No Love Lost (Masters & Mercenaries The Forgotten #5) - Lexi Blake Page 0,77

this was the closest he’d gotten to her. She’d been holed up in her tower. He knew it was a fort, but he’d come to think of her as a princess in a tower, hiding away from the big bad wolf.

He’d torn her apart once. Did he have any right to ask her to risk it again?

“All right, boss. I’ll send Tucker out in a car to get you. I think the boat would be risky,” Jax replied. “I’ll let Rob know you’re coming in.”

Robert was on a boat in the marina. It was a small yacht that included a bedroom and everything a person needed to hang out for days peeping up at the princess in the tower. “I’ll let Rob go back to base. I’m going to stay here in Birgu. Now that she’s left the fort I want to track her movements. Hopefully she leaves more often than she has this week.”

“Seriously?” Theo Taggart was in the flat with him. They’d been taking shifts going between Birgu and an isolated farm on the south side of the island where no one would question six Americans coming in and out with tons of equipment. And a chopper. Robert had outdone himself. “You’re going to stay in town again? How much sleep have you gotten?”

Not nearly enough, but that didn’t matter. “I’ll sleep on the boat. I’ll be fine. I would rather stay close to her.”

Theo moved in beside him. “She looks good.”

She’d looked gorgeous when she’d walked down the narrow road and strode into her little bookshop. Her hair had shone in the sunlight, but she’d had a frown on her face. “She’s worried about something.”

Even after all these years he knew her tells. She walked fast when she was worried. When she was happy, she took in the sights around her, even when they were familiar. It had been a beautiful morning and she’d been focused. He’d followed her, waiting down at the marina until she’d come through the gates that led to the fort. He now knew this area of Malta better than he knew his own Dallas neighborhood. He’d spent days studying that fort of hers, walking along the battlements and hoping he caught sight of her.

“Well, she is in hiding,” Theo pointed out. “But she’s gotten sloppy. She wasn’t even wearing a hat, and that hair of hers is a giveaway. She should have dyed it and cut it.”

He couldn’t stand the thought of her doing that. Her hair was glorious, like the woman herself. “I can’t imagine keeping up that level of security for seven years. She probably needs something that feels familiar. Did you get the report on her employee?”

“Yes,” Theo replied. “Anna Rossi. Her husband’s, too. Hutch ran them both through all our databases and they came back clean. I would bet she knows nothing about Solo’s true identity. She’s been working for the bookstore since it opened a few years back. Before then, from what we can tell, Solo didn’t have a job. Now there is one record of a Kay Bruno spending two nights in a local hospital six years ago.”

“What happened?” Even though it was years before and he knew she was safe now, his stomach still clenched at the thought of her being in a hospital.

“I don’t know. Jax is looking into it. It could also be another Kay Bruno. It’s not an uncommon name here.” Theo leaned against the wall, staring down at Beck. “Have you thought about what you’re going to say to her?”

He’d gone over and over it in his head. It kept him up at night. Even before he’d known where she was, that he might have a chance to say anything to her at all, he’d envisioned what he would say.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

“I don’t know that I’m going to say anything at all,” he replied.

Theo huffed, a disbelieving sound. “Sure. You brought us all halfway around the world so you could look in on her.”

The impulse to tell him that if he didn’t want to be here, he could leave, was right there. But he knew now that his defensiveness had everything to do with his own insecurity and likely nothing with Theo’s willingness to help. “I worry I could do more harm than good if I approach her.”

Honesty. That was what he was going for now. If honesty made him vulnerable, then he had to deal with it because being dishonest with himself had led to hurting the people he