“Goddammit!” Rylee straightened, her eyes aglow with fire. “Mason paid that man ten-thousand dollars? To do what? Kill me?”
“No,” Cole said. “Mason hired Paul to watch you and report back your activities, specifically who you were fucking. That’s all Paul did until the night Tomas left him in the desert.”
The night Paul tried to rape Rylee.
A torrent of emotions flooded Tomas’ chest, but regret from killing that man wasn’t one of them.
“Mason didn’t put a hit on me.” Rylee released a slow breath and lowered into the chair beside him.
“I’m still going to kill him.” Tomas gripped her knee.
“No, you’re not.” She ground her teeth. “I’m really fucking angry that he hired someone to stalk me for six months, but you’re not going to kill him, Tommy. He’s not worth the effort.” She turned back to Cole. “How is Paul Kissinger connected to the hitman?”
“He’s not. Paul was a run-of-the-mill private detective, skirting around the law and doing dirty jobs to make an extra buck. No question, he was a sleazeball, but he had nothing to do with the hitman.” Cole looked at Tomas. “Daniel Millstreet worked for someone else, and he arrived in Texas on the same day that I did.”
“How do you know?” Tomas asked.
“Data from the phone we found on his body. Someone dispatched him to Texas. For one reason only.”
“To kill you?”
“No. To kill everyone close to me, starting with Rylee.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even know you before all this started.”
“They bugged your house the day you drove to the desert. The moment you walked into Tomas’ life, they connected you to me.” Cole paced in front of the evidence board, motioning at it. “I’ve been linking all the data you collected, putting the findings together, and the facts are these.” He stopped and met their eyes. “Someone from my past, someone related to Thurney Bridge, wants to hurt me or pull information from me. Maybe both. If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve sent the hitman after me, not Rylee. I’ve been in hiding for the past seven years, retired from the activity, and they’ve been patient, waiting for me to return to the United States.”
“You’ve been outside the country all this time?” Tomas pressed his fingers to his brow. “No, wait. You were here a year ago when Tate contacted you.”
“I came here twice for Tate, staying only hours each time. And I joined the rescue mission last month to retrieve Luke and Vera in California. Again, I was in and out within hours. This visit is the longest I’ve been stateside in seven years.”
“Why?”
“I’ve always worked abroad, and I’m always working.” Cole released a slow breath. “Someone has been waiting a long damn time for me to return, and they know I’m connected to you.”
The hairs rose on Tomas’ nape. “They’ve been watching my house.”
“Yes. They knew when we turned up there. You, me, Rylee, and Paul Kissinger.” Cole resumed pacing. “The hitman called Paul’s phone when he showed up at your house, which suggests that Paul was on the hitlist. Good thing, because that’s how I was able to track the hitman’s location the night he found Rylee.”
“Jesus.” Tomas leaned back in the chair, his mind spinning.
“I assume they have eyes on Mason Sutton and Detective Hodge, too.” At Rylee’s gasp, Cole shook his head. “If they were in danger, they would already be dead. Whoever is watching knows you’re not close to them.”
“Evan…” Her face fell, and she dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, God, they killed him.”
Because she was close to him.
Tomas reached for her, pulled her onto his lap, and rested his lips against her brow.
“I was able to trace the tech on this.” Cole held up the GSM bug he’d removed from her house. “Bad news. It’s only available to the activity.”
“What are you saying?” Tomas froze, because he knew. He knew exactly what that meant.
“Someone on the inside is behind this.” Cole’s expression contorted, etched with barely concealed rage. “Someone inside my old group is after me.”
“Someone you know?”
“Maybe. They could be retired, still employed, a rogue, who fucking knows? It’s a long, classified list.” His lips curled into a smile void of humanity and mercy.
“I don’t know if I like that look on your face.” Tomas tipped up a brow. “I take it you have a plan.”
“I’m going hunting.”
Two weeks later, Rylee followed Tomas up the stairs that led to the top floor of her house in Eldorado, Texas. Every room had been swept for bugs and threats, the property deemed safe by Cole and the team. But her spine tingled anyway, her mood sullen and twitchy.
The place writhed with memories of Evan. She hadn’t loved him, and in her heart, she’d said goodbye the day she drove away and left him standing on the porch. But he was a good man, an amazing friend, and hadn’t deserved to die.
Pushing away those thoughts, she rubbed her chest and focused on her future.
Her future looked delicious as he strode down the hall in front of her, his gait steady and confident, his muscles flexing through the glide of his strides. Corded arms, narrow waist, chiseled ass—he was sexual heat and male potency, dominance and devotion, utterly loyal and all hers.
Turning his neck, he glanced over his shoulder. Eyes of gold, reflecting the color of his heart.
He wasn’t always good-natured, but that mighty heart of his made hers beat like nothing ever had before.
“This closet?” He paused at the door at the end of the hall.
“Yep.”
He opened the door to shelves of towels and cleaning supplies. “Where is it?”
“If you were a bad guy—”
He gave her a glare that closed her throat.
“Fine.” She coughed. “Since you are a bad guy, where would you look for a thumb drive?”
“Not in a linen closet.” He glanced at the other doors. “I would search the underwear drawer first.”
“Of course, you would. Panty-sniffer.” She crossed her arms. “But I already told you it was in the linen closet.”
He scanned the bottles of cleaning products and random clutter, his expression quickly transforming into boredom.
“You win.” He grabbed her, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Show me where you hid it.”
Wriggling out of his arms, she removed the vacuum from the closet and opened the dirt bin.
“You’re kidding?” His brows climbed, widening his eyes. “How have you not accidentally thrown it away?”
“I don’t use this vacuum. It’s broken.” She dug through the powdered dirt in the collector, removed the tiny stick, and blew off the debris. “My working vacuum is downstairs.”
She handed him the thumb drive, which contained all the photographed copies of his emails. Nine years’ worth. She’d started snapping pictures of his messages after his captivity in Van’s attic.