Best Laid Plans(2)

“Nothing scares me.” She took the card key from her driver.

“And that’s what’s going to get you killed, Elise. Fear can be healthy.”

Fear? Not her. Never. Fear wasn’t even in her vocabulary.

“This’ll be a rough one,” Mona continued, “but that’ll play to our benefit.”

“Maybe you should go f*ck him then.”

“Get out, and remember who owns you.”

Elise got out of the car and slammed the door. No one owned her. She just let them think they did. She took a deep breath and tried to look scared.

It was hard to look scared when you’d been looking out for your own ass most of your life.

Because she had a hotel card key, she was able to access a side door and go up the stairs—not the elevator—to the sixth floor. She made a point to look down the hall both ways—let both security cameras see her, eyes downcast, looking skittish and guilty—then sought out room 606.

She let herself into the room. It was a whole world nicer than the motel she’d just left.

A man in his late forties lay partly clothed on the bed. She didn’t know his name and he didn’t know hers, but that didn’t matter. Mona knew exactly who he was.

He was playing with himself while watching porn on the hotel’s television. “You’re late.” He stood up. He was pudgy around the middle with a sharply receding hairline.

She pouted. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.” She looked at X-rated video he was watching. The girl was masturbating while sucking off the guy. “You want me to do that to you?”

“I want a lot of things.” He licked his lips. “How old are you?”

“How old do you want me to be?”

“Legal.”

She smiled. “I’m legal.”

“You look younger.”

Because she was, but she wasn’t going to blow this job. Too much money at stake. Sure, she was a little nervous. Who wouldn’t be? But it wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before.

Elise walked over to the hotel bar and took out a bottle of vodka. She took a long swig, then put the bottle down. She moved things around a bit, put her purse down. The other mark’s phone slid partly out of her bag. She smiled, took another drink, and turned around.

He was right behind her.

“I picked this hotel because the walls are thick, and I want to hear you. Understand?” He grabbed her by the wrists. It hurt, but she didn’t react.

“Yes. I need the money first.”

He frowned, but gestured toward a white envelope on the desk. He dropped her wrists and went back to the bed, watching her closely. She picked up the envelope, glanced inside, quickly counted. Two hundred dollars.

That, on top of the thousand dollars she was being paid to set the jerk up. With the earlier job, she was pulling in over three thousand dollars tonight.

Not bad. But there was even more money for her down the road. Tonight was just icing on the cake.

She stuffed the envelope into her purse, adjusted the flap, then said, “What do you want me to call you?”

“Call me Daddy. And I’m going to spank you. Hard.”

This was getting better by the minute.

“Spank me, Daddy,” she said, and he did.





CHAPTER TWO



Sean woke up the moment Lucy climbed out of bed. He glanced at the bedside clock. It was 3:30 A.M.

Lucy slipped out of the room and Sean sat up. It had been months since Lucy had had a full night’s sleep. This insomnia of hers was going to wear her out. And him. He’d found himself napping during the day for a couple hours after lunch, and he couldn’t blame the heat.

It was more than insomnia. Lucy was physically and emotionally drained and wanted to hide it from everyone. Except, she couldn’t hide it from him even if she wanted to.

He’d thought she was fine. After they’d rescued nine abused boys who’d been used as couriers for a drug cartel, Lucy had seemed to be unfazed by the whole operation. She’d saved lives. But to save lives, she’d had to take lives. She’d had to lie about defying orders even though her boss suspected what she’d done. She’d wanted to come clean but couldn’t without damaging the careers and reputations of others.

She’d been put on administrative leave for two weeks and didn’t blink. They’d spent part of her leave in Sacramento with his brother and newborn niece. While she’d been upset about disappointing her boss, she’d appeared content. She’d spent more time with her brother Jack and Sean’s brother Kane than anyone else, but at the time Sean hadn’t thought much about it.

That should have been his first clue. When he’d first met Lucy eighteen months ago, she had kept herself closed off from others, icy and distant. It had been a defense mechanism to manage the pain and rage from her past. Constantly training, running for miles, working long hours. She didn’t let herself feel anything, and that meant the only time her emotions were free to escape was in sleep. And those emotions became nightmares, violent memories that Sean had helped Lucy overcome.

And for months, he’d thought they were over. After they’d moved to San Antonio in January, she rarely woke before dawn, her insomnia under control. But the nightmares had returned when they came home after her leave. He wanted to pull the truth from her, because he didn’t think she was being honest with him. She wasn’t lying to him … just omitting details. She never wanted to worry him. But what she didn’t understand, what Sean hadn’t made clear enough, was that holding back made him worry more.