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“Have him come up here.”
“I’m not even sure we’re hiring the guy. I’m not having him up to the room.”
“And you want to talk to him frankly about my family.” She folds her arms in front of her. “Got it.”
I settle my hands on her arms. “If I hire him, I’m going to have his team look into this list and more.”
“Good,” she says tightly. “I think we both need answers.” She doesn’t even think about unfolding her arms.
“If I hire him—”
“Go talk to him, Jax,” she says, her tone still just as tight as seconds before. “Like you said, we both need answers.”
She’s right. We do, but I’m not sure either one of us is going to like what we discover. I lean into her and kiss her, but I say nothing and with reason. I’m pretty damn sure that if I tell her that I believe her family had my brother murdered, she’d leave. And since I don’t want her to leave, that’s a problem I’ll solve only one way. I leave the room without her, hoping like hell this Rick Savage character can get me an answer that doesn’t turn Emma into an enemy but I feel every step that separates us like a mile. I know I’ll pay for doing this without her, but it’s necessary.
I step into the elevator and I swear I can still smell Emma’s perfume on my clothes, a sweet, flowery scent that drives me justa little wild. She’s on my skin, under my skin. She’s driving me crazy.
The car stops at the lobby level and I head to the hotel bar where it’s not hard to find Savage. He’s the only one there and he’s not only leaning on the bar, he has a shot glass in his hand. He glances my direction, his dark eyes sharp, a brutality in their depths that stretches across marble tables and leather chairs to meet mine. He lifts the glass in salute and then downs the contents.
Cutting between tables, I walk a carpeted path to join him at the long end of the bar where the stools don’t clutter up standing space.
“Another,” Savage tells the bartender, and looks at me, that scar he’d warned me about jutting down his cheek, just outside the line of his neatly trimmed goatee, his thick dark hair neatly managed. No matter how unhinged he might act, he’s not. He’s a man of control. “You want one?” he asks.
I wave off the bartender. Savage smirks. “Got enough of that at home, I suppose.” The bartender hands him the new shot. He lifts it pausing by his mouth. “Down the hole,” he says and grimaces as he sets the glass down. “I have to tell you, I have a love-hate relationship with North Whiskey. Sometimes it loves me up and sometimes it loves me down. Those down moments come with some real hate.”
“Try drinking less.”
“I’m a more is less kind of guy.” He straightens and more is right. I’m six-foot-two and two hundred and twenty pounds of hard work in the gym. He has to be six-foot-four and two-forty and it’s all muscle. He salutes. “Tell me how I can serve you.”
“Tell me about Walker Security.”
“Started by the Walker brothers. Three of those bastards. All ethical as fuck and tough as nails. Royce is ex-FBI, Luke is ex-SEAL Team Six, and Blake is ex-ATF. Blake’s the hackereveryone in the world, and I do mean world, as in leaders of countries, wants on their job. Aside from that, we have a clusterfuck of ex-everything from CIA, special forces, and every special this, that, and fuck that you can find. The best of the best.”
“And you are?”
“Green Beret. Mercenary. I was an off the grid kind of guy until Blake gave me a reason to stick around. I don’t fuck up and I know how to pull in the resources you need.” He holds his hand up, wiggling fingers at me. “Talk to me.”
Talk to him. Where the hell do I start? My dead brother seems logical and I scrub my jaw and wave to the bartender. “Whiskey Sour. Make sure it’s North Whiskey, gold label.”
“That bad, huh?” Savage asks.
“Does anyone need you when it’s that good?”
“Excellent point,” Savage says. “Excellent fucking point.”
My drink is set on the counter and I motion to a small round booth. “Let’s sit.”
Savage nods and we take a seat. I run down everything with him. The relationship between the families. My father’s death. Emma’s father’s death. The list of targets Emma found and plenty more.
“And your brother died how?”
“An accident or suicide. The investigation was inconclusive but suicide was what ended up on the death certificate. I get the impression they threw accident in there to make us feel better about what happened.”
He asks for details about the “suicide,” gory details that have me ordering another drink. When I finish telling the story, my drink is gone and he’s studying me. “You think he was murdered.”
“Iknowhe was murdered and to complicate matters, I’m now involved with Emma Knight.”
“I got enough information from your former PI to know who that is. So, let me get this straight and I may need another drink to digest this. You think the Knight family did kill your brother, but you’re presently playing touch football in bed with the princess of the Knight Empire?
