Code Name: Genesis (Jameson Force Security #1)(3)

“That he has,” she replies as she puts her Maserati Quattroporte in park and cuts the engine.

I don’t make any move to open the door. Neither does Rachel. My heart is pounding at the prospect of seeing Kynan again after all these years, but this isn’t as scary as what happened last night. Unconsciously, I bring my fingers to my throat and skim over the purple bruises there.

“How old is your kid?” I ask, turning slightly toward her. She blinks in surprise, but I throw a thumb over my shoulder to the car seat in the back.

“He’ll be six months on the twenty-third.”

I do a quick calculation in my head before smiling. “He was almost a Christmas baby then.”

“Yup.” She laughs. “Bodie, my husband, insisted we make Kris his middle name in honor of the holidays.”

Kris Kringle. Cute. “What’s his first name?”

“Anthony, but we call him Tony.”

Traditional. “Family name?”

She shakes her head with a laugh. “No. We named him after Tony Stark.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“I never kid about the Avengers,” she says in all seriousness. Tilting her head, she considers me a moment, her smile reassuring. But my pulse spikes again when she says, “Ready to get this over with?”

I nod, but what I really want is for her to start the car again, then take me to the nearest airport and put me on a flight to somewhere no one will be able to find me. That way, I could melt into obscurity and leave the psychopath who is after me far behind.

Except… he’s managed to find me time and time again over the last few years. I’ve moved four times, purchasing homes under different aliases, but he somehow hunts me down. Threatening notes followed by flowing love letters. And either bouquets of flowers at my house’s gated entry or decapitated squirrels, depending on his mood. It was sporadic enough I’d sometimes get a false sense of security—thinking he’d gotten bored and moved on—but something else would always happen.

But he’d never broken into my home before.

I knew it was him, though.

My stalker.

He managed to cut the power, which alerted me something might be wrong. When I heard glass break near the back patio, I dialed 9-1-1 in a nanosecond and raced toward the panic room. Even though he cut the power, my security system had a battery backup. I’d known a silent alarm would be ringing somewhere, hopefully notifying the police.

It was a good thing, too, because the man took me down in the hallway just mere feet from the door to the panic room and before 9-1-1 could even answer my call. My only saving grace had been the security company alerting the police and a cruiser just blocks from my house. The wailing sirens as they converged on my house caused him to run. Thank God, because I’d been awfully close to losing consciousness from his hands locked around my throat.

I drop my fingers away from the bruising, but Rachel’s gaze goes there, surveying the marks he left behind. When she looks at me, her eyes harden. “Kynan will protect you. We’ll figure out who this shithead is, and he won’t bother you anymore when we’re done with him.”

I manage a tremulous smile. “That’s the most reassuring thing I’ve heard in a long time. The police haven’t been able to do much with what little information they had over the last few years.”

Her eyes go soft and almost apologetic. “I don’t know the details of what happened between you and Kynan, but I’ve got the general gist of things.”

A blush blazes through me, and I drop my gaze to my lap. “He hates me. I could hear it on the phone.”

“I have no clue if that’s true,” she remarks simply. “But don’t expect him to be nice. If you want him for this job, you should be ready to deal with his attitude.”

I nod, acknowledging what she hadn’t needed to reiterate. Kynan and I split ways twelve years ago, and it hadn’t been pretty at all. I’d loved him so much. There had been a time when he’d been my entire world and sole future. But then I found out the worst about him, and it hurt too much to stay. So I left him behind without a backward glance. Leaving him is perhaps my greatest regret in life, but that doesn’t make things any better for us right now.

Straightening, I meet Rachel’s eyes. “I know exactly how Kynan feels about me. Yet, I’m still here. He’s the one for this job.”

“Why?” she asks, tilting her head in question. “There are a lot of other great security firms out there.”

That’s true. I’ve researched them over the years since the stalking started. Even used a few for personal security services. I could easily use the same ones again.

I curve my lips into a sardonic smile. “No matter his feelings toward me, Kynan is a man of integrity. He’ll take this far more seriously than anyone else would. I trust him.”

“All right then,” she says, then grabs the handle to her door and opens it. “Let’s go on in.”

I follow Rachel up the sidewalk, which is flush with cacti and tropical plants. Even though it’s June in Vegas, I pull the sides of my zip hoodie around me for protection. I’m not looking my best, that’s for sure. After I refused an ambulance to the hospital, I gladly accepted a police officer’s offer for a ride straight to the airport. I’d thrown on some yoga pants, a tank top, and grabbed my hoodie from the closet. I was so eager to leave the area I didn’t bring anything else other than my purse. I have no makeup on, my hair is a rat’s nest, and I don’t even have a brush because I don’t carry one in my purse. No, I wouldn’t do something as sensible as that. In addition to my purse, I usually always brought with me a huge cosmetic/vanity bag, which carried all the essentials needed to make sure I always look glamorous. Never even thought to bring that with me because my only thought was getting out of Santa Barbara and to Kynan for help.