Running Wilde
Author: Tonya Burrows
Date: 2016-01-04 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance; Romantic Suspense; Contemporary; Contemporary Romance; Military Fiction; Suspense; Adult; Action; Mystery; Chick Lit
Description: Lark Warren can never stay one person for too long, so when her past starts to catch up to her, she hops the first bus out of DC, steals a new name, and goes deep into hiding in New Orleans. Unfortunately, all it takes is the wrong set of eyes to blow her cover. Enter Vaughn—the man she once let too close to her real self. Ex-Navy SEAL Vaughn Wilde has one objective: drive Lark back to DC to face charges for identity theft—which would be easier if he could forget the three lust-filled weeks he shared with her before she disappeared. With each passing mile, he can’t ignore the heat still sparki

All’s fair in lust and seduction…

Lark Warren can never stay one person for too long, so when her past starts to catch up to her, she hops the first bus out of DC, steals a new name, and goes deep into hiding in New Orleans. Unfortunately, all it takes is the wrong set of eyes to blow her cover. Enter Vaughn—the man she once let too close to her real self.

Ex-Navy SEAL Vaughn Wilde has one objective: drive Lark back to DC to face charges for identity theft—which would be easier if he could forget the three lust-filled weeks he shared with her before she disappeared. With each passing mile, he can’t ignore the heat still sparking between them…or the fact he has led her enemies right to her.

Lark can’t stay with Vaughn, not when it will put him in the crosshairs of the dangerous man she’s spent the last five years running from. But Vaughn is determined to keep her safe—even if it means she’ll run off with his heart all over again.

Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author

Discover the Wilde Security series…

Wilde Nights in Paradise
Wilde for Her
Wilde at Heart
SEAL of Honor
Honor Reclaimed
Broken Honor

Discover more mystery and suspense titles from Entangled Ignite…

Rebel Love
Irresistible Deceptions
All In
King of Hearts

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Tonya Burrows. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Ignite is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Stephen Morgan & Heather Howland

Cover design by Heather Howland

Cover art from Shutterstock

ISBN 978-1-63375-538-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition January 2016

To my family.

We may be on opposite sides of the country now, but you are still and will always be my bedrock.

Chapter One

Washington, DC

The first punch careened off Vaughn Wilde’s shoulder. He barely noticed it, but the quick second caught him alongside his jaw and thoroughly rattled his cage. He staggered sideways, tasted blood. Swiped at his mouth with his arm and came up with a streak of red.

Well, look at that. He was bleeding. Fuck. He’d gone soft in the last three months of inaction.

His opponent plowed into him like a bull seeing red and slammed him against the un-padded side of the cage. The metal links were so cold they burned his sweat-slicked back as he struggled to break the hold.

All around them, the crowd’s cheers surged into a dull roar that echoed off the empty warehouse’s ceiling. Bloodthirsty bastards wanted to see him, the reigning champion, lose this match, his first back in the octagon since a bomb nearly took him out last November. Hell, he was going to lose if he didn’t get his head into the fight.

No. He didn’t fucking lose. Ever.

Most people would have felt a surge of adrenaline then. Instead, Vaughn’s vision cleared, and time seemed to slow.

He managed to free one arm and drilled his elbow into the guy’s spine. It would have been a crippling blow if he’d been able to put any momentum into it, but as it was, it only momentarily distracted his opponent, giving him the opportunity he needed to break free.

And now that he was…

He rained punches down with a single-minded intensity, driving the guy across the concrete floor to the other side of the cage. The crowd’s cheers swelled again. As fickle as they were bloodthirsty, they were now firmly in Vaughn’s corner, chanting his name, wanting to see the champ rack up another win.

He wanted another win. Not for them. For himself. He needed the blood and sweat, needed the adrenaline burn, needed a goddamn distraction from the unsuccessful search for a woman he was starting to wonder even existed at all. She had to be a ghost or maybe a figment of his imagination—because Vaughn Wilde always found what he was looking for.

Always.

His opponent got in a good kick to his bad leg—the one he’d had in a cast until two weeks ago—and he managed to keep it from buckling by sheer willpower.

Fuck. His mind was wandering again. Time to end this little dance of theirs. It wasn’t giving him the release he needed anyway.

He launched a full-out attack, pummeling his opponent, landing strike after well-aimed strike until the guy collapsed under his fists. And once down, dude wasn’t getting back up without help.

Vaughn stood in the middle of the ring, his chest heaving, blood dripping from his knuckles, the crowd screaming and pounding on the cage all around him, and he felt…not a goddamn thing. No rush from the win, no thrill from the fight—nothing but his heart thundering way too hard in his ears, his aching knuckles, and the sweat dripping off him in cold rivulets, stinging the cuts on his face.

The crowd thundered their approval. All except one guy, who stood silently with his arms crossed over his chest, a frown pulling down the edges of his mouth.

Fucking hell. How had his twin found him?

Cam just shook his head, and his shoulders moved in a heavy sigh. He jerked his chin toward the front of the building, then walked away.

Oh yeah. He had a few choice words to say. Vaughn didn’t particularly want to hear any of them, and for a half second, he considered pretending he hadn’t seen Cam…

But no. That was a cop out, something a coward would do. And he was a lot of unflattering things—knew it, accepted it—but coward was nowhere on that list.

He grabbed his shirt, jacket, and water bottle and left the cage. The crowd parted. Either they sensed his shitty mood or they were just smart guys that knew he didn’t want any backslapping congratulations.

Or mostly smart guys. One overly-tanned little shit stepped into his path, and little was an understatement. He couldn’t have topped five-five, and maybe one-thirty soaking wet. He wore a white tracksuit and had so many chains draped around his skinny neck, it was a wonder the dude was able hold his head up.

“You fucking cheater.”

Vaughn stopped, a surge of anger heating the back of his neck. He scowled. “I don’t cheat.”

“My cousin doesn’t lose!”

“Neither do I.” This conversation wasn’t worth his time. Vaughn tried to step around the entitled little prick, but a much bigger guy who had the hard, flat eyes of a killer blocked him.

Okay, yeah, this might be trouble. He sized the guy up, pegged him as having no military training. Judging by the tats on the side of his neck, he was nothing more than a thug who had done some time. Definitely the more dangerous of the two, but still nothing to write home about. He dismissed the pair of them and shouldered between them.

The little guy grabbed his arm. “Don’t walk away from me. I lost ten Gs on this fight.”

Vaughn shook off his grip. “Not my problem.”

“I’m making it your problem. Everyone knows my cousin doesn’t lose. Ever.”

Vaughn stared down at him. Who the hell was this kid?

“Tommy, enough.”

At the rumbling voice, the crowd went silent. Vaughn’s stomach knotted as a barrel of a man walked toward them. This guy, he knew. Giuseppe Bellisario, former heavyweight champ and current head of the Bellisario crime family. He’d known the Bellisarios ran this underground fight ring, but he’d never seen any of them here before. He glanced over at the little shit in the tracksuit and inwardly groaned. That must be Tommaso “Tommy” Bellisario, Giuseppe’s nephew and by all accounts, the future don since Giuseppe’s son, Marcel, had been killed several years ago.

“He beat Cristiano fair and square,” Giuseppe said to his nephew, and there was no mistaking the note of shut-the-fuck-up in his tone. Then he turned back to Vaughn and held out a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt. “It was a good fight. You have a name?”

Fuck. He really didn’t want to be on a first name basis with the crime boss, but refusing the handshake was tantamount to suicide. “Vaughn.”

“You pack a hell of a punch, Vaughn, and you fight like nothing I’ve seen before. May I ask what you do for a living?”

Again, he’d rather not answer, so he settled on a half-truth. “I was military until a few years ago.”

“Ah, I thought maybe. No job now?”

“Occasional P.I. work.” Another half-truth. He wasn’t about to drag his brothers or Wilde Security into whatever this was. And it was something. Calculation lit Giuseppe’s dark brown eyes as he sized Vaughn up.

“Not many people can beat my son. He takes after me that way.”

Yeah, Giuseppe Bellisario had been a legend in his day. He still was. There were rumors of guys challenging him, and those fights never ended well for the challenger. At nearly sixty, Giuseppe was in awesome shape. Getting in the octagon with him was a fight to the death.

And holy fuck, his son? Vaughn gazed back toward the cage, where another bodyguard-type dude was helping Cristiano Bellisario to his feet. He hadn’t known there was a second son, but now it made sense Cristiano had a spotless record. No guy in his right mind would dare beat Giuseppe’s only living son unless they wanted to end up at the bottom of the Potomac with concrete shoes.

“A thinker, not a talker, huh?” Giuseppe said after the silence on Vaughn’s end dragged on too long.

“Honestly, I’m calculating my odds of living through the next ten minutes.”

Giuseppe gave a genuine, full-bellied bark of laughter. “Do you think the odds are in your favor?”

“Yeah, I do. If you wanted me dead, you’d have already sicced one of your attack dogs on me.” He motioned to the tatted killer with his chin. “I’d be on my way to meeting my maker instead of standing here chatting with you.”

The crime boss made a noncommittal sound and turned to watch his son stumble from the cage with the help of two of his men. “Tell me, did you know Cristiano was my son before the fight?”

“No.” Vaughn straightened his shoulders. “But it wouldn’t have changed anything if I had. It’s not in me to throw a fight, no matter who my opponent is.”

Giuseppe grinned. “Nor is it in me. I respect that.” He reached into his coat, and Vaughn’s heart rate jacked up, his shoulders tightening in preparation for another fight. Giuseppe only chuckled and produced a card, which he held out between his pointer and middle fingers. “If you’re ever in need of work, I might be able to find something for you.”

Tommy sputtered. “Uncle, you can’t—”

“Go see to your cousin, Tommy. And if you again dare to tell me what I can’t do, I’ll cut out your tongue.” Giuseppe never took his eyes off Vaughn as he spoke, but he didn’t have to. He was the kind of man used to having his orders followed without protest. Tommy straightened to his full height and glared daggers at his uncle’s back, but he did as he was told.

Giuseppe wiggled the card. “I need a man with your skills in my corner, and the money’s more than you’ll ever see as a P.I.”

Vaughn hesitated only a heartbeat before accepting the card. “I’ll think about it.”

Giuseppe inclined his head and stepped back, allowing Vaughn to pass. Killer didn’t look any happier about the job offer than Tommy had been, but the guy was smart enough not to voice his opinion. He just did his best to murder with his glare as Vaughn left.

Fucking hell.

Outside, Vaughn stopped and laced his fingers behind his head, sucking in a deep breath of the bitter February air. The conversation had left him jittering with an adrenaline burn, and the little bit of relaxation he’d found in the fight was long gone.

Fucking. Hell.

Cam waited in the parking lot, propped against his new ride, a newer model of the 4Runner that was blown up in the same bomb blast that had put Vaughn in the hospital for a month.

“I know your doctor hasn’t cleared you to fight,” Cam started as soon as he appeared.

“Do I look like I give a fuck what the doctor says?”

“You look like you have a death wish.” Cam pushed away from the SUV and followed Vaughn over to his Hummer. “Last week, you waited until the very last second to open your chute when we went skydiving—”

“C’mon, man. How many jumps have I done? I knew what I was doing.”

“It was an unnecessary risk, another in a long line of many recently. And now you’re illegally cage fighting. You know who runs this place?”

“Yeah.” Unfortunately. He shrugged on his jacket and casually slipped Giuseppe’s card into his pocket.

“You could lose your P.I. license,” Cam said.

He should probably care—Wilde Security was his bread and butter now that he’d left the SEALs—but he didn’t and pretending to was getting fucking old. And hell no was he telling Cam that, so he grunted in response and tried to open the Hummer’s door.

Cam slapped a hand down, holding it shut. “You’re in a tailspin, bro.”

The warehouse’s door squealed open behind them, and Vaughn’s heart thumped hard. If any of the Bellisarios walked out and saw Cam…

No. His twin was not getting caught up in the pile of shit he’d just stepped in.

He peeled Cam’s hand off his door. “We’re not doing this here.”

“Here’s as good a place as any.”

Two men emerged from the warehouse. Just a couple of guys from the crowd, nobody to worry about, but having Cam in direct line of sight of that door set his teeth on edge. “Get in your car, Cam, and drive to the office. I’ll be right behind you.”

Cam’s eyes narrowed, then his gaze slid over to the door. Yeah, he knew something was up. That was the problem with having an identical twin. Couldn’t hide any-fucking-thing from him.

Vaughn crossed his arms over his chest and stared Cam down. Lesser men withered under his glare, but after thirty-one years of living with him, his twin was indifferent.

“Fine,” Cam said and started toward his vehicle. He opened the driver’s door but stopped before getting behind the wheel. “You better be right on my ass all the way there, got it? And then you’re gonna tell me why you’re all tied up in knots.”

Right.

Vaughn waited until Cam’s 4Runner pulled out of the parking spot before climbing into his own vehicle. But after sticking the key in the ignition, he sat back and closed his eyes.

Cam was right. He was in a tailspin, one he hadn’t been able pull himself out of, one that had just landed him on the Bellisario family’s radar. And yet he was still humming with restless, edgy energy. The fight and the encounter with Giuseppe should have burned it off, but it seemed like nothing helped anymore.

Nothing…except for a blue-eyed brunette who had once gone by the name Lark.

And that had abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with why he was determined to find her. She was a criminal, an identity thief who had stolen something from him while he was incapacitated in the hospital. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. What got him was that Lark had used Libby, his sister-in-law. Lark had pretended to be Libby’s friend, had used her to get a good job and a foot into a higher social circle, and then broke Libby’s heart with the disappearing act.

Fuck with him? Fine. But fuck with his family? He wasn’t about to let anyone get away with that.

If only he could find her.

Chapter Two

New Orleans, LA

The two men weaving their way through the drunken crowd toward Lark Warren reminded her of Vaughn. They had the same tough, ready-for-anything air about them, and her heart kicked hard with a familiar panic.

Had she been found?

No, that was impossible. On all counts.

And, dammit, she had to stop thinking of herself as Lark. She was Sage Evans now. Sage. Evans.

It had been three months since she’d erased Lark and became Sage, but she still couldn’t get used to the new name. Every other time she’d swapped identities, the mental shift had happened instantaneously—from her birth name to Violet Smith, then Violet to Rose Davis, Rose to Summer Harrison, Summer to Autumn Clark, Autumn to Robin Jones, and Robin to Lark Warren. It was a matter of survival, because she couldn’t slip up. Ever. But maybe she’d changed her name one too many times? Or maybe it was because she’d met Vaughn as Lark Warren. It was the name he knew her by, and she couldn’t shake the sentimental attachment to it.

But she had to.

She was Sage Marie Evans now, a blonde—thanks to L’Oreal and bi-weekly bleach jobs—slightly naive small town girl, who’d moved to New Orleans looking for excitement and ended up like so many others as a cocktail waitress at a bar on Bourbon Street. It was such a clichéd back-story in The Big Easy nobody bothered to check into it further, which was exactly what she’d been aiming for. Last thing she needed was for an employer to run a thorough background check and discover the real Sage Evans had been fifty-three years old when she died last fall of heart disease.

Of course those two nerve-wracking men headed directly to the back corner booth that had just opened up. The one in her section.

Oh joy.

She plastered on a smile and mentally slipped into Sage Evans’s skin as she walked over. “Gentlemen. Can I get you anything?” She gave her voice the lightest hint of a sweet Southern drawl, and the blond man grinned as he eyed her up and down.

“You certainly can, cher,” he said, and there was no mistaking the Cajun accent.

“Oh, a local?”

“Oui, caught me. Born and bred.”

She propped a hand on her hip. “What’s a local doing here? I thought you all avoided Bourbon Street in February.”

“Not me. This my home away from home.” He tilted his head toward his friend. “And it’s his first Mardi Gras.”

“Oh, yeah?” She studied the other man and, yes, he looked like an outsider. Even in February, he had a deep tan and wore a fedora over his dark, curly hair. His sense of style all but screamed SoCal, and her stomach clenched. What if…

No.

She shoved the thought away. Just her well-developed sense of paranoia talking. Really, what were the chances he was from LA? And even if he was, it was a big city. They couldn’t possibly know the same people. “What’s your name?”

He tipped the brim of the fedora. “Marcus.”

“In that case, Marcus…” She drummed up her flirtiest smile for him, because if he was from SoCal, he had money to burn, and God knew she could use the tips. She took one of the sets of beads from around her neck and looped it over his head. “Your first beads.”

“And I didn’t have to flash anyone to get them.” His smile was a gleam of white against his tanned skin and all panty-melting charm. “Maybe you’d want to earn them back…?”

“Nice try, but it’s against policy, and I need to keep my job.” She patted his muscled arm. “Don’t worry, you’ll find plenty of ladies outside willing to take them off your hands.”

“None as gorgeous as you.”

“Again, nice try.” This Marcus guy was exactly the kind of guy she’d fallen for in her other life—a tall, dark, and handsome-as-sin smooth talker who used his charm to conceal a deadly edge.

Actually, who was she kidding? That was still the kind of guy she fell for, because the description also fit Vaughn Wilde to a T. Well, except for the charm. Marcus had more of it in his pinky than Vaughn had in his whole hard body.

Would she never learn?

She straightened and returned her attention to the Cajun. “What are you having?”

“What you offering, cher?”

Marcus none-to-subtly elbowed his friend in the ribs and gave a slight shake of the head. Then his smile returned as he shifted his attention back to her. “What do you recommend?”

She sighed inwardly. If Marcus was warning his Cajun buddy off because he thought he had a chance with her, he was going to be disappointed. Her track record with men was scarily bad, and it was safer all around if she just stayed away from them. “Hurricane. Start off strong before the party gets rolling.”

“Sounds good. We’ll have that.”

She winked at him—because tips!—and gave her walk a little extra sway as she turned to go punch their orders into the computer.

Marcus called after her, “I didn’t catch your name.”

She glanced over her shoulder to answer, but she hesitated because she’d been about to call herself Lark, and that would have blown a hole in this new life of hers. God, she was so sick of moving, sick of new cities and new names and new crappy apartments. “I’m Sage.”

“Nice to meet you, Sage.” He held her gaze and smiled again, and a chill of dread scraped down her spine.

He knew. Somehow, he knew she was lying.

Oh, shit.

…

“This obsession with finding Lark is not healthy,” Cam said the moment Vaughn stepped through the door of Wilde Security.

Well, fuck. He’d hoped Cam would be distracted from the subject by the time he arrived. Should have known better. And everyone always accused him of being the relentless twin.

He shook off the cold and stomped over to his desk where his laptop sat, still humming through the search he’d initiated two hours ago. “I haven’t been healthy in months. Why start now?”

“Goddammit, Vaughn. You gonna throw that in my face every time I get on you about this Lark thing?”

Yeah, that had been low of him. Cam already carried enough guilt around about the circumstances surrounding the bomb, and it hadn’t even been his fault to begin with. Vaughn had knowingly stepped into the line of fire to protect his twin, and to throw that calculated sacrifice in Cam’s face now was an asshole move.

“Sorry,” he muttered and sat down to scroll through his search results.

“This has to stop.” Cam shoved the laptop closed and rested his hand on the lid. His wedding ring sparked in the florescent overhead lights of the office, and some nasty emotion twisted in Vaughn’s chest. Something a lot like jealousy.

He hated that about himself.

He was thrilled for Cam and Eva. How could he not be? Their marriage had been a long time coming, and Cam was practically walking around with little hearts circling his head. It was pathetic, but he would not begrudge his twin that happiness.

Except…

The condo they had bought together was so fucking empty now that Cam had moved out. His twin had been at his side since day one, and now, less than a month from their thirty-second birthday, he was living alone for the first time in his life. And he didn’t like it one fucking bit.

He sat back and dragged his hands through his hair. It had finally grown out from the haircut he’d been forced to endure for their youngest brother’s wedding last fall, and he felt more like himself again.

He gazed up, saw the worry etched into his twin’s features, and sighed. “Listen. I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” Cam said. “You look like hell. I’m telling you, give it a rest. If you haven’t found her yet, you’re not going to.”

“I can’t. I’m too close.” He reached for the stack of papers on his desk and tossed them down one at a time so Cam could see each photocopied driver’s license picture. “Violet Smith, Rose Davis, Summer Harrison, Autumn Clark, Robin Jones, Lark Warren—different names, appearances, birthdays, social security numbers, and yet all the same woman. I know every name she has used since she first appeared on the scene five years ago—she always sticks to a nature theme, which leads me to believe her real name is something similar. She tends to steal her names from the recently deceased. I have her employment history for all of her aliases. She goes for just above minimum wage jobs—temp administrative assistant work, waitressing, bartending, nothing that anyone will run too deep of a background check for. I have most of her former addresses. I’ve even talked to some of her past acquaintances. It’s always the same story—one day, she just ups and disappears and nobody ever hears from her again.”

“Sounds like she’s running,” Cam said. “Which means she doesn’t want to be found.”

“Yeah, Reece said the same thing.” Their second oldest brother was a computer whiz and had been helping him uncover Lark’s past for the last few weeks. “Question is, running from what? Or is she just a common identity thief?”

Cam rubbed his jaw, then picked up the first paper in the stack, the picture that showed Lark as they both knew her, with streaky brown hair, blue eyes, and a Playboy bunny figure. “What do you plan to do when you find her, huh? Haul her back here for identity theft?”

“She broke the law. And if I can figure out her real name, I’ll probably uncover more criminal activity. People like this don’t wake up one morning and decide to start stealing identities. She’s been at this for a long time and needs to be held accountable.”

Cam handed the papers back. “We both know that’s not why you’re hell-bent on finding her.”

Vaughn grunted. The hairs on his arms prickled, like he was preparing for a fight he didn’t want. Twin or not, he wasn’t about to have that conversation with his brother. And the truth was, he couldn’t pinpoint why he had to find her. Hurt pride? Yeah, he had that in spades. Anger? Yep. She’d fucking lied to him about…well, everything. And…so many other messy emotions he didn’t care to dig around in, but it all swirled together into an inexorable need to track down the woman he’d known as Lark Warren.

Hands propped on his hips, Cam pushed out a breath in frustration. “All right,” he said after a moment. “At least let me help you.”

“Nah. I got this. Besides, didn’t Reece give you the case that came in yesterday?”

Cam rolled his eyes and went over to his desk as their incoming line rang. “Yeah, another cheating spouse. It’s about as interesting as watching paint dry.” He answered the phone, “Wilde Security.”

While Cam spoke to the caller, Vaughn opened his laptop again and clicked back to the internet. Before he’d gotten the itch to fight, he’d been frustrated by trying to trace Lark before she was her first alias, Violet Smith. If he could only figure out when and where Violet had come into being, he might be able to find—

“Vaughn,” Cam said.

“I’m busy.”

“No, man. You wanna take this call. It’s from one of Gabe and Quinn’s guys.”

Still typing with one hand, he grabbed the phone. He’d served on the teams with Gabe Bristow and Travis Quinn, and the pair had built up a solid private hostage rescue team over the last year. If one of their men was calling, it had to be important. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Vaughn. Marcus Deangelo.”

There was a lot of background noise, and he could barely hear the former FBI negotiator. “Marcus. What’s up?”

“That woman you and your brothers have been looking for? I think I found her.”

Vaughn froze. For a second, his brain didn’t comprehend the words. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Why would I?”

Holy. Shit. “You’re sure it’s her?”

“Dude, I have the picture you sent Gabe here on my phone, and I swear, I’m looking at that woman right now. She’s blonde and her hair’s shorter but…I have an eye for faces. Yeah, it’s her.”

Vaughn’s heart thumped painfully hard, and he shoved away from his desk. “Where are you?”

“New Orleans. She’s working at a bar on Bourbon called Elixir and going by the name of Sage.”

Sage. It fit her pattern.

“Do not let her out of your sight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Uh,” Marcus said. “You do realize it’s Mardi Gras, right? Few more hours, this place is going to be packed to the rafters. How am I supposed to—”

“Do. Not. Lose. Her.”

…

At the end of Sage’s shift, Marcus and his Cajun friend still hadn’t moved from their booth. It put her on edge, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe because they seemed like the kind of guys who enjoyed more than one drink during a night out, but they had nursed the hurricanes and hadn’t ordered a drop more of alcohol. For nearly six hours.

Or more likely, it was because she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching her.

Dammit. At the first niggle of paranoia, she should have known better than to stick around. Marcus must know her family, and if he had contacted them, she was so fucked that she might as well start digging her own grave now.

She’d grab her things and sneak out the back door, into the alleyway. Even if they wanted to chase her, they wouldn’t be able to get into the back of the bar without the door code and she’d be long gone by the time they made their way through the crowd on Bourbon. She’d go home, grab her emergency bag, and—

At the door of the locker room, she bumped into another waitress just coming on shift for the night. “Oh. Hi, Marcie. Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention.”

“No worries,” Marcie said and held the door open for her, giving her an assessing once-over. “Honey, you look like hell. Rough day?”

Sage worked up a smile. “It’s Mardi Gras.”

Marcie rolled her eyes and pulled off her T-shirt as she crossed to her locker. “Right. Dumb question.” She stuffed her purse and shirt into the locker and pulled on the black crop top that could loosely be defined as a uniform. Like all the other girls who worked at Elixir, her breasts strained the fabric and threatened to spill over the top. She tucked her girls into the shirt and did a little bounce to make sure they stayed put, then winked over at Sage. “But hey, good tips, am I right?”

“Yeah.” She felt her smile slipping, so she hurried to her own locker, changed into the sweatshirt and leggings she’d been wearing before work, and grabbed her purse. But the mention of tips gave her an idea. She spun back. “Marcie, there are a couple of guys in the back booth of our section—one’s a blond with a Cajun accent and the other has dark, curly hair. Good tippers, but they’ve been eye-fucking me all night, and it’s getting uncomfortable. Think you could throw a little distraction their way so they don’t see me leave?”

“Sure thing, hon.” Marcie’s brow wrinkled. “Why don’t you call one of the bouncers to walk you out?”

“No. No, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Just…you know how these drunks can get. I’d rather not give them the opportunity to follow me.”

“Got it.”

“But you make sure you have someone walk you out at the end of the night, okay?”

Marcie waved a hand. “No worries. Darren is picking me up after work tonight.”

Okay, that made her feel better about throwing Marcie at Marcus and his Cajun friend. If they were up to no good, they wouldn’t bother her once her boyfriend arrived. Darren was a bouncer at another club down the street, and he was the size of a Mack truck. Nobody, drunk or otherwise, messed with him.

Sage headed toward the door.

“See you tomorrow,” Marcie called after her.

She winced. Yeah. Tomorrow. How many times had friends said that to her over the years, only to never see her again? Too many to count, and now she’d have to add Marcie to that list.

Because for Sage Evans, there was no tomorrow.

Chapter Three

Vaughn snagged an empty parking spot on the street several spaces behind the black Nissan Xterra that Marcus had said he was driving. He climbed out of the rental and started down the sidewalk. The narrow, one-way street was still in the French Quarter but far enough away from the insanity on Bourbon that it was dark and quiet. Mostly residential, from the looks of it, with lots of houses butted right up against each other.

He approached the Xterra, and the driver’s side window buzzed down.

“Hey, man,” Marcus said as they clapped hands in greeting. “I didn’t expect you until morning.”

“Caught a lucky break at the airport and jumped on an earlier flight.” He nodded up the street. “Which house is she in?”

“Blue one, end of the block. Number 926. After she went in, I did a bit of recon to make sure she couldn’t sneak out a back door. There is one that lets out into the alley next to the house, but the only exit from the alley is onto this street. She hasn’t left.”

Vaughn studied the shotgun style house. Long and narrow, it had elaborate scrollwork under the eaves and two tall, shuttered doors. The first door was marked 928. The second, 926. “You sure she didn’t spot you?”

“Nah. If she had, she wouldn’t have come home. She’s smart. Sent one of her waitress friends to distract us before she left the bar.”

Yeah, that was smart, and his chest expanded with a completely irrational sense of pride. He viciously squashed it. He was not proud of her. “Didn’t work.”

Marcus raised a brow. “You think so? Do you see Jean-Luc anywhere around here?”

Point taken. Vaughn cracked a smile. “So the Rajin’ Cajun is…uh, handling the distraction.”

“Ha. If that’s what the kids are calling it these days.”

“Sorry for ruining your night,” Vaughn said and meant it.

Marcus lifted a shoulder in a shrug meant to be casual, but there was a whole lot of tension behind it. “This is Jean-Luc’s thing. You know, it’s his way of blowing off steam. Figured I’d tag along just to make sure he didn’t end up some husband’s punching bag, but I wasn’t feeling it. Not after all the shit that went down on our last mission.”

Vaughn had heard HORNET’s last mission had been a clusterfuck of epic proportions. They had exposed corruption in some high up places, but it had nearly cost several members of the team their lives, including Gabe Bristow. “How’s Gabe?”

“He’s awake.” Marcus’s voice cracked a bit, and he cleared his throat. “Gave us a scare, but he’s on the road to recovery. It’s just…gonna be a long one. The doctors aren’t sure if he’ll ever walk again.”

“He will,” Vaughn said, his own throat tightening at the thought of his former teammate stuck in a wheelchair for life. But Gabe “Stonewall” Bristow had been one of his best friends on the teams, and he knew the bastard was too stubborn not to walk again.

Marcus nodded, sucked in a breath, and returned his attention to the house. “The woman looks familiar. Feel like I’ve seen her face somewhere before. Is she wanted by the FBI for something?”

“Could be, but this is…personal. She stole something from me, and I want it back.”

Marcus looked at him sharply. “That all?”

Vaughn tried for a shrug. “She’s also an identity thief. I plan to take her back to DC and turn her in for that. Who knows what her other crimes are?”

“All right,” Marcus said after a moment. “Want me to stick around in case she decides to bolt?”

“Nah. I don’t want to monopolize any more of your time.”

“Hey, Jean-Luc has his distractions, and I have mine.”

Vaughn studied the former FBI agent for a long second, then patted the side of the vehicle and backed up a step. “I’ve heard you’re good with a lock. Get me in the front door and you take the alley.”

…

Sage needed to go, to jump on the next bus out of town. She’d head west. Houston or Austin. Or maybe south to Miami. Anywhere but here.

She grabbed her emergency go bag out of the closet and tossed it on her bed, then got down on her hands and knees to retrieve the lockbox from under the bed’s frame. She punched in the combo, flipped the top, and her heart plummeted into her belly.

She didn’t have enough cash.

She sat down hard on the wood floor of her little studio apartment and stared at the small stack of bills. Without counting, she knew there wasn’t enough, but still, she drew it out and separated the bills into neat piles on the floor.

Two thousand dollars.

Oh God, that was all she had?

French Quarter rent wasn’t cheap and had been sucking her dry, but she’d chosen this apartment because it was furnished and within walking distance to work, which meant she hadn’t needed to swindle her way into furniture or a car. But if she went to Houston or Austin, she’d need a vehicle. Texas cities were so spread out it was impossible to not own a car, and she definitely didn’t have the money for that. Two thousand would get her to a new city and maybe set her up in a new apartment—if she didn’t buy a new identity. If she did, it wouldn’t leave her enough for rent.

Her heart sank straight to the floor.

She didn’t have enough cash to leave.

Sage leaned back against the wall, drew her legs up, and rested her elbows on her knees, her fingers speared through her short hair. What was she going to do? She couldn’t stay here, but if she left, she’d have to live on the streets, and she so didn’t want to go back to that hell.

Her gaze caught on the built-in desk, where she’d set a stack of mail earlier in the day. It was mostly junk because she didn’t have friends or relatives, and she never ordered anything online. All she ever got in the mail was flyers, coupons, take-out menus…and credit card offers.

That was it. She scrambled to her feet and crossed the room in two long strides. Grabbed the stack of envelopes, flipped through until she found the offers from Visa and MasterCard. The real Sage Evans had had an excellent credit score before she died. If she applied, she’d probably get a high credit limit, which she could borrow cash against and—

No. She set the envelopes down. She refused to commit credit card fraud. So far, she’d managed to avoid adding that to her already long list of crimes. Yeah, so it paled in comparison to other things she’d done, but it was a line she’d set for herself on day one, and she was not going to cross it. Just like how she only took identities from the dead. She wasn’t in this to screw over a stranger. She just wanted to survive.

Okay, calm down. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Marcus and his Cajun friend were just two guys looking for some fun on Bourbon Street. Maybe—

Yeah, right. She knew better. All of her alarm bells were clanging. She had to get gone.

But dammit, she was on the schedule to dance at Elixir this weekend, which would bring in anywhere from two to three thousand dollars in tips. Holding off until after Mardi Gras was a risk, but if she was going to run again, she needed that money. And if she wasn’t willing to go the credit card route, what other choice did she have?

So she’d stay just for the weekend. She’d have to be extra careful, and if she caught even the faintest whiff of danger, then she was gone, money or no. And then… well, she’d figure it out, land on her feet. She always did.

Sighing, she gathered up her cash but decided against returning it to the lock box. If things went south on her, it’d happen fast, and she might not have the time to return home for the money. From now on, she’d have to keep it and her go bag easily accessible.

God, she was so tired of running.

“Better than the alternative,” she reminded herself as she packed the cash into a plastic baggie, then slid it into an inside pocket of her duffle. “And this is a pity-party free zone.”

Her life was what it was. Her decisions had made it this way. She just had to get over it and deal.

Her stomach growled. She set the bag down next to her bed and looked toward the galley-style kitchen, but she couldn’t work up enough energy to make dinner—if there was anything in the kitchen to make. She never went grocery shopping in the traditional sense, never filled up her cart with the standard fresh produce and meat and dairy. It was usually a few canned goods and boxes of pasta, stuff she could pack if she needed to, because she hated the thought of leaving food behind to spoil when she had to run again.

And she always had to run again.

Sage flopped onto her bed and scrubbed her hands over her face, then just lay there and watched familiar shadows play across the ceiling.

Or…no, not familiar. Not familiar at all.

Heart kicking, she stared up at the two large shadows that didn’t belong. Two large, man-shaped shadows, moving around near her front door. The soft click of her lock unlatching had her bolting upright in an instant.

Someone was breaking into her apartment.

It hadn’t been paranoia.

And why, oh why hadn’t she invested in a fucking deadbolt?

She launched off the bed just as the door creaked open and a huge shadow stepped inside. She needed her gun…which she’d left in her purse, right there by the door. Jesus. Her two years in the comfortable life of Lark Warren had made her sloppy.

She ran to the kitchen, which had come equipped with a full butcher block. Her hand shook, and it took her two tries to find the big knife, but as soon as her fingers closed around the handle, she swiped at her intruder, catching him across the upper arm. Not nearly as damaging a blow as she’d hoped. He cursed and shoved her against the wall with one huge hand while way too easily disarming her with the other. She kicked out, but his shin was like a steal beam, and he didn’t so much as flinch.

“Lark,” he said through his teeth. “Cut it out.”

Oh God. That voice. Low, soft, but with an oh so deadly edge that made her heart speed up and her nipples tighten. She knew that voice, the way it said her name. Had heard it over and over again in X-rated dreams on her loneliest of nights.

She stilled and stared up into the slivery-blue eyes of Vaughn Wilde.

For several heartbeats, neither of them moved.

Finally, he eased his grip on her and pushed a strand of her newly blonde hair out of her face. That snapped her back to the here and now like nothing else could have.

Vaughn had found her. Which meant anyone could find her.

He drew a breath as if about to say something, but she wasn’t going to give him the opportunity. She slammed a knee into his balls, and he bent double with an umph. Pain seized the back of her throat for hurting him, but dammit, she couldn’t afford feelings of guilt. If she let them in, they’d consume her. She bolted past him, scooped up her bag, smacked open the side door that let out into the alley…and ran directly into another big male chest.

Goddammit.

She glared up, expecting to see one of Vaughn’s brothers—most likely his twin—but instead met brown eyes crinkled in amusement.

Marcus.

So that was how Vaughn had found her.

He caught her arm and the corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile that was too damn charming. “Going somewhere, doll?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

She glanced around. The alley was blocked on three sides by the walls of her neighbors’ houses, and he was barring her only exit onto the street. She had to get past him if she had any hope of escaping.

Okay, no problem. She knew what made guys like him tick.

She drummed up every ounce of desperation she felt and let it leak out her eyes in the form of crocodile tears.

“Please,” she whispered, giving her voice a tremble. “Let me go. He’s my ex, and I’ve been trying to get away from his abuse and—”

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said, and his smile widened. He was enjoying himself, the bastard. “See, I know all of the Wilde brothers, and not a one of them would ever harm a woman.”

So much for tapping into his inner knight in shining armor.

Dammit, she’d known this guy was trouble. As soon as he walked into Elixir and her inner alarm bells started clanging, she should have ran out the back door to a new life. It had been so, so stupid to ignore her instincts when they hadn’t failed her yet. She’d know better next time.

If there was a next time, which wasn’t looking too promising. Marcus still held her by the arm and inside, Vaughn’s heavy footfalls were coming fast through her apartment toward the side door.

“Marcus?” Vaughn called, his voice strangled.

“Yeah, I got her.”

Oh, no. No, no, no.

She looked up at Marcus. He seemed like a decent enough guy, and she hated to hurt him, but…

“I’m sorry.” She yanked a Taser from her bag and shoved it into his ribs. He made a choked sound and dropped as if his legs had dissolved from underneath him. Without glancing back, she jumped over his prone body and sprinted into the street with Vaughn’s curses chasing her into the chill of the night.

…

Vaughn staggered to the door, wincing as he readjusted himself. The woman had damn near kicked his balls up into his throat, and his stomach threatened a revolt with each step he took.

A shout of pain rang out from the alleyway. Vaughn cursed, slammed through the door, and found Marcus on his hands and knees in the alley. Lark was long gone.

“Jesus.” He dragged his hands through his hair, then locked them behind his head and stared down the alley. At his feet, Marcus groaned and sat up. He was looking a bit green, and Vaughn winced in sympathy. “Nut shot?”

Marcus dropped his head into his hands. “Dude, she fucking tasered me.”

Vaughn swore again and dug his phone out of his pocket. “If you were her and wanted to get out of the city fast, where would you go?”

“Got me. I don’t know this city. This is Jean-Luc’s stomping ground.”

“Then call him.” It came out as more of an order than he intended, but fuck it. He wasn’t trying to make friends here. He pulled up the GPS app on his phone and searched for nearby train or bus stations. He doubted she’d try to fly. She’d need too much money and documentation to get on a last minute flight. Would a train ask for ID? Probably, and he assumed there wouldn’t be one leaving at this time of night. So the bus stations were his best bet. And there was a bus stop less than a mile away.

He didn’t wait for Marcus, instead took off in a dead run, following the directions on his phone.

She had a head start, but he was faster.

Chapter Four

Sage had mapped out and timed all of her possible escape routes within the first two days of moving to New Orleans, but she hadn’t expected to use any of them so soon. And she hadn’t expected to be running from Vaughn of all people.

God. He’d found her.

But more than that, he’d actually searched for her. She hadn’t expected that from him, and as she ran down the streets and alleys toward Escape Plan A, her mind wandered back to the last time she’d seen him. Vaughn had been seriously injured in a bomb blast meant for his brother, which she’d found out about in a phone call from her closest friend in DC, Vaughn’s sister-in-law Libby. At that point, she’d already realized she’d overstayed her welcome and had been on her way out of town…but for the first time ever, she hadn’t been able to leave without saying good-bye and had hurried to the hospital to make sure he would be okay.

Her heart hitched at the memory of all the machines, IVs, bandages, and the cast encasing his entire leg from ankle to hip. Doped up with painkillers, he’d smiled sappily when she entered his room and had started saying all kinds of crazy things that broke her heart to hear, things about a future together they couldn’t have. She’d humored him until he drifted off to sleep, then sneaked away with the certain knowledge she’d never see him again.

She never in her wildest fantasies thought he’d search for her, and it scared the ever-loving hell out of her that he had. In her experience, people only tracked her down when they wanted her dead.

And, okay, she had taken something from Vaughn, but had he really chased her all the way to New Orleans for a pin?

She slowed to a walk as she neared the busy four-lane street where the double-decker bus would be stopping to pick up its passengers. She didn’t want to seem desperate or in a hurry. The less attention she attracted to herself, the better.

She drew out her prepaid phone and booked a ticket on the 11:30 p.m. bus to Houston using a prepaid debit card—which, dammit, she no longer had because it was in her purse back in her apartment. At least she’d saved the card’s information in her phone and booking the ticket was no problem. Once the bus arrived at the street-side stop, all she’d need was her confirmation number to board. No ID and no actual bus terminal full of people to navigate. Easy peasy, which was why she always used this particular company as her get out of town fast Escape Plan A.

The bus stop was near an athletic shoe store and a sprawling green building—according to the faded sign on the side, it used to be some kind of supermarket, but now it looked empty. It’d make a great place to hide and wait…but no, on second thought, the large stretch of parking lot between the bus stop and the building changed her mind. Crossing that open expanse of pavement seemed too much like exposing herself, so instead, she hunkered down next to a small tree in the grassy space between the road and sidewalk and hoped the shadows of the night were enough to keep her unnoticeable.

She’d be surprised if Vaughn followed her again. After all, “leave me the fuck alone” didn’t get much more obvious than nailing a guy in the balls and tasering his friend.

Unless he really, really wanted his pin back.

Wincing at the thought, she reached down the front of her shirt and tugged out the chain she’d attached the pin to. It had been stupid of her to take it in the first place and ridiculously sentimental to have kept it all these months. The gold eagle perched on an anchor, clutching a pistol in one talon and a trident in the other. It must’ve been special since Vaughn wasn’t the type of guy to wear jewelry, but its meaning was lost on her. She only liked it because it gave her a calming sense of safety similar to the feeling she’d experienced during the short time she’d spent in Vaughn’s arms.

Oh, she was an idiot. A slave to an overactive libido that had gotten her in trouble more often than not. Seemed like she would have learned her lesson by now.

Disgusted with herself, she stuffed the chain back into her shirt and checked the time on her phone. Less than twenty minutes had passed since she left Vaughn at her apartment, and she still had fifteen minutes to wait until the bus arrived. Fifteen minutes too long for her liking.

A shadow fell across the pavement in front of her and she tensed, almost afraid to look up, but it was just a young man with a suitcase, waiting for the bus with his nose stuck in his phone. His headphones were so loud, she heard the tinny beat of his music over the passing traffic.

Not a threat.

She drew a breath to calm the jackhammering of her heart and leaned back against the tree. She hated this, the constant itch of paranoia, the jumping at shadows again. As Lark Warren, she’d settled into a somewhat normal life, enjoyed not having to constantly check over her shoulder, and she wanted that again. Had been trying to build that here in New Orleans.

Sure, waitressing wasn’t her favorite job, but she could do it blindfolded, and dancing had provided well enough that she hadn’t been living paycheck to paycheck. She’d had a good thing here, the best since she left DC, and Vaughn had to go and fuck it all up by tracking her down as if their short fling had given him that right.

Bastard. She should’ve tasered him.

Another shadow crossed in front of her, and her shoulders bunched in automatic reaction. She sucked in a calming lungful of the cool night and told herself to relax before she drew unwanted attention. It was probably just another passenger waiting for—

Large hands wrapped around her arms and pulled her up, trapping her against a hard body.

“Don’t,” Vaughn said, his voice a low rumble she felt in her own chest. Anyone looking on would only see a couple in an embrace.

“Let me go or I’ll scream.”

“You won’t. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

Dammit. She tried for another groin kick, but he lifted a leg, effortlessly blocking the strike with his thigh. He laughed softly, the sound without humor, and leaned in closer.

“Where is it, Lark?” His breath brushed her ear, and her traitorous body went haywire with hot memories of his breath fanning her inner thigh seconds before…

He shook her. “Where. Is. It?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jesus, she hadn’t meant to sound so breathless, but…actually, that might work to her advantage. He still wanted her—his obvious interest pressed into her belly—and the sex kitten tone was working on him like a drug.

Okay, then. There was no way she’d win against him in a battle of force, but if her years on the run had taught her nothing else, it was that sex could be just as deadly as any weapon.

She wiggled her hand between them and cupped his cock in her palm, squeezing lightly. His eyes flared, and his throat worked as he swallowed hard. He grabbed her wrist, and for half a heartbeat, he held her hand still against his fly.

Sage’s breaths came faster and her nipples tightened, scraping against the fabric of her bra.

Yes, sex was a weapon. But dammit, it only worked when she didn’t let herself get swept up in it.

Vaughn’s jaw tightened, and he yanked her hand away. She felt the cold snap of steel around her wrist before she saw the handcuffs. “What? No!”

“Yes. You’re coming back to DC with me,” he said, a rasp in his tone. She recognized it—the same as his sleepy, ready-for-morning-sex voice—and she clenched her thighs to ward off her body’s instant reaction.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He snapped the other cuff around his own wrist and held up his arm, rattled the chain. Her arm jiggled in response.

She scowled. “I’ll escape.”

He didn’t seem the least bit concerned. In fact, that arched brow of his looked a hell of a lot like amusement. “Yeah? You gonna chew off your own arm, vixen?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you? Sage? Lark? How about Summer? Violet?”

Her stomach dropped. She thought she’d covered her tracks well, but if Vaughn had discovered her past identities, it was only a matter of time…

Oh God.

As much as she despised Vaughn at the moment, she didn’t want him to wind up dead because of her. “You need to let me go before you or your brothers get hurt.”

“Threats now? Really?”

“I’m not threatening. It’s just…you have no idea—”

“Sounded like a threat. Walk.” He turned her toward the sidewalk and none-too-gently pushed her forward. “And threaten my brothers again, you won’t like the guy I turn into.”

“Hulk smash,” she muttered. She glared over at him. “I don’t like the guy you are now.”

Vaughn said nothing, only dug his cell phone out of his jacket and scrolled until he found the right contact. “I have her. We’re at…” He paused to glance around for a street sign. “Corner of Elysian Fields and North Rampart. Yeah, I see you coming. We’re crossing to your side of the street now.” As he spoke, he dragged her across the road to the grassy median, where they waited for several cars to pass before a black SUV with a roof rack pulled up into the turning lane. Vaughn pocketed his cell phone, yanked open the back door, and pushed her inside.

She had to throw out a hand to keep from face-planting on the seat. “I’m really getting sick of all this shoving.”

Again, he ignored her and settled in next to her. He reached forward with his free hand to clasp the driver’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” The driver glanced back, his smile still as charming as ever. Marcus. Should have figured. “You sure know how to show a guy a good time, doll.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed and met Vaughn’s gaze. “Where to? Your car?”

“No, airport. I don’t want to give her the time to plot another escape.”

Marcus flicked a glance at her, and the corner of his mouth kicked up in a half smile. “She is, too. I can see it in her eyes. Airport it is, then. Jean-Luc and I will return your car to the rental place tomorrow.”

“Appreciate it.”

No. Not the airport. Panic reared up and threatened to strangle her. She couldn’t go back to DC, had to get away somehow, but no ideas were coming to mind. She could escape handcuffs, but she wouldn’t get very far with Vaughn sitting beside her. Until he gave her an opening, she was trapped.

For the first time in years, she felt completely… helpless. And God, she’d promised herself she’d never feel this way again. She turned her face away and stared out the window.

This couldn’t be happening. She’d been so careful for so many years, and now everything was crashing down around her…

All because of Vaughn fucking Wilde.

Chapter Five

“This isn’t going to work.”

Vaughn ignored Lark—Sage—whatever the hell her name was—and dragged her from the vehicle to the sidewalk outside the airline terminal. He took a moment to drop a coat over their cuffed hands to hide them from passersby, then turned back to Marcus. “Thanks, Deangelo. I owe you one.”

Marcus gave a kind of half nod, an upward jerk of the chin. “It was more entertaining than watching Jean-Luc fuck his way through the female population of Bourbon Street. Well, except for the whole tasering thing. I could’ve done without that.” He winked at Sage. “You hurt me, doll. I thought we had something special.”

“Marcus.” Vaughn put enough bite of warning in his tone to tell the guy to back off. But this was Marcus Deangelo, so of course he didn’t. He just grinned and held up his hands in supplication.

“Relax, dude. I’m not trying to edge into your turf.”

“She’s not my turf,” he said at the same time Sage snarled, “I’m not his anything.”

Marcus’s gaze darted between them. “Uh-huh. Lemme tell ya, I’ve heard that line of bullshit before from three separate guys. Know how they ended up?” He ticked each off on his fingers. “One, married. Two, might as well be married. Three, baby daddy.” He pointed at Vaughn. “Watch yourself.”

“Good-bye, Marcus.” Vaughn shut the door on his laughter and started toward the terminal, but of course it couldn’t be that easy.

Sage dug in her heels, forcing him to either stop or drag her inside kicking and screaming. And he had no doubt she would kick and scream if he tried.

Reining in his impatience—which took a hell of a lot more effort than it should have—he faced her again. “What?”

Her chin hitched up. “I’m telling you, this isn’t going to work. No airline will let me on a plane. I don’t have ID. It’s in my purse back in my apartment.”

Which she’d left behind, no doubt, because she’d been planning to steal someone else’s identity when she got to wherever she’d been headed. More lies, more fraud, and probably another conned boyfriend she’d lead around by the dick.

And that royally pissed him off.

Still, he had to admit, it didn’t change the fact she was right. She wasn’t getting on a plane without a valid form of ID, and his P.I. license wasn’t enough to allow him to transport her as a prisoner—something he would have considered before now if he had his damn head screwed on straight.

He was still half-hard from her attempted seduction at the bus stop, and it was…distracting. She was distracting. Had been from the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her at Jude and Libby’s wedding, a blue bridesmaid dress clinging to every dangerous curve of her body. That first meeting, she’d glared at him, eyes narrowed…

Much like she was right now.

He broke the extended silence with a curse, and instead of going into the terminal like he’d originally planned, he stalked across a covered walkway to the customer service center, hauling her along behind him. She wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming, but she certainly wasn’t making this easy, and they drew several disapproving looks and a few concerned murmurs from the people they passed on the way to the car rental desks.

He chose a different company from the one he used when he arrived—mainly because he figured they weren’t going to rent him another car when the first hadn’t been returned yet—and within ten minutes, they were headed into the garage with an attendant. Sage remained mulishly silent, even when the confused attendant spoke to her directly. For a half a second, Vaughn considered making excuses for her behavior, but what was the point? If she wanted to be a bitch to the poor guy, it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t the fucking etiquette police.

But after a quick walk-around inspection of the nothing-special sedan, he thanked the attendant and slipped the kid a twenty as an apology. He may not be the etiquette police, but his mother had taught him better than that and he refused to disrespect her memory with bad manners.

Vaughn opened the driver’s side door and motioned for Sage to get in first. She snarled at him, then climbed in, fumbling over the center console and purposely, he thought, whacking his hand on the dash. His knuckles, still bruised from the cage fight, howled in pain, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d hurt him. He gritted his teeth and slid behind the wheel.

Her arm flopped like dead weight as he shifted the car into gear and the edge of the cuff dug hard into his wrist. He scowled over at her. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“What? You think I’d make this easy on you?” She snorted. “Fat chance.”

He stopped the car and, with his foot firmly pressed to the brake, levered himself up to grab the handcuff key out of his pocket. He freed his wrist, reached over her, and secured the cuff to the passenger door handle instead. “Better?”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and slouched back in her seat. “I’m still going to escape.”

“Fat chance,” he mimicked in the same snarky tone.

She went back to ignoring him and stared out the window. Fine by him. He wasn’t in a chatty mood, either.

He switched on the radio—he’d gone for the satellite option since it was going to be a long fucking ride back to DC—and fiddled with the buttons until he found his favorite classic rock station. It was the kind of music his father had enjoyed, and listening to it always made him feel closer to David Wilde.

The Rolling Stones song that had been playing ended, and Styx blared through the car, wailing about how the law finally caught up to a wanted man.

Vaughn smirked and glanced over at his prisoner, but if she caught the irony, she didn’t show it. In fact, she didn’t appear to be at all aware of her surroundings anymore. As the lights of New Orleans faded farther and farther into the distance behind them, she seemed to shrink in on herself, her chin dropping to her chest, shoulders hunching forward. As if on cue, she began to shake with silent sobs.

He returned his attention to the road. “It’s not going to work, vixen.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her jerk upright. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her free hand. “You’re a bully.”

He snorted a half laugh. Him, a bully? Now that was funny. After his parents were killed when he and Cam were eleven, he’d grown into a morose teenager—had probably been clinically depressed, though he was never diagnosed—and had endured more than his fair share of bullying throughout high school because of it. It wasn’t until he’d joined the military at his oldest brother Greer’s urging, that he’d finally escaped the constant bullying. The Navy had given him the stability and structure he’d needed to overcome his teenage angst, and becoming a SEAL had given him purpose. He’d been able to take out some of the major bullies of the world and make a quiet difference. He had liked that about his job. He missed it more than he wanted any of his brothers to know.

And, fucking hell, he wanted his trident back. He’d earned that pin with blood and sweat and tears.

He glanced over at Sage again. “Where’s my trident?”

…

Jesus, the man must have a black pit for a heart. She’d just put on the most convincing damsel in distress act of her life—well, mostly an act. The tears had been real enough—and Vaughn hadn’t even blinked.

When she didn’t answer, his hands tightened on the wheel. “Where is it, Lark?”

“It’s Sage. And we’re back to your precious, huh?” She pushed out a breath and turned in her seat, holding out her cuffed wrist. They’d been in the car for a good forty minutes, and the metal was starting to chafe. “Uncuff me and I’ll tell you where it is.”

“Fat fucking chance.”

“Well, then. You’ll never see your precious again.”

Vaughn grumbled under his breath, then took one hand off the wheel and levered his very fine ass up off the seat to dig the handcuff key out of his jeans pocket. He passed it to her and, thank you God, it felt amazing when the steel bracelet finally opened. She rubbed her wrist.

“Where is it?” he demanded again.

She had intended to keep her word and give the pin back, but suddenly the idea of parting with it settled like a rock in her gut. The chain was warm and heavy between her breasts, the pin a comforting weight, an anchor she’d come to rely on in the stormy sea that was her life. “I sold it, okay?”

Headlights splashed into the car from oncoming traffic, and she saw the muscle under his eye twitch as he ground his teeth.

Uh-oh. She should have kept her mouth shut. Did she have a death wish? Probably. Why else would she continue poking at him when he was coiled so tight, ready to strike?

At the bus stop, she’d joked about him being like the Hulk, but she was starting to realize that wasn’t too far from the truth. Vaughn definitely had a calm Bruce Banner thing going for him—slow to anger, but once he got there, he was not a person you wanted to mess with.

“For your sake,” he said softly, “you’d better be lying.”

She opened her mouth to tell him yes, she was lying. In fact, she had his pin right here with her. But instead, she blurted, “I’m not. I needed the money.”

Yup. Death wish.

“Must have been a disappointing haul, then, since it’s not worth anything.”

She slanted him a glance. “It must be worth something if you tracked me down just to get it back.”

“So you still have it?”

Damn. He was maneuvering her, and rather expertly. She had to up her game if she planned to play on the same field as Vaughn Wilde. “Pleading the fifth.”

“You would.” He said nothing more for several long minutes. Then, curtly, as if he’d had to rip the words from deep inside his chest, “It’s…a sentimental thing.”

If she closed her eyes and forgot the last two hours, she could almost pretend the sentiment he spoke of was about her rather than a pin. And how ridiculous was that?

“All right,” she said, but the words came out a bit strangled. She cleared her throat, tried again. “All right. Let me go and I’ll give it back.”

He made a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “You know, my mom used to read Cam and me this book when we were kids,” he mused. “If you give a mouse a cookie…he’ll ask for the whole damn world.” He glanced over at her. “You got your cookie. I uncuffed you. You’re not getting anything else, so nice try.”

She stared at him for several beats. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“What? Your parents never read you that book?”

“My parents weren’t exactly the reading type. They weren’t even the parenting type.”

Another beat. The silence was like a storm cloud between them, thick and pulsing with energy.

“That sucks,” he said finally, and if she didn’t know him any better, she’d think he meant it, maybe he even felt a touch sorry for the little girl she’d been. And, yes, it had sucked, but whatever. Relying on others made you weak, and she hadn’t needed parents. She didn’t need anything from anyone. Especially not pity from him.

“I promise this time I will give you the pin if you let me go.”

He grunted. “So you can run off and steal another person’s ID? Not happening.”

“I only take identities from the dead.”

“It’s still stealing. Ever consider the family members of those dead people?”

No, she hadn’t. Family was a foreign concept and wasn’t something that ever crossed her mind. Hell, her family now wanted her dead.

Vaughn nodded. “Thought not. You have no idea the headaches and heartache you probably caused them by resurrecting their family members.” He looked at her again, but with the lights of the city far behind them, she could only see the outline of his jaw, and it was set in hard, stubborn lines. “So, no, I’m not letting you go. I’ll get my trident back when I turn you over to the authorities. Just figured I’d give you the opportunity to do the right thing first.”

She slouched deeper into her seat. “Well, aren’t you noble.”

He scoffed. “Farthest thing from it. I don’t like being made a fool of, vixen, and this is revenge. That I’ll be stopping you from hurting anyone else is just a sweet bonus.”

Wow. His opinion of her couldn’t get much lower. Granted, she hadn’t exactly done much to inspire his confidence since they met last fall. Which meant she couldn’t place the whole blame for his shitty attitude toward her on him being an asshole. Dammit.

Having him think of her as a manipulative bitch stung far more than it should. Because, well, she was a manipulative bitch. She’d had to be to survive. She just wished Vaughn hadn’t found it out.

They lapsed into silence, and the miles flew past far too quickly. They had already crossed into Alabama and were nearing Mobile according to the signs flashing by.

God, she couldn’t go back to DC, even as much as she wanted to. For nearly two years, she’d had a good life there. Decent job as an administrative assistant, and the work had been more fulfilling than shaking her ass on a stage for drunk strangers. She’d had a best friend in Libby Wilde, an actual girlfriend she’d been able to call up for lunch or go to the movies with. And for a short while, she’d even had a fiancé—

Of course, the fiancé hadn’t turned out so great. He was the reason she’d had to leave her life as Lark Warren in the first place. He’d been another very bad decision in a long line of many.

“What happened after I left?” She’d avoided reading the news from DC once she’d settled in New Orleans. Hadn’t wanted the reminder of everything she’d given up. “I mean, with Preston?”

“The police think he killed you,” Vaughn said after an extended beat of silence. “They figured he hid your body, and they won’t find it until they get him to confess, which he refuses to do. He’s still claiming he’s completely innocent of all the crimes he’s accused of.” He laughed without humor. “But you do have to appreciate the irony. The murder he actually didn’t commit is the one he’ll most be remembered for. The perfect murder of his sweet fiancée, Lark Warren.”

She glanced over at him. The dashboard lights highlighted the harsh contours of his face, but she couldn’t read his expression. “He would have killed me had I stayed. He didn’t take the rejection of me leaving him for you well.”

Vaughn’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I know. He tried to blow me up, remember?”

She winced. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

He blew out a long breath. “It wasn’t your fault. He was off his rocker. He would have tried anyway because he hated Cam and had no idea we’re identical twins. He thought I was Cam. Thought you were sleeping with Cam.”

“Shows how well he knew me. Cam’s not really my type. He’s too…” She searched for the right word. “Nice.”

Vaughn grunted but said nothing more for another two miles. Just when she started to think their conversation had ended, he muttered, “What I don’t get is why you got engaged to Preston Linz in the first place. Lark Linz would have been a stupid name.”

Yes, it would have been, which was why she’d planned to hyphenate her last name had she gone through with the marriage. She shrugged. “He had money, power. I thought he was a safe bet.” She’d thought he would have been able to protect her with his political connections, thought if she was his wife she wouldn’t have to keep running.

So much for that.

“Instead, he turned out to be nothing but another fuckhead.” She smiled over at Vaughn and injected her voice with as much sweetness as she could. “It’s a running theme with my exes.”

He cut her a sideways glance. “I’m not one of your exes.”

“Sure you are. Ex-lover. It’s a thing. And you’re definitely a fuckhead. I mean, what other kind of guy kidnaps a woman out of her apartment, handcuffs her, and drives her halfway across the country?”

“I didn’t kidnap you out of your apartment.”

“Okay, from the bus stop. You think that’s any better?”

“I didn’t kidnap you, period. You’re a fugitive, and I’m returning you to the authorities.”

Oh, boy. He had no idea. She leaned her head against the seat. “Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?”

“No.”

She doubted that. Everyone had a price, but it wasn’t always monetary— something she’d learned the hard way over the years. She just had to find Vaughn’s.

Chapter Six

Four hours into their trip, the gas light came on. Vaughn grumbled at it. No fucking way. Apparently, this car got shit for mileage—worse even than his Hummer. He glanced over at Sage. She’d gone still and silent hours ago, but she wasn’t asleep. She wanted him to think she was, and he’d gone along with it, but he was too attuned to her body. He heard every breath she took, could practically hear her heart beating in the silence. She couldn’t fake him out.

Damn, he didn’t want to stop. Every time the car slowed gave her an escape opportunity. Completely stopped and shut off with a gas nozzle attached? That was more than an opportunity—it was an open fucking door and a neon sign blinking the words “escape now!”—and she’d be a fool not to attempt it. She was no fool.

Still, he didn’t have much choice. He’d have bigger problems if they ran out of gas on the highway.

He reached for the handcuffs in the cup holder between them. “Give me your wrist.”

She jerked upright and pulled her arm protectively against her breasts. “Hell no.”

“We need gas, and I’m not slowing down until you’re secured.”

“Then I guess we’re not getting gas, huh?”

He didn’t have the patience for this. The exit he needed was less than a mile away. He grabbed her arm and one-handedly wrestled it down enough to snap the cuff around her wrist. She struck out, and he leaned toward his window to avoid the blow. The car swerved.

“Fuck!” He slapped both hands on the wheel to straighten the vehicle before they went into the woods off the exit ramp.

She continued to smack him, raining ineffectual punches down on his shoulder and arm. It was annoying but didn’t hurt, and he could ignore it until he got control of the car. Then she swiveled in the seat, got her legs involved, and yeah, that wasn’t exactly comfortable. Her foot connected with his ribs and knocked the air from his lungs. The next kick slammed into the gearshift, and the car started a sickly whine as it slowed to a crawl on the exit ramp.

She grabbed the door handle and yanked…

It didn’t move.

“Sorry, vixen. Child protective locks.” He wrestled the shifter back into place and eased the car to the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, laughing as she cursed like one of his Navy buddies and turned her ferocious kicks on the poor, unsuspecting door.

Maybe he shouldn’t be enjoying himself so much, but he was. Damn, he really was. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun. “That’s not going to work, either.”

She turned on him, hair sticking up, eyes throwing daggers, her chest heaving with each indrawn breath. All feral and…

Really fucking hot.

There was suddenly a lot less room in the front of his pants, and he shifted in his seat to ease the pressure. Her gaze dropped to his lap, and she huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh had there been any humor behind it. She straightened, smoothing her hands over her hair and down the front of her shirt.

He didn’t miss how she lingered over her breasts a moment too long, and his whole oxygen intake system stalled out. He remembered how sensitive her nipples were, how they had peaked at the slightest caress of his tongue and how her back had arched toward him. She’d begged for more once. If he got his mouth on her now, he could make her beg again.

No.

Fuck, what was he thinking?

He hit the blinker too hard, turned right, and stopped at the only place he saw—a truck stop that offered everything from a gas station to a restaurant. He pulled up to one of the pumps and lunged over as she reached for the door again. With a quick squeeze of his hand, the cuff dangling from her wrist snicked closed around the door’s assist handle.

“Don’t move.”

She hissed and yanked on the cuff. “I hate you.”

“Good. Means I’m doing something right.”

“What’s to stop me from rolling down the window and screaming rape?”

“I’ll tell everyone you’re my insane cousin and I’m having you committed. And the way you look right now, vixen…” He tugged on a strand of her hair, which still stood up in every direction. “They’ll believe me.”

As he pushed open his door and slid out, he heard her mutter, “Fuckhead.”

Genuinely amused, he leaned down to peer back inside. “C’mon, I know you have a vocabulary that puts my Navy buddies to shame. You can do better than that.”

She whirled in her seat as much as she was able and glared at him. “You’re a ball-less, piss-sucking, colon-licking, fuckwit douchecanoe twatwaffle!”

“There you go.” He grinned and shut the door on her cry of frustration.

Twatwaffle?

He snorted a laugh and grabbed a credit card out of his wallet, but he discovered a piece of paper over the card reader with the words “out of order—pay inside only” printed on it. He’d have to pull forward to the next pump, because there was no way in hell he was leaving Sage in the car by herself. She’d probably try chewing off her arm.

He reached for the door again but stopped when he spotted another out of order paper stuck on the next pump’s card reader. And another across the way. All of them were out.

Figured he’d choose the one backwater truck stop with broken pumps.

Swearing under his breath, he glanced toward the building. The front was all glass, so he’d never be out of sight of the car. Plus, he could grab some snacks while he was in there. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until he spotted a display of potato chips through the window, right by the register, and his stomach gave a grumble of protest against his unintentional fast. He hadn’t eaten anything all day except for a package of peanuts on the plane from DC to New Orleans, and if he was going to be driving all night, he’d need some food. And caffeine.

He yanked open the door and leaned inside. “I have to go in. Do. Not. Move. If you try anything, I will hunt you down, and you will not like the consequences. Understand?”

She glowered at him, which he figured was the best answer he was going to get.

He straightened away from the car but paused before closing the door. “Do you need anything?”

“Oh yes, I do. If you don’t mind?” She was suddenly all sweetness, and that made him wary.

“Uh, sure. What do you need?”

She flipped him off. “A big bag of fuck you.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I walked into that one.” He held up a finger in warning. “Do. Not. Move. I mean it.”

…

Sage waited, holding her breath until he stepped into the building. The front was all glass, and no doubt he was keeping an eye on her, but this was the best chance she was going to get.

She felt along her nape for the bobby pin tucked in there. She’d learned a long time ago that it paid to keep one handy. She slid it out and fumbled but caught it before it fell into the crack between the seats. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she opened it up and slid one end into the lock on the cuffs, then checked to make sure Vaughn was still in line.

Arms loaded with snacks, he was stuck behind a woman who was apparently throwing a fit over something as the employees behind the counter did their best to calm her. Vaughn tapped his foot and shot a glance toward the car to make sure she was still where he’d left her. She gave a snarky salute, which had him shaking his head.

She didn’t have long. She had to be free when he reached the register, because that was the only time he would be distracted enough for her to make a run for it. Adrenaline made her hands shake, and she took a second to calm herself before she set to work on the lock. A moment later, the cuff clicked—the sound more like freedom than even the National Anthem. Thank God. She pulled it off and checked on Vaughn again. He was just stepping up to the register. Perfect timing.

Sage scooted over into the driver’s seat and waited until he looked down at his wallet to count out bills. Now was her chance.

She shoved open the door and slipped out, keeping low, moving fast between the pumps. Nothing but dark woods surrounded the truck stop—why couldn’t Vaughn have picked someplace more populated?—so her escape options were limited. He’d turn this place upside-down looking for her, but those woods weren’t the least bit inviting. This was still swamp country, and the last thing she wanted was to become a gator’s late night snack.

She crept to the side of the building without windows and pressed herself into the shadows against the wall. Maybe she could catch a ride with a trucker—no, the idea gave her the creeps. Not to mention, went against every survival instinct she’d spent the last five years cultivating. So she’d hide right under his nose and, if she had to, risk the woods. Ending up gator-bait was still better than returning to DC.

At least with the gator, she had a shot at surviving.

…

Of course she was gone. Honestly, he’d have been disappointed in her if she had listened to him and stayed put.

Vaughn set his bag of snacks in the backseat and took the time to start the gas pump before he went looking for her. She couldn’t have gotten very far since she’d only been out of his sight for a minute. And, damn, she could’ve taught Houdini a thing or two about quick escapes. Had to admire her for that. He also had to wonder where she’d learned all the tricks of the escape and evasion trade. Was she a trained operative? His step hitched at the thought, then he stopped moving altogether when he recalled Marcus’s comment about how familiar she looked. Marcus, who was former FBI, had recognized her from somewhere.

Vaughn grabbed his phone to send a text to Marcus, and it started vibrating in his hand. Someone was calling him from a DC number he didn’t recognize.

Weird. The only people who had this number were his brothers, sisters-in-law, a few of his SEAL buddies, and Marcus. But his oldest brother Greer had been MIA for nearly a month—the last person to talk to him had been Reece three weeks ago and Greer hadn’t given any information about his whereabouts, only that he “had something to do” before he could return. Maybe this was him and he’d ditched his old number for some reason.

Vaughn answered his phone. “Yeah?”

“Vaughn, how are you? It’s Giuseppe.”

A cold knot of dread lodged in his stomach. “Bellisario. I don’t remember giving you this number.”

“You specialize in finding people. Well, so do I. I’m wondering if you’ve given any more thought to my business proposal.”

Shit. Now that he was on Bellisario’s radar, he wasn’t going to get away with pretending that encounter hadn’t happened. “I’m in the middle of something right now.”

“Whatever they’re paying, I’ll double it to drop what you’re doing and come back to DC and work for me.”

Come back to DC.

Fuck, he wasn’t just on Bellisario’s radar. The man was tracking him and knew he was out of town. “Why?”

“I’ve been reading up on you. You’re the best at what you do, and I need the best.”

“For what?”

“For reasons we’ll discuss once you’re back in the city.”

He couldn’t deal with this right now. He had other issues, namely a slippery little blonde who was currently hiding somewhere in this truck stop, hoping he’d give up on her. Which was not happening.

“Two days,” he told Bellisario. “I’ll be back in two days.”

“I don’t like to wait.”

“And I don’t answer to you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The hair on the back of Vaughn’s neck lifted at the threat—and yes, it was a threat, despite Bellisario’s pleasant tone. “Two days.” He hung up and banged the phone against his forehead a few times.

One problem at a time, he told himself.

He sucked in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. What had he been doing?

Text. Right. He was going to text Marcus.

He typed one out, asking if it was possible Marcus had recognized Sage from his years of working with the government. But even as he hit send, doubt niggled at the back of his mind.

She couldn’t be a government operative. Her aliases had been good enough to stand up to preliminary employment background checks, but anything deeper easily uncovered her lies. And since when did the government steal the identities of dead people? They didn’t, at least as far as he knew. If the government was involved, they would’ve crafted her aliases out of thin air, and nobody would have been able to track her from one to the next.

So who was she?

Not knowing drove him crazy. She was a puzzle, and he’d never had much patience for puzzles. That was Reece’s thing.

And speaking of Reece, he would be a great help right now.

Vaughn grabbed his cell phone again. It was late, but Reece was a workaholic, and he—

A cacophony of sound blasted from his phone, and Vaughn yanked it away from his ear. “What the hell?”

“Sorry,” Reece said and the noise receded. “We’re watching Pacific Rim, and Shelby likes to turn the surround sound on.”

“It’s like being at the theater,” Shelby said in the background as her African gray parrot, Poe, continued mimicking the sound effects from the movie.

Vaughn again pulled his phone away, stared at it a second, then said, “You are watching a monster movie?”

“Hey,” Reece said, offended, “I happen to like monster movies.”

Vaughn shook his head. The change in his brother since Shelby came into the picture was the stuff of miracles. The guy no longer worked 24/7, he laughed often, and he was more relaxed than ever before. Shelby had effectively removed the stick from Reece’s ass, and Vaughn loved her for it.

“Okay,” Vaughn said. “Sorry to interrupt. I need a favor. That tracking device you gave me? I need you to find it.”

There was a beat of silence, then Reece laughed. “She got away from you? I’m impressed.”

Grumbling, he scanned the parking lot. “Don’t be. She’s not going to be free for long. I stuck the tracker on her.”

“Still. She gave you the slip. That’s pretty damn impressive.”

“Just…find the tracker, will you? I’m at a truck stop off I-65 in Alabama, somewhere between Mobile and Montgomery.” He started toward the building again, but then he changed his mind and walked around to the side facing the woods. He didn’t think she was stupid enough to tempt an unfamiliar forest in swamp country at night, but that side of the building had no windows, few lights, and no people. It’d be the perfect place to hide and wait someone out, and he had a feeling that was exactly what she was doing. Waiting him out.

Little did she know, she couldn’t. He’d spent a good portion of his SEAL career waiting. He could out-wait the apocalypse if he had to.

“All right, let me pull up a map…” A keyboard clacked in the background. “I see the truck stop. Tracker’s showing her on the northeast side of the building.”

“Stationary?”

“Appears so.”

Yup, she was hiding. “Thanks.” He pocketed his phone and broke into a run, circling the building to come up on her six. She might know escape and evasion, but he knew stealth. He knew how to stalk his prey in the shadows, and she was most definitely his prey.

As he neared the back side of the building, he slowed, quieted his steps and his breathing. He spotted her easily, pressed up against the wall, trying her best to meld into the darkness. It might have worked, too, if she wasn’t currently sporting bright blonde hair.

She was watching the front parking lot, totally unaware he was now an arm’s length behind her.

Or so he thought.

She whirled, and her fist just barely missed the side of his jaw. He grabbed her arm and immobilized it behind her back as he shoved her against the wall a little harder than he meant to. She smacked the cinderblocks with an audible umph, and he loosened his grip, afraid he might have actually hurt her.

Big mistake.

She twisted to face him and tried for his instep. When he blocked the move, she kicked out at his groin. He deflected with his thigh and pinned her to the wall again with his body.

“Always the balls,” he murmured next to her ear and tried to ignore how soft she felt against him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were fascinated by them.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, men. Go for a groin shot, and they think it’s because you want to fuck them rather than cripple them.”

“Ah, but you do want me, vixen.” He wrapped his hand around her neck and applied just enough pressure to dissuade her from trying to head-butt him—because if he were in her shoes, that would be his next move. Her heart was thundering, and he stroked his thumb lightly back and forth over her pulse point. “I can tell. You want to fuck me, and you hate it.”

“I think you’re projecting.”

Her breasts rubbed against his chest with her every inhale, and the sensation was short-circuiting his brain. Maybe he was projecting, but he didn’t think so. Not when her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and anticipation filled her eyes. He moved his hand up to cup her jaw, and his thumb strayed over her lips. She opened her mouth, sucked it inside, and a shudder shook through him.

A more righteous man would ignore such a blatant invitation from a known criminal. Cam would have, but he wasn’t his twin. He’d spent his entire life balancing on the thin blade between good and bad, and right now, he was leaning heavily into bad.

He didn’t care.

He covered her mouth with his, and the taste of her flooded his senses with memory. He remembered kissing her like this as vividly as if he’d just done it yesterday. It was the same and yet different. Darker, edgier, and with the bite of desperation.

She curled her fingers into the front of his coat, but instead of shoving him away, she dragged him in closer. Her kiss became like an attack, and he had no choice but to go on the defensive, parrying the thrusts of her tongue with his, biting her lip in return when she bit his.

This was a dangerous game. And he was losing.

He broke the kiss and, breathing hard, stared down into her eyes. “Who are you?”

She gave a feline smile, and even though he held her caged against the side of the building, he suddenly felt more like the hunted than the hunter.

She leaned in until her lips nearly touched his again. “I’m whoever you want. The tough chick. The dumb blonde. The helpless damsel in distress.”

“The con artist.”

“That, too.” She batted her lashes. “So, Vaughn, do you want the little lost girl, dreaming of her white knight? Or, no, your armor isn’t all that white, is it?” She dragged a finger down his chest, his stomach, and found him hard. She cupped him and squeezed, taking him just to the edge where pleasure and pain blurred. “What you want is the temptress. You want me to be the bad girl.”

“What I want—” His voice came out coated in rust, and he stopped short, cleared his throat, “—is to take you back to DC and turn you over to the authorities.”

“Why?” she all but purred and traced the ridge still growing behind his fly. “We could have so much fun together, Vaughn. Think about it. You and me…we could make our way to Cabo.”

For a second, he actually considered it. Sun, sand, and this woman willingly, happily in his bed again…

Somewhere close, a horn let out a bleating wail and reality shattered the fantasy like a baseball thrown through glass.

Cabo.

As in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

He captured her wrist and yanked her hand away from his erection so he could think rationally again. “Mexico, where they have so many problems, they aren’t going to bother to look for a little American identity thief. That’s your plan?”

“It could be our plan.”

“No. My plan is to take you back to DC.”

“Oh, c’mon!” She finally gave up on the seduction and pounded her fists against his chest. “Why can’t you just let me go?”

“Maybe I will.” It was an impulsive response, one he hadn’t meant to say aloud. He cursed at himself and added, “If you tell me who you are.”

She opened her mouth but snapped it closed again without uttering a sound. “I’m nobody,” she finally said and jerked free of his grasp. She crossed her arms in front of her, hunched in on herself, and in that moment, she looked almost… fragile. It tore at something inside him, and he locked his muscles to keep from pulling her into him, soothing her.

She sniffled and swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “If you’re bound and determined to take me back to DC, fine. I won’t fight anymore, but just know you’re signing my death certificate.”

He shouldn’t let it affect him—it was probably just another act on her part—but damn, it did. Watching her deflate in front of his eyes, all of the fight leaving her…it was so wrong.

His chest tightened. “Sage—”

“Let’s get it over with.” She turned away. “I’m tired of all this.”

Chapter Seven

True to her word, Sage didn’t fight him when he guided her back to the car. She didn’t make a sound, either. Not a word for two whole hours. It gave him a lot of time to stew.

You’re signing my death certificate.

As much as he wanted to see her held accountable for the crimes she’d committed, he didn’t think those crimes were bad enough to warrant a death penalty sentence. Unless there were others he didn’t know about…

Shit. Had she murdered someone?

He glanced over at her. She was slumped in the passenger seat, forehead pressed to the window as she silently watched the world pass by. Headlights and the occasional streetlamp splashed light over her face, and she looked…resigned. As if all the fight had left her.

If she had committed murder, that explained a lot. Certainly explained why she was so afraid of facing the authorities.

She was feisty, strong, and more than capable of taking care of herself in a world that hadn’t seemed to give her a break, but a murderer? He couldn’t reconcile that with the sweet, slightly troubled woman he’d known. Of course, the woman currently sitting next to him wasn’t the same one he’d known, either. She was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and she was giving him a headache without even opening her mouth.

He was going to drive himself crazy trying to figure her out, so he shoved her out of his thoughts and tried to focus on… something else.

Anything else.

Unfortunately, the only other thing that came to mind was the call from Giuseppe Bellisario.

The call had all of his nerves jangling. Bellisario wasn’t going to give up until Vaughn did what the guy wanted, and if he kept refusing, things were bound to get ugly.

Hell, who was he trying to kid? It was already ugly. Bellisario had resorted to threats, and he was terrified his brothers might get caught up in this disaster.

Headlights flashed in his rearview mirror, too bright and too close for comfort. He glanced over his shoulder—a large SUV was barreling down on them. He switched lanes to get out of their way, but the SUV followed, riding his bumper even though there was no other traffic on the road. A knot tightened in his gut, and he stepped on the gas. The car bolted forward.

Sage jolted upright in her seat. “What are you doing?”

“We have a tail.”

She spun, stared out the back windshield, and her eyes widened. “They’re not being very stealthy about it.”

“That’s because they want us to know.”

In the bright white of the other vehicle’s headlights, he clearly saw the color drop out of her complexion. “They found me.”

He didn’t think so. More likely, this was Bellisario making a point, since he obviously had Vaughn followed. Still, it’d help to know who was after her in case he was wrong. “Who found you? Who are you running from?”

“I-I can’t—” She covered her mouth with one shaking hand and shook her head. “Please, Vaughn. Don’t let them take me.” Leaking tears, she met his gaze with true terror shining in her eyes. He didn’t think she could fake that level of fear, and he was completely powerless against it.

“Fuck,” he muttered and jammed his foot harder on the gas. There was no possible way for them to outrun the SUV in this car—not enough power under the hood—but they might be able to hide. All he needed was to put some distance between them and find an exit…

There.

The exit let off into the trees surrounding the highway, and there didn’t seem to be civilization anywhere in sight. He turned too fast onto the ramp at the very last second, and the car rocked. Sage didn’t make a peep of alarm, but she was white-knuckling the “oh shit” handle above the door.

On the highway behind them, the SUV screeched to a halt. He checked the mirror—the SUV was reversing to the exit ramp. An oncoming Mack truck would be very helpful right now, but no such luck. The highway was completely empty at this time of night.

“Hang on.” Vaughn ignored the stop sign as he swung into a right turn at the top of the ramp. The car whined at its mistreatment but stayed upright and didn’t die on him.

He turned onto the first dark road he spotted, drove out of sight of the main road, stopped on the shoulder, and shut everything off. Darkness folded around them, and with it came silence, save for the ticking of the cooling engine and Sage’s ragged breathing.

“Hey.” He groped around until he found her hand gripping the edge of her seat. He peeled her fingers off the leather and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, there’s no way they made it up the ramp in time to see us turn. They’re not gonna find us. We just have to wait them out.”

She didn’t move or say anything for several moments until her breathing finally slowed and evened out. She shifted away, tugging her hand free. “Thank you.”

He gave her another second to finish pulling herself back together. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

“No.”

“Didn’t figure.”

She sniffled, and he heard a shaky smile in her voice. “Nice driving, though.”

“Yeah, the Navy taught me a few things.”

She shifted in her seat and finally let go of the grab handle. “Before tonight, I guess I never really knew you were in the military.”

“Twelve years. Four as a rescue swimmer, eight as a SEAL.”

“The SEALs are the badasses, right?”

“We like to think so.” He smiled into the darkness. “But, yeah, we’re the best at what we do.”

She was silent for another beat. “Have you been out long?”

“A couple years now.”

“Why did you leave?”

He figured her questions were a coping mechanism, a way to take her mind off the fear-adrenaline cocktail currently overloading her system, but he wasn’t about to go into all the reasons he wished he hadn’t left or how much he missed the teams. Instead, he gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug, like it was all no big deal.

“My brothers needed me.” But that didn’t seem like enough of an explanation, so he added, “A few years ago, we were all in this bar. It was a holiday—I don’t remember which—and there we were, sitting in awkward silence, brooding into our drinks. We spent more time apart than together, only meeting up if we all happened to be stateside at the same time, and it was getting to the point that they felt like strangers to me.”

He winced at the memory. When it had dawned on him that he didn’t know his brothers anymore, he’d realized something had to change, because as a family, they were failing miserably.

“What did you do?” Sage asked.

“Out of the blue, Greer suggested we could go into the private eye business together.”

“Just like that?”

“Pretty much, yeah. We had never talked about doing anything like that before. I had planned to stay in the Navy for life and didn’t want to do anything else. But then I looked over at Jude. He had just come home from an up-close-and-personal with death in Afghanistan and several of his friends were missing, presumed prisoners of war. And it suddenly hit me—how close we’d come to having an empty seat and untouched beer at our table instead of our youngest brother.” He still remembered the moment of sheer terror that came with the realization, and how he’d swallowed it down with his beer and reassessed his priorities right then and there. “So when Reece offered the money to start Wilde Security, I agreed not to re-up in the Navy at the end of the year and to try my hand at private investigation. Because my brothers needed me to stay in DC.” And he’d needed to stay for them. They were all shaken by Jude’s close call and were desperate for the solidarity of family right then.

Problem was, his brothers didn’t need him anymore. Except for Greer, they were all married off now and living happily-ever-fucking-afters. Jude and his wife Libby had even recently announced they were expecting a baby this fall, which was just fucking weird. Not that he thought his youngest brother wouldn’t make an excellent father. If any of the Wildes were equipped for fatherhood, it was prankster Jude, who was still a kid at heart.

But shit, Vaughn wasn’t exactly good uncle material. He’d probably scare the kid back into its mother’s womb the first time he met it.

And now that the baby-making had started, he bet it wasn’t going to stop any time soon. Cam and Eva wanted kids, and it was only a matter of time until they decided to go for it. Reece and Shelby…who the hell knew with those two? They were completely unpredictable as a couple and crazy enough to try parenthood.

Apparently, Vaughn and Greer were the only sane ones left in the family.

“You’re lucky to have them,” Sage said softly, drawing his attention back to the conversation. “Your brothers, I mean. And your sisters-in-law. You’re lucky.”

“Yeah, I am,” he admitted, because as much as his constantly growing family sometimes annoyed the hell out of him, he wouldn’t want it any other way. He looked toward her voice, but since there was no moon, he only saw a vague outline of her face and body. “Libby’s pregnant.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it. Except that when Sage was living as Lark, she’d been one of Libby’s best friends, and he thought it was something she should know.

“Oh,” Sage whispered, and if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of wistfulness in her voice. Maybe even a faraway hint of sorrow. “I’m so happy for them. At their wedding, she mentioned they wanted to start a family as soon as possible.”

“The wedding.” He exhaled a short laugh. “Seems like years ago now. That blue dress Libby had you wear must’ve broken some decency laws. In all the best ways.”

“We were in Key West,” she said, and a smile seeped into her voice. “I don’t think they have decency laws.”

“You had every man in the place drooling all over themselves.”

“Including you, if I remember correctly.”

“I don’t drool.”

“Tell that to my pillows.”

Which brought to mind the bed in her apartment in DC, where he’d spent a week last November when a storm had dumped a record-breaking amount of snow on the city. He’d told Cam he was staying with Greer until the roads cleared, when in reality he was in her bed, and they had spent the week fucking like rabbits. He’d even made the colossal mistake of falling half in love with her—until he’d discovered everything he knew about her had been a lie.

Hell, if he was honest with himself, he’d started falling for her the moment he’d first met her in the elevator the night of Jude and Libby’s wedding. She’d brushed him off, and it had rankled, put him in a bad mood, which only got worse when he later ran into Cam and Eva, drunk and all but eye-fucking each other as they waited in the lobby for the elevator.

They’d looked sweet together, cute in the way only a pair in love could be, and he’d hated seeing it. Not because he envied his twin’s happiness, but because the wedding festivities and all the love in the air had left him feeling restless, lonely, and horny, and the only woman who had caught his eye wasn’t interested.

After getting a good tongue lashing from Eva for being an ass, he’d spent the rest of the evening in the hotel bar, drinking until he didn’t feel anything anymore. Then when the room started to wobble, he’d wandered out to the beach for some air—and there she’d been.

Sinful blue dress and all, sitting underneath a palm tree as the breeze lightly rustled the fronds, making them dance in the moonlight. At first he’d thought he was hallucinating, the overdose of alcohol in his system making him see what he wanted to see.

“Lark?” He’d said her name more to make sure she was real and not a figment of his imagination.

She’d looked over at him, then drawn her knees up and rested her head on them. “Go away.”

He’d planned on it, but his feet had carried him forward over the sand, and he’d lowered himself down beside her instead. “You okay?”

“If by ‘okay’ you mean ‘a blind idiot’, then yes, I’m okay.”

Oh hell. Drama. He hadn’t wanted to get in the middle of it. Shouldn’t have gotten in the middle of it—but he’d been drunk and his mouth had worked before his brain told him to leave. “I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

“Ha. You don’t know me. And if you say you’d like to get to know me, I’ll punch you.”

He’d grinned. “I won’t say it then, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

With a sigh, she’d lifted her head, stared out over the ocean. “You’re cute, I’ll give you that.”

Cute? He hadn’t been considered cute since he was in diapers, and maybe not even then. Most people saw him the same way they saw pit bulls—a dangerous creature to avoid and, if forced to interact, take extra precautions around.

He’d scowled at her. “Are you one of those people who think pit bulls are misunderstood?”

She’d glanced over, eyebrows raised in question, and heat had crawled up the back of his neck. This convo was exactly the reason he never got this drunk—the filter between his brain and his mouth shut off, and all kinds of stupidity came pouring out. “Forget I said that.”

“Yes,” she’d said and a smile had softened her lips. “I am. Pit bulls are beautiful animals and don’t deserve their reputation.”

“That’s why you think I’m cute.”

Her smile had spread into a grin. “Aw. Did I bruise your ego? I’m sorry. You’re the biggest, baddest badass this side of the Mississippi, and you’re absolutely, positively not cute. That better?”

He’d brooded over the bottle of beer he’d brought out with him. “Now you’re just fucking with me.”

Something had changed in that instant. He’d been drunk, but he would’ve had to have been dead to miss the spark and flare of lust igniting in the space between them.

She’d shifted toward him. “Earlier, in the elevator, you were looking for someone to spend the night with. You wanted sex.”

He’d lifted a shoulder in response. No sense in denying it. “You turned me down.”

“What if I’ve reconsidered?”

He’d shaken his head, lifted his bottle, and taken a swig to cool his suddenly dry throat. “Wouldn’t matter. You said you’re engaged, and I don’t fuck around with other men’s women.”

“Guess what?” She’d leaned in until her lips hovered inches above his, and her hand wandered up his leg to his cock. “As of an hour ago, I’m not engaged anymore. And I could really use a night of meaningless sex.” She’d squeezed him, and he’d hissed out a breath. “What about you?”

Sober, he would have had a difficult time turning her down. Drunk, he hadn’t stood a chance, and as he’d dropped his mouth to hers, he’d realized he wasn’t the only one who had gotten a little sloppy tonight. She had tasted like champagne, sweet and crisp, with just a kick of the tart at the end. He had liked it, drank it in, and got lust-drunk off it as she’d hiked up the skirt of her sinful blue dress and straddled his hips…

He learned later it wasn’t just champagne but the natural taste of her. He’d gotten a sip back at the truck stop but not enough to slake the lust that seeing her again had reawakened in him.

She’d given him a blowjob right there on the beach, and the orgasm had been spectacular. The kind that rocked worlds and shifted foundations. Then, knowing Cam would be with Eva, he’d taken her up to his room, hung the Do Not Disturb sign, and returned the orgasmic favor.

Several times, in many creative positions.

Remembering it, and all the nights they’d spent together in the weeks after that first time, hardened him to the point of pain. He shifted in his seat to lessen the pressure and did his damnedest to forget the way she’d used her soft mouth to wring every drop of pleasure out of him.

The air inside the car had grown charged in the last several minutes of silence, heated with the memories. And he didn’t think they were just his memories because her breathing had quickened enough to tell him their minds were on the exact same track.

He didn’t know who moved first, or if they moved at the same time. He shoved his seat back. She crawled over the center console and straddled his hips much like she had that night on the beach. There was an edge of desperation in the way she took his mouth and more than a bite of anger.

And he was okay with that, because hell if he wasn’t pissed off, too. She shouldn’t still crank his engine after everything, and he hated that she did, hated more that he didn’t have the willpower or the good sense to throw on the brakes.

She yanked at his shirt, her hands cool as they slid up his stomach. He cupped her breasts through her shirt and wished they had the time and space to both get naked. She had the most magnificent breasts, round and heavy, with little pink nipples, soft as flower petals even when his mouth coaxed them out to stand at attention. He missed her breasts. Wanted to see them, put his mouth on them again. He traced one hand down the front of her until he found the edge of her shirt and nudged it up. She caught his wrist and instead guided his hand down between her legs.

Okay, he got the hint. No indulgent foreplay allowed. This was going to be a fast fuck to pop the cork on the tension that had been bubbling between them. Nothing more.

He pushed down her leggings, dipped his fingers inside, and found her wet. She moaned and threw her head back. Rocked her hips and rode his fingers like he wanted her to ride him. He fumbled at his own pants with his free hand. Wanting—no, goddammit, needing to bury himself inside her with an intensity that would have scared the shit out of him had he been thinking clearly.

“Condom,” she demanded.

“In my bag.”

She reached over him and found the bag in the backseat. A second later, she had a condom out and was rolling it on him. There was no foreplay. She positioned the head of his cock at her entrance and took him all the way inside. He groaned and tried to hold her still to savor the connection, but she started moving. It was hot, hard sex, all slapping bodies and clawing nails and nipping teeth. She grabbed a handful of his hair, yanked his head back, and all but attacked his mouth.

“Fuck,” he ground out between his teeth when she broke the kiss. He was so close to coming, his balls ached with the need to release, but a thirty second bang-and-come wasn’t what he wanted from her. Not after all this time. Not after all he’d gone through to find her again.

He dug his fingers into her hips. “Fuck, vixen, slow down.”

“No.” She shoved his hands away and shifted positions, sliding her feet against the seat on either side of his hips. The move put more space between them while simultaneously giving her leverage to ride him harder. The car rocked on its wheels underneath them.

His entire body tensed, and it took every ounce of will for him to hold back.

Jesus Christ, she was killing him. No way was he going to last at this pace. Not with her hot little body clasped so tightly around his, creating all kinds of friction every time she arched back.

She moaned, her inner muscles clamping down on him, and he lost all control, pounding into her from underneath, seeking his release while she quaked through hers. The orgasm hit him hard and fast and was almost painful in its intensity.

She didn’t collapse on him when it was over. Instead she leaned farther away, back against the steering wheel, and stared down at him as their breathing settled from choppy gasps into more normal patterns.

Without a word, she crawled over into the passenger seat and pulled up her pants.

Vaughn dealt with the condom while his brain scrambled to catch up with what the hell had just happened. This wasn’t how it had been between them before. It had always been intense, yeah, but now she fucked like her life depended on an orgasm. Or like she was using sex to escape whatever demons were nipping at her heels.

He zipped up, then shifted to face her. “Wanna tell me what that was? Because it wasn’t sex. I’ve been in life or death battles that were easier.”

She never got the chance to answer. Headlights splashed through the car, and they both froze.

Shit. He’d made a mistake—seemed to do that a lot when she was involved—and had lost situational awareness.

A vehicle slowed and rolled to a stop behind them. Vaughn righted his seat and reached for the ignition, prepared to step on the gas as soon as he had the car in gear, but stopped when flashers winked on from the roof of the other car.

Beside him, Sage seemed to shrink in her seat. “Oh God. It’s a cop.”

He glanced over at her. Wasn’t a cop better than the person riding their bumper on the highway? She didn’t appear to think so and stared back at him with her eyes owlishly large in her pale face.

He hit the window button and waited with both hands on the wheel in plain view.

“Evenin’,” the officer said and shone his flashlight first on Vaughn’s face, then shifted it to Sage. “What are you folks doin’ parked out here this time a night?”

“We’re on our way home to DC,” Vaughn said, keeping his tone pleasant, casual. “I started getting tired and pulled off the highway to catch some shut eye.”

The officer’s flashlight returned to Vaughn. “Well, y’all shouldn’t be parked here. Folks come up over this hill with no attention to speed. If you need to sleep, I suggest you go check in at the motel in town.” He pointed up the road in front of them. “’Bout five miles thatta way. They usually have vacancies.”

“Thank you. We’ll do that.”

The officer lingered a second longer, then finally stepped back. “Y’all have a nice night and don’t forget your seat belts.”

They both dutifully clicked the belts into place, and the cop tipped his hat. “Safe travels.”

Vaughn didn’t exhale again until the officer pulled a uey and took off toward the highway. Then he turned on the car and guided it back onto the road, heading in the opposite direction, toward the motel. “All right. We’re good.” He felt eyes on him and turned to find Sage staring. “What?”

Her mouth opened, then closed again, and she glanced away.

“What?” he said again.

“Why didn’t you turn me over to him?”

Now it was his turn to imitate a fish as he tried to come up with a response. Honestly, the thought hadn’t occurred to him. But if it had, he knew he still wouldn’t have turned her over. Because she was his.

Er, no. That wasn’t what he meant to think. She wasn’t his. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even know her real name.

“That backwater cop wouldn’t know what to do with you,” he finally said and was proud of himself for keeping his voice calm, cool, even. “Handing you over to his underfunded department would be like handing you a get out of jail free card. Not a chance in hell, vixen.”

Chapter Eight

Oh, of course.

Sage refused to let her shoulders slump. It had been stupid to hope something had changed between them in the last half hour, that maybe he was someone she could trust. But no. He still wanted to see her punished for her crimes, though she was beginning to realize his desire came from a more personal place than some altruistic need for justice. This was his revenge for lying to him. Hadn’t he told her as much?

Sage released a soft sigh. She’d never learn. Trusting men only led to trouble and heartache and more trouble. Adding sex to the mix made it even worse. A quickie in the front seat of a car wasn’t going to change Vaughn’s mind about her, and she hated herself for wishing it had.

She noticed he hadn’t turned around. He’d pointed the car away from the Interstate and was headed in the direction the cop had indicated. “Wait, we’re actually going to the motel?”

“Yeah,” Vaughn said stiffly. “We’ll hole up there for a few hours, then avoid the Interstate as much as possible until we’re closer to DC. It will add some time to the trip, but if it keeps people off our tail, I can live with that.”

She stared over at him, but it was too dark to read his expression. Was he…protecting her? In his own twisted way, it sure seemed like it. But why? If he wanted her punished for all of her misdeeds, why not hand her over to the cop? Or, for that matter, the people she’d spent the last several years running from? He wasn’t part of this. He didn’t have to put himself in danger and could so easily tell her good riddance and wash his hands of her, but he didn’t seem the least bit inclined to do so.

He made no sense.

Up ahead, a car waited at a stop sign for them to pass. A police car. The same police car?

Sage’s muscles twitched with the need to run. “Vaughn…”

“Yeah. I see him.”

They passed the intersection, and she spun in her seat to watch out the back window. The cop car sat there for a second longer than necessary, then turned in the opposite direction, again heading back toward the Interstate. Maybe he was just doing his rounds or driving in circles to kill time, but the hair standing up on her arms was telling her otherwise. Something wasn’t right.

“I don’t think we should go to the motel,” she said.

“Read my mind, vixen.” He fumbled in the center console for his phone and handed it to her. “Figure out where we are and find us a way back to the highway.”

She swiped her finger over the screen to unlock it and found he had an unread text message from Marcus.

I know who she is. Call me ASAP.

A dark, yawning pit opened up in the bottom of her stomach, and she slid a glance toward Vaughn. He still had an eye on the rearview mirror and wasn’t paying attention to her. With her heart pounding so hard she was surprised he didn’t hear the percussion of it against her ribs, she quickly deleted the message. It wouldn’t stop him from finding out, but it’d buy her some time at least.

“Where are we, Sage? I need directions.”

“Uh…” She opened the GPS app and saw it had already calculated a new route that took them to Atlanta on backroads. “It says twelve miles straight on this road, then turn left and take the ramp onto a state highway. The next biggest city is Atlanta, and we should be reaching the outskirts in just under two hours.”

“All right. We’ll go as far as Atlanta and find a place to stay until—”

The SUV came out of nowhere, slamming into their back bumper. They both jolted forward hard against their seat belts. Vaughn swore as the car started to swerve and fought for control of the wheel, but the SUV rammed them again. The car slid into a spin, the outside world whipping by in a smear of trees, too-bright headlights, and yawning darkness.

“Hang on!” Vaughn shouted.

She braced herself for impact, but it still tore the air out of her lungs when the car nose-dived into a short ravine beside the road and came to an abrupt halt, nose down, body wedged in a small cluster of trees. Her seatbelt tightened painfully, jerking her back when she would have flown through the windshield. Beside her, Vaughn grunted in pain, then went frighteningly silent.

She sat there, glued in place by an overwhelming fear, and tried to catch her breath as the car creaked and groaned around her. The beam of a flashlight played over the dashboard, and she thought she heard voices from the road overhead.

They were looking for her.

She couldn’t let them find her.

Panic sizzled away the fear. She had to go. Had to run, but her door was jammed shut.

Still dazed, she unhooked her belt, and gravity pulled her out of the seat and toward the dashboard. She propped herself against the dash and used her feet to break through the large crack snaking across the windshield. It took a few tries, but the whole thing finally exploded outward.

She climbed out onto the soft, leaf-covered earth and only then did she notice how much farther they could have fallen. It wasn’t a small ravine at all, but a long, steeply sloped hill into a fast-moving river, and the only thing keeping the car from crashing down there was the two sturdy pine trees it had lodged between.

A second flashlight joined the first. Two men stood by the road, staring at the wreck. Their voices floated down, but she couldn’t make out any distinct words, just a general tone of annoyance from one and apology from the other. Neither of the men seemed inclined to climb down and check for survivors, and she didn’t think they saw her, hidden in front of the car as she was. She could easily continue unnoticed down the slope to the edge of the river and then follow that to town. She started sliding downhill, slowly, quietly. She could disappear again. Now was her chance to escape and—

What about Vaughn?

She stopped moving and gazed up at the car. Maybe she should check and make sure…

No. Hell no. What was she thinking? Going back for him was a bad idea. He wanted to throw her in jail. Marcus knew her real identity, so it was only a matter of time before Vaughn did, too. If she valued her life—and she did, as sucky as it was—then she needed to keep moving and not look back.

He’d be fine. He was the big, badass SEAL. Besides, she still had his phone, so it wasn’t like she had to leave him completely without help. She could call 911 for him as soon as she was safely hidden.

Right. That was exactly what she’d do.

Sage continued another few steps down the hill, but one thought stopped her: Vaughn hadn’t turned her over to the cop. A golden opportunity to complete his mission, and he passed it up like the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. And if she called 911, that cop—who had obviously lead their attackers right to them—would be the first responder. Would he hurt Vaughn? Or worse, kill him to get rid of the witness?

Dammit.

She crouched behind a fallen log and waited until the flashlights disappeared and the voices faded. She’d been right—they had no interest in checking the car. She gave it another minute, let the forest settle around her into the usual rhythm of the night, then tiptoed toward the driver’s side. His door wasn’t jammed like hers had been, but when she opened it, the car slipped downhill a few inches. She jumped back, held her breath.

Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall.

The car groaned to a halt and she crept forward again. Vaughn was unconscious, held in place by his seatbelt. A nasty gash on his forehead dripped blood down his face. She had no idea how she was going to pull the big guy out of that seat without hurting him more, but the car wasn’t secure.

She had to try.

…

Vaughn woke to a pounding headache and the taste of powder and warm copper in his mouth. There was a bar across his chest, restricting his breathing, and something was tugging on his arm as insistently as a dog with a rope toy. It hurt. Actually, his whole fucking body hurt.

Had he been blown up again?

Felt that way but, seriously, how unlucky could a guy get to be blown up twice in one lifetime?

He blinked open gritty eyes and squinted into the darkness, made out the shape of a steering wheel and dashboard. He was in a vehicle, but he wasn’t on a road. The car was tilted nose down, the headlights illuminating nothing but dirt and dead leaves and a steep drop. What he thought was a bar across his chest was in fact the strap of his seatbelt holding him in.

In a rush, memories flooded back. The strange reappearance of the cop, then the SUV materializing like fucking magic and ramming them. Losing control of the wheel, spinning off the road into the ravine…

Sage.

Was she okay?

Wincing, he turned his head to search for her. The passenger seat was empty, and the windshield was broken. She had probably seen he was unconscious and taken advantage of the situation. At least, he hoped she had. He much preferred to think she’d pulled another Houdini rather than imagine her thrown through the windshield, lying somewhere downhill, broken and bleeding. Or dead.

Jesus, no.

She was alive and okay. She’d just rabbited again, and he had to go catch her… as soon as he figured out how to pull his busted ass out of this car.

And what the hell was with the insistent tugging?

He shifted his arm away from the annoyance, and finally, it stopped. A soft hand patted his cheek.

“Vaughn? Are you awake?” The patting turned into a light smack. “C’mon, you asshole! Wake the fuck up! If this car goes into the river, I’m not jumping in after you.”

Sage.

His heart did some incredible acrobatics behind his ribs, and he peeled his eyes open. She was perched precariously on a steep downhill slope, one hand on the car door to keep from sliding. Mud streaked her clothes and face and leaves were stuck in her hair, but she appeared to be in one piece.

And she was still here. She hadn’t run.

She. Hadn’t. Run.

“You’re here.” His voice sounded like gravel, but he couldn’t clear the roughness out of it. “You’re still here.”

She released an explosive sigh. “Thank God. The car’s not stable. Every time I try to reach in and unbuckle you, it slides farther downhill. You need to get out of there.”

His brain wasn’t working at full speed, and it took him several seconds to process what she was saying.

“Vaughn!” She tugged on his arm again. “C’mon! The car is going to crash into the river. You need to move!”

As if to prove her point, the car slid a few feet, and she jumped back with a yelp, landing in the mud on her butt. “Vaughn! Move!”

Yeah. Moving was a good plan. Now if he could just get his body to cooperate…

Slowly, he reached down and found the buckle, but it took several precious moments to find the button. When he did and the belt released, he poured out of the seat like two hundred pounds of half-melted Jell-O. The car slid forward again, and he banged his chest against the steering wheel.

Damn. She wasn’t kidding about the car crashing into the river. It was going down, just a matter of when.

He batted the deflated airbag out of his way. No wonder his head was thundering in beat with his heart—it had probably gotten an up close and personal meeting with the bag. Which, granted, was better than the windshield, so he really couldn’t complain.

Sage appeared at the door again and gripped his hand, helping him out of the wreck with a surprising amount of strength. She was no weak, wilting flower. She was strong and capable, and there was zero chance he’d ever break her.

That was sexy as hell.

He landed in the mud beside her, and for a long moment, neither of them moved. The car slid another few feet, and he finally sat up, though it was a chore.

“My bag.” He shoved himself upright, staggered. “We’ll need it. Supplies—”

Sage gripped his arm. “No, you’re injured. You don’t have to play Superman. I’ll get it.”

He sank back down, partially relieved, but mostly annoyed that she was right. He was more injured than he wanted to admit. His body was still healing from the bomb blast, and he’d put it through hell since getting the cast off his leg a few weeks ago, trying to prove…he didn’t know what. His masculinity? His badassness? His immortality? But all he’d proven was his stupidity, and he was paying for it now.

Oh Christ, he hurt.

He’d had a lot of internal injuries after the bomb, and it’d be just his luck if the car accident had screwed up his insides again. He should probably haul his ass to a hospital and make sure he wasn’t bleeding out.

Except if he suggested the hospital, Sage would run again. He’d been pretty doped up on pain medication the last time they were in a hospital together, but he distinctly recalled how twitchy it had made her.

All right. No hospital.

He was fairly certain he wasn’t seriously injured, just really fucking bruised and battered. He’d live. And with that thought, he gathered his strength and shoved himself to his feet again as Sage returned to his side.

“Now what?” she asked, shouldering the bag.

Vaughn glanced around, orienting himself to their surroundings. “The SUV’s gone?”

“Yeah, they took off. Didn’t even bother to check to see if we were dead.”

“They didn’t want us dead. There are easier ways to kill a person.”

In the glow of the headlights, he saw her go pale.

She gripped the strap of the bag tighter. “So they were…what? Sending a message?”

“I think so.” He nodded and immediately regretted it as pain sliced through his temple. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “We need a place to lay low. The motel in town is our best option.”

Sage eyed him up and down. “But it’s probably still a good three-mile walk. Can you do it?”

It irked that she had to ask. Irked more that, yes, in his current state, a three-mile hike was going to be a struggle. “We’ll go up to the road. It’ll be smoother, faster.”

“What if we see the cop again?”

“We’ll see him before he sees us. If he shows up again, we’ll duck into the trees. C’mon.” He turned and looked up the embankment at the road overhead and tried not to groan. “Let’s move.”

Chapter Nine

The road was endless, with no town in sight. Nothing but empty asphalt, towering pines, and the silence of the night broken by the rushing water of the river as it snaked through the ravine alongside the road.

Sage paused and stared ahead at another hill. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, and every muscle in her body ached, threatening to lock up with every step she took. “We should have reached the town by now.”

Vaughn released an explosive sigh and kept moving. “Is this your version of ‘are we there yet?’ Because, yeah, it’s just as annoying.”

He was limping. He was trying not to show it, but Sage saw the slight hitch in his usually smooth gait. He was hurting just as much as she was, probably more, and she feared his injuries were worse than he wanted to let on.

In an instant, she flashed back to November and saw him lying so still in a hospital bed, wrapped in a cast from ankle to hip. All the tubes and monitors and bandages…

Her stomach twisted at the memory. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said through his teeth and glanced over his shoulder at her. “But if you keep asking me that, I might just jump into that ravine and put myself out of my misery.”

She snorted. “And let me get away with all of my crimes? Have you gone soft on me, Vaughn Wilde?”

He said nothing more and continued trudging along the deserted road with a single-mindedness that was maddening.

Fine. If he wanted to do this the hard way, she’d just have to call him out on his bull. Hands on her hips, she planted her feet and made her voice into a whip. “Vaughn. You’re limping.”

His shoulders tightened, but he still didn’t stop, didn’t glance back. “If the cop was telling us the truth, we should be reaching the motel soon.”

“That’s what you said a mile ago. And I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to doubt his word. That guy wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy law enforcement officer I’ve ever met. You know, since he sold us out to the bad guys and all.”

That finally stopped him. “Motherfucker,” he said under his breath and swung around. “He told us to put on our seatbelts. He knew they were going to play a game of bumper cars with us.”

She nodded. “Exactly. He lied to us. There is no motel. If there was, we would have found it by now. We’re lost.”

“We’re not lost.”

“Oh, please.” Exasperated, she flopped her arms in the air. “For all we know, the next town could be twenty miles away. And besides that, we’re in Deliverance territory out here. What if we do find the motel and the locals aren’t real big on southern hospitality?”

“We’re not lost,” he said again, enunciating each word. “SEALs don’t get lost.”

Out of all the very valid points she’d just made, leave it to him to get hung up on that. “You’re not a SEAL anymore.”

“It’s not something you turn off when you leave the teams, vixen. The training stays with you for life and SEALs. Don’t. Get. Lost.”

She held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, you cling to that delusion. In the meantime, I want to check your phone for a signal again.” She’d been forced to give it back when he realized she still had it, and anxiety had been playing her spine like a piano ever since. What if Marcus texted again? So far, the phone hadn’t found a signal since the crash, which was both a blessing and a curse.

“I told you,” he said and grabbed the phone from his pocket. “Battery’s dying. We can’t keep checking it. We’ll need the juice when we do finally have a signal again, which…” He checked the screen. “Is not now. Fucking thing.” He pocketed it again. “What do you remember from the GPS?”

She sighed and sat down on a large rock beside the road to give her aching feet a rest. “I don’t know. I was more concerned with the car following us.” She closed her eyes, thought back, tried to picture the map in her mind. “I’m pretty sure there is a town, but it’s closer to the state highway we needed to take to get to Atlanta. That’s still at least seven, maybe eight miles away.”

Vaughn crossed to her, nudged her over so he could sit, too. He groaned as he lowered himself to the rock and rubbed the leg he’d been favoring. “Damn.”

“We should rest.” Cold seeped through her leggings from the stone and for the first time, she realized how much the temp had dropped. Her breath was starting to fog against the air with each exhale, too. And of course as soon as she noticed it, she started to shiver. “It’s getting colder.”

“Could be worse. We’re lucky this part of the country seems to be having a mild February.” He hesitated, then wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in against him. “Still, it’s cold enough that we’re in very real danger of hypothermia. We should set up a camp, build a fire, and wait out the dawn.”

“You can do that?” For all of the survival skills she’d honed in the last five years, she’d never mastered the art of wilderness survival. Honestly, hadn’t wanted to try. The urban jungle was more her speed. “You can build a fire?”

“Well, I could….” He smirked. “If I were still a SEAL.”

She bumped him with her shoulder. “Asshole.”

“I think I prefer the more colorful ‘twatwaffle.’” He stood and held out a hand to help her up. “I’ve been dying to ask. What the hell is a twatwaffle, anyway?”

Ignoring his hand, she got to her feet. Not out of any sense of stubbornness, but because she was afraid of hurting him. “When we reach civilization, look in the mirror. You’ll find a perfect example right…” She drew circles around her own face with one finger. “There.”

He gave a bark of laughter, and she couldn’t help but grin. She missed a lot about their short-lived relationship—the strangely easy rapport they’d had and, dear God, the mind-blowingly hot sex—but most of all, she’d missed bantering with him. He’d always been able to make her laugh with his dry wit, something she hadn’t expected when she first met the big, brooding man in the elevator at Jude and Libby’s wedding.

In truth, she’d found Vaughn a little intimidating during that first meeting, and her inner rabbit had kicked in. She’d run as far and as fast as she could away from him—only to return to her room and find her fiancé in a frightening rage after an encounter with his ex-girlfriend.

She’d never seen Preston angry before. He’d been so mild mannered, which was why she’d chosen him. He’d seemed like a safe bet, but the way he’d ripped up the hotel room was a vivid reminder of a past she wanted to forget. She’d called off the engagement right then and, although she’d wanted to run from him, too, her friendship with Libby and the fact she’d been a bridesmaid had made her stick.

She’d returned to the reception like nothing had happened and drowned her sorrows in revelry and champagne. She tended to be a mopey drunk, though, and when the reception had started winding down, she’d staggered onto the beach to do just that—mope over her horrible taste in men.

Why was she was only attracted to the psychos?

She watched Vaughn walk along the edge of the road, searching for… she didn’t know what, and then she remembered him stumbling toward her that night on the beach, obviously having had one too many drinks himself. She remembered how sweet she’d thought he was for his drunken attempts to cheer her up. Remembered how hot she’d burned the first time they’d kissed under that dancing palm tree…

Okay, maybe she wasn’t only attracted to psychos.

She was more attracted to Vaughn than she’d ever been to any man in her life, and he was a good man with a good heart—once you got past the solid wall of brooding, intimidating intensity he erected around himself. If she had the luxury, he was the kind of man she’d want for the long haul. Only, she wasn’t going to get long haul. She was lucky to get right now.

But oh, how she wished circumstances could be different.

“Over here,” Vaughn called as he left the road, breaking through her thoughts.

She followed him down an embankment and found him circling a small clearing, picking up twigs and branches as he went. “Is this where we’ll camp?”

“Yeah, it’s a good spot.”

She eyed the clearing. A good spot? All she saw was a bare patch of leaf-strewn earth. What exactly was good about it?

Her doubt must have shown on her face, because he added, “It’s flat, dry, has a good canopy overhead in case Mother Nature wants to be a bitch and dump on us. Plus, we can see the road, but anyone driving by won’t be able to see us.”

The idea of staying here overnight gave her the sensation of ants crawling over her arms. She told herself bedding down here was pretty much the same thing as walking along the road—either way, she wasn’t leaving the woods tonight—but that didn’t help. She hugged herself. “I don’t know about this. Maybe we should—”

“What? You already pointed out it’s getting cold, and we still have a long hike. We’ll be better off staying put and warm until the sun comes up.”

She grumbled. “I hate that I was right.”

“C’mon.” He crouched down, cleared away the dead leaves from a spot on the ground, and started layering the sticks he’d collected into a teepee. “Haven’t you ever been camping?”

“No. The closest I’ve come is—” Realizing how much she was about to reveal about herself, she stopped.

He glanced up. “Is…?”

“Nothing.”

His expression said he suspected it was more than nothing, but he didn’t call her out. Instead, he set about making the teepee. When he finished, he grabbed his bag from her and dug through it.

“Now what?” she asked. “Do you rub two rocks together?”

“I could. Or…” He found what he was looking for and held it up. “Use a lighter.”

“You’re not a smoker. Why do you have a lighter in your bag?”

“Never leave home without one.”

She found a downed log, sat, and propped her chin in her hand. “I thought it was Tabasco sauce you never left home without.”

He reached into the bag again and pulled out a plastic bottle. “Have that, too.”

“That’s not going to start a fire anywhere but in your gut.”

He chuckled and slid it back in the bag. “Now you sound like my buddy Quinn. He thinks I’m crazy for liking the stuff.” As he spoke, he crawled back over to the teepee and flicked the lighter. Within seconds, the small pieces of wood underneath caught. He blew on it, fanning the flames until the whole thing was engulfed.

Sage scooted closer and warmed her hands over the flames. The heat was delicious, a wonderful reprieve from the February chill.

Vaughn sat back, groaning a little as he stretched out his legs. He dragged the bag of snacks from the truck stop between them, found a bottle of water, passed it to her, then grabbed one for himself.

“There was this one morning during BUD/S—that’s the training program for SEALs,” he explained after taking a drink when she opened her mouth to ask what it was. “It’s, in a word, brutal. The instructors take you to your limit and then give you a big fucking shove past it. So this one morning, we drag ourselves to breakfast, and we’re all starving, miles beyond exhausted, and aching in places we didn’t know we could ache. Most of the guys just shoveled in their food on autopilot, probably not even tasting it. But me?” He laughed with the memory. “I was so tired I was delirious, and this stubbornness kicked in. I wasn’t going to eat a bite without my Tabasco sauce. And with the instructors ragging my ass the entire way, I dragged myself to my bunk for the bottle. That was when Quinn started calling me Tabasco, and the nickname’s stuck ever since. There are a few guys on the teams who probably don’t even know my real name.”

It was impossible not to hear the nostalgia in his voice. “You miss it.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest, but he closed it again without uttering a sound and stared into the flames. “Yeah. I do. A lot.” He glanced over, and his lips twisted in a self-depreciating smile before he took another gulp from his water. “Not being on the teams…it feels like….like I’ve had a leg knocked out from under me while I’m standing on stilts.” He offered her a bag of pistachios.

She waved it away. “What do you mean?”

“Hell. I don’t know.” He sat in silence for a few seconds, cracking open the nuts, tossing the shells into the flames. “I told you about how my parents were killed in a gas station robbery gone bad when I was eleven…”

“I remember,” she said softly. She didn’t remember the whole story, but she did recall the complete heartbreak in his voice as he’d related it. She remembered her heart cracking open just like one of his pistachios. She remembered soothing him the only way she’d known how…with her body.

“Yeah, well.” He tossed another shell into the fire. “I always had my brothers, and they always had my back, but…I struggled without my parents. For years, I was so angry and probably depressed. After high school, Greer wanted us all to join the military so we could pay for college. Greer and Reece went into the Army. Cam, Air Force. Jude, Marines. And I chose the Navy without really putting much thought into it. Figured I’d do my four and get out…but I found my place there. And then when I joined the SEALs, I found a second family and a steadier support system than my brothers were able to give. It was exactly what I needed.”

She glanced away because the love she saw in his eyes when he spoke of his two families was so intense, so genuine, it hurt. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have so many people to love and so many people to love you in return. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like to experience emotions as deeply as Vaughn did, and it astounded her that this hard man was willing to open himself up and bare his heart like he was now.

“I lived on the streets for a while,” she blurted almost before she’d made the decision to tell him. But it was out now, so she sucked in a fortifying breath and forged ahead. “That’s the closest I’ve come to camping.”

“Oh, vixen,” he whispered, not looking at her, still staring into the fire. “It’s not even close to the same.”

“Good.” She attempted a laugh, but it came out all wobbly. “Because it’s not something I ever care to repeat.” She followed his gaze, watched the mesmerizing twists of orange and yellow playing over the wood, and tried not to relive those horrible months. Alone. Scared. Hungry. Cold.

She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “After I dropped my real identity and before I assumed Violet Smith’s…I was nobody. I had no name, no home. Definitely no family or support system. It was terrifying.”

“But you survived.”

She lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “It’s what I do. Survive.” But she didn’t live, and it was starting to get to her. She wanted more than mere existence.

Vaughn said nothing for a long time. “Are you ready to tell me your real name now?”

She wanted to. She even opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her tongue would not form the name. Too many years on the run had trained her to push it out, push it away, pretend she’d never been that person. At this point, she wasn’t even sure her birth name was her real name anymore.

The silence stretched too long, broken only by the crackling flames.

Vaughn shook his head and grabbed another handful of pistachios from the bag. “I’ll take that as a no.”

She thought of Marcus’s text. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

“I don’t want to find out. I want you to tell me.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“You won’t,” he corrected.

“Okay. Won’t.” She shifted to face him. “I survive. And the only reason I have is because I’ve never told anyone who I was. That woman? I left her behind when I ran and haven’t been her in five years. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to be her again.”

“Who do you want to be?”

She sighed and reached into the bag for a handful of pistachios. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Chapter Ten

Morning poured over their little campsite in dappled golden light, accompanied by birdsong. It was one of those perfect camping mornings, crisp and cool, with wisps of fog floating along the river below them.

Vaughn had woken up sporadically throughout the night to rebuild the fire, but now it was down to smoldering coals, and the morning dampness had settled into his bones. Moving was going to be a bitch.

Sometime in the last few hours, Sage had snuggled up against his body. Probably just to keep warm, but he still let himself savor the contact as he lay there staring up at the gently swaying leaves of the forest’s canopy, trying to convince his aching muscles it was time to move.

Last night had been…intimate. More so than sex ever was. He’d told her more about himself than he’d ever told anyone, his brothers and brothers-in-arms included, and he wasn’t sure why. If he tried, he could convince himself it was a tactic to get her to open up about her past, but that hadn’t been the reason. They’d always had an easy rapport, so maybe he could chalk it up to that, but the whys of it didn’t really matter. She now knew more about him than anyone—and he still didn’t know her name.

He gazed down at the top of her head and pushed a strand of blonde hair away from her face. Who was she? And why the fuck did she captivate him like no other woman he’d ever met?

Uncomfortable with his line of thought, Vaughn shifted out from underneath her and shoved himself upright. Every muscle in his body groaned at the movement, and he’d definitely bruised some ribs—if not cracked one. He had a freakishly high pain tolerance, so just the fact that he was hurting as much as he was now told him he was not in good shape. And he needed to empty his bladder.

He gazed down at Sage, watched her for several moments to make sure she was still deep asleep. She was, her breathing slow and even. Good. He hauled himself to his feet and walked a short distance away to do what he needed to do.

But as soon as he had his fly down, he heard a scrambling in the leaves behind him. No fucking way had she been faking sleep. He swung around in time to see her clawing her way up the short embankment toward the road. After everything, still trying to escape him.

Where the hell did she think she was going? They were in the middle of nowhere.

Cursing, he tucked himself back into his pants, grabbed his bag from the ground, and chased after her. Halfway to the road, he recognized the rumble of an engine and picked up his pace.

Fuck. She was hitching a ride.

He burst onto the road, already opening his mouth to yell at her to stop, and she turned away from the small RV idling on the shoulder.

Smiling, she waved him over. “Hey. There you are. They said they’ll give us a ride into town.”

Us.

She wasn’t running.

Everything in him uncoiled in relief, but he tried to keep the emotion off his face. He must have failed, though, because she frowned as he approached.

She touched his arm, a feather-light caress meant to be soothing. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” The word came out more tersely than he’d intended, and he inwardly winced, even as he added, “I told you to stop asking me that.”

Her frown dropped into a scowl and she folded her arms across her chest. “Still not a morning person, I see.”

Ignoring that remark, he turned his focus on the couple in the RV. They were older, probably a pair of traveling-the-country-by-RV retirees, and they looked harmless enough. Still, the idea of accepting a ride from anyone made him twitchy.

“We’ll walk. Thanks.”

The white-haired man in the driver’s seat shrugged. “Suit yourselves.”

“We’re not walking,” Sage said.

At the same time, the man’s wife said, “For goodness sakes, Arnold. They are not walking. Look at them! They must belong to that car accident we saw back down the road.” She leaned forward enough in her seat to study them out the driver’s side window. She was a small woman with salt-and-pepper hair, and her skin was as dark as her husband’s was pale. “Listen to your wife, young man.”

“We’re not—” Vaughn started, but Sage elbowed him in the side, which sent pain singing through his ribs.

Right. Okay, she must have told the couple they were man and wife. It did make for an easier explanation than whatever the hell they really were. Captor and captive? Guard and prisoner?

…Lovers?

“Vaughn,” Sage said in a tone that left no room for argument. “You’re hurt, and I’m freezing. We’re taking the ride. Get in.”

With that, she turned on her heel and walked around the RV, leaving him no choice but to follow or lose her. He stalked after her and reached the door just as the woman pushed it open and waved them inside.

“Come in! I’m Edna. You already met Arnold.” Her husband grumbled from the front seat as he shifted the vehicle into drive, but she waved him off. “Oh, ignore him. He’s all growl and no bite.”

“Huh,” Sage said and cast a too-sweet smile in Vaughn’s direction. “Sounds like someone I know.”

He desperately wanted to flip her off but settled for a scowl since they were in mixed company. He had plenty of bite, and if she didn’t know that by now…well, he’d just have to prove it to her the first chance he got. He’d start with her earlobe and nibble his way down her neck, sink his teeth into the sensitive tendon at the base—

Sage was staring at him, a knowing smirk on her lips.

What, she could read minds now? Or maybe he was just that transparent around her.

He refocused on Edna, who was chattering away. If she’d noticed the silent byplay, she pretended not to.

“We’ve been wanting to do this for years,” she was saying. “We never had children, so when Arnie retired from the military, I convinced him to sell the house and buy this RV.”

“It’s lovely,” Sage said.

It was a nice one. Vaughn imagined it had cost almost as much as a house. Leather seats, granite countertops, a huge TV on the wall—in fact, it was nicer than some of the apartments he’d lived in over the years.

All the more reason this couple shouldn’t be picking up strangers on the side of the road.

“You should be careful picking up hitchhikers,” he said.

From the front seat, Arnold snorted. “I know how to handle myself, son. I spent thirty years as a Marine.” He glanced back. “You’re military. I can see it on you. Marines?”

“No, my brother is, but I went the Navy route.”

“Ah, a squid.”

“Nope. A frog.”

Arnold gave him a quick onceover, then nodded. “Yeah, I should’ve figured that. You have the look.”

“Besides,” Edna added cheerfully, “we don’t usually pick up hitchhikers. You’re our first.”

“And last,” Arnold said.

Edna shook her head at him before returning her attention to them. “We saw your car a ways back. We stopped to help, but nobody was there. Oh, here, sit down! You must both be exhausted.”

“We are. Thank you.” Sage sat the on the couch-like seat across from the TV. “We thought the town was closer and we’d be able to walk, but we ended up sleeping on the ground last night.”

“You poor dears! Here.” She bustled over to the kitchen area, and moments later the smell of coffee filled the motorhome. Vaughn could have kissed the woman when she handed him a mug.

“All right, Edna,” Arnold said. “Leave them alone now. They had a long night. Give them some space.”

Edna fussed a bit more, making sure Sage had a coffee and a blanket before returning to her seat next to her husband. “If you two need anything, you just ask. We should be to town in fifteen minutes or so. Unless there’s somewhere else you want to go…?”

“The next town’s fine,” Vaughn said. If they could get to civilization, he’d be able to charge his phone and call his brothers. Though, admittedly, the thought of asking them for help chafed his hide. Maybe if the town was big enough, he’d find another rental place, get another car, and they could continue on to DC without his brothers ever knowing about the heaping pile of trouble he’d stepped in.

Sage bumped her shoulder against his. “You’re scowling again.”

“I’m not scowling,” he said, even though, okay, he probably was. He took a drink of the coffee to hide it. “I’m thinking.”

“Uh-huh. And you always scowl when you think.” She wrapped her fingers around her mug and sank into the comfort of the leather seat. “You’ve been a bear since you woke up. What gives?”

He remembered the jolt of disbelief followed by the flood of anger he’d experienced when he thought she’d run away from him again. “Nothing.”

“Oh, of course. Which explains why you’re getting all grumbly again.” She said nothing more for a long moment, then finally released a breath and shifted in the seat to face him. “You thought I was trying to escape you again.” A statement, not a question. “I told you I was done running. The engine woke me up, and I didn’t want to risk missing them”—she tilted her head, indicating their good Samaritan saviors—“because I was looking for you.”

“You heard the RV, but you didn’t hear me get up?” he said doubtfully.

“The engine sound was out of the ordinary. You getting up before me…wasn’t.” She lifted a shoulder, going for a casual shrug and not succeeding. Color filled her cheeks. “You always got out of bed first when we were together, and I trained myself not to notice. Guess I still don’t.”

For some reason, her admission made his chest ache. He rested his head against the seat and shut his eyes. “I’m going back to sleep.”

He wasn’t actually tired, but it seemed easier than facing her right now. Call him a coward—and maybe he was—but there was too much going on inside him, a jumble of thoughts and emotions. One minute he was pissed off beyond words at her, the next he wanted her so badly he ached, and underneath it all was this nagging hum of fear she’d escape him and he wouldn’t be able to find her again. He needed some time to sort that shit out and get his head screwed on straight before he could deal with her.

So, yeah, coward or not, he was going to feign sleep for the next fifteen minutes.

Chapter Eleven

There wasn’t much to the town—a gas station, a small mom-and-pop grocery store, a post office, and a motel. Really, it wasn’t so much a town as a pit stop clustered around the on- and off-ramps of the state highway that led to Atlanta. Sage had seen hundreds of other places like it during her travels.

Arnold pulled the RV up to the pumps at the gas station, then turned in his seat. “You two sure this is your stop? Not much here. I don’t even see a police station to report your accident.”

Sage stiffened at the mention of police. She couldn’t help it. The last thing they needed was to contact the police for a whole host of reasons. Not the least of which was, technically, that she was a fugitive. She wasn’t wanted for a crime—well, other than identity theft—but there were people in law enforcement who would love to find her.

Vaughn noticed her unease. He noticed every-freaking-thing. He cupped her elbow with his hand and pulled her up to stand beside him. “Right now, all we want is a hot shower and a soft bed for the day, so this is perfect.” He motioned out the window at the motel across the street. “We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”

“Thank you so much,” she said to Edna as he guided her toward the door.

As soon as the cold air hit her, she started to shiver again. And just as she was starting to warm up, too. But the temperature seemed to have dropped in the twenty minutes since Arnold and Edna had picked them up, and she was suddenly so very grateful to the couple for their generosity. “We should give them something for helping us.”

Vaughn said nothing in response, but when they circled the RV to where Arnold was pumping gas, he held out a hand for a shake, thanked the man, and tried to offer some money.

Arnold vehemently refused. “You two take care of yourselves. And each other.” He gave Vaughn a little salute, smiled up at his wife who was sitting in the window, then went inside to pay for the gas.

“They’re adorable,” Sage said, and a hollow ache opened up in her belly as Vaughn steered her toward the motel. Even if there was a day sometime in the future she could finally stop running, she’d never get what Arnold and Edna had. She was too…damaged. Life had sharpened her once rose-colored glasses to a cynical edge, and she didn’t believe in love anymore. She knew it existed, saw it in others, but she didn’t believe in it for herself. She wasn’t capable of loving any more than she was of being loved.

No, that wasn’t true. She definitely could love and was pretty sure she’d been falling hard for Vaughn before she’d been forced to leave DC.

At the motel, Vaughn requested a room for a night, and the bored-looking kid behind the desk barely glanced up from his phone long enough to hand over the keys. Just as well. She didn’t particularly want people noticing or remembering her.

The room was nothing special. A typical hotel set-up—two queen beds, a dresser, TV, and a little table with two chairs. But it was clean, the air smelled fresh, and it had a shower. She couldn’t ask for much more.

“I call dibs,” she said as soon as Vaughn opened the door. She didn’t wait for his response and made a beeline toward the bathroom. She felt disgusting, grubby. It reminded her far too much of her months living on the streets, and she wanted nothing more than to be clean again. While she couldn’t do much about the nasty state of her clothing since she’d been unable to reach her bag in the car, she could at least clean her skin.

And she didn’t want to think about the two thousand dollars she’d left behind in that bag. All of her savings. Her escape plan.

Damn.

She shut the bathroom door and peeled out of her sweatshirt and leggings and left them in a pile on the floor. There would be no saving the sweatshirt, stained with blood and mud and ripped at the elbows as it was, but the leggings might have a shot. One knee was ripped, but they were black, so they didn’t show any stains. She took a moment to wash them out in the sink and hang them to dry over the towel bar.

As she crossed to the shower, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror over the sink and winced. No wonder she ached everywhere. She was a giant bruise. The seatbelt strap had left an outline of itself across her chest in a bright purple and black streak.

Vaughn’s pin still hung on the chain around her neck, bright against her abused skin. She rubbed it. She should probably give it back, but she still couldn’t bring herself to part with it.

Sighing at herself, she pulled the chain off and set it on the counter, then started the shower.

The water felt amazing. She tilted her head back and let it rain over her face, groaning at the pure bliss of it.

This was heaven.

The curtain scraped open, startling her out of her shower-induced daze, and Vaughn stepped into the tub behind her. She opened her mouth to protest, but he didn’t give her a chance. He swallowed her squeak of surprise, his mouth hot and hard and demanding on hers. She pressed her hands to his bare chest with every intention of shoving him away, but she couldn’t do it. Not when his kisses sparked such heat inside her, warming her faster than the hot water had.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. It was all so overwhelming, the way she imagined drowning might feel—panic, then resignation, then a weird giddiness.

He kissed her thoroughly. One moment, he was taking his time, nibbling at her lips, caressing her mouth with his tongue. And the next, he devoured her as if desperate for the taste of her.

When they finally broke apart for air, he growled and went in for another kiss and another and another. “I hate that I want you.”

“Then why do you keep kissing me?”

He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, but the harsh gesture was softened by the spark of pure lust in his blue eyes. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Because I can’t fucking stop.”

His next kiss was an attack, one she welcomed and returned with fervor as she pulled him closer and let him crowd her against the shower wall. Vaughn hated her for her lies, but he also wanted her—and that made him safe. His heart wasn’t involved, so she’d only hurt his pride when she finally escaped him and disappeared again. And she would eventually have to run again, despite her claims she was done. She’d never be able to stop. She wished she could make him understand that.

But right now, this one time, she could use her body for her own pleasure. For once, sex wouldn’t have to be a survival tactic. She could pretend she was still Lark Warren and just be with the man who, against all odds, had managed to snag her heart.

He lifted his lips off hers. “Let me wash you.”

She nodded, unable to formulate words.

He grabbed the tiny complimentary shampoo and squirted some in his hands, then rubbed it into her hair. Soap slid down her body in a caress almost as intimate as his hand. She shivered. He spread the bubbles over her shoulders, down her arms, and finally cupped her breasts in both hands. His eyes were blue fire as he watched her nipples peak under the caress of his thumbs. It was all so sexy, and she couldn’t stand still a moment longer—she had to touch him, too. She found the bottle of shampoo and used it on him, dragging her fingers through his dark, roguishly long hair. When she’d met him at Jude and Libby’s wedding, his hair had been short, cut similarly to his twin’s, but she liked it better long. It suited him.

His cock twitched against her belly, demanding attention. She raked her nails down his chest and stomach to palm the straining length of him.

He braced one hand on the wall behind her, pressed his forehead against hers, and pumped into her grip. “Fuck,” he groaned. “You keep doing that and I’m going to come all over you.”

“So?”

He grasped her wrist and made her stop. “I want inside you.”

If she’d had any chance of resisting him, it disappeared with those words. “Yes.”

“Turn around.”

She did as he asked and heard the curtain rustle, felt him leave the shower for a second. She glanced over her shoulder as he returned, watched him take himself in hand and roll on a condom. Then he gripped her hip and drew her back toward him. He didn’t enter her, instead stroked her slit with the flared head of his cock in a teasing caress, penetrating just enough to drive her crazy. She wanted more of him and tilted her hips, pushing against him, trying to urge him deeper, but he squeezed her hip, stilling her.

“Not yet,” he breathed in her ear.

His chest felt hot against her back, and she trembled at the raspy words, so close to the edge of detonation. His fingers found her nipple and tugged gently. His teeth scraped along the back of her neck, sending shivers flowing down her spine and hardening her nipples further into tight little peaks.

All the while, he rocked his hips, penetrating her shallowly, retreating. And when his hand continued its soapy slide down her front to find her clit, her entire body seemed to malfunction. Her knees collapsed, and his other hand still banded around her hip was the only reason she didn’t fall. She went blind and deaf and numb, all of her senses consumed with the tingling pleasure of the orgasm.

“Brace your hands on the wall.” His voice was rough, raw, and she did as commanded, helpless to do anything else. He urged her legs wider with his knee, and then he was sliding inside her, filling her, stretching her.

“Oh fuck, Sage.”

Something snapped inside him then, and he lost control, unleashing the intensity in him that had once intimidated her. But now she wanted it, craved it. Vaughn never did things by half, and that included fucking. He hammered into her, wet flesh slapping flesh, until they were both screaming. He wrung another orgasm from her before he thrust into her once, twice more and groaned with his own release.

Silence filled the shower stall, broken only by the water and their labored breathing. He folded his arms round her waist and rested his cheek against her spine as the water ran cold around them.

Finally Vaughn straightened and shut off the shower. Sage faced him just in time to see his wince. His bruises were worse than hers, with a nasty looking one along the ribs of his left side.

She started to ask if he was okay, but she bit the question back. He always got so growly when she asked that, and she didn’t want to ruin the moment.

He cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her forehead. “I need my toothbrush. Want yours?”

Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted to brush her teeth. “Yes. Please.”

He disposed of the condom, then left the bathroom and came back a moment later with his toothbrush and toothpaste. He handed her the toothbrush they’d picked up from the motel’s front desk. It was a flimsy plastic thing, but it’d do the trick.

They stood together, side by side and both naked, brushing their teeth. It was jarringly intimate and ridiculous at the same time. She laughed. He glanced her way, mouth full of foam, eyebrow raised in question, which only made her laugh harder.

Vaughn just shook his head at her and bent to spit out the toothpaste. When he straightened, he spotted her chain on the counter and picked it up. “What’s this?” He turned the pin over in his hand, then held it up and gave the chain a little swing in front of her nose. “You sold it, huh?”

Heat climbed up the back of her neck, and she tried to snatch it, but he held it high over her head, away from her reach. “I didn’t want to give it back, okay?”

“Okay.” He moved behind her and clasped the chain around her neck. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he studied their reflection in the mirror.

She stared into the mirror, too. They both looked rough. Her hair was a giant knot she had no hope of untangling without the help of a bottle of conditioner, and the bruises across her torso stood out in sharp contrast against her pale skin. Vaughn’s wet hair clung to his forehead and more than a five o’clock shadow darkened his cheeks. They looked like feral mountain people, but there was no mistaking the glint of male satisfaction in his eyes as he straightened the pin and laid it flat between her breasts.

“Keep it,” he said softly. “It looks better on you.”

She raised a hand to it, traced the edge of the eagle’s wing. “What is it?”

“My trident. It’s what all SEALs get when they graduate BUD/S.”

A lump lodged hard in her throat. Being a SEAL meant the world to him, so this pin had to hold a special place in his heart. He’d chased her down for it, and now he wanted to give it to her? He couldn’t really mean that.

“No.” She started to take the chain off, but he stopped her. “Vaughn, I can’t keep this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But…” Her heart was beating too hard. She pressed a hand over it to calm it, and the pin bit into her palm. “You chased me all the way to New Orleans to get it back.”

He closed his hand over hers and lifted it until the chain dangled between their entwined fingers, light bouncing off the gold trident. He smiled at their reflection. “Vixen, if you think I tracked you down for a pin, you’re not nearly as smart as I’ve given you credit for. I want you to keep it.” He returned it to its place between her breasts, then touched his lips to her shoulder, and planted kisses along the tendon of her neck. He nipped her earlobe. “I also want to make love to you while you wear it.”

Everything female in her melted as his rough whisper sent shivers cascading down her spine. She turned to him, met his blue gaze, and saw nothing but intense sincerity in his eyes.

He wasn’t feeding her a line—then again, she hadn’t really expected that from him. Vaughn didn’t do cheesy pick-up lines. He only opened his mouth when he had something to say, and then he only said exactly what was on his mind.

And he wanted to make love to her.

Make love.

Sex had never been about love for her. At one time, years ago, she’d thought she’d been in love, but she’d been young and stupid and so easily fooled. Ever since, sex was never more than a physical itch to be scratched or a form of power or manipulation. Yes, sex could be fun. It could be dirty, even occasionally be sweet, but never more than that. And it could never, ever be about love.

She wanted it to be more.

Just this one time. With him.

Vaughn cupped a hand around the back of her neck and drew her in close until their lips were nearly touching. His breath smelled of mint from his toothpaste, and she imagined if she lifted up on her toes and closed the distance between them, the taste would also be lingering on his lips.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said, grazing his mouth over hers.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes and sank into his kiss. “Make love to me, Vaughn.”

Chapter Twelve

Vaughn had never expected to hear those words from her. Even when he’d been in the hospital, doped up on pain meds, and had experienced some of the craziest lovesick dreams of his life, she’d never said those words.

And now that she had, he was…

Nervous.

Which was just plain fucking stupid. He knew sex, considered himself good at it. He could read a woman’s body like a navigational chart, had made a study of it—and hers in particular. He knew how to make her scream and what made her come, but the moment she asked him to make love to her, all of that knowledge vanished. Forget the fact they’d just finished having sex not even twenty minutes ago. It was suddenly like he was a teenager again, fumbling around a woman’s body for the first time.

His heart bounced around erratically as he led her into the bedroom. He sat her on the end of the bed and wordlessly knelt in front of her, gently parting her thighs with shaking hands. If he were going to make love to her, it would be with his mouth and then his body. He wanted to savor every second.

She was already wet. He leaned in and tasted her with one long sweep of his tongue before focusing all of his attention on the little nub that always made her rocket. With a throaty moan, she fell back on the bed as her body bowed toward his mouth.

“That’s it, vixen.” He licked his lips, then went in for another taste. “Come in my mouth.”

“Oh…Vaughn!” His name was a half sob, half gasp. He reached up, found her hand clawing at the duvet, and entwined their fingers.

“Yeah, I’m right here with you, vixen.” He kissed her thigh and slid two fingers into her, working them in and out while he went back to circling her clit with his tongue. He felt her coil tighter and tighter, her legs shaking, and he didn’t let up on his assault. And then it was like a cork popped, and all the tension drained out of her on a soft, sexy moan. He didn’t release her right away but continued his lazy exploration with his tongue until she was panting again.

He was perfectly happy to stay there between her thighs, coaxing her to orgasm again and again with his mouth, but his own need for release was becoming painful, and he wanted inside her. He left her long enough to put a condom on, then returned to the bed and crawled up her body, trailing kisses along her soft skin as he went.

He paused where his trident lay between her breasts, and the surge of primal satisfaction at seeing it there made him grin. “Definitely looks better on you. Right here, between these beauties.” He cupped her breasts, rasped his thumbs over her nipples.

“Hey, SEAL.” She smiled down at him. “Get up here and kiss me.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” He planted a kiss on the trident, then shoved himself up to take her mouth. She tasted faintly of toothpaste, but under that was a crisp tartness that was all her. He delved his fingers into her hair and took his time with the kiss, drinking her in while he positioned himself at her entrance.

She yielded to him, but there was something different this time than all the other times before it. For once, she was completely open to him, body and soul, and he froze at the realization.

She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him in closer so that every part of their bodies touched. “Don’t stop.”

“Oh, vixen, you couldn’t pay me to.” He laced their hands together, pressed his forehead to hers, and rocked his hips.

It was slow, soft, and more intimate than anything he’d experienced before. Just a quiet moment in their chaotic lives as they explored each other with their hands and mouths. When she orgasmed again, her body squeezed around his, and he was done. He shook and tensed with her as their orgasms peaked together, consumed them, and then faded.

He relaxed on top of her, everything in him shaking from his release and the beauty of the connection they’d just shared. He felt raw, like his chest had been peeled wide open for her examination, and yet so relaxed he was already drifting toward sleep, using her breast as a pillow.

Sage’s fingers twined into his hair, and the sensation was achingly familiar. She’d always played with his hair after sex, and he’d always liked it, had missed it after she left.

He tightened his arms around her. He couldn’t let her leave again. It might break him if she did. “What’s your story, Sage? I wish you’d tell me.”

Her hand paused halfway through his hair. Fuck. Why’d he have to go and open his trap? He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. It was just a wayward thought that his sex-dazed, half-asleep brain processed into actual words, and he shouldn’t have let his guard down enough to allow it to slip out. He fully expected her to clam up and pull away from him again…

But she didn’t.

Instead, she continued combing her fingers through his hair. “Once upon a time, I was sweet and innocent…” She tugged his hair hard enough that he either had to look at her or risk a bald spot. She smirked. “But then shit happened.”

A burst of laughter escaped him. Damn, if that wasn’t a perfect summation of his own life. “C’mon. You were never sweet or innocent, vixen.”

Sage rolled and straddled him, lightly scraping her nails down his chest. “I was so. I wore pigtails and everything. A regular Catholic schoolgirl.”

“Yeah?” He cupped her gorgeous ass in both hands and squeezed. “I’d love to see that.”

“Play your cards right and maybe you will.” She leaned over and grazed her lips across his, then sat upright again when her stomach grumbled loudly enough that he could hear it. She climbed off him. “But right now, I need pizza.”

He propped himself up on one arm and watched her, gloriously naked and unconcerned about it, as she rummaged through the nightstand drawer for the requisite binder of take-out menus found in every motel. “I forgot about your insatiable appetite for after-sex pizza.”

She gave him a look of feigned outrage. “After-sex pizza was our tradition. How could you forget?”

He hadn’t really. Last fall, during the week they’d spent snowed in together, they’d subsided solely on sex and frozen pizzas. He hadn’t been able to eat a slice since without thinking of her.

“I’ll order. Go in and get cleaned up.” He got off the bed and took the binder from her. “The usual?”

Her smile said she knew he’d been lying about forgetting, but she didn’t call him out on it. “Extra pepperoni.” She started toward the bathroom but swung back around. “Vaughn?” She waited until he gazed up from the binder. “You were never going to turn me over to the police, were you?”

No point in carrying on that ruse. It had been paper-thin to start, and now it was all but transparent. He closed the binder and met her gaze. “No, that was never my plan.”

Relief filled her eyes, but she still sank her teeth worriedly into her bottom lip. “So what is your plan?”

At this point, he had no fucking clue. “Let’s take today for ourselves, and tomorrow we’ll figure everything else out.”

She clasped his trident in one hand, then released it after a second and nodded. “Okay.” She drew a breath. “Okay.” Then she grinned and motioned toward his hips. “You keeping that thing as a souvenir or what?”

He gazed down. Ah, hell. Had he really just had an entire conversation with a condom drooping off his cock? He’d been so wrapped up in her he’d completely forgotten to deal with it. “Maybe. Unless you plan to use another one.”

“Oh, I plan to use several more. You might want to order us a couple pizzas,” she added and disappeared into the bathroom.

A thrill coursed through him—the exact kind of adrenaline high he usually got from a good cage-fighting match. But sparring with Sage was better than anything he ever got from the octagon. Better even than the rush of jumping out of a plane or creeping in behind enemy lines.

Jesus, he’d missed her.

And if he only had today with her, he was damn well going to make the most of it.

…

They spent the rest of the day and all night in bed, alternating between sleeping, eating cold pizza, and making love. It was definitely making love, too, nothing like the hard and fast, angry fuck in the front seat of the rental car. It reminded Sage of their time together before she left DC, when for a short while she’d felt like everything might just turn out okay, when she’d thought she might be done running and could finally be…well, not her old self—because that woman was long gone—but a better version.

That was the problem with being with Vaughn. She’d always felt comfortable around him, like she didn’t have to wear one of her disguises. She didn’t have to be anyone she didn’t want to be.

It should scare her.

It did.

And it didn’t.

God, she was so conflicted when it came to this man.

She rolled over and looked at him. His jaw was shadowed with a heavy layer of stubble, and his dark hair was mussed from her running her hands through it all day. Even now, she wanted to tangle her fingers in it again. He had a bit of curl in his hair, which she liked, and it was so soft, which always made her smile. Vaughn Wilde was not a soft man in any way, and it struck her as funny that his hair was as silky as a puppy’s coat.

He stirred, cracked one blue eye open, then squinched it closed again and groaned.

She laughed. “Good morning.”

“No. It’s not morning yet. It can’t be.”

“Yes, it is.” She kissed his chin. She remembered he wasn’t a morning person, and even though he’d always wakened before her, he’d never been happy about it. “It’s almost nine. How are you feeling?”

He opened both eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a second, as if taking an internal inventory. Then he winced. “Moving’s going to be a bitch.”

“Maybe you should take another hot shower.”

He slid his hand down her waist to her thigh. Squeezed her ass. “I could be persuaded.”

“Alone,” she added. “You don’t need sex right now.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed, like she was crazy. “I always need sex.”

In his mind, that was probably true, but she could tell he was hurting. Always the tough guy, pretending he was okay when he wasn’t. She sat up and dragged her fingers over the deep purple bruises on his ribs.

He hissed out a breath.

She arched a brow and didn’t quite manage to keep the smugness out of her expression. “You either take a hot shower or I take you to a hospital.”

“All right,” he grumbled. “I’m going.”

He got up out of bed, slowly, which gave her time to admire his backside. He was thinner than the last time they’d been together. He’d lost some weight but still had a gorgeous body underneath all of the bruises. All long, lean, well-used muscle with an ass that was made for grabbing. A tribal tattoo covered one whole shoulder, and she remembered tracing all of those intricate swirls with her tongue their first time together in Key West. It had driven him wild, and he’d scooped her up off the bed and fucked her hard and fast against the wall until their neighbors in the next room over pounded in annoyance…

At the bathroom door, Vaughn hesitated and glanced back. “Sage. Will you, uh, be here when I get out?”

The note of vulnerability in his tone jolted her out of her daydream, and she flinched. Oh God. He might as well have taken a chisel to her heart with that question. It would have hurt less. She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. She wasn’t planning on going anywhere—for now. But she would. Eventually, she’d have no choice but to run again. Except this time, she’d be leaving her heart behind with him.

He hesitated for another beat, then walked into the bathroom. He came back a second later with her leggings, now mostly dry, and handed them to her. “There’s a Navy T-shirt in my bag. It’ll be big, but it’s all I have.”

“Thank you.” She accepted the leggings, but he didn’t let go right away. Their gazes clashed, and he leaned down, pressed his lips to her forehead.

For some reason, she got the feeling he was saying good-bye. Did he not trust that she’d still be here when he finished showering?

Ouch, that hurt. Then again, she hadn’t given him a whole lot of reason to trust her, but he’d see when he came back that she was keeping her word this time. She wasn’t going anywhere until she absolutely had no other choice.

The bathroom door shut behind him, and she climbed out of bed to find the T-shirt he’d mentioned. It was right on top in his bag, and underneath was his cell phone charger. They’d been too busy to bother plugging it in. She pulled out the shirt, then grabbed the charger and found his phone on the dresser. The screen was black. Battery dead. She plugged it into the outlet at the base of the nightstand lamp and watched the screen go through its power-up.

Of course, now they had a signal.

“Where were you yesterday?” she demanded of it and set the phone down on top of the motel’s information binder. She dragged on her leggings and then Vaughn’s T-shirt. It was huge on her, like a dress, but since he outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, that was to be expected. She gathered the hem and tied it in a knot around her waist. Much better.

She was just turning away to see if she could find anything remotely brush-like in his bag when his phone rang.

Sage shot a glance toward the bathroom door, her heart surging into her throat. What if it was Marcus calling to tell him about her?

She snatched up the phone and started to hit the “ignore” button, but then she hit answer instead. If it was Marcus, maybe she could talk him out of spilling her secrets. At least for a little while. “Hello?”

“Who is this?” a male voice demanded.

A voice she recognized.

A voice that had haunted her for years.

Every cell in her being froze in fear, and she raised a hand to her mouth to cover her cry of surprise. She ended the call and dropped the phone from her numb fingers, backed away from it like it was a ravenous animal crouched to attack.

Vaughn had lied to her.

He hadn’t tracked her down to take her back to DC. He’d tracked her down to hand her over to Giuseppe Bellisario.

He’d lied.

In the bathroom, the shower shut off.

Oh God. She’d made a huge mistake trusting him.

She had to leave. Now.

…

She was gone.

Vaughn stood in the bathroom doorway, a towel wrapped around his hips, and stared at the empty room, the rumpled bed. For a hopeful second, he wondered if she’d gone to the vending machines for something to eat—but, fuck, he knew her better than that. She’d run again. There was no doubt in his mind.

He’d had a feeling she would, and although he hadn’t wanted to be right, he’d mentally prepared himself for this.

Because, this time, he was done chasing her.

She wouldn’t tell him who she was, wouldn’t let him help solve her problems. He didn’t even know her real name. It was like chasing a ghost, and he couldn’t keep doing it or he’d drive himself insane.

Over on the nightstand, his phone let out a chime indicating an incoming message. Numb, he walked over and picked it up, saw the text from his twin. Instead of returning the text, he decided to call.

Cam answered halfway through the first ring. “Where the hell are you?”

Vaughn sank to the bed and stretched out. The scent of Sage and sex folded around him. Like he needed the reminder of how fucking good she’d felt. He sat up again and winced as pain stabbed through his side. “Uh, it’s a small town about two hours from Atlanta.”

“With Lark?”

“Sage,” he corrected. “She goes by Sage now. And no. She took off again.”

Cam exhaled slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna keep chasing her.”

“No, I’m not. I’m done. You were right. This…obsession I’ve had with finding her is ridiculous. I’m coming home.”

The declaration got a whole lot of radio silence from his twin. It stretched too long, edged into uncomfortable territory. Just as he was about to open his mouth and say something—anything—to break the silence, Cam finally spoke again.

“You okay?” he asked.

Not even close. Every muscle in Vaughn’s body ached, and he was pretty sure a cracked rib accounted for the shooting pain in his side every time he moved. On top of that, there was now a hollow ache in the center of his chest that hadn’t been there before. “Yeah. Uh, I’m good.”

“You’re lying,” Cam said without a shred of doubt in his voice. “I’ve been uneasy, restless all night. You’re injured, aren’t you?”

Damn. “You know, sometimes being a twin sucks.”

“Tell me about it. Especially when your twin is a suicidal maniac, but you wouldn’t know anything about that because I’m the sane one. What did you do now?”

Vaughn winced. “I’m not suicidal. I was just…in a car accident last night.”

The reaction was about like he expected. Cam exploded with a heartfelt, “Jesus Christ, Vaughn!”

“What’s wrong?” Eva said in the background. “Is he okay?”

Cam’s voice faded away from the receiver. “He was in an accident. Here, talk to him. I need to check flights to Atlanta.”

Eva came on the line. “Dammit, Vaughn.” Those two words were her constant refrain when dealing with him, and despite everything, they made him grin.

“Hey, Eva. Tell your husband I’m okay. Just banged up. He doesn’t need to—”

“You know he does,” she interrupted. “You’re hurting.”

“What? You married Cam so you suddenly have his twin radar?”

“No,” she said gently, which made him realize how snappish he’d gotten, and he mentally kicked himself. She added, “I can hear it in your voice.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.” There was a pause. She lowered her voice: “He barely slept last night, Vaughn. He’s going to make himself sick worrying about you.”

Guilt tightened his throat. “He doesn’t need to worry about me.”

“You know he can’t help it. It’s in his nature.”

“Yeah, he’s always been the better of the two of us. I’m the evil twin, right?”

Eva laughed. “Hey, I was drunk and mad at you for being a cock-block when I called you that. Besides, it’s not true. You’re the…moody twin.”

He snorted. “I think I’d rather be evil.”

“You would.” Another short pause. “Can you go to an ER and get yourself checked out? Please. If not for yourself, then at least do it to make Cam feel better.”

Direct hit. She knew right where to aim. And hell, he could do with something to take the edge off the pain. “All right. I’ll find the nearest hospital.”

“Good. Let us know where it is, and Cam will meet you there.”

Chapter Thirteen

According to the motel’s night manager, there was a hospital in a small city about a half hour away, and the guy was kind enough to offer Vaughn a lift. He checked himself in at the ER registration and told the surprised lady behind the desk he might have a cracked rib.

“Aren’t you in pain?” she asked.

“Yeah, a bit.”

She looked like she didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t going to waste time explaining his legendary pain tolerance. He’d always had a high threshold—which his parents found out the hard way when he was four and broke his arm falling out of a tree. He’d been afraid of getting in trouble for climbing and didn’t tell them about it until his mother was getting him and Cam ready for their baths that night. The SEALs had only hardened him more. He’d completed grueling missions with everything from concussions to broken bones.

The lady behind the desk eyed him suspiciously as she handed him a ream of paperwork to fill out. She probably thought he was a drug seeker with phantom complaints, but whatever. He settled into a chair in the waiting area with the clipboard and took his time filling it all out. Since he was up, moving around, and didn’t seem to be in as much pain as he should be, they weren’t going to give him top priority, and he figured he was in for a long wait. Cam would probably even arrive before he saw a doctor.

Outside, an ambulance screeched to halt in front of the ER, and he glanced out the window. Paramedics hustled to unload a stretcher and—

Sage.

A cold hand clamped around Vaughn’s chest. He only caught a glimpse, but he saw a flash of blonde hair and recognized the shirt she was wearing.

Blood stained everything.

He bolted to his feet, met the stretcher at the door, and followed it into the emergency room. There were too many people surrounding her, and he couldn’t get close enough. “What happened to her?”

“Sir.” A police officer stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “Do you know this woman?”

The monitor hooked to Sage flatlined, and for a moment, Vaughn thought his heart stopped beating, too. He lunged past the cop and was caught by two paramedics as a doctor and several nurses took over in an attempt to save her life right there in the hallway. He watched with a growing sense of horror as the seconds ticked by into long minutes and the monitor continued its flat tone.

C’mon, Sage. Fight. I know you can fight. You’re a survivor.

They shocked her three times, continued CPR for nearly twenty minutes. Still no response.

Eventually the doctor working on her shook his head and stepped back. “She’s gone. I’m calling it. Time of death—”

“No!” The word ripped from Vaughn’s throat, a wail that was more animal than human, and the doctor looked in his direction, then nodded at the paramedics.

“Let him go.”

The hands holding him back eased up, and he staggered forward, his legs suddenly numb. All he saw were two bullet wounds that had ripped holes into her chest and his Navy T-shirt underneath her, shredded by a paramedic’s scissors and soaked with her blood.

You’re signing my death certificate.

“Sage.” He gripped her lifeless hand, and his vision blurred as he pushed hair back from her face…

It wasn’t her.

The shock of relief left him lightheaded. For several moments, he forgot how to breathe, and he only remembered to do so because he realized he was about to faint. Finally, he got his lungs cooperating again and exhaled hard, stepped back. “It’s not her.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, looked at the doctor, then the cop. “Thank Christ. It’s not her.”

The cop’s eyes narrowed. The doctor murmured to the nurses, who covered the woman’s body with a sheet. As the stretcher was wheeled away, Vaughn had a moment of panic.

What if he was wrong? What if that was Sage and he—

He needed to see her again. Just to make sure.

He ran after the nurses and tugged the sheet down, stared hard at the dead woman’s face, forcing himself to take note of every detail. This woman was thinner, more angular, with sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. She had heavy bags under her eyes, and her complexion was mottled with acne scars. Needle tracks bruised the insides of both arms.

It absolutely wasn’t Sage.

The doctor set a hand on his shoulder. “Do you know her?”

“No.” He replaced the sheet over the woman and let a nurse wheel the stretcher into a waiting elevator. “I thought she was…” He hesitated, unsure what to call Sage, then settled on the easiest explanation. “Uh, I thought she was my girlfriend.”

“Why?” the cop asked.

“She’s, uh, wearing the clothes I last saw Sage in. That Navy shirt is mine.”

“But that woman is not your girlfriend? Sage?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw Sage?”

“This morning at the motel we’re staying at.”

“What motel?”

“I don’t actually know. Something like…Old Pines Inn? It’s a good thirty-minute drive from here.”

“Uh-huh. And does Sage have a last name?”

The shock and horror finally faded, and it dawned on Vaughn that he was talking to a cop, the absolute last person Sage would want him speaking with about her. “I was mistaken. I’m rattled.”

“You don’t look like the type to get rattled,” the cop said.

He scowled. “I’ve had a hell of a night, Officer…” He glanced at the guy’s nameplate. “Kelly. And I just watched a woman I thought was my girlfriend die in front of me. I’m allowed to be rattled.”

Kelly was unfazed by the dryness in his tone. “Yes, I suppose so. How about your name?”

“Vaughn Wilde.” He didn’t see the harm in giving his real name. In fact, it might even help him since the cop was most definitely now eyeing him and Sage for this murder. He certainly had nothing to do with it, and he had an alibi. Sage…well, she may have done a lot of illegal things, but she didn’t have cold-blooded murder in her. He reached for his wallet, found his PI license. “I’m a private investigator from DC.”

“Uh-huh,” Kelly said again and studied the license without much interest. “What are you doing down here?”

“Just a vacation. We’re driving back to DC from New Orleans.”

“How’d you end up in the ER waiting room? You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“We were in a car accident yesterday. I swerved to miss a deer, and our car went into a ditch. I came in this morning to get checked out because I think I cracked a rib.” He directed that toward the doctor, who nodded.

“We’ll get you in for an x-ray,” the doctor said.

Kelly handed his PI license back. “How did you get here from the motel if your car’s in a ditch?”

“The night manager drove me. His name is Jeff. Didn’t catch a last name.”

“So you left your girlfriend behind at this Old Pines Inn?”

Shit. This wasn’t going well. He needed to get out of here and fast. “I need to go check on her. Seeing that woman, thinking it was her…I need to go.”

Kelly didn’t try to stop him, but he felt the guy’s eyes burning into his back as he walked away.

Outside, he stopped and drew a breath of the cool winter air, ignoring the pain in his ribs. Damn. Could this situation get any worse? No, on second thought, he didn’t want to know the answer to that question. He fumbled for his phone to call Reece.

“Hey,” Reece said after a handful of rings. “What’s going on? Cam said you were in some kind of accident, and he’s on his way to Atlanta—”

“I need your help,” Vaughn interrupted.

“Uh, sure. Anything.”

“I need to find Sage.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? She got away from you again?”

“Yeah, and you were right. She’s running from something. She’s in danger, and she’s scared. Hell, I’m scared for her. I just watched a woman who looked like her die of two GSWs to the chest. And this woman? She was wearing Sage’s clothes. I think Sage gave them away to create a decoy.”

Reece muttered a curse. “But now the decoy is dead, and it’s only a matter of time until whoever’s after her finds out they didn’t get the right woman.”

“Exactly. I need to know where this woman was shot, because I bet Sage is holed up nearby. The police are not going to cooperate with me on this. Pretty sure the first cop on the scene is eyeing me for the murder.”

Reece groaned. “You don’t just step in a pile of shit, do you? Oh, no. You jump in with both fucking feet.” He heaved a sigh. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll see if I can hack into the local PD’s computer system. And, Vaughn, I’m breaking all kinds of laws here, so she better be worth it.”

“She is.” No hesitation. Those two words were the most natural response ever because she was his match in every way—she was his Shelby, his Eva, his Libby. “Yeah,” he added more softly. “She’s worth it to me.”

“All right,” Reece said. “Give me a half hour.”

As Vaughn ended the call, he realized he was shaking with the after-burn of adrenaline and fear. He didn’t usually let himself react to fear. He’d conditioned it out of himself, but in the moments he’d thought Sage was dying on that stretcher…

Yeah. He’d never been more afraid of anything in his life.

He had to find her again.

…

Something had happened across the street.

Sage parted the blinds over the motel’s window and peeked out at the gas station parking lot where only hours ago, she’d given her clothes to a blonde homeless woman who was close to her size and build. Now the lot was cordoned off with police tape, and the street was clogged with patrol cars.

She had a sinking feeling she knew what had happened, and if she was right, giving the woman her clothes had cost that woman her life. But—no. She wouldn’t think about it. Couldn’t. If she lost focus now, she’d end up just like the homeless woman.

She had to lie low for a few days. Thanks to a donation from Vaughn’s wallet, she had enough cash to stay in this motel for a week if need be, then she’d make her way to Atlanta. It wasn’t ideal, wasn’t where she’d hoped to land, but she’d make the best of it. Find a new name, a job, and in a couple of months, when she had enough money squirreled away, she’d head west again.

Alone.

Her heart twisted, and she dropped the blind, shook her head at herself for the stupid thought. Of course she’d be alone. She’d been alone all along. Vaughn was working for the very people who wanted her dead. He didn’t care about her.

God, that hurt.

Why did it hurt so bad?

She dashed away tears she didn’t want to cry and checked the time on the bedside alarm clock. Time to say good-bye to Sage Evans for good. Thanks to L’Oreal, the new her would have hair the color of rich mahogany after she rinsed the dye out in the shower. Once she settled in Atlanta, she planned to buy extensions to lengthen the short bob until her hair grew out again. Maybe she’d find herself some colored contacts to turn her blue eyes brown.

She’d fade into obscurity, disappear, and this time, she’d make sure Vaughn couldn’t find her.

God. Vaughn. What had she been thinking? She’d opened up to him. Come close to letting him see the real her. The part of her identity she couldn’t let anyone but herself see. How was she supposed to disappear if she wasn’t committed to staying invisible?

She checked that the door was locked and chained shut, then went into the bathroom and stripped off the sweatshirt and yoga pants she’d bought at the same drugstore where she’d found her new hair color. She started the shower, tested the water, and stepped under the spray. Water sluiced down her body, carrying away dye as red as blood and pooling in the tub around her feet. She shut her eyes—didn’t want to see it—and scrubbed at her scalp with the entire bottle of the motel’s complimentary shampoo.

It took a while to get all of the dye out of her hair, and the water started to run cool. She shut it off, climbed from the tub, but kept her back to the mirror until she had a towel wrapped around her head. She didn’t hurry to dry off, took her time because she wasn’t ready to face her new reflection yet.

This part of swapping identities always made her nervous. Not because she might screw up her hair—any mistakes she made could always be fixed—but because she never knew who would be staring back at her in the mirror when she got out of the shower. She was afraid that one of these times, she wouldn’t recognize the reflection, and then she’d have truly lost herself. She didn’t want that. Although she could never go back to the girl she used to be, she didn’t want to lose the core of herself, either.

Finally, she was dry and had no reason to put it off any longer. She faced the mirror, sucked in a deep breath and held it as she untwisted the towel from around her head.

She was…still her.

Maybe it was silly to always expect a stranger, but the relief at seeing herself was overwhelming and left her a little lightheaded. She let out a ragged sigh, gripped the edge of the sink, and blinked back tears.

How many more times would she have to do this? How many more times could she take? She barely remembered who she’d been before this all started, and every change was harder than the last. She was tired, but she couldn’t stop. The day she stopped running was the day she died.

She straightened and gazed at herself in the mirror again, speared her fingers through the damp spikes of her hair. The color was lighter than she wanted, an eye-catching red-purple rather than brown with deep red undertones, but it’d have to do for now. She’d let it air dry, let her natural wave do its thing, and once she had the colored contacts and maybe some fake glasses, nobody would recognize her as either Sage Evans or Lark Warren.

But who was she now?

She’d bought a newspaper at the drug store for the express purpose of mining the obituary section for a new name. It’d be easier to find a name if she had internet access, but she had to take what she could get.

She opened the bathroom door and stumbled backward a step in surprise. Vaughn lounged in the chair by the window, the newspaper spread open on the rickety table in front of him.

“So what’s your name now?” he said casually, as if asking about the weather. He glanced up at her, then consulted the paper again. “You don’t look like a Dorothy or Eugenia. Oh, here we go. Hazel A. Woods.” He gave an exaggerated wince. “It’s kind of an unfortunate name, but it fits your pattern.”

She crossed her arms in front of her, keenly aware she wore only a towel. “I’m not telling you. How did you get in here?” She looked at the door, saw the chain hanging broken from the wall. Of course. Vaughn Wilde didn’t know the meaning of the word finesse.

Slowly, he unfolded his long body from the chair. “Why did you run?”

She stepped back as he took a step forward, but she had nowhere to go and they both knew it. She was trapped.

“You’re a liar. You work for him.”

“I don’t work for anybody but my brothers.” He slid another step toward her.

She backed up again and banged her shoulder on the bathroom doorjamb. “Then explain why the hell Giuseppe Bellisario has your phone number!”

He stopped short halfway across the room, and his eyes widened, then narrowed. “Jesus. Is that who you’re running from? The Bellisario family?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face away, because his expression of surprise was too realistic, too compelling, and she couldn’t risk trusting this man. She’d already come too close once. “Like you don’t already know.”

“No, I honestly don’t,” he said, and God, she wanted to believe he was telling the truth. “Sage, I don’t work for Bellisario. I only landed on his radar a few days ago because I’m a fucking idiot and got involved in one of his underground fight rings. He wants to hire me for a job, but I’ve been ducking him.”

It sounded like the truth, but if there was one thing she’d learned while running for her life, it was that lies often did. “You’ve been ducking him?” she said doubtfully and gave a humorless laugh. “That’s dangerous.”

“No shit. That’s why we were run off the road. He was sending me a message.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not, hmm?” He was so close now, she felt the heat of his body. The clean scent of soap and male wrapped around her as he caged her against the wall. “Have I ever been less than truthful with you?”

She shut her eyes, breathed out softly. “No.”

“Then why do you think I’d start lying to you now?”

“Giuseppe has a lot of money.”

“Oh, vixen.” He cupped her head in both of his hands, tangled his fingers in the hair at her temples. The corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile as he gave her head a little shake. “If I wanted money, I wouldn’t be a PI. I sure as hell wouldn’t have been a SEAL. Money doesn’t motivate me.”

She met his gaze. Saw anger there, yes, but also something else. Something like…fear. Was he afraid for her? “Then what does motivate you?”

Instead of answering, he leaned in and captured her lips.

Chapter Fourteen

He kissed her with a tenderness she’d never experienced before from him—or anyone—and tears flooded her eyes.

He drew back mere centimeters, their lips almost still touching, and thumbed away her tears before kissing her again. While her brain didn’t want to risk trusting him, her heart was all for it. She clung to him, pulled him closer, needing his body against hers.

But he wasn’t in a hurry.

His kisses were sweet, lingering, as he backed her toward the bed. He gently sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and heat surged straight to her core. The backs of her knees hit the bed.

Oh God, she wanted nothing more than to sink down onto that mattress with him and lose herself in sensation for a little while. And because she wanted it so badly, she flattened her hands on his chest and gave him a little push.

“Vaughn.” Her voice cracked on his name. “Stop.”

He stared down into her eyes for a long moment, searching for…something. At last, he heaved out a breath and stepped back. “If that’s what you want.”

She didn’t know what she wanted. Him? Yes. She’d always wanted him, and that was the problem.

She hugged herself and moved away from both him and the temptation of the bed. “How did you find me?”

Sighing, he sat down on the edge of the mattress and dragged his hands through his hair. He was silent for so long, she finally turned to face him and saw a ravaged expression she hadn’t expected. He usually kept his emotions so locked-down it was hard to read him, but right now there was no mistaking the raw fear in his eyes when he met her gaze.

“I thought I saw you die today, Sage.”

“What?” she breathed. Her legs suddenly went numb beneath her, and she sank into a chair.

“After you left the motel, Cam called. He found out we’d been in an accident and demanded I take myself to the nearest ER. So I did.”

Despite the dread roiling in her stomach, she had to smile at that. Cam was the only person in the world who could get Vaughn to do something he didn’t want to do, like go to a hospital. “I’m glad he made you go.”

He scowled, then shook his head and continued. “While I was sitting in the waiting room, an ambulance pulled up. A woman had been shot twice. She was a blonde, wearing a Navy T-shirt and black leggings…”

“Oh, no.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and bent double to keep the surge of nausea down. She didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want confirmation of her fears. “No, no, no.”

“I watched her die,” Vaughn said, his voice raw. “And I thought she was you.”

The homeless woman. She’d given that woman her clothes to throw Vaughn and everyone else off her trail. She hadn’t even asked the woman’s name. Hadn’t cared, had only seen her as a means to an end. And because of it, she’d gotten that woman killed.

Bile raced up her throat, and she lurched toward the bathroom. Dry-heaved over the sink as tears streamed in an uncontrollable flood. Vaughn was right there beside her, his big hand rubbing circles in the center of her back.

“I killed her,” she gasped. “Oh God. I killed her.”

She couldn’t draw in an entire breath, her throat too tight, her lungs painfully constricted. White dots started dancing in front of her eyes.

“Jesus.” Vaughn scooped her up. She was helpless to do anything but wrap her arms around his neck and try to keep breathing as he strode to the bed. He sat down and cradled her in his lap.

“Sage, breathe. In and out, nice and slow.” His voice was a soothing murmur against her temple. His hand continued its slow circles on her back. “C’mon. Deep breath in. Let it out. In. Out.”

She focused on his soft words, the comfort of his arms around her, and his hand on her back. Several long minutes passed before her breathing settled to something approaching normal. She curled into him, buried her face against his neck, and let the grief, the wrenching sobs she’d been suppressing, come. And still, he held her. Soothed her.

When the crying jag ended, she lay limp in his arms, exhausted. He shifted them both up onto the bed, and the mattress sank under their combined weight as he lay down with her.

“I didn’t mean for her to die,” she whispered.

He pushed a strand of hair off her forehead. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill her.”

“I didn’t pull the trigger, but she’d be alive if I hadn’t given her my clothes.” She blinked away another round of tears. “I didn’t even ask her name. She died because they thought she was me, and I don’t even know her name…”

“Ah, vixen.” Vaughn pressed a kiss to her forehead. “What can I do to help? Please, tell me what I can do.”

In truth, he was already doing it. She’d been alone for so long she didn’t remember what it felt like to not be, and having someone comfort her was a new experience. A shoulder to cry on was so much better than muffling sobs in a pillow, soldiering through the pain and fear and loneliness that were her life because she had no other choice. For once, she could let herself fall apart, secure in the knowledge Vaughn would be right there to help her put the pieces back together when it was over.

She shifted closer to him. “Just…hold me.”

His arms circled her, and he dragged her in, tangling their legs together, curling his body around hers like a shield. “I’m here. I have you.”

She buried her face against his chest. Listened to the air rush in and out of his lungs, and the strong, steady pulse of his heartbeat. “Why did you come after me again?”

Vaughn said nothing for so long she didn’t think he’d answer. “I wasn’t going to.”

“You shouldn’t have. You should’ve walked away and let me disappear.”

“I can’t.” He huffed out a breath, which sounded a lot like a self-depreciating laugh. “I once accused Cam of having a hero complex. Turns out I have one, too. I know you’re in danger, and as long as you are, I can’t walk away.”

“Vaughn, I’ve been in danger for a long time. The only thing you’ve accomplished by tracking me down is putting yourself directly in the line of fire, too.”

“The line of fire’s a place I’ve been before. Multiple times. I’m not worried.”

“You should be.” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Giuseppe is dangerous.”

He flashed a smile that was just a bit mean. “So am I.”

Oh, this man. This stubborn, grumbly man. He was no bark and all bite, and she loved that about him. She kissed the underside of his jaw, and he dropped his chin to his chest to meet her gaze. So many things passed between them in that moment—thrilling, scary things she didn’t dare name. She didn’t know who moved first, but their lips met in a soft, soul-wrenching kiss, and she ached to be closer to him. Maybe she was using him as a distraction from all the self-hatred boiling inside her, or maybe it was a much more primal need than a diversion, but she suddenly wanted one more time with him more than she wanted anything else in her life. Just one brief moment to experience pleasure with the only man she’d ever felt comfortable enough with to let herself go.

She pushed him to his back and rose up over him, straddling him. He was already hard, and she rocked her hips, grinding against his length through the layers of his clothes.

He groaned and curled his fingers around her waist. “Oh, fuck.”

“I intend to.” She pushed up his shirt and leaned over to drag her tongue over the hard ridges of his stomach and up his chest. “You’re the only man who has ever held me while I cried. The only one who has ever tried to help. I want to thank you for that.”

She was careful of the bruises along his ribs as she crawled up his body and finally found one nipple with her lips.

His fingers tightened in her towel like he wanted to tear it to pieces. “You don’t have to thank me at all. Especially not with sex.”

She released his nipple and met his gaze. “But I want to. Do you have a condom?”

“In my pocket.”

“Perfect.” Smiling, she slipped down his hard body again, trailing kisses across his abs as she went. While she dipped her fingers into his pocket for the condom, she used her teeth to open his fly. He was commando underneath, and she closed her lips around him, circled his head, and savored him with her tongue.

The sound he made when she released him was pure masculine need. She opened her towel, let it drop, and watched him as he drank in the sight of her naked body. She knew she had the goods men liked, which had always been both an asset and a problem, but she never felt beautiful. Except when Vaughn looked at her with that stark want in his eyes, like he was starving for a taste of her. Then she felt more than beautiful. She was powerful and feminine, the only woman he saw, the only woman he wanted. It made her heart pound with heady anticipation and her sex dampen with need.

“Take off your clothes, Vaughn. I want you naked.”

He sprang up off the bed like he couldn’t comply fast enough and shrugged off his shirt, kicked away his jeans and boots. Then he stood before her, naked, every inch of him gloriously male.

He dragged her up for a kiss, but she ducked away. She tossed the condom at him. “Put that on.”

His cock jumped against his stomach. He was long and thick, and he handled himself with a careless roughness as he rolled the condom on.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Now what?”

“Lie down.” She wanted to be on top.

Still smirking, he settled back on the bed and pillowed his hands behind his head. Apparently her SEAL liked taking orders. Good thing, because she liked giving them.

She straddled him again and positioned his cock at her entrance. His smirk faded, and his stomach muscles tensed as she slid down his length, inch by inch.

Vaughn groaned, and his hands circled her hips, holding her while he surged up underneath her in slow, short thrusts that left her body tingling.

She closed her eyes, immersing herself in the rhythm that was the two of them joining together until he was buried all the way inside her. She’d never felt so whole as when she was with him. It was something beautiful and special. Something she’d never had before and would likely never have again.

“Vixen, open your eyes.” His voice was as intimate as a caress, and she did as he asked. “Let me watch you touch yourself. Make yourself come while I’m inside you.”

She shivered and dragged a hand between her breasts, over her stomach, and down to where they were joined. She was already so sensitive, the light brush of her fingers sent tremors racing through her. She gasped and fell forward, catching herself with her free hand on the mattress beside his head.

Vaughn tightened his hold on her hips, keeping her steady as his thrusts became harder, faster. “Fuck, yeah. That was hot. Let me see it again.”

Sensation bombarded her from every direction, fuzzing her thoughts and narrowing her world to the sexy man rocking underneath her, his stomach muscles rippling with each upward thrust.

She caught her breath and straightened, which drove him even deeper. They both moaned. She circled her hips, taking control of the pace, and he let her, his hands now free to wander and caress and stroke. He cupped her breasts, and his rough thumbs rasping over her nipples while she rode him was one of the most erotic sensations she’d ever felt. She shuddered and lost her rhythm. He drew his legs up, pushed his feet into the bed for leverage, and took over again.

“Vixen.” His eyes were blue fire, burning her with their intensity as he watched her. “Touch yourself again.”

When she did, she came unraveled, the pleasure of the orgasm exploding through her. Her body locked down on his. Distantly, she heard him curse, then he sat up and captured her mouth with his, swallowing her cries of pleasure. He rolled her over and tangled his fingers in her hair. She wrapped herself around him—arms, legs, and heart—and held on as his thrusts became shorter, faster, and he, too, lost control.

“Sage,” he groaned and dropped his head to her shoulder as his big body shuddered over hers with his release. He whispered her name and again…

Only it wasn’t her name. Not really.

Her heart split wide open, and tears flooded her eyes. She didn’t want to be Sage to him. She wanted to be someone else, someone…real. God, she was thinking dangerous, crazy things, and her heart pounded with fear of it, but despite everything, she trusted this man. He was safe, and she wanted him to see her for who she was. Her real self. Just this once.

“My name,” she whispered, “is Dahlia.”

He lifted his head and stared down at her, but he said nothing for several heartbeats. His damp hair fell into his eyes, obscuring them, and she had no way of reading his expression. Finally, he propped himself up on one arm and cupped her cheek in his hand, his thumb rubbing lightly back and forth across her lower lip.

“I don’t care,” he said on barely a breath of sound. He pumped his hips again, punctuating his words with shallow thrusts that triggered another soft orgasm. He weaved his hands into the strands of her hair on both sides of her head and held her still for a long, drugging kiss. “I don’t care what your name is. All that matters is you’re mine now. You’re fucking mine, and I’m not letting you run anymore.”

Chapter Fifteen

He claimed she was his, no matter what. And oh, how she wished she could be. But she couldn’t, and he deserved to know why. She owed him that much.

“I’ll tell you now. Everything.”

He didn’t answer. She was afraid to look at him, afraid of what she’d see in his expression. Or, maybe worse, what she wouldn’t see. But she forced herself to meet his gaze, surprised to see stubbornness etched into the hard planes of his face and a bit of annoyance darkening his eyes to storm clouds.

“You can tell me or not. It’s not going to change the way I feel,” he said.

Nerves quivered around in her belly. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

He grumbled and pushed off the bed. “Let me clean up.”

She watched him walk into the bathroom, admiring the flex of the muscles in his ass with each step. She couldn’t help herself. The man had a backside to drool over.

She heard him grumbling some more, muttering to himself as he washed up. Yes, he was definitely annoyed. Strange, since all he’d wanted from her since day one was the truth, and now that she was offering to tell him, he acted as if he didn’t want to hear it. Was he as afraid of his reaction to it as she was?

Another rabble of nerves took flight in her belly, and she climbed out of the bed to find her clothes. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have naked.

Vaughn came out of the bathroom and scooped up his jeans from the floor. Apparently, he’d had the same thought. Then they just stood there, the bed between them, and looked at each other. Moments ago they’d been as close as two people could be, joined in body and spirit. Now, although only a few feet separated them, they might as well have been on different planets for all the figurative space suddenly yawning open between them.

She sucked in a breath, let it out, and blurted, “My name was Dahlia Bellisario.”

Vaughn cursed and rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I wondered.”

A blast of surprise left her cold. She blinked. “You did?”

“When you said you were running from Giuseppe Bellisario, I started putting the pieces together. Everyone knows his favorite son was killed, and his daughter-in-law disappeared shortly after, never to be seen again.” He nodded in her direction. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She sank to the bed as all the years of regret suddenly felt too heavy to shoulder. She needed to unburden herself of it or it was going to crush her. She stared down at her feet, concentrated on tracing the ugly geometric pattern on the carpet with her toe. “My maiden name was Dahlia Grant. I was born in Los Angeles—the accidental baby my parents never really wanted. Dad was always off on one business trip after another, and Mom tried to use me to realize her Hollywood dreams until she realized I had no talent for acting, I had too many curves to be a model, and I can’t carry a tune in a plastic bag, so she lost interest in me fast. I was left to my own devices for most of my teenage years and ended up falling in with the party crowd. Drinking, drugs, sex, skipping school to go out to the clubs every night. My parents didn’t care. Hell, maybe they didn’t even know. They’re…self-absorbed. To say the least.”

Vaughn sat down beside her, his weight on the mattress sliding her toward him. He put an arm around her and hugged her to his side. “When did Dahlia Grant become a Bellisario?”

“When she met Marcel Bellisario. He was ten years older, rich, handsome, sophisticated. I was just barely seventeen when he swept me off my feet, promised me the world.” She laughed softly. It was either that or cry, and she’d already spilled far too many tears because of Marcel. “We were married three months after meeting. I was so naive, so desperate for love, I didn’t see him for what he was—such an ugly, ugly person.”

Vaughn’s fingers curled into a fist. “Did he hit you?”

He was trying not to show any anger, but she could hear it in his carefully modulated tone. She covered his fist with her hand. “Not in the beginning. The first year of our marriage, he treated me like a queen, but halfway through the second year, I got pregnant and things started to change. It was slow at first—so slow I didn’t realize it was happening. An open hand slap, a shove. I brushed it off as stress because his father was putting a lot of pressure on him to take over the family business.”

Vaughn uncurled his fist and laced his fingers through hers. “Did you know what that business was?”

“Yeah.” She lifted a shoulder. “Honestly, I didn’t care. Family’s important to the Bellisarios, and I was happy I finally had a family that always took care of their own. The fact they were thieves and killers didn’t even blip on my radar. If anything, I thought being a mobster’s wife was glamorous and exciting. I was so young…”

She paused, gathered her strength. She’d never told anyone the whole story before, and the recounting of it now hurt more than she ever imagined it would.

“Go on,” Vaughn said. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay. And she was afraid that as soon as he heard what had really happened, he’d see the part of her she had to keep hidden. The part she knew couldn’t survive in the light of day.

But she needed to tell him. Even if it would signal the beginning of the end.

“I was five months pregnant the first time Marcel really attacked me,” she said. “After we found out it was a girl, we went home and he just…flew into a rage. He kicked me around, threw me down the stairs.” Her gut clenched, the memory still as fresh as ever. “I lost the baby. He told everyone my dog had attacked me and I fell. And they believed him. He even had my dog Sadie euthanized while I was in the hospital. I was so blind to who he really was, I never realized how much he hated my dog or how much he didn’t want the baby until he got rid of them both with one beating. It only got worse from there. The second time I got pregnant, he was happy until he found out it was another girl. Then he put me in the ICU and told everyone I had been in a car accident. I don’t think as many people believed him that time, but he paid them to keep their mouths shut, and they did.”

“Bastards,” Vaughn said.

Although her stomach hurt with the memory, she had to smile at the venom in his tone. If he was able, she had no doubt he’d track down every single person who had ignored the abuse and let them know exactly what he thought of them.

Her knight in not-so-white armor.

“After I healed,” she continued, “I took precautions to make sure I didn’t get pregnant again. He wasn’t keen on birth control, and I knew he’d beat me if he found me with it, but I had to—” Her voice caught, and it took several seconds before she could swallow down the lump in her throat. Vaughn didn’t say anything, but his lips dropped to her shoulder in a show of quiet reassurance she appreciated.

“I couldn’t lose another baby,” she continued finally, her voice raw from the years of suppressed pain now clawing at her throat. She never let herself think about her daughters. Never. It hurt too damn much. “I died a little with each of my girls. I was afraid if I went through it a third time—if Marcel didn’t kill me with a beating, losing another baby would. So I started hiding money away, intending to use it to have my tubes tied.”

“Why not use the money for a divorce?” Vaughn asked softly against her temple.

“The thought never crossed my mind. Divorce isn’t something the Bellisarios do, so I hid my birth control pills and counted down the days until Marcel went out of town and I could have the surgery. Except the night before he was supposed to leave, he found my pills. Oh, he was so angry. Accused me of being a frigid bitch who refused to give him a male heir. He started hitting me, and I was sure—I knew he wasn’t going to stop until he killed me. We were in the bedroom, on the floor, and he was on top of me, choking me. He kept a gun under the bed. I got a hold of it, pointed it at his head. I didn’t want to kill him. Just wanted to scare him, but it was like he didn’t even see it. He kept his hands around my throat, and he was squeezing so hard. My vision started going gray…so I pulled the trigger.”

Vaughn was very still beside her. So still, she wasn’t even sure he was breathing. She pulled out of his arms and stood to pace at the foot of the bed. She thought she should feel lighter somehow, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders now that her secrets were out—but she didn’t. Instead, a bone-deep cold settled over her, and she shivered.

Vaughn was a man with such an ingrained sense of justice, she was terrified of what she’d see when she looked at him again. If he wasn’t sure about turning her over to the authorities before, he definitely would be now, and his rejection might just rip out the last little bit of her heart.

Vaughn finally released an explosive breath and stood up, too, blocking her path. He clasped her shoulders, waited until she looked at him. “You killed Marcel Bellisario.” A statement, not a question. His voice was quiet, carefully modulated.

She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

“Oh, vixen,” he said softly and dragged her in for a tight hug. “You didn’t need to run. After the hell you’d been through, no court in the country would have convicted you of murder. You were clearly defending yourself, and I’m sure the physical evidence backed you up.”

“It did,” she whispered and clung to him. Because it felt so damn good to be in his arms. “And I didn’t run. Not at first. After I killed him, I did what I thought was the right thing and turned myself in to the police. One look at me and they knew what had happened. They took me into custody, but it was more for my safety than with intent to prosecute me. Honestly, they were more interested in what I knew about the Bellisario family. The FBI got involved, and they promised they’d protect me, but Giuseppe has friends everywhere. He even once told me that he has a nephew in the FBI. I guess I could have taken a chance, but I was scared. It was only a matter of time before he came after me, so I took all the money I had saved and I ran.”

“And Bellisario’s been chasing you ever since.”

She nodded. “He’s come close a couple times. The last time was right before I arrived in DC. I thought maybe aligning myself with someone who had a measure of power in the government would stop him from coming after me.”

Vaughn grunted. “Except you chose another psychopath.”

“To be fair, Preston seemed like a perfect candidate. Young, up-and-coming politician with no ties whatsoever to the Bellisarios…but I know,” she said and sighed. “I have really horrible taste in men.”

“I’ll try not to take offense.” He set her back at arm’s length and smirked down at her.

She appreciated his attempt at a joke, but it didn’t lighten her mood. Vaughn was the first good guy she’d ever met, but he had to know this thing between them had zero hope of working out. Giuseppe Bellisario wanted revenge for his favorite son’s death, wasn’t going to stop until he got it, and she wasn’t about to put Vaughn or his brothers in danger.

She opened her mouth to tell him just that, but she didn’t get the chance because he pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t the kind of kiss she’d come to expect from Vaughn. Wasn’t a battle, but a soft, sweet meeting that stole her breath and her heart.

“I wish you would have told me this sooner,” he murmured when he drew away.

She tried for a smile and failed. “Doesn’t take a shrink to figure out I have a boatload of trust issues.”

“You can trust me. I wish I knew how to prove it to you.”

Her heart wrenched, and she couldn’t help the sudden rush of tears. “You don’t have to.” She cupped his stubble-roughened cheeks in both hands. “But I don’t want you involved with Bellisario.”

He again flashed that smile of his, the predatory one with just an edge of mean in it. “I’m already on his radar, and I think it’s time we had another talk.”

“Vaughn, no. First thing he’ll do is go after your brothers—”

“Who are all big boys and can take care of themselves.” He leaned in, pressed his forehead to hers, and linked their fingers. “I told you I’m not letting you run anymore. We’ll figure this out. Together, okay?”

Together.

It was what she’d wanted since she first turned him down at Jude and Libby’s wedding last fall, and more than she ever could have dreamed of. She rolled her lips together to keep from sobbing in relief that she didn’t have to be alone anymore. “How?”

“We’ll go back to DC. I’ll call Cam and round up some cops we can trust—” He stopped short and drew away with a groan. “Oh, shit. Cam.”

…

Cursing at himself, Vaughn searched his pockets for his phone. Not there. What had he done with it?

Dahlia sat down on the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Fuck.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “Cam should be here by now.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked at the rumpled bed. “He’s coming here?”

“No, not here specifically. Atlanta. I was going to meet him.” He spotted his phone on the floor, half hidden under the bed. It must have fallen out of his pocket in his mad scramble to undress. He scooped it up, checked the screen. Sure enough, he had several missed calls from Cam. His twin was probably so pissed off right now. Wincing, dreading the upcoming convo, he called back. It rang only once before the line picked up, and he didn’t give Cam a chance to light into him. “Hey, bro. Sorry, I was busy. Did you make it to Atlan—”

“It’s about time you called,” Giuseppe Bellisario said amiably.

Vaughn’s blood froze solid. “Where’s my brother?”

“Safe, for now. Is Dahlia there with you?”

Vaughn glanced over at her, watched the color drain out of her face. She knew. Without him saying anything, she knew who was on the phone.

“Is Cam okay?” she mouthed.

He shook his head, and she covered her mouth with both hands as tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Imagine my surprise,” Bellisario continued, “when I discovered you had already located the very person I intended to hire you to find. You are good at what you do. And now you’ll bring her to me.”

“No.” The word burst out of him, emerging from somewhere deep inside his heart. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Yes, it is. Because if you don’t bring her to me, your twin dies.”

“How do I know he’s not already dead?” Voicing the question was like coughing up broken glass. So painful, his eyes started to water. Cam had to be alive. He would know otherwise, wouldn’t he?

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the phone, then a grunt of pain. “Vaughn…”

He sank to the edge of the bed at the raw sound of Cam’s voice. Bile burned up his throat. “Bro, I’m coming for you, okay?”

Silence.

“Camden!”

Bellisario returned. “You have twenty-four hours to get back to DC and hand Dahlia over.”

“That—” He swallowed down the fear, the rage. There would be time for that later. Right now, he had to think. “That’s not enough time, Bellisario. It will take at least half that to drive back to DC.”

“Then you’d better drive fast, huh? Twenty-four hours.”

He exhaled hard as the line went dead. Okay, he had to think. He’d been in plenty of hostage situations before—only he was always the guy busting in behind a flash-bang to solve the situation with an assault rifle. He was never the hostage’s family, and he had no idea what went on during the negotiation part.

Panic threatened to overtake him, but he beat it back by sheer force of will. His first instinct was to call his oldest brother. Greer would know what to do—but even as he dialed, he knew he wouldn’t get a response. Greer had dropped off the radar weeks ago.

And… yeah, he got nothing but Greer’s voicemail and his terse voice ordering, “Leave a message.”

He thought about it for a half second, but what was the point? Even if Greer was in a position to check his messages, he wasn’t going to make it back to DC in time.

He hung up. Tapped the phone against his hand a couple times. Who else could he—

Marcus Deangelo.

He started scrolling through his contacts, searching for the former FBI agent’s number, when the unmistakable sensation of a gun barrel pressed against his spine. He froze.

“Drop the phone,” Dahlia said, her voice shaking. “And lock your hands behind your head.”

He did as she asked, slowly lifting his hands and interlacing his fingers. The phone bounced off the end of the bed and landed somewhere on the floor by his feet. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t go back. I-I can’t. Where are your car keys?”

“On the dresser by my wallet.”

“Don’t move.”

The gun left his back, and he heard the clatter of his keys against wood as she picked them up, then the door creaked open. He dropped his hands and turned to face her. She was backing out the door, his keys and wallet in one hand and his own fucking gun in the other.

He took a step forward. “Dahlia—”

“Don’t move!” She raised the gun again. “I mean it, Vaughn.”

Betrayal coated his tongue, hot and bitter. “What? You going to shoot me?”

“I will, but please don’t make me.”

Goddammit, he believed her. She was shaking all over, tears streaming down her face, but she held the gun steady.

He lifted his hands again. “Dahlia, listen to me—”

“No! You can’t convince me to go back. Do you have any idea what Giuseppe does to the people who cross him? He breaks every bone in their body. If they pass out, he injects them with a stimulant to wake them up, then tortures them—slowly. And that’s just business to him.” She choked on a sob, and the gun wobbled in her hand. “So what do you think he’ll do to the woman who killed his son?”

Her fear was so real, so palpable, it was like a living, breathing thing in the room between them. She was breaking his heart, cracking it wide open. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise you’ll be safe, but I need your help. If you run now, he’ll kill Cam, and then he’ll still come after you. I know you’re scared, but we can end this, Dahlia.” He risked another step forward, slowly reaching a hand toward the gun so as not to spook her any more than she already was. “You just need to trust me. Please.”

Tears continued to flow. She shook her head. “No. I learned a long time ago not to trust anyone. I’m sorry, Vaughn.”

She raised the gun again and fired.

Chapter Sixteen

Vaughn hit the floor and rolled behind the bed, but the bullet never even came close to him. It shattered the bedside lamp and sent ceramic flying like shrapnel. One piece sliced across his forearm, but that was nothing compared to the wound he could have ended up with if she’d been aiming. She had been at point-blank range. There was no way she should have missed him…unless she hadn’t been aiming for him at all.

He sneaked a peek around the edge of the bed and saw that she was gone, the motel room’s door hanging open. Already he heard the sirens of an approaching police car. Fastest response time in the South, he thought bitterly.

Frustrated, he sat up against the wall and assaulted his scalp with both hands. He should’ve realized she’d pull a stunt like this. Should have known she’d run again—but when it came to that woman, his judgement was clouded. Always had been. He’d wanted her to be more than the coward she’d seemed, but he was wrong. Points to her—it wasn’t often he so thoroughly misjudged a person.

He noticed his phone under the bed and reached for it. Marcus’s name was still highlighted on the screen, so he hit the call button and leaned his head back against the wall.

“Dude,” Marcus said in greeting. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. I know why Sage looked so familiar. She’s—”

“Dahlia Bellisario,” Vaughn finished in tune with him, then added, “Yeah, I know. She told me.”

“She told you?” A pause. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“No.” He gave Marcus the Cliff’s Notes version, and by the time he was done, the former FBI agent was cursing, succinctly summing up Vaughn’s feelings about the whole clusterfuck. “I’m currently sitting here in a motel room without a car, my gun, or my wallet, and I have twenty-four hours to get home or a sociopath is going to torture my brother. So, no, everything is not okay. I don’t suppose HORNET is up for a hostage rescue mission?”

“We would be if everyone wasn’t on leave,” Marcus said and swore again. “It’ll take too long to round them all up and get them to DC.”

Vaughn rubbed at his eye as a headache drilled into his skull behind it. “That figures.”

A beat passed in silence. “Okay, dude,” Marcus said finally. “Get your ass to the nearest airport and call me with the location. I will pull every string, call in every favor I owe, and have a plane there to pick you up. With or without Dahlia, we’ll get your brother home.”

…

The first exit to Atlanta was only a mile away, but Dahlia didn’t take her foot off the gas. Dammit, her tears wouldn’t stop. As much as she tried wiping them away, they just kept flowing, pouring down her face, blurring her vision. She probably shouldn’t be driving in this state of emotional upheaval, but like her tears, she couldn’t seem to stop.

She’d known, as soon as Vaughn demanded where his brother was, she’d known it was Giuseppe on the other end of the line and not Cam. She’d also known in that second what Vaughn would ask her to do and sheer, cold terror had propelled her off the bed.

She didn’t remember grabbing his gun, hadn’t consciously plotted an escape—she’d been operating in adrenaline-fueled flight mode. How could he ask her to walk in to the lion’s den when she’d spent the last five years of her life running terrified of that very beast?

I won’t let anything happen to you.

She wanted to believe him, she did. But if it came down to a choice between her and his twin, he was going to choose his brother. She couldn’t fault him for it—it was what anybody would do in his situation—but because of that, she couldn’t trust him to keep her safe. She’d learned a long time ago if she didn’t look out for herself, nobody else was going to.

The exit zoomed by.

Shit. She wasn’t paying attention. She swiped at her face with her sleeve and told herself she’d catch the next one.

We can end this, Dahlia.

No. Didn’t he understand there was no “we” in this situation? There had never been a “we” when it came to them. There was only her, always only her. She’d been alone her entire life. Even when she was married, she’d felt adrift on her own little island—cut off from her peers, who were all going to college, floating along the outermost ring of the Bellisario family, who never quite accepted her as one of their own. Always alone. A few rounds of good sex and some tender words from Vaughn weren’t going to change that.

Another exit passed. She still didn’t slow down. There were plenty more.

She was the only one who could end this—she knew it, but she wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t brave enough. She wasn’t a skilled warrior like Vaughn, with heroism pumping through her veins instead of blood. Despite everything, she was still nothing more than that selfish seventeen-year-old girl, so alone and desperate to be loved.

You just need to trust me.

The look of anguish in Vaughn’s eyes, the stark betrayal as she held the gun on him…she didn’t think she’d ever forget how horrible she’d felt in that instant. It had hurt like a knife twisting in her belly. It still hurt, as if she’d not only left the knife in place, but had shoved it deeper.

It was better this way. Vaughn would rescue his brother—of that, she had no doubt. But if she stayed, if she got involved, Cam would die. Vaughn would die. Once Giuseppe had her, he wasn’t going to let the twins walk away from this. It would end in bloodshed for everyone.

Another two exits, gone.

God, she was such a coward.

She’d told Vaughn she was tired of running, but here she was running again, hard and fast with her tail tucked firmly between her legs.

Atlanta was in her rearview mirror, and she was starting to see signs for Charlotte. Beyond Charlotte would be Richmond. Then Washington, DC, where Vaughn would be negotiating for his brother’s life without her as a bargaining chip.

Oh, shit.

Sick to her stomach, she slowed the car to the shoulder of the highway in front of an “emergency stopping only” sign and switched on her blinkers. She sat there for a long moment, letting tears fall as she gathered her courage.

She could do this. She had to do this.

For Vaughn. It might end in bloodshed, but if it did, she couldn’t leave him to face it alone.

With a shaking hand, she reset the GPS to take her to DC.

Chapter Seventeen

Vaughn arrived back in DC exhausted, aching from head to toe, and heartsick—but in record time thanks to Marcus. And he wasn’t at all surprised to see the man waiting for him on the tarmac as he descended the steps of the private jet that had picked him up at a small airport outside of Atlanta.

“Nice jet.” Vaughn tried for a smile. It felt like a lie, though, so he gave up on it.

“Not mine,” Marcus said. “The money working for HORNET is good, but not that good.”

“Tucker Quentin’s?”

“Who else?”

Vaughn nodded. If there was a pile of shit, the billionaire who had formed HORNET and who now funded Wilde Security had no problem jumping knee-deep into it. He often wondered if Quentin got off on danger. Why else would the man stay in the shadowy world of mercs and dirty wars? If Vaughn was worth billions, he sure as fuck wouldn’t be running around playing mercenary.

Or, no, that was probably a lie. He could see the appeal since he got off on danger, too—just not the kind of danger that hurt his brothers. And he was an ass for mentally bashing the guy who had provided him transpo back to DC.

“You look like shit,” Marcus said as they walked toward a car waiting by the hangar. “You okay?”

“One of the most brutal mafia bosses in recent history is holding my brother hostage. You think I’m okay?”

“Yeah, stupid question.” Marcus winced and opened the driver’s side door, but he paused before climbing in and gazed out over the top of the car. “But, Vaughn?” His expression turned as serious as Vaughn had ever seen it. Marcus was usually a joker, a laid-back, go-with-the-flow type of guy with an affinity for fedoras and an inclination toward surfer-speak—but in that moment, Vaughn saw a core of steel, the warrior he hid so well behind a panty-dropping smile. “We’re going to take Bellisario down.”

Vaughn studied him. “You have history.”

He shook his head slightly and climbed into the car. “You could say that.”

Forty torturous minutes later, Marcus steered the rental car into the parking lot of the strip mall that contained Wilde Security. Reece had bought the old mall on the cheap several years ago because—well, Vaughn was pretty sure his second oldest brother was a genius when it came to making money. Reece had seen the flood of young professionals and budding families pushing eastward looking for cheaper rent, knew the influx of money would clean up the formerly rough area, and now the brothers owned a prime piece of real estate.

But while the Wilde Security office and the empty stores surrounding it were no longer boarded up and covered with graffiti, the building was still the lone shabby holdout among a gaggle of shiny new shopping centers and apartment complexes. Reece was doing his best to rehab the old stores into rentable spaces, starting with the space directly next door to their office, which had recently opened as a coffee shop owned and operated by Reece’s wife, Shelby.

The shop was currently doing a steady stream of business—which was great, except that it left parking at a premium.

Marcus whistled as they cruised the lot, looking for a space. “You guys have made some big improvements since the last time I was here.”

“Yeah, that’s Shelby’s new place. The Bean Gallery.”

“Looks like she does good business.”

“She does. She has a head for it.” Looking back, it wasn’t such a stretch that the vibrant splash of color that was Shelby Bremer had ended up with uptight, repressed Reece. They were at opposite ends of the spectrum, the two of them, but it was the same spectrum. They both had an eye for business and a talent for making money, and they were both total nerds.

Vaughn grumbled, impatient as they circled the lot again. “This parking situation is getting annoying, though. Cam’s been telling us we need to put signs up to reserve our spaces.” It was supposed to be a casual remark, just small talk, but saying his twin’s name sent a spear of agony through him.

Jesus, he hoped Cam was holding up.

“Hey, we’ll get him back,” Marcus said and finally snagged a spot directly in front of The Bean Gallery.

As Vaughn climbed out of the car, he caught sight of Shelby through the front window—her hair was bright pink this week, so she wasn’t hard to miss. She stood behind the espresso machine fixing a drink, but when she spotted him, she passed the task to one of her baristas. She flew across the shop, shoved open the door.

“Vaughn!” She threw her arms around him and squeezed hard enough that his bruised ribs protested. “Oh, God. We’re going crazy here. Reece told me to keep working like everything was normal, but I can’t—” Her voice cracked, and she squeezed him again. “Libby’s sick with worry, which can’t be good for the baby. Eva’s scared out of her mind—which, you know her, means she’s pissed off at everybody. Reece and Jude have had a hell of a time talking her down from launching a full scale assault.”

Yeah, that sounded like Eva.

Vaughn gave himself a second to hug his sister-in-law, to draw strength from his family. Then he set her back at arm’s length and met her gaze. “Shel, listen. Reece is right. We’re probably being watched so you should carry on as if nothing—”

“Uh-uh.” She shrugged away from him and held up a finger, pushing it into his face as if daring him to argue. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m closing down for the rest of the day. I’ve already told the customers we have a family emergency. Seriously, how can you guys expect me to pretend everything is a-okay when Cam’s in trouble? He’s my family now, too, and I love him just as much as you do.” She nodded, a gesture that very much tacked on a so there to the end of her sentence, then marched back into the coffee shop, pink ponytail swinging.

Marcus snorted. “Man. I like her. You Wilde boys sure know how to pick them.”

Yeah, all of his sisters-in-law were pretty great. His brothers had good taste. Him, not so much. Of course he’d be the one to go and fall for the selfish femme fatale-type.

Jesus. The more he thought about how Dahlia had threatened him with his own weapon, how she’d run when he’d most needed her help, the more pissed off he became.

Yeah. He sure knew how to pick them.

He strode into Wilde Security and found Eva pacing laps around the three desks lined up in the main part of the office. She was pale and looked shocky to his trained eye. She kept rubbing the band of her wedding ring like it was a magic lamp, but no genie was going to pop out to solve their problem. Reece sat at Vaughn’s desk, frantically typing on a laptop. Jude bounced back and forth between keeping Eva calm and comforting his wife Libby, who sat behind his desk and looked as if she had been crying for hours. Apparently fear and pregnancy hormones made for a volatile mix.

Reece looked up when the little bell over the door signaled Vaughn and Marcus’s entrance. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Greer since you called. Nothing but voicemail.”

“Yeah, I tried him, too,” Vaughn said. “Same thing.”

Jude straightened away from his wife and a rare flash of true anger darkened his eyes to navy. “Where the fuck is he? He should be here with us.”

“That’s the thing—he’s always been here with us,” Reece said. “His entire life has revolved around us. Wherever he is now, whatever he’s doing, it’s something he needs, and we have to respect it.”

“So he’s on some kind of Kumbaya self-discovery trip?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. The last time I talked to him, he only said there was something he needed to do and he’d be out of contact for a while.”

“Yeah, well, fuck that!” Jude exploded, and Libby pushed out of her chair to wrap her arms around his waist. He hugged her back with one arm, but it didn’t cool his anger. “Right now, we need him more. Cam’s in serious trouble.” He poked his desk with his pointer finger, punctuating each word: “Greer. Should. Be. Here.”

Reece held up his hands. “I’m not arguing with you, Jude. I’m just…making a point.”

“Yo, guys.” Marcus walked to the center of the room and held up his hands as if he was wrangling raptors. “C’mon, sniping at each other is not going to help.” He turned to Reece. “What do we know so far?”

Reece sighed and sat back. Rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “I’ve been going through Bellisario’s real estate holdings trying to determine the place he’d most likely hide Cam, but the list is extensive. It’ll take me hours to go through it all, if not days.”

“Time we don’t have,” Vaughn said.

Reece looked at him, features set in grim lines. “Exactly. And this list doesn’t include any real estate he has under aliases. That will take me even more time to dig up.”

“Okay.” Marcus nodded to the laptop. “Reece, you any good on that thing?”

“I know a trick or two.”

That was the understatement of the century. If it had a motherboard, Reece could make it his bitch.

“Good,” Marcus said. “Vaughn, give Reece your phone. Bellisario’s going to call with further instructions, and we need all the information we can get from the call when he does. It’s the best chance we have of tracking Cam.”

Vaughn dug the phone out of his pocket, slapped it into Reece’s hand. “Work your magic, bro.”

“Yeah, if only it was magic.” Reece scowled at the cracked screen. “What the hell did you do to this, use it as a hockey puck? It’s a beautiful piece of technology, and you abuse it like—”

Vaughn glowered at him.

Reece gave a pained sigh and connected the phone to his laptop with a cable. “When this is over, all of you are getting a lecture on how to take proper care of your phones. I’m tired of fixing them,” he muttered, then hunched over the keyboard and disappeared into his task in the way only a computer geek could—physically present, but mentally entrenched in the virtual world.

Eva finally stopped pacing. “So what happens once we know Cam’s location? We send in MPD? I can call my partner and have him mobilize—”

“No, we don’t want to involve the police.” A shadow crossed over Marcus’s expression. “Believe me, if Bellisario catches even the faintest whiff of MPD, he’ll cut his losses, and we’ll find Cam in the Potomac.”

“Then the bastard shouldn’t have abducted a former MPD detective who is married to a current one,” Eva snapped. “Bellisario had to know he’d have the whole of DC’s police force gunning for him.”

As she spoke, Vaughn watched Marcus’s jaw tighten. The shadow in his eyes got a little darker, a little deeper. Shit. Marcus wasn’t just talking hypotheticals here. “You’re speaking from experience.”

Marcus exhaled hard, and a weight seemed to settle around his shoulders, making them slump. “Yeah. Far more experience than I’d like. Trust me on this, Eva. We don’t want MPD involved.”

“Oh God.” She hugged herself, bent double. “I just want my husband back. Please. I just want him back.”

Under normal circumstances, Vaughn wasn’t much for hugging, but he couldn’t let her stand there, collapsing in on herself with grief and fear. He crossed to her, pulled her into his arms, and she clung like she needed the support more than she wanted to admit. Eva was a strong woman, but even the strongest had their breaking points, and she was getting close to the edge of hers. If Cam didn’t make it…

He immediately shut down that line of thought, refused to acknowledge it had even occurred to him. But in the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew the truth. If Cam died today, Eva wasn’t going to be the only one who broke.

“So what can we do?” Libby asked, finally breaking the heavy silence. She was sitting on her husband’s lap with Jude’s arms wrapped tightly, protectively around her. “I mean, if we can’t call the police and HORNET won’t get here in time to help, what do we do?”

“We need Bellisario to make contact again,” Marcus said, “and when he does, I’ll speak to him. Until then…” He met each of their gazes. “All we can do is wait.”

Chapter Eighteen

The waiting was going to drive him into a straightjacket.

Restless, Vaughn pushed out of his chair and paced several steps, then grabbed his phone and checked the screen again. Reece had worked his technological magic on the thing, and now they had the ability to record the conversation and track Bellisario in real time.

If only the fucking phone would ring.

What were they doing to Cam? Was his twin in pain? Unconscious? Cam was definitely still alive, because without him, Bellisario had no leverage. Still, Dahlia’s words kept bouncing around in his skull.

Do you have any idea what Giuseppe does to the people who cross him?

Jesus fucking Christ. He was going to explode if he didn’t do something. Any-fucking-thing.

Marcus stepped into his path, which just pissed him off, like throwing accelerant on an already out-of-control fire. He didn’t think, just reacted to the anger and annoyance and took a swing.

Marcus ducked the punch—fucker was fast on his feet—and grabbed Vaughn’s arm, twisting it up behind his back. He shoved Vaughn into a desk as Reece and Jude both jumped to their feet, their chairs flying back and banging into the wall.

Vaughn hit the desk hard enough to have pain singing through his abused ribs. Fuck. He pounded a fist on the desktop in frustration, but stopped struggling.

“Are you done?” Marcus asked.

“I’m done,” he agreed and the pressure lightened on his arm. He straightened and sneered at Marcus as he pressed a hand to his sore ribs. “You only got the drop on me because I’m not at full strength.”

“Sure. You tell yourself that, big guy.”

Vaughn stepped forward, fully intending to pummel that smirk off Marcus’s face.

“Boys,” Libby snapped, stopping him dead in his tracks. “Now’s not the time for a testosterone pissing match.”

Vaughn glanced over at her. She and Shelby had taken up posts next to Eva, who had worn herself down during the endless minutes of waiting and now stared off into space with tear tracks dried on her cheeks.

Libby was right. Punching Marcus, as satisfying as it would be, wasn’t going to bring Cam home any faster.

Vaughn drew a breath and shook out his hands. “I need some air.”

He didn’t wait to hear any of their responses, and he pushed through the door into the now empty parking lot. February slapped him in the face, but he welcomed the bite of cold and tugged on the collar of his shirt. The office had been too stuffy, too packed with tension and fear. At least out here he could breathe.

He checked his phone’s screen again even though he knew it hadn’t rung. Damn. He stuffed it into his pocket and paced the sidewalk.

All they needed was a location. And as soon as they had one, he was gone. He’d tear the place down brick by brick to find his twin and then he’d bury Giuseppe Bellisario in the debris.

Nobody threatened his family and got to walk away unharmed.

A door shut softly across the parking lot. Still spoiling for a fight, he whirled toward the sound and found Dahlia beside the car she’d stolen from him, twisting her hands together in front of her.

For one shining second, elation bubbled up out of all the other poisonous emotions roiling inside him, because she’d come back to him.

She’d come back.

But that bubble of happy popped the moment she opened her mouth. “Vaughn, I-I came to explain—”

“You don’t owe me an explanation.” He turned away, pissed off all over again. He should have known she’d not come back to help. Altruism wasn’t in her nature. “But I would like my fucking gun back if you’re done threatening me with it.”

She ducked into the car and reappeared with his weapon, holding it out in a peace-offering. “I was just scared.”

He stalked forward and grabbed it from her. “Yeah, you don’t trust me. I get it.”

“But I do, Vaughn.” She moved closer. Her scent wrapped around him, something both sweet and tart like strawberries, and he steeled himself against the memories of her rising up over him, riding him so slow and easy as he drowned in that beautiful scent.

She set her hands on his waist and stood on her toes. Her lips were soft over his, gentle, a barely there caress that still sent shocks through his entire system. He didn’t move even though everything male in him screamed to accept what she was offering.

She lowered back to flat feet and stared up at him. Searched his face. He made damn sure nothing of his feelings showed there. He wasn’t about to let her know just how much she’d hurt him.

“You’re the only man I’ve ever come close to trusting,” she said so softly, it was barely a whisper.

“Yeah? You have a shitty way of showing it.”

She dragged her lower lip through her teeth, then nodded, dropped her hands from his waist, and stuffed them into her jacket pockets. She must have stopped for new clothes at some point, because she now wore jeans and a dark red sweater under a motorcycle-style jacket instead of the drugstore sweatpants and t-shirt he last saw her in. She looked good, her face makeup-free and her newly auburn hair wind tousled.

Christ, he didn’t want to still be attracted to her, but he was.

He turned away. “Leave.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He slammed to a halt. She was sorry? He didn’t need her to be sorry. Apologies weren’t going to bring his brother back safe and sound. And fuck her for that line about trust. If she truly trusted him, she’d help save Cam, because when he told her he’d never let anything happen to her, she’d believe it to the very pit of her soul.

But she didn’t. Maybe she was incapable of it. Still, the fact that she didn’t trust him cut like a dull blade. He’d done nothing to earn her mistrust.

He faced her again and had to unlock his jaw to speak. “If you’re still not going to help Cam, you need to walk away from me right fucking now because trading your life for my brother’s is looking better and better.”

She flinched and backed a step away. “I really am sorry for everything I put you through. Please remember that.” She spun on her heel and ran. Same as she always did.

Vaughn stood there for a long time, eyes squeezed shut against the intense hurt shredding his insides. He didn’t know why he’d expected anything more from her, but he had. When she’d appeared out of the swirling snow, he’d expected so much more than an apology and chaste little kiss.

“Vaughn!” Marcus slammed outside. “What the hell? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

“It’s not ring—” He reached into his pocket and came up empty. “Fuck!” He bolted into the office, hot on Marcus’s heels. “Dahlia was here. She must’ve lifted it off me.”

Everyone was gathered around Reece’s laptop, which echoed each trill of the phone. It stopped just as Vaughn reached the desk.

Dahlia’s voice came on the line, clear and strong. “Let Cam Wilde go, Giuseppe. He has nothing to do with this.”

“Well, now,” Bellisario’s voice replied. “If it isn’t my long-lost daughter-in-law.”

“Let him go, and I’ll come home.”

Libby sucked in a sharp breath and stared across the desk at Vaughn, her cheeks draining of color. “Oh my God! Lark—or Sage or Dahlia or whatever her name is. She’s Giuseppe Bellisario’s daughter-in-law?”

Vaughn nodded, his gut in so many knots it hurt. He stared at the computer and wished he could reach through the digital world and sever the connection. Jesus. She was trading herself for Cam. Why the fuck would she do that? He’d never have asked it of her.

“Why?” Bellisario demanded at the other end of the line. “Who’s Cam Wilde to you?”

“He’s nobody to me,” Dahlia said softly. “I barely know him, but he means a great deal to someone I love.”

Vaughn’s knees went to water, and he sank into a chair. She knew he was listening, just as he knew those words were meant for him.

“Someone you love?” Bellisario snarled. “What about my son? Your husband?”

“No, I never loved him,” she admitted. “I thought so, but I was young. I didn’t know what love meant. I had no frame of reference—until recently.”

“It’s that private investigator. Vaughn.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Cam had nothing to do with what happened to Marcel. If you want me, you have to release him. Unharmed.”

“You’re willing to die to save him?”

She was silent for a beat. “When you love someone—really, truly love them—any sacrifice is worth their happiness.”

Vaughn folded over in the chair and cradled his head in his hands. She’d been trying to tell him what she intended to do, but he’d been too much of an ass to listen. The apologies he’d thought hollow hadn’t been apologies at all. No, they’d been a good-bye.

“Well?” Dahlia said, breaking the drawn-out silence, both on the phone line and in the room. “That’s my offer, Giuseppe. Cam for me. Going once. Going twice—”

“All right,” Bellisario said.

Marcus smacked the desk. “Damn. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. He’ll kill them both.”

“Oh, she knows,” Vaughn said and straightened. “But she’s going to try anyway. For me.” He didn’t bother trying to hide his emotions—the ones always running fast and deep just under the surface that he usually kept locked up tight. Didn’t have the energy. Didn’t care that his brothers both gaped at the tears leaking from his eyes. Because, fuck, he couldn’t lose both Dahlia and Cam, which was exactly what would happen if he didn’t find a way to help them.

“I have a warehouse in Ivy City,” Bellisario said. “Meet me there.”

Marcus snapped his fingers and Reece nodded. “Yeah, hang on. I have the address here somewhere—”

“No need.” Vaughn was already headed for the door. “I know exactly where it is.” It was the same fucking warehouse where he’d first drawn Bellisario’s attention to him.

Marcus darted forward, blocking his path. “Whoa. Hold up. Last thing we need is to give him another hostage.”

“He doesn’t want another hostage. He wants Dahlia dead.”

“And unless you want her to end up that way with Cam as collateral damage, you need to listen to me on this.”

“Do you have a plan?” Vaughn demanded.

“I’m starting to. I need to make some calls. If I can get the FBI out there—”

“I thought you said no cops,” Eva said, her voice rising in panic.

Marcus glanced over his shoulder at her. “That was before this all went to hell in a frilly pink hand basket.” He returned his attention to Vaughn. “Give me ten minutes.”

Vaughn shook his head and made to shoulder past him. “We don’t have ten minutes.”

Marcus grumbled something that was probably very unflattering under his breath, but then relented with a heavy sigh and stepped out of the way. “Fine. Go be John McClane and yippee-ki-yay it up. But you get me those ten minutes, whatever you do, and I’ll make sure all three of you get out of there alive.”

Chapter Nineteen

The warehouse was in a part of the city the politicians downtown preferred to pretend didn’t exist. Rundown, abandoned, falling apart—Dahlia had seen plenty of places like this in her travels. She’d taken shelter in warehouses like this during the months she’d spent homeless, had slept on cold concrete floors, listening to the scurrying of rodents and other unwanted people echoing through the cavernous emptiness.

Her stomach soured, and bile rose in her throat.

She wanted to run.

God, did she want to.

She even took her foot off the gas and coasted to a stop still a half a block from her destination. Her hands shook, and she gripped the wheel harder to get them to stop.

Her personal devil waited inside that warehouse.

She couldn’t do this.

She slammed the car into reverse—but stopped before taking her foot off the brake as a vision of Vaughn flashed in her mind’s eye. The hurt on his face when she’d left him at that motel outside of Atlanta, the pain in his eyes he’d tried so hard to hide when she approached him outside Wilde Security.

She had to do this for him. It was a fool’s errand, but if she had even the slightest chance of saving his brother, she had to try. Because if Cam died, so would Vaughn. It might not be a physical death, but it’d rip out his soul, tear a gaping hole in him that nothing would ever fix. He’d never be the same. She knew all too well what it was like to lose so much of yourself you never found your way back, and she wouldn’t let it happen to him.

She sucked in a deep breath and put the car in gear again, inching toward the warehouse. The side door opened as soon as she parked and Cristiano Bellisario stepped out, followed by his little shit of a cousin, Tommy. They were the same age as her, but seemed years younger due to either coddled, too-privileged upbringings, or a stunning lack of intelligence. Probably both. Cristiano wasn’t going to win any awards for brainpower anytime soon, and Tommy thought the world owed him anything he wanted. He’d always had an ugly mean streak, and the sneer on his face now sent shivers cascading through her. Obviously, five years had done nothing to mellow him out.

“Tommy.” She was surprised at how level her voice sounded since her heart was threatening to hammer out of her chest. “Cris. It’s been a long time.”

Tommy’s only acknowledgment was to sneer again. Cristiano’s expression remained weirdly blank, as if there was nothing going on inside his head one way or another. He held open the door with his big body and said, “Father will be here soon.”

Dahlia gazed at the doorway and told herself she had to go in, but her feet wouldn’t move.

She could do this. She had to do this. For Vaughn.

Tommy gave her a shove from behind, and she tripped over the metal lip of the doorframe.

Despite its dilapidated appearance from the outside, the interior of the warehouse actually was miles away from the ones she’d sought shelter in. It was clean and well-lit with stadium-like seating surrounding an enormous metal cage at the center of the space. Obviously this was one of Giuseppe’s underground fight clubs. Hadn’t Vaughn said that was how he first landed on Giuseppe’s radar?

Cam sat in the cage, his back to the wire, his knees drawn up, head resting on his folded arms. He looked a little banged up, but he was breathing. Which, if she was honest with herself, was more than she’d been expecting.

As her footsteps echoed in the space, he gazed up. One eye was swollen shut and his lip had been split open, but he looked so much like Vaughn that her heart stuttered. Logically, she’d known they were identical twins. She’d even met Cam before and knew he and Vaughn were about as identical as twins got. Even so, she hadn’t been prepared for the gut-check reality of seeing a man with Vaughn’s face all beat-up and held captive.

Cam’s one good eye widened. “Lark?”

Oh, how she wished she could be Lark again. Life had been so much simpler, and for a brief, shining moment, she’d been happy.

But she’d left that life in her rearview mirror months ago, and now she had to face the coldness of her reality. She wasn’t Lark. She wasn’t Sage.

She folded her arms around her middle, hoping they would help hold her together. Because, holy hell, she was definitely not holding it together right now. “My real name is Dahlia Bellisario.”

Cam staggered to his feet. He was limping badly, which made her think of Vaughn snarling at her because she was worried about his leg. God. She’d never see his grumpy ass again, and boy did that ever hurt. Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Not when Giuseppe could arrive at any moment.

“You need to leave,” Cam said. “Go, get out of here. If something happens to you, Vaughn will lose his mind. He came close when you disappeared on him.”

“No. I’m not leaving. He’d never forgive me if I left and something happened to you.”

In a move that was very much like his twin, Cam banged his fists on the cage, making the links rattle. “Goddammit. We can’t both die today. He’s going to need one of us.”

“And that will be you.” She finally unglued her feet and hurried to the cage, searching for a way to let him out. “You’re more important to him than I’ll ever be.”

“If you think that, you’re delusional. He’s in love with you. Has been from day one. And love means something to him. You know him, Lark. You know how deeply he feels.”

She let the name slip go, mainly because her throat was too closed up to allow for words. She nodded. She heard what he was saying, but still couldn’t believe Vaughn would feel as strongly about her as he did for his brother. Not with the way she’d treated him.

The cage was locked, but locks had never stopped her for long.

She glanced over her shoulder to check on Cristiano and Tommy, but they were both standing at the door, waiting for Giuseppe with their backs turned. Idiots. She reached underneath her hair at the back of her neck and found her trusty bobby pin. After snapping it in half, she got to work on the lock. It didn’t take much. Just a bit of wiggling, a twist of her wrist, and the door opened.

“Impressive,” Cam said. He was struggling to stay on his feet, and she hurried in to help.

“Can you walk?”

“It’s just a sprain.” But he sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth whenever he put the slightest bit of weight on his left foot.

A sprain? Yeah, right. If he had a pain tolerance anywhere in the same ballpark as his twin, that ankle was definitely broken.

“Let me help.” She looped an arm around his waist and nudged a shoulder into his armpit, but they only made it a few staggering steps out of the cage before a voice from the doorway stopped her cold.

“Bravo,” Giuseppe said. “You’ve learned a few new tricks in the last five years, haven’t you, Dahlia?”

She looked up and met the gaze of the man she’d been running from for most of her adult life. The man who had haunted her nightmares and terrified her into insomnia. Save for some gray streaks in his once-dark hair and some extra lines around his mouth, Giuseppe didn’t look as if he’d aged a day since she’d last seen him. He was a blast right out of her past—living, breathing, and walking toward her with a gun in his hand.

She tightened her grip on Cam because she was afraid of what would happen to them if she let him go. “I’m here. I’ve held up my end of the deal. Cam’s free to go.”

“What’s the rush? We have all night.” Giuseppe motioned with his gun. Cristiano and Tommy pried Cam out of her grasp, and he went down hard, his bad ankle giving out underneath him.

“He needs to see a doctor.”

Tommy laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “He don’t need no doctor where he’s going.”

She whirled on Giuseppe. “We made a deal.”

“One you knew I wouldn’t keep.”

“He has nothing to do with this.”

Giuseppe stormed forward and grabbed her by the throat, throwing her against the side of the cage. “He had everything to do with it! Vaughn was fucking me around. I need to send a message.”

She clawed at the huge hand choking off her airway. “Then use me,” she gasped. “Let…him…go.”

“Oh, believe me. I have plans for you.” He glanced casually over his shoulder at his nephew and held out his gun. “Tommy, paint the walls, will ya?”

Tommy took the weapon and pointed it at Cam’s head. There was nothing she could do but watch as Cam defiantly stared down the barrel of the gun, his expression so much like Vaughn’s….

The warehouse door banged open.

Everyone froze in a weird tableau of violence and surprise. Giuseppe loosened his grip on her throat, and she was able to suck in a rasping lungful of air. Tommy swung the gun toward the newcomer, and Cam swept out with his good leg, taking Tommy’s feet out from under him. There was a brief wrestling match on the floor, but Cam came out on top, gun aimed at a cowering Tommy.

Cristiano just stood and watched it all unfold like the big lug he was, then raised his hands slowly as Vaughn stepped into view with a gun aimed in his direction.

Vaughn took in the scene with flat eyes, showing only the briefest hint of concern when he noticed his twin’s limp. But he hid it fast and turned his attention to her and Giuseppe. “Hurt her, and you can say good-bye to your son and nephew.”

Cristiano finally clued in to what was happening and charged at Cam—

And all hell broke loose.

A gun went off and the bullet pinged wildly off the cage near her head. Giuseppe released her and spun around like he intended to join the fight for control of the weapon, but Cristiano had already subdued Cam with an arm twisted up behind his back. Tommy now held the gun, and Giuseppe grabbed her again before she could get away.

He smirked over at Vaughn. “The tables have turned. So what’s your next move, Wilde?”

Vaughn didn’t move. Not at first. He glanced from her to Cam and back. Then, slowly, he lowered his weapon to the floor and held up his hands in surrender.

“See, I knew you were a smart man.” Giuseppe nodded and passed her off to Cristiano, whose hands felt like sandpaper on her skin.

She was forced down to the concrete beside Cam and watched helplessly as Vaughn followed orders to walk forward with his hands locked behind his head. Giuseppe indicated he should sit at Cam’s other side, and he did so without protest.

“You okay, bro?” he asked softly.

“I’d be better if there wasn’t a gun pointed at us,” Cam muttered.

“Yeah, you’ll live.”

“Kinda doubting that right now. Is my wife—”

“Losing her mind. Which is exactly why you need to go home to her.” He leaned back enough to see around Cam. “Vixen, are you hurt?”

“No,” she managed. Despite the burning in her throat, she wasn’t really injured. Not yet anyway. But Giuseppe was like a cat, always playing with his prey until he tired of the game and finished it off. He was only toying with them, and she shuddered to think of the horrors he had lined up for her.

“We’ll be okay,” Vaughn said.

She wanted to believe him. She never wanted to doubt him again, but she couldn’t see how any of this would turn out okay.

Then he climbed to his feet. “Bellisario! I want to make a deal.”

Giuseppe turned. “You’re not in a position to make deals.”

“I’ll fight you.”

“What?” Cam said.

Giuseppe crossed his arms over his chest. “You know what happens to men who get in the octagon with me? I’m undefeated.”

“Because you haven’t fought me yet,” Vaughn said.

“I do enjoy your bravado.” He thought about it for a second, then a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “All right, I’ll humor you. What are the terms of this deal?”

“I win, we walk away. All of us, including Dahlia.”

Giuseppe’s smile morphed into a sneer. “She’s not up for negotiation. I’ll make the deal for you and your brother.”

Vaughn looked at her. She nodded slightly, telling him it was okay. She hadn’t expected to walk away from this warehouse anyway.

He scowled, shook his head, and faced off with Giuseppe again. “I’ll only fight if Dahlia’s safety is included in our agreement.”

“No.” With that, Giuseppe walked toward the door.

“That was a quick no, huh?” Vaughn said conversationally over his shoulder to his brother. “Think he’s afraid of me?”

Cam looked as if he had to unglue his jaw to speak, and his blue eyes were full of I’m-going-to-kill-him-for-this. Still, he played along, his voice almost matching Vaughn’s for casualness, as if they were talking about nothing more life-threatening than the potential for rain. “Yeah, he’s definitely afraid.”

“From all the rumors, I figured he’d have bigger balls than that.”

“Cut him some slack, bro. He’s what? Twice your age?”

“Mm. Old man.”

“You’d put him in a nursing home.”

“In adult diapers.”

“On a puree diet.”

Dahlia’s gaze ping-ponged between the twins. Jesus. They were both completely suicidal.

Giuseppe swung around, color filling his face. “Enough.” Spittle flew with the word. He crossed the room in a handful of strides and grabbed the front of Vaughn’s shirt, got in his face. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Yeah,” Cam said wearily and side-eyed his twin. “He does.”

You both do, Dahlia thought but kept her mouth shut.

“No,” Vaughn countered. “I only want a fighting chance to save the people I care about.”

Giuseppe stared at him for a long time, then finally released his shirt. “Fine, but there will be no tapping out of this match.”

Dahlia’s stomach dropped. No tapping out? She didn’t know much about cage fighting, but that sounded bad, and Cam’s muttered cursing confirmed her fears. This wasn’t going to be any fight. This was going to go on until someone was on life support. Or worse.

Giuseppe stripped out of his coat and shirt and passed them to his nephew. He motioned to Dahlia and Cam with his chin. “If they try anything, shoot them.”

Vaughn didn’t show a reaction, just stripped off his shirt. He was so good at locking everything up inside, it was no wonder she once thought him intimidating, but she knew him now better than anyone. He needed that protective shell, because for all of his warrior ways, he had a tender soul, one that felt things deeply and could be so easily hurt.

And she’d hurt him.

No. She couldn’t let him die without telling him how much she regretted that.

“Vaughn!” She surged to her feet and caught his face between her hands when he swung around. She met his gaze, and there—that’s where she saw the fear. Not for himself. No, he wouldn’t fear for his own safety. But for his twin. And, possibly, for her?

She swallowed hard and lifted onto her toes to press a kiss to his lips. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. God, those words aren’t enough for how much I regret hurting you and dragging you into this mess, but it’s all I can give—”

He speared his hand into her hair and tilted her head back, interrupting her rambling with a harder kiss. It was more than a meeting of lips and tangle of tongues. It was everything she wanted to say, everything she didn’t have the words for. All of her anger at him for putting himself in this position. Her fear for him. Her love for him. Her heart and soul, all poured into a kiss.

Gentle hands clasped her shoulders and tugged her back, away from Vaughn. It had to be Cam because Tommy or Cristiano wouldn’t be so gentle, but still she resisted. She clung to him, terrified to let him go because as soon as she did he’d climb into that cage with the devil himself. And while he may be a good fighter, he was already at a disadvantage.

He had a soul.

Vaughn finally set her back, pushing her into Cam’s arms. He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles gently over her cheek, wiping away her tears. “C’mon, vixen. None of that. Call me a name instead. Give me the best you got.”

She sniffed. “Douchecanoe twatwaffle.”

He grinned. “There’s my spitfire.” He leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you, too.”

He said it so softly that at first, she wasn’t sure she heard him right. She drew away to gaze up at him, but he was looking over her shoulder at Cam. Something passed between the twins, a poignant nonverbal communication. The bond between them was like nothing she’d ever seen. It was a pure, deep love.

It was…family.

She wanted to be part of that. She wanted family—with Vaughn.

But he was turning away, leaving her—leaving them both—and walking toward death. Giuseppe was already inside the cage, bouncing from foot to foot, throwing punches at the air, exhaling hard with each flurry of his fists. Vaughn paused at the bottom of the stairs leading up into the cage and glanced in their direction. His shoulders moved with a long exhale, and his features hardened, then he kicked off his shoes and climbed the steps without looking back again.

Chapter Twenty

The concrete was cold on his feet—no spongy mats here to absorb the shock of a fall. At one time, he’d liked that about this particular octagon. The fights were real, raw, intense. But now all he could think about was how much his body already hurt and how Dahlia stood just on the other side of wire fencing, fearing for him.

He blocked her out of his mind. He also blocked the worry he felt radiating from his twin. He couldn’t let them distract him from his goal.

He was going to kill Giuseppe and free Dahlia from her past—even if he died doing it. Nobody deserved the life she had lived. The life this fucker had forced on her.

He squashed down the surge of anger and squared off in front of Bellisario. Anger made you stupid. Like the rest, it was an emotion he couldn’t afford right now.

Bellisario didn’t look like an old man. He was as tall as Vaughn, a solid mass of well-used muscle.

“Well?” he demanded. “Are we going to stand here all day or are we going to fight?”

“I want to hear you say it first, Bellisario. I want to hear you order your shit-for-brains minions to leave us alone if I win.”

Bellisario’s eyes narrowed. If he’d been hoping Vaughn would just charge into the fight without extracting a guarantee first, he’d gotten too used to dealing with idiots. Which, come to think of it, might be an advantage. Vaughn tucked the knowledge away for later use. He’d need every advantage he could get.

Bellisario said nothing for a moment, then finally glanced toward his son and nephew. “You heard him. If he wins, you’re to let them go.”

“And leave Dahlia alone for the rest of her life. You’ll no longer chase her.”

His jaw tightened. “And leave Dahlia alone.”

“Fine, whatever,” Tommy said, his lip curling in disgust. “It won’t matter, because Giuseppe Bellisario has never lost.”

Neither have I.

And it was the last coherent thought he had as Bellisario launched at him. He became a creature of violence, all action and reaction, dodging, blocking, trying to land his own punches. Bellisario was fast. As soon as he blocked a punch on one side, the bastard was landing another somewhere else. Bellisario drove him across the octagon, trying to corner him against the cage.

He recognized the move. Cristiano had tried it on him when they fought. But when he tried to drill his elbow into Bellisario’s spine like he had Cristiano’s, he was blocked. Bellisario hooked a leg around Vaughn’s and, fuck, he was going down. He hit the cage with his back, rattling the links, and bounced. Pain stabbed through his side, but he ignored it and used the momentum of his bounce to find his feet again. He got a fist to the face that rang his bell good, but he was still upright and issued an uppercut that snapped Bellisario’s head back.

Bellisario staggered a few steps away, and the lull gave Vaughn the second he needed to pull his shit back together. Somewhere in the distance, he recognized Cam and Dahlia cheering him on, their voices echoing through the warehouse. With the pain blazing up his ribs and his energy flagging, hearing their voices was exactly the motivation he needed to get his ass back in the fight. He launched at his opponent with a kick. Bellisario blocked and took a swing, a sloppy cross that would have probably been followed by a jab if Vaughn hadn’t caught his arm with the crook of his elbow. He ducked his head and wrapped his arms around Bellisario in a clinch hold. He needed to get the bastard on the goddamn ground.

Bellisario hit the side of the cage and went down but grappled for control, briefly grabbing Vaughn in a chokehold before he was able to slip out. They broke apart and circled each other.

Vaughn swiped at the sweat stinging his eyes and realized it wasn’t only sweat. A gash at his hairline streamed blood, but Bellisario’s chest was heaving, and he had a cut under his eye leaking down his cheek.

Thank fuck Vaughn wasn’t the only one bleeding, because that would have been embarrassing.

Bellisario punched. Vaughn shoved it aside and struck a blow that glanced off Bellisario’s jaw. It didn’t slow him down. He swiped out again, and his fist collided with the bruises along Vaughn’s ribs.

Every molecule of air left Vaughn’s lungs, and pain blinded him. He tried to swing, but Bellisario had dropped and grabbed his leg, yanked it out from under him. He hit the concrete with a bone-rattling force that whited out his vision. Punches rained down, and he had no leverage to hit back. All he could do was block. Protect his face and head. Distantly, through the ringing in his ears, he heard someone screaming his name.

Cam.

His brother was not going to witness his death. No fucking way.

He tried to hook his legs around Bellisario, tried to gain control and switch their positions, but his strength was fading. Bellisario knew his weakness now and was taking full advantage, aiming shots at his sides.

He was losing.

Another voice joined the first. Female. Dahlia. He twisted on the mat and through the flurry of fists, saw her at the door of the cage. She struggled to open it while Tommy was hot on her heels with a gun. He lifted it and brought the butt down on the back of her head. She crumpled.

No!

With a roar, he let the cork pop on the bottled up emotions inside him. Heat flashed through his body, and with the flood of rage and fear and love came strength he didn’t know he had.

He didn’t fucking lose. Not this time. Not ever.

…

Dahlia crawled to her hands and knees and told herself not to puke as her head spun and multi-colored spots danced through her vision. She felt the sticky heat of Tommy’s body directly behind her, too close, his breath sending cold chills down the back of her neck.

“No interfering,” he sneered.

She struck out but missed since she was seeing two of him. “Fuck you.”

“That’s what you’ve always wanted. You’ll fuck anything with a cock.” He wrapped an arm around her middle, hauled her upright, and there was no mistaking the lump of his erection when he ground it suggestively against her ass.

A small lump.

Just like the rest of him—small and ugly and not worth her notice. She refused to even acknowledge the little worm and broke out of his grasp. Ignoring her roiling stomach and the pounding in her head, she focused all of her attention on the octagon and the fight still raging inside. She could barely see Vaughn under the onslaught of Giuseppe’s fists, but he was down and there was a lot of blood. Everywhere. Sprayed across the concrete, splatted on Giuseppe’s face and clothes, dripping from his knuckles. So much blood.

She curled her fingers into the steel fencing. “Vaughn! Get up! Oh God. Please get up.”

As if he heard her, he hooked his legs over Giuseppe’s shoulders and bodily flipped him. With him on top now, she finally saw his face. One eye was swollen completely shut, and he was bleeding from multiple cuts. His knuckles were raw and sent blood flying when he trapped Giuseppe on the ground and pounded on him, punch after punch after punch. He looked feral, like an animal fighting to survive, attacking without any hint of civilized thought.

“Fuck,” Tommy said behind her, and she peeled her gaze from the sheer brutality in time to see him run for the door. Cristiano was still holding a gun on Cam, but when he saw Tommy run, he wavered. Without anyone to order him around, he was about as dangerous as a lost puppy.

Cam pounced, fast despite his injuries and just as brutal at his twin. He wrestled the gun away, and Cristiano raised his hands in surrender as sirens screamed somewhere nearby.

Cam shoved Cristiano to his knees. “Hands behind your head, asshole.” He finally glanced over at her. “Get in there and stop Vaughn before he kills the guy.”

Stop him? But… she wanted Giuseppe dead. How many times had she dreamed of that very thing? She’d savored the thought of Giuseppe Bellisario six feet under where he could no longer terrorize her. And now Cam wanted her to stop it from happening?

“Lark—” He stopped, shook his head. “Dahlia. Listen to me. Bellisario’s down. He’s not a threat anymore. If Vaughn kills him now, it won’t be self-defense. He’ll go to prison, and I won’t be able to stop it from happening.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and clambered up the steps into the cage. “Vaughn?” He didn’t seem to hear her, and she wasn’t sure how to approach him. The sheer intensity of his rage terrified her, brought back all the ugly memories of Marcel and the beatings. Would Vaughn attack her if she tried to pull him off? Would he hurt her?

No. Dammit, no. This was Vaughn. He wasn’t Marcel, and he’d never raise a hand to her. Ever. And she was ashamed the thought had even crossed her mind.

“Vaughn!” She threw herself on his back and cinched her arms around his waist, pulling as hard as she could. He didn’t budge.

“Vaughn,” she whispered against his ear. “Baby, you need to stop. You need to stop. I know you want to kill him for me, but you can’t. I don’t want you to. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth me losing you.”

The punches slowed, then stopped. Silence fell in the warehouse, broken only by his wheezing breaths. She squeezed her eyes shut and hugged him from behind until he shifted. He sat down hard on the concrete and she circled to crouch in front of him, ignoring the bloody mess that was Giuseppe’s face. The bastard was still alive—she could tell because he was breathing—and that was all that mattered.

She focused on Vaughn’s face, gently cupping his battered cheeks in her palms. He was shaking, and tears streamed from his good eye. He lifted one bloody hand to cover hers. “Dahlia.” His voice didn’t sound like his own.

“I’m here. Cam’s here. We’re both okay.”

“I want you…” His words slurred. “To be safe.”

“I am.” She choked on a swell of raw emotion. Nobody else in her life had ever wanted that for her. “I am safe. You made sure of it.”

“I’ll always make sure. Always…” His eyes rolled back, and she grabbed him before he hit the floor, lowering his head into her lap. He didn’t need any more one-on-one time with the concrete.

She stroked his damp hair back from his face and smiled a little. “I know you will, Vaughn.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Fucking paramedics. They wouldn’t leave him alone.

Vaughn snarled as one asshole named Dawson shined a flashlight in his eyes. “I’m fine.”

Dawson was unruffled and put the flashlight away. “Pretty good chance you have a concussion.”

“Not the first time.”

Dawson glanced over to where two of his colleagues were working on peeling Bellisario off the concrete. “Somehow I don’t doubt that.”

Vaughn followed his gaze and winced, because turning his head fucking hurt. “Will he live?”

“You messed him up, broke his jaw, but yeah. Barring any complications, he should live.” Dawson turned back and scanned his face. “He did a number on you, too. I’m going to take you in for an MRI.”

Back to that again. “I’m. Fine.”

“So you’ve said, but you’re still going. Hang tight while I get the rig ready for you.” Dawson gathered his supplies and left the cage.

“Stubborn bastard,” Vaughn muttered to the guy’s back.

“Yes, you are,” Marcus Deangelo said.

Vaughn turned toward his voice and winced when every muscle and joint in his body protested the move. “Where’d you come from?”

“My mother.”

“You’re a fucking smartass.”

“And you’re a fucking dumbass. We all have our faults.” Marcus stuffed his hands in his pockets and glanced toward Bellisario. “I told you to give me ten minutes, but I didn’t mean you should jump into a cage-fighting match with him.”

“You took more than ten minutes.”

He bared his teeth. “All the fucking interdepartmental red tape. I hate bureaucracies.” Then he sighed. “Bellisario could’ve killed you, Vaughn.”

“He didn’t.”

“You’re lucky.” Marcus didn’t take his eyes off the stretcher until the medics carted it away. His lip curled in disgust. “They say the bastard’s going to live. You should’ve finished him.”

The uncharacteristic darkness in his tone had Vaughn sitting up straighter against the cage. “Why? Who is he to you?” But even as he asked, he realized the answer, saw it in Marcus’s posture, his jawline, his skin and hair color. Fighting with a guy, you got to know him pretty intimately—the way he held himself, the shape of his body, the way he moved—and there was no mistaking the similarities he saw right now between Marcus and Bellisario. “Holy fuck. You’re related.”

Marcus’s jaw—which was the same shape as every other man’s in the Bellisario family—tightened. “He’s my grandmother’s youngest son. My mother’s half-brother.”

“Giuseppe Bellisario is your uncle?”

Marcus finally faced him again. “As far as my mother and I are concerned, the Bellisario branch of the family tree is dead and rotten.”

“But you said you’ve had personal dealings with Bellisario.”

He nodded. “I have. When the FBI found out my connection, they didn’t share my view on the subject of the family tree. My acceptance to the Bureau came with a caveat: Reestablish ties with Bellisario or else.”

Vaughn winced. No wonder Marcus was bitter. His family had cut ties with the Bellisarios, and the FBI had shoved him out onto that rotten branch in hopes of gathering information about the crime family. “It didn’t go well, I take it.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek. “All I’ll say about it is you should’ve sent the bastard straight to hell where he belongs.”

He thought about Dahlia and her soft hands on his face, dragging him back from oblivion. He’d scared himself. He’d been so lost in rage and fear he’d nearly drowned in it, and he could have so easily killed Bellisario. It was only Dahlia’s voice pleading with him to stop that had snapped him out of it.

He leaned against the cage and heaved out a breath that caught on the pain in his ribs. “It wasn’t my call to make.”

Marcus only grunted in reply.

Dawson returned with a buddy, and the two of them wrestled a stretcher into the cage. “All right, Rocky. Up and at ‘em.”

Vaughn eyed the stretcher. “If I have to go to the hospital, I’m not riding on that thing. I’ll walk.” He held out a hand and Marcus helped him to his feet. Standing took a lot more energy than he had anticipated, but he’d never before left the octagon flat on his back, and he damn well wasn’t going to start now. He used Marcus as a crutch, and together, they hobbled out into the parking lot, which was clogged with emergency vehicles—cop cars, marked and unmarked, and several ambulances. He spotted two medics lifting Bellisario’s stretcher into the back of an ambulance.

Cam sat on a stretcher in another ambulance, and Vaughn nudged Marcus in that direction. He hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to his twin yet and needed to more than he needed to go to the hospital.

“Hey.”

Cam lifted his head and blinked. He looked like he’d gone a few rounds in the octagon, himself, and the medics had stabilized his leg. Vaughn climbed up into the ambulance and clasped hands with his brother. He nodded toward the leg. “Is it broken?”

“Yeah,” Cam said on a sigh and settled back against the pillow.

“Hey, we’re even then. A broken leg for a broken leg.”

Cam lifted his head again and scowled. “Bullshit. This does not make us even. And goddammit, Vaughn! I told you to stop playing hero.”

“You told me I couldn’t take anymore car bombs for you, and I haven’t.” Though it kind of felt like he had. At least after the bomb, he’d been doped up on meds through the worst of the pain. Right now, every muscle screamed, and if his ribs weren’t broken before, they sure as fuck were now.

“No,” Cam agreed. “You just climbed into the octagon with a champion fighter with a sadistic streak the size of Texas. No big deal, right?”

“I was supposed to let Bellisario kill you?” Vaughn shot back, getting annoyed. “Sorry, I didn’t get that memo on the twin hotline.”

Cam groaned and draped an arm over his face. “Fuck. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. But…now I’m oh for two. This is the second time you’ve saved my life in a matter of months and what the hell have I done for you?”

“You’ve saved me, too.” Vaughn hadn’t planned to say it out loud, but he was still too raw from the fight, too emotionally charged, and the wall he usually hid his emotions behind was in crumbles.

Cam dropped his arm. “What?”

“You, uh, save me every day. Keep me level.” He rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, but even that hurt, so he stopped. “These last few months, I started to go off the rails. But every time I did, you were right there with me, the voice of reason yanking me back from the edge. Nobody else could have done that for me.”

Cam said nothing for a long time, but his throat worked like he was trying to swallow down his emotions. Maybe they weren’t that different after all. Finally, he nodded and cleared his throat. “Uh how’s Lark—er, Dahlia?”

“I don’t know. She’s been with the feds since they arrived.”

Cam lifted his head and looked at Marcus, who was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible as he loitered around the ambulance’s back end. “What are they planning to do with her?”

“I have no idea.” Marcus lifted a shoulder when Vaughn’s gaze swung to him, too. “Sorry, guys. I’m not FBI anymore.”

Cam struggled to a sitting position and clasped Vaughn’s hand, pulled him in for a hug. “If they put her in WITSEC, go with her.”

Of all the things he’d expected Cam to say, that was not one of them. He reared back in surprise. “I’m not leaving you or Wilde Security.”

“Yeah, you will. If it comes to it, you will. You’ve found something good with her, bro. The same thing I have with Eva— I can see it in you and you’ll be miserable without her. You were miserable without her.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Cam cracked a smile. “Usually. But this time I’m right. Go with her.”

“No. Fuck that. I’m not leaving my family. I’m done chasing her.”

“That’s good,” Dahlia said softly behind him, and Vaughn swung around to see her standing where Marcus had been moments before. She offered a weak smile. “Because I’m done running.”

Vaughn glanced from her to his twin, who nodded encouragement. He sucked in a breath that hurt like a bitch. He wasn’t sure if he was still pissed at Dahlia for pulling his gun on him, or if the anger was born of fear because she’d nearly sacrificed herself to help Cam. Either way, he was not happy with her.

He squeezed Cam’s shoulder. “I’ll see you at the hospital. Eva’s probably already there waiting for you.”

“She is. I talked to her.”

“Good. I’ll be right behind you.” He gave Cam’s shoulder another quick squeeze then climbed out, moving slowly since his body was starting to stiffen up. He spotted the pain-in-the-ass medic waiting impatiently by another ambulance nearby and gave him a one-finger salute. Dawson’s mouth twitched as if he was holding back a grin. He gave as good as he got, then shut the ambulance and walked away, obviously realizing it was a war he wasn’t going to win.

All right. Yeah, Vaughn liked the guy.

Dahlia had gotten a blanket from somewhere—probably one of the medics—and she hugged it to herself against the icy February wind. He waited for her to speak again, but she didn’t.

“So you’re done running?” he finally asked.

She nodded and released a breath in a huff, like she’d been holding it. “The FBI says they’ll protect me.”

His heart sank. “You’re going into witness protection then?”

“What? No. There’s no need. They’ll have all the major players in the Bellisario family in custody by the end of the night. I’m not running anymore because…” She laughed, and the sound of it was bright in the snowy, overcast day. “I’m free. Vaughn, you freed me.” Her laughter dissolved into sobs, and she curled in on herself, pressed a hand over her mouth to hold them in.

Faced with her tears, he couldn’t stay angry, couldn’t keep his distance. He stepped forward and dragged her into the circle of his arms. He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t cry, vixen.”

“I don’t mean to, but I’m so relieved.” She sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her hands. “I was afraid I’d have to leave you. I didn’t think I could do it again.”

Go with her.

He heard Cam’s voice, as clearly as if his twin had just whispered in his ear, and staring down at her tear-streaked face, he realized he would have followed her into witness protection. In a heartbeat.

But he didn’t have to make that decision. He didn’t have to choose between her and his brothers. He could have both.

She was done running, but he wasn’t done chasing. Not yet.

“Dahlia—”

She pressed a finger gently to his lips. “Please don’t call me that. Dahlia is long dead.”

“Okay.” He kissed the pad of her finger. “I told you before, it doesn’t matter to me what your name is. What do you want to be called? Sage?”

She shook her head and backed away from him, wrapping her arms around her middle as if trying to hold herself together. “Before I moved to DC, I had the choice of three names. I chose Lark because of the saying ‘happy as a lark.’ I just…wanted to be happy for once. And I was. With you. I want that happiness back.”

“You’ll have it.” He brushed her hair away from her face. “I want to spend the rest of my life making sure you’re happy.”

“Then I want to be Lark again.” She rolled her lips together, then lifted her chin and met his gaze, a challenge in her own. “But I want my last name to be Wilde.”

Vaughn laughed and pulled her in for a kiss. “Yeah, vixen. Wilde is the perfect last name for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

It had been ten days since the fight at the warehouse and still, waking up every morning in Vaughn’s oversize bed—or she supposed it was now their bed—came as a surprise. She wondered if she’d ever get used it and kind of hoped not, because she never, ever wanted to take it or him for granted.

Returning to the name Lark had taken no time at all to get used to, but it still hadn’t fully registered yet that she’d never have to change her name again. As of yesterday, when Vaughn slid the ring on her finger in front of a judge at the courthouse, she was officially and forever Lark Wilde.

Vaughn stirred behind her, and his morning erection nudged her butt. He dropped a hand over her waist and drew her against his body, nuzzling her neck before kissing her bare shoulder.

“Good morning, vixen.” His voice was low, sleep-roughened, and sent a bolt of desire into her belly.

She smiled and enjoyed the lazy slide of his lips up her neck. But when he sank his teeth lightly into her earlobe, a thrill sizzled down through the center of her body and settled between her thighs.

“Know what would make it a better morning?” She rolled and threw a leg across his body, straddling his hips as she rose over him. He was mostly healed now, the cuts closed up, the bruises faded, all but gone. He still had pain in his ribs and would yet for another few weeks, but that just meant she got to be on top, which was exactly where she liked to be anyway.

His hands slipped up her legs then around to cup her ass, and he smirked up at her. “What, we got married so now you think you’re getting some this morning?”

She rocked against his erection and watched his intake of breath tighten his stomach muscles. “Oh, I’m definitely getting some.”

She reached down between their bodies and stroked his shaft. He groaned and let her play with him for a moment before catching her wrist. “I’d love to, vixen, but we’re out of condoms. We used the last of them last night.”

She slowly withdrew her hand and gazed down at him. “Well…do we need them?”

He went very still beneath her. “Are you still on birth control?”

“No. Not since I left DC for New Orleans. There wasn’t any need. After you, I-I wasn’t interested in sleeping with anyone else.”

He sat up so that they were face to face, cupped a hand around the back of her neck, and gazed straight into her eyes. “Lark. Do you want us to have kids?”

“I do.” She blinked hard to stem the rush of tears that blurred her vision. “So much. But…” Her voice wavered. “I’m scared.”

He reared back and the expression on his face was nothing short of horrified. “Of me? Jesus. I’d never—”

“No! God, no.” To prove it, she clasped his face in her hands and kissed him. “I’ve never been afraid of you, okay? I couldn’t be. I love you too much, and I know you’d never do anything to harm me. It’s just…” She rested her forehead against his. “Vaughn, I’ve already lost two babies. I don’t know if I can…” She trailed off, because even voicing the possibility of another loss was too painful to bear.

“Aw, vixen. Come here.” His voice was thick, raw with emotion as he wrapped her up in his arms and held her tight. “Your ex killed them. It had nothing to do with your ability to be a mother. You’ll make a great mother. You’re smart and tough—the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You could’ve let life destroy you, but you didn’t. You still have so much love to give even though nobody’s ever given two fucks about you. It’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

“You give more than two fucks about me.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I do. So much more. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you never go without love again. If you want kids, I’ll give you a house full.”

God, she loved this man. Loved his rough edges, his grumbly disposition, and most of all, the gentle soul he only let her see in quiet, intimate moments like this. She drew away slightly and smiled at him. “A house full?”

“Well, yeah.” His fingers trailed down her side and slipped between her legs. “It’ll be a tough job, all that sex, but I’m a SEAL. We’re made for tough jobs.”

She smacked his chest. “I’m being serious.”

Sobering, he removed his hand from between her legs and cradled her face in his palms. “I know. And, honestly, I’ve never really thought about being a dad before, but…” He trailed off and said nothing more for a second as the pad of his thumb traced back and forth over her lips. “But I miss the way my family was while I was growing up. There were always people around. My parents, my grandparents, my brothers, our friends. Birthdays, holidays, summer block parties with the neighbors. It was loud and chaotic, and…and I miss it. The family’s been too quiet since we lost Mom and Dad.”

Her heart kicked up, slamming against her ribs in anticipation. “We could…make our own chaos happen here.”

“Yeah. We could.” A smile flirted with the corner of his mouth. “Wanna start now?”

She kissed him in response and shoved him back on the bed.

His hands skimmed up her ribs to her breasts, and he pinched her beaded nipples between his fingers, sending twin blades of pleasure to her center. He hardened against her inner thigh, and she wanted him inside her, now, without any barriers. She sat up on her knees while he positioned himself at her entrance with one hand, then sank down slowly, savoring the bare feel of him.

“Aw, fuck,” he groaned, and his eyelids dropped to half-mast when she started to move. “I love when you ride me. Love watching you take what you need from me.”

She gasped each time she slid down his length and he filled her. She was already close, hanging at the peak of orgasm, trembling but unable to fall over the edge. “I need—Oh God, I need to come.”

“Christ, yes. Let me see it, vixen. Come all over me.”

He teased her clit with his thumb, and she didn’t just fall off the edge. She catapulted, screaming his name.

A primal growl of satisfaction rumbled from his chest. He grasped her hips, slammed her down on his cock each time he arched up. His SEAL pin bounced on the chain between her breasts. The bed rocked and creaked under them, and she grabbed the headboard, held on for the ride.

She was laughing. So was he. At least until another orgasm gripped her, and they both moaned. She felt his muscles coil up between her thighs in the seconds before his release filled her in hot jets. It was the most erotic sensation she’d ever experienced.

She collapsed on top of him and listened to his heart hammer under her ear as the aftershocks of sensation continued to tremble through her.

He nuzzled her hair. “That was a pretty good start.”

Laughing, she lifted her head to kiss him. “Only pretty good?”

“Yeah, well, we’re new at this. We’re going to need lots and lots of practice.”

“You know, I think you’re right. How about we—”

Vaughn’s phone rang. He glanced at it over on the nightstand, which she was pretty sure hadn’t been that far away from the bed before.

“Did we move the bed?”

“Fuck yeah, we did. Lemme tell whichever of my brothers is calling to go to hell, and then we’ll work on moving it back.” He lifted her off him and rolled to grab the cell. She curled up on her side in his spot and watched the muscles in his back flex as he reached to check the screen.

Yum. A deliciously built male…and he was all hers.

He groaned. “Goddammit, why’d it have to be Cam? I can ignore everyone but him. He’ll know.”

“Go ahead and answer. I’m not going anywhere.” In fact, she was scooting closer because the line of his spine was just begging for her tongue. She dragged her lips down between his shoulder blades and watched goose bumps raise on his skin. She smiled, gently nipping at his shoulder.

He reached around and playfully pinched her ass, then answered the call. “Nice timing, bro. A few minutes earlier and I’d have been pissed.”

With her chin resting on his shoulder, she could hear Cam’s voice at the other end of the line. “You sound…happy.”

“I just got laid. Of course I’m happy.”

“Vaughn!” She pinched him back. “I can’t believe you told him that.”

He shrugged. “We’re twins. There’s not much we don’t know about each other.”

“Might as well get used to it,” Cam called. Vaughn switched him to speakerphone and he added, “By the way, Eva heard a rumor at work that a Wilde brother got married at the courthouse yesterday.”

Vaughn glanced at her and mouthed, “He always knows everything.”

“Heard that,” Cam said.

Vaughn winced. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, we just kinda did it. We meant to tell you guys.”

Cam huffed out a laugh. “Well, you’ll have your chance to tell us today. Reece has called a family meeting. Noon at his place.”

The amusement faded from Vaughn’s expression, and he sat up. “Wait, what? We haven’t had a family meeting since before Mom and Dad died.”

“Yeah, I know.” The smile also disappeared from Cam’s voice. “It’s about Greer.”

Vaughn said nothing for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was rusty. “What about him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Cam, is he dead?”

“I. Don’t. Know. I’m as in the dark as you are. All Reece said was that we had to talk about him.”

“Yeah, okay. We’ll be there.” He hung up and dragged his hands through his hair, then just sat there, head cradled in his palms.

Lark sat up beside him and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Is Greer okay?”

He straightened. Drew a breath and let it out slowly before meeting her gaze. “I don’t know, but family meetings were never good news. The last one Dad called was to tell us that our grandpa had died of a heart attack. I’m going to need you there with me today. In case.”

She laced her fingers through his, leaned into him. “Whatever the news is, we’ll get through it. Together.”

“Thank you.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “We should get ready.”

…

The hours dragged by between the call from Cam and the moment they arrived at Reece and Shelby’s apartment. Vaughn was itching to get inside and find out what the hell was going on, but steps away from the apartment, he realized he’d lost Lark at some point after leaving the elevator. She had been right beside him, but now she wasn’t. He turned and found her stopped in the middle of the hallway several paces back, chewing on her lower lip. “Lark?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m coming.” She nodded and took a few more steps, but stopped again.

“Hey.” He went to her. His brothers could wait another few minutes. “Vixen, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “It’s…nothing. It’s stupid. With this thing about Greer, it shouldn’t even be a blip on my radar.”

“I don’t care if it is stupid. Whatever it is, it’s bothering you, so talk to me.” When she didn’t respond, he rubbed her arms in light circles and took a guess. “You’re nervous about facing my brothers.”

“No. Yes. I mean…no, not really. It’s not your brothers. I can handle them.” She dragged in a breath. “It’s just…I know Libby is in there, too. What if she never forgives me for lying to her like I did? She was my best friend, my only friend, and I—I don’t want her to hate me.”

“Hey.” He ducked his head to meet her gaze. “Libby doesn’t hate you. She’s one of the most forgiving people I’ve ever met. She has to be to put up with my numbskull brother for a husband.”

The door opened, and said numbskull poked his head out. “I thought I heard you two,” Jude said. “Stop making kissy faces at each other and get in here.” Then he left the door hanging open and announced to everyone in the apartment, “I found Vaughn and Lark making out in the hallway.”

Vaughn held out an arm in a see-what-did-I-tell-you? gesture. “Libby lives with that man. If she can forgive him his constant idiocy, forgiving you will be a snap.”

Lark laughed, just as he hoped she would.

“C’mon. It’ll be fine.” He slid an arm around her waist and guided her inside. Then had to leap out of the way as Libby pounced on her and grabbed her in a spine-crushing hug.

“Oh my God, Lark! I am so mad at you!”

Vaughn stepped forward, intending to pry his sister-in-law off his wife, but Jude stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.

Libby squeezed Lark tighter—if that was possible—and cry-laughed into her shoulder. “So, so mad.”

“Wha…?” Vaughn looked at his brother, then back at the two hugging women, then at his brother again. He hooked a thumb toward the women. “That’s Libby mad?”

“Nah,” Jude said. “Mad Libby throws punches.” He rubbed his jaw and winced as if in memory. “Good ones, too. That is pregnant Libby. She’s got this happy crying thing going on all the time now. And sad crying. And just crying in general. All the time. It’s weird. You’d think she’d run out of tears?”

Without breaking her hug, Libby threw an elbow and nailed him in the stomach.

“Umph.” He rubbed his abs. “Hey, what’d I do?”

“You opened your trap,” Vaughn said.

Finally, Lark broke the hug and set her friend back at arm’s length. “Libby, I’m sorry. I hated lying to you, but I had to.”

Libby sniffled. “I know. Jude told me everything and I get it. But…” She scowled and punched Lark in the shoulder.

“There’s mad Libby,” Jude said.

She pointed a warning finger at him, then turned that digit toward Lark. “Don’t you go disappearing on me again. I was so freaking worried about you.”

Lark laughed and pulled her in for another quick hug. “You already have mom voice down pat. You’re a natural.”

Reece and Shelby walked by, headed toward the kitchen. Without breaking stride, Reece said, “It’s because she lives with Jude.”

“Hey!” Jude called.

“It is,” Libby mouthed.

“Hey!” Jude said again, but he was grinning as he dragged his wife to him for a quick kiss.

Vaughn moved to Lark’s side and watched everyone congregate in the living room. It felt good, being back with his brothers. In fact, it felt a lot like it had before they lost their parents.

Lark laced her fingers through his. “Chaos,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” he agreed and led her toward the couch. It was almost perfect—which made him miss the presence of Greer all that much more.

Cam sat in a leather chair with his broken ankle propped on an ottoman. Judging by the doodles all over the plaster cast, he’d let Jude get too close with some markers. He should have known better, especially since Vaughn had just recently spent eight weeks in a cast that had sported a pink unicorn courtesy of Jude.

Eva perched beside Cam on the arm of the chair, a box of tissues balanced on her lap. When he sneezed, she gave him a pitying look and passed him one.

Oh shit.

The cat.

Vaughn searched for the orange beast and found him curled up on Libby’s lap, purring like a motorboat. Just the sight of him made his nose itch.

Aaaand there was the sneeze.

Eva gave him the same pitying look she’d given her husband and held out the box of tissues. He grabbed a couple and stuffed them into his pocket. He was going to need them.

Lark was smirking as she sat down on the couch beside him. “What was that?”

“The twins are allergic to cats,” Libby explained helpfully, and Lark’s smile spread.

Vaughn scowled. He just knew what she was thinking: The big, bad SEAL had been bested by a cat. And he bet she wasn’t going to let him live it down anytime soon.

Reece returned from the kitchen carrying a tray of mugs, sugar, and cream. He set it down on the coffee table. Shelby followed with a carafe and a bottle of water, which she gave to Libby.

The mood shifted, grew darker, heavier, as everyone poured and doctored their coffees. It was time to get down to family business, and they all knew it. Eva was the last to return to her seat with her and Cam’s mugs, and by the time she sat, the room was pin-drop quiet.

Reece drew a breath and finally broke the silence. “I want to start by saying Greer’s not dead—at least, as far as I know, he’s not. I know that’s what you all thought when I called this meeting, and I’m sorry. But we do need to discuss his disappearing act, because I went back over to his place yesterday and talked to his neighbor, Natalie. She’s been keeping an eye out for me since he disappeared, and she still hasn’t seen him, but…” He trailed off and glanced over at Shelby, who nodded encouragingly. Sighing, he took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “But she did say she saw a pair of men enter his apartment two days ago, and when I checked it out, the place had been trashed. They had ripped through it, shredded everything he owned. Almost like—” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. “Almost like they were trying to obliterate him.”

Vaughn’s stomach lurched, the coffee he’d just taken a gulp of settling like toxic waste. He set it aside and stood up. “He’s in trouble.”

Reece nodded. “It’s looking that way. At first I thought this was just some kind of soul-searching trip for him. Some kind of early mid-life crisis thing or—I don’t know.”

Jude also stood. “But if people are ransacking his home, it’s more than that.”

“I agree. So we have some decisions to make. Do we call the cops? Report him missing? Report the break-in?”

“Yes,” Cam, Eva, and Libby said in unison. Figured the former and current detectives and the district attorney would be all for it.

“I agree,” Reece said.

“I don’t,” Shelby added. “In my experience, cops are bad news. No offense, sis,” she added to Eva. “But you know where I’m coming from. I haven’t had the best luck with law enforcement.”

Vaughn winced because his gut reaction mirrored Shelby’s. He glanced down at Lark and saw the same doubt on her face. “Yeah, we’re with Shelby.” He shook his head. “Besides, Greer wouldn’t want us to call the cops.”

Jude hissed out a breath. “Sorry, baby,” he said to his wife, “but I have to agree with Vaughn, Lark, and Shelby on this one. Something tells me getting the cops involved is a bad idea.”

“Well, voting’s out then,” Reece said. “That’s four and four. So what are our options? What do we do?”

Silence.

“He’s always taken care of us, guys,” Reece added when the silence stretched too long. “From the time he was fifteen, he’s taken care of us. He’s given up his whole life to make sure we’d be okay. It’s time we return the favor.”

Vaughn felt a light brush against his hand and glanced down. Lark entwined their fingers and stared back. There was worry in her eyes for her new brother-in-law even though she barely knew Greer, and Christ, he loved her for that.

“You found me,” she said softly. “You can find him.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered for her ears alone. Then he straightened and gazed around the room at his brothers and sisters-in-law. The size of their once ragtag little family had doubled in recent months and was continuing to grow along with the baby in Libby’s belly. And he sure as fuck wasn’t ready to lose any of them. “She’s right. We’ll find Greer. And whatever trouble he’s in, we’ll deal with it. Together. As a family.”

A chorus of agreements rang out.

“All right,” Reece said. “It’s settled. Let’s find our big brother.”

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Acknowledgments

As always, I want to thank the amazing team at Entangled for taking each of my rough manuscripts and helping me polish them until they shine. I’m glad beyond words that Entangled was the start of my writing journey and no matter what other publishers I write for down the road, Entangled will always be home.

I also want to give a shout out to a reader, Paula Moore. She probably doesn’t remember this, but two years ago she won the chance to name a character in one of my books and she gave me the name Sage Evans. Thanks so much for the awesome name, Paula! It was perfect for the heroine of this story.

About the Author

Tonya Burrows wrote her first romance in eighth grade and hasn’t put down her pen since. Originally from a small town in Western New York, she’s currently soaking up the sun as a Florida girl. She suffers from a bad case of wanderlust and usually ends up moving someplace new every few years. Luckily, her two dogs and ginormous cat are excellent travel buddies.

When she’s not writing about hunky military heroes, Tonya can usually be found at a bookstore or the dog park. She also enjoys painting, watching movies, and her daily barre workouts. A geek at heart, she pledges her TV fandom to Supernatural and Dr. Who.

If you would like to know more about Tonya, visit her website at www.tonyaburrows.com. She’s also on Twitter and Facebook.

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Discover the Wilde Security series…

Wilde Nights in Paradise

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