12. Is Silver Fox a Brand?
JERKING AWAKE, I suck in a sharp breath as I jolt in the seat.
”It”s okay, Angel Face.” Vincent”s voice cuts through the panicked haze making my heart race. ”We’re almost there.”
I rub at my eyes, trying to wipe away the blearyness that remains. ”Almost where?”
”The airport.” He changes lanes, moving to the right-hand side of the highway. ”We”ll wait there until the plane arrives.”
My hands go from rubbing my eyes to swiping at my hair, attempting to expend the nervous energy still coursing through my system. The shaking of my limbs has me jittery and honestly, a little confused. ”I don’t understand how I fell asleep.”
”You haven’t been asleep long. It was probably just your adrenaline crashing.” Something flexes against my leg and my gaze drops to where Vincent”s hand is wrapped across my thigh.
I stare at it for a few beats, waiting to see if my previously over interested libido takes notice, but nothing happens. Apparently my desire for excitement and scariness has limits, and maybe committing murder is one of them.
I glance at where Vincent sits in the driver”s seat, looking surprisingly agitated. This kind of shit is normal for him, happens in his everyday life, so I didn”t expect it to faze him. ”Are you okay?”
”No, Jules. I”m not okay.” He takes the next exit, but still doesn”t look my way.
I think he might be mad at me, especially since he only calls me Jules when he”s genuinely pissed about something I”ve done. ”I”m sorry I dragged you into this. I just didn”t know where else to—”
The hand on my thigh grips tight, sealing off my words with a squeak. ”I know you”re not about to fucking apologize for coming to me when you were in trouble.”
”I just…” I take a hitching breath, the catch a lingering result of the crying fit I had earlier. “I know you came here to get rid of me and not to get into whatever this mess is and—”
”Julieanne.” There”s a warning in the way he says my name, and it makes it clear we’ve leveled up from Jules on the pissy-ometer.
It also brings my lower half back to life, confirming my earlier suspicions. I don”t like danger and excitement in general. I like a very specific brand of excitement and danger.
And the brand is six feet four inches of silver fox.
But my libido needs to calm her shit because we’re about to be stuffed into a tiny plane with zero privacy. So, while the distraction of rubbing myself all over him would be amazingly useful right now, there won’t really be the opportunity. I’m going to have to deal with reality, which sucks. My head falls back against the seat as I blow out a breath. ”Where are we flying to?” He’s probably already told me, but for the life of me I can’t remember.
”Alaska.”
His one-word answer sends me sitting up straight in my seat, attention snapping his way. ”But you said I couldn’t work—”
”Oh, I”m not hiring you, Angel Face. Don”t get this confused.” His hand still hasn”t left my thigh, but I could swear it slides the tiniest bit higher. ”But I obviously can”t fucking leave you here since you don”t know how to act right. So, until we figure out who that was and why they showed up in the middle of the night, you’re under house arrest.”
I bark out a laugh at how ridiculous that sounds. ”House arrest? Whose house?”
Vincent”s eyes finally come my way, pinning me in place with a gaze so intense I swear I feel it all the way to my still soggy toes. ”Mine.”
I should probably argue. It can’t be a good idea to let the guy who just killed three people fly you out of state and lock you up in his house, but this is Vincent. I”ve never been particularly rational where he”s concerned. Right from the very beginning.
Sure, I approached other companies similar to his, but when they weren”t interested, I moved on. I didn”t really move on from GHOST. From Vincent.
I should have—I know. I just... Couldn”t.
I blow out another breath, slumping in my seat. ”You better have good Internet.”
Vincent chuckles, shaking his head. ”You aren”t getting Internet access anytime soon, Angel Face.”
Sitting up straight again, I scoff, staring at him with my mouth hanging open. ”You said house arrest. People on house arrest get the Internet.”
Vincent”s hand slides higher this time as it flexes against my thigh. ”Most people on house arrest’s Internet activity doesn”t bring a team of mercenaries to their door in the middle of the night, Jules.” His eyes are back on the road now, but I feel like he”s still watching me. ”And I”ve worked really hard to make sure no one knows where GHOST is located. I”ll be damned if I”m gonna let you bring someone to my fucking front door.”
That actually shuts me up. Because while I was able to find out a lot about GHOST, outside of being housed somewhere in the enormous state of Alaska, I never did figure out exactly where it was located.
”So you”re telling me no one knows where your headquarters are?” Even though I know I”m the only one who”s ever made it into their system—with the exception of one other person whose trail I”ve seen a time or two—I still find it hard to believe that, after being around all these years, no one has their freaking mailing address.
”The location of GHOST is limited to a handful of people I trust implicitly.” Vincent rocks his jaw from side to side as an odd expression rolls over his face.
But it’s gone before I can try to identify it, quickly shuttered back behind his everyday glower. I rub one temple, pressing at the headache beginning to form behind my eyes. ”So your plan is to hold me hostage in an Internetless room at GHOST headquarters until you figure out who the man that showed up on my balcony was?”
”No.”
I wait for him to elaborate, but Vincent doesn”t say another word.
I open my mouth to ask yet another question I probably won”t get a whole answer to, but before I can say a word, he”s punching at the screen on the dash. A second later a phone starts to ring through the speakers. A man answers almost immediately ”What do you need me to do?”
”I need you to update the cleaning crew. Let them know there”s another package on the south side of the retention pond. That”s probably where they want to start so it can be collected before the sun comes up.”
”Got it.” The man on the other end of the line is all business, but his voice is deep and smooth. ”Anything else?”
”What”s the ETA on my flight?”
”They”re fueling up now and should take off within the next twenty. They’ll stop for fuel in Iowa and should be to you by six hundred hours.”
”We”ll be there waiting.” Vincent disconnects the call and I stare at him.
”You’re not even gonna say goodbye?”
He doesn”t acknowledge my question, just makes another call. Again, it”s answered almost right away by another deep voiced man, but this one is a different sort than the one before.
”Vincent, fancy hearing from you again.”
I have to work hard to hide my smile at the way Vincent”s jaw starts to tick at the man”s casual and friendly tone.
”I need you to escalate your access of Julieanne’s system. A team was sent to her house tonight and I need to know who sent them.”
”Jesus Christ.” The man sounds genuinely worried. ”Is she okay?”
This time I just let my smile happen, because I feel a little bad for this guy. Vincent is being clipped and sour with him and the guy’s being nothing but friendly. So I lean forward, smile still in place as I say, ”I”m fine, thank you.”
The line goes silent. A few seconds tick past before the other man finally says something. ”Julieanne, I presume?”
I open my mouth to respond, but Vincent”s hand finally lifts from my thigh to clamp across it, sealing off my response. ”Who she is, is none of your fucking business. Your business is finding out who showed up and why they were sent there.”
I roll my eyes Vincent”s way because I really honestly can”t believe this is how he talks to his team. It”s one thing to be professional and in charge, but he might be taking it a little too far.
Finally, the man who is only identified by the number three in Vincent”s phone, replies. ”Got it.”
This time it”s not Vincent who disconnects the call. The line goes dead, and I smirk behind Vincent”s hand. ”I think he just hung up on you.” The words are all garbled but I know Vincent understood them.
Vincent”s hand leaves my mouth, and I expect it to leave my body entirely, but it drops right back onto my thigh, gripping tight like he thinks I”m gonna fucking jump out the door the second he stops. No thank you. I”ve reached my kill count for the day and have no desire to end up in some other bad-ish guy’s blacked out SUV. Especially since the other guy wouldn”t just be bad-ish. He would likely be bad, bad.
”His job is to talk to me, not you.” Vincent sounds a little more than irritated over number three talking to me, and that circles me back to my earlier concerns.
”So you”re not only going to lock me in a room with no Internet access at GHOST’s headquarters, but you”re also not going to let anybody there talk to me?” The sound that comes out of me is something between a scoff and a disbelieving laugh. ”Because this is starting to sound less and less like you keeping me safe and more and more like a kidnapping.”
”Kidnapping involves children.” Vincent”s eyes come my way, drifting over my less than well-dressed form. ”You”re not a child.”
”Don”t get into semantics with me.” I know I shouldn”t fight with him, but I can”t help it. ”You can”t just lock me away at headquarters and leave me there to rot.”
Vincent sighs, the sound loud and long. Like suffering through this drive with me is the worst thing that’s happened to him today. ”No one has said anything about keeping you at headquarters, so I don”t know where you came up with that idea.”
”You said you were taking me there. You said you were taking me home.” He”s not gonna make me think I don”t know what”s been said and what”s not. Now that I’m not freaking all the way out, I can follow a fucking conversation.
”That”s right. I said I was taking you home. To my actual fucking home, for Christ”s sake.” I can tell he”s annoyed with me, but oddly enough his shoulders seem to be relaxing. The hard edge of his anger softening.
I stare at him a few seconds longer, only getting a little distracted at the square line of his jaw and the perfect crop of his silvery beard, before my misunderstanding hits me. ”You don”t live at GHOST’s headquarters.”
Vincent”s brows pinch together and he looks at me like I”m stupid. And, honestly, given the events of the past few days, maybe I am. ”Why would I live at GHOST’s headquarters?”
Now that I”m really pondering it, I don”t know why I would think that, but I did. I’ve imagined Vincent a lot—too much—and in my little fantasy world, he lived and breathed GHOST. It would only make sense that he would reside on property.
”So you don”t live at GHOST headquarters?” I try to wrap my mind around this new information, attempting to adjust the life my brain built for Vincent. ”Where do you live then?”
Vincent sighs again, ever the long-suffering mercenary. ”I live in a house, Jules. With windows and doors and furniture and a cat.”
I know his description was meant to be asshole-ish and point out how silly my assumption was, but I get caught up on the very last word he says. ”You have a cat?”
If discovering Vincent didn”t live at GHOST’s headquarters was a surprise, finding out he has a cat is a complete fucking curveball.
”Am I not allowed to have a pet, Julieanne?” He’s back to calling me by my whole first name, but it doesn”t seem like it”s because he”s royally pissed at me. Great. Now he’s thrown my whole theory about name usage out the window.
”Of course you can have a pet, I just didn”t expect you to have a cat.” A dog, definitely. Something big and scary like him. Probably named Cujo or something. ”What”s your cat”s name?”
Vincent”s back to ignoring my questions, which makes me think his cat has an absolutely fantastical name that I”m going to love.
I lean closer, resting one elbow on the console before propping my chin on my fist. ”What”s your cat’s name? If I”m going to be a hostage at your house, I can”t just call it Cat. It”s going to be my only friend since no one else can talk to me.”
”You”re not being held hostage.” He spares me a glance before refocusing on the road. ”And no one said you were allowed to talk to the cat either.”
”Funny.” I blow out a sigh of my own, matching Vincent”s drama as I resituate myself into my seat. ”Fine. I”ll make up a name of my own to call it.” I try to think of the most ridiculous name I can imagine. ”Maybe Kitty Kitty Meow Meow.” I chew my lower lip for a second before coming up with option two. ”Or Butternut.” I turn to look at him. ”What color is it?”
”Julieanne.” This time he says my name the way he does when he”s warning me, and I really like when Vincent warns me.
It plucks my attention right from the whole ‘Vincent has a cat’ thing and drops it down in the middle of ‘Vincent is a sex god’ territory. ”Yes, Vincent?”
His eyes come my way as we stop at a light, and I suck in a sharp breath at the heated way his gaze moves over me. “You are about two seconds from me finding something else to occupy that mouth of yours.”