The Protected

realized.

Not the cops. Not the FBI. He hadn’t seen this coming.

“How does the FBI know about us?” he asked quietly.

Vaughnne inclined her head. “Now that’s a question you’d have to ask my boss. But I imagine one of the others picked up on something from the kid.”

“Others?”

She hooked her thumbs in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “Oh, come on now, Gus . . . you’ve done some research on this, I’m sure. Psychic skill isn’t like homogenized milk. You’ve got a whole variety of flavors . . . abilities. Some of us see things . . . things from the past, bits and pieces of the future. Some of us can talk into another’s mind.” A faint grin curled her lips and he didn’t have time to brace himself before her voice, low and smooth and potent as whiskey, curled through his mind.

And he realized he’d been wrong . . . yet again. He’d thought he’d feel it when a psychic was doing his thing because he always felt it from Alex. But he didn’t feel a thing from Vaughnne—he felt nothing, but he heard something . . . her voice, rolling through his mind, as low and sexy as if she’d been whispering naughty little nothings in his ear.

That would be me, by the way, as you probably figured out, she told him. Then she shrugged. “There are others who have the ability to track missing people. We usually call them bloodhounds. Some key into . . . ghosts.”

He curled his lip. “Ghosts.”

“Yes.” She smirked at him. “Don’t tell me you believe in psychic skill, but not ghosts.”

He shrugged dismissively. Ghosts weren’t real. That was all there was to it. If they weren’t real, then he didn’t have to think about the one ghost who should be haunting him, every day, for the rest of his life.

“Well, that’s an answer.” She shoved her hair back and sighed. “And that’s neither here nor there. You’ve got a sick kid over there. Sick and getting sicker. Are you going to deal with it, or stand there and brood and worry and breathe your paranoia all over us until he needs to be hospitalized just to fix whatever is wrong with him?”

Closing the distance between them, he bent down until he was nose to nose with her. Then, holding her defiant gaze with his, he said quietly, “There is nobody, and I mean this with every bit of strength I have in me, absolutely nobody who means as much to me as that boy. I can, and have, killed for him. I will do it again, without blinking. Am I understood?”

“You’re quite understood.” Her eyes flashed. If they could have burned, he suspected he would have been singed all over.

But that didn’t stop him from reaching up and catching one of her wild, soft curls and twining it around his finger. He half expected her to pull away. She simply stood there, though, as he rubbed his thumb along the thick, silken curl, holding his gaze levelly. “You can call your boss . . . Vaughnne. I want a doctor here. If there isn’t one here within the next few hours, I’ll take the boy and I’ll go find one.” If he had to kidnap one, that was just fine with him. “But understand me, nobody will take that boy from me. Not while I breathe.”

He let go of her hair, watched as she swallowed. Then, as she went to turn away, he caught the back of her neck and hauled her against him. Show me that you’re afraid, damn it, he thought, staring down into those wide, dark eyes. Her lashes swept down low, shielding her gaze from his. If she would just be afraid, he could maybe throttle this painful need down. He would continue to scare her. He had no issue with using fear on anybody if it kept Alex safe. Alex was all that mattered, and in the end, when he had to pay for all the sins he’d committed just to keep that child safe, he would simply offer that up and hope it was enough. He’d been protecting the boy.

But he couldn’t do this . . . couldn’t want this. Couldn’t want her.

The fear he needed to see wasn’t there, though.

She lifted her lashes and met his gaze, straight on. “I’ve already told you, and the promise stands. Nobody is going to hurt him, not if I have anything to say about it. And we don’t want him taken away. I was sent down here to watch over him. Not steal him from you.”

“Hmmm.” He dipped his head and caught her lower lip between his teeth. The need to do more, to take more . . . take everything was so strong he could hardly stand it. If it wasn’t for Alex, wasn’t for the fact that the boy was ill, he’d be buried inside her already, Gus knew it. He bit her, still staring into her eyes, and he felt the shudder as it wracked her body. Stroking his tongue along the area he’d nipped, he resisted the urge to do more. Instead, he held there, his mouth pressed to hers. “So you say. But fuck me over on this, Vaughnne, and every nightmare you’ve ever had will look like a sweet memory by the time I am done with you.”

TEN

LISTENING to the police scanner, Esteban leaned back and crossed his hands over his belly.

He hadn’t expected anything to come of this. Still, he’d flown to Florida and checked into the Peabody, just in case. As an added bonus, he was away from the senor and it gave him some breathing room as he planned what to do next, where to go next.

If the boy and his uncle were there, he had to take care of it personally. But he hadn’t expected anything to happen so soon.

It had, and he hadn’t been there in time.

Now the boy and his uncle were on the move, and the man he’d hired was in the hospital. So far, the senor hadn’t called and he hadn’t had to explain anything. That was good. He’d already bumped up the offer on the website, and another had accepted and was on the move.

This could all be fixed.

So simple. After all this time and all it had taken was that website.

It was too bad the initial man he’d hired had been inept. He should have sent more than one. Esteban realized the error of his ways now. The second offer had come from a man who outlined a plan of attack that included working in teams. He had a partner he worked with and they’d both move in on the child and the reward would be split. A much smarter approach. The first one had just hired some muscle and that hadn’t been enough.

He was paying for his lack of foresight now. In the hospital. The boy’s handiwork? Esteban didn’t know and he hadn’t been able to get much information out of the hospital. He’d claimed to be Watkins’s next of kin, but the nursing staff hadn’t given him anything useful.

For a moment, he eyed the phone and then he shifted his attention to the police scanner. The other one was likely still sitting in a jail cell. Had he talked? Not that he could have said much. Watkins wouldn’t have told the muscle why he was needed. It was good, over all, that they hadn’t told him why his services had been required, and even better that he’d only been paid five hundred up front. Esteban had agreed to that added expense and he was glad it had been a minimal one.

Whoever would have thought that such a pretty little man-whore would turn out to be such a pain in the ass?

That was all he had ever been. He’d done a stint in the military, but it hadn’t lasted—they booted him out, after some disciplinary measures. Since then, he’d drifted through life, fucked his way into some money, and put that pretty face to use. He excelled at whoring around, gambling. He could hold his own in a fight, but he had no real use in life as a man. Esteban had done his research over the years. Eliminating this one man should never have been this complicated. Tracking him down should never have been this complicated.

But it had been.

And if he didn’t find those two soon . . .

The phone rang.