Big Easy Temptation (22 page)

So bring them all on. It was long past time to meet these fuckers who’d had a stranglehold
on his life for years.

“If you’re interested in a closed case, maybe you should contact our supervisor.”
Special Agent White’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I can go and get him for
you.”

There was no way he was sitting here and getting lectured for hours. And he wasn’t
about to out Holland to anyone, not even her partner. “I was just feeling her out.
I’ve recently heard a few rumors that my father’s aide left the service. I’d like
to talk to him, but I can’t find the man.”

It was true. His father’s aide, Peter Morgan, had left the Navy eighteen months before
and then seemingly fallen off the face of the earth. Connor’s main job at this point
was to find the man who had turned his father in. Dax had a few questions for him.

“That’s not our problem, Captain Spencer, as your father’s case is not open. It’s
closed and the ruling on his death isn’t going to change, so unless you have evidence
you’re willing to share, I would appreciate it if you would stay away from my partner.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He turned because further baiting Holland’s partner wasn’t
going to advance his cause. He needed to regroup and figure out what the hell was
going on. Nothing today had turned out as expected. He’d thought he’d walk in and
see Holland again and realize he was truly over her. He would see that she wasn’t
as beautiful and vibrant as he’d remembered.

All he’d felt was a terrible urge to hold her and a massive wave of jealousy at the
thought of some dickhead proposing to her. The same dickhead who’d likely been in
her bed. He knew he was a hypocrite, but the idea of her sleeping with another man
had made him mean as shit.

So mean he’d deserved that smack.

He hopped back on his bike and headed for home, determined to figure out what the
hell was going
on.

D
ax looked up from his computer and all the printed pages that had overtaken his father’s
desk.

“I thought you might like some tea.” His mother set the teacup on a mostly uncluttered
corner. It rattled slightly against the saucer, a sure sign that she was tired.

He glanced at the window. The afternoon had gotten away from him and now waves of
orange light streamed in, the final vestige of the dying day.

He wasn’t sure if this was one of the worst days of his life or the best.

“I was wrong about Holland.”

His mother eased herself gingerly into the chair across from him as though she wasn’t
certain she really wanted to. It made Dax wonder exactly how much time she’d spent
in this room since his father’s death. He’d only camped in here because Gus had set
up the printer at the back of the office so she had a place to work when she visited
home. Somehow the pictures of Gus and her friends that now dotted the desk alongside
their father’s old pictures made the place seem
cheerier, as though the living were taking back the space in a slow and inevitable
march of time.

His gaze caught an image on the far side of the desk. Three lovely women stood arm
in arm, all smiles. Joy Hayes stood in the middle, beaming in her lovely white wedding
dress as she clutched her closest friends, Gus and Holland.

Now that he’d looked at all the evidence she’d accumulated and thought about what
she’d said, he realized that Holland had given up everything for him. He’d selfishly
thought only about their relationship and how much losing her had hurt, but Holland
had been woven into the thread of his family for years. She had so little of her own
that she’d become a sister to Gus, an extra daughter to his mother.

And when he’d left in a tantrum and taken Courtney, Holland had been alone.

“What’s this about Holland? I thought that relationship was over.” Her mouth firmed
as though even saying Holland’s name had been difficult for her. “Son, I understand
that male affection often comes from sexual impulses, but I really think you need
to remember what that woman did to us. Almost did to us. If Zachary hadn’t intervened,
well, we would have been ruined all over again. I know your sister thinks we should
give Holland the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t see much doubt in what Roman said.”

He found it interesting that his sister was still championing Holland. God, she was
going to kick his ass when he inevitably had to tell her she’d been right all along.
“Roman didn’t know everything. Roman had no idea that Holland had been threatened
by a member of the
Bratva
.”

“The brat what?”

He was going to have to explain this to her. “
Bratva
. It’s Russian for
brotherhood
. It’s their mafia. Apparently Dad got in their way somehow. But this isn’t all about
Dad. It’s bigger than Dad. That’s the only reason I would bring it back up. This is
affecting all of us and it won’t stop because I don’t look into it. I’m going to need
you to be very careful for a while. I’m hiring security for the house and a bodyguard
for you.”

His mother waved her hand. “Bah, I don’t need that.”

“You do and you will take it. Otherwise I’ll ship you off to D.C. to spend time with
Gus.”

She shook her head. “I’m not an old woman. Well, I am, but I don’t appreciate being
treated like one, Daxton. If your father got in someone’s way, I want to help find
out who.”

She might be helpful. She might remember things he hadn’t been here to witness. He
needed to look into his father’s past, and no one knew that the way his mother did.
“If I let you help, you have to agree to the bodyguard.”

A single shoulder shrugged up in weary acceptance. “Fine, but Gus gets to pick him.
I want one of those D.C. boys. I like their accents and they have the best stories.”

Awesome. His mom wanted a boy toy to watch over her. “I’ll get her on it immediately.
I’ll have someone here before I go out tonight, and I expect you to call me if you
see anything odd or even if you don’t feel safe.”

She stood and strode to his father’s closet, opening it easily and coming back with
a nicely kept shotgun. “Gus has one of those handgun things, but I’m really better
with this.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide at the sight of his genteel mother with a full-blown
double-barrel in her hands. “I think you should leave that to the bodyguard.”

She shook her head. “Just make sure he knows I can use this. I wasn’t always a debutante,
Dax. You know that prissy Clementine Gray-Jones is supposed to call on me tomorrow.
I’ll bet I can get her to piss herself if I take careful aim.” She smiled. “This is
going to be fun, son. Let me know how else I can help. I do believe I’m going to arm
the maid. Rosalie’s good with knives but she’s an excellent shot with a sniper rifle.
Have Gus send us pictures of the proposed bodyguards. Rosalie and I will pick a handsome
one. Let me know if you’re staying for supper.”

What the hell had he done? Next she would be telling him the gardener was laying landmines
in the front lawn.

His cell phone rang and he answered, knowing exactly who was calling. He’d sent all
the information to Connor hours before. He couldn’t imagine his best friend hadn’t
already plowed through it. “Hey, buddy.”

“You fucked up.”

Didn’t he know it? “You can confirm what she’s got?”

He wasn’t sure which way he wanted this to go. Well, he was, but the tiniest part
of him wanted to believe he wouldn’t be such an idiot as to have left her here all
alone after she’d sacrificed everything.

“I can verify most of it. I’ve also got an ID on the body she tracked down to New
York. I’ll send you his file, but he was a well-known
Bratva
lawyer. His death was covered up by the FBI because he’d been trying to inform on
his bosses at the time. The feds can’t let it out that they know who he is or the
agents they have undercover could be at risk. Your girl was on the right track. She
simply didn’t have the clearance to know it.”

“So all these years, she thought she was protecting me?”

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. “No, Dax. All these years she
was
protecting you.”

He shook his head. “I can protect myself, Connor. If she’d told me, I could have brought
you into it. I could have brought everyone into it. God, have you even thought about
it? Have you thought about what we might have been able to prevent?”

That possibility had been like a lodestone dragging him down.

“Maybe if we’d known, Mad would still be alive,” Connor said gravelly. “Yeah, I’ve
thought of it, but I’ve thought of other things, too. We had zero idea there was any
kind of conspiracy at that point. If I’d looked at the same evidence Holland had,
I would have made the same call. I wasn’t in the country at the time, Dax. I was out
of touch for six months. I can’t tell you what I was working on, but it was important.
Zack was struggling to get his administration going. Mad and Gabe, for all their smarts,
aren’t investigators or security specialists. If I’d
seen those photos, I would have tried to sway you away from investigating further,
too.”

“I don’t believe them.” They’d made him sick, but he still didn’t believe. “Yeah,
they look incriminating at first glance. But his eyes aren’t open in any image. I
think he’s drugged.”

“Maybe. I’ve got Lara trying to reach a friend of hers. I’d like to get hold of the
original photos and let him take a look. Also, I’d like to look at that videotape
again. Not me, really. That’s not my specialty, but Freddy’s a genius when it comes
to exposing a cover-up.”

Dax groaned. Freddy. Dear god. The last time he’d tangled with that freak, he’d nearly
had his head taken off by a swinging axe. Freddy might be brilliant at debunking or
proving conspiracy theories, but he was also pretty inventive with home security.
“I thought he went underground preparing for the apocalypse or something.”

Freddy had taken off when he’d figured out Connor was CIA. Lara’s friend did not like
government agents. Of course, he’d also been the one to figure out that Joy Hayes’s
murder hadn’t been an accident. They all owed the man.

“According to my wife, he’s got several hidey-holes, as he likes to call them, and
Lara has a way to reach him,” Connor explained. “She takes out an ad in some weird
newspaper asking for parts for her SETI machine. Apparently, the search for extraterrestrial
life is code for
call me
.”

Dax snorted. “ET phone home.”

Sometimes he loved Connor’s new geek wife.

“That’s horrible, but yeah, it fits. We’ll try to bring him in and get him to take
a look at the material. Until then, Gus has a new bodyguard and we’re sending two
out your way. I would prefer you use one of them.”

He wasn’t keen on that idea. “What the fuck do I do about Holland? How do I ever make
this up to her?”

“You don’t. You try to find someone new. Look, she won’t expect you to make it up
to her. She knew what she was sacrificing and she did
it to protect you. In her head it’s over and there’s no going back. Are you angry
with her for lying to you? Do you blame her for Mad’s death? Because that, my friend,
is not logical. I can’t imagine you wouldn’t do the exact same thing she did. You’re
pissed because you’re the man and you don’t need protection. Well, get your panties
out of a wad. She’s a law enforcement agent and you captain a boat. If she needs to
be protected from missiles or submarines, you’re the go-to guy. She knows more about
this than you do. If she made this call it was because she loved you enough to give
up everything to protect you.”

It burned through him. “I’m not mad. And you’re right. If she’d told us back then,
we wouldn’t have understood even the small piece of the puzzle we do now. I can’t
look back.”

“She won’t be mad because you bought what she sold you. She wanted you to. Mission
accomplished.” He paused. “Courtney is another thing altogether.”

How the hell did he make her understand why he’d done what he had? He couldn’t justify
it in his own head. She’d been sacrificing and he’d done her best friend. And then
bragged about it earlier today. “She’ll never forgive me.”

“Probably not. Look, she thinks she’s done with this mess, but we both know otherwise.”

He’d made her a target just by walking through her door. “I’ll come back to D.C and
hire a private investigator, do things as quietly as I can. If I don’t see Holland
again, maybe the
Bratva
won’t come after her. You said the original man who made the threats is dead, right?”

“Yes, but they would have hired someone new immediately. They don’t let things like
this get pushed aside or forgotten. I would assume the minute Mad started looking
into the diary they assigned someone to watch all of us. And if what happened three
years ago has anything to do with what’s happening now, they’ll come after Holland.”

What had he done? Had he really put her in danger all over again? “But she’s not connected
to us any longer.”

“So what? She knows something.” He scoffed. “More than any of
us, really. She’ll be an asset to us, so a target to them. I’m going to ship this
intelligence to Roman and Zack. I’ll call in a bodyguard for Holland.”

“She won’t accept it.” Dax’s stomach turned, knowing a lifelong criminal was likely
already watching her. “She’ll tell us all to go to hell and go about her normal life.”

And then someone would kill her.

“So what do you suggest?”

Dax sighed. “I suggest I get used to begging, Connor. Because I can’t let her go.
She’s mine. She’s always been mine. I shouldn’t have left her back then. I should
have stayed and fought it out with her. I won’t make the same mistake.”

Connor whistled. “Just remember this is a woman who knows her way around firearms.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around these days.” How was he even going to get
Holland to trust him again, much less protect her? She’d rather shoot him. Unless . . .
“Hey, can you get Zack on the line for me? I need him to do me a small favor.”

*   *   *

H
olland sniffled and wished she’d thought of stopping for a bottle of wine. Or whiskey.
Maybe that would be better. Which one went with mourning and ice cream? Unfortunately,
she didn’t know of a website that gave recommendations on the best way to drown one’s
sorrows when the one who got away returned to town.

Dax wasn’t a fish. Nope. He was a nasty shark and he’d taken a chunk out of her hide.
She’d let him off the hook, and if she was smart, she’d keep it that way.

Why couldn’t she get him out of her head? Why did she now feel like shit that she’d
given him that damn file of information? She also hadn’t deleted her copy. Oh, no.
She was sitting at her kitchen table studying it. She’d been ready to hit the delete
key. For some reason, she simply couldn’t.

This information was her last tie to him. Well, to the him he used to be. She had
to view it that way. That Dax Spencer was gone. Maybe he’d always been an illusion
since he’d turned on her the minute he could.