The doorman opens my door and despite it being February, I step outside into the year round Texas humidity of my childhood, my roots here helping establish my cover story. “Hello sir,” the fifty-something, rather stately, man greets me. “Will you be staying with us tonight?”
“Just a few hours,” I say, offering him my keys before I smooth down the navy jacket of one of my “go to” suits from my days in the FBI. “Keep her safe.”
“Always, sir,” he assures me, offering me a ticket, his face completely straight as he adds, “But I shall fantasize about driving her on the highway at a hundred and forty miles an hour.”
“I’ve had that same fantasy,” I assure him, and considering I used this job as an excuse to buy the gorgeous beast, I revel a bit in the idea that I can actually do it. “I need to get on that.”
“You do indeed, sir.”
“Kyle,” I say, palming him a large bill. “Sir makes me feel like my father.”
“Kyle,” he repeats, “and I’m Les Gordan, should you need anything.”
“Thanks, Les,” I say, heading toward the double doors, and entering to find shiny tile beneath my feet, a centerpiece table filled with a couple dozen vases of flowers and a glass chandelier above my head. It’s dripping money, and for some that would make them regret what they don’t have, but not me. I have money, beyond the income I make at Walker Security, which I don’t touch for one reason and one reason only. It’s blood money.
Cutting left into a bar area, where a thick, blue and gray swirled rug sits beneath clusters of tables with high back chairs, my contact is nowhere in sight. As I’m about to turn back and call him, he slides out of a booth and waves me forward, his suit 70’s pale blue, but expensive. At the same moment, a woman wearing a slim-fitted white dress, with long, dark hair, slides out of the seat across from him and walks toward the bathroom. I discreetly suck in air, the idea of this being Myla, impossible to ignore, but that’s ridiculous. It can’t be her. Could it be her? Could it be this easy to have her land in my lap?
I step forward, closing the space between myself and Juan, who is thirty-nine, five years my senior, and my research tells me that all those years were spent doing very bad things, with zero remorse. “Glad you made it,” he says, as I reach him, eyeing his watch. “You’re five minutes late.”
“You told me about the meeting thirty minutes ago. I’m fifteen minutes earlier than I should have been, considering I had a woman in my bed at the time.”
“At least you came up with a good excuse,” he snaps, the lights in here doing his sun baked skin no favors, giving it a kind of raisin-like quality.
“I don’t do excuses,” I say, about to sit down when another brunette, dressed in jeans and boots, walks by…and holy shit. It’s Kara, and she’s headed straight for the archway the other woman disappeared around. “And actually,” I add, “I need to make a quick phone call to a paying client.”
“We’re going to be paying clients.”
“I’ll put off the ones that already are when I have the cash.” I don’t give him time to argue, making fast tracks in pursuit of Kara, rounding the corner and finding an alcove with two doors, one marked Men, while Kara exits the second one marked Women, her hand pressed to her face.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, stepping toe-to-toe with her.
She jolts and looks up at me, having been unaware I’m even present until now, and considering what a badass investigator she is, that’s saying a lot about where her head is. “Kyle,” she gasps, hugging herself, defeat in her face. “I’m sorry. I just thought…I thought it was her, but it wasn’t.”
Not only do her words confirm she and Blake know about our hunt for Alvarez, but their revelation punches me in the gut. I wanted that woman to be Myla, too, for Kara and for all of us. “Even if it had been her-” I begin.
“I know,” she says quickly, holding up a hand. “I know. I was stupid to rush in here. Blake’s furious with me and I need to go before that woman, whoever she is, comes out of the bathroom.”
“Yes. Go. Now.”
“Thank you for trying to find Myla,” she whispers, but she doesn’t step away. “But first a warning. The woman I followed has deep cleavage, and I know that doesn’t mean much, but my gut, which is good, says that she’s either meant to test you or reward you.” She doesn’t wait for a reply, darting around me and disappearing, after delivering what I am certain is a spot-on assessment of the setup in the works.
Nevertheless, I’m pissed as hell that she was here, and I snag my phone from my pocket, and dial Royce. “Kara was just here. What the fuck happened to contained?” I’ve barely issued the question when the woman Kara had followed exits the bathroom, her cleavage indeed deep, her features harder and darker than Myla’s, but none of these things matter. What matters is the way she pauses, looking at me like she expects me to walk her back in the bathroom and fuck her here and now.
She points and says, “I…I’ll see you back at the table.” She rushes past me, but not before I spy a certain familiar mix of fear and desperation in her eyes that has me flashing back to the past. To the moment when a helicopter that was supposed to have Myla inside exploded, and Kara had let out a blood-curdling scream at the loss of her sister. Then to a moment later that night when I’d watched the security footage of Myla just before she walked to the rooftop where the incident had taken place. She’d passed a camera and looked right into the lens, and there was no mistaking the fear and desperation in her eyes that spoke to me. I wanted to save her. I needed to save her, and then the damn helicopter had blown up, leaving her dead in everyone’s mind but mine for some reason.
“Kyle,” Royce snaps. “Are you there? Is your cover blown? Are you in danger?”
Shaking off the memory, I return to the present. “No and no,” I reply. “I have to get back to my meeting. I’ll call you when I can and no sooner, but no more fucking surprises.” I end the connection and clear the record of the communication, already walking as I do.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I re-enter the bar, and make my way to Juan and the woman who now sits across from him, in the spot that would be mine, obviously meant to force me to choose to sit by one of the two of them. Not about to be forced into anything, I grab a chair from a nearby table and place it at the end of the booth, effectively putting me between them both.
Juan arches a brow. “You have a problem sitting with us?”
“I prefer a workable distance.” I eye the woman and then him. “Is she my new assignment?”
“She’s my sister,” he says, the announcement shifting my gaze back to him.
A sister who hates her life and wants to be saved. He’s a bigger bastard than I imagined. “You want me to protect your sister?”
“I protect my sister,” he corrects.
“Then why’s she here?”
“To see how easily you’re distracted,” he says, confirming she was a test.
“I’m not. Now what?”
“You’re very white in the midst of a Mexican operation,” he comments, the change of topic obviously meant to rattle me. It doesn’t work.
“For an extra million I’ll get a tan,” I promise dryly.
“You stand out,” he says, as if I haven’t spoken. “You draw attention to us we don’t need and I don’t like that you’re ex-FBI.”
“And here I thought you enjoyed turning law enforcement against its own. If I make you nervous-”
“Not nervous,” he snaps. “Suspicious and yes. We like corrupting the supposedly incorruptible, but this is too close to comfort for me.”
“And yet we’re on meeting number three.”
“The closer you are, the easier to put a bullet in your head,” he counters.
My lips quirk. “Had I known we were going to talk dirty tonight, I’d have had a drink first.” I don’t give him time to reply. “Why am I here?”
“Because the powers that be think this is a good idea,” he says, no doubt referencing Alvar
ez.
“Does he win this conflict, or do you?”
“He always wins, but I influence him.” He pauses. “Strongly.”
My eyes narrow, finding a bluff in his call. “Time is money. Two free meetings is all you get, and this is number three.” I repeat and I start to stand.
“Wait,” he says, stopping me midway to my feet. “You’re hired.”
I hesitate several beats for effect, then slowly ease back into my chair. “I thought I was a sore thumb FBI agent?”
He ignores the remark. “A million dollars for eight weeks of work.”
It’s double the named price, which tells me the person I’m mean to protect is closer to Alvarez than I’d thought. “Who am I guarding?”
“Does it matter? You’re making a million fucking dollars.”
“Do you want the person protected or not?”
His eyes glint hard and he reaches into his pocket, handing me an envelope. I accept it and open it, finding a contract for the money discussed with the terms for which I will perform my duties. The jest. No one gets killed, captured, or wounded, or I pay the money back times two, while further consequences will be considered.
“I need to meet the person in question before I sign this.”
“We’ll be in touch.” He stands and so does the woman, whose name I don’t even know at this point, and they leave.
Standing, I follow in their footsteps, dialing Royce as I do, and stating, “Where do you want to meet?”
“Your buddy’s bar,” he says, naming a spot downtown, which one of my ex-FBI pals now runs. It’s also a place I know I’ve been followed to many times, making a trip there expected rather than suspicious. A perfect place to have a one-on-one with the ever hard-headed men of Walker Security.
***
Twenty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of “Dan’s” and while I don’t find any familiar cars, I’m confident Royce and Blake are present. Reaching across the vehicle, I grab my Walker Security phone from the glove box, and stick it in my pocket, before exiting, and crossing the parking lot. Entering the bar through the back door, I’ve made it all of two steps when Dan, as bulked up and Hulkish as ever, greets me.
“Downstairs,” he says, motioning toward a stairwell between us, his graying dark hair aging him to forty when he’s actually in his thirties like me. “I’ll lock the back and watch the front.”
“Thanks man,” I say, stopping toe-to-toe with him, shaking his hand, our grips strong, as was our bond for five years in the same Texas field office. “Come to work for Walker Security and you’ll get paid for shit like this.”
“You’ve been home a month, and said that at least six times. You know my answer. I’m retired.”
I press my hands to my hips. “Thirty-four is too damn young to retire.”
“It’s also too damn young for a lot of things,” he says softly, referencing the cascade of blood that’s been his life, far more than it has mine.
“That’s why we stick together.”
“That’s why I’m getting the damn door and you’re going downstairs.”
I rub my jaw, a light stubble forming, and he steps around me, successfully shutting me down once again. “I’ll keep asking,” I say, heading down the steps and entering the concrete cellar that is wrapped in wine-filled wooden shelves. In the center is a long wooden table, with Royce on one end and Blake on the other, with Kara by his side.
“Anything on Myla?” Kara asks, shooting to her feet the moment she sees me.
“Nothing,” I say, stopping at the side of the table, hands on the back of a brown leather chair, “and that’s exactly why I didn’t want you involved. There may never be anything, Kara.”
“She knows,” Blake snaps, standing, while Royce does the same, both brothers big and broad, their long hair tied at the nape, but Royce is bigger, his features harder, his attitude all about control while Blake’s is all about daring.
“I do know,” Kara adds, hugging herself as she had back at the bathroom. “I know, but I have to try to find her.”
“What do you think Royce and I are trying to do?” I look at Blake. “No one knows more than you how dangerous being too close to something can be. How can you want her here?”
“I don’t fucking want her to be here,” he snaps. “She came on her own. We were in Sonoma for the Chris Merit wedding, and she disappeared. I chartered a plane and got here just in time to catch her as she was following you to the meeting.”
“And yet you didn’t fucking stop her.”
“Stop saying FUCK!” Kara shouts. “Stop. I hate the way you always say fuck, Blake. And fuck you! This is my sister. You knew they were doing this and you didn’t tell me. I found your notes. You kept this a secret from me.”
“I was waiting to see what they found out before I got your hopes up,” Blake states. “I didn’t want you to feel everything you’re feeling right now.”
“You don’t get to decide what I feel or don’t feel. You just get to be there to help me deal with it. Do you understand?”
Blake turns her to face him, his hands on her hips. “We’ve talked about this. We’re both too close to this case to be objective. We’re both known by the Alvarez inner circle. I trust my brother and I trust Kyle. Let’s let them handle this.”
“I don’t want to let them handle this,” she hisses.
“If Myla is alive,” he says, “one wrong move and she could be dead. Think about it, Kara.”
They exchange some sort of silent communication, the air crackling around them, before she says, “I need to control this.”
“I know,” Blake says softly, “but you can’t. I have a lead on the Ella Ferguson case. Let’s get on a plane and go to Italy where I think she may be. We’ll find her while they find your sister. Distance will help you in ways you can’t understand now.”
“You have a lead on Ella?”
“I do and it’s solid. Let’s go be the ones who find her, while Kyle and Royce try to find Myla.”
He cups the back of her head, their foreheads coming together, while Royce motions me toward the stairs, and we quickly leave them alone. I’ve only just made it to the top of the landing when my phone rings, and I glance down, then up at Royce. “Juan. I told him I wanted to meet the person I’m guarding before I take the job.”
“A call this soon has to be a good sign.”
“Kyle,” is how I answer.
“That meeting you wanted is on. Back at the Ritz. Come prepared to take over tonight.”
“I haven’t agreed to take the job.”
“Be that as it may,” he says. “That decision happens tonight, and you need to be ready to stay the night.”
“That gives me no time to prepare.”
“Go by your apartment. Get your things. That’s all the preparation you need. I’ll meet you at the hotel elevator in an hour. Don’t be late this time.”
“An hour and a half.”
“An hour,” he repeats, and hangs up.
I shove my phone in my pocket. “Whoever I’m guarding is at the Ritz waiting on me. I told them I want to meet the person first. They’ve agreed, but expect me to come prepared to stay the night.”
Footsteps sound and Blake joins us, stepping between myself and Royce. “We’re going to Italy, but fuck you both for not telling me you’d found Alvarez.”
“Blake, man-” I begin.
“Fuck you, Kyle,” he says. “We’re brothers. All of us. You don’t fucking keep secrets like this.” He looks at Royce. “And you, brother. You have a wife. You know Kara changed everything for me. I put Kara before revenge.”
“I also know from having a wife,” Royce says, “that secrets are poison. I didn’t want you to have to choose to keep one from Kara. I wanted to know if this was real before we told you.”
“I have to go,” I interject, and knowing that if Blake hacked our records he knows everything. “I’m meeting the person they’re paying me to guard.”
“So yo
u’re in,” he says, his tone flat.
“I’m in,” I confirm. “I’ll make this count, Blake. If I can find her-”
“I get Alvarez,” he says. “I get to be the one who kills him.”
“Blake, damn it-” Royce begins, and before he finishes Blake is flattening him with a stare.
“Don’t tell me how killing him will blacken my soul or some fucking bullshit like that, big brother. I’m killing him. And right now, I’m leaving the country with Kara on this job, which will be long enough to save everyone you can before I do it.” He turns around and walks down the stairs.
Royce and I look at each other and I sigh. “I guess that’s as contained as he gets.”
“No,” Royce assures me. “It isn’t. And as I said, I’ll contain him. You just go do your job.”
“Right. I’m leaving, but from this point forward, I’m keeping only the phone line I purchased for this job on me.” And because undercover is what I do well, I reach into my pocket and hand him my company phone I use for about everything, but undercover work. “I don’t want it on me.” He nods, accepting it and I add, “Tell Blake how to reach me and I’m sure I don’t have to say this, but I have to say it. Make sure he knows we’re using only non-traceable lines, from this point forward.”
“Copy that,” he says. “Just for confirmation. All calls will come from a line that will be routed to a disconnected message if called by an unknown number. And all calls made from the line will be automatically purged by our team.”
“Excellent,” I say, turning and heading for the back door, and doing so, with the world on my shoulders. Blake’s world. Kara’s world. And maybe, just maybe, Myla’s life, but that would be a good thing. It would mean she’s not dead and I have the chance to save her. Exiting the bar, the hot air suffocates me, but my adrenaline is pumping, my desire to know where this is headed, high. Clicking my locks open, I have the tingling sensation of being watched.
My lips quirk. Like I don’t know Alvarez’s people have been following me everywhere I fucking go. I climb into the Mustang and settle my phone into the holder connected to my dash. “Siri, text Whataburger.”