Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
She did not expect Jezebel Jenkins.
Ten minutes after overhearing that Ryan feared she would fuck over Nash and that apparently, Nash should just fuck her, Delaney sat in the den of a wooden cabin. A cabin that, Nash had informed her, was nestled in Tennessee. A safe house with top-of-the-line security.
Delaney pressed her hands to the tops of her thighs as she forced her back to remain ramrod straight. Did it look as if she’d just been making out with Nash upstairs? Were her lips swollen? Her cheeks flushed?
She could have stopped him. Could have just said “no” and he would have backed off. Had she done that? Nope. Instead, she’d grabbed onto him as tightly as she could. Delaney had kissed him with every bit of passion inside of her.
She’d let her control vanish, and she’d given into the raw need that she’d always felt for Nash. Seriously, after all this time, shouldn’t that need have faded some? But it hadn’t. He’d put those big, strong hands on her, he’d put that wicked mouth on hers, and she’d practically imploded.
Desire had obliterated every other thought. She’d just wanted to kiss him. To pretend that her heart had never been shattered. That he still cared. That they had a chance together.
And then Ryan had pounded at the door. And she’d had to rush down the stairs to this meeting with…their boss?
Jezebel Jenkins had entered the cabin with two guards—both men who physically dominated Jezebel’s petite frame.
The woman appeared to be in her early sixties.
Faint tendrils of gray showed in the darkness of her hair, hair that had been pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck.
The woman moved with the easy grace that you’d expect from a ballerina.
And her stare? That darkness was ice cold.
Very few lines showed on her face. Only determination. Intelligence. Calculation.
She paused in front of Delaney. “Are you willing to die for your country?”
Delaney opened her mouth. That question had just come from absolutely nowhere.
“Her dying is not on the agenda,” Nash snapped before she could reply. “Come on, Jez, she’s a civilian. Let’s get her the hell out of the line of fire and come up with a plan of action.”
Jez cut her gaze toward Nash. “She is the plan of action.”
Delaney did not particularly like the sound of that. She wet her lips and swore that she tasted Nash. I should not have made out with him.
But she had, and her body still ached. Her thighs trembled. I had my legs wrapped around him. His heavy dick shoved against me. He wanted me as much as I wanted him.
This was so not the time to be having those particular thoughts.
Jezebel’s coal-black stare returned to her.
“Your groom tracked you to the motel where you and Nash were staying. I have intelligence that indicates Kurt Wellington is desperate to get you back.” She pointed vaguely to Nash.
“The current orders are that Nash should be taken down. Shot on sight. Stabbed. Dismembered. Whatever.” No accent entered her voice. No emotion showed on her face.
But plenty of emotions surged through Delaney. The strongest emotion was fear. Followed closely by rage. “Nash can’t die!” Kurt had wanted him dismembered? What fresh hell was this?
“I’m not planning on dying,” Nash groused. “Jez, you’re trying to manipulate her.”
“Am I the type to manipulate?” Jezebel asked with an innocent blink of her eyes. “How could you ever say such a thing about me? That hurts. Deeply.” Small pearl earrings were the only jewelry she wore.
Ryan snorted at Jezebel’s response. Then tried to smother a laugh.
Jezebel fired him a quick glance. “Does something amuse you? Is it the idea of dismemberment?”
He shook his head. “I was laughing because, of course, you don’t manipulate. Not you, Jez. Why on earth would you do something like that?”
A nod from Jezebel. Her focus shifted back to Delaney. “Kurt Wellington wants you back, alive.”
As to that…“I’m not actually under the impression that it’s me he wants. I believe he is more interested in my inheritance.”
“Because your grandfather’s criminal operation would be beneficial to him? Yes, I suppose that could be part of your appeal.”
Oh, great. So was it just common knowledge now that her grandfather had been in bed with criminal elements? How come someone hadn’t clued her in to this situation much, much sooner?
Had the CIA been monitoring her family? Her? And for how long? Worried and horrified, she darted a glance at Nash, but his stone-faced expression told her nothing. Stomach knotting, she concentrated on Jezebel once more.
“I certainly do believe that Wellington is interested in the benefits your inheritance would bring him, but I think more is involved here. I think…” Jezebel smiled. A wide, calculating grin that made a shiver slide down Delaney’s spine. “I think we’ve found his weakness.”
“No.” Nash surged forward. “This is not happening. You can just forget it.”
“What’s not happening?” Delaney was lost in the conversation.
Sitting on the couch was not working for her.
Everyone was looking down at her, and she felt small and afraid and just—nope.
Delaney jumped to her feet. “Will someone please explain to me exactly what is happening?” She didn’t particularly want to revisit the “Would you die for your country” part of the conversation but some answers would be fabulous.
“Your fiancé is a very dangerous individual,” Jezebel informed her. “If left unchecked, he will continue to kill, to kidnap, to trade weapons, to export drugs, and to just all around make the world a very dangerous place.”
“Ex-fiancé,” she corrected. “Ex. Super ex.”
Nash was at Delaney’s side.
Ryan watched them, his arms over his chest, as he leaned near the bookshelf to the right.
The two men who had accompanied Jezebel to the cabin—both tall, fit, wearing dark clothes and with holsters on their hips—waited near the doorway, bodies alert.
“You don’t want to leave Wellington unchecked, do you?” Jezebel asked.
“No?” That felt like the right answer. “No.” Better. Firmer. Because she one hundred percent did not want anyone else in danger. Kidnapped. Killed.
“Great. Then you’ll allow him to find you, you’ll monitor his business, and we’ll gather evidence needed to prove conclusively that Kurt Wellington is, in fact, the criminal mastermind known as Typhon,” Jez concluded with satisfaction.
“It’s an operation that I hope will be able to conclude within a few months. ”
What, what, what? “You want me to go back to him?” Back to the man who’d locked her in a closet, who’d stabbed her in the side, and who’d promised a watery grave for her honeymoon? Back to him?
No. She must have misunderstood Jezebel.
“Um.” Jezebel watched her with an unblinking gaze.
Um was not a no answer.
Jezebel nodded.
Fear flashed through Delaney. “He’ll kill me!
” This was not the response she’d expected to receive from Nash’s boss.
She knew Nash had briefed Jezebel and Ryan on all the information she’d told him about Kurt murdering a man in front of her.
She’d thought that giving her testimony would be enough to have Kurt locked away.
Never in a million years had Delaney expected this development.
“If I go to him, he’ll murder me! There will be no intelligence gathering.
” As if she even knew how to gather data on him.
“There will just be me dying!” Probably in a super painful fashion.
“I don’t think so.” Jezebel spoke with utter unconcern.
“I believe he has developed an emotional attachment to you. If Wellington—Kurt—wanted to kill you, he could have just shot you while you were being carried out of the church or he could’ve had one of his men do the job.
He didn’t. You’re alive so…” That calculating grin flashed again.
“That makes you extremely useful to me.”
Nash’s hand closed around Delaney’s wrist. “No.” He pulled her toward him. Put her behind him. “We’re not risking Delaney’s life.”
Good. Great. Fabulous response. She did not want her life risked. She wanted Kurt tossed in a cell, and Delaney wanted safety. “Can’t I just file charges against him? Testify about the things he did? What I saw him do?” How could that not be enough?
“Sure, you can file charges.” Jezebel’s mild voice.
Delaney craned to see around Nash. To peer at Jezebel.
“And then he’ll disappear into the wind like…
” Jezebel snapped her fingers. “That. The man probably has at least a dozen passports, all with different aliases. He’ll vanish long before law enforcement can get to him, and then he’ll bide his time and he’ll wait and he’ll find a way to either eventually abduct you or to kill you. ”
Well, there was certainly no sugarcoating from Jezebel. “I’d prefer not to die.”
“Um.”
She’d also prefer not to go back to the man who wanted to murder her.
“Going back to Kurt makes no sense to me.” How did it make sense to anyone in that room?
“He knows I ran away—willingly. I ran to Nash in the church. I couldn’t wait to get away.
You might believe I’m some weird weakness for Kurt, but that’s just not true. Kurt has no weaknesses.”
“I disagree.” Flat. Then Jezebel cleared her throat. “Nash.”
He was still standing protectively in front of Delaney, and she still was craning around his big body.
“Thank you for retrieving the asset,” Jezebel said to him.
Oh, wait, was she an asset now? That sounded bad. Delaney craned a bit more about Nash so she could better see his boss.
“But I believe your work here is done,” Jezebel continued with a regal incline of her head toward Nash. “You have a target on your head, courtesy of the scene at the church, so it is best if you are removed from the situation.”
“No,” Nash fired back.
“Yes,” Delaney said at the same time.
He whipped around to face her. “What?”