On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(7)

“Ah, no, not a joke at all.” Simon closed the folder. “I assume this is of absolutely no use. It’s going to be sanitized. I’ll research it myself. I’m rather surprised they allowed you to stay in charge.”

Simon was right about the file. He’d sanitized the thing because he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone knowing what had happened. The Bureau had kept things very quiet and the press had only gotten the merest hints of what his wife had to go through. They had enough other evidence on Evans to burn the f*cker five times over.

“I was taken off the case, but I didn’t stop working,” Alex admitted. The Bureau had granted him a leave of absence, but he’d simply used it to track down Evans. He often wondered if Warren resented him for that. Warren Petty had taken over for Alex, but Alex had gotten the arrest.

“Do you think he’s going to come after her again?” Simon asked.

He lived in terror of that very thing happening. He dreamed at night of her being gone and the days that passed until she’d been discarded like a used up tissue, tossed on the side of the road in the middle of the night. She’d had to make her way to a gas station, her body naked against the snow and frost.

Had Evans intended for her to live? Alex thought he had. Eve was supposed to be a reminder of everything Alex had done wrong, of how much he’d lost and how much more powerful Michael Evans was.

Don’t push him this way, Alex. Keep this private. If you go to the press, I think he’ll lash out and he’ll strike at you.

He could still see her eyes pleading with him to change his plans, but he’d known what he was doing. He’d known he could take Evans down.

But Evans hadn’t come for him. Oh, no. That would have been too easy.

“I don’t think he’s coming after Eve. I have no evidence that he would. It’s been almost six years since he had any contact with her, and we all know damn well that he likes to play with his prey.” Ian stood up, turning on the lights and flooding the room. “There’s also the fact that they’ve divorced. That had to give Evans an enormous amount of pleasure, and I’m sure he knows that it happened. I’m sure he kept track of you after he fled the States. But when you left the FBI, you very likely went off his radar. A man like Evans would no longer consider Alex to be a real threat. And he wouldn’t care about Eve at all at this point.”

Alex couldn’t take that chance.

“I want her kept out of this. It’s why I didn’t contact Li. Li is close to Eve. He would tell her,” Alex admitted. He wasn’t bringing Eve into this. The less she knew the better off they all would be. He couldn’t take her back into that hellhole. He couldn’t.

And he also couldn’t allow anyone else to handle this.

“Why do you think he’s surfaced?” Jake asked.

“I received an e-mail from a woman named Kristen six weeks ago. According to the e-mail, she’s an investigative reporter and she’s been tracking Evans since his jailbreak. I’m supposed to meet her later this morning. It’s a public venue. Right out in the open.” The woman in the e-mail had insisted on it. He’d been told flatly that if she saw someone other than him, she would walk away. He couldn’t let that happen. “I need someone to have eyes on Eve while I make contact. I can’t take the chance that this is his way of getting at her.”

“I’ll keep eyes on Eve, and Jake and Adam can handle your backup,” Ian stated.

This was precisely why he hadn’t wanted to have this little session. “I can’t. If she sees anyone but me, she’ll run. That e-mail was very plain. She will deal with me and only me. I don’t know what she looks like. I have no idea. I have to talk to this woman, Ian. I can’t let her slip past me. The meet up is totally public. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“She won’t know we’re there,” Jake promised. “Believe it or not, we’ve done this a time or two.”

“You two handle close cover. I’m the shadow. I’m the expert.” He was damn fine at blending into the shadows. It was a complete reversal of the first ten years of his career. He’d been the FBI’s golden boy, a shining star. The last five years he’d made a goal of never sticking out, always being the behind-the-scenes guy. He’d become a ghost, excellent at watching and waiting in the wings and almost never acting.

“I think I’m fairly decent at distance coverage,” Ian said with a frown. He’d been a long-term CIA operative. He knew distance cover. “Jake and Adam can handle Eve and I’ll back you up.”

There was only one problem with that.

“No. You’re too conspicuous. I can’t risk it.”

“Could we clear the room, guys?” Ian crossed his arms over his massive chest and started to pace.

The guys were out in a flash, Adam giving him the evil eye. Yeah, he was on Team Eve for sure.

Ian stopped in front of the window, pulling the blinds open and staring out at the early morning light. The city was starting to wake up, pinks and purples on the edge of the horizon. There were tall buildings framing the distance, the city a massive landscape in front of him, like a watercolor painting, so beautiful and slightly unreal.

He remembered one perfect day. Hawaii. He and Eve had gone to Kauai on their honeymoon, and they hadn’t slept at all one night. He’d taken her out to the beach and made love to her in the waves, and they had sat there and watched the sky come alive—nature’s great show. He could remember the way she felt in his arms, her back to his chest as they watched the sunrise. The whole world had been alive then, full of promise. They had been young. So f*cking young. Strong.