Billionaire Unveiled Read online

  “They didn’t know until recently. I had to tell them when one of my investigations got a little too close to home.”

  I listened closely as he told me about how his brother, Tate, and a female FBI agent had gotten inadvertently involved in an arms smuggling deal.

  “So Tate ended up married to the FBI agent?” I queried when he was done with his story. I hadn’t been back to Colorado in years, so I had no idea what the Colters were doing. Jett occasionally talked about Marcus, but other than a brief mention of the family by my brother, I was in the dark.

  “Yeah. I was glad he met Lara. She’s good for him, but I’ve never forgiven myself for nearly getting both of them killed. From that moment on, I never did anything that could even remotely endanger anyone in my family. If I can’t deal with the situation completely out of the country, I don’t get involved. I felt like I owed it to my family to let them know what I was doing.”

  “Don’t they worry?”

  “All the fucking time,” he answered in a disgruntled voice. “My mother is terrified somebody will kill me every time I leave.”

  “Can you blame her? She loves you.”

  “Tate was Special Forces. That was a hell of a lot more dangerous than what I do.”

  “Had I known what you and Jett were doing with PRO, I would have been anxious every time you left,” I told him honestly.

  My brother had kept his involvement with PRO a secret until the mission where he was injured and the group shut down. Had I known they were sneaking into dangerous territory to rescue political prisoners, I know both Harper and I would have been worried sick.

  Now, Marcus’s forming of PRO in the first place made sense. He’d obviously learned his covert operation skills from years of spying on other countries.

  “We saved lives,” he stated. “But I doubt I’ll ever stop feeling guilty about Jett’s injuries. He’s the only one who will probably never fully recover. He’ll always carry the scars.”

  I saw the tension in his expression and reached out to smooth out the lines on his face. “Don’t. You can’t change what’s already done. It was an accident. He’s alive. It was nobody’s fault, Marcus. You did save lives, and Jett told me he’d do it all over again.”

  He caught my hand in his and lowered our conjoined hands to his thigh. “He told me the same thing several times. But he lost everything that meant something to him.”

  “He lost Lisette, and it was the best thing that could happen. She didn’t love him. He would have ended up miserable.”

  “Yeah. And I hear she’s in trouble anyway. Something about some kind of tax fraud,” he mentioned casually.

  I shot him a curious look. “Tax fraud? How would you know that? Do you know her?”

  “Nope. Never met her. But I do have a friend at the IRS. Seems she’s been a little less than honest about paying her taxes.”

  “You got her in trouble?” I asked incredulously.

  “Absolutely not. She’s the one who didn’t pay her taxes. It must be tough now that she’s cut off from Jett’s money.”

  It struck me as funny that Marcus could share that information without ever tipping his hand. If I didn’t know he’d instigated the investigation on Lisette, I’d swear he was completely innocent. “You’re bad,” I told him, secretly happy that the woman who had dumped my brother so heartlessly was now in a mess of trouble. “Honestly, I’m glad she’s paying in some way for what she did to Jett.”

  “Oh, she’s going to be paying,” Marcus remarked casually.

  Just the fact that he’d tried to avenge Jett was pretty damn awesome. I’d never seen that side of Marcus. Really, I hadn’t ever known him at all. His arrogance annoyed me at times, but if he was spying on foreign countries, he had to have balls of steel. “Thank you,” I said softly.

  “Jett is my friend,” he stated simply. “And now we need to stop talking about me and get back to this issue with Becker.”

  “I can’t give up, Marcus. And it isn’t all about a scoop. Becker has to be stopped for many reasons.” People like Ruby and everyone Greg was putting in danger needed somebody to fight for them. If I could help put him away, I was going to do it.

  “He’s been on our radar for a long time. But without solid evidence, there isn’t much we can do. He’s a slippery bastard,” Marcus grumbled.

  “He’s paranoid,” I agreed. “He’s anal about covering all his bases.”

  “What’s your plan?” he asked unhappily.

  “I’m going to have access to his house next Friday. He wants me to meet him there in the evening. Somehow I have to get into his home office. I think that’s where he keeps his records of his nonbusiness transactions. If I can get those, they can be tracked and confirmed pretty quickly.”

  Marcus took the ice pack I’d let slide away from my face and held it gently back on my cheek. “This is all crazy. You know that, right? Becker is an international criminal and has never hesitated to eliminate anybody who gets in his way.”

  I nodded. “I learned that the hard way.”

  “Christ! I hate this, Dani. I hate you getting involved with him. I hate the fact that you put yourself in danger. I hate that the fucker actually hit you, and I can’t kill him for that. Just the fact that he’s touched you in any way makes me insane,” he finished with a growl.

  My heart was pounding against my chest wall, the intense look on Marcus’s face reminding me of our earlier encounter. “Then help me,” I pleaded, knowing I could use his expertise. I was in over my head, and I was smart enough to know it. I didn’t want to get him involved, but I knew it was the only way he wouldn’t sabotage my efforts.

  “I’m going to do more than help you. I’m going to be your partner. And if you do a single thing that I don’t agree with, you’re out of there,” he demanded.

  “Okay,” I murmured, willing to agree to his terms. I had no doubt he could execute a plan better than I could.

  “You should still be recovering, not putting yourself into another bad situation,” he muttered irritably.

  I gave him a weak smile. “I guess I’ve never been good at being idle.”

  “I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt, and then I’ll insist on you taking some downtime. It hasn’t been that long since you nearly died, Danica. You need to take some time off, whether you want to or not. You can find something a hell of a lot less dangerous to do.”

  Not staying busy did nothing but remind me how much I’d isolated myself. Before, I’d spent so much time chasing stories that I never really thought about how alone I felt. Sure, I had great siblings, but they were all busy with their own lives. “Time off gets lonely,” I admitted before I could stop myself.

  Marcus’s arm snaked around my waist, and he pulled me against his very solid, warm body. “You’re not alone anymore, Dani,” he stated in a husky voice.

  I absorbed his warmth, soaking it up like a sponge. Honestly, maybe the reason Marcus and I had fought so much in the past was because we were both so much alike in some ways. We were both independent, and we’d spent our whole adult lives traveling by ourselves. Neither of us had ever had somebody to lean on or talk to about how we felt. Both of us had put emotion aside like it wasn’t important.

  The problem was, I couldn’t ignore how I was feeling anymore.

  I laid my head against his shoulder and breathed in his masculine scent, feeling like I wasn’t really alone. At least for a little while.

  Marcus

  “Hey man, what’s happening with my little sister?” Jett Lawson asked as I opened the door of my condo the next afternoon.

  I was surprised, but I probably shouldn’t be. Nothing kept Jett down for very long. “I thought you were having surgery,” I answered, slapping him on the back as he entered with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder.

  “They did it yesterday. It was no big deal,” he answered, dropping his bag on the floor. “How do you feel about having a visitor? I wanted to see if I could talk some sense into Dani.”
r />   “You don’t ever need to ask if you can stay with me. You always have an open invitation.” I was glad to see him, but I felt a little bit guilty over the fact that I was lusting after his sister, and it kept getting worse every single day.

  He dropped his bag on the floor. “Thanks. So what’s up with Dani?”

  I moved into the living room to get us a drink. Jett followed behind me with a slight limp. He was doing okay, but his leg bothered him when he did too much, which was pretty much all the time. My friend had a tenacity that humbled me sometimes. I knew he’d come out of his accident with injuries that not many people could survive, but he kept himself in optimal condition, which had probably saved his life. He was stubborn, but it was a quality that served him well right now.

  “There’s a lot happening that you don’t know about,” I warned him as I went to the bar to pour us a drink.

  Jett flopped onto the couch. “Good or bad?”

  I grimaced. “Both. The good news is that your sister isn’t in love with an asshole. The bad news is that she’s gotten herself into a situation that’s going to be messy.”

  I caught him up with the whole situation with Becker, and then answered his questions after I’d handed him a drink and took a seat in the chair next to the sofa.

  Jett shook his head. “I love my sister, but sometimes I wish she’d take up something a little less adventurous to do for a living.”

  “It’s not just about a story for her anymore, Jett.”

  “Shit! I know that,” he replied with frustration. “But I feel so damn helpless to do anything to help her.”

  “I’m helping her,” I reassured him. “One sign of danger and I’m pulling her out.”

  “And she agreed?” Jett questioned skeptically.

  I shrugged. “More or less. Probably less than more, but her ass is gone if Becker so much as looks at her the wrong way.”

  “Knowing that he hit her makes me want to kill the bastard,” Jett said irritably.

  I knew exactly how he felt. Dani had been through so damn much, and until last night, I’d never seen her really lose it. She was so damn brave, but her courage made me nervous as hell. Maybe she’d become a bit warier after her kidnapping, but her sense of justice and duty was still just as strong as it had always been. “We can’t kill him,” I finally answered unhappily. “We have to find out who else is involved.”

  “You have a good system here? I could try to do some checking,” he offered. “I think if we knock out the kingpin, the rest will fall. But it wouldn’t hurt to try to do some digging for information.”

  I shot him a knowing look. “You mean some hacking?”

  “Hell, no. That would be completely illegal,” he said in feigned protest.

  I smirked at him, knowing that Jett had no problem hacking into a system if he needed vital information. He’d done it plenty of times for PRO missions, and he was one of the best at it. “I have everything set up in my office. Feel free to search for information. But before you get started, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Since I’d come clean with Danica, I needed to do the same with Jett. I wanted him to have confidence that I could help his sister, and telling him about my history would probably help. Hell, Jett was like a brother to me, so it would be like telling family. I’d trust him with my life, so I could tell him my secrets, too.

  I informed him about my dual careers as briefly as possible.

  “Holy shit, man,” Jett said. “So you go all James Bond in foreign countries.”

  I shot him a disgusted look and then rolled my eyes. “You of all people have to know that nobody does James Bond. They’re movies. Fictional characters. I’m pretty sure most agents sit behind a desk most of the day and try to dig up computer intel.” I hesitated before adding, “Maybe you should be a special agent instead of me. I think they need your skills more than mine.”

  “Don’t downplay what you’re doing, buddy,” Jett said in a serious tone. “It’s dangerous, and it’s pretty damn patriotic to risk your ass to keep our country safe.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I have to travel anyway.”

  “But you don’t have to spy for intel. That could get you killed. I don’t know a lot of rich guys who’d do the same.”

  “You’d do it,” I challenged.

  Jett shrugged. “Maybe. We’re both crazy adrenaline junkies. Maybe that’s why we’re such good friends.”

  “Just like your sister,” I accused. “She’s just as nuts as we are. Not a good quality for a woman who has already been through hell.”

  “She’s always been that way,” Jett commented thoughtfully. “Even when we were kids, she was pretty fearless.”

  I could hardly tell Jett that I hated her courage right now. Dani made me half crazy, and I needed to get a grip on my irritation. Jett’s sister was off-limits. I wanted to fuck her worse than I’ve ever wanted any woman. But I also admired her, and the last thing I wanted was friction with my best friend because I was having a fling with his little sister. Dani and I could never have anything more than a brief affair. I wasn’t capable of having a relationship. I never had been. I traveled too much, and I had very little to offer a woman except money.

  “I don’t like this,” I admitted. “I don’t like any of it. Becker is a prick. Your sister could find herself tangled up in something she can’t handle.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Jett confessed. “I’d get her away from here now if I could, but you know how stubborn she can be when she has her mind made up to do something. All of us tried to talk her out of her chosen career, especially being a Middle East correspondent. Not a single one of us could make her budge. She loved her job, Marcus. Dani is the type of woman who wanted to expose everything that’s wrong with the world and drag it out into the open.”

  “I fucking know that. It’s part of what makes me crazy. She has good intentions, but she puts herself in too much danger.”

  “Hey. You sound really concerned. You okay?” Jett asked.

  I knew what he meant. I was generally a prick, and pretty free from emotional entanglement. But there was something about Danica that made me want to protect her. I could tell myself it was because of her past experience of being at the mercy of madmen, but to be honest, the compulsion had always been there. It was just getting harder and harder to ignore.

  Somehow, in some insane way, we got each other. I understood her, and strangely enough, she seemed to have gotten under my skin. There was some force pushing us together, and I felt almost helpless to stop the stream of unfamiliar feelings that rose up every time I saw her.

  But my emotional involvement had to stop. I needed to think like a professional, help her in any way I could, and stop worrying about her so damn much.

  “Yeah,” I finally replied. “I’m good.”

  “Is something going on between you and Dani?” Jett asked suspiciously.

  “Not at all,” I answered smoothly.

  Nothing except a certain encounter where I got your sister off in a public bathroom just so I could watch her come.

  But I wasn’t about to go there with Jett.

  “She’s an amazing woman,” he pushed. “It wouldn’t be that surprising if you were attracted to her. Actually, you two are a lot alike.”

  “I’m not attracted to her,” I denied. “I like her and she’s your sister. I want to help her.”

  Jett looked like he wanted to say more, but he dropped the subject. “If Becker is as paranoid as Dani says he is, I doubt she’s going to be able to get the documents you need out of his house.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” I informed him. “I’m going to get some special equipment from the department.”

  “Spy gadgets?” Jett asked jokingly.

  “Actually, yeah. Sometimes being an agent comes in handy. They have technology that most people don’t.”

  Jett polished off his drink and then stood up. “You know I’m going to want to see them.”

 
; “I know,” I answered elusively.

  “I’m going to go try out your system. See what I can find out on Becker.”

  “Just don’t do anything illegal on my computers,” I warned, knowing damn well that Jett was so good at what he did that he’d never get caught.

  “No promises,” Jett mumbled. “If my sister’s life is at stake, I’ll do what I have to do. I may not have much as far as physical capabilities, but I do have skills.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” I told him. I knew that he was one of the best when it came to computer spying, information gathering, and anything else on the web or the dark web.

  “Takeout for dinner? Pizza would be good. I’m starving.”

  “I don’t generally do pizza. Hell, I’ve never figured out how you eat so much junk food and still manage to stay in shape.” Jett had always been physically strong, and even though he was injured, he was still pretty bulked up.

  “I work out,” he said defensively. “And I don’t always do junk food.”

  “Only ninety-nine percent of the time,” I said in a sarcastic tone.

  He grinned. “Then you admit that I occasionally eat healthy?”

  “Hardly ever.”

  “Like you should talk,” Jett joked. “Half the time you eat on the run and do protein drinks. We could both use some protein and carbs right now.”

  “Fine. I’ll order pizza,” I conceded.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like pizza, burgers, fries, and all of the other things guaranteed to give me early heart failure, but I tried to avoid them, and I worked out as often as possible. I was in my mid-thirties, and I wasn’t getting any younger. With all the traveling and CIA business I had to do, I needed to be able to keep my body in the best shape possible.

  “I want it loaded,” he insisted as he walked toward my office.

  “As much grease as possible?” I asked.

  “You got it,” he answered with a laugh as he disappeared through the door leading to my sophisticated computer system.

  My stomach growled, and I realized that I was hungry, too. Usually I’d send George out to find me a healthy meal. Instead, I found myself looking up pizza joints and calling in a very large order.