The wildness burning inside him was only growing as the years passed. He managed to hold it back most days by throwing himself into a mission, by becoming the cold, unemotional robot he'd turned himself into ten years before when Jordan had offered him the chance of a lifetime.
A chance to walk away. To fight without rules. To make a difference. Had he made a difference?
Not enough of one.
He still couldn't sleep at night. He still awoke to the sounds of gunfire, of his daughter's screams before he could reach the car she had died in. If he had made enough of a difference, wouldn't those nightmares have left him by now? Wouldn't he be able to sleep in peace?
He stared at the bed, perfectly made, large, comfortable. The Suites had nearperfect beds. And he knew from experience he would find no sleep in them. He left the helmet lying on the couch as he grabbed the keys to the Harley and left the room. Closing the door tight behind him, Nik made his way from the hotel to the shadowed back lot where he'd parked, and quickly checked the bike over before straddling it and giving the key a quick twist.
If he couldn't sleep, that left work. And he had plenty of work to do here. If he was going to figure out if Maddix was lying, then the place to start was with the girl. All good girls had their secret little vices. There was no such thing as innocence or purity. Mikayla Martin might have a lot of good in her, but Nik was betting she was hiding a lot of bad as well. The key to getting past the good girl's defenses was to find her vices.
She might not party, but she did like to dance. She didn't have a steady boyfriend, but she was prone to date quite often. She was definitely a mystery. Pulling from the parking lot, Nik hit the brightly lit streets of Wesel Boulevard while heading for the Cancun Cantina just minutes away.
Tehya's initial investigation into Mikayla showed a girl who loved her job, her family, her friends, and having fun in general. She was serious when she had to be, but she enjoyed her social life.
She was a different kind of woman, he thought. He wasn't certain if he knew how to deal with a woman who enjoyed her social life just as well as she enjoyed her job. He was used to women who were somber, cynical, bitter, and/or psychotic. Women who had lived on the dark side too long, for whatever reason. Even those who worked with the team had their mental scars, their dark sides. They'd seen too much, 32
knew too much about the evil that existed within the shadows. She didn't look like a woman who knew anything about evil. She would be the type of woman that would provide a man the calm within the storm. Or would she remind him of everything he had never known or had and the innocence would be something to resent?
As Nik pulled into the Cantina lot he couldn't imagine that. He couldn't imagine resenting the peace that could be found in her arms.
He shook his head. His father had once told him that peace came from within a man. It was a peace Nik had yet to find within himself.
Securing the Harley, he strode into the Cantina, the loud music, weekend gaiety, and dim lighting similar to nearly every other club he'd been in during his time with the Elite Ops.
The dance floor was packed, bodies gyrating to the music pounding out from the surprisingly good country western group performing.
He scanned the room, searching for hair the color of wheat. Mikayla was a creature of habit, so he should find her here tonight.
She worked diligently at her shop five days a week and most nights. On Sunday she had lunch and dinner with her parents and she was available for her brothers and friends whenever they needed her.
She had a full social life and a broad base of friends. She truly was your everyday girl next door, from all accounts.
It was now Nik's job to delve beneath those accounts and find the truth. All he had to do was protect his soul in the process.
33
Chapter 3
Mikayla tapped her fingers against the table as her date, Thad Dawson, stood beside the table talking to friends. He worked in a law firm all week and then socialized on the weekends with the same people he worked with which made little sense to her. At thirty, Thad was charming, appeared sincere, and seemed to have all the qualities of a Mr. Right. Not that she was looking for Mr. Right. She truly wasn't. But as her father often reminded her, she wasn't getting any younger. She was his baby girl, and he just wanted to see her settled. Mikayla just wanted to bring a killer to justice so she could get back to her life. She had dresses she wanted to make, unfinished designs waiting for completion. She had a life to get back to.
She should be doing something besides sitting here on a date with a man more concerned with the cases he'd been working on through the week than he was with hitting the dance floor, where she could at least expend some of the nervous energy still raging inside her.
At least she was still dating, she thought mockingly. It seemed people were divided where she and Maddix Nelson were concerned. Those who believed her, or simply considered her amusing, were inclined to allow her within their circle of friends. The other side simply gave her a wide berth.
Thad, she suspected, only still asked her out because the owner of the law firm he worked for was still close friends with her father and hadn't, so far, seemed to take a side. Things had definitely changed between her and Thad, though. The last few weeks, the budding relationship had become strained, and after tonight she doubted seriously she would see him again.
She might as well have not been here for all the attention he was showing her.
"The bastard was so guilty, Emily." Thad chuckled, breaking into Mikayla's thoughts, and rather than angry, or with a sense of offended justice, Thad sounded merely amused and almost in awe.
The bastard in question had murdered his wife.
"Hey, baby, the prosecutor knew he didn't have enough evidence. I simply pointed it out. That's why we're paid the big bucks. To make certain our clients have every advantage." Thad's friend and co-worker Emily Shaltz was filled with smug satisfaction. As the daughter of one of the partners of the law firm, she was arrogant and selfimportant. Something Mikayla had always been able to overlook in Emily. Her parents were friends of the family, and Mikayla had always tried to overlook some of Emily's more grating qualities. Until the past weeks.
Mikayla's lips tightened at the obvious, in her eyes, miscarriage of justice. No wonder so many people hated lawyers. All that mattered to them was winning. Well, to some of them. There were a few, she had to admit, who were the good guys. They just weren't a part of this circle.
"And that's why Emily is moving quickly into a partner's position." Thad was 34
clearly impressed.
"I'm not the only one." Emily turned to Thad, her gaze raking over him with obvious interest. "Thad is heading there quickly himself. He clearly has what it takes to make the partners notice him."
Mikayla sat back and watched the display. Tall, svelte, and slender, Emily Shaltz, with her clear dark blue eyes, curvy, tall body, and so obvious superiority, had no doubt of her charisma and sexual charm. The fact that Thad was obviously falling quickly beneath the promise in that cool gaze was really no surprise. She could slip away and no one would notice her, Mikayla thought with a slight edge of amusement. She could go home, do a little work, and actually go to bed at a decent hour and she doubted Thad would even know she was gone.
"Ma'am." The waitress at Mikayla's side drew her attention but received no more than a passing glance from those standing at the other side of the table. Mikayla glanced up. "Yes?"
"The gentleman at the bar has offered to buy you a drink." The waitress pointed toward the extremely tall, had-to-be Nordic, blond man sitting casually at the bar. Even from across the room he presented an imposing figure.
Mikayla glanced back at Thad, gave a little smile, and shook her head. "Nothing for me, thank you." She rose to her feet. "I believe I'm heading home for the night." Light blue eyes, rakishly long white blond hair, and a body guaranteed to stop women in their tracks at thirty paces. There wasn't an ounce of give in those broad sh
oulders, nor in the hard, savage lines of his arrogant face. A dark overnight growth of beard and mustache shadowed his lower face. He looked entirely too confident of his own sexuality, and dangerous. Danger exuded from his pores. It surrounded him. It was so much a part of him that Mikayla felt her heart racing at the impact of it.
She had seen similar men. Not as hard, not as dangerous. Men who had been in war for too long, who had returned home unable to fit back into the steady, peaceful routine they had known before they left. But they were a pale imitation of this man. This man was the essence, the very definition, of danger.
The dark rider she had seen on the motorcycle earlier had had a body to die for. This man had the body, but those hardened features, the cool ice blue eyes, and the expression of hardened purpose held the warning that he was more than just a hard, gorgeous body. This man was a weapon.
It was definitely time she headed home. If she had drawn the attention of this man somehow, then she could be in more trouble than she already thought she had gotten herself into.
Thad didn't even notice when she left the table. Damn if that wasn't enough to prick a girl's ego. He'd harassed her for weeks for a date before she'd given in. Thad was a good friend, she'd known him most of her life. He was a nice guy, but too intent on impressing the boss's daughter to pay much attention to his date. She understood. She wasn't tall and curvy and a part of the social sphere Thad wanted to enter. She was short, perhaps too curvy. Her long hair wasn't blond; it wasn't brown. It was what her mother called dirty blond. It was straight; it wasn't silky. Her breasts weren't large, and she wasn't available for a quick one-night stand.
That pretty much canceled her out for most men.
35
Slipping through the throng of dangers, she headed for the exit. The Cantina sat below the major convention center and hotel in the county. It was connected to it and provided a major source of entertainment for the guests there. It was often a major source of entertainment for Mikayla. In the past weeks, she hadn't quite been in the mood for entertainment, though.
Pulling the keys to her Jeep from her jeans pocket, Mikayla was suddenly thankful that Thad had been running late today. It meant she'd had a reason to drive her own vehicle to the club rather than riding with him.
It gave her a ride home.
Moving through the shadowed parking lot, she pressed a key between two fingers defensively, prepared, just in case. She'd learned the hard way that nothing was really safe. That at any second something could happen. Something one didn't bring on oneself. Watching the shadows warily, her gaze canvassing each area that could hide a threat, she moved as quickly as possible to her Jeep.
It had been impossible to park close to the entrance of the Cantina. She'd been forced to park in a lot across the street. The only place available at the time was far, toward the other end.
She should have gone home when she realized she couldn't park close enough to the bar to be safe. But Thad had been so insistent.
This would teach her.
Quickening her step, she waited until she was close enough to the vehicle before hitting the automatic door locks. She heard the click as she rounded the car. Her hand was reaching out for the door latch when she'd realized how serious her error had been. Hard hands grabbed her from behind.
"Fucking troublemaking cunt!" A harsh growl sounded behind her. Mikayla didn't have three younger brothers for nothing, and she sure as hell wasn't going to be a victim who didn't fight back.
Fear roiled through her. Terror became a creature, snarling, fighting, as adrenaline surged through her bloodstream and nothing but the instinct for survival ruled. She swung her fist with the key tight between two fingers.
A male grunt sounded in the darkness as she felt herself being thrown, flipped around as she slammed into the back of the Jeep.
Her face raked against the side of the canvas top as her breast was driven against the spare tire. A cry of pain tore from her lips, and with the next breath she was screaming, kicking, scratching, the key gripped between her fingers as she lashed out. In the dark, she couldn't see much: a shadowed face. Her attacker wasn't much taller than she, but he was strong.
His fingers wrapped around her throat, clenched. Mikayla drove the keys into a soft midsection. A hard grunt, the fingers loosened, but a second later it felt as though a sledgehammer had driven into the side of her face.
A fist. Distantly, she realized it was a fist. Every muscle in her body went lax for precious seconds as shock and pain traveled through her body. The keys fell from her fingers, her only weapon of defense gone as she felt those fingers, too strong, wrap around her throat once again.
She was going to die.
Mikayla could feel that knowledge rattling inside her brain. She couldn't fight 36
against strength. She was too weak now. Her senses felt scattered, her breath so short. She was definitely going to die.
Nik walked out of the Cantina, his gaze searching the brightly lit front entrance of the club as he looked for Mikayla. Cars whizzed by, their headlights flickering through the shadows as he narrowed his eyes in his search for her.
Mikayla had managed to get out of the bar before he realized she had left. She had disappeared into the throng and he'd lost sight of her. By the time Nik realized she was leaving he was too far behind to catch up with her.
She must have been parked close, he thought. The only way she could have gotten away from him so quickly was if she was parked directly in front of the Cantina. His jaw tightened.
He was turning to stalk to the far end of the lot to his Harley when he heard it: a muted cry.
He stopped, pausing, his gaze searching the parking area across the street. Where had it come from?
There. Again.
Moving, Nik raced across the street, seeing two shadows struggling at the far end of the parking lot. He was pounding across the blacktop when he heard a strangled cry of feminine rage.
The taller shadow fell back briefly. But only briefly.
Nik wasn't close enough.
"Mikayla!" He called out her name as he raced between the cars. The shadow paused, twisted, and in less than a second sprinted off. Nik watched in horror as hair the color of the softest wheat shone for the briefest second in the flashes of the car lights on the other side of the parking area. Almost in slow motion she crumpled to the ground just before he could reach her. Fuck. Fuck.
He was too late.
Horror raced through his system as he hurriedly crouched beside her, his hands running over her quickly as he searched for the telltale dampness of blood, the sign of broken bones. The hilt of a knife.
"No." Weak, panting, she pushed at his hands as they moved over her breasts.
"What are you doing?"
She sounded muffled, strangled. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He could see her face now, no blood. One hand pushed at his as the other rose to rub at her neck.
"Miss Martin?" He brushed her hair back from her face as he helped her sit up.
"Are you okay?"
If he were a lesser man, a normal man, he would have been shaking. His hands framed her face as she stared up at him, her head wobbling as he felt her shuddering.
"Mikayla?" He tried to smooth out the ruined sound of his voice, compliments of a fire that had burned too bright, too hot, too long ago.
"I'm fine." Her voice was low, weak. "Who are you?"
"Nik. Nik Steele."
Fuck, he knew her name, but she hadn't met him. She was going to be suspicious as hell.
37
"The waitress was nice enough to tell me your name," he told Mikayla as he watched her fighting to catch her breath, her hand still massaging her neck. "Are you okay?"
She nodded jerkily, the movement halting as she grimaced in pain.
"He tried to strangle me," she rasped, fear quaking in her voice. "You scared him off."
He hadn't scared the fucker off fast enough. She could have been killed. It took only a second to
use a knife, but whoever had attacked her hadn't wanted to kill her the quick, easy way.
Thank God.
"Help me up." She pressed her hands to the ground to push herself up.
"Here." Nik gripped her beneath her arms and lifted her carefully to her feet, holding her as he watched her find her balance. "You should go to the hospital." Her head lifted slowly.
"Oh, my God, no!" The ragged sound of her voice had rage striking through his chest. The sound of irritated vocal cords. The struggle to breathe as she was being strangled had done minute damage as well.
"You should be checked out."
"My entire family would show up like avenging angels." Her hand lifted shakily to her brow.
"It would be better to make certain you're not hurt."
"I'm fine." She took a deep breath. "I'm just shaky."
"Too shaky to drive--"
"I have to find my keys." She shook her head slowly. "Help me find my keys." Her keys were at her feet.
Bending, Nik picked them up, holding them away from her as she reached out for them.
"Hospital, or I can drive you home. Take your pick." Mikayla stared up at the stranger. There was a sense of familiarity in the way he acted toward her. It didn't make sense. She didn't know him. She knew she had never met him before. She would have remembered if she had.
"Who are you again?"
"Nik Steele," he answered, his voice, despite its roughness, incredibly gentle.
"That doesn't tell me who you are." She stared at the keys in his hand. "Could I please have my keys?"
He shook his head slowly. White blond hair dusted against his shoulders as his dark clothing blended in with the night.
"I told you, I can drive you home or to the hospital. There's always the option of calling an ambulance or the police."
"No." Her response was quick.
The last thing she needed was the police. She doubted very seriously they'd help her anyway. They would probably give her assailant a medal.
"No police." She just wanted to go home.
"Come on." His hand gripped her arm, not roughly but in a grip of steel as he steered her to the passenger seat of the Jeep. "Get in. I'll take you home." He helped her into the passenger seat, hiding a smile as she watched him warily, 38