Guarding Secrets

The long hallway in the mansion is an echo chamber for the voices coming from my business partner's office. As I straighten my tie, I stretch my neck in hopes it snaps my attitude into shape. Dread sits heavily in my gut. Maybe an omen of bad things to come.

Or maybe it's because I'm not feeling cordial. The last few weeks have been full throttle and full of all the things I didn't expect when I added five new team members to the company at once. Growing pains and all that shit.

And now this. Luke knows I don't like surprises. That bit of trivia didn't stop him from calling me to a meeting without giving me any details. He knows our company is stressed and understaffed.

After two raps, I push open the tall walnut door and step into the spacious office. Windows stretch to the ceiling with million-dollar views of snow-capped Colorado mountains.

The chatter stops as I shoulder inside.

The former SEAL's eyes skate to me. He's unusually guarded as he looks past a black-haired woman that doesn't turn toward me.

“Come in, Marshall. This is Danee Swann. I was just getting Ms. Swann up to speed on Agile's services.”

Forcing a neutral expression, I step into the spacious room. Beyond the windows is a postcard sunset view, but inside, things are uneasy. My silent partner slides a file across the table to the woman.

Luke's never involved in Agile's day-to-day business. He just provides the deep pockets we need to operate the way we do. So, this meeting feels off already.

“Have a seat.” Luke motions toward the chair next to the woman.

I dip my head toward her. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Swann.”

She murmurs a soft, “Hello.”

As I unbutton my coat, and sit in the leather chair, the client's pale blue eyes flip to mine, then back to the thin file in her hands.

Something deep inside me clenches. Like I've been kicked when I wasn't expecting it. For a second, my breath is locked up by her raven-haired, pale-eyed exotic beauty.

I'm instantly aware of everything about her, like I've soaked in her details by osmosis. Five feet two inches, maybe five three tops. She's curvy. Generous rack. C-cups, I'd guess. Her skin is golden mocha, but her eyes are so light they are almost translucent.

I've only seen eyes like hers one time before. A shudder hits my spine. Unfortunately, those ice blue eyes belonged to my ex.

Vanessa's one person I can't afford to think about right now, unless I'm willing to risk popping an artery somewhere important.

Two years. You'd think it would be enough time to rein in my bitterness. But seeing those strikingly similar blue eyes makes me question that.

She's not Vanessa. This has nothing to do with my busted up ego or the dreams that drifted away along with her.

Luke says something that I don't hear. I'm too busy staring at her profile, processing the nervous air that surrounds her.

She's either shy or deceitful.

“Marshall, Ms. Swann would like to make a deal with us.”

Not what I expected him to say as I figured the woman was another client in need of some service our company offers.

“A deal for what?” I rumble.

He leans back in his chair, folds his fingers casually behind his neck. “She gets us to the violin and we help find someone in return.”

When Ms. Swann looks at me this time, it's to search my face. Behind that nervous glance, I see something that looks like hope.

Instead of asking Luke, I go straight to the source. “Ms. Swann, isn't that a lot like bribery?”

There's a southern accent hovering around the edges of her answer when she replies. “One could think of it like that. I prefer to think of it as an exchange. I can help you, you can help me.”

I grumble, “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before I even consider what you're offering.”

Beneath my dislike of the fact that she's manipulating us, I want answers about how she knows about the violin. Then comes the dreaded question of what she wants.

“Ms. Swann, how do you know the location of the missing instrument?”

A shield drops over her emotions. “I prefer not to say.”

“But we're just supposed to take your information at face value?”

The tiny muscles in her delicate jaw harden. “I would expect you'd act professionally and value when someone comes forth with information.”

“I do value good information,” I snap defensively.

Luke holds up his hands. “Marshall. Take it easy. Maybe Ms. Swann is protecting sensitive information. She doesn't know us. She worked in Navy Intelligence for the last ten years.”

“You're not old enough to have been in the Navy ten years.”

Her eyes spark with defensiveness as thick black lashes draw down. “Technically, I wasn't enlisted for ten. For the first five, I was a contractor.”

“What kind of work does a fifteen-year-old do? Write book reports?”

She crosses her arms and shoots me an annoyed look. “Funny.”

Luke holds up a hand, “Marsh, why don't you listen to what she did with the Navy during those ten years.”

“I was a handler for a team with the OAIT for the last five years. Before that, I was too young, so I supported another handler by providing intelligence and location gathering.”

I rummage through the alphabet soup of military acronyms stored in my brain and come up empty.

She looks unimpressed when I shrug.

“The Office of Advanced Intelligence Techniques.”

I scrub my hand over my face. Now I remember as I say, “Ah..., yeah, that one.”

She stares at me expectantly, but all I do is tip my chin to Luke. “A word with you. Outside.”

I walk out of the room without looking back. Shitty of me, I'm sure, but I'm a grump ass for all kinds of reasons right now. Luke's chair creaks, so I know he's following.

The former SEAL crosses his gigantic kitchen, he goes right to the fridge. “Want a beer?”

I walk to the center of the room that is big enough to be a restaurant, and prop myself against the giant island and cross my arms. “I want answers.”

“You didn't ask her any questions.”

“From you. I remembered that OAIT is that hocus-pocus woo-woo bullshit group that supposedly uses star charts or something? I thought Washington shut that down because it was a waste of money.”

He grins before he takes a pull off his beer. “It was a ruse.”

“Exactly, my point. Why would you want to have anything to do with someone that works for a department that uses fifteen-year-olds to make military decisions because Mercury is in retrograde or some bull⁠—”

A female voice behind me says, “Sorry to interrupt, but I'm looking for the bathroom.”

I grimace. Foot in mouth, anyone? Only Luke can see my face because I am not turning around.

He compresses his shit eating grin and lifts a hand to point toward the east hallway. “Down that way, last door on the left.”

I can tell she hasn't left. Her stinging eyes are all over my back.

When I swivel to look at her, she says cooly, “The ruse was that the government said they ditched the department when they actually doubled our size because of our success.”

Her brows go up to emphasize her point as she tips her head at me. With a swish of her long black hair, she turns and strides off.

Luke throws back his head and laughs. “That's what I was trying to tell you.”

Great.

My sigh is tired and long as I pull out one of Luke's bar stools. “I think I'll take that beer.”

When Danee Swann returns she takes the barstool next to me, she also takes an offered beer. “Thanks. Now do you have any other questions about OAIT?”

Luke pulls his head out of the fridge and asks, “What did you do exactly?”

After taking a rather dainty sip, she sits the bottle down. With an apologetic glance, she says, “I directed a team of seven operatives. But almost everything about my work there is classified. I can tell you we gathered intel and identified targets using non-traditional techniques.”

I flatly reply, “Gee, that's helpful. I probably could have found that on Google.”

She cocks her head, taps her beer bottle with long, sharp nails as she studies me.

When she doesn't say anything, I add, “Forgive me if I'm unconvinced of the value you'll bring to Agile.”

I cross my arms and swivel my stool to face her. She sips some of her beer, then turns to face me. With a serious expression, she says, “I can tell you, I make a damn good star chart.”

Slowly, her cupid's bow lips turn up until a dimple appears on her cheek. “Just kidding. I'm a remote viewer.”

“Remote viewer? What the hell is that?” Damn. I don't like anything about this, especially that she's beautiful enough that it hurts to look at her.

When she looks at me this time, her eyes range over me. “I'm sorry if this is upsetting your delicate sensibilities... but I'd like to help you with the case that's been plastered all over the news. I'm sure you want Agile's reputation as a premier rescue organization to remain pristine.”

She brushes a long cord of black hair over her shoulder, looks between the two of us and says, “I need your help, so I decided to try to get intel on the Shumbach Violin so I could come to the table with a valid offer for an exchange of service.”

For a beat, the kitchen is perfectly silent. Luke glances at me with a raised brow.

Irritation makes my voice rough. “You expect me to believe some nineteen-year-old was able to track down a missing object that my team has been hunting for two months?” My frown deepens as I add, “My bullshit meter is pinging.”

She lets go of a frustrated breath. “Just see if the violin is there. Then we can discuss the help I need.”

I return the unblinking stare. “You're coming with me on this wild fucking goose chase.”

Blue Eyes nips at the corner of her lip as her shoulders tighten. She probably wants to tear into me, but is thinking twice about doing it.

I say, “And I want to know exactly what you want in return. Lay it all on the table right now. No holding your cards. I'm not going to agree to dedicating Agile's services to something that's illicit or some crazy person's illegitimate quest.”

Luke snorts his beer out of his nose. Her eyes widen into ovals.

“Did you just call me a crazy person?”

I raise a brow and lift an uncaring shoulder.

She turns to look at Luke. “Is he always like this?”

Luke shakes his head, sending his shaggy hair into motion. “Never.”

“Wrong. He just never sees me when I'm ferreting out lies.”

She sighs. Scrubs her hands over her face. “Good grief. I didn't know I was going to have to prove my sanity during this process. Would you like references?”

“I want the Shumach Violin.”

She shoves a piece of paper with an address on it toward me. “That's where you'll find it.”

The address is written in neat, flowy handwriting. She's looking at me as if I might spit venom any second. I hold my tongue and ask, “What do you want from Agile?”

She glances at Luke, then back at me as her expression tenses. “I want you to help me stop someone that's going to ruin thousands of lives.”

“A fine assignment for Agile, wouldn't you agree?” Luke asks as he watches closely for my reaction.

“We're capable. The new team will be up and running in a couple of weeks. Our first company meeting is the fifteenth.”

I fold the address in half and tuck it into the breast pocket of my coat. “When you say stop, do you mean exterminate? If so, you're barking up the wrong tree. I stopped being an assassin a long time ago. Agile doesn't do wet work.”

The pink apples on her cheeks instantly blanch. Her throat works for a few seconds like she's fighting to keep her lunch. “God. No! I hadn't thought of that. I just need to find him. Hopefully, the authorities will take it from there.”

Her alarm pleases me. I don't want Agile tangled up in that kind of fuckery. We'll do what we have to do to protect our clients and rescue them from deadly situations, but we're not hired killers. I draw the line there.

She's gripping both arms of her chair when I ask, “Then this is a missing person case?”

“He's not missing, he's just elusive.”

“This guy must be more elusive than the Shumach Violin, apparently.”

The woman gives me a flat look but doesn't reply.

Luke taps his fingers on the desk. “So, Marshall, I think this works. It fits our skill set and we get the violin. A win-win.”

My jaw works back and forth as I try to put my finger on why my gut says there's a big red flag waving somewhere nearby. But, I want the violin so we can close the Shumach case. I also want to protect Agile's reputation. I've worked hard to build it.

Hardening my spine, I say, “We leave for California to do the violin recovery in an hour. Be ready or this is off the table.”

When I stand up and button my suit coat, her mouth is open, just a fraction but enough of a gap in her rose red lips to show her shock. “You'd just take the address and not complete my request in return?”

I throw a glance at Luke, then turn my attention to her face, “If you don't agree to come with me, and I go there and find the violin is truly there, then we can pay you for the information. After that, you can hire someone else to chase this elusive person.”

Her blood starts to boil. God, she's got an expressive face. I can see the blood simmering in her veins. She stands up abruptly. In a jerky motion, crosses her arms. There's fire in her eyes now, making the light blue irises luminous. “I'm not here after money. I need your help.”

We stand off. During those few seconds, I wonder how I got here, squaring off with a firecracker that looks like a sex kitten and makes my blood run hot with frustration and lust in the middle of my silent partner's kitchen.

Why exactly am I squaring off with her? I don't entirely know other than she causes a rise in my alert system.

From the second she turned her face toward me, I felt like she was hiding something.

The request for help is simple enough. But something's crawling all over my spine about the fact that this twenty something got intel we couldn't get with a team of highly-skilled professionals turning over every damned rock.

Luke clears his throat. She drops her hands by her sides, clenches them into fists, her body screams frustration, but her eyes go soft with pleading. “Look, I know I've pissed you off for some reason, but I need your help. Please.”

“The plane leaves in fifty-eight minutes. Either you're on it or you're not.”

When I walk across the driveway toward Luke's driver, I hear his booted footsteps behind me.

“Hey.”

I turn to see his shit eating grin. “She fucking got under your skin, bro.”

I give him a glare. “Something's up with this.”

“She's got a solid background in intel.”

I laugh and not with humor. “She's bullshitting you, she's barely twenty, maybe twenty-one. She's got a background in Starbucks coffees and boring college classes.”

His grin deepens. “Chat her up during the flight. I think you'll find some things that make you more comfortable.”

Behind him, the mysterious and annoying Ms. Swan steps out of the mansion door.

My pulse kicks up. Fuck. I wish she didn't look like she does. The last thing I need is to spend time with someone that stirs up the animal inside of me.

It's been so long, I'm not sure I remember how to control it.

Luke glances over his shoulder. He chuckles, “You're welcome.”

“For what?”

“For making you feel alive again.”

Hips swinging, purse clutched tightly on her shoulder, she walks over to us. The driver holds open the door, and without looking at me, she slides inside. The scent of her wraps around me, choking the sanity right out of my head.

I growl, “Fuck you,” at Luke. He's still grinning like a cat that got the mouse when I climb in the front passenger seat and slam the door.