ELEVEN

Natches’s home sat on the banks of Lake Cumberland, a few miles from Dawg’s farm. Whereas Dawg’s two-story farmhouse with its wraparound porch and old-time charm surrounded by flowering bushes and myriad blooms soothed the senses, Natches’s place had a feeling of hidden beauty.

The sprawling single-story home with its dark wood siding was nestled among a variety of evergreen trees and brush—mostly holly and laurel that grew naturally in the area. One would have to look closely if one didn’t know the house sat there.

It wasn’t hidden so much as it was very cleverly disguised, and Natches and his wife, Chaya, preferred it that way.

Lyrica pulled into the driveway beneath a canopy of dense growth and shook her head. She would have smiled, not for the first time, over her cousin’s idiosyncrasies if she wasn’t so upset. Over the years the family had been certain Natches would grow out of his penchant for plants and landscape design that made his home seem to be more a part of the land itself than the building it actually was. He hadn’t grown out of it yet, though.

Stepping from the car and moving along a moss-covered stone path to the backyard, she noticed the blooms that now grew around the wood supports of the back porch.

“Lyrie!” Bliss, Natches and Chaya’s twelve-year-old daughter, bounced out through the kitchen door, her long, ribbon-straight black hair and emerald eyes a perfect match for Natches’s.

Bliss had the dark Mackay looks but the softer turn of her cheek, her eye shape, and the arch of her brows were her mother’s. Still, the girl looked enough like Lyrica that she was often mistaken for her daughter by strangers.

“Hey there.” Bliss threw her arms around Lyrica and gave her a firm hug before the girl jumped back with a wide smile. “Where’s your dad?”

“He’s in the house making Mom give him that look that means he’s about to go hide in his work shed and say bad words again.” Bliss laughed. “He’s so funny.”

“What’s he doing to your mom?” Lyrica smiled as the girl tugged at her hand and drew her inside.

Chaya chose that moment to step into the kitchen, her brown eyes sparkling menacingly as she stalked into the room.

“He’s being himself of course,” Chaya bit out before turning to her daughter. “Your aunts are on their way to pick you up for a while. They’re taking you shopping with them.”

“Uh-oh.” Bliss’s gaze flicked to the doorway her mother had just stepped from. “Dad’s about to get in trouble, huh?”

“Oh, baby, your daddy already crossed that little line.” Her mother smiled tightly as Bliss giggled at the mocking threat in her mother’s voice.

She turned back to Lyrica. “They’ll kiss and make up before I get home. Bet me.”

Lyrica shook her head. “Do I look that easy, kid?”

Bliss shrugged innocently. “Well, since he’s in trouble because he hit some guy over you, I thought I’d give it a try.”

Bliss laughed in delight at the surprise on Lyrica’s face before rushing from the room and calling out to her father in glee.

“Lord, she’s just like her father,” Chaya moaned. “She scares me.”

“When’s she going to go boy crazy so Natches will stop stressing over his cousins’ love lives and stress over his daughter’s upcoming one instead?” Lyrica asked.

Chaya grimaced at the thought of that. “Come on, Lyrica,” she protested. “Let’s not rush the divorce I can feel coming when he completely loses touch with reality. Let him focus on you a while longer.”

“Divorce?” Natches strode into the room, a smile of genuine warmth and playful charm filling his expression as he caught his wife in strong arms and pulled her to him. “Never. I was thinking a deserted island instead. There would be no boys there for Bliss to get crazy over.”

Dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt, Natches was a mature man. That maturity had placed a few lines and creases along his eyes, a hint of gray at his temples, but other than that, he was still a powerful force.

Chaya grimaced and shook her head as her husband placed a loving kiss at her neck. “Natches, sweetheart, are you still trying to fool yourself?”

Wearing loose cotton pants and a white T-shirt, her shoulder-length golden brown hair pulled to the crown of her head in a clip, with wisps falling around her face, Chaya appeared far younger than her husband though Lyrica knew the difference in their ages wasn’t that vast.

Chaya had once confided to Lyrica that Natches had been there the day her first child had died in a fiery blast that terrorists had instigated in the Middle East. If it hadn’t been for him, she would have died that day, too, she had admitted.

In the six years since Lyrica had been a part of their lives, the love and sense of bonding between this couple had never ceased to amaze her. Just as with Dawg and Christa, and Rowdy and Kelly, their commitment to each other had only increased over the years.

They were both nearing fifty, but they hadn’t seemed to age much at all since Lyrica and her sisters had arrived in the county. It was as though their love kept them young, kept them seeing the innocence and beauty in the world.

“Talk to your cousin.” Chaya moved from his arms after giving him a quick, forgiving kiss. “Kelly and Janey are coming to take Bliss shopping with the other girls. Then you and I will talk.”

Natches’s brows lifted and cunning sensuality filled his eyes as he watched his wife leave the room. It was a look he probably had no idea others could see. The look of a man who knew joy, never-ending surprise, and pleasure in the woman he loved.

“For a man who loves his wife so dearly, you have an amazing ability to believe other men have no capacity for the same feelings, Natches.” Crossing her arms over her breasts, Lyrica watched her cousin suspiciously as that cunning sensuality morphed and she caught the slightest glint of calculation before it was quickly hidden.

“I have never said I don’t believe in it,” he retorted as he adopted an expression of such innocence it was almost believable.

Lyrica knew him better than that.

“That look might fool your daughter, but it doesn’t fool me, cuz,” she informed him.

Still, it remained.

“Lyrica, you’re so suspicious.” He sighed.

“Natches,” she drawled with tight mockery, “you’re so full of bullshit.”

He merely grunted at the accusation.

“Why were you and Chaya arguing over me to the point that Chaya’s sending Bliss shopping with Janey and Kelly?” she tried again.

The look he shot her was classic Natches. Playful, charming, with a barely there glint of cunning that locked onto any weakness and used it instinctively. He was a master manipulator, a man with instinctive perception, and a sharp-eyed, merciless sniper. A man who in the past had taken aim between a cousin’s eyes and pulled the trigger.

“Sometimes Bliss only hears part of a conversation . . .”

“Stay away from Graham, Natches.” She didn’t beat around the bush.

She could do that with Rowdy and Dawg, laugh and playfully tease and still get her point across. She knew better than to even attempt it with Natches.

“Then you stay away from him.” Natches dropped the pretense instantly, his emerald green eyes narrowing on her as he hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans.

Lyrica stared at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not kidding you.” At least he wasn’t lying to her. He’d been known to do that.

“Why are you doing this, Natches? Why take a stand like this over something that’s none of your business?” she asked him, confused now.

“Who says it’s none of my business?” A dark frown flitted at his brow. “You’re my business, Lyrica. And Graham Brock’s bad news for you.”

She would have laughed at him if the disbelief hadn’t run so deep.

Her lips thinned. There were very few ways to convince Natches to let something go. He was worse than Dawg. Her threat to move away and let him deal with Dawg’s anger had obviously not worked.

“Natches, stay out of this,” she warned him softly.

“Why should I?” He seemed to be laughing at her, albeit silently.

“Because if you don’t, then I’ll be too concerned you’ll hurt him, and I’ll give up on the one man I can’t seem to stay away from.” It was the truth. Stark. Simple.

“So why would I bother to back off if it’s working?”

He wasn’t a stupid man, though. Tension filled his shoulders, his expression veiled as he watched her carefully.

“Because then I’ll have given up not because the man isn’t in my best interests or because it’s my choice; I’ll have done it because it’s your choice. I’ll never stop resenting you for it and once I’ve accepted that’s how it will end, then I have to accept that it doesn’t matter who I love, because you’ll always stand between us. Why should I bother to love then? Why should I bother to care that whoever I sleep with cares for me in turn?”

“Stop trying to snow me, Lyrie. You might say that, you might mean it right now, but you’re too damned stubborn to actually do it.”

“Natches, at this point, I’m struggling to decide for myself if Graham Brock is something I want or merely something I’ve been fascinated with for years. Don’t turn the question into a quest to prove to myself and to you that you have no control over me, or a lesson in the fact that you can control me by hurting someone I care about. You wouldn’t like either outcome, and neither would I.”

Unlike her sisters, she believed in facing Dawg, Natches, and Rowdy in ways they understood rather than from a stance of pure stubbornness. She loved them, very much respected them, but she knew that if given the chance, they would wrap her and her sisters in cotton batting and do whatever they thought necessary to avoid ever seeing them hurt. And they’d never realize how the total sterility of such a life would destroy them.

“How much do you expect me to let him destroy you?” he growled, anger beating just beneath the surface. “I know things about him that you don’t, Lyrica. Things that would hurt you if you ever learned the truth of it.”

“You’ll tell me that, but I know you—you will never tell me what those things are, will you, Natches?”

His expression was the only answer she needed.

“Until you can tell me, then let’s drop all the dark hints as to the man he is, was, or could be.” She sighed wearily. “He saved my life. And I know he tries to be a good man. No matter what kind of man he may be, he’s a good man.”

“He’s a dangerous man!” he snapped. “He may have saved your life, but he could also end up getting you killed.”

“And how many times was Kelly warned of that where the Mackays were concerned?” she argued bitterly. “Or Christa? You forget, Natches, I know your pasts, I know the men you were before you fell in love, and I know how dangerous the three of you were. What if Chaya had walked away from you because of Johnny?”

He’d killed Johnny Grace. The cousin he’d been raised with, the one who had attempted to kill Christa and would have killed Dawg. Natches had put his rifle sights between the man’s eyes and he’d felt no remorse pulling the trigger.

“Look at your past, at Dawg’s and Rowdy’s, and tell me that you didn’t deserve to be loved.”

“Hell no, we didn’t deserve it. Not then we didn’t,” he growled back at her. “And what we have wasn’t handed to us, either, Lyrica. We had to change to be able to have the hearts we share, and if Graham Brock thinks he can have you without facing one of us, then he can think again.” He moved to her quickly, gripped her shoulders, and stared down at her with the merciless lack of remorse she imagined was in his eyes when he killed his cousin. “I love you, girl. I see you and I see the child that owns every beat of my heart. The one I’d go into hell fighting for, and I’ll be damned if I’ll betray my instincts on this. If I do, I may as well tell every man who ever meets her that would hurt her to go ahead and do just that. Graham knows the score, and I have no doubt if I beat the hell out of him, you’ll hate me. For a while. But at least you’ll by god hate me with a whole, beating heart rather than half a one or, god forbid, from a casket. Remember that one.”

With that he turned and moved quickly from the room, his footsteps heavy, his warning ringing in her head.

“No one said a Mackay was easy to talk to.”

Lyrica swung around to face Rowdy as he stepped through the back door, his handsome face creased in concern as he stared at her quietly.

Rubbing at the chill that raced over her arms, she stared back at the cousin they always said was the logical one. The one who could be reasoned with. Today, none of them knew the meaning of the word “reason.”

“He’s irrational,” she whispered, shaking her head. “All of you are.”

His lips quirked into a gentle, understanding smile.

“Not irrational, simply determined to protect family.” Moving to the counter, he poured a cup of coffee from the heated coffeepot and sipped at it before leaning against the counter and watching her with the solemn concern he seemed to approach every problem with.

“How can you agree with this, Rowdy? It’s wrong.”

He turned to face her slowly.

Sunlight slanted through the window at his back, striking at his black hair and his forest green eyes, warming the white short-sleeved shirt he wore tucked into belted jeans.

“Whether or not I agree with him is beside the point.” He shrugged. “I understand how he feels, though.”

“Am I wrong, Rowdy?” The logical one, Rowdy rarely let his own personal opinion of someone cloud his actions. “Do I see a good man where something else exists?”

“I believe Graham’s a good man, Lyrica,” he finally said. “I believe he’s an honorable man. But a man’s lust is rarely driven by his honor. And a man like Graham has buried the kind of vulnerability that would let him love a good woman, so deep he doesn’t even believe it exists anymore. The question then becomes, does he want you enough to revive it? Because that’s the only way he’ll have you without all three of us coming down on him like a nuclear explosion the first time someone calls you one of his bimbos.”

She flinched at the reminder that she and Kye weren’t the only ones who noticed the women, or the type of women, Graham went through so casually.

Maybe she did need to move just far enough away that the Mackays couldn’t oversee every move she made or every man she became interested in.

“You know, if you were like your sisters, dating regularly, doing all the crazy shit they’ve gotten into over the years, maybe Natches wouldn’t be so extreme,” he told her gently. “But you don’t. You sneak in a party here and there, knowing you’re going to be dragged out, but that’s about it. It’s never serious for you. And Graham Brock is the only man you’ve ever focused on. That scares us. Because we know Graham, and we know that even good men are capable of bad things.”

“And all three of you evidently lost touch with reality a long damned time ago,” she told him roughly. “My life or who I sleep with is nobody’s damned business.”

His face hardened. “And that’s where you’re wrong. You’re a Mackay, Lyrica. Whether you like it or not you’ll always be a Mackay. And trust me, trouble and Mackays go hand in hand, to the point that we’ll never, at any time, turn our backs if you’re getting involved with a man who has the same ability to find danger as we’ve always had. If you want to have a nice, quiet, sane affair then find a nice, quiet, sane man to have it with and I promise you, I’ll stand in front of Dawg and Natches myself to make certain you can have it in peace.”

An instant, instinctive response came over her. Her lips thinned; her eyes narrowed.

“Why, Rowdy,” she drawled, “where would the fun be in that?”

Turning on her heel, she pulled the back door open and stalked from the house, outrage trembling through her body. Her cousin watched her with thoughtful focus until she disappeared.

Rowdy listened, heard her Jeep start and, seconds later, pull from the drive.

He snagged another coffee cup from the cabinet and poured it full before lifting it and carrying it with his own to the breakfast table that sat on the other end of the kitchen.

Natches didn’t disappoint him. He was there within seconds of Rowdy taking his seat, from where he watched nature at its finest just outside the window as a doe and her spotted fawn bounded through the forest.

“She’s too damned stubborn,” Natches growled as he jerked a chair out and straddled it furiously. “If we’re not careful, she could end up devastated.”

Rowdy turned and gave his cousin a firm look. “Keep Trudy retired.”

Trudy was Natches’s modified rifle, the same one he’d used to kill the cousin who’d threatened them all. With the additional threat Lyrica was facing, Natches may not keep his promise to keep his first instincts in check.

“I’ll let Trudy sleep,” Natches assured him with a grin. “For now.”

Rowdy breathed out at the statement, relieved, then turned at the sound of the door opening again.

Dawg stepped inside, a scowl on his face as he tromped over to the coffeepot and poured his own mug.

None of them mentioned the fact that no one knocked before entering the house. They did that at one another’s homes, just as their wives did. They were home, no matter which house they sat in, and that was how they liked it. Sometimes, it was as though they were triplets rather than first cousins.

Rowdy watched both of them with narrowed eyes. “I’m going to assume Graham Brock made the same visit to you two that he made to me this morning?”

Dawg made a sound somewhere between a growl and a snarl.

Natches crossed his arms over his chest and grunted in irritation.

Rowdy breathed out heavily. Lyrica had missed Graham by only moments when she’d arrived at Timothy’s office earlier.

“Suggestions?” he asked when neither of them commented.

“Shoot him!” Natches and Dawg spoke at once.

“We have a plan, remember?” Rowdy growled, then he glanced at them both thoughtfully. “How long would she grieve for him, do you think?” Rowdy asked as though he were actually considering the prospect.

“Would the three of you really like a suggestion or are you just considering it for appearance’s sake?” Chaya asked as she, Christa, and Kelly stepped into the room.

Rowdy bit back his grin as the other two gave him a long-suffering look.

“A suggestion we could live with would be nice.” Dawg was the one who answered, his voice morose as he lifted his coffee to his lips.

“Do what you always do,” his wife said softly as she bent to kiss the top of his head lovingly. “Track the danger, keep a close eye on it, intercede if you have to, torture the hell out of Graham, and keep to the original plan. Just make sure he realizes the future discomfort he’ll face if he breaks her heart. But let Lyrica make the choice, and if the fall hurts, then let her hurt, Dawg. Let her live.”

“Or she’ll hate all three of you.” Mercedes Mackay stepped into the room then, with Timothy close behind her.

“Geez, Timothy, we didn’t invite your ass,” Natches snarled, though with a lack of heat that actually indicated his respect for the other man.

“Nice to see you, too, Natches,” the other man said with a grunt. “And as always, your hospitality overwhelms me.”

Moving to Christa and Chaya, Mercedes hugged them briefly, thankfully, then gave each man a hard, firm look. “She’s your sister—cousins or not, I count each of you her brother, not just Dawg. But she is my daughter. If I can bear her broken heart, then so can you.”

“Who called them?” Natches muttered, despite the affection in his gaze as he glanced at the dark-haired beauty Timothy Cranston had managed to fall in love with.

“Rowdy invited me before he left the office,” Timothy answered. “It seems Graham’s made a point to come to each of us to protest his lack of involvement in the investigation concerning the attack on Lyrica.” Timothy’s face held no evil smile, no wicked anticipation. He was far too somber. “Which, coincidentally, gave me an idea.”

“Oh Lord.”

“God save us.”

“What did we do to deserve this?” Natches groaned as though in pain.

Timothy grunted humorlessly.

“Tell us and get it the hell over with.” Dawg sighed.

“Why, we let him become part of the investigation,” Timothy replied instantly. “A very intricate part. The attack on her doesn’t sit well with any of us, especially considering that we all suspect the poor girl who actually died was no more than an attempt to allay our suspicions.”

Rowdy watched him speculatively now, as did Dawg and Natches.

“The attempt was too professional,” Timothy explained. “Especially for such sloppy execution. Either we’re being played with, or, according to the call I received just after Rowdy left, Graham is the least of our worries. We’re looking at something potentially more dangerous to her than we first imagined.”

“What’s happened?” Rowdy beat the others to the question.

“Just after you left the office, Tracker contacted me. He says he accepted the contract on Lyrica some months ago with the express purpose of learning who offered the contract. The hit was attempted and deliberately botched. He’s certain he can flush the backer out, but once again, he’s been pressed to make another attempt or the backer will rescind the agreement and put the contract out for bids once again.”

The muttered, explicit curse that slipped past Dawg’s lips didn’t surprise any of them. Rowdy plowed his fingers through his hair with restless concern. Natches’s gaze iced over, its cold emerald depths stone hard.

Tracker.

No one knew his real name, where he came from, or his true loyalties. All they knew was his apparent disinterest in getting in Natches Mackay’s crosshairs. There was a strange sense of loyalty from the other man toward the Mackays, though a confusing one considering the fact that the Mackays hadn’t even known of him until long after they’d gotten as far out of DHS as possible.

“Son of a bitch,” Dawg whispered as the women who stood behind the men held on to them as though to steady themselves.

Rowdy could feel the trembling fear in Kelly’s grip and reached up to hold her hand in assurance.

“Send the girls to Texas.” Natches looked around the room, the hard-eyed assassin he had once been clearly apparent now. “Bliss, Laken, Erica, and the others. Send them to Cade and Marly. Cade, Brock, Sam, and their boys will make damned sure they’re safe. They’ll take care of them. See if we can get Zoey to go with them. They’ve been begging to visit again since last year.”

“I’ll have John Senior dispatch his plane immediately for the trip,” Timothy said quietly. “We get the girls as far away as possible until we know what the hell is going on and who’s behind the contract.”

“I’ll contact Alex and the others,” Dawg said. “We’ll meet with them this afternoon. They’re not going to send their kids with ours without an explanation.”

Dawg wasn’t just a brother now; he was a weapon honed by years in the Marines and having to make choices that required he set his emotions and his fears aside.

“I’ll contact Tracker and set up a meeting, then call Graham once we have a time and a place,” Timothy injected, eyeing them all steadily. “Keep him in the loop this time. Lyrica’s life is more important at this point than anything else.”

“And we’re supposed to let Graham help us, how?” Dawg growled as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Dammit, my stomach is burning. I’m getting too damned old for this shit.”

“I told you days ago to get her out of sight and none of you wanted to listen,” Natches snapped. “Your indigestion and my acid reflux acting up at the same time? No way in hell. We listen to our guts, Dawg, like we used to, before we lose her.”

“Graham will do what no one would ever believe we’d allow him to do.” Timothy’s gaze hardened, causing each of them to watch him in narrow-eyed suspicion. “Place Lyrica back with him for protection. If, as Tracker and I suspect, the backer is someone in Somerset, then they’d never expect us to deliberately place her there. They won’t suspect we’re searching for them.”

“What do we tell Lyrica?” Natches was the one to ask the question they were all avoiding.

“The truth,” Mercedes declared, her tone commanding, the strength her daughters had inherited echoing in her voice. “You will tell her the truth.”

—

Tracker was six feet, five inches of hard, merciless power. Rumor had it he’d been a Navy SEAL before arriving on the soldier of fortune scene eight years before, though no one could confirm the rumor.

He’d been approached by damned near every security firm in the world, offers had been made to back a security company led by him, and the leaders of several different countries had met with him, willing to pay any price to have him head their emerging forces.

He’d turned down every offer, as had the six-member team he led.

Whoever he was, wherever he came from, no one could deny he was a force to be reckoned with.

Stepping into the darkened offices across from Lyrica’s apartment to face the man, Graham couldn’t help but feel a familiarity when he looked into the striking blue eyes of the man leaning casually against the wall, facing not just the Mackays, but also their extended male family members as well.

Among them were Alex Jansen, chief of Somerset Police and husband to Natches’s sister, Janey; Brogan Campbell, the FPS agent who recently married Dawg’s sister Eve; Jed Booker, Brogan’s partner and the fiancé of another of Dawg’s sisters Piper; and Zeke Mayes, a close friend and the former Pulaski County sheriff, who had turned over the reins to his son, Shane, in the last election and now ran an electronic security firm headquartered outside Somerset with his wife, Rogue. Shane Mayes was there as well. Though unmarried and unrelated, the younger man, who was closer in age to Graham than to the Mackays, stood sure and confident at his father’s side. John Walker Jr., Zeke’s brother-in-law and one of Timothy Cranston’s unofficial agents, was there as well, along with Timothy himself.

Cranston was the man they all had in common. He’d first commanded the group the Mackays were a part of through DHS about twelve years before. He’d manipulated and tricked the Mackays and their friends in various ops that eventually built them all into an intelligent, unbeatable force. Then he’d met Dawg’s sisters and fell in love with the woman who had given them life. He was now bringing men into the Mackay females’ lives as though he were born to direct their destinies.

What part Tracker would play in the schemes that filled Timothy’s head, Graham wasn’t certain. What plans the former agent had for Lyrica, Graham intended to learn. What he did know now, though, was that Tracker was a man of many talents, and though his reputation suggested he could be convinced, for the right price, of course, to kill a man, that wasn’t exactly the truth.

“Graham.” Tracker nodded his shaggy dark head as Graham locked the door behind him and stepped fully into the room. “Good to see you again.”

Stepping forward, Graham accepted the mercenary’s handshake with a nod.

“You, too, Track. And I’m damned glad you’re the one we’re facing rather than another party.”

Tracker gave a mocking snort at the comment. “I turned it down at first,” he admitted. “But I was too curious, I guess, because the mark was from Somerset. Once I learned it was one of Dawg Mackay’s sisters, I reconsidered.”

“Took you long enough to come forward,” Alex Jansen commented coolly. “One might say a little too long.”

“One might,” Tracker agreed, his lips kicking up at one corner wryly. “But one might be unaware of the fact that trust isn’t my first inclination and that having my reputation as a merciless killer smeared by a shadow of compassion isn’t exactly the compromise I’m looking for here.”

“We’re not here to snipe at his background, Alex,” Timothy stated from where he sat behind the bar on the other side of the room. “Let’s hear what he has to say, then we can plan accordingly.”

As though agreement had been voiced, Tracker moved from the wall to step behind the bar with Timothy as the rest of them converged on the bar stools in front of the wide teak counter.

“Two million dollars,” Tracker stated as Timothy passed out a file folder to each of them. “The hit has to appear to be either an accident or a case of mistaken identity. When that girl the drug cartel killed showed up, I decided to use it to try to flush out whoever’s backing the contract. So far, it hasn’t worked. At last contact I was given one more chance before the down payment has to be returned and a new offer will go out.”

Graham opened the file to find pictures of Lyrica, notes on her various jobs, schedule, friends, and family. Along with it was the Mackay itinerary for the weeks they were on vacation.

“In checking out her background I learned that Graham Brock’s sister was a close friend and that her number was on Ms. Mackay’s contact list. They talked daily, so I took a chance that if she couldn’t contact her friend and her phone appeared to be malfunctioning then she would turn to her brother. Thankfully, the plan worked.”

Graham glanced up from the file. “You could have just called.”

“Not until I learned exactly whose phones were compromised.” Tracker shook his head before leaning back against the empty shelves of the former bar. “When she disappeared, my employer demanded the records of a tracking and jamming program he provided that would ensure no one accessed her phone. I sent it and waited. The only encrypted number he couldn’t pinpoint on the report was Graham’s.” He nodded in Graham’s direction. “For the rest of you, I was sent call logs, though text and discussion logs weren’t tracked, it appears.”

“Son of a bitch,” Timothy exclaimed. “How was the encryption cracked?”

“From what I can understand about the program, it’s usually hidden in a download of some sort,” Tracker answered. “A picture, website, whatever. Backtracking, I was able to identify a URL common to the unencrypted numbers of those on Lyrica’s contact list. How it got into the encrypted numbers, I haven’t ascertained just yet.”

“A lot of work,” Alex muttered. “A hell of a lot of money. The question is, why? What does Lyrica know that has her marked?”

“My question as well,” Tracker answered. “And one of the questions I initially asked upon taking the job. I’m known to be the nosy sort.” A mocking smile tugged at his lips, though his gaze remained stone cold. “The answer I received was that the contract was a vendetta, not a personal strike.”

“Fuck!” Natches hissed, his voice low, vibrating with menace. “Our old enemies perhaps?”

The homeland terrorist group had been silent for years.

“My sources say no.” Once again, Tracker answered the question. “I’ll be honest, gentlemen, I’ve spent more time trying to track who, what, and why on this contract than I’ve spent on any other. There are no answers, though I have managed to cross out every Mackay enemy I could identify.”

“What about my enemies?” Timothy asked.

“That one I can’t answer,” Tracker informed him. “You have far too many, Timothy, and even more than even I can identify.”

“It’s not Timothy,” Natches stated.

“Then who?” The question came from Rowdy, who was sitting at Timothy’s right, every line of his body tense and filled with fury.

“I don’t know.” A quick shake of his head was the only indication of Natches’s confusion. “But it’s not Timothy. There’s something familiar to this program, though; I just can’t identify what. It’s as though I’ve seen it somewhere else, heard of it, or something.” He tapped one particular page. “Lyrica’s phone went off-line here.” He pointed to the included graph as he turned to Graham. “Is that where you had her pull the battery?”

Graham checked the graph then.

“That was it.” He confirmed the time. “I kept the call brief, just long enough for my GPS to pinpoint her, before I had her disconnect and pull the battery from the phone.”

Natches frowned again, shaking his head. “That shouldn’t have worked.” He sighed. “Not with the program I’m thinking of.”

“Good luck tracing it,” Tracker retorted. “My second in command has been working on it nonstop for the past three months since we were given the contract, and even her sources haven’t been able to identify it or its creator.”

“Angel?” Graham asked him, remembering the tiny bundle of dynamite that had fought viciously with the mercenary. “She’s still putting up with you?”

Tracker flicked him an irritated glance. “Stay the hell away from her, Graham. Angel’s no flavor and I won’t have her become one.”

What the fuck? He blinked back at Tracker as the Mackays and their friends glared over at him.

“The ‘flavor’ comments are starting to piss me off,” he told them all. “And I never had any intention of inviting Angel into my bed. That woman knows her way around a knife far too well.”

“If the comments bother you, then stop sleeping with those rich, spoiled little heiresses with too much money and too little brains,” Natches snorted.

“Really?” Graham grunted at the comment. “Are we going to go there, Natches?”

The other man looked up and the calculated menace in his gaze had an answering expression that tightened Graham’s own expression.

“Enough,” Rowdy warned them both.

“Angel has been in the apartment next to Lyrica’s since we accepted the contract,” Tracker informed them then. “She’s also been shadowing her wherever she goes when she leaves the apartment. And I should tell you all, she just left again.” He glanced at the watch he was wearing. “That woman doesn’t sleep a lot, does she?” He glanced at Graham as he made the comment.

Graham gave him a level stare in return until the other man gave another of those crooked, mocking little grins.

“Angel couldn’t have been shadowing her or I would have known about it,” Dawg stated, his voice hard as one finger tapped soundlessly against his open file. “I’ve had someone following her since she moved back to her apartment . . .”

Tracker stared back at him knowingly. “Jim Bailey. A hell of an investigator and bodyguard, but he has nothing on Angel. Hell, she even rode with him a few nights after convincing him he was the best thing since sliced bread. He’s not taking the job seriously and spends more time on his cell phone than he does watching for tails. His belief is that only a fool would go after a Mackay and risk their wrath.”

“Fucker!” Natches breathed out, fury lending a dark roughness to his tone that had his cousins flinching. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Leave him in place,” Tracker suggested. “Whoever the contract’s backer may have in place to follow Lyrica won’t be watching for anyone else, though Angel hasn’t detected anyone yet. When this is over, discuss your bill with him maybe. Until then, use him.”

That was what he would have done, Graham admitted.

“What information is coming to you from your backer?” Timothy asked.

“It’s in the back of the file,” Tracker informed him. “I convinced him I had to complete another job after my first attempt on Lyrica fell through. As far as he knows, I’m not due back for another week. I had hoped my time here would reveal the backer’s identity, but that hasn’t happened yet. That’s why I came to Timothy. I have two weeks after my supposed return to complete the job and give this man Lyrica’s lifeless body. If I don’t, he’ll find another team. If that happens, there won’t be a warning. She’ll just be dead.”

Like hell.

Graham could feel his fury burning chaotically. He wouldn’t allow all the vibrant, sensual energy that filled her to be silenced. She was too much a part of his life, too important to him to allow her to be threatened.

He closed the file slowly.

“Contact Angel,” he growled. “I want to know where the hell she’s headed.”

Tracker arched his brow at the demand. “She’ll contact me when Lyrica stops.”

“What role do you intend to play in this, Tracker?” Graham hoped like hell the man didn’t think he was just going to sit back and watch while the rest of them fought to protect her. He’d help, or he’d wish he had.

“Getting involved, Graham?” Tracker asked softly, the question causing Graham to tense. “I didn’t expect that, despite the appearance of interest. She doesn’t appear to be a ‘flavor’ to me.” His gaze flicked to Dawg.

The smile he gave the other man was hard and filled with warning. “And it’s not exactly any of your business,” Graham assured him softly.

Tracker grinned at that. “I don’t know, she’s pretty as a little speckled pup. I might want to take her home with me.”

The comment drew a reaction, despite Graham’s best intentions.

The conversation between him and Sam where Graham had identified Lyrica as a pup popped into his mind. The knowing look on Tracker’s face assured him that was the intent. There was no way in hell the other man had tapped his phone or bugged his house, and that left only one other person he could have compromised.

Sam Bryce.

“I’ll take care of that one, Tracker,” he promised the other man, knowing the mercenary would be well aware that Graham knew how he’d managed to come by the information.

“I’m sure you will,” Tracker answered softly. “But be certain you know the means by which it was acquired before you destroy a friendship, Graham. I’d hate to put you on the dark side of the acquaintance list. Know what I mean?”

“I don’t,” Dawg snapped, obviously tired of the oblique conversation. “Want to clue us the fuck in or shut the hell up?”

Tracker’s grin was one Graham had seen on the Mackays’ lips more than once. Equal amounts of mocking amusement and irritation.

Though, there was a hint of respect there, too, Graham thought.

Rather than making one of his infamous smart remarks, Tracker inclined his head in agreement. “Point taken,” he murmured. “Graham and I perhaps know each other a little too well.”

“And that perhaps bothers me a little too much,” Dawg said as he shot Graham a glare.

Hell, he was getting damned sick of the glares, glowers, and silent promises of retribution being shot his way.

“How do you intend to proceed with this?” he asked the mercenary rather than adding to whatever fuel the Mackays were gathering against him.

“That’s my call,” Dawg inserted, his voice soft, challenging, as Graham met his glare.

“Would you like to enlighten us, maybe?” Graham asked. “Or was my invitation here a mistake?”

“Probably.” Natches spoke before his cousin could, a tight smile pulling at his lips as the icy emerald green of his gaze locked on Graham.

“Natches,” Timothy said, his tone chiding, “let’s not antagonize him. Graham’s a very important part of the plan and you know it.”

Those words sent a chill racing down Graham’s spine as he centered his gaze on the former agent and began to see why the Mackays had become such a force to be reckoned with after they’d aligned with this soft-spoken, often far-too-amused little bastard.

“And what part is that, Timothy? Sacrificial lamb, maybe?” Graham was barely holding his own anger in check now.

Timothy smiled. A deliberately wide smile as his hazel eyes gleamed with hard purpose. “Sacrificial lamb always seemed a waste of a good agent to me, Graham,” he stated. “No, you’ll not be the lamb being led to slaughter, nor will Lyrica.” His voice hardened. “We all have our strengths here, just as Lyrica has her weaknesses. One of those weaknesses being her inability to live with any of her cousins for more than a few days at a time without sparks flying. That will only distract all of us.”

Graham felt his gut tighten at the information.

“Then she won’t be staying with one of them?” Shock and dread began to fill him. “Bullshit. You can’t leave her in that damned apartment alone.” He turned to Dawg, noticing the other man was staring at the file lying in front of him as though he could set it aflame with his gaze alone.

“We have no intention of leaving her there alone,” Timothy assured him, pulling his gaze back.

Still smiling, the former agent slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks and watched Graham too closely, with far too much amusement.

“Then what is your intention?” Graham snarled.

“She’ll be staying with you,” Timothy answered, and shock tore through Graham’s mind. “The rest of us will be watching, maneuvering, and flushing the backer out into the open. Your only job is keeping her alive—”

“Unless it’s too late.” Tracker was suddenly moving. “She’s been hit. The Jeep was plowed into from a side road and she’s in a ravine. Angel can’t get her to answer and hasn’t gotten into the vehicle yet. Location’s being texted to you.”

Graham was moving behind him before the others could process their shock, racing from the side entrance of the abandoned business to the Viper he’d parked next to the black Corvette.

They tore out of their respective parking places almost simultaneously, but it was the Viper that hit the street first.

All Graham could hear as he loaded the location’s coordinates into the computer verbally were the words that Lyrica had been hit and the terror that began shredding his guts at the thought.

She’d been hit.

God help him if she hadn’t survived.