On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(8)

Neither of them had known how broken they could be, how easy it was to take a life and snap it like a twig until nothing remained but meaningless pieces.

“What are you doing, Alex?” Ian asked, not bothering to turn around.

That should be plain. “I’m trying to catch a killer.”

Ian’s shoulders slumped forward as though that was the last thing he’d wanted to hear. “You’re trying to correct a mistake, but you’re making the same one again.”

Frustration welled. Fuck, yeah, he was trying to correct a mistake. It had been the mistake of a lifetime. Of course he wanted to correct it. “I’m not going to let him get close to her again, man. You can’t think I would ever let that happen, but you, of all people, should know damn well that I can’t just let this go.”

How was he supposed to sit around knowing Evans was out there? He’d spent the last several years of his life following leads down every damn rabbit hole he could. He’d wasted countless hours talking to people who said they’d seen him, spending money on witnesses who led to nowhere. This could be the same thing all over again, but he had to keep trying. He would stop trying when he was f*cking dead.

“That’s not the mistake you’re making.” Ian finally turned around, leaning back against the window and looking like he hadn’t slept in days. He’d been this way ever since they’d gotten back from London, as though just being in that city again had aged him, forcing him to remember the wife he’d lost.

“Going after Evans is the mistake? You think I can’t take him down? My mistake the first time was pure arrogance, Ian. Trust me. I was humbled. I’m not looking for glory this time.” He’d been trying to make a life for himself and Eve and f*cking everything up because he didn’t believe he could be wrong. He’d been on a fast track, but now he knew how fast the worm turned.

“No, this time you’re looking for revenge.”

Yes. He wanted revenge. He felt his jaw tighten, his vision focus in. “For Eve.”

Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Are you sure about that?”

He was sure, and he f*cking well deserved revenge. Evans had torn them apart. “How can you say that? You’ve known me for twenty-five freaking years. How can you question me like this? You don’t have to help me. I’ll take a leave of absence. Maybe that’ll make it easier on everyone.”

It would be for the best anyway. He’d only let Ian know because they were family. They had a deal, him and Ian. They’d had it since they were kids growing up in the same low-rent trailer park with exactly two ways out—prison or the US military. Ian had stayed in the Army and Alex had gotten out the minute they would pay for his college. The friendship had survived years and distance.

The deal was simple. They didn’t go off half-cocked until the other knew what kind of shit was going down. Ian would watch out for Eve. Hell, if anything happened, Ian would watch out for her for the rest of her life. They had that deal, too. Ian watched Eve and Alex took care of Sean and now Grace and Carys. God, Sean had a kid.

How was he almost forty and single, with no prospect of a family on the horizon?

A ghostly image on the wall answered the question. The lights were on, but he could still see Michael Evans grinning at the camera.

He couldn’t fix his problems with Eve. He’d ruined her life. He’d been directly responsible for all that pain. Days. She’d spent days with that monster, and Alex would spend a lifetime trying to make it up to her.

Ian’s voice broke through his thoughts. “I wasn’t talking about going after Evans. I was talking about leaving Eve out of it.”

Alex felt his eyes go wide. “You can’t possibly expect that I would bring Eve into this. You of all people should know how dangerous it is to have your wife involved in a case.”

He wanted to take the words back the instant he said them. Ian didn’t move an inch. There was nothing in his stance that let Alex know he’d hit him hard except his skin paled. They never talked about the woman Ian had married and lost five years before.

“Charlotte has nothing to do with this. And she was always involved in that particular case. Hell, I was her case, and she did a spectacular f*cking job. I laugh a little at the irony since her job was to f*ck me. Charlotte married me knowing exactly how dangerous the job was, and she got burned. Eve, on the other hand, was perfectly innocent. If anyone deserves revenge, it’s Eve, and you want to take that from her now, too.”

Alex placed his hands on the conference table, palms down, just trying to hold on. “How can you say that? I was her husband. It was my job to protect her.”

“And you couldn’t possibly have known that the man you were tracking would come after your wife.” Logic. Ian loved to come after him with logic, but Alex knew the truth.

He should have f*cking known. He should have read Eve’s damn case study, but he’d been so sure that he was right, that he couldn’t possibly be wrong. “Yeah, well, if I’d paid any attention to Eve’s profile, I would have. She knew. But I was far too smart. I thought I had the f*cker down.”

“And you didn’t,” Ian agreed. “And Eve paid the price and she continues to pay it every single day because neither one of you can let go for a second.”

“If putting Michael Evans back where he belongs gives her a minute of peace, I’m going to do it. I’m her husband. I have to do this for her.”