“What are you thinking, man?” he presses. “Bomb? Booby trap?”
“We’ll know when we get there.”
“We’ll know when our team clears the house.”
“I’ll clear the damn house,” I snap. “I do my own dirty work.”
“You aren’t a bomb or booby trap expert. And you have a woman to stay alive for now, remember?”
“That would be Smith, who’s presently with Candace. I don’t need to pull him and shake her up.”
“Adrian Mack just got into town. He’s funny as fuck and deadly. He’s already on his way to meet Smith at the hotel.”
“I don’t know him. I don’t want him near my woman.”
“I know him,” he insists. “I trust him and you trust me.”
“Do I?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” he snaps. “And if you don’t want Adrian’s help, the other option is that you sit this one out and let us handle it while you go play house with your girlfriend.”
“As tempta-licious as that is, meanwhile you get killed because you’re a goody-goody Navy SEAL.” I grab my phone and dial Smith.
He answers with, “Smith here,” all dry and formal, which defines the Smith we see. In other words, there must be a kinky freak of a beast beneath that man’s surface.
“Ground pounder,” I say. “How’s my woman?”
“Safe and worried about you. We just got to the hotel and checked into the penthouse under my Dave Boone identity. Apparently, the extra space was meant for her to pace.”
The penthouse being the go-to for any top security operation. They’re harder to get to and easier to protect. “That asshat Adrian there yet?” I ask.
Asher scowls my direction. “You don’t even know him.”
“He’s on his way up,” Smith says. “Why?”
“We need a bomb squad.” I pause for drama because that’s my thing. Drama. I kill big. I fuck big. I fuck people up bigger. “Now,” I add.
Smith’s silent several beats before he says, “Where?”
“Candace’s house.” There’s a knock on the door.
“That will be him,” he says. “I’ll be right there.” He disconnects. I glance over at Asher. “Adrian better be a killer.”
His lips quirk. “Oh, he’s a killer.”
I glare at him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“He’s ex-FBI. He went deep undercover inside a Texas motorcycle gang. He resigned when he got out. Blake got a hold of him and sent him overseas for a few years. That’s where I met him on a mission. I’d say his story and mine, match yours and Adam’s pretty damn closely. Only he didn’t operate on me in the middle of a warzone like you did Adam.”
My jaw flexes. “Adam needs to stop telling that story.”
“Because you’re afraid someone might actually see you as a decent guy?”
I don’t comment. It’s not a topic I want to travel with Asher. The truth is, a part of me still believes that Candace is better off without me. That part of me wants to confess my sins and turn her stomach. But the problem with that is that it might work. And the truth is, she might be better off without me, but that woman is the meringue on my pie, the peanut butter to my jelly, the icing to my cake. I’m not better off without her. I’m not even close to better off without her.
“No comment?” Asher presses.
I turn us down Candace’s street, our street back in the day, and I glance over at Asher. “Here’s your comment. Bitch.”
He laughs and moves on. “The surveillance team has cameras up at Candace’s house. They just sent me footage of the guys who entered the house. They got both of their faces.”
I pull us to a side street and then pull over beside a park, where I kill the engine. He hands me his phone with a video ready for viewing. I push the play button and watch as two men in all black slink along the side of the house and then break the bedroom window, but I can’t see their faces. Something about one of them is familiar though, and not in a good way.
“There are two more videos,” Asher says. “Number three. One of the men looks into the camera and smiles.”
I cut him a look, ice sliding through my veins. Now I know I know who this is, but I never assume anything. I skip to video number three and I start watching. “Three-minute mark,” Asher tells me.
I fast forward and freeze frame at the piece-of-shit who not only smiles at the camera, he shoots the finger. At me. He shoots it at me. Because we have a history. “You know him?” Asher asks.
“Yeah,” I say, handing him his phone. “I know that little prick.” I open the door and get out of the car.
“What the hell are you doing?” Asher asks, catching up with me a few steps down the street.
“Finding out what was left for me in that house.”