Marcus
“Son of a bitch!” I cursed as I saw Gregory Becker leave Dani’s apartment.
I was sitting in the parking lot near Danica’s condo in my luxury rental car, doing surveillance. It was difficult for me to force myself not to go after the little weasel.
Had the bastard hurt Dani?
What was he doing at her place?
I’d spent plenty of time thinking about Dani and Becker together, but my gut still hurt every time I thought about Becker laying a hand on her.
Why in the fuck am I sitting in her parking lot alone, watching her condo?
I took a deep breath and let it out as I watched that dickhead Becker get into his presumptuous luxury sports car and leave. I couldn’t approach him. Not yet. I needed more information, which answered my question as to why I was watching Dani’s condo.
Somehow, I’d known that Becker would show up.
And I was, after all, a goddamn spy. Being patient and collecting information was what I did. And I was very good at doing that.
I just didn’t like it very much right now, especially not the being patient part of the task.
I didn’t want to wait.
I wanted to confront the asshole right fucking now.
There was no question as to whether or not I was going to check up on Dani. If Becker had been at her place, I wanted to make sure she was safe. At least that was how I rationalized driving closer to her condo, getting out of my vehicle, and making my way to the entrance of her condo building.
There was minimal security at the entrance, and it wasn’t difficult to gain entry by simply following another occupant through the door once they’d entered the code.
It hadn’t been hard to get all the information on Dani that I’d wanted once I’d requested a file on her from DC. And yeah, I’d rationalized that action too, telling myself I needed her address and any other recent information I could get because she was dating somebody who was on the radar of the federal government. Hell, I’d been sent a loaded file of information, but none of it was all that relevant to her current status as Becker’s love interest.
I grimaced as I rang her doorbell, the thought of Becker so much as touching a hair on Dani’s head making my gut churn.
She’s one of my best friend’s sisters. It isn’t abnormal for me to be concerned.
Really, I pretty much knew that excuse was bullshit, but I let it roll off my back. Danica Lawson was off-limits, even if I did get hard every time I saw her. She always had been. Dani was Jett’s sister, and I absolutely couldn’t just nail her without everything becoming complicated. And I hated complications. Now that I had my priorities straight, I was determined to keep a level head.
“What are you doing here?” Dani asked, her voice disapproving as she stared at me from the door she’d just opened.
Christ! Didn’t she bother to ask who was ringing her doorbell before she just opened the door that way? “You never answered all my questions,” I replied, inviting myself into her home as I brushed past her.
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” she said huffily before she closed the door, turned toward me and then crossed her arms stubbornly. “You need to leave. I doubt that Greg is always watching me, but I don’t want him to know you were here.”
“Do you do everything he tells you to do?” I remarked as calmly as possible. “Doesn’t it concern you even a little bit that you aren’t sure whether or not some guy is watching you?”
Hell, it worried me that Danica might be in deep enough with Gregory Becker that he might have put somebody on her to watch her every move. She should be terrified.
“No. It doesn’t bother me.” She eyed me suspiciously as she added, “I see you lost the custom suit today.”
“It’s Saturday,” I answered. “I don’t wear a suit on the weekends.”
She snorted. “It’s good to know you lighten up two days out of the week.”
I frowned at her. “I don’t ever lighten up. I just dress more relaxed.”
Danica looked beautiful in a casual yellow dress that made her hair appear to be a deeper red. And if I appeared more lax than usual, it was because of my father. He’d always tried to be with his kids on the weekends, and he lost the suit on Saturday and Sunday when he was home, and tried to just be our dad. For some reason, I always followed his example, even though I didn’t have anybody who cared what I wore. But it made me somehow feel like I was following in his footsteps when I wore jeans and a casual shirt when it wasn’t a workday.
My weekend attire did make it difficult to pack a gun. But I managed.
“It’s a good look on you,” she answered as she moved closer, and looked up at me with an irritated expression. “But what are you doing here, Marcus? I still haven’t forgotten the fact that you literally hauled me away from a date.”
“Get over it,” I suggested. “Since you’re affiliating with somebody who is possibly guilty of international crimes, you needed to be taken away from trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gregory Becker has been rumored for years to be into some unsavory ways of making money. It isn’t a secret in the business world.”
“They’re just rumors,” she said defensively.
“Behind every rumor is a grain of truth,” I warned. “You know that. How did you ever get tangled up with somebody like him? And what happened to your job as an international correspondent?”
Her eyes left my face as she turned around and sat on the arm of her couch. “I told you I needed a break. I lost my edge,” she admitted hesitantly. “I worked around Europe and other countries, but I never could manage to go back to the Middle East without panicking. I decided to leave my network.”
I saw a look of vulnerability flash across her face. Generally, I could find a way to use that moment of weakness to my advantage, but I didn’t have the stomach for it with Danica. “That’s understandable after what happened to you.”
She shook her head. “As a reporter, I couldn’t afford to be afraid. My neurosis could endanger my whole crew. But I wasn’t fearless anymore. I haven’t been the same since…the incident.”
Dani had reason to want to stay as far away from the location of her kidnapping as possible. She wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t wary. “You could have stayed on as European correspondence.”
“I needed something different,” she said, her eyes trained away from mine. “I just wanted some time.”
“Then take all the time you need. It was madness to go back so soon after what happened.” I hesitated before asking, “What part of the hostage situation is still haunting you?”
I wasn’t sure I could deal with her answer without wanting the bastards who’d kidnapped her to be alive again so I could snuff them out myself. Oh yeah, Dani had talked to me, but I had a feeling she was leaving out a very large chunk of what had happened to her.
“What does it matter?” she asked. “It’s not like they’ll ever serve time or pay for what happened to me.”
“They can’t be because they’re all dead,” I informed her flatly. She already knew that, but I felt compelled to remind her that none of the rebels would ever bother her again. Personally, I felt like instant death was something they hadn’t deserved.
Her head jerked back toward me, and her expression was solemn. “Logically, I understand that, but my brain isn’t always reasonable, Marcus. How did you ever get that information? You never told me how you knew. The information should have been classified.”
I could hardly tell her that I had quite a lot of intel from the government. Nobody knew about my involvement with the CIA and intelligence gathering except my family. Not even her brother, Jett. My PRO team had only known that I was skilled in private rescue operations. “I overheard a conversation about it,” I lied smoothly because I was accustomed to twisting the truth.
Her expression changed as tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Is it terrible to say that I’m glad they’re all dead?” she questioned, her body visibly shaking.
“Of course not,” I said. “After what happened, you should be glad they’re off the face of the earth.”
I watched helplessly as tears continued to flow down her cheeks. Both of us had seen horrendous atrocities that shouldn’t be occurring in the modern world, but her experience had been fucking personal.
“What haunts you the most?” I asked insistently, wanting to help her kill off those ghosts.
She swiped the tears from her face and then turned her gorgeous turquoise eyes on me. There was a burning anger in her expression that would probably make the strongest person flinch, but I refused to back down.
“Can’t we just let it go?” she snapped. “Because I really want to forget it, but I relive it over and over in my nightmares. I’ve been in counseling ever since it happened, and I still can’t stop dreaming about it. I’ve dealt with the emotional trauma as much as I’m able to right now, but there are still times when I can’t stop myself from remembering how I had wished they’d just kill me so I didn’t have to endure another minute of pain or another minute of them using my body.”
She was breathless by the time she’d finished, and I stared angrily at her tiny, vulnerable figure, and troubled eyes. I wasn’t pissed at her for what she’d said. Dani had every right to hate talking about her experience. I was enraged by the unfairness of what she’d endured.
Dammit! Maybe I had once said she’d known the risks of her job. But that didn’t mean I’d ever wanted her to suffer. “I’m sorry,” I said in a husky voice. “I didn’t mean to bring up something that hurts to talk about.”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she answered. “It majorly pisses me off. I want to move on. But my fear paralyzes me sometimes. I think I’m over what happened, and it comes back in my damn dreams. I lost my skills and a job that I loved because I just can’t seem to pretend it never happened.”
“It will eventually fade, but I’m not sure you ever completely get over an experience like that,” I informed her grimly.
“Obviously I haven’t,” she said in a tremulous voice. “Not entirely.”
Christ! I felt like I was experiencing her pain. My heart was racing, and I did all I could do not to carry her away again, and put her in a place where she’d never be harmed again. There was an unfamiliar ache in my chest for everything she’d been through. I felt like I was having a damn heart attack.
I can’t stand to ever see her hurting again.
“Give up on Becker,” I insisted. “He’ll bring you nothing but more pain.”
Her angry gaze met my stubborn one. “I can’t. I won’t,” she answered determinedly. “He’s the only thing that keeps me grounded and busy right now.”
Unexpectedly, my temper flared. “Dating a criminal is not helping you.”
“You have no idea what I need right now. You come here with nothing but rumors about a man who appears to care about me. Nobody has ever found any solid evidence that Greg committed any crimes.”
Oh, I’d find evidence. It was just a matter of time. In the meantime, I didn’t want Dani anywhere near the investigations. “He’s on everybody’s watch list. For God’s sake, do you want to get tangled up in that?”
She stood. “If I have to, I will.” She stormed to the door and opened it. “Now please leave. I’ve dealt with all I can handle today.”
I was furious, but nothing I could say would help her right now. I hesitated as I reached the door. “Do you actually love him?”
“I never said I loved him, but I need him right now,” she retorted.
The last thing I wanted to hear was that she thought she needed Becker. She didn’t. But maybe she was confused. “I’m not letting him take you down with him,” I growled as I stepped out the door.
She didn’t answer.
The door slammed closed right behind me.