Sophie Oak - Siren in Bloom

Shelley had no choice.

“It’s not looking good for Ben Dawson, Miss McNamara.”

They thought they had Ben? The fact that they knew names told her someone had planned this little operation. Maybe that meant someone wanted more than just her head. Stay alive. Stay alive.

She opened the door and stepped out, holding her hands up. “I’m here. Don’t kill Ben.”

She wasn’t going to correct them. She wasn’t sure why they thought Chase was Ben other than the fact that they were identical twins.

An enormous man dressed all in black stepped into the bathroom. “Guess you want him to live after all.”

Shelley nodded. He was so big, and there was something in his hand. She couldn’t quite see it.

He moved faster than she could breathe, and she felt the heat of his body and then the sting of something pressing into her neck. The world got foggy.

“Time to take a little nap, bitch. When you wake up, we’re going to have a long talk.”

She slumped in his arms, reality receding. Before the whole world went black she held on to one thought.

Leo, Wolf, find me.

Leo sat back, looking around the bar, feeling a sense of contentment he hadn’t felt in a long time, perhaps ever. Wolf was talking to Logan, the deputy nursing his beer and looking a bit more settled than before.

Logan was staying. Logan was dedicated to getting better.

Wolf was staying. Wolf was dedicated to Shelley. Oh, he had to grovel and make Shelley accept that he was a dumbass, but a dumbass who loves her. It would be kind of fun to watch and even more fun to spank Shelley’s ass when she inevitably took the argument way too far and turned that bratty mouth on him. He hadn’t forgotten that she’d told him to shut up. He was just mentally adding it to her punishment list. There was a whole lot of gingerroot in that girl’s future.

Ben walked into the bar. He looked completely out of place. He was in sweats and a T-shirt, his dark hair ruffled. There was a stack of papers in his hands. He glanced around the bar and then made his way to the table Leo shared with Julian, Logan, and Wolf.

“Has anyone seen Chase?” Ben asked.

“I sent him upstairs with Shelley about an hour ago. Why? What’s up?” Leo asked.

“I need Chase to run through some things, but I found something a little disturbing. Chase pulled up a bunch of info on Holder’s company, White Acres. Some of his financials are a bit odd. And Chase managed to find several large transfers to his accounts during the time he was on the Teams. How the hell did he manage to make a million dollars while he was active duty?”

Leo felt the room go cold.

“Investments, perhaps?” Julian asked.

“He wasn’t a trust-fund kid,” Leo replied. Holder had been one of the guys. He’d talked about his rough-and-tumble childhood. He’d grown up the hard way. There was no way he’d had the type of money he would have needed to make it to a million dollars.

Wolf’s face went dark. “There was a rumor a couple of years back that someone was aiding drug runners in Kabul. No one believed it.”

“No one wanted to believe it.” Ben frowned. “Most of Holder’s squad now works for White Acres.”

A whole unit involved in something criminal? God, the thought turned Leo’s stomach. “Ada had some sort of meeting that afternoon she died. She mentioned it to me.”

“She was meeting with her CO,” Ben said. “Ada spent a lot of time talking to locals. If anyone would have heard something, it would have been her. The translators often found things out the soldiers couldn’t.”

“But why now? If Holder killed Ada, why would he bring it up now? He’s gotten away with it for a very long time. Why would he deliberately reopen old wounds?” Wolf asked.

Julian sat forward. “Leo, would you have made plans to see this man?”

“Probably not. We weren’t close at all, and I deeply dislike his business. He preys on former special ops, turning them into mercenaries, and from what I’ve heard not particularly scrupulous ones. White Acres provides ground security for some of the world’s worst dictators. They train their armies.”

Julian shuffled through the papers Ben had brought down. “He wanted to talk to you. He needed to either see you specifically, Leo, or he wanted access to the building. He tried to call. You didn’t return it. He forced the issue with the only thing he knew would get you talking. Ada.”

Wolf paled. “Someone tried to kill Shelley the night before he showed up.”

“Tried to kill or wanted to take her?” Julian asked.

Wolf’s head shook. “No idea. Maybe. If they were trying to take her, they damn straight changed their mind. Why would anyone want to kill Shelley? The feds cleared her. Do you think this is someone her husband screwed? Do you think Holder’s become an assassin?”

Julian’s eyes closed briefly, but not before Leo saw a flare of guilt.

“Julian, what did you do?” Leo’s mind flared with possibilities, catching on one. His boss had a brutally wicked brain, and there was nothing the man liked more than information. “I called you the minute I found out about Bryce.”

“Trev called me sooner,” Julian admitted. “Ben and Chase were already on their way to Deer Run by the time you called.”

“The minute we found out about the blackmail op Bryce Hughes was running, we knew we had to make sure nothing could be traced back to Shelley,” Ben explained.

“But nothing was found on her computer. Nothing in her office.” She’d been perfectly clean despite the fact that her husband had used her business to get his dirt.

Ben frowned. “Nothing was found at all after Chase got through.”

Leo felt his blood pressure jump. “Fuck, Julian. You didn’t bother to tell me?”

Julian held his hands up in apology. “You were in a bad place at the time. You didn’t even want to talk about her. You simply gave Finn a ridiculously large check and told him to handle it. You went to a dark place. I was rather worried you would take it poorly.”

It took him a second for those words to sink in. Wolf understood before Leo did.

“I don’t care what was on that computer,” Wolf said. “Shelley didn’t know. She would never do anything like that. If she had known what was going on, she would have told someone. Leo, you can’t think she had anything to do with this.”

Shelley? Truly involved in Bryce’s schemes? Fuck no. She was sweet and honest. She had a deeply bratty mouth and a soft heart. She would never be able to sit around while her husband was hurting people. “I know that, Wolf. But I will admit at the time I was very upset with her. I think Julian was worried that I would take it as evidence against her.”

Julian looked tired all of the sudden. How much had his boss tried to shield him from? How much did Julian think he was risking? Leo could fix that last question right away. He wasn’t mad at Julian. Julian had done what he thought was right for both him and Shelley. Julian was a manipulative bastard, but he gave a damn.

“Julian, I am deeply grateful for everything you’ve done for all of us, but the time to protect me is over. What did you find?”

Ben sighed. “A bunch of stuff. There were hours of footage buried in her system. Her asshole husband had set it up for her to take the fall if anyone found out. Luckily, Chase turned all of that around. We managed to load some of the information on to Bryce’s system. Enough to make the feds happy they had the right guy. The rest of the stuff we downloaded to a hard drive.”

Oh, there was a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Where is this hard drive?”