Page 47 of The Reluctant Siren
“Brother,” Ben began.
Jensen cursed under his breath.
Jensen’s cover was blown. Years of work gone in an instant.
Niall was strangely comforted at the thought. Not thethought of an assassin, but that Jensen couldn’t go back. How long had he beenin this strange limbo where he was constantly waiting to hear his oldest friendwas dead and he was alone? It had been a tension he’d gotten so used to that hehadn’t realized it was there.
Of course now he had to worry about assassins. And Harlow’sdads, because he was pretty sure that just because Ben seemed reasonable didn’tmean he wouldn’t stab a dude he thought was hurting his daughter. That wasactually a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Chase growled his brother’s way and then sighed. “Fine. Weneed to talk about where we’re going to stash our daughters. I want Greer withus, too. If they find out about her sister, all they have to do is take her andthen Harlow turns herself in, so we’re all going off the grid. Ian, do youthink your cabin in Colorado is safe enough or should we find somewhere else?”
Jensen’s head tilted, talking quietly out of the side of hismouth. “Harlow is going to lose her shit. This is her worst nightmare. She’llhave to shut down her business, and she won’t know when her father will loosenthe leash. She’ll go crazy.”
A bad plan started to form in his head. A plan that wouldmean Harlow’s deranged dad would likely hate him, too. Maybe that was a way torebond with his best friend. Having their girlfriend’s dad loathe them bothcould be a good shared experience for them. “You hid the house, right? When youdecided to go after Tommy’s killer, you put the house under another name,right?”
“I was careful. There’s no way anyone can trace the house tome. Up until a few weeks ago, my aunt handled the whole thing. I let her livethere after my mom passed. All the bills were in her name, though I had tostart paying them when she moved out.” Jensen looked to Ian, who was busyexplaining what he called cabin rules to the twins. “Mr. Taggart, who is thehit on?”
Ian stood, putting his cell down. “According to Ruby it wasyou and Harlow.”
“The name,” Jensen corrected. “When I decided to goundercover, I hired a hacker, one I trusted. Niall and I knew her from our Armydays. She wiped Jensen Wiley off the books and replaced him with Jay Wilson.That’s the name I’ve been going by for years.”
Jack glanced down at his cell. “That’s the name on the list.I’ll ask my cyber team to dig deeper and see if there’s anything out there.”
“Please don’t.” Niall stepped forward. “I would like to keepJensen’s name off the FBI’s list. I’m not saying he won’t give you all theinformation he has…”
“Hey,” Jensen began.
Niall was going to ignore him for now. “…but I would preferhis actual name isn’t searchable on any database.”
Jensen huffed but Niall spoke his language. It was agrudging acceptance of the truth that Niall was trying to help him. It waspermission to continue.
Jack sighed and seemed to think the situation over. “I wouldlike to see what you have. How long have you been embedded in theorganization?”
“Three years, give or take,” Jensen replied.
A bullshit answer since he was absolutely certain Jensenknew to the day how long he’d been in hell.
“I’ll keep quiet for now, but you have to know it’s going tocome out,” Jack explained.
“I would rather it came out after Hamilton is in jail,”Niall admitted.
“Well, it doesn’t matter to us what you do since Harlow’sname is out there.” Chase looked to Jack. “Any idea how that happened? I knowshe wouldn’t have used her real name.”
“Of course I didn’t, but it wouldn’t be hard to ID me withfacial recognition.” Harlow stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over herchest. Her mom had joined Ben, running her arm through his and leaning on himas though she needed comfort.
Which she probably did since her daughter was being targetedby a criminal organization.
“What matters is they know your name and that means they canget to any of us,” Chase said. “So we’re going to head to Ian’s cabin inColorado for a while.”
Harlow’s eyes went wide. “We?”
Chase squared off with his daughter. “Yes, we. I’m notsending you off with some bodyguard when your papa and I can handle it.”
“I’ll let my friends in town know why you’re there,” Ianexplained, texting on his phone. “They’ll keep a watch out for any strangerswho show up. It’s not high tourist season so it should be fairly easy to do.”
“I can’t leave my business,” Harlow argued.
“You can and you will.” Her dad was obviously not giving in.“This is one step too far. Do you know how this is going to affect yoursister?”
