HelenKay Dimon - Locked and Loaded

When she switched to scratching, dragging her fingers across his forearm until she drew blood, he went from defense to an offensive strike. He grabbed her hand and leaned hard against her, pinning her on her back against the seat.

Her knee caught him in the stomach as she squirmed and flailed. She grunted and panted, forcing him to use more strength than he intended. He’d hoped to talk her down. That was before she aimed for his groin.

“Maddie, stop.”

“You’re hurting me.”

That admission ripped through him. He hated the idea of giving her so much as a bruise. “Stop trying to run and I’ll get up.”

He doubled his intent, stretching her arms above her head and straddling her upper thighs. He braced one foot on the floor and leaned over her, his face just inches from hers. He tried to get her to look at him, but she rolled her head from side to side, her neck muscles straining as she tried to knock him to the floor.

“Get off me.” She lifted her hips in an attempt to buck him off then let out a shriek.

The high-pitched sound echoed in his ears. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” The word came out through staccato breaths.

He recognized pain when he saw it. He figured he had to be hurting her sore shoulder and tried to adjust his hold. “Better?”

“No.”

“Margaret Thomas.”

At the mention of the name she stopped pushing and mumbling. Her chest rose and fell in a rapid pace he feared would stop her heart.

But he had her attention. “That’s your real name. You grew up in Indiana, the only child of Frank and Louise. Your father died when you were fourteen. Your mother died last year, but you couldn’t go to the funeral because of the program’s rules.”

Maddie bit her lip but stayed quiet.

“You testified against Knevin Leonard, your boyfriend and partner in a drug ring. He vowed to kill you for turning him in. Even hired some nasty guys to try it.”

“No.”

The truth was written all over her face, from the sadness in her eyes to the tightening of the skin over her cheekbones. “Yes.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Maddie, please.” He had to break through her protective shield. He had about an hour’s drive to headquarters. He couldn’t spend every moment worrying she’d leap through the window if he slowed down to change lanes. “I can tell you where you met Rod the first time. Would that convince you?”

“I wasn’t his partner.”

Adam sat back, resting his weight on his knees and his hands on his thighs. “I don’t understand.”

She slowly lowered her arms. “I never dealt drugs and didn’t know Knevin was doing it.”

For whatever reason, it seemed that was the one piece of information she couldn’t tolerate being told. Didn’t matter that the evidence said otherwise, she was sticking with the innocence story on that one.

It wasn’t his business. She could tell whatever lie she needed to tell to wrestle the guilt away from her bed at night. But disappointment still pounded him. He’d invested so much time in watching over her that he wanted her to at least own up to her mistakes. They all had a few. Sure, hers were bigger than most, but that just made her human.

He shook off the anger before it could fester. “Fine.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t care.” But he did. The idea of her getting drugs into kids’ hands gnawed at him. Made him want to shake her until she promised never to fall back into those habits.

The emotion washed out of her face, leaving behind only a blank stare. “What happens now?”

“Same plan.” He sat back in his seat and held a hand out to help her up. “We go to the Recovery Project headquarters until we can figure out a way to keep you safe.”

She ignored his offer and sat up on her own. The process took longer than usual for such an easy activity. She twisted and winced.

“And I’m supposed to ignore protocol and not call my handler?”

“Ambrose is dead.”

“So you keep saying.” She tried to turn around and face front then stilled. Adam thought if she bit down any harder on her lower lip, she’d chew right through it.

“Is it your shoulder?”

She stretched, grimacing with every move. “No.”

“It’s something. “

She bent over with her elbows on her knees and inhaled several deep breaths. “I thought you were the smart guy who knew my file.”

He searched his memory but couldn’t come up with anything to explain the green cast to her skin. “Meaning?”

“If you were, you’d know about my back.”

An old injury. That explained it. His intel was incomplete, didn’t reach back much further than the trial prep and police file. It was hard enough even getting that much since her identity was tightly protected. “What about it?”

“I broke it.”

Her shoulder had to be throbbing and now her back. Guilt racked him. He could have been more careful. Maybe not when the gunmen were firing, but certainly when he was trying to get her to listen to him. “When?”

She looked up at him. “When my former boyfriend threw me off a building.”

Trevor Walters leaned back in his chair and stared at the man sitting on the other side of his desk. If Trevor had his way, John Tate would disappear. Just step into a hole in the earth and never be seen again. It was tempting to make that happen.

If John were a different man, one with less powerful friends and a less visible career, he’d be gone. His pseudowealth and puffed-up overconfidence wouldn’t save him.

The man had all the obvious trappings Trevor despised. Everything about John screamed poor taste wrapped up in a bundle of new money. Passable suit. Shiny watch. Big government title. And not a clue about the danger he invited into his world when he came up against Trevor.

John was the deputy director of the Justice Department’s Office of Enforcement Operations. He handled intricate government surveillance and held all the power in the witness protection program, including having the final say on who got in and who didn’t.

But Trevor was more concerned with the man’s side job: newly minted blackmailer. That was the position that would get John killed. Trevor vowed to make that true.

“I have to wonder where you got the men to fight this particular battle against the Recovery Project,” Trevor said.

“Why?”

“Seems they were not very successful against Adam Wright and Maddie Timmons. One could say they were ill prepared for what they found in West Virginia.”

“This time.”

Trevor predicted the answer was more like every time. “I would have thought you would ask to use my men.”

Not that he would have agreed. Orion Industries was his baby, a legitimate government-contracts firm he built from nothing. The business specialized in threat management, whether that meant assisting fledgling foreign governments or working for his own. He was not about to ruin Orion’s stellar reputation by dragging it into John’s mess.

“I didn’t realize you’d been successful fighting the Recovery Team agents.” John made a show of brushing something off his charcoal dress pants. “From what I remember, every time you’ve gone against Recovery you’ve had to make up a story about an accident in training exercises and call your men’s next of kin. That’s not exactly a stellar history either, now, is it?”

Not that Trevor needed a reminder of that fact. His losses had been high enough for him to enter into an informal deal with Luke Hathaway, Recovery’s leader: Trevor would leave Recovery alone and vice versa. After all, there were only so many men on his payroll qualified and trustworthy enough to do the dirty off-the-books job and he was running low.