Backstreet Hero. Justine Davis

have thought about it a little more, period, he thought. Had he learned nothing from Lisa? Had he forgotten standing in the morgue, looking down at her lifeless body, knowing she was there because of him?

      I’m trying to stop something like that from happening again, he told himself as Draven continued to speak of the woman who had just left.

      “She did some good work at Redstone in Toronto. She was ready to move up.”

      “Yeah.”

      Silence seemed to echo in the room while Tony continued to pace and tried to figure out what to say.

      “You got back last night?”

      “Yeah.”

      He left it at that. The Hawk IV that had picked him up in Caracas had actually touched down a little after 1:00 a.m., so technically this morning, but he knew Draven already knew that. And he’d already filed his report in flight, so he knew Draven knew the final result of his investigation into the local kickback problem as well.

      “You know,” Draven said at last, “I’m told I talk more than I used to these days, but I’m in no way comfortable carrying on a whole conversation myself. What do you want, Alvera?”

      Tony stopped mid-stride and spun around to face his boss. “I want this job.” There, he thought. It was out.

      “What job?”

      “The one you were going to give her,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the door where Taylor had exited.

      Draven frowned. “I don’t think this is anything that requires your…unique skills, Tony.”

      “Nothing does, at the moment.”

      Not really his decision to make, but he knew it was true. Lucky for him, Draven was in a flexible mood this morning.

      “There may not even be a real problem,” his boss said. “It could just be a fluke, coincidence. Accidents and pranks do happen.”

      Not to Lilith, Tony thought.

      “It’s probably nothing, but Josh wants to be sure,” Draven said. “You know how he is about his people.”

      “Yes. I do.”

      No one knew better than he did about Josh Redstone. Tony doubted there was another man on the planet who would have done what Josh did after an angry, scared, knife-wielding gangbanger had tried to mug him outside an L.A. hotel. Tony hadn’t even realized he was trying to rob the wunderkind whose Redstone Aviation was beginning to soar, had seen only a man headed toward a limo, which to him had meant money and made the man a target.

      He hadn’t expected that the man would fight back, and well enough to have his sixteen-year-old ass on the pavement in less than ten seconds.

      And he never would have dreamed that that man, not even ten years older than he himself, would see something in that angry kid, something that, instead of calling the cops as he should have, made him give Tony the chance of a lifetime. The chance at a life.

      A life he would always owe to Josh Redstone.

      “This is probably nothing a couple of days of simple investigation can’t close,” Draven said, looking at him with growing curiosity, the last thing Tony wanted.

      “Then I won’t be tied up long,” he said, more sharply than he liked.

      Draven’s mouth quirked slightly. “You really want this?”

      “I want this. Sir,” he added, not caring that it was so obviously an afterthought tacked on to ameliorate the gruffness of his prior words.

      Draven’s brows lowered even farther. “You don’t look—or sound—too sure about that.”

      Leave it to Draven to see past the surface, because truth be told, he wasn’t. In fact, he was reasonably sure he would regret it; it was only the extent of that regret he wasn’t sure of right now. But that didn’t seem to make any difference.

      “I mean it,” he insisted.

      Draven studied Tony for a long, silent moment. Tony set his jaw and waited, knowing Draven wasn’t a man to be pushed.

      “Why?” Draven finally asked.

      Tony had prepared for that question, at least. “You know I worked with her a lot, during Beck’s case. We…got along. I’d like to help, and I’m free, with nothing on the horizon that would require me more than anyone else on the team.”

      Draven listened, looking thoughtful. If he noticed that this prosaic explanation was at odds with the inner tension Tony was feeling—and Tony had little doubt Draven would sense that, there was very little that escaped him—he didn’t comment on the fact.

      Just when Tony thought he’d blown it, and that Draven, with that preternatural instinct of his, had somehow guessed the secret Tony Alvera kept hidden from everyone, his boss slowly nodded.

      “All right. But if something in your area comes up—”

      “I understand,” Tony said, barely aware of interrupting the legendary head of Redstone Security, something few dared to do. Or had the chance to do; as he’d said, Draven wasn’t known for talking a lot.

      The size of the relief that flooded Tony at actually getting the assignment set off alarms clanging in the back of his head, but he was too thankful to pay them much heed.

      A few minutes later he was back outside the airport hangar that served as operations for Redstone Security. They had always been housed off-site, keeping a low profile away from headquarters for the most part, a strategy that paid off on those rare occasions when a Redstone operative needed to go unrecognized. Plus, the airport location made quick response times easier, when some far-flung part of the Redstone empire needed their attention.

      So you’ve got the job, he thought as he got into his car. Now what?

      He had no answer. He told himself he should simply proceed as if this were any other job. Redstone Security had a reputation for efficiency, speed and success; all he had to do was live up to that. All he had to do was keep Lilith Mercer safe. No problem.

      Never mind that he’d just volunteered to walk into a personal minefield.

      He was so going to regret this. But he had to do it. He couldn’t let anyone else take the job. Not this job. Because nobody else had a bigger stake in this than he did. Nobody else in Redstone Security was in his unique position.

      Hell, nobody else would believe he was in this position.

      Nobody would ever believe that onetime L.A. gang member, repeat juvenile offender, street-tough, tattooed Tony Alvera had been half in love with the elegant, classy, refined, beautiful and near-perfect Lilith Mercer since the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

      No, no problem at all.

Chapter 3

      Lilith felt absurd, but it was clear to her that Josh wasn’t going to back down. And when Josh Redstone was set on something, it would take more than a mere protest to shift him. Besides, with what she owed him, she would tolerate a lot worse than having someone from security hanging around to placate his fears, however unfounded they might be.

      Might, she thought, being the operative word.

      Because once she’d read the thoughts in Josh’s steady gray eyes, she’d realized she couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that there was no one who would want to hurt her.

      “Are you angry with me?”

      The quiet question from her office doorway interrupted Lilith’s unsettling thoughts. She looked up, into Liana Kiley’s troubled blue eyes.

      “No,” she said to the young woman who had rapidly become indispensable to her in the