Renegade (Elite Ops 5) (16 page)

It was the reason she had arrived this evening, to deliver information, unaware

that he was leaving and that, as far as he was concerned, this job was completed.

"Do you know why he was there?" Nik asked as he glanced over his shoulder at the spritely grandmotherly woman who watched him with a knowing smile.

"He was rather angry, I heard," she stated. "I stepped in and spoke to Deirdre when Mikayla left. Luke was very insulting. He seemed to believe Mikayla was lowering herself to sleep with you."

Why did he want to know this? And why was he listening?

Nik grunted at the thought. "She just arrived home," he mused. "Where did she go after she left the shop?"

"She stopped by her father's office for a while," Eleanor reported. "Her mother was there. Mikayla and her parents are very close. Any man Mikayla falls in love with, or begins seeing seriously, will have to become close with her family."

Another reason to leave, Nik thought. He wasn't a family man--at least he wasn't

anymore. He was a loner now. Mikayla didn't need a man who had sworn to never put

down roots again.

"This isn't my business," he told Eleanor. "I'm leaving."

"And that's a shame." Eleanor sighed. "She needs you right now. If for no other reason than to figure out what is going on."

"She's in a hell of a mess," Nik stated as he stepped back from the window. "No one believes Maddix killed his foreman. Hell, even I don't believe it was Maddix she saw. But I don't believe she was lying. There are no leads, no suspects. It's a dead end."

"Mikayla's not a liar." Eleanor shrugged her graceful shoulders as she watched Nik with thoughtful blue eyes. "I used to babysit her father, and I've known Mikayla all her life. She's not as wild as her brothers and they're all basically honest, but Mikayla holds herself to a higher standard. She always has. She's a good girl, Nik, and she's in trouble."

"Is that a warning, Mrs. Longstrom?" He arched his brow at the disapproving look on her face.

Her lips tightened.

"On second thought, I think it's a good thing for Mikayla that you're leaving,"

Eleanor said somberly. "She doesn't deserve a broken heart along with the rest of the 77

trouble she's had to deal with."

No, she didn't. And Nik didn't need to add to the regrets in his life, either.

"Do you have any further information?" Nik asked, making certain his tone indicated that their meeting was over.

"There's nothing more to report, Nik." She shook her head, the short cut of her gray hair brushing against the nape of her neck. "But as I told you when you arrived, Maddix was definitely in that meeting when Eddie Foreman was killed. It was an

impromptu meeting that arose when the council members learned property they had been trying to buy for a city project was coming up for sale. It was actually arranged within hours of the actual meeting. Maddix has several neighbors who witnessed their arrival as well as the fact that Maddix answered the door himself when each arrived."

There had to be something he was missing, Nik thought. He'd investigated this as

far as he could go. His job was to find out why Mikayla would lie about what she had seen. He couldn't give an answer, because she was certain she had seen Maddix.

It was unfortunate that Nik hadn't been able to resolve the problem and whoever

had killed Eddie Foreman had gotten away with it.

"I'm leaving now," Eleanor announced. "If you need anything else, then you only have to let me know. It's unfortunate you can't stick around and figure out who murdered Eddie. He wasn't always a nice person, but he didn't deserve to be murdered."

"I have other things to do," Nik told her.

Eleanor nodded as she headed for the back door. "That's a good thing for

Mikayla's heart, a bad thing for the situation itself. I have a feeling, though, if you don't leave you'll only end up hurting her."

Or himself.

Nik watched as Eleanor left the house before he turned back to the window to

stare into the soft light of early evening.

He was packed and ready to roll out, though he hadn't figured out why he hadn't

left yet.

There was a part of him that loathed walking out the door, nothing in hand but the leather bag he had arrived with. There was something he was leaving behind, but he was damned if he could figure out what the hell it was.

Shaking his head at the thought, Nik went through the house, secured it, then

picked up the leather bag that held several changes of clothing as well as the weapons he had brought with him.

He had to force himself out the front door. Hell, walking away had always been

easy, especially since his "death." He hadn't known it possible to possess a hunger for a woman the way he did for one tender, sweet little virgin at the moment.

He stepped outside, pausing on the porch to stare into the slowly dimming light of a summer evening. Rain was coming. He could feel it in the air, almost taste it against his tongue.

The scent of it reminded him of Mikayla.

He shook his head, trying to shake the regret growing inside him away as he

strode to the driveway and the motorcycle parked there.

"Nik."

She stepped from behind the Jeep and moved to the strip of grass dividing the

driveways, moving to stand beneath the heavy oak tree growing there.

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Fairy princess. That was what she was. He couldn't get the idea out of his head.

So damned petite and innocent, still believing, somehow, in the good of the world. He could have told her, would have told her, there was so very little good left.

"You should have stayed in the house, Mikayla." He secured the leather bag in the metal saddlebag on the side of the cycle.

"I shouldn't say good-bye?" There was the faintest edge of hurt in her voice now; it matched the hurt he had glimpsed in her amethyst eyes, in her pale face.

" 'Good-bye' is for friends," he pointed out to her as he straightened and stared back at her. "Are we friends, Mikayla?"

It was a challenge and he knew it. She was still angry. That spark of ire still

lingered in her gaze, in the tightly controlled curve of her lips.

"Why are you here?" As he moved around the back of the cycle, he knew

lingering here was a mistake.

He should leave now, before he was drawn in any further. Before he completely

fucked the fragile peace he'd found after all these years.

"I say good-bye." Her fingers were laced together in front of her, her shoulders straight. The heels she wore barely got her to the middle of his chest. He wanted to protect her, he realized. He wanted to wrap her up, protect her from the world, and keep all that innocence and fire for himself alone.

He should be locked up for even desiring such a thing, because he knew how

fragile that illusion could be.

"I told you, you say good-bye to a friend," he growled.

"Or someone you wished could have been a friend," she mused softly before pulling at her lower lip with her teeth and nibbling at it nervously for a second. "I won't forget you, Nik."

His stomach clenched; his cock, hard since the moment he laid eyes on her, tried

to thicken further. Hell, he'd never been so hard in his life.

"You should." Anger was slipping through the tight leash he fought to keep on it.

"You should forget me the moment I ride out of here, Mikayla. Or do you like it when men lie to you? When they hurt you?"

She flinched, her lips thinning. "Maybe that's why I'm saying good-bye, Nik," she suggested then. "Maybe I'm scared if I just watch you ride away, then I really won't be able to forget you."

That made more sense, but it wasn't going to work. He could tell her himself that

there were points in a person's life that couldn't be forgotten. For them, what they hadn't had would always haunt them. It couldn't be helped.

Nik shook his head. "What the fuck do you want from me, Mikayla?" He sighed.

"I told you the truth. You should have your brothers standing here rather than standing here yourself."

"And what would they do?" she asked bitterly. "If they tried to fight you, you'd decimate them. If they got lucky and hurt you, I'd never forget it. It's a no-win situation, isn't it, Nik?"

For a second, tears glittered in her eyes before she blinked them back. She turned her gaze from him for a second, then returned it with renewed strength.

She had to be one of the strongest women he had ever laid eyes on. Damn her.

She made him remember the dreams he was ordered to throw away so long ago. That

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dream of finding peace amid war, safety in a world where safety was a liability rather than an ethereal dream.

"It's a no-win situation," he finally agreed. "What you do with it is what makes the difference, baby. When I'm gone, just forget. Otherwise, you'll only hurt yourself."

He knew inside he had begun the painful process though, watching the hurt that

was building in her eyes. A hurt he wanted nothing more than to heal before he did exactly as she had told him to do. He was riding out of town, moving right out of her life.

Unlike her, he wouldn't have his anger to hold onto. She'd done nothing to deserve his anger, therefore there was no shield between his hunger and her memory.

Her tongue slid over her lips again, tempting him to taste, to lose himself to the hunger rather than running away from it.

"Deirdre was wrong," she finally whispered as he forced himself to keep a distance between them.

"About what?" Fists clenched at his sides, his entire body so tight he wondered why he hadn't cracked.

"Saying good-bye won't help me forget. A woman doesn't forget her first hunger.

Ever."

He moved to her. Just in time.

As he reached her there was a flash of light high to his side, a distinctive

splintering of light where there should have been none as the fading sun struck against glass. The splintering of the tree bark as Nik jerked Mikayla to him and threw them both to the ground as the sharp retort of a sniper's rifle cracked through the air.

"Move!" Nik didn't give Mikayla a chance to move on her own despite the order.

Hooking his arm around her waist, he jerked her from the ground as the next

bullet struck the ground at the exact spot her head had been and he pulled her around the tree, in front of the Jeep, then raced for the house.

Another round hit the cement of the sidewalk just ahead of him as he threw them

both into the house, adrenaline and sudden racing terror streaking through him as

Mikayla collapsed against the wall, a streak of red against her face, on her pretty, creamy blouse.

"Mikayla." Her name was a harsh, broken sound as he jerked the edges of her blouse apart, searching for a wound. There was none there. Nothing. Just blood.

Blood on her face, her head.

"Ah, God. Mikayla. Mikayla." She was staring up at him in horror, her eyes wide, shocked, the black nearly filling the amethyst color as her hand lifted to her head, the golden color stained.

His hands were shaking. Sweet Lord. Ah, God. She had to be okay.

"Wood." Her voice was strangled. "I think it hit me."

She touched her head again, her fingertips coming back marred red as she stared

at them. They began shaking like a leaf at an oncoming storm. She lifted her gaze to him once more.

"Please," she whispered. "Please don't let them kill me, Nik. Please."

A tear fell. A single drop of fear and pain that slid slowly down her too-white face to mix with the smear of blood on her cheek.

Fear raked across his soul. Only once in his life had he ever known anything

approaching the sheer agony, the horror, that filled him now.

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He had no weapon but the small snub-nosed pistol secured just inside the top of

his boot. It was no match for a sniper. And there was blood on his woman.

His woman.

He wasn't going anywhere. Not until he found who Mikayla saw that day, and

who suddenly wanted her dead.

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Chapter 8

Nik escaped just after midnight, Mikayla's father's vow that he wasn't leaving his daughter alone giving Nik the chance he needed to make a little visit.

Only one person had reason to want to silence Mikayla, and that was Maddix

himself. He knew Nik was leaving the job unfinished. Just as he knew that Mikayla

wouldn't stop trying to prove he had killed Eddie Foreman.

If it wasn't Maddix, then someone close to him. Someone who feared she would

prove Maddix guilty. Or was it someone trying to make it appear as though Maddix had grown tired of her accusations?

The possibilities were becoming endless, and it was time to begin eliminating

them.

Fury was cold and silent inside Nik. A murderous rage that he had only felt once

in his life, burning in his soul. God help the shooter when Nik got his hands on him, and he would find him. And he'd kill him. Slowly.

The sight of Mikayla's blood would live in Nik's nightmares.

The police had been very little help, and that had only served to piss him off

further. She had on more than one occasion called the chief of police a liar when he'd given Maddix an alibi. That had placed her in a very tenuous position now that she needed help from that same police force.

After Nik slipped into Maddix's gated community, it didn't take long to slide into his backyard and make his way to the glass patio doors that led to Maddix's study.

The chief of police's car was sitting at the front of the house, which meant Maddix had been warned about the shooting, as Nik had known he would be.

Hagerstown was a fairly large city, but some things just got around fast.

"Goddamn, Daniel! What the hell are your men trying to prove?" Maddix's voice rose in fury. "Son of a fucking bitch, get them under control!"

Maddix's tone suggested panic. His eyes were filled with confused astonishment,