The Trouble With Temptation (Second Service Book 3)(32)

“There were two of them.”

“Not anymore.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe she should put a little more trust in him. After all, how often did she meet a man capable of taking out two trained assassins before he’d even put on his pants in the morning…outside of comic books that is?

“The other one is…” Morgan grimaced. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“Dead too.” Ty obviously didn’t have any problems finishing her sentence.

“They’re Barinov’s men, aren’t they?”

Ty nodded, and smoothed back her hair. “But they can’t hurt you now.”

“Did he find out that you’re a federal agent?”

“I doubt it. If he knew, he’d become more cautious, not more brazen. Killing me would only bring the Bureau down on him harder. This was about you. Which means we need to get you out of here.”

“We need to get dressed.”

Ty looked down at himself. His brows arched as if it had totally slipped his notice that he had just fought to the death while nude.

“Good point.” He went to his dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans. Then he went to the closet.

“I left my dress in there,” Morgan said without turning around. She didn’t want to have to face the dead body again if she didn’t have to.

Ty returned a moment later and handed over her dress. Morgan slipped it over her head as he buttoned his shirt. She had just finished pulling her shoes on when Ty took her by the hand and pulled her out of the bedroom.

Morgan caught a glimpse of two feet and a pair of dark slacks sticking out from behind the couch. She looked away before she could see anything else.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled her toward the kitchen. Shards of glass crunched beneath her heels as they stepped through what remained of the back door.

“To my office,” he said, as he took the metal steps down to the parking lot two at a time. “This has gotten out of control. I’m ending it.”

“No,” Morgan said, stopping in her tracks. She was still a few steps from the bottom, but she watched as Ty crouched down behind his bike and started running his hand under the seat. “We’re so close to putting Barinov away.”

“We are not doing anything. You are not an agent, Morgan. You’re a civilian, and my job is to keep you out of danger, not throw you deeper into it.” A second later, he stood up. Pinched in between his fingers was a small black plastic square.

“What’s that?” Morgan asked.

“The answer to how they found us—a tracking device.” Ty tossed it down on the blacktop. “Barinov’s men must have put it on there Sunday night after they found us together.”

Morgan stared down at the shattered piece of plastic.

This was getting out of control. It needed to end. Soon. Before anyone else got hurt.

And she was the only one who could stop it.

The realization didn’t thrill her. In fact, it turned her blood to ice. But that didn’t change anything.

“Will he stop if your investigation does?” she asked Ty, even though she already knew the answer. Barinov wasn’t going to stop seeing her as a threat just because the FBI was involved. If anything, he would come after her harder.

Ty must have known it too. When he looked up at her his lips were a hard thin line. “The Bureau can protect you.”

“You mean I spend the rest of my life in hiding.”

“There’s no other option,” he said, swinging his leg over his bike. He motioned for her to get on.

Morgan stood her ground. “Of course there is. We can go get that ledger, and end this once and for all. We still have the advantage. If Barinov doesn’t know that you’re FBI then neither does my brother. There’s still a good chance they haven’t gotten rid of the evidence.”

He started up the bike. The engine roar echoed off the buildings around them. “We don’t have time to argue.”

“You’re right. We don’t. Back inside, you asked me to trust you. And I do. With my life. But now, I’m asking you to trust me. Don’t give up yet.”

The familiar wail of sirens sounded from down the street. Ty’s brows pulled together. “You’re not getting on this bike unless I agree, are you?”

Morgan shook her head. “Sorry.”

“All right then. Get on,” he said. “Though I’m not sure where the hell we’re going to go if I’m not taking you back to the office.”

“That’s okay,” Morgan said, sliding behind him. He hit the throttle the moment her arms wrapped around his middle. This time Morgan didn’t even flinch. “I know a place.”





Chapter Twelve




Ty zigzagged through the city, banking around tight corners and in and out of alleyways and one-way streets for twenty minutes before he finally got around to following Morgan’s directions. He tried telling himself it was because he wanted to make sure that they weren’t being followed, but that wasn’t entirely true. He’d been assured their trail was clear fifteen minutes ago. Now…now, he was just riding around the city, trying to figure out what to do next.

It wasn’t a position he was used to. Usually, everything was much clearer. There was right, and there was wrong, and the best thing to do was usually pretty damned obvious.