The Reunited (30 page)

“And you know this . . . how?”

Taylor stared at him.

Joss turned on his heel. There was no time to think through the many ways Jones could have gotten that information. The harder question would be . . .
why hadn’t Jones figured this out sooner?

“Damn it, Crawford, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

Shooting him a look over his shoulder, Joss lifted a brow. “Well, you always manage to figure things out on your own. I figure you’ll do this one, too.”

Then he headed back into the room.

He needed a few more minutes with Dru.

A few more minutes . . . a lifetime.

*   *   *

“C
AN
you read him?”

Taige glared at Jones as he closed a hand around her arm and jerked her away from Cullen.

“Do you mind?” she snapped.

But then she saw the look on the boss’s face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

“Can you read Crawford or not?”

She didn’t bother turning to look at him. “No. Not unless he decides to let me in, and I can tell you, he’s not doing that.”

Shit.

No time left to try and grill the bastard, either, Taylor knew.

Joss and Chapman were already heading out, and the rest of the team was going to be behind them. Taylor wasn’t going to be far behind them, not far at all. If he could find a way, he’d be riding in the damn SUV with them, but Whitmore was already about to run.

The evidence Chapman had given them, all circumstantial, was enough to hold the man. Taylor didn’t want this man held. He wanted him dead. Very dead. Of course, he couldn’t do that, so locked away for life would work.

Shoving his way closer to Crawford, he caught the man’s dark gaze.
You’re going to be careful, damn it
.

He didn’t need to worry whether or not Joss heard him.

After all, he was just like Jillian right now . . . and all it took with this kind of psychic gift was
thinking loudly
.

Taylor was thinking damn loud.

Crawford gave him a sharp-edged smile.

But there wasn’t time for anything else.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Damn it.

TWENTY-EIGHT

C
LIMBING
into the car Taylor had gotten him, Joss let the images roll through his mind one more time.

A lot of ways this could play out. But he needed to focus on the outcome
he
needed. Everything else was a distraction.

Dru was quiet.

She looked so fragile . . . like she’d snap or break.

The closer they got to Whitmore’s mansion, the more strained the silence got.

The more haunted she looked.

He couldn’t believe he had to take her back there.

Thirty minutes later, he pulled his phone out, dialed the number. He put it on the console, keeping it on speaker.

“I’m on my way.”

There was a pause.

“Unless you’ve got my fiancée, I don’t want to see you,” Whitmore said coldly.

“Yeah, well, unless you’ve got my million, I have no reason to see you.” He waited a beat and then asked, “Do you have it?”

A harsh breath was the only sound to betray Whitmore’s surprise. But it was enough. “How?” he demanded. “How can you have her?”

“Hmmm. Well, let’s just say, she found me. And you don’t know her as well as you think. The dumb broad was playing both sides, you know that?” He glanced over at Dru, swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “I wasn’t able to get much out of her, but I get the feeling some of your . . . competition was trying to get the inside scoop. She’s been watching you a long, long time.”

At that, Dru lowered her head, a faint smile curling her lips.

Not bad
, she mouthed.

Of course it wasn’t bad. He had insider knowledge. Unable to keep his hands to himself, he reached over, curved his hand over her neck.

“And you know this how?”

“It was about all I managed to get out of her before she passed out.” He stroked his thumb down her neck, staring at the highway, thinking of all the ways he’d liked to hurt Whitmore. Breaking his hands, to start. Those hands had hurt Dru. They had to be first.

“Would you stop it with the lazy-boy routine?” Whitmore bit off. “How did you
find
her so fast?”

“I already explained this . . . I didn’t find her.” Joss smiled. “She found me. Showed up while I was eating breakfast . . . and by the way, I’ve got to tell you, I’m pissed you decided to go and bug my car. I had to go and find a different set of wheels, but just so you know? No more bugs in my vehicles.”

The SUV he’d been using would have been hauled away by now.

Had Whitmore seen footage from the compound, or had it all been shot to hell when the electrical blowout happened?

“Fuck the bugs and fuck your vehicle. I want to know about my fiancée,” Whitmore snarled.

“Hey,
fuck you
, okay? Keep in mind, I didn’t exactly ask to be made part of your merry little band of screwups, Those jackasses can’t seem to do their job without screwing it up even worse, got it? Last night was a fuckup of epic proportions. What do they do, walk around with their hands on their dicks all night or what?”

Harsh, heavy panting breaths came over the phone now. “Last night.” Whitmore’s voice was ugly with its hate now. So very ugly. “What do you know about last night?”

“I know I came with another delivery, and your stupid men were too busy running around with dicks in hand to take the damn delivery.”

“You . . .” More harsh breathing.

Joss smiled and stroked Dru’s neck.
Temper is getting the best of you, boy
, he thought.

“You were at the compound last night.”

“Well, not exactly. But your lazy-ass boys were too busy jacking off to let me in. I ended up leaving. Now my partner is dealing with the merchandise, you tell me the job is off, but hey, you want your fiancée . . . what the hell, are you
trying
to fuck up my life?”

And even though he wasn’t there with Whitmore, he could feel the flickers of the man’s rage. It streaked through Joss’s vision, tainting everything with ugly streaks of red and black. Seconds ticked by. The erratic cadence of Whitmore’s breathing calmed, and when he spoke, his voice was calm. Calm and smooth as glass.

“Whether or not I fuck up your life remains to be seen, Mr. Sellers. Why don’t you tell me how you came to find my fiancée?”

“Again, she found me. Can you not hear?” He checked the rearview mirror. He couldn’t see Taylor’s people. They wouldn’t be around just yet. They’d be close. But not that close.

“She found you.”

“What in the hell is your problem, Whitmore? Yeah, she found me. I was having breakfast and there she was, cool as a cucumber, she sits down and asks me,
How would you like to make more money than my fiancé could ever hope to pay?
I just stared at her for a minute, and then she goes on to tell me that she can pay me more than you can ever hope to.”

“And here you are, on the phone with me. I wonder what you told her.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there. The thing is, she wouldn’t tell me who she’s working with. You know how I like answers. She wouldn’t give them to me. Then . . .” Joss blew out a breath. “Then she decides she’s going to get all heavy with the threats. I don’t much care for those. So I figured maybe I’d just . . .”

“You’d just maybe what?”

“She pissed me off. I brushed her off. Waited until she left, then I followed her. I was just going to teach her a thing or two, but I figured I’d make sure you were done with her. Was going to call you tonight, but then you called me . . . anyway, I had her with me when you called, but I wasn’t at a place where I could explain that.”

“You.” Whitmore started to curse, long and low. “You’ve had her for
how
long?”

“Since a little after seven. Took a while to make sure I wouldn’t have an audience.”

“And you have her now?”

“What, you think I called just to talk about the weather? This isn’t exactly how I’d like to be spending the day,” Joss snapped. “You called about the job, remember?”

I’m going to kill you—

The thought came loud and clear.

It might have been Whitmore’s, but Joss shared the sentiment. He wanted this bastard so very, very dead.

“Excellent. And who knows about this?”

Smiling, Joss said, “My partner.”

“And who is this mysterious partner?”

Laughing, Joss said, “You think I’m telling
you
that? You’re the one who kept telling me how some of your associates kept meeting this bad end. Don’t worry. My partner will stay out of your way, as long as you stay out of his . . . and mine. Think of him as my insurance policy.”

Insurance policy.

Boss.

General pain in the ass.

And occasional lifesaver.

*   *   *

“I don’t have time for this.” Whitmore spit out the words like they tasted bad.

Joss leaned back against the car and smiled as Whitmore came storming out of the house.

Images flooded his head the second he drove through the gates. Whitmore had his men stationed around the place. He wasn’t going to try to kill Joss, not yet. But incapacitate, yeah. He’d do that.

Then take Dru.

Not happening.

Harder to do if Joss was out here.

Dru was still inside the car, slumped over, pretending to be unconscious.

He could hear the slow, steady sound of her breathing almost like it was his own. Feel the buzz of her thoughts, just behind the solid, sturdy weight of her shields.

And the cold, unearthly whispers of the dead.

They were everywhere.

As Whitmore came striding down the elegant walkway, Joss stared at him. The dead clung to him.

It was amazing the son of a bitch couldn’t feel them.

But then again, if Whitmore could feel them, they would have already driven him insane.

Lifting a can of Coke to his mouth, Joss took a deep drink and then smiled at Whitmore over the rim. “You don’t have time? You’re ragging my ass about time but you’re the one who called me about doing this damn job,” he drawled. He emptied out the can, and because he knew it would piss Whitmore off, he crushed it with his hands and then tossed it on the carefully manicured lawn.

Whitmore’s eyes cut to it, lips peeling back from his teeth in a sneer.

Before he could say a word, Joss held out his hands. “Exactly what in the fuck do you want me to do with her, if you’re too fucking busy to take her off my hands?” Then he grinned. “Although if you don’t want her, I’ll take her. I’ll have fun with her for a few days and then find somebody else who’ll take her off my hands, trust me.”

Two seconds later, there was a gun pointed at him.

Joss stared at it, lifting a brow. Wow. The guy was fast. Faster than he’d expected.

“You don’t want to say anything else along those lines,” Whitmore said, his voice all but soundless. “She’s mine. Only mine.”

Lifting his hands, Joss shrugged. “Hey, no problem there. I just want my money. I spent a hell of a lot of time on this job, left behind some profitable opportunities. I don’t want to leave empty-handed.”

“How about you leave
alive
?”

Whitmore took another step toward him.

Chaotic thoughts hurtled through the man’s mind.
Follow him . . . get him the hell out of here, then have my people follow him and kill him. Ella . . . want her . . . have to . . .

Blocking off that chaotic stream of thought, Joss scratched at his chin, pretending to think it over. “No. That’s not good enough. You’re going to pay me. Otherwise, I’ll be sending a fucking treasure trove of information to so many different government branches, and I’m not just talking U.S.”

Ugly, vile rage flashed through Whitmore’s eyes, but his voice was cool as he said, “And how will you do that if you’re dead?”

“It’s more a matter of . . .
how will I stop it if I’m dead?
” Joss smiled. “You see, I don’t know you well enough to trust you. You’ve been riding my ass from the get-go, pushing me nonstop, always with the same threats. You have to control every damn thing. I’ve worked with your type before. And they were always the ones who tried to fuck me over,” Joss said, shrugging easily. “So I’ve always made sure to have an insurance policy. And not just my partner.”

Shoving off the car, he closed the distance between them, close enough that the metal of the gun was pressing into his chest. “So . . . you want to kill me?” He craned his head, peering down at Whitmore’s watch. “In exactly two hours and thirty two minutes, there’s an e-mail that will go out. And it ties you into all sorts of shit you probably didn’t realize I knew.”

“You are rather full of it, aren’t you?” Whitmore murmured.

“Am I?” Joss lifted a brow. “I wonder how your old girlfriend is enjoying Dubai.”

Then he moved. Weapons got heavy after a while and this guy was getting twitchy. Joss knew how to push, when to push harder, and when to stop, but he’d rather not end up with a bullet in his skull. Hell, at this close range, he might not survive it if the son of a bitch pulled the trigger. Body armor wasn’t infallible. In a matter of seconds, he had Whitmore’s gun in his hand and Whitmore was exactly where Joss had wanted him since day one. Longer . . .

On the ground.

He leveled the weapon at Whitmore’s head. “Tell your boys to fall back before I put a bullet in your brain.”

“They’ll kill you the second you shoot,” Whitmore sneered.

“True. But you’ll still be just as dead.” Joss smiled. “I’m okay with dying if it means I take out a fucker who was about ready to screw me over . . . but are you ready to die?”

Whitmore went white. “Everybody, go inside the house.”

A few hesitated.

Joss moved a step closer and applied pressure to the trigger.

“Get in the fucking house!” Whitmore bellowed.

As the rest of them scattered, Joss crouched down. “So, let’s chat. You’re going to pay me. You can have your fiancée. I’ll get my money. We go our separate ways.”

“And how do I know you won’t share whatever . . . information . . . you claim to have?”

“You don’t,” Joss said, shrugging. “But here’s the thing. You were planning on killing me the second I set foot in that house . . . weren’t you?”

The flicker in Whitmore’s eyes would have given him away even if Joss hadn’t heard the answer echo through that discordant train of thought.

“See? I know when somebody’s out to screw me over.” Joss shook his head. “You’ll just have to trust that I won’t do anything with it . . . and I’ll trust that you’ll stay the hell out of my life after this. Deal?”

I’ll see you dead . . .

Joss wasn’t surprised by the thought tripping through Whitmore’s mind. If he actually was the man Whitmore thought he was, he might be a little worried.

“Deal?”

Whitmore got up, ignoring the gun Joss had all but jammed into his face. Once he was on his feet, Joss did that, nudging the muzzle against his cheek. “You pay me, and I go off on my merry way.”

“Agreed,” Whitmore said. “You’ll bring my fiancée into the house.”

“No. You’ll have one of your men come and get her.
After
they bring my money out. A million is what you offered . . . that’s what you’ll bring me.”

“I don’t have that on hand.”

“Yes, you do.” Joss pushed harder with the gun. “Now come on. Tell me you can cough it up. Time is short and all, right?” Then he smiled and leaned in. “Considering how edgy you are, I imagine you want to be done with this in a hurry for a reason . . . do you really have time to dick around with me?”

“You keep fucking with me,” Whitmore said quietly, “you’ll go too far. Fine. I’ll have the money brought out. One million, in exchange for Ella. You’ll leave and get the fuck out of my way. And you won’t share any information on me with anybody. Correct?”

“Right. All the information about your ex-girlfriend, her current situation in Dubai, your various illegal activities with slavery and shit. Mum’s the word.” Joss smiled widely and gestured to the house. “Call one of your boys, Whitmore. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Something glittered in Whitmore’s eyes. Suspicion.

Doubt . . .

Pushed too hard.

*   *   *

D
RU
felt the mental jab against her shields.