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  How she could doubt him was beyond him. He’d never been more serious in his life, at least not without a weapon shouldered and his finger squeezing off rounds. He was damned serious then.

  “Yes, I am.” But about ten more seconds of her looking at him like she wasn’t sure what to think, and he was stepping out the door and doing a damage evaluation.

  “You’re starting to sweat, Jack.”

  Yes, he was.

  “I love you, Scout, and I’m not backing off from that statement.” Whether he had to make a run for the door or not.

  “You’re nothing but trouble, always have been,” she said.

  Oh, hell, if they were going to do a rundown of his faults, they needed to order in supplies.

  “We’re good together. You know we are, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I am the best man for you, or I wouldn’t be laying myself out here like this.” And that was the God’s truth.

  “I don’t know, Jack, it’s been—”

  He silenced her with a kiss, sliding his free hand around the back of her neck and lowering his mouth to hers, bending her into him—and at the first taste, he knew he should have done this years ago.

  She melted against him, rising up on her toes, her arms coming around his neck, her body pressing up against his, every luscious curve. He slid his hand up under her shirt and held her close, kissing her wildly, and when she did the same, slipped her hands up under his shirt, instant need became his driving force, replacing every other thought in his body.

  He wanted her. He loved her. And he needed her to be his, wholly and completely, on the bed with him inside her.

  One of her hands went to the waistband of his pants, and just the thought of her touching him made him hard.

  “Scout,” he whispered her name and undid his pants, asking her to please, please, please …

  And she did, sliding her hand into his pants and stroking his cock—and the clothes started coming off.

  “I need you, Jack,” she said between hot kisses. Pants hit the floor, shirts went flying, shoes disappeared, underwear melted away, and he scooped her up in his arms, both of them naked, and her so beautiful, she took his breath away.

  Laying her on the bed, he came down on top of her, and he kissed her and teased her, rubbing himself against her, until she was moving beneath him.

  “God, Scout, you’re so beautiful, so damned beautiful.” He kissed her breasts and cupped them in his hands, and he slid down her body to tease her with his mouth.

  This was Scout, his love, his lover, and everything about her excited him: the taste and softness of her, the way she responded to every lick of his tongue. It was going to take days, weeks, years to get enough of her, if he ever could.

  Oh, my God. Oh, my God … Jack.

  Scout was melting from the inside out. She’d imagined making love with Black Jack Traeger hundreds of times, if not thousands—but nothing in her imagination had prepared her for Jack in love and in her bed.

  Jack loved her—it was all she needed. He loved her, and he was giving her pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known. Forever, he’d said, and oh, God, she believed him. She’d wanted him forever—and the more he aroused her, the more she never wanted him to stop, not ever, not when he felt so amazingly good, not until he took her straight over the edge.

  “Jack …” His name sighed out of her on a groan of pleasure more intense than anything she’d ever known. “Oh, Jack … Jack.”

  When she’d gone limp beneath him, he came up her body and fitted himself to her—and she was so ready for him to thrust inside, to fill her up. He was hot, and hard, and heavy, and he held her so strongly, giving her even more pleasure. He was a big man, every inch of him solid muscle, and when his release came, she felt every last pulsing thrust, her body alive and in tune with his.

  He didn’t withdraw for a long time, just held her there, keeping her close in his arms, breathing softly against the side of her face.

  “That was crazy,” he finally said.

  “Yeah.” It sure had been, sweetly intense, wildly out of control.

  “Crazy wonderful.”

  “Yeah.” She’d go there with him. It had been wonderful.

  “We should do it again.”

  A smile curved her mouth. Now, that was the Jack she knew.

  “Yeah,” she said, sliding her hand up to cup his face. “We should do it again.”

  He looked down at her and grinned—and they did it again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Dylan Hart had a well-earned and well-deserved reputation for coolness under pressure. He owned the words “cold bastard.” He was the iceman, his emotions always tempered by reason. Always.

  Except for tonight.

  With the terrifying abduction of Jane, and faced with the crimes committed by the man Kid and Zach had hauled down into Steele Street’s basement, he was struggling inside, in a fierce conflict with himself. Under other circumstances, he would have gone to Skeeter to talk things through. The kick-ass blond bombshell was his mate, his sounding board, the balm to his soul, but the bad girl had nothing to offer him here. She wanted Lancaster dead, and she was counting on him to give the order that would make it so.

  The problem, the temptation burning through him, was to do it himself, long and slow and brutal and final—starting now. Right now. He had four syringes left, and any combination thereof would do the deed, give Lancaster a taste of the crazy, fucking hell he’d sold over a hundred American soldiers into for money and his own twisted reasons.

  The bastard needed to suffer and wail, to be undone, to lose his mind and be brought back only to lose it again.

  Pain beyond bearing—that’s what Lancaster needed. He needed it like Dylan needed his next breath.

  Standing in the shadows, he silently waited and watched as Kid tied Lancaster to the rope and pulley rig hanging from a boom secured to the ceiling. A hundred years ago, the rig had been used to move crates of goods into storage for Errol Steele’s Mercantile, the building’s first incarnation.

  Tonight it had a far grimmer purpose.

  General Richard “Buck” Grant, Special Defense Force’s commanding officer, was on his way to Denver to deal with Randolph Lancaster, but until Buck arrived, the man known as White Rook was under Dylan’s tender care.

  He saw the old man wince as Kid tightened the ropes tying him to the pulleys.

  “I want him chained,” he said, and Lancaster jerked his head around to peer into the darkness, looking for him.

  Kid didn’t miss a beat. He quickly secured the ropes, then walked over to the corner and picked up a heavy length of chain.

  “Hart?” Lancaster gasped, his voice feeble, his face gray beneath the shock of white hair he wore so proudly. “Is that you?”

  Kid had not been gentle with the man who had taken his brother from him. One of Lancaster’s eyes was swollen shut. A trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth and dripped on his pale blue dress shirt. His tie was askew, his black suit coat scuffed and tossed aside. The old man’s left hand was limp, likely broken at the wrist. Regardless, Kid had gone ahead and cuffed him before tying him to the pulley rig.

  Things happened.

  Especially to evil men unlucky enough to end up here, Dylan thought.

  Tyler Crutchfield was still taped to his chair, perched on the edge of the pool deck, hardly daring to breathe. Dylan understood. The lawyer did not want to draw Kid’s attention, not when every hard line in the Boy Wonder’s face said his restraint was hanging by the same thin thread holding Dylan back.

  “White Rook,” he said, walking into the light. “It’s been a while.”

  “Hart.” Lancaster slumped against his restraints. He was hanging at an odd angle that kept him from being able to stand upright or kneel. “Re-release me. There’s been a mistake.”

  “A terrible mistake,” Dylan agreed. “One of hundreds, starting with the sale of J. T. Chronopolous to Atlas Exports and ending tonight with th
e abduction of Jane Linden.

  “I-I don’t know any Jane Linden.”

  Not only possible but probable.

  “How about Scott Church?”

  The old man went perfectly still, except for the fresh sheen of sweat suddenly beading on his forehead and his upper lip. “No, n-no. I don’t know him.”

  “Liar.” Dylan referred to the sheaf of papers he held in his hand and read off a long series of letters and numbers. “Your international bank account number. I’ve got your balance here, Rook: forty-nine million plus change, including the last deposit you took in for the sale of Scott Church. You’ve done well for a government employee.”

  The old man was shaking his head vigorously. “No,” he said. “No, no, it’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think, Rook? You tell me.”

  When Lancaster didn’t reply other than to keep shaking his head, Dylan continued. “I’m thinking I didn’t know you were on the board of World Resources.”

  “N-no,” Lancaster said. “You-you don’t understand what you’re dealing with here. Release me. I … I can’t—” A gasp of pain escaped him.

  Good.

  “Actually, Rook, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand what you’re dealing with here—or who.”

  “SDF,” Lancaster ground out with effort. Spittle came with the words, and more blood, and Dylan decided that maybe Kid had hit him harder than he’d thought. “Special Defense Force. I m-made you, created you out of nothing.”

  “The same way you created LeedTech out of nothing?”

  “No. No. That’s a CIA operation, LeedTech, not mine.”

  Dylan referred to his papers again. “And yet, over the years, you’ve deposited funds in excess of ten million dollars straight out of LeedTech into your personal Swiss bank account. Tax free, too, and all those unreported assets you’ve got stashed in half a dozen shell corporations in the Caribbean, that’s going to bite you in the ass, Rook. You should have known better than that.”

  “Y-you’re wrong, Dylan.” The old man wheezed and let out a cough, before he could continue. “The money is for black ops, a slush fund, duly authorized by the agency’s director. You’re digging your own grave here, not mine. You need to … to release me now.”

  Not very damn likely.

  “No, Rook. That’s not the way it’s going to work tonight,” he said, watching Kid leave through the main door to go up and relieve Quinn. “Buck Grant is on his way, and if he doesn’t bury you, I will. But first I want Jane Linden and J. T. Chronoplous back. If you can help me, good. If you can’t, I’ve got no use for you.”

  “Use for me?” The old man let out a short, strained laugh. “You’re insane, Hart. It’s why the team has to be destroyed. Crutchfield!” He turned his head to face the lawyer and shouted again. “Crutchfield, tell him. He can’t prove anything. Nothing, not … not anything.”

  Dylan glanced at the lawyer, but Tyler Crutchfield wasn’t having any of it. If any man could have ever disappeared while taped to a chair, Crutchfield was going to be that guy. Lancaster was on his own.

  “Actually, I can prove everything. The trail leading to you and Atlas Exports is starting to look like the Beltway at rush hour,” he said. “I only beat the Department of Justice to the LeedTech files by an hour, and I left them a copy, so you might want to be thinking about that.” He paused for a moment, but just a moment, before giving in to his darker side and pulling the small stainless steel case of syringes out of his pocket.

  White Rook had been his friend, his savior, he’d thought, but now … now things had proven different.

  Walking slowly forward, he opened the box. Four syringes left.

  He stopped a couple of feet in front of where Lancaster hung from his ropes and chains, the open box in his hand.

  “And you might want to start thinking about these,” he continued. “You know what they can do to you, old man. If you help me, they’ll stay in the box. You can start by telling me everything you know about Scott Church, MNK-1.”

  Lancaster’s face was deathly pale. “MNK-1?” The question was a bare, harsh whisper of a lie. The bastard knew exactly who he was talking about.

  “Your boy Monk is here, in Denver. He kidnapped my friend, and I want her back. I want her back badly enough to break you in ways from which you will never recover.”

  “N-no-no, n-no no,” Lancaster murmured, his body starting to shake. “No. No.”

  “He’s a long way from home,” Dylan said. “And somebody left King and Rock dead in an alley over on the west side. They were broken up bad, Rook, and somebody cannibalized King, took a bite right out of him.”

  Trembling, Lancaster stared at him in silent terror, his mouth agape.

  “Do you think J.T. could have done a thing like that?” He had to ask, it didn’t matter how tough the questions were, or how bad the answers might get.

  “N-no,” the old man said. “Souk’s men … the soldiers he helped—”

  “Helped?” Dylan should kill him for that alone.

  “Enhanced,” Lancaster clarified. “Th-they were never like … like MNK-1. Patterson went too far … too fucking far. Monk shouldn’t exist.”

  But he did, thanks to Lancaster’s greed.

  “Can you call him off?” Dylan asked, his voice stone-cold serious. “Can you get my girl back?”

  He wasn’t in the mood to ask twice, and when the seconds passed one after another without any answers coming from the old man, he took a red syringe out of the box.

  He was done with the bastard.

  A faint whimper escaped the man, and Dylan swore in disgust. He had no tolerance for traitors or cowards—and Lancaster was both.

  Out of patience and out of time, he stepped forward and pushed Lancaster’s sleeve up. Buck wasn’t going to like it—getting here and finding a mumbling, babbling mess of a high-end State Department diplomat chained in the basement—but that wasn’t going to be enough to stop Dylan.

  He thumbed the protective cap off the syringe, and Lancaster started to twist and struggle in his ropes.

  “N-no,” he cried out. “No. No. I can’t, can’t call him off, but I can … I can get your girl back, this Jane. I know what Monk wants. D-don’t, don’t, Dylan, don’t stick me with that shit. I’ll tell you … tell you what he wants.”

  The needle rested above a blue vein pulsing on the inside curve of the old man’s elbow.

  “Now or never, Rook.” If he had something to say, he’d better say it, or Dylan was sliding the needle home. Proving the fact, he pressed it harder, letting the sharp tip bite into Lancaster’s skin.

  “M-me,” the old man finally said, his voice anguished, desperate. “Monk wants me.”

  And Monk could have him.

  Against his better judgment, Dylan put the syringe back in the box and reached up to key his mike. Before he could say a word, Zach’s voice came over the radio.

  “Dylan. The building is compromised. We’ve got someone on the loose up here, someone capable of climbing up the outside of the building, hand over fricking hand. Best guess is that it’s MNK-1. We think he’s got Jane with him … and …” There was a long, dreadful pause. “And I can’t find Skeeter.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Where in the hell am I? Skeeter wondered, opening her eyes to pitch darkness. And what is that smell?

  Rank and metallic, it assaulted her senses.

  Packed sideways into some kind of space with odd edges, her arms bound to her torso, she was wrapped up tighter than a miser’s money.

  But she could breathe, and her head was clearing. It hurt like hell, though, and she knew she’d been cold-cocked, ambushed on her own freakin’ turf.

  She swore under her breath and tried to wiggle out of whatever was binding her. The sonuvabitch who had done this to her was going down—just as soon as she got herself out of her current fix.

  Take a breath, she told herself, ignore the smell. It was gagging.

  She wiggled again and the ha
rd surface underneath her creaked and groaned, like metal straining under weight. It didn’t sound good. Twisting around, she tried to see above her and felt a breath of fresh air blow across her cheek. A drop of water fell on her face, then another, and another. Faintly, she could make out a lighter shade of darkness far above her, a ragged-edge square of the night sky. The wind gusted, and more rain blew into the space, cool and wet on her skin. Something fluttered across the opening from the outside, and as Skeeter watched, she slowly realized what it was: a piece of striped webbing off her favorite cheap-ass lawn chair. There were only two such chairs at Steele Street, both of them bolted to the roof on the square of Astroturf called “the Beach.” Then she remembered. Someone had blown the Beach and the rooftop stairwell to hell. Whoever had snatched her had stuffed her into the wreckage.

  She swore, and felt the remains of the stairwell creak and shudder around her.

  She swore again, but more softly, much, much more softly.

  Moving slowly and carefully, she turned her head to look down, hoping she was on a solid metal surface.

  No such luck.

  Peering through the jumbled, exploded remains of the stairwell, she could see her own damn living room.

  Well, hell, she thought. Nothing had improved down there since they’d checked it earlier when they’d cleared the building. The furniture was still wet and covered with debris, chunks of metal and pipe, and about half the rafters, and … oh, oh, oh, damn.

  While she’d been out cold, the guys had gone to DEFCON 4, the highest level of alert. The bright yellow M spray-painted on her living room wall above the elevator meant they’d cleared this floor again and missed her up here in the wreckage—and then they’d set up a little welcoming committee in the elevator for whoever had done this to her, a welcoming committee named “Claymore.” They’d mined the elevator shaft.

  Cripes, she needed out of here.

  She tried another careful wiggle, and then wished she hadn’t. With a yawning squeal of strained metal, another part of the wreckage broke away from underneath her and fell, and fell, and fell, until it crashed into her slate coffee table. The stone shattered under the impact, she saw $999 of “on sale” go up in a spray of shards and splinters, and now her ass was really hanging out over the abyss.