Chapter Four

Los Angeles, California

Eight Months Later

Leah checked her lipstick in the visor mirror of her Kia Sorento, which currently smelled like spoiled milk. One of the twins—probably Cooper, because he was her little troublemaker—had dumped his drink after she rushed them through a drive-thru for dinner last night, but she hadn’t had the chance to do more than blot up the mess with napkins. So now her car reeked. It was just the cherry on top of her week from hell.

But maybe today things would turn around. Maybe the worst was behind her.

She finally had a buyer interested in one of her houses that had been a nightmare to renovate. A complete money pit she couldn’t wait to be rid of. She’d finally finished moving out of the three thousand square foot house she’d shared with her husband in North Hollywood and into a town house in Glendale, much more manageable for a widow living on a significantly smaller budget. Danny’s life insurance and other death benefits made sure her family wouldn’t starve, despite her recent less-than-stellar paychecks. But she now had three kids to put through school on her own and the huge house that had once been her and Danny’s dream had become an albatross around her neck.

Cooper and Colton had been excited about switching schools, but Maya had been less than thrilled. If the last couple weeks were any indication of the girl’s upcoming teenage years, God help them both. Leah didn’t know if she’d survive it.

Oh, Danny. I miss you.

Tears flooded her eyes, spilled over. They happened less often now, so rarely that they always caught her off guard when her vision started to blur. The intense pain of losing him had dulled to an ache as the months dragged on, as her life settled into a new normal that didn’t include the man she’d loved since she was sixteen years old. She doubted she’d ever be completely rid of the ache, and in truth didn’t know if she wanted to be, but she could function with it. Some days, she even forgot about it until a stray thought sharpened the edge and it cut through her again.

Shit. She was ruining her makeup.

She sniffled and grabbed her purse from the passenger seat. Using a makeup removing wipe, she cleaned her face. She didn’t have time to completely redo everything, so she settled on a bit of mascara and a swipe of lipstick. Then she changed her mind about the lipstick. It was too bright and made her look like a child playing in her mother’s makeup. She wiped it away and replaced it with a nude lip gloss.

She checked her reflection again. The makeup had done nothing to hide how exhausted she was. Her blond waves were falling out of the professional bun she’d tucked them into before dropping the kids at school. Her eyes felt gritty and her contacts slid out of place every time she blinked. Her emerald green blouse was wrinkled, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed these black pants, and the thought of trading her sneakers for the heels in her back seat made her wince.

Dammit. Nobody was going to buy a seven-million-dollar house when their real estate agent looked like she’d just rolled out of bed. Especially not Clarence Hayes—multi-millionaire real estate mogul, the founder and CEO of Aid First, one of the biggest humanitarian aid organizations in the world, and a public darling for the upcoming presidential election cycle. He hadn’t announced his intentions to run yet, but everyone knew it was just a matter of time. She’d been beyond thrilled when he called her to view this house and potentially buy it for his daughter. Now she just wanted to get the showing over as fast as possible so she could tackle the gazillion other things on her to-do list.

No. She couldn’t think like that, couldn’t seem distracted when Hayes arrived. She had to focus. She needed this sale. This house would put her kids through college with a bit left over for an emergency fund.

She had to pull up her big-girl panties and fix this.

She took down her hair, ran her fingers through the loose blond waves. She pulled off the blouse. Her satin tank top underneath clung to her figure a bit too much for her liking, but she had a non-wrinkling blazer in the trunk she could throw over it. As for the heels… Well, she’d just have to suck it up. She’d birthed three babies. She could wear heels for an hour.

In the rearview mirror, she watched a dark car inch by the open gate at the end of the drive. That had to be Hayes. Nobody who lived in the area would drive by that slowly. Any minute now, he’d realize his mistake and turn around.

She checked her reflection one more time. Not perfect, but she’d make it work. She tried out a smile. It felt forced. She relaxed her face, drew in several deep breaths, then tried again. That was more like it.

She would sell this house.

She would make sure her kids had the life she and Danny had hoped for them.

She was a warrior. A survivor. A mama bear. A queen.

She had this.

She put on her heels, got out of the car, and waited, but the dark car didn’t reappear. Minutes ticked by and nobody showed. She checked her phone for the time.

He was late.

Her hand started to shake. Oh no. Please don’t ghost me.

Nope. She shut down that line of thinking and stuffed her phone into the inside pocket of her blazer. Positive thoughts only. He was late, but it was no big deal. People, especially rich people, often operated on their own time schedules. So this wasn’t an emergency yet. It just meant she had time to go inside and do another quick sweep to make sure everything was perfect.

The house was already unlocked from her earlier walk-through. She opened one half of the big double doors and stepped inside. Her heels clicked across the tile of the foyer, echoing off the empty walls and the high ceiling. She would have preferred to hire stagers to fill the place with furniture before the showing, but the potential buyer had wanted to see it ASAP. She hadn’t had time to find anyone. She’d brought a vase of bright flowers for the kitchen island, and they provided a much-needed splash of life and color in the too-white, too-metallic kitchen. The whole house was too cold and sterile, if you asked her. But some people went for that look, and she wasn’t planning to live here. She was just trying to sell it.

Hopefully Hayes was into hospital chic.

Off the kitchen were a breakfast nook and the main living area. Two walls of windows folded back to open the space up to the backyard patio. She should open those windows, because the view would sell this house. Beyond the patio and infinity pool, which seemed to drop off the edge of a cliff, a blue stretch of the Pacific crashed against the rocky cliffside. In the distance to the north, you could just see Malibu Beach and the pier.

One of the panels wasn’t folding up right, kept snagging on something. She bent to fix it—

Glass exploded around her, rained down in little shards that bit into her skin.

What the…?

She straightened and glanced around, utterly confused as to how the panel broke—and something solidly human slammed into her side, knocking her into the pool.

She sucked in a lungful of water and hit the bottom of the deep end before an arm looped around her chest and dragged her to the surface. She coughed and gagged, her eyes stinging from the chorine and streaming so many tears that she couldn’t make out the man pulling her toward the shallow end.

He kept saying, “I’m sorry. Christ, I’m sorry,” over and over as he dragged her out of the pool. She was fairly certain she didn’t know him. At least, she didn’t recognize his voice. She didn’t know anyone with a British accent like his. Unless he’d changed his voice on the phone, he wasn’t Hayes. She knew that for sure.

She barely caught her breath before he hustled her away from the pool, down the steps to the lower patio, and then into the low brush covering the cliffside. She’d lost one of her shoes at the bottom of the pool and then the other as he propelled her along. The rocks cut into her feet, the shrubs ripped through her pants and scraped up her calves. She ran blindly behind him until her brain finally clicked back online, cutting through the fear and panicked adrenaline with a sharp, This is crazy!

She yanked the British man to a halt. He whirled around, his dark eyes a bit wild. She held up her hands and backed away as he advanced.

He grabbed her wrist. “Stop it. We don’t have time.”

Yes, this was crazy. She was crazy to let this man drag her away from the house, her car, her phone. In the confusion of the moment, she’d defaulted to flight, as always. Danny had been her fighter. She’d always been the coward, the weak, fragile woman in need of saving.

With Danny gone, she couldn’t be that anymore.

She yanked out of his grip. “Who are you?”

“I’m the man who stopped you from winding up six feet under like your husband.”

Every cell in her body froze. For a split second, despite the heatwave, she thought she saw her breath cloud with her exhale. “W-what?”

“We don’t have time for this shite.”

To her complete horror, he scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She drew in a breath to scream, but his shoulder dug into her stomach and drove all the air from her lungs in a rush. She kicked at him, pounded on him with her fisted hands, but her fight didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. He moved across the clifftop in long, graceful strides, easily avoiding obstacles despite the extra one hundred thirty pounds he carried. Every movement was calculated, no step wasted.

She stopped flailing.

He moved like her husband’s best friend, Marcus. He moved like the men Marcus worked with. Like a well-trained, highly skilled, deadly soldier.

She glanced behind them and saw two men standing at the edge of the patio, scanning the cliffside with guns in their hands. And they did not look like the police.

One of the men spotted them and lifted his gun. She didn’t hear the shot, but saw the bullet tear through a bush about ten feet behind them. The shooter started down the hill, skidding and knocking pebbles loose under his heavy boots as he gave chase. The other disappeared back into the house.

Shooting. They were shooting. At her.

Oh shit.

She couldn’t escape those men in her bare feet. Her British kidnapper definitely looked like the lesser of two evils at the moment.

She tapped his side to get his attention. “There’s a house on a private, gated lot up ahead. It’s white with a steeply pitched roof and a conservatory hanging off the side of the cliff.”

“I see it.” He didn’t sound the least bit out of breath. How was that possible? She wasn’t even doing the running and was panting like she’d completed a marathon.

She gulped down air and firmly told herself now was not the time to hyperventilate. “The, uh, owners moved to Italy. It’s empty. There’s an eight-foot wall around the property, but—”

She didn’t have to finish the thought. He changed course, making a beeline for the white stucco wall. He set her back on her feet when they reached it. Her head swam with the rush of blood leaving it, and her stomach felt bruised from bouncing against his shoulder.

He steadied her with one hand on her arm. “Steady, now. Stay with me, Mrs. Giancarelli. I won’t let them hurt you, okay?”

She sucked in a trembling breath and managed a nod. “Do you work with Marcus?”

He shook his head and gazed up toward the top of the wall. “Know of him and HORNET. Never met any of them.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Wanted to talk to your husband. When I discovered he was dead, I came to find you. Thought I’d be able to keep you safe. I was wrong. They found me and now, you.”

“Who?”

“The Wolf.”

“The what?”

“It’s…complicated. I’d hoped you could put me in touch with HORNET.”

She crossed her arms over her chest to keep from shaking apart. “I’ve had no contact with any of them.” That wasn’t entirely true. Marcus had been her rock in those horrible months after they buried Danny—at least until he ghosted her. Now, as far as she was concerned, he was dead to her, too. “They killed my husband.”

“No, ma’am. They didn’t.” He threw a searching glance over his shoulder, then dug something out of his pocket and pushed it into her hand. “And you’ll need their help. Don’t trust the FBI. Don’t trust anyone in uniform.”

She stared down at the silver rectangular object. It looked like a fancy cigarette lighter—the kind you just had to flip open to get the flame—but she couldn’t see any hinges. If it opened, she didn’t know how. “What—?”

He turned his back to her and crouched, patted his shoulders. “You first.”

She hesitated only a moment, glancing in the direction of the house. She didn’t trust the British man but wanted to meet the men with the guns even less. She pocketed the silver thing and climbed up on his shoulders. He rose to his feet and she was just able to grab the top of the wall.

At the suggestion of her therapist, she’d started attending yoga after Danny’s death as a way to cope with her grief, and she was glad for it now. She was stronger than she’d ever been in her life and easily lifted herself up to sit on top of the wall. Luckily, the manicured yard was higher on the other side, a four-foot drop instead of eight. At least they wouldn’t break anything jumping down. She shifted to look down at the British man…and only then realized he couldn’t climb the wall by himself unless he was a real-life Spider-man.

She leaned down and stretched out a hand. No, she didn’t trust him, but he had answers she needed. The answers to questions that had been haunting her for nearly a year now. She wasn’t about to let him die until he told her what he knew.

A bullet ricocheted off the wall. Again, she didn’t hear it, but she saw it hit, saw the stucco splinter about a foot below her hand. She looked up. The shooter ran across the cliff top toward them.

She again reached down to the British man, but he waved her off with a red-painted hand. He was bleeding. Had a bullet struck him? “Come on. They’ll kill you!”

He shook his head. “No, they won’t. At least not right away. Go, Mrs. Giancarelli. Get your kids someplace safe. Find HORNET and give them that drive. Tell them if they want answers, they need to find me before our mates over there do decide to kill me.”

She couldn’t believe this was happening. She was a real estate agent. The most dangerous thing about her job was the unpredictable housing market. She didn’t flee from gunmen. “Who are you?”

“Alexander Cabot.”

“Did you know Danny?”

He hesitated. Only an instant, but it was enough to confirm her suspicions before he spoke again. “I was his informant.” He drew a weapon she hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying and turned to face off with the men bearing down on him. “Now get the fuck out of here! I’ll hold them off.”