He found those women to be deeply annoying.

That was it. He never really loved her. He just liked the fact that she was quiet during a shootout. Yeah. That had to be it.

Just as Charlie disappeared into the maintenance door, the cops showed up, sirens wailing, tires screeching. They couldn’t be quiet during a shootout either.

But they could fuck everything up.

Ian couldn’t let that happen. This had just become his op.


Two hours later, he was finally able to go back to his office, having convinced the officers that it must have been a car misfiring since there was only the one sound. People, he’d told the officers, were just too jumpy these days.

While the police were talking down frightened onlookers, Alex had already found the bullet and started his own investigation.

“I want to know where the fucker was, what he was shooting, and who he fucking works for,” Ian said, walking into the conference room.

Adam was sitting in the back, his head down as he typed. Jake and Alex were staring at a bullet casing through the plastic bag it was held in.

Grace was holding Phoebe’s hand as she breathed in through her inhaler. She sent Ian a dirty look. “Really, Ian? What is wrong with you? You made her walk up fifteen flights of steps?”

“I didn’t make her do anything. She took one look at the elevator and ran the other way.” Again, another reason to prefer Charlie. Phoebe was a pretty woman. She had curves in all the right places, though she attempted to hide them all. She pretended to be frumpy, but there was a lovely body under all those clothes. Unfortunately, she also seemed to have a ton of fucking inhibitions. If he’d told Charlie she was late, she would have shot him the finger and gotten on the elevator.

The elevator. He’d forgotten how much she hated them. She was painfully claustrophobic, but she still got on them. He would never forget the way her hands shook, but she could keep her face perfectly placid. Only the fine tremble in her hands gave away that anything was wrong.

“She’s got to take a self-defense class or something,” Jake said, sighing. “That is the single subbiest female I have ever met in my life. Okay, Charlie’s fine. She’s been on the phone with her sister.”

“Did you tape the conversation?”

Grace gasped. “Tape the conversation? He wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course,” Jake replied, ignoring her entirely. Security protocols weren’t part of Grace’s employment training. “I texted Alex with a 540 right before I brought her up the maintenance elevator. She was a little shaky.”

Not about the shooting, but the elevator would do that to her. “Good.”

“What is a 540?” Grace asked.

He should have cleared the room, but at the end of the day, Grace was family and Phoebe did a decent job. They deserved to know how McKay-Taggart operated. Though he would never tell them about a 640. It was code for what to do if they all came under fire. Grace, Eve, Phoebe, and any other women were to be protected first and foremost to the point of the men giving their lives. Every single man he employed had to agree to the protocol. Even the latest, Jesse. He’d practically jumped up and down at the prospect. That was when he’d known he would hire the little fucker. Underneath his puppy dog exterior, he was a protector. He was a Dom. “It’s a code for watch and observe. Alex turned on the cameras in my office. Adam’s been watching her from the moment she walked in.”

“Her sister said she’d call her back, but that she thought she had a line on someone. Charlotte didn’t bother to mention she’d just been shot at,” Jake explained. “She told her sister to call her back and now she’s waiting.”

“She seems to like to smell things, boss.” Adam looked up. “She’s been smelling the jacket you keep in your office. She’s nosy, too. She’s looked through all your drawers. She also called out for pizza. She doesn’t act like a woman who’s terribly worried about being shot at.”

“Because she’s used to it.” He wondered just how many times something like this had happened to her. What had the last five years really been like? If she was telling the truth and she’d walked away from both the syndicate and screwed Eli Nelson, then her every moment had to be a delicate balance of working to stay alive. The Russians alone would be hell to stay clear of, not to mention someone with Nelson’s talents.

Absently, he reached over and grabbed a donut. It had been a nasty day. He needed it. He watched the monitor on Adam’s computer. Charlie was sitting at his desk, her legs curled into her chest as she dropped her head back and closed her eyes. He could see the long line of her throat and how it sloped gracefully toward the curve of her breasts. Though the camera was black and white, he knew how perfect her skin was, the only thing marring it being the scars, and yet he’d always paid such attention to them. He’d kissed her scars over and over, tracing them with his tongue as though they were a roadmap to the woman and he could learn her through touch and taste.

He bit into the donut and nearly sighed. Lemon. He fucking loved lemon. Tart. Sweet. Tangy. Just like Charlie.

“Hey, I brought you some coffee. Do you want me to clear these out, Ian?” Grace held a mug of coffee in her hands and gestured to the boxes of donuts.

“Hey, I’ve only had one,” Adam said, jumping up, his hands reaching straight for the lemons, the little fucker.

Ian batted him away. “Mine.”

“Dude, there are like thirty donuts left.”

“Anything else, but the lemons are mine.” How long had it been since he indulged in something as simple as a lemon-filled donut? Forever. He took a sip of the coffee Grace had handed him and his eyes closed in pleasure. “Oh, that is so good. Did you change coffee brands?”

Grace had the oddest look on her face as she stared up at him. “No, after what Charlotte said earlier, I thought I would try something new. I made it three times stronger than I normally would.”

Adam shuddered. “It tastes like motor oil.”

“Shut the fuck up, Adam. It tastes like heaven.” Yeah, he would have Grace teach his new sub how to make his coffee. Because he was still totally doing that. Charlie had made him deeply aware that he needed an outlet. Just because she remembered he liked lemon donuts and how he wanted his coffee didn’t make up for the whole screwing him over thing.

“You know what would take the motor oil taste out of my mouth?” Adam asked. “Lemon.”

“Fuck you. Buy your own lemon donuts.”

Grace sighed. “Also Derek Brighton is here. I put him in Alex’s office. Yours was full.”

He picked up what was left of the box and walked out. “Alex. Your office. Now.”

“Awesome,” he heard Adam say as he walked out. “I hate it when he stops using verbs. If I get scurvy it’s his fault for hogging the lemons.”

Alex caught up to him. “The bullet is a .30 caliber. It doesn’t tell us much. Probably from a sniper rifle. Simon and Jesse are working on trajectory. They’re pretty sure the shooter was roughly seven or eight stories up and to the northwest. There are two hotels that might work. Sorry. We can’t be more specific without bringing out some equipment that would tip off the cops.”

“I would bet you’re going to find that the rifle used was a Dragunov. It’s what the Denisovitch syndicate uses. They believe in supporting Mother Russia. They also tend to work clean. Tell Simon to try to figure out what room he was in, but I would bet my life they won’t find a damn thing. Our shooter’s gone.” He took another bite of his donut. It was the only fucking thing that had gone right all day. “Shit. She needs to leave.”

“Or we need to protect her,” Alex suggested.

“Or we need to let them take her out and then all my problems would be solved.” He said the words and knew he would never fucking let it happen.

“Ian,” Alex sighed.

He was deeply grateful to be able to push through Alex’s door. He didn’t want to get into it with Alex. Ever since Alex and Eve had reconnected, Alex had been all about his freaking feelings and shit. Now Alex expected him to have feelings, too. Come to think of it, that was Charlie’s fault. All bad things were Charlie’s fault.

All good things came from lemon cream.

“Derek, good to see you.” Ian greeted the big cop who paced across the floor of Alex’s office.

Derek Brighton had been on Ian’s Green Beret team. Ian kept up with all his former team mates, but he’d always been close with Derek. When Ian and Alex had looked for a city to start a business in, it had been Derek who advised them to move to Texas. Derek was their liaison with the DPD, and they needed him far more often than Ian would like.

“I would love to say the same, but I’m more inclined to ask why the fuck I have two investigators downstairs who firmly believe that a possible terrorist attack was nothing more than a car backfiring.”

And Derek was smarter than the average cop. Still. He had to give it a shot. He finished off his donut and took a nice swig of coffee. “Oh, that? Yeah, I was down there. Some asshole needs to get his exhaust checked. Freaked the hell out of the tourists.”

Derek frowned. “Really? Just the tourists? Because I’ve been doing this for longer than the beat cops and I managed to notice that the shop across the street has CCTV and one of them is pointed this way. Guess what I saw?”

Mother flying fucker. He was going to crucify someone. “No idea.”

“I saw you, big guy. I saw you figure out what was going to happen about two seconds before it did. What did you see? Glint off the window? Somehow I’m thinking that didn’t come from a fucking exhaust problem, Tag.”

He was screwed. Or maybe not. Brighton was a reasonable man. “Why aren’t the cops swarming me right now?”

“Because the last thing this city needs is a terrorist threat,” Brighton said, his shoulders relaxing slightly.

“I don’t think it’s a terrorist threat,” Alex said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“So who did Ian piss off? Is the CIA finally moving past burning him to actually killing him?” Derek asked.

“I didn’t get burned.” Television was going to be the death of the intelligence officer. “I walked away.”

He had gotten burned. Just not by the Agency. Charlie had burned the holy fuck out of him. She’d burned so hot he couldn’t help but get singed.

“We have it under control,” Alex said.

“I need more than a reassurance.” Derek was unmoved, his square jaw tightening. “I need to know what’s going on. Were they gunning for Ian? Will they try again?”

This should be the point at which he would turn Charlie over to the DPD and let them deal with her. She would be out of his hair. He wouldn’t have to see her again. She was right in his office and all he had to do was walk Derek down the hall and explain that she was very likely on several Most Wanted lists. He grabbed another donut. He was going to have to hit the gym.

“What’s wrong with him?” Derek asked.

“He’s thinking.” Alex knew him really well. “He’s plotting some shit out in his head, and I have to really, really hope that he does the right fucking thing here.”

Well, he knew what Alex wanted. He sighed. He wasn’t going to be rushed. Fuck, that tasted good. The combination of tart and sweet and the bitter of the excellent coffee was practically perfect.

Of course, if he gave her up, she would be taken into custody and very likely dead in the next twenty-four hours, and not in the “come back in five years” kind of way.

That was bad, how? He could let her go and find his dream sub—a hot little sub who never questioned him and cooked better than Sean and deeply enjoyed anal. He didn’t know if Charlie liked anal. She probably would if he did it. He was really fucking good at it. But he wasn’t going to do it.

Eli Nelson would be happy if she died. Well, Nelson would be happy if he believed Charlie’s bullshit story about screwing him over. Could he totally discount it? He didn’t want to ever make Nelson happy. Therefore he couldn’t turn Charlie in.

Decision made.

“Eli Nelson is gunning for me.”

Alex let loose a long breath of relief. “I was worried you wouldn’t tell the truth.”

Ian shrugged. “I’m practically George fucking Washington. I cannot tell a lie.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, sure. Am I looking at a sniper running around Dallas?”

Likely not. At least that he could be honest about. “You know how the pros are. They take their shot and then they dive deep. The last thing they want is a city on the edge. I’ll be on guard, and Simon and Adam are already working on figuring out who Nelson hired. We’ll take care of it. All you do if you bring the force into it is cause yourself and the city a mega shit ton of problems. Oh, and if you want the national media focused on every little problem the DPD has, you could call this a random sniper attack. It’s not. It’s about me, and that means it’s going to end up being classified. Save yourself and the city a whole lot of trouble. It was a car backfiring.”