Seducing the Accomplice by Jennifer Morey

Dharr and had come home to find her with her throat slit. He should have never left her. He should have believed her, too. And not argued. One thing Kate had been really good at was deciphering the information she gathered.
    A lead had been planted to throw them off and he hadn’t believed her when she’d figured it out. She’d been right. He’d been wrong. Now she was dead and he’d never be able to apologize.

    The look on Calan’s face when he’d left for his shower was still putting a crushing weight on her chest. Sadie stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Last night he hadn’t misled her over where this was headed. He’d confessed he couldn’t make promises. But he’d also said what happened meant something. It did. She believed that. But it didn’t mean enough. Physical attraction wasn’t the only ingredient in a relationship.
    “You have to stop being so stupid,” she told her sad reflection.
    Once again, she was glad her dad was never going to find out about this.
    Disgusted, she got in the shower and let the spray hit her back. The morning after their magical night, Calan woke up thinking about the women he’d been with who’d died. It was plain on his face. She didn’t have to be telepathic to know that. There was regret in his eyes. Regret and deep, gouging pain that comes with the loss of a loved one. His heart belonged to another. When it came time to go home, she’d never see him again.
    She stomped her foot with a splashy thump.
    Getting out of the shower, she dried off. Now she’d have to go and face Calan. What if another situation arose that led to a repeat of last night? Would he want her to accommodate him again before this adventure was over? Would she have the wherewithal to stop him?
    The more she ruminated over it, the angrier she became. After dressing, she went back into the bathroom to finish getting ready.
    A loud crash made her jump. Glass shattering. She spun around in time to see two men with guns rush into her room. She screamed. Both were big men wearing black. One wore a hat. He hung back as the other man approached the bathroom, pointing a gun at her.
    Sadie backed up against the bathroom vanity, frantically searching for an escape. Where could she go? What could she do? She was trapped.
    The man charged forward, grabbing her by her elbow and yanking her out of the bathroom. She struggled to wrench free, but he jerked her toward him and looped his arm around her waist. She searched for some kind of weapon. Nothing was in reach. Then the man pressed his gun to her head. She stopped breathing and went still.
    He hissed something in a language she didn’t understand and then in English, “Do not move.”
    She didn’t fight him, too aware of the hard, cold metal of the gun against her temple. That’s when she saw Calan standing in the threshold of the room, aiming his gun at the man in the hat. His eyes shifted from her and the man who held her to the man in the hat.
    She didn’t want to die. Not yet. And not like this.
    Calan walked toward them.
    “Stop,” the man in the hat said, his voice heavily accented.
    Taking two more steps closer, Calan stopped, meeting Sadie’s eyes. Was he gauging her, measuring her fear? She hoped he could tell that it was soaring. Or was he sending her some kind of message? What was he going to do? He had to know she was no good at this.
    “Drop your weapon,” the man in the hat said.
    Calan looked at him. “Who are you?”
    “Drop it, Mr. Friese.”
    They knew his name. His ties to Dharr had given that away. Calan didn’t respond. His aim remained steady. If he fired his gun, the man in the hat would be shot. But the man holding her would get a shot off, too.
    “I don’t think I need to explain to you the consequences if you don’t,” the man in the hat added.
    “Who are you? How did you find us?”
    The man in the hat smiled without humor. He didn’t have to answer, but he did. “It pays to have business acquaintances.