Because it could still be about more than just the nightmare in Rio.
“Why is your file sealed?” Sydney pressed. “Tell me. Or don’t.” Anger. “I can find out on my own—it will just take a little longer.”
But Mercer would have safeguards in place to block access to Cassidy’s file. If Sydney did manage to hack her way through the system, Mercer would find out.
Then what would happen to Sydney?
“I’m no one important,” Cassidy said. No hitch, no hitch. She was working hard to control that tell. “Just a girl in the wrong place.”
Sydney’s gaze searched hers. “At the wrong time?”
She nodded.
“Bull.” Sydney’s blunt response.
Cassidy let her smile fade. “You don’t want to dig into my past.”
“We’ve all got darkness dodging us.” Sydney edged a bit closer. “I just want to make sure your darkness won’t hurt Gunner.”
Mr. Tall, Dark and Scary. Who was obviously smitten with the blonde. “Gunner seems to be a man who can protect himself.”
“He can.” There was absolute certainty in her voice. Then Sydney pressed, “What’s your secret? Will it hurt Gunner?”
Yes. “I’m not an agent, and I’m not an asset.”
Sydney nodded. “You’re a personal link.”
“Yes.”
She’d made the reveal because she wouldn’t let her past hurt these people. Going in blind? No, that wasn’t what she wanted.
Wasn’t it past time that she stopped following Mercer’s orders?
“Personal...to Mercer,” Sydney said, seeming to understand.
It was Cassidy’s turn to nod. Before she could say anything else, the door opened. Cale was there, looking strong and determined and so sexy that he made her ache.
For a few hours, she’d dared to dream of having something more with him.
Then reality had come crashing down on her. The cold press of reality hurt.
“Is Cassidy’s tracking signal set?” Cale wanted to know.
Sydney stepped back, moving with surprising speed despite her pregnancy. “Yes. She’s good. We can find her anywhere.”
“Good.” Cale offered his hand to Cassidy. “Come with me.”
Anywhere. No, that wasn’t what she was supposed to say. She was supposed to keep playing it cool, uninvolved. So what if Cale was the first man who’d actually seemed to want her in years?
Not the false image that she presented to the world. But the real person she kept hidden inside.
Her fingers curled around his.
“We leave in forty-five minutes,” Gunner reminded them.
Cale nodded, and then he guided her from the room. He hurried her outside through the narrow hallway. She wondered if they were going back upstairs to meet with Mercer, but—
But then Cale opened a door on the right. He led her inside the small office and locked the door behind them.
He seemed to fill that space. His scent wrapped around her, and she remembered—too vividly—what it was like to be locked in his arms. To be holding him tight in the darkness.
“Mercer doesn’t want me near you.”
Ah, yes, those blunt words were what she’d anticipated.
“I told Mercer to screw off.” Cale pulled her against him. The heat of his body seemed to sear her. “I’m not ready to give you up.”
Not exactly an undying declaration of love. But...
They weren’t talking about love, were they? They had need, desire, and it was a whole lot more than she’d felt in a long time.
“We’ll get your friend back. After that, I’ll take you someplace safe.” His head lowered, and his lips feathered over hers. “But then I want you.”
She could feel his need pressing against her. Rather hard for a girl to miss a sign like that.
“Mercer was right...I am dangerous. Violent. I’ve killed.”
She wanted his mouth back on hers. Not a teasing soft kiss, but hard and fierce and deep. A kiss that made her feel alive.
The way he seemed to so effortlessly do.
“I’m not a good man for you to want.”
He was the only one she wanted.
“But I can’t give you up. Not yet.” Then he was kissing her the way she wanted. With hot passion, stark need. His tongue thrust into her mouth even as his hands curled around her hips, and he lifted her up against his arousal.
She couldn’t ever remember being wanted that completely.
Mercer had asked Cale if he was becoming obsessed.
Cassidy wondered if she was because Cale seemed to be in her very blood.
Her fingers pressed into the broad width of his shoulders as she clung to him. They didn’t have time, didn’t have the privacy for what she wanted.
But she still kissed him...letting him taste the passion that she felt for him. So hot.
“Give me time,” he rasped against her lips. “Don’t vanish with him, not yet.”
She didn’t want to vanish ever again.
“Too many people have left before I was ready,” Cale said. His mouth was inches from hers. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“You won’t.” Because she was done running. Cale...she wanted to stay with him. Wanted the passion and the life that others had so easily.
With Cale.
It didn’t seem wrong to her. Nothing had ever seemed more right.
“I’m going to stay with you tonight. Every second, understand?”
Yes, she did.
“When this is over, it will be just you and me.”
That was what she wanted.
“You and me,” Cale repeated.
Those were the words she’d hold tight. They would get her through the danger that was coming.
* * *
CASSIDY’S TELEPHONE RANG as they reached the designated meeting spot. The peal made her jerk in surprise, but Cale had expected the call.
Sydney would be monitoring Cassidy’s phone, trying to track the call’s origin and figure out exactly who they were dealing with.
They’d tried to track the first call but had come up empty-handed. The call had been too brief for them to get a good lock on it.
Maybe this time they’d get luckier.
Cale knew that Gunner watched them from the shelter of the darkness on the left, up on the second story of the squat building located there. As a sniper, he always enjoyed a high perch that let him watch his prey.
As for Drew Lancaster, the man that Mercer had insisted accompany them, he was to the right, cloaked by the trees.
Cassidy fumbled as she yanked out her phone. “Genevieve?”
She hit the speaker button so that he could hear.
“H-he said you didn’t come alone.” Genevieve’s quivering voice. “He can see you, Cassidy. Y-you didn’t come alone.”
“You never said for me to come alone.” Cassidy’s voice was so quiet that Cale wondered if Genevieve could hear the response. “And he’s—he’s my boyfriend, Genevieve. He wouldn’t let me come alone. He’s stayed with me, ever since we met in Rio.”
Silence.
“The man...from the ball?” Then Genevieve sucked in a sharp breath. “No! Cassidy!”
The shot rang out then, blasting toward them. Cale shoved Cassidy out of the way, but then he realized that the shot hadn’t been aimed at her.
At me.
He tapped his transmitter. “Gunner, tell me that you’ve got eyes on the SOB.” Crouching, he backed Cassidy up, making sure to shield her even as he drew his weapon.
“From the northeast, using a rifle.” A low whistle from Gunner. “Taking aim on him now...”
A crack filled the air. Only this time, the EOD was the one taking the shot.
“Genevieve?” Cassidy’s frantic voice. “Genevieve, please, talk to me!”
He glanced over at her. Cassidy still had her phone out. The device was pressed to her ear as she desperately tried to get her friend on the line once more.
&
nbsp; Her gaze met his. Cassidy shook her head.
He bit off a curse.
“Heading to the northeast corner now,” Lancaster said in his ear. Cale could hear the uneven thud of the other agent’s footsteps.
And then...
Another crack split the night.
The bullet sank into concrete inches away from Cale.
Cassidy screamed.
Cale returned fire, having seen the glint off the weapon too late.
Not one shooter, two. The guys had come prepared for the EOD.
Or else they’d come prepared to kill Cassidy.
Just how many men were they facing in that darkness?
It didn’t matter. Three EOD agents could handle just about anything.
He shoved Cassidy even farther behind him and took aim again when he saw that glint.
“I’ve got him,” Gunner said into his ear. “But I’m also seeing two more bodies moving on the ground. You need to get her out of there.”
“Northeast corner is empty, but there’s blood on the ground. Gunner got a hit,” Lancaster told them in the next instant. “There are motorcycle tracks back here. Fresh, from the look of them—”
He broke off, and the sound of gunfire had Cale’s eardrums aching.
A trap.
The hit from the northeast corner had been designed to draw out Cale’s team. And, sure enough, Drew had gone right back there—lured by the bait.
“Lancaster!” Now Cale was the one trying to frantically get a response.
“H-hit,” Lancaster responded weakly. “Get...out...”
The EOD didn’t leave a team member behind. That wasn’t how they worked.
But he wasn’t going to risk Cassidy, either. These bastards wanted her, but they’d have to go through him in order to get her.
“Give me cover, Gunner, and get backup out here—”
“Sydney’s already got it on the way.”
He kept a tight grip on Cassidy’s wrist. “Move with me. Every step.”
She nodded.
Then they were off, rushing back through the dark woods, heading for the safety of the SUV that waited near the street and—
“Cassidy!”
Cassidy froze.
“No! Keep going!” Cale ordered.
She tried to pull away from him. “That’s Genevieve!”
It was another trap. One designed to bring her into the darkness, the same way that Lancaster had been lured in. Only...
“There’s no exchange planned. He’s not going to let her go. He’ll take you both.” She had to see that.
Cassidy stared back at him. “But we knew that was the plan all along, didn’t we? That’s why you’re here. Why I’m here. Why I’ve got the tracker.”
His jaw ached.
“So let’s do this.” She yanked her hand away from him. “Just follow me. She’s here.”
And Cassidy could be tracked anywhere.
Then a hail of bullets broke the night.
No! Cassidy could be tracked, but if a bullet took her out... More gunfire told him that this wasn’t about capturing Cassidy. Not about using her.
It was about killing her.
And Cassidy was running away from him. Running toward Genevieve’s fading scream.
“No!”
He had to go with her.
Cale lunged after Cassidy.
And that was the moment when the world exploded around him. They’d planned carefully, wearing bulletproof vests, putting Gunner up for surveillance... Even Mercer was staked out just a block away.
But they hadn’t counted on the bomb.
It lit the whole night.
The force from the blast lifted Cale up and tossed him back, away from Cassidy. He yelled her name, desperate, as he slammed back down into the earth.
But Cassidy didn’t answer him.
And as the flames flickered and spread, he shouted for her, again and again.
* * *
FOUR DEAD BODIES were recovered at the scene. Four men in black, men who’d been taken out by Cale and Gunner’s bullets.
Four bodies, but no sign of Genevieve or of Cassidy.
“You were supposed to protect her!” Mercer snarled, spittle flying from his mouth.
They were still at the scene. The heavy scents of ash and blood filled the air.
He’d expected Mercer’s fury. The same fury—and fear—were coiling dangerously within him. Where is Cassidy?
“Get Sydney to activate her tracking device.” That was the plan, right? He glared at Mercer. “This was your idea. You were the one who wanted—”
To use your own daughter.
But I was the fool who agreed to the plan. Because Cassidy had been so desperate to get her friend back.
Mercer glared at him. An ambulance’s swirling lights flashed. “You said you’d keep her with you every single minute.”
“Get the track going!”
He spun away from Mercer before he gave in to the urge to drive his fist right into the man’s face. When he turned, Cale saw Lancaster being loaded into the back of an ambulance.
“The track’s on.” Sydney’s quiet voice. Sydney’s here? He looked to the left and saw Gunner holding her within the protective circle of his arms.
“Cassidy is three miles over, heading east on Brookley.”
Hell, yes.
“We’ve got a link on her and—” Sydney broke off, frowning at the small monitor gripped in her hand.
“Sydney?”
She looked up at him, frowning. “We lost the signal.”
“Then get it back!”
She started typing quickly on the keypad. She tapped her transmitter, talking with her team back at the EOD office.
A heavy cold began to spread through his gut. “Sydney?”
She shook her head. “Her tracking device went off-line.”
Fear was driving his rage, breaking his control. Cassidy never should have been there. He’d told her and Mercer the plan was crap. “Why? Why isn’t it working?”
Sydney licked her lips. Her gaze darted over his shoulder. To Mercer? “I don’t know.”
* * *
CASSIDY SCREAMED WHEN the knife plunged into the curve of her shoulder. A man’s rough hands held her down, forcing her against the side of the van.
The van. The big, black van that had been waiting for her after the fire had erupted, separating her from Cale.
Cale!
“Let’s see them find you now,” the man muttered.
They’d taken out her tracking device. They’d known exactly where the device was located. How?
“We know your secrets, Cassidy Sherridan,” the man told her as he ran the bloody tip of his blade over her cheek. “And soon we’ll know your father’s secrets, too.”
This wasn’t about the Executioner. We were wrong. Genevieve had been taken...Cassidy had been taken—because of Mercer. Not because of the killer in Rio.
The van bumped and jostled, and Cassidy remembered another night. Another time.
It had been a van back then, too. A big white van. A delivery van. It had been broken down in the middle of the road. Her mother had stopped to see if she could help the driver.
Then the men with guns had jumped from that van.
Her mother had screamed for Cassidy to stay in the car.
The car hadn’t been any protection.
“What will the big man do in order to get you back?”
Her mother had fought. She’d been so desperate to protect Cassidy.
She’d fought and she’d died.
“Where’s Genevieve?” Because she’d heard her friend’s screams. They had pulled her away from Cale. Genevieve had been there in that park.
“She didn’t survive the little rendezvous with you.” Mocking laughter from him. From the man that she still couldn’t see. “But don’t worry, your Genny did her job just fine. She brought us you.”
Genevieve was dead? It felt as if he’d just shoved that bloody knife ri
ght in her chest.
No, Genevieve should have been saved. It had been a rescue mission.
The van bumped again. Her blood soaked her shirt. Her shoulder throbbed. Burned.
“You’ll tell us everything,” the man ordered, his voice low and sinister. “Everything you know about your father...and your lover. We know Cale Lane is EOD. You’ll tell us about him, about them both.”
And she’d still die.
Her mother had fought.
I am my mother’s daughter.
They should have checked her for weapons. They’d made the same mistake that Cale had made before. Story of her life—always being underestimated.
Their foolish mistake. She hadn’t walked into that park unarmed.
She was sitting with her legs curled toward her body. This time she wasn’t packing a knife in her ankle holster. Her boots hid a small gun that was secured to her ankle. Her right hand slid down, and her fingers locked around the weapon. “Get away from me.”
He laughed.
“Let me go!”
“No. I’m going to make you scream.”
The way her mother had screamed? Screamed for me to hide. Screamed and said, “Close your eyes, ma petite. Close your eyes!”
Only Cassidy hadn’t closed her eyes.
She didn’t close them now, either. She yanked up that gun, and she fired at him.
The bullet tore right through him and flew toward the front of the vehicle.
Cassidy’s captor stumbled back, roaring in pain and shock.
And another cry, pain-filled, just as shocked, came from the front of the vehicle. Then the van swerved, twisted—
Cassidy leaped to her feet. She shoved open the back door of the van. Wind whipped against her body. This was her chance. She was taking it.
The black pavement blurred beneath her eyes. It would hurt. But pain was better than dying.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“No! Stop—”
Cassidy jumped onto the pavement. She hit hard, rolled and felt the flesh tear from her hands and arms.
The van slammed on the brakes, and the scent of burning rubber filled her nose. Cassidy knew that she had to get up, she had to run, so she staggered to her feet. She stepped forward—and fell again. Her ankle throbbed painfully.
Then she heard the sirens. The sweet, beautiful sirens that were getting closer, closer, and she lifted her head and just saw the flash of red lights coming toward her.