From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10)(19)

Jared knew why and he wasn’t talking unless he got what he wanted.

The door opened and the team selected for this op started to filter in. Big Tag held the door open as his wife, Charlotte, walked through, followed by FBI Special Agent Rush, Alex McKay, and Big Tag’s brother Case Taggart. With the exception of the FBI agent who had contacted McKay a few weeks back, this particular op was a family affair.

Case was the only one of Big Tag’s biological brothers still working with him. Ian had started McKay-Taggart with his brother Sean at his side. A few years later, younger half brothers Case and Theo had joined him after Sean had left to pursue the only slightly safer job of chef. With Theo gone, Case was Tag’s last brother in the business. It wasn’t so surprising he kept his baby brother close.

Case dropped into the chair across from Kai. “What can I do for Kori? Anything. I swear that girl needs a handy man, I’m her guy. She likes flowers, I’ll fill her house up.”

Ian chuckled as he took the seat at the head of the table. “He’s happy Erin’s going to the doctor. And he doesn’t even have to go with her. He was willing to do that. You should have seen Erin’s face when he offered to be her coach. You made her throw up again, dude.”

“I think that was the baby. Any baby of Theo’s is going to be trouble.” Case’s lips curled up and then he sobered as if remembering his brother was gone all over again. “Anyway, I’m grateful Kori’s helping out. With Faith and Ten back in Africa for a couple of months, Erin needs a friend.”

“Kori seems to know how to handle her.” She’d definitely known how to handle him. By the time they’d gotten into the elevator, he’d been calmer. Her thumb had moved over his skin as she’d held his hand, soothing him and easing him back to normal.

It had been right there in his mind to ask her to pull up her skirt, pull down her panties, and bend over his desk. He’d needed to blow off some steam and reddening her sweet ass would have worked magic on his nerves. He would have started with his hand, slapping her cheeks until they were pink, and then he would get nasty. He kept a ruler in his desk, not because he normally needed to draw a straight line or answer some third grade measurement question. No. He kept one in his desk because he loved the way it sounded when it smacked against a sub’s skin.

Instead, he’d locked the door between them and tried to find his calm through meditation. He’d sat in the middle of his office, trying to find that place of peace, and all he could see was Kori bound and gagged and ready for his pleasure.

In the war between peace and perversion, his freaky side had almost won this afternoon. He’d breathed a sigh of relief when she’d knocked on his door and told him she was going home.

“Well, I’m glad the pregnancy is out in the open,” Charlotte said. “We can start making plans for how to support her through this.”

“Or we can all huddle down and pray we survive Hurricane Erin,” Big Tag shot back.

Charlotte shook her reddish blonde head. “You never know. Pregnancy could calm Erin. Sometimes it chills a woman out. Like it did for me.”

He’d never actually seen Big Tag’s jaw drop. “I don’t even know what to say to that. Yeah, pregnancy made you so chill. Erin will probably turn into a happy fairy when she’s got a baby bouncing on her bladder. I’ve found that makes all women happy. It’s why I hid the guns during your last trimester. Enough baby talk. Let’s introduce the new guy, for those of you who haven’t met him. This is Special Agent Ethan Rush.”

Rush was a big man in his mid-thirties. With dark hair and blue eyes, he looked like a businessman in his three-piece suit and expensive loafers, but according to Alex, the former football star took his job very seriously. He’d shown up on McKay-Taggart’s doorstep with the working theory that Kai’s brother was a serial killer. Which was utterly ridiculous. Jared was an *, but other than dipping his dick where it didn’t belong, his brother wasn’t dangerous.

Or had the years changed Jared? Should he really take a look at his brother? If he sat back and tried to think about the situation professionally, would he change his mind?

Fuck, no. Jared wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t capable of it. No way. No how.

“Thank you all for allowing me the access you have. I assure you the FBI is going to share any information we can on Hope McDonald,” Rush said, passing out folders to the group. “We’re working with Langley and a couple of foreign agencies to try to find her. She managed to get away with enough money that she can hide for a while, but I’m certain we’ll find her. According to our profile, she has a deep need for credit, and I think that will eventually lead to her downfall.”

That answered one question. Big Tag wouldn’t put his club in danger if he wasn’t desperate to find the woman he blamed for Theo’s death. Hope McDonald hadn’t pulled the trigger, but she’d been there and she’d backed her father. Finding Hope McDonald would likely lead to new information on the shadowy group known as The Collective. Big Tag would get his revenge. The feds would get information.

Quid pro quo.

Wasn’t that what Jared was offering him? Information on Kori in exchange for Kai listening to him whine about how hard it was to be an international movie star?

Had Kori lied to him? How did she know Jared? She’d pretended she didn’t know him at all, but Jared had known her name. Naturally Kai knew she’d lived in LA for years. Had she been one in a long line of women to grace his brother’s bed? She was his type. It was a shame that he and Jared had always been attracted to the same women. They both liked them curvy and pretty and feminine and healthy.