“I want you to marry Andrew and be disgustingly happy for the rest of your life. That’s all that matters.”
Rita’s gaze slanted to her left, where Jesse Cooper stood near the wall of the bride’s room, a silent sentinel. Evie wondered what her sister was thinking about her ex’s presence. She had tried to warn Jesse that coming into the bride’s room with her might not be the best idea, but he’d refused to let her out of his sight. Apparently he’d assigned himself to be her personal bodyguard, and he took the job very seriously.
“I should thank him,” Rita said, reluctance thick in her voice.
“It’s not necessary. He lives for this kind of thing.”
Rita’s lips curled upward again. “I know.”
Evie supposed she did. Jesse Cooper hadn’t changed much in the past ten years, despite his change of careers. The same strong sense of honor, duty and ethics he’d learned in the Marine Corps had traveled with him to his new job as head of Cooper Security.
“I’m glad he came.” Rita kept her voice low so that it wouldn’t carry to where Jesse stood watch. Evie suspected it was a futile effort; knowing Jesse, he could probably read lips.
“Why’s that?” she asked Rita.
“Because it helped me be absolutely sure I’m over him.”
“You didn’t know that before you said yes to Andrew?” Evie tried to arch an eyebrow, but the stinging pain of her swollen eyes wouldn’t allow it.
“I thought I knew. I was pretty sure I knew.” Rita smiled. “But now I know for certain.”
Evie darted a quick look at Jesse, wondering if he was over Rita, as well. Their courtship had been intense and passionate, their breakup equally explosive. Even now, Jesse couldn’t hide his reaction whenever Rita’s name came up in conversation.
“Are you sure, Evie? About our going ahead with the wedding?”
“Positive,” she answered. “And who knows? I have an hour to recover. If I’m feeling better, I can put a little extra makeup on to cover the redness and swelling. Besides, everyone will be looking at you anyway.”
Rita took a deep breath before she spoke. “Okay, then. We’ll go ahead with the wedding. Try putting cold compresses on your eyes. I want you up there with me.” She gave Evie a quick, fierce hug.
As Rita followed their mother back to the private chamber to finish her preparations for the wedding, Evie dropped wearily on the nearby bench, pressing her hands to her throbbing forehead. The stinging burn of the pepper spray had mostly subsided, and her vision had cleared up considerably, but those irritations had been replaced by the beginning of a brain-pounding headache. She hoped it would ease off soon because she was going to do everything she could to stand at the altar as her sister’s maid of honor, headache or not.
“You okay?”
She looked up at Jesse’s gravel-voiced query. “Yeah. Just working on a headache. All the stress, I guess.”
Evie’s father crossed to her side, subtly positioning himself between her and Jesse. “Do you need ibuprofen?”
“That would be great.”
Her father pulled a small pillbox from his pocket and fished out a couple of pain relievers. He slanted a pointed look at Jesse. “There’s a water fountain in the hall with a paper-cup dispenser.”
Jesse frowned, clearly not happy about leaving Evie alone, even with her father, but he’d been a Marine long enough to balk at disobeying an order from a general. He disappeared through the door.
“We need to call the police,” her father said. “They should be looking for the truck.”
“Jesse thinks the local police aren’t equipped to handle the men who kidnapped me.”
“Jesse thinks.” Her father grimaced. “Jesse thinks a lot of things.”
“He’s right about this. You know he is.”
“He thinks the men who took you were SSU agents.” There was little skepticism in her father’s voice, despite his obvious dislike for Jesse. He knew as well as anyone just how ruthless the mercenaries who’d once worked for MacLear Security could be. One of his most trusted colleagues had already died at their hands, and another had spent nearly a month as a captive of the deadly soldiers of fortune, along with his wife and daughter.
“I’m pretty sure Jesse’s right about that, too.”
Her father touched her face, his fingers gentle. “You’re not keeping anything from me, are you? They didn’t hurt you more than you’ve said—”
“No, they didn’t. But given time, they would have.”
Her father met her gaze for a long, electric moment, then looked away.
“You need to talk to Jesse about General Ross’s journal.”
Her father’s mouth tightened but he didn’t answer.
Evie gave a little growl of frustration. “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this, Dad. Look what happened today—you think they won’t go after us again? Maybe Rita this time, or Mom. And Jesse Cooper won’t be there to save them.”
His gaze snapped up to meet hers, pain vibrating in his blue eyes. “I’m doing what I can to protect us all.”
“By staying silent? That’s not enough for these people. You have to know it’s not. I don’t understand why you don’t just tell people what you do know, even if you don’t have proof.”
“I’ll increase our security team,” her father said, ignoring her last comment.
“Are you going to make them aware of the level of the threat against us?” She shook her head. “If you put the average security guard up against the SSU, he’ll lose every time.”
She knew her father couldn’t argue. He’d been around for the downfall of MacLear Security, a once well-respected private security firm that had done business with the Pentagon for years. MacLear Security’s training corps had been made up of top-notch former military and law-enforcement personnel. Even the company’s legitimate agents had possessed the knowledge and skills of elite soldiers. And the Special Services Unit, MacLear’s secret unit of guns for hire, had layered those skills in with an utter lack of a moral compass.
Ruthless and violent, the SSU had been a wickedly efficient private army for a corrupt State Department official named Barton Reid. Their work for Reid had eventually led to the company’s downfall, thanks to Jesse’s cousins, who’d thwarted the secret soldiers’ plans to abduct a child as leverage. The Coopers had exposed MacLear’s seamy underbelly and brought the company down, but not before several of the SSU operatives had made their escape and formed a new alliance.
Funded by a mysterious company called AfterAssets, LLC, the dirty operatives had recently been involved in at least one assassination and another assassination attempt. They’d kidnapped an Air Force general and his family and now had tried to kidnap Evie, as well.
