“Toby spoke to me about that. I apologize for not getting back to you yet. There’s just been so much going on and—”

  “That’s okay, I get it. What if I sweeten the deal and double what we agreed upon?” Charlene cuts me off. “You’ve got two beautiful little girls to raise, rent to pay, and I know how hard it can be for a single woman to carve her own path through this difficult world.”

  “I’ll be honest, Charlene. Despite everything that has happened, you’ve never personally done me wrong. So there really isn’t any reason for me to turn you down,” I say. “I’ve been trying to make a decision while also being respectful of Kellan and the guys’ wishes, of their history with you, and their feelings regarding this entire dynamic. I’ve weighed everything over and over, and I think it’s best if we part ways and move on with our lives. Please know that my decision is not a reflection of your character or your past, but rather of my needs and my feelings.”

  She checks her phone, then slips it back into her coat pocket. A shadow flutters across her face, but then she looks up at me and smiles, eager to conceal whatever must’ve caused her to change her expression. “Avery, I’m going to keep the offer on the table for sixty days. If you decide you want to come back and work on my house, I will double your fee. But in the meantime, please know that I won’t hold this against you, nor will I demand a refund on that advance. I know there was always good faith here. Please at least consider finishing the project.”

  “I promise I will,” I say, offering a soft, warm smile.

  Charlene nods once before turning and heading back to her car. Oddly enough, as soon as she is gone, I feel like I can truly breathe again. The darkness of the late evening envelops my surroundings, yet I take comfort in it. The pressure I’d felt gathering in the pit of my stomach earlier is starting to slowly dissolve. Perhaps it’s the resolution on the remodeling project and the tone of the conversation that has eased my senses somewhat. Yet I still get a nagging sensation of danger when it comes to her.

  I don’t like the feeling, and something tells me I need to continue to be vigilant and careful.

  22

  Luke

  Everyone at Wolfhound Security is on edge, and they have more than enough reason. If the attempt on Kellan’s life seemed like something random and unrelated, the attack on Fallon changed the gameboard altogether. We’re on high alert—we’ve doubled our security detail around the mansion, and I’ve got people watching Avery and the girls, twenty-four-seven. I’ve got eyes on Charlene, too. Toby is a slippery bastard, though, and I’ve yet to pick up his trail. He’s hiding something and I don’t like him.

  He's way too good at keeping people off his back. Particularly my people, who are trained to shadow suspects and dig up sensitive information without anyone noticing. Yet they’re having trouble pinning him down, figuring him out. I’ll know everything there is to know about him, eventually. Nobody can elude me forever. Not when there’s so much at stake.

  “My boys are telling me that Fallon will be staying late at the shop tonight,” Marcus says as we walk out of the house together. We’ve spent the whole day scouring government databases for more information on Toby and Charlene, as well as whatever details we could find about the stash house’s previous owners. There’s got to be a connection somewhere, but we have yet to yield anything useful. “And Kellan is with his deputies, preparing a raid on a suspected gang in Brady,” he adds. “He’s hoping they’ll point him in the right direction once he’s got them cuffed in the interrogation rooms back at his office.”

  “What about Avery?” I ask.

  “At home, with the girls. Helen had them the night before. Oh, and Charlene paid her a visit yesterday,” Marcus replies. “The conversation seemed normal. A little tense, but given the recent events, I can’t fault Avery for being more cautious than usual.”

  “Where are your men stationed?”

  “Just outside her house, in a black SUV, as per the protocol.”

  “Good.” I tell him. “I think Charlene might be trying to rope Avery back into working on her house. See what you can find out about that, and have your agents keep checking into picking up a better line on Toby, too.”

  “Sure thing. It’ll be trickier without a warrant, but I’ll need a couple of days just to see where Charlene is going and how long she’s away from the house, on average. Based on that, I can arrange a brief scouting session.” Marcus pauses at the top of the stairs and looks around. “Man, I do love that spring is finally coming back around. I was tired of all those blizzards.”

  “It was a harsh winter, even for Nebraska.”

  “Where’s your car?” Marcus asks.

  I nod at the parking lot. “Over there.”

  He follows my gaze and spots the new model I bought the other day. A grin slits his face, a glimmer of excitement glowing in his brown eyes. “Luke, is that the Aston Martin you’ve been talking about?”

  “The one I said I’d buy over the past couple of years but never did? Yeah, that’s it,” I chuckle.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  I can’t help but let a deep sigh escape from my chest. “Honestly? With the latest incidents in our midst, I’ve been having a carpe diem type of existential crisis, and I figured why the hell not? I’ve been talking about it for so long. I love that model, and mind you, it did cost me a pretty penny. But it was worth it.”

  “I’ll bet you can’t wait to take Avery out on a ride, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Until then, however,” Marcus replies and shoots me a cool smile, “How about I get it out of the parking lot for you? I’ll bring it down here to the bottom of the steps. For your convenience, of course.”

  “You just wanna drive it for a hot second,” I shoot back with a laugh.

  “Busted.”

  I give him the keys. “Knock yourself out, Marcus. You might as well take it for a spin around the property, if you want.”

  “Damn, Luke, she’s a beauty,” he mumbles. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where’s he off to in such a hurry?” Kay, one of our interns asks as she joins me outside. She hands me a file to look over. “This is what we’ve dug up on that stash house so far. I’ll go back in and keep rummaging through the archives, but I figured you’d want some light reading for tonight.”

  “Wow, Kay. You’ve been here a month and you already know me so well,” I chuckle softly.

  “You’re not a complicated man, boss,” she quips.

  “He’s just taking my Aston for a test drive,” I add, watching her as she keeps watching Marcus.

  “That is a nice car, I’ll give you that,” she says.

  Marcus waves at us, keys jingling in his hand. “Hey, Kay! If you ace your weekly review this Friday, I might convince our boss to let me take you out for a ride in this sexy thing!” He laughs as he jogs off toward my car.

  “I don’t think he’s joking,” I mutter.

  Kay smiles broadly. “I don’t think I mind.”

  Marcus gets behind the wheel.

  BOOM.

  The explosion is so sudden, so unexpected.

  My heart jumps. My whole body bucks. Kay screams from the bottom of her lungs. I hear the grief and the agony in her broken voice. That’s my Aston Martin that just blew up. With Marcus in it.

  “No,” I hear myself whisper. My voice is gone.

  My heart is breaking into a billion little pieces.

  Everything happened so fast yet so slow at the same time, a giant tower of orange flames rising upward. The blast is so powerful, it sends the Prius and the SUV next to it flying over the others. The sound of scraping and clanging metal scratches my ears, making my stomach tighten. I feel like I am going to be sick.

  Time comes to a sudden halt as I try to make sense of what just happened.

  Agents rush outside, alerted by the explosion. Kay runs down the stairs, crying and screaming. I am frozen on the spot and realizing, ever so slowly, that I was supposed to be in that seat, in that car. My hands on the wheel. My skin burning, my whole being disintegrating in the heart of that wretched obliteration. I’m the one who was supposed to die today.

  23

  Avery

  Once the shock of Marcus’ death wears off, numbness set in.

  One week ago, Luke’s Aston Martin blew up with Marcus behind the wheel. It was a twisted kind of bad luck because the intended target was Luke. Somebody tried to kill him, and they killed Marcus instead. That’s something I still can’t quite wrap my head around. The mere thought makes me want to puke. First, Kellan. Then Fallon. And now, Luke.

  Someone is coming for my men, nearly succeeding every time.

  Marcus’ funeral is a solemn but crowded affair. The whole of Wolfhound Security is present at the burial service, along with a couple dozen folks from all over Lincoln County who knew him personally. Some of the firm’s clients are also in attendance, people who worked with Marcus and held him in the highest regard.

  My eyes sting, flooded with tears as I stand beside his casket, Kellan, Fallon, and Luke right next to me. Helen has my girls farther back, and she is just as devastated. She’s known Marcus since he first came to work for the guys. Annie is too young to fully understand, but I’ve explained the basics to Miley. She knows it’s a funeral, and so she does a surprisingly good job of not only staying quiet and solemn, but also of keeping her little sister in check.

  Marcus was beloved by everyone, and he will be sorely missed.

  I watch the crowd in silence as the priest goes on with his service. Familiar faces. Foreign faces. A sea of them, all carrying a mask of sadness as they watch Marcus’ coffin go into the ground. The United States flag that draped his coffin is expertly folded by fellow Navy officers and handed over to his mother—beyond distraught, yet poised and graceful as she accepts the flag with trembling hands. A twenty-one-gun salute sounds off as the Naval officers stand straight and salute.

  Luke moves closer to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. She looks up and gives him a sad nod, then shifts her focus back to the grave as tears continue streaming down her cheeks.

  Once the service is over and most of the attendees have left, Fallon escorts Marcus’ mother to a waiting car driven by one of his agents, another in the backseat. They will escort her to the after-service luncheon being hosted in North Platte.

  Kellan and Luke gently pull me aside, while Helen takes my girls back to my car.

  “Avery, you’re not safe at all with us,” Kellan declares.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hate to admit it, but you did right by moving out. You should stay there for a while longer.”

  “It’s not why I moved out,” I remind him.

  He nods. “I know. I’m just saying our relationship, our issues, our future… all of it needs to pause for a second while we figure out what’s going on.”

  “Are you breaking up with me?” I manage, my throat closing up.

  “No. God, no,” Luke steps in. “No, Avery. But we’ve talked and we’ve agreed that we need to keep a certain distance from you and the girls, at least until we find the fuckers who did this.”

  “It means we won’t be coming around to see you for a while,” Kellan adds, sounding so pained and miserable, it’s tearing me apart on the inside. “We’re paying extra attention to your security detail. You and the girls will never be without cover.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t spot them in their black SUV,” I shoot back with a grumble.

  “You weren’t supposed to not see them. That’s the whole point. We want whoever is doing this to see that you’re never alone, that you’re always protected,” Kellan says. “We’ll make sure Helen has an extra agent watching her, too. And we’ve also dispatched a whole team over to the school.”

  “Thank you,” I mumble.

  “I’m not sure there’s anything to thank us for,” Luke sighs.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head, eyes closing for a moment. I’d give anything to never see such pain in them ever again. “Horrible. It was supposed to be me behind that wheel.”

  “You’re not responsible for Marcus’ death,” I remind him.

  “I don’t know how to stop feeling responsible, though.”

  “Luke, the only person responsible is the fucker who set up that explosive device in your car,” Kellan says, squeezing his best friend’s shoulder. “And we will catch him. Sooner or later, we’ll catch him. My guys in the bomb squad said there’s enough trace evidence for us to track some of the ingredients back to a manufacturer or at least a distributor. We may have enough to find solid leads before anybody else gets hurt.”

  Luke gives him a sour look. “That’s great. But it doesn’t change the fact that Marcus is dead, and nothing is gonna bring him back.”

  “What about Charlene?” I ask. “Are you able to implicate her at all?”

  “No,” Kellan says with a short sigh. Every deep breath still causes him pain, his ribs still healing from the stash house attack. “But I still advise caution going forward.”

  Charlene did say that she never hurt anyone physically, and that should be enough of an argument in her favor. But she did fund brutal mercenary squads across the world over the years. By proxy, she is, in fact, responsible for the deaths of many innocent people. And if the guys’ suspicions are true, she is also responsible for the submarine explosion that cost Luke his leg and nearly killed all three of them. So Kellan is right to advise caution. In light of everything that has happened, it’s hard for me to keep a clear head and a functioning logic.

  “I was thinking,” Kellan adds as he watches Helen put Annie and Miley into the backseat of my car, strapping both of them in. “What if Helen comes over to stay with you and the girls for a while?”

  “What for?” I ask.

  “Company. An extra person in the house can’t do any harm. A single mother with two children is a more vulnerable target, even with our guys watching you. I think Helen would feel safer with you, too,” Kellan says.

  Luke nods in agreement. “Oh, man, I didn’t even consider that. Helen must be scared out of her mind, though she hasn’t said a word about how she’s feeling.”

  The three of us glance back at her. She can almost sense us watching as she straightens her back and stands up tall before closing the door of my car. Under the timid spring sun, Helen’s hair looks like a spool of silver thread, styled smartly under a black hat. Her face is pale, her eyes puffy from crying, yet she still finds the strength to smile at us.

  Despite all the recent adversity, this woman somehow keeps finding enough energy to put on a gentle face while my girls sit in the backseat, giggling and pinching one another. The guys are right—Helen needs us as much as we need her, and we all need peace and comfort.

  I have to admit that having her stay with me and my babies for a while is a good idea.

  “I’ll talk to her,” I tell Kellan and Luke. “You’re right. She should move in with us, at least until all of this blows over.”

  “And you need to keep your phone on at all times. You need to let our agents follow you around—forget the pride, no stubbornness, and no little Miss Independent tantrums, either” Kellan replies with a slight chuckle. “I know you’re tempted to go at it alone in the coming days, but Avery, this has gotten way too serious, way too fast.”

  “No, I agree,” I say, feeling my shoulders drop with a mixture of concern and disappointment. I would like nothing more than to say I’m safe under Wolfhound Security’s umbrella and with Kellan, Fallon, and Luke by my side. But it’s obvious that this formula isn’t as foolproof when there’s someone out there determined to kill them and do God-knows-what to me and my girls. “I’ll stay vigilant. I’ll keep to more crowded areas and I’ll make sure the agents know where I’m going every time I leave the house.”

  “Good,” Luke says. “We need all hands on deck for this.”

  All of this is so fucking awful. We were supposed to be working on our relationship after Daniel died, building something beautiful together, having a baby and raising Annie and Miley as a family. I was supposed to restart my interior design career, to develop a portfolio of satisfied customers, to find fulfillment in my profession after years spent living under the boot of a man whose sole purpose in life was to destroy me.

  My men were supposed to grow their company and expand, to clean up Lincoln County of its drug and gang-related problems. They were supposed to focus on putting Elizabeth and Bill Cassidy away, to find justice for Maurice, Helen’s dead husband.

  Helen was supposed to live out the rest of her days in peace and comfort, away from her wretchedly abusive sister and her equally terrible brother-in-law. Without kids of her own, she was supposed to find solace and joy in helping me raise mine.

  And yet here we are, scared out of our minds, grieving and trying so hard not to cry as we bid a good friend farewell and watch another as she tries to be kind and brave in the face of extraordinary misfortunes. It’s one thing to deal with toxic relatives and even an abusive ex-husband like Daniel, and it’s a whole other thing to find yourself in the crosshairs of a cold-blooded, highly calculated killer.

  “Avery,” Kellan says, breaking me out of my heavy, troubling thoughts. “We’re going to be okay.”

  “How are you so certain after everything that has happened?” I ask, holding back another round of tears as I look up at him and Luke. Fallon joins us, dark-eyed and sullen but present enough to pick up on the tone of the conversation. “None of us are safe anymore.”

  “But we’re not alone. We have each other,” Kellan insists.

  “And yet we can’t even be together,” I scoff.

  Fallon offers a wry half-smile. “You’re the one who moved out.”

  “Not funny,” I retort.

  “It kind of is,” he says. “But it worked out for the better. I wouldn’t have wanted you or the girls at the mansion when Marcus…” His voice trails off as he looks at Luke. “I’m so sorry, man. I know I’ve said it so many times already, but I am sorry.”

 

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