Page 54 of Echo, the Sniper (Men of PSI #2)

“You’re not,” Dane shot back, his vicious smile returning with a vengeance. “We’re here to collect you, wife . So good of you to deliver yourself to us without any fuss. You saved us all that hard work and bloodshed.”

I stilled. “Bloodshed?”

“You should have heard us on the drive up here, trying to cobble together a plan to get you out of the hands of your PSI bodyguard.” Gary casually gestured toward Dane, and that was when I realized he held a gun.

Like that, my blood turned icier than my fingers.

“We’re talking Mission Impossible type of scenarios, because the guy you got yourself hooked up with is one deadly motherfucker that I personally never want to meet face-to-face.

We were going to set fire to something close by and then nab you while he rushed to put it out, but come to find out it’s fucking difficult to set fire to anything when it’s frozen over. Colorado winters, amirite?”

My heart began to pound in earnest as I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from that gun. “Fire, you say? Funny, that’s the very thing that pushed me into getting a bodyguard.”

“That was the one thing I never expected you to do.” Dane’s upper lip sneered, a sign of his temper rising.

The mere sight of it used to terrify me.

“You were supposed to go straight to the police after that house fire, you dumb cunt. Then they were supposed to contact Gary so we could kick off the necessary paperwork to bring you back to me. You know, where you’d be safe . ”

A spiral of rage cut through my fear of Gary and his gun, and I turned a snarl Dane’s way. “So, that fire was started by you.” I’d feared in the back of my mind that it had been Echo.

Dane beamed like he’d won something. “Of course it was me. Like I said, I was trying to get you into the Witness Protection Program with me where you’d be safe, but safe from what?

I had to make it look like you were in danger before they could pluck you out of your life and deliver you to me, all safe and sound. ”

So Gary had lied about Dane’s whereabouts that night. Naturally. “ Safe ? With you ? Considering how many of my bones you’ve broken, you’re the only menace that’s ever been in my life.”

An ugly sneer curled his lips back. “So says the whore who slept with the insignificant grunt who fucking shot me.”

“Don’t bother playing the victim with me when I know you paid Echo to shoot you. A waste of money, if you ask me,” I couldn’t help but add. “I would have done it for free.”

“Hoho, dude, that’s a burn right there.” Clearly a fan of chaos and discord, Gary shot Dane a delighted grin. “I thought you said you trained this bitch to be docile, but she’s making you look like a chump.”

Another spiral of rage burned back the cloying fear, because Dane had trained me to be docile. It was so frigging true I wanted to scream.

“You may have noticed that I haven’t been around to give this idiot her daily lesson of who owns her,” Dane muttered, glaring at me like I was the problem. “But that’s all changed now. Get your ass over here, Aurora, and get back on your leash.”

“Go. Fuck . Yourself.” I couldn’t help but grin as I said it, because fuck , it was liberating to finally say it to his face. “I’d rather die than go anywhere with you.”

Dane looked like his head was about to explode. “That can be arranged.”

“Then do it.” I threw my arms open wide to create a nice big target, still afraid but far more terrified of spending even one more second as Dane’s wife . “Make no mistake, I’ve learned how good life can be without you, so seeing you now, turning up like a bad penny? Death is preferable.”

“I could be wrong, but when she says she knows how good it can be, I think she’s talking about that sniper guy she was mouth-fucking in the photos,” Gary remarked helpfully. “You must be real shit in the sack, man, if she’s saying she’d rather die than get back with you.”

“Fuck off.”

“Just sayin’.” Gary shrugged, then looked to me speculatively. “Gotta say, it was a real shock to see those two together.”

“How the fuck did the two of you get together anyway?” Dane wanted to know, glaring pure venom at me. “Wait, let me guess. That insignificant grunt approached you with the same kind of deal Gary and I have, didn’t he? You’ll split the account with Echols on the promise that he’ll keep you safe.”

“Well,” I said, watching him carefully as I realized I was shivering to the point of my teeth wanting to chatter in the frigid night, “it’s not like you wasted good money hiring Echo to be my bodyguard. Right?”

“To keep you out of my own grasp and stopping me from grabbing you up when the time was right? Are you kidding me?” He snorted and nailed me with his cruel, cruel gaze. “What a stupid question.”

Not to me, it wasn’t. The breath left my lungs and the earth shifted under my feet as Dane hammered the final nail in the coffin and confirmed that Echo’s presence in my life was nothing but a lie. “What do you mean, when the time was right?”

“My plan was to come back and pick you up about a year or so out from my death, once interest in me had cooled down. But that fucking stupid sasquatch Edward went on the lam and broke into my garage, no doubt looking for anything having to do with my offshore account.”

My brows shot up. “How do you know about that break-in?”

“There are plenty of local cops who feel the same way I do—we’re not paid enough to deal with the scum of society, so if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Gary shrugged, and suddenly I understood why law enforcement had done very little when it came to dealing with me. “We paid some good money—”

“We?” Dane sent him an arch look.

“Your hubs paid some good money to keep that embarrassing B and E Terwilliger pulled on the back burner while we tried hunting him down ourselves. Imagine our surprise when we spotted you and that sniper from PSI at the airport gas station staking out Terwilliger’s lover.

We’d wanted to get a lead on Terwilliger’s whereabouts, but in the end you led us right to him.

And bonus, we also got a strong fix on where you were and what you were getting up to. ”

“What I was getting up to?” Maybe hypothermia was setting in, because I had no idea what the hell he was talking about

“Eliminating the competition after teaming up with my well-paid assassin,” Dane supplied coolly.

“I just want to know, Aurora. How did you and my sniper team up, exactly? You didn’t know he existed, so he had to have approached you, yes?

What that must have been like,” he said musingly, his eyes narrowing when I refused to say a word.

Then he snapped his fingers. “I think I get it. Oh, you stupid, stupid bitch.” At that, he burst out laughing.

Everything inside me withered in crippling humiliation while Gary looked confused. “What? What’s so funny?”

“ She is.” Dane pointed at me like a schoolyard bully and laughed while I struggled to keep the tears of hurt and shame from streaming down my cheeks.

“Tell me, Aurora, did he seduce you? Did my sniper come out of nowhere to tell you how smart and pretty and important you are? Make you feel special and wanted and, fuck me, loved ? Shit, Gary,” Dane said, almost doubling over with vicious laughter.

“We were wrong, they didn’t team up. This stupid cunt got fucking duped .

No surprise there, though. She doesn’t have a lot going on upstairs. ”

I glowered pure hatred at him, my blood boiling with a kind of sick humiliation that I instinctively knew would leave scars on my soul.

“At least I’m not stupid enough to fake my own death after putting my name on an account that holds every dime I had.

” Was it really so obvious that I’d been made a fool of?

Was the word sucker written on me for the whole world to see?

I wanted to hide, to crawl into a hole and die in the darkness, because at least then no one would look at me and know just how idiotic I was.

Except, came that absurdly stubborn voice, there was no evidence that Echo had even known about the offshore account. It wasn’t fair to assume he’d shown up just to get his hands on all that money.

My jaw knotted so hard my temples hurt. Bottom-lining it, Echo had lied to me. If his motives hadn’t been to win my trust so he could get his hands on all that money, why had he approached me with a lie in the first place?

Nothing else made sense.

“Six months ago I had a very dangerous man after me, my dear wife. Put a hit out on me and everything, can you fucking believe it? So dramatic. Faking my death—while still keeping you in play as my fast-pass to all my money—was the best way for me to come out of this alive without losing one single dime.” Dane shrugged casually, looking like he was chatting about nothing more interesting than property appraisals.

“Timing wasn’t the greatest, true, but keeping you out of WPP meant I could eventually use you as my backdoor to get into my account. ”

Me, my, mine . God, I’d forgotten about that hyper-possessive verbal tick of his.

“Then do it, Dane. Access that account using my name, two-step password and security questions.” When only silence greeted me, it was my turn to offer a cruel smile.

“You can’t remember any of it, can you? Too bad you burned down the house, Dane.

All the information was there on my tablet. ”

“Why do you think I chose to burn it all down? I wasn’t about to let my account information fall into the hands of Edward. He’s no longer a threat to me or my bank account, by the way. If you don’t want to wind up like him and Josiah, you’ll give me all the information I need.”

My vaporing breath stilled, and for a moment all I could hear was my chattering teeth. “W-what?”

“You heard me.”

“What did you do to Edward and Josiah?”

“Me? Nothing.” He jerked a thumb Gary’s way. “He’s the one who’s trigger-happy.”