Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(22)

She looked up at him. “Why were you here?”

“Because I saw you walking up the street and I followed you. I was curious. Was the lip-gloss for me?”

She nodded.

His hand came up, big thumb brushing across her bottom lip in a way that wasn’t comforting at all. She felt that touch low in her abdomen. How could she get hot for a man when there was a dead body at her feet? “You look beautiful, Doc. I was going to approach you when I saw that man make his move. I realized where he was going and thought I’d surprise him. Make your decision. I’ll back you either way.”

“You killed him.” She wasn’t the only one her decision would affect.

“It was self-defense. I can handle the cops. I can also handle the investigation. I can protect you while we figure out what’s going on, but I can’t do both. If you bring the cops into this, your protection is going to fall to your father. So you need to choose.”

She should bite the bullet and do the right thing. This wasn’t Master T’s problem. He’d already done enough. He’d saved her. She should call the cops and let him move on with his life.

“Call your firm. I’ve got money. I can hire them. Will you stay with me?”

One corner of his mouth tugged up and she saw the beginning of the sweetest dimples. When the man smiled, she didn’t need sunlight. “Try to get rid of me, darlin’.” His fingers tangled with hers while he pulled out a cell with his free hand. “Take a look at him and see if you know him. I’m going to call this in and we’ll get you back down to the restaurant. You let me take care of everything from here on out.”

She sighed and couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing the right thing.





“You couldn’t leave him alive, could you?” Big Tag sat down with a frown on his face. His voice was low, his eyes trailing to where Faith McDonald stood in Top’s small lounge area talking to Erin. “You know if he was alive he could do this thing. We call it talking. It’s where we ask a few questions and he provides easy answers.”

She had a glass of wine in her hand. Her second, he thought. Erin had been given explicit instructions on how to take care of her. Erin had also been given a serious lecture along with some threats he didn’t normally pass on to ladies. She’d f*cked up and she’d known it.

“Well, Tag, at the time he was trying to gut me,” Ten replied before taking a short swig of Sean’s first-class bourbon.

The battle had been short but nasty. Oh, he hadn’t actually gotten his clothes messed up or anything, but the jerk had produced a wicked knife. Unfortunately, he’d also proven to have damn brittle bones. Or Ten had been a little pissed.

That f*cker had walked right up to Faith and put his hands on her. He’d rubbed his body against her in that way a man did when he was proving to a woman he could have her and not because she’d said yes. He’d made her afraid. Ten had watched as Faith had gone from flushed with excitement about meeting her soon-to-be lover, straight to fear for her life. That motherf*cker was lucky he hadn’t had time to show the bastard how he really felt about the whole situation.

He took another swig. It wasn’t about possessiveness. No. He’d been angry because that f*cker had made his job ten times harder. He needed to get Faith into bed as soon as possible, and that * had practically raped her.

Yeah, that was why he was pissed off.

“You look awfully perfect for almost being gutted.”

Ten gave him a devil-may-care smile. “Well, I do have a date tonight. Did the boys handle my mess?”

He’d left the body in a dumpster after calling it in. He’d needed to get Faith somewhere safe. He figured Top was a pretty good bet since most of the staff was ex-military and they worked with knives. Besides Top had a bar, and that girl needed a damn drink. He stared at her as she smiled wanly at something Erin said. Her eyes slid his way and he held her gaze. He winked her way to let her know everything was fine. She kept looking back at him as though to assure herself he was still here.

Maybe that old boy had done him a favor after all. She turned back to Erin, but he noticed she stood a little taller.

“Jesse’s on it,” Tag replied. “He’s got the body and Hutch and Adam are making sure the cameras are suddenly and inexplicably out of order for the afternoon. Thank god everyone’s gone digital. It makes my life so much easier. Unfortunately, I’ve got to figure out where to dump the body once we ID him. He’s got some interesting tats on him.”

“He was a pro. I’ve got no doubt. His weapon alone made me realize that. The knife he had on him was military grade and the gun and suppressor were easily more than some street criminal could afford.”

“Why not assassinate her from a distance? It’s what I would do. I sure as hell wouldn’t stride up to her in the middle of a store and take her out the back way. That was dangerous. How did you convince her not to call the cops? That was nice by the way. You lose her if the cops get involved.”

He would have lost her on several levels. Her father likely would have ridden in to scoop his precious girl up and then the game would have been over. Ten had done his best to look different. Put on more muscle. Taken his hair down to a military cut. The senator wouldn’t know him by looking at his identification photos. His cover had been expertly done by Chelsea. He wasn’t worried about the cops making him, either. He would pass all the police tests, but the senator had contacts in places that would dig much deeper. They likely wouldn’t go to too much trouble over Faith’s date to the islands, but the minute the cops became involved, the game would change. There was no way the senator stayed out of that investigation, and he would want to know a lot more about Faith’s hero. He would likely insist on meeting Ten, and Ten couldn’t let that happen. The senator had friends in the Agency, and wouldn’t they just love to know where Tennessee Smith was hanging his hat these days. No. If the cops had been called in, Ten would have been forced to pull back.