DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Do you know the name?” she asked. “I mean, how many people with that last name could live in the same town where you lived?”

  I chuckled softly. “You forget, it’s Louisiana. Dubois is a fairly common name there.” But then I sighed, realizing it was time to level with her, to finally tell her the truth she’d been asking for ever since I pulled her in on this investigation. “There’s no such thing as coincidences, Waverly.”

  “Is she your mother?”

  I shook my head. “My mother died. She’s my grandmother.”

  She sat up, something like pity filling her eyes.

  “Hayden,” she said slowly, “what happened to your mom?”

  I threw myself back against the pillows, resting my arms behind my head. I stared up at the ceiling, aware of Waverly watching me closely. She was waiting, but she wasn’t patient. I knew she wouldn’t wait long before the questions began to bubble over like a pot left to boil too long.

  I closed my eyes, recent nightmares that had been filling my sleeping hours coming back to me. They weren’t just nightmares, really. They were memories.

  “We were in New York City, my parents and me. We were in this big, fancy hotel in the middle of Manhattan and we’d spent the day doing what a family on vacation does: going to museums and Central Park, and shopping. That night, my parents were on their way to a Broadway play, but they had to wait for the hotel to send up a sitter because it was the nanny’s night off. They were all dressed up, flirting with each other in the sitting room. I was supposed to be in bed, but I was standing behind the couch, watching. I wanted to go with them, but I knew they wouldn’t allow it.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Six.”

  She made a sound, kind of like the sound Sam had made when I told her about that night. I didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know that she pitied me.

  “There was a knock on the door. Two men came into the room. Long story short, I hid and they tortured and murdered my parents for just a couple of pieces of jewelry and some cash. It really didn’t amount to much. When they left and the nanny came back and found me, I told the cops what I’d seen. They made me testify at the trial.”

  “That’s … I’ve never heard of such a thing! You were only six!”

  “Eight when the trial came along.”

  “Hayden …”

  “The guys who did it went to prison. One, Willard Todd, is still in prison. The other man …”

  I glanced at Waverly, pain rushing through my body as I recalled the last moments of Sam’s life. That man had taken my parents from me, had made threats against me, and then he took Sam as she stepped in front of the bullet that was meant for me.

  “That’s horrible,” Waverly said softly.

  “The murders in Louisiana and the one in Coronado? They were exact replicas of what happened in New York to my parents.”

  “Why?”

  I snorted. “If I knew that …”

  I climbed off the bed and snatched up my pants, pulling them on with thoughts of going home. The idea of returning to the condo that once belonged to Sam and sleeping in the bed that we’d shared bothered me more than it ever had before. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay here, either.

  “Did I ever tell you that my father was in prison?”

  I glanced at her. “No, you never mentioned it.”

  “Because we don’t talk about it in my family. And I was only six months old when it all went down, so I’m not even clear what his crime was. I’ve never met him. The few times I’ve asked my mom about him, she’s brushed me off and told me it wasn’t important.”

  She stretched on the bed, her naked body on display in all its lithe beauty. And she was beautiful. Her hair was dark, her eyes a golden, green sort of hazel. Her skin was tan, the sort of tan that came with the touch of Asian heritage I could see in the slight almond shape of her eyes and the delicacy of her bone structure. Her breasts were small, a lovely handful, and her hips were narrow, just barely wide enough to hold onto.

  “My mother told me she packed me and my sister up the moment he was arrested and took us away. She said we tried to make a go of it in several places, but she couldn’t find work once people realized who she was married to. So she changed our names. All of us. Then she started over here in Houston and married my stepdad.”

  It took me a second to remember what we’d been talking about. I had to turn away, beginning a search for my shirt before I remembered.

  “Good for her,” I muttered, remembering the day my grandparents had come to a similar decision.

  “We all have secrets, Hayden.”

  “You’re lucky you don’t remember. You don’t have to live with the shadow of your father’s crime.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I was there. Reliving that night is all I did for years. And just when I found a place where I felt safe again, a place where I could let go of the guilt that had plagued me all those years, I witnessed a new murder and stood impotent as another person I loved died at the hands of one of those killers.” I jerked my shirt over my head. “So, you see, your secrets have nothing to do with mine.”

  “I know what you went through was awful—”

  “Awful?” I grabbed my shoes and headed toward the door. “Awful isn’t a strong enough word for what I went through. And watching it happen again to other innocent kids, to kids whose parents aren’t coming home, kids whose parents suffered things that imagination is probably making just as bad as witnessing the real thing was, is making me physically ill. It’s killing me. Whoever’s doing this, they have no idea what they’re doing. Not really.”

  Waverly inclined her head. “Then give me details. Names. Locations. Dates. I’ll get you as much information on the people who might have as deep a personal stake in all this as you. A list of suspects.”

  I paused in the bedroom doorway. “I’ll email you.”

  I walked away and, as was par for the course, she didn’t try to stop me.

  A part of me wished she would have.

  Chapter 2

  Amelia

  I watched Rowan walk around the room with nothing but a towel around his waist. He was such a handsome man! There were marks on his body from the adventures of the last day or so, but those only added to the masculinity that oozed from him. They made him sexier. If I wasn’t so exhausted …

  “It’s been a long day, babe. You should get some rest.”

  It had been. We’d been brought home on a luxury jet that belonged to Dragon Security, my employer, after being on the run for more than a week. Rowan was a software expert in robotics and he’d gotten himself caught up in a scheme to sell a weapons guidance system that being developed at his company to a foreign government. It was a mess that led to the murder of a woman being pinned on Rowan, then to someone shooting up the front of my condo, sending us on the run, and on to a bus accident that left me with internal injuries. And then another accident, a truck that overturned and left bruises all along Rowan’s side.

  What a way to meet the love of my life. But I had no doubt that this was where I was meant to be. Well, maybe not here exactly. Neither of us could go home just yet. Rowan’s house was still considered a crime scene because of the woman’s murder. And my condo was still missing important chunks of the front kitchen wall as well as the massive greenhouse window. Dragon had generously put us up in a hotel—a nice hotel that was definitely a step up from the cash-only motels we’d been staying in earlier.

  I was glad to have a place to lay my head with Rowan. But he was right: it had been a long day.

  He crawled into bed beside me, losing the towel as he did. I moved instantly into his arms, pressing my cheek to his chest. He was warm and smelled wonderful after his shower. If this was what normalcy was going to be from here on out, then it was well worth it. I couldn’t wait to get started on our future.

  His hand slipped down the length of my back.

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I was whe
n the cops let me go tonight. There was this little bit of doubt deep in my head …”

  “Yeah, me too.” I kissed his chest lightly. “But that’s what Dragon does. They keep digging until they uncover the truth.”

  “I’m glad I came to you. If I hadn’t, I’d probably be in jail right now.”

  “And we wouldn’t have met.”

  “That’s the real tragedy.”

  I smiled, keeping my face turned so he couldn’t see the absolute delight that radiated there. I’d been content with my life. I had a good job, a very small network of friends, and a crush on a safe guy, Hayden, who would likely never have taken me up on my many overtures of romance. It was an ordered life. Safe. I had never imagined I’d fall in love, let alone with a guy like Rowan.

  But I don’t think I’d ever been happier.

  He kissed the top of my head. I moved, catching his lips before he could turn away. He pushed me onto my back and we moved into each other, sighs of contentment flowing from our lips. I ran my hands over his skin, still getting to know the angles and valleys of his hard, muscular body. His hands explored my body and I was so ready to be touched. It was still so new, still so exciting. I hoped it always stayed that way.

  It was late and no one knew we were there except a few of my colleagues at Dragon. So when a knock came on the door, it gave me pause.

  “Who could that be?”

  Rowan glanced at the door. “Hayden?”

  “He would have called first.”

  Another knock filled the room with a sense of urgency. Rowan sighed, his lips grazing my forehead before he climbed out of bed and searched through the bag someone had packed for him. He pulled out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, yanking them on as a third round of knocking, more urgent than the last two, filled the room.

  “Patience,” Rowan muttered under his breath.

  Dressed, he crossed the room as a fourth round of knocking began. He yanked the door open just out of my line of sight. I sat up, running my hands over my short hair before tugging my T-shirt back into place. Chances were good it was someone I worked with, so I wanted to be at least partially presentable. But then I heard something …

  I couldn’t see what was happening, but there was a thud, like someone being pushed out of the way. Instinct kicked in and I slipped out of bed, snatching my firearm from my bag across the room and sliding it under my pillow just as Rowan came back into the room, his arm twisted behind his back by a tall, broad-shouldered man as three people, all wearing masks, invaded our room.

  “What the hell?” I demanded.

  Rowan’s eyes were wild as he frantically searched the room for a way to get loose. Another guy sidled up alongside the bed and eyed me, his tongue sliding out from the slit of a mouth on the mask.

  “Hello, beautiful!” he said in a way that made it quite clear that he wasn’t offering me a compliment. “I expected youthful. Didn’t expect such beauty.”

  He reached out to touch my cheek. I jerked back. He laughed, spittle flying everywhere.

  “Oh, a spitfire!! I love spitfires!” The man glanced back at Rowan, who was fighting against the man holding him, and said, “This one is going to be so much more entertaining than the last!”

  “Who are you?” I demanded. “What do you want from us?”

  “Don’t you get it, sweetheart?” the apparent chosen spokesman asked. “We’re here to have a little fun with you and make that man of yours watch!”

  And with that, he dove onto me there on the bed, forcing me back against the mattress. I would have cried out, but the momentum of his sudden movement forced all air out of my lungs. For a long second, I couldn’t catch my breath and panic rose.

  His hands were on me, under my shirt, and Rowan was screaming profanities, fighting so hard against his captor that I couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken free or injured something. And all the while, the third person who’d invaded the room, a smaller person dressed in a bulky sweatshirt and jeans, just leaned back against the low dresser and watched.

  The man on top of me ripped my shirt right down the middle and took a mouthful of my bare breast in his mouth, biting down so hard that I could actually feel the skin break before the most intense pain shot through me. I couldn’t scream because my lungs were still fighting to refill themselves, but tears ran hotly down my cheeks. I pushed at his chest and his shoulders, slapping the top of his head. None of it fazed him. He moved from one breast to the other, his hand sliding down my belly to the top of my panties. Rowan bellowed, screaming for me.

  My attacker grabbed my wrists and pinned my arms above my head as he began to bite down on my other breast. I screamed this time, pain like nothing I’d ever known shooting through me.

  I was so caught up in the pain, in the shame and terror and anger at the assault and in the sound of Rowan’s struggle that I nearly forgot about the gun. But then I felt the cold metal brush the back of my hand just as the man laughed, spraying me with foul-smelling spittle, holding my ripped panties above him in triumph.

  The man holding Rowan laughed with something like glee. The next thing I knew Rowan was free and he was tearing at the man on top of me, trying to pull him away. The man turned slightly, fighting him off as he called to his friend, “Hey, get him off me!”

  It was all the distraction I needed. I slipped my hand under the pillow and grabbed the gun, flicking the safety off as I pressed it against my attacker’s belly.

  “Get the fuck off of me!”

  He went still and that gave Rowan the moment he needed to pull him off of me. Rowan threw him to the ground and kicked him multiple times, slamming his foot into the man’s ribs and his crotch, smashing the erection that had, seconds ago, been pressed against my hip. The other man rushed Rowan and I fired, hitting him in the shoulder.

  “Stay back, asshole!”

  The second man backed up, holding his hands up in the air. Well, at least one arm.

  I sat up, turning the gun to focus on the third invader. But that one, the watcher, was gone.

  “Rowan,” I said.

  He didn’t even look at me. He was still kicking my attacker, kicking him everywhere. The man’s nose exploded into a pool of blood, his jaw swelling, small moans turning into nothing at all as he curled himself into a ball in a failed attempt to protect himself.

  “Rowan, stop!”

  He focused on me and on the gun in my shaking hands. He came to me, his hands inches from my body as though he was afraid to touch me. He gripped the barrel of the gun, but I couldn’t let it go.

  The second man made a run for the door. Rowan glanced at him, but didn’t make an attempt to stop him. Then the man was being pushed back into the room by men in dark suits.

  Hotel security.

  It was over, ending as abruptly as it had begun.

  Chapter 3

  Hayden

  I wasn’t a mile from Waverly’s house when the call came.

  “Amelia’s been taken to the hospital. She was attacked in her hotel room.”

  It was Vincent, Dragon’s head of investigations.

  “Who? Someone from Johnson Robotics?”

  “We don’t know yet. The cops haven’t been able to sort it all out. She shot one of them and McGregor beat the shit out of the other one. And Amelia …” He was quiet for a second. “She’s not talking much.”

  Amelia not talking? That was highly unusual.

  “I spoke to the manager at the hotel and he told me that when security arrived—summoned by neighboring guests because of a gunshot—she was wearing torn clothing and bleeding from wounds on her breasts. It sounds like … well, like she was raped.”

  That word was like a heavy stone dropped in the center of the ocean. I felt … heavier. And profoundly sad.

  “What hospital?”

  ***

  She was sitting up in bed, her face a mask of sedatives and pain killers. She wasn’t focusing on anything, not even the man sitting patiently at her side, talking quietly, murmuring apologi
es and words of comfort that clearly weren’t quite making their way past her drug-induced haze. She looked up when she heard the door, briefly focusing on my face.

  “Hayden,” she said softly.

  Rowan glanced at me and then his eyes fell to the floor, shame bright on his pale cheeks.

  I walked up to the bed and touched Amelia’s hand. She smiled weakly.

  “They’ve got her sedated, but she refuses to close her eyes,” Rowan said.

  “You’ve always been stubborn,” I told Amelia. But as I said it, her eyes began to droop. Even Amelia’s stubbornness couldn’t fight a good sedative. When she was asleep, I touched Rowan’s shoulder and gestured for him to follow me out into the hallway.

  Rowan looked exhausted. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, his eyes following the movement of every person who happened to pass us in the hall, his shoulders stiff with expectation. Or dread.

  “Is she okay?”

  Rowan shrugged. “Physically, the doctor said she’d be okay. She’s bruised and there are bites … but she only needed a couple of stitches.”

  “Mentally?”

  His eyes dropped to the ground again. I could see the weight on his shoulders almost as though it was an actual object that he was carrying around.

  “What happened?”

  He acted as though he didn’t hear me. I waited for him to swim up through his sense of guilt and shame. It was a struggle I could understand. If my woman had been raped … I’m not sure I’d have been standing calmly in a hospital corridor.

  “Three men came to the door. When I opened it, they shoved me back and one of them twisted my arms behind me. Then another announced that he was there to …”

  He shivered. I touched his arm to offer a small amount of consolation.

  “There were three?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One was holding you. The other was … what was the third doing?”

  Rowan shook his head. “Just watching.”

  I frowned. There was something not right about this. “What did they say to each other? Did they talk?”