AllFreeNovel
Share Us
First of all, her eyes were the darkest and warmest shade of coffee brown I’d ever seen. Her hair was in a blonde pixie cut around her face with streaks of red flashing through that reminded me of a damn volcano. But what really got me was the eyebags under her eyes and the severe pallor on her face. In my line of work, I’d seen that look on two different types of people—drug addicts and people suffering from PTSD.
I wondered which one she was.
I didn’t think it was the former, especially seeing the way she defended the dog. Her eyes were clear, and there were no track marks on her smooth skin. Also, there was no incessant rubbing of her nostrils. She simply seemed pissed that I was taking the dog to task, but she wasn’t erratic. She’d been composed through most of it.
Until I threatened to shoot her dog, that is. Then I saw her eyes flash with fire, and she looked like she wanted nothing more than to bite my head off.
Of course, I wasn’t going to shoot a dog. I wasn’t that much of a bastard. But I simply wanted to let her know I meant business, and I wasn’t going to tolerate her little monster messing up my space and causing me to lose my deposit. And also, maybe some part of me wanted to see what she would do when I said it.
Her split-second reaction showed that she wanted toshootme.I had to admit, that was surprising. I was a huge guy, and most people didn’t step up to me like that, especially not to my face. The fact that this five-foot-nothing little pixie had no qualms about doing so was something almost admirable.
But she had more balls than sense.
I watched her through my kitchen window now as she bounced away. I watched probably longer than I should have. And I could have told myself that I was simply watching to make sure she didn’t maliciously let the dog loose on my property again, but I would be lying. The truth was that I was watching her for other reasons. And there was a part of me that was remembering the way she felt against my body, her hand moving absently on my chest and the sharp sensation that shot through me at her touch.
If I hadn’t pushed her away from me that instant, she would have probably felt my fucking hard-on. Fuck, I hadn’t been with a woman in a while, but I didn’t think I was that strung up for one.
But at the same time, this girl was not the one for me to meaninglessly hook up with. She was far too young and looked a little too wild for my taste. Plus, she had complications written all over her. I wasn’t about to get myself involved with that.
Besides, I wasn’t in town for pleasure. I had business matters to take care of.
I went on my jog and came back to a missed call from my assistant.
“Speak.”
“Hey, boss,” Yaya said in her usual friendly manner. “Just wanted to give you an update on the Mayor’s daughter’s hostage situation.”
She paused for long enough to be annoying. “Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to wait till the second coming?”
I could feel my assistant’s amusement over the phone. She was a good assistant, but she had a penchant for getting on my nerves for no reason. “They caught the gang that carried it out. As you suspected, it was a few young boys, some of which went to her school. She’s been retrieved and is now safe and sound.”
“Good.” I figured as much. I’d planned the entire operation and made sure every corner was covered before I left. And I left the two best people to carry it out. I would have been surprised if anything had gone wrong.
“We’ve also traced the team that assisted them on the outside. We handed all of them over to the FBI this morning.”
“Did Kuzo get to talk to them first?”
“Unfortunately, no,” she said.
“Why the fuck not?” I growled. I was annoyed. I hated when orders were not followed explicitly, especially when it was about something as important as this.
Someone had kidnapped the Mayor’s daughter months ago, and he’d hired my security team to find and retrieve her. It was a complex investigation that had taken weeks to make heads or tails of. Luckily, we caught a lucky break when one of the security cameras in her school revealed that it had been hacked by an IP address which could lead us to the kidnappers.
Once we traced down where they were likely holding the girl, I left DC with explicit instructions for the perpetrators to be handed over to Kuzo first when they were caught. Kuzo was ex-military like most of my men, and not only would he put the fear of God in those guys, but he would be able to read them and tell if they were likely to be repeating offenders or if there was something more going on here than I thought.
“Lance thought it wasn’t necessary,” Yaya explained. “He said they were just teenage boys who wanted to pull a prank and got in over their heads. Plus, one of them has pretty powerful parents, too, despite being a scholarship kid.”
“I don’t give a damn who their parents are. When I give orders, I expect them to be followed.” I took a deep breath, realizing I was taking my temper out on the wrong person. “Put Lance on the phone right now.”
“Erm, he’s not in the office. He stepped out to take care of a few things, and his phone is off.”
I sighed in annoyance. That man was getting on my last nerve. We’ve worked together since we were in the SEAL Teams, and he was one of my older recruits, so I tended to give him a little leeway. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the fuck he would pull something like this.
I would need to figure that out later.
“Is the girl hurt?”
“No,” Yaya said. “I think they mostly wanted to scare her and get some money while they were at it. They knew her in school and wanted to prey on her because she was a ‘stuck-up bitch,’ according to their words. You know, teenage boys. But they didn’t do anything else apart from occasionally denying her water and food. Plus, she noted that one of them protected her from the rest.”
