Rules In Blackmail. Nichole Severn

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СКАЧАТЬ was just like the rest of them: her peers, the men and women she prosecuted to protect citizens of the United States, even her commanding officer. She’d earned her reputation as the Full Metal B, she supposed. Her job required an almost ruthless approach to the cases she’d been assigned, but this was the first time her rib cage tightened at someone’s assessment of her. Which didn’t make sense. She didn’t care what Sullivan Bishop thought of her. She didn’t care what any of them thought of her. Her insides twisted. She didn’t care. Jane shoved off from the massive desk he’d trapped her against moments before. Uncrossing her arms, she stepped toward him. “So you’ll help me?”

      “I don’t have a choice, do I? Isn’t that how blackmail is supposed to work?” Sullivan rounded his desk. The thick muscles across his back flexed through his shirt. She forced her attention to the sway of his gun rather than the way he moved, to prove she could take her eyes off him. Lean waist, strong legs, hints of his trident tattoo peeking out from under his T-shirt. Such a dangerous man shouldn’t be that attractive. “We’ll take my car.”

      Jane straightened. Okay. They were doing this. “Where are we going?”

      “To your town house. I’ll brief my team on the way.” He unholstered the Glock from his side and dropped the magazine into his hand. After a glance at the rounds, he replaced it with efficient, sure movements and chambered a round. He raised that piercing gaze to hers. “I have a man on my team who used to work forensics for the NYPD. If your stalker has been in your house like you claim, he’ll find the evidence and we can all move on with our lives.”

      She ran her cold palms over the front of her jeans and took another step toward him. He was actually going to help her find the man trying to destroy her life? A knot of hope pulsed from deep in her chest. “And if he does find evidence? What then?”

      Sullivan came around the desk, his wide shoulders blocking out the magnificent view of the Chugach mountain range behind him. Nearly pressing against her, he stared down at her. At six foot four, it wasn’t hard, but the intimidation had drained from his body. He stalked toward the office door. “Then you’ll have the proof you need to take to the police.”

      “What?” Jane wrapped her hand halfway around his massive biceps and spun him around to look at her. He’d let her. She didn’t have the strength to move a mountain like him. She was at the end of her rope, and she hadn’t come here to admit defeat. Her leave ended in a week, and she’d come no closer to discovering her stalker’s identity than she was three months ago. Desperation held her tight.

      She glared up into those sea-blue eyes of his, her throat constricting. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear. Either you help me find the person stalking me or I go to the government and your clients with what I know about you. And your family.”

      Facing her, oh-so-slowly, Sullivan towered over her, and she fought the urge to take a step back. He leaned in close, mere centimeters from her mouth, as though he intended to kiss her. “Then let me make myself perfectly clear. The only way you get my help is if we do this my way, and I plan to get you out of my life as soon as I can.”

      Jane flinched, but he didn’t wait for her to answer, heading for the door.

      “Let’s go,” he said.

      This was a mistake. She should’ve known how deep Sullivan’s hatred for her flowed, but she’d run out of options. Jane followed on his heels toward the elevator, allowing a good amount of distance between them as they crowded into the small space on the way down to the parking garage. Neither said a word. His clean scent wrapped around her, and she gripped the handrail to clear her head. In less than a minute, he led her out of the elevator and across the empty parking garage toward a black SUV.

      Tingling spread across her back—an all-too-familiar feeling—and Jane turned back toward the elevator, heart in her throat. Darkness surrounded them. Everyone in the building had already gone home for the day. She’d made sure. Everyone except Sullivan and a few security guards, but someone else was here. He was here, watching her. She felt it.

      “Jane.” Sullivan’s deep timbre flooded her nerves with relief, but she couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. “Jane,” he said again.

      She stared at him. It was her imagination. Had to be. There was no way anyone could’ve followed her here. She’d been too careful, but still, the sensation between her shoulder blades prickled her instincts. “I’m coming.”

      Sullivan ripped open the driver’s-side door of the large black SUV, his eyes sweeping across the parking garage as she moved to the other side. Once she was safely inside the car, the sensation disappeared and Jane breathed a bit easier. Nobody had been watching her. The constant paranoia had just become a habit.

      Sullivan slammed the door behind him and started the engine. Black leather and dark interiors gave her a false sense of security, but having him in the driver’s seat eased some of the tension on either side of her spine. At the exit, he lowered the window and scanned his key card. Nobody went in or out of the garage without a card. He swung the SUV north through an area of warehouses and railroads, as though he knew exactly where they were headed.

      The SUV plowed through the wet streets of downtown Anchorage, spitting up water and snow along the way. The heater chased away the ice that’d built inside her over the past few weeks. She was reminded of Sullivan’s heat back in his office. The same heat rolled off him in waves now. She watched him from her peripheral vision. He wore only a T-shirt and jeans in these temperatures, a human furnace. It’d been too long since she’d felt anything but fear.

      “I know what you’ve heard about me, what they called me in Afghanistan. I’m not as cold as you think.” Sitting straighter in her seat, Jane stared down into her lap to counteract the need to explain herself to Blackhawk Security’s CEO. “I didn’t want to dig into your history. I needed—”

      “We’re not doing this right now,” he said, one hand on the wheel. He still wouldn’t look at her. Typical alpha male, determined not to talk. Sullivan pressed his foot on the accelerator as they rolled onto the bridge across Knik Arm, the shallow water almost motionless with a few inches of ice across the top.

      “All right.” She wiped her clammy hands down her thighs. “Tough crowd.”

      A light falling of snow peppered the windshield. Nothing like the storms Anchorage usually saw this time of year, but just as beautiful as she remembered growing up in Seattle.

      The high screech of peeling tires broke their self-imposed silence, and Jane swept her gaze out the window. Blinded by fast-approaching headlights, she shoved away from the door as a truck slammed into her side of the SUV.

       Chapter Two

      The loud groan of a truck’s engine brought Sullivan around.

      “Reise?” Pain. In his skull. Everywhere. He blinked to clear his vision and ran his hand over his left cheek. Something warm and sticky coated his hand. Blood. He fought to scan his body for other injuries. Hell. They’d flipped.

      Cracks in the windshield spidered out in a dendritic pattern, blocking his view of the other driver. Had they survived? Been injured? He depressed the seat belt button and collapsed onto the SUV’s roof. Broken glass from the window cut into him. He pounded his fist into the roof and locked his jaw. “Damn it!”

      He swiped blood СКАЧАТЬ