4

The safe house that the assailants believed Bliss was being protected in was located just within the Somerset city limits on a quiet residential street. Or, it had been quiet until gunfire had filled the night, awakening neighbors and terrifying the children that had never experienced such shocking violence.

Thankfully, Bliss wasn’t actually there. Chaya had taken her to the neighboring county, where several lesser known, but no less hardened, cousins had gathered to ensure her protection.

Leaning forward to get a better look Angel tried to ignore the man sitting next to her and concentrated on what was going on instead. Police cruisers, both city as well as state, lined the street as officers moved around the small two-story house. Windows were shattered, the front door riddled with bullet holes, and the fact that violence had touched this previously quiet street was readily apparent.

Alex Jansen, the chief of police, stood on the once well-manicured front lawn nodding at the female detective who stood next to him, pointing something out. Next to the detective, the sheriff listened, his expression brooding and angry.

Detective Samantha Bryce was dressed in her customary jeans and T-shirt, a low-profile white ball cap on her head, a mass of dark brown curls hanging from the back of it to the middle of her back. Sneakers covered her feet; a holstered handgun was secured on her belt.

The sheriff was no more a typically dressed sheriff than the detective. Shane Mayes, son of a former sheriff, wore jeans as well, boots, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back along his strong forearms, rather than the typical uniform.

Alex Jansen was Bliss’s uncle through his marriage to Natches’s sister, Janey, and Erin’s father. Shane Mayes and Samantha Bryce were close friends of the family.

Moving to them were three undercover DHS operatives and one very pissed-off assistant director of DHS, Chatham Bromleah Doogan. The assistant director was engaged to Dawg’s youngest sister while two of the others had married his older sisters, Eve and Piper.

The family ties were starting to get a little tangled amid the Mackays, Angel thought with a spurt of humor, and with that group involved she had no idea what Duke thought they could do there.

“Why are we here?” she asked him quietly as he parked the Jeep behind a black pickup in a neighbor’s yard. “Looks like Mackay family members have this pretty well covered.”

Duke glanced at her before turning his attention back to the scene. “There’s a lot of people here.” He nodded to the crowd. “And there are two dead bodies inside. I figure whoever came in gunning for her might be curious.”

Oh, she had no doubt they’d be curious, but she wasn’t so certain they’d hang around and risk being seen just hours after hitting the house.

“Why go in shooting? They tried to abduct her earlier, not kill her,” she pointed out.

“And that didn’t work,” he reminded her, his gaze still narrowed on the crowd. “Maybe they weren’t taking chances this time, or maybe they thought to get anyone protecting her out of the way before snatching her. Whatever they were here for, they figured out the hard way that this house was a setup. I want to ID the bodies and I want to see who’s here, who’s watching, and see if I can’t get a lead on who’s so determined to get one little fifteen-year-old kid.”

As he spoke, he was quickly snapping pictures with the small camera he’d pulled from the glove box. And if his movements were any indication, he wasn’t missing much where the milling crowd was concerned.

“You’re just here for pictures?” She slid him a doubtful look. “Wouldn’t you learn more if one of us was actually in the crowd? And what’s on the security cameras?”

“The cameras showed four black-clad, black-masked figures, and a van parked across the street but no plates. So they weren’t of much help. We have the crowd covered, though,” he assured her. “There’s no less than four friendlies making their way among those gathered out there and hearing what there is to be heard. And I’d rather just sit back for the moment and see what Jansen and the others find first.”

A waste of time, in other words.

“I could be sleeping.” She sat back in her seat, ignoring him as he scowled at her. “I didn’t come out with you to sightsee.”

And she was damned tired. It had been a hell of a day and all she wanted to do was escape it.

“You’re the one that always demands recon,” he pointed out, staring at the people milling around in the street.

It was three o’clock in the morning, for Christ’s sake. Hadn’t they figured out that the excitement was over for the night?

“I don’t demand recon when I haven’t slept for twenty-four hours and I’m running on caffeine rather than a good night’s rest.” She was running on aspirin, caffeine, and ragged emotions was more like it. “Even I have my limits.”

She sipped at the coffee she held in her hand, aware that she was defeating the purpose by drinking it.

“You’re admitting to limits,” he murmured. “You surprise me.”

She just bet she did.

“This is pointless.” She brushed at the fringe of bangs that escaped the clip she’d hastily anchored her hair in. “What’s going on in that house isn’t going to help us until they identify the dead. Unless something useful was actually recorded by the security cams.” She took another sip of coffee.

Her eyes narrowed on the crowd, assessing the bodies, the expressions, the small groups that huddled together and those standing alone. Not that many were standing alone.

Two of the four standing back and watching were definite Mackay associates; she’d seen them with one or another of the cousins several times in the past year or so. The other two she remembered seeing recently fishing at the lake.

“Those two.” She nodded to where they stood some distance apart. “Did you snap their picture?”

“I did, but they’re turned this way more now.” He snapped several more shots. “You recognize them?”

“I’ve seen them at the lake, just as I’ve seen the majority of everyone else that’s milling around here rather than going back to bed,” she snorted. “I saw them hanging around at the fishing hole near an old cabin a few miles from the marina. But since they’re not known to me as Mackay associates, let’s check them out. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

She continued to stare around, watching the crowd silently, the way groups shifted, grew then dissipated. Even the four loners drifted into the smaller groups a few times, but there was nothing that really snagged her attention.

“Why did you wait so long to tell Chaya and Natches who you are?” The question was asked casually, as though it were something commonplace to ask.

It had her staring blindly into the small crowd, though, tension building through her body as she fought the need to confide in him.

“Why? Need more information to give your cousin and his wife?” Her lips curled derisively. “I think you probably had enough to give them.”

He should have. He’d fought alongside her and her brothers, he’d met their parents, and he’d even vacationed with them in Bermuda.

“I had enough to ensure the truth was backed up,” he admitted. “Something you should have done. Instead, you threw the information at her as though it were a grenade ready to explode.”

She turned her head, staring through the window at her side and, hopefully, hiding her expression. “It was what she wanted. It was what she demanded.”

And she’d never imagined she’d be turned away. At the very least she was certain someone would demand DNA. Question her, maybe. Give her the smallest benefit of the doubt. Ask for proof. Ask her why she hadn’t come forward sooner maybe. She hadn’t expected a complete denial, though perhaps she should have.

“Or was it what you demanded?” The question had anger flaring inside her. “Why didn’t you tell her sooner, Angel? Years ago?”

Because she’d known, she had already known her mother didn’t want her. That wound was still too deep, too agonizing to allow anyone to delve into it.

“This isn’t a conversation I want to have with you.” It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with anyone. “It was a mistake and I should have kept my mouth shut. . . .” She snapped her fingers and turned toward him with mocking innocence. “Oh yeah, that’s right. You just handed over the information, right? I should have just waited for you. Funny that, considering how well you hid the fact that you were a Mackay from me.”

Turning his head, he just stared at her, the deep, bright depth of his green eyes gleaming back at her.

“You shouldn’t have ditched me when you found out who I was.” His expression, shadowed by the night and the interior of the vehicle, gave away little as to what he was thinking. Or what he was feeling. If he was feeling anything. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”

“Yeah, I should have just gone to my knees and thanked you for finding me,” she drawled with heavy mockery, the insult stinging more than she would have liked. “But I guess I just didn’t consider myself lost, now did I?” She gave a little wave of her hand. “But you Mackays, just so certain you know every damned thing, right?”

Silence met her words.

Turning back to stare out the windshield as he rested his arm on the steering wheel, Duke seemed to be glaring out at the scene.

“You’ve known who your mother is for a while, haven’t you, Angel?” he asked softly. “Well before I showed up in Uzbekistan.”

Angel clenched her teeth; the memory of being trapped, held beneath that steel beam as the weight of the debris above it tried to crush the life from her, was just an added nightmare in her life.

She was going to die there. That certainty had filled her, a knowledge she hadn’t been able to escape from. And she’d begged Tracker, made him swear to watch out for Bliss for her.

That was the moment Duke and his brother had arrived. When no one else outside the bombed hospital would enter for fear of collapse, Duke had rushed inside. There was no panic, nothing but sheer confidence as his brother, Ethan, moved to her to assess her condition, and Duke moved to Tracker and Chance as they fought to hold the weight from her body.

And somehow, through some miracle, Duke had managed to find the one place where that beam could be lifted just enough for Ethan to drag her free of it.

“I knew.” There was no point in denying it. “I’ve known since I was fifteen years old. There’s very little of my time in Iraq that I don’t remember now.”

“You were only three.” The question in his tone was unmistakable. How could she remember what had happened when she was only three?

“I remember my first birthday party,” she said softly, the memory, though not as clear as others, there all the same. “The faces of the children that attended, the clown that scared the hell out of me. I remember Chaya dancing in the backyard with the knife she kept on her. I remember when she pushed that knife into a pocket she’d made in the teddy bear I loved.” She blinked back the emotions the memories always brought. “I’m a little fuzzy on what happened after the world shattered around me, but according to Tracker’s father, I had a concussion and several broken bones, so I’m going to excuse myself for not remembering that time clearly.”

She’d existed in ignorant bliss for twelve years after the hotel explosion, though. She was Angel, Tracker and Chance were her brothers, and she had to train, and learn how to survive. That had been her world. Until the day Brutus, J.T.’s huge war dog, had died from old age.

She remembered the horror, the abject certainty that without Brutus, she would die. She’d sobbed until she fell into an exhausted slumber, and when she’d awakened, she knew who she was, where she came from, the mother that had betrayed her. And the sister that had died in her arms.

She could feel Duke, waiting silently, certain he’d gain more information for the family he was apparently so damned loyal to.

Not that she could blame him, really. The Mackays were good people for the most part, especially the three older cousins, Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches. They were more often than not referred to as brothers rather than cousins.

Hell, she was as jealous as she could be of the father her half sister, Bliss, had been born to. Natches loved his daughter, protected her, would die for her, but even more, he’d kill for her. But he’d never use her to save himself as her own had done. And after watching Bliss’s mother, Chaya, Angel suspected the same of her. Which only bred the anger inside her because Chaya hadn’t felt that same loyalty for her first child, or for the niece who had died waiting for her.

“You’re going to have to talk about this eventually,” Duke warned her when she didn’t say anything more. “If not to me, then to Natches and Chaya.”

That was something she hadn’t even done with Tracker, no matter how often he encouraged her to, or how deeply she trusted him.

“I don’t have to talk to anyone about this,” she stated coolly despite the burning emotions searing her. “And calling Tracker won’t change my mind. If he wants to fly back here because I refuse to discuss this with you then it’s his choice. I won’t be blackmailed further.”

“What do you think is going to happen when you refuse to give Natches answers?” Was that amusement in his voice?

She turned her head, narrowing her eyes on him as their gazes met, and she detected a gleam of humor.

“Natches isn’t the boss of me,” she enunciated clearly, teeth clenched at the very thought of it. “No more than you or Tracker are.”

He chuckled at that, a dark, warning sound that had her fists clenching at her thighs.

“Honey, when Natches can’t get his answers from you, then he’ll track down Tracker and Chance. If they don’t have those answers, then he’ll go for J.T. and Mara. Is that what you want?” The gentle if foreboding question was no more than another warning and she was growing sick of them. Going to J.T. and Mara would be about as productive as asking Tracker, Chance, or even Duke. Because they didn’t know. Angel had never told anyone about the phone call her father had made to Chaya. Except Bliss.

“Take me back to the hotel, Duke,” she demanded. “There’s nothing to see here and this conversation isn’t going anywhere. . . .”

“Natches wants you at the house,” he interrupted her, his tone hardening. “You revealed yourself to Chaya because you wanted to protect Bliss. And I know you’re probably one of the best protection agents I’ve ever met. Well, you’ve been contracted for the job. Call Tracker if you want to argue the decision.”

The Jeep started with a powerful rumble as Angel stared back at him in shock, her heart clenching then beginning a hard, sluggish beat. Jerking it into gear he reversed smoothly before pushing it into first and heading away from the decoy safe house.

“That’s not going to work.” She had to force the words past her lips. “And taking me to their home isn’t going to work. Take me back to the hotel.”

She couldn’t face Chaya, not tonight, not with so little time after her mother’s denial of her. She would have begged Chaya to allow her to help protect Bliss if the other woman hadn’t become so determined to know why.

Why? Why?

The demands and the insults had bit into her like a dagger, twisting and turning in an already brutalized wound.

There was a part of her, she readily acknowledged, that was still three and feeling the horror of her mother’s refusal to come for her and Jenny. To know that her mother was too busy with a man she’d just met hadn’t made sense at the time. Her mother would never choose anyone over her, definitely not a man.

But she’d done just that.

By the time the memories had returned Angel was old enough to understand, to have seen the things some women would do for a man. She’d seen women leave their children with family, with strangers, and she’d even realized that some women would kill their children to have the man they wanted. Loyalty to a child, to their own flesh and blood first, wasn’t something a lot of people understood in the world she’d been raised in. But as a child, as a three-year-old, it had been intrinsic to her life.

“Tracker officially accepted the contract just after he contacted you. Are you refusing the job?” The question was delivered with a smooth, masterful stroke as he glanced at her, his brow lifting, his brooding expression revealed by the Jeep’s interior lights. “Cancellation goes through the service, not Tracker,” he reminded her. “So far the team has a clean slate where black marks are concerned. Want to bet Natches will be pissed enough to inform the service that Tracker can’t control his people now?”

As if she wasn’t aware of the drawbacks of listing through the anonymous service that secured the jobs the team agreed to. Without a hell of a good excuse, there was no way to cancel out any black mark Natches or Chaya used for Angel’s denial of the job.

She just hadn’t considered the fact that they would do so.

“This is a personal matter. . . .” she tried to argue.

“Won’t matter, Angel,” he assured her as he made the turn onto the main highway leading back to the hotel. “If you don’t show up to the house before dawn, the listed time of arrival, then don’t think Natches won’t lose his fucking temper. He’s already had to watch Chaya completely break down when he showed her the file I arrived with. If he has to watch her hurt further because you’re refusing to come to them, he won’t care how he hurts Tracker professionally. He’ll do it, even if he has to regret it later.”

She turned her head again, watching as the Jeep passed the heart of the business center, the lights lowered, shops closed. Sometimes, she wondered at the life that passed by her as she drove through the cities and towns she’d been in over her life. What she was missing, what she might have known, if only . . .

“You’d think Tracker would realize that she’s hurt me enough without giving her carte blanche to further it,” she finally said, the words slipping free before she could stop them. “She didn’t want me when I was three and she doesn’t want me now.” She turned back to him, eyeing him with icy fury. “And I don’t appreciate you or Natches Mackay forcing me on her. So, don’t expect me to pretend that I do.”

The Jeep swerved as he twisted the wheel, pulled it into the parking lot of a grocery store, and jerked the vehicle to a stop.

“And what makes you think I’m trying to force anything from you or her?” he demanded, anger ringing in his voice as he pulled the parking brake and turned to her. “Damn you, Angel. You make me crazy!”

Before she could anticipate his next move or prepare herself for it he gripped the back of her head in one hand, his fingers threading through her hair, holding her still, and his lips covered hers.

Shock held her still, but it wasn’t shock that had her lips parting for the hungry lick of his tongue, and it wasn’t shock that had her fingers suddenly gripping his shoulders as she found herself lost in a pleasure she couldn’t have expected.

Where had this come from? Why?

His fingers tightened in her hair; the ones gripping her hip slid higher, pressing beneath the suddenly swollen, sensitive curve of her breast. She was too warm, too excited now. It wasn’t anger surging thick and hot through her bloodstream, but need, pleasure. . . .

A hunger she’d never experienced before and now had no idea how to combat. She became lost in it instead. The sensations, lightning and fire, her stomach tightening, her sex aching, her clit swelling so abruptly and with such demand that she had no idea how to counter it or how to stop it.

She responded to it instead.

The touch, the warmth, the hunger of his kiss; it had lived in her fantasies since she was rescued from the bombed hospital five years ago. From the moment she saw him, saw that hint of a smile at his lips and became lost in his gaze, she’d hungered for this.

And now that she had it, her heart ached, because she knew there was no way in hell she could ever claim the heart she’d dreamed of as well.

As quickly as his lips had covered hers, Angel found herself free long seconds later. Silently staring up at him as he continued to hold her, her gaze locked to his, her lips parted as she fought to drag in enough breath to think sensibly.

“You make me crazy,” he muttered, releasing her far more slowly than he’d dragged her to him. “Absolutely fucking crazy.”

Hadn’t he already said that?

Rather than pointing that out she remained still and silent as he pushed the Jeep into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. She was certain if she tried to speak, her voice would tremble. The emotion she fought so hard to contain would slip free. That was the effect on her. It didn’t matter how hard she tried to remain aloof from him, her emotions sabotaged her every time.

It was nearly four in the morning when they reached the hotel. She was over twenty-four hours without sleep and her ass was seriously dragging, not to mention her common sense where Duke was concerned.

Approaching her hotel room door, aware of Duke coming in behind her, she did a quick check, though the sliver of folded paper she’d inserted between the door and the frame was exactly where she’d placed it earlier.

There were no guests or surprises inside, just the tempting mattress and silence of the room and the knowledge that facing Natches and Chaya by dawn was a really bad idea.

“Call Natches, Duke,” she breathed out wearily, knowing she was in no shape for such an emotional event. “I need to sleep first, then I’ll be there. If you wanted me there at dawn, then you shouldn’t have taken me into town instead.”

She would lodge a protest with the listing service if a Mackay decided to be prick enough to complain. And Tracker would just have to deal with it in the event that they were charged a fee for the protest.

“They’ll let you sleep there, Angel,” he scoffed behind her.

“You don’t want me to face her right now!” She turned on him, the words tearing past her clenched teeth as her patience level dipped lower.

He was closer than she’d known, only inches from her. So close that he gripped her arms as the sudden turn left her wobbling, the wound at her thigh protesting the move with painful force.

“Dammit.” She pulled from him, breathing out with a harsh sigh and unclipping her hair as her head actually began to ache. “My patience is nonexistent. If I have to deal with her, I won’t be nice. Don’t you understand that?”

She knew the person she was and she knew what pain and exhaustion did to her. She became a bitch. A vulgar-mouthed, take-no-prisoners, hurt-them-as-she-hurt bitch. And that wasn’t the person she was now. It wasn’t the person she had been for years.

She was aware of Duke watching her closely now. Did he remember the vicious, always-angry person she had been when he’d first joined the team? That had actually been the nice her at the time.

Moving away from him she would have stomped to the bed if she thought her leg could handle it. Stepping to the side of the mattress she sat down next to the bedside table. There, her trusty bottle of aspirin waited. Uncapping the bottle she shook three into her palm then reached for the bottle of whiskey tucked between the bed and table, and washed down the pills.

Replacing the bottle she pushed her fingers through her hair and lifted her head, staring back at him as he stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared down at her suspiciously.

“You can pick me up at noon,” she told him, trying to sound reasonable as she rose to her feet and tried to project an air of demand rather than weakness. “I’ll be ready to go then.”

A mocking snort met the attempted compromise.

“You’ll be gone, likely flying out to skin Tracker for agreeing to the job.” His smile was knowing. “I don’t think so, baby.”

“I promise, Duke,” she assured. “I’ll be here.”

And she didn’t break her promises any more than he and Tracker would.

“I’ll give you to noon, but I’m staying with you,” he announced, moving to her slowly as Angel felt her breath beginning to shorten. “That way, I’m not awake all morning worrying about it.”

Sleep with him?

“That’s not a good idea. . . .”

“You’ve slept with me before, Angel,” he reminded her, his voice pure, silky seduction. “Go on, get ready for bed.” He nodded to the bathroom.

Sitting down on the chair next to the table he pulled off the first boot, then the second.

Yeah, she’d slept next to him, fully dressed, a time or two. But never like this.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she ground out between her teeth.

“Too bad.” He grinned. “You want to sleep? We’ll sleep and then leave together.”

Her lips thinned, eyes narrowing as she shot him a look of promised retribution before turning and going to the bathroom. He was so damned stubborn, so bossy. The man was a freak when it came to demanding.

And sleeping with him was a very bad idea. And yet, she knew she would do just that.

She hurriedly brushed her teeth, removed her jeans and shirt, leaving her clad only in the boy shorts and tank top she wore beneath them. Something he’d seen her in plenty of times, she reminded herself. She changed the bandage on her leg at the unsightly dark stain of blood beneath it, and hoped a few hours’ sleep would help the healing process.

When she was finished, she left the bathroom, went straight to the bed, and climbed beneath the blankets. She didn’t even pause at the sight of him already propped against the pillow as he typed a message into his phone.

“No later than noon,” he warned her, turning his head to stare at her, his green eyes darker, the latent sensuality on his face causing her breathing to shorten once again.

“Fine. Turn out the light so I can sleep.” She felt like she was suddenly strangling on the heat and desire flooding her body.

She knew this was a very bad idea.

The light went out; the powerful body next to her was close enough that she could feel his warmth. That she didn’t feel so alone.

And she was tired.

So very tired.