Page 1 of My Special Ops Neighbor (Neighborhood Hotties #4)

Y vette Fisher had documented seventeen suspicious activities in Vincent Benoit's behavioral pattern, and she was about to make it eighteen.

She adjusted her binoculars and checked her watch.

Almost midnight. Right on schedule. Her neighbor emerged from his house carrying another unmarked package, moving with the kind of stealth that screamed guilty conscience.

She opened her surveillance spreadsheet and typed: Friday, another late-night delivery.

Subject displays consistent evasive behavior.

The spreadsheet made her feel better. Numbers didn't lie, unlike people.

Numbers created patterns you could trust, predictions you could count on.

Vincent Benoit's numbers painted a clear picture of criminal activity, even if her traitorous body kept focusing on how his t-shirt stretched across his shoulders when he lifted those mysterious boxes.

Professional objectivity, she reminded herself. She was building a case here.

Vincent disappeared into his garage, and she settled back to wait. In her experience, criminals always revealed themselves if you watched long enough. Her father had taught her that lesson early. People said one thing and did another, but their actions created data trails that exposed the truth.

She'd gotten good at reading those trails.

Eight years with the Defense Contract Audit Agency had taught her to spot patterns others missed, to follow financial threads until they led to fraud and corruption.

Her current investigation into RareCore Industries was her most important yet—a billion-dollar conspiracy that had killed thousands of soldiers through defective equipment.

But watching Vincent was different. More personal. She told herself it was civic duty, protecting her neighborhood from whatever illegal enterprise he was obviously running. The fact that he looked like something out of a tactical gear advertisement had nothing to do with it.

Her laptop chimed with an encrypted message from her contact at the Pentagon.

The RareCore evidence was solid. She had uncovered financial records, manufacturing reports, material substitutions that turned life-saving equipment into death traps.

Monday morning, she'd present everything to federal investigators and watch executives get arrested for mass murder disguised as profit margins.

Light spilled from Vincent's garage as he unpacked his latest delivery. Even from this distance, she admired the way he moved with no wasted motion. Criminal or not, the man had discipline.

A crash echoed from downstairs. And he looked up. For a second, she thought he pinpointed her exact location. But that was impossible. She was hiding behind her bedroom curtain.

The crash wasn’t the familiar sound of her old house settling or the neighbor's cat knocking over garbage cans. Now she heard more glass breaking, followed by the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps downstairs.

Yvette dropped her binoculars and grabbed her laptop. She heard voices—two men, speaking low but not whispering. They weren't trying to be subtle about their presence.

"The light's on upstairs. She's awake."

"Let’s check the office first. The files might be there."

They knew she was home. They knew about her office. This wasn't some random break-in.

She pressed her back against the wall beside her bedroom door, thoughts spinning through possibilities. Junkies looking for prescription drugs? But they'd spoken too clearly, moved too purposefully. Burglars then, but they knew about her office, knew she was awake.

Her phone showed no signal. They must have jammed the cell towers or something. These weren't desperate junkies looking for something to pawn. RareCore had friends in powerful places. Maybe they'd sent security contractors to intimidate her, steal her files.

The footsteps separated downstairs, one set heading toward her home office, the other climbing the stairs with measured steps.

What was she going to do? She was trapped up here.

She could hide in the bathroom, but they’d only kick the door down and Yvette wasn’t about to jump out a second floor window.

"Where are the fucking files?" The voice carried from her office, followed by the crash of her filing cabinet hitting the floor.

"She probably has the computer's upstairs with her. Check the bedroom."

They knew her bedroom was upstairs. They knew she was up here. But they weren’t trying to talk to her or negotiate. That had to be bad. She eased the door shut and locked it. It would buy her some time. Time to do what, she wasn’t sure.

The footsteps reached the top of her stairs and started down the hallway toward her room. She pressed herself against the wall beside her door, trying not to make a sound as she heard him getting closer.

Her bedroom window slid open wider.

She stared at it in disbelief, clutching her laptop against her chest. Terror spiked as another intruder climbed through the window. She recognized Vincent Benoit when he dropped silently from what must have been her roof, landing in a crouch that barely made a sound on her hardwood floor.

They'd sent him too. Her gorgeous, mysterious neighbor was part of whatever this was.

Her stomach dropped. She'd been right about him being a criminal, just wrong about what kind. Vincent wasn't running drugs or weapons from his garage. He was working corporate espionage. And now he was here to help those men downstairs get what they came for.

But then he pressed a finger to his lips and moved between her and the door, shoulders angled to shield her from the hallway. His gaze met hers with an intensity that didn't match her theory about his involvement.

"Stay low," he mouthed, pointing toward the far corner behind her bed. "They don't know I'm here."

The concern in his voice didn't sound like someone preparing to hurt her. It sounded like someone preparing to protect her.

Heavy footsteps stopped just outside her door.

She dropped to a crouch beside her bed, just as her bedroom door exploded inward. Wood splintered around the frame as two men in tactical gear stormed through with body armor, assault rifles, faces hidden behind black balaclavas.

Now she understood. These weren't junkies or burglars or even security contractors hired to scare her. The weapons, the coordination, the professional equipment—these were killers.

They spotted her immediately, crouched behind her bed with nowhere to run.

"Found her," the first one announced, rifle swinging toward her position.

That's when she realized the weapons weren't just for intimidation. The way he aimed—center mass, professional stance—suggested these men weren't here to steal files or scare her into silence.

They were here to kill her.

Vincent moved.

His left hand shot out and twisted the first rifle barrel upward just as the weapon fired into her ceiling.

Simultaneously, his right elbow drove back into the second attacker's face with brutal precision.

The wet crunch of breaking cartilage filled the room as the man staggered backward, blood streaming from his shattered nose.

With the second attacker temporarily blinded, Vincent focused on the first. His grip shifted to the gunman's wrist and snapped it with a sound like breaking kindling.

The rifle clattered across her floor as Vincent's hand moved to the man's throat, finding pressure points.

The gunman's eyes rolled back and he collapsed.

The second attacker was shaking his head, trying to clear his vision and raise his weapon.

Vincent spun toward him, grabbed the rifle barrel, and wrenched it from the man's grip before driving his fist into the gunman's solar plexus.

The attacker doubled over, gasping, then crumpled as Vincent's knee connected with his temple.

With a few more punches and kicks, both of the attackers were laid out flat on her bedroom floor.

Silence.

Vincent straightened, breathing hard but controlled. A thin line of blood traced down his jaw where the first attacker's fingernails had caught him during the struggle, but otherwise he looked like he'd just finished routine exercise instead of dismantling two professional killers..

Yvette stared at the motionless figures. Her hands shook so badly she could barely hold her laptop. Two men had come here to murder her, and Vincent had stopped them.

"Are you hurt?"

"I thought..." Words stuck in her throat. "I thought you were with them."

"That figures. You've been spying on me for weeks.”

She felt herself blush. Of course he'd noticed her surveillance. A man with his obvious skills would have spotted her amateur efforts immediately. She opened her mouth to protest, but yeah that was exactly what she had been doing.

"How did you know I was in trouble?" she asked.

"I heard the glass break from my garage. Then I saw them enter through your back door while you were upstairs. Two men, tactical gear, moving like a coordinated team. That's not a burglary."

“So you climbed up to my roof and vaulted through my window? Who are you, Spiderman?” she asked.

"Vincent Benoit.” He held out his hand to her. “Marine Raider. I design tactical gear for government contracts."

She shook it bemusedly.

“Of course, had you just come over and asked me what I was doing, I would have told you all that sooner.” He crouched beside the unconscious gunman, checking for more weapons. "Those sounds from my garage aren't fireworks or illegal firearms. I was doing ballistics tests."

Every assumption she'd made crumbled. The midnight deliveries, the equipment, the explosive sounds had all been legitimate defense contractor work. Her data had been accurate, but her interpretation had been completely wrong.

"I feel like an idiot."

"Don’t. I’m not exactly your friendly neighborhood watch.”

"But why aren't you with your unit?" The question slipped out before she could stop it. "Marine Raiders don't usually work alone."

His jaw tightened. "I'm out. Medical discharge after my last deployment.

Nowadays, I build equipment that keeps soldiers alive.

" His expression hardened as he looked at the blood spreading across her floor.

"These weren't burglars. Burglars don't carry assault rifles or coordinate entry points. They came here to kill you, Yvette."

Her stomach dropped. Kill. The word echoed in her mind, impossible to process. People didn't get murdered for auditing defense contracts. They got angry letters from lawyers, maybe reassigned to less sensitive cases.

Her knees went weak, and she sank onto her bed. "I can’t believe it. They were going to kill me. Not just take my files. Actually kill me."

"Yes." His tone was gentle but unflinching, and it helped steady her spinning thoughts. "Who did you piss off?"

"RareCore Industries," she managed. " Defense contract fraud. Eight months of evidence proving systematic fraud across dozens of contracts. Materials substitution, shell companies, offshore accounts. Body armor that won't stop bullets, tactical gear that fails in combat."

Understanding flickered in his eyes, followed by anger. "When contractors cut corners on military equipment, soldiers die."

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder as emergency vehicles responded to whatever neighbors had reported. Gunshots in suburbia generated immediate police response. But they would have been too late, if it hadn’t been for Vincent.

"They’ll try again," Vincent said. "Whoever hired these men won't stop because two operatives failed. They'll send more, better equipped, probably within hours."

Red and blue lights began flashing through her window as police cars filled her street. Soon her house would be swarming with officers, detectives, federal agents once her Defense Contract Audit Agency connection became clear.

"So you think I should leave? Get a hotel room for tonight?”

“They found your home address, so they can track credit cards. Can you pay in cash?”

“Not without going to an ATM.” She bit her lip. She really should have some cash on hand for emergencies, but who would have thought something like this.

“Official protection takes days to arrange, and I imagine this RareCore might have connections that could compromise law enforcement channels."

She looked around her destroyed bedroom. Blood on hardwood floors her great-grandfather had installed. Bullet holes in the ceiling. She couldn’t stay here tonight. Not like this.

"Maybe, I can go to a friend’s house,” she said.

“You really want to get them involved in this?”

“No,” she said helplessly.

His gaze held hers with uncomfortable intensity. "My house is secure. Off-grid communications, reinforced construction, multiple escape routes. I have the training to keep you alive until official protection can be arranged."

"You want me to stay with you." Attraction flared in her stomach despite two unconscious men on her floor, blood spreading across antique rugs, and federal agents probably en route to take control of her life.

Vincent was offering her sanctuary. The same man she'd been fantasizing about while convinced he was a criminal. The man who'd just demonstrated exactly how lethal he could be.

"Yeah," he said, those gorgeous brown eyes never leaving hers. "I do.”

"Police! Anyone injured?"

The voice echoed from downstairs. Vincent called back, confirming their location, then lowered his voice.

"Think about it while you give your statement. But these jerks will try again. And next time, I might not be close enough to help."

Through it all—the questions, the statements, the crime scene photography—his words echoed in her mind.

She'd spent weeks watching him from a distance, wondering what those strong hands might feel like, what all that power might be like unleashed in more intimate circumstances.

Now she knew he was lethal, protective, and offering to keep her alive in his home, where they would be alone together.

After seeing what he'd done to two professional killers, she believed he could protect her.

The question was whether she could keep her hands to herself.

When the police detective asked if she had anywhere to go tonight, Yvette looked across her blood-stained bedroom at Vincent. His hooded gaze promised safety, security, and complications she wasn’t ready to think about.

"I'll stay with him," she said. "Until official protection is arranged."

The satisfaction that crossed his features suggested he'd been counting on exactly that answer.