EZRA HAD STAYED with Shannon again last night. Chas had sat there, staring at her front door. The pain was unimaginable. It almost rivaled how he’d felt after he’d lost Amelia.

All he had wanted to do was storm in there and show her that Ezra Hahn was the worst choice for her.

Ezra’s best friend had been killed, and Ezra had spent the night screwing with Shannon.

Like Geoff Morten hadn’t mattered. Hadn’t mattered at all.

He would have bet good money that Ezra would have been doing something besides screwing Shannon after losing his best friend like that.

He hadn’t taken Geoff out because of Ezra.

Certainly not because of Shannon.

Shannon would never equal death in his eyes.

Chas hadn’t meant to go hunting up the rest of his old team. But he’d done that this morning. He’d dreamed of Amelia again last night, and he’d watched her with Hollace, Schneider, Geoff, and Ezra. Saw things he didn’t remember. Little things like the way the other men had touched her. He needed to see her again. But he couldn’t.

His next best option was to find them.

Just to see. To see if they knew about Geoff yet. He’d even called Hollace, but the other man hadn’t answered.

Chas had had to be content with checking Hollace’s emails to see if there had been even a hint of what had happened. He’d gone back as far into the other man’s archives as he could get.

Just looking for a mention of Amelia.

There hadn’t been one.

Social media had made that clear, too. No one had posted a single word about what had happened.

Ezra hadn’t told them. Hadn’t told them at all.

Chas sat watching Geoff’s good friend Nils now, as he sat at an ice cream stand three blocks from where Nils worked.

It wasn’t even noon yet.

That asshole, half-German shit hadn’t changed. Still drawing women to him like flies to honey. That was something Chas had never quiet understood. This woman was a beautiful redhead. Stacked. Probably half idiotic, just like Nils liked them.

Chas had asked him once why he didn’t look for a woman with some substance. A third of the guys in the unit had talked about finding a woman to settle down with—or longed for the women they’d left behind. Not Nils.

His goal had been to find a steady stream of women to screw every opportunity he could.

Apparently, the redhead was the latest in that stream. Chas watched her. She laughed a little too loudly, dressed a little too scantily, and touched Nils a little too frequently.

Hell, she was the kind of woman who pissed Chas off from the get go. She was a scourge. Nothing at all like Amelia. Or Shannon.

But Nils...

Nils was looking at her like she hung the moon. The way Chas no doubt had once looked at Amelia.

Chas checked the time, though he had an excellent internal alarm clock. He was in no rush. There was time.

Shannon was still at work for a few more hours. There was time before he had to be there to ensure she made it home safely. He couldn’t be late. She was counting on him.

His next intended paid target would be in his office for eighty-three more minutes. He’d handle Nils, then the paid target three blocks from where he sat—he’d planned it that way after tracking Nils through his credit cards; people were creatures of habit, after all—then he’d catch his bus home.

Shannon and dinner would be waiting. He may even have time to go by the humane society. He’d like to get her a kitten. Something to love and coddle when he couldn’t be there with her.

He had time for a little diversion with Nils now. And this? This would just obfuscate his real purpose with his paid target. This one client was netting him near half a million dollars with the bonus for striking Shannon.

He might even supplement that by going after another FBI agent or two. Maybe he would even target three—bring himself a cool one hundred thousand in bonus money. Shannon’s boss, maybe. Chas knew who he was. He remembered him from the guy’s football days with the Atlanta Falcons and the West Virginia Wildcats.

What did it matter if Shannon liked the guy or not?

The money would be worth it.

She would forgive him eventually. When she realized what it had brought them. He never would have grown to feel this way about her if it hadn’t been for that day they’d connected.

He would use that money to buy her a nice ring. One that would make her understand just exactly how he felt about her. How they had forever together now.

Then maybe a house somewhere. That one next to where he’d camped while waiting for that PAVAD agent was still available. He’d already spent some time in that neighborhood, and the houses were all similar. He had been quite comfortable inside. It had a perfect kitchen; he could so see Shannon there. Chas’s attention sharpened abruptly.

Nils had shifted, putting his hand on that disgusting woman’s. Nils’s fingers trailed up her bare arm.

She had a tattoo of a phoenix on her arm. Chas studied the colors through the lens, then slipped the gun toward her chest.

Chas could see the outline of her nipples beneath her top. Shannon would never display herself like that.

Nils had always liked augmented women.

Not Chas. He preferred women who were smaller. Sleeker, tidier. Who preferred Mickey Mouse over exposed skin.

More modest.

He just flat-out preferred Shannon.

As a smaller man himself, it just... He liked being larger than the women in his life. In being the one they looked up to. Needed. He was man enough to admit it stroked his ego a bit to feel stronger and important.

Shannon Toliver was the perfect size. He’d sat in the seat next to hers the last time he’d followed her to the bus. Stood when she’d stood. Noticed how well she would have pressed against him if she’d let him hold her.

Shannon didn’t have large breasts. She didn’t need them. She was perfectly proportional.

She had been wearing a simple pantsuit when he’d last seen her. Stylish and professional. It had hugged her trim, little body in all the right places, but not obviously so.

It took a discerning man to see her for what she really was.

Everyone in the restaurant could see who Nils’s girlfriend was. Everyone could see what she had.

Nils should stop her from flaunting herself like that. Teach her a lesson.

But the other man wouldn’t. He wasn’t man enough.

But Chas was.

The bullet struck the redhead an inch above her cleavage.

Now it wasn’t just her hair that was red.

Chas took his second shot.

Nils would never get the chance to give her the lesson she deserved.

Chas had just made sure of it.