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“I just need five minutes of his time,” I pressed.
The first woman glanced at her coworker before exhaling softly, folding her arms. “He’s … particular about who he talks to.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The other woman hesitated before offering a careful smile. “Just that Marcus values his privacy. If he wants to be found, he’ll findyou.”
A thrill shot through me.
So I was onto something.
I held her gaze, steady. “Thanks for the insight.”
“Of course.”
The brunette sighed, rubbing her temple. “Claire, was it?”
“Yeah.”
The memory of him at the pier clung to me, impossible to shake. The way he’d stood—broad and unmoving, radiating that quiet, dangerous confidence—had sent something sharp and electric curling low in my stomach.
Marcus Dane was the kind of man who would ruin a woman in bed—rough hands gripping, pinning, taking. I knew it. The kind who wouldn’t ask permission but would make it so damn good she wouldn’t care. I could still hear his gravel-rough voice taunting me, feel the weight of his stare as if he were stripping me down just to see how I’d react.
If he wasn’t so damn insufferable, I might have let myself wonder what it would feel like to have that smirk brush against my skin, to hear his voice drop lower—not with sarcasm, but with raw, undeniable want.
I swallowed hard, pushing the thought away.
This was going to be fun.
4
MARCUS
I’d been chasing the ghost of Department 77 for weeks. Nothing. No leads, no chatter—just a wisp on the wind. I sat in my truck that morning, the radio off, staring at the pier’s wreckage through a cracked windshield. It had been a while since it blew, and I had jack shit.
Part of me thought it was a hoax. Some bastard pinning a name on chaos to fuck with us. Maybe Will’s ramblings from captivity had been planted—bullshit fed to throw us off. I didn’t believe until I saw. Never had.
But my gut said different. It gnawed at me, steady and low. It was the same instinct my brothers lived by. Ryker’s gut had caught an IED in Kabul. Atlas’s had sniffed out a mole stateside. Mine had kept me breathing through hell I didn’t name. Now it hummed—Department 77 was real. I just couldn’t prove it.
That pissed me off most. Weeks of nada, and it was driving me nuts.
I drove back to Dominion Hall, my mind spinning. The place loomed—brick and stone, three stories of coldbulk. Towers jutted at the corners. The windows were slits, like a bunker’s. It was more fortress than home. Always had been.
Sullivan’s Island? Now, that was home. White sand, salt breeze, and Dad’s laugh on the porch before it all went dark. I’d give anything to rewind, to ditch this concrete cage for one more day there.
But Dominion Hall was ours now. Me and my six brothers, holding the line. It was built to take war, wealth, and anything else that hit. That day, it felt like a taunt.
I parked out front, my boots hitting the ground hard. Inside, the air was cool and cleansed. Marble floors gleamed. The walls could stop a tank round.
A chandelier hung in the foyer. It was sharp, glinting, and ready to cut. Wide, steep, stairs spiraled up. It was good vantage, if you knew it. I did. I kept my sidearm on me, even here.
Fortresses got breached. I’d seen it.
I dropped into the ops room where monitors flickered and maps were scattered on the steel table. Ryker was out. Atlas was, too. It was just me and the hum.
I pulled up Claire Dixon’s file for the third time that day. Her face hit the screen—gray eyes sharp, blonde hair a layered mess, lips I shouldn’t have clocked. I’d set up surveillance on her an hour after our chat at the pier.
I had cameras on her hotel, The Palmetto Rose, which was soon to be in our hands. Acquiring properties on a whim was one of the few reasons I liked the money.