The unofficial sort if he wanted to keep whatever mess his father had gotten into from fucking up his own life.Or worse, threatening someone he cared about, the list of targets having grown alarmingly long over the past year.Before, it had been a short list—his SEAL team, Eddie, Gravity, the handful of people who worked for them.He’d held everyone else back, had avoided relationships beyond the professional or very casual nonprofessional context.People got hurt in his orbit even when he tried to do right, and after the pain he’d caused already, he didn’t deserve more than what he allowed.
He didn’t want to cause anyone else that sort of pain again.
But then he’d gotten tangled up with Aidan’s lot, including the ASAC Nic wanted, against his better judgment, to know in a decidedly more than professional or casual context—whether he deserved to or not.
Taking another long swallow of beer, Nic picked up his phone and activated the secure call app.He scrolled to the most resourceful person among the six contacts listed there.
“Price,” Melissa Cruz answered, instantly alert.“Talk to me.”
They’d worked together often when Mel was the FBI SAC before Aidan, and their working relationship had continued despite her retirement from the Bureau.Chief of Security for the Talley family’s shipping company by day, bounty hunter—maybe also mercenary, Nic knew better than to ask—by night, she’d delivered more than one wanted criminal to him.Now he needed her assistance dealing with the criminal element threatening his own life.
“I need your help.”
“With?”
“Couple things.”
Headlamps blasted through the plate glass windows, lighting up the interior entryway.Nic’s pulse hammered, two beats of worry that the goons had returned—perhaps with reinforcements, or worse, with tanks of gasoline and a lighter—before the rattle of a blown-out muffler reached his ears.He released the breath he’d been holding, shaking his head as he wondered how Cam had made it cross-country in that junker.
“I’ve got company,” he said to Mel.
“Friendly or foe?”she asked, voice clipped.
“Friendly.”
“What you need, can it wait until morning?”
A trace on the handguns andUnknowncall?He didn’t see how eight hours was going to make much difference on either.And he could do some searching of his own during that time.“It’ll hold.”
“I’ll text you a time and place.”She clicked off just as the noise outside died.
Nic wrapped the pistols in the bar towel and hightailed it to his office.He swung aside the framed map of the world’s beer regions and opened the safe behind it, shoving the weapons inside.He was readjusting the picture when Cam banged on the main door.
“Let yourself in,” Nic hollered.This time of night, Cam should’ve been able to hear him.And hopefully he remembered the key code Nic had given him a couple of months back.Sure enough, by the time Nic reentered the tasting room, Cam was behind the bar, helping himself to a pint of the imperial stout.
“Make yourself at home,” Nic greeted.
“Don’t mind if I do.”Cam set a full pint of stout on the bar top, then tipped another glass toward him.Nic nodded, and Cam filled the second glass with pilsner.
“I was about to call you,” Nic said.
“I’d rather debrief over a beer if it’s all the same to you?”
“No complaints here.”
Approaching, Nic let his eyes rove over the agent, checking for any cuts or bruises he hadn’t noticed earlier.Cam’s dark hair was mussed and exhaustion weighed down his broad shoulders, but otherwise he looked as he had when they’d parted ways in the Federal Building elevator that afternoon.More importantly, nothing in Cam’s demeanor indicated Lauren had told him about this morning’s shooter.If she had, Cam would have stormed in here in high-gear agent mode, demanding protection for Nic.
“How’d you know I was here?”Nic asked, climbing onto a barstool.
Cam set the pint of pilsner in front of Nic, next to the phone.“You weren’t in your office when I left.”Rounding the bar, he claimed the stool beside Nic.“Thought I’d swing by on my way home.”
“You could have called.”
“One, you’re on the way.”
True.Cam’s house, which he rented from Aidan, was a ten-minute drive, at most, from the brewery, right off the highway exit Cam would take to get home.
“And two, beer,” Cam added, before taking a long swallow of the stout, cheek dimpling on a satisfied smile.Lowering the glass, he licked the foamy head from his full upper lip, and Nic had to look away, remembering the heady taste of his beer on Cam’s lips the night they’d kissed.He silently cursed the charmer for not leaving a stool between them.
