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Bodyguard
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Bodyguard

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He hadn’t forgotten.

None of the members of the team had.

Information about Esme’s location had been leaked to the Dupree crime family, and a woman who’d looked a lot like her had been killed. “I’m sorry that happened. More than I can express, but I’m not part of the witness protection unit. I work for the FBI Tactical K-9 Unit.”

“It doesn’t matter who you work for. I’m not spending any more time with you.”

“I wish that was how things worked, but it isn’t. You agreed to testify against your brother.”

“And I plan to.”

“That will be really difficult to do if you’re dead.”

“If I’d stayed in Wyoming, I probably would be. Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She had a point. A good one. Esme was the sole witness to a murder her brother had committed. Her brother, Reginald, and Angus would do anything to keep her from testifying.

“We had a security breach,” he explained, snagging her backpack from the bottom of the canoe. “It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t happen again because I’m not going back into protective custody.”

“I’m afraid you are.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you ever been wrong before?”

“More than I’d like to be.”

“Good,” she retorted. “Then you won’t be upset that you’re wrong this time.” She whirled around and would have walked away, but King blocked her path, pressing in close to her legs.

She shot a look in Ian’s direction, her eyes still flashing with anger. “Call off your dog.”

“Release,” he said, and King pranced back to his side.

“Thanks.” She probably would have walked away, but he held up her pack.

“Forgetting something?”

She reached for it and King growled.

“He doesn’t like people taking things from me.”

“I don’t like people touching my things,” she responded, her focus on King. She looked scared. He didn’t blame her. At home, King was goofy and friendly, funny and entertaining. On the job, he was intimidating, his tan face and dark muzzle giving him a wolflike appearance.

“Sorry. I’ve got to check the contents before we move out.”

“I think I made it clear that—”

“You plan on going it alone. You’ve made it very clear. Unfortunately, my job is to get you to trial safely. I can’t do that if we’re not together.”

“We’re at cross purposes, then, and I don’t see us finding common ground.” She stepped back, and he thought she might be looking for an escape route. One that King wouldn’t be able to follow.

“The common ground is this—we both want to keep you alive. How about you let me do what I’m trained to do?”

“Which is?”

“Protecting people like you.”

King growled, the sound low and mean.

Esme froze, but Ian could have told her the growl wasn’t directed at her. It was a warning. One that sent adrenaline shooting through Ian’s bloodstream. He grabbed Esme’s wrist, dragging her close.

“What—” she began, but Ian held up his hand, silencing her so that he could listen. The evening had gone eerily quiet, King’s rumbling growl the only sound.

He pulled Esme to the thick brush that surrounded the campsite, motioning for her to drop down into the cover it offered. She slipped into the summer-soft leaves silently, folding herself down so that even he could barely see her.

King swiveled, tracking something that Ian could neither see nor hear. He wanted to think that it was a panther, a bear, an alligator, but King was trained to differentiate between human and animal threats. Besides, thanks to former team member Jake Morrow, the Dupree crime family seemed to always be just one step behind the K-9 team. There was every possibility that one or more of Angus’s henchmen was wandering through the Everglades.

He thrust Esme’s backpack into her arms, leaning close to whisper in her ear. “Stay down. Stay quiet. Don’t move.”

She nodded, clutching the backpack to her chest.

King’s growl changed pitch. Whoever was coming was getting closer. It wasn’t local law enforcement, and it wasn’t a member of the K-9 team. They were back at headquarters waiting for word that Ian had finally found Esme’s trail.

That left only one other option.

Angus Dupree or his hired guns.

Ian acted quickly, shoving the canoe into the water with just enough force to keep it moving. He gave King the signal to heel and went with him into the shelter of thick vegetation. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed around King’s head, but the dog didn’t move; his attention was fixed on a spot just beyond the clearing. Ian knew the area. He’d walked it several times the past few days, certain that Esme would arrive there eventually.

She was smart.

There was no doubt about that.

Ian had done his research. He knew as much as there was to know about her childhood, her schooling, her college years. He knew she’d built her business without the help of her older sister, that she’d never taken a dime from her brother. Everything she had, she’d earned on the right side of the law by using the brain God had given her.

The fact that she’d escaped witness protection and had stayed under the radar for months was even more proof of her keen intelligence. Smart people didn’t go into situations without a plan. Ian had visited the trailer she’d been renting at the edge of the Everglades. He’d seen the old boathouse and the dock, and he’d known she’d had an escape route in mind when she’d chosen to rent the place.

All he’d needed was a map and a highlighter. He’d done some calculations, tried to think of how far someone like Esme would be willing to travel in a hostile environment. It hadn’t taken any time at all to figure out that the quickest, most direct route out of the Everglades brought her here.

He’d staked out the area, walking a grid pattern every day, waiting for her to show.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d been haunting this place looking for her. She was smart, but she’d have been better off leaving the area. She hadn’t had the backpack with her while she was in protective custody with the local police, and she hadn’t visited any of the local outdoor supply stores, either. He had to assume that she’d returned to the rental to retrieve the pack. Which meant there was something she needed in it. Money seemed more likely than anything.

King’s growl had become a deep rumble of unease. Scruff standing on end, muscles taut, he waited for the signal to go in. Ian waited, too. He didn’t know how many people were approaching or what kind of firepower they’d brought. Backup was already on the way. He’d called in to headquarters as soon as he’d seen Esme paddling toward the campsite.

A shadow appeared a hundred yards out, and King crouched, ready to bound toward it. Ian gave him the signal to hold, watching as two more people stepped into view. A posse of three hunting a lone woman. If Esme had been bedded down for the night, they’d have been on her before she’d realized what was happening.

An unfair fight, but that was the way the Duprees did things.

One of the men turned on a flashlight, the beam bouncing across the camping area and flashing on the water. Twenty feet from the shore, the canoe floated languidly.

“There!” the man hollered, pulling a gun, the world exploding in a hail of gunfire.

TWO

If she’d been in the campground, she’d be dead.

Every bullet fired, every ping of metal against metal, reminded Esme that her family—the one she had loved and admired and been so proud of—wanted her dead.

Traitor. Benedict Arnold. Turn-tail. Judas.

Uncle Angus had whispered all those names as he tried to choke the life out of her four nights ago. The words were still ringing in her head and in her heart, mixing with the echoing sound of the automatic weapon Angus’s hit men were using.

She wasn’t sure what had happened to Ian and King. Either they’d run or they were biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to strike. One man against three didn’t seem like good odds, and it was possible Ian was waiting for backup.

He could wait until the cows came home.

Esme was leaving.

She slithered through muddy grass and damp leaves, praying the sound of her retreat was covered by gunfire. Eventually, they’d stop shooting. When they did, her chance of escaping undetected would go from slim to none.

Who was she kidding?

It was already that. She might get out of the Everglades. She might get out of Florida. Eventually, though, Uncle Angus would find her. He had money backing him, and he had a lot riding on his ability to silence her. If she testified against Reginald, everything the two men had built—the entire crime family they’d grown—would collapse. He’d been chasing her for months, and he wouldn’t give up now. Not with the trial date approaching. A few weeks, and she’d be in the courtroom, looking at her brother as she told the jury and judge what she’d seen him do.

She shuddered, sliding deeper into the foliage.

She wasn’t going to give up on life, and she couldn’t give up on saving the one remaining bright spot in her very dark family tree.

Violetta.

They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since Esme had gone into witness protection, but they were sisters, bound by blood and by genuine affection for each other. As far as Esme knew, Violetta hadn’t been involved in any of Reginald’s and Angus’s crimes. Whether or not she’d known about them, however, was a question Esme needed to ask.

After she testified and shut her brother’s operations down for good.

The gunfire stopped, and she froze, her belly pressed into damp earth, her heart thundering. They’d check the canoe, find it empty, realize she’d escaped.

She had to get farther away before that happened.

Taking a deep breath, she slithered forward, her pack slung over her shoulder, the soft rustle of leaves making her heart beat harder. A man called out, and someone splashed into the water, cursing loudly as he went.

She used the commotion as cover, moving quickly, trying to put as much distance between herself and the campsite as possible.

“FBI, K-9 unit. Put your weapons down or I’ll release my dog,” a man called, his voice carrying above the chaos.

She froze again. Ian was still there. She hadn’t intended on spending much time with him. The entire time they’d been talking, she’d been planning her escape, trying to work out a solution to the newest problem. Just like she did when she’d planned a wedding and there was a hiccup on the big day.

“I said, drop your weapons,” he repeated sharply.

A single shot rang out, and someone shouted. A dog growled, and Esme could picture the dark-eyed, dark-faced K-9 racing into danger.

Two against three.

One weapon against many.

She couldn’t leave.

No matter how much she wanted to.

She couldn’t abandon a man to almost certain death.

Esme didn’t have a gun, but she had surprise on her side. She scooted back the way she’d come, the dog growling and barking, men shouting, chaos filling the darkness. She was heading right toward it, because she didn’t know when to quit. Another thing Brent had said to her.

He’d been right.

She never quit.

Not even when the odds were stacked against her. Hopefully, this time, it wouldn’t get her killed.

She crawled closer to the edge of the campsite, dropping her pack and grabbing a fist-sized rock from the mud. Reginald had taught her to play ball when they were kids. He’d shown her how to throw a mean right hook, to take a man down with a well-placed kick. She’d loved him as much as she’d loved Violetta, and she’d soaked up everything he’d had to offer. Until she’d realized that the road he’d chosen was one she had no intention of traveling. Then she’d distanced herself from her brother and, to a lesser extent, Violetta. That had been eight years ago. Even after all that time and all the years away from Reginald’s coaching, she still knew how to fight.

She stopped at the edge of the clearing, her heart pounding as she waited. The campsite had gone silent. No gunfire. No barking dog. Sirens were blaring in the distance, the sound muted by the thick foliage.

Somewhere nearby, a branch snapped, the sound breaking the eerie quiet. King barked again, and someone crashed through the brush just steps from where Esme lay.

She levered up, would have lobbed the rock at the fleeing man, but King was there, a shadowy blur, so close she could feel his fur as he raced past.

Surprised, she jerked back, her knees slipping in the layer of wet earth, her elbows sliding out from under her. She would have face-planted, but someone grabbed the back of her shirt, yanking her up.

“Hey!” She turned, the rock still in her hand.

“I told you to stay where you were,” Ian growled.

“I was trying to help.”

“Since when is getting in the way helping?” he retorted, King’s wild barking nearly covering his words.

Esme didn’t think he expected a response, and she didn’t bother giving one. He was already moving again, sprinting toward his dog.

She followed, keeping a few steps behind him. Despite his sarcastic comment, she had no intention of getting in the way. The more gunmen he could take out, the safer they’d be. Once they were safe, she could go back to her plan. Get out of the Everglades and out of Florida.

Alone.

“Federal agent! Freeze!” Ian shouted, and she froze before she realized he hadn’t shouted the command at her.

“Call off your dog!” a man replied, his voice tinged with a hint of panic.

“You want me to call off the dog, you freeze.”

“This is all a mistake!” the man whined. “I was out here hunting gators and—”

“One command, and his teeth will go straight to the bone,” Ian cut in.

The man must have stopped moving, because Ian stepped forward, gun trained toward something Esme couldn’t see.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” he commanded, King still growling beside him.

“And you,” he continued, and even though he hadn’t turned to look at her, Esme was certain he was talking to her. “Stay where you are. The guy ditched his gun back at the campsite, but that doesn’t mean he’s not armed.”

“I ditched my gun because your crazy dog was trying to kill me.”

“You can explain it all to the judge.”

“What judge? I was hunting gators. I can’t help it if I got in the middle of your shoot-out.”

“Like I said, you can explain it all to the judge. I’m sure he’ll be really interested in your version. He’ll also be interested in what your friend has to say. If he survives.”

“I didn’t come with a friend. Never seen either of those men before in my life.”

Ian didn’t respond.

Esme could hear the men walking toward her, their feet slapping against wet grass and soggy leaves. They reached her seconds later, Ian taller and broader than the man he’d apprehended. He looked fit and strong. The perfect bodyguard. If she were looking for one. She wasn’t. What she was looking for was some peace. She wouldn’t get that until her uncle was apprehended and he and her brother were convicted of their crimes.

“What now?” she asked, trying to think ahead, to figure out the best way to separate herself from the situation. Once she knew his plans, it would be easier to make hers.

“We’re heading back to the camp. I’ve got one man down and cuffed there. The other ran off.”

“He could return,” she pointed out.

“Local law enforcement is close. Hopefully, one of them will pick him up.”

“I stopped hoping for safety right around the time my uncle tried to murder me,” she muttered.

He eyed her through the evening gloom, his expression unreadable. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t respond. When he did, his tone was gruff. “I hope you’re not living in the delusion that your uncle is the one responsible for all of this.”

“Who else would it be?”

“Your uncle might have tracked you to Florida, but your brother is calling the shots from prison.”

“Maybe.” Probably.

She didn’t want to admit that.

Not even to herself.

She and her uncle had never been close. She could almost pretend they weren’t family.

She and Reginald, though...

They were siblings. Sure, he was much older, but they’d been raised by the same parents with the same values.

Somehow they’d taken completely different paths, found value in completely different things.

She’d watched him kill a man.

She would never forget that. She would testify against him.

But this was by far the most difficult thing she’d ever done.

It was the right thing, but that didn’t make her feel good about it. It sure didn’t make her safe. Her family would do anything to keep her from testifying. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around that.

The proof was here, though—the cuffed man walking beside a federal agent who had come to track her down. Both of them wanted Esme for different purposes. One wanted her dead. The other wanted her to stay alive. At least until her brother’s trial.

The sirens had grown louder, and she could see flashing lights through the mangroves. Help had arrived. It didn’t seem like Ian needed it. He motioned for his prisoner to sit on the raised sleeping platform.

“Guard,” he commanded, and King snapped to attention, his eyes trained on the cuffed man.

“He’s guarding you, too,” Ian said, meeting Esme’s eyes.

“It’s not like I have anywhere to go,” she responded. She could see the canoe, a dozen yards out, listing heavily to the right. Enough bullets had been fired to cause it to sink. If she’d been in it, she’d be dead. She shivered, suddenly chilled despite the warmth and humidity.

“There are plenty of places to go. You’ve proved that several times.” He turned and walked away, moving across the clearing and crouching next to a man who lay near the water.

She thought he was checking the guy’s pulse and rendering first aid, but it was hard to see through the deepening gloom. This would have been her third night out in the Glades. She should be used to how quickly darkness descended After so many months running from people who wanted her dead, she should also be used to skin-crawling, heart-stopping fear.

The cuffed gunman shifted position, and King growled, flashing teeth that looked as deadly as any gun or knife Esme had ever seen. He was focused on the prisoner. If she were going to try to escape, now would be the time to do it. She could see the emergency vehicles, hear people moving through the mangroves. She scanned the clearing and spotted her backpack abandoned near the edge of the campsite.

It would take seconds to grab it and just a little bit longer than that to disappear. She’d done it before. She could do it again.

But she was exhausted from endless running, tired from months of being on guard. She didn’t trust the police or the FBI to keep her safe, but she wasn’t sure she had the stamina to keep trying to do the job herself. Not that she had any choice.

The trial was just a month away. That seemed like forever, but it was nothing in comparison to the amount of time that had already passed. Once she testified, she’d disappear again. This time, she had no intention of being found. New name. New job. New beginning. Not the life she’d planned, but she knew she could make it a good one.

All she had to do was survive long enough to get there.

Just do it. Grab the bag and run! her mind shouted, and she was just tired enough and just scared enough to listen.

She darted forward, snagging the straps and lifting the bag in one quick motion. The rest was easy. Or should have been. The mangroves provided perfect cover, and she ducked behind one of the scrub-like trees, water lapping at her ankles as she moved.

She would have kept running, but something grabbed onto the bag, yanking her backward. She released the pack, but she was already falling, her ankle twisting as she tried to pivot and run.

She went down hard, splashing into a puddle of muck, the dog suddenly in her face, teeth bared, dark eyes staring straight into hers.

“I told you,” Ian said calmly, his voice carrying through the mangroves, “he was guarding you.”

She couldn’t see him, and that made her almost as nervous as looking in the dog’s snarling face did.

“He’d have been better off guarding the guy who tried to kill me,” she responded, not even trying to get to her feet. Not with the beast of a dog staring her down, his teeth still bared. In any other circumstance, she’d have admired him for what he was—a handsome, fit working dog. Right now, she just wanted him gone.

“The perpetrator is in police custody. I guess you were too busy planning your escape to notice them moving in.”

“I noticed.”

“And did you think I wouldn’t notice you leaving?” Branches rustled, and he stepped into view, his head and shoulders bowed as he walked through the trees.

“What I thought was that I wanted to live, and that being alone seemed like the safest way to make sure that happened.”

“Esme, you really need to stop fighting me,” he said, crouching a few feet away and looking straight into her eyes. There was something about his face—the angle of his jaw, the sharp cut of his cheekbones—that made her think of the old Westerns she used to watch with her dad, the hero cowboy riding to the rescue on his trusty steed. Only, this hero didn’t have a horse; he had a dog.

“I’m not. I’m making your job easier. Go back to your office and tell anyone who cares that I refused federal help. I want to do this alone.”

“What? Get yourself killed?”

“Call off your dog, okay? I want to get out of the mud.” And the Everglades and the mess her family had created.

To her surprise, he complied.

“Release!” he said, and the dog backed off, sitting on his haunches, still watching her. Only this time, she was sure he was grinning.

* * *

King had had a great night. He’d found his mark twice and brought in an armed man. He was obviously pleased with himself, his tail splashing in a puddle of water, his dark eyes turned up to Ian.

“Good boy,” Ian said, scratching behind King’s ears and offering the praise he’d been waiting for.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Esme muttered.

Ian flashed his light in her direction. She’d fallen hard but didn’t seem to be much worse for the wear. “He did what I asked him to. That’s always a win.”

“That depends on what side of his teeth you’re sitting on.”

“He wasn’t going to bite you.”

“Right,” she scoffed, tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. She hadn’t colored it. That had surprised him. It would have been the first thing he’d have done if he’d been in her position.

“He bites when he has to, but it’s not in his nature to snap. Unless I give him the command.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, a hint of weariness in her voice. She looked as exhausted as she sounded—her skin paper white in the twilight, dark circles beneath her eyes. He’d seen photos of her taken just a few months before she’d watched her brother execute a man. Her cheeks hadn’t been as hollow, her shoulders as narrow.

He didn’t want to feel sorry for her. She was, after all, part of the family that had taken his. Years ago, Reginald Dupree had called the hit on Ian’s father. He’d been just starting out, sticking his toes in the water of his new family business. Ian’s father had been a Chicago police officer, determined to undermine Dupree’s efforts. He’d arrested two of Reginald’s lower-level operatives. In retaliation, Reginald had paid a couple of street thugs to shoot him when he left the house for work. They’d opened fire as he’d stepped outside. The first bullet had killed him instantly. The second had killed Ian’s mother, who’d been standing in the doorway saying goodbye.

Yeah. He didn’t want to feel sorry for anyone in the family, but his father had raised him to be compassionate, to look out for those who couldn’t look out for themselves. More than that, he’d raised him to do what was right. Even when it was difficult. The right thing to do was to protect Esme. Despite her last name and her family, she’d committed no crime.

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