Night Break Read online

  Call me. ASAP.

  So, that’s what I did.

  “Yo!”

  “You talk to our girl yet?” Brycen asked.

  “Just heading that way, now.”

  “You got in?”

  “Yes, dumbass, now cut to the chase.”

  “Alright, alright!” He sounded as if he was smiling. “I was doing what you asked me to do.”

  “Get with it,” I growled.

  “Our girl is good, D.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  “But it’s surprising how much one can find out about a person, once you know their legal name,” the man said.

  “Alright…” I left my word hanging, hoping that Brycen would lead into his explanation.

  He didn’t disappoint.

  “She works for Gordon Hewitt, man,” he growled.

  Fuck.

  Damn.

  Shit.

  Sonofabitch!

  “You’ve got to be shitting me!” I said a little too loudly. A few people in the waiting room gave me the stink eye.

  Gordon Hewitt was a man that we’d been investigating for quite some time. A real estate mogul, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Unlike his father, Gordon Sr., he was a crook. But the slippery fucker knew how to get by undetected, and I knew this firsthand. He had a bevy of lackeys and they were loyal fuckers, willing to do his dirty work. He was far enough removed from the stink of his men that you knew he was the puppet master, but you couldn’t point the finger at the douchebag without making yourself look like the fool.

  “So what are you saying?” I asked Brycen.

  “I’ve looked into the work she’s doing for him,” the man paused, “I can’t say if she’s in deep with the guy, but she is on the payroll and everything looks legit, D. She didn’t leave much on her system except for existing projects, and to be honest, that shit was encrypted to the nth degree.”

  “Brycen—”

  “So far as I can tell she’s clean.” That caused a relieved breath to escape me. “But I’ll caution you, you’re gonna want to tread lightly with this one, until we figure out how she got involved with the guy.”

  Well, that was a short-lived spell. “Got it,” I ground out.

  “And, D?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The shit I just found about the work she does, I’m getting the sense that she’s not entirely on board with it all.”

  Well, that was something. So I asked, “How so?”

  The man chuckled. “Let’s just say, if any of this information were to get into the wrong hands, a whole lot of shit would come raining down on a whole lotta heads.”

  “Bry—”

  “I’m talking politicians, CEOs… Hell, she’s even got a file a mile long on Hewitt himself.” I didn’t quite share Brycen’s humor, but that last bit, I took it as good news. It meant that she knew how to protect herself against any possible backlash. Including one from her own boss.

  “Anything we can use?”

  “Some,” the man said and left it at that.

  “You’re just going to leave me hanging?”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled once more. “I want a deeper look into things before I give you the goods on that jackass.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Give her a kiss from me, will ya?”

  “Brycen—” Before I could finish warning the man, I was met with dead air.

  Chapter 7

  Devolin

  I can’t believe you gave in.

  But I had.

  It was impossible not to fall for Dalton’s charm, when I’d never been the recipient of such efforts before. I had contemplated giving in, but when those lilies came, I knew that holding the man back would be futile.

  Dalton’s said efforts also made me wonder about how the man would be if he had a woman in his life, especially if he took such great pains to woo a mere stranger into doing his bidding. Of course, this set a slew of various scenarios to play about in my head; ones that caused me to dream—day or night.

  He’ll be here any minute!

  Deep breathing, a few cursory glances in the bathroom mirror, or all the shifting I did, making sure that my clothes looked just right, even if they were pajamas, did nothing to assuage my nerves.

  I was as ready as I’d ever be.

  When Dalton walked through the door to my hospital room though, I knew that there was never truly such a thing as being ready for a man like him.

  One just had to brace.

  So, I did just that, and then I also proceeded to soak in the sheer masculinity of him. That usual strand of dark hair still hung over his eyes. His silvery-blue gaze was open, friendly, yet assessing at the same time. His broad shoulders and chest, hugged by his signature black t-shirt. I wondered, not for the first time, how he ever got those things on.

  My eyes trailed lower, pleased that he’d forgone his black cargo pants and was sporting a distressed looking pair of jeans. The denim, soft and overworn, hanging low at his hips, hugging those massively powerful thighs and what I figured, but had never witnessed, a spectacularly firm derriere. His hands were bare, but I noticed his left wrist had leatherwork wrapped around it: a bracelet of sorts. It went well with the dog tags hanging from his neck and the combat boots on his feet.

  However, it wasn’t the appearance of the man per se that drew me to him. It had been his unwavering loyalty to his friend, Theo. Sure, all the other guys had that in spades, but something about Dalton’s strength, his sense of humor on that dark night, his intellect, not to mention, the quick thinking and seamless adapting to the situation, that had pulled me in. He was a perfect picture of control in a life where I never had any.

  A throat cleared. “Devolin.”

  Just one word. With that deep baritone of his, it was all it took for my already erratic heartbeat to hammer harder, for my sweaty palms to grow damper, and for my hormones to shift into hyperdrive.

  Oh, shit, I’m in trouble!

  The man shut the door behind him, his long stride bringing him to the bedside chair in five steps. Dropping his large frame in the seat, he set his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”

  “Thank you for the flowers,” I muttered, feeling the heat of my blush suffusing my cheeks. Seriously, if ten dozen roses and a bouquet of lilies made my room look like a miniature garden, I wondered what the result of my granting him with that same gesture, albeit, in a much more insane quantity, had resulted in.

  His lips tipped up, his gaze going warm and intense. “You’re welcome. I owed you payback.”

  I couldn’t look away. “I’m getting out,” I blurted.

  His brows rose. “Huh?”

  “The doctor came in this morning.” I licked my dry lips. “He said that if everything holds up, I’ll be home in a week. Two at the most.”

  “That’s great news, Devolin.” He reached out to take my hand in his, and I let him. He seemed to be a very tactile person. I’d noticed it at Theo and Morgan’s, during my very limited amount of consciousness, then again in the ambulance, and now. “Can…can I ask what—”

  I cringed. “You’re telling me that you don’t know? I would have thought you’d have had Brycen look me up by now.”

  Dalton had the decency to look affronted. “I can’t say he didn’t try,” he confessed. “Most of your records are sealed. Then again, when I found out what he was researching had nothing to do with the Wentworth case, I got pissed and reamed his ass.”

  This necessitated a giggle on my part. “I’m sure he would have figured out a way to get to those records somehow.” Dalton’s expression turned thoughtful at this. “But since you’ve most likely seen the file I’ve built on you and your team, and in the interest of being fair, I’ll tell you a bit of what I’ve gone through.”

  Chapter 8

  Dalton

  Goddamn, did I need a shot of Jack.

  And
a cold shower.

  Followed closely by another round of Jack, with a beer chaser.

  Yes, it had been that kind of day.

  The first shot of Jack would be a digestive to the information that had poured out of Devolin, going a long way to explain why she was the person that she was. Fuck, but with all that she’d told me, I found it damn near impossible to ignore that innate urge to protect her. She’d been through so much.

  The cold shower, would be for the fact that the woman was a wet dream come true for me. Sweet, innocent, funny as all hell, and somehow, despite being slightly socially awkward according to her, she had so much sass and sarcasm that it made her all the more endearing. Regardless of those girlie flannel pajamas of hers, my cock still flew at full mast throughout most of the afternoon. Despite the full coverage, those cutesy things did nothing to hide her curves. It had been a decadent kind of pain, even if inappropriate. I was there as a friend and perhaps, if luck was on my side, an eventual boss. Not to pick up.

  As for the second shot of Jack and its beer chaser, that was to help me figure out how I was going to deal with the slew of unanswered calls and texts I’d received throughout the day from her.

  This her being my ex-fiancée: Suzanna.

  The bitch I thought I’d finally been rid of for the last six months, even though we’d been over for nearly five years now.

  On that thought, I pulled into my drive, only to come up short when I spotted Skylar’s car in the guest parking spot.

  What the fuck?

  I parked in front of the garage, turned the key, then pulled it out of the ignition. It was just my luck that Skylar would need me for something.

  Just like your stepmother needed your dad for everything. No. That wasn’t it. Skylar never asked me for anything. Not before. Not now. And I didn’t expect that to change in the future. If anything, I’d always appointed myself as her protector when she least wanted it. Skylar had always been the queen-of-sticky-situations, but she’d also been an expert at getting out of said situations on her own. So it shocked me to see that she’d come to see me, let alone, had helped herself in with the key I’d given her five years ago, when I retired from the army and bought this house.

  Maybe she’s here about Devolin.

  That made sense.

  With that thought, I stormed the front steps and let myself in, shouting out, “Sky?” The scent of fried steak and sautéed mushrooms assaulted me from the threshold.

  “In the kitchen!” I heard, followed by the crash-bang of pots and pans and the sizzling of searing meat.

  I entered the kitchen and let out a groan of pleasure. “Goddamn that smells good.” Then I dropped my phone on the counter and made a beeline for the liquor hutch, pulling out my trusty bottle of Jack Daniels, along with two tumblers.

  Pouring myself two fingers, I lifted the glass to my lips and downed it before doing it again and filling the second glass along with it. The perk of having your sister in your house, unannounced no less, is that the need for a cold shower was curtailed.

  I turned to find Skylar sporting that assessing gaze our father always gave me. I swear, she had more of Hank Kippers in her than I ever did.

  As I slid the extra tumbler toward my vegetable chopping sister, her head came back up. “Rough one?” she stated more than inquired.

  “You could say that,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair and giving her a pointed look. “I, uh…”

  Her eyes held a knowing glint. “She laid it all out for you, didn’t she?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  Skylar let her knife drop to the counter and picked up the cutting board, swiping the green onions, radishes, tomatoes, and celery onto the mixed greens in the bowl next to her, before taking a sip of the drink I’d poured her. Then she turned to the stove and turned the steaks off, shoving the pan in the oven before facing me again, leaning onto the island counter on her elbows.

  “Heavy, isn’t it?”

  No words sufficed to express the weight Devolin had held on her shoulders, with very limited support, so I nodded as she studied me.

  “The steaks have another ten minutes to finish, why don’t you go wash up?” Having encroached on my property, she read me like a book, knowing all too well that I needed a moment to myself.

  Leaving my phone on the counter, I headed for my bedroom to freshen up.

  “She’s calling you!” Skylar shrieked, my phone in her upheld hand as I came back from the bathroom ten minutes later. “What the hell does that bitch want?”

  “Let it go, Sky,” I warned.

  “You want to know how many times this,” she waved my phone in the air, “went off while you were cleaning up?” She didn’t wait for my response. “Five fucking times! Five!”

  “What would you have me do, Sky? She’s calling NSI’s number; it’s not like I can change it.”

  She set the phone down on the counter, then reached to start loading our plates with food. “You’ve talked to her?” She paused in her task to peer at me.

  “I’ve tried that and I thought it worked, but I guess it didn’t stick.” I went to the fridge, pulling two beers out, and popping their tops off. “I’ll put Shane on it,” I assured her, as I set our drinks on the table.

  “I’d slap a restraining order on that woman so fast her head would spin,” she grumbled.

  “So,” I wiped at my mouth with the napkin, my plate now empty. “We’ve talked about my work, yours, how Dad’s doing, but you’re leaving something out and I’m itching to know.”

  Skylar shoved her last bite of steak in her mouth, an effort to stall the conversation. It was something she did all the time as we grew up, particularly when she knew she was in trouble and our father would question her.

  My gaze narrowed. “What’s this visit about, sis?”

  She swallowed her food, her jaw clenching before she proceeded. “Devolin’s going home,” she whispered.

  “I know. In about a week, it looks like.”

  Skylar’s grin was so contagious, I felt my lips tug upward. “Tell me you’re hiring her, D. You can’t have spent nearly an entire day with her, and not—”

  “Uh, Sky?” I rubbed at the back of my neck. “We didn’t exactly discuss work.”

  My sister’s brows furrowed. “You didn’t?”

  We hadn’t.

  When I said that I’d learned all about what made Devolin the person she was, I meant it. My mettle was tested when I enlisted with the Rangers. Hers had been tested at the tender age of eight. Relentlessly.

  Chapter 9

  Devolin

  Here I was, laying in my hospital bed, recollecting how my day had turned out.

  I figured that once Dalton was granted a visit, that he would have been all about business.

  He hadn’t been.

  Instead, we’d made light chitchat. I never figured the man to be much of a talker, simply because of what Skylar had told me about him, but it was evident that my best friend didn’t see her brother in the same light I had.

  All the fuss I’d made over my pending visitor had been for naught. Within minutes, Dalton had me so at ease, I felt it necessary to tell him all about myself.

  I began my story when I’d loss consciousness at summer camp, right before my ninth birthday. I’d been unusually tired and nauseous. My skin was pale, I had ached all over, and bruises started popping up with the slightest bumps into things. I wasn’t hungry, and despite this, my belly had grown hard as a rock to the point it bulged out, resembling that of a malnourished child in some Third World country. Everyone thought that I was coming down with a cold or some sort of flu bug.

  But it wasn’t that…

  I lived in Canada, one of Toronto’s suburbs, at the time, so my mother had picked me up and brought me to the Toronto General Hospital.

  When I talked about the multiple sessions of poking and prodding, the incessant questions about my symptoms, Dalton’s nose had scrun
ched up to the point I had laughed.

  “It sounds worse than what it was.” I patted his hand in reassurance. “Trust me, there were worse things that came after that.”

  “It’s so much for a young kid to deal with,” he voiced.

  Admittedly, the whole experience had freaked me out. This was also when I told Dalton that perhaps having had my nose in my father’s old biology and pathophysiology textbooks may have not been that bright of an idea. I was smart. Freakishly smart, that is. With that kind of gift, the thirst for knowledge had beckoned me, and my parents indulged my harmless endeavor.

  “From the General…” I licked my lips. That’s when Dalton had also poured me a glass of water, handing it over to take a sip. “They sent me to Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. I felt like I was stuck in an episode of Star Trek or something.”

  There’d been MRIs, CT scans, more X-rays since my lungs had been rattling badly. Hell, they’d even done an ultrasound, but my least favorite of all diagnostic tests had been the lumbar puncture.

  “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been on your parents,” Dalton said.

  Snorting at that, I turned to set my glass of water on the bedside table.

  My mother had dealt with it well enough, by giving into her OCD impulses and keeping everything in sight clean and sterile. My father, on the other hand, his reaction I didn’t get. I’d simply chalked it up to when life throws you a curveball, some rolled with the punches, and others…well, to put it simply, they just ran.

  “At this point, I’d been hospitalized for three days. My mother never left my side. Dad, being the man I adored—who inspired me to be the best at everything I did—had a job to do. He couldn’t stay and I got it. He was a doctor. He helped kids like me get better every day. Since he worked in the same hospital I was in, I knew I had it good because Daddy would stop in whenever he had time between patients.”

  Dalton took this in, and seemed to know without my saying it that this was a major turning point in my life’s story. “Something happened, didn’t it?”