“Oh. Find someone yet?”
Jake glanced down at the most recent candidate file in his hand and frowned. “No.”
Eve tipped her head. “What was wrong with this one? Too tall?”
He didn’t even care that she was being a smartass. Man, he was pathetic. “Just didn’t click.” He nodded her way before she could jump to conclusions about what that meant. “What are you doing here?”
Eve closed the desk drawer and held up the object in her hand. “Forgot my cell charger. Archer’s waiting in the car.” Her gaze swept over his slacks and the dress shirt rolled up to his forearms, and one of her slim brows lowered. “Please tell me you’re not wearing that to the wedding. I’m pretty sure that’s the outfit you wore yesterday. And is that ketchup on your sleeve?”
It was the outfit he’d worn yesterday. And yeah, that was ketchup from a burger he’d tried to eat but just couldn’t stomach. On top of that, his clothes were wrinkled and dirty thanks to the fact he’d slept in his office last night, but he didn’t want to tell her that. Nor did he want to tell her he couldn’t quite bring himself to spend too much time at home lately because every time he was there he remembered Marley and the amazing night she’d stayed with him.
That ache spread outward from his chest again thanks to that word—wedding—and he turned away and moved for his office. “I’m not going.”
He dropped the folder on his desk, moved around the piece of furniture, and slumped into his chair, wishing for alcohol, wishing for Xanax, wishing for anything that would make this damn day go faster so it could be over already.
Eve—never one for obvious cues—stopped in the doorway to his office, perched her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “Go after her.”
Hedley had said that to him, and look how well that had turned out. Scowling, Jake moved Allison’s folder to the stack of candidates he’d already interviewed and ruled out for whatever reason—some were too old, some were too young, one had a purple streak in her hair Jake just wouldn’t be able to stare at all day, and another was a Florida State graduate. He couldn’t hire someone from Florida State. He’d gone to Notre Dame, for God’s sake. “Stay out of it, Wolfe.”
“If you let her go, you’re going to regret it forever. I know from experience.”
The last of Jake’s patience slipped away, and he looked up. “I mean it, Eve. This isn’t you and Archer. It isn’t even close. So save your advice for someone who needs it.”
Eve crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her head. “With that sunny disposition, I can see why she decided to marry the other guy.” She dropped her arms and turned for the door. “Since you’re not bothering to go, I’ll be sure to drink all your alcohol. Have fun sulking.”
Lips pressed together, Jake picked up the binder clip on his desk and chucked it toward the door she’d just exited. It clattered against the doorjamb with a clack and bounced back.
“You missed,” she called from the hall.
A muscle in Jake’s jaw ticked, and he dropped his forehead into his hands again. He wasn’t mad at her, dammit. He was mad at himself. Mad at the situation. Mad at—
The cell on his desk buzzed before he could put a lid on his temper, and he picked it up without looking at the number and then barked out, “What?”
“Ryder,” a voice yelled across a crackling line. “It’s Bentley.”
Pierce. In South America. His focus zoned in on the call. “I can barely hear you.”
“Chopper’s about to lift off,” Pierce yelled. “But I wanted to get you the info as soon as I could. That fourth guy? Sanders? He’s alive. I found him in a Bolivian clink. He was working with McKnight.”
Bolivia was a good fifteen hundred miles from Colombia. Not a quick jaunt. “We already know that,” Jake said. “They were both employed by Omega. What the hell is he doing in Bolivia?”
“No. You don’t understand. They were both working for the cartel,” Pierce yelled over the whup whup whup of the chopper blades. “They double-crossed Omega. The cartel agreed to pay them five million dollars if they blew the hit on Jose Moreno. But McKnight got greedy. Instead of just killing Jones and Reynolds and splitting the money with Sanders, he turned on Sanders too.”
Holy shit. Jake’s adrenaline shot up, and he pushed to his feet.
“Sanders took a bullet to the abdomen,” Pierce went on. “And McKnight left him for dead. The cartel, however, decided McKnight was too expensive, and instead of paying him off, they took him hostage. That buddy I’ve got doing merc work in Colombia? The one who tipped me off about Sanders? He says the word inside Colombia is that the cartel planned to ransom McKnight back to Omega at some point, but a shift in power after Moreno’s death three weeks later resulted in McKnight being moved around and lost in the system. Not hard to do down here.”
No, Jake knew it wasn’t. “What happened to Sanders? How did he get out of Colombia? And how did you get this info from him?”
“Some local villagers found him in the jungle, took him in, and tended his wounds. Turns out he might just be a bigger shit than McKnight, though. He bolted, afraid Omega was going to find out what they did. Ran wild through South America for a while. Right now he’s in prison in Bolivia for rape and attempted murder. I got him to talk by telling him about McKnight getting cozy with Mason Addison and the crew at Omega.”
Which had to piss the guy off because he was rotting in a South American prison and McKnight was free.
A buzzing sounded in Jake’s ears. He’d known McKnight was hiding something. Known and hadn’t pushed for more. And he’d given up trying to make Marley listen.
Marley . . .
Jake scrambled for his keys from the top drawer of his desk. “Get your ass back here, Bentley.”
“Already on it,” Pierce said. “South America is not my favorite place. What are you going to do?”
Jake tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear, pulled the gun from the holster at his hip, and checked the magazine. “Stop a fucking wedding.”
He clicked End and quickly dialed Miller’s number as he headed for the stairs. The line immediately went to voicemail. Jogging down the steps, he tugged the phone away from his ear, then tried Stone and Hedley, but the calls all went to voicemail as well.
“Fucking idiots.” They’d turned their damn cell phones off for the wedding. He quickly dialed Eve. Her line rang through, but eventually went to message, which meant she had hers on and was just ignoring him. “Goddammit.” He left her a message, then as a last-ditch effort, he tried Marley.
He didn’t want to drag her into this, but he didn’t have any other choice. Pressing the phone to his ear, he listed to her familiar voice on the message as he stepped out of the building and hustled for his rig.
As soon as the beep sounded, he said, “Marley, it’s Jake. I just got some information about McKnight.” He tugged the car door open and slid behind the wheel. “Don’t marry him until I talk to you. In fact, don’t even go near him. Please. Just give me a chance to explain. I’m on my way.”
He clicked End, hoped to hell she listened, then peeled out of the parking lot.
“Okay,” Olivia Miller said at Marley’s back in an excited voice as she brushed the curls she’d just put in Marley’s hair aside. “Prepare yourselves, ladies. This is going to knock your socks off.”
The zipper slid up Marley’s spine. Olivia clasped the hook at the top, fanned Marley’s curls out over her shoulders, then moved aside and grinned. “You’re all set.”
Stomach swirling, Marley stepped out from behind the screen in the upstairs guest suite of her father’s main house where she and the other women were getting ready and glanced at Amelia, dressed in a slim black cocktail dress across the room. “Well?”
“Oh wow.” A warm smile spread across Amelia’s youthful face. “Oh, Marley.” Tears filled her light-brown eyes. Tears that hit M
arley as completely bizarre since she’d only just gotten to know the woman who was now dating—correction: sleeping with—her father. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?” Olivia moved next to Marley and fixed the train. “It’s perfect for her. I’m so glad we were able to get a Lexi Lacroix gown on such short notice. I mean, it’s off the rack, but you’d never know by looking at her in it. It fits as if it were made for her.”
Nerves bouncing around inside her belly like Mexican jumping beans, Marley pressed the palm of her hand over the crisscrossed organza layers of fabric covering her stomach and the tight bodice of the strapless dress and stepped toward the full-length mirror set up in the corner of the room. As soon as she saw her reflection, her feet drew to a stop, and a gasp rushed from her mouth.
The mermaid gown was everything she never would have picked for herself. Her shoulders were bare, the heart-shaped bodice plunged between her breasts to showcase an ample amount of cleavage, and the tight sheath bodice followed every curve until it stopped just above her knee and then fanned out in waves of more organza that dropped to her feet and spilled out behind her like someone with a can of whip cream had gone crazy. And though it was beautiful, though it was elegant and flattering and made her look amazing in all the right ways—in ways she wouldn’t have expected—panic pushed at her chest as she stared at her reflection. Panic and an overwhelming heat that prickled her skin and stole her breath.
Oh holy God in heaven. This was real. She was getting—she swallowed hard—married. And she was doing it with the wrong man.
The door to the suite pushed open, startling her. Her gaze shot to the door in the mirror, and Eve, in a blur of red, moving into the room.
“Holy mother of God,” Eve muttered, her eyes growing wide as she stared at Marley. “Um. Wow.”
“Isn’t it?” Olivia exclaimed, stepping beside her sister and grinning. “We are definitely getting you a Lexi Lacroix dress for your wedding.”
Eve’s face went ashen. “Slow down, twisted sister. Let’s not jump the gun here. I might have said yes to Archer, but that doesn’t mean we’re actually going through with it.”
Olivia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, pulling on the deep-blue satin of her dress. “Sometimes I don’t know what Zane sees in you.”
“I never know what Archer sees in me,” Eve mumbled, her face still as pale as ever as she stared at Marley.
Marley’s gaze slid back to her reflection, and the sea of white in front of her only pushed that panic higher. Until it was all Marley could feel, until her heart was thumping so hard against her ribs, she was sure it might explode right out of her chest.
“Ladies . . .” Darkness pressed in at the edge of her vision, and she gripped the edge of the mirror to hold herself steady. She was going to lose it. And she didn’t want to lose it in front of them. “I need a minute alone. Please.”
Amelia rushed over and reached for Marley’s free hand. “Are you okay?”
Marley nodded, swallowed hard. Tried to sound normal when she said, “Yes,” but knew her voice was an octave higher than normal and that they all had to know she was freaking the hell out.
Amelia looked toward Eve and Olivia. Marley couldn’t see the silent exchange, but she didn’t care. Right now she just needed a moment to think. To breathe. To calm herself down.
Eventually—after what felt like a year—Amelia squeezed Marley’s hand. “Okay, we’ll be right outside. Call us when you’re ready.”
The women filed out and closed the door. Marley looked back at her reflection and then sank to the floor.
Oh shit. Her eyes drifted closed. Oh, holy shit. What was she doing? She was getting married on the rebound, which was nothing but a monumental mistake. She couldn’t marry Gray. She wasn’t in love with him. Not even the tiniest bit. She’d let her father and Gray talk her into this insanity because she saw it as her way to work in the field. But marrying Gray wasn’t the answer. It wasn’t fair to Gray, and it sure as heck wasn’t fair to her. Just the fact she was flipping out told her loud and clear that she was making the wrong choice.
Her eyes slid open, and she stared at herself in a heap in front of the mirror. She had to tell him. She had to call this craziness off right this very second. She didn’t care what her father said, she only cared what she felt and knew to be true. And inside she knew this was wrong.
Stumbling to her feet, she grasped the waves of organza on the floor and lifted so she didn’t trip and fall flat on her ass, then crossed the room and grappled for her cell in her pocket. A voicemail from Jake flashed across her screen, but she didn’t have time for him. This wasn’t about him, dammit. This was about her. About not falling into old patterns with her father, about standing up for herself, about fixing the gigantic mess she’d made all on her own.
She hit Dial and held the phone to her ear. As soon as Gray answered, she said, “It’s me. I need to talk to you.”
“Right now?”
He sounded irritated, but Marley didn’t care. “Yes, now.”
“Marlene, it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”
“I know. It’s important though.” She glanced out the window toward the trees beyond the edge of the yard. The ceremony was set to take place in front of the giant fireplace in the enormous living room downstairs. If she took the back stairs and snuck out the kitchen door, no one would see her. “Meet me by the footbridge that runs over the creek in five minutes.”
“I don’t think—”
“Please, Gray. Just do it.”
She pulled the phone away from her ear and clicked End. Then drew in a breath for courage and bolted for the door.
Jake threw his SUV into park in the middle of the circular drive, jumped out, and sprinted toward the main house. A valet dressed in a black suit hollered, “Hey! You can’t leave that here!”
Cars lined both sides of the paved, tree-lined drive, and patches of snow littered the ground. Thanks to the number of guests already inside for the wedding, cars were backed up at least a quarter mile down the road. Tossing his keys at the valet, Jake yelled, “Then move it.”
He pushed one side of the wide double doors open and stepped into the entry, his chest rising and falling with his rapid breaths. Voices and laugher and music echoed from somewhere deeper in the house. A few people mingled in the outer rooms, drinking and chatting, but he didn’t see McKnight anywhere. He was just about to head toward the music when Ronan Hamilton strode through the foyer, decked out in gray slacks and a white dress shirt, holding a beer bottle in his hand, looking completely uncomfortable in his surroundings.
He stopped, eyed Jake from head to foot, and muttered, “You look like shit, Ryder. I’m guessing things didn’t work out so well for you after we parted ways in Puerto Asis.”
“Where’s McKnight?”
“How the hell would I know? I didn’t like the dude before, I’m sure as hell not hanging around with him now. Why?”
The phone in Jake’s pocket buzzed. Anxious it might be Marley, he jerked it out and held it to his ear. “Marley?”
“No, sorry,” a male voice said. “This is James Douglas with the investigator’s office. Sorry to bother you on a Saturday, Mr. Ryder. I tried to call your office, but no one’s answering. I have some information about your Tahoe.”
The bomb. Shit. “I don’t have ti—”
“We’ve had ATF consulting on this with us, and thanks to their help we were able to trace the lot number for the caps on the bomb back to the manufacturer, then the distributor, and finally to the store where they were sold. It’s a place in Louisville, purchased about a week and a half ago. Unfortunately, the caps were purchased with cash, but we do have security footage of the buyer. I just texted a video clip to you. We’d like you to take a look and see if the man in the footage is familiar at all.”
Jake needed to get to McKnight, but something in his gut said not to blow this off. “Okay, hold on while I look.”
He tugged the phone away from his ear, paged through his texts until he found the video, and hit Play. The camera was perched on a wall near the front door of the store, pointed toward the cash register. A man walked up and set items on the counter, but Jake couldn’t see his face. He was big though, blond hair, dressed in jeans, boots, and a heavy jacket. Jake squinted to see better. The clerk rang up the purchase, the man paid with cash, then the man reached for the bag and turned toward the camera.
Everything inside Jake went cold, and he hit Pause.
It was McKnight. The son of a bitch had set that bomb. Had tried to kill him. Probably because he’d sensed what was going on between him and Marley. And that meant his reasons for marrying her weren’t what she or anyone else thought.
“Something tells me that is not good,” Hamilton muttered at Jake’s side.
A new sense of urgency rushed through Jake. He clicked back to the call. “It’s Grayson McKnight. He’s at Mason Addison’s farm outside Lexington.” He rattled off the address. “Get a team out here now.”
“We’re on it. Mr. Ryder, don’t—”
Jake didn’t listen to the rest. He shoved the phone back in his pocket and turned to Hamilton. “Where is she?”
“Marley? Upstairs, I think. Ryder, what the hell’s going on?”
Jake bolted for the stairs, took them three at a time, paused and looked around, then started opening doors. There was no sign of Marley. Fear shot through his chest. The last door at the end of the hall opened to a bedroom. Eve and Olivia both stopped packing up makeup and hair instruments and looked over.
“Well, wonder of wonders,” Eve said in a surprised voice. “Look who decided to show.”
“Where’s Marley? I need to talk to her.”
Olivia set down the brush in her hand and stepped toward him. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”
At his back, Jake sensed Hamilton move up behind him. “McKnight’s not who she thinks he is. I just heard from the investigators. He set the bomb in my Tahoe.”