CHAPTER THREE
Lucifer
Before Adam and I ever leave Whataburger, I dial Ana. I’m not surprised when she doesn’t answer, but I try again. I call her ten freaking times and leave just as many messages.
“Jake is dead,” I finally say to her machine. “I heard him die on the phone, while he warned me that we are next. I talked to his killer. He picked up the phone and challenged me to get to you first. He’s coming for you, Ana, and I don’t know who he is. This isn’t a drill,” I add, using the words her training tells her means business. I have to hope like hell that’s enough.
I’m back at the ranch house, packing my bag when Luke Walker, the middle of the three founding Walker Security brothers, steps into the room I’ve been staying in at Cowboy’s Family Ranch. And like all the brothers, his hair is dark, his build is fit, and his skills just as dangerous. I like Luke. He personifies his biblical name: a peacekeeper, a man of honor. There’s a reason I never use Luke myself. I’m none of those things.
“Adam told me what’s going on,” he says. “I chartered you a plane to Colorado minus the pilot. That will have to be you.”
I zip up my bag. “Thanks, man. I’m not turning that down.” I take a step toward the door, ready to leave.
He doesn’t budge. He’s still blocking my exit. “The question is,” he says, “how concerned should I be about three of my men, you included, visiting the woman that tried to kill you?”
I grimace and silently curse Adam for running his mouth. “I’m not taking Savage for wit,” I say, “but ultimately, the only person she wants dead is me. She’s FBI. She doesn’t kill anyone she doesn’t think deserves it.”
His brow shoots up. “But she did try to kill you?”
“That’s right,” I say, offering no details, and I never will. Ever.
Luke is smart enough not to push, shifting to the next obvious question. “Who wants her dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know why?”
“As I said, she’s an FBI agent. She has enemies.”
“And yet, they seem to be using her as bait to get to you.”
“So it seems,” I say dryly.
“Is that all you’re going to tell me?”
“Yep,” I say, and I don’t apologize, either. My past is ugly, but it’s buried well enough that not even Walker Security will uncover just how ugly. Unfortunately for Ana, that past is also her past.
He studies me a moment that turns into two, time I don’t have right now, before he says, “Who was Jake?”
“Her godfather,” I say.
“And her father?”
“Her father was a solider who died in a training accident when she was four. Jake was connected to Kurt, her stepfather, who raised her. Kurt’s been dead for three years.”
“Is this problem right now related to his death?”
More like his life, I think, but what I say is, “I don’t know.”
“And this hitlist Adam told me about?”
“If Jake said it exists, it exists. That’s all I know right now.”
“All right, then. You can’t find out more information to tell me while you’re flying a plane, and we all need to know more. I’ll have Blake hack the dark web for answers.”
Blake being his younger brother, is a world-class hacker. If anyone can get me that hitlist, it’s him. I give Luke a nod of thanks, and he adds, “We have two men in Colorado free. What I need to know is how do you want to use them?”
“Depends on who they are.”
“Hunter and Dexter.”
Both are skilled, but I don’t know them well enough to trust them. Adam, Savage, and the Walker brothers, I trust, and that says a lot coming from me. The rest of the bunch, I’m not even trying to trust them.
“Find her,” I say. “And then stand down. She’s highly skilled, more so than they’ll expect from her badge.”
“Obviously,” he says. “She managed to shoot you.”
“I didn’t exactly see it coming,” I rebut.
“Obviously,” he says again. “I assume she won’t take your calls to accept their help?”
“Funny thing,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Once a woman hates you enough to shoot you, she doesn’t take too kindly to you calling her. I left her messages.”
I expect him to keep pushing, to ask a question I won’t answer, but all he says is, “Then you better get moving.” He steps into the hallway to give me room to exit.
I shift the bag to my shoulder and exit the room, pausing next to Luke. “Thank you, Luke.”
He pats my shoulder. “You’re family now, man. This is what we do. Next time, come to me.”
Family. I never thought that word and me would ever be spoken in the same sentence again, but hell, maybe. I’d die for any of these guys. The problem is that doesn’t always matter. I learned that the hard way.
I give him another nod, but I’m not sure there will be a next time. While it’s true I was in a different job and a different place in life, firm in my own ideals, before I joined Walker, I’m not a different person. The man who wanted to blow up the world and go up in flames still wants to blow up the world and go up in flames. And if that dickhead on the phone kills Ana, I will. After I kill him, brutally and painfully.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucifer
By the time I’m doing a safety check on the jet, I’ll be flying to Colorado, I’ve heard nothing good. Ana hasn’t called me back. Blake can’t find anything worth knowing on the dark web. Our boots on the ground in Colorado can’t get eyes on Ana. They’ve even gone so far as to confirm she’s not at the FBI offices. By the time we’re wheels off the tarmac, Blake is trying to use her cellphone to ping her location, and I’ve left her partner, “Darius the Dickhead,” a message, telling him she’s in danger, which means he could be, too. In other words, my progress on saving Ana sucks.
Worse, the damn plane doesn’t have internet.
I spend three hours in that plane, that should have been two, after a shit ton of turbulence forces me to take a detour from hell before we finally touch down in Centennial, Colorado, just outside Denver. My cell rings almost instantly, and while I’m looking for a call from Ana, or even Darius, it’s Blake. “Yeah, man,” I answer.
“Her phone’s not pinging. I’m guessing it’s off. I’m going through the security footage to try and figure out when she was last at her office and how she left to put the traffic cameras to use. More soon.”
We disconnect, then I dial Darius, who once again doesn’t answer my call, which could be because he’s undercover, or it could simply be the fact that he hates me almost as much as Ana does. I can’t get off this damn plane fast enough. “How are we riding out of here?” I ask Adam, who’s still sitting shotgun.