Shock Waves by Jenna Mills Read Free Book Online Page A

game seduced. “The one who’s in grave danger?”
    “The danger is real.”
    That was true. But Ethan knew something she did not, something Jorak did not. Ethan knew this so-called abduction was no abduction at all, but a long-awaited invitation. The other man thought he was in control, but the ace belonged to Ethan.
    She handed him her glass of champagne, untouched by her mouth. “I believed what I read about you,” she said. “I believed the bit about dedicating your life to truth and justice.”
    “And now?” he asked, sipping from her glass.
    She pushed the hair from her face. “The man I thought you were wouldn’t attack without justification.” She paused, swallowed. “He wouldn’t condemn me, pronounce me guilty, before announcing the charge, giving me a chance to defend myself.”
    Her words, quietly spoken as always, landed hard. Admiration bled through. “You’re right,” he said, ignoring the twisting deep inside. “I’m a prosecutor. I deal in fact and evidence, how the pieces fit together to create the truth.”
    “And just what is the truth?” she asked. “What is it you think I’ve done?”
    “You call me for days, requesting a meeting, telling me it’s important. You show up tonight, knowing things you shouldn’t—” The limousine’s speed slowed. Ethan swung toward one of the darkly tinted windows, saw no lights on either side. Wherever the men were taking them, it wasn’t populated. “You tell me Jorak is alive when the government thinks he’s dead.” He checked his watch, found the hour well after ten. “You tell me the vendetta is personal. That something bad is about to happen.”
    “Something bad is,” she said quietly.
    He made a sound low in his throat, the laugh his sister Lizzie called dangerous. “Depends upon how you define bad,” he muttered as the limo turned right and rapidly accelerated. “The bit about the detective was especially brilliant.”
    Through the dim lighting, she blinked. “Dave?”
    He sipped deeply from her champagne. “I didn’t recognize the name, not at first.” Just a low buzz of familiarity, the mosquitolike gnawing that he was forgetting something important. “But while I was running I remembered.”
    He had her attention now. She’d even scooted closer, leaving little of the cushy leather seat separating her black jeans-covered thigh from his loosely fitting shorts. “Remembered what?”
    In a courtroom, this is when he would smile, let his appreciation of victory shine through. But he could find no pleasure in what he’d remembered. “Brinker, right? Dave Brinker.”
    Brenna did smile. It was a slow transformation, all the grim lines and dire warnings washed away by a suffusion of warmth. Like a sunrise, he thought in some ridiculous corner of his mind. Subtle, unstoppable, seductive as hell.
    “You know him?” The question came out on a rush, and when Ethan said nothing, just watched her, her eyes went wide. Dark. Anticipation thickened the cool air blowing against them. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”
    Ethan let out a rough breath, not at all sure why he suddenly felt like a man about to utter the death sentence in front of a criminal’s entire family. “I know him,” he said, and the hoarseness to his voice caught him by surprise. “I knew him.”
    The light, the color and vitality, the hope, drained from her face. “Knew?”
    That twist inside, the one he’d felt earlier, the one he was working to ignore, tightened another notch. “Are you saying you don’t know?”
    “Know what?”
    “That your good detective swallowed the barrel of his service revolver six months ago.” The second the words left his mouth, sickness slid from the back of his throat to his stomach. He’d spat the words like a skillful counterattack, but shame quickly filled the void. He found no glory in recounting the other man’s tragic death.
    Her lips parted. “No,” she whispered. “That can’t be.”
    “Why would I