The Protected tfp-4 Read online

  “Yes, sir.”

  And as Gus turned away and started down the hall, he heard her voice again.

  You must do this for me.

  Yeah. He knew that. He knew what he had to do. He just wondered if he and the boy would get through it without the boy hating him.

  * * *

  “HAVE you found them?”

  Esteban eyed the boss from under his lashes for a moment before he lowered his gaze back to the floor.

  The boss did have a name, but he didn’t dare speak it. He didn’t even want to be here. The last man assigned to this job had failed. And he hadn’t been seen since.

  He didn’t want to end up the same way.

  But he knew it was likely. He had another idea, but whether or not the boss would go for it . . . Swallowing the spit that pooled in his mouth, he managed to keep his voice level as he responded, “No, sir. We haven’t found him. Not the boy or the man.”

  “Why not?”

  He had no answer.

  After a few seconds, the boss said, “It’s been years. You realize this, don’t you? Years. And a pendejo whose claim to fame in life is looking pretty and fucking females has managed to keep that child away from us. It’s pathetic. You were supposed to be reliable. To have resources. And what have you done but fail?”

  “I have a new plan lined up,” he said, swallowing the nasty, metallic taste of fear that rose up his throat. He resisted, just barely, the urge to swipe his hands down the sides of his trousers, but that would wrinkle them and the boss wasn’t overly impressed by a man in a wrinkled suit.

  The boss wasn’t impressed by much, to be honest. He never should have taken this job. If he failed this time, his best bet was to get as far away as possible. At least he’d lined up an escape route.

  Skepticism dashed through the boss’s eyes, carefully concealed, there and then gone.

  But he knew what he’d seen in the other man’s eyes. Doubt. Anger. He made a study of recognizing such things. It kept him alive, made him money. Sometimes, one was equally as important as the other.

  “Oh?” The boss leaned back and crossed his hands over a belly that had just now started to go soft even though he was almost sixty. “What is this plan?”

  Floundering, he wracked his brain for a decent lie. “I am still working to get it together. Once I have more concrete data to present you with, I’d be happy to go into detail with you, sir.” He didn’t plan on giving him any detail, if he could avoid it. Because if this didn’t work out, he needed to disappear. No point in making it any easier for the man to find him, right?

  The boss continued to watch him, his eyes flat, black . . . soulless. “I would suggest, my boy, that you get that information together. Quickly.”

  He bowed his head and turned to the door. He had to get back to the search. And he planned on leaving quickly. He was running out of time, he knew. But this new development . . .

  Yes. It was the best break he’d had in the past seven months, ever since he’d started hunting for the missing child. As long as it was legit, he might stand a chance.

  And he thought it was.

  He had a knack for discerning codes, and this website was nothing but code. The subtext and innuendos that people used to get across hidden meanings. It was little wonder they didn’t want people stumbling across the site, little wonder they used code and subtext.

  Psychics.

  These people were for real. They were legit, not just a bunch of lunatics or New Agers who thought they were psychic. He knew it in his gut. Now he just had to get one of them out in the open. And if that didn’t work, he’d just keep going until he succeeded.

  The boss called out his name just as he reached the door.

  Pausing, he stood there. Waiting.

  The next words sent a shiver across his spine. “I hope you realize . . . my patience isn’t endless. You are quite running out of time. Very much so.”

  * * *

  AS the door shut, Reyes turned and stared out the window.

  Four years.

  It had been four years.

  He hadn’t lost hope, though.

  Losing hope too easily led to lost focus, and when one lost focus, it was too easy to stray from the path. He would find the boy.

  Find the boy, and kill the man who had taken him away.

  It was as simple as that.

  But he was losing faith in the man he’d hired. Supposedly this one could find the unfindable, do the undoable, finish the unfinishable. That was what all his previous clients had said. His job record was impressive, to say the least.

  A record was shit without results, though.

  And they had no results. Nothing.

  It infuriated him.

  It took an effort to keep that fury under control, but he finally managed, and when he reached for the phone, his hand was steady.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t pull his current man off the job until he saw the results from his latest endeavor, but it was time to start exploring other options, he decided.

  But before he could dial the number, there was a knock at his door and a low, throaty voice called out his name.

  “Come in,” he called out. He could make the call while she was in here, he supposed. It wouldn’t hurt.

  The blonde came inside, a smile on her mouth, her lips slicked with red, her curves barely covered by a scrap of a bikini the same shade as her eyes. She came around the desk and leaned against it, reached out to trail a finger down his arm. “You’ve been working all day,” she murmured.

  Inexplicably, he found himself unable to look away from her mouth. His limbs felt heavy and his blood pumped hotter, slower. Yes . . . he had been working all day, hadn’t he?

  * * *

  VAUGHNNE sighed and glanced out over the yard. She’d knocked almost two minutes ago. If she hadn’t heard Gus’s voice, she would have worried a little. But she heard movement inside, and none of those movements were the sorts that set her instincts on edge, either.

  As the footsteps drew nearer to the door, she ignored the butterflies jumping in her belly and braced herself. She hadn’t brought her weapon. She still didn’t trust how things would go if Gus saw it, but she suspected things would go . . . badly. And he’d peg it from a mile away, the same way she’d known he was carrying.

  When he opened the door, she was doubly glad she hadn’t brought her Glock. The look on his face wasn’t quite the one she’d been hoping for, although it didn’t really surprise her.

  Each step was going to be a struggle, there was no denying that.

  His eyes, that sultry gray, rested on her face, and although that inviting, sexy warmth was there, she sensed a distance. I’m sorry, but you’re not welcome here. That was the message he was sending out, loud and clear. It was like his eyes said, I’ll take you to bed in a second . . . but . . . and the but spoke louder than everything else.

  Well. It was a good thing Vaughnne had always ignored those messages she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “Hey.” Smiling at him, she pulled the foil back off the plate of cookies and held it up. “I wanted to say thanks for the help. I made you and Alex some cookies.”

  He glanced down and something flickered in his eyes. It might have been surprise. Might have been caution. She didn’t know. But he wasn’t going to take the cookies, not just like that. Tugging the foil off, she took one at random and nipped a bite off. “Come on, you have to take them,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I already ate three or four of them, and if you don’t take them for you and your boy, I’ll eat them and then I’ll have to run double what I usually run. Then I’ll be cranky and it will be all your fault.”

  “My fault.”

  She licked a crumb off her lips and nodded. “Yes. I made you cookies and you won’t eat them . . . I can’t let them go to waste, right? But if I eat them, I have to work them off. And running seven or eight miles instead of three or four will make me a bitch . . .” She grimaced and peered around him. “Sorry. Um. It won’t
make me very nice. See how this is your fault if you don’t take them?”

  She took another bite from the cookie and then held it up to him. “Try a bite,” she offered. “I make damn good cookies, if I do say so myself.”

  He caught her wrist in one hand and plucked the cookie out, eyeing it narrowly before taking a quick bite. “You could have finished it,” he pointed out.

  His eyes dropped to the plate. Then something shifted in his gaze. And he reached out. She didn’t look down. She’d been tested enough in her life to know when it was happening again. “Here, since you enjoy them so much that you ate three or four . . .”

  She wondered if he had some inkling in his head to make her taste-test every one before he let the kid have a damn cookie. And abruptly, her heart hurt. It just hurt, standing there staring at him as he pushed a cookie at her and watched her with that sleepy, sexy look in his eyes and his hand now hanging loose at his side.

  And maybe she didn’t have any ability to read minds, but Vaughnne knew one thing damn well. If she balked about taking that cookie, they would have a problem.

  Not only did he not trust people, he expected every damn soul around him to try and hurt him.

  Why?

  She polished off the cookie in two bites, and even though it was like sawdust on her tongue, she leaned forward and studied the plate, poking through them until she found one of the white chocolate macadamia cookies. “I’ve got to be balanced,” she said. “You made me eat a chocolate chip, now I have to have the white chocolate.”

  She nibbled on it as she eyed him. “You going to share any of those with Alex, or am I going to stand here and be a glutton and eat all the cookies?”

  She felt a ripple roll across her skin just then, but it wasn’t from Gus. He didn’t have a lick of talent in him, unless it was the way he could look at her and make her want.

  A minute later, he glanced back behind him. “There he is. He probably smelled the chocolate.”

  “Chocolate.” Alex wedged himself in the door, and for a second, the look on his face was that of just any ordinary kid. “Where is there . . .”

  Then the words trailed off as he saw the plate. “Cookies.” He swallowed and then looked up at Gus. “She made cookies.”

  “She did.” He nodded to Vaughnne. “You should thank her.”

  Vaughnne was already a little tired of this, and if she didn’t already have an inkling about the kind of life these two had been living, she could probably find herself rather pissed off with Gus. But as the kid hurriedly stuck out his hand, she went to shake his, letting some of her puzzled smile show on her face.

  Then she stopped and frowned, swiping her hand down the side of her shorts. “I’ve got cookie crumbs on me,” she mumbled. After she’d dusted them off, she shook the kid’s hand and felt his mental fingers rooting through her mind yet again. He wasn’t as neat that time, and pain ripped through her mind.

  She barely managed to keep a grimace from showing as he broke the connection with absolutely no finesse and no care. The pain increased, and she could feel it rippling through her, growing, and growing . . .

  Dayyum, he was strong.

  Distantly, she made a mental note. This kid needed training and he needed it fast.

  Even though she’d been braced for him to do something, his blunt probe through her mind left her off balance. She felt like he’d jammed his hands inside her skull, scraped them through her gray matter like it was muck, and then just shoved her to the side. Stumbling, she tried to catch her balance on the doorjamb.

  A hand caught her arm.

  Gus—

  Trying to breathe through the pain, trying to keep her own mental shields in place, she sucked in a desperate breath before she swung her head around to look at him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice low and tense.

  “Headache,” she said absently, forcing herself to smile. She needed to leave. Get back to the house and sit down. Maybe lie down. Right inside the door would be fine. Shit. The pounding in her head increased, and she thought she just might puke.

  But he was eyeing her oddly, and her instincts were screaming. Cover, she reminded herself. Don’t break your cover. “Probably from all the sugar I’ve been sucking in today.”

  Then, because she figured they both needed to be aware of the kid’s lack of finesse, she reached up and pressed the heel of her hand to her head. It wasn’t like she was acting, either. It felt like a freight train was trying to rip through her skull, and the nausea churned through her harder and harder with every passing second. She was going to hurl cookies in a second if she wasn’t careful. “Damn, it hit me hard, like somebody just punched me.”

  Alex’s hand froze over the plate.

  Any guilt she might have felt died as the pain just continued to grow.

  “Maybe you should sit down,” Gus said quietly. “Are you well enough to go home?”

  “Sure.” She smiled at them both and pushed the cookies into Alex’s hands. The pounding in her head was getting worse, though, and she felt something wet on her face.

  “What . . .” She went to wipe at her nose.

  But before she could, she swayed. The world went dark.

  * * *

  GUS swore as he caught her.

  He’d seen the trickle of blood, but it went from a trickle to a flood in a matter of seconds.

  Under his breath, a litany of curses ripped out of him as he caught her against him.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Alex, his mouth stuffed full of cookie and his gaze big and round. “Don’t eat them, damn it. What if that’s what made her sick?”

  Alex looked miserable.

  But he shook his head and swallowed. As he followed Gus into the house, he clutched the plate against him. “It was me.”

  “What?” Then he shook his head. “No. Not now. Get me a towel.” He laid Vaughnne’s still form on the couch and tried not to think about what a very nice form it was . . . lean muscle, lush curves. He could spend hours learning all the secrets of her body and never get tired, he suspected. But even if he could let himself take that pleasure, now wasn’t the time.

  That smooth brown skin had gone ashen on him, and as he shifted to kneel closer to her head, he saw that the bleeding was getting worse.

  “Alex, hurry up!”

  “Here . . .” The boy’s voice was soft and sad as he pushed a towel into Gus’s hand, but Gus didn’t linger to look at the kid.

  Not then. Anger pulsed inside him and he needed to get a grip on it before he spoke. He’d thought they had this under control. But . . . No. No buts. We just start again. And if it happens again, we start over . . . again. He focused on that as he pressed the towel to Vaughnne’s face, pinching her nose lightly just below where the bony area ended to help stem the bleeding.

  More than two minutes in silence. He’d give it five before he pulled the towel away, but each second was an eternity and she was so still—

  There was no warning.

  One second she was lying there, motionless.

  Then next, he had a fist flying toward him and his arms full of a woman he very much wanted to hold. He took the punch. It was off center and barely clipped his jaw, but if Alex was responsible, he figured she was more than owed that one hit.

  She all but tumbled on top of him, still off balance, and the lush body was a temptation he could barely resist.

  But Alex was only a few feet away.

  And he had no time in his life for luxuries like this.

  “What the hell . . .”

  She blinked down at him and then pushed away, moving all too easily considering she’d been flat on her back just seconds ago. That had him concerned. But even as he started to puzzle through that, she stumbled, swaying above him. Rising to his feet, he caught her arms and stared down at her. The bleeding had stopped. That was good.

  Her eyes were still cloudy.

  That wasn’t good.

  “What the hell . . .” she muttered a
gain, shaking her head like she was trying to clear it. She pressed the heel of her hand against her temple like that might help lessen the pain he knew she was feeling—and he knew she was hurting. Knew it from experience.

  Nothing would help except time. He’d thought they had this under control.

  He couldn’t think about that, though. He’d think about it later. Once he had her out of here and away from Alex.

  Focusing on her face, he said quietly, “You passed out.” That is all. Nothing else to it.

  She’d believe it. They all did.

  Her gaze rested on his face for a second, and then she looked down, studying the towel in his hand.

  He just barely managed to resist clenching his hand in a fist. “Your nose started to bleed,” he said, lifting it up. “There’s a bathroom down the hall if you’d like to wash up.”

  She lifted a hand and touched her nose, grimacing a little before looking back at him. With a sigh, she nodded, and as he turned around, he glanced at Alex.

  The boy was staring at his shoes.

  Wonderful. Like that didn’t look guilty as hell.

  FOUR

  SOMETHING told her this wasn’t his first time at this particular rodeo.

  As he managed to wedge them both into the tiny bathroom, she kept her face blank and tried to act a little dismayed. It wasn’t hard. She was panicked, trying not to panic more. As they’d come down the hall, she’d pressed a hand to her chest, felt the slight bump of the micro cameras she’d decided to tuck inside her bra instead of her pocket. Thank God.

  Thank God he hadn’t found those. If he had . . .

  Yeah. It wasn’t hard to fake dismay, wasn’t hard to act a little off balance. She was dismayed. She was off balance.

  Just not for the reasons he thought, and she had to totally downplay that.

  The boy had literally knocked her off her feet.

  She’d been helpless at the hands of a man who was capable of God only knew what.

  And damn it, her nose was still trickling blood. All from Alex’s careless assault on her mind.

  Did she know anybody with that kind of raw power?