The minute we’re on the street, my Spidey senses go off. Someone is watching us. I don’t know who they are, or where they are, but they’re here. Sierra feels it, too. Nerves are jumping off her but then, maybe she walks around like that. She’s running. She’s hiding. “I don’t seem to know what to do with my hands without my purse,” she says when we stop at a light on the way to the subway. “That’s silly, right?”
I grab her hand and place it on my arm. “Why don’t you leave it right here,” I say. “If you don’t have a problem with that.”
“Actually, I don’t,” she says, apparently just as eager as I am to tell whoever is watching that she’s not alone.
The light turns and we start walking and that sense of being watched intensifies. I grab her hand. “Come on.” I take off running, and in her jeans and tennis shoes, she’s pretty darn agile, which gives me incentive to keep moving. We turn a corner, and she never questions why I’m hurrying. Another corner and we are rushing down the subway stairs and it’s not long before we dart into a train just before it closes, both laughing with the success and exertion.
“That felt good,” she says as we sit down on two open side-by-side seats, our legs aligned. “I used to run all of the time.”
“Used to?” I ask, taking the liberty to press my hand to her knee.
“Yeah,” she says. “Used to.”
“Weather permitting, I run in Battery Park in the mornings. You want to go with me tomorrow? We can go to the shooting range afterward.”
“Yes,” she says. “I’d like that, though I doubt seriously I can keep up with a SEAL—or ex-SEAL.”
“You’ll do just fine.”
An elderly woman walks in our direction and we both push to our feet and move to a pole, standing face-to-face. “You’re a gentleman,” she observes, while my mind goes back to that sense of being followed I no longer feel.
“SEAL’s honor,” I say, leaning forward and pressing my cheek to hers. “Honor is the only reason I haven’t kissed you about ten times over.” I cup her face. “Because no is no with me, but I want you every second that I’m with you.”
She shivers, and I know she’s affected. I want her to be affected. I damn sure am. The car stops and an announcement is made for our stop. “That’s us,” I say, pulling back, and when her eyes meet mine, fuck, the connection punches me in the chest and I’ve never had any woman do that to me.
I take her hand and we exit the car, hurrying forward and up the stairs. Once we’re topside, we’re not only clear, we’re only a few blocks from my apartment and the Walker offices. My spidey senses are calm and she breathes out, relief evident in the softening of her shoulders. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her close. “I got you, sweetheart,” I say, and when she settles her hand on my back, I smile again. She makes me smile, and the funny thing about that. I like it. I might even kill to keep it.
A few minutes later, we’re in a little joint where you stand behind a glass and tell the person making your salad which of about thirty toppings you want. I watch as Sierra lights the fuck up over avocado and egg and I know she wasn’t exaggerating about living off pizza slices. We get to the register and I’m not about to let her pay. I pull out my black Am Ex and hand it to the person behind the register. “For both of us,” I tell the clerk and when I expect Sierra to object she doesn’t.
She walks the fuck away. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I sign the slip and grab the bag of food and take off after Sierra.
I’m shaken. I don’t want to be shaken. I don’t want to distrust Asher, but that black Am Ex not only gives me flashbacks of The Beast flaunting his, it makes me question Asher in what I hope is an illogical way. It is illogical. Asher has given me no reason to distrust him, which is why I walk down the stairs toward the lower level seating, not out the door. I just need a moment to think. I need a moment to breathe and assure myself that I’m not being the fool I was with The Beast. But I oddly breathe better with Asher. Before him, alone felt safer, better. I feel a connection to this man and I need to slow down. I probably need to pull away. But I don’t want to. I want to kiss him. I want it to be okay that I kiss him.
I reach the last step and bring a dozen white tables with attached chairs into view and no other guests. I walk to a back table and rotate as Asher comes down the stairs, and he’s so damn good looking, and sweet, and funny. He makes me laugh and sigh, and it’s not logical that I’d still be alive if he was hired by Devin. The Beast. I need to call him by his name because he deserves to be named the bastard that he is. The bastard that would ensure I was dead right now if Asher worked for him. I just can’t risk being a fool. I need to ask Asher questions. I need to hear his answers. And so, I wait for him, ready to scream, fight, and run. I’ve been there, done that back in Texas when one of Devin’s goons came after me, but I want to stay with Asher like I’ve never wanted to stay with anyone in my life.
Asher stops in front of me and sets the bag of food on the table. “Talk to me, Sierra.”
“Bartenders don’t have black Am Ex cards.”
“I told you. I work for Walker Security. Our clients pay and pay well.”
“So the bartending job is a cover for a Walker job?”
“Yes. And I’m not saying more than that because I can’t have you nervous at the bar. It could get us both killed.”
I’m always nervous, I think. It’s my life now. “Were you hired to follow me? To get to know me? To kiss me?”
He steps closer, and I don’t even think about backing away. He shackles my hip, walking me into him and I have zero instinct to run, zero desire to run. “Sweetheart,” he says, as my hands settle on the hard wall of his chest. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. Because we want to kiss each other. Because this thing between us works far fucking better than anything I’ve ever known, and I want more. And to be clear: No. I do not work for whoever you’re running from, but if you tell me who the fuck he is, I promise you that you won’t have to run anymore.”
My fingers curl over his shirt. “It’s not that simple.”
“I can make it that simple. Trust me.”
“I need time,” I say, wishing he could make this simple. Wishing Devin wasn’t so damn powerful. “We just met.”
“That’s not a no. I’ll take that.”
“It’s not a yes.”
“Google Walker. We’re well-known. We’re well-respected. We don’t play games with people in the way you accuse me of playing with you.”
“You don’t need to convince me I can trust you. I don’t really think you’re setting me up. It’s just been a long road for me and I needed to look into your eyes and hear you say it.”
“I think you need to come to the Walker offices and meet the team. See how powerful the operation is. How far we reach.”
If they reach far, Devin knows someone they know. Devin could use them to get to me, and then destroy Asher, if not them. “You trust them completely,” I say.
“Yes. I do.”
And that’s the problem. That’s the reason I can’t tell him everything. Not yet. Not until he’ll hear me fully about that reach. So maybe not ever. “I was overreacting, Asher.”
“Let me help you, Sierra.”
“You are helping me just by being you. We’re friends, right?”
“Yes. We’re friends.”
And before I let us be more, I have to tell him everything. But I can’t do that if it means destroying him. “And friends buy friends salads, right?” I ask.
His lips hint at a smile and he motions to the table. “You want to eat?”
“Yeah, I want to eat.”
“Then we’re over my black Am Ex?”
My cheeks heat. “Yes. We’re over your black Am Ex.”
“Good.”
He holds onto me a few beats longer, though, like he can’t let go, and I like that. I really don’t want him to let go, but he does. And I have to let go anyway. We sit down, and he starts to open the bag when I reach for his hand. “Thank you for lunch.”
He kisses my hand and his lips are warm and I’m so cold, so often now. “Can friends do that?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, because I really need to kiss him when I can’t. “They can.”
“Where else can I kiss you?”
Everywhere please, I think, but I don’t know how to make that right in my mind. I’m not free and I’ll never be free and alive, so for now, I look away. I say nothing more than, “Let’s eat.”
We both pull the lids off our salads and I take a bite and I smile. “Is it silly that I’m really excited about salad?”
“I’ve know that feeling. After months in some foreign hellhole, small things, feel really damn good.”
“You saw a lot of bad things.”
“I did.”
I know asking questions invites questions, but I can’t help myself. “Why did you get out?”
“A bad mission. One that still gives me nightmares and made me question everyone who sent me there. I hit a wall. I had a job waiting with Walker anytime I wanted it and I took it.”
“Did you know Luke before the SEALs?” she asks.
“No, but we bonded on the whole New Yorker thing.”
“New York is like an entirely different planet,” I say. “And I know it’s your home, but it’s crowded, dirty, and expensive.”
“You’re living in the slum. That makes a difference. You need to experience the real city and the people. And I know just the way.”
“How is that?”
“I have a baby shower next weekend for Lauren, Royce’s wife,” he adds. “Go with me and help me survive the damn thing.”
“Baby shower?” I ask. “You have a baby shower?”
“Holy hell yes.”
“Isn’t that usually for women?”
“This is the Walker clan. We do everything together. And that’s the fucking truth, so help me God. They torture us over there, but I love them all. I need a gift. You have to help me.”
They do everything together. They’re close. He won’t see the potential of anyone being dirty enough to help Devin. Damn it, I think, but I say, “Yes. Of course.” And now I’ve committed to a baby shower, and a birthday celebration. Like I’m starting a real life here, when I just need the money to leave.
“Do you have siblings of your own?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Do you?”
“No.”
“What about your parents?” he asks.
“My father died of a heart attack a few years back. My mother is a retired school teacher.”
“Is she safe, Sierra?”
“I hope so. I took steps.”
“I can find out.”
I want to say yes. I so want to say yes, but that will open the door to him finding out who I am and who The Beast is as well. “We have a check-in time. I’ll talk to her next month actually.” I move on quickly. “What about your parents?”
“My father is here and my mother died of an aneurysm when I was ten and she was too young.”
“Are you close to your father?”
“No,” he says. “I hate my father.”
“Why?”
“Aside from the fact that he’s a very wealthy man who uses his money against everyone?”
Like Devin, I think.
“I was young, but I remember him abusing, controlling and intimidating my mother,” he adds.
Like Devin. I think again.
“What did you do in Denver, Sierra?”
“If I tell you—”
“I won’t look beyond what you tell me. Give me that trust or we’ll never get to know each other.”
“I’m terrified to trust anyone.”
“You already trust me.”
“It’s too soon to trust each other.”
“And yet, instinctively we all trust and distrust people when we first meet them.”
“And sometimes we’re wrong.”
“Is that what happened to you?” he asks.
I consider that. “No,” I say. “I was just too stupid to see what was in front of me.”
“I’m in front of you now. Choose to see me. Choose to let me see you.”
I swallow hard and I don’t let myself think too hard or I’ll run. I’ve trained myself to run and with good reason. I’ve been inches from death two times in nine months. “I’m a year from my Ph.D. in Forensic Psychology. I’d already have it, but I had the opportunity to intern with one of the most sought after forensic psychologists in the country. That meant finishing slower, but having him on my resume and gaining the experience, which was vast, by working his cases with him.”
“Then you’re one of us?”
“What does that mean?”
“Walker protects people, and Luke oversees a wide range of airport security now, but at our core, we find the bad guys and we take them down. We consult with law enforcement across the country and even beyond.”
“I don’t catch bad guys,” I say. “Or I didn’t. I just helped people like you figure who they were and how they think.”
“Are you good?”
“Yes. I am. I was.” I move on. “Who were you before the Navy? You were in a rock band, right?”
“Yeah. I was.”
“What role in the band?”
“I sang. That was my thing then.” His lips thin. “I was rebelling against my father. I joined the band and traveled. He called me a druggy and a loser.”
“Did you do drugs?”
“No. I’m too much of a control freak, but one of my friends did. He overdosed and died. It shook me, and I dropped out of the band.”
“And went into the Navy?”
“No. I did my father’s bidding and I went to Harvard.”
“Harvard? That’s very prestigious.”
“My father’s a very powerful man and I had exceptional grades. That and a large donation and I was in.”
“But ended up a SEAL.”
“I graduated with a business degree, and was set to work with my father afterward, but I knew if I did, I’d destroy him. I hate him that much.”
“Because of your mother?”
“Among other things. While I was in college, I saw him do some pretty horrible things. My hate became my motivation. He didn’t see it. He didn’t know that I’d take the company from him. He didn’t know that’s why I excelled at Harvard.”
“But you didn’t destroy him. Why?”
“The day I graduated, he told me I was just like him. That I was going to destroy the world. It hit me hard. I was like him. I decided right then I needed to help save the world. Ironically, that coldness in me that is like him is why I can kill. What does the psychologist in you say about that?”
“Good. It kept you alive and now you’re sitting here with me. How is your father so powerful? What does he do?”
“He’s the CEO and founder of Max Electronics.”
I blanch. “The Max? The new Apple of the world?”
“Yeah well, it’s not new. He just did exactly what Apple did. Worked at it for years and then finally hit with a product that took off.”
“You walked away from Max,” I say, and it’s not really a question but a statement.
“Yes.”
“All that money.”
“Yes.”
“All that power.”
“Yes. Is that a problem for you?”
I reach out and cover his hand with mine. “No. I like you even more now.”
He studies me several moments, his expression unreadable. “Because the person you’re running from has money and power?”
“Because I do. That’s all. Because you’re you. That’s even better.”
“I don’t tell anyone that story, but I told you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to get to the point where you tell me your story. Not today. Not even tomorrow. But it can’t be a long wait, Sierra.”
“And if I’m never ready?”
“You’re already ready, but for good reasons, you have to be sure you can trust me. But you’re going to have to tell me.”
“And if you hate me?”
“Did you kill someone and do so willingly?”
“No.”
“Did you commit a crime?”
“No.”
“Are you being blamed for either of those things?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t hate you.”
Until The Beast shows up.