The Protected

thought. All the days were running together. But Esteban’s eyes, yeah. That she remembered. He’d had the look of a desperate man, and since he hadn’t found the boy, she had a feeling he’d be doing almost anything to avoid coming back here.

Still, while she was on the inside, she collected as much information as she could. There were others here that had caught her interest. Nobody wanted to catch Nalini’s interest. Ignacio had, and look where it had landed him.

First, screen shots of everything and she saved them, e-mailed them to a personal account. She’d access it later and start researching. Once she was away from here. Then she deleted the job listing, wiping it off the server, as well as any and all responses to it. She couldn’t do anything if it had been cached anywhere on the Net, but if it wasn’t an active job posting, maybe some of the people on his ass would stop. The pragmatic sorts, at least.

After she’d done that, she took care of the protective measures to make sure nobody could get on the computer and find out what she’d been doing. Reyes was no computer genius but he had plenty of them around.

By the time she was done removing all traces from the computer, so much time had passed that Reyes had thrown off all signs of the compulsion, and when she looked up, he was watching her with the soulless, dead eyes of a killer. “Why are you asking about Alejandro?” he asked gently.

“Who?” She smiled at him, the coy, promising smile that had suckered him into bringing her here. Of course, it hadn’t just been a smile. She’d thrown in a few casual touches, a few whispered innuendos, basically getting him all hot and bothered.

Now he was icy and cold, like he was already planning the ways he wanted to kill her.

“My son.”

She blinked at him. “You have a kid?”

“Don’t play the stupid puta with me, Nala. I know what you are, what you can do. Is that why you hunt him? You want him for yourself?”

She studied him for a minute. “You would think something like that, wouldn’t you?”

She shut down her computer and stood up. She needed to find anything and everything she could that had belonged to the boy, or to his mother. Once she had those things, she had to destroy them. He had already figured out what she was, so he’d figure out there were more. Ignacio hadn’t been the brains behind The Psychic Portal move, but since he knew there were others out there, she didn’t want him to have any decent tools within his grasp if he decided to reach out to others to help look for his son.

“How do you know about my son?”

She smiled at him. “Madame Nala sees all, knows all.”

The look in his eyes told her he didn’t know if he believed her or not. She managed not to laugh in his face. If he thought she was some all-seeing, all-knowing thing, it might work to her benefit.

He wasn’t just going to buy it, though. “You don’t think I will just believe that, do you?”

“I don’t care what you believe, Reyes.” Nalini shrugged. “Doesn’t matter jack to me. Why don’t you sit there and mentally jack off as you think about the way his mama cried when you hit her because she said she’d leave?”

Direct hit.

She saw his lashes flicker, the only sign that she’d been right on target. But she knew she had. She’d been living in this hell for too long and she’d picked up enough impressions. From the house. From the jewelry he’d given her. From him.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said after just a few seconds too long.

“No?” She shrugged and started to gather up her things. After she went over the house, she had to get out of here. She had to do this fast, too.

As she strode past him, he jerked against the chair. “Let me loose, Nala. Now. If you don’t . . .”

She paused and looked over at him, smiling a little. “You’ll what? Put your hands on me? Haven’t you seen what happens when you do that?”

His mouth spasmed. “I don’t need to touch you to make you pay. A bullet in the back of your head will suffice.”

“You have to catch up with me first.” She shrugged and left the room. The clock was running. She had to gather up anything that could be used to find Alex. She had to gather up anything and everything of hers, but she’d already taken care of most of that. A few other pieces of information.

So much to do . . . so little time.

* * *

GUS expected to sleep lightly, or not at all.

He was in bed with somebody else, and that shouldn’t be conducive to restfulness.

It was something of a surprise when he found himself drifting to slow awareness. Slow . . . pleasant . . . awareness.

He took stock of his surroundings, mentally taking note. Had anything changed? Dirty, smoke-stained ceiling overhead—all of that had been the same as last night. Ugly art on the walls—it had been just as ugly the night before. Thick, blackout curtains on the windows—the only change there was the thin stream of light filtering in through the narrow gap. Hotel room—a piss-poor excuse of a room.

Damn, what he wouldn’t give to take Vaughnne to a place of luxury, where crystal and gold glinted, where the bed was as soft as a cloud and the cotton sheets felt as smooth and soft as silk against her skin as he lay her down to make love to her.

Instead, they were in this old, run-down pile of bricks that had seen better days.

His brain processed everything else, even as he dwelled a little longer on the fantasy. He still had his weapon, gripped in his right hand. And his left hand . . . he closed his eyes and let himself linger in the moment. A few more seconds, he decided, couldn’t really hurt anything, could it? If this was all they’d ever have, why not enjoy what he could?

Vaughnne muttered in her sleep and snuggled in closer, her face tucked against his neck, her arm slung over his waist. She was as close to him as she could be without crawling on top of him, and if she decided to do that, he wouldn’t mind.

He’d actually enjoy it. He’d love to see her riding him, freeing his hands to touch that strong, limber body.

Heat spread through him as he thought of it, and he had to fight the urge to bring that hot fantasy to life, right then, right there. His dick insisted that he’d warned her. He’d told her he planned on having her again, and if she wanted that not to happen, she should have gone to the other bed.

But the other part of him remembered how she had looked at him with sad, somber eyes the previous day when she’d pulled a gun on him.

Saving me. It was a lovely, naive thing that she thought he could actually be saved at this point in his life. He’d killed. He’d stolen. He’d long since grown immune to the wet sound a bone made as he broke it. He’d done so many awful things, and up until Alex had come into his life, he’d been about ready to go down in a blaze of glory, too. Tired of it all.

Now he was still tired, but mostly, he was tired of running. Tired of being afraid of what would happen. He didn’t fear for himself, but for Alex. Now for her.

She thought she was saving him.

So he could let himself be a little less of a monster and not be the greedy bastard he truly was.

If she wanted him—

She woke up.

* * *

SHE’D expected to get maybe an hour of sleep. Two, if she was lucky.

That was how life had been going ever since she’d hit Orlando, after all. Nothing went the way she’d hoped.

But when she woke up, her head wasn’t muzzy with exhaustion, and her body wasn’t raging in fury at the thought of getting out of bed. It was just growling a little.

And Gus lay in the bed next to her.