On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)

On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)

Lexi Blake





Acknowledgements


I want to say a special thanks to the people who make this series work. Chloe Vale, you’re the best editor in the business and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have on my side. To my other editors and betas – Kasi Alexander and Riane Holt – this series wouldn’t be the same without you. To Sheri Vidal and Lexi’s Doms and Dolls – thanks for all the support, ladies. And to the amazing Liz Berry. You know this book would be so much poorer without your input. And I would be less without your friendship.

But in the end, this book is about a marriage, about long term love and commitment, so I have to dedicate it to the man who taught me what love really is. This is for my husband, Richard.





Prologue


Georgetown, Virginia

Six Years Earlier



Alex McKay’s feet pounded against the concrete as he raced into the hospital. A week. She’d been in that monster’s hands for a week. All he’d been able to do was pray, and he wasn’t f*cking good at praying.

He nearly slid on the slick tile of the ER floor, his heart beating a rapid rhythm in his chest. For seven days, two hours, and seventeen minutes, his heart hadn’t beat at all it seemed. From the moment his wife went missing, he’d been in a nauseating purgatory of guilt and fear.

Please let her be alive. Just alive. I’ll take living and breathing.

Because he knew damn well she wouldn’t be whole, and it was all his fault.

All he could see was the way his living room looked. That sight seemed to be imprinted on his brain. The room where he and Eve made love and cuddled and watched TV had been desecrated, their pictures cracked and broken, their belongings treated like rubbish. He’d hated that.

He’d really hated the bodies that had been strewn around that room. Bodies and blood.

“Alex!”

He stopped on a dime. God, he didn’t even know where he was going. He’d gotten the call that she’d been found and he’d just driven like a madman toward the hospital without asking a single question. His partner was up ahead. Right in that instant, Warren Petty looked like an ocean of calm. He’d been right at Alex’s side since the moment he’d walked into the home he shared with his wife and found it violated, their whole lives in pieces as surely as their possessions had been vandalized.

And Eve had been gone.

“Alex, she’s alive.”

He nearly fell to his knees. “Where?”

Warren didn’t seem to need more than that one word. They’d been partners for years. His face grew grim, and Alex felt himself flush with fear. That was the face Warren used when he told people bad news. As FBI agents working the worst of crimes, he and Warren had been forced to deliver bad news more than once. But Alex never thought he would be on the receiving end of that look.

Warren had been standing beside him when he’d discovered that the guards he’d left behind were dead and his wife was missing. Warren was the one who’d told Tommy and Leon’s wives they weren’t coming home again.

“The cops found her walking along 29.”

Alex took a long breath, processing the information. She’d been in the area? God. He’d been searching every hour of every day and she’d been close. “Did she escape?”

“Evans dumped her on the highway. Alex, I talked to the doctors.” Warren’s eyes closed briefly. “They’re going to run a rape kit when they can, but they need to deal with her injuries first. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. You have to know that I’ll do anything to help you and Eve. She’s strong. She’s going to come through this. I believe it. If anyone can survive this, it’s Eve.”

His wife. His sweet, smart, precious wife needed a rape kit. A million memories splashed across his brain. The first time he’d kissed her. His hands had been shaking because he’d known she was the one. The first time they’d made love. He’d had sex before, but he’d never worshipped a woman until he’d moved inside Eve, her body becoming his temple to love and protect.

They’d been trying to have a baby. Two months. Two months without condoms or birth control. God. What if she was pregnant now? How the hell would he deal with that?

Alive. She’s alive and you will take it. She is alive and that is all that matters.

“Can I see her?” He needed to see her, to be in the same room with her. All he’d wanted for seven days was one more minute with her.

Warren shook his head, glancing down the long white hallway. “No, I’m sorry. She’s in surgery. They couldn’t wait. Stay calm. She’s going to be fine. He pushed her out of a moving car. She’s got a little internal bleeding and her left arm has to be reset. Most of the surgery they’re going to do is cosmetic. He cut her up, Alex.”

Alex was well aware of what Michael Evans was capable of doing to a woman. “Oh, god.”

Warren sat down, his body slumping as though he couldn’t stay standing a second longer. His head fell forward. “Alex, if I’d only…”

“This is not your fault. This is mine. She told me what would happen.” His wife was a brilliant profiler and what had he done? He’d ignored her work because he’d been so much smarter. He’d arrogantly told her she was wrong on this one. “She told me not to do that interview. She told me to keep this little war between us private, but I thought I could get him to come out of hiding.”