Cate shook her head slowly. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Nor do I,” Dmytro said, his lips pressing together in a tight line. “Maybe Freddie decided to go on holiday to Sardinia, where he is, at this moment, drinking wine and is very much alive.” Dmytro’s gaze met and held Cate’s. “I think not. You called a number, within a day you were taken and Freddie vanished from his life. That was a lot of events stemming from one phone call.”
Devon Marsh’s face had paled. “I don’t like it. Especially when it concerns my only daughter.”
A heavy weight settled in Cate’s gut. She’d started her private investigation because her friend was facing murder charges for one missing husband. Now, there was a missing Freddie. With Dana Calloway locked away in the adult detention center, she couldn’t have murdered Freddie as well as her husband. This investigation was bigger than just a husband skipping out on his wife. Marcus Calloway, if he was alive, was involved in something clandestine. Something involving secrets worth killing for.
Cate had been waylaid in her efforts to find Marcus Calloway when Pieter Teuling had kidnapped her. As soon as she’d been free to continue her investigation, someone hadn’t wanted her to continue, and they’d been willing to snatch her to keep that from happening.
Though her insides quaked at the enormity of her dilemma, anger rose fast and hard. Her friend had been accused of murder to cover someone else’s treachery. That pissed off Cate. Her eyes narrowed, and her fists clenched. “I need to find Marcus Calloway even more now, before whoever is covering for him and cleaning up any loose ends decides Dana’s one of them.”
“You’re not going alone,” her father and Draco said simultaneously.
Cate closed her eyes and let out a soft snort. “No...I’m not.” As a private investigator, she found working alone easier. She could blend into the background and be nearly invisible. With a tall, broad-shouldered former Navy SEAL shadowing her every move, blending in would be nearly impossible.
Given the inherent danger in this case, Cate was glad to let Draco have her back. She’d just have to make sure he didn’t claim her heart as well.
Chapter 2
Draco Thornton had spent years perfecting the art of sitting still, waiting for the perfect time, the perfect place and the perfect shot.
BUD/S training had taught him the skill, multiple deployments had refined it and Stealth Operations Specialists had enhanced it into an art form. He’d learned that if a man didn’t sit still, people could get killed.
Sitting beside Cate, with his arm draped over the back of her chair, pushed this ability to a breaking point. Everything inside him screamed for action.
Too much had happened to this woman in the past two weeks. As if Cate’s initial kidnapping, which was used to blackmail her father into engaging SOS to rescue and deliver Dr. Marta Hale, hadn’t been enough. The subsequent highly dangerous extraction of both women from Helvetic BioSolutions’s compound had given Draco gray hairs.
He’d thought the worst was over when Dr. Hale, Cate, his SOS team and members of the Brotherhood Protectors International had stopped the release of a highly contagious, deadly virus during a showdown at the Global Health Security Summit in Vienna.
But no.
When the driver of what they’d thought was a taxi had rolled up to the curb, he’d let Draco hand Cate inside and then proceeded to take off without him, Draco had nearly lost his shit. The driver hadn’t been a random thug hoping to steal Cate’s valuables. He’d had a plan and had rigged the car so that the doors in the back locked, trapping Cate inside. The driver would have taken her somewhere according to his plan, and Draco would have had no idea where to look for her.
His heart still raced at the thought of Cate in the back of that car. She’d been incredibly brave and insanely reckless to throw herself at the driver and wrap her arm around his throat tightly enough that he’d eventually crashed. Dear Lord, if she hadn’t done that, she’d be gone right now, not sitting beside him in a warm restaurant, eating good food, discussing the very case that had nearly lost her to him again, as if it were just another day in her life.
A flashback flooded his memory of him standing outside a hotel in Miami. Devon Marsh had just confessed that he’d tricked SOS into rescuing Dr. Marta Hale from a cartel compound in Colombia so that he could trade the doctor for his daughter. The memory punched Draco in the chest all over again. He’d confessed after he’d handed Dr. Hale over and hadn’t gotten his daughter in return.
Draco had all but begged to be included in the mission to rescue Dr. Hale, hoping the mission would lead to Cate as well.
And it had.
His gaze canvassed her, taking in every detail from her long, straight sandy-blond hair to her gray-blue eyes that darkened like storm clouds when she was angry or passionate. She laughed at something Phantom said, the sound hitting him hard, cracking open his chest. Only two hours ago, she’d been shaking so hard that he’d felt her tremble through his jacket. Now, despite having nearly been kidnapped for a second time and facing the ominous task ahead of her, she laughed. The woman had guts. And she had a heart she’d guarded from the first day they’d met. He’d chipped away at the wall she’d erected around it until he’d realized that by doing so, he’d lowered the barriers to his own. For the first time since he was a kid and his mother had walked out on him and his father, he’d been scared. Scared to love.
For a man who’d sworn he was a confirmed bachelor, this woman had come the closest to reforming him. So close, that when SOS had, as a team, made the decision to quit the government as a secret weapon nobody was privy to admit to and pull up stakes, Draco hadn’t told her. He hadn’t warned her or called her. Within a week, SOS had set up a private operation and moved their headquarters to the Hill Country of Texas outside San Antonio. Draco had only had that week to relocate his entire life.
Cate’s life was in Virginia, not Texas. With her degree and her license, all her connections revolved around the DC area. She was the daughter of Devon Marsh, a man who worked in the State Department. Draco had decided she was better off without him, a confirmed bachelor who had nothing to offer in the way of a home, children or commitment. He was a man who lived out of a go-bag and couldn’t tell her where he’d be tomorrow or when he might come back.
He’d decided to leave without consulting her, telling himself it was better that way for her. The truth was it had been better for him. He’d taken the coward’s way out, packed his truck and driven away without saying goodbye. As each mile had passed, he’d felt as if he’d left a part of himself behind.
Looking at her now, he knew in his gut it had been a dick move. All it had done was make him want her even more. But the way he’d left had slammed the door firmly between them. She’d never trust him enough to open her heart to him again.
Yeah, he’d picked up the phone to call her a number of times. Each time, he’d stared down at the screen where her name was displayed and hadn’t been able to come up with any words that would undo the damage.
She hadn’t wanted him to be the guy to provide the protection she needed. She’d asked for anyone else.
Though it had hurt, Draco couldn’t blame her. He’d fucked it up. If he were her, he wouldn’t want anything to do with him either.
Deep down, he knew he was the right man for the job. He would do anything to keep her safe, risk his own life, take a bullet for her.