how I would take the next bit of news. “My friend told me that it’s suspected you knew it was Olsen for some time and that you might have led Hamilton and your superiors down a false road in order to give Megan time to do what she needed to do. Because, from what I’ve been told, it took quite some time for Megan to figure out the truth because someone corrupted the file her people took from Greene.”