Mine To Protect (Mine #6) (2 page)

Zoe Peters was a dead woman walking. The other fools who
thought
they’d get the bounty on her head? They needed to get in line behind him. She was his prize, and no one would stand in his way.

Not any other fool hit man.

And sure as hell not some FBI agent.

Kyle cranked his truck, floored the baby, and got on the trail of his precious prize.

I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.
Zoe kept chanting those words in her mind. She’d actually felt that bullet whip past her before it sank into the headrest—a headrest that her head had been in front of just seconds before! But she’d leaned toward Victor a split-second before the bullet exploded through the windshield. She’d grabbed his hand…

And managed to stay alive based on sheer, blind luck.

The SUV stopped.

Stopped.

Her head was currently in Victor’s lap—yes, a weirdly intimate spot but she didn’t care how embarrassing that position was—it was a safe place, and she was all about safety. But when the SUV stopped, her hand clenched around his thigh. A very strong thigh. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making sure you’re all right.”

And he pulled her up.

She swatted at his hands. “I’m fine! I’d be better if you just kept moving!” Her frantic gaze shot around the vehicle. There was a big, round hole in the front windshield, on
her
side of the vehicle. It was dark outside, and she couldn’t see much out there. Maybe some twisted trees. An old farmhouse.

His hand rose and he pushed away her cap. She was surprised she’d still been wearing that thing. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders and his fingers moved carefully over her face. Caressing her cheeks, sliding under her chin. Moving down her neck…

“Um, yeah, no bullet holes,” Zoe said, clearing her throat. She didn’t like it when Victor touched her. His touch made her heart race, made her knees shake, and made her…well, want things that she shouldn’t.

Because FBI Special Agent Victor Monroe? He was not a man she should want. He was not a man she should be fantasizing about. He was not a guy who should be on her desire radar at all…

But he was.

And this is how twisted my life has become.

Every single day, she lived in fear. Would another of her father’s psycho enemies come after her? Would she get to be tortured by some other maniac because she had to keep paying for dear old dad’s sins?

“That was too close.” Victor’s voice was low, angry. A hard rumble that was oddly sexy.
Right. Like I don’t think nearly everything about the guy is sexy.
That was the reason she’d kissed him back at the bus station. She’d fantasized about his mouth for too long and when he’d pulled her close, Zoe had thought…

Oh, why the hell not?

Now she knew why not. Because that kiss had made her want him more. And in the madness of her current life, she didn’t have time to want anyone.

Not even her special agent.

Victor Monroe. Victor of the golden, tanned skin. Victor with the incredible blue gaze that she could never forget. Victor—dark and dangerous and
with the FBI.

The hand that had been gently stroking her suddenly rose and his fingers curled around her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “This is why you can’t run. Your life is on the line.”

“I thought…you said it was safer…that people believed I was dead…”

“Yeah, well, that was the general idea. I was circulating the idea that you’d been killed, but turns out…someone at the FBI isn’t exactly on your side.”

Her breath heaved out. “An FBI agent sold me out?”

“I don’t know who, not yet, but my boss is working on that.”

She jerked away from him. “I have to get away from you.” She reached for the door handle.

But Victor caught her wrist and pulled her right back toward him. “You need to stay with me! I’m the one saving your ass!”

“No, you’re not.” She twisted her wrist, yanked hard, but the guy didn’t let go. “You’re the one who got me shot at! If you’d just left me in that bus stop, I would have gotten on the bus, driven away, and been all safe and sound. Instead, you played your kissing game—”

“Kissing game?”

“You dragged me out of that place and you got me
shot
at!”

Headlights appeared in the distance—only, not a very
big
distance away. The lights were already illuminating their SUV.

“Um…Victor…” She licked her dry lips. “Why did you stop here?”

“Because it was a secluded spot and I needed to make sure you were safe!”

Those lights were coming closer. “Is that some agent who is supposed to rendezvous with you? Please, tell me it is.”

“Fuck.” He jumped out of the vehicle.

Wait—why had he jumped out of the SUV?
“Victor!” She lunged into the driver’s seat and shoved her head out of the side of the vehicle—he’d left the door open in his haste. “What are you doing?” Because that other car was coming close, too fast, and Victor was now crawling around under the SUV.

“Got it!” Then he was rolling from beneath the vehicle and—he tossed
something
away into the dark. “SOB tagged my ride, but he won’t be following us any longer.”

Someone had
tagged
them? She slumped as low down in the front seat as she could. “Tell me that’s not the shooter closing in on us.”

“You drive.” He’d run around the vehicle and leapt into the passenger side. “And I’ll keep him busy.”

“But—”

Glass shattered. The other driver had stopped. His lights weren’t moving, and since the guy wasn’t busy driving—
he is shooting at us again!
Zoe stayed slumped behind the steering wheel but she stretched out her leg and shoved the gas pedal down. They lurched forward and as they did—oh, sweet Jesus—Victor was half-way climbing out his window. He was firing
his
gun at the other vehicle.

She just kept a death-grip on the wheel and prayed that they’d both make it out of that shoot-out alive.

Each time he fired, it sounded like thunder, echoing through the vehicle.

“Don’t slow down!” Victor bellowed.

She wasn’t planning to slow down—and definitely not planning to stop.

“I got his tires. The bastard won’t be following us any time soon.” He slid back in the SUV, fully back in. “I’ll call my team and get them to pick him up ASAP.”

Right. Wonderful. Call in the team. She drove straight ahead, now on a narrow country road, and Zoe had no idea of where she was headed.

“I can’t risk going back with you to try and contain him,” Victor said. “I don’t know what kind of firepower that guy has in his ride, and I don’t want to put you at risk.”

Did he think she was going to argue? “Call in your team. Let them handle him.” The last thing she wanted was to have some kind of face-off with the guy back there.

So Victor yanked out his phone and talked to his team. She drove like a bat out of hell. Zoe kept glancing back in the rearview mirror. No other headlights appeared. The road was empty and she
should
have started to feel safe.

She didn’t. Zoe actually couldn’t remember the last time that she’d felt safe.

Had it been before she’d first been abducted? Because that was how her
relationship
with Victor had begun. She’d been abducted and held in the dank basement of some rundown house. A guy named Hugh Rowe had taken her, as part of some big elaborate revenge plan that he’d created against her father. Hugh had kept her prisoner, threatened her,
hurt
her.

She’d been sure that Hugh intended to kill her. After all, he’d strapped a bomb to her chest. She’d been so very certain that death was coming for her—

And then Victor had appeared.

We got out of that mess. We survived. How many more escapes do we have left?

Cats had nine lives. She was pretty sure she’d used up far more than nine already. How much longer could this really go on? How many more times was she supposed to escape death?

“Zoe?” Victor said her name softly.

She still flinched.

“Zoe, do you want me to drive?”

When had he gotten off the phone? She blinked and realized that she might be crying. How embarrassing. She hadn’t even been aware of the tears sliding down her cheeks. “No…no, I don’t want to stop.”

If she stopped, maybe that guy would come—

“He’s out of commission. My team will be swarming on his location soon. You’re safe.”

She laughed and the sound was so bitter, even to her own ears.

As she drove, she could feel the weight of Victor’s stare on her, but Zoe didn’t glance his way. “What would it take,” she asked him, aware that her voice was even huskier than normal, “for you to just let me go? I mean…I’d give you anything you wanted.”

“Letting you go isn’t an option, you know that.”

No, she didn’t know it. “I’ve never deliberately hurt anyone. I paid my taxes. I went to school. I had a job. I didn’t break any laws…
I didn’t do anything wrong.
” But she was still being hunted. Still being kept a prisoner.

“I know.” His voice was softer, gruffer. “Sometimes, we’re just dealt fucking bad hands by fate.”

She swiped the back of her hand over her wet cheeks. “What would you know about a bad hand? I bet you grew up with some kind of silver spoon in your mouth. You probably never had to worry about anything or anyone. I bet—”

“For someone who lived in Vegas for so long, your bets are shit.”

Now she did toss a fast glance his way.

“One day, I’ll tell you about the way I grew up. The fights and the blood and the lines
I
crossed.”

Mr. Follow-The-Law had crossed lines? What lines?

“But that day isn’t today. Today, we’re going to keep driving for forty minutes and then we’re seeking refuge at a safe house.”

Not another one.

“It’s more of a safe motel,” he muttered. “But it’s been vetted, and we’re crashing there so that I can get a full report from my team.”

He meant so that he could hand her off to another team member. Because that was his usual MO. Swoop in. Stop her from vanishing. Pass her off.

“I’m sick of being passed off.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “Why don’t you ask me the reason I was getting on that bus? Why don’t you ask me—”

“Fine. Why were you getting on that bus?”

“Because my friend needs me.” The words exploded out of her. “You know my friend Michelle Lane has been missing—missing
too long.
” She’d gone to Vegas weeks ago to try and find Michelle, but the woman hadn’t been there. “She was my only friend. I know someone took her to get to me. I know—”

“FBI agents are searching for her.” His fingers were tapping against the door panel. “I told you that when I got you in Vegas.”

When he’d swooped in…and passed her off yet again. “That isn’t good enough. It’s been too long. I’m worried that she’s dead.” Just saying that fear aloud hurt. “I have to find her. So if you pass me off to another agent, well, guess what? I’ll break and run again. I will keep running until I know where Michelle is. Until I know what happened to her. Until I find my friend. Dead or alive.”

Okay, wow, she’d gotten a little passionate there. Passionate and loud but she was not going to be passed along again.

He wasn’t speaking.

“Say something,” Zoe ordered. “Say—”

“If the agents searching aren’t good enough, then
I’ll
be the one to personally help you.”

She shook her head, pretty sure she’d misheard.

“I’ll help you,” he said again. “But you’ll have to help me, too, okay, Zoe? You were promising me
anything
before, weren’t you?”

Um… “Yes.”

“Then I think you and I will be able to work out a deal.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

“Keep driving, Zoe,” he told her. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Was she really supposed to believe those words?

***

Lauren Ward didn’t want to screw up her first assignment. She’d busted ass to join the FBI, and the last thing she wanted to do was start off her Bureau career with a screw up but…

Her hand tightened on her gun. “The guy isn’t here.”

She and her partner, Russell Aiker, had made it to the location Victor had given them—they’d gotten there in near-record time. When they’d arrived, the truck had been exactly where Victor had said but…

No driver. The shooter—he’s gone.
She glanced up at the dark line of trees. “You think he headed out on foot?”

Russell was at the back of the truck. “No. I think the guy just took a back-up ride and hauled ass.” He shone his flashlight down at the ground—and there, in the dirt, was the clear impression of a wheel. “Motorcycle,” he said, his voice flat. “Probably had it in the back of his truck. This guy was definitely planning ahead. If one ride was disabled, he wanted to be ready to continue his pursuit.”

Lauren swallowed. “He sounds—”

“Professional. Yeah, all the guys after Zoe are.” He had his phone out. “Better call Victor. The guy is going to be pissed.”

Lauren bit her lower lip. Having Victor Monroe pissed was
not
the way she’d wanted to start the job.

“And…just so you’re aware…when you meet Zoe Peters, it’s a good idea to handle the woman with kid gloves. Even if she does manage to piss you off.” He laughed roughly. “’
Cause it will happen.
”

She blinked. “Why the kid gloves?”

“Let’s just say Victor doesn’t like it when Zoe gets upset.”

“But—”

“You upset Zoe, and you will find your ass reassigned. Hell, how do you think you got this gig in the first place?”

She’d had no clue.

“Kid. Gloves.” He put the phone to his ear. “Vic? Yeah, we’re out here but…no, you aren’t going to be happy…”

***

Kyle watched the agents as they searched his truck. He had his night vision goggles on, so he could monitor them. They were standing by his abandoned truck. Just out there, no cover at all. If he’d wanted, he could have taken them both out.

But their deaths wouldn’t have helped him. He also wasn’t getting paid to off them so…why bother?

He’d taken out his motorcycle. Left a path that made it look as if he’d driven back to the road. Then he’d stayed near the tree line. Gotten cover. He’d wanted to wait and see what the clean-up team looked like.

He’d also wanted to use that team.

Because sooner or later…those two out there would lead him to Victor Monroe. Kyle knew that with certainty. And as he’d already learned that night…