On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(70)

“You haven’t sent me the information I requested days ago. I would like an explanation.”

Jesse tried to hide his frustration. “There hasn’t been a good time to take pictures. I don’t want him to catch me. He’s gotten in good with Chazz. I think he could cause trouble if he decided to try to get rid of me. So I’ve been patient. He’s actually very observant.”

Master A was always watching, Jesse had noticed. The only time the man hadn’t been watching was when he was beating the holy shit out of the idiot Chazz had brought with him. Jesse had immediately dismissed the man as one of Chazz’s show-off friends and had gone back to concentrating on Anthony Priest.

Who wasn’t Anthony Priest. He’d heard the woman call him by another name. And damn if the man didn’t move really well. He was supposed to be some sort of professional pervert, but he walked like a cop. And his eyes. They were always moving, always hard. Until he looked at the woman.

Fuck. They were acting. Shitballs. He’d missed it. They were really total perverts, but the Master person wasn’t as hard as he pretended. It had been in the way he held her when the others weren’t watching. He might have had a negligent look on his face, but Master A’s arms had curled around her, making sure there was no way she would fall and he’d settled her in as though her comfort was deeply important to him.

A cop making an appearance could screw everything up.

“Is there any way the local cops are onto this operation?” Jesse asked.

A long pause came over the phone. “I would have heard something. I have contacts there. Why do you ask?”

“I think this Master person is some sort of law enforcement. I don’t know why. It’s something about the eyes. My instincts tell me he’s not what he says he is.”

“Your instincts have been off before.”

He didn’t need to be reminded. There was a reason he was in this position. “Yeah, well, at least I know Anthony isn’t his name.”

“And how did you figure that out? How did you run anything on him without facial recognition?” The boss relied heavily on high-tech equipment.

Jesse had found out that sometimes it was better to just rely on his eyes and ears.

“His woman called him by another name.” While he was spanking her ass. While he was making her groan. How long had it been since he’d had anything but a quickie meant to get both him and the lady off as fast as possible so they could go their separate ways? Half the time he didn’t even ask for a name.

“I need to know that name, Murdoch.” The boss’s voice had gone low, whispering across the line.

“Alex. I didn’t catch the last name, but she clearly called him Alex.”

Jesse held the phone to his ear as he walked down the crowded street. Tourists were milling around the narrow lanes that offered small restaurants and art galleries and more fudge shops than any town should be able to handle. They really liked their sweets here. Nothing. He heard nothing for thirty seconds. He stopped, worried the line had gone dead. “Boss?”

“His name is Alexander McKay, and he’s an enemy, Murdoch. He’s the worst possible person to have walked through that door. He’s going to ruin everything.”

A cold shiver went up his spine. He’d known there was something wrong with Master A, but he still had to ask the question. “How can you be sure? There are millions of dudes named Alex in the world.”

“There is only one who can really f*ck everything up. Alexander McKay is going to wreck this operation. He’s a man who can hurt us all and he won’t hesitate to do it. He is very dangerous.”

“How is he involved?” He’d never heard the name Alex McKay before, but then he hadn’t exactly studied up. He was a soldier. He was a grunt.

“Do you need me to send you his dossier? Perhaps I should find a more amenable agent.”

He couldn’t lose this job. It was all he f*cking had and besides, he wasn’t exactly intelligence here. He was just following orders. It was all he was really good at. “No, sir. Tell me what to do.”

“Kill him. Kill him and whoever came with him, but get rid of McKay first.”

His gut tightened at the thought of killing the woman. He’d killed men before. That didn’t bother him. If McKay was threatening his operation, he had to be eliminated, but the woman was different.

“That’s an order, Murdoch. Do you understand me?”

He forced himself to say the words he knew his boss wanted to hear. “Yes, sir. I’ll have it done as soon as possible.”

“You better because this meeting is going to take place in three day’s time. I can’t have McKay disrupting it. How much does he know?”

“I don’t think he knows about the meeting.” Jesse only knew because the boss had told him. At this point, he wasn’t even sure Chazz knew what was going to kick him squarely in the balls three days from now.

“Everything rides on this. Everything we’ve worked for.”

He knew what was riding on his shoulders. “I understand.”

A long sigh came over the line. “Good. You’re a good soldier, Murdoch. You’re a good man to have on the team.”

“I won’t let you down.” Jesse ended the call.

The world flowed around him, families with kids, couples holding hands, friends joking around, and Jesse realized just how alone he was. He shoved his cell in his pocket and began the walk back to the club parking lot. He needed to get his shit together because he wasn’t going to ever be a part of some happy f*cking family.