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We weren’t meant to collide, but the closer we got, the harder it was to resist.

Grayson
I thought this would be simple—find Scarlet Bowers, protect her, and walk away. But the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew I was lying to myself. Scarlet is trouble I don’t need. She's gorgeous, stubborn, and so damn tempting it wrecks my focus. Every glance, every brush of her skin, pulls me deeper.

This was supposed to be business.

Now, I’m fighting instincts that have nothing to do with duty and everything to do with claiming her.

Scarlet

Grayson Daniels is a man I should run from. He’s too intense, too dangerous, and when he looks at me, it’s like he sees everything I try to hide. I know better than to trust easy promises. But the way he watches me?

The way just being near him sets my blood on fire?

He’s a threat I can’t ignore and maybe, deep down, I don’t want to.

Chapter One

Grayson

It was almost impossible to believe what was happening—sitting down to lunch across from a man who, at one time, was closer to me than a brother but was now a stranger. The best friend I ever had when we were kids. The sort of friend a guy could share his secrets with. I had no idea how many hours we had spent back then playing video games, sitting side by side, able to confess the kind of things it wasn’t so easy to talk about when we weren’t both staring at a television. Back then, we had a lot of things to figure out, the sort of things we were too young to understand, but we had tried to navigate that shit together.

That was then. More than twenty years had passed since those preteen days. Now, I was thanking our server for a glass of iced tea while my childhood best friend accepted his scotch on the rocks. Looking at Dominic Garibaldi now, I could hardly believe he was ever the kid I remembered. There was a hardness to him, something in his eyes and the tight set of his mouth that hinted at a life spent doing the sort of shit we tried so hard to understand back in the day. He had stayed in that life, living the way our fathers had while we sat back and wondered—why they sometimes didn’t come home at night or why sometimes they were bloody or bruised when they did show up. Years of being exposed to that had formed a shell around him.

Then again, there was a shell around me too. Nobody stayed as innocent as they were when they were kids, no matter what line of work they happened to get into. I made my living wrangling freelance security professionals, digging up intel for Las Vegas movers and shakers, and protecting businesses and people who needed help.

Somehow, we’d ended up on opposing sides of the dividing line between good and bad, decent and dishonest. He made a living off human misery. I didn’t have to know the specifics to understand that much.

“You’re looking well,” he told me, nodding in approval. Sunshine made his jet-black hair gleam when he did. “Healthy. You work out?”

The next thing I knew, he would ask me how much I could bench press. “I try to stay active. You?”

“My trainer is a sadist. Still…” he patted a flat stomach, shrugging, “… the results are worth it.”

“I’m sure somebody as busy as you doesn’t have much time to devote to long workouts.” Maybe I was probing a little, or maybe I just wanted him to know I was onto him. Of course I was. I might have left that life behind, but that didn’t mean I was unaware of how things turned out after I said goodbye. He had risen through the ranks of the Garibaldi family, making his bones in the years immediately following my exit. His father’s disappearance had left his small, ragtag crew in need of a leader, and Dominic had picked up the slack.

If there was one thing men like my father and his associates had always appreciated, it was those who could leave their feelings behind and focus solely on what needed to be done. Dominic hadn’t allowed a thirst for vengeance against whoever had caused his dad’s disappearance to get in the way of growing and solidifying what had been put in place.

“From what I understand, you’re a busy man too,” he pointed out, picking up his fork to flake some salmon away from the filet before him. “Which is why I thought of you immediately when this problem reared its head. It’s unusual for me to go into deep detail,especially in public, so you’ll understand if I find it challenging. Opening up, I mean. It has nothing to do with not trusting you.”

“I appreciate that.” Though I doubted he trusted me. I was an outsider and had been for more than a decade.

Sighing, he began, “See, there’s a woman.” “There always is,” I pointed out with a smirk, which he returned, chuckling softly.

“Yes, and there are always problems, aren’t there?” he asked. “In this case, though, she’s in trouble. It’s my fault.”

“What do you mean?” It was good the way he got to the point. I didn’t want to sit here all through our lunch meeting with the past and present overlapping in such an uncanny way. The broad-shouldered, black-haired man who’d been groomed and polished to within an inch of his life sat opposite me, but I also sat across from a kid who couldn’t seem to get his acne under control or lose the last five pounds of baby fat left behind after puberty hit. A kid with a prominent Adam's apple that bobbed every time he swallowed and who used to plan Dungeons and Dragons campaigns until his seventh-grade crush announced that guys who played D&D were losers. That was all it had taken for him to decide he didn’t like it anymore.

“You know how it is sometimes.” He sighed, picking at his salmon while I did the same with my turkey club. “You do everything you can to keep somebody away from the uglier parts of life, but they insist on learning more than they need to know. That was Scarlet’s problem. Scarlet Bowers,” he added. “One T in the name. She was a blackjack dealer at one of the casinos, and we met there. Lovely girl. Pretty, great personality, nice ass.” He sipped his drink before picking up his fork again. “We had a lot of fun. There’s something about a woman who doesn’t ask for much, you know?”

I understood, at least in theory. Women weren’t exactly a major part of my life. Work tended to steal most of my time, not that I would ever complain about a healthy client list.

“Anyway, she got a little too curious. They always do in the end,” he mused, his voice taking on a dark note. “No matter how much they swear they’ll mind their own business, not ask too many questions, curiosity always ends up fucking everything. That’s what happened here. She overheard too many conversations, she saw too many things she shouldn’t have, and eventually, word got around. She knew too much.”

He slid an almost apologetic look my way. “I hope you understand why I can’t give you much more detail than that. There are certain things you can’t know about my business.”

Yes, because we were on opposite sides now. Not that I would have considered myself some agent of justice or anything like that, and I was no cop, but I had spent more than a decade doing everything I could to be the sort of man my father used to laugh at, pity, even despise at times. He would say things like…“Fucking do-gooders think they’re going to change shit when they’re not. Because they don’t have the first-fucking-clue how the world really works.” He was always the one without a clue, but he never understood that. Neither did I until it was too late.

“I don’t need all the details,” I assured Dominic, noting the exquisite watch he wore and the quiet sense of luxury about him. He was a hell of a lot more refined than either of our fathers ever were, a pair of low-level soldiers in a much bigger organization. They couldn’t have dreamed of the dark gray bespoke suit he wore now. No doubt there was plenty of high-level shit going on around him, and therefore countless opportunities for a bystander to hear something they shouldn’t, especially if that bystander was determined to satisfy her curiosity.

“She ran off after receiving threats,” he explained, releasing a deep breath that seemed to deflate him somewhat. “And I’m worried. You’re probably the only person I would ever admit this to, maybe because we’ve been out of touch for so long. It’s just…” Strain pinched his features almost like he was in pain. “I can’t help but remember Dad disappearing. What if it’s the same thing with Scarlet?”

A lump threatened to lodge itself in my throat at the mention of those dark days when Dominic had spent nights at our house, sitting up until all hours in hopes of his father reaching out. His phone never rang. “So you want me to look for her? Make sure she’s all right?” I asked.

“As far as I know, she is still out there somewhere,” he tells me. “And she must be terrified. I have reason to believe members of another family would use her to get to me. They’re our biggest rivals at the moment, and it’s most likely she would have overheard key information regarding my dealings with them.”

He had a way of making everything sound so official, above board, when we both knew it was anything but. I wondered if he would be more forthcoming if we were alone rather than seated in a restaurant and decided he would not. Silence was golden, always. The less someone revealed, the better for everyone Involved.

“Scarlet Bowers. Blackjack dealer.” I made a note of this, along with getting a physical description of her—medium height, sandy blonde hair, hazel eyes that leaned more toward green than brown.

“Here. I do have a photo of her.” He pulled it up on his phone and placed it on the table for me to see. She was cute with a peaches and cream complexion and an ear-to-ear smile. She looked carefree, young, innocent.

She wasn’t so innocent anymore. “How old is she?” I asked.

It was surprising that he had to think about it. Then again, if they were dating casually, he might not have known for sure. “Twenty-eight? No, twenty-nine. She said something about turning thirty on her next birthday.”

I made a note of that, as well. “Let’s say I find her. Do you want her to know you were looking for her?”

“No.” No hesitation, no moment to think it over.

“No, tell me immediately. Tell me where to find her. I have to make things right. I need to apologize for ever putting her in any jeopardy or making her feel like she had to run away.”

He set down his fork, balling up a fist and touching it to his stomach. “It’s like a knife in my gut. I can’t stop blaming myself for forcing her to run. If anything happened to her, it would be my fault.”

So far, nothing about his story set off any red flags. Still, I was reticent. “If she doesn’t want to be found, what then? Would it be enough for you to know she’s safe somewhere?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know if there’s anywhere she could be safe without my protection. Safety could be an illusion,” he concluded, looking at his plate and what was left of his lunch. With a scowl, he muttered, “I’ve lost my appetite. I can’t help it. Whenever I think of what could happen to her because of me… I should have known better than to get involved with her. “

“You can’t blame yourself too much. If someone else is after her, that’s because they made that decision, not you.”

“Right. Maybe I needed to hear it from you.” It didn’t take long for his self-flagellation to end. Checking his watch, he winced. “Shit. I have a meeting at one, and it’s already a quarter to. Do you mind if we cut this short?” His attention landed on a man standing near the entrance. When he nodded, the man headed outside to get the car.

“Not a problem.” The sooner I got started, the sooner I could finish. “I’ll have a report for you in around five days.”

“You think it will take that long?” he asked, looking concerned and maybe a bit irritated. He never did have much patience.

“Five days on the outside,” I amended. “I like to underpromise and overdeliver. Don’t tell anyone,” I added, grinning, which seemed to placate him. “I like the way you think.” He took care of the bill, then shook my hand. “It’s good to see you. I want you to know that whenever I get the chance, I ask your mom about you. I hope you don’t mind.”

If it hadn’t been for their occasional communication, I would never have known Dominic was looking for my help. While Dad and I hadn’t exchanged a word in more than fifteen years, Mom and I spoke weekly—one thing he couldn’t take from me. “I don’t mind, though she thinks you need to settle down with a nice girl and start a family,” I joked.

He didn’t see the humor. “Right. Look what happens when a man in my position starts to think that way.” A troubled look washed over his face before he cleared his throat. “I better go. I look forward to your report, and, of course, I’ll keep an eye out for your invoice,” he added.

“We never did talk about my fee,” I reminded him as we left the restaurant. I noted the appreciative looks cast our way by several women. While the suit I’d worn for our meeting wasn’t the expensive custom-made masterpiece he wore, it was hardly shabby. Despite what I could afford, I never developed a taste for dressing or living extravagantly.

He merely laughed. “What was one of the lessons we learned when we were kids? If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. I’m confident I can.” With that, we parted ways on the sidewalk. It was a relief to drop the blank expression I’d carefully practiced over the years to mask the thoughts running through my head, which I vented briefly once I was in the privacy of my truck. I then called my most trusted mentor in hopes of getting his opinion on whether I had done the right thing by accepting Dominic’s request for help.

Detective Jack Meadows was the only living soul who knew the ins and outs of my youth and the rocky, broken road I’d traveled to get where I was today. His phone went to voicemail when I called, but that was no surprise—the beauty of retirement, he claimed, was knowing no one owned his time anymore. He would listen to my message and get back to me when he was good and ready.

In the meantime, I stared out the windshield, airing my thoughts in a recording while watching pedestrians stroll past. “I told myself I wouldn’t get involved again,” I added, remembering the darkest days of my life. “But this girl might be in trouble. It’s not her fault she got mixed up with the wrong person. And I do feel sorry for him. He seemed distraught. He
feels guilty. I can’t punish her by punishing him. But you know how it is,” I concluded with a sigh. “Once you’re in, they don’t let you go. I would rather not become the family’s go-to fixer.”

By the time I ended the message, I was no closer to understanding my feelings about the situation. Did my feelings matter? This didn’t have to be a permanent arrangement.

And part of me felt I owed it to Dominic. A means of balancing the scales after a lot of dark shit I’d worked like hell to put behind me.

After ending the call, I placed another one to one of the guys in my office. Drake was my research guru, able to find a needle in a sea of haystacks. I sometimes wondered how he did it, but I also knew better than to ask about the methods he guarded so carefully. After rattling off the information Dominic had shared, I added, “Let’s keep this between the two of us for now. I want to mull it over a bit before I make a move.”

“You’ve got it,” he assured me because he knew better than to ask questions. It was yet another thing I appreciated about him and all the men freelancing for me—they valued discretion and efficiency and knew better than to ask too many questions. They were all self-starters since time was a valuable commodity, and there was none to waste while waiting for instructions.

With a sigh, I started the truck, intending to change at my apartment before heading into the office to settle a few administrative issues. Along the way, one name weighed on my mind.

Scarlet Bowers.

The woman who could very well end up roping me back into a world I swore I would never return to.

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