Page 65 of Reckless

Kate Walker likely had those answers, and without a doubt, Jazz would want to confront her. He wouldn’t blame her, but that didn’t mean she should forge ahead without caution. She wasn’t fully recovered, and she was still in danger, whether she wanted to acknowledge either of those things or not.

While he and Jazz had taken these days for themselves, Ash and the team had been hard at work, trying to find the bastard responsible for her abduction. So far, they’d come up with a thousand possibilities and no real leads.

“Xavier…earth to Xavier.”

He looked over his shoulder to find Jazz standing at the door of his office, grinning. “What? Did you say something?”

“I’ve been calling your name for the past five minutes.”

He quirked a brow. “Five minutes?”

“Well, okay, not that long. But at least a minute. Where’s your mind?”

“Just thinking about some things.”

The light in her eyes dimmed. “Something happened? You got new intel?”

“No, and that’s the problem. This guy in Chicago. He shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

“What about the prints at the kennel?”

“Serena said most of them were too smudged to come up with anything decent. Her people are still working on them, but she’s not optimistic.”

“Nothing else on the dead guy?”

That had been one of the easier questions to answer. Kip Warring had been a local thug who’d hired himself out to various people, many associated with the Irish mob. But from what they could find, he hadn’t attached himself to any group full time. The other man Jazz had shot was still a mystery. No unknown dead bodies had turned up with a chest wound. No one had checked into a nearby ER for treatment. Whatever had happened to him, he was either lying low, or he was dead and hadn’t been discovered yet.

“The camera feed? She wasn’t able to trace it?”

“No, it got cut off, and the line was corrupted.”

“The good thing is that even though the main guy is still out there, there’s no way he can figure out where I am now.”

“True, but we need to find him. He can’t get away with what he did. Plus, he’s never going to stop looking.”

“I’ve been thinking about why he would want me. He knew my name. I don’t use my real name for anything. Even my car is registered under an alias.”

Even though he was glad she was feeling stronger and was ready to fully discuss why she’d been taken, Xavier didn’t know if he was ready. What lay ahead was going to hurt Jazz, and he’d do anything to keep that from happening.

“My apartment, credit cards, driver’s licenses, passports—they’re all in different names and can’t be traced back to Jasmine McAlister. And when the old guy said my name, he was very smug, as if he knew I’d be shocked that he knew it.” She frowned and shook her head. “Unless this goes back to when Brody and I ran away from Arthur. But that was two decades ago. He can’t still be alive.”

“Arthur Kelly is dead. Serena tracked him down a while ago. He’s been gone for years.”

She froze in front of him as awareness entered her eyes. Instead of asking questions about the man who’d abused both her and her brother when they were kids, she honed in on one thing only. “You’ve been keeping things from me.”

“You didn’t need to?—”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I can’t believe what an idiot I’ve been. I knew everyone was working on this back at OZ, but how stupid of me not to consider that you would keep any leads or intel from me.” Her fingers went up in air quotes as she added sarcastically, “For my own good.” Her eyes narrowed accusingly. “Did you take that responsibility on yourself? Keeping things from me? Or is everyone in on it?”

Xavier snorted. “It’s not a conspiracy, Jazz. If I thought there was anything I could tell you that would help identify the bastard who did this, I would have told you. You needed this time to recover.”

She took a few more seconds to just glare at him, likely hoping to guilt him into spilling his guts. When that didn’t work, she crossed her arms in front of her in a move he knew all too well. Jazz in her most stubborn, most defiant pose. “Very well. I have recovered. It’s time to tell me what you know.”

Well, hell.

Jazz ground her teeth to keep from spewing more anger at Xavier. She knew his protection came from a good place. Arrogance? Yes, without a doubt, but also from his heart. He cared about her and wanted to keep her from harm. However, that should never, ever include not telling her the things she needed, and deserved, to know.

“This no-secrets things we agreed to—I didn’t know it was one-sided.”

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