Alpha One (7 page)

Juliana’s old man had been a coward until the end.

“—when the explosion rocked the service.”

No, it hadn’t rocked the service. The blast had erupted
after
the service. His sources were better than hers.

“One man was killed in the explosion—”

The driver had been collateral damage. There was always collateral damage.

“—while four others were injured. Juliana James left the scene and is now in an undisclosed location.”

His eyes narrowed. The reporter rambled on, saying nothing particularly useful. After a moment, he shut off the television, then turned slowly to face his first in command.

Luis Sanchez swallowed, the movement stretching the crisscross of scars on his throat. The man was already sweating.

“Was I not clear?” Diego asked softly.

“Sí,”
Luis rasped. His damaged voice was often limited to rough rasps and growls.

“Then, if I told you—clearly—that I wanted Juliana James brought back to me alive—” he shrugged, a seemingly careless move, but it still caused Luis to flinch
“—why did she nearly die today?”

Luis shifted from his right foot to his left. “I heard...word on the street is that...s-someone else has a hit on her. They’re offering top dollar...for her dead body.”

Now, that gave him pause. “Who?”

“D-don’t know, but I will find out. I will—”

“You will,” Diego agreed, “or you’ll be the one dying.” He never made idle threats. Luis understood that. Luis had been with him for five years—and he’d witnessed Guerrero carry out all of his...
promises
to both friends and enemies.

“Put the word out that Juliana James isn’t to be touched.” Except by him. They had unfinished business. She couldn’t die, not yet. He needed her to keep living a bit longer. “And when you find the one who put out this hit—” he leaned forward and softly ordered “—you make his death hurt.”

Because
no one
interfered with Diego’s plans.
No one.

Chapter Four

The place wasn’t exactly what she’d expected. Juliana glanced around the small elevator from the corner of her eye. When Logan had said that he was taking her in for a briefing with his team, she’d figured they’d go somewhere that was...official.

Not so much a hole-in-the-wall.

From the outside, the building hadn’t even looked inhabited. Just a big, rough wooden building. Maybe three stories.

But Logan had led the way inside, walking with sure steps. Now they were riding up the creaking elevator, and Juliana was forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths.

She’d cried in the shower. She hadn’t been able to help herself. But she wouldn’t, couldn’t cry now. Now wasn’t the time for weakness.

The elevator came to a hard stop, jarring Juliana and sending her stumbling into Logan. The guy didn’t so much as move an inch, of course, because he was like some kind of military superhuman, but his arms closed around her.

“I’ve got you.”

That was her problem. Being with him—it was just making everything more painful.

She pulled away and saw a muscle flex in his jaw. “I’m fine.” The doors were sliding open. Very, very slowly. “Is this the best that the EOD could do?” The EOD. He’d told her a little more about the EOD on the drive over, but the information that he’d given her regarding the Shadow Agents just hadn’t been enough to satisfy her curiosity.

When she’d tried to press him, she’d gotten a just-the-facts-ma’am type of routine. That hadn’t been good enough. Juliana had kept pressing. The need-to-know routine was getting on her nerves.

Logan had told her that the EOD was composed of individuals from different military and government backgrounds. Their missions were usually highly classified.

And very, very dangerous.

A situation tailor-made for Logan and his team.

“On short notice, this building was the best we could find in terms of providing us with a low-profile base,” a woman’s voice told her, and Juliana glanced up to see Sydney walking toward them. Sydney stared at Logan with one raised eyebrow. “We were starting to wonder if you’d gotten lost.”

He growled. Was that a response? Juliana guessed so, because in the next instant, they were all heading down a narrow hallway. A fast turn, then they entered an office. One that didn’t look nearly as run-down as the rest of the place. Two laptops and a stash of weapons were on the right. Some empty chairs waited to the left.

Juliana gladly slumped into the nearest chair.

I can still feel the fire on my skin.
Even the cold water from the shower hadn’t been able to wash away that memory. Juliana rubbed her hands over her arms and caught Logan’s narrow-eyed glance.

The guy watched her too much. Like a hawk.

She cleared her throat, glanced away from him and saw the others file into the room. No masks this time. Just tough, fierce fighters.

The woman was already sitting down near the side of the table. Sydney. Juliana had no idea what the woman’s last name was. She was booting up her laptop while a big, blond male leaned over her shoulder.

Gunner closed the door, sealing them inside, and he flashed her a broad grin. Was that grin supposed to be reassuring? It looked like a smile that a tiger would give the prey he was about to eat.

The silence in the room hit her then, and Juliana realized that everyone was just...staring at her. Hell, had she missed something?

“You understand why you must have protection, right?” Sydney pressed. Juliana realized the woman must have asked the question before.

Her breath eased out slowly as her gaze swept over them. “Tell me your names.” A simple thing, maybe, but she was tired of being in the dark. From this point on, she expected to be in the loop about everything.

“I’m Sydney,” the woman said with a slow blink, “and I...um, believe that you know Logan pretty well.”

Too well. She would
not
blush right then. She was way past the blushing point. An exploding car made a woman forget embarrassment.

“I’m Gunner,” the big guy to the right said. His dark hair fell longer than Logan’s, and his eyes—no eyes should be so dark and so cold.

Juliana glanced at the last man. The blond wasn’t leaning over Sydney any longer. He’d taken a seat next to her. His arm brushed against hers.

“Jasper,” he said. Just that. More rumble than anything else.

Gunner frowned at the guy, and his dark, cold gaze lingered on the arm that Jasper had pressed against Sydney.

Ah...okay. “First names only, huh?” Juliana murmured. That was nice and anonymous.

“For now, it’s safer that way,” Logan said.

Right. Though Juliana wasn’t even sure any of them had given their real names. She put her fingers into her lap, twisting them together. “How are you going to stop the man who is after me?”

Sydney and Logan shared a brief look. Juliana’s shoulders tensed. She wasn’t going to like this part; she knew it even before Logan said, “Your father...made a deal with the EOD.” Logan’s quiet voice shouldn’t have grated, but it did.

Juliana forced herself to meet his stare. “What sort of deal?” She needed to know all of her father’s dark secrets, whether she wanted to hear them or not. It wasn’t the time to wear blinders.

“Your safety, your life, in return for evidence that he had against Diego Guerrero.”

Guerrero. Her heart slammed into her ribs. The man that Logan had told her was the same guy she knew as John Gonzales.

“What did my father—” Her voice sounded too weak.
Don’t be weak.
Juliana tried again. “Just what was my father doing with this Guerrero?”

“Selling out his country.” From the one called Jasper. When he spoke and she heard the drawl of Texas sliding beneath his words, Juliana remembered him.

Maybe he expected her to flinch at the blunt charge, but she didn’t. She just sat there. She’d known her father wasn’t exactly good for a long time.

“The senator facilitated deals between Guerrero and foreign officials,” Jasper said with his eyes narrowed on her. “Your father would find the people who needed the weapons, those desperate for power, those ready to overthrow weak governments...”

Her father had made so many connections over the years. He’d been on dozens of committees, and he’d told her once that he’d been working hard to make the world a better place.

Better? Not from the sound of things. Just more bloody, more dangerous.

“We’re talking about billions of dollars’ worth of weapons,” Jasper continued. “From what we can tell, your father took a nice little finder’s fee for every deal he made.”

She swallowed and forced her hands to unclench. “You’re saying my father took a commission from Guerrero? That every time weapons were sold—”
every time people died when those weapons were used
“—he got a slice of the pie.”

Jasper nodded grimly.

“He was a good man,” she had to say it. Someone did. He wasn’t even cold in the ground. “Once.” She could remember it, couldn’t she? If she tried hard enough, the memories were there. “Before my mother died. He went to Congress to make the world better.”

Only, he’d wound up working to destroy it.

Was that why he’d put the gun to his own head? Because he couldn’t live with what he’d done?

You left me behind to deal with everything, all on my own.

Sometimes it seemed as if he’d left her that hot summer night when her mother died in the car accident on a lonely stretch of Mississippi road.

“He wanted to save you,” Logan said, the words deep and rumbling. His hand took hers. Almost helplessly, her gaze found his. “He agreed to trade every bit of evidence he had on Guerrero in order to get you home alive.”

“So that’s why you—your team came for me.” In that hell. “Because my father paid you with his evidence.”

“He didn’t exactly make the payment....” Gunner muttered as he ran an agitated hand through his hair. “He put a bullet in his head instead.”

Juliana flinched.

Logan surged to his feet. His chair fell to the floor behind him with a clatter. Logan lunged for the other man. “Gunner...”

Gunner just shrugged, but he hurriedly backed up a few feet. “Payment was due at delivery, right? As soon as you were brought back safe and sound, Senator James was going to give us the intel we needed. Only, instead of delivering, he chose to...renegotiate.”

Juliana could only shake her head. This...
this
was the last thing she’d expected when Logan had brought her in to meet with the other agents. “I
buried
him today.”

“And because of Guerrero’s deals, hundreds of people are buried every single day,” Sydney said, her voice soft and lacking the leashed fury that seemed to vibrate beneath Gunner’s words. “We have to stop him. You have to help us.”

“How? I saw Guerrero, but...” But she’d already told them that. She’d sketched out half a dozen pictures. Done everything that she could. “Now he wants me dead.”

Logan shoved Gunner into the nearest wall. “You aren’t dying.” He tossed that back without glancing her way. His focused fury was on the other man.

Sydney cleared her throat. “Your father...indicated that you had the evidence we need.”

Her words had Juliana blinking in surprise. “I don’t. I didn’t even know about Guerrero until—I just thought I was being held with a man named John Gonzales, until Logan told me the truth! John said that he’d been kidnapped just like me. When those men put me in the room, John was already there. I didn’t know he was Guerrero, and I don’t know anything about his weapons.” She wished that she could help them. She wanted to make this nightmare end, but she just didn’t have any evidence.

“Your father left a suicide note.”

She didn’t want to hear any more. Juliana pushed to her feet, found Logan by her side. For someone so big, he could sure move fast. She stared up at him. “I wasn’t told about a note.” He hadn’t told her.

He glanced back at Sydney. Glared. “We didn’t...want that part leaking to the media.”

Rage boiled within her. He was so close. In that instant, she wanted to strike out at him. To hurt him, as she was being torn apart. “I’m not the media! I’m his daughter!”

“Exactly.” From Jasper, drawling Jasper. Cold Jasper. “In his note, he said you had all the evidence. We kept that bit from the media, but Guerrero would have put a spy in your father’s life, someone who could keep close tabs on him. That someone...we believe he told Guerrero about the evidence.”

Her head was about to erupt. The throbbing in her temples just wouldn’t stop. “I have no evidence.” Could she say it any plainer? “I can’t give you anything!”

“Guerrero thinks you can. And he’s just going to keep coming for you...” Jasper didn’t have to finish. She knew what the guy had been about to say....

Until you’re dead.

“So you see now why you must have protection,” Sydney said with a firm nod. “Until we can recover the information we need, you’ve got a target on your back.”

A giant one. Yes, she got that. “And what happens to my life?”

“With Guerrero out there, you don’t have a life.” Blunt. Cold. Sydney could have an edge just as hard as Gunner’s—or Jasper’s.

“We’re going to get him,” Logan promised her.

She wanted to believe him. But then, she’d gone for his lies before. Juliana wet her lips. Lifted her chin. “This protection...what does it mean?”

Sydney cast a quick look at Logan before her attention returned to Juliana, then she explained, “It means an EOD agent is assigned to stay with you 24/7. You’ll be watched, monitored and kept alive,” Sydney told her. “What more could you want?”

Now Juliana’s eyes were on Logan. He seemed even bigger to her in that moment. More dangerous. So far removed from the boy she’d known. Maybe she’d never really known him at all. “Which agent?”

The faint lines around Logan’s eyes deepened.

“Which agent?” Juliana demanded again.

A beat of silence, then Sydney said, “Given your...history with Logan...”

Did everyone know that she’d given the man her virginity? Had the team been briefed about that? Her breath heaved in her chest, but Juliana managed to speak from between her clenched teeth. “There’s a thing about history. It’s in the past.”