You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(10)

He made it halfway to Main Street when he knew someone was watching him. He stopped under the awning of the Mexican place and looked up at the hotel. What room had they said she was in?

And that was when he noticed the red dot on his chest.

She wasn’t cheating on him. She was setting him up for a kill. She was in that hotel. Maybe she’d even sent the text. In those seconds he stood there, the truth hit him. She’d never wanted him and now she wanted him dead.

She was watching him. She was hiding in the recesses of that hotel room with a sniper rifle. She hadn’t had the guts to take him out face to face. No. She’d put a scope between them like he was an animal she was hunting.

“What the f*ck are you waiting for Phoebe?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “You want me? You want to take me out? Do it!”

He put his arms out so she had the best target possible.

Everything he’d survived and it had come down to this. A weariness settled over him and Jesse accepted the truth. He’d fought and fought to live and now he was going to stand here and let her do her worst.

He didn’t want to live in a world where she betrayed him. He simply didn’t.





CHAPTER TWO





Phoebe’s breath caught as Jesse stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Her hands were shaking. They never shook. She was always cool as a cucumber when she was on assignment. She went into what she liked to call “work mode.” The minute she’d gotten the signal that she had an assignment, her brain shifted to a place where all of the emotional shit fell away and a cool precision took over.

She wouldn’t admit it to Ten, but the McKay-Taggart assignment had been difficult in a way they never could have expected. She’d walked into that office expecting to spend her time figuring out how Taggart worked and how he fit in with Jesse Murdoch. It should have been simple. The workplace was often where her ops took her. She really did have a degree in accounting. It gave her insight into money situations and that told her a lot about the people around her. In her dreams, she’d wanted to discover they were working for the enemy or at the very least worked against Agency and US interests. She could safely shut them down and get Murdoch sent to Guantanamo Bay where he belonged.

And then she’d started having lunch with Grace Taggart.

And then with Serena Dean-Miles and Eve McKay.

And she’d actually met Jesse Murdoch.

She’d gotten soft—even about Big Tag, who hid a massive heart under about fifty miles of sarcasm. She’d seen all the pro bono work he did. He charged the hell out of corporate clients and then turned around and found some ex-Marine’s missing daughter for free.

She couldn’t even think about Charlotte Taggart without smiling.

She’d gotten lost in the group, caring for their daily troubles and woes and smiling at the way they took care of each other. It reminded her so much of how she and Jamie and Ten had been all those years ago.

In the beginning, she’d counted the days like a prisoner waiting for a pardon, and now she worried about the call that would end Phoebe Graham. Phoebe Graham was klutzy but reliable. She babysat kids and held Jesse Murdoch’s hand, and only the faintest memory of being Phoebe Grant made her hold off on pressing her body to his, on spreading her legs and taking Jesse deep inside so there was no space between them. Her dreams had turned from tender reunions with her husband to finding out what it meant to be Jesse’s sub.

She’d lost herself so deeply that getting that text had jarred her.

She stared through the scope, wishing everything could fall away. This was the moment when her brain should go on autopilot. Her training would kick in and it would be like some other Phoebe did this job. No emotion. No fear. Just the moment and a bullet for the target on the other end of the scope.

Jesse’s arms went wide and she heard herself gasp. The door to the balcony was open and she could hear him in the distance.

“What the f*ck are you waiting for, Phoebe?” Through the scope she could see how his eyes flared. “You want me? You want to take me out? Do it!”

Panic threatened. He knew she was here. Jesse knew she was here. She stared through the scope. He was standing there with his arms spread wide, inviting her to do her job.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t shoot him. She looked through the scope at the face she’d come to care for and knew that no matter what that text had said, she couldn’t hurt him.

She was thoroughly and utterly compromised.

And he was just standing there. He was standing there making himself a huge target. What if there was a backup? It happened sometimes. Sometimes the person who sent the kill order would watch from nearby to make sure his or her order was followed and to bear witness to the act.

Or to deal with failure.

Where would Ten be? What the hell had he found that would cause him to place a kill order on Jesse? The only reason Ten would ever place a kill order was because he feared a coming attack.

Jesse wouldn’t attack anyone. Well, not anyone who didn’t trigger his very righteous PTSD.

Ten was wrong. Wrong. Jesse had to get out of here. He had to hide.

Just as she was about to shove the rifle aside and run to the balcony, there was the terrible sound of her door cracking open and a whole bunch of yelling.

Taggart was here. Her heart started racing and she had two choices. She could try to get away or try to warn Jesse.