The Protected

If she knew anything about Jones and his unit, they’d just love to bust that iceberg apart. Blow it straight to hell.

But her job, first. All of that had to be done because once Jones brought his people in, the man she was looking for would either bury himself or Jones’s people would bury him.

She wanted to be the one to do that.

“So close,” she muttered. Pulling all those little threads, weaving a careful web, drawing closer and closer to the man she’d been hunting for so long.

And now she was at a standstill, because she couldn’t concentrate. The boy. Screaming. A dying woman . . . no. Dead now. Nalini had connected with her in the moments of death, and there was no way that woman had survived. She’d been hurting so much, and death had almost been a sweet release. Almost. Nalini would never go gladly into that good night, that was for damn sure. She couldn’t do anything to help the woman, but she could focus on the boy. Maybe help him.

That was why she was here. Sighing, she tugged the jeweler’s box from her pocket and flipped it open to study the necklace. It had been given to her a few weeks ago. It was a pretty piece of work, she had to admit. Flawless rubies, diamonds, and gold. Nalini knew her stones and this was worth a lot. It should be worn, admired . . . locked away in a safe when somebody wasn’t wearing it, not shoved into a pocket.

But she couldn’t stand to have it on her skin. When she wore it, the sound of screaming was that much louder. So she kept it in a jeweler’s box and the box was tucked inside the inner pocket of her light jacket. Heaven help her if she was mugged . . .

Then she smirked a little, just thinking of it. Not that it was likely. She could make any man who touched her do just about anything she wanted for short periods of time.

When he’d put this necklace on her, she’d almost made him put a bullet through his own brain. It had taken most of the night to bring herself down off that ledge.

Killing him wouldn’t be a bad thing.

But she had to do her job first.

And she couldn’t do it while she was so worried about what was going on with the boy. So she was here . . . all because she’d touched a necklace.

Her main skill was the ability to influence people through touch, to take their energy and . . . work with it. Jones had called it impressions. She could get inside a person’s head, in their soul, and leave an impression. While she was there, she could manipulate a person’s energy, their will. Nalini could channel that person’s energy, if she put her mind to it, and drive people to do either very bad things, or very good things. Since she tended to hunt down scum, she was usually driven to make them want to do bad things . . . to themselves. When she wanted to, though, she could do useful things. When she pulled back, she could filter away some of the negative shit. She didn’t do that much. But then again, when you worked with the scum of the earth, you didn’t have much of a chance to want to do nice things.

The impression/emotional manipulation shit was her main ability, but there was another one, a weaker one that sometimes got in the way. That ability was the reason she was here now and it hadn’t just gotten in the way this time.

It had almost tripped her up in the middle of the job, and if she wasn’t careful, it would get her killed.

A woman crying.

A boy screaming.

A man, almost brutally handsome, staring at the woman, and the woman had known her life . . . and death . . . were in his hands.

Then there was just death.

And the knowledge that the boy was still alive.

She’d gotten a glimpse of him, just that one flash.

She’d lied to Tucker. Lies were, sadly, something she dealt in. She told them, sold them, used them. Half the time, she didn’t know what was truth and what was reality, in part because she sold people another reality entirely, depending on what she needed to accomplish to get her job done.

To accomplish her goal.

Her goal . . . finding one man, one who’d proven to be very, very hard to find. But she had to find him if she ever wanted her life back. It was one of the reasons she wasn’t ever going to officially work for Taylor Jones. He claimed he could help with all of that, but she wasn’t about to let her name into the system, or her prints, or anything else. It was easier to just push some information his way and take the money he’d give her when he was in the mood.

She wasn’t going to barter money or info this time. What she wanted was to point Jones and his group toward that kid. In her gut, she knew why the boy was wanted. Why his mother—and the woman had to be his mother—had been murdered. If anybody could care for a damaged kid, it would be Jones. And if the kid had psychic skill, even better that Jones be the one taking care of him. But first they had to find him.

Narrow things down a bit. That’s where Tucker came in.

Then she’d just give Jones a nudge and sit back, watch while Jones worked.

He might deny any psychic ability, but she’d never seen anybody who could locate their kind the way he could. It was like he had some inborn compass that pointed only to psychics and trouble. She’d once called him Professor X, just to get a rise out of him.

He hadn’t been amused.

She’d almost think he didn’t have a sense of humor. Except she’d gotten that glimpse into him. He had humor. He had heat. He even had a heart, surprisingly enough. He also had a wife, a fact that Nalini had found a damn shame, right up until she’d laid eyes on one Tucker Collins.

There weren’t too many men she’d be willing to drop her guard around. Jones had been one, but he’d never noticed her interest.

Collins, though . . . he was aware of her interest.

And he was interested in return.

She realized they had a complication or two, but that was nothing she couldn’t work with. She’d dealt with volatile types before. She was almost certain she could handle him.

Except instead of walking up to the hotel where she knew he’d rented a room, after more than twenty minutes, Nalini was still standing outside, leaning against her car and staring up at the dark night sky.

A slice of light came spilling out of one of the rooms, and she turned her head. He was too far away and it was too dark out for her to see his face as clearly as she’d like.

But she didn’t need to see him. Tucker’s face was all but imprinted on her memory.

As beautiful as he could possibly be, with those high, arched cheekbones, a jawline that looked like he could take a punch or ten . . . and had, a mouth that would have made her sigh with want if she was disposed to such things. As it was, she just thought about sighing over that mouth. Most people would look at him and think that his hair was the most memorable feature. Deep, dark red . . . completely beautiful. It wasn’t the hair, though. Nor was it the tattoos that crept up over his arms, winding around them and disappearing under the sleeves of his T-shirt. Dressed, she thought, shoving off the car. Even this late at night. Or early in the morning.

What a pity.

No, it wasn’t the hair. Wasn’t the tattoos. Wasn’t even his size and Tucker Collins was a big guy. She’d never been much into that until she’d laid eyes on him.

The thing that made Tucker stand out were the eyes.

A person looked into those eyes and realized very clearly that this was a man who’d clawed his way through life and was going to keep on doing it. He’d killed. She knew it just by looking at him. Death stained the soul and she knew the soul. He’d killed and he didn’t regret it. Nalini was fine with that. She’d killed a few times herself, and she didn’t regret those deaths, either.

His eyes told a story. One of a man who’d caused, and solved, a helluva a lot of trouble.

If Nalini was smart, she’d steer very, very clear of him.

With a slow, lazy smile that felt entirely fake, she shoved off the car and headed toward the open door. The wedge of light framed Tucker too damn well. She stopped just a few feet away, close enough that she could feel