The Bachelor Bodyguards of Payne Protection Agency are back—and this time, it’s personal

Walking away from then-fiancée Amber Talsma was one of the hardest things sexy bodyguard Milek Kozminski ever had to do. But it was nothing compared to the shock of hearing she’d been killed in a car accident alongside the son Milek knew, deep down, was his.

Amber will do anything to keep her child safe. Which was why she had to fake their deaths—to evade the assailant who murdered her boss, then came after her. But now someone has found them. And when Milek learns the truth, he’ll stop at nothing to protect his son…and the woman he never stopped loving.

“You told me she’s alive.

“You need to tell me where she is,” Milek said, and his voice cracked before he could add, “Where they are…”

FBI special agent Nicholas Rus’s wide shoulders slumped with guilt, his black-haired head bowed. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No. You shouldn’t have told me now,” Milek explained. “You should have told me a year ago.”

“I didn’t know you a year ago… I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

“Obviously you know now, or you wouldn’t have told me that she—that they—are alive.”

Rus cursed. “And that was a mistake.”

“Why?” Milek asked.

“Because now you want to know where she is.”

He didn’t just want to know. He had to know. He had to see her—had to see for himself that she was really alive. And so was their son…

He’d broken up with her nearly five years before her death, and he hadn’t gotten over her in all that time. It didn’t matter that he knew she was alive; he was still mourning her.

“I need to see her.”

* * *

Don’t miss the next book in Lisa Childs’s

Bachelor Bodyguards series, coming spring 2016.

If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

Dear Reader,

The Payne Protection Agency has another assignment—and like their previous assignments in the Shotgun Wedding series and in the Bachelor Bodyguards series, it’s personal. Bodyguard Milek Kozminski thought he’d lost his ex-fiancée and their child in a horrific car accident a year ago. But while helping his brother Garek survive His Christmas Assignment, the first story in the Bachelor Bodyguards series, Milek learned assistant DA Amber Talsma and their son, Michael, are alive. He’s not the only one who’s discovered the truth. The person who wanted Amber dead is even more determined to kill her.

Milek has his hands full protecting her and his heart full of feelings for her. But the reason he broke their engagement all those years ago hasn’t changed—because he isn’t sure that he’s changed from the outlaw he once was. He thinks Amber deserves a better man.

Amber has only ever wanted Milek. But while she trusts him to protect her life, she isn’t willing to trust him with her heart again. He broke it once, and she worries that he’ll break it again if she survives the attempts on her life. Milek will do anything to protect his family—even give up his life for theirs.

I hope you enjoy this second book in the Bachelor Bodyguards series.

Happy reading!

Lisa Childs

Bodyguard Daddy

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Harlequin story, of course) at age eleven, all she ever wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Harlequin, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Flames leaped from the wreckage of the mangled vehicle, rising from the blackened metal into the night sky. The scene drew Milek Kozminski’s attention from the drink sitting before him on the bar to the television screen above it. Country music emanated from the speakers of the jukebox, so he couldn’t hear what the reporter was saying about the crash. He could hear only the twang of the singer as he crooned about drinking.

Milek could relate.

To the singer.

Not to the crash.

“Milek...” A soft voice, cracking with emotion, called to him. He twirled his bar stool to find not only his sister, Stacy, standing behind him but her husband, who was also his boss at the Payne Protection Agency. Hell, most of Payne Protection had come with them—Logan’s twin, Parker, and their younger brother, Cooper, and younger sister, Nikki. And Mrs. Payne, her warm brown eyes full of sympathy and something else, stared at him the way the others did—with concern.

“What the hell is this?” he wondered aloud. “An intervention?”

He had been drinking more lately than he should have but never enough that he lost control. He couldn’t afford to lose control—as he once had, so long ago. That time had sent him to a juvenile detention center and his brother, Garek, to prison. But Garek hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

The others said nothing, just continued to stare at him. And his heart began to beat quickly and heavily. Tears streaked down his sister Stacy’s face while her thin frame—but for the slight swell of her newly pregnant belly—trembled with sobs. Was something wrong with her baby?

He turned to Garek now—as he and Stacy always had since they were little kids. Their parents had never been there for them, but Garek had.

Garek’s face was flushed with emotion, and he strode over to the jukebox and jerked the cord from the wall. The music died, leaving the bar eerily silent but for the television anchor’s voice.

“Assistant district attorney Amber Talsma lost control of her vehicle on slick roads, causing it to roll down a steep ravine, where it burst into flames. She and her young son are confirmed dead in the crash.”

His heart stopped beating.

No, not Amber...

He twirled back toward the television. In a corner of the screen there was a picture of Amber with her bright green eyes and vibrant red hair. There was also a photo of her son—with his blond hair and pale gray eyes.

A big hand grasped his shoulder, offering support and turning him back toward the others who all stared at him with so much concern and pity.

“He was yours,” Garek said.

With his hair and eye color, the little boy looked like both Milek and Garek.

“She never told you.” Garek looked at their sister. Usually her tears would have affected him—would have had him fussing over her, especially now. Amber had been her best friend. But Garek stared at their sister as if he’d never seen her before. “Stacy knew. But I didn’t know, Milek. I swear I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.” He dragged Milek from the stool then and into his arms. “I’m so damn sorry...”

He had known. Even though another man had claimed the boy as his, Milek had known the truth. But he’d thought then that the kid would be better off without him as a father—just as he’d believed Amber would be better off without him as a husband, which was why he’d broken their engagement.

Even though it had nearly killed him, he had forced himself to give them up—because he’d loved them and wanted better for them. Now they had nothing. And neither did he.

They were gone.

Chapter 1

Amber Talsma had been dead for a year. But no one had gotten any closer to finding out who had killed her. Or tried to. Amber hadn’t lost control of her car and driven into a ravine. She had actually been shot at—just weeks after her boss had been gunned down outside his home. Someone had wanted her dead, too.

So she had died—to keep herself and her son safe. The accident had been staged; empty caskets buried in their graves. Then she and Michael had disappeared. They were Heather and Mason Ames now.

But when she glanced in the rearview mirror—as she did now as she drove to Mason’s school—she still saw Amber. Her long red hair had been cut and dyed brown. Brown contact lenses covered her green irises. But her features were the same. Was that how someone had recognized her?

The letter had arrived just an hour ago—delivered to the mailbox of Heather Ames. She hadn’t recognized the handwriting, but she’d opened it. Photos had fallen onto the floor. Several of them of her and Michael—at the park. At his school. At the grocery store. And through the front window of the very house in which they lived now. She’d turned over the back of one of those photos to find a note, an implicit threat, scrawled across the back: I know who you really are...

And obviously where she was, as well.

But how?

Only one person knew she was alive: the FBI agent who had helped fake Amber’s and Michael’s deaths. Special Agent Nicholas Rus had been the one she had called about the shots being fired at her—into her home.

She shuddered as she remembered how close the bullets had come to hitting her son—to taking his life. If she’d lost him...

It wasn’t a risk she’d been willing to take. Sure, she could have hired bodyguards. Agent Rus had even suggested that—while he tried to find her boss’s killer, who was probably also the person who’d shot at her—she should hire the Payne Protection Agency.

But she had been too proud to reach out to Milek again. He would have cared she was in danger, but would he have believed she was? He hadn’t believed her when she’d told him she was pregnant with his son. He’d accused her of using her pregnancy to get him back—to trap him.

Even now, over five years later, the heat of embarrassment rushed to her face. That was why she had never admitted to her best friend she’d actually told Milek about his son. But it hadn’t been just embarrassment. Her best friend was also his sister, and she hadn’t wanted to cause problems between Stacy and her brother.

Growing up as they had, the Kozminski siblings were close. They’d had to stick together because they’d had no one else. When Milek had been in juvenile detention and Garek in prison, Stacy had grown close to Amber, too—so close that they were like sisters. Her husband, Logan Payne, the CEO of Payne Protection, would have protected Amber and Michael. Or he would have tried.

But a year had passed without the DA’s killer being apprehended. Could anyone have kept Amber and Michael safe for a year if the killer had known they were alive?

It had been safest for her and her son to play dead. She had convinced the FBI agent of that, and he’d agreed to help her. Then.

But he’d also promised to find whoever was after her—whoever had killed her boss. The FBI agent had been assigned to the River City Police Department to clean up the corruption within. The DA could have been killed to cover up some of that corruption, so it had definitely been Rus’s case. But it was one he had failed in his promise to solve.

She had trusted him, not just because he was an FBI agent but also because he was the half brother of Stacy’s husband. But he wasn’t a Payne. And the corruption in the police department and perhaps in the DA’s office, as well, proved that nobody was incorruptible.

Had Agent Rus sold out to whoever wanted her dead? Had he told them where she was?

* * *

“You told me she’s alive. You need to tell me where she is,” Milek said, and his voice cracked before he could add, Where they are...

FBI Special Agent Nicholas Rus’s wide shoulders slumped with guilt, his black-haired head bowed. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No,” Milek agreed.

His blue eyes wide with surprise, Rus glanced up from his desk in his office at River City PD. His assignment was lasting so long he’d been given an office that had once belonged to one of the captains he’d arrested for corruption. It had windows looking out onto the busy precinct. But his attention was focused only on Milek.

“You shouldn’t have told me now,” Milek explained. “You should have told me a year ago.”

“I didn’t know you a year ago.”

Milek snorted. “We met at least a year ago.”

“We met,” Rus said. “But we didn’t know each other yet. I didn’t know then if I could really trust you.”

“Obviously you know now that you can, or you wouldn’t have told me she—they—are alive.”

Rus cursed. “And that was a mistake.”

“Why?” Milek asked.

“Because now you want to know where she is.”

He didn’t just want to know. He had to know. He had to see her—had to see for himself that she was really alive. And so was their son...

“That’s not all I want to know,” he said.

Rus groaned.

“I want to know why.” For a year she had haunted him—so many images of her had played through his mind. Amber smiling, her beautiful face aglow with love. Her face flushed with passion, her lips swollen from his kisses. Amber crying, her green eyes drenched with tears. But the one that had haunted him most had been the horrific footage of that crash. He’d imagined those flames consuming her and their son—taking them away from him forever.

But they had never really been his.

He shook off his regrets and asked, “Why would she go to such lengths to fake her death?”

And the death of their son...

“Was it because her boss was murdered and she was afraid she might be next?” She had worked more closely with the DA than any other assistant had. It was possible that whoever murdered him might have wanted to kill her, too.

Rus sighed again and leaned back in his chair. “There was no might about it. She and her son were nearly killed the night before the crash.”

Milek shuddered. He hadn’t lost them, but he’d come close. “What happened?”

“Shots were fired into her house.”

“I didn’t see it on the news.” Not the way he had seen the footage of the vehicle crash. And if the shooting had been reported, it would have been brought up during the coverage of the accident. The media would have speculated that the crash hadn’t been an accident. But nobody had questioned it. There had been an ice storm the night of the crash; it hadn’t just seemed possible but probable that she’d lost control.

But Amber had never really lost control of anything. Not the way he had...

Because he’d known her so well, he should have questioned the wreck—especially after her boss’s murder. And because he’d once been so connected to her, he should have known she wasn’t really dead. But he had lost her years before she “died.”

“She didn’t report it to the police or the media,” Nicholas Rus replied. “She reported it to me.”

She had called the FBI agent. Why hadn’t she called him? Probably because she hadn’t trusted he would come. Or that he would care...

When he’d broken their engagement, he had worked hard to make her believe he hadn’t cared about her anymore. He had succeeded—too well.

“And you kept it quiet.”

Rus nodded.

Milek cursed him.

“I didn’t know who I could trust,” Rus reminded him. “I came to River City to investigate corruption. I didn’t know who all might be involved in that corruption.”

“Me?”

Rus nodded. “You and your family have quite the notorious reputation.”

And that was why Milek had ended their engagement. For her...

His reputation hadn’t been the only reason, though.

“Now I know that reputation is undeserved,” Rus added.

It was undeserved for Garek and Stacy. Milek couldn’t claim the same. He sighed. “You were right,” he grudgingly admitted. “You were right to keep the shooting quiet. You were right to trust no one.”

If not, Amber and Michael might really be dead.

“I didn’t think it would take this long,” Rus murmured.

Milek glanced out the windows of the corner office. Even though the detectives and some uniformed officers appeared busy, they spared glances at Rus’s office—at Rus. Some of those glances seemed uneasy. “To clean up the corruption?”

He nodded. “That, too. But I meant I didn’t think it would take this long to find her boss’s killer. I didn’t think she would have to stay dead as long as this.”

“Was that why you told me?”

“You weren’t getting over her.”

Milek had broken up with her nearly five years before her death, and he hadn’t gotten over her in all that time. It didn’t matter that he knew she was alive; he was still mourning her—still mourning what they’d once had, such passion. His pulse quickened just thinking about her—about how badly he’d wanted her—needed her.

But if it had only been passion, he wouldn’t have broken their engagement. He’d loved her too much to risk ruining her future. “I need to see her.”

To talk to her. To apologize.

“I can’t risk it,” Rus said. “Until now, I was the only one who knew the truth.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Milek said. He wouldn’t compromise her safety, or their son’s.

“We can’t take the chance of either of us going to see her. We can’t risk someone following one of us.”

“But why would they?” Milek asked. “Nobody but us knows she’s alive. So they’re not looking for her any longer.” But somebody needed to be looking for him—for the shooter who had nearly killed her and Michael.

He believed Rus was still working the case. But it wasn’t his only case. He’d just taken down a major crime boss. “Does Chekov have any ideas?” Milek asked. “He’s been talking to you pretty freely.”

Because he had cut a deal to keep his daughter from going to a maximum security prison for murder. She was going to a locked psychiatric facility instead. Milek doubted she would ever leave it.

Rus shook his head. “Chekov claims he doesn’t know anything.”

“Do you?” Milek asked. “Where are you at with this case?” He needed to be apprised of the investigation, so he could help. Payne Protection bodyguards protected their clients by physically guarding them, but also by eliminating the threats to their safety.

Rus admitted, “I know who killed the DA.”

Milek gasped. “Really? If you think that’s the same person who went after Amber, why the hell is she still gone?”

Had she decided she liked her new life better than the one she’d left behind?

“I know who pulled the trigger,” Rus said. “But I haven’t apprehended him. And until I do, I won’t know who hired him.”

“The shooter was a hired killer?”

Rus nodded. “Ballistics matched up to other hits. A fingerprint recovered from a shell confirmed the shooter is Frank Campanelli.”

“You know who it is but you can’t find him?” Milek was appalled. Rus needed help. He needed Payne Protection. Nikki Payne could track down anyone.

“They call Frank Campanelli ‘The Ghost,’” Rus shared. “So I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to find him. Nobody has ever been able to arrest him.”

“The same was true of Chekov,” Milek reminded him, “until Garek and Candace and I helped you.” And Milek had even more motivation now. Anger heated his blood, making it pump fast and hard through his veins. When Milek found the man who’d tried to kill Amber and his son, he might make him a ghost.

Rus shrugged. “Even if we catch Campanelli, I doubt he would talk. Hired assassins rarely give up their clients. So I’m focusing on finding the real killer—whoever hired him. I’m checking into all the cases DA Schievink and Amber Talsma were both working at the time Schievink died, and even the cases they’d worked together before his death.”

Milek nodded. “Someone could have gunned down the DA out of vengeance.”

Rus narrowed his gaze and studied Milek.

Milek couldn’t deny he had a motive to want to kill Gregory Schievink. The guy had done his damnedest to break up him and Amber. When she’d become pregnant, Schievink had sought out Milek and insisted the baby was his—not Milek’s. His hands curled into fists as they had that day. But that day he hadn’t kept them clenched at his sides; he’d swung. He’d hit the slimy bastard, and in doing so, Milek had confirmed his worst fears to himself.

“Schievink was an amoral son of a bitch. But I wasn’t the only one with a grudge against him. You have to have a long list of criminals.” Not to mention the man’s wife—Schievink had been married.

Rus nodded. But his intent stare didn’t leave Milek’s face. Of course, he probably ranked Milek among those criminals, if not at the top of the list.

“I would never hurt Amber and Michael.” Not intentionally. Not physically. In fact, he’d done everything in his power so he wouldn’t hurt them.

“Was it a mistake to trust you, Kozminski?” the agent asked.

Milek shook his head.

But he could tell the FBI agent wasn’t convinced. The man opened his mouth, but before he could ask whatever question he’d wanted, an alarm beeped from his computer.

Rus glanced at his computer monitor, then turned his full attention to it. As he read whatever was on the screen, a muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw.

This obviously wasn’t good news for the agent.

“What is it?” Milek asked. Hadn’t the city been through enough over the past year or so?

“I flagged my computer to alert me whenever a report came through with a certain name on it,” Rus said.

He knew. Instinctively Milek knew what that name was. But he moved around Rus’s desk to stand behind his chair. He needed to see it for himself.

“Amber Talsma...” It was highlighted within a police report. He glanced up at the corner of the screen to read the incident number. This wasn’t an old report—from a year ago. This was a recent one. From just days ago.

“Why did it take your computer so long to alert you?” he asked.

“The incident happened days ago,” Rus confirmed. “But the report just got completed and uploaded to the system.”

“What took so long?”

“It wasn’t a priority,” Rus said.

Anything involving Amber was a priority.

“Why not?” He leaned closer, trying to read more of the report over Rus’s shoulder.

As he read, Rus surmised, “It was assumed to be just vandalism, malicious destruction of property...”

“What does any of that have to do with Amber?” Milek asked. “Her house was sold nearly a year ago.” He doubted she had any other property in River City.

“This incident didn’t happen at her house,” Rus replied. “It happened at a cemetery.”

Milek’s heart began to hammer hard and fast—with dread. He already had a sick suspicion, but just as he needed to see Amber and Michael to believe they were really alive, he needed Rus to confirm his suspicion. “What happened?”

“Two graves were desecrated,” Rus said. And he pointed to that highlighted name. There was another one after it. Michael Talsma.

It should have been Michael Kozminski. Milek should have claimed his son while he’d had the chance. Because he wasn’t certain he would have the chance again...

Another curse slipped through Rus’s lips. “You know what this means...”

Yeah, he knew what it meant.

“That someone went to the time and the trouble to dig up two empty graves.”

They were no longer the only ones who knew Amber and Michael Talsma weren’t really dead. And the only person who would have gone to the trouble of confirming they were alive was the person who wanted them dead.

Chapter 2

Her hand trembled slightly as Stacy Kozminski-Payne attached the last jewel to the plush body of the stuffed bear. The jewels were made of shiny material and felt, and attached so well to the bear that they couldn’t be torn off and eaten. She wouldn’t expose the children for whom she made the bears to choking hazards. A jewelry designer by trade, Stacy only made the bears for family.

For her children.

And for her nephews and nieces. It was hard to make the bears now without thinking of the first one she’d made—for her first nephew. Michael was gone now. Maybe he’d been clutching the bear in those final moments—before the flames had consumed him. Maybe it had given him some comfort.

Strong arms slid around her, offering her comfort. “I don’t know why you keep putting yourself through this,” a deep voice murmured. Warm breath caressed the side of her face before lips skimmed over it.

She trembled again—for another reason entirely. Her husband’s touch never failed to excite her. “I always make them for the babies.”

“Yes, you’ve already made them for all the babies who’ve been born,” Logan said. “You don’t need to make another one.”

“Garek—”

His deep laugh interrupted her. “Garek and Candace have just gotten married. And those two aren’t likely to ever have children.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Nobody thought they were likely to ever get married, either.” But they had. On Christmas. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered how beautiful the wedding had been. At least one of her brothers was happy now.

“Hey,” he said as he caught the hint of tears she fought. “I’m sure you’re right. You’re always right. I never noticed how those two felt about each other. But you knew.”

She had known how Garek and Candace felt about each other. How had she not known how Milek had felt about Amber? She’d believed her friend—believed that Milek had broken their engagement because he hadn’t really loved her. When Amber died, Stacy had realized how wrong she’d been—when she’d seen how devastated Milek had been. That devastation had lasted the whole past year. But he was getting better now.

Or maybe that was just what she wanted to see. He didn’t seem as depressed or angry. He just seemed edgy; something was still bothering him. But she dared not push him. He’d only just begun to talk to her again.

“What’s wrong?” Logan asked. And he turned her in his arms, holding her closely. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She wanted to say nothing. She wanted to be completely happy. But that happiness brought her guilt—that she could be happy when Milek was still miserable—when her best friend was dead. But she was happy. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m not making this bear for Garek and Candace.”

She wouldn’t dare presume. She and Candace had only recently forged a friendship and Stacy didn’t want to risk losing another friend.

Logan arched a dark brow over one of his sparkling blue eyes. “Then who...?”

She let the happiness out then with a smile. “We are.”

Logan let out a whoop. Lifting her in his arms, he swung her around the workshop he’d converted from a spare bedroom in their house. With another baby on the way, they might need to convert it back or buy a bigger house.

She wouldn’t worry about that yet. She didn’t even have to worry about coming up with a name. They had already agreed what the name would be for their next child. It had been too soon when their little Penny was born, her grief too fresh. But Stacy was ready now.

If they had another girl, they would name her Amber. And if the baby was a boy, Michael...

* * *

“Mommy, I’m not sick,” Mason protested from the backseat of the minivan that belonged to Heather Ames.

Stopped at a light, she turned back toward him with a weak smile as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The light needed to turn green. Now. “I know, honey.”

“Then why did you get me from school so early?”

He had been in class only a couple of hours when she came for him.

“Because we need to leave...” she murmured as she turned back to study the long red light.

“School?”

The light changed—finally—so she pressed hard on the accelerator. What if someone had followed her from the house to the school? What if someone was following her now?

The photos proved she’d been under surveillance. Someone had been watching her—them. She doubted he’d stopped now. So she kept glancing into the rearview mirror.

But she didn’t know how to detect and lose a tail—like FBI Agent Rus—like Milek and Garek. Their father was a jewel thief; he’d taught his sons not only how to steal but how to elude arrest. Eventually he’d been caught, though, and imprisoned. Milek and Garek had done time, as well.

She almost understood now what they’d gone through and what she had put many criminals through. For the past year she had felt imprisoned—trapped in a life and even in a body where she hadn’t wanted to be.

“We’re leaving town,” she told her son.

He clapped his hands together. “We’re going home!”

“No...” That was the last place they could go.

“But I wanna go home.” She glanced back and confirmed his bottom lip was jutted out in a pout. “I wanna see Aunt Stacy...”

So did Amber. She had never needed her best friend more. But Stacy was related to Agent Rus now. Would she believe he had betrayed her? Would she forgive Amber for not coming to her a year ago?

She couldn’t risk going back to River City. That was where the attempt had been made on their lives—where Gregory had been murdered. She and Michael would be in more danger there. Not that they weren’t in danger now.

I know who you really are...

And all those photos. Somebody had been watching them—for weeks. She glanced in the rearview mirror again. Was he watching her right this minute?

She shuddered.

“We can’t go see Aunt Stacy yet,” she said.

“You always say that...” The disappointment and irritation in his little voice broke her heart.

She had turned his world upside down a year ago. And now she had to do it again.

“We have to leave now,” she said. “I packed up all our stuff.” At least, everything she’d thought they would need and had been able to pack in less than an hour.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She had no idea.

He turned in his seat and peered into the cargo area behind him. “Where’s Jewel?”

Stacy had lovingly made the bear for her nephew. She probably thought it had burned up in the crash with them—since Amber hadn’t been able to leave it behind in their house.

She was sure she’d packed it; it had been on top of the last box she’d brought out to the van. “It’s back there—in the open box.”

She’d been in such a hurry she hadn’t had time to tape any of them shut. But the last one she hadn’t even bothered to fold in the flaps.

Michael leaned around his seat to face the back. She heard a sob slip out. “Jewel’s not here!”

She had been juggling that last box as she tried to pull the door shut behind her. But the wind had caught the door and pulled it from her grasp, and she’d nearly dropped the box, as well. She might have lost the bear then.

Michael had already given up so much. His family. His friends. She couldn’t ask him to give up his favorite toy—his one connection to his past.

When she pulled over to check inside and around all the boxes in the back, she didn’t find the bear. With Michael sobbing brokenheartedly now, she had no choice. She had to return to the house where those pictures had been sent. Where one of them had been taken...

Where the killer might be waiting for them...

* * *

“This is a mistake,” Agent Rus remarked, holding tightly to the armrest as Milek steered around a sharp curve. “We could be leading the shooter right to her.”

Milek glanced in the rearview mirror and shook his head. “Nobody’s following me.” Nobody could. Garek had trained him too well in how to tail someone—so well that he hadn’t even noticed Milek tailing him a few times. But he’d taught him even better in how to lose a tail.

Drive it like you stole it...

He would have smiled, as he always did when he heard his brother’s advice inside his head. But his head was already pounding—with his madly beating pulse. “Or we could be too late...”

His greatest fear was that the shooter had already beaten them to her. She wasn’t very far away—just a few hours north of River City near the Lake Michigan shore.

“Nobody but me knows where she is,” Rus maintained. “Until now...”

He’d told Milek. But someone else must have figured it out. Or why else would their graves have been dug up?

“You should have stashed her farther away,” Milek said. “Maybe someone recognized her.” And then dug up the caskets to confirm they were empty.

“I wanted her to be close enough,” Rus said, “in case she needed me.”

Milek understood the FBI agent’s logic, and now that he was nearly to the town where Rus had moved her, he could even appreciate her not being any farther away. Rus had made wise choices. But Milek wished he was the man she had turned to—as she once had. Her passion had equaled his; she’d wanted him as badly and as often as he’d wanted her. Her kisses, her touch had driven him crazy—had tested his already tenuous control. She had once wanted him, but she hadn’t trusted him when she’d needed help.

He understood why she hadn’t. He hadn’t been there for her when she had needed him before—when she’d learned she was pregnant with his son. If only he could have explained...

But he knew Amber. She wouldn’t have accepted the truth. It had been easier to lie to her and to pretend he hadn’t cared.

Rus lifted his cell phone. “She hasn’t called,” he said. “She doesn’t need me.”

Or she couldn’t call. Milek’s heart slammed into his ribs at the horrific thought. And he pressed harder on the accelerator.

“Stop!” Rus shouted. The man shouldn’t have been afraid. Milek was sure he had participated in more than his share of high-speed chases. “You missed the street.”

Milek steered the SUV into a sharp U-turn, tires squealing, as he drove onto the road Rus indicated. It was a suburban block—little bungalows sitting side by side on the tree-lined street.

Amber had had a bigger home in River City. As a lawyer, she had been able to take care of herself and their son. Financially.

“What does she do here?” he asked. She wouldn’t have been able to practice law without a license.

“Paralegal,” Rus replied, “at an estate law firm.”

It would have been a big demotion for her. In responsibility and pay. She had given up a lot. But he knew why she had. For their son...

She’d wanted to keep him safe. That was the same reason Milek had stayed away from her and him. To keep them safe...

But then he hadn’t realized there were dangers beyond the ones he’d posed.

“Which house?” he asked as he slowed the vehicle.

Rus pointed toward a nondescript white one. Even its door was white as was the trim and foundation. It was so bland that it was nearly invisible. But that had probably been the point. Amber had wanted to be invisible. But someone must have noticed her.

The tires squealed as he braked at the curb. He didn’t bother shutting off the ignition, just threw the transmission into Park and jumped out the driver’s door. While he ran to the front porch, Rus moved more slowly and called out behind him, “Wait...”

Heedless of the warning, Milek vaulted up the steps. But then he paused, and not because of the hand that suddenly clamped down on his shoulder.

“Wait,” Rus said again. “You don’t want to startle her or the boy.”

But Milek pointed toward the front door. It wasn’t just unlocked; it was standing wide-open. Fighting the paralysis of fear, he reached for his holster and drew his weapon. Then he walked through the open door. His stomach knotted with dread over what he might find inside the nondescript home.

Rus had drawn his weapon, too, and he followed closely behind Milek—protecting his back. Milek didn’t care about his own safety. He cared only about hers.

While the house was bland on the outside, inside the walls had been painted bright colors. Vibrant reds and blues and greens. It looked as if it had once been loved and lived in—except it was empty of people and left in a mess.

All the doors had been left open—from the closets in every room to the cupboards in the kitchen. Drawers had been pulled out, too.

“Do you think someone broke in to toss the place?” Rus asked as he gazed around at the chaos.

Milek moved back toward the front door. The jamb wasn’t broken, and there were no gouges in the lock. Unless he or Garek had picked it, there would have been some indication that it had been forced.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then it looks like someone just left in a hurry,” Rus remarked.

“But why?” Milek asked. Had Rus warned her that Milek knew she was alive? Had she not wanted to see him?

They’d lived in the same city for almost five years after they’d broken up and hadn’t seen each other, though. She probably wouldn’t think he cared that she was alive—not enough to seek her out. “Could she have heard about the graves being dug up?”

“How?” Rus asked. “I didn’t know myself until just an hour ago.”

But maybe Rus wasn’t the only person with whom Amber had stayed in contact. Maybe she’d kept another link to her past—to River City.

The door bumped against something as he pushed it open again, so he pulled it forward and looked behind it. A small stuffed bear lay on the foyer floor next to a table littered with junk mail.

He leaned down to pick up the bear. He recognized the detail. The jewels weren’t real, but he knew who had made it. Stacy.

Was that who Amber had stayed in contact with? She and Stacy had always been so close—like sisters.

That was another reason Milek never should have gotten involved with Amber. And, really, he’d tried to just be friends with her, too.

But she was so damn beautiful, and the attraction between them had been so intense. Even knowing she was his sister’s best friend, he hadn’t been able to resist her. He hadn’t been able to resist her until he’d fallen completely for her. Only then had he been strong enough to do the right thing.

As he leaned down to pick up the stuffed animal, he noticed something else: a photograph lay beneath the bear. He scraped up the picture from the hardwood floor. A woman and child cuddled together on a couch—the very one in the room behind him. Her head bent close to his, the two looked at a book together. His breath caught, burning in his lungs, as he recognized them—the woman and the child he’d never thought he would see again. They didn’t look the same. Her hair was different—brown instead of shiny red, and it wasn’t as long and wavy. Her eyes looked dark, too.

Even the boy’s hair looked darker. But his eyes were still the same pale gray as Milek’s. He was too young for contacts, so his disguise wasn’t as complete as hers.

Was that what had happened?

Had someone recognized them?

That photo had been taken through her front window. He flipped it over and read the message scrawled across the back: I know who you really are...

He passed the picture over to Agent Rus. “This is why she left in such a hurry.”

Rus cursed. “How the hell did someone find her?”

Milek had begun to consider the FBI agent a friend—especially since he’d admitted the truth to him, since he’d reassured Milek that the woman he had always loved and his son had not died. But now he regarded the man with suspicion.

Could he trust him?

Should Amber have trusted him?

* * *

Frank Campanelli shook his head as he followed the minivan back toward the neighborhood he’d thought Amber Talsma had left for good. Earlier he had watched her load the back of the van with boxes and suitcases before she’d gone to the elementary school to pick up her son.

“Why the hell are you coming back here?” he asked aloud.

He’d sent the photographs to give her a chance to escape him. Just as he’d fired those warning shots into her house last time.

He was a professional and had no guilt over killing for money. But it was different with women and kids. Their deaths haunted him.

That was why he’d been glad when Amber Talsma had heeded his last warning and staged her death. He’d claimed responsibility for that and had still collected his payment from his client.

He would have left her “dead”—if not for that damn FBI agent cleaning up River City. Frank had lost another client when Viktor Chekov had gone to prison—to join so many other clients of Frank’s.

He needed money. So he would set aside his guilt and finish the job he should have completed a year ago. It had taken the photos and digging up those damn graves in order to convince his client to pay him again.

So this time he would have to produce bodies. He would have to prove he had actually completed the job. That Amber Talsma was really dead.

He slowed as he turned onto the street behind her. With one hand on the steering wheel, he leaned across the passenger’s seat and popped open the glove compartment with his other hand.

Then he reached inside and pulled out the gun he kept there. The Glock had a silencer on the barrel, just like the one he’d fired at Amber Talsma’s house a year ago. That was why no one had reported hearing gunfire. Despite the suburban neighborhood and all the little houses sitting closely on small lots, nobody would hear anything this time, either.

The only thing that would be different this time was that he would not miss. He would make sure every bullet fired struck its target: Amber Talsma.

Chapter 3

“Where the hell is he?” Garek Kozminski asked as he pushed open the door to FBI Special Agent Nicholas Rus’s office at the River City Police Department. His hands were already curled into fists—ready to swing. He was angry. Not as angry as he’d been when someone had been trying to kill the woman who was now his wife, but he was beyond irritated. And the damn agent wasn’t even in his office...

A hand touched his arm, long fingers wrapping around it. Even through his coat and sweater, his skin tingled at her touch. He turned back toward her, and as always, his breath caught at her beauty. With her black hair, silky skin and thickly lashed blue eyes, she was stunning.

She looked at him with concern and love. “You don’t know for sure Milek is working for him.”

He knew. “Milek has been refusing to take any bodyguard assignments,” he said. “He’s preoccupied. Rus roped him into something.”

“Are you sure that’s a bad thing?” Candace asked.

Garek lost his breath again—for another reason than his wife’s beauty. “What?”

“He seems to be doing better than he’s been since...”

Since he’d lost the woman he loved and his child. Garek didn’t know how Milek had survived the loss—the grief. If Garek ever lost Candace...

He shuddered at the horrific thought.

Candace continued, “He’s less despondent.”

That was a good thing. For the past year Garek had lost his brother to his grief—to the point that Milek had had him move out of the condo they’d shared. But working for Rus was not a good thing. Garek worried he might lose his brother to more than grief—to death.

“I’ve done a special assignment for Rus,” Garek said, although he didn’t need to remind her. “And all of us—you and I and Milek—nearly got killed.”

She squeezed his arm in reassurance. “Nearly,” she said. “We all survived.”

Maybe Milek wasn’t happy he had. Maybe working for Rus again was some kind of death wish for him—a wish to join the woman and the child he’d lost.

“Hey, Candace!” A man stopped in the doorway to Rus’s office. He was a big, barrel-chested man with a scruffy beard and long, stringy hair.

Although his wife needed no protection, Garek pulled her against his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“Bruce,” Candace greeted the guy with a smile. So Garek doubted the man was a criminal. She hadn’t always had the most affection for them—until she’d fallen for him.

“You’re looking great,” Bruce said with an appreciative grin as he checked out her lean, sexy body. “We could really use you back in Vice.”

She laughed, but not with her usual self-deprecating humor. She wasn’t refusing the man’s compliment—the way she used to Garek’s. Now she saw herself as he saw her—as the true beauty she was.

Garek glared at the interloper, but the guy paid him no attention.

“Is that why you’re here?” Bruce asked. “Giving up the bodyguard business?”

She laughed again. “Not at all. My husband and I are looking for Agent Rus.”

Bruce glanced at him then. “You look like the guy who was with him right before they tore out of here.”

“Why’d they tear out of here?” Garek asked.

“Did something come through Dispatch?” Candace asked.

“Something always comes through Dispatch,” Bruce said. “But Rus usually doesn’t go out on calls.”

Unless it involved something he was already working on—like when he’d been trying to take down Chekov with Garek’s help.

“Was anything patched through to him?” Candace clarified her question.

Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know. If he was called out because of some kind of incident, he didn’t ask for backup. It was just the two of them. Before they ran out of here, they were at Rus’s computer.”

“Thanks,” Candace told the man. And he must have picked up from her tone that she was dismissing him. The moment he turned away, she closed the office door. Then she slipped from Garek’s grasp and moved around Rus’s desk. She tapped on his keyboard.

“Isn’t it password protected?” he asked. He could break into any building or safe, but computers were beyond his area of expertise.

“It was,” she said as she continued tapping on the keys.

“You broke in?” he asked and whistled in appreciation and pride.

She nodded. “Nikki’s been teaching me about computers,” she said. “And I’ve been teaching her about self-defense and weapons.”

Candace was a good teacher. Logan Payne would soon have no more excuses to keep denying his sister fieldwork.

A soft gasp slipped through Candace’s red lips.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know...” she murmured. But her blue eyes were wide as she stared at the monitor.

Garek moved around the desk to lean over his wife’s shoulder. “What the hell...”

“Why would someone have dug up Amber’s and Michael’s graves?” Candace asked.

Garek could think of a reason, but it was too far-fetched to contemplate. Or was it?

He grasped his wife’s hand and tugged her toward the door. “Let’s find out.”

Maybe that was where Rus and Milek had raced off to, but he suspected they’d gone someplace else entirely. Amber and Michael were already dead, so desecrating their graves wouldn’t have harmed them.

Unless...

* * *

This is a mistake.

Amber knew it the moment she turned onto the street. She shouldn’t have come back here. “Sweetheart,” she murmured. “Maybe we’ll have to get Jewel another time.” Like never. Maybe it was good to have no reminders of the life they’d had to give up, because she had a feeling they would never be safe to return to it.

“No, Mommy!” Michael burst out. “I want Jewel!” Then sobs broke up his little voice.

And broke her heart.

He was too young to understand. And she couldn’t explain. She couldn’t tell a child that someone wanted them dead. It was too much for him to handle.

It was too much for her to handle alone. But she had no choice now. She could trust no one. Apparently she shouldn’t have trusted Agent Rus.

“Okay, okay, we’ll get Jewel,” she assured him. It was broad daylight. Surely no one would try to kill her now—with so many possible witnesses.

An older couple walked hand in hand along the sidewalk. A garbage truck picked up bins from the ends of driveways. A mailman cut across yards as he made his deliveries.

And in front of her house, a black SUV idled at the curb—a thin stream of exhaust emanating from its tailpipe. Her blood chilled. Someone was here. The SUV belonged to no one she knew now—not that she’d made many friends in their new town. She hadn’t wanted to get close to anyone and risk their discovering her secret.

I know who you really are...

Despite all of her precautions, someone had learned the truth. Someone knew who and where she was. She shouldn’t have come back.

“Mommy!” Michael exclaimed. “That man has Jewel.”

She saw him then—standing on her front porch—with the small bear clutched in his big hand. Sunlight reflected off his blond hair. And his eyes...

He stared right at her—as if he recognized her despite the dyed hair, despite the contacts. But then she didn’t look different enough. If Rus hadn’t betrayed her, then that must have been how someone had found her—by recognizing her.

And now so had Milek Kozminski. Or was he the one who’d sent the photos? Was he the one who’d warned her?

Another man stepped out of the house and joined him on the porch. Special Agent Rus. Of course he was who had led Milek to her. Was Milek the only one he’d told about her? Or had he told the man who’d fired the shots that night?

Despite her legs shaking as she trembled with fear, she pressed hard on the accelerator, and the minivan jumped forward.

“Mommy!” Michael cried out in protest. “I want Jewel!”

It wouldn’t matter whether or not he had the bear if they didn’t survive. She couldn’t trust Agent Rus—couldn’t trust he didn’t pose a threat to her. She knew Milek was dangerous; he’d already hurt her more than anyone else ever could have.

“We have to leave,” she told her son. “Now!”

His tears broke her heart, but she was too scared to cave—too scared to do anything but run. She pressed harder on the accelerator and sped away.

* * *

Milek watched her drive off, and once again he was paralyzed. Not with fear this time. But with shock. “She’s alive...”

The back windows of her vehicle were tinted, so he hadn’t been able to peer through the dark glass to clearly see his son. But there had been a shadow back there. Michael had to be with her.

They were both alive—just as Rus had claimed. But Milek hadn’t allowed himself to believe him—to hope. He’d needed to see for himself.

“Son of a bitch!” Nicholas Rus cursed and gestured at the vehicle following the minivan down the street. “That’s the Ghost.”

“Ghost?” Amber wasn’t dead; Milek had just seen her.

“Campanelli!”

“No!” The paralysis ended as he ran toward the running SUV. He pulled open the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. He was already steering away from the curb when Rus jumped into the passenger’s side.

“Damn it!” the FBI agent cursed.

Milek didn’t know and didn’t care if he was cursing him. He had to catch up to Amber before Campanelli did. “How the hell did he find her?”

Rus cursed again. “I don’t know. I don’t know...”

At the moment it didn’t matter how, though—it only mattered that he had.

Milek sped up to close the distance between his SUV and the rental sedan ahead of them. “Is this it?”

The car’s windows weren’t tinted. He could see clearly inside—could see a big man was in the driver’s seat. But he must have had only one hand on the wheel, because he lifted a gun with his other hand and pointed it toward the minivan in front of him.

“That’s him!” Rus shouted. He lifted his gun as Campanelli had. But then he shook his head. “I can’t shoot—I can’t risk it. The bullet could go through the car and into the van.”

Milek didn’t need a gun; he had the SUV. He stomped on the accelerator, propelling the vehicle forward so its front bumper rammed the rear bumper of the sedan.

Metal crunched and tires squealed.

Was there a shot?

Had the man fired the gun?

Milek peered through the car to the van ahead of it. The rear window was shattered, glass raining down from it onto the street and into the back of the van. His heart constricted; fear squeezing it.

He cursed. “The son of a bitch...”

Campanelli had fired the gun. Had a bullet struck Amber or the little boy? Milek was certain his son had been in the backseat.

Anger joined his fear. He pressed harder on the accelerator and struck the sedan again. But as he struck it, the car catapulted forward and hit the van. Maybe that was why the minivan swerved—or maybe it was because Amber had been shot.

A cry burned Milek’s throat, but his jaw was clenched too tightly to utter it. A curse slipped through Rus’s lips and resonated inside the SUV.

Tires squealing, the van scraped along a row of parked cars. Metal crunched, sparks flying from the contact. Then the van swerved again across the street. The turn was so sharp, the van tipped and rolled onto the driver’s side. The car swerved, just missing the van as it squeezed between it and those parked cars.

Milek drove forward and stopped beside the undercarriage of the van. He didn’t care that the Ghost was getting away. He cared only about Amber and Michael, and making sure they were all right. But as he reached for the driver’s door, Nicholas Rus grabbed his arm to stop him.

“He’s coming back.”

Apparently the car had turned around on the other side of the van and was heading right toward them. But it wasn’t the vehicle they needed to worry about—it was the gun held out the window, the barrel pointed directly at them.

Bullets pinged off the metal of the SUV and shattered the glass. As it had rained into the van, it rained onto them. He and Rus raised their weapons and returned fire.

* * *

Pain throbbed in Amber’s head, pounding as fast and frantically as her heart. She blinked, trying to clear her blurred vision. But it wasn’t her vision that was blurred—or it wasn’t just her vision. The windshield had cracked like a spiderweb and ballooned inside—toward her face.

She blinked again as something trickled down her forehead and into her eye. She lifted her hand and brushed it away, and blood, bright red and sticky, smeared her fingers.

She didn’t care about herself, though. Her fear was all for someone else. Her baby...

Pinned beneath the steering wheel, she struggled to twist around—to peer into the backseat. Fear choking her, she could only hoarsely whisper, “Are you okay?”

Big tears rolled down his flushed face. He was terrified. Too scared to even utter the sobs that should have gone with his tears.

She couldn’t cry, either. She could barely breathe as her heart continued to hammer frantically in her chest. It sounded like a war zone outside the crumpled van. Gunfire erupted in angry bursts, probably as the men reloaded. She flinched with each shot.

Had it been a bullet that had shattered her rear window? Unlike the front window, which had only spiderwebbed, the glass had fallen completely out of the back window—some of it had fallen inside. Shards were strewn about the vehicle—like the other articles that had flown from the moving boxes when the van rolled.

She didn’t care about possessions, though. She shouldn’t have taken the time to pack them. And she shouldn’t have risked returning—even for Jewel. She had put her son in danger.

Had that bullet struck anything besides the glass? She reached out for Michael. Strapped into his booster chair in the middle of the backseat, he was up higher than she was, which put him in danger if any of those shots flew through that broken rear window.

The van lay on the driver’s side, the metal crumpled beneath her. Pieces of that metal and the plastic interior shell of the door protruded into her seat, poking her arm and her hip. She struggled with her seat belt, pushing the button to free the clasp. But it held tightly. Her fingers trembling, she pushed hard on the button and tugged on the strap.

And finally it snapped back. She settled heavily against that crumpled door, wincing as the metal dug through her clothes and into her skin. But that was only a minor discomfort in relation to her overwhelming fear for her son.

She reached up again—for the seat belt holding Michael’s booster chair against the backseat.

“Are you hurt?” she asked him. “Do you feel any pain?”

His eyes wide, he shook his head.

But she couldn’t trust he wasn’t like her—in shock, with so much adrenaline coursing through her that she might not have realized if she’d been shot.

What about Milek? Was he shooting or getting shot?

What the hell was going on outside her van?

Then suddenly the gunfire ended—leaving an eerie silence behind but for the squeal of tires against asphalt. Someone was driving away.

Who? Which shooter?

Did it matter? She could trust no one.

She had to get away. “I’m going to undo your seat belt,” she warned Michael. “And you’re going to fall. Fall toward me, and I will catch you.”

Tears still streaming down his little face, he nodded agreement.

But before she could reach the clasp, the door slid open on the passenger’s side of the van. And big hands reached through the opening, reaching for her son.

Terror overwhelmed her and she screamed. “No! Don’t take my son! Leave him alone!”

Chapter 4

“Where the hell are they?” Garek asked the question already echoing inside Logan Payne’s head as he stared down at the empty caskets.

Dirt slipped from beneath his feet as he stood on the mounds built up around those open and empty caskets. The graves were in a remote area of the River City Peaceful Acres cemetery—far from the street. So nobody had heard or seen anything—until the caretaker had stumbled across those piles of dirt. At least that was what the investigating police officer had shared with Logan.

The young officer was talking to Candace now, his head bobbing as he answered her questions. The kid didn’t know any more than he’d already told them, though. So Candace left him quickly to return to her husband’s side. Logan suspected there was only one man who could answer their questions.

Standing on another mound next to him, Garek clicked off his cell phone and shoved it into his pocket; his hand was shaking. Candace took it in hers. “Milek’s phone keeps going to voice mail.”

Logan also had his phone to his ear, listening to his half brother’s recorded voice. Special Agent Nicholas Rus. I am not available at the moment. Leave me a message, and I will return your call.

“Bullshit,” he cursed as he jerked the phone away. Rus hadn’t returned the message he’d already left him. “Nick’s is going straight to voice mail, too.”

Garek repeated, “Where the hell are they?”

With her free hand, Candace gestured toward the empty caskets and suggested, “A better question might be where the hell are they?”

The inside of both caskets was pristine. There had been no bodies decaying within them for a year. Logan doubted there’d ever been a body in either.

“Nick knows,” he said, and anger surged through him. He’d just begun to forge a relationship with the half brother who’d turned his family upside down when he’d shown up in River City. But it wasn’t Nick’s fault that their father had had an affair with Nick’s mother.

It was Nick’s fault for letting Stacy and Milek suffer, thinking that Amber Talsma and her son had died in a horrific crash.

“The son of a bitch must have staged the whole accident,” Garek said, his anger and disgust apparent. “How could he put everyone through that?”

Candace squeezed her husband’s hand, offering her love and reassurance. “He must have had his reasons.”

The comment gave Logan comfort, as well. No matter what Nick had done since he’d come to town, he’d had a reason for every action.

“What are you thinking?” Logan asked. “Witness protection?”

“She must have seen something,” Candace replied. “Maybe she witnessed her boss’s murder.”

DA Gregory Schievink had been gunned down outside his house. But if the rumors were true about the deceased DA and his assistant, Amber could have been with him—especially since his wife had been out of town at the time.

“But she’s been gone a year,” Garek said. His voice hoarse with anger, he added, “Milek has mourned her for a whole freaking year. Until...”

Nick must have told him that she was alive. He had probably revealed the secret while Milek had been helping the special agent keep Garek and Candace alive. Since then, everyone had noticed the younger Kozminski brother had been doing better.

“Some cases take a year or more to go to trial,” Logan said. Even after he’d left the River City PD to start the Payne Protection Agency, he’d had to testify in cases he’d investigated while he’d been a detective.

“What case?” Garek asked. “There have been no arrests in the DA’s murder. If Amber witnessed the shooting and was alive, there would have been an arrest.”

While Garek hadn’t always been on the right side of the law, he understood how it worked.

“That’s true,” Logan acknowledged. “There must be some other reason...”

But what? Why the hell would an FBI agent have helped the assistant DA fake her death and that of her son?

Logan punched in Nick’s number on his cell again. But just like before, it went straight to his voice mail.

Where the hell are they?

* * *

He had her son. He had taken him away before she could reach for him—before she could rescue him. Then the front passenger’s door opened and big hands reached inside for her.

Instinct had her shrinking back against the crumpled driver’s door. But then stronger instincts kicked in—of a mother protecting her child. And she struggled from beneath the steering wheel.

“Wait,” a deep voice advised. “Don’t move. You might be injured.”

She recognized the voice and the hands. Those same hands had lifted her son from the backseat. Those hands had once touched her, caressed her...

Held her.

“Where’s Michael?” she asked. “Where’d you put him?”

“He’s out here,” Milek replied, even as he leaned inside the van. “He’s safe. For the moment...” His silver eyes darkened to gray—with concern, with fear. He was worried that whoever had been shooting at them might return. “We need to get you out—if you’re not hurt, if you can move.”

She was moving. But as she moved the van rocked, threatening to roll over again. Her breath caught, trapped in her lungs, as fear overwhelmed her. Then those hands slipped beneath her arms and easily lifted her, as if she weighed no more than their child.

Once she cleared the passenger’s door, he didn’t put her down, though. He held her, his arms tightly clasping her against his madly pounding heart.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Are you?” she asked. “I heard the gunshots.” So many gunshots...

She shuddered at the memory. At least there had been no sound the night those bullets had been fired into her home. At first she hadn’t understood why the windows had shattered, why the pictures had fallen off the walls. She’d figured it might have been an earthquake; there had been a couple of small ones in the area around that time. But then she’d heard the car drive away, tires squealing, and when she’d stepped outside, she’d seen the shells on the ground.

“We’re fine,” Milek said. And he must have accepted that she was, too, because he set her on her feet. She hadn’t realized how badly her legs were shaking until they nearly buckled beneath her.

He caught her, wrapping his arm around her to hold her up. His other hand touched her face, his fingers skimming from her temple over her cheek. Just as it always had, her skin tingled from his touch. “You’re bleeding.”

He turned away from her and spoke to someone else. “Rus, we better take her to the emergency room.”

Special Agent Nicholas Rus stepped forward, her son in one arm while the other was against his side, his gun grasped tightly in his hand.

Fear slammed her heart against her ribs. But Michael was blissfully unafraid. Because he recognized the man who had helped them hide, he trusted him.

Amber couldn’t do that anymore. She pulled away from Milek and reached for her son. “Give him to me,” she said, her tone sharp. “Let go of my son!”

Michael’s silvery-gray eyes widened with shock. He looked so much like his father. Did he see it? Did he see how much he looked like the man who’d originally lifted him from the van? Why had Milek handed him over to the FBI agent?

To help her from the van? Or because he still didn’t want their son?

But before she could take the boy from Rus’s arms, Milek reached for him. He easily clasped their son against his chest. “He’s fine,” he assured her.

Michael didn’t look fine, though. His little brow was furrowed as he stared up at his father. Maybe he saw it now—the similarities between them. “You look like somebody,” Michael said and confirmed her suspicion.

“Aunt Stacy,” Amber quickly answered. “Milek is Aunt Stacy’s brother.”

Their little boy’s eyes narrowed as he continued to study his father’s handsome face. Was it possible Milek had gotten even better looking the past year? His already chiseled features were even more defined—his cheekbones sharper, his jaw squarer—harder. But his lips looked soft, kissable...

She had kissed them so many times, but that had been years ago. Would he kiss the same now? Would his kiss—his touch—affect her the way it once had?

Maybe she’d hit her head when the van had rolled. Why else would she be having such inane thoughts? Such desires? She didn’t want Milek Kozminski anymore.

She wanted only her son.

“Does that make you my uncle?” her little boy asked.

Milek coughed. “No. I’m not your uncle. I’m your—”

Whatever he’d been about to say was lost—swallowed by the sound of sirens. Had he been about to admit he was their son’s father?

“We need to get out of here,” Rus said. “Now!”

Milek pointed toward her forehead. “She needs to go to the hospital,” he said, “and have someone check her out and make sure she doesn’t have a concussion. And she’s going to need stitches.”

She lifted her trembling fingers to her head. The blood was just trickling now. “No...”

“Mommy,” Michael exclaimed, his bottom lip beginning to quiver. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” Amber assured her son and his father. Despite her ridiculous thoughts about Milek, she didn’t think she had a concussion. She had never lost consciousness, and she had no pain. “I didn’t hit my head. It’s just a scratch.” Which could have been caused by broken glass or crumpled metal or maybe even one of those flying bullets...

“We need to get out of here,” Rus said, “before anyone else sees you and knows you’re alive.”

Amber pointed toward the wreckage that had once been her minivan. “Obviously someone already knows.”

And didn’t want her to stay alive. Rus hadn’t put away his gun yet; it was still clasped tightly in his hand. For protection? Or as a threat?

Instead of being intimidated, she was angry. Her life, and more important her son’s, had already been threatened. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Agent Rus. “How do they know? Who did you tell?”

“Me,” Milek said. “He told me.”

Had telling Milek put her and Michael in danger?

* * *

Her breath feathered across his ear as Amber leaned close to him and whispered, “He could have told someone else.”

Despite the warmth of her breath, he shivered slightly. It was cold outside—where they’d gone onto the hotel balcony to talk. Through the partially open sliding door, they could see their son—sleeping in one of the twin beds in the hotel. He’d seen her suspicion of the FBI agent. If Rus hadn’t left the room, she probably wouldn’t have left their son’s side. Milek hadn’t wanted to leave it, either. And they’d left the door open, so they could hear if he cried out or if someone tried to come through the door to the hall.

“He didn’t need to tell anyone else.”

“But he must’ve,” she insisted. “For the whole past year, nobody bothered Michael and me...until those photos showed up today.”

She looked at him then—with that same narrow-eyed stare she’d given Rus—as though she was interrogating him on a witness stand. She must have missed that—the cross-examination; she wouldn’t have had much chance of doing it over the past year.

“I have no reason to want you dead,” he said. And every reason to want her alive.

She kept that stare on him, unblinking. She looked so different—with the dark hair and contacts. But yet she was so familiar, too. “You haven’t asked me why...”

“Rus told me,” he said, “about the shooting.” About her and their son nearly being killed in their own home.

“You haven’t asked me why I didn’t go to you after the shooting happened.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t need to ask you why. I knew...” He had already let her down.

But she told him anyway. “I didn’t think you’d care...”

He flinched. But she wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was only stating what he’d made her believe. That he didn’t care about her or their son.

“So why did you come here with Agent Rus?” she asked.

They were just on the outskirts of the little town where Nick Rus had helped her hide. Rus had gone back into town to talk to the authorities, who were no doubt trying to figure out just what the hell had happened on her block. A traffic accident or a drive-by shooting.

Both.

Things like that happened all the time in River City. He suspected that wasn’t the case in this scenic little town. Why had it happened here? Why did someone want Amber dead?

“He told me you and Michael were alive.”

“So?” she asked. “You didn’t want to see me all the years before I died. Why did you want to see me now?”

He wanted to tell her how her death had affected him—how it had devastated him. How he’d realized when he’d lost her and their son that he had lost his reason for living. But after how he’d treated her, how he’d rejected her and Michael, he had no right to those feelings.

He peered through the slider, making certain their son slept soundly, so he wouldn’t overhear their conversation—even with the door only partially open. He didn’t want to traumatize him any more than that afternoon probably had. “Someone dug up your graves.”

She shuddered.

“He opened the caskets,” he said.

She expelled a shaky breath. “He knows they’re empty, then.”

“I suspect he already knew,” he said. “He just had to confirm.” And once the hired killer had confirmed it, he’d come after her—after them.

She uttered a very unladylike curse.

Milek drew out his cell phone and held up the screen showing the call log. “He’s not the only one who knows.” He hadn’t had to play his messages to confirm that. He knew his family well.

Ever since Amber’s accident a year ago, they’d been watching him closely. They had noticed the difference in him after Rus had shared the truth with him. Garek had made his suspicions clear that he thought Milek was working for the FBI agent. With his new wife’s help, he would have kept digging. But it wasn’t just Garek and Candace who’d been calling him. The entire Payne family had called.

“They all know...”

She let out a soft gasp. “Stacy?”

He glanced at the call log again and nodded. She’d called too many times to just be checking on him. She knew.

“She’s going to hate me.”

“She’s going to be happy you’re alive.”

“For how long?” Amber asked. “The shooter knows I’m alive. And he wants me dead.”

“I’m not going to let that happen,” Milek assured her.

She shook her head. “You won’t be able to stop him.”

“I stopped him today.” He wasn’t sure if it had been his shots or Rus’s that had come close enough to either injure or scare off the killer.

“You can’t be with me every minute,” she said. “I need to wake up Michael and get out of here.” She reached for the handle of the slider.

He covered her hand with his and stopped her from opening the door. Her skin was cold and silky to his touch. He tightened his grasp. “You can’t hide.”

He couldn’t lose them again.

“I can,” she said. “I just won’t make the mistake of trusting Agent Rus again.”

“Rus didn’t betray you,” he said. “If someone hadn’t dug up your graves, I’m not sure he would have ever told me where you were.”

“Then why did he tell you that Michael and I were alive?”

Because he had been suffering. But he doubted she would believe him. Since she was already having trouble trusting, he wasn’t going to push his luck. Not when he had another proposal to make.

“It doesn’t matter why,” Milek said. “But now that he told me, now that I know you’re both alive and in danger, I intend to keep you and Michael safe.”

She stared up at him and asked, “And how do you intend to do that?”

“By bringing you home.”

She shuddered. “To River City?”

“To my place,” he clarified. “I want you and Michael to move in with me.” Of course, doing that might actually put her in more danger—from him.

* * *

He hunched down in the driver’s seat and stared up at the hotel room where, moments ago, two people had stood on the balcony.

They hadn’t seen him following them from the crime scene. But then, he was the Ghost. Nobody ever saw him—until it was too late. Until today...

Frank lifted his fingers to his forehead and flinched. A bullet had grazed him. He hadn’t had a call that close in a long while. It had shaken him.

He didn’t want to actually become a ghost. But he had to make some more. He glanced down at the screen of his phone where a news broadcast played. It was out now.

Their graves found empty, Amber Talsma was believed to have faked the deaths of herself and her young son. There was speculation about all the reasons why.

Only Frank knew the truth—the whole truth. He was a professional, though, so nobody else would ever know. And because he was a professional it was time he finished the job. He could have tried when they’d been on the balcony, but he hadn’t had a clear shot. So he would wait. He was a patient man.

But he didn’t have to wait long before his targets walked out. The man had the boy clasped in one arm and his other arm wrapped protectively around the woman. But he wasn’t actually offering them much protection. He wouldn’t be able to draw his weapon this time. He wouldn’t be able to return fire when Frank started shooting.

Chapter 5

She was the one with a new name. New hair. New eye color. New career. Home. Life.

But Milek was the one who had changed. He wasn’t the man she remembered—the one she had loved. She had fallen for his sweet sensitivity. She saw none of that in the man who had pulled her from the wreckage of her van.

So why had she agreed to go home with him? She didn’t even know him. She’d already been scared to return to River City—since that was where it had all begun, where Gregory had been murdered, where she’d nearly been gunned down, as well. And living with Milek? Being with him all the time? That terrified her.

But he’d been insistent that they needed to leave the hotel. Now. Because she’d wanted to be gone before Agent Rus returned, she’d readily agreed.

Now, as she walked with him across the hotel parking lot, she wasn’t certain she’d made the right decision. Milek had proved over five years ago she couldn’t trust him with her heart.

But could she trust him with her life and Michael’s?

He had changed. He was no longer the sensitive artist he’d once been. He was a bodyguard, all steely-eyed and focused.

Even now, as he walked her and Michael from the hotel with an arm around each of them, he wasn’t focused on them. He was focused on everything around them. The parking lot was dark, the light from the hotel faint. She could see nothing.

But she felt the moment he did. His body tensed, and his grip on the gun he held against her side tightened.

“We’re going to play a game,” he whispered to their son. “We’re going to play hide-and-seek. You and your mother are going to hide. You’re going to hear bangs again but you’re not going to come out until I tell you to.”

There was that sensitivity—just a glimmer of it—when he tried to convince their son that the danger they were in was just a game.

After that brief explanation, he acted fast, though. He passed their son to her and stepped in front of them. “Run back into the hotel,” he told her.

Before she could say anything, shots rang out. She didn’t know who was shooting—Milek or whoever he had seen in the darkness. She couldn’t ask. She couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed her.

“Run!” he yelled.

And finally her legs moved. Michael clasped closely to her chest, she ran straight for the hotel lobby. But the glass doors stopped her, drawing her up short. Was she locked out?

Slowly they began to part. So the automatic opener was just slow. Too slow. She ducked as more shots rang out. Something whizzed past her head. She hoped she imagined it, but then the glass of those slowly parting doors shattered.

She shrieked.

And Michael echoed her scream, his body trembling against hers. She swung him out of her arms and through the narrow opening. As Milek had told her, she told their son, “Run!”

He was smaller—a smaller target. The shooter was after her. Not Milek. Not Michael. But he was putting those she loved in danger. Anger coursed through her—along with the fear. And she thought fleetingly of running back—of trying to negotiate with a killer. Her life for the lives of her son and Milek. But her little boy paused in the middle of the lobby, staring back at her, his eyes wide with fear. He needed her; he needed his mommy.

She squeezed through the metal frames of those shattered doors and caught up with him, swinging him back up into her arms. But she didn’t know where to go. Outside the gunfire continued. And inside all she could hear was screaming. And crying.

But she and Michael had gone silent—probably with shock. The screaming and crying emanated from behind the check-in and concierge desks. She could have carried Michael back there. But the night clerk’s fear would terrify Michael even more.

She needed to take him somewhere safer. She had the key to the room Special Agent Rus had booked for them. But how had the shooter found them? Had Rus told him where they were? Or was it Rus out in the parking lot—shooting at Milek?

She shouldn’t have trusted the FBI agent. She hadn’t been certain she could trust Milek when he’d told her that they needed to leave right away, that he would take them home with him where he would be able to protect her and Michael.

He was protecting her now, putting his own life in danger to save her and their son. Maybe he was the one man she could trust. And she might be losing him...

Panic pressed on her heart, painfully squeezing it. The gunfire grew louder—the shots even closer now. Windows splintered next to the already shattered doors. And vases and pictures broke, exploding into sharp fragments.

Clasping Michael more tightly in her arms, she ran again—through the lobby to the bank of elevators and the stairwell. She couldn’t go back to the room Agent Rus had booked for them. He could be the one shooting at Milek and the hotel, and he had a key to that room. She had to go somewhere, though, somewhere safe from the person so determined to kill her that he didn’t care who got hurt or worse along with her.

Was Milek okay? Would he survive?

Or would he die her hero?

* * *

Glass raining down around him, Milek ducked down between two rows of cars and cursed. He’d thought the hired assassin was called the Ghost because he had eluded the authorities for so long. But maybe he was called the Ghost because he was impossible to stop. No one could kill the already dead.

No one could see them, either. Milek hadn’t sent Amber back to the hotel with their son because he’d seen the assassin or the gun. The darkness complete, there had been no glimpse of the man or glint of his weapon.

Milek had felt his presence. When he and Amber and Michael had stepped into the parking lot, Milek had instinctively known they weren’t alone. Maybe it was the year of being a bodyguard that had honed those instincts—instincts instilled in him since childhood when his father had groomed him and his brother to be thieves. Those instincts had also told him it wasn’t another hotel patron hanging out in the lot. It was someone waiting for them.

Waiting to kill them.

He’d barely passed Michael to Amber and sent them into the hotel before the gunfire had opened up. He’d heard the glass break—in the cars around them and in the hotel lobby windows. Had they been hit?

He had heard only one scream. But then Amber wasn’t a screamer. She was too controlled for that—too strong. And she must have passed that strength onto their child, because no screams could be heard from Michael now, either.

Unless...

His heart pounded frantically with fear, but he couldn’t consider such a horrific possibility. They hadn’t been hit. But the shooter was getting closer to the hotel—firing more shots through those windows.

A shriek rang out.

It wasn’t Amber’s. Her voice wasn’t as high-pitched. It wasn’t a child’s cry, either.

Had someone else been hurt? Caught in the cross fire?

Milek cursed again. But he hadn’t fired toward the hotel. He was firing in the direction from which the shots seemed to be coming. There had to be a silencer on the assassin’s gun, because Milek heard only a faint whoosh of air when a bullet left the barrel. But he still couldn’t see the shooter.

So Milek was just wasting ammo now. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his last magazine. He needed to make these shots count. He needed to hit the Ghost this time or he risked becoming one himself.

Because a hired assassin wasn’t about to run out of ammo. The man would have enough bullets left to kill Milek and Amber and Michael if he found them.

He prayed she had listened to him—that she would hide herself and their son where the killer wouldn’t be able to find them. Because he wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to protect them.

As evidenced by the shriek, there were other people in the hotel, though. The night clerk and the concierge. Maybe a bellhop. And several other hotel guests. Someone would have called 911 by now.

Help had to be on its way. The Ghost wouldn’t stick around; he wouldn’t risk getting caught. Unless Milek could distract him until the police arrived...

“Frank!” he called out. “Frank Campanelli!”

Movement ceased. There were no more whooshes of air, no more breaking glass. He’d stopped shooting; he was listening.

“Yeah, Frank,” Milek continued. “The police know it’s you who killed the district attorney. They know it’s you who fired the shots into Ms. Talsma’s home. And the FBI agent saw you today.” Apparently Nick Rus could see ghosts. Milek had been so totally focused on Amber and his son that he hadn’t gotten a good look at him. “You’re a wanted man, Frank. You’re not going to get away with this.”

A chuckle came from out in the darkness.

Of course the assassin had no fear of getting caught. No one had come close to apprehending him during his long and infamous career.

“The special agent who’s after you—it’s Nicholas Rus,” he said. As Milek talked, he moved closer to where that chuckle had come from. “He’s the agent who brought down Viktor Chekov. Rus is River City’s version of Eliot Ness.”

Hunched low, Milek slipped between the rows of cars. One of his father’s lessons on how to be a thief had been about moving silently. Like everything they’d been taught, Garek had picked it up more easily—was better at it, even now. But Milek was good.

If he’d been driving to the hotel, he knew Frank wouldn’t have been able to follow them the way he must have followed Nicholas Rus. Rus was a good agent, but he wasn’t a bodyguard. He didn’t know all the ways and means of protecting an endangered client.

But Milek had wanted to sit in the backseat—close to his son. He hadn’t been able to stop staring at the little boy and it hadn’t been just to make certain Michael was okay. While he’d had his reasons, Milek regretted never seeing his son, and for the past year he’d thought he had missed the opportunity of ever getting to know his child.

But maybe that car ride to the hotel was all the time he would have—because another rule of being a bodyguard was giving up your own life to protect your subject. And Milek had never been as willing to do that as he was now.

That was why he spoke again. Frank would know where he was, that he was getting closer. But it was a risk Milek had to take, so he could pinpoint the hit man’s exact location and make his remaining bullets count.

“Rus didn’t bring down Chekov alone,” Milek continued. “He had help.”

Frank snorted; Milek was close enough now that he clearly heard it. “Feds never act alone,” Frank said. “A whole bunch of Feds have tried to take me down, and they haven’t succeeded yet.”

“It wasn’t other Feds who helped Rus take down Chekov,” Milek said. “It was me and my brother.”

Frank laughed again but cocked his gun.

Milek heard the telltale click of the bullet sliding into the barrel. He was close.

And Frank knew it, too.

Close enough that neither of them would be able to miss now.

“Not that I care,” Frank said. “But who the hell are you?”

Garek was the cocky one—the one who enjoyed annoying other people. Milek had never understood his brother’s enjoyment of that until now—until he wanted to infuriate the man who had tried and was trying to kill the only woman Milek had ever loved and the child they’d created together.

“I guess you should know the name of the man who’s finally going to bring you down,” he agreed. “I’m Milek Kozminski.”

There was no snort now. No laughter. Frank Campanelli knew who he was. For the first time, Milek found an advantage to being as infamous as he and his family were.

Frank said, “You worked for Chekov.”

Garek had. But Milek would let the man believe whatever he wanted.

“Your family...”

“Is basically a bunch of criminals,” Milek finished for him. “Maybe that’s what it takes to catch one...”

The saying was actually it took a thief to catch a thief. But maybe it was also true that it took a killer to catch a killer.

Milek had killed before. And in order to protect Amber and Michael, he would willingly kill again.

Frank laughed, but the chuckle was gruff and shaky with nerves. He must have realized he wasn’t dealing with a Fed or a regular bodyguard.

He probably thought he was dealing with a man like himself—one with no scruples or morals or conscience. Unfortunately, Milek had a conscience. But he doubted it would bother him if he took out a hired assassin—a man who’d killed again and again for money.

Milek cocked his gun.

This was it. His last magazine. His last chance to take out the Ghost—even though he risked becoming one himself. He didn’t care, though. He didn’t care about anything but Amber and Michael. To save their lives, he would gladly give up his own. So even knowing he would draw Frank’s gunfire, he straightened up from where he’d been hunched over between the cars. He would rather have Frank fire at him than into the hotel any longer.

And now Milek was close enough to the Ghost that the hit man might not miss him when he fired back. As Milek squeezed the trigger, gunfire erupted again.

* * *

They were gone. Nicholas Rus had searched the entire hotel. But he found no trace of them. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing—since he had found no bodies. Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t dead.

It would be more of a surprise if they had survived.

The hotel looked like a war zone. Shattered glass. Broken vases. And the parking lot was even worse.

Cars had been destroyed, their windows broken, the metal dented with bullets. Could anyone have survived such an onslaught of gunfire? Even Milek Kozminski...

Nick shone the beam of his flashlight on the asphalt. The fragments of glass sparkled in its glow—except for those fragments spattered with blood. The blood, thick and dark, pooled around the fragments, too.

Someone had been hit. Maybe badly.

He hoped like hell it had been Frank Campanelli. But if the Ghost was dead, where was his body? Where were Milek and Amber and the boy—if they hadn’t been hurt?

His cell rang; he felt it vibrating inside his pocket. But he hesitated to reach for it. He knew who it would be and what they would want to know.

He had already answered enough questions for the night—when he’d had to explain the accident scene to the local authorities. He hadn’t admitted to them who’d been driving the van, though. He hadn’t wanted any more people to know Amber Talsma wasn’t really dead. That was why he’d convinced her and Milek to leave the scene—why he’d driven them to this hotel—thinking they would be safe here.

He had been a fool—a fool to let someone follow him and a fool to think that anyone, even Milek, could have protected Amber from as highly skilled an assassin as Frank, The Ghost, Campanelli.

He’d been a fool to think he could keep it from getting out that she was alive. On the way back to the hotel, he’d heard the report on the radio—the news of their empty graves and the speculation that she must have faked her death. Everybody knew she was alive now.

His phone stopped vibrating before he ever reached for it. But that was fine. Whichever one of them who’d called would leave a voice mail—like all the voice mails they’d left before demanding information from him.

But Nick had no answers for the Payne/Kozminski family. He didn’t know where Milek and Amber and the child were—let alone if they were all right.

Had Frank taken them—taken their bodies? Maybe after he’d let his targets get away last time, he had needed the evidence of their deaths in order to get paid.

“Son of a bitch...” he murmured into the darkness.

An officer glanced over at him. The local authorities had been called here. Nick had heard the calls come in to Dispatch while he’d been talking to a detective.

Shots fired at the Harbor Hotel.

“Why do you want to go to that call?” the detective had asked when Nick said he needed to leave.

He’d said nothing.

“Who are you protecting?” the detective had asked.

But that was just the thing. Rus hadn’t protected anyone. He’d left them behind—with the killer, who must have followed him to the hotel. They hadn’t even had a vehicle in which to escape. He’d taken the shot-up SUV to the police department. So where were they?

Maybe Milek had utilized the skills his father had taught him and stolen a car. Nick found himself actually hoping the guy had committed a crime. But nothing had been reported stolen. The only report had been of those shots fired.

Shell casings gleamed in the darkness, illuminated when crime scene techs took flash pictures of the casings beside which they had already placed evidence tags. So many shots had been fired.

And the blood...

He should have been here. He shouldn’t have left them alone—not with a notorious killer after them. He cursed again, but silently—the words echoing inside his mind.

His phone began to ring once more—vibrating madly inside his pocket. He didn’t need to answer it; he could feel the anger and frustration of his family.

They probably didn’t think of him that way. But he had begun to think it—that they were his family. He had never had a real family before. Until she had died a year ago, it had been just his mom and him, and she’d been no Penny Payne. There had been nothing maternal about her.

Nick had gotten more love and attention from the neighbors. Of course, as an adolescent he’d been annoyed to have the younger kids tagging along; Gage had even followed Nick into the marines and then into the Bureau. Recently he’d quit the Bureau, though, and reenlisted in the marines.

And Annalise...

Nick’s heart contracted in his chest. He couldn’t think about Annalise anymore—not the way he used to think about her. He had destroyed that relationship just as he’d probably destroyed the one he’d been building with the Paynes. He stared down at the puddle of blood and felt as if his own was draining away.

Nick hadn’t just lost the woman and child he’d been trying to protect for the past year. He had lost his family, too.

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