Page 9 of Defending You

“Fine. I’m in.” He maneuvered through the revolving doors and into the muggy summer air. “I need supplies. Closest store’s ten minutes out. Tell Ballentine I’ll be at the hotel ASAP.”

“Good man. I’ll let him know and text you the address.”

“Got it.” Asher ended the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Get the supplies, get to the hotel, get Cici under control. He’d run this op like any other—tight, clean, no room for error. No room for old wounds to crack open, either.

He reached his truck, a battered black pickup that’d seen him through worse days than this, and tossed the duffel onto the passenger seat. As he slid behind the wheel, his phone buzzed again—Bartlett with the hotel details. He gave it a thumbs-up and started the engine.

He’d see this through for his team. And this time, when he came face-to-face with Cici, he’d keep his guard firmly in place.

CHAPTER THREE

Cici paced the hotel room, her bare feet silent against the plush carpet. The muted beige walls and generic artwork closed in around her, the hum of the AC and her own ragged breathing the only sounds.

She’d promised Forbes she’d wait for the bodyguard, but every second in Philadelphia felt like a noose tightening around her neck. Those men—the smooth talker, the hulking guard—were searching, hunting her. She needed to get out of this city and back to Shadow Cove, where she could hand off the necklace and reclaim her life.

Assuming those men didn’t know her name. Assuming they wouldn’t be able to track her down at her little apartment outside of town.

She’d worry about that later.

Her suitcase sat by the door. She needed the bodyguard to escort her to the airport. She still had time to make her flight. When she was past security, she should be safe.

The TV flickered in the corner, volume low, a local news anchor’s voice droning about a fire downtown. Cici paused mid-step, focusing as the screen cut to footage. Flames shot from a familiar storefront, smoke billowing into the evening sky.

That was Mr. D’s jewelry store.

Reduced to a skeleton of charred wood and shattered glass.

Those guys had torched it. Had they left Mr. D inside to burn with the building he’d lovingly built and operated for decades?

Probably. What they hadn’t left was evidence. That was all going up in smoke. Meaning the only one who could identify them…was her.

And then an even more horrifying image flashed on the screen. It was Cici’s photograph, the ugly picture on her driver’s license. Cici snatched the remote and turned up the volume.

“…Wright is wanted for questioning.”

Shewas wanted? She was the one who’d called the police in the first place. If they’d arrested those two guys outside the precinct, she’d be safe now.

Instead of protecting her, they’d released her name and photograph to the public.

Her hands trembled with the injustice of it all.

She glanced at the bed, where she’d dropped her purse and the black velvet bag, which had The Crimson Duchess tucked inside. If she hadn’t taken it, it would be in the hands of those killers now, and Forbes would never get it back.

The hulking guard hadn’t looked much older than her twenty-eight, but the other man looked to be in his sixties, old enough that he could have been involved in the murders of Forbes’s parents. Had he come to the store to retrieve the necklace because it was evidence? If so, how had it ended up at the store in the first place?

It didn’t make any sense, but Mr. D’s murder and the murders twenty-five years before had to be connected.

A sharp knock jolted Cici from her thoughts.

She muted the television and spun to stare at the door, desperate for help but terrified she’d find the opposite on the other side of that door. Had those men found her? She’d beenso careful. She yanked her phone from her pocket. Her thumb was hovering over Forbes’s number when a voice cut through the door, low and steady.

“Miss Wright. It’s Asher Rhodes. I’ve been sent by GBPA, the Green Beret Protection Agency, who were hired by Forbes Ballentine to make sure you get back to Shadow Cove safely.”

Wait. Asher Rhodes?

She knew the name, but it couldn’t be the person she remembered, the geeky kid from high school with shabby clothes and ugly eyeglasses.