"We can say all the rumors about Reed Holbrook are true," she commented. "He's not a very nice person, is he?"
The thread of rueful amusement in her voice had Nik's gaze slicing to her before he pulled it back to the heavily traveled interstate they were on. 203
Her voice was amused, but he saw her eyes. They were hurt.
"I could use stronger language," he grunted.
"So what exactly did we learn, besides the fact that he's rude, overbearing, and ugly?"
Nik almost chuckled at the description. "We learned he's definitely involved with Kefler and Kefler was involved with Eddie. We're narrowing in on the common denominators that are linking several people."
"But are they linking to Maddix?" she sighed.
"Maddix has links to everyone but Kefler. If Eddie was working for Holbrook, or Kefler, to sabotage the job, then the delays would have been a major loss of cash for Maddix as well as those who have allied themselves to him. His alibis also have interests, one way or the other, in that job site or others that Maddix owns. Once we get the financials I've requested and look a little more deeply into Maddix's business activities, then I'll have more information."
"Did Maddix Nelson pay you to make me look like a liar?" He had expected the question. He knew it was coming.
"Maddix paid me two hundred and eighty thousand dollars to find out why you were determined to convince everyone he committed murder," Nik answered her. "I wasn't hired to make you look like a liar, Mikayla. I was hired to find out why you were trying to make Maddix look like a killer."
"Because he is one," she said painfully.
"Then he miscalculated and spent a hell of a lot of money for nothing. Because I promise you, if he killed Eddie Foreman, then he'll pay. For nothing else, he'll pay for daring to drag you into it and endangering your life."
"What next then? Where do we go from here?"
Nik's jaw clenched. His next course of action was one he hated taking because he knew there was no way in hell he could keep Mikayla out of it.
"Kefler. Next, we talk to Kefler."
And he took care of making that appointment quickly, Mikayla thought as they pulled onto the exit to Hagerstown. Martin Kefler was waiting for them at his home office. According to Nik, Kefler claimed there wasn't a chance he was turning down a request from the woman his girlfriend spoke so highly of.
The fact that Nik wasn't happy to be taking Mikayla was apparent. His expression was hard, his gaze so icy it was brutal. He had drawn completely away from her now. She felt as though she were sitting in the truck alone, the man operating it now no more than a robot.
"Why?" she asked as they turned from the exit. "Why don't you want me with you, Nik?"
His jaw seemed to tighten further.
"You don't understand the danger," he answered, his rough voice darker, harder, than before as his hands clenched around the steering wheel.
"Explain it to me. I want to understand it, Nik. Then, when you're gone, I'll know."
He was silent for long seconds; then the muscle at his jaw flexed and tightened before he glanced at her with eyes filled with shadows.
"A long time ago," he said quietly, "I was married, Mikayla. I had a wife and a 204
child."
His voice resonated with pain.
"You loved your wife." Mikayla's voice quavered with the knowledge that someone else had held his heart, and had broken it.
"I loved her." His voice was distant, marked with pain. "But my daughter, Nicolette, she was my life. From the moment of her birth, she captivated me." A rueful smile tugged at his lips for only a second.
"My wife didn't love me or our child as I loved them, though," he sighed. "Her association with a known criminal figure resulted in their deaths." He wouldn't look at Mikayla, but she could see the agony he fought to keep from his expression. "Losing them as I did nearly destroyed me, Mikayla. It tore pieces of my soul from my body when my child was killed." He pulled to a stop at a red light and stared back at her. "If I lost you in such a way, there would be nothing left of me to continue fighting. There would be nothing left to exact vengeance, or to continue breathing. You are a bright piece of innocence that the world should never lose. A part I know will always glow throughout the night. And you expect me to risk that so cavalierly?" He jerked his gaze away from her and when the light turned green pulled out. But the tension in the air only thickened, only grew heavier, with the pain Nik kept locked deep inside him.
"One day, you're going to be out of my life," she said, feeling as though she were suffocating with the pain of the parting to come. "I won't cower in corners when you're gone, and I can't cower now. But I'm not stupid, either. I learn where I can, and I'll stand back where I must. But I won't hide, Nik. If I hide from life, then the lack of it will kill me."
It was so hard to make him understand, so hard to find the words to express how she felt. That she wanted, needed, to prove to him that she wasn't helpless, simply untrained. That she was a woman he could trust, whom he didn't have to protect from all of life's little bumps.
As though a part of her thought if she could prove that to him, then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't leave when it was over.
"In this case, living could kill you," he stated bitterly as he gave her a hard, brief glance. "And you expect me to live with that on my conscience." And it would do no good to tell him that he couldn't accept the blame. Mikayla battled back the tears. "Take me home." She stared straight ahead. "Or to the shop. I'll wait for you there."
Nik almost closed his eyes in relief. She wasn't angry; she wasn't threatening. Maybe she was beginning to understand what he couldn't put into words. What it would do to him if he lost her because of her determination to accompany him. Martin Kefler was a twin to Anton Vileski, the lover his deceased wife, Tatyiana, had taken so long ago. A two-bit criminal with an organization backing him. Kefler was doubly dangerous for the fact that he didn't have the power or the full backing of the crime family he came from. Just as Anton hadn't had.
Mikayla had no business being around them, no business being a part of this investigation.
Nik made the turn and drove back to her home after making a quick call to Ian. He wasn't leaving her alone, either. She was safer at home with Kira and Ian watching 205
over her than she was with Nik at the Kefler home.
Pulling into the driveway, he saw Kira and Ian's car in the drive and silently sent a thank-you winging heavenward for the unquestioning loyalty Richards showed the Elite Ops. This wasn't a formal mission; the man could have turned his back on Nik. Mikayla didn't speak as she and Nik moved from the vehicle to the front porch where the other couple waited.
Nik noticed Mikayla avoiding the other two's eyes, the way she kept her gaze straight ahead as he opened the door. He and Ian went in first, the other man covering part of the house while Nik went through the other part.
He listened closely for any conversation between Mikayla and Kira and heard nothing. Mikayla had shut down after asking to return home, and Nik could think of nothing but her warning that something vital between them could be destroyed if he went to talk to Martin without her.
What she couldn't understand, what she didn't want to understand, was that there could be nothing lasting between her and Nik.
He'd signed his life away, and he hadn't done so lightly. The fact that in two years the contract with Elite Ops would be over didn't mean that the identity the Ops had created was over. That identity would never go away, and he would always have enemies because of it. Enemies more deadly than Martin Kefler could ever hope to be. Enemies Nik could never fully escape.
As Kira moved across the living room to meet her husband, Nik moved closer to Mikayla.
"Kira's going to stay with you," he told Mikayla as she lifted her somber gaze to meet his. "She's fully qualified to protect you."
Mikayla shook her head, and Nik knew to stop then. She didn't want to hear about protection. She didn't want to hear about him leav
ing without her.
"Be careful," she whispered as her hand lifted, silken fingers touching his cheek.
"If something happened to you, because of me, then it would be no different." No different than losing her would be to him.
The statement was unfinished but well understood.
He wanted to do so much more, but rather than doing what he wanted, what he needed, Nik gave a sharp nod and stepped out of the door onto the front porch. He waited and in less than a minute Ian followed, the door closing behind him. Nik stared into the darkening skyline, fighting back the overpowering urge to turn around, retrieve his woman, and take her along with him.
Possessive. It was that core of dominant possessiveness she'd awakened within him. He had no idea it existed there, and now he had no idea what the hell to do with it.
"Know what you're doing, bro?" Ian asked as he drew beside Nik.
"Bro?" Nik lifted his brow. Hearing the word coming from a forty-year-old man was damned strange.
Ian grinned. "Mr. Steele, do you know what you're doing to my friend?" he amended.
"No." He might as well be honest about it. "I have no fucking idea." Moving down the steps, he made his way quickly back to the truck as Ian followed behind.
"I think I'd figure that out if I were you," Ian stated as he moved into the 206
passenger seat. "That's a damned good woman you're walking away from."
"Shut the fuck up, Ian," Nik ordered shortly, reversing from the drive and hitting the gas hard as he accelerated down the street.
"Now there's appreciation," Ian drawled in amusement. "When you get your head out of your ass and realize what you're risking, let me know. You might get smart enough in time not to lose her, and then again, you might not." Nik shot the other man a glare. "That's not possible. I won't risk her."
"You're not the first Elite Ops agent to fall in love and you won't be the last," Ian informed him. "I've watched four of you fall so far, and I'll be here to watch your commander go down fighting as well. Protecting your woman isn't your problem; it's protecting your heart."
Nik brought the truck to a hard stop in the middle of the street before turning back to the other man. "Get the fuck out or shut the fuck up." Ian chuckled as he gave an easy shrug. "It's your funeral, my friend. Drive on. I'll say no more."
His funeral. Fuck, he'd never felt more alive in his life than he did when he was with Mikayla. Just her being in the truck with him was enough to make him feel exhilarated, on top of a sensory overload that made no fucking sense. Accelerating once again, he fought to block Ian out, to get a handle on himself and the regret lacing through him. If Mikayla were there with him, the world would feel brighter, lighter. It would feel invigorated.
He would feel invigorated.
He'd been dead inside for so damned long that coming to live once again was damned painful. That was exactly what he felt as though he were doing, coming to fucking life.
As he and Ian pulled into the quarter-mile drive that led to Martin Kefler's threestory mansion, the stately brownstone looked too distinguished, too aristocratic, for the man Nik knew Martin Kefler to be.
As they pulled into the drive, double front doors opened and two black-suited bodyguards stepped out on the landing.
"We have a welcoming committee," Ian murmured.
Fuck, Nik was glad he left Mikayla home.
"Mr. Steele, Mr. Kefler is waiting inside. Could we have your weapons please?" One of the bodyguards held out his hand imperiously.
"I'm unarmed." Nik held his arms out while the other bodyguard produced a metal detector and began running it along the outline of his body.
He'd left his weapons in the truck. Kefler was dangerous but not nearly as dangerous as an Elite Ops agent and one of the most dangerous Navy SEALs America had ever produced.
Satisfied they weren't carrying, the bodyguards moved aside as Nik and Ian stepped into the luxuriously appointed marble-floored foyer.
They were escorted through the house into an office that could have belonged to any of the major CEOs in the world.
"Damn, and here we're told crime doesn't pay, Nik," Ian commented mockingly as the doors closed behind them, leaving them alone in the office with an illegitimate son of one of America's most dangerous crime bosses.
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"Mr. Richards." Kefler rose to his feet, his penetrating hazel eyes staring back from an imperious face. "I must say, you do your father justice in your bearing as well as your insolence."
"Well, you know what they say, blood tells," Ian quipped sarcastically, though Nik was well aware of the fact that Ian's father, a former Colombian drug lord, was a sore spot with the other man.
"Do tell." Kefler's brows arched as he tugged at the expensive leather belt cinching the charcoal gray slacks at his waist.
Pushing the long sleeves of the silk white shirt up his arms, Kefler grinned before waving them to the chairs in front of his desk. "Have a seat, my friends. I must say, I feel rather privileged to be sitting in such august company. The son of perhaps one of the most lethal drug lords in Colombia, and a mercenary of such bloodthirsty tendencies that he could give even me a few uncomfortable moments."
Nik grunted at the mockery.
"I must say," Kefler continued, "I was pleased to learn you weren't bringing Ms. Martin. Her reputation is one any woman could envy. A trip here would perhaps sully it." Self-deprecation curved his lips before he glanced at them again. "What can I do for you?"
"As I'm sure you already know, I'm looking into the death of Eddie Foreman," Nik told him.
"I heard." Kefler nodded, his expression turning serious. "Just as I've heard Ms. Martin has been threatened several times. Eloise was distressed to hear that. So much so that I've been attempting to gain some information on the problem myself." Nik arched a brow. "And did you learn anything?"
Kefler's lips quirked into a grin. "Not much, I'm afraid." Nik stared back at him. "It seems I've learned a few things, though. Things such as the fact that Eddie owed you a lot of money and he wasn't paying." Kefler blinked back at Nik. "A small amount," he admitted. "I must say, a few of my men were looking for him when we received word that he had been killed."
"Were you behind the murder?" Nik asked straightforwardly. With a man such as Kefler, subtlety wasn't always the answer.
Kefler shook his head with a grin. "If I'd caught him, I would have knocked him around a little, ya know? Made him hurt. He was useless to me dead."
"Perhaps it was an investment in teaching others to pay on time," Nik suggested.
"Naw, your girlfriend, now she would be an investment. A dead Eddie was just money outta my pocket. Killing him would be like slicing my own wrists. Besides, didn't Ms. Martin witness that murder? Seems to me she's of the opinion someone else killed him."
Nik ignored the reference. "What about Reed Holbrook? I understand you two are working together in certain business ventures."
Kefler's gaze narrowed on him. "What business is this of yours, Mr. Steele?"
"We're discussing Eddie and your connection to him, Kefler, not me," Nik reminded him.
Kefler gave a short laugh. "Good thing my honey likes yours; otherwise I'd have to kill you."
Nik ignored that as well. "Was Eddie trying to sell Holbrook information or 208
sabotage the Nelson job on your orders?"
Kelfer's gaze reflected surprise. "I have no idea. But hey, everyone is trying to make a decent buck these days, right? The fucking economy sucks."
"Seems strange to me, Martin, the three of you make a very interesting little triangle."
"Yeah, ain't that some shit?" Martin laughed with sly humor. He was getting nowhere here, Nik admitted. When it came right to it, the fact was all roads were leading back to Maddix, not away.
"Thanks for your time, Martin, and for wasting mine." He stood to his feet, watching from the corner of his eye as Ian followed suit. "We'll be leaving now."
"Steele." The other man rose slowly. "Look, all
shit aside, my honey asked for my help here. She likes Ms. Martin more than she should, and I try to please her whenever I can. I can tell you this: you're chasing shadows. Word on the street is confusing with this one. The strangest tale I've heard so far is that whoever killed Eddie Foreman wasn't Maddix Nelson, but it was still Maddix Nelson. And that comes from a crackhead with more drugs in his veins than blood. Take it however you will." He'd take it as it was. A lame-assed story from a crackhead who loved his drugs more than he loved living.
Nodding sharply, Nik turned and, followed by Ian, made his way from the house. There were no more answers to be found this way, because those Nik had unearthed so far kept leading him back in one direction.
"What now?" Ian asked as they were driving from the mansion and heading back to Mikayla.
"Now, I find Maddix."
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Chapter 23
Mikayla spent the time at the house in the sewing room with Kira sitting quietly on the sofa across from the worktable. She worked, trying to keep her mind off the fact that Nik wasn't there with her. That she wasn't with him.
What was he learning? she wondered. Had Martin Kefler even known anything that could have helped?
"Do you miss being at the shop every day?" Kira finally asked as she brushed thick black hair from her face and regarded Mikayla with serene gray eyes.
"I miss it," she admitted. And she did. "Once this is finished, I can go back."
"Will it ever be finished, Mikayla?" Kira asked then. "Do you think your life will ever return to what it was?"
"No."
Life couldn't be the same, it could never be as good, once this was over, because Nik would be gone.
"Letting go is hard," Kira said softly.
And it was. Mikayla had made the first step to letting him go this evening, and she had known inside exactly what she was doing. She was giving him the rest of the distance he needed to completely step away from her.
"You love him," Kira said then.
Glancing up at her, Mikayla saw the understanding in the other woman's gaze, as well as the compassion.
"Does it matter?" Mikayla finally sighed heavily as she tucked the edge of the material and pinned it into place. "If love isn't acknowledged, does it still exist?"