DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3) (12 page)

“No one else could make you scream like I can.”

“No one’s ever tried.”

I bit down on her shoulder. She cried out, slapping my arm. But then I began to move. She pressed back against me, moving with me. It was almost too much. I held her hip still, making her lay as still as she could. Then I took charge, sliding in and out of her in a rhythm of my own design. She reached back for me, tugged at my jaw, her mouth sliding across mine. I pulled her hard against my chest, nibbling at her bottom lip. I loved the feel of her, the touch of her. Her hand sliding over mine, her body writhing ever so slightly, her fingers twisting themselves in my hair. I wanted her in ways I’d never imagined possible.

I grew up without a father. I grew up with a mother who could barely get out of bed most days, who spent so much time at the doctor’s office that she didn’t have time to hold down a job. My mom…she suffered from severe depression. My father was once the only thing that could pull her out of the darkness, but he decided the burden was too much and he walked away, leaving us high and dry, dependent on the state to help us make ends meet. I learned at a very young age to want nothing.

And didn’t. I was okay with only the bare necessities. I didn’t mind not having all the latest gadgets and appliances and games. Hayden loved those video games, but I was okay without them.

But this…from the moment I set eyes on her, I wanted Amy. Walking away had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. If not for the fact that I knew better than to want…but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted her. I wanted this. I wanted a life that revolved around this woman.

I couldn’t be without her again.

I wrapped my arms around her, held her tight as I thrust almost roughly, making her scream just as I’d promised I would. And when it was over, her body like unmolded clay in my arms, I whispered things in her ear that I thought I’d never have the chance to say to her again. And it all culminated into two things.

“I’ve never wanted anyone else. Never been with anyone else. Only you.”

She turned into me and buried her face against my chest.

“I love you.”

She kissed my throat.

“I know,” she whispered softly. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Megan

I picked at the crust of a day old sandwich, pretending it wasn’t near as unappetizing as it really was. I should have stopped for something more substantial on the way to the office, but I wasn’t thinking of food then.

Sam offered to look at the thumb drive at her house, but I was worried that her unsecured network would cause her trouble. If the CIA was somehow tracking the information on this thing, they would be at her door in a matter of hours. I didn’t want that for her.

She was perusing the pages that came up as soon as she clicked the appropriate things on her computer screen—I can read my email and write my reports, but I didn’t try anything more complicated…Sam was the computer guru—reading little snippets here and there aloud. We weren’t alone. The half dozen or so monitors, who watched over the security systems we installed were at their desks, checking to make sure the servers were running properly and that clients weren’t calling in for help with their systems—we got a lot of calls from people who forgot their codes—were seated in the long, narrow room to our right. We could have gone into my office, but Hayden and Dante were in there, checking out the paperwork Dominic found in the car of the hitmen who tried to take him and Amy out earlier in the day.

We needed a bigger office space.

“This is interesting,” Sam said, touching the screen with her fingernail.

“What’s that?”

“She apparently found a connection between some of the people arrested in Paris and this businessman, Rudolf Constantine.”

“Rudolf what?”

She pointed at the screen again, her finger brushing several places where the name appeared. “He’s some sort of business god. You know, like the Donald Trump of France.”

“Interesting.”

“Emily seemed to think he was toward the top of the hierarchy of the terrorist cell.”

“Yeah?”

“His son was one of the ones who was arrested in the sting Dominic and Emily were running.”

“Just because his son…”

“Yeah, well, she’s got a bunch of connections here. She was following the money and travel. Mostly travel. He always seemed to be near the places where the attacks happened, or where known members of the cell were planning attacks.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah. She’s got other names here, too.”

Sam pulled out a sheet of paper and started scribbling names on it as she continued to flip through the pages of Emily’s notes. I put down my sandwich and sat forward, reading over her shoulder.

We were so lost in what we were doing that we didn’t hear Hayden and Dante come out of the office.

“Hey,” Hayden said, resting his hand on my shoulder.

I jumped, twisting in my seat to see who had just snuck up behind me.

“Don’t do that!”

I smacked his hand, brushing it away from me.

“Sorry,” he said, holding up his hands and waving them a little dramatically. “Didn’t realize you were so jumpy.”

I glared at him, as I climbed out of the chair, forcing him back with the closeness of my body. He laughed, but he backed up. Dante was watching the whole thing, a look of amusement lifting one of his eyebrows and making a dimple I’d never noticed before appear beside his full lips.

Damn, he was hot!

I had to force myself to look away.

I’d never found myself truly attracted to one of my assets before. There was always Luke. When I had perfection waiting for me at home, I didn’t need to look elsewhere. But then he was gone, and I was devoured by grief. I’d never imagined he would break his promise to me and leave like that. Then I found that note…
I’ll never leave you.
It wasn’t the first time he’d said those words to me. I still believed that he would come back whenever whatever it was that had taken him from me was resolved. And I believed in commitment. Monogamy. It’d never crossed my mind to take a new lover.

There was a flirtation with Dominic, but I always knew that it was just for fun. And Hayden…he flirted with everyone. It was all in fun.

But Dante…his voice was so much like Luke’s. And his build. They were built almost identically. But that was where the similarities ended.

Dante wasn’t Luke, but there was something about him that just drew me in.

I needed to get a grip.

“What did you guys find out?”

Hayden kind of waved the photograph and paperwork Dominic had taken off his would be assassins in the air.

“It was a hit initiated over this underground site on the internet.”

“You can do anything over the internet,” Sam mumbled.

Hayden chuckled. “Isn’t that the truth?”

“Could you figure out who was behind it?”

Hayden shook his head. “All anonymous. But the funny thing is, just before we started tracing it, it was rescinded. Whoever was behind it must have changed their mind.”

“Then it’s over?”

“Unless someone didn’t get the message. Or there are more than just these people after Dom.”

I turned back to the computer and watched as Sam perused a few more pages of Emily’s notes. “If this really goes as deep as it looks, Dominic might find himself the target of half a dozen would-be assassins. It looks like this terrorist cell not only included some pretty big hot shots in France, but Dominic seemed to think that it was connected to a bad agent in the CIA.”

“I thought his friend was CIA.”

“She was. She’s the one who thought there might be a bad agent. We’re just not clear on the who, the what, and the why.”

“But we’re figuring it out,” Sam announced. “This Emily was pretty impressive with her research skills. It must have taken a long time to accumulate all this.”

“Eighteen months.”

Sam glanced at me, clearly surprised. “I think it would have taken me twice as long.”

“She was CIA,” Hayden said, knocking her ponytail so that it bounced on the back of her head. “She was trained to be faster than the average secretary.”

Sam jumped out of her chair faster than I’d ever seen her move, taking a swipe at him. She missed because he leaped back, but it was close. He laughed, his whole face lighting up with amusement.

“Tough lady!”

Dante laughed, too, the sound like melted chocolate running over the edges of a delicate cheesecake. It made something deep in my belly come alive, something I’d assumed had died the day Luke left.

I needed to stop. There were things that needed my attention tonight.

“You guys go take care of that car, leave us ladies to do the hard work.”

Hayden laughed again, grabbing my hand as he passed me, squeezing my fingers. I caught Dante watching, his eyes slightly narrowed, as though he had a right to object to the slight intimacy implied by Hayden’s touch. It made me feel almost guilty, and I wasn’t sure why.

Before they could get out the door, however, the detective who’d raided our offices earlier came barreling through. Not that he was in a hurry, or anything. I got the impression he just barreled through everything in life.

“Ms. Bradford,” he bellowed.

“Detective.” I stepped around Sam’s desk, my hands on my hips. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to be the one to inform you, since you seemed to take this whole thing so personally, that the charges have apparently been dropped against your employee, Dominic Gil. You and your staff can pick up your belongings at the police station tomorrow morning.”

“The charges were dropped? Just like that?”

The cop nodded, his eyes shifting to Hayden briefly.

“The father apparently convinced the Denton PD that his daughter was not really kidnapped, just taken rather forcefully for a conversation with her former boyfriend. Why they chose not to pursue a weapons charge, I can’t say. And for the murder charge out of Arlington…” He again shot a glance at Hayden. “This one gave Mr. Gil a very solid alibi for the time of the murder. So Arlington has agreed to drop him as a person of interest.”

I caught Hayden’s eye and mouthed, “Thanks.” He shrugged, a little color touching his face. He didn’t like people to know what a good guy he really was.

“Anyway. I thought you’d appreciate hearing it directly from me.”

“I appreciate it.”

The cop looked me over for a long second. “We understand what it is you do here, Ms. Bradford. We also understand that it requires something of a mutually respectful relationship between our department and your firm. This is our attempt to keep up our end of it.”

“I understand. And we will do our best to keep up ours.”

I offered him my hand and he took it, his hand a little warm and clammy as he held mine. Then he nodded to Sam and left, once again barreling as he left the office.

“I got it!”

I spun around, a little surprised by Sam—who was normally fairly quiet—calling out like that.

“Got what?”

“I’ve got to the part where she was mapping out the CIA involvement in this terrorist cell. Most are investigators—including Emily herself. But I think…yeah, I think she’s about to figure out which one was…Shit!”

“What?”

I moved around the desk to peek over her shoulder. Hayden followed, his hand resting on my hip as he looked at Sam’s monitor.

“What is that?”

Sam was frantically typing on her keyboard, but it didn’t seem to be making much difference. Her screen was literally melting, the images sliding down and disappearing.

“It’s…it’s a virus,” she moaned, sounding as though she were in physical pain.

“What?”

She slammed her hands on the keyboard, a little scream slipping from between her almost puritan lips.

“It’s a virus. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s a virus. I must have tripped something when I opened that last document.”

“Can you recover it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. But it’ll take a while.”

“Damn it!”

I suddenly felt claustrophobic. I pushed Hayden out of my way, moving around him toward the front doors. I needed some air. Dante was there, his cellphone in his hand. He pushed the door open for me, his expression almost knowing. Almost…sad. I brushed past him and walked onto the sidewalk outside our little building, pacing the half block or so that spread out to the left of us.

I couldn’t believe we were facing another setback. I’d almost given up on finding Peter’s killer after everything went so cold. But this…this had given me hope. I believed that we were close. Emily Greene and Dominic were working the same case Peter had been, he just didn’t know it. I’d thought I was on the verge of finishing this for him. I thought Emily might have—not only the answers to who was behind the terrorist cell—but also who had ordered Peter’s death. But now it was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“I’m sorry, Megan,” Sam said, coming out to watch me pace.

“It’s not your fault.”

But she didn’t believe that. I could see it written all over her face.

“It’s not, Sammy.” I went to her, placing my hands on her shoulders. “I love you, you know that. I know you’d do everything you can to help me on this.”

“I would.”

“It’s just bad luck. Emily must have put something in the file to prevent the wrong people from looking at it.”

Sam looked doubtful. “If that was it, I would have found it when I ran that program on it before we opened it. I don’t think it originated from Emily’s files. I must have come from somewhere else.”

“Okay. So we start again in the morning to figure this thing out.”

“Yeah.”

I was pulling away when Sam grabbed my wrist and held my hand against her shoulder.

“You should know, the list Emily had of the CIA agents involved in the case one way or another…”

“What?”

“Luke’s name was there.”

I felt the blood rush from my face. My head started to spin, searching for explanations.

“Peter talked to him about it.”

“After his name, she had question marks where she should have had his official position on the case. All the others—they were agents and handlers and researchers. There was nothing after Luke’s name.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“No, it doesn’t. But I thought you should know.”

I just nodded. I pulled away, needing to get away from there. I needed time to think, to process.

I’d promised myself that I would make sure Peter was avenged, one way or another. And every time I looked at my nephew, PJ, I felt like I was letting him down. However, I would solve this if it was the last thing I ever did.