Midnight Action (24 page)

So he lied.

“I’m not ignoring you,” Liam muttered. “You’re imagining things.”

“Bullshit.”

“Sully—”

“Just go.” Those gray eyes darkened with anger. “I’m serious, Liam. Unless you’re in the mood to watch me jerk off, I suggest you give me some bloody privacy.”

Despite his better judgment, he glanced at the other man’s crotch, which sported a very visible bulge.

He suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

“No joke, mate. I’m two seconds from pulling out my dick.”

Sully was mocking him now. His lips had curved in the sensual smirk Liam had seen many times before, usually right before the guy fucked a woman senseless. Tension gathered in the air, hanging over them like a canopy.

Liam’s mouth went drier than a sack of flour. He continued to hold Sullivan’s gaze, and was taken aback when he glimpsed a gleam of challenge.

His pulse promptly sped up. Shit. He got the feeling his teammate was goading him, but...into what? What the hell was Sullivan trying to accomplish right now? Liam was used to the guy’s impulsive nature, his act-first-and-think-later mentality, but right now, in this moment, he had no clue what Sully’s endgame was.

Or hell, maybe there
wasn’t
an endgame. Maybe Sullivan really just needed to beat one out and Liam was simply getting in his way. They’d been listening to two people have ferocious sex all day long—any red-blooded man with a healthy libido would need some relief after that.

Sullivan lowered his hand to his zipper. “Last chance, Boston.”

His breath hitched, and his friend must have heard it, because Sullivan froze. For a moment, he looked stunned.

Then he started to laugh as understanding dawned on his rugged face. “Oh, man. Is
that
what this is about?”

Liam swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With an amused expression, Sullivan slanted his head. “So then you
don’t
want to fuck me?”

Simultaneous bursts of heat and panic went off in Liam’s body. He wanted to voice a denial, but his vocal cords had seized up. He could barely even breathe, thanks to his tightening throat.

His heart beat louder and faster when his friend took a dangerous step toward him. “I can tell when someone wants me, Boston. You don’t have to look so freaked-out about it, either. I’m totally down for...whatever you have in mind.”

Gulping, Liam took a step back. “You’re wrong.”

Sullivan furrowed his brow. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

“You sure about that?”

His teammate moved closer.

Liam moved back.

“I should...go,” he mumbled.

“Then go.”

Their gazes locked for one heart-stopping moment.

And then something happened. Something Liam didn’t expect, and didn’t have the willpower to stop.

His best friend slid toward him, grasped his chin with one powerful hand, and brought their mouths together.

A hot rush of lust instantly swept through him, sizzling right down to his cock and turning it into a slab of marble.

Sweet Jesus.

Sully’s lips were hot and firm, and the feel of his stubble scraping the edge of Liam’s jaw was the most surreal sensation on the planet. The kiss lasted only a few seconds. The locking of their mouths, the sensual sweep of Sullivan’s tongue, and then those wicked lips were gone, and Liam was left gasping for air, stunned into speechlessness.

The shock didn’t last long. It swiftly transformed into bone-deep panic that had him stumbling backward. “Fuck,” he choked out.

He thought he glimpsed a flicker of remorse in Sullivan’s eyes, but he was too stricken to be sure.

“Liam—” his friend started.

He threw a hand up between them. “Don’t.” A ragged breath flew out. “Just...don’t.”

Without another word, he stalked out the door and slammed it behind him.

The next morning, Morgan entered the living room and spotted his men having breakfast out on the terrace. He heard Sean Reilly, from his perch near the French doors, entertaining everyone with what sounded like a disastrous experience with a Dublin prostitute, while the other men exploded in laughter.

The visible camaraderie between Reilly and the men was an encouraging sign. Reilly was undeniably intelligent, shrewd and resourceful, and a damn skilled soldier, but he’d been working solo for so long Morgan wasn’t sure how Sean would fare as part of a team.

He was still hoping he wouldn’t live to regret his decision to take the Irishman on, but he couldn’t second-guess himself now. As of this morning, he wanted every available man watching the Durand estate, and that included Reilly. Not only was he desperate to keep an eye on Cate, but it was also time to find out what Ariana’s role was in all this.

It troubled him that nobody could offer a single detail about Ariana Dietrich, but he intended to change that. He
had
to find a way to see Ariana. Maybe if he talked to her, he could...what? Convince her to let Cate come live with him?

Wishful thinking, made all the more unlikely when he remembered that Ariana wasn’t even Cate’s guardian. Walther was. And Morgan wasn’t naive enough to think that Walther Dietrich would ever relinquish his granddaughter into the custody of a man he loathed.

Tamping down his frustration, Morgan stalked outside to address his team, only to find every single man gaping at him.

Oh, right. He’d forgotten about his appearance.

“Fun night?” Reilly asked with a smirk.

Morgan stifled a sigh. He knew exactly what they were seeing, because he’d just seen it himself in the bathroom mirror. His face was beat to shit—swollen lip, blood-caked eyebrow, a bluish bruise on his right cheekbone. And that was just the visible damage. Beneath his white T-shirt and olive fatigues were even more bruises, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Noelle had fractured at least one of his ribs.

He looked like he’d fought a battle and lost. On the other hand, he’d also fucked her more times than he could count, so didn’t that make him more winner than loser?

And as usual, after the explosive sex had come to an end and he’d passed out naked beside her, the answer to the inevitable question remained
no
. No, she wasn’t out of his system. No, he didn’t want to stop.

“You have glass in your hair.”

Morgan ignored Liam’s dry observation.

And Reilly’s widening grin.

And Sullivan’s twitching lips.

And Ash’s extremely impressed face.

“I need you guys on surveillance,” he said gruffly. “All eyes on the Durand estate—I want to know who goes in and who comes out. I want an assessment of the security system, and the locations of every single camera, motion detector, and guard on the property.”

“You should ask Juliet to help,” Reilly suggested. “In case you want some covert B and E.”

“We won’t be breaking in. Just watching for now.”

“And how long are we gonna be doing that?”

Until I convince my daughter to come home
.

He didn’t voice the thought. He was aching to swoop on the estate and take Cate by force if he had to, but he couldn’t risk his daughter getting caught in any cross fire. And it didn’t feel right
forcing
her to be with him. He wanted her to make that choice on her own.

“As long as we need to,” he muttered, before glancing at Sullivan. “You’re team leader on this one. Break down the assignments as you see fit.”

The blond Australian beamed at him. “Well, hot damn. I never get to be CO.”

Morgan turned for the door. “I’ll meet you guys there in an hour or two. I need to tap a few of Noelle’s sources first.” He turned to Sean. “Did your brother check in?”

Reilly nodded. “About an hour ago, but I didn’t want to wake you up.” A hint of a smirk lingered. “I figured you might need your beauty rest.”

“What did he say?” Morgan asked with a frown.

“He still hasn’t found anything about Ariana Dietrich, at least nothing after you left Berlin. It’s like she doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Well, I know for a fact she does. Tell Oliver to dig deeper.”

“Got it, boss.”

Morgan left the boys to their own devices and headed toward the kitchen. He was craving a cup of coffee. Or maybe ten. His temples were pounding, though he wasn’t sure whether it was due to lack of sleep, a need for caffeine, or Noelle’s fists.

Bailey was at the counter when he entered the room, her hair loose and falling over one shoulder as she leaned forward to read the newspaper lying on the black granite.

“Morning,” she greeted him.

“Morning,” he murmured, making a beeline for the fancy-pants coffeemaker. “Is Noelle back yet?”

“No, she’s still meeting with her lawyer friend.”

He nodded. Noelle had gone to do some more digging about Gilles Girard, Dietrich’s assassin-hiring lawyer, in the hope that she might be able to uncover Ariana’s whereabouts.

“Hopefully he has some information for us,” Morgan said.

He felt Bailey’s dark gray eyes on him as he poured himself some coffee. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the woman, though he couldn’t deny that she’d done a damn good job yesterday. Although he hadn’t seen her in action, she’d fooled Cate’s bodyguards with her disguise, and thanks to her, he’d been able to meet his daughter without a single snag.

“How was your night?” Amusement rang in Bailey’s voice.

Irritated, he turned to face her. “Christ, can everyone quit looking at me like that? I got laid. Big deal.”

“Normally I don’t care about other people’s sex lives, but this time it’s hard not to. My boss doesn’t usually hop into bed with men she despises.” Bailey paused thoughtfully. “Then again, I suppose there’s a thin line between love and hate, huh?”

His back went ramrod straight. “Your boss doesn’t love me.”

Newspaper forgotten, Bailey rested her elbows on the counter and studied his face. “But you love her.”

Discomfort coiled around his spine. “I did once.”

She slanted her head. “Yeah?”

He brought his mug to his lips and slugged back some caffeine, wishing Bailey would stop staring at him like that. He opened his mouth intending to change the subject, but the words that slipped out startled the hell out of him.

“She thinks I was pretending, but she’s wrong. I
did
love her.” His voice thickened. “I never loved anyone before I met her, and there’s been nobody since.”

Bailey looked equally stunned. “Oh. Um. Okay.” Her expression grew wary. “Why are you telling me this?”

He sighed. “Because I have nobody else to tell it to.” A faint smile tickled his lips. “And I get the feeling you’re good at keeping other people’s secrets.”

Her laughter echoed in the kitchen. “You’re right about that.” She hesitated. “So what did you do to make her hate you?”

Morgan leaned against the counter and wrapped both hands around his mug. “I used her to draw her father out of hiding. And then I arrested him, and he died three days later during an escape attempt.”

“Well,” Bailey remarked, her tone tactful, “I can see why she feels the way she does about you.”

His chest clenched. “She idolized that man, but goddamn it, he didn’t deserve her devotion. He abandoned her, left her in the clutches of a sadistic bastard. And he was a traitor to his country—good people lost their lives because of him.”

Bailey frowned. “Does Noelle know that?”

He shook his head in frustration. “Doesn’t matter how many times I try to tell her—she’s never going to believe that her father was anything less than a national hero.”

“Right there is your problem. Telling her won’t make a lick of difference. You need to show her.”

“Show her?”

“You know Noelle as well as I do, maybe even better. She doesn’t trust people, and she operates under the assumption that every word a person says is a lie. She won’t believe an accusation like that without proof, tangible evidence to back it up.” Bailey arched one eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you have proof?”

That gave him pause. “Proof.”

“Yeah. Can you prove that her father is everything you say he was?”

“No,” Morgan said slowly. “But I might know someone who can.”

An idea took root in his mind, but he wasn’t sure it was even possible.

Doesn’t hurt to try,
a little voice pointed out.

Hell, what did he have to lose? He might not have a clue about what was going on between him and Noelle, what he felt for her outside the realm of sexual desire, but whatever they had, whatever they
could
have...It would never work unless he redeemed himself in her eyes.

“You’re buzzing.”

Bailey’s voice drew him back to the present, and he realized his phone was vibrating in his back pocket.

He quickly set his mug on the counter and took out his phone, his breath catching when he glimpsed the number flashing on the screen. It was the same number he’d called yesterday, when he’d informed the private lab tech that Ash was on his way to drop off some DNA samples.

“It’s the lab,” he told Bailey.

“I see,” was all she said.

Swallowing hard, Morgan answered the call with a brusque hello, then said, “Do you have the results?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” came the reply on the other end.

His heartbeat accelerated as he listened to the technician’s long, scientific report, but he tuned out halfway through, eventually cutting the guy off. “That’s all I needed to know. I appreciate the rush job—my associate will transfer the rest of your money shortly.”

He disconnected the call, his pulse hammering and his palms damp.

“Well?” Bailey said.

A lump rose in his throat. “Cate is my daughter.”

Bailey gave a brisk nod. “So what now?”

The lump got bigger, making it difficult to get a word out, but somehow he managed an entire sentence.

“Now we figure out how to get her out of that house.”

•   •   •

Cate left her bedroom that morning without an ounce of enthusiasm, but she forced herself to stick to her usual routine. Sunday-morning breakfast was usually followed by a visit to her mother, but she desperately hoped her grandfather wouldn’t insist on it today. Yesterday’s visit had been hard enough. The last thing she wanted was a follow-up.

Maurice and Nikolaus were already in the dining room when she walked in. Their noses were buried in their respective newspapers, but both men glanced up to greet her with warm smiles.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Maurice said.

“Good morning,” she murmured back.

She mustered up a smile, all the while wishing she could crawl back under the duvet and shut out the world.

She’d spent the entire night tossing and turning in bed, her brain refusing to shut down as she’d replayed the encounter with James Morgan over and over again in her head. And her visit with Ariana. And thrown into the mix were her strangely terrifying feelings for Gabriel, whom she hadn’t heard from since he’d dropped her off at home yesterday. He wasn’t answering his phone, and she couldn’t even pop into the kitchen to ask his mom if he was avoiding her, because Joséphine had Sundays off.

“Did you sleep well?” her grandfather asked pleasantly.

“Like a rock,” she lied.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He poured himself some coffee from the stainless steel carafe, then reached for the cream dispenser. “Your mother was very happy to see you yesterday.”

No, she wasn’t! She can’t feel anything!

Cate worked hard not to show her frustration. “It was good to see her too,” she said meekly.

Her grandfather’s eyes narrowed, as if he knew she wasn’t being genuine, so she pasted on another smile, hoping this one looked more sincere.

God, keeping up the charade was unbearable sometimes. He acted like Ariana was alive, when every doctor who’d ever treated her insisted that she was gone. The machines kept her body functioning, but her mind and her soul and everything that had once made her a living, breathing human—that had been extinguished like a candle the moment she’d been shot.

Without technology, Ariana would have slipped away a long time ago, and sometimes Cate wished her grandfather would let it happen. At least then her mother could finally be at peace.

It seemed cruel to allow her to live that way.

Your grandfather is a very dangerous man
.

Once again, Morgan’s warning crept into her mind. And once again, Cate rejected it.

Fine, so maybe her grandpa wasn’t in his right mind when it came to her mother, but that didn’t make him dangerous. He was simply a father who refused to grieve, and Cate suspected he blamed himself for Ariana’s attack. After all, it had been one of
his
business rivals who’d tried to kill him, only the attempt had gone horribly wrong and Cate’s mother had been hit instead.

“You need to see her more often.” Maurice’s cluck of disapproval jolted Cate out of her thoughts. “You know, when Ariana’s mother was alive, the two of them spent every waking moment together.”

“Are we going to visit her today?” She held her breath, praying with all her might that he’d say no.

“Of course we are.” He seemed surprised that she would even ask. “Ariana will be disappointed if we don’t.”

Fortunately, two of their maids entered the dining room before he could glimpse the frustration in Cate’s eyes. She hadn’t been able to mask it fast enough, and she knew her grandfather would be angry if he realized just how badly she wanted to avoid her mother.

The maids served breakfast in an efficient manner, setting down plates of steaming crepes, ceramic bowls piled with blueberries, little dishes of warm, melting butter. When Audrey, the younger of the women, placed a small bowl of strawberries in front of Cate, she smiled at the woman, a genuine smile this time. Audrey knew that strawberries were Cate’s favorite, and she always made sure to bring some out for her.

“Thanks, Audrey,” she told the brunette.

Audrey averted her gaze, and that was when Cate noticed her red-rimmed eyes. Had Audrey been crying?