Wait for Morning (Sniper 1 Security #1) (28 page)

Marissa couldn’t disguise the shiver that sprinted
through her body at the thought of Trace killing a man, but she also couldn’t
pretend that it bothered her. Okay, so maybe it bothered her a little. After
all, she did have a conscience. Then again, if it meant that bastard would’ve
had the chance to kidnap her, she’d willingly watch while Trace erased the
light from his eyes.

And now she was going to be sick.

Who
was
she? When the hell had she lost all empathy for the human race?

Turning away from her brother and Trace,
Marissa wrapped her arms around herself and took a deep breath. She was on the
verge of hyperventilating when strong arms wrapped around her.

Trace.

After only one night in his bed, she would
know him anywhere. And the way his arms came around her offered her a sense of
peace she’d longed for.

“Are you all right?” he whispered softly against
her ear, his tone full of concern.

Marissa nodded, placing her arms over his
as she leaned into him slightly. “I will be,” she assured him, mirroring his
voice level.

And she would be fine. Maybe not today,
maybe not tomorrow, but she would eventually be fine just as soon as this
nightmare was behind her.

Trace gave her a gentle squeeze and then
pulled away much sooner than she would’ve liked.

When Marissa glanced over at her brother,
she saw him watching them attentively. She felt her cheeks heat and hoped he
didn’t notice her blush. For a second, she’d forgotten that he was even there.
She suspected that Trace had, too.

“That’s what you came over to tell me?”
Trace asked from behind her, obviously talking to her brother once more. “That
you found a dead body?”

“Not exactly, although yeah, I needed to
make sure you knew.”

“How’d the meeting with Max go?” Trace
questioned.

“As I thought it would. He told me very
little, but I suspected he knew something.”

Trace lifted his eyebrows in question, and
Marissa waited for Ryan to continue, her curiosity piqued.

“He bluntly informed me that if he wanted
Marissa dead, she’d be dead.”

Trace’s hands balled into fists at his
sides, and a cold chill washed over Marissa.

“The only thing I know for sure,” Ryan
continued, “is that the Southern Boy Mafia is not after Marissa. That much I
believe.”

Marissa turned and walked a few feet away,
letting Ryan’s statement sink in. She still didn’t understand. If it wasn’t the
Adorites, then who was it?

“Then who is?” Trace questioned, putting
voice to her thoughts.

Marissa turned around to see both men
staring raptly at one another. The tension between them doubled, and she could
see the question—something he wasn’t asking aloud—on Trace’s face, but for the
life of her, she didn’t know what it was.

Finally the suspense was deflated when Trace
said, “You’re worried about somethin’. What is it?”

Marissa watched as Ryan glanced down at
his hands, which were gripping his coffee mug tightly. “I know Z and I didn’t
get a lot out of Max last night, but that conversation got me to thinking. As
much as I hate to say this, I’m inclined to believe this
is
an inside job.”

Trace merely nodded. “I don’t disagree. At
least partially,” Trace mentioned, and Marissa realized they’d already had a
conversation about this. How … no,
why
would
they keep it from her?

You
thought the same thing.

True. And in the same regard, she’d kept
that information to herself as well.

But that wasn’t the point.

“After talking to Max, I did some more
digging. I’m sorry, but my suspicions still stand. Someone we’re close to is in
on this.”

“In cahoots with the Adorites?” Trace
questioned.

Ryan glanced down at the bar. “As easy as
it would be to pin this on them, I believe Max. If they wanted her dead, she’d
be dead.”

Another icy chill raced over Marissa’s
skin, making her colder than she had been.

“Goddammit! If not them, then who?” Trace questioned,
his voice so low, so full of fury, Marissa cringed from the ferocity embedded
in his tone.

Ryan glared at Trace, another silent conversation
that Marissa clearly wasn’t privy to.

“What the fuck, man? Are you saying what I
think you’re saying?”

“Fuck no,” Ryan growled, his tone lethal.

What was Trace thinking? Did he think that…?
Oh!

Oh, God.

“This is someone in
my
family?” Marissa asked the obvious, unstated question.

“Hell no!” Ryan bellowed, his gaze pinning
her in place. “I never fucking said that. I don’t believe for one second that a
Kogan or a Trexler is behind this.” Ryan turned back to Trace, his body rigid.
“I’ve never fucking thought that. But do I think it’s someone at Sniper One?
You’re damn right I do.”

Marissa watched as Trace visibly relaxed,
although his hands remained fisted at his sides as he stared off with Ryan.
“Who then?”

“I wish I had an answer for you,” Ryan replied,
sounding defeated. “But I fucking don’t know. If I did, this would all be over
and you”—Ryan turned to look at her—“would be safe.”

Marissa couldn’t believe her ears. Her
brother seriously thought there was someone inside Sniper 1 who was behind
this? It was one thing for her to have suspected it, something else for it to
be true. But hell, it didn’t seem to matter where they had put her, whether it
was Ohio, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Maine, or Connecticut, she’d always been found.

“Why? Why would someone…?” Marissa
couldn’t even finish the sentence. The idea of someone from the inside giving
away her location was too absurd for words.

“Who’s been hired in the last few years?”
Trace asked, ignoring her unfinished question.

Ryan pulled a piece of paper out of his
back pocket, unfolded it, and flattened it on the bar in front of him. “Dom
gave this to me this mornin’.” Ryan looked between the two of them as he pushed
the paper toward Trace. “He’s the only one who knows of our suspicion, so keep
it between us.”

His request was obviously unnecessary, but
Marissa nodded her understanding. It wasn’t like she had anyone she could tell.
Well, other than Courtney, but she was even being isolated from her at this
point.

Ryan twisted the paper around so that
Trace could read it from across the bar. From where Marissa stood, she couldn’t
make out anything on it, and truthfully, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to
know.

“Isaac Rhames. You know much about him?”
Trace asked, clearly directing the question to Ryan.

Marissa had no idea who Isaac was. She’d
never met him. There had only been three agents that she’d ever come in contact
with during the time she’d been away. And besides them, the only two outside of
the Kogans and the Trexlers that she knew of were Z and Deck. She didn’t know
either of them well, but she knew her brothers did.

“Twenty-six years of age. Stands five foot
eleven inches. One hundred sixty-five pounds. Date of birth—”

Trace cut Ryan off midsentence. “Okay, I
get it. You know more about him than his own mother does. Anything useful?”
Trace asked, still skimming the paper in front of him.

“Nothing that I can tie back to Marissa,
no. But…”

Marissa hung on the silence, waiting for
Ryan to continue.

“One of the reasons we hired Isaac was his
previous experience. For the two years prior to him coming to work for us,
Isaac worked as a field agent for the ATF. In the Dallas field office.”

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives,” Marissa muttered.

Marissa wasn’t sure they’d ever find a
direct link between her and anyone anywhere, much less at Sniper 1, but that
particular arm of law enforcement did make sense. Especially if they were
working the same angle her family was—the Adorites were somehow involved.

However, because there were so many
variables, she didn’t even know which direction to look. And truthfully,
although Ryan might be right that someone had a hand on the inside, she didn’t
believe the threat originated from there. This was something else entirely. Her
money was on someone directly related to the Adorites. Someone who worked for
them, perhaps?

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

Marissa peered up at Trace, noticing the
anger burning in his eyes.

“What?” she questioned.

“Coincidence?” Trace asked Ryan.

“Not from where I’m sittin’,” her brother
responded.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Marissa
declared.

“Dad received a call from a Special Agent
Dan Duchein from the ATF. He wanted to meet, so we did,” Ryan explained.

“And?”
How
had she not known about this?

“And nothing,” Ryan informed her. “He said
he wanted to talk to you about the Adorite case, but we refused him.”

The ATF wanted to talk to her?

For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine
why. The possibility that she’d dug just a little too deep and managed to cross
the wrong person made so much sense to her. It was logical. After all, when it
came to politics and corruption, the two seemed to go hand in hand. And though
she never believed that she’d uncovered anything worth killing over, at least
not in her opinion anyway, she could see that it was possible for her to have made
a few enemies over time. It was true, people weren’t all that fond of having
their dirty laundry aired.

And that seemed to be the extent of
Marissa’s job.

Now that she really thought about it, it
clicked. She knew exactly what she’d done to pull the trigger, igniting this
nightmare. It didn’t matter that there were plenty of holes in her story, some
gaps she hadn’t even been able to tie together… Clearly someone had been
affected by the segment she’d done on a local sex club ring gone awry—the
Southern Boy Mafia. They’d been affected so much that they’d had Douglas
killed.

Oh,
God.

Her stomach churned at the thought of poor
Douglas. More importantly, his family. He had a wife and two children left behind
because of what? A story? It was the only logical explanation. Sex, money,
guns, drugs. It had all of the variables that you could put neatly into a box
and label it: reason to kill someone.

But when she tried to recall what she’d
written about that might cause someone—the ATF—to want to use her or, worse,
kill her, she came up blank. When this had all started, she’d dug through every
article, every story she’d ever written, but … nothing. Even the story she’d
released about a couple of crooked senators a year or so back hadn’t seemed
like enough to trigger a response such as this.

In many of her articles, she uncovered the
truth and ensured that the public had the information she felt they deserved.
But in some instances, Marissa didn’t reveal the information she learned
publicly because she wasn’t that stupid. And she damn sure wasn’t interested in
being a modern-day hero.

It was her job to keep the public up to
speed on the truth, but when it came to playing hardball, Marissa had always
considered herself smart enough to know when she shouldn’t be pushing. She left
that to the big boys, which meant she shared anything she felt might be newsworthy
with her contact at the
Dallas Morning
News
. Only…

All of a sudden, her mind flashed with
memories of a conversation she’d had, what, maybe a year and a half ago. It…

Someone had to think she knew something.

Oh,
God.
Could it be? Could this all tie back to...?

Shit. It made sense. Too much sense
actually.

Marissa clamped her lips shut, swallowing
back the fear that threatened to break free. Until she had time to research her
suspicion further, she wasn’t going to mention anything to Ryan or Trace. Or
anyone else, for that matter. She had never been the type to freak out for no
reason, and she wasn’t about to start now.

That didn’t stop her hands from shaking.

□«»□«»□«»□

Trace scanned the paper that Ryan had
handed him, reviewing the names of all of the agents who currently worked for
Sniper 1 in order by their hire date. He was having a hard time picturing any
of the men he’d worked with over the last few years doing something so
underhanded as to give away Marissa’s location and pretty much offer her up on
a silver platter.

But RT was right, the fact that Isaac had
worked for the ATF… It was too much of a coincidence.

“Who knows that she’s here?” Trace asked,
looking up at RT. They’d agreed to keep her whereabouts a secret just
yesterday, but Trace knew sometimes information had to be shared, even if they
didn’t want to.

“We agreed we wouldn’t tell anyone else,” RT
informed him, glaring at Trace as though he were being accused of something. “We’ve
leaked a couple of details, alluding to her staying with Clay. That was the
deal.”