'I step in. That's who I am.' Decker still hadn't broken eye contact, but he made no sudden moves. 'With all due respect, sir, I don't want your job.'

Ken nearly smiled. 'Why not?'

'From what I can see, you sit behind a desk all day. I'd go crazy. I was going crazy sitting in Accounting crunching numbers. I'm not happy Reuben disappeared, but I'll take up the slack and hope I do a good enough job that you don't send me back to pencil-pushing hell.'

'And if I do?'

'I'll die of lead poisoning from stabbing myself in the eye with the damn pencil.'

Ken laughed. 'Well, soldier, let's take it a day at a time. Burton is next in line for Reuben's job. Can you work for him?'

'Yes. He seems like an honest man.'

Ken frowned. 'That's an odd thing to say.' He injected a light note into his tone. 'You do realize this is a criminal enterprise?'

Decker finally smiled. 'Yes, sir. But that's the relationship the organization has to its outside contacts the suppliers, the customers, the government. Within the organization, relationships need to be transparent and dependable. Like a military. Soldiers kill people. It's their function. Depending on your point of view, that's criminal or patriotic. If you're the enemy, it's very criminal. But within the ranks, you have to know the soldier next to you has your back. I believe I can trust Burton with my back.'

It was an interesting perspective. Ken leaned one shoulder against the wall outside the spare bedroom where Demetrius lay. 'What other skills do you have, Decker?'

A slow, sly grin. 'I'm pretty handy with the woodchipper.'

'O-kay.' Ken wasn't sure if that was Decker's sense of humor or a touch of insanity. He wasn't certain that he cared. 'I've had a long day. I'm going to grab some shut-eye while Sleeping Beauty in there sleeps off the ketamine. Wake me when he comes to.'

'You want me to extract any information from him?' Decker asked quietly.

'No. He's my friend, my responsibility. I'll get what I need.' With that, Ken turned away and walked down the hall to his own bedroom. Once inside, he closed the door, exhausted. He was glad Demetrius would be under for another few hours.

Ken had killed two people today and ordered the deaths of four more. Drake Connor's sister and Reuben's wife had been taken care of. Drake and Marcus O'Bannion were still out there, causing trouble that Ken didn't even want to think about. He'd lost his security chief and found out that Reuben and Demetrius had been stealing from him. Maybe even working together.

He'd been told by his own daughter that he was getting too old for his job. Maybe she was right.

Because he didn't have the energy to extract information from Demetrius at the moment. In the quiet, his heart hurt. He and Demetrius had started out as a couple of grad students selling weed to their peers and together built up a company worth millions, serving customers in more than forty-two countries. Selling them just about any perversion they desired. He wasn't ashamed of that. There would always be buyers for that sort of thing, so there would always be sellers. Might as well be me.

He stripped off his shirt and stood in front of his mirror. Yesterday he'd been proud of his reflection. Now . . .

His cell phone began to buzz, and he prayed it wasn't Decker saying Demetrius was awake. Luckily it was Sean. 'What's up?'

Sean sighed. 'Dad, I just heard something on the police radio you need to know about.'

Ken sank down to sit on the edge of his bed, pinching the bridge of his nose. 'What?'

'An unidentified woman was found in a cheap motel about twenty minutes ago. The front desk says they have no record of her having checked in, that she broke into the room, OD'd on a sedative and went to sleep. Description matches Reuben's wife, Miriam.'

'She's dead, right?' Ken had given her the sedative himself and Burton had taken her to the motel to die.

'No. Unconscious, but not dead. The chatter said the police were responding to an anonymous 911. Just thought you should know.'

'Wait a minute.' Ken pinched his nose harder. 'She got picked up twenty minutes ago? But she should have been dead hours ago. I gave her enough sedative to take down Reuben, for God's sake, and she weighs half what he does. If he's still alive,' he muttered. 'If Miriam is alive, somebody pumped her stomach.'

'Or made her throw it all up.' A pause, then a tentative 'Didn't Burton drop her off?'

'Yeah,' Ken said flatly. Burton who hadn't wanted to kill her to begin with. Reuben's second-in-command had history with Reuben's wife. Burton hadn't allowed her to die. He'd arranged for her to be saved, putting them all in jeopardy. Especially me. Because Ken had forced Miriam to drink the damn sedative.

'Do you want to buy me out?' he asked Sean abruptly. 'Alice said the two of you did.'

'Maybe. We'd have to clean house.'

Ken huffed bitterly. 'If we keep on losing people, cleaning house won't take too long.'

'Do you want me to find Burton?' Sean asked quietly.

'I know where he is,' Ken said. 'And I know that you're aware of my phone trackers.'

'I wouldn't have been a very good IT person if I hadn't known,' Sean said reasonably. 'I don't hold it against you.'

Ken was quiet for a long moment. 'Can you handle Burton? He's a big guy.'

'No, but Alice can.' It was said with no bitterness or ego. Sean actually sounded proud of his sister, who'd gotten the lion's share of Ken's athletic genes.

'She's not . . . you know . . . with Burton too, is she?' Ken asked with a grimace. 'Not like she is with DJ.'

Sean chuckled. 'You really want me to answer that?'

Ken shuddered at the image. 'No. Just get Alice, find Burton and bring him here. I'm not sure where she is. She said she was going to finish off O'Bannion.'

After ending the call, Ken kicked off his shoes and lay on his bed, too weary to take off his pants. The image of Stephanie Anders doing it for him flashed in his mind like unexpected fireworks.

'No thank you,' he whispered to himself. Stephanie Anders was not anyone he would ever take to his bed and on top of the day he'd had? Ludicrous.

But maybe that was his subconscious trying to tell him it was time to get out. Once he fixed this mess, he'd take his personal bank accounts, along with those of Demetrius, Reuben and Chip Anders and he'd retire.

Once he fixed this mess.

Twenty-five.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 11.30 P.M.

Marcus rubbed his mouth, his lips still tingling from that kiss in the hospital parking lot. Finally, he thought. After nine months of telling himself that he'd only drag her down with him, he'd finally silenced that voice in his head.

There was only one small wrinkle she hadn't asked him about the kidnapping and Matty. He wondered if she'd had a chance to Google what he'd told her to. She'd been a tad busy, after all. Maybe she hadn't had time. He didn't want to ask. He didn't want to know if she had. Because if she hadn't and if by some chance she had forgotten, he didn't want to bring it up.

Except that she had a right to know. He couldn't keep something like that from her. He'd tell her after all this was over, after he'd had a chance to get to know her completely. After he'd had a full night with her and had woken up with her at least once. He'd have something to take away with him then.

Or maybe he'd tell her and it wouldn't matter. It was possible. She'd taken the Ledger activities with a surprisingly open mind. But that was different. His team at the Ledger was like a modern-day Mission: Impossible team. They'd never actually killed anyone, although he and Diesel had come close a few times.

But what he'd done after Matty died was very, very different. He had killed someone even if his finger hadn't been on the trigger. He stared down at the gun in his lap. It might have been a murder weapon the murder weapon, even. He simply didn't know. He didn't want to know.

But he did know that every time he carried it, he put himself at risk. When it'd just been himself to worry about, that had been okay. Hell, it might even have been part of the allure. But he didn't just have himself to worry about anymore. Scarlett had put her career on the line for him. She'd stood with him.

He'd have to put the gun away, in his safe where it wouldn't cause her any trouble. He took it from the pocket holster and ran his thumb over the barrel. It was not lost on him that he'd caressed Scarlett's skin the same way a few minutes ago.

The gun had become more than a mere weapon long ago. It was a talisman, just as his knife was, but for very different reasons. Using a different gun would take some getting used to, he thought. But if it uncomplicated even a portion of their lives, it was a small price to pay. Because now that he'd held Scarlett in his arms, now that he'd tasted her lips and watched her face as he made her come . . . and now that he'd felt her hold him so tenderly that he'd thought his heart would club its way right through his chest . . . He knew that he was not letting her go.

He slipped the gun between his seat and the car door, where he could get to it if he needed it, then took his laptop from its case and opened the threat list. He cleaned it up, removing any references to his staff or the more questionable things they'd done, then emailed it to Scarlett.

A noise had his head jerking up and his hand going for the gun next to his seat, but he relaxed when he saw Scarlett knocking on the passenger window. He unlocked the doors, and she slid in, wearing a tactical vest over her T-shirt, her jacket draped over her arm.

'Sorry I took so long.' Her skin was flushed, a light sheen of sweat on her face.

'Were you running?'

She tossed the jacket in the back seat. 'Just a little. Didn't want you to worry about me.'

He poked at the thick, padded bulletproof vest. 'Where were you hiding this?'

'I wasn't. Lynda gave it to me, just in case someone takes a potshot at me too.'

He frowned. 'You should have been wearing this when we went into and out of the hospital. Why weren't you?'

'I left mine at home after we . . .' She shrugged, a blush coloring her cheeks. 'After we had sex on my sofa. I think I was pretty rattled.'

'Don't get that rattled,' he said, angry with himself for not noticing. 'Why don't you wear Kevlar under your clothes like I do?'

'A, because it itches; b, because none of my clothes will hide a vest; c, because they make me roast, and d, because I didn't promise my mother I would. I'd rather wear the vests over my clothes. Besides, you're the target, not me.'

'Promise me,' he said fiercely. 'Promise me you'll wear one.'

She met his eyes, growing serious. 'I promise. Until this guy is caught, I promise.'

'We'll renegotiate after this guy is caught,' he muttered.

She smiled at him. 'You can start the engine anytime,' she said, pointing at the keys he'd left dangling in the ignition. 'In fact, why didn't you keep the AC going? You could've roasted too.'

'I served two tours in the Gulf,' he reminded her dryly, closing his laptop and laying it on the floorboard behind his seat. He started the car. 'I can take a little heat.'

She rolled her eyes. 'So can I, Mr Macho, but I choose not to.' She cranked up the AC and leaned her face into the air. 'Did you finish with the list?'

'Yes. I emailed it to you.'

'Must have been after I left my desk.' She settled into the seat and checked her phone while he drove them out of the garage and on to the street that led from the city to her house on the hill. 'I got it.' She took a few minutes to scan it, tapped her screen, then put the phone in one of the pockets of the vest. 'I forwarded it to Isenberg. She'll get it to whoever's doing the analysis.'

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. 'I thought you weren't going to your desk.'

She made a face. 'Isenberg called me while I was in Ballistics. Deacon and Agent Coppola had just come back from your apartment building, and Adam Kimble, the detective who was leading the search for Mila and Erica, had just come back from the field. We did a mini-debrief. I got away as soon as I could.'

'And?'

'And the security tapes showed the killer leaving about five minutes after he entered with Phillip and shot the security guard.'

'What time was that?'

'Forty minutes after eight.'

'Shit. He left only a minute or two before I got there. I may have seen him. Phillip said he was big and African-American.'

'The camera didn't capture his face. He had a ski mask hidden under his cap and pulled it down as he entered the lobby. He was also wearing gloves. The only skin we saw was around the perimeter of the mask's eye holes. His skin was darker than Caucasian, but that's all we can say.'

'We'll ask Phillip more when he wakes up,' Marcus said firmly.

'We will,' she agreed with a hard nod. 'When the shooter came out of your apartment, he went down the stairs, made sure the coast was clear in the lobby and then slipped out the front door. He had a towel wrapped around his arm and the knife still sticking out, just like Phillip told you.'

'He didn't want his blood spurting everywhere.'

'But the towel had already soaked through. Phillip got that blade deep.'

Marcus thought of Edgar and Phillip, both fighting for their lives. 'Good,' he said coldly.

'I agree. Agent Coppola talked to everyone in the building. Nobody saw or heard anything. He must have used a silencer.'

Marcus frowned. 'Silencers for the Ruger are hard to come by. He may have had it custom made.' His frown grew deeper. 'But he didn't use one in the alley. Why?'

'Good question. But he did use a silencer on his rifle when he shot at you and Agent Spangler in back of the Anders house.'

There was a thoughtful quality in her voice that made him look at her. 'What?'

'The surgeon said that the shooter shot Phillip three times. Arm, side and abdomen. Arm was a through and through, but Coppola and Deacon didn't find the bullet, just the casings. The surgeon said the shooter dug the bullet out of Phillip's side and tried to dig the one out of his abdomen but gave up.'

'Because the shooter was bleeding too. He didn't want the bullets found. He left bullets behind at the alley and didn't want the ones in Phillip connected through ballistics. The gun he used on me and Agent Spangler this afternoon was a rifle, so there wouldn't have been a match anyway.' He frowned harder. 'But that doesn't make sense. Why would he go to the trouble of digging the bullets out? He has to know that we know he's the same guy.'

'Do we?' she countered. 'Tala knew her attacker. I saw it in her eyes.'

'So did I,' he murmured. 'When I watched the video later. So you're thinking maybe it's not the same shooter? Maybe the two aren't related?'