Chapter Nineteen

“You ready to roll?” Chris asked her from near the apartment door.

“Yes, one second.” Taylor hurriedly pulled her hair into a ponytail at the back of her head and slicked on some pink lip-gloss to give her face some color. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately, true, but today she was tired for a different reason.

A gorgeous, bearded, six-foot-two reason who’d tired her out before going to sleep last night, then again this morning.

Not that she was complaining. She planned to come back here and have a long afternoon nap once she was done with these meetings at the agency. Logan was coming over again tonight and she wanted to be ready for him when he got here, not on the verge of falling asleep.

She grabbed her laptop and briefcase holding all her files, and headed out of the bedroom. “Okay. Ready.”

Chris opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. “Driver’s waiting for us downstairs in the garage.”

“Sure.” A different car than yesterday. For precaution’s sake, the agency made sure she never came and went from the building in the same vehicle twice.

In the underground garage a silver SUV was waiting for them when they stepped out of the elevator. Taylor hopped in the back while Chris rode up front with the driver.

“Looking forward to getting warrants and affidavits against these assholes,” Chris said as he shuffled through the printouts she’d given him. So far she’d managed to match four people to the offshore accounts recovered from the files Charlie had sent from that flash drive at Baker’s estate.

And one of them was Dillon.

She tried to push him from her mind and think about happier things—like Logan—but he weighed heavy on her mind. The agency wanted him arrested, and it was only a matter of finding him and taking him into custody.

Agency lawyers had already compiled a list of evidence covering his various crimes. When he was convicted, he’d serve his sentence in a federal prison. And it would likely be for the rest of his life.

The guilt beat at her but she shoved it aside. He’d brought all this on himself, and if it wasn’t her helping uncover his crimes, it would be someone else at the agency. And he’d also tried to kill her, so by comparison, sending him to jail seemed a fair deal to her.

“This is great work, Taylor,” Chris went on as the driver pulled through the raised mechanical gate protecting the garage and out onto the street.

The sky was heavy with clouds, a dull, leaden gray that matched her mood. All she wanted at this point was to get this wrapped up and know that Dillon was in custody. Then she could try to put all this behind her and move on. With Logan.

He’d slipped past her defenses with alarming speed and ease, but there’d been no stopping it. She hadn’t wanted to stop it. And now that he’d stolen her heart, she couldn’t imagine having to let him go. When he came over tonight she wanted to make sure he wanted a real relationship with her going forward.

“Rest of the team is catching up on the latest intel you provided right now. They’ll be ready for us when we get there,” Chris added.

“Sounds good. I—” She stopped talking when a man dressed in a dark hoodie suddenly stepped out onto the road in front of them and raised his arm, pointing something at them.

“Jesus!” Chris didn’t even have time to reach for his weapon before the driver veered hard to the left, but it was too late.

Three bullets slammed through the windshield in rapid succession.

Chris grunted and swore, and the driver slumped over in his seat, blood spilling down his face from the wound in the side of his head. His hands slid off the wheel as he lolled sideways in his seat, but his foot was still on the gas. The engine revved as the vehicle tore toward a row of parked cars on the far side of the street.

Chris made a grab for the steering wheel but it was too late. Taylor’s seatbelt jerked taut across her chest and right shoulder, her head snapping forward with the impact as the crunch of metal on metal rang in her ears.

Ignoring the pain, pushing through the shock, she fumbled to undo her seatbelt and immediately crawled forward to shift the SUV to neutral and shut off the engine. The driver was obviously dead, and Chris was gravely wounded in the chest. He was slumped against his door, one bloodstained hand pressed to the wound, his breaths coming in wheezing gasps.

“Get…my weapon…” he managed, flailing his free hand out to hit the automatic door unlock button. They had to get out of the SUV and use it as cover.

Dillon. Dillon had found her and done this.

Taylor reached inside his sport coat for the pistol in the holster beneath his armpit, but the front passenger door yanked open. Chris let out a strangled yell as two gloved hands reached in and hauled him out.

Taylor shrank back and scrambled across the back bench seat to get out the other side, but one of those hands caught her ponytail and yanked her back hard enough to snap her head back on her shoulders.

She shot a hand out to grasp the wrist holding her hair to take away his leverage and half-twisted around to throw a punch at him. Her fist sliced past his face as he ducked away.

It wasn’t Dillon.

A total stranger stared back at her. Olive skin, dark hair and eyes. And the utter lack of emotion in them chilled her to the core.

“You’re coming with me,” he muttered in a heavily accented voice, and shoved the muzzle of his pistol beneath her jaw.

Taylor froze and swallowed as she stared into those lifeless eyes, her heart lodged so far up her throat she was choking on it. There was nothing she could do as he unceremoniously hauled her out of the vehicle by her hair, dragging her backward across the seat.

Pain exploded across her scalp and through her neck.

She scrambled to get her feet under her as the man whirled her around. Chris was on his side as he spoke into his phone, pale face tinged with blue. He was trying to draw his weapon with his free hand despite the blood pouring from his chest wound.

The man yanked hard on her hair, jerking her head back, and fired a bullet into Chris’s face. Taylor’s scream was cut off by a hard, gloved hand slamming down over her mouth.

“Shut up or I’ll put one into you too,” he snarled under his breath, and dragged her upright. A car screeched to a halt beside them. The man holding her wrenched the back door open and threw her inside, climbing in after her.

Taylor swiveled to face the man as the driver sped away from the scene, and found her voice. “Did Dillon send you?” She was shaking all over, nausea rolling in the pit of her belly. Chris had just been killed point blank right in front of her.

The one who’d kidnapped her stared back at her, his expression eerily blank. “No.”

Someone else from the cartel, then. “What do you want?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

Blood pounded in her ears as the car sped along the street and blew through a red light. She bit back a yelp and grabbed behind her for the door handle to steady herself as the driver whipped the car to the side to avoid oncoming traffic.

Her spine smashed into the door handle and the back of her head hit the glass with enough force to make her see stars.

****

Above the bar on the big flatscreen, the baseball game was in the top of the fifth inning. But for the first time in forever, Logan wasn’t interested in watching. Didn’t even care what the score was.

He took another swig of his beer straight from the bottle and resisted the urge to check his watch again. His knee was so damn sore he’d had to resort to using his crutches again. He’d have to find a way to be patient and let it heal more before he jumped back into training with the guys.

“Yo. Earth to Granger.”

It took a second for him to realize Kai was speaking to him. And that both Easton and Jamie were staring at him too. “Sorry?” he asked Kai.

The big guy gave him an odd look before reaching for yet another wing on the enormous platter of appetizers he’d ordered for himself. And he hadn’t offered to share with the rest of them. “You’re totally spaced out, dude.”

“That’s because he’s thinking with his little head instead of the big one,” Zaid remarked dryly from between them, taking a pull from the bottle in his hand. The guy never drank alcohol, so Logan wasn’t sure what he was drinking.

Kai cracked a grin at Logan. “Yeah? Well good for you, man. Is she hot?”

Retina-melting hot, especially when she was in the throes of release or when she gave him that sweet, unguarded smile she’d shown him a few times over the last couple of days. Both made his heart damn near explode. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Kai’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, so you’re all protective of her too? Well then it’s gotta be pretty serious, huh?” He munched on a piece of celery without looking at it, his gaze leveled on Logan.

His neck and cheeks flushed, and not even his beard could hide all of it. He swallowed another mouthful of beer and answered without looking at him. “You could say that.” He didn’t know exactly what the future held in store for him and Taylor, but the idea of seeing anyone else wasn’t the least bit appealing. Actually, it was repulsive.

And he sure as hell didn’t want to think about Taylor seeing anyone else, either. Some guy putting his hands and…other parts all over her? No fucking way. It made his hackles rise. She was his. He wasn’t perfect, and he’d made a lot of mistakes throughout his marriage, but he was also grateful for the lessons it had taught him. He was sure as hell not going to repeat those mistakes with Taylor.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Kai kept going. “Yeah? You gonna bring her here sometime, so we can meet her?”

Logan didn’t know Kai all that well yet, but from what he’d seen and heard, the guy was a closet romantic and liked to know everyone’s personal business. It would be annoying as shit if Logan and the others didn’t like him so much.

“You already know her,” Jamie said to Kai, his eyes on the ballgame.

Kai blinked. “I do?” He leaned his big upper body forward to peer around Jamie at Logan. “So who is it?”

Jamie darted a questioning glance at Logan, and Logan bit back a sigh and answered. “It’s Agent Kennedy. Okay?”

Kai lowered the hand holding the celery stick to the bar, a wide smile forming on his face. “Well all right,” he said, nodding in approval. “I dig her. Not in that way,” he rushed on when Logan aimed a dark look at him, “but I can totally see why you’d be into her.” He waved the celery stick at Logan and winked. “I like it.”

“Well, glad I’ve got your blessing,” Logan muttered, wishing someone would change the subject. Taylor was on his mind constantly. He wanted to do something nice for her tonight, something out of the ordinary. A heartfelt gesture to prove he wasn’t just after sex. Although, yeah, he definitely wanted more sex, because the woman lit him up like a Christmas tree with a single touch.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her, about how tough her life had been and how she’d overcome all the odds to make it to where she was. She amazed him.

There was a specialty ice cream place a few minutes from her building. Maybe he’d stop and pick up a carton of some gourmet flavor she couldn’t find anywhere else. He could feed it to her spoonful by spoonful in bed while they were both naked.

And if he should happen to accidentally spill some on her in certain places, he would make sure he did a damn good job of cleaning her up. With his tongue. Until every sweet, sticky bit was gone and she was coming against his mouth.

Zaid coughed into his fist and failed to smother a grin. Then his expression sobered and he half-turned in his seat to look at something behind them.

Logan swiveled on his barstool and followed Zaid’s gaze across the bar. The woman from the other day’s briefing was walking toward them, and Hamilton was behind her. Agent Rabani, right?

“Hey,” she said, aiming a smile at all eight of them, assembled along the length of the bar. Then she nodded at the stool beside Logan and tossed her long dark hair over one shoulder as she raised an eyebrow. “This one taken?” Her voice held the slightest trace of a British accent.

“No, please,” he said, shifting a little and angling his body so she had room to climb up.

She hopped up onto the stool as Hamilton slid onto the one beside her.

“This one’s on me,” their team leader said to her, flagging down the bartender. “What’ll you have?”

“Soda with lime, please,” she said to the bartender.

“Beer,” Hamilton said to him, then faced Agent Rabani. “Sure you don’t want something stronger?”

“No, I’m not a drinker.”

At that Zaid leaned forward and peered over at her. “Hey, me neither.”

She offered him a polite smile. “What are you drinking, then?”

He held up the bottle and turned the label toward her. “Root beer.”

The smile turned into a grin, showing the hint of a dimple in her cheek. “I like it. I’ll have one too, instead of what I just ordered,” she called to the bartender.

She and Zaid made polite small talk for a few minutes, until Logan started to get antsy. What time was it? Taylor’s meeting must be underway by now. How long would it take? If he left now, he could grab them dinner and the ice cream and have everything ready when she got there.

Agent Rabani stopped in mid-sentence in her conversation with Zaid and Hamilton as ring tones went off. She reached into her pocket for her phone just as Hamilton did the same. She read whatever was on the screen while Hamilton hopped off his stool and walked away from the bar with a finger plugged into his other ear.

Rabani frowned and glanced back at Hamilton.

“Everything okay?” Zaid asked her.

“No,” she answered, still looking at Hamilton.

Logan angled his stool to look at Hamilton. A cold shock rippled through him when he realized his team leader was staring right at him as he spoke to whoever was on the other end of the phone, his expression grave.

“What’s going on?” Logan asked Rabani.

“There was an incident a few minutes ago, a shooting involving some of our local agents, in broad daylight out front of an apartment building they were guarding.”

Logan shot out a hand and gripped her shoulder, urgency thrumming through him. “Where?”

She stilled for a heartbeat, then showed him her phone. “It doesn’t say. Are you all right?”

No, he wasn’t okay. Fuck. Fuck. Cold sweat broke out on his face as he fished his phone out of his pocket. He had to call Taylor. Just needed to hear her voice and know she was okay. What if Dillon had somehow figured out where she was and attacked?

“What about Taylor? Agent Kennedy?” he clarified, the desperation clear in his voice.

The words were barely out of his mouth when Hamilton lowered his phone and strode back to the bar, his gaze trained on Logan before he glanced down the length of the bar at the others. “We’ve got a situation. Minutes ago, one shooter attacked an agency vehicle en route to a meeting at headquarters.”

No!

“Two agents are dead and the gunman made off with a hostage in a getaway vehicle.” When that steely gaze landed on Logan once more, his guts clamped tight. “It’s Taylor. He took her.”