Alpha One (Shadow Agents #1)(7)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Not the smooth words a woman needed to hear after her ordeal in captivity, but there wasn’t much more he could say. So he left. While he still could.

And of course, Jasper was waiting for him in the other room. The guy lifted a blond brow. His face, one of those pretty-boy faces that always fooled the enemy, hinted at his amusement. “Now I get it,” he drawled.

Angry, aroused, close to desperate, Logan barely bit back the crude retort that rose to his lips. But Jasper was a friend, a teammate.

“You’re always looking for the blondes with dark eyes,” Jasper teased as he tapped his chin. “Wherever we go, you usually seem to hook up with one.”

He was right.

Jasper smirked. “Now I know why.” The briefest pause as he studied Logan. “How do they all compare with the original model?”

Logan glared at his friend. There is no comparison. Instead of responding to Jasper, Logan stalked off to trade out for his guard shift.

* * *

SENATOR AARON JAMES stared down at the gun in his hands. Things weren’t supposed to end this way. Not for him. He’d had such big plans.

Easy money. The perfect life. So much power.

And everything was falling apart, slipping away.

The phone on his desk rang. His private line. Jaw clenching, he reached for the receiver. “J-James.” He hated the tremble in his voice. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid. Everyone else was supposed to fear him.

Once, they had.

Until he’d met Diego Guerrero. Then he’d learned a whole new meaning of fear.

“She’s dead.” The voice was low, taunting. No accent. Just cold. Deadly.

Diego.

Aaron’s hand clenched around the receiver. “Juliana wasn’t part of this.”

“You made her part of it.”

His gaze dropped to the gun. “She’s not dead.” He’d gotten the intel, knew that Juliana had been rescued. The price for that rescue had been so high.

His life.

“You think this will stop me?” Laughter. “I’ll hunt her down. I’ll get what I want.”

Diego and his men never stopped. Never. They’d once burned a whole village to the ground in order to send a message to rivals. And I thought I could control him? Perspiration slicked Aaron’s palms. “I made the deals for you. The weapons were transferred. We’re clear.”

More laughter. “No, we’re not. But we will be, once I get back the evidence you’ve been stashing.”

Aaron’s heart stopped.

“Did you think I didn’t know about that? How else would you have gotten the agents to come for her? You made a trade, didn’t you, James?”

“She’s my daughter.” He hadn’t been able to let her just die. Once, she’d run to him, smiling, with her arms open. I love you, Daddy. So long ago. He’d wrecked their life together. Thrown it all away but…

I wasn’t letting her die.

“I want the evidence.”

He’d tried to be so careful. He’d written down the names, the dates of all the deals. He’d gotten recordings and created a safety net for himself.

But now he was realizing that he’d never be safe. Not from Guerrero.

“I’ll get the evidence.” A deadly promise from his caller. “I’ll get you, and I’ll kill her.”

The phone line went dead.

Aaron swallowed once, twice, trying to relieve the dryness in his throat. Things had been going fine with Guerrero until…I got greedy.

So he’d taken a little extra money, just twenty million dollars. It had seemed so easy. Sneak a little money away from each deal. Aaron had considered the cash to be a…finder’s fee, of sorts.

He’d found the ones who wanted the weapons. He’d set up the deals.

Didn’t he deserve a bit of a bonus payment for his work? He’d thought so. But then Guerrero had found out. Guerrero had wanted the money back. When Guerrero started making his demands, Aaron had threatened to use the evidence he had against the arms dealer…

My mistake. Aaron now realized what a fool he’d been. You couldn’t bluff against the man called El Diablo. The devil would never back down.

Instead of backing down, Guerrero had taken Juliana.

His eyes squeezed shut. Juliana was safe now, but how long would that safety last?

I’ll get you, Guerrero had said. This nightmare wasn’t going to end quietly. The press would find out about what he’d done. Everything he’d built—gone.

I’ll kill her.

Juliana was his regret. He’d pulled her into this war, and she didn’t even realize it.

Now she’d die, too.

No one ever really escaped Diego. No matter what promises Logan Quinn had made. You didn’t get to cheat the devil and walk away.

The receiver began to hum. Fumbling, Aaron shoved the phone aside. Stared down the dark barrel of the gun.

He wouldn’t lose everything, wouldn’t be made a mockery on every late-night television show. And even when the public turned on him, Aaron knew he’d still be hunted by Guerrero.

There wasn’t a choice. No way out. When Guerrero caught him, El Diablo would torture him. He’d make Aaron suffer for hours, days.

No, no, that wasn’t the way that Aaron wanted to go out.

“I’m sorry, Juliana…”

* * *

JULIANA HELD HER BREATH as the small plane touched down, bounced and touched down again on a landing strip that she couldn’t even see. Her hands were clenched tight in her lap, and she didn’t make a sound. Fear churned in her, but she held on to her control with all her strength. The men and the woman with her weren’t scared, or if they were, she sure couldn’t tell.

The woman was flying them. Sydney—that was her name. Juliana had heard Logan call her Sydney once. The group hadn’t exactly been chatty, but that was probably due to the whole life-and-death situation they had going on.

The plane bumped once more and then, thankfully, settled down. She felt the plane’s speed begin to slow as it taxied down what she sincerely doubted was a real runway. They’d taken off from some dirt road in Mexico, so she figured they were probably landing in the middle of nowhere.

“And we’re back in America,” Logan murmured from beside her with a flash that could have been a brief grin.

She pushed her fingers against her jean-clad thighs. The better to wipe the sweat off her hands. “Does this mean I’m safe again?” she asked. He’d been her shadow nearly every moment. Close but not touching. And that was fine, right? She didn’t want him touching her.