Chapter Ten

The villa wasn’t your typical safe house, but it was what you’d expect from a billionaire’s personal residence. Oversized paper lanterns cast soft yellow light on the giant teak doors that opened to a walkway flanked by lily-pad spotted koi ponds. It was an entrance fit for a king.

Which, Marcus supposed, in their world, Tucker Quentin was.

The walkway ended in a living room, an open space with a peaked ceiling and large-bladed ceiling fans. The furniture was butter-soft leather, wide and long enough for even a big guy like Tucker to stretch out on. Lit candles decorated two coffee tables at the center of the square made by the furniture. To the left, connected by another walkway over the pond, was a dining room, to the right, another walkway and a TV room. Straight ahead, a view of lush tropical gardens and an Olympic sized pool reflecting the pinks of the setting sun.

Leah blinked and turned a slow circle. “I thought we were going to a hotel.”

“This is more secure.”

She stopped turning and cocked a brow at him. “There are no walls.” She swept out an arm, indicating the living, dining, and TV rooms. “It’s all open.”

“There’s a wall around the property,” he pointed out, but she still appeared unconvinced. Who could blame her after the week she’d had?

Yes, the villa was strangely lacking in walls—the bathrooms, too? He’d have to check, because that could be awkward—but he had no doubt it was locked down like the Pentagon. The head of Quentin Enterprises was nothing if not security conscious. Tuc probably had technological barriers in place that the government could only dream of.

“It’s Tuc’s place,” he told her.

“Oh.”

He didn’t like the sound of that “oh” and the tension that had started to ease when they arrived clamped back down on his neck. He resisted the urge to rub at it. “What’s wrong?”

She hugged herself. “The hotel on Martinique was Tuc’s, too. Look how secure that turned out to be.”

It felt like she’d punched him in the gut. “That was different. It was a hotel, and all hotels can be breached. This is Tuc’s personal property.”

She scowled. “I don’t want his money. I told him that after Danny died.”

“He offered you money?”

“I think he was afraid of a lawsuit. My lawyer told me I should, but I didn’t…” Her voice wavered and she pressed a hand over her mouth. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “I didn’t want his money then and I don’t now.”

“He’s not giving us money. He’s offering us safety.”

“You get your paycheck from him.”

“I haven’t had a paycheck in eight months.” Exasperated, he spotted a bar over in the TV room and stalked toward it, his steps thunking hollowly on the walkway. Fuck sobriety. They were safe, he knew they were safe, and he was going to have a fucking drink. The TV room had four lounges in the same beige leather as the living room furniture, and each lounge had a personal fifty-inch TV mounted on the wall across from it. Excessive, but again, Tuc was a billionaire. One of the top ten richest men in the world. Who was Marcus to tell him how to spend his money?

The teak bar and the shelves behind it were things of beauty, stocked with every kind of liquor a man’s heart could desire. He spotted a bottle of tequila he knew cost more than some people’s rent and picked it off the shelf. He grabbed a shot glass and poured himself a healthy dose.

Leah slid onto the leather stool across from him and tapped the bar. “Give me one.”

He shrugged and picked another shot glass from the soldier-straight line of them along the edge of the bar.

She took the shot and scrunched her face as she set the glass down.

Marcus laughed and downed his shot, enjoying the heat of it sliding down his throat. “Been a while, huh? Back in the day you used to put tequila away like a champ.”

“Aside from the occasional glass of wine, I don’t have the opportunity to drink like we did as teenagers. I grew up and have responsibilities now.”

He paused halfway through refilling their glasses and raised a brow at her. “Are you calling me immature?”

“Yes.” She snapped up her glass and threw the shot back. No scrunched-up face this time. She was getting the hang of it.

“Fair enough.” He also downed his shot, then placed the glass upside down on the bar and put the tequila back on the shelf. He could’ve kept going, but he knew her. She’d taken his comment as a challenge and would try to meet him shot for shot. He didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, but he was sure he’d need her coherent for whatever came their way.

He picked up her glass and, in its place, he placed his burner cell. “You should call home. Check on the kids and my mom.”

“You should check on your mom,” she said. “She misses you.”

“I know.”

They both looked at the phone for a long moment.

Finally, Leah shook her head. “Not yet. It’s the middle of the night there. And I’m not ready.”

“Okay.” He scooped up the phone, replaced it in his pocket. “So what happened? Walk me through it.”

Leah pushed away from the bar and wandered back toward the living room but stopped on the walkway and stared at the large koi swimming in the pond. She sat down on the raised edge and dragged her finger through the water, sending the koi scattering. She hugged her knees to herself as if she were cold despite the pleasantly warm night.

Still standing behind the bar, Marcus watched her and wondered if she felt as alone as she looked right then. “Leah?”

She shook her head, then pressed her forehead to her knees. “I don’t even know where to start. It’s all a blur.”

He hated the idea that she felt alone. She shouldn’t. He was here now. And, yeah, he’d left. It was an asshole thing to do to her, but nobody could convince him it hadn’t been the right choice at the time. But now? Until the danger to her was neutralized, the jaws of life wouldn’t pry him away from her. He owed her that much. He owed Danny that.

He snagged a throw off one of the TV lounges and wrapped it over her shoulders. The look she gave him was so full of gratitude, his heart damn near cracked in half. She wasn’t built for this life of bullets and bad guys. Leah had always been the sweet girl-next-door type. She was the kind of woman you expected to bake cookies for her kid’s classroom, to chaperon field trips—the PTA soccer mom. She made friends wherever she went because she was a genuinely nice person and it was hard not to like her. She was good personified.

He sat down beside her, the wood creaking softly under his weight. He hesitated, unsure if he should touch her. Touching her always sent his brain to places it had no right going and perked up other parts of his body that had no business being perked. But she needed connection. She needed to know he wasn’t going to abandon her again.

He placed a hand on her back, felt the shivers running through her despite the pleasantly warm night. “Just tell me what you remember. What were you doing before the men first attacked you? You were in L.A.?”

“No. Malibu. Trying to sell one of my flips. Without Danny’s income, I need to work more. Sell more. This house was a nightmare to renovate, a money pit, so I really wanted it off my hands.”

“Did the buyer show up?”

“No. I saw a black car cruise by the driveway, but it didn’t pull in. I went into the house, did one last check. It has a gorgeous view of the water, and I decided to open the wall of windows. It’s like a door, folds back into a cubby in the wall. It got stuck, and I bent over to figure out why, and next thing I know I’m in the pool. Someone had slammed into me, knocked me in. I came up and this British guy was pulling me over to the side, telling me to run. I looked behind us and we were being chased by two men with guns.”

“The British man told you his name was Alexander Cabot?”

She nodded and gazed up at him with exhausted eyes. “Do you know him?”

“No.” But Mercedes Raya seemed to know the name, and that was concerning as hell. That woman didn’t run with upstanding crowds. “He gave you a flash drive?”

She shifted enough to pull the drive out of her pocket and held it out to him. “Take it. I don’t want to know what’s on it.”

He turned the thing over in his hands. It was more than your average flash drive. Seriously high tech. He’d bet his left nut it was encrypted, which meant he’d need Harvard and Sami’s help to get the data off it. “You said you were attacked a second time?”

“At your mom’s house. She got us out. She had go bags packed for us and everything.” A smile ghosted over her lips. “Your mom’s a badass.”

“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir.” His heart squeezed. Jesus, he missed that woman. Leah was right. It had been too long since he’d called Mom. Maybe it was time to face reality, stop hiding, and go home. If for no other reason than to hug his mom and taste her zeppole again. His mouth actually watered at the thought. He missed those little fried pieces of dough, and nobody made them better than Regina Deangelo.

“She sent me here,” Leah continued. “She knew where you were.”

“Of course she did. Can’t hide from Mom.”

“She said she was planning to send me sooner or later, but after they broke into her house, she decided it had to be sooner.”

Someone had invaded his mother’s house. The thought made his blood sizzle. Just for that alone, he’d track down these assholes with the wolf logo on their gear. They were going down—with or without HORNET’s help.

Which reminded him.

He got up and walked through the living room and down the steps to the garden, where he found the master suite tucked off to the right just before the pool. There was one wall and a door separating the suite from the public garden and pool, but that was where the walls ended. The suite was as lavishly furnished as the rest of the villa with a huge king-sized bed between four floor-to-ceiling posts draped with silk mosquito netting.

Harvard had said Tuc sent his staff to get the place ready for them. If he knew Tuc, that meant there was clothing and gear waiting for him somewhere. The master suite was his first guess, though he supposed Tuc could’ve set them up in the guest rooms beyond the pool.

Nope. Right in one. Tuc was nothing if not a gracious host.

Two bags sat on the chaise lounge at the end of the bed. He checked them both. Clothes for him and for Leah. He knew they’d fit. Harvard was a master at digging up information, but Tucker Quentin was beyond even the Boy Genius when it came to finding things out about his employees and their families. It was creepy, except when it was helpful.

Leah would hate to know how much Tuc knew about her and the kids. He winced at the thought and decided to keep that little nugget a secret. If she commented on the fit of the clothes, he’d just tell her they’d guessed on the size.

He shouldered the bags. Also on the lounge sat a ruggedized laptop and two new—probably encrypted and untraceable—cell phones. He hesitated, hand hovering over them. Accepting them meant he was officially back in the fold.

Did he want that?

He wasn’t sure.

Did he have a choice?

Nope.

He scooped them up and turned toward the door, noticing the master bathroom as he did. Just like the rest of the villa, it had no walls. The toilet was tucked away in a little closet with a door. The shower and stone bathtub looked out over a small private garden. The only thing separating the bathroom from the TV room was thick tropical foliage, a short stone fence, and the koi pond on the other side.

Well, that was interesting.

He turned to go back and found Leah standing in his way, hands on her hips. She eyed the king-sized bed behind him, but quickly averted her gaze. “What are you doing?”

He passed her one of the duffel bags. “Clothes.”

She pushed the bag away. “I don’t want anything of his.”

Grumbling under his breath at her stubbornness, he looped the bag over her shoulder. “I know, I know. But we’re trying to stay on the down low here, and you have blood on your shirt.”

She pulled her shirt out from her body and stared at the flecks of blood.

“That tends to draw attention.”

The little bit of color that the tequila had returned to her cheeks drained away again. She brushed at the blood with her hand as if that would help. “Oh. How…?” Her voice trailed off.

He wasn’t about to tell her it was high velocity blood spatter. She’d figure it out once she wasn’t so rattled. He motioned to the bathroom. “There’s a soaker tub in there. Why don’t you clean up?”

She met his gaze then turned in the direction he’d indicated. Her nose wrinkled. “No walls.”

“Promise not to peek.”

She whipped around to scowl at him. “You wouldn’t have said that if Danny was still alive. It would’ve been a given.”

Yup. That hurt. And she was right. He’d never thought of Leah in any kind of sexual capacity until recently. “I—” He broke off, unsure how to finish that sentence. “Yeah, sorry. I was just trying to put you at ease.”

“It didn’t work.”

He motioned vaguely toward the front of the house. “I’ll be in the living room. I need to call the team and update them.” He held up the ruggedized computer. “Figure out what’s on that flash drive.”

Leah was silent. She just stood there, staring at him. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something but shook her head and adjusted the bag on her shoulder before turning toward the big stone tub.

Marcus waited a beat before leaving. He didn’t know why. He told himself he didn’t want to see her naked. He didn’t want any kind of attachment with her beyond their complicated history.

Worry caused his hesitation, he decided. Leah had been through hell the last few days, and the strain showed around her exhausted eyes. He wanted to help but didn’t know what to do.

Once back in the living room, he dropped his bag next to the sofa and pulled the coffee table over to use as a desk. He opened the laptop and fell into the rhythm of logging into HORNET’s private network. Then he grabbed the cell phone and dialed Harvard as he fished the flash drive out of his pocket.

“Did you get Sami’s email?” Harvard answered.

“I’m pulling it up now.”

“We’re not sure without your confirmation, but we think we’ve narrowed it down to one. The Volkov Group.”

“Never heard of them.”

“They’re basically the Russian version of Defion.”

“But not Defion?”

“As far as we can tell, there are no ties.”

“Then why the hell are they after Leah?”

“That’s still a mystery. Did you get any intel from her?”

“She was attacked while showing a house in Malibu two days ago. A man named Alexander Cabot rescued her and gave her a flash drive.”

“What’s on it?”

“I don’t know.” He turned the drive over in his hand, studying it. “It’s more high-tech than any flash drive I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know how to open it.” He set the drive down next to the laptop and pulled up his email. Since he’d been gone, the inbox had exploded. Alerts on mandatory Arabic training, missives about the teaching schedule for the trainees, and other communications from his teammates. He deleted the dozen or so that had some variation of “are you okay?” for a subject line. He didn’t want the reminder that he was a selfish bastard. He opened Sami’s email and studied the three symbols she’d sent. All were different variations of a wolf and the letter V.

“The first one,” he said without doubt. “The V overlaid with the snarling wolf head. The guys who attacked us had that stitched on their body armor.”

“Yup,” Harvard said. “It’s Volkov Group.”

“What do we know about them?”

“Hired mercs with close ties to the Kremlin. They have units in Syria, Ukraine, Nicaragua—essentially anywhere Russia has an interest. They are owned by and take their name from Russian oligarch Evgeni Volkov, a.k.a. The Wolf. He and Putin are golf buddies. There have been rumors Volkov Group has been used for political assassinations, but nothing has been substantiated. There are also rumors The Wolf is wallet deep in the black market. Weapons, organs, and anything else ugly you can think of.”

“Lemme guess. Unsubstantiated.”

“Got it in one.”

Marcus picked up the flash drive again. “They want whatever is on this drive enough to kill. We need to crack it.”

“That’s why we’re on our way to you.”

Marcus froze and shot a glance over his shoulder to make sure Leah was still in the master suite. “What do you mean, we?”

“The team. We mobilized after your first call and we’re in the air. ETA 1200 tomorrow, your time.”

Fuck. Leah was not going to like that. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved. Whether she liked it or not, if they were going to keep her and her kids safe, this was how it had to be. HORNET, and especially Tucker Quentin, had resources and a worldwide reach that Marcus alone didn’t possess.

“We need to find out who Cabot is. He’s the center of this. Anything you can dig up on his ties to Mercedes Raya, Defion, and Volkov. And Danny,” he added, his throat tightening like it always did when he had to say his best friend’s name out loud.

Harvard was quiet for a beat too long. “Why Danny?”

“Cabot sought out Leah at a house she flipped in Malibu. I don’t know if he led the bad guys to her or if he just happened to be in the right place at the right time, but he was specifically looking for Leah. She didn’t say it, but I think Cabot had ties to Danny and didn’t know he was dead until recently.”

Harvard must have put a hand over the phone because his voice sounded muffled and far away as he relayed that information to someone. Probably Sami—which was confirmed when her voice came over the line with a squeal of excitement.

“You want me to hack the FBI? Please tell me you’re commanding me to hack the FBI.”

“‘If you want to be elite, you’ve got to do a righteous hack.’”

“Did you just quote Hackers at me, Deangelo?”

That gave him pause. He supposed he had. He loved movies, but since moving to Sumba, he hadn’t had a TV. “Seemed appropriate.”

“So appropriate. I’m on it.”

“Don’t get caught.”

She scoffed. “I never get caught.”

Harvard came back on the line. “We’ll dig on Cabot and have something for you by the time we land.”

“What am I supposed to do until then?”

“Keep Leah safe,” Harvard suggested. “Maybe warm her up to the idea of having us there?”

Yeah, fifteen hours wasn’t enough time for that. “She won’t be a problem.” He hung up and sat there for a long time, staring at his email inbox but not really seeing the unread messages. Finally, he got up and walked back toward the master suite. He listened at the door but heard nothing except the nighttime chirps of crickets and frogs. A koi splashed in the pond. Otherwise, all was still.

He tapped on the door. When he got no answer, he carefully pushed it open. Leah sat on the lounge at the end of the bed, wrapped in a colorful kimono. She looked like a painting, all soft and lovely, her damp hair falling in waves around her face. She stared at her wedding ring, slowly twisting it around on her finger.

He knocked again—a soft tap tap with his knuckles so as not to startle her—and she looked up. Her eyes were red, lashes spiked with wet. “Marcus.” She sighed heavily and shifted on the lounge to face him. “I’m sorry I snapped earlier. What I said about you behaving differently toward me since Danny…it was cruel.”

“It was the truth.”

“I wanted to hurt you. I was hurting and I just wanted to twist that knife so I wouldn’t feel like this alone.”

“I know.” He hesitated, then crossed the room and sat down beside her. He didn’t touch her, though he wanted to. Didn’t dare. They were both vulnerable right now and last time… Well, he didn’t like to think about it. “You were right,” he said softly. “If Danny was still here, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to say something like that.”

She touched her ring again, dragging her thumb over the shiny diamond. “Are we ever going to talk about…” She trailed off and didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to. He knew exactly what she was referring to.

Maybe sitting down so close beside her wasn’t such a hot idea. She smelled of something sweet and tropical, and the night creatures filling the humid air around them with noise lent to a weird sense of intimacy, like they were the only two humans left on the planet. The memory of that night, of the feel of her in his arms, spread heat through his gut. His balls suddenly felt too heavy, his shorts too tight.

“Nope.” He stood up and walked to the edge of the room, pretending to take an interest in the statues of Buddha lining the master suite’s private garden.

“We can’t avoid it forev—”

“Yeah, we can.”

“Forgot who I’m talking to.” Annoyance sharpened her voice to an edge. “The king of avoidance.”

So what if he was? Avoidance was easy. It hurt less. It didn’t ask him to dig too deeply into the messiness of emotions. It kept him away from dangerous entanglements where hearts could be broken. He’d always been a love ’em and leave ’em type of guy—that included friends and family as well as lovers. Everyone knew this about him, so why was everyone suddenly so fucking determined to call out that particular character flaw?

The muscles in his back tightened as his own annoyance spiked and he rolled his shoulders. “It’s just better that we pretend that night never happened.”

She didn’t respond for a long time. So long, he started to wonder if maybe she’d left the room.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I think about it all the time. I think about you all the time.”

Aw, fuck. He squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back. If he hadn’t given up on religion years ago, he might’ve prayed just then. Prayed for help being a decent human being. For the strength to do the right thing here.

Instead, he said, “I think about you, too, but it’s wrong. That’s why I left. It’s wrong to want you like I do.” He strode toward the door, careful not to look at her. “The team arrives tomorrow. We’ll make arrangements for you to go home to the kids. We’ll make sure you’re protected until this is over.”

“Marcus.”

He stopped moving. Didn’t turn.

“Where are you sleeping?”

“I’ll take one of the guest rooms.” Not really. He didn’t want to be a whole football field away from her. He’d likely end up crashing on the couch, but she didn’t need to know that. “Get some rest. You’re safe here.”