Chapter 6

The picture was of a younger version of herself. Barely eighteen, her eyes more blue than violet, her smile more open, filled with warmth and joy. The young woman stood in front of a Main Street clothing store with several other girls, their expressions animated as they stared at the long, formal dress in the window.

“Aunjenue.” She whispered her sister’s name.

It wasn’t the only picture.

The four-by-six photos Raeg tossed onto the table in front of her featured her family, from at different times. Her brothers—though the picture of her eldest brother Caleb wasn’t there—Momma and Daddy, cousins, several aunts. And two of her mother shopping with Aunjenue.

They were surveillance photos.

“The envelope these came in was addressed to me,” Raeg told her quietly. “Inside was this note.”

He placed it carefully on top of the photos.

Summer Calhoun, Cliffton, Georgia

Not Summer Bartlett. Summer Calhoun.

“Who? How?” She shook her head.

She had been careful. Very careful. Even the name Summer Bartlett wasn’t ever used on an operation. Her codename Belle was the only one she’d ever used.

She was caught by Raeg’s gaze, the piercing golden brown predatory color was cool, watchful, waiting. Waiting to see if it was her fault? To point out how she’d messed up? She hadn’t messed up. She was too careful for that.

“Who did this?” she whispered, lips numb, fighting to process how this could have happened. “How did they do this?”

The implacable expression on Raeg’s face never changed as he answered her. “Dragovich.”

The word struck at her with a force that caused her to flinch.

The Russian crime lord had come in on her as she was retrieving a flash drive from his laptop at his office in Moscow that contained sensitive military information. Information he’d paid a premium for.

He’d shot her in her shoulder from the back as she jumped through a second-story window to the balcony. Falcon had been waiting in the SUV just below the edge of the balcony, and when she managed to drop to it and into the open sun roof, he’d sped away, ensuring no one identified her. When they’d finally managed to get out of Russia, they’d left enough suspicion that she’d died that she was certain he wasn’t even looking for her.

“How?” Linking her fingers together at her lap, she clenched tight, pulling back the shock, the fear to find that center where the cool agent rather than the woman torn with panic existed. “How did he learn my identity? Find my family? No one knew I was there but…”

That was all it took—the knowledge of who had known her identity and the fact that Dragovich would pay just about any price to acquire it.

“Just the team,” Falcon confirmed. “You, me, Gia.”

Gia. The friend Summer had been forced to kill to save Falcon.

“She sold Dragovich the information just after your arrival at that last job the three of you took to protect Alyssa Hampstead,” Raeg confirmed. “Payment was made and the file sent electronically just days before…”

Raeg paused then, his lips tightening at the memory. He’d been enraged when he learned Gia had nearly killed his brother.

“Before I killed her.” Summer tonelessly finished the sentence, staring at her uneaten portion of cake on the table in front of her.

Of all her enemies, Dragovich was the most brutal, the most arrogant. He would never stop coming after her. And if he couldn’t get to her, he would eventually go after her family, starting with Aunjenue and her parents.

God, her brother was going to kill her.

“We have to call Caleb.”

“How do you think we found you?” Raeg stated coolly. “We’ve already been to the farm looking for you, Summer. Caleb’s aware of the problem.”

Yeah, her brother was going to kill her. No wonder Aunjenue kept texting to make certain she’d be home.

She ran her hands over her face. How was she going to protect them? Cliffton, Georgia, was home. Damned near everyone who lived there was related to her in one way or another. Aunts, uncles, cousins, her friends … her life.

It was all there in Cliffton.

She roughly pushed back from the table, nearly upending the chair she was sitting in before Raeg caught it. Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned her back on them and fought to control the fear, the overwhelming guilt surging through her.

Damn Dragovich. This was the reason Falcon had so carefully plotted the appearance that Summer had died in Moscow—they knew he’d never stop looking for her.

When he was pissed off, he was like a damned dog searching for a particular bone. And he had enough money to get whatever he wanted. Evidently her former teammate had enough hatred to sell information to him too.

“When he couldn’t find you, he sent two men to Cliffton,” Raeg informed her. “They’re watching the family and watching for you. You did the psychological profile on him. You know him better than anyone, Summer. What will he do?”

He would begin killing her family off one by one until she showed up. Once she did, he’d want to play with her. Dragovich was a demented son of a bitch. The evil he possessed was so black and ice cold, there was no mercy at all within him. But he also considered himself smarter, stronger than his opponents. Because of that, he made a game out of everything.

“He’ll play with me,” she told him, keeping her back to him. “No matter where I go, no matter how I try to draw him away from the family, that’s where he’ll stay, just to torment me. He’ll want me there, want me fighting to figure out who he’ll go after first and how to stop him.”

She’d spent months on the profile she’d built on him. Even her mother, a former CIA analyst herself, had helped her pull together the information she’d needed on the Russian warlord. Not that her mother had known Summer was going after him. Her family still seemed to believe that she worked as an analyst and profiler only. They had no idea she was in the thick of danger whenever possible in the past years. When she’d left the CIA she had never actually informed them that she was doing fieldwork. She’d just stated that she was doing more or less as she had with the Agency.

“Who will he go after first?”

Who would he go after first?

“If I go home, he’ll focus on me. He’ll want me to worry, to suffer, then he’ll send his men in to take me and a family member, though more than likely he’ll take more than one. Once he has me in custody, he’ll make me watch while he kills a few of them before he lets me die.”

He’d start with Aunjenue.

“I have to go back home.” She sighed. “I was going back anyway, but…”

She’d have to face Caleb, convince him to make certain protection concentrated on the family and allow her to face Dragovich, though she really didn’t see that happening. That wouldn’t happen.

What have I done to my family?

“I was getting out,” she whispered. “I knew it was time. I thought I was going in time…”

In time to save herself, in time to find some peace. She shook her head at the thought. She should have known better. After learning how destructive, how completely corrupt Gia actually was, she should have known that the other woman had done something like this. She should have been prepared, should have kept it from happening.

She knew how people worked, knew how people like Dragovich and traitors like Gia connived and manipulated information and the people around them. She should have never been caught unaware by this, or allowed her family to be in this kind of danger.

She should have been prepared …

“Thank you for letting me know.” She turned back to them, the ice that filled her freezing her clear to her soul. “You should return to Arlington.”

Falcon and Raeg remained at the table. Falcon glanced at his brother with a sort of mild assurance, as though they had already expected her response, while his brother’s expression went from implacable to prick in about two heartbeats.