The woman grinned. She was obviously familiar with the guy, and was just as obviously not Skylar. But it was too late. The similarity had already made Cullen picture himself blindfolding Reynolds and tying her not to one of the club’s headboards, but to his own.
He immediately went hard.
Perfect, now he’d have to sit with his cock aching against his zipper and try to think of nonerotic imagery while the music thumped in the background and beautiful women traipsed by every minute or two.
To be fair, he’d had worse problems to deal with, but he didn’t want to want Sky.
And yet he did. No, his body did. There was a difference. Unlike his cock, Cullen had no desire to go near her—or anyone. Cullen had always been feral, and after returning from the Middle East, well, being who he was precluded any chance of relationships.
Cullen’s eyes strayed back to the strawberry-blonde on the dance floor, her face tilted back with gleeful joy. The only sensations Cullen could reliably rouse in Reynolds were terror.
“…Reynolds.”
“What was that?” Cullen pulled his attention back to the men, finding Liam looking at him.
“I was saying I have the preliminary on Reynolds you asked for.” Liam pulled a folder out of his bag. “No criminal record, but I don’t like where she’s living one bit.”
Cullen flipped over the folder and felt his jaw tighten at the address. 1427-A Lincoln Drive. While Denton Valley wasn’t known for being seedy or having much of a crime rate, like anywhere, there were a few locations that were subpar. And Sky’s current residence was smack dab in the middle of just such a neighborhood.
“Like I said.” Liam’s voice hardened, his protectiveness resonating with Cullen’s own rising blood pressure. The woman worked at Trident Rescue. That made her their responsibility. “I don’t like it.”
Flipping over the first page, Cullen examined a series of photographs showing a run-down brick house with crumbling mortar, soot-stained exterior, and debris-filled yard. The driveway held Skylar’s Corolla alongside and a rusted-out vehicle up on blocks. He narrowed his eyes at it. “What am I looking at right now?”
“Our dispatcher’s address. Maybe its inside is nicer than the outside.”
“But you doubt it.” The place was a goddamn dump.
“I doubt it. I checked past police reports, cross-referencing this specific address, and while nothing has ever happened on that plot of land, there’s been lots of drug activity and vandalism up and down her street. Her neighbor from across the road reported their car stolen less than a year ago, in fact.”
Cullen tapped his finger against the table. Sky’s comment about the station being a comfortable place to work was finally making sense. “What haven’t you told me yet?”
“That this is actually her landlord’s abode. This is hers.” Liam pulled out the final photo, this one showing a new perspective on the same cracked cement steps, now with steps leading down to a moldy-looking door. “1427-A. She lives not in the house, but in the basement.”
“Not anymore she doesn’t,” Cullen growled, then reached for his drink, his hand stopping as something hard flickered over Kyan’s face.
“Three o’clock,” Kyan said in answer to Cullen’s unvoiced question.
Sure enough, when Cullen cut his gaze to the right, his own jaw tightened—because one Frank Peterson had just walked into the Vault.
12
Cullen
Swaggering over to the far side of the bar, Frank Peterson planted himself beneath the big-screen television and gave the brunette barkeep a predatory smile before turning his attention to the news broadcast glowing in front of him. He wore a pale gray suit and flashy silver tie, garments intended to impress, Cullen had no doubt. While the suit looked high-end, it didn’t fit Frank all that well, emphasizing his slight paunch rather than concealing it.
“Asshole,” Kyan muttered under his breath. Eli nodded in solidarity.
Cullen glared at Liam, who only cocked a brow back in challenge. Liam’s continuing tolerance of Frank’s Vault patronage was a source of argument, but it all came down to a basic calculation: Frank regularly drank himself into loose lips—and Liam believed that keeping an ear on the bullshit Frank spilled was worth the irritation of his presence.
On most days, Cullen agreed. Today wasn’t one of those.
Finishing off his drink, Cullen homed in on the images flashing across the television screen, the red “Breaking News” banner scrolling across the bottom. The footage looked too familiar. Fractured sidewalks with eroded edges. Spray-painted graffiti on stop signs. Abandoned residences. Streetlight poles. Bars on windows in residential and commercial establishments alike and there… That car up on blocks. The same one Cullen noticed in Liam’s photos.
“Is that Reynolds’s neighborhood?” Cullen asked, getting up for a closer look at the screens, his men falling in behind him.
“Yes,” Liam answered grimly as the on-air reporter highlighted a possible burglary in progress.
It figured. By Murphy’s Law or Reynolds’s Law, whatever horrible thing might be happening would be there. And why fucking not? Everything about that woman tempted fate.
Yeah. Well, it wouldn’t be her neighborhood much longer. Turning on his heel, Cullen pivoted toward the door—then paused as he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
Frank Peterson, having yanked his phone from his trouser pocket, now held the device in front of his face and spoke into the thing as if it were an old-fashioned tape recorder. “Hey, honey,” Frank’s eyes stayed glued to the television screen while Sky’s name and photograph filled his phone screen. “Got a hot prospect for you.”
Skylar Reynolds. Heat spilled into Cullen’s blood.
A soft growl just behind Cullen told him the others had marked Frank’s honey as well as he had.
A few feet away, Frank squinted at the television. “Burglary in process. Lincoln Drive. Yeah. East side of town and…”
On the live broadcast, an on-air anchorwoman went silent as she pressed a finger to her earpiece, obviously listening. Then she resumed with more intensity. “We have a new report from our on-site reporter stating that the burglary may turn into a hostage situation. We’re uploading the footage as we speak.”
The picture altered to a blurry video of a car pulling into a detached carport. As three occupants—two adults and a small child—got out of the vehicle, two figures with concealed faces descended upon them, forcibly pushing the victims into the house.
Cullen’s concentration on the television screen was so absolute that Peterson’s sudden cackle jarred him.
“Shit’s getting interesting,” Frank hooted, his eyes sparking with excitement. “Get over there now, girl!”
Before Cullen became aware he’d rushed forward, he’d grabbed Frank’s elbow. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What do you want, Hunt?” Frank pulled his elbow free, his grin gone.
Heart pounding against his ribs, Cullen leaned down to stare Frank in the eye. “You’re a fucking asshole,” he informed Frank quietly before snatching the phone right out of his hand. “Reynolds. Don’t go anywhere near that scene. That’s an order.”