A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)
Meli Raine
Chapter 1
I wake up to an empty bed.
It’s not mine.
Lindsay’s gone.
I can feel a change in the air. I jump to my feet, instantly alert, blood pumping to arms and legs that are battle-ready. Her bedroom room smells like lavender and beeswax, mingled with the hot scent of sex. I swear her heat still lingers on the sheets. The ceiling fan is still, the room crackling with silence.
I grab my gun belt and --
What the hell?
My weapon is missing.
Gun’s gone.
Lindsay’s gone.
Oh, shit.
She didn’t?
She did.
“Gentian,” I bark as I shove my earpiece in. “Where’s Lilac?” Lilac’s her code name.
“With you,” he responds.
“Negative.”
Dead air.
“Gentian?”
“I don’t know, sir. No one’s seen her. Last we knew, she was locked in her bedroom with you.”
No trace of irony. No hint of teasing. If he had even one whiff of either, he’d have his ass handed to him.
And he knows it.
“She’s gone, Gentian. Find her.”
“Yes, sir.”
The instant flurry of activity in the house matches my organs. They rearrange themselves inside me as I assess the situation, which is pretty f*cking simple.
Lindsay stole my gun and ran away.
Doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Last night was the first time in four damn years that I slept. Actual REM sleep. The night those bastards tortured us was the first night of my new life.
A life without sleep.
And last night?
I slept like someone who had finally come home.
“Jesus,” I mutter to myself. “Great job, Drew. She totally snowed you.”
I have to hand it to Lindsay. She fooled me. I believed her act the entire time. She managed to outwit us all.
Damn smart woman.
Damn dangerous, too.
A thousand points of information flood my mind. My job is to sort out the unimportant details, laser in on what’s significant, and create an instant plan from that.
Only one man is better than me in a situation like this.
Lucky for me, he’s a phone call away, and on my payroll.
Speed dial is my friend.
“ ’lo?” Mark Paulson’s sleepy voice answers the phone, and before I can say a word, he goes into full alert mode. “Paulson here. What do you need, Drew?”
Now that’s a soldier.
“My detail stole my weapon and escaped.”
Silence.
Yeah, I’m going to pay for this by being mocked for years.
“She what?”
“You heard me.”
More silence.
“Give me half an hour. I’ll be there.”
Click.
A few months ago, Mark called me in on a complicated mission to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend, Carrie. Ex-DEA, ex-Special Ops, and probably ex-secret agencies even Senator Bosworth doesn’t know about, Paulson has the most strategic mind I’ve ever seen. He’s like a chess grandmaster combined with a ruthless mercenary.
Which makes him my second in command at my private security company.
He’s second in name only, though. Called in only for extreme missions, Paulson’s trying to lay low and recover from the hell of having his woman nearly chopped into pieces and enjoyed by one of the most perverted drug and sex slave smugglers in U.S. history.
But enough about that.
Lindsay just stole my gun and ran away.
“Fuck.” The truth of it starts to sink in. I anchor myself with facts.
Fact: that gun is not registered, has no ID number, and cannot be tracked back to me.
Fact: the three targets who defiled her four years ago are texting and taunting her.
Fact: the three targets tried to kill her with her own car.
Fact: she managed to escape a perimeter set up with nine of the best military-trained security guys in the world.
Fact: I can still taste her on my tongue.
“Sir?” Gentian walks into the room with a hard, tight face. “We found tracks in the....” His voice drops off as his eyes travel to my throat. He stares.
I look down.
The tag of my t-shirt sticks out. I’ve put my shirt on backwards and inside out.
So much for pretense.
“Did something happen between you and Lindsay last night, sir?” His eyes go dark.
“What do you think?” He’s treading on very dangerous territory now.
“Did she run away because of you, sir?” His point is crystal clear.
Before I can punch him, impulse control kicks in. I plant my hands on my hips, take in a deep breath, and start to laugh.
It’s a bitter sound.
I’ve trained him well. He’s putting the client’s welfare ahead of pleasing his boss.
Good man.
“Nothing happened between us that would cause her to steal my weapon and run away.”
Gentian’s eyes fly wide open. “Your weapon?”
“Yeah.”
He knows better than to react further. “Is that confidential?”
“For now.”
“Is she unstable?”