Half Empty (First Wives, #2)(71)

“Let me get this straight,” Ike started the second they were in the car. “The woman you’ve known for what . . . two weeks? Is the widow of a man who committed suicide, but now we find out he was murdered right before the man’s mother dies . . . all the money ends up in Trina’s bank. Her BFF has the holy shit kicked out of her for reasons unknown. Their friends rally together as if they are on some kind of military mission, with bodyguards and surveillance that rivals the White House . . . and you want to date this woman?”

Jeb drove, and Wade twisted around in the passenger seat to address Ike. “Do you read, Ike?”

“You mean books?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes.”

“Did you ever read that book He’s Just Not That into You?”

“I saw the movie, why?” Ike asked.

“I didn’t see the movie, but one of the guys in the band had the book on our tour bus. I started reading it, and at first I thought, well, hell, this just sucks that there is a book out there to tell every woman all the secrets a man has. You know, the things we do and don’t do if we wanna keep a woman around, but we know it really isn’t going anywhere. It’s like a guidebook for women to wake up and realize when a guy isn’t in for the long run.”

“What does that have to do with this conversation?”

Wade held his hand in the air. “Hold up . . . I’m getting there. Then I kept reading, and I thought of myself and wondered if there was anyone out there that I was willing to be that man for. You know, the guy who always calls because he wants to, not because he’s expected to. The guy who remembers important dates and the things a woman says because he actually listened.”

Ike bounced in the back seat when the car hit a pothole. “That’s Trina?”

Wade shrugged and smiled.

“Two weeks, Wade! You can’t know that in two weeks.”

“Maybe that’s true. But I’ll never get to three weeks to find out if that woman is Trina if I leave now.”

Ike rolled his eyes and sat back in the seat and turned his head toward the window. “You have a hero complex. You see a woman you can rescue and you’re putting on a cape.”

Wade looked at Ike like he was crazy. “Did you see all the firepower in that room? That Rick guy makes Jeb here look like his scrawny stepbrother.”

“Hey, watch it!” Jeb said without heat.

“I don’t need to put on a cape for her when she’s surrounded by Marvel superheroes.”

Ike sat forward. “You know I’d do just about anything for you, but blowing smoke up your ass by saying she’s worth it isn’t in my capabilities.”

“Good thing I don’t need your smoky breath.” Wade turned around to look out the window.

“How do you plan on playing hero when you have two nights in Vegas at the end of the month?”

He’d actually forgotten about that. “I’ll figure it out.”

“You hear everything she says, huh?” Ike asked after thirty seconds of silence.

Wade was starting to reach the end of his patience. “Yeah.”

“Uh-huh . . . well, did you catch the part about her dead husband being distraught about losing the only woman who loved him?”

He had heard that and didn’t know what to make of it.

“Married one year and the love was gone?” Ike asked.

Wade swallowed hard.

“None of this feels right.”

Yeah, it didn’t feel right. “Jeb?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

Wade glanced Jeb’s way, noticed the tightness of his jaw. The man never called him Boss, even though Wade paid the man’s salary.

“Let’s head on over to the airport.”

Jeb questioned him with a look, his hands tight on the wheel.

Ike hit the back of Wade’s seat. “Hell, yeah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Thirty minutes later, Jeb and Wade were pulling away from the airport drop-off as Ike grew smaller in the rearview mirror.

Wade took a deep breath, leaned back, and closed his eyes. “That’s better.”



She hated Texas. Yeah, heat was a big part of the reason for her dislike for the place, but it wasn’t the warm weather that really ate at her. It was the inability to wear her normal clothes without sticking out. Blending was something Sasha needed to do.

Wearing a floral print dress she’d burn at the earliest opportunity, she ducked under the wide brim of the hat on her head and scratched the blonde wig covering up her dark hair.

Sasha dropped on one knee behind a tombstone and made as if she were searching her massive bag for a tissue. From the side of the “purse,” she slid aside a hidden cover from the camera inside and looked at the image picked up on the screen. She zoomed in and placed a hand to the side of her head, turning up the volume on her earpiece.

Ruslan stood to the side of Fedor’s grave, hands folded behind his back. His three-piece suit didn’t single him out of a crowd, but his stony disposition while visiting his son’s grave did.

As soon as he blipped on the radar in the States, she’d been close enough to smell the bastard.

She snapped a picture and waited.

Zakhar, his hired thug, stood several paces away. Dark glasses covered his eyes as he scanned the cemetery.