Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Chapter Sixty-One

Juniper

I lied.

A big, fat, ugly lie that turned my stomach and made me want to vomit apologies.

I had gone after him, and not because I was going to ask how he’d found me. Not then, at least.

His focus returned to the road, and he didn’t say anything for the next fifteen minutes as he drove further and further away from Miami proper to an area I’d never been, and I’d been all over.

Another fifteen minutes of excruciating silence while I sat in the back like a child, and it was official. I was scared.

No houses or civilization around us, a whole bunch of untamed South Florida vegetation and one dirt road later, we were at some sort of construction site with no people.

And one giant metal building.

Blade pulled up next to it and issued a command as he put the engine in Park. “Wait.” Getting out of the SUV, he strode toward a door on the building that was four times his height and at least double that in length. The next thing I knew, he was sliding it open like it weighed nothing, and inside was a plane.

A big twin-engine private airplane.

Oh my God .

With his cell to his ear, he got back in the expensive SUV. “Ghost flight. Negative. Northwest location. Bringing in Delta. You make the call, or I will.” He drove into the building and parked behind the plane. “Copy.” He turned off the engine and glanced at his watch. “You’ve got seven hours, November. Get me that fucking intel. Then find the goddamn backdoor on this and shut it down.” He dumped the key fob into the center console. “Negative. I’ll handle it. Don’t fucking care.” He glanced across the cavernous space. “Not repeating myself. Tell Victor to lock the hangar on his way out.” He hung up and got back out of the SUV.

Seconds later, my door was opened, and an impossibly huge Navy SEAL was standing in front of me. “Let’s go.”

It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t actually know a thing about him. “Are you really a SEAL?”

“Used to be.”

My traitorous heart fluttered. “How long ago?”

He stared at me for a moment. “Took an early retirement two years ago. How long have you been living out of your Jeep?”

“I….” It was on the tip of my tongue to lie. Shame, ego, diminishing dignity, they all swirled, and I had to remind myself that I didn’t owe him anything. Except I did. He’d saved my life twice now. And that deserved the truth. Or as much as I could give him. “Two years, on and off. When I can afford it, I get a hotel a night or two a week.” More like once or twice a month these days, but I didn’t admit to that. Instead, I indirectly asked another question. “You don’t look old enough to be retired.”

“Only retired from the Navy. The house in Little Havana?”

The way he asked, it was almost as if he knew something or was testing me. “Like I told you back then, it belongs to a friend.”

“Reena,” he stated.

I sucked in a breath that turned out to be all musk and woods and soap as Blade stood blocking the open car door, then I tried to rationalize. I no longer had the cell phone. My car key and Reena’s house key were with someone named Victor. He already knew about Reena. He saw me walk out of that bar with her two years ago. Reena had been gone so long, I didn’t know if she was ever coming back. What would I be giving away if I admitted that it was, or had been, her house? Or that the power and water had been on this whole time, and I wasn’t sure who owned it anymore.

Nothing. I would be giving away nothing.

“Yes, it was Reena’s.”

He immediately picked up on my use of past tense. “Was?”

“Or maybe still is. I don’t know. It’s been empty this whole time,” I admitted.

“Why didn’t you stay there?”

Was he serious? “You stole my key.”

“You had the place rekeyed that night.”

Belated alarm struck. “How do you know that?”

He hesitated. Then he said the last thing I was expecting. “Company I work for now sent a sweep team in after me to wipe my prints. They had to wait for you and the locksmith to clear out.”

Speechless, I stared up at him.

He reached for me. “Let’s go.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. “Wait.” I held a hand up. “Who the hell do you work for that would do that?” Wipe his prints?

“AES.”

“I don’t know what that is.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Alpha Elite Security. You park next to our headquarters in that private lot in South Beach.”

Oh, God. “Okay.” Grabbing my purse, I avoided eye contact. “I think I need to go now.” I was never, ever parking in that lot again.

“Who is Reena?” he demanded.

“My friend.” Or she was. I didn’t know anymore. The question caught me off guard, and I wanted to say that if I had a friend, I wouldn’t ghost them like she’d ghosted me, but that’s exactly what I would do—if I had to. “Excuse me.”

I moved to step out of the SUV, but his hands went around my waist, and my Uggs hit the ground faster than I could shoulder my bag. Even more quick was the current of awareness that shot through my body and had me looking up at him.

As if he had known I would seek his cool blue gaze, he was already staring down at me. “Why didn’t you stay in the Little Havana house?”

The desire that had instantly simmered from just his hands touching me fled as deep-seated embarrassment flamed my cheeks. For once, I didn’t say anything.

“You did stay there,” he surmised. “Frequency?”

“Why?” It started to sink in that he worked for a security company.

“Covering all bases.”

“I don’t know what that means.” But I could guess, and this was getting too close to territory that would expose me and make him a target, and I couldn’t allow that.

“What do you think happened today, woman?”

Suddenly, the denial I’d been choking down and the guilt for Del Cielo’s and Hailey that I had been keeping a lid on ruptured with the weight of seven long years, and my body swayed.

Huge hands that were already grasping me gripped tighter. “Hey.”

Inhaling twice in an attempt to shove it all down, I tried to veer away from his question. “You found me, and you don’t know my name?” He’d heard what Hailey had called me yesterday morning.

“I know your name. When was the last time you were at that house?”

“I don’t know.” I did know. “Why are you asking?”

“Running down all angles on the drive-by. You eat yet today?”

“Drive-by shootings seem to follow you. And is this what you do for that security company? Whisk people away and ask them if they’ve eaten?”

“I do a lot of shit, woman. Time to move.” He turned us toward the plane, opened a door near the back, then gently pushed me ahead of him toward two steps that had unfolded. “Go.”