Stopping on the other side of the barn, away from the view of the house, he pushed his fingers through his hair and gripped the back of his neck as he stared down at the ground. The other man had endangered her because he’d been a stupid-fuck and hadn’t informed Jacob that he’d forgotten the woman he’d left waiting in the hotel for him.
She’d been running for nearly five years, scared, with no friends to help her, no family except a stepfather who had done no more than dump her somewhere with a new identity and no protection.
Had her marriage to John resulted in a child, as much as Jacob hated what the bastard had done, he would have never turned his back on Sallie’s child. He would have made that child his own, treated him or her as his own. That was what a man did, his father had always told him. And Tyler Donovan had been a man of his beliefs. He’d taken a scraggly little eight-year-old with more chips on his shoulder than a kid should have. He’d adopted that child, raised that child, and called him his own far and wide.
Jacob hadn’t been born a Donovan, but that hadn’t mattered to his father, nor had it mattered to Gram.
The sound of a pickup pulling into the front drive had him pushing back thoughts of John and his own past. Blowing out a hard breath he made his way back to the front of the barn just as Justice, Pride, and Rancor were stepping from Justice’s truck. The three men could have been an imposing sight if Jacob wasn’t well aware of each man’s strengths and weaknesses. They’d grown up together, though Jacob had followed his father’s footsteps into the agency at a young age, the Culpeppers had each gone their own way before returning to the ranch.
Justice had stayed to help his father before taking over the Culpepper ranch and various businesses. Pride had joined the military before being discharged after he’d busted his knee, while Rancor had gone the college route before joining the FBI for several years.
Together, the three were a formidable group and not for the first time, Jacob was damned glad they were on his side.
“Gram’s getting antsy.” Justice stepped to the back of the truck and braced his arms over the side of the bed, watching Jacob in amusement. “She said to tell you to get this foolishness done with so you can get to the business of making those great-grandbabies she’s waiting on.”
All three men chuckled at the message, amusement filling their hardened faces.
“Yeah, and sometime before Lily carries out her threat to kill Justice in his sleep,” Rancor drawled, a smile flashing across his darkly tanned face. “She threw a frying pan at him this morning.”
Hell, Lily and Gram hadn’t been there twenty-four hours yet and already Lily was throwing things at him and Gram was antsy.
“I don’t know, it’s all pretty amusing if you ask me.” Pride leaned against the passenger side of the truck, arms across his chest as he grinned over at Rancor. “Tell me we’ve been bored, and I’ll call you a liar.”
“Son of a bitch, they haven’t even been there a full day yet.” Jacob glared at all three of them.
“And what a fun, less than full day it’s been.” Pride was obviously enjoying it more than the other three.
“It was my head she threw that pan at,” Justice groused.
“And my shoulder she hit.” Rancor was fighting a grin. “I think Gram wanted her to throw the pot instead. I’m sure glad Lily ignored her.” He rubbed at his shoulder as though the skillet had actually hurt.
Jacob wiped his hand down the side of his face and stared at the three men, wondering if they’d ever actually grown out of their teenage years. There were days he wouldn’t swear to it.
“I thought if we put our heads together and put Rancor on the computer maybe we could figure some things out. I’d like to get this done, Jacob. None of them are safe until we do.”
Jacob’s eyes narrowed on him. “What happened?”
“Shay went to her apartment this morning to get some clothes before returning to her parents, and the place was trashed.” Rancor was deadly serious now. “Completely trashed. I went and checked it out, and someone went through it with a hell of a temper tantrum.”
“Anyone see anything?” Jacob questioned them.
“Nada,” Pride answered. “And all I saw on the security cameras was some dumbass in a dark jacket, Stetson pulled low over his face. It could have been anyone. I have the file on a flash drive for you, though. Maybe, if it’s your old partner, you’ll recognize something about him.”
He glanced up at the house. It would be dark in an hour or so, and damned if he hadn’t had other plans.
He sighed. “Come on up to the house. Dougal’s aide called and canceled the phone meeting we’d set up. Son of a bitch claimed Dougal was called away on other business.”
“Yeah, all those oil wells probably need his direct attention.” Pride snorted. “I feel for the bastard. Really I do.”
Jacob just shook his head and led the way to the house.
It wasn’t exactly what he’d intended to do for the night, but the other plans could wait a little while. Sallie was still there, and she’d be in his bed, safe. When he was finished, she’d be there, exactly where she should have been for the past six years. He’d content himself with that.
For now.
chapter sixteen
It was well after midnight before Jacob and the three brothers called it a night and the Culpeppers headed back to their ranch. Stepping into the house and setting the security, Jacob ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. There were still no answers, and other than memories of Sallie, he hadn’t remembered anything further about the operation in Switzerland.
Forefront had been fairly new but vicious when it came to getting the information they needed. Torture was a favorite sport to them, especially when it came to women. And the women targeted had all been tied to or working for diplomats assigned to Switzerland from various other countries.
If Jacob had ever learned what their ultimate goal had been, then it hadn’t been in the information he’d given his partner or the CIA before the warehouse explosion. And he hadn’t remembered a damned thing once he’d awakened after the explosion.
“I have some inquiries out to several contacts in Interpol and Scotland Yard,” Rancor had revealed as they went over the current information gathered. “They were looking into the group as well after the German chancellor and England’s prime minister lost a young female staff member while in Switzerland that year. Belgium, France, Italy, and South Africa also lost female staff members during an international meeting earlier that year.”
There had been a total of six young females tortured, raped, and murdered in the course of a year and it was only by a stroke of luck that the CIA had uncovered talk that a new militant group was behind the murders. Jacob and John had never learned why. All they’d managed to uncover was that Forefront, comprised of former Swiss military and law enforcement, were determined to change the course Switzerland had taken in intervening between nuclear nations in conflict.
The role of mediator wasn’t where Forefront believed the nation should be concentrating and they believed they could change that course. How the murders of low-level female staff among those countries factored into that didn’t make sense.