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An hour later, Noah made his way through Mike’s underground tunnel and cracked open the panel that led into the office. He checked for audio and video security, read the readout on the electronic device he brought with him and shook his head. The office was wired but deactivated. Keeping the unit he carried turned on to ensure it stayed that way, Noah moved into the office.
Mike had always been an arrogant son of a bitch, but Noah had never thought he was stupid. Attacking Sabella had been stupid, and perhaps not as out of character as Noah had believed if Mike was indeed a part of BCM.
If Noah remembered correctly, when Sabella had worked at the bank, before their marriage, Mike had always been a little too friendly and Mike’s wife had always been a little too cool to Sabella. It made sense why now, when at the time, Noah had tried to push back the warnings with the excuse that he was a suspicious man. Mike wasn’t the cheating type, he’d thought. Maybe he had been wrong.
He moved to the office desk first and the laptop that sat on top of it. He slid the flashdrive Tehya had sent into the USB port, then quietly powered up the computer. The program on the drive would slide into bootup according to Tehya and take care of all their problems.
He watched as it powered up, as security protocols were bypassed, password was automatically logged and added to the drive Noah had inserted before the program itself quickly uploaded.
When it finished, the laptop powered down, turned off, and Noah slid the drive free before tucking it into the zippered pocket of his mission pants. He looked around the office, eyes narrowing as he began checking the room.
Silent in the darkness, he paused after picking the lock on the bottom desk door and stared inside coldly.
There, with an extra handgun, ammo clips, and a black hood, were three black scarves. There had been black scarves tied around the necks of all the victims that had been hunted and killed in the past months.
Noah closed the drawer, relocked it, and slipped back through the panel. After securing it, he made his way through the tunnel again, careful to clear his tracks from the dusty floor. It didn’t appear that the passage was ever used.
One thing was certain, a Black Collar Militia member was now on the short list.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What had made Sabella think she could hide from Duncan that night with the lame excuse she had given him, she wasn’t certain. Maybe it was because Duncan had never argued when she had to cancel before, maybe it was the fact that the more she thought about it, the more she realized herself how the relationship they had had was so platonic as to be laughable.
It was late when she heard his car pull into the driveway. Sitting in the living room finishing the bottle of wine Duncan had opened days before, Sabella stared at the window where the lights were reflected and realized several things at once.
One, for some reason, men thought she was a pushover. Nathan had seen her as the helpless little wife he had to protect. Duncan often patronized her over her “hobby” at the garage. And even Rory seemed to question every move she made lately. And now, she couldn’t even break a date without someone thinking they needed to question her decision.
She rose from the couch, straightened the loose T-shirt she wore over silky shorts, and then, wine glass in hand, moved to the door. Pulling it open she stared at Duncan’s handsome though irritated expression as he lifted his knuckles to rap at the door.
He was dressed as precisely and unwrinkled as ever. A white short-sleeved polo shirt and tan slacks and black loafers. He was always clean-cut and perfectly groomed and now was no exception.
His gaze took in the wine glass, then her face, before he focussed on her chin and neck. Yeah, she knew those marks were still there. One on her jaw, one on her neck. Tiny bite marks, and the thought of the pleasure they had given her was curling her stomach with guilt. And hunger.
“Can I come in?” he asked, his smooth voice suddenly at odds with her senses.
He sounded patient, warm, but she saw anger in his eyes.
“Sure.” Sabella stepped back as she sipped at her wine and he entered. “It’s midnight. Isn’t it late for you to be out?”
“I don’t have a curfew.” That vein of anger wasn’t as hidden as it had been moments before.
Sabella pushed her fingers through her loose hair before heading back into the living room. This was her sanctuary, a room Duncan rarely liked coming into. He preferred the kitchen. He had never made it upstairs.
He followed her though, stopping just inside the doorway across from the fireplace and staring at the mantel as Sabella sat down in one of the chairs, curling her legs beneath her.
There was a hint of discomfort on his face, a quiet, flash of hurt that made her chest ache. He had been a good friend over the years, he would have made a good lover or husband. If her body, her heart, had been willing to accept him.
“You keep his pictures out like he’s coming home,” he said quietly. “As though you think he’s just going to walk in the door any day with open arms.”
Sabella glanced over at the mantel, then to the long table beneath the window where other pictures sat. She probably should have put them away a long time ago; she just hadn’t been able to do it.
“Letting him go hasn’t been easy.” She finally shrugged uncomfortably. “But I’m sure you didn’t show up here at midnight to discuss whether or not my husband is coming home.”
“Nathan’s dead, Belle,” he said roughly, impatiently. “You’ve never accepted that. It’s why our relationship never worked, isn’t it? Because you can’t accept he’s gone.”
It had taken her three years to accept that Nathan was indeed forever gone. That long for her to get past the horrific nightmares she lived through for over three years. First the ones full of blood, then those full of pain and fury. Sabella had been convinced he was alive, in pain, and in those nightmares he begged her to come to him. And then they stopped. One night, they were just gone, and Nathan had left her entirely.
“Yeah.” She finally nodded. “I’ve accepted that, Duncan. And I warned you when we started seeing each other, I’m not looking for love.”
