FUCKING NINETEEN.

Nineteen.

That was the shit that should’ve had my dick recoiling. Attitude, immaturity and insecurity. Not fucking hot.

But tell that to my cock.

The second she’d dumped my jacket on the floor, I wanted to come between her huge tits. I didn’t give a shit that she’d called me an asshole. She was right. I was being a grade-A dick to her. On purpose. Because I couldn’t be in this goddamn cabin with her for two hours, let alone two days if she was going to look at me like she’d looked at me when I carried her across the driveway.

I’d wind up fucking her. Then I’d shred her cunt and the naiveté she acted like she didn’t have. I’d probably fuck her sobriety up too. Assuming neither of us got taken out by a Vincenzo contracted sniper first.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered, kicking the door to my security room shut.

Forcing myself to refocus, I dialed Luna as I held the burner between my ear and shoulder and typed a couple commands into my monitoring system.

Luna picked up on the first ring. “I can’t talk right now, babe. I’m with a client.”

Fuck. Luna never said babe, and he didn’t answer the phone when he couldn’t speak. I read between the lines. “Vincenzo’s there?”

“I’m not in the office, babe. Start dinner without me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Luna hung up.

“Goddamn it.” I scrolled through the camera feeds for the property, but only half of them had visibility because of the snow, and even those angles were useless. By the time I’d see someone, they’d be on top of me.

Spending the next few minutes switching the cameras to pick up heat signals, I waited for Luna’s call back, but when it didn’t come, I dialed Ronan.

“You make it?” he asked immediately.

“How’d you know it was me?” Fucker could’ve blown my location.

“I bought you those burners.”

Goddamn. “And you what? Memorized the numbers?”

“Just the prefixes. Luna was trying to get a hold of you. Took you longer than we expected. Any problems?”

“Besides the weather?” I snorted. “No. Just watch the road coming up.”

“I’ve got chains I can put on if I need to.”

“You’ll need them.” I heard the water upstairs turn on. “What’s going on with Luna? I just called to check in and he was with Vincenzo.” I thought about her tits getting wet, and my cock pulsed painfully.

“I’m not sure, but I got a text from him saying to head to you for backup and bypass retrieval of Vincenzo’s wife.”

Fuck. That wasn’t good. “Did she show up at the motel at the base of the mountain?”

“No. Neither did the vehicle from the parking lot at the Japanese restaurant.”

“That’s good. That means they don’t know where I was heading.” Maybe whoever tossed my place didn’t figure out the location of my cabin.

“Negative. The wife’s vehicle was spotted at a gas station off your exit an hour ago. I think it’s too much of a coincidence to assume she doesn’t know where you are or at least the general location.”

Fuck, it was going to be a long night. “Any sightings since the highway patrol camera feeds Luna told me about?”

“None, and no sighting of the other vehicle.”

Goddamn it. “If they’re not at the hotel, where the hell would they have gone? Driving conditions are shit up here now.”

“I’d say the backside of the mountain. It’s less steep.”

“And four times as long. But they’d both still have a problem the last few miles without four-wheel drive.”

“The reinforcements Vincenzo ordered are in a four-wheel drive.”

“Fucking great. How far out are you?”

Ronan paused. “GPS says oh-two hundred. But radio reports are saying Georgia is going to shut down the highways due to ice. If that happens, it’ll be closer to oh-four hundred.”

I glanced at the time. It was only twenty-two hundred now. “Copy that. We’ll be fine for a few hours. If you’re not getting up here any time soon, hopefully no one else is either. You can use this number to check in.”

Ronan didn’t reply.

Fucker sometimes checked out when you were talking to him. I didn’t know if it was PTSD, TBI or if he was just thinking, and I never asked. Except tonight my instinct was telling me something was off. “You there?”

“Did Luna tell you he didn’t recognize who was on the feeds when your place got tossed?”

What the fuck? “He lied?” Luna didn’t lie. Ever.

“No.”

“Ronan,” I warned.

“He didn’t recognize them,” he stated in the same goddamn even tone he said everything else in.

“What are you getting at?” Ronan could give a goddamn politician a lesson in caginess. “Did you recognize them?”

“No.”

Jesus fucking Christ. “Spit it out.”

“I recognized their walk.”

My shoulders tensed.

“Luna missed it,” he continued.

This wasn’t good. At fucking all. I knew where he was going with this, but I hoped to God I was wrong. “Russian?”

“Military trained,” Ronan confirmed.

“Vincenzo’s upped his game.” Goddamn it.

“Candle has cold weather training. Harm’s living it.”

“I know where you’re going with this, and I’ll tell you the exact same thing I told Luna. Fuck no.”

“Game’s changed,” Ronan stated. “They could secure the perimeter.”

“I don’t have a perimeter up here. I have fucking mountains.”

“Russian Armed Forces trains snipers same as the Marines and Rangers,” Ronan calmly pointed out.

“Goddamn it.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Has it really come down to this? G.I. Fucked-up Joe and a loose cannon?”

“Tactically, it’s the smart call.”

“Tactically, the less people who know my location, the better,” I argued.

“Your location’s already blown.”

“Jesus fuck.” I hated that he was right, but upstairs in my shower was a nineteen-year-old trust fund brat with probably a six-digit social media following and a penchant for selling people out. Rehabbed or not, she now knew the location. My place was already blown.

“Should I make the call?” Ronan asked.

Fuck. “Yeah.”

“Copy. I’ll call back with ETAs.” Ronan hung up.

I hung my head.