Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents #2)(41)

Watching and waiting for their pound of flesh? “Do you like delivering your own justice?” Jasper asked Cale, trying to figure him out.

Cale shrugged. “Somebody has to deliver it.”

“Why not let that somebody be you?” They’d check the story on the shrink, but Jasper’s instincts were telling him it was true. Hell, what else had they missed?

“Did those agents do something wrong, too?” Jasper asked because it had to be asked. “If we go digging in their pasts, are we gonna see that they did something to make them land on your punishment list?”

“I don’t have a list.”

“Don’t you?” Jasper threw right back.

Cale’s stillness seemed to be his only answer, but, after a tense moment, Cale said, “Guess who just got added?”

Me.

Cale leaned forward. “Now, I’ve played nice. And if you want me to keep playing nice, you’ll bring my sister to me.”

“I don’t think so,” Logan began.

Cale surged to his feet, seeming to completely ignore the gun that was inches from his face. “If I don’t see Veronica, then I don’t say another word. I know how this game works. Hell, you two think you can get to me? After the nightmare I survived in Syria? Think again.”

Jasper pushed back his chair and slowly stood. “We’ll see if Veronica wants to talk to you.” He turned his back on Cale, a deliberate risk.

“If?” Cale snarled.

Jasper glanced over his shoulder, keeping his expression blank. He was as good at wearing an unfeeling mask as Cale was. Maybe I’m better. “Now that she knows just what you really are, do you still think she’s gonna be the adoring little sister? Maybe it’s time you think again.”

He marched past Gunner, rage burning in his veins, the fire simmering just beneath his controlled exterior. Cale had once been his closest friend, but he sat across from him as an enemy.

And Veronica? What was she? Not an adoring little sister to Cale, and to him—

He rounded the corner and came face-to-face with her. She stood in the middle of the hallway, with Wyatt right by her. Sydney waited close by them.

Veronica gazed into Jasper’s eyes, and her expression was cold. She’d never been cold before. She’d burned red-hot for him.

Now she seemed to look right through him.





Chapter Nine

Stay in control. Don’t let him see your anger. Don’t let him see your hurt.

Veronica kept her chin up and her back ramrod straight. Wyatt had told her that the agents needed her at their headquarters. The EOD “headquarters” had turned out to be the abandoned building at the end of Black Bear Road.

Jasper was staring at her with blazing eyes. The female agent—the woman had finally introduced herself as Sydney Sloan—had sympathy on her pretty face as she edged closer. It was all Veronica could do not to start screaming at them.

But she was trying to follow another one of Cale’s rules. Never break in front of the enemy. Never show your pain. Others will just use that pain against you.

Jasper had sure caused her plenty of pain.

“They’re not FBI, you know that, right?” Veronica said to Wyatt. He’d been with her, pretty much from the moment since the agents had taken her brother into custody. At the crash scene, he’d appeared with Logan Quinn. Wyatt’s face had looked grim, the faint lines around his face much deeper.

“Not FBI,” Wyatt agreed quietly, “but they’ve got high clearance.”

“How high?” Veronica asked. She wasn’t staring Jasper in the eye. She couldn’t. And he was just staring at her.

“High enough that the governor called and told me to do whatever Logan Quinn said.”

When the governor said jump...

She swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d been a fool, and now she had to pay a price for her blind trust.

Talk to Jasper. Because he was still just staring at her, waiting. “You’re not a mercenary,” she said, and risked the briefest of stares into his eyes.

“No, ma’am.”

She flinched at that drawl. Her gaze dropped to his chin.

His jaw clenched.

“What are you?” she asked him.

“I’m a federal agent.”

“You’re not with the FBI.”

“No, ma’am.”

Her eyes slit as they lifted back to meet his gaze. “What’s the EOD?”

He glanced at the sheriff. Yes, she knew that Wyatt could tell her, especially since it seemed that he, Logan and the governor were all suddenly tight, but she wanted to hear this information straight from Jasper. It would be interesting to see what the truth sounded like from him.

“It’s the Elite Operations Division. We’re a hybrid group, mostly ex-military.”

Like her brother. “Why were you hunting Cale?”

He reached for her. She flinched back. He was bleeding. There was blood on his forehead, and she’d noticed that his shoulder looked padded—probably because of a bandage under his shirt.

His hand dropped.

“Why?” she repeated.

“Because Cale is wanted in connection with the murders of three EOD agents.”

She shook her head instantly. “He wouldn’t do that,” she whispered, but she cleared her throat and spoke again, her voice stronger. “Cale rescues people. He doesn’t kill them. He doesn’t—”