Beyond His Control

She’d heard, through the good old grapevine, that Justin’s ex-wife had remarried, had more babies, and that Justin hadn’t gotten involved with anyone significant.

She wondered if he’d been keeping tabs on her, too.

She reached for the phone, wondering if this time she’d actually go through with it. But the phone rang as her hand touched the receiver, and jolted her firmly back to reality.

She didn’t know the number on her caller ID, and answered with a wary hello.

“I’ve got a lead for you on the Mercer case.” She recognized the deep garbled voice of an informant she’d gotten solid evidence from several times in the past, thanks to some of her connections with the New York City Police Department.

Most informants couldn’t be trusted any farther than she could throw them, but she didn’t have much choice. “I’m waiting,” she said.

“Not over the phone. In person. At Grandpa’s Bar. Midnight.” He hung up before she had a chance to respond. Didn’t matter—she’d be there.

She had to find out what everyone else knew about Susie’s disappearance.

2

AT A TABLE in the back of the dim bar, the man Ava knew only as Sammy downed the third beer she’d bought for him. Ava, in turn, played with the label on her first and only bottle and tried to appear patient.

Sammy was a good-looking, fast-talking con man whose penchant for gambling had gotten him into some bad situations. But his time spent around other recently paroled convicts afforded Ava, and the officers she often worked with, insight into cases they might never have broken otherwise.

Finally, Sammy spoke. “They got me again. I’m going to need your help.”

She sighed, knowing the “they” referred to his parole officer, and the help, no doubt, involved a gambling scheme gone bad. “I thought you were getting out of the game.”

“It was a setup,” he protested.

“I’ll talk to your parole officer but I can’t promise anything, Sammy. You might be looking at some jail time.”

Sammy nodded, because he knew. Still, he’d give her information in an attempt to reduce his sentence. “I hear you’re looking for that Susie Mercer woman.”

Keep it cool, Ava. He really doesn’t know anything. “Have you heard where she is?” she asked, and Sammy shook his head roughly.

“No. I don’t know where she is, but I know who she is.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him over the music and the bar’s rowdy clientele. “You’ve heard of the O’Rourkes?”

Everyone had heard of the O’Rourkes. The infamous family ran an import/export business as its legitimate front, which was a cover for a highly successful and illegal drug-smuggling business that seemed to grow bigger every year. The business was based out of Chicago, and even though O’Rourke also had an office in New York, the D.A. had never been able to touch him.

“Of course I’ve heard of the O’Rourkes,” she said, pushing her beer to the side as her head began to pound.

“Well, she’s married to one of them. Robert Mercer, Susie’s husband, is the guy’s son,” Sammy said triumphantly. He clinked the neck of his beer bottle with hers.

“Sammy, how did you find that out?” she whispered urgently. Sammy shrugged, unconcerned. Since Susie had come forward, Robert Mercer was under investigation for more than just domestic abuse—the D.A.’s office was trying to keep his connection to the O’Rourkes under wraps until the Grand Jury convened in two weeks. If Sammy confirmed to anyone that Ava now knew the information…

She wanted to shake him by the shoulders until his teeth rattled.

“Now, that’s something I can’t tell you,” he said, before bringing the bottle back to his mouth and draining it.

“You can’t tell anybody else about this. Do you understand?”

“Don’t worry about me…well, only make sure I get out of trouble. Detective Rumson always says you’re the only one in the D.A.’s office who can be trusted.”

She stared into the man’s eyes and wondered why she always felt as if there was no one in the world she could trust. “Are you sure there’s no word on where Susie is?”

Sammy shook his head. “But if I had to guess, the family got her. There’s no way to escape them.”

But Susie had escaped. For now she was well hidden, safe and sound. The day after she’d pressed domestic abuse charges against her husband, Ava had helped her get away from her husband, since Susie refused to put her faith in the more conventional witness protection program. Ava had told this to no one, and wouldn’t be telling Sammy, either.

It had been reported that Susie’s husband, a successful New York entrepreneur, was now the main suspect in her “disappearance.” Although Robert Mercer had been under investigation at the D.A.’s office long before Susie had come forward to speak with Ava.

Something bigger was going on here. Robert Mercer’s hands were always somehow clean, his business dealings perfect. Still, Ava would make sure Susie’s case was solid, one way or the other.

With the help of Callie, she’d also make sure Robert never got anywhere near Susie again.

Callie was a social worker with close ties to the D.A.’s office, especially concerning domestic abuse cases, and an ally who’d helped Ava assist more women in peril than she could ever have imagined.

Callie was part of the backbone of an underground railroad that helped women get away from their abusive mates and into a new life. A program run entirely by volunteers, including some of the most unlikely people Ava would have ever expected. And, as each woman had been helped, she’d become the next important link in the chain.

It was the most important work Ava had ever done.

You’ll be straddling the legal line, Callie warned her when she’d first approached Ava about helping those women the system had failed, the ones whose husbands weren’t prosecuted. The ones who’d rather escape than face their tormentor in open court.

With this case, Ava had crossed it. There was no turning back now.

FIFTEEN MINUTES FROM Ava’s house, Justin pulled his cell phone from his pocket and made the call he’d been dreading.

“Where are you?” Rev, his SEAL teammate, yelled into the phone, over the sounds of loud music. Which meant he was still in the bar, where Justin had left him and the rest of the team, including Cash, earlier in the evening.

“I’m, ah, in a situation,” he said.

“Yeah, we saw you leave the bar with that situation well in hand.” Rev chuckled at his own wit and Justin thought about hanging up now and saving himself.

“I had to go to New York,” he said instead, ignoring his better judgment not to give him details because it was all shot to hell anyway. He’d need his team—no, his friends—to know where he was, just in case. If he couldn’t trust them, he had nothing.

“New York? He’s in New York!” Rev yelled, and Justin could only pray that he wasn’t telling Cash. Anyone but Cash, because if Cash heard New York…

“Is this about Ava?” Cash demanded. Justin heard Rev grumbling in the background, no doubt because Cash mowed him down to get to the phone and dammit, Cash was supposed to be spending time with his girlfriend.

Cash was Justin’s best friend on the team—the one Justin confided in the most. The one who Justin had watched fall in love hard last year with a documentary filmmaker named Rina. And although Hunt and Rev both knew about his past with Ava, Cash was the only one who knew exactly how many regrets Justin still had.

“I thought Rina was in town,” he said, mentioning Cash’s girlfriend as if this was a normal, everyday conversation and he was not having to admit to being minutes away from facing his past.

“Her flight from Botswana got canceled. Engine trouble. She’s coming in tomorrow night. And don’t try and change the subject.”

“Turk called me. Ava’s in trouble. Big trouble,” he said finally.

“Yeah. Always is. And now, I’m sure you are, too.”

“Just put Rev back on the phone,” Justin said, without telling his friend that this particular brand of Ava trouble had the potential to be bigger and badder than ever. Cash did so, but Justin could still hear him cursing a blue streak. In Swahili.

“What’s going on?” Rev asked.

“Can you go to my house and make sure it’s tight?” he asked, because Rev was the security master of the group.

Rev was silent for a minute. “CG?” he asked, and yes, that was the code—code green—they’d developed for when something really bad was going down and they couldn’t say much about it.

“Yeah. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Probably by tomorrow night—late.”

“Consider it done,” Rev said. “Once I figure out why my car won’t start.”

Justin groaned and hung up, because, even though he knew Rev would take care of what he needed to, it wouldn’t come without a certain amount of high drama and last-minute tension Rev seemed to have a penchant for.

Justin turned the corner slowly, parked a few houses down from Ava’s. It was nearly one in the morning. He’d been able to catch a military flight that got him here inside of an hour. But first he’d do a quick sweep to make sure everything was all right before ringing her doorbell and making contact… when Ava, still driving that same Mustang convertible Turk and her father had rebuilt for her ages ago, pulled into the driveway.

Within seconds she was striding toward the front door of her house, dressed in a pair of well-worn but still formfitting jeans, a white, V-neck T-shirt and a pair of high-heeled black boots that were part sex kitten, part Harley mama and every man’s fantasy. Including his.

She’d been hot enough at seventeen to make him crazy. Apparently nothing had changed if the way his pulse was racing was any indication.

Spending any decent amount of time with her had always made him feel as if he should be hoisting the white flag of surrender, although he was never quite sure what he was surrendering to.

He could run fifteen miles in one shot without a problem. Uphill, in the rain and carrying a pack that weighed eighty pounds or with one of his teammates slung over his shoulder. Swim in oceans so rough that drowning sometimes seemed the easier option. Been shot at more often than he cared to remember and still, seeing her could take him down at the knees every single time.

He’d spent the better part of his eighteenth year bailing her out of various scrapes—and honky-tonks, telling himself he was doing it for Turk and Ava’s father the entire time. Gotten into more than a few old-fashioned, chair-throwing, window-breaking bar fights with guys who’d wanted to take her home. And done more than his share of locking her in her room so she could study and wouldn’t fail her classes.

He’d only made the mistake of locking her in and standing outside her door once. He’d been so proud of her two hours of straight study, without complaint, until he’d gotten a call from the police about a woman caught speeding. On his hog.

When he’d gone to collect her from the precinct, she’d been unapologetic. Just smiled and batted those eyelashes and he’d wanted to kill her. And kiss her, too. And she’d known it. Always had.

He was never sure if that made things better or worse.

Ava, with her fierce loyalty and strong sense of justice, even then, she probably could’ve helped him, but at the time…

At the time, he couldn’t face her. He’d called her from a pay phone outside the motel where he was staying and explained why he wasn’t at her graduation when, the night before, they’d rolled together on the floor of her room. When he’d nearly taken her for the first time—her first time. A night when he’d had to tell her he was marrying someone else.

He’d told himself that he called because he hadn’t wanted her to see the bruises on his face, to ask too many questions.

He called because he couldn’t stand seeing the look on her face, the one of disappointment that he’d never wanted to put there. The one he’d seen when she recalled her mother leaving, and then firsthand when her father died and again when Turk announced he was transferring to an out-of-state college on a scholarship.

He’d called because he’d been leaving her, too.

Now, from the safety of the car, he watched the sway of her hips, wondered if her hair still smelled like that flowery shampoo she used to use. Wondered if she still hated him as much as she had that night.

He’d find out soon enough.

AVA WAS DEEP in thought as she approached her front door. It took three tries to get the key into the lock because her mind was racing due to Sammy’s news. And, if she was honest with herself, because her hands were shaking slightly. The O’Rourkes were getting too close—to Susie…to everything.

She’d have to let the detectives know about this development, could, in fact, since it wasn’t attorney-client privilege. And lie, the way she’d been doing for the past months when women like Susie Mercer disappeared off the face of the earth…

Susie planned to come back into town to give her grand jury statement and what evidence she could against her husband—and now presumably the O’Rourkes, too—in less than two weeks. She had evidence of the domestic abuse she’d suffered as well as the corrupt business dealings of her husband, and she was ready and willing to testify about both matters. She’d told both Ava and Callie not to worry about getting her back into New York, that she just needed their help in getting out. Susie refused to trust the police, the FBI and the federal marshals. She told Ava and Callie that if she was putting her life on the line, she was going to do it her way.

When Ava finally got the door open, she pushed in and noticed something by her feet.

A plain white envelope had been slipped through the mail slot in her door. She stared at it for a moment because there was no name or address on the front. And then she slid a finger under the sealed edge and ripped it open impatiently.

Photographs slid out. Polaroids of her in various places over the course of the last couple of days. Entering her office. Sitting with Susie. Going to dinner.

Meeting with Sammy tonight at the bar.

She fought the revulsion curling in her stomach and stuffed the pictures back into the envelope. No fear. Don’t let the bastards get to you.

God, she’d been outside—right in the open…

She moved fully into the foyer and slammed and locked the door behind her. Instinctively, she pulled the .38 special she’d started carrying, at Leo’s insistence, from her bag and held it at the ready while she turned on all the lights on the first floor. And then wondered if that was such a good idea.

She forced herself to stand still, to calm down and think. She could handle this.

She’d pack a bag, head straight for the anonymity of the city, hand the pictures over to the police and stay in a hotel. She’d be safe then.

Callie’s words of wisdom echoed in her head.

If anything happens, leave your place for a while. Go anywhere. And don’t tell anyone where you’re going…

Panic washed over her. That didn’t happen often, but the feeling in the pit of her stomach grew worse with each passing minute.

She wouldn’t worry about packing—she could come back here with the police tomorrow for her things. She shoved the pictures into her bag and opened the front door. And screamed.

“Jesus, Ava—what’s with the gun, are you trying to kill me?”

Justin. Justin filled the doorway, his hand poised as if readying to knock. Her breath caught and she was frozen in place at the sight of him.

He didn’t appear to be having the same problem. Barging past her, he insisted, “Ava, talk to me. Are you all right?”

Was she all right? No, not by a long shot.

“Justin, I’m in trouble,” she sputtered, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, because she was scared and half in shock. The last person in the world she’d expected to find on her doorstep was Justin Brandt, but he might be the only one who could give her what she needed right now.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, but you have to put the gun down.” His drawl was thick and familiar, comforting, even as she realized the gun was still pointed at his chest.

“Sorry.”

Justin glanced behind Ava and then gave her a firm but gentle push aside with one hand. The other held her hand with the gun pointed downward. He kept his hand on that arm, even after he closed the door.

He was standing so close, and for a second, just a second, she forgot the danger and everything else but the heat of his body. Justin looked even better with some years on him. Bigger, stronger, faster. Her hero. Big and blond, with dark eyes so intense they could melt her. So handsome, he made her ache, and the nine years they hadn’t seen each other disappeared.

“Did your brother call you?” he asked, his eyes lingering on hers for a brief moment before he was scanning the parts of the house that he could see from the foyer.

“No. Not for three months. Have you spoken with Leo? Is he all right?” The words rushed out of her and she didn’t bother worrying about putting up a brave front. She never had to do it with Justin. He’d seemed to always understand that she was brave even when she wasn’t in control.

“He was breathing,” Justin said wryly. It was an old joke the three of them used to share with Ava’s father. Obviously it was meant to calm her. “And he’s just as worried about you. What’s going on here?”

She’d tell him what she could, as little as possible without having his human lie detector Navy SEAL instincts kick into high gear. “I’m trying to figure that out myself.”

She shoved the pictures at him and began to pace in the small hallway, which was made much smaller by Justin’s presence. He flipped through them quickly, shaking his head and muttering, nothing she could make out, but she knew when Justin muttered they were usually words that could make a sailor blush.

“Who is this guy?” he demanded.

“My informant. He was helping me out on my current case.”

“Your informant sold you out.”

“No. He wouldn’t do that.”

“He’s not a criminal, then?”

“He gave me crucial information. Why would he do that and then betray me?”

“Where is he now?”

“I left him at the bar a while ago. I told him not to tell anyone. To be careful.”

Justin stared at her. “This picture was just taken?”

“Yes. That’s why I was leaving. To go straight to the police,” she lied, but Justin was shaking his head.

“No, not tonight. What happened with your informant tonight sounds like a setup.”

Until Justin said it, she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Now she was completely unsure whether or not Sammy would have gotten the scoop on the Mercers if there hadn’t been a direct purpose. “If that’s true, then they’ve been watching me.”

“Any idea why?”

Several. Nothing, however, that she could share freely.

“It’s because of my current case. It has to be. Does Leo know about it?”

“I don’t know what he knows. He called, said I needed to get you out of town, and he didn’t elaborate.”

Out of town sounded really good, but Justin would expect her to put up more of a fight. “I don’t know if I can leave like this—I have a job. Responsibilities. People who are counting on me.”

Justin had already opted for the most effective argument. “Leo wouldn’t ask you to do anything if he didn’t have specific reason to. And I know you trust your brother.”

“Yes. Of course I trust him.”

Justin stared at her with those dark eyes filled with an emotion she couldn’t put her finger on. “More importantly, right now, you’ve got to trust me.”

“Trust was never my issue.” She said it before she could stop herself and he blanched visibly, as though she’d physically struck him.

“I guess you think I deserve that.” His voice was tight as he continued. “Maybe I do, but you shouldn’t ever question my commitment to keeping you safe.”

She didn’t question that. Justin was the best at what he did, according to Leo.

Her father had been a dangerous man. Leo was one too, and even though she’d always known, on some level, that Justin was an equal to both men in her family, she hadn’t had the opportunity to see it until then. She could sense the predator in him as he stood before her, fully on her side. But there was nothing to say her heart was safe.

With Justin, it never had been.

“So, are you with me?” he asked again. “I’m going to need your full cooperation, Ava. Because Turk didn’t give me much to go on, and I don’t really know what we’re in for.”

“And still, you came all the way here to save me?” she asked quietly, not sure why it mattered so much. But somehow, it did.

“I came here to honor a request from one of my best friends,” he said, as if it was no big deal, but his jaw tensed, nearly imperceptibly, letting her know otherwise.

“Leo told me to call you if I got into trouble,” she said.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“The last time…” She trailed off.

“Yeah, I know.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if trying to ward off the pain of the memory of their history. “We can’t do this now. Let’s do what your brother wants, and then…”

And then…

She couldn’t think past the next five minutes, let alone that far ahead. “I can do that,” she told him and suddenly she was seventeen and he was eighteen and their future was stretched out in front of them, inextricably linked.

“Come on, we’ll figure this out from someplace safer.”

“You don’t think…I mean, you think I’m really not safe here at all?”

“I think I don’t want to wait to find out.” He put a hand on the small of her back and guided her to the front door. “Stay behind me, all right? And keep your gun low and not pointed at me.”

3

WITH AVA A FEW steps behind Justin, hanging on to his belt as he’d told her, they got to his rental car without incident. Still, he did not have any good feelings about this one. When a slow-moving car, headlights off, pulled onto the end of the street, he knew he was more than right.

Someone had been waiting for Ava to get home, to make their move on her. Her leaving was not what they had in mind and Justin didn’t wait to get the make and model, hear the inevitable, unmistakable sound of gunfire that followed before he peeled away from the curb.

“Stay low, Ava.” He automatically pushed her so her body was almost to the floor as one shot then another cracked the back windshield but didn’t shatter it. Shit.

He careened around the corner, looking to put just enough distance between them to pull into a hiding spot. There wasn’t enough traffic this time of night around here to lose the sporty number following them.

Three blocks later, he found what he was looking for, pulled the car between two low sheds and cut the lights and the engine. He prayed, but held his weapon at the ready at the same time because he always found the combination of the two to be the most effective.

Ava, it appeared, was holding her breath. And looking slightly blue. Not really a great color on her.

She was staring at him and he realized that he was motioning for her to breathe in SEAL speak, not Avaspeak. She was looking at him as if he was crazy.

He pulled her close, whispered against her ear, breathe, and felt her inhale a huge gulp of air. And then another, in a slightly hitched manner.

She stopped when the sound of another car rounded the corner, headlights momentarily throwing light on their car and hopefully, it was mingling in with the shadows. Ava had moved closer to him unconsciously, and any other time he would’ve been thrilled with that contact. As it was, she was burrowing against the arm that held the gun, making it impossible to move without flinging her unceremoniously to the floor. Which he’d do if he had to, but she’d definitely be unhappy with him.