“I don’t know. She doesn’t have any other family to put up money, so that’s another mystery that makes no sense to me. But if Uncle Sam is willing to pony up that much cash, she’s somehow valuable. Someone else knows that—and knows why. People far more dangerous than bounty hunters.”
Thorpe went absolutely still. “Whoever killed her family?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. After all, they also shot her the night she escaped. If they wanted her dead then, why stop trying now?”
“You’re right. Jesus . . .”
“According to the files I have access to, she’s eluded some well-paid assassins over the last nine years. Someone wants to silence her. I just wish I knew why. I’d love to hunt down these assholes so I can keep her safe.”
“We can’t stand here and fuck around. This is bigger than I imagined.” Thorpe didn’t look like a man who ever begged, but he came pretty close now. “Two heads are better than one. You might know more about her background, but I know her. I know who she is now. I have a better idea where she’d go, what she’d do, and why.”
Sean paused and reluctantly nodded. “All right. But you can’t take her out of the country once we find her.”
“We’ll work that out later. Let’s find her first.”
Sean didn’t like it, but Thorpe had a valid point. “My rules, though. Leave your phone here.”
“What? No!” Thorpe looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “If she calls me—”
“She won’t. She left her phone here with all her contact numbers.”
“Callie memorizes numbers. She knows how to call me.”
Sean shook his head. “The bureau is monitoring the location of your phone. Leave it here.”
“Damn it! How?”
“Trade secret. Get a burner phone and tell Axel how to find you in case Callie calls you or returns. We need a car, not yours or mine.”
“Axel will be happy to drive my Jag while I’m gone,” Thorpe drawled.
“Perfect.” Sean clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go. We both need to grab as much cash as we can. Once we do, we’ll get on the road. Hopefully, we can be out of Dallas before dawn.”
“And what, just head west?”
With a nod, Sean’s face turned grim. “We’ll hope for a break in the information as we’re traveling.”
After a quick chat with Axel, they exchanged keys, and his head of security was grinning from ear to ear, promising to take care of the business and car, as Thorpe made his way to his office. Just as he set his phone in a drawer of his desk to lock it up, it chimed with a text. Sean glanced at the screen. Logan Edgington. 911.
“What does he want at this late hour?” Sean asked.
“Not sure. Might have something to do with a phone call I made earlier.” He snatched his phone up again and quickly hit a few buttons, then jammed the device against his ear.
Sean didn’t believe him for a second. “Put it on speaker.”
“Fuck off.”
“Or you stay here—behind bars. I can arrange that.”
Thorpe grumbled, then hit the speaker button as the call connected. The second the other man answered, Thorpe skipped the small talk. “What’s up, Logan?”
“Tara just found out through her contacts at the bureau that Kirkpatrick is really a fed named Mackenzie.”
“I got that already. And he’s standing right beside me.”
Thorpe slanted him a stare, and Sean had to admit that he was impressed that the club owner had the forethought to look into his background. The guy might make a better partner in the search for Callie than expected.
“Well . . . I didn’t know that until just now. So don’t kill me.”
“Not really my priority at the moment, Logan. I have to go. Callie is missing.”
“I know. She came to me, terrified out of her mind. She didn’t know who or what this Sean guy was.” Logan sighed. “She thought he was trying to kill her, so I helped her disappear.”
Chapter Eight
“WHY the fuck didn’t you call me before now?” Thorpe demanded. “Hell, why didn’t she come to me? I’m going to paddle her ass when I catch up with her . . .”
“Get in line¸” Sean groused beside him. “The little minx tricked me, drugged me, lied to me. I’m sure I can add to that list if I think about it for a few seconds more.”
“Callie was scared, guys. She panicked. Based on what she told me, I understood,” Logan said, trying to be the voice of reason.
There were a hundred reasons that was funny, but Thorpe wasn’t in the mood to laugh just now. “And what did she tell you?”
“Are you here as a law enforcement officer or her Dom?” Logan asked.
“My priority is Callie’s safety,” Sean clarified. “Nothing else matters.”
Logan snorted. “If you’re lying, Thorpe will probably make sure that someone finds you months from now at the bottom of a lake with hundred-pound weights attached to your ankles.”
Damn, Logan knew him well.
“Whatever. Spit it out.” Sean rolled his eyes.
“She told me everything,” Logan admitted.
Callie trusts a man she hasn’t seen in two years more than she trusts me? The thought stung Thorpe like an icy rain. It fucking hurt, to be so disregarded after four years of . . . what was their relationship exactly?
If he thought about it, Callie had been his sub in so many ways. Not sexually, of course. But she’d deferred to him at work. She’d begun to come to him with her problems—not this one, granted. She’d leaned on him, sometimes letting him hold her when she’d looked forlorn or melancholy. And sweetest of all, she often tried to please him in little ways. He’d done his best to give her all the security, support, boundaries, and caring she required.
It hadn’t been enough. With one sentence, Logan had stripped away his blinders and proven that he wasn’t Callie’s go-to confidante. It would be easy to imagine that she didn’t care for him, but those teary blue eyes hadn’t lied when he’d held her, and she’d cupped his cheek as she’d poured out her feelings. She did love him . . . in her way. As much as she let herself love anyone.
“So where’s my Callie now?” Sean asked into the phone.
“Your Callie?” Thorpe asked sharply. “Remind me where her collar is now.”
“Shut up and let Edgington answer,” Sean snapped.
“She’s on her way to Vegas,” Logan supplied. “I called ahead to one of my old SEAL team buddies. Elijah is a good guy and a hell of an operative. Tomorrow, I promised to get some paperwork together for her so she could leave the country.”
“Son of a bitch,” Sean muttered, echoing Thorpe’s own sentiment. Then the fed looked at him. “So I guess we’re heading to Vegas. How is she getting there?”
“I found her a last-minute charter with a bunch of vacationers. It’s a direct flight, leaving from New Orleans about . . . now. The plane is a big one. She’s in the back. Hopefully, no one will remember her, especially after she bought a floppy hat at Walmart that covers half her face. Elijah will pick her up when the flight lands. He’ll put her up with him. He’s vacating his wife and kids from the house, just in case there’s trouble. As soon as all her paperwork came together, I was going to overnight it to her.”
And that would have been that. She would have disappeared from his life forever. And Thorpe realized, if that had happened, she would have been his biggest regret, too. He already had so many of them. Was he prepared to add her to the list?