Take the Key and Lock Her Up (36 page)

He ran to the driver’s side, pulling Emily with him. “Get in the back.”

She gave the pale driver a look of apology as she scrambled inside.

Devlin yanked the driver’s door open, reached in past the stunned man to throw the
truck in park. Then he unclicked the seat belt and tossed him onto the road, all so
quickly the driver didn’t have time to react.

“Devlin!” Emily yelled, sounding shocked.

“Habit,” he growled, jumping into the driver’s seat and slamming the door. He threw
the SUV in gear and punched the gas.

The gunmen rounded the corner of the manager’s building and spilled out onto the road.

“Get down,” Devlin ordered.

Emily dove to the floor. Shots rang out from behind them, pinging against the bumper.
The rear window exploded in a hail of glass. Seconds later, they rounded a curve,
and the sound of gunfire faded like a nightmare.

Chapter Twenty-Two

A
S IF CARJACKING
wasn’t bad enough, the next crime Emily could add to her shiny new criminal record
was another breaking and entering. She stood in the middle of the family room of a
three-bedroom ranch home on a small plot of land just outside of Savannah, turning
in a circle. Could she sink any lower? She supposed she should be grateful that Devlin
had at least chosen a house whose owner wasn’t home.

“You seem pretty calm about all this,” she said. “I suppose you do this a lot? Break
into people’s houses while they’re at work?”

“Would you rather we’d hung around outside and waited for Ace or his men to find us?”

She let out a deep breath. “No. Sorry. You’re right. I do appreciate everything you’ve
done to keep me safe. And here I am complain—”

He pressed his fingers against her lips. “Don’t apologize. And don’t thank me either.
Let’s just work together and see if we can figure out, once and for all, who started
all of this and where he’s holding Kelly. One thing at a time. You have the papers?”

She patted the packet of pages hidden beneath her shirt. “Right here.”

He led her to the dining-room table and she pulled the papers out of her waistband
and set them down. “Do you think we’re safe here?”

“For the moment, yes.” He picked up the top page and skimmed it.

“Devlin, when this is over, if we survive—”

He gave her a sharp look. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Em.”

“I appreciate that, and I hope you’re right, believe me. If we do survive, what happens
then? Now that you know the company you’ve been working for is wrong, evil . . . what
will you do with the rest of your life?”

His dark eyes met hers. “What makes you think that I’ve concluded EXIT is evil?”

She blinked. “You’re kidding, right? They’ve been trying to kill both of us. Personally,
I call that evil.”

He gripped the back of the dining-room chair in front of him. “EXIT’s mission remains
the same regardless of our current situation. Cyprian wouldn’t have sent Gage and
Ace after me if he didn’t truly believe I’d gone rogue and was a threat to others.
There’s no evil in that.”

She stared at him in shock. “What about
me
? Your employer has given me a death sentence because I
may
know something about his secret purpose. How is that not wrong?”

“I didn’t say that wasn’t wrong. But Cyprian made an honest mistake going after you.
He’s doing what he believes is necessary to protect the company’s mission.”

She shook her head, not wanting to believe what she was hearing. “Are you telling
me that if we rescue your friend Kelly Parker, and she convinces your boss you’re
innocent, you’ll go back to being an assassin, as if none of this ever happened?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She pressed her hand to her throat. “What if . . . what if I die, Devlin? What if
you get your life back, but one of your enforcers carries out my death sentence? What
then?”

A look of pain crossed his face. He quickly closed the short distance between them,
grabbed her shoulders, and shook her lightly. “You will not die, Emily. Do you understand
me?” His voice was hoarse and raw. “You. Won’t. Die.”

He clamped his mouth down on hers. She shouldn’t have responded. She should have pushed
him away. This was wrong. They had completely different moral centers and were worlds
apart. But she did respond, drinking him in, molding her lips to his. Because, somehow,
whenever he touched her, everything else fell away and all that mattered was how impossibly
right
it felt to be in his arms.

A shudder ran through him and he broke the kiss, but he didn’t let her go. He pulled
her against his chest and rested his head on top of hers. Emily slid her arms around
his waist and held him tight. Nothing was settled between them, but for now, being
held in the protective cocoon of his arms was enough.

He stroked her back, her hair, and rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. “I’m
sorry about everything that’s happened to you,” he whispered. “If I could go back
in the past and change it, I would. If you understand nothing else about me, understand
this.” He pulled back and cupped her face. “I care about you, and I’ll do everything
in my power to keep you safe.”

He winced and dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m going to find something stronger
than aspirin for this shoulder and maybe . . . sit down a few minutes.” He turned
and headed down the hall. His slight limp told her his burned leg was hurting just
as much or more than his shoulder.

Emily slowly sank into one of the chairs. She supposed what Devlin really needed was
some time away from her to compose his thoughts, to center himself. Because she needed
the same thing.

He cared about her
. And, impossibly, she cared about him too. But it didn’t matter. If, by some miracle,
the EXIT order against her was canceled and she could go back to her old life, it
wasn’t like she and Devlin could . . . what . . . date? See each other when he wasn’t
on a mission somewhere
killing
people?

A rush of anger flooded through her. She shoved the stack of papers, scattering them
across the tabletop. A wallet-sized photo fell out from the pages and fluttered to
the floor. Emily shook her head and reached down to grab it. A beautiful young woman
smiled up at her, her long blonde hair perfectly brushed and lying just right across
her shoulders, her makeup perfectly done to look natural but cover every possible
blemish. Emily self-consciously lifted her hand to her own makeup-free face. Even
if she had a professional cosmetologist to work on her, she could never have the flawless
complexion this woman had.

She flipped the picture over and froze. Little cartoon hearts drawn in blue ink marched
across the top. And, beneath them, a name: Arianna Ross.
Devlin’s Arianna
? When she read the next line, written in exuberant, girlish-looking script, she had
her answer—
The Future Mrs. Devlin Buchanan
. Beneath that, closer to the bottom, was a date. The date the picture was taken?
The date they were supposed to get married?

Had Devlin carried his dead fiancée’s picture with him all these years? What kind
of love would make a man hold on to a memory that long? Emily couldn’t help but resent
the young woman he’d loved so ferociously, who he still loved apparently, even though
she knew it was wrong to be jealous of a dead woman. She couldn’t imagine the pain
Devlin must have felt when Arianna was killed, must still feel, to be holding on to
her memory for so long.

She shoved the picture beneath one of the stacks of papers. Dozens of faces stared
up at her from the pages. But one face in particular caught her attention.

Devlin’s.

She started to reach for it and stopped. No. She didn’t want to know the gritty details.
She didn’t want to know how many people he’d killed, the way he’d killed them, how
good
he was at his job. It sickened her to know he still, after everything that had happened,
felt no shame, no regrets, and wanted to return to that lifestyle.

She shoved his profile page away and pulled others toward her. She needed to make
a list, write down all the clues she and Devlin knew about the case, to see if any
of these enforcers had a reason to hold a grudge against Devlin. She had a window
of time based on Kennerly’s autopsy conclusions and could build a time line from that.
If any of these enforcers were on a mission, far enough away that they couldn’t have
killed the women in the basement, then she wouldn’t consider them as possible suspects.

Shoving back from the table, she crossed to the family room, looking for paper and
a pen. She finally found what she needed in the adjoining kitchen and went back to
the dining room.

A few minutes later, she had the beginning of a crude list with three columns—victims,
suspects, clues. She’d filled it out from memory based on her work with Tuck and the
other detectives, filling in the victim and clues column. Now to fill in the suspect
column.

She started to pick up one of the dozens of profiles lying on the table, but her gaze
wandered to Devlin’s again. Maybe if she read it quickly and satisfied her curiosity,
she could get back to work and concentrate.

A short bio was at the top of the page beside his picture—name, birth date, information
about his family. It listed skills, proficiency with weapons, details that had her
stomach clenching and made her skim past them, until she reached the section halfway
down.

Missions.

The font was small, as if to ensure all of the necessary information could be included.
She flipped the page over and saw the entire back was filled with even more data about
the missions he’d been assigned. An entire career of murdering people for hire, boiled
down to a page and a half.

Maybe this was what she needed, the gruesome details of his life, to make her see
him for what he really was, to end her ridiculous fascination with him, to make her,
somehow, stop caring.

The very first mission had her hands shaking so hard the paper rattled in her grip.
She set the paper down on the table, clasping her hands together in her lap as she
read. He was only twenty-one, just wrapping up his junior year in college. Now she
knew what that date meant on the back of Arianna’s picture. It was the date that Devlin
had avenged her. Gage was his mentor on the mission, took him to Arianna’s killer,
but Devlin was the one who pressed a gun to the man’s forehead and blew him away.

She pressed her hand to her throat and read the next entry, dated two years later.
She was surprised by the amount of time that had passed. Perhaps he’d graduated college,
settled his affairs, or even trained to become a full-fledged enforcer before taking
on another mission. But when she read the cryptic summary, it wasn’t at all what she’d
expected, or the next entry, or the one after that.

Israel: High-profile society member with suspected ties to terrorism, no legal recourse;
monitored suspect; intercepted while boarding bus with explosives, forty-seven school-age
children on board. Terminated mark. No civilian casualties.

Michigan: Intelligence indicated baby-food factory worker disgruntled, potential threat,
no legal recourse; intercepted mailing “complimentary” cases of tainted baby food
to new parents. Terminated mark. Thirty-seven cases of potassium-cyanide-laced baby
food destroyed. No civilian casualties.

Emily’s eyes grew moist. The next entry had tears flowing down her face.

Columbia: Drug cartel kidnapping American citizens, holding for ransom, executed seven
civilians prior to EXIT order. Reconnaissance; captured; held two months before escaping
with all five hostages. Terminated marks (3). No civilian casualties. Enforcer’s injuries:
Bullet wounds—right thigh, left forearm. Knife wounds—both hands, lower back. Impact—three
broken ribs. Electrical burns—numerous.

Emily sat frozen, shock warring with horror inside her. Electrical burns? Devlin was
tortured for two months, horrifically injured. And he still managed to escape and
save all five hostages.

All those tattoos on his body were to cover his battle scars, so friends and family
wouldn’t see the marks from the injuries he’d sustained. Shame washed through her
for judging him so harshly. He was right when he’d said he wasn’t strictly an assassin.
From what she’d read, he was a hero. If she understood those entries—no legal recourse—that
meant law enforcement’s hands were tied by rules and laws. Nothing could be done to
prevent the upcoming tragedies. Until Devlin was sent in. He’d saved countless lives.
How could she condemn him now, knowing what he’d sacrificed, how he’d dedicated his
life to saving lives?

She couldn’t.

“I decided to make us some coffee.” Devlin’s voice carried down the hall as he approached
the dining room. “I figured it was still early enough that we could call it breakfast.
I could make us toast or—” He stopped in the archway. His gaze shot all around the
room, as if looking for some kind of threat. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

He set the mugs on the table and rushed to her. He crouched down beside her chair
and brushed her tears off her cheeks. “Em, what’s wrong?” His eyes searched hers.

She turned her mouth into his palm and kissed him.

His eyes widened in surprise. “Em?”

“I’m so, so sorry.” She feathered her fingers down his face. “I’m sorry that I judged
you, that I doubted you. You’re a good man, Devlin Buchanan.”

His brows furrowed in confusion. He looked at the table, as if he’d find his answers
there. “What are you talking about?”

“You really don’t know, do you? You have no idea how special you are.”

This time he looked at her as if he thought she was insane. “I think you might need
to lie down. You’re hallucinating or . . . or something. Come on. We can afford to
spend a few more hours here. From what I saw when I searched the house, it’s just
the one man who lives here, and he’s married to his career. He’s not the type to pop
in at home for lunch. He probably eats at his desk and never takes a break.”