Evidence of Passion. Cynthia Eden

guns were trained on her right then? The weapon was the only thing she had.

      “She’s hurt.” These terse words came from another man. An older man who stormed into the room with an unmistakable air of command surrounding him. “Get a medic in here now.” He pushed through the guns. Headed toward her and acted as if she didn’t have a weapon locked on him. “Ms. Mancini, I’m here to help you.” His gaze slid around the room. “But first you have to tell me...where is he? Where’s Adam Wright?”

      Rachel felt a tear leak down her cheek. She never cried. Never.

      But her entire world had just changed. I changed. “I shot him,” she heard herself whisper. “But he ran away.”

      The commander, a man with gleaming eyes, gave a hard nod. He turned back, speaking to the others as he said, “Get a search out now. I want every inch of this building checked.”

      The team broke up, rushed out.

      Except for the commander—and for the man who’d first pointed his weapon at her. The man who’d known her name. His voice had been hard, rumbling, devoid of any accent.

      That man came toward her now.

      Rachel tensed.

      “Easy.” His voice was softer than it had been before. “I’ve got medical training. I can help you.” He holstered his weapon and advanced on her.

      Her world was falling apart. Rachel wasn’t sure that anyone could help her then. She gave a short, negative shake of her head.

      Her knees buckled then, and Rachel knew she’d hit the floor soon.

      But he caught her. The man with the dark eyes. His hands were strong, callused at the fingertips, but he held her gently.

      “Who are you?” Rachel asked him again. The world was spinning and that man—the stranger with the dark eyes—was the only thing that seemed solid in that instant.

      “Dylan,” he told her, his voice a bare rasp of sound.

      Over his shoulder, she saw the commander frown at him.

      “I’m going to take care of you,” Dylan promised her. “We’re the good guys. We’re going to keep you safe.” A pause. “I’m going to keep you safe.”

      But Rachel didn’t believe him. Adam had just taught her the danger of trusting a man. “He’s going to come back.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “And he’s going to kill me.”

      Dylan’s face hardened. “I won’t let that happen.”

      She still had the gun. Rachel gave him her weapon, but Dylan immediately passed it to the commander. Then she was in Dylan’s arms. He carried her out of that room. Carried her out of what was, indeed, an old, abandoned factory.

      When the ambulance arrived, Dylan was still there, right at her side.

      But no one had found Adam. He’d escaped. Vanished into the night.

      I’ll come back for you.

      Chill bumps rose on Rachel’s arms. She knew that, sooner or later, she would be seeing Adam again.

       Chapter One

      Three years later...

      As a rule, the EOD didn’t usually handle routine murder investigations.

      The EOD—the Elite Operations Division—was an off-the-books covert unit that Uncle Sam liked to pretend didn’t exactly exist. The men and women in the EOD were all ex-military. They were lethal, well-trained agents who specialized in hostage rescue and unconventional warfare.

      A murder in D.C. shouldn’t necessarily catch their attention.

      But this was no ordinary murder. And it was far from a routine case.

      Dylan Foxx slipped past the cops who waited in the hallway of the high-rise hotel, a hotel that was situated just a few blocks away from Pennsylvania Avenue. They were on the top floor of the hotel, and the cops had all gathered around suite 706. Dylan’s boss, Bruce Mercer, had made sure he’d get access to this room. Bruce Mercer controlled most of D.C. from behind the scenes. A puppet master, always pulling the strings.

      Dylan entered the room and surveyed the area. The murder victim lay sprawled near the bed. His blood had pooled and darkened the lush carpet.

      One shot to the heart.

      Dylan recognized the victim. Hank J. Patterson. Patterson had been a military judge, one of the most respected on the bench.

      Patterson spent over fifteen years as an active soldier, but the man hadn’t been able to fight back against his attacker. He lay there, no signs of defensive wounds on him, as the scent of death deepened in the suite.

      Dylan heard a sharply indrawn breath behind him, and he turned to see Rachel Mancini staring down at the body. Her blue eyes were wide with horror.

      He immediately moved to try and block her view. “What are you doing here?” Dylan demanded as fury and fear twisted within him. Because in Patterson’s blood, Dylan had seen something—something that triggered a long-held rage within him.

      Rachel blinked in surprise. Her hair, a dark curtain of silk, brushed against her jaw as she gave a little shake of her head. “I’m following orders. Mercer called and told me to get down here.” She straightened her shoulders. “I’m your teammate, remember?”

      As if he could forget. When it came to Rachel, there was never any forgetting for him.

      “Where you go,” she added, her gorgeous eyes meeting his, “I follow.”

      But he didn’t want her following him into this mess. Rachel could handle danger, he got that, it was just—I don’t want her here. Not on this case. I need her to be safe.

      “That’s Hank Patterson,” she said, nodding. “I worked with him back when I was a Judge Advocate.”

      Before Rachel had traded her courtroom days for a life of secrecy with the EOD.

      “I’ve seen plenty of bodies before—you know that,” Rachel told Dylan, arching one dark brow. “So just drop the protective routine, okay? Let’s get to work.”

      That was one of his problems. When it came to Rachel, all of his protective instincts went into overdrive. Actually, most of his primal instincts did. There was just something about her...

      Dylan didn’t move. His gaze swept over Rachel’s face. Glass-sharp cheekbones, golden skin, full, plump lips. And her eyes—they could bring a man to his knees.

      Beautiful. He’d thought that from the first moment he saw her—even though she’d been terrified at the time. Terrified, but still so brave as she held that gun in her shaking grip.

      Rachel was one of the strongest women he’d ever met.

      Dylan’s boss at the EOD agreed with that assessment, which was why the guy had brought Rachel into the fold.

      But while Mercer only saw her strength, lately, Dylan was seeing more of Rachel’s vulnerability. She could be hurt so easily. Just as she’d been hurt a few months before when one of the EOD’s own agents had turned against them.

      Rachel had wound up in the hospital and Dylan—for a few minutes there, he’d lost control. When he’d thought Rachel might die, he’d spiraled into a pit of fear that had left him feeling—

      “Dylan?” Rachel’s voice was soft. Worried. “What’s happening?” Her hand lifted and touched his arm.

      As always, her touch sent an electric shock right through his system.

      “Mercer...” His voice came out too gravelly, so Dylan tried again, saying, “Mercer didn’t tell you why we were being called in?”

      “Patterson is military,” she said,