Protective Measures

“Not without your eyes,” he said. “Sorry, but I think we’re going to have to make this jump together.”

He swept her up into his arms. Then she felt him run, pelting out across the patio. The sizzle of the fire echoed behind them. The wail of distant sirens filled the air.

Help us, Lord. Please, help us.

She felt him take a step up onto the balcony railing. He leaped and they were airborne. They fell through the air. Her head pressed against his chest. His strong arms locked around her. She took a breath and prepared to hit the water. But then suddenly something jerked them backward. Then she felt him throw her forward, launching her out of his arms. Her body smacked the water. She went under and opened her eyes but saw nothing but the green-gray wall of murky water. She kicked hard and swam for the surface, blinking rapidly as she felt the sting of the pepper spray flush from her eyes. Chaos reigned around her. The castle was a wall of flame casting the scene in an eerie red glow. Sirens wailed closer. People crowded around the fence, yelling, pointing, and it took her a breath to realize she was what they were looking at.

“Leo? Where are you?” Desperately her blurry gaze scanned the surface of the water. Where was he? Why had he thrown her like that? Then she saw the segment of fence had caved in and broken off. Jagged spikes of what remained jutted out over the water. His torn jacket hung like a rag from one of the barbed points. She swam toward it. Ash and debris rained down around her. Panic filled her core.

Lord, where was he? Please, may he be okay.

Then she saw the air bubbles streaming up from beneath her. She gasped a deep breath and dove under again, feeling for him through the darkness. Thick seaweed grabbed at her body. Her lungs ached for breath. Then she felt him, thrashing in the water beneath her, caught on a portion of fallen fence. She reached for him but was almost flung back by the force of his arm. She gritted her teeth and swam forward again.

It’s okay. I’ve got your back, Commander. Let me help you. Her fingers felt for his arm. Then she felt his hand grab hers and squeeze. She yanked the knife from her leg holster and pressed it into his palm. He took it. She swam upward, praying with each stroke to feel him following her. She broke through the water and gasped for air. Leo surfaced beside her.

“Thank you!” He gulped a deep breath. Water streamed down the strong lines of his jaw. “You saved my life.”

“You saved mine.” Then she heard the rumble of debris rushing down toward them. He yanked her into his arms and sheltered her body with his as the flaming balcony caved in toward them.

THREE (#u76c0c0d7-c893-5752-baa3-1df15ced65e4)

It was like swimming through a minefield in a hurricane. Thick smoke filled the air. The heat was like a shimmering wave in the darkness. Falling bricks and rock crashed down around them, churning the water and threatening to crush them alive. But in the midst of it all she felt Leo’s strong arm around her, sheltering her from the crumbling building as it collapsed in flames and rubble around them. Zoe swam upstream, her strong legs kicking for her life against the current, only vaguely aware of the voices yelling somewhere beyond her in the chaos. They cleared the debris, but kept swimming, upstream, letting the crowd and fire fade behind them.

The air cleared. Then Leo stopped swimming, took her hand and pulled her into a bay. Rock rose sheer and high beside them. She tried to stand, but the tips of her toes barely brushed the bottom.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded, treading water. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?”

“Yep.” He slid her utility knife back into her hand. “Thank you for coming after me. I was good and stuck there for a moment.”

She took the knife and traded him for his cell phone, hoping for his sake it was waterproof. Behind them the fire raged, lights from what looked like an endless stream of emergency vehicles flashed and spun, and silhouettes of people crowded the shoreline.

“We should go,” she said. Her eyes searched the rock for handholds. “I have to find Alex and I imagine a lot of people will be looking for you.”

“Hang on.” He reached for her hand. “Just one second. We need to talk.”

Here and now? In a river?

“Okay,” she said. “But let’s get out of the water first and talk on the dry land. It’s so deep, I can’t even stand here.”

But instead, he pulled her closer until she was standing on her tiptoes on top of his boots.

“You’re right, people will be looking for us,” Leo said. His hand slid around her back, holding her firm, even as she could feel the current beating against their bodies. “But we need to talk alone, without an audience, and the moment I get to shore I’ll be swamped by people again. So please, quickly, tell me everything you know about The Anemoi.”

The intensity in his voice rattled something inside her. There was an urgency there that she hadn’t heard before. Had he been The Anemoi’s target? Did he know something about The Anemoi or the fire that he wasn’t telling her? She could feel his hand on the small of her back and the strength of his arms under her fingers. This man had saved her life. She had saved his. Yet, he was still virtually a stranger and she was still on a mission.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll give you five minutes, but then I’m climbing out of this river. Also, I’m talking to you off the record. None of this goes to the press. None of this gets repeated as gossip. Okay? I’m trusting you here.”

“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “I’m good at keeping secrets and I can’t abide gossip. You can trust me.”

She took a deep breath and hoped that was true.

“Two months ago, a client contacted us saying his identity had been stolen and his bank accounts emptied,” Zoe said. “Police had no leads. We said we’d look into it, but honestly didn’t expect to find much. We’re a private security firm, not detectives. Then, three weeks later someone else called us claiming to be the victim of a grand conspiracy to ruin his reputation.”

“And you saw a connection?” Leo asked.

“Samantha did,” Zoe said. “She’s brilliant when it comes to online research and making connections. She started digging into something called the Dark Web and building these info charts, before finally hitting on The Anemoi. Basically, they’re a bunch of loosely connected crooks that steal very important things for people, for a very high price. They tend to go by handles from Greek mythology. Like, the guy who attacked me with the knife calls himself Prometheus after the Titan who stole fire from Olympus. In their twisted minds they’re convinced they’re the good guys, righting wrongs and wrecking lives they think deserve to be destroyed.”

Leo blew out a long breath. She waited. When he didn’t say anything more, she kept going.

“I get how ridiculous it probably sounds,” she said, “that there are these people, who are fooling themselves into thinking they’re some kind of heroes when they’re really just criminals being paid a whole lot of money to utterly ruin people’s lives.”

“In my experience most criminals tend to be pretty delusional and think that they’re justified,” Leo said. “Nobody wants to believe they’re the bad guy.”

She smiled. Okay, maybe he was the kind of person she could talk to. At least it seemed like he was taking her seriously.

“There were three of them at the gala tonight,” she said. “Their code names were Prometheus, Pandora and Jason. I guess Pandora pepper-sprayed me. I never saw Jason, but apparently he’s young, tall and thin. Like I told you, Samantha saw some online chatter about them scoping out a potential target at this gala and I went in undercover to see if I spotted anything fishy or could identify any members of the team. Something we could pass to police to help our current clients or even help us be on the lookout for the future. I have no idea why they’d set the coatroom on fire, unless it’s to keep someone from discovering what they’ve stolen or rifled through. We have no idea who their target is or what they’re attempting to steal. It could be something professional or intensely personal.”

There was another long pause. Again, she couldn’t shake the idea that he knew something he wasn’t telling her. This time she waited Leo out. Finally he said, “How do they usually warn their targets?”

“What?” She nearly slipped off his toes and into the water. “They don’t warn them. At least, I’ve never heard of anyone from The Anemoi warning anyone. Why?”

She waited again. But this time Leo didn’t answer.

“Leo?” Her tone grew sharper. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“Don’t worry about it. I saw a thin man—could be Jason—defacing a poster in the ballroom. But it might not mean anything.”

He was talking like it was no big deal, but that didn’t explain why his voice sounded both angry and strangled.

“Do you think you know who the target was?” she asked. No answer. A chill ran down her spine. “Could it be you? Do you have something worth stealing?”

“No, I don’t,” he said.

Why didn’t she believe him? Voices were clamoring above them now. People were running toward them.

“We’ve got some survivors over here!” a male voice bellowed above her. “Can someone grab us a rope?”

She looked up and was blinded by the glare of flashlights. Leo pulled her against the rock.

“I’m going to hoist you up,” he said. “You should be able to climb up from there. It’s not that far.”

Light fell from above, highlighting the lines of his chiseled jaw and the strength that lay beneath his wet dress shirt. But it was the depth of the worry pooling in his eyes that made her heart stop beating.

“What’s wrong?” Her hand brushed his jaw. “Tell me. Do you have any reason to believe you’re The Anemoi’s target? Is there anything you have that someone would think shouldn’t belong to you?”

To her surprise, he hugged her quickly with the shared relief of two people who’d been through trauma together. She hugged him back.