On Her Master's Secret Service (37 page)

Jesse stood up, staring down at her. “That’s impossible.”

“No. Just read the news on him, Jesse. It’s so simple. Look him up on the Internet. Michael Evans is a monster. He’s a rapist and a terrorist, and he’s running drugs through the club we’re working at.”

“I know. That’s exactly why I’ve been hunting him. He’s not my boss. I work for the FBI. Do you understand? I’m not the bad guy. I’m a fed, and you’re a liar.”

Her whole body went cold. “You’re working for the SAC?”

He was working for Petty. Petty, who had called her half an hour before Michael Evans had kidnapped her. He’d told her he was bringing Alex home.

Petty, who had known where she was and how many guards were watching her. He’d selected them himself.

Petty, who knew their house as well as his own. She’d always wondered how they had known exactly which windows to go through and how to move through the house.

There was a knock on the door. Jesse straightened up and took a long breath. “Now you’ll see. That’s Special Agent Petty. He’s going to clear this up, and you’re going to find out your husband has been lying to you.”

The truth was almost too much to bear, but she couldn’t question it now. She couldn’t come up with a reason for Jesse to lie. But she could come up with one reason for Petty to lie. Carmen Garcia.

How far had their old friend gone?

“Does he know I’m here?” She practically hissed the question. He’d set Jesse on them, ordered the hit on Alex. “Does he know Alex isn’t dead?”

He looked toward the door. “He knows I brought you in. I wasn’t going to lie. He knows I was going to try to take McKay out earlier. I have to tell him now. I’ll make him see reason about you.”

“Don’t answer that door, Jesse. He’s done with you. He’s about to have everything he wants and he won’t need you anymore. Please don’t answer it.”

He shook his head as he approached the door. “We’re the good guys.”

The door opened, and Warren walked through. She hadn’t seen him in years, had thought he was out of her life. “I just got your message. You didn’t kill the woman?”

Jesse shook his head, moving deeper into the loft. “No, sir. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

All of his attention was focused on Jesse. He didn’t bother to look at her. Warren followed Jesse’s every move. “But you carried out the attack on McKay? And now you have his woman prisoner?”

“Yes,” Jesse began.

“Excellent.” Petty reached into his coat and pulled out a nasty-looking gun. “Then your job is done, son.”

“What?” The question came out on a shout. Jesse’s hand went to his coat pocket, but he wasn’t fast enough.

A little ping rang through the air, the silencer on the end of the gun doing its job. Jesse’s big body jerked and then he looked over at her, his eyes going so sad as he fell to his knees and then forward. He hit the ground with a little quake.

“Eve, you really should have left well enough alone.” Warren Petty finally turned his attention to her, stepping around Jesse’s body. “Oh, well, at least I can now pay a debt that’s been hanging over my head for years. Evans still wants you, dear. I think it’s time he had you again.”

He raised the gun, pointing it right at Jesse’s head. A bullet to the heart obviously wasn’t enough for Warren. Before he could fire, Eve ran at him, knocking him off guard. They tumbled together against the wall.

Eve jerked her body up. She had to get out the door.

“Not so fast.” Warren put the gun to her head. “We’re going to play this my way. Move. We’re getting out of here.”

She had no choice but to move along and pray Alex could find her in time.

Alex stepped up to the doors of Cuffs knowing damn well he was very likely a marked man. Whoever had taken that potshot at him today had to have reported back to Chazz. And that didn’t mean a damn thing because he wasn’t going down today. He was going to find his wife and get her back.

He gripped the doors and growled when he discovered they were locked.

He heard a lock slinking back and then the door opened. One of the big bouncers stood in the doorway, his massive shoulders blocking the way. Alex couldn’t remember what his name was so he just thought of him as Massive Asshole.

Massive Asshole frowned. His Neanderthal-like looks didn’t aid in his attractiveness. He looked like what he was—a hired killer. “You got fired. Chazz just called two minutes ago and said I’m not supposed to let you in.”

Not supposed to let him in? What kind of pussy was Chazz? If it had been Alex, he would have had a kill-on-sight order out, not a “Hey, he got fired.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let the whole employment situation here stand. I need to talk to Chazz.”

Massive Asshole’s eyes tightened. His hand twitched to his side as though he was trying to make the decision on how to act. Maybe
Chazz’s
orders had been a bit harsher, but MA wasn’t a hardened killer. Not yet. Alex would use that to his advantage.

He kicked the door, shoving it against MA’s enormous, very likely steroided-out chest. Alex would bet all of his strength had been gained in a gym.

“Hey!” MA lost his balance, proving that he had no real experience. “Man, you can’t come in here.”

Alex didn’t hesitate. He didn’t pause to talk to the fucker. He had one goal in his head, and no one was going to get in his way. Grabbing the guy by his shirt, Alex pulled his SIG, pointing it right at the middle of MA’s head. “You should leave now. And if you call the cops, I will find you. You will wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll be there standing over you. You won’t go down fast. I’ll make sure of it. Am I understood?”

Nope. The dude wasn’t trained. Most trained operatives didn’t piss themselves from one little threat and a gun to the forehead.

MA was out the door the minute Alex let go.

“I have your boy.” Chazz stood at the top of the stairs, a gun in his hand. Unlike his bouncer, Chazz seemed fairly cool. He believed he had the upper hand.

He believed he had Sean. Alex wouldn’t believe it until he saw it, though Sean hadn’t answered his cell.

He needed to figure out how deep the shit was. And getting captured just might suit his plans since he needed to get taken to wherever Eve was.

Alex put his SIG on the floor and held up his hands. If they’d wanted to shoot him now, it would be done, but Alex had figured out there were two factions at hand. “Are you working for Evans or my old partner?”

Chazz frowned. “I work for Michael Evans, Mr. McKay. I’m his right-hand man.”

He was Evans’s
flunkie
, but it wouldn’t pay to point that out now. “So he hasn’t told you he’s working with a fed?”

Chaos was his best friend.

“You’re lying, but then you’ve been doing that to me this whole fucking time, haven’t you. You and Kris. Where the fuck is she, anyway?” He started down the stairs just as two other bouncers showed up. They, like Massive Asshole, were big and dumb, but at least they had guns. They took up spots on either side of Alex.

“Kris was shot. She’s probably dead. Are you telling me you didn’t try to take me out earlier?” His brain raced with the possibilities. Chazz might not know he knew anything.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Adam, he hoped. He prayed Adam had figured out who the shooter was. The ambulance had been loading Kristen in when Alex had slipped out of the building, taking Adam’s ride. Adam had been playing the role of concerned bystander, explaining to the police that he had no idea what had happened, merely found the girl on the ground and tried to save her life.

And that was when Adam’s wife proved to be an asset. Alex had stopped on the street just above the building and watched as she’d driven up like she owned the place, racing to her husband and hugging him. Serena had looked sweet and fragile, her hand on her belly to show off the baby growing there. Anything to keep Adam from getting taken to the station house for a statement when Alex needed him on that computer of his.

Alex had driven up the road and picked up Jake, secure that Adam would be there when they needed him.

Alex allowed the two bouncers to each get a hand on him, hauling him toward Chazz. Jake was outside, waiting for the signal that he was needed.

There were only three of them. Jake could take a nap, but before Alex could take everyone out, he needed to figure out where Sean was.

“Someone killed Kris?”

Shit.
Chazz didn’t know. He wasn’t that great an actor. Evans wasn’t keeping him in the loop. “Yeah, she took a bullet to the chest. She’s dead.”

Let him think that. Maybe Evans would be pissed that his girl got caught in the crossfire.

He wants you alive.

Kristen’s face haunted him. Likely would for a long time. She’d seemed almost happy to have sacrificed for her lover.

Had Evans kept her out of the loop, too? Why else would she have disrupted his plans?

“Fuck.
Mikey
didn’t order me to do that.” Chazz nodded toward the back of the club. “But some of our friends alerted us to your presence here, McKay.
Mikey
would love to have a talk with you.”

“Since he has my wife, I’d like to talk to him as well.”

Again Chazz frowned, and Alex felt his gut tighten. “I don’t know nothing about that either. I just got a call from the big guy and he’s figured out that you’re not who you said you were. I’m just going to keep you and your boy in there on ice until
Mikey
decides what to do with you. Bring him into the kitchens. We’ll keep him with the other.”

Alex followed along, making an inventory of the weapons on his body. He’d get his SIG back, but there was a semi in his right boot and a knife in his left. Jake’s car was loaded down with ordinance under a false bottom in the trunk.

One of the very likely soon-to-be dead bouncer/meathead musclemen gave him a shove through the double doors of the kitchen. Three more of
Chazz’s
bouncers were inside. They’d been ready and waiting apparently. Someone had tipped them off. He caught sight of Sean, making a careful but quick study of the kitchens. The line of stainless steel ovens and burner units were to his left, with two big refrigeration units on his right. The expo station sat between them. Someone had sent the rest of the staff home it looked like. They were alone in the big kitchen with nothing but the security staff.

Where was the kid? Alex looked at the bouncers but none of them was Jesse Murdoch.

“Hey, I’ve had a morning, brother.” Sean sat at the back of the kitchen near a large prep space. The chair that held him was against a counter. It looked like he’d been jumped while he was working. His knife set was rolled out and there were piles of herbs and onions on the counter, precisely cut and portioned out. Sean sported a nice shiner and a couple of bruises. Why? How many assholes had they sent at him?

“I can see that. You look like you got taken down by a baseball team.” They often used sports references to gain information. He couldn’t just come out and ask Sean how many men were lurking around.

“More like an offensive line just before the snap,” Sean shot back.

Seven then. Seven offensive players had to be on the line of scrimmage in football. Alex quickly counted. Six men were in the room with them and Massive Asshole had fled, likely into the waiting arms of Jake, who would be asking him the same types of questions.

Easy breezy.

“I should have known you would fuck this up,” Alex told Sean. “You got tied up.”

Sean’s blue eyes closed briefly as though he couldn’t stand the embarrassment. “Lost my best paring knife, too. It’s been a shitty day. I’m ready to end it. I know everything I need to know.”

Nice. This was why he loved working with Sean. They communicated so well together. He quickly decoded the information Sean had imparted with a few bland sentences. Sean had managed to keep his three-inch blade and had already worked through the bindings. He was ready to go when Alex was.

“Get another chair for the new asshole,” Chazz ordered. “We’ve got to keep him here until the boss tells us where to take him. It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.”

One of the bouncers walked out to do his boss’s bidding.

“Their timetable moved up. Chazz got a phone call an hour ago,” Sean said.

So that’s why he’d allowed himself to be captured. With only seven untrained guys, there was no way Sean had been taken down in a fight.

“I didn’t ask you to talk.” Chazz took a long breath, and his eyes narrowed. “You know now that I have your friend here, I don’t know that I need you anymore. I took you down because I thought I might need leverage if he showed up.
Mikey
said nothing about keeping you around. It might feel good to work one of you over. I got some issues to work out. He’s probably going to close this club down now. We’re going to have to move and all because you two are
fuckwad
cops.”

“Is that what he said? And how did your boss find out?” Alex slightly shook his head, giving Sean the no-go sign. He brought two fingers up to his chest, scratching a little.
Two minutes to go.
He had a few things to discover before they got to the part where Chazz cried a lot and likely crapped his pants.

“That’s none of your fucking business,” Chazz shot back.

“I’m not a cop.”

Chazz snorted. “Really? And why should I believe you?”

“I used to be a cop, a fed actually. I used to work with the man who I believe is supplying your boss with information,” Alex explained.

Sean’s eyes went wide, but he stayed silent.

Alex stared at Chazz. “The question now is whether it’s your boss or my former partner who took my wife.”

Sean’s whole body went tense.

“And who killed Kris,” Alex announced.

Sean’s face went red. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Chazz shook his head. “I told you I didn’t order that hit, but if the boss did, then the bitch needed killing.”

“Alex,” Sean hissed his name.

The thing with Kristen was going to kill him until he had an answer. He hoped she lived. “Yeah, go, but I need that idiot.”