“I mean, we can’t just bust down the guy’s door in the middle of the night. If he’s not the one behind this—he’ll probably have us arrested!”
Right. Because Wesley Locke was chummy with the cops. Not in this universe. “He won’t call the cops,” he said confidently. Locke lived on the top floor of that building so it was taking way too long for the elevator to rise up. And during that long, slow ride, Saxon was far too aware of Elizabeth standing next to him.
She still smelled far too good. After everything they’d been through, how did she smell that way?
“This is the most insane night of my life,” she whispered.
He was pretty sure it was about to get a whole lot crazier.
“Shouldn’t you have called for back-up? I mean, called Agent Monroe or someone—”
“As soon as we’re done here, don’t worry, then I’ll be making that phone call.” But he was getting this shit settled first. Locke looked like their prime suspect in this mess, and Saxon wasn’t just going to wait around while they got some more killers after Elizabeth.
The elevator had reached the top floor. His eyes locked on Elizabeth’s. “You stay behind me, understand? We don’t know what that guy is capable of doing.” But I have a pretty good idea…based on the reports I’ve seen about this guy.
Wesley Locke would turn on his own mother, if he thought that move would give him more power. But why the guy had decided to take a hit out on his ex…that sure as shit didn’t make sense to Saxon.
They strode down the narrow hallway. Locke’s condo was the only unit on that floor. The thick carpeting swallowed their footsteps, and soon, they were right in front of the guy’s door.
“Um, do we knock?” Elizabeth whispered. “Do we—”
The door was already ajar, open just a few inches. What the hell? So no, they didn’t need to knock. Saxon pulled out his weapon and he stepped inside. The smell hit him first. Thick, cloying. It was a scent he’d encountered too many times before.
Blood. Death.
“Help...”
Only…death hadn’t claimed his victim, not just yet.
Lights blazed in the place, so it was easy for him to find Wesley Locke. The man was sprawled on the floor, just feet from the front door. It looked as if he’d been trying to crawl out for help.
Blood was heavy in the white carpeting around him. And when Saxon drew close to him, the guy’s blood-covered fingers reached out to lock around his wrist.
“Wesley!” Elizabeth’s voice was filled with horror.
Saxon put his gun down. The guy wasn’t a threat, not right then. He helped ease Wesley Locke onto his back so he could see the guy’s wounds.
Shit. Someone had taken a knife to the man. An up-close attack. That means it was probably personal. Because Wesley Locke wasn’t the kind of guy who would let a stranger sneak in close to him.
Unless that stranger was one very, very good killer.
“I have to call an ambulance!” Elizabeth said. Her footsteps rushed away.
Calling an ambulance wasn’t going to do any good. Saxon could tell that. He was amazed the guy was still alive.
“Look at me,” Saxon barked.
But Wesley’s weak stare was on Elizabeth. She stood near a table, her hands fumbling for the phone. “S-sorry,” he mumbled. “Guess…I…killed…us both…”
The sonofabitch. “You put the hit on her.”
Wesley was still staring at Elizabeth.
Saxon grabbed the guy’s jaw and forced his head to turn. “Look at me. Not her. Me.”
Wesley’s breath sagged out.
“Why did you put the hit on her? Because she dumped your ass?”
“No…I-I knew who she…was…”
Okay, that made no sense.
He could hear Elizabeth on the phone, asking for the ambulance to hurry. Then her footsteps rushed back to them.
Wesley’s gaze went right back to her. “S-sorry…you have to die.”
“She doesn’t have to die! You can still call off the hit!” He didn’t know which one of the guy’s enemies had come for him—Wesley loved to make waves in Miami, but what Saxon did know…he knew that Elizabeth still had a chance at life.
Wesley’s breath heaved out. His eyes were shutting. “N-not…my hit…”
What?
Then Wesley’s hand twisted in Saxon’s grip and he held him—far too tightly for a man at death’s door. “Who are…you?”
“He’s an FBI agent,” Elizabeth rushed to say. “He can help you, he can—”
“Run!” Wesley gasped out the word. “Go, Beth…g-go!” And he tried to yank Saxon down on the floor with him. What the hell? Saxon shoved back at the guy but Wesley’s grip had already eased.
Because the man was dead.
“Wesley?” Elizabeth whispered. She inched forward. Her fingers touched the other man’s cheek. “Wesley?”
Saxon tried to find Wesley’s pulse. Nothing. The guy wasn’t breathing. No more heaving gasps. Only silence. Wesley wasn’t going to be telling them anything else. And right then, they had other priorities. Saxon pulled Elizabeth to her feet and tried to push her toward the door.
But she twisted in his arms, fighting to get free. “No, stop it!” she cried. “We can’t just leave him!”
“There isn’t anything we can do!” There was nothing that could be done to help him. His arms wrapped around her stomach, and he just picked her up and carried her out of there. “We have to cover our own asses!”
He took her out of that room even as she still struggled against him. Elizabeth didn’t get it. The cops would be there soon, thanks to that call she’d made. They’d bust in with a fury, and if they found Saxon there, with a loaded gun on him…a gun that he figured Tommy Haines had used probably far too many times in the past…they’d be hauled down to the station. And before Victor could appear to sort out all the twisted shit—like the fact that, to the Miami PD, I’m a criminal, not an FBI agent—Elizabeth would be taken from him.
She’d be on her own, and, right then, he couldn’t let that happen.
He’d almost reached the elevator when the doors opened. Only that elevator wasn’t empty.
He put Elizabeth on her feet even as he brought up his weapon. And he found himself staring straight at another gun. A gun held in the grip of— Victor?
Victor’s blue eyes widened in stunned surprise. “What the hell?”
Saxon lowered his weapon as Victor stepped out of that elevator.
“What are you doing here?” Victor demanded. “With her? You’re supposed to be at the motel, keeping her safe.”
“Yeah, right, a little problem with that.” Saxon gave him a grim smile. “Taggert’s goons found us. Three bozos that I knew—Tommy Haines, Flint Mayo, and Romeo Gustav. They burst in on us and I…” He glanced down at the gun he still held. “Had to get us the hell away from them.”
Victor swore.
“Tell me that Taggert is off the streets now,” Saxon urged. “Come on, man, you tell me—”
“He’s dead,” Victor said, voice tight. “Looks like a hit from someone who knew exactly what the hell they were doing.”
Wait, someone had just taken out the hitman? Saxon shook his head.
“He was carved up when I found him,” Victor continued.
Elizabeth gave a choked gasp. Saxon glanced at her and saw her shaking hands rise to cover her mouth. He knew exactly what she was thinking.
His gaze slanted back to Victor. “Yeah, well, you’re not going to like this…but Wesley Locke is dead, too.”
“You didn’t—” Victor began.
“No, someone beat us here. Someone who carved up the guy with a knife.” Just like Taggert. “Sure seems to me like someone is tying up loose ends.”
A muscle flexed in Victor’s jaw.
“H-he was alive,” Elizabeth whispered.
Both Saxon and Victor looked at her then.
“When we got there…”
“So was Taggert.” Victor’s voice was grim.
A killer who liked for his victims to suffer? Liked for them to linger with no hope of survival? That’s one sick bastard.
Horror flashed on Elizabeth’s face. “Wesley said it wasn’t him! He said he didn’t put the hit on me!”
With the bodies piling up, Saxon was thinking someone else had to be pulling the strings. But who else would want Elizabeth dead?
“I called an ambulance,” Elizabeth whispered.
Victor immediately pressed the button on the elevator, calling up that ride once more. “Get her out of here,” he ordered Saxon.