Master No (10 page)

Yeah, that was why he was pissed off.

“You look awfully perfect for almost being gutted.”

Ten gave him a devil-may-care smile. “Well, I do have a date tonight. Did the boys handle my mess?”

He’d left the body in a dumpster after calling it in. He’d needed to get Faith somewhere safe. He figured Top was a pretty good bet since most of the staff was ex-military and they worked with knives. Besides Top had a bar, and that girl needed a damn drink. He stared at her as she smiled wanly at something Erin said. Her eyes slid his way and he held her gaze. He winked her way to let her know everything was fine. She kept looking back at him as though to assure herself he was still here.

Maybe that old boy had done him a favor after all. She turned back to Erin, but he noticed she stood a little taller.

“Jesse’s on it,” Tag replied. “He’s got the body and Hutch and Adam are making sure the cameras are suddenly and inexplicably out of order for the afternoon. Thank god everyone’s gone digital. It makes my life so much easier. Unfortunately, I’ve got to figure out where to dump the body once we ID him. He’s got some interesting tats on him.”

“He was a pro. I’ve got no doubt. His weapon alone made me realize that. The knife he had on him was military grade and the gun and suppressor were easily more than some street criminal could afford.”

“Why not assassinate her from a distance? It’s what I would do. I sure as hell wouldn’t stride up to her in the middle of a store and take her out the back way. That was dangerous. How did you convince her not to call the cops? That was nice by the way. You lose her if the cops get involved.”

He would have lost her on several levels. Her father likely would have ridden in to scoop his precious girl up and then the game would have been over. Ten had done his best to look different. Put on more muscle. Taken his hair down to a military cut. The senator wouldn’t know him by looking at his identification photos. His cover had been expertly done by Chelsea. He wasn’t worried about the cops making him, either. He would pass all the police tests, but the senator had contacts in places that would dig much deeper. They likely wouldn’t go to too much trouble over Faith’s date to the islands, but the minute the cops became involved, the game would change. There was no way the senator stayed out of that investigation, and he would want to know a lot more about Faith’s hero. He would likely insist on meeting Ten, and Ten couldn’t let that happen. The senator had friends in the Agency, and wouldn’t they just love to know where Tennessee Smith was hanging his hat these days. No. If the cops had been called in, Ten would have been forced to pull back.

“I can’t answer that question yet, Tag. Maybe it was a kidnapping,” he replied as though it didn’t matter. It was another intellectual puzzle to be solved and not something that kind of made his gut clench. “Her father’s got a couple of important votes coming up. Hell, it might have been because she’s a rich girl and Daddy would pay.”

“She’s pretty,” Tag said before calling over a waitress.

“She’s all right.” She was fucking gorgeous. He’d watched her as she bought the lip-gloss and then answered her phone. He wasn’t sure who she’d been talking to. He’d get the report on that later. Erin had bugged her phone a long while back. He could listen to the recording and hear her talk in that practical way of hers that seemed to do something to his dick. He’d hung back, pretending to be fascinated with scarves.

She was gorgeous and he’d been way too long without a woman.

“Hey, if this is going to be hard on you, let me send Case in. He’s kind of got a thing for her. Case really wouldn’t mind getting in bed with her. Ah, there it is.” Tag turned to the brunette. “I’ll take a Scotch. The one Sean keeps in his office.”

The waitress nodded. “I’m supposed to tell you that you’re a greedy son of a bitch and then get it for you anyway. Also Macon’s got lemon madeleines in the back.”

That seemed to make Big Tag incredibly happy. “Thanks, Ally. I have no idea what that is, but I’ll look forward to it, and tell Sean that just for that, make it a double.”

Ally smiled and walked off.

“There what is?” He had no illusions they wouldn’t go right back to their increasingly uncomfortable conversation.

Tag sat back. “For a minute there, the mask fell away and you were ready to stab my brother through the heart.”

“Don’t.” He wasn’t falling for this shit. “Don’t you play cupid here, Tag. You think I don’t see through you. Everyone else here thinks you’re the big bad, but I know what you are. You’re a meek teddy bear dressed up like a grizzly. You’ve been declawed, brother, and you want the rest of us to be just as pussy whipped as you are so you manipulate and put people in positions where they have to couple up, and then you walk home and polish your fucking halo. You aren’t doing it to me. I’m not falling into that trap.”

“What would you like to bet on that? A thousand?”

“A thousand dollars?”

Tag nodded. “Yes. I have to go big. Have you seen what college costs these days? I have to make sure those girls get into Ivy League schools or they’ll end up on the pole. I can’t have my girls on the pole, man. Chris Rock was right. I got a mission in life now and it’s keeping my baby girls away from skeevy dudes who go to strip clubs.”

“You used to go to strip clubs.”

“Exactly. No way I want my baby girls around any dude like me. Or you. Or Alex’s kid. I see the way he looks at my girls.” Tag eyed him as though sizing him up. It made Ten nervous. “When was the last time you were around a real woman? The last few months don’t count because you distance from the women at the office. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Tag seemed to notice everything. Didn’t he have anything better to do? “Not that it’s any of your business, but I met a woman in a bar last week.”

He’d been out of sorts. Talking to Faith every day made him feel…weird. He’d needed to distance so he’d gone to a bar the previous Friday night, and within an hour he was back at some blonde’s place. He couldn’t remember her name. Wasn’t sure he’d even asked. He’d steered her straight to the bedroom, ready to lose himself the way he always did. Sex had been his thing for most of his life. Since he’d been sixteen and figured out how good it made him feel, he turned to women when he got restless. He’d gotten the blonde out of her clothes, laid her back on the bed, and was going to get out of his own when he’d looked down at her and seen someone else.

He’d seen Faith.

Yeah, he wasn’t about to tell Tag he’d made an excuse and walked out the door and spent the next week yanking his own dick.

Tag’s eyes rolled. “I wasn’t talking about getting your rocks off. I was talking about being with a woman. Talking to her. Having a relationship with her.”

“You know how easy it is to have a relationship in my position? Yeah, working for the Agency, never knowing what continent I’ll be on tomorrow, that’s been a breeze for keeping a woman around.” Had Tag lost his damn mind? “And hey, the Agency wanting me dead is another plus in my win column.”

“Have they tried anything?”

Ten kept waiting. He’d been careful while he’d been out of the States. He’d spent time in Saudi, Iraq, and Pakistan while building his intelligence about the network Senator McDonald had put together. He’d been totally off the grid and constantly watching his back. It was easy in that part of the world.

It was harder here. He had a solid paper trail thanks to Chelsea. He had backup thanks to his old team and McKay-Taggart. He had babies in the room next to him. He had freaking two-hour Skype conversations with Faith McDonald where he told her lie after lie about his life and she talked about saving kids in Africa. The world was soft here. This was where they would get him.

“Again, I’m going to ask you to be reasonable,” Tag insisted. “What happened an hour ago changes everything. If she’s got someone gunning for her, she needs protection. You can’t watch her back and your own. Bow out gently tonight. Tell her you changed your mind and you think she needs a younger Master. I’ll introduce her to Case and you can handle this whole situation the way you should—from the background.”

“If you try to pawn my sub off on your fucking brother one more time I’m going to be the one throwing punches, Tag.”

Tag slapped the table. “Two thousand. I will bet you two grand you’re getting married at the end of this. Come on, man.”

He wasn’t ever getting married. He wasn’t built for it. He’d known what he was born to do since the day he’d met Franklin Grant. He couldn’t do that anymore. Not until he cleared his name and found out who’d burned him at the Agency. That man was the one working with McDonald. That name was why he was doing all of this. Yes, he wanted to take McDonald down. Yes, he wanted to stop the senator’s network from ever making money off American lives again, but he wanted back in. He wanted his name back, his job back. He wanted to grind down the people who had sold him out.

No. He wasn’t getting married and he wasn’t getting close to Faith McDonald. Once he got her in bed, he would see that she was like all the rest. And then he could move on with his life.

CHAPTER FOUR

Faith poured a cup of chamomile tea and wondered if her hands were ever going to stop shaking. It had to be six or seven hours since it had happened. Now she was back at Theo and Erin’s three-bedroom ranch house and she wondered if she should stay after all. Had she made the right choice? Should she call her dad and head down to the safety of his Houston mansion?

“Hey, you going to be all right?” Erin had changed into pajama bottoms and a tank top, her face scrubbed clean. She’d been hovering all night, and Faith was worried Erin had gotten into serious trouble over what had happened.

“I’m good.” She put on a happy face. That was what she did. It was the same fake smile she used when her father forced her to go to campaign rallies. “I am sorry I seem to have gotten you into hot water with Theo’s brother.”

“Oh, she’s not simply in trouble with Theo’s brother. She’s in trouble with Theo.” Theo looked delicious in nothing but a pair of jeans. He strode into the kitchen and planted himself behind Erin, his hands finding her hips. The man couldn’t seem to take his hands off his sub.

Which brought her to the other reason she was wondering if she shouldn’t run to Houston.

“Erin’s in trouble with everyone tonight.” Master T stepped in after Theo. Unlike her friends, he was still completely dressed, with the exception of his Stetson. He’d taken that off and placed it on a table in the living room. “But I suspect she’ll pay for it and be back in Theo’s good graces in the morning.”

Erin tried to move away from her Master, but he wasn’t having that. She sighed and then relaxed back against him, his arms winding around her waist. “Theo often takes his job far too seriously and uses his position to his own advantage.”

Theo’s lips curled up in a secretive smile. “That’s the thing, baby. Sometimes you think we’re playing checkers when we’re really playing chess, and that’s about the time I take the queen. I’m going to spank the queen tonight because she was very naughty.”

There was no way to miss how Erin’s eyes softened at the thought. She wanted that discipline.

Faith wanted it too. It had been a stressful day and she wanted to feel a soft flogger on her back and let go of the tension. It was way too early for that. Wasn’t it?

“I wasn’t thinking,” Erin admitted. “I’ve relaxed since we came home. When Faith said she needed a few minutes, I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“You wanted to yell at me in private, Erin. That was why you let her go and that’s why you’ll be over my knee in a few minutes.” Theo’s tone held a bit of a bite, the Master coming out.

“Well, I’m back on the job now. Did Big Tag find out anything about our super-dead asshole?” Erin asked.

Master T leaned against the sink, his body all lean muscle and sharp lines. “We should have some kind of ID on him by tomorrow. He’s got a tat that makes me think he spent some time in prison, so he’ll likely be in AFIS.”

“You get to use AFIS?” AFIS stood for Automated Fingerprint Identification System and was used by government law enforcement agencies. Not private investigators.

“The company I work for has some discreet contacts with law enforcement,” he explained. “We took prints off your attacker and called in a friend with the DPD. He’ll keep everything very quiet, but he’ll get us a name by tomorrow, I suspect. We’ll regroup and go from there.”

She wasn’t sure her father, with all his contacts, could work that quickly. He would also be hampered by the press. Maybe she was making the right call. “I’m sure this is about my dad.”

“Are you? This couldn’t have anything to do with what happened to you in Ghana?” Master T asked.

Just like that the world seemed to go cold. She had to force her hand to close around the mug or she would have dropped it. Ghana. She tried so hard not to think about Ghana. “No. That was an isolated incident. A crime of opportunity, in your vernacular.”

Master T shrugged and then turned back to Erin. “And you’re not her bodyguard anymore. I am. This is my op.”