“What the fuck kind of idiot are you?” Tony Barnes muttered with a low chuckle.
“The rich, connected kind,” Biggs retorted.
Ross King shifted into Jace’s line of sight. “What makes you think we won’t just slit your scrawny throat to get rid of your threats?”
“Settle down, Ross,” Tyra purred. “Let Biggs have his moment.”
“My moment?” Biggs straightened up. “I know what you’ve been up to! I know about Dolohov and the guns. I know what you and Herrera have going on right under the CIA’s nose.”
“Well, Biggs.” Tyra tilted her head, propping a slender hand on one hip. “I must admit I didn’t give you enough credit. I never thought you’d manage to figure all of that out on your own.”
“Well, I did. And if you don’t cut me in, I’m going straight to my uncle.”
Ross King rolled his eyes. “Is this asshole for real?”
“Yes, I believe he is,” Tyra said with a sigh. “And God knows we can’t have any more trouble. Herrera has caused enough over that stupid hellion, Castille.”
Jace knew what was coming. Barnes and King did too. Perhaps the only one who didn’t was Biggs, still confident in the ability of his connections to save his ass.
Tyra nodded once to Ross King. The big mercenary’s hand closed around Biggs’s neck in a lethal grip before the green CIA agent could blink, much less dodge. He made a croaking noise, his breath bubbling as it was slowly strangled out of him. The young agent’s smooth, manicured hands grasped at the blunt, scarred fingers King had wrapped around his neck in a futile effort to fight back. Jace retreated down the hallway before Biggs’s body hit the floor. He’d seen and heard enough.
Tyra Cantwell wasn’t taking orders from anyone anymore. The bitch was having her day.
Jace slipped out of the hotel the same way he’d gotten in. The side door closed with a soft click behind him. Salt sea air seared his lungs as he drew in deep breaths to clear his head. Horns blared from the city streets surrounding him, and a distant siren shrilled.
He had no worries that Dayne and Ryan were safe. Surprising Dayne was difficult to do. She had an uncanny knack for survival. He had once likened her to a cockroach, not that she’d appreciated the comparison. But she had the same talent for getting out of sticky situations.
Crossing the street, he headed in a northwesterly direction. Though midday was a few hours away, there was still a good deal of foot traffic around. Most appeared to be tourists meandering wide eyed through Boston’s streets. He buried himself between several different groups and veered back toward the marketplace with them.
With her penchant for public places, it was very likely Dayne and Ryan would be concealed deep inside one of the two Greek revival buildings. He paused before a directory, scanning it quickly. An ad for the Cheers bar immediately caught his eye.
Leaving the group of tourists, he detoured down another staircase and into Faneuil Hall.
It was warm and crowded inside. Kiosks loaded with thimbles, souvenir spoons, and snow globes, and stacked high with brightly colored T-shirts clogged the alleyways. It was simple to distinguish between the tourists and the natives.
Even in groups, the native Bostonians moved with purpose. They dodged and ducked around the wandering tourists until they spotted what they wanted before swooping in for the grab. It was obvious that their driving style overflowed into their personal lives.
Moving with his own sense of purpose, he did his share of dodging and ducking around the crying children, arguing spouses, whining teens and gossiping friends littering the space between stores until he finally reached the end of the long, wide hallway-like aisle.
His heart rate increased as he strode closer to his goal. He trusted in Dayne’s ability to maneuver her way out of a tricky hairpin situation. From the moment he’d met her he had been continuously impressed with her uncanny survival instincts. Yet somewhere in the last week his emotions had progressed past the point of blind faith. The only thing left was a deep desire to wrap his arms around her and listen to her heart beat in time with his.
Neon scarves glittering with faux gems draped the last kiosk before his target location. He unconsciously sucked in a deep breath. If they weren’t waiting on the other side of the garish display, there were only a thousand more possibilities for him to try.
He heard them before he saw them. The pitch of Ryan’s voice carried over the persistent din of the surrounding shoppers. Jace ducked around the scarves and immediately saw them standing just outside the bar entrance.
The thundering beat in his chest eased. He exhaled, slowing his pace as he approached. They were tucked into a corner. The kiosk shielded them from any passersby. Ryan was shifting continuously from one foot to the other, eyes darting anxiously over the walls and ceilings.
“Where everybody knows your name?” Jace murmured, voice warm with humor.
“You know I like irony,” Dayne retorted, a beguiling grin lighting her gray eyes.
Her voice had an edge, though no hint of tension showed in her expression. Jace found he could see past the hard as nails exterior to the vulnerability that lay just beneath. Dayne had been just as worried about him as he had been about her. In a world of lone wolves they had inexplicably become a pair.
Or, he thought, glancing at Ryan, they’d become a pack.
Thinking of Ryan, he realized the ten-year-old had yet to say anything. A moment of guilt stabbed unexpectedly at his gut. There had been no other options, no other safe ones anyway. Still, he hated to be the one responsible for ruining the kid’s ideals at such a young age. Their world was ugly. It was brutal and unforgiving. There were times Jace wished he’d known the truth about the world at a much younger age. But seeing his little brother change and harden before his eyes was making him wish there had been an opportunity for a few more carefree years.
Ryan’s stocky body was tense. His hands clutched the straps of his knapsack, and his eyes were hooded. Jace didn’t offer any words. Instead, he opened his arms wide.
Ryan hesitated for less than a second before throwing himself into his brother’s arms. Contentment filled the jaded assassin turned guardian, and he sighed deeply before tousling his younger brother’s hair.
“I was worried about you,” Ryan said, voice muffled against Jace’s chest. “Dayne said you’d find us.”
Jace glanced up in time to catch Dayne’s beautiful face in a rare moment of openness. Her expression of remorse mingled with fierce protective determination mirrored his own feelings perfectly.
“Dayne was right.” He gazed at her, trying and failing to convey everything he felt in one expression. “You’ll find she almost always is.”
“Jace…” Her husky voice sent frissions of awareness throughout his body.
Their eyes met and held. Words weren’t necessary. And while he might have wanted to gather her close and squeeze the breath out of her, this wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the time for Jace and Dayne, lovers. It was time for McKay and Castille, seasoned mercenaries.
“How screwed are we?” she finally asked.
“Royally.”
“Then I only know of one place to go for answers.”
He studied the determined cant of her facial features, Ryan’s husky frame still huddled in his arms. She was right. There was only one place they could go for answers, although that option was just as safe as strolling back toward the hotel and demanding an explanation from Tyra.
“I don’t trust Ramsey,” she admitted quietly.
Jace glanced down at Ryan. The kid’s face was still buried against his chest.
Her gaze also strayed to Ryan as she continued, “Some things I would have never trusted him with.”
“I know.”
“But we’ve got no leads and less time.”
“Leads?”
“Verifiable intelligence,” she corrected.
“Screw verifiable,” he said. “Let’s go with gut instinct.”
Chapter Twenty-One
How could you define the moment when you knew somebody? Was it when you could look into their eyes and see their thoughts before they expressed them? Was it looking at a situation and simply knowing how that person would react? Or was it the completely foreign concept of trusting that person beyond reason to do the job that needed to be done? Was it the moment you trusted them with your life?
Having never fully trusted anyone before in her life, Dayne could only go with the facts staring her right in the face. She trusted Jace McKay. It wasn’t just trusting him to do the job required, either. By trusting him to do what was required, she was letting him play Russian roulette with her life. Saying that was a first for her was more than an understatement, much more.
“Does it hurt to get shot with that on?”
Ryan’s question brought her thoughts back from dangerous introspection to the present moment. The kid hadn’t stopped playing twenty questions, though she had noticed more thought going into the things he asked.
Strapping the Kevlar vest over her T-shirt, she took a moment to adjust her cleavage. Days like these made her glad she wasn’t packing more on the topside. It was hard enough to squish what she had into the tight body armor. A few more cup sizes would’ve made it damn near impossible to breathe. When she was satisfied with the fit, she turned her attention to Ryan’s question.
“Think about what it would feel like if Jace punched you really, really hard,” she told him, watching Ryan’s eyes open wide. “And then multiply it by about a hundred.”
“Ow.”
The parking garage where they’d stashed the GTO was less than a block from Ramsey’s club. Buried in a nearly empty tier, the only light came from weak overhead bulbs and the car’s dim globe light. The lingering odor of fuel and refuse in the garage was almost overpowered by the scent of gun oil and cleaning fluids coming from the trunk of the GTO.
Jace had managed to acquire a small arsenal for their upcoming foray into Ramsey’s den of iniquity. Dayne hadn’t asked where the weapons came from, it didn’t matter. It was part of their job. The first thing their kind of people did in a city was find out where and how they could get hold of vast amounts of firepower in a pinch.
“How many guns can you carry at once?”
A low chuckle proceeded Jace’s return from his reconnaissance mission. “Dayne packs enough firepower to arm a small country, Ryan.”
The ten-year-old’s mouth formed a round O of wonder. “Where do you carry it all?”
Unsettled by Jace’s presence and trying not to show it, Dayne gave a noncommittal shrug and began stuffing extra .357 clips into the pockets of her cargo pants. Dressed in head to toe black, Jace looked like danger incarnate. Of course, it wasn’t the danger that unsettled her. It was the inexplicable urge to throw her arms around him and pull his full lips down for a thorough kiss that made her belly drop and her senses cartwheel.
He knew, too. It showed in the way he smiled at her, his eyes warm with the remembrance of their night of shared passion. Needing someone, wanting someone, had always seemed like such a weakness to her. Yet now, after a night spent in Jace’s arms, she was beginning to think differently.
She felt invincible. With him by her side nothing could take her down.
“I like that smile,” he said nonchalantly, strapping his own vest into place.
Heat flushed her body. Had she really been smiling? Did smiling like a simpleton while arming for battle qualify you for the nuthouse?
He shifted, his big body rippling with muscle as he slid M9 9mm Berettas into dual shoulder holsters. His movement brought him into closer proximity and she got a whiff of his sexy as hell personal scent, all Jace, all male, all consuming. Her body responded almost instantly.
Fighting back a wave of lust, she was horrified to realize that her nipples had hardened, the temperature of her blood had skyrocketed, and her brain had lost the ability to focus on anything but what it felt like to be in Jace’s arms. Was she losing the ability to function? Was this the beginning of the end?
He turned, his eyes locking with hers. Her doubts and insecurities evaporated. Something in the way he looked at her changed everything. This wasn’t infatuation. It wasn’t just lust, though the hot emotion raging in her veins was definitely of the physical variety. What she felt for Jace was far more.
It was love.
And loving a man like him wasn’t going to make her weak or ineffective. It was going to make her a force to rival Mother Nature.
Jace had no business focusing on anything but the situation hurtling toward them with the velocity of a runaway freight train, but his eyes and his thoughts kept drifting to the woman beside him. She was close enough that he could smell the lingering effects of their lovemaking on her skin. It satisfied him on a visceral level to have branded her as his own. His scent mingled with her own personal perfume to form an irresistible combination he would never grow tired of.
“You got enough clips?” she asked, sliding her own clip into her sidearm with an audible click.
He nodded, delving deeper into the trunk of the GTO until he found the gem of his shopping expedition. Pulling the case out, he flipped the catches and began assembling the rifle inside.
“Is that what I think it is?”
The awe in her voice made him grin. Guys had a tendency to be fickle about their women. They professed to love a low maintenance kind of girl who could truly enjoy their hobbies and share their interests but they always wound up shackled to a girly girl who worried about her nails and whether or not her shoes were en vogue. He had always wondered why. After chasing his tail with Dayne Castille for more than a year, he now knew why. Strong women like Dayne weren’t just hard to catch, they were damn near lethal. But the rewards…the rewards were more than worth it.
His grin grew broader as she motioned eagerly for him to hand over the rifle. She held it expertly, hefting the weight, testing the action and holding it experimentally at her shoulder to check the sights.
“Do you like it?” Jace slid loaded clips for the Russian Dragunov into place on his belt.