SUNDAY. ERBIL ROTANA, Erbil, Kurdistan.

Erin twisted the long sleeves around and around until the fabric created a vice on her forearm.

“Anything yet?” she asked.

“Nope, and they aren’t going to contact us until we tell them it’s time for the pickup.” Riley was cool as could be. Not even the least bit phased with the knowledge that they’d been carting the enemy around with them.

“I don’t understand how you’re so calm.” She turned around as though she could discern if any of the vehicles were following them. That wasn’t her skill set. It wasn’t like a vehicle would have a sign on it that said I’m following you.

“Off the record?” He glanced at her. “We did a job a couple months back where we had the guy who’d kidnapped our asset with us the whole time. We didn’t suspect it. This time? I think we all had reservations about Thomas.”

“What happened? On that op?”

“That’s a long story.” He shook his head and chuckled. She guessed that it worked out okay, but the between bits must have been harrowing. “What matters is, everyone went home in the end, and the bad guys are in custody.”

“You love the danger of this job, don’t you?” She flopped in the seat and turned to appreciate his profile. She was so worked up she hadn’t let the butterflies bother her much.

“I have been accused of being an adrenaline junky from time to time.” He shrugged.

Erin chuckled. She knew his type because she was guilty of it herself. She hadn’t just taken this job because she thought she could do some good. It’d also been exciting, different. She got to see her mother’s country without the dangers of it. Or so she’d thought. How different reality was.

“We’re almost there,” Riley said, as though that would comfort her.

Those three words killed any joy or fuzzy feelings. Cold dread gnawed at her instead.

Going through the things at NexGen was just another step. With any luck, they’d discover the next piece in the puzzle. That was good, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever Thomas and Allied Security had done, she needed proof. She’d had a bad feeling about their people the day she’d met them, and if she’d trusted her gut a little sooner would people have died?

She couldn’t follow that line of thought. She’d spent hours laboring over what she could have done differently, and the truth was, she’d said something at the soonest possible moment. But even that was too late.

“Anything good to eat at the airport? We’re going to be there a while,” Riley said.

He was trying to distract her, but she wasn’t taking the bait.

Best case scenario, she found whatever damning evidence Thomas and the others thought she had. She’d turn it over to the police. At this rate, taking it up the ladder for NexGen to handle was out of the question. Then, she didn’t know what her place in all this would be.

Half an hour and two security check points later, Riley pulled into the parking lot at NexGen. There was a token security presence outside while most of it was focused indoors.

They parked in spots designated for visitors. Before Riley turned the vehicle off, he turned and grabbed her hand.

“I’m going to come around and get you, okay? Hang tight.” He kept his tone light, but the seriousness behind his eyes gave it away. He was great at playing the role of casual hero.

He was worried about her safety. That much was obvious. It was in the corners of his mouth, the not-quite smile, the stress around his eyes. He, too, thought they were still at risk. And why shouldn’t they be? Thomas had been right under their noses this whole time.

Riley killed the engine and got out. He made his way around the front of the truck, turning to stare at the buildings across the street, pedestrians, all of it.

She was in good hands.

Erin was truly grateful for Riley and his team. That they’d been the ones sent to get her. She couldn’t imagine anyone pulling this off without creating more of a mess in a region already torn apart by war.

Riley opened her door and offered her his hand.

“How’s the vest feeling?” he asked.

“Like death.” She’d worn her share of Kevlar, and none of it was what she’d call comfortable.

“Well, at least you aren’t dying?” Riley shut the door and kept his other arm around her. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

Together they crossed the open stretch of ground between the parking lot and the building with Riley holding her close to his side. It wasn’t an affectionate hold, it was protective, and yet the lines between the two were blurred in her head. He was doing this because it was his job. If another woman was in the same situation, he’d react accordingly.

She wasn’t special.

It was something she needed to remind herself of today, tomorrow, and when they said goodbye.

Riley was a good guy. He just wasn’t going to be her good guy.

Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes prickled at the thought of parting ways.

“Here we go.” He opened the glass door for her and ushered her inside.

“I need to go to security and get someone to let me into my office.” She blinked around, the better to get rid of her tears.

“You lead, I follow.” Riley pushed his sunglasses up.

Unlike her, he’d washed and re-worn his clothes from yesterday. People glanced their way, no doubt curious about Riley’s presence with her. Most of their security were plain clothes and doubled as body guards for those like Erin who needed a touch more care. Riley was decked out in green pants, shirt, Kevlar vest, belt and an assortment of gear attached to his body armor.

“Erin!” A tall woman with dark skin followed by her assistant sporting a colorful hijab that framed her angelic face stopped in front of Erin.

“Lilan, hi.” Erin stopped in her tracks. Lilan headed up the finance department. Word was she had her sights set on the American office and intended to work her way up farther.

“I thought you were taking a few more personal days?” Lilan frowned at her.

“Oh, no.” Erin glanced at Riley.

“I heard you got to tour the new facility. What were your thoughts? I’d love to pick your brain.”

The new site?

What were her thoughts?

Oh, God...

Lilan didn’t know.

No wonder the head office wanted her to skip the office and head straight home. They weren’t admitting the attack even happened.

Riley nudged her. Erin glanced at him, then back to Lilan before clearing her throat.

“I think we got ahead of ourselves and the facility isn’t ready yet.” Erin clasped her hands in front of her, hating the lie.

It was crazy to think that a facility had been partially blown up, and no one knew.

“Sad to hear that.” Lilan sighed.

“Hey, it was good to see you. I’m heading home, family emergency and all, so we’ll have to schedule a time to talk later, okay?” Erin sidestepped the women and set her eyes on the security office sign.

Riley kept pace with her. She could feel him staring. Did he get it? Had he thought through the implications of what’d been said?

Erin pulled herself together enough to handle the key request. Riley was signed in as her guest. A Ruddy Brothers Security guy escorted them up to her office with hardly more than five words exchanged. A few of her co-workers waved or called out to her as they were let in, but no one approached her to chat.

She ducked into the office and shut the door behind Riley, right in the other security guy’s face.

“What did I miss?” Riley turned to face her.

Erin leaned her back against the metal door and twisted the lock. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples.

What if it was all connected? What if they’d just walked into the lion’s den?

“Erin?”

“Lilan didn’t know about the explosion. She didn’t know I was kidnapped. That’s why NexGen hired your team. They didn’t want this getting out. That’s why they wanted you to take me straight to the airport. They want to bury that this ever happened. They probably intend to fire me...” She covered her mouth and watched Riley.

His lips parted, and his brows rose as the pieces clinked together. He got it.

“What if...what if they’re working with...?” She couldn’t even whisper the last of her question.

“If that was what NexGen wanted, they wouldn’t have hired us.”

She wished she could be that positive about anything. Right now, there was only one thing she knew. She could trust Riley. After that, she just didn’t know anymore.

“Hey?” He grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her away from the door. “We got this, okay?”

“Keep telling me that?”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“I thought you were here to save my life.”

“I already did that. Now I’m working my way down the rest of the list.”

“Do I get to see this list?”

“No.”

“Can I make suggestions for this list?”

“No.”

She chuckled and shook her head. Riley grinned back and pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was a friendly gesture, nothing more, and yet it worked. Her body remembered how he’d kissed and held her before, what that was like. Losing herself in that would be better than what they were about to embark on.

“Where should we start?” he asked.

Erin gazed around her office. The ten by ten space was cramped with a desk, two chairs, two filing cabinets and a credenza that housed yet more files. She had boxes and stacks of paper on every available surface. The company’s operations here had barely begun to go digital. She still dealt primarily in paper.

“Everything you see that’s not on my desk is something I inherited from my coworker who died. Osman Elahi, in case you see his name on things.” She’d managed to erase half the boxes from her memory. Seeing them now was disheartening.

“How’d he die?”

“Some sort of allergic reaction. I didn’t know him well.”

“Okay. Do we have any idea what we’re looking for?” Riley asked.

“Not a clue. I can say that papers outside boxes are things I’ve had to work on.”

“Then here’s what I say we do. Let’s take a box, stack everything on the desk, then put anything remotely suspicious in the box to take with us, okay? We can sort through it on a deeper level later.”

“But how do we figure out what to take with us? Riley, it could take weeks to go through it all.” What had she been thinking? It wasn’t like she had a file folder or a laptop to grab. This was practically a bleached forest in here.

“Okay, uh...” Riley stared at her. “What projects was Allied Security working on? What else was happening at the facility where they kidnapped you from?”

“They were fired two years ago. How should I know who they work for now?” She’d thought the answer would be obvious if she was here, and now they were no closer to figuring out why than they were before.

“Let’s start going through some things and see what we find, okay?”

Riley grabbed a box off the credenza and set it in the guest chair. She pulled the top off and stared at a random assortment of loose papers, a couple of file folders, thumb drives and CDs.

“This is just desk junk,” she said. It could probably be thrown away, but what if there were valuable family keepsakes or pictures on those drives? If her family member was dead, she’d want those.

“Okay, trade me boxes then.”

“Hold on.” Erin frowned at the file at the bottom of the box. It had a red, IMPORTANT sticky note on it.

She pulled the file out. Inside was just another CD with no label on it.

“There might be something on these drives that tells us what we’re dealing with. I should go through them.” Especially whatever was on that disc.

“Okay, then that’s the box we’re taking with us.” Riley flipped through a box of things, but his frown grew more pronounced. “None of this is English.”

“Let me.”

Erin took over a file box, flipping through it, but it was all geology reports. Boring, dry material that would put most to sleep. Nothing worth dying over unless it was boredom.

They worked through the other six boxes but pulled very little. Osman hadn’t exactly been working on sensitive projects. He’d had a lot more to do with the company infrastructure, moving resources around and liaising with locals. Everyone had good things to say about him.

There was a reason someone had kidnapped her, she just wasn’t seeing it.

Two hours later, Riley’s phone went off.

“Time’s up,” he said.

Erin stared around her disaster area of an office.

She wasn’t coming back here, and it wasn’t just because NexGen was more than likely going to fire her to cover up an international incident. Ever since she’d been kidnapped, she’d been slowly coming to this conclusion. She didn’t want to die far from her family, without anyone she loved. The reason she’d taken this job was to make a difference, and now the company was choosing to cover up the problem instead of addressing it. How many other people had been hurt or even killed because of similar decisions?

Everyone liked to say that Kurdistan was safe, that they lived in an idealistic bubble, but at what cost? How many others had died that no one knew about?

It wasn’t worth missing out on life to be here.

“Ready?” Riley asked.

Erin’s heart wanted him. Or someone like him. She wouldn’t find that here.

She pitied whatever poor soul inherited her office and this mess, but it wasn’t her problem anymore.

RILEY WAS USELESS. The remainder of the files weren’t in English. All he was good for was shuffling stacks, manning the overflowing box and keeping an eye on the time.

He wished there was something else he could do. The more Erin pored over the backlog of things in her office, the deeper the lines across her brow and around her mouth became. He was powerless to lift the fog of sadness settling around her. He didn’t know what conclusions she was coming to, but they were breaking her world.

His phone vibrated, signaling their time was up.

With any luck Grant and the others had Thomas by the balls and they’d get more answers that way. If not, they’d complete their mission and get Erin home.

“Erin? Hey, we need to go.” Riley reached across the desk and grabbed her hand.

“I’m missing something. It has to be here, but all I’m seeing is...” She slumped in her chair and sighed.

“We have to go.”

“I know.” She placed the stack in her lap on the desk and glanced around the office.

“You want to take anything personal with you?” he asked.

“Oh. Yeah.”

She bent and opened a desk drawer. One by one she placed photo albums on her desk. A mug. A few odds and ends that didn’t make sense to Riley, but they didn’t have to.

“I’ve been volunteering at a few camps. I do English workshops for the kids, and every year I take too many pictures.” She thumbed through one book.

“I wouldn’t want to leave those behind either.”

Riley took the stack and set it into their half-full box of potential evidence. He wished they were leaving with more of a sense of accomplishment, but at least they were leaving.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No. No, that’s it.” She pushed to her feet and took one last look around the office.

“Let me tell Grant we’re on our way out. They should be ready to meet us by now.”

“What happened with Thomas? Any word?”

“Nothing, but Grant wouldn’t sidetrack us by telling us what went down there.”

“You never said how things went with him?”

“Grant?”

“Yeah.”

“Not good.” Riley was dreading seeing his Team Leader again. He knew he’d lost some of Grant’s trust, no matter that Riley had made the right call.

Riley pulled out his phone and hit dial on Grant’s number.

“Done?” Grant asked.

“We think so.” Riley glanced at Erin who nodded.

“It’s quiet out here.”

“Good to hear. We’re headed your way.” Riley glanced at Erin. “I hope...I hope you know I only did what I did—”

“We don’t need to talk about that now,” Grant said and ended the call.

Fuck.

Riley pocketed his phone. Earning Grant’s trust back wasn’t going to happen overnight.

“Really ready?” Riley asked Erin.

“Really ready.” She smiled at him, but it was fleeting.

“Come on.” He tucked the box under his arm and held out his hand.

She took it and together they walked out of the office. She paused to ensure the door was locked before they proceeded to the elevators.

“I’m not going to miss this place,” she said on their way down.

“Not even a little?”

“The people, yeah. But not this place. Not after all this.”

Riley wished he could change her mind. It was easy to see how she’d made a difference doing her job. That she strove to make the world a better place. Having that same world bite her sucked, but it didn’t change the impact she’d had. He hoped she saw that in time.

The elevator dumped them out into the lobby. He signed out of the security office and they headed for the front doors.

“Stay on my left, okay?” Riley placed his hand on her lower back, guiding her closer.

“I thought Grant said everything was okay?”

“It’s my job to be careful.” He smiled and pulled out the keys. “Come on.”

He pushed through the glass doors first, glancing up and down the street. The mid-day foot traffic had picked up, but overall it was a quieter street. He lifted the box to his shoulder and kept his other hand on Erin.

If they were right, and Thomas was a plant to get closer to Erin, then they had to consider the threat to her life was still active.

Something tickled the skin between Riley’s shoulder blades.

“Come on.” He urged her to walk faster.

“What’s wrong?” She glanced up at him.

“Nothing.” At least nothing he could put his finger on. Instincts were well and good, but he couldn’t tell her his gut wasn’t comfortable.

He twisted, glancing over his shoulder.

Something out of the corner of his eye glinted, like metal in the sunlight.

A crack of gunfire split the calm afternoon.

Before he could react, a freight train the size of a peanut rammed into Riley and he pitched forward, onto the sidewalk. His head knew he should tuck and roll, but his body wouldn’t react. It was as though he were trapped in time and space, held totally still.

Hands grasped at him. Erin. He saw her mouth open. He knew those words that look of terror. He didn’t have to hear her ragged cries for help to understand them.

Erin had to be saved. She had to be okay, at all costs. Nothing else mattered except her.

Riley threw his uncooperative body to the left, doing his best to shield her. His limbs wouldn’t obey him and his feet weren’t working. What the hell just happened?

MARK PUMPED HIS FIST as the two went down.

Fucking finally.

He’d wanted to make this problem go away quietly, but that damn woman was a cockroach.

The people on the street scattered, taking cover. At most Mark and his men would have minutes to clear the scene.

“I didn’t hit the target,” the sniper said.

“What?” Mark glanced at the man.

“He moved.”

Mark grabbed his radio.

“Get the box, now,” he snapped.

Sure enough, Erin Lopez pushed up to her knees. The man tried to move, but his body wobbled.

The sniper fired again.

The man threw himself over Erin.

“God damn it.” Mark spoke into the radio again. “Get the box and her.”

A pair of men in the parking lot sprinted for the pair.

A dark SUV jumped the curb, blocking Mark’s view of the targets. The doors opened, and three men got out, weapons at the ready.

“We need to move,” he said.

Sirens wailed in the distance. They wouldn’t have as much of a head start this time, and there was still no resolution.

Mark dove for the stairs, the sniper at his back.

Where the hell was Thomas? He was supposed to keep Mark updated about the rest of those Aegis bastards.