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Gage eased out of bed so he wouldn’t wake Mia, since she still had some time before she needed to get ready for work.
He needed a short run to think things through. Which he should have done last night before they tumbled into her bed.
He was too hungry for her to resist. Hungrier than he could ever remember feeling for anyone else.
She’d expect more from him now. She was no one-night stand. And he wanted to give her everything she wanted, but returning to duty in California in a little more than three weeks loomed large. And it was nearly an insurmountable mountain between them. You couldn’t really carry on a romance via Zoom. And he should have thought of that before his dick barged in and took over the situation.
She’d been as hungry for him as he was for her, and they exhausted each other, then fell asleep spooning. He was getting hard again just thinking about it. In fact, as he looked down at her, he wanted to climb back in bed, wake her, and make love all over again. Maybe more than once.
He forced himself to turn away and leave the room.
He ripped a sheet of paper off a pad on the kitchen island, wrote her a note saying he was going for a run and would be back in thirty minutes. After leaving the note on the pillow on his side of the bed, he put on running shorts, T-shirt and running shoes, and tucked his cell phone into an armband with his ID.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs to stretch, then started out slowly to warm his muscles, building momentum as he jogged past Mia’s Promises, nestled between two other businesses, an antique store on the right and a coffee shop on the left. It was upscale area, but he still stayed on the alert for trouble.
He timed a light and crossed the street, jogging past a group of five women just emerging from a café. When someone wolf-whistled, he waved and grinned, and the women giggled, then burst into raucous laughter.
He fell into a rhythm, his muscles warming while his mind dwelled on Mia. She was wary and reserved in the past, and it took time for her to trust him. And now the older Mia had built walls thicker than the younger one’s ever were.
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that his sudden defection was partly responsible for that.
She had few people in her life she could depend on. A few servants and her grandmother.
He left. Broke her heart, and her trust. He recognized that, even though at the time he hadn’t had a choice, he did have one later. And he chose to try to forget rather than reach out. So why should she trust him now?
But he hadn’t forgotten. Still compared every woman he dated—even the one-night stands he was guilty of when he first became a SEAL—to her. He should have called to tell her what happened. Why didn’t he?
It was partly the fear that Mason would make good on his threat and have him extradited back to Louisiana.
And he’d been working so hard to become a SEAL. Boot camp, pre-SEAL training, BUD/S, then more training, then working with his team, then deployment. Nearly three years solid of grueling training and hard labor to get his Trident. Then two years of deployments. He’d been filling the hole her loss left in his life with a goal. Her loss, and his displacement from his family, crippled him emotionally for a year. And once he finally managed to crawl out of that hole on his own and move on, he’d been as wary as she was about letting people close.
But he should have called.
He kicked up to a faster pace and ran across side roads, leaping over the curbs as he circled around the World War II Museum and saluted it when he raced past, his muscles burning. He’d hit his stride, dodged past a slow-moving couple window-shopping, and suddenly hit a section where more mundane businesses were scattered, so he cut up one block and headed back to Mia’s apartment at full speed.
A car cruised by, then pulled over to park, and two beefy men got out. His senses leaped to combat alert in seconds. Gage cut up an alley back toward the Museum and heard running footsteps behind him.
He sprinted down the alley, cut back behind some of the buildings onto the main street, and reached the closed museum.
A car pulled up and parked, and a family got out. Early birds waiting for the museum to open. He stopped and pretended to tie his shoe while he pulled his phone free of his armband, holding it up while he waited for the two men show up, then started taking pictures of them. They quickly turned and walked back the way they’d just come.
God dammit! What was it going to take? He found and punched in a number on his phone. “I’m sending you some pictures. I had two guys try to pick me up just past the WWII museum, and they chased me down an alley.”
“You need backup?”
“No. They’ve turned around and headed back down the street.”
Jules let out a sigh. “Are you in a safe location?”
“For the moment.”
“I’m going to pick you up. Stay where you are. We need to talk.”
“Okay.”
He closed out the call and debated with himself about whether to call Mia. He decided to wait until Jules showed up. Ten minutes later Jules pulled up in a Buick, and Gage got in and reached for his phone to call Mia. “Hey, Jules and I ran into each other, and he wants to go for coffee. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him yet. I’ll fill you in when I get back.”
“Okay.”
Jules shot him a look when he hung up.
“I didn’t want to worry her.”
Jules growled, “What happened?”
Fuck, where should he start? “I’ve been installing cameras and sensors in the house so it’ll be safe for my grandmother to return. Because my brother has had a drug issue in the past, I searched the entire house from top to bottom. He’s been there one time since, and he remained in the room with me the whole time. He doesn’t have a key to the house anymore.
“Last night a police officer called me on my cell and said someone broke into my grandmother’s house. When Mia and I got there he and his partner were parked in front of the place and one of the attic windows had been kicked in.
“Then the cops insisted on coming in and making sure no one had gained entry to the house. Which they couldn’t have. Otherwise the alarm would have gone off. Mia called the next-door neighbor, who said the only one she saw on the roof was one of the cops.
“When they left, we went upstairs to see the damage and search—just in case. We found a bag of pills, powder, and other paraphernalia planted in an old hatbox I’d already searched a few days ago. We got rid of it.”
Jules whipped into a parking spot in front of a coffee shop. “What the hell do you mean you got rid of it?”
“I mean it’s gone. You know it’s a done deal that someone will be sent out to search the house, Jules. I can’t allow anyone to find drugs there. I’m not risking my career and my freedom, and Mason’s looking for a way to destroy one and take the other.”
Jules gripped the steering wheel as though he wanted to break it.
“After last night, Mia invited me to stay with her until my grandmother is released. I got up this morning to take a five-mile run, and everything was fine until two men pulled up in front of me, got out of the car, then pursued me when I dodged down an alley. You got the pictures I sent, right?”
“Yeah.” Jules huffed in a breath. “They’re not cops. They’re hired muscle. And they’re bad news.”
As long as guns weren’t involved, Gage wasn’t too worried. “I’m between a rock and a hard place here, Jules. If I defend myself, I could be arrested. And that could fuck up my career with the Navy. But if I don’t fight back I could end up dead. How do you want me to deal with them?”
“I need to go to my captain about this. And if you hadn’t gotten rid of the evidence, I might have been able to do something about the drugs as well.”
“Why doesn’t NOPD try searching something that belongs to Mason Blanchard for a change?”
Jules stared at him, his dark gaze piercing.
Gage raised a brow. Jules was a smart guy and would figure it out.
Jules tilted his head back against the headrest and stared at the car roof. Gage could almost hear him praying for patience.
“Who were the officers who responded to the break-in?”
“They were lackeys. Probably new on the job. Patrol officers Cliburn and Jackson. They were very blatant about it, so I read it as a warning more than anything else.”
“Fuck!” The disgust in Jules’s voice was palpable.
“Have you had time to look into any of the things I told you about?”
“Yeah. Six years ago there was a big drug bust on a ship that came into port. Nearly a million in cocaine was stored in the evidence locker at headquarters. On August twentieth one of the assistant DAs signed out a brick of it, saying he was going to have it sent to a lab for testing. The only thing is, the drugs were only gone a few hours and then returned to lockup. Plus, the testing had already been done right after the bust. And no extra testing was ever added to the evidence.”
“Do you have a picture of this guy?”
“No. I’m going to do a photo lineup with you later to see if you can identify all of them.”
“I’m ready.”
“I’ll drop you at Mia’s apartment. Are you going to tell her about Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb?”
“Yeah. Just in case they show up at her business.”
“They won’t. But it’s good if she’s on the lookout.”
“What’s their names?”
“Dwight Williams and Tony Richards.” Jules raised a brow. You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”
“No. But the next time they show up, I’m going to call them out in front of witnesses so everyone will be able to identify them. That should make it harder for them to do something stupid.”
Jules started to smile, then seemed to catch himself. He started the car. “I could almost like you if you hadn’t run out on Mia.”
Gage dragged in a deep breath, holding onto his temper by a gnat’s ass. As soon as Jules reached the block where Mia’s shop was located, he said, “You can stop here.”
The car came to a halt, and he turned to Jules. “The other night, right after the cops left, I called in to report a suspicious car and person in the neighborhood and gave dispatch the car tag number. You might want to check that out, too.” He bailed out and jogged away, entering the business at the main entrance and passing several shoppers on his way upstairs.
“You didn’t run all the way here from Mama’s, did you?” Jessica asked with a smile.
“No. I ran into a friend, and he wanted to go for coffee.” He’d kill for a cup right now. “He dropped me off here so I can talk to Mia before I go home to shower and visit the hospital.”
“She’s in her office.”
“Thanks.” He brushed past her, went to the door, and knocked.