The Protected

And something told him it had been even longer since he’d been with one like Vaughnne. Maybe even never. She’d never let him run the show and she’d meet him hunger for hunger . . . he closed his eyes as that hunger tore into him.

If he didn’t get this under control soon, they’d have to leave.

He couldn’t let anything distract him. Not even something as simple as sex.

Feeling a familiar brush on the edge of his thoughts, he turned his head and stared down Alex. “You know better,” he said quietly. “You use it only when you have to, and there’s no reason to use it on me.”

Gus had no abilities, something he was ridiculously grateful for.

But he’d also learned that one didn’t necessarily need psychic skill to know when it was being used. Not once you’d felt it a time or two. Or two hundred, in his case. Since they had no way of teaching Alex, years ago, Gus had made the decision to let Alex practice on him.

But it came with rules.

This was outside the rules.

Alex still had his hands shoved deep in his pockets and he looked miserable. Angry. Scared. “Are you mad at me?”

“I have no reason to be angry,” Gus said, shrugging. “You didn’t just knock me out on my butt, Alex.”

“I tried to tell her I was sorry.”

Closing his eyes, Gus shook his head. “You can’t. She doesn’t know what happened . . . we can’t let her know.”

Alex glared at him for a long, tense moment.

Gus held his stare and waited. Finally, the boy turned his back and stormed out of the living room, and disappeared down the hall. It wasn’t a long walk. The narrow little room he’d claimed as his own was all of four feet down the hall. It seemed like the entire house shook as he slammed the door shut. Closing his eyes, Gus rested his head against the wall.

When is this going to end? It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered it. It wouldn’t be the last.

He knew there wasn’t going to be an easy answer.

At this point, he wasn’t even expecting an answer, period.

The boy had to be protected, and he suspected protection was going to be a problem for them even once Alex was no longer just a boy.

Please . . . you must do this for me . . .

Those words haunted him even now. He’d given his word, and he’d stand by it. With no regrets.

But how much longer . . .

It ends when the threat is gone.

The knowledge didn’t improve his frame of mind. Not at all.

* * *

REYES lowered the phone.

He wasn’t overly pleased with the fact that the man he had on this job had decided he’d do better if he was working it somewhere . . . else.

It made it harder to watch him. Harder. But not impossible.

He’d made a few phone calls about a replacement, but so far, nobody seemed quite right.

One thing that was intriguing . . . the information his man had given him. That other avenue he’d mentioned. Reyes had been prepared to dismiss it as a hoax, except he didn’t think it was. That was promising. So very promising.

“I want to go swimming.”

The woman at his side stroked a hand down his thigh, and despite his decision to focus and make some headway on this problem, he found himself thinking about that idea himself. Her lovely body, cutting through the water. He could join her. Send his men away from the pool. Not too far, of course. Just far enough away to leave them in privacy.

But he really did need to move forward—

A slim hand slid up and cupped his balls. “Come on,” she murmured. Leaning in, she pressed her lips to his cheek. “I’ll be bad for you again.”

He leaned back, thoughts of work not just forgotten, but gone. Like they’d never existed. “Will you, my dear?”

“Hmmm . . .”

* * *

BENT over the computer, Esteban watched as his carefully worded message went live. He’d just gotten off the phone with the boss, and he knew he didn’t have too much time left. He’d heard the impatience in the man’s voice. He was down to weeks now. Maybe even days. Something had to happen, and soon.

This was his best chance . . . a harebrained scheme. His best chance at survival. Maybe he should just end it now.

Once more, he read through the message, his heart slamming hard against his ribs. He’d spent hours on those words. Hours. And he’d thought it through for an entire day before he even sat down to put pen to paper, tucked inside a hotel in the miserable hell that was known as Miami. Away from the boss. Where he might be able to lose himself if he had to.

He’d torn up more than a dozen drafts of the message, carefully burning each shred down to ash. Nothing to trace back to him, nothing to lead the boss to him. Or anybody else, for that matter.

But now . . . now it was done. He had all the right words and there they were, out there in cyberspace, waiting for an answer.

He didn’t know how long he’d have to wait, but something would come of this. It would have to. Because, really, there was no other option.

Leaning back from the desk, he rubbed his hands over his face and stared up at the darkened ceiling as he thought it all through.

No other option. Save for one.

He could run.

It was the last option. The last resort. The thing he’d do only if no other avenue opened up before him, and he’d almost rather put a bullet in his own mouth before he ran. If he ran and he was caught, he knew he’d be better off dead anyway.

But it had always been a faint, almost microscopic possibility.

He knew this, so he’d planned for that eventuality. But he was saving it until there were no other choices.

Right now, this was still a choice.

He just had to wait.

I am trying to locate an item . . .

* * *

THE message made the skin on the back of her neck crawl.

Nalini Cole had been watching this website for a long, long time, but why the hell had this happened now? This couldn’t have come at a worse time. She was in the middle of a job that she had to see through.

And this? It just couldn’t wait. She had a number of cockroaches she wanted to smash, and a whole bunch of them were involved in a nasty little nest that had connections to this website. They weren’t number one on her list, but they were pretty damn close. She’d been watching, waiting for her chance.

One of the problems, though, stayed in the shadows, using the website only in the most circumspect manner, and it made it hard to move in on them. Too many of them had powerful gifts that made it easy for them to pick up on the tactics she’d normally use.

Still, the opportunity would present itself. So she watched. And waited. And worked on finding the number one cockroach on her list.

Still . . .