From Sanctum With Love (Masters and Mercenaries Book 10) (29 page)

“Does she question you about McKay-Taggart?”

“Not really,” Case replied. “We’ve mostly talked about baseball. She loves baseball. We’ve talked about movies and stuff. She never mentions her brothers, but she talks about her adoptive parents a lot. Her moms. She put that out there like I was supposed to freak out or something. I don’t get her. She’s not my type at all.”

And yet he was struggling with his attraction to her. That was easy to see. Kai wasn’t about to explain that often times opposites attracted because they gave each other something important that was missing. Like Kori brought him a peace he couldn’t find in a fake waterfall. And he could bring her a partner who didn’t scare away easily.

This wasn’t a therapy session, however.

“Has she agreed to go out with you tonight?”

Case nodded. “Yes. I think she’s interested in spending more time with your brother. He might be the one who gets her up and dancing and then I’ll handle it.”

“I doubt that.” Mia didn’t watch Jared. She watched Case. The few times she’d been in a room with Jared, she barely noticed him, but damn the girl lit up when the young Taggart walked in a room. If she was holding out on him, she had her reasons.

Could Mia be turned? Would she go against her family for a man she loved?

While he waited for a chance to tag her phone, he would also talk to her. He would try to get a better feel for the woman.

“Case is going to teach you what you need in order to follow the Lawless woman, but I’m here for a different reason,” Rush said, looking a bit impatient. He was out of place in the peaceful confines of the office. He sat on the couch, his big body rigid in a space that was supposed to be relaxing.

God knew he relaxed there. At least once a day for the last couple of days, he called her in and cuddled against her, their bodies tangled together while she talked to him about her life, her past, her friends, her everything. He would rest his head against the softness of her breast and spend an hour simply being with her.

He loved to scene, but those hours of peace and calm were so precious to him.

“You want me to tell you my brother is a serial killer.” This was precisely why he needed the calm with Kori so badly. Jared had flown back to Vancouver to shoot some promotional spots for his TV show, but he’d shown back up this morning.

They still hadn’t talked. He’d fully intended to sit his brother down and find out what he’d meant in the elevator that day at McKay-Taggart. Not everything Jared had said made sense. But the next time he’d seen his brother had been at Sanctum and he’d gone into teaching mode, and then Jared had been called away.

It had been so much nicer to concentrate on his new sub. His new girlfriend.

With Jared out of town, he’d been able to focus on her. All his nasty attention. Night after night. Twice during the afternoon.

It should have made him chill, but somehow fucking Kori simply made him want her more. Even now he was thinking about her and wondering if she’d gotten his gift yet. She was outside in the lobby at her desk. Sitting there. Waiting for him. Fuck, he wanted her.

“I want you to do what we discussed. I want you to get involved in your brother’s life so you can figure out if he’s the one killing these women.”

He wished he could stop thinking about this. “He’s not. I grew up with him. I would have seen signs. I was responsible for him the entire time we were growing up. He wasn’t a bully. He wasn’t bullied. He was the kid everyone else loved.”

“He also grew up without a father and I suspect his childhood wasn’t as rosy as you claim. He had several visits to the emergency room and a couple of brushes with the law.”

Did the special agent think he didn’t know his own brother? “He got into some fights and he was always a clumsy kid. He had a couple of football injuries. I think he broke his arm during a game once.”

Rush’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’ve made a study of your brother. You’re talking about an incident in high school. A spiral fracture of his left arm. The only problem was he didn’t play that night. I checked the actual hospital records. He was taken to the ER long before the game that night. I suspect your brother suffered some abuse at the hands of a coach. Sometimes that can make a man like Jared feel small. Did you know that there was a rash of small animal disappearances around the same time he was in high school?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. My brother took in strays constantly.” Why would Jared have lied about how he’d broken his arm? He remembered the day. He’d been working and he’d come home to his mother worrying over Jared. She’d been sick at the time, too. It had been the early days of her cancer, the first rounds of chemo that had left her body devastated. Even as her hands shook because she hadn’t been able to keep anything down, she’d taken care of her youngest child.

Kai remembered how pissed he’d been because they didn’t have money for more fucking medical bills. He’d had an argument with Jared about how much playing a stupid game was going to cost him.

Take care of your brother, Kai. He needs you more than you know.

Had his mother known something he didn’t?

“You know as well as I do that many serial killers start with small animals before moving to humans,” Rush said, a nauseating sympathy in his voice.

“Yeah, well, we lived in Washington state. You can throw a rock and hit a serial killer.” It wouldn’t do any good to argue with the special agent. He had preconceived notions and the only way to fix the situation was to prove it couldn’t be Jared.

Because it wasn’t. No matter what the man said, he couldn’t buy that his brother was a killer. He could buy that Jared was keeping secrets. It was time to acknowledge that his childhood wasn’t as cut-and-dry as it had seemed. Tomorrow morning he and his brother were going to have a long talk.

After he got through tonight. One clusterfuck at a time.

“You’re being awfully narrow in your thinking, Special Agent,” Case interjected. “I’ve studied those files too. The brothers, Brad and Tad, they came from an abusive home. From the time their father left them, their mother went through multiple men, several of whom abused both boys according to CPS records. The boys went to live with their grandparents, but both of them were in and out of trouble. The grandmother had enough money and power to cover a lot of it up, but they both had some violent encounters.”

Rush shook his head. “Yes, I’ve read the files. I also know that the publicist has had some complaints of sexual harassment filed against him, all of which have been dropped.”

“Settled,” Case corrected. “The cases were settled and the records sealed. There’s a big difference and you know it.”

“Not to mention the fact that his assistant has an obsessive interest in him, and I would say she’s got some narcissistic tendencies.” Kai had come to a few of his own conclusions. All it had taken was a single ten-minute conversation with her to realize Lena was a vengeful woman. She’d talked a lot about the people who had done her wrong and how she’d dealt with them. “Everyone’s got issues. If you truly look at any single person’s background, you can make a case for violence. All of us are damaged in some way. Until you have some real proof, I don’t want you focusing in on my brother. For all we know this is coincidence.”

Rush’s eyes rolled. “If you can’t do the job, let me know now.”

Kai took a deep breath. He was getting sick of the whole thing. There was a reason he worked by himself and not in a practice where he would have a boss. He had some authority issues of his own. “My job is to teach my brother about BDSM.”

“Your brother has been in the lifestyle for years. God, you haven’t even figured that out yet?” Rush stood up, his big body stiff with frustration.

“What are you talking about?” Kai asked, Rush’s words not quite making sense.

Case shot the special agent an arctic stare. “I thought my brother asked you not to mention that.”

“Your brother also told me this guy could do the job,” Rush retorted. “So far all he’s done is his secretary.”

“I can do more,” Kai promised, visions of his hands around the asshole’s throat playing through his brain.

Case stood and got between them. “He means that, Rush, and don’t judge him by his looks. He could take you on and he would very likely enjoy hurting you.”

Kai didn’t move. “See, we’ve all got issues. As for my brother, I’ll go with him tonight and I’ll watch everyone carefully. After I tag a woman’s phone.”

If it weren’t for Ian, he would tell everyone to go to hell. Well, likely not because if he wasn’t doing this for Ian, he would be doing it for Sean. Or Case. Or Erin.

He was locked in and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Maybe what his brother had said was right. He’d spent the last few decades of his life trying not to have ties only to find himself bound tightly again. He’d run from one brother only to find an entire family, and he’d slid into it because it seemed like Ian was the only one with real responsibility. But in a family, everyone had responsibility. It was only a matter of time before it reared its head.

The responsibility was chafing. It reminded him of all the reasons he’d walked away in the first place. Sometimes it took him back to that place where he was twelve and his mother was working an overnight shift and Jared had fallen and hit his head. There’d been so much blood and it had been his fault because he wasn’t watching his brother properly. His mother hadn’t yelled, but the point had been made.

“Ferguson, I’m sorry. I’m under a lot of pressure. I don’t like bringing family members in. Not ever.” Rush ran a hand over his hair as he walked toward the door. “Do what you can. I don’t want anyone dying on my watch. Know that we’ll be sticking close tonight.”

Jared was surrounded by vultures and men who wanted to see him in prison. Once again it was up to Kai to save his brother.

The door closed behind Rush and he was left alone with Case.

“I’ll do everything I can to make sure you don’t have to do this. Hell, why don’t I bring along Hutch? I can introduce him as a friend and you can be out of this altogether,” Case offered.

There was a problem with that scenario. “If she’s Collective, then she knows who Hutch is and she’ll likely be vigilant around him. I’m the non-threatening one. I’m the therapist who rarely works for McKay-Taggart and never in the field. If she sees Hutch or Adam or any of the tech guys, she’ll figure out what’s happening and we’ll lose her. This will work because she’ll think you can’t get anything done if you’re out dancing with her. She’ll leave her purse with Kori because she’s Mia’s friend and Mia trusts her, and I’ll very quietly get the job done because we’ll make sure someone distracts Kori. I can get Jared talking and he tends to command the room when he does. We’ll get what we need. I can handle tagging the phone, but Rush is right about one thing. I’m too close to the murder case. I can’t conceive of a world in which my brother is a serial killer.”

“Honestly, having spent some time with him, neither can I. I have to wonder if this isn’t some unfortunate coincidence. I think we should concentrate on the situation with Mia and let the feds do what they need to do. Once you tag this phone, all you need to do is fulfill the contract you have with the studio and you’re out of it. No more spy stuff.”

There was one more matter to settle. “Apparently my brother doesn’t need training. What do you know about that? Is it true? Has Jared been in the lifestyle for a while?”

Case’s jaw tightened as though he didn’t like this line of questioning. “According to the file the feds have on him, he’s been going to clubs for years. He started in his early twenties.”

Had Hannah been the one to introduce him? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the groin? “Thanks for telling me the truth.”

“I think he’s lying because he wants to get close to you and this was a good way to ensure your attention,” Case said. “Look, man, you’ve never been the little brother. I’ve been both. I know what it means to have to look out for your younger brother, even when he was only a few minutes younger than me. Theo was…reckless. I always knew that. In some ways the fact that he was always so reckless made me more careful.”

Kai knew this story. He’d lived it. It had to have been worse for Case since Theo had been his twin. Was his twin. “You had to be his more reasonable half. I was basically Jared’s father figure, so I understand. It doesn’t make it easier to swallow that he’s lying to me again. He made me spend hours going over contracts and talking about different forms of play when he likely knew everything I was saying.”

“Ah, but that’s where I do understand him. Look, maybe I was the oldest growing up, but it’s different now,” Case explained. “I was the leader when Theo and I were young. I was the one who decided to go into the Navy. Theo followed me. I was the one who decided we would join the CIA team. And then I met Big Tag.”

The Taggart brothers hadn’t grown up together. They shared a father, one who had walked out on Ian and Sean when they were young. Papa Taggart had found a new family, fathered Case and Theo, and moved on from them as well. Tennessee Smith had been the one to connect the dots. The brothers had finally met, but it hadn’t been an easy family reunion. “You didn’t like him at first.”

“No. He was a challenge to everything I knew about myself. If it had been up to me, I would have walked away and never looked back. When Ten got burned, I would have stayed with the Agency and I probably would be an operative by now. I would have no family. No future. Nothing but the work. Theo wouldn’t leave. Theo wanted to know Ian and Sean. He was the leader in that. Now there are times I would do anything to get their attention. Ian and Sean’s, that is. I’m not a kid so I don’t act out, but I’ll show up on their doorsteps with the thinnest reasons possible. They never turn me away. Jared thought you would turn him away. I would bet anything he enjoyed going over things he already knew because he would do almost anything to get to spend time with you.”

Case was right. He likely would have turned his brother away. “Jared and I have history you’ve never had with your brothers. It’s not the same.”