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“Mean anything? You mean like someone’s intentionally trying to hurt me?”
She started to laugh even before she finished the words, but when Josh simply looked at her, his jaw set, realization struck and her laughter faded away.
“Yes,” he finally said, his voice echoing with grim acknowledgment of what they both knew but she had managed to put out of her mind.
There indeed was someone who could be trying to hurt her. Or even kill her.
Because he’d tried it before.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_19c4df26-3f61-5b44-940d-b44916358a2c)
Tony Alvera didn’t stop to knock on his boss’s door, any more than he had bothered to park his racy blue coupe in an allotted slot; he was in too much of a hurry. He knew he’d committed a breach of decorum when he realized John Draven was with someone in his small, efficiently organized office, but there were times when he reverted to his younger days of not caring about such things, and this was one of them.
“Sorry,” he said perfunctorily, nodding at the woman in the office.
Because he wasn’t really sorry, there wasn’t much sincerity in the apology, and Draven lifted a brow at him. Since it was the one already slightly twisted by the scar that slashed down the left side of his face, the look was even more intimidating.
But Tony Alvera wasn’t a man who was easily intimidated.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Taylor Hill,” Draven said mildly, “meet Tony Alvera. Pay attention, you may have to work with him someday. I hear it’s an adventure.”
Tony had heard that Draven was bringing in someone new, to fill in now that Samantha Gamble, married to Redstone’s resident genius, Ian Gamble, was visibly pregnant. Sam might grumble about being tied to a desk, but her work instincts were trumped by newfound maternal ones, and she’d ruefully agreed that going into the field on assignments that could turn risky was not in her best interest just now.
For a moment Tony thought of Ian, that brilliant, creative mind that had put Redstone on the map in so many new fields that not even Josh could keep track of them all. As had most at Redstone, Tony had marveled from the beginning at the unlikelihood of Ian and Sam’s relationship—the man some teasingly called the absentminded professor and the stunning, leggy blonde.
He’d been even more bemused by the easy way Ian seemed to accept the differences between them, accept Sam’s sometimes dangerous job and the fact that she was one of the best at it. He often joked he was the brains while his wife was the brawn with brains. Tony wasn’t sure he could so blithely accept his woman working in a traditionally masculine role.
At the same time, he utterly and totally respected Samantha Gamble and her skills and would gladly have her at his back in any tough situation. The conflict niggled at him, but he didn’t dwell on it much, preferring to see it as a hangover from days past that he tried not to think about. When he did think about them, it was usually with a rueful jab at himself and the street gang culture of machismo he’d grown up in.
The woman in the office was standing now, studying him less than subtly as she held out a hand. He took it—her grip was solid but not overly so—and automatically assessed her in turn, a habit ingrained in him during his years with Redstone Security.
Taylor Hill was an ordinary-looking woman, with straight, medium brown hair pulled back rather severely at the nape of her neck. She was average height and build, her features regular but not striking. She was neither unattractive nor beautiful, but fell in the unremarkable category.
The perfect person for security work, Tony thought. She could probably blend in anywhere.
“Nice to meet you,” she said politely, and his opinion suddenly changed. That low, husky voice would stand out in any man’s mind. And make him wonder, if she sounded like that now, what she might sound like in more intimate circumstances.
But he had no time for speculating about other women at the moment.
“You, too,” he replied, aware it was a disconnected nicety but unable to help it.
“I was about to send Taylor off on her first assignment,” Draven said in a casually chatty manner completely unlike him. “Nothing like starting out doing a favor for Josh himself.”
That snapped Tony to attention. Was there something else going on at Redstone besides what he’d come here about? “Josh has a problem?”
“One of his people has a problem, so yes, you could say that.”
Tony felt the adrenaline spurt ebb a little. He looked his boss in the eye, a task more easily said than done to almost anyone who had to deal with the steely, tough John Draven.
“Lilith,” he said.
Draven’s brow rose again. “You know?”
“Beck,” he said briefly, knowing that would explain; Logan Beck, the newest—well, now apparently second newest—member of the security team, was engaged to Liana Kiley, Lilith Mercer’s assistant.
He was also Tony’s partner in situations that required a twoman team; they’d worked well together on Logan’s case, and although he generally preferred to work alone—as did Logan—Tony was now amenable to the pairing when necessary.
“I’ll handle it,” Tony said.
Draven lifted a brow. “What?”
“This one’s mine.” At Draven’s expression, Tony turned back to Taylor, who was watching this exchange curiously. “Would you excuse us for a minute, please?”
The woman’s glance flicked to Draven, who, after a split second, gave her a barely perceptible nod. She didn’t miss the signal and left without a word.
“She’s going to be good,” Draven said when Tony didn’t speak right away.
“Yeah,” Tony muttered.
He began to pace the small room. Now that he was here and had his boss’s attention, he had no idea what to say. He should, he realized, have thought about this a little more before he’d burst in.
He should have thought about it a little more, period, he thought. Had he learned nothing from Lisa? Had he forgotten standing in the morgue, looking down at her lifeless body, knowing she was there because of him?
I’m trying to stop something like that from happening again, he told himself as Draven continued to speak of the woman who had just left.
“She did some good work at Redstone in Toronto. She was ready to move up.”
“Yeah.”
Silence seemed to echo in the room while Tony continued to pace and tried to figure out what to say.
“You got back last night?”
“Yeah.”
He left it at that. The Hawk IV that had picked him up in Caracas had actually touched down a little after 1:00 a.m., so technically this morning, but he knew Draven already knew that. And he’d already filed his report in flight, so he knew Draven knew the final result of his investigation into the local kickback problem as well.
“You know,” Draven said at last, “I’m told I talk more than I used to these days, but I’m in no way comfortable carrying on a whole conversation myself. What do you want, Alvera?”
Tony stopped mid-stride and spun around to face his boss. “I want this job.” There, he thought. It was out.
“What job?”
“The one you were going to give her,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the door where Taylor had exited.
Draven frowned. “I don’t think this is anything that requires your…unique skills, Tony.”
“Nothing does, at the moment.”
Not really his decision to make, but he knew it was true. Lucky for him, Draven was in a flexible mood this morning.
“There may not even be a real problem,” his boss said. “It could just be a fluke, coincidence. Accidents and pranks do happen.”
Not to Lilith, Tony thought.
“It’s probably nothing, but Josh wants to be sure,” Draven said. “You know how he is about his people.”
“Yes. I do.”
No one knew better than he did about Josh Redstone. Tony doubted there was another man on the planet who would have done what Josh did after an angry, scared, knife-wielding gangbanger had tried to mug him outside an L.A. hotel. Tony hadn’t even realized he was trying to rob the wunderkind whose Redstone Aviation was beginning to soar, had seen only a man headed toward a limo, which to him had meant money and made the man a target.
He hadn’t expected that the man would fight back, and well enough to have his sixteen-year-old ass on the pavement in less than ten seconds.
And he never would have dreamed that that man, not even ten years older than he himself, would see something in that angry kid, something that, instead of calling the cops as he should have, made him give Tony the chance of a lifetime. The chance at a life.
A life he would always owe to Josh Redstone.
“This is probably nothing a couple of days of simple investigation can’t close,” Draven said, looking at him with growing curiosity, the last thing Tony wanted.
“Then I won’t be tied up long,” he said, more sharply than he liked.
Draven’s mouth quirked slightly. “You really want this?”
“I want this. Sir,” he added, not caring that it was so obviously an afterthought tacked on to ameliorate the gruffness of his prior words.
Draven’s brows lowered even farther. “You don’t look—or sound—too sure about that.”
Leave it to Draven to see past the surface, because truth be told, he wasn’t. In fact, he was reasonably sure he would regret it; it was only the extent of that regret he wasn’t sure of right now. But that didn’t seem to make any difference.
“I mean it,” he insisted.
Draven studied Tony for a long, silent moment. Tony set his jaw and waited, knowing Draven wasn’t a man to be pushed.
“Why?” Draven finally asked.
Tony had prepared for that question, at least. “You know I worked with her a lot, during Beck’s case. We…got along. I’d like to help, and I’m free, with nothing on the horizon that would require me more than anyone else on the team.”
Draven listened, looking thoughtful. If he noticed that this prosaic explanation was at odds with the inner tension Tony was feeling—and Tony had little doubt Draven would sense that, there was very little that escaped him—he didn’t comment on the fact.
Just when Tony thought he’d blown it, and that Draven, with that preternatural instinct of his, had somehow guessed the secret Tony Alvera kept hidden from everyone, his boss slowly nodded.
“All right. But if something in your area comes up—”
“I understand,” Tony said, barely aware of interrupting the legendary head of Redstone Security, something few dared to do. Or had the chance to do; as he’d said, Draven wasn’t known for talking a lot.
The size of the relief that flooded Tony at actually getting the assignment set off alarms clanging in the back of his head, but he was too thankful to pay them much heed.
A few minutes later he was back outside the airport hangar that served as operations for Redstone Security. They had always been housed off-site, keeping a low profile away from headquarters for the most part, a strategy that paid off on those rare occasions when a Redstone operative needed to go unrecognized. Plus, the airport location made quick response times easier, when some far-flung part of the Redstone empire needed their attention.
So you’ve got the job, he thought as he got into his car. Now what?
He had no answer. He told himself he should simply proceed as if this were any other job. Redstone Security had a reputation for efficiency, speed and success; all he had to do was live up to that. All he had to do was keep Lilith Mercer safe. No problem.
Never mind that he’d just volunteered to walk into a personal minefield.
He was so going to regret this. But he had to do it. He couldn’t let anyone else take the job. Not this job. Because nobody else had a bigger stake in this than he did. Nobody else in Redstone Security was in his unique position.
Hell, nobody else would believe he was in this position.
Nobody would ever believe that onetime L.A. gang member, repeat juvenile offender, street-tough, tattooed Tony Alvera had been half in love with the elegant, classy, refined, beautiful and near-perfect Lilith Mercer since the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
No, no problem at all.
Chapter 3 (#ulink_807acbd9-8f3c-5bb5-910d-f62c8e034878)
Lilith felt absurd, but it was clear to her that Josh wasn’t going to back down. And when Josh Redstone was set on something, it would take more than a mere protest to shift him. Besides, with what she owed him, she would tolerate a lot worse than having someone from security hanging around to placate his fears, however unfounded they might be.
Might, she thought, being the operative word.
Because once she’d read the thoughts in Josh’s steady gray eyes, she’d realized she couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that there was no one who would want to hurt her.
“Are you angry with me?”
The quiet question from her office doorway interrupted Lilith’s unsettling thoughts. She looked up, into Liana Kiley’s troubled blue eyes.
“No,” she said to the young woman who had rapidly become indispensable to her in the task of finding and assessing the damage done by Stan Chilton, and had in the process become a friend as well. “I’m not angry. It’s all right, Liana.”
“I couldn’t help worrying, and Logan agreed. I know the people who did this—” the redhead made a general gesture toward the research lab “—are in jail, but still…”
Lilith masked her start of surprise. That possibility hadn’t occurred to her. She’d assumed, as had Josh, that if there was indeed some nefarious plot to harm her, only one person could be behind it. Of course, Liana didn’t know about that person. No one did, except Josh, and at his request, security chief John Draven.
If she had to accept that something was really happening, she wished she could believe it was something as sanitary as fallout from the industrial spying case. That would be preferable to the alternative. But the alternative, unhappily, made a lot more sense.
“Thank you for being worried,” Lilith said. “Although I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Logan thought it was better to be sure. You’re not upset that he said something to Josh?”
“I wish he would have talked to me first, I could have eased his mind—and yours—but I try not to get angry with people who care enough to worry about me.”
Liana smiled in obvious relief. “What’s Josh going to do?”
“Pester me, no doubt,” Lilith said, with fond annoyance. “Or rather, some unlucky person from security who no doubt has much more important things to do than find a plot where there is none will get that job.”
“A bodyguard?”
Lilith laughed. “Oh, please. That’s the last thing I need.”
