“No,” he says. “He wasn’t worth the price to my soul.”
“But Alvarez is?”
“Killing Michael Alvarez would be doing the world a favor.” He says the words with such fierceness, such guttural meaning, that I know his hate for Alvarez runs deep. And I do not miss the way his heart thunders beneath my palm.
This moment drives home what I know already. He isn’t who he says he is, and I say that to him. “You aren’t who you say you are,” I say. “And the not knowing is killing me.”
There is a subtle tightening of his body, the air suddenly thicker, before he rolls me to my back, his big body trapping mine. “Myla-”
“Just say it,” I say, grabbing his shoulders, my fingers against the knotted muscle there. “Tell me,” I demand, and then softer. “Please. Who are you and what are you after?”
“You. I was always here for you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Kyle
I didn’t plan to be naked and on top of Myla when I tell her who I am, but every instinct I own says that if I shut her down now, she will shut me out.
“Are you FBI?” Myla asks, trying to fill in the blanks I haven’t, which is exactly what I don’t want her doing. “Because if you are,” she continues, “I gave you the list of the Alvarez locations. I can’t help you more than that, or I’ll get Kara killed. You know that.”
“I’m not FBI, Myla. I’ve told you that.”
“Are you loyal to Alvarez then?”
“You know better,” I say. “I know you do.”
“Kara,” she supplies, going to the only logical next place. “She sent you.”
And there it is. “I didn’t tell Kara I was coming here,” I say, not ready to tell her Kara found out anyway.
“But you know her.”
“She’s a friend. Her husband, Blake Walker, is my boss at Walker Security, the company I work for, and also my best friend.”
“Damn it,” she hisses. “I should have known. I did know. You’re going to get her killed.” She shoves ineffectually at my chest, her legs pushing against mine. “Let me up, Kyle,” she demands. “I have to figure out how to save her before you get her killed.”
“She’s safe, Myla. Blake took her to Washington and has her locked in a hotel room until this is over.”
“So does she or does she not know I’m alive?”
“She doesn’t, but Blake’s telling her tonight.”
“No. No, you can’t let him tell her.”
“She knows Alvarez is alive. She figured out I’m undercover in his operation and showed up here yesterday.”
“Here? Right here?”
“Yes. We quickly got her out of Texas, but if she starts feeling out of the loop, she’ll come back. The best way to keep her safe is to keep her informed.”
“Kara won’t stand down if she knows I’m alive. You can’t know her and not know that.”
“Kara knows how to stay alive and she wants you alive,” I say. “She won’t do anything to endanger any of us. And Blake won’t let her out of that hotel room if he thinks any differently. Look. Sweetheart, I can make sense out of any question you have if you let me. The question is, can I let you up to talk without us having a problem?”
“Yes. We can. Please let me up.”
“And I can do this without you going for the gun and shooting me for real this time?”
“I’ll shoot if my sister ends up dead.”
“Well, then, I’m safe, because that’s not going to happen.” I ease off of her, and help her sit, snagging my shirt from the end of the couch and pulling it over her head. She shoves her hands through the sleeves, immediately facing forward, her feet on the floor, her arms folding in front of herself, everything about her body language defensive, withdrawn. Forcing myself to give her space, I move away from her, but I don’t let her escape fully, choosing to sit on the coffee table directly in front on her.
“I would never risk Kara’s life,” I promise her. “I need you to know that. I love her like a sister. And her husband, Blake, he and his entire family are family to me.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“For starters, I was taken off guard that you were here at all. I had no way of knowing you were the person I was guarding. Once I did, I had no way of knowing, if you were really aligned with Alvarez, or even brainwashed to support him, which is not uncommon in captive situations. Once I knew you weren’t, it was clear that you’d sacrificed yourself to protect Kara. It also became clear to me that she could truly be in danger. I damn sure wasn’t going to tell you who I was until I knew she was safe. I wanted you to have that peace of mind and frankly, I wasn’t sure what you’d do to protect her if I hadn’t.”
“And she really is safe?”
“One hundred percent. Like I said. Blake took her to Seattle, and he has a plane on standby to get her out of the country if needed. There’s also a plane on standby a few miles away to do the same for us.”
“There is?”
“Yes. There is.”
Her chest rises and falls, a thunderstorm of emotions raging in her green eyes before they gloss over. “I can’t believe this is really happening.” Her hands cover her face for several seconds before they flatten on the couch at her hips, her arms no longer sheltering her body, her eyes, still glistening, searching my face. “You’re really one of the good guys?”
“I’m no Boy Scout, sweetheart. Call me an “almost” Boy Scout, but yes. I like to think I’m one of the good guys.” I dare to lean forward and settle my hands on her knees, relieved when she doesn’t push them away. “You’ve done an amazing job of taking care of yourself and your sister,” I say, true admiration in my voice, which I hope she hears. “I’ve seen trained agents crack under lesser circumstances. But now, I’m going to get you out of here. And those women Alvarez kidnapped, who you’re worried about. We’re going to get them, too. That’s always been the plan.”
“You are? We can?” She grabs my hand, the walls of moments before fully falling away. “What plan? Can you tell me?”
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know and probably more, but let’s move to the other room where I can check the security footage.” I sit up and reach into my pocket, pulling out my phone.
“What are you doing?” Myla asks, grabbing my hand. “You aren’t calling Kara, right?”
“No,” I say. “I’m not calling Kara. I don’t know if she knows you’re alive yet, and even if I did, we won’t talk to Kara until you want to talk to Kara.”
Relief visibly washes over her. “Thank you,” she says, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. “I’m just not ready. I need to hear your plans first. I need to know more than I do right now.”
“Understood.” I glance down at her hand holding mine, and then back up. “If you let me go, I’ll order the pizza I was about to order and we can move to the other room.”
Her eyes go wide. “Pizza? That was the call you were going to make?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. I mean, you just told me that you know my sister.”
“And…that makes us both less hungry?”
“No,” she says. “It just seems like an odd thing to think about right now.”
“Being an “almost” Boy Scout takes energy,” I reply, leaving out the part where I’m pushing her back into a sense of normal activities, which theoretically, helps create the sense of well-being and safety I want her to feel. “You are hungry, right?”
“Actually,” she says, sounding surprised. “Yes. Now that I know Kara is safe, food does sound good.” Her eyes light on mine, her hand falling away. “It better be good this time,” she teases.
Pleased my plan is working, I wink. “The almost best pizza in the world this time,” I promise, following with a mock salute. “Scout’s honor.” I punch in the number to my second favorite pizza joint in Dallas, order, and then stick my phone in my pocket. “Now we move to my room where the camer
as are.” I stand and take her with me, my plan to move from a smile to laughter, in full effect. “Let me give you a ride.”
Her brow furrows. “What?”
I scoop her up and throw her over my shoulder, her yelp sounding as my hand settles on her naked, gorgeous ass. “What are you doing?” she demands. “I can walk.”
“Negative,” I say, already exiting the living area. “A Scout can never let a woman walk on her own.”
“You said you aren’t a scout,” she reminds me.
“You inspired me to be a better man.”
“And you’re crazy,” she declares, but apparently she likes crazy, because I am rewarded with the sound of her sweet, feminine laughter, which I hope like hell wipes away at least some of her tears and fears.
“So I’ve been told,” I say, entering the bedroom, and setting her down in front of the bed, catching her waist as she sways.
“Wow,” she murmurs, laughing again. “The blood rushed to my head.” She regains her balance, looking so damn hot that I just want to pull that shirt over her head and feel her close. But I don’t. Not now. Now when I know she needs answers, and I want her to have them.
“You look good in my shirt, Myla,” I say, Blake’s warnings I’d dismissed about her vulnerability charging into my mind. “Maybe too good.”
“Too good?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I don’t get involved with someone I’m protecting, and while I don’t at this moment regret that, if you do later, I will. I don’t want to take advantage of your-”
“Fragile state?” she supplies. “I’m not fragile and I don’t want to be treated like it. If you start going in that direction, you and I are going to have problems.” She flattens her hand on my chest, softening her voice. “You will not be one of my regrets, unless I end up getting you killed. I couldn’t live with that, just so you know. You aren’t allowed to die.”
I cover her hand with mine. “I will say this over and over if you need to hear it. No one is dying that I don’t kill or want dead.”
“And I will welcome every time you say it, but let’s keep things real. You can’t know that.”
“But my gun can.” I pull her hand to mine and kiss it. “It’s a big gun too, sweetheart, and I have about a dozen just as big with me.”
“A dozen? That’s a lot of guns.”
“We’re dealing with a lot of assholes, which is also why we need to check the security feed before the pizza gets here.” I release her and grab the chair at the desk, turning it in her direction. “Take this one. I’ll go grab another one.”
“Great,” she says, claiming the chair. “Thank you.”
Thank you. Great. Smiles. Laughter. Amazed at how grounded and sweet she’s remained through all of this, I grab a t-shirt and head for the hallway, pulling it over my head as I walk to the office, where I grab an extra chair. Returning to the bedroom, I sit down next to Myla, tapping the computer in front of her to life, a password screen popping up.
“I locked them down while we were gone today,” I explain. “We don’t want prying eyes where they don’t belong. “2011thedaylight” is the password, all small letters.”
“Got it,” she says, keying in the code, and almost instantly adding, “It’s live. I can see the camera feed.”
“Excellent,” I say, already bringing my personal computer to life. “Now we can witness our pizza delivery up close and personal.” I open an instant message box. “And now, we talk to our team outside the hotel.”
“Who are they exactly?” she asks.
“The new family you’ve inherited from your sister,” I say, “and I’ll just tell you right now, they will absolutely overwhelm the fuck out of you, but always with good intentions.”
“Overwhelm how?”
“Family protects family,” I say. “They live together and they bleed together.” I make a few keystrokes, ensuring the chatroom is secure. “And at this moment in time, we should be talking to Asher.” I turn the screen slightly, letting her see what I type: Checking in. All secure here. Anything I need to know about?
The reply is instant: Asher here. Aside from Jacob talking my ear off, it’s ridiculously quiet right now. No assholes to hate on or hurt. Interior footage clear. Exterior footage clear.
“In other words,” I say, glancing at Myla. “Jacob is, as usual, saying absolutely nothing, and Asher is bored out of his fucking mind.”
I type my reply: Heads up. We have a pizza delivery coming.
Asher: Did you order us one?
I type: Get your own.
Asher’s reply is instant: Fucker.
Myla laughs. “So much love, I can’t stand it.”
“Families give that special kind of love,” I say, then type: I’m off until morning check in.
Asher replies with: Copy that. Enjoy the pizza. We won’t.
Myla laughs again, and while I hate to tamp down on her lighter mood, I key up the security video from the night of the helicopter crash, with good reason. She needs to know she was never forgotten or alone, and she isn’t now.
“I want you to see this,” I say, turning the screen toward her. “This is what convinced me you were alive and every time I doubted that, I watched again.” I punch the play button and the short security video begins to roll, ending with a close up of her eyes. I hit a freeze frame, then zoom in on her face. “That look,” I say, “is why I’m here. I’ve watched this footage a million times, and it always got to me. I know you’re telling whoever was watching that nothing was as it seemed. I know you were pleading for help.”
She faces me, looking confused, her gaze searching mine. “How could you know what I was thinking and feeling when we’d never met?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Maybe it was all the years of reading people when I was undercover. Maybe it was just something in your eyes that spoke to me, but whatever the case, and what’s important is that I did know. I kept looking until I found you.”
“But you said Kara doesn’t know I’m alive.”
“She doesn’t.” I look at my watch, noting the nine o’clock hour. “Or she might soon, but not until tonight. Once I knew Alvarez was alive, though, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Kara found out. That’s when I got back up.”
“But not Kara?”
“I still didn’t know you were alive,” I say, “And I didn’t want to create false hope in her. She was devastated after the crash and your supposed death. And I mean inconsolable, Myla. Blake was her lifeline, and eventually, he made the decision to pull her away from anything to do with Alvarez.”
“And my sister agreed to that?” she says, sounding wounded, and then seeming to catch herself, she adds, “I can’t believe I just let the idea of her moving on and surviving hurt me when keeping her away from me and safe was my goal.”
“You felt alone a long time, Myla,” I say. “It’s normal to feel what you just felt. And Kara didn’t give up on you. She thought you were dead.”
“I know she did,” she says. “And I’m glad she backed off, but yes. The idea of her not looking for me illogically hurts. You didn’t give up.”
“Had I told her even in passing that I believed you were alive, she wouldn’t have either. And Kara and Blake are too personally involved with Alvarez to hunt him safely. He kidnapped you and killed Blake’s ex-fiancé. They’d both gone rogue and undercover in his operation when they met.”
“Wait. Kara was undercover in Alvarez’s operation?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “Right after you went missing. Blake even got his chance to kill Alvarez. He held a gun to his head and Kara talked him out of pulling the trigger. And that was about you. She was convinced he had you, keeping you alive, and if he was gone, you would be, too. Unfortunately, he escaped, ironically, faking his death then as well.”
“When was this?”
“A year ago.”
She inhales and lets it out. “Kara was right. He has an odd fascination with me that kept m
e alive. Had they killed him then, I’d be…I don’t want to think about what I’d be or where I’d be. Maybe I’d be one of those other girls, strung out on heroin and with a different man every hour. Maybe I’d be dead.”
“Without you, we wouldn’t have a chance to save these women. That’s an amazing, brave thing you’ve done.”
“I’ve been clinging to the idea of saving them,” she confesses. “It’s become what I think of as “my plan”, and that plan became life for me. It kept me going.”
My fingers brush her cheek. “That was a damn good reason to keep going, sweetheart. You are-”
Our doorbell rings, and my head jerks up, while Myla surprises me by turning instinctively to the computer, and tabbing to a shot of our front door, where Les is now holding our pizza. “What the fuck is he up to?” I murmur, already on my feet and walking to a suitcase, where I remove a Glock.
“You need a gun for Les?”
“He’s supposed to call before he comes up,” I say, “and as far as I’m concerned, any surprise that shows up at our door could be sent by Alvarez.”
Myla’s eyes go wide. “Oh God. My phone.” She pops to her feet.” What if Michael called and I didn’t answer? Maybe he sent Les to check on me.”
“They’d send someone other than Les,” I say, though I’m not ruling this out as a problem underway. “Go clean up our mess and hide your gun.”
She’s already out the door while I follow, my gun in hand, as I step to the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Kyle
“Who is it?” I call out at the door, not about to let Les, or anyone know about my camera, or my team watching the hotel.
“Les, sir. I was coming up anyway so I thought-”
I open the door and show the little prick my gun. “This is what “you thought” gets you.”
His eyes go wide, but there is no fear, which tells me he isn’t what he seems. “Oh, sir,” he begins. “I-”