Things had been too quiet ever since Eden’s brush with death when a sniper had taken a shot at her, and if Big Eddie Sinclair was to be believed—and the man was not prone to overexaggeration or bouts of hysteria—a very real threat lurked in the shadows, waiting and watching for an opportunity to enact his revenge against Eddie.
They weaved through busy Paris traffic the short distance to the upscale bar and restaurant that offered a private room. Swanny had already been over with his team to see exactly what they were dealing with.
They’d marked areas in the room Eden was to never be in. Where she’d present an easy target from a sniper shooting through a window. They also arranged for one of them to tail Eden the entire night, and she wasn’t to go to the ladies’ room without Skylar and Swanny to escort her, with Skylar going in while Swanny manned the door, temporarily shutting off access until Eden had exited.
They’d prepared well for the event. So why was his gut eating a hole in his insides?
Eden reached over and slid her long slender fingers through his much larger ones, his hand engulfing hers. As if sensing his sudden turmoil, she smiled sweetly and leaned over to kiss him, uncaring that Edge sat on her other side.
“Relax,” she murmured. “What could possibly go wrong when I have Superman protecting me? I trust you, Swanny. You won’t let anyone hurt me.”
Her words settled over him, warm and comforting, but they did nothing to dissipate his sudden agitation.
The closer they got to the restaurant where the soiree was being hosted, the more twisted up he got inside. He knew he could very well jeopardize Eden’s career or her account with Aria if he fucked this up for her, but he could ignore it no longer. Her life was worth far more than some million-dollar cosmetics campaign. At least to him it was. Damn anyone else.
“Turn around,” he barked into the small mouthpiece affixed strategically to his collar. “Abort. Abort, goddamn it.”
To the driver’s credit, he didn’t hesitate. He executed a perfect J-turn in the middle of traffic and Swanny caught sight of the car carrying Nathan, Skylar and Joe doing the same, falling in behind them.
“What’s up, Swanny?” Joe asked tersely. “What’s going on?”
“My gut is screaming like a motherfucker, that’s what,” Swanny said sharply.
Radio went silent. They were all preparing for the worst. No one on his team doubted his gut, as ridiculous as it might sound. It was just another reason he fit in so well with his teammates.
“What you feeling, man?” Edge murmured from his place on Eden’s other side. True to Edge’s nature, he never hesitated. He was always prepared for anything. He already had a gun pulled and was reaching for the other from the opposite shoulder harness.
“It’s wrong,” Swanny muttered. “It’s all goddamn wrong.”
“Swanny?” Eden whispered.
He turned to Eden, expecting anger or even outrage that he’d pulled the plug on what was a very important night for her, but all he saw were eyes wide with fear. Whether she was conscious of it or not, she was gripping both his and Edge’s hands, her knuckles as white as the color in her face.
“What’s wrong? What should I do? Tell me so I don’t get in the way.”
He admired her calm when she had to be scared to death. Swanny knew he wasn’t exactly a pillar of reassurance at the moment, his features locked in stone and examining every single car, person, business as they barreled by.
He carefully squeezed her hand and then reluctantly let it go. He needed both hands, not just one.
“You stay behind me at all times,” Swanny said as calmly as he was able when his insides were screaming that Eden was in danger. “If for whatever reason you can’t get to me, you stick to Edge. He’ll protect you. Do not, and I repeat, do not present an open target. If you can’t take cover behind me or Edge, then you hit the ground behind the vehicle.
“This car has bulletproof glass and a reinforced steel frame. It will withstand an impact that would demolish most other cars. You have your seat belt on?”
She nodded, her eyes still wide.
“Good girl. Now try to keep calm so I can get you back to safety.”
No sooner had the words escaped his mouth when the world simply exploded around them. The front end of the car lifted, nearly flipping it over backward before slamming back to the road, fire and smoke billowing from the front.
The driver’s head was lolled to the side and Swanny reached up to check for a pulse, all the while gathering Eden to his side in preparation for escape.
“What the fuck?” Edge yelled hoarsely. “That was a fucking RPG!”
“Driver’s dead,” Swanny said grimly. “Everyone out on my side! The shot came from the right. Eden, as soon as I pull you out, you hit the street and don’t move until you’re told. Nathan and Joe will cover you.”
“Swanny, you’re bleeding,” Eden said, a hitch in her voice. “And where are you going?”
“I’m going after the motherfucker who attacked us.”
“I’ve got your six,” Edge said.
“One, two, three, go go go!” Swanny urged, kicking open the damaged back door and pulling Eden to the street, shoving her down roughly so she didn’t present a target.
Nathan, Joe and Skylar ran up, guns drawn, cursing a blue streak.
“Cover Eden,” Swanny barked. “Edge and I are going after this fucker. Do not let anything happen to her.”
“We won’t, man,” Nathan said softly. “I’ve been in your shoes. I know how it feels. We’ll take care of your girl.”
Swanny shot him a look of gratitude and then ran down the street, his tux disheveled and blood-smeared. With the way people ducked and ran he must have looked like an angel of wrath, bent on the destruction of everything in his line of sight.
Mentally he went over those first moments when the world had gone all to hell. The driver had suffered a direct hit but the shot had come from the right side, not the left. And why the driver? The assassin could have just as easily targeted the backseat and they might or might not have survived. The car was reinforced, and for the sole purpose of protection, but not many vehicles outside the military could withstand a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade.
Edge pounded the pavement behind him, guns drawn. Already in the distance sirens could be heard, and Swanny knew they had one giant clusterfuck on their hands.
“Son of a bitch!” Swanny swore as he skidded to a stop.
Edge came to an abrupt halt beside him and the two stared down at the discarded AT-4. An older model, not the recoilless version found in more recent editions. Swanny glanced quickly around, taking in the disturbance in the soil, then snapped his attention back to Edge.
“Fuck. The French police are going to be all over this. You got anything on you to do a check for prints?” Swanny asked.
Edge grimly nodded. “They don’t call me Mr. Prepared for the Worst for nothing.”
He reached into one of the breast pockets of his suit and pulled out a box containing gloves, tape and dusting powder.
“You got about one minute before we’re made, so put it in high gear,” Swanny muttered, listening as the sounds of the sirens grew louder.
Edge quickly went to work on his examination, carefully bagging evidence and dusting for prints. His gaze drifted to the same area of disturbance Swanny had already observed, and he lifted one eyebrow.
“Seems our asshole can’t afford more up-to-date equipment.”
Swanny’s gaze swept the area again, this time noting small patches of blood likely caused by the recoil. He wished the fucker had blown himself up, but it was obvious he’d escaped. This time. If Swanny had his way, he wouldn’t get another chance to get to Eden. It was time to crack down and crack down hard, which meant calling in Sam and putting every bit of KGI’s might behind tracking down this son of a bitch.
“Let’s get out of here,” Swanny said. “I want to get back to Eden. She has to be scared out of her mind.”
br /> Swanny and Edge hurried back toward the scene. Swanny cursed vividly when he saw a swarm of reporters and news crews all homed in on Eden’s pale face. Nathan, Joe and Skylar were doing an admirable job of keeping the vultures back, but police were questioning all four, which made crowd control next to impossible. After all, it wasn’t every day a vehicle got RPG’d right in the middle of Paris.
There were murmurs and shouts all between tossing question after question the policemen’s way.
“They want to know if this was a terrorist attack,” Edge translated.
Swanny lifted an eyebrow at his friend. “Since when are you fluent in French?”
Edge grinned. “My mother is French. I actually have dual citizenship and was born in America. My dad was military, so I followed in his footsteps for a while but found fighting was more of a challenge. I thrived on the adrenaline.”
As they strode rapidly to the scene, Swanny glanced over at his friend. “So why’d you give up MMA?”
Edge shrugged. “I was getting older. The competition was getting younger. I wanted to go out on top so when I won the belt in the heavyweight division I announced my retirement a few months later. But I was still restless and wanted the adrenaline. I wanted to make a difference. I guess it’s what bothered me most when I quit the army to pursue a career in MMA, because at least in the army I was making a difference. It wasn’t all about me and my ability to pound a guy in the ring. When I heard about KGI, it seemed the perfect compromise. I knew I was qualified. I was a ranger. My skills weren’t rusty because even after I left the army I still kept to my military regimen. Kept my shooting skills up. I guess even back then I missed it and realized I’d made a bad decision.”
As soon as Eden looked up through the crowd and saw Swanny coming toward her, she broke away from the police and reporters and shoved her way through the resisting crowds. She threw herself into his arms and held him tightly. She shook violently against him. There wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t quivering. Her teeth chattered and her skin was icy cold.
Swanny swore as he gathered her in his arms, covering as much of her as he could. She was in shock and it was obvious no one had made any effort to get her medical attention.
He buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair, such a contrast to the smell of fire, smoke and melting rubber. Even the scent of blood hung obscenely in the air.
“I was so scared for you,” she whispered brokenly. “Oh God, Swanny, never do that to me again. I died a thousand times waiting for you to come back, so afraid you wouldn’t.”
Tears slipped openly down her cheeks as she swallowed back a raw sob. He tenderly kissed each drop of moisture away and then clung to her, anchoring her through the storm.
With Edge translating, Swanny got his point across in a blunt, take-it-or-leave-it fashion. Swanny wasn’t leaving Eden exposed a minute longer. He was taking her back to her hotel and if the police wanted to question her, it damn sure wouldn’t be at a precinct.
The officers on the scene put up a token protest until Skylar very sweetly informed them exactly who Eden Sinclair was and that she was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world and it wouldn’t look good for the police to hold a shaken, in-shock, scared-out-of-her-mind woman against her will.
The commanding officer on the scene couldn’t backpedal quickly enough. He immediately arranged a police caravan to ferry Eden and her entourage back to the hotel, though Swanny made a mental note to check out and find another hotel. As soon as the news got out—and it would—the journalists, both legitimate and paparazzi, would be circling like vultures, which would put Eden in an even more vulnerable position.
Swanny quickly led Eden to their suite, holding on to her because she was far from steady on her feet. As soon as they were inside, she collapsed on the couch, leaned forward so her elbows rested on her knees and buried her face in her hands.
Silent sobs shook her shoulders, hell, her entire body. She lifted her tear-drenched eyes to his, and it cut out his heart to see her in such distress.
“Why, Swanny? Why? I don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking under the weight of emotion. “Why would someone want to blow up my car? Who could possibly hate me so much that they’d go to such horrible lengths to kill me? I don’t u-u-understand.”
Her voice broke off and she dropped her face into her hands once more, her shoulders heaving with the force of her sobs.
He went to her. He couldn’t do anything else. A man who didn’t comfort his woman when she needed it the most wasn’t much of a man. She turned blindly to him, clinging to him like a burr, burying her face in his neck, wetting the collar of his shirt with her tears,
“I don’t understand,” she whispered brokenly. “I just don’t understand.”
Swanny sighed because, goddamn it, her father should have been straight with her from the start, and now it was left to Swanny to piece together the entire puzzle so at least Eden could gain some understanding of what was going on around her. Something she should have been aware of from the start. And right now he didn’t give two shits if it pissed her father off and he fired KGI.
Because whether or not KGI was still assigned as her security detail, there was no way in hell he was leaving Eden’s side until the assassin was taken out. Permanently.
CHAPTER 27
SWANNY gathered Eden close in his arms, her face buried in his neck. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, offering her comfort and bracing himself for what he was about to tell her.
He’d do anything at all to spare her this pain, but if it saved her life, if it made her more wary and alert, then he’d lay it out to her as delicately as possible.
He stroked her hair and then gently pulled her away so he could look her in the eyes.
“Listen to me, honey. There’s something—a lot—I need to explain to you. Something that you should have been told from the very beginning, and I’m risking a lot by going against your father’s wishes, but you need to be told . . . the truth.”
Her eyes widened in shock, a glazed look falling over her delicate features.
“My father? The truth? Swanny, I don’t understand. What do you mean my father should have told me the truth? Are you saying he lied to me?”
Distress was a beacon in her eyes radiating to the rest of her body. She looked utterly bewildered, betrayed and devastated. Her lips quivered and tears crowded the corners of her lids, glistening on her eyelashes. God, but he hated what he had to do. Normally it wasn’t something he would do. KGI answered to the party footing the bill, even when they disagreed.
But this was a different situation entirely and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Eden to exist in ignorance a moment longer. Her father be damned. KGI be damned. If it lost him his job, he didn’t give a fuck. All he cared about at this moment was the woman staring at him, sorrow and confusion shining in wounded eyes.
And so he started at the very beginning, telling her everything her father had related to him and his team. She visibly flinched and her hand flew to her mouth as tears gathered and ran down her cheeks when he told her that her mother’s death was an act of vengeance and not an accident.
By the time he finished the entire sordid tale, she was openly sobbing, her shoulders heaving as she tried to gulp back her sounds of anguish.
He felt like the worst sort of bastard for destroying her illusions. For turning her world upside down and for exposing long-held secrets and the endless cycle of revenge.
He stared at her in sorrow, unsure of whether to hold her, try to comfort her, but he didn’t know if she was angry with him. He didn’t know if he should touch her or maintain their current distance, because the moment the ugly story had been spilled, she’d withdrawn, putting space between them, and now she sat, hands fisted in her lap, staring straight ahead sightlessly as tears streamed down her beautiful face.
“Eden,” he said softly, no longer able to bear her agony. He felt it as keenly as if someone had driven a knife
right through his heart.
And then his dilemma was solved because she whirled, her face ravaged by grief, and threw herself into his arms, fisting his torn shirt with both hands. She pressed her body as close as she could without him putting her into his lap, so he promptly rectified the matter, dragging her into his arms and wrapping them tightly around her.
Though her sobs had quieted, her body still shook and he could feel the dampness on her cheeks where her tears had left silvery trails down her face.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Swanny said, regret a physical ache in his chest. “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. Please forgive me this, but I thought you deserved to know. I’ve thought it from the very beginning before I even met you, but your father was adamant. He was trying to protect you.”
“How could he keep something like this from me?” she asked tearfully. “God, it’s been a lie. All these years. A complete lie. And more lies. What else has he kept from me? How long has he been controlling my life—and, my God, I’ve allowed it. I allowed him to hire Micah and David because I didn’t want him to worry. He hired you and then lied about why. I couldn’t figure out at the time why no one except me seemed relieved that the shooter had been arrested, and now I know it’s because everyone knew I wasn’t safe except the most important person in this equation. Me.”
He couldn’t argue a single point with her because she was exactly right, and his guilt intensified, because she should have been told the truth from the start even though it wasn’t his place to make that kind of decision.
But all of that changed for him the moment he and Eden connected, when she came to mean so much more than just a job to him. Her father might argue that Swanny had no rights when it came to his daughter, but that was bullshit. His commitment to Eden went far beyond the normal client relationship for a regular mission. This was deeply personal to him and he was willing to risk everything for her. Censure, the loss of his job, his very identity.
He recognized that Eden was a total game changer for him. His priorities had shifted, and he was a man who always placed his loyalty and commitment to his job above all else. But Eden had reordered his priorities. Her protection, her happiness, her life came first. Nothing else mattered as much to him. He’d go to the wall for her and damn the consequences.
“I know this was hard to hear, Eden,” Swanny murmured against her hair. “And I’m so damn sorry. You have to know I’d do anything not to hurt you. But with this attack, you need to know what you’re up against so you can take the proper precautions. Don’t get me wrong. I’m going to protect you with my life. My team is going to protect you. But you needed to be aware of what exactly is at stake here.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, stunning him. Why was she thanking him for tilting her world on its axis? Shouldn’t he be the bad guy here?
She lifted her head, a watery sheen still evident in her ocean eyes, but the tears had stopped streaking down her face. What he saw in her eyes blew him away. There was no anger. No condemnation. There was sincere gratitude, and he could tell she was valiantly pulling herself together and trying to regain her composure.
“Baby, what are you thanking me for?” he asked hoarsely.
“For trusting me with the truth,” she said in a low voice. “For wanting me to know from the start. For telling me now what my father should have told me a long time ago. I don’t want you to apologize to me, Swanny. Not for telling me the truth. It means a lot to me that you would risk so much for me. Your life. Your job. I’m humbled by the lengths you’ve gone to, to protect me physically and emotionally.”
She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his so sweetly it made his gut ache. There was a wealth of emotion in the light brush, like a butterfly’s wing against his mouth. Soft and delicate, just like her.
She pulled away, breathless, her cheeks pink and no longer pale with shock. And then her eyes became troubled again, shadows dimming them.
“I know I should call my father, not to confront him, but to assure him I’m all right, but I just can’t face him right now. I need a little time to digest this—what he kept from me,” she said in a faltering tone. “Does that make me a terrible, selfish person?”
His reaction was instantaneous, nearly explosive. “Hell no it doesn’t. You deserve as much time as you need to process your shock. God only knows how hard this must have been for you. I certainly can’t claim to even understand what it’s done to you because I’ve never been in your situation. You’ll get no judgment from me. You’ll never get anything from me but complete support and understanding.”
Emotion swamped her expression, her eyes warming, the shadows from just moments prior dissipating.
“I—”
Whatever she was about to say was cut off when a sharp knock sounded at the door. Swanny cursed, even though he knew their time together would be very short lived because not only would the police be involved, but his team would also be gathering to put together the pieces and plan their next move.
“Stay put, honey,” Swanny said, brushing his mouth across her forehead. “Just sit here and try to relax. I’m afraid the next hours are going to be long and stressful for you.”
“But you’ll be here, right?” she asked, her brow furrowed anxiously.
“I’m not leaving you,” he vowed. “We’re in this together. You’re mine to protect, Eden. You go nowhere without me.”
Relief shone brightly in her eyes as she sagged against the back of the couch. Another impatient knock sounded and Swanny turned, checking the peephole to see two policemen and Swanny’s entire team.
He opened the door and gestured for them to come in. But he stepped in front of the policemen and then turned to Edge. “Translate this for me. Tell them they are not to overtax Eden. They aren’t to press her too hard. She’s upset and in shock and I won’t have them upsetting her further.”
“I’m perfectly able to understand English,” one of the policeman said in a dry voice. “I understand your concerns and we will most certainly be mindful of Miss Sinclair when we question her.”
Swanny nodded and then extended his hand. “Daryl Swanson, but everyone calls me Swanny.” He shook both the inspectors’ hands as they introduced themselves to him in return as being part of the Police Nationale’s anti-terrorism unit for this jurisdiction.