Renegade (Elite Ops 5) (34 page)

He was real pissed, maybe even scared. He said I was fucking him over. He fired me, then told me if I ever let anyone know what he wanted me to do, then he would tell them I was gay."

"You know I'm going to check this out, Jarvis," Nik warned him. "Just as I'm going to check your boyfriend out. What's his name?"

"Come on, man," Jarvis whined. "Don't do this to me. I want him to move me to D.C. with him. Cause him trouble and he never will."

"His name, Jarvis." Nik's fingers tightened once again around Jarvis's throat.

A tear slipped down Jarvis's cheek as misery filled his eyes. "Darnell." He gave the name Nik wanted. "Darnell Waters."

Mikayla's lips tightened at the name Jarvis gave. She hated to tell him that Darnell Waters would never move him to D.C. with him. Darnell Waters had a wife, a family, and a possible political career. He wouldn't risk the future being carefully mapped out for him by his senatorial father-in-law.

"Who else saw you there?" Nik growled. "Give me names or I'm going to make sure you hurt before I leave."

Jarvis's lips trembled, but he did as Nik ordered. Naming the bartender as well as several regulars whom Mikayla knew as well.

"Very good, Jarvis." Nik smiled, the hard, cold curve chilling in the danger it represented as he released the other man and stepped back. "I will be checking this latest story out, you understand."

With his fingers massaging his throat, Jarvis nodded jerkily.

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"Do you know if Eddie found anyone else to do the work he wanted you to do?"

Nik asked as he moved to the door.

"I don't know." Jarvis's voice wavered. "But I know he was still scared that last day, when we argued. I knew Eddie, and I know there was fear in his eyes that day."

Nik didn't turn; he didn't ask more questions. Opening the door, he escorted

Mikayla from the house and back to the truck.

"Do you believe him?" Mikayla asked as Nik backed out of the parking space and turned to leave.

"I think I do," Nik sighed. "And that just fucking pisses me off. Because he was damned good suspect material."

Mikayla's lips thinned. "He looks nothing like Maddix."

Nik nodded. "And he leads us right back to Maddix. I have no doubt in my mind Maddix wouldn't kill Eddie if he caught him attempting to sabotage that project."

Mikayla stared at Nik silently, nearly holding her breath.

"Now what?" she asked, wondering if he would even mention Maddix Nelson.

"Now?" Nik shot her a resigned look before turning the truck to the interstate.

"We see if we can't catch Holbrook again; then we check out this newest tale of Mr.

Dalton's."

But Reed Holbrook, this time, couldn't be contacted. According to his secretary,

he was unavailable and she had no idea when he would be in the office.

It was more than obvious they were being avoided, and Mikayla could feel Nik's

ire as he glared at Reed Holbrook's closed office doors.

Leaning his palms flat on the desk, Nik lowered his upper body until his face was

only inches from the obviously wary secretary.

"Inform Mr. Holbrook he has twenty-four hours to contact me," Nik told her quietly. "After that, I know how to get nasty."

Rising, he lifted a pen from the desk, scribbled his name and cell-phone number

on the pad on it, and turned away.

With his hand riding on Mikayla's lower back, he led her from the offices and

back to the truck.

"Another wasted trip," Mikayla murmured as they headed back to Hagerstown.

"Supposedly." His voice was tight and hard.

"He obviously has no intention of talking to you," she pointed out. "He was seen meeting with Eddie; maybe he was the one Eddie was working for."

"Anything is possible," Nik growled as he slid a pair of dark sunglasses over his eyes and headed for the interstate.

"Why don't I just sit over here and keep my mouth shut while you continue to

pout?" She crossed her arms over her breasts as she glared at his profile.

He had been like this most of the day. Short answers, his manner controlled and

obviously patronizing. She was getting sick of it. She wasn't a child he needed to keep information from.

"Why would I be pouting, Mikayla?" His lips thinned, a muscle at the side of his jaw clenched and unclenched in obvious annoyance.

"I have no idea why you're pouting," she bit back in irritation. "But I have three brothers; I know the signs. If you're still put out because I insisted on coming with you, then I personally think you're taking it to extremes."

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"I'm certain you do," he agreed.

God, she hated it when her brothers did this to her, and it was even worse now

that Nik was doing it.

"What is your problem then?" she huffed out. "It's not as though I'm asking you to take me into a war zone here. Nik, I have every right to be a part of this."

"You have no right to distract me, Mikayla." Anger simmered in his tone now.

"You're my lover, not a mark, a suspect, or a client. For this moment in time you're my lover, and every minute you spend with me places you in more danger. Do you think I enjoy that?"

Nik could feel a dark awareness crawling through him ever since he had picked

up the tail just out of D.C. They were being followed, and rather than stinging the bastard and jerking his balls off for information, Nik found himself trapped in the truck because Mikayla had insisted on accompanying him.

How the hell was he supposed to protect her like this? He couldn't work

efficiently if he had to check his actions because of her presence.

"Do you think I enjoy hiding in a back room all day awaiting word? Pacing the floors while you decide what information you will and will not give me when you

return?"

Pain and anger shadowed her voice, but he heard something more as well.

Vulnerability, a sense of helplessness. Her world had suddenly changed on her, as had her security. The battle to accept that was clear in her voice.

He glared back at her in frustration. "It's not like that," he argued. "I tell you what I know."

"What you know, not what happened, their expressions, their actions, or the

tidbits of information they give out," she protested. "Nik, I need to be a part of this."

And he needed to protect her. The protective urge was eating him alive from the

inside out.

Glancing at the mirrors again, he could still see the plain tan sedan that had

shadowed them since they had left Hagerstown earlier in the day.

"You're doing that a lot," she said.

"Doing what?" He frowned back at her.

"Checking your mirrors. Are we being followed?"

Hell, she was more intuitive than he wanted to give her credit for.

"We picked up a tail earlier," he finally admitted. "One of Holbrook's flunkies, I'd guess."

He'd find out later, he promised himself. If he had to slip into Holbrook's bedroom and prick his balls with a blade, then he'd get the truth.

"Is he very close?" To give her credit, she didn't turn and look behind them.

"A few cars back." So far, whoever it was represented no threat, but Nik knew that could change at any time.

"Just give me the word and I'll duck," she promised. "But please stop acting like a five-year-old without his PSP. It really irritates me."

He almost laughed at the comment. The tone of voice was one that a woman

would use only with small children or belligerent young men.

He was neither.

"What time does the bar open?" He changed the subject before his own irritation 166

became more apparent.

"It will do you no good to arrive before ten," she told him. "The bar opens at six, but to make certain the regulars are there to question them it would be best to arrive later."

He had to agree with that, and he hated it.

"Dinner then," he sighed, checking the mirrors once again to locate their tail.

He was there, same position.

"Fine, dinner." Her voice lowered as she propped her elbow on the armrest and rubbed at her forehead.

The tension was like a live wire between them, sizzling with too much damned

awareness. Arousal.

Taking her the night before hadn't stilled the hunger for her; it had done nothing to ease the ache that flared inside him. It did nothing to ease the hunger.

The hunger wasn't going to ease anytime soon, either. Nik admitted that hours

later as they pulled into the parking lot of the nightclub Jarvis Dalton swore was his alibi.

The little bastard was too incompetent to have actually committed that murder.

But a trail was a trail, and at this point Nik was becoming desperate to finish this. If he didn't get away from her, then he was going to lose his soul to her.

The fact that she had insisted on returning to the house to shower and change

should have clued him into the fact that she was going to make him crazy tonight.

Seeing her dressed in that snug stretchy silk violet dress, her hair pulled to the crown of her head to cascade to her shoulders in luscious waves that still confused him.

How had she managed those waves? Because he knew her hair was a beautiful straight ribbon of rough silk.

If he'd thought she looked like a fairy before, then she sure as hell looked like one now. One in four-inch-high sandals that made her feet look so much smaller and more delicate than ever before.

With his hand against her lower back he escorted her into the club, paid the

entrance charge, and nearly grimaced at the clash of music as it assaulted his ears. On the dance floor bodies gyrated and moved in synchronized seductive intent.

Moving along the edges of the dance floor, he followed Mikayla through the

chaos to the long wooden bar. The journey there was a hell of a lot slower than he would have liked, though. It seemed Mikayla knew just as many people here as she knew

anywhere else they went.

By the time they moved onto two of the empty bar stools, Nik was gritting his

teeth in pure irritation. Between the invitations to dance, the offers of a drink, and the social chitchat, it took more than half an hour to get to their destination.

"Mikayla, sweetheart. Darling, did you make that perfect creation?" The

bartender's nasal tone coupled with the approving look as his gaze went over the dress had no sexual connotations. "You didn't mention new designs, darling."

"Nothing new," Mikayla promised him before turning to Nik. "Nik, this is Kevin Mackey. He does some sewing for me sometimes."

"Precise, delicate stitches can make or break the creation," he told Nik seriously.

"Of course." Nik shot Mikayla a speaking look.

"Kevin, is Sam working tonight?" she asked, referring to the bartender Jarvis swore could alibi him.

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"She should be in anytime." Kevin waved toward the bar area. "She called in late.

Her girlfriend had a little meltdown. You know how it goes." Kevin rolled his eyes as he stroked the small patch of his short goatee before glancing down the bar. "Excuse me, dears. Customer."

Nik felt like rolling his eyes himself. He didn't think he could name a single

mission quite like this one. He knew he'd never met another woman quite like Mikayla.

"Here you go." Kevin returned with an amused smile and a whisky, which he set in front of Nik.

Nik looked at the glass, then the bartender.

As Kevin lifted his brows, his petite face reflected amusement and he glanced

down the bar.

An older man sat watching, lifted his own glass with a smile as he mouthed,

Enjoy.

Nik turned to Mikayla.

She was watching the exchange with a smile and as Nik turned to her gave the

other man a dainty four-fingered wave before she picked up the glass herself and shot the whisky back.

She didn't even grimace.

The facets of this woman were beginning to amaze him, and that wasn't a good

thing.

"Mikayla, sweetheart, does your daddy know you're here?" The man from the end of the bar appeared at Nik's side.

"Ryan, if you tell Daddy I was here, then you're going to have to tell him you were here, and you know he's going to have that talk to you about picking up strange men again." She wagged a finger at him playfully as Nik stared back at her with narrowed eyes.

Ryan laughed. "Speaking of strange men, you going to introduce me?"

Mikayla's amethyst eyes gleamed with laughter. "Ryan Bhats, meet a very good

friend of mine, Nik Steele," she introduced them. "Nik, Ryan Bhats, my third cousin and a general troublemaker."

"Mr. Bhats." Nik nodded.

"So you're the guy trying to find Eddie Foreman's killer," Ryan commented.

"Bastard. Killing Foreman would have been okay if he hadn't drawn our Mikayla into it."

The fact that Eddie Foreman wasn't well liked wasn't the issue.

"Maybe you could help us, Ryan." Mikayla smiled. "Were you here the evening Eddie was killed?"

"I was. Got here when the doors opened with some friends." He nodded.

"Would you mind answering a few questions for us?" she asked.

Ryan turned to Nik, his gaze going over him slowly. Nik understood how a

woman felt now when she complained of being looked at as though she were a piece of meat.

"Maybe," Ryan drawled. "Do you think tall, dark, and dangerous here would grace me with a dance?"

Nik turned, stared back at the other man, and it didn't take Ryan Bhats more than

a second to figure out that wasn't going to happen.

Bhats grinned again. "What do you need, darlin'?"

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"Jarvis Dalton," Nik answered for her. "He says he was here that night."

Ryan nodded slowly. "Yeah, he was. Showed up 'bout the same time I did, just at opening. About five thirty, I'd say."

"You're certain it was Jarvis?" Nik asked.

"Positive. He and his friend come here pretty regular. Darnell, I think his name is.