Dark Justice: Hunt
by Jenna Ryan
Copyright © 2018 by Jenna Ryan. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Prologue
“I have to meet McCabe.” Taking his wife by the arms, Johnny Hunt lowered his head and set his mouth on hers.
As always, Melia Rose immediately lost her train of thought. When Johnny kissed her, her brain tended to melt. Nothing connected except wave after wave of pure sensation.
He nuzzled her lower lip, opened his eyes a little, and looked into hers. “I love you, Mel. I really, really love you.”
Offering him a seductive smile, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against him. “Love you back, Johnny. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you forget about McCabe, and I’ll skip my night in the casino? We can drink wine, order room service, and make love until the sun comes up. Or goes down again, if you’ve got the stamina.”
“Can’t.” He nibbled her earlobe and ran his thumbs over her nipples. “We’ll have to settle for anticipation. Go to the casino and play a few games of blackjack. You’ve earned a break from the workshops and seminars.”
She kissed his cheeks, then nipped at his mouth. “If we’re lucky, McCabe won’t have much to say. It’s possible.” She laughed at the dark look he sent her. “Okay, not going to happen.” One last kiss and then she stepped away. “No more teasing. We can pick this up later, after McCabe pisses you off with a new assignment and I lose some ridiculous dollar amount at the blackjack table.”
He tugged a strand of her long red-brown hair. “Look on the bright side. You might win big.”
“If I win, the hospital gets it. We need a new CT scanner.”
He pulled her forward for a fast, hungry kiss. “Get lots of blackjacks.”
Smiling, she turned and headed for the bedroom. The door barely clicked as he left the suite.
She wore red—glittery and a little daring. Two of her colleagues met her in the lobby, and together they strolled into the gaming room.
Atlantic City might not have been as awe inspiring as Las Vegas, but Melia liked the East Coast vibe generated by the Boardwalk bars and casinos.
The three of them split up almost immediately. One wanted to play roulette, the other had a thing for slots, and Melia was determined to spend at least twenty minutes at a blackjack table.
After she chose one, a man in a casual suit, wearing a white shirt open at the collar, came to sit beside her.
“Hello there, gorgeous. Please tell me you’re here alone.”
Grinning, she showed him her finger. “Sorry, no. You’ll want to concentrate on the cards. He’s a federal marshal.”
When a server strolled past with a tray of red wine, the man plucked two glasses from the edge and handed her one. “For luck. And I mean at cards.”
Melia sipped the Merlot. It was fairly decent for house wine. Not as good as the French Cabernet she and Johnny had been drinking upstairs, but all in all the effect would probably be similar. She’d have to be careful not to drink too much more.
“Charm’s not a problem. Just as long as we’re clear. I’m not interested in knowing you better.”
He raised a hand in surrender. “Message received and processed. I’ll stay on sixteen. You?”
The wine had a silky texture that went down easily. She played three hands and busted every time.
A sigh escaped. “Oh well. This was a bonus, anyway. The convention’s the prize.”
The man grinned. “Since you’ve helped me win twice, I’d say introductions are in order. I’m Matthew.”
“Melia,” she returned. Were the lights going down, she wondered. The room seemed darker all of a sudden, and oddly claustrophobic.
“I think we should toast to our one and only meeting in this life.” When he smiled, his canines looked sharp.
Melia shook off the illusion and raised her glass. Second? Third? She couldn’t remember.
The air felt warm and sticky. So much so, in fact, that tendrils of heat seemed to rise from the carpet. The tables and machines glowed. She wasn’t sure, but she thought her fingers might be going numb. Okay, that had to be an illusion.
“Are you all right?” Matthew took her arm. “Oops, little stumble there. Maybe…do you want to go upstairs?”
Melia realized she must have answered, because he nodded and increased the pressure on her arm.
“This way. Main door’s right and the elevators are across the lobby. Do you have your key?”
“Johnny won’t be long. I’ll wait for him.”
“Waiting in your room would be better than down here, I think.” Matthew steered her gently toward the elevator.
The motion of the car rising made her feel as if she was ascending to heaven. Maybe she was. She swore she saw Johnny waiting at the gate.
“Scruffy angel,” she murmured, but he merely smiled and held out his hand to her.
We are who and what we are, Mel. I’m no angel.
He’d said something to that effect at their wedding, in the vows he’d written for her. Hers had been more poetic, even if she couldn’t bring them to mind right then.
The gate before her opened, and she floated through. She was drifting on a cloud. Images formed in her mind, a bit like a dream but not quite. Matthew danced through her head, but she had no idea why. Even fluffier clouds beckoned. When she touched them, they were soft and inviting. She sank down and let them billow around her.
There were wineglasses, and a magnificent view of Atlantic City at night.
Sighing in her sleep, she rolled over. The cloud was more solid than before. Darkness slowly gave way to shimmering dawn. Reaching out, she stroked the skin of Johnny’s back and smiled. Count on her husband to find her cloud and join her on it.
A feeling of peacefulness lingered as she stretched. She was going to take the cloud home with her. Or at least the duvet, because part of her hazy mind understood that it was really a bed and clouds had nothing to do with it.
The shimmer of light intensified. The door closed. Cool air fluttered across her cheeks.
“What the hell is this?”
Her eyes snapped open. The heavenly cocoon surrounding her dissolved. Something shattered against the wall.
“What?” She sat up with a start, shook the fog from her mind. “Johnny, what are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” He loomed over her, more dangerous than she’d ever seen him. Although fury radiated, his voice dropped several notches. “Turn your head, Melia.”
Melia? He never called her that. Never.
Dazed and confused, she did as he instructed and saw…
“Jesus.” Shoving herself a full foot sideways, she stared at the man lying on his stomach next to her. Her gaze shot to Johnny. “Who the hell’s he? I mean—” She kicked the man’s leg under the covers. “Who is he?”
While Johnny continued to glare, the man rolled over. Matthew’s lopsided smile greeted her.
“Hey, doll. That was some fantastic night, wasn’t it?”
Chapter One
Istanbul sweltered in the late afternoon sun. The mingled scents of tobacco, spice, sweat, and seawater permeated the air while, down below, the pier facing the Bosporus bustled with people. Seated on rows of chairs and benches, a group of elderly men puffed on hookah pipes. Several of them smiled haplessly at passersby. Or maybe at some private joke. Johnny Hunt knew they came to that same place every day, but even after spending six months in the crowded Turkish city, he still didn’t fully understand what the local rituals entailed.
As he stood under a rippling canopy, hoping to escape the sun that seemed to burn down to the bone, a youngish man with only a few more teeth than his senior counterparts offered him a half-smoked joint and a look of full-blown hope. Johnny scotched the look by indicating his own hand-rolled cigarette. He chuckled when the man slumped, then straightened and zeroed in on a more promising target.
“Hope springs eternal, old friend.”
The voice behind him was both American and familiar—and it made his jaw clench to hear it. Not that he hadn’t been expecting the contact. It was more that McCabe’s being here could only mean one thing: trouble.
Glancing sideways through the shield of his sunglasses, Johnny brought his longtime friend and occasional nemesis into focus. McCabe never changed. He was always a little unshaven, a whole lot cool, and secretive as hell. Enigmatic was how Melia had described him—and why the hell had he gone there?
In response to McCabe’s remark, he took a drag on his cigarette and gazed placidly over the busy dock. “I was working on it until I got your weird text. ‘Asshole’s got noses on the ground and in the air.’ What the hell does that mean? I’m ninety-five percent sure I don’t want to know.”
“It means Satyr’s got sniffer dogs circling Melia. Giving her a wide berth at this point, but in the vicinity and watching.”
“Shit.” Johnny’s gaze scanned the fishing boats that jockeyed for position even as they hauled their nets onto waterlogged decks. “Why?”
“No idea.”
“Bull,” Johnny said mildly. “If Ben Satyr has people watching Melia, then he’s figured out I still care. Or he strongly suspects it. Our plan sealed the deal on Melia’s end. She couldn’t have done anything to arouse his suspicions. Ergo, one of us screwed up.”
McCabe tugged his ball cap lower to block the relentless sun. “Something screwed up,” he agreed. “Tell me again about that break-in two weeks ago.”
“My room was tossed. Whoever did it took the money I leave for thieves and ran.”
“All they took was money? You’re sure about that?”
Johnny slanted him a wry look. “I’m sure. I’ve gotten good at this game of ‘who the hell cares’ over the past three years. Rooms get tossed in Istanbul on a regular basis.”
“And yet, two weeks after the fact, my people have ID’d Satyr’s people inching too close to your ex-wife for my liking.”
A headache loomed, but Johnny ignored it. He’d gone to extremely painful lengths to ensure Melia’s safety. No way would he let a bastard drug lord like Satyr threaten her on any level.
“It was a sound plan,” he maintained.
And it had been. They’d set her up. Remembering how they’d done it still made him feel sick. Jesus, they’d tricked her into thinking she’d slept with another man.
He’d been forced to walk in and listen to someone else’s false account of what had happened. Angry and upset, he’d thrown a lamp against the wall and left the room. She’d tried to explain, but of course that hadn’t been possible. The images that had been planted in her mind had her believing she’d slept with someone else. He’d told her he couldn’t deal with it and taken a job overseas.
Once he’d believed she was safe, he’d started the divorce proceedings. The whole fucking thing had hurt her like hell. It had damn near killed him. He’d done it to keep Satyr from taking out his insane need for revenge on her. And the plan had worked. So why the interest now? Why all of a sudden after three years of nothing?
“You didn’t risk contacting her?” McCabe asked.
Johnny pushed back the pain and guilt. “No.”
“Contacting someone she knows? Friends, family, colleagues?”
“No.”
“What about social media?”
“For Christ’s sake.” Irritation brought the guilt, always present inside him, rushing back. “I said no. Satyr’s threats were real. He was going to kill Melia to make me suffer, and you know he meant it. There was no choice involved here. Keeping Melia safe is all I care about, all I think about, all I want. It’s my first, last, and only goal in life.”
McCabe nodded. “Unfortunately, I believe you. And in the end, the hows don’t matter. Satyr’s people are there. So’s one of mine, but shit happens, Johnny. Could be Mockerie’s playing into this unexpected interest.”
“Maybe.” Because Ben Satyr’s boss, James Mockerie, was as insane and sadistic as Satyr himself.
Except that Satyr had personal reasons for wanting to destroy Johnny’s life. Those reasons went back to the time they’d spent together in an Iraqi prison. An Iraqi hellhole, in point of fact.
The nightmare had started long before that, but Iraq had been the culmination. Long before Satyr had gone to work for Mockerie, they’d known each other. If Satyr had wanted something, Mockerie would probably have been more than happy to help him. Mockerie was sly, and he had contacts in high places. It was possible he’d been the one to figure out McCabe’s three-year-old plan.
Johnny’s temples began to throb. He crushed the mostly smoked cigarette under the heel of his boot. “Where’s she living?”
“Deception Cove. It’s in the Florida Everglades. She’s been there for fourteen months. She tried Concord, New Hampshire, and a town called Bastion’s Landing in South Carolina. Spent a year in each place.”
“Who’s responsible for the relocations?”
“She came to me in both cases.” Johnny noted that McCabe’s gaze slid to a drug deal going down on one of the smaller boats. “My guess? She’s having trouble settling. Face it, the way we handled it, she believes she cheated on you. That has to cut pretty deep.”
Johnny didn’t want to go there. “Better cut than dead. We both know Satyr would have killed her in a minute to get back at me for what he thinks I did to him in Iraq. And before.”
“Satyr or Mockerie.” McCabe fashioned a set of scales with his hands. “Which way are you leaning?”
“Satyr,” Johnny said without hesitation. “Mockerie might be willing to help, partly out of friendship and partly because he’s a perverted prick who gets his rocks off torturing and tormenting people. But at the heart of it, Satyr’s the more spiteful bastard.”
“So.” McCabe motioned upward to where the bars and drug dens waited in the afternoon rush. “What say we have a drink and figure out how we can screw the bastard back. Might as well toast the positive side of this.”
Johnny tugged his own cap down over hair that hadn’t seen a pair of scissors for more than six months. “Enlighten me, McCabe. What’s positive here?”
“We know that, of the two, Satyr is the bigger asshole. But at least he’ll kill her outright. Mockerie will torture her. The bastard has an evil soul. He hides it when he wants to. If Satyr wants Melia dead, I’ll guarantee Mockerie will find a way to be involved in the manner of her death. Wait a minute, maybe I should rethink that positive aspect.”
Johnny regarded him shrewdly. “Damn right you should. If you think Mockerie’s evil, spend some time with his Mini-Me. Satyr’s catching up to his boss at warp speed. All I care about is making sure neither of them touches Melia.”
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