Chapter 1
One
Present Day
“I’m not in the mood for a meet and greet,” their client said.
He called on every bit of his tact and found that he had none. He was at his wits’ end and had nothing left to give her. No grace. No coddling.
“It’s. Time. To. Go.” Each word spoken from behind clenched teeth.
“I think that maybe you should be happy that I lowered my standards and hired Dillon Security,” Rachel Richards, aka Raquel to her thousands of fans, said as she tossed her bleached blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Excuse me?”
He felt rather than saw his partner Eden Carlyle’s glance.
His partner probably recognized his tone.
It’s the one his sister called his “Don’t Fuck with Ian” tone.
Autumn wasn’t known for her tact, but she was correct.
This little dictator wannabe was about to learn a very real lesson.
There was a long beat of silence where he tried to grab onto his legendary calm.
His nickname had been Ice when he’d worked for MI-6.
He was known as being so detached that people thought there was something wrong with him.
Spoiler alert: there was.
He was definitely a sociopath, but he didn’t know many in the spy business that didn’t exhibit at least a few of those tendencies.
With all of that in mind, this pain in the ass’s blue eyes blazed with pure hatred. She settled her hands on her hips. “I don’t think I stuttered.”
Why was he even on this assignment? He had been a member of the Elite Eight.
He slipped into countries, killed the bad person, and disappeared without anyone knowing.
People feared him at one time. Now he was guarding a woman who was a terror.
From the moment they’d met her private jet, she had driven everyone at Dillon Security insane.
Correction, she had been a terror since he’d told her that there would be no way he would play into her bodyguard fantasies.
He would rather be back on the set of Task Force Honolulu.
He opened his mouth to blast her, but thankfully, his parter was keeping her cool.
“Raquel, we need to get going because you have a meet and greet with your fans before you leave Oahu,” Eden said, her voice softer than it normally was.
Definitely playing to the client. And, yes, he could usually do that.
Not with this client. As Americans liked to say, he was sick of her bullshit.
“I said that I wanted to go to the beach.”
They had spent hours at the beach. Granted, they were in Hawai’i and that’s what most people who came to visit wanted to do.
But she had a private appearance, one they had suggested she cancel.
There had been credible threats against her.
After spending three days in her presence, Ian understood those threats. She was a nightmare to everyone.
They had five hours and thirty-two more minutes to deal with her.
Normally, she had a regular security team, but that had changed when an email had threatened her with insider knowledge of her private meeting schedule along with her reservation information.
A brief investigation found that one team member had been selling her information.
Of course, they had no idea to whom, and with only ten days before her trip to Hawai’i, the record label had been desperate.
“We’re not going to the beach. You’re going to meet with these fans who paid a fortune to meet with you.”
Her eyes narrowed as her face flushed with anger. Most people would say the woman was pretty. And yes, she was physically attractive, but she seemed shallow and demanding. Besides, he liked a woman who helped other people, even if she did have a smart mouth.
Fuck, he needed to keep his mind in the game and not on the woman who had been driving him crazy. It was bad enough she had been slipping into his dreams at night.
As if that particular woman could hear his thoughts, his phone vibrated. He knew without looking who it was. Damn the woman. She had been under his skin for years, and now he knew exactly when she was calling. She had been very good at predicting trouble the last couple of months.
“You probably need to get Melanie,” he said to Eden. She nodded and left to find the other woman. She was sort of her handler as her mother, Francine, who acted as her manager, wasn’t on the trip. He drew in a deep breath, then clicked on his phone.
“Have you ever had a dog?” Sam asked.
It was always like this. Most of the time, he felt as if he’d walked in on a conversation already in progress. “Did you just call me to ask that?”
“No.”
Then nothing. He sighed.
“Yes. We had dogs when I was growing up.”
“Hmm. I think I would like a dog.”
“Is that why you called me?”
“I just told you no. Did that concussion mess with your memory?”
He closed his eyes and counted back from ten. Yes, he’d had a concussion a few weeks ago thanks to a blow to the head on an assignment for Dillon. It had been slight and he’d been fine for weeks. Sam mentioned it every time they talked. She seemed particularly worried about his well-being.
When he felt calm again, he opened his eyes.
“Why are you calling?”
“You got trouble coming.”
“What?” he asked as Eden came in, a frown marring her face.
“You got problems. That client of yours is a nightmare, and she doesn’t fall that far from the mama tree. You have two assholes coming up in the elevator. Not very smart, but I think they’re lazy.”
“Get Raquel. We have two threats coming up in the elevator.”
Eden nodded and headed to the bedroom.
“Do you want me to stop the elevator?”
“You can do that?”
He knew she had the skills, but she wasn’t always someplace where she could access it.
She snorted and his dick twitched. “In my sleep.”
Why was she so attractive to him? He had yet to meet her face to face.
The only time he saw her was from afar, so it had nothing to do with her actual looks.
Her confidence about her tech skills and the way she stood up to him left him slightly aroused after every altercation.
It wasn’t like him. He liked smart women, but ones that got under his skin?
No, thank you. He didn’t trust other spies—even former ones.
And he knew how hypocritical it was, but he knew the beast because he was the beast.
“What’s going on?” Raquel said, resisting Eden who was dragging her out of the bedroom.
“Put me on speaker.”
“That isn’t a good idea,” he said.
“Come on. You know I’ve saved your ass multiple times in the last two months. Plus, that terror needs to understand that she’s in danger.”
That was true. Still, he hesitated.
“Ian Charles Smith, put me on speaker or you will regret it.”
Heat wove through is blood. What the fuck was actually wrong with him that her using all three of his names turned him on?
With a sigh, he clicked the speaker on.
“Hey, Rachel,” Sam’s voice said.
“The name is Raquel.”
“It won’t matter if you’re dead.”
The same weird arousal surged. If anyone else spoke with such bluntness, he would admire it, but he definitely wouldn’t be sexually excited by it. He liked sweet women, not ball busters like Sam.
“There are two men coming up there to abduct you or maybe kill you. I don’t care. I do care about Eden and Mix, so that’s why I’m saving your ass today. Make sure you don’t have heels on and go with the nice operatives, or I’ll suggest they both leave your cranky ass there.”
“Excuse me. And who the hell is Mix?”
That was the nickname everyone called him thanks to another operative at Dillon. He’d hated it at first, but lately, he had started to like it. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone. It was definitely better than Ice.
Sam’s long frustrated sigh was easy to hear over the speaker. “Jesus, get a grip. Two men are coming to get you. Make sure you have flats on and get ready to run because you might need to do that. Too bad you can’t knock her out and just carry her.”
Raquel’s eyes widened. “Is she serious?”
“Yes,” both Eden and he said.
“Okay, the assholes coming up are locked between your floor and the one below. And I have delayed the help they’d normally get. I’d suggest you go now. I’ll switch to your earpiece.”
Then she hung up. He pocketed his phone and took lead. For once, it looked like their charge wasn’t going to argue with them.
“The stairwell is clear, so you can go down a couple of floors,” Sam said in his ear. “That floor is clear.”
With his gun out, he opened the door to the suite, then led Raquel to the stairwell. Eden protected the rear.
After opening the door and double checking that the assholes weren’t on the stairs, he motioned with his head for Eden and Raquel to follow him. They hurried down the stairs.
“Dammit.”
He paused, causing Raquel to bump into him.
“What?”
“Get the fuck out of there. They must have outside help. Someone overrode the elevator controls. They’ll figure out you’ve bugged out pretty fast.”
He started down again going as fast as he could. They were two floors down when he heard the door open above them.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, asshole?”
Was the guy serious?
“What the hell is that? Did he actually yell at you? Amateur.”
The disdain in Sam’s voice would normally make him smile, but he had to get Raquel to safety.
A gun shot sounded, hitting the wall just above his head.
“The fuck?” Sam exclaimed, anger filling her voice. Then, muttering as she tapped on the keyboard. Ian didn’t have time to deal with her. He needed to get his charge to safety.
“What the fuck are you doing, Vic? We won’t get paid if we hurt her.”
Ian made a note of that argument between the abductors, but his focus was still getting them to safety. He busted through the stairwell door onto the floor.
“Elevator should be there.”
As usual, Sam was right. She probably had something to do with it, but he wasn’t going question it. They hurried onto the elevator and the doors closed just as he heard the clatter of the bastards following them.