Dangerous to Know (36 page)

Zoe ended up in the hallway, admitting to herself that she was the one with trust issues. But another word of profanity came from the kitchen, giving her an excuse to shove her thoughts aside.

“No cussing in the house.” She was already dishing out her opinion when she arrived in the kitchen and took in the scene.

Saxon was leaning against the counter, a longneck beer in his hand. His knuckles were bloody and when he lifted the bottle to his lips, she noticed that his lower one was split. He lowered the beer before leveling a hard look at her. “Why not?”

“Ah?” She'd lost her train of thought and stood staring at him while she tried to decide what she'd said to him to begin with.

“No cussing in the house because Harley might pick up the profanity,” Bram answered for her.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, holding another longneck beer bottle to the side of his face, which was turning purple.

“What in the hell has been going on out here?” she demanded despite it being obvious.

Her brother grinned at her, showing her bloody teeth. “We were coming to an understanding.”

“Like you and Mercer were,” Saxon stated.

Bram had been drinking from his beer and sputtered. “Not the same way at all,” he insisted.

Saxon shrugged. “We exchanged bodily fluids.” He toasted her with the bottle before offering her a knowing smirk.

Her cheeks caught fire.

Bram snorted. “Get a girlfriend.”

Saxon grunted. “I bite.”

“Some girls like that sort of thing.” Mercer was suddenly there, draping an arm across her body when she tried to move away from him. He surveyed the scene. “Seems we missed the party.” He nuzzled her neck. “I suddenly see the error of my thinking. Nap time isn't just for toddlers. I could become a habitual napper with you, baby.”

She tried to shrug his arm off but he held tight. His lazy demeanor was only a facade. “Excuse us.”

He scooped her off her feet and took her back down the hallway.

“Mercer…”

He paid her no mind, carrying her through the doorway of the bedroom and kicking the door shut before turning her loose. She backed away from him as he squared off with her.

“Don't accuse me of having trust issues, baby, when you have similar ones.”

He was right. That admission brought her up short. She ended up worrying her lower lip as she contemplated him.

He was just so perfect.

“Do you trust me?” She needed to know.

His expression tightened, just a fraction, but it was enough to pierce the bubble of growing elation inside her.

“I trust that you're innocent, Zoe,” he answered. “Are you still holding a grudge against me for how we met?”

“It isn't a grudge,” she said. “At least, that's a mighty judgmental word under the circumstances.”

“I'll agree with judgmental.” His eyes were narrowed. “You support your family one hundred percent for the service they give but not me? I was laying it on the line to protect them.”

“I know,” she snapped. “But you … you—”

“Used sex?” He interrupted her bluntly. “Is that somehow worse than trying to scare the information out of you? Would you rather have been stuffed in the back of a van and hauled into some dank cell where you would have been broken down until you confessed? Waited to see what would happen.”

“You pushed your way into my private space.”

His lips twitched. “And you loved every second of it.” He suddenly lost his firm hold on his confidence. Uncertainty swam through his eyes. “So did I. Maybe I'm the fool for trying to hold on to that. Vitus sure thinks so.”

He let out a slow breath. “I need one of those beers.”

The door closed behind him, leaving her facing the situation she'd always assumed would arrive.

He would leave her.

Except this time, she'd pointed him toward the door.

The urge to follow him was strong. Stronger than the desire to hold on to her self-respect and reject him because of the way he'd used her, but both emotions were valid. She was caught between them, being pulled by both sides like a tug-of-war rope.

She didn't have to end up in pieces. All she had to do was trust.

So why did that feel so impossible?

*   *   *

Congressman Jeb Ryland sat back in his oversized office chair. His desk was a treasured antique that dominated the office. It was situated perfectly to afford him a view of the south side of his estate. The grounds were expertly manicured, but he scowled.

“I warned you what my expectations were,” he said.

The man sitting in front of him didn't show any reaction. He sat there, stone-faced and silent.

This was another expectation Jeb had for those who worked for him. He was the master and they'd better remember it.

“Special Agent Vitus Hale is owed a reckoning. Losing his brother would have been a good place to begin. Were my expectations in any way unclear?”

The man sitting in front of him shook his head.

“Then why isn't the man mourning his sibling?” Jeb surged forward and flattened his hands on the surface of the desk. “He has his shield back!”

“Killing him straight out wouldn't have been too hard. The fact that you wanted him caught with dirt on his hands made it a lot harder. Saxon has a record. A good, solid one. I took a lot of chances trying to set him up.”

“You used the wrong family,” Jeb insisted. “A colonel and a captain? Bryan Magnus has a long-standing commitment of service to his country. That was an idiotic choice.”

“It was a good one,” Tyler said, defending himself. “Saxon is no fool. He'd have sniffed out a trap if intel like that mysteriously appeared in the hands of some random civilian. You wanted too much by insisting he be disgraced. I could have taken him out and left his brother without his shield.”

“That wasn't enough. Not nearly enough!” Jeb hissed. “He soiled my daughter. I want his family name dragged through the gutter! I want his family wiped off the face of this planet. I want his friends to see what happens to anyone who forgets who their betters are. And I want to make sure she knows what happens when she defies me.”

Tyler took a deep breath. “You're not my better. Keep talking like that and you're on your own.”

“Perhaps you're not smart enough to work for me,” Jeb threatened. “I can replace you.”

“Do it. I don't need this petty revenge crap. So what if your daughter screwed someone who wasn't on your approved list? She's back under control.”

“And Damascus will stay there!” Jeb jabbed his index finger into the desktop. “My daughter won't be taking up with a member of her escort, even one who saved her life. That was his job. She's learning the error of her judgment. Now I want the Hale brothers to learn it, too. I know you special agents have a brotherhood. When this matter is dealt with, others will take note.”

“They might also close ranks against you.”

Jeb slapped the top of the desk. “I could have left you chained in that interrogation room.”

“And I could have sung high and low to Kagan, telling him how you misled me into believing I was following legitimate orders.”

Tyler enjoyed the way the congressman's eyes widened.

“Don't think I'm not covering my ass with enough documentation to drag you down with me if you try hamstringing me,” Tyler insisted. “I'm in this to be a part of your administration. Don't forget what you've promised me. I won't.”

“Find another way,” Jeb ordered. “Saxon Hale likes shadow ops too much to retire from them. Concoct another operation to trap him. I want him disgraced and dead. In that order. Vitus doesn't deserve a clean death.” Jeb pointed at Tyler. “I want that bastard Vitus to know his family is being taken out in both blood and name before I kill him. Damascus will learn just what happens when she steps outside the boundaries I set.”

There was a glow in the man's eyes that made Tyler uneasy. Not a simple task. Tyler was getting a bad feeling about just how unstable the senator's sanity might be.

Not that he had any real choice. He was in too deep to fold now. So what if the guy had illusions about what his precious daughter should be doing with her lily-white body?

“It won't be easy,” Tyler said.

“I pay you too much for easy work. You want to be one of my head people when I'm vice president? Get used to tough assignments. Get out.”

Jeb pushed a button on the underside of his desk. There was a buzz as the door to the office opened. He resumed looking out over the grounds of his home as his business associate left. His daughter Damascus came into view, running down the side steps and onto the walking path. He pressed his lips into a tight line at the running sportswear she had on.

So damn masculine. She knew he detested the sight of her in it.

She took off to the side of the house, keeping to the area she was allowed in. Two of his personal security men trotted along behind her. But she'd made sure she ran past his sight. Of course, she might have some flimsy excuse, but he suspected she was needling him. He wasn't sure of her. Sometime between her meeting with Vitus Hale and her return she'd learned to hide her feelings from him. Now she presented a calm, collected exterior at all times.

Which was why he doubted her sincerity. The night he'd taken her back, she'd been too full of passion for it to have cooled so completely.

Another reason why the Hale brothers needed to die. There could be no going back for Damascus. His daughter needed the additional lesson of understanding what would happen to anyone she foolishly grew attached to that he did not approve of.

He'd be the master of his home.

Maybe his daughter's cool demeanor was a wise choice on her part to accept his rule.

Possibly.

Then again, perhaps she was making sure he glimpsed her in her athletic attire because she knew it was the only way to strike back at him. That would fit with the daughter who had so brazenly told him she was going to marry Vitus Hale.

She'd signed his death warrant with that statement. The daughter of Congressman Jeb Ryland would never be wed to a mongrel dog of war like Special Agent Vitus Hale.

Even if she had foolishly played at being the man's bitch.

He clenched his fingers into fists as his temper surged.

At least she was keeping in shape. He had uses for that. Men who wanted a wife with connections and a good figure. Jeb planned to exploit their desires. Very soon, he'd make his move. Which only brought his temper back to a slow boil.

He'd needed his revenge now, while the media wasn't focused on him. While the facts might be buried along with the Hale brothers.

But he wasn't giving it up. No. Vitus Hale wasn't going to walk away free.

Not from Jeb Ryland.

No one walked away clean after crossing Jeb Ryland.

*   *   *

“You're being an idiot.”

Mercer lowered his beer and glared at Vitus.

“You are,” Vitus confirmed. “Getting drunk when the case isn't closed.”

“It's closed,” Mercer confirmed.

Vitus shook his head. “She didn't kick you out. Didn't run to her big brother to help kick you to the curb.” Vitus nodded. “Case is still … open.”

“I asked her to marry me.”

Vitus raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Mercer tipped his longneck back once more. Vitus reached over and pulled it out of his fingers.

“What the fuck do you want from me, Vitus?” Mercer demanded. “I'm sitting here, behaving like a gentleman. Giving her … space.”

Vitus snorted. And then snickered. “She didn't fall for a nice guy. She liked all your rough edges a whole lot from what I saw. So stop being a dumb ass by turning into the poster boy for society's idea of what relationships should be. If she wanted that, she'd have a ring on her finger and a couple of kids. That woman has her father's need for a good challenge in her. You two will fight as much as you fuck.”

Mercer felt like his ears were ringing from that truth. It knocked him upside his head and left him staring at Vitus. It was a harsh analysis.

And so on point, he was ready to agree that he'd been a dumb ass. He stood up and grabbed a coffee mug. The pot was sitting on warm. He poured half a mugful and downed it.

“Thanks for the kick in the ass.”

Vitus lifted his beer bottle to him in response.

The walk down the hallway twisted his insides but he liked it.

Because it was go-time.

*   *   *

Mercer closed the door behind him silently. It was more startling than if he'd slammed it. She turned around and surveyed him, taking in the set expression on his face, the warning flickering in his eyes.

“I'm thinking,” she said.

He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the top of one of her bedposts.

“No, Zoe, you're avoiding the truth.”

She propped her hand onto her hip. “Oh really?” She tossed her hair back and sent him a warning look. “Came down here just to tell me what I'm doing wrong?”

He slowly grinned, his lips parting and flashing his teeth at her. But it wasn't a nice expression. Nope. Far from it. The guy was downright menacing now. “You wouldn't have me any other way, baby.”

She shifted, feeling his words as much as she heard them, which didn't make any sense.

As if her dealings with Mercer ever made any sense.

“Enough of the pushing into my space,” she warned him. “Your operation is over.”

“It's over, all right,” he agreed. “But I'm far from finished with being in your space.”

“That's not for you to say.”

He tilted his head to the side, offering her a partial shrug. “Oh, I think it really is for me to say, Zoe. In fact, I'm waiting for you to stop being such a good little girl. The one Tim was so sure it would be easy to pull one over on.”