Rules In Deceit. Nichole Severn

      “I STILL CAN’T believe it.” Braxton couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Someone had tried to kill the woman he vowed to protect, but it was more than that. Adrenaline drained from his veins in small increments, but not enough to clear his head.

      Wow. Liz was pregnant. And he was the father. She’d told him before the explosion, but he hadn’t been able to process that until now. It’d been kind of hard to think when the bullets were flying. Reaction—that was what he was good at. But…he was going to be a father. A smile threatened to overwhelm his features, pure joy exploding through him.

      “Someone just tried to kill us. Twice. Can we please focus on that?” The weight of her attention pinned him against his seat from the rearview mirror. “I think we have bigger problems to talk about.”

      “I think the fact you’re pregnant is pretty big.” He swayed with the SUV as she wound through neighborhoods, around strip malls and into the edges of the city. Days of staying off the grid, months of grueling physical training, years of working for the NSA…none of it had prepared him for this. A baby. He compressed the safety button on the stolen gun and set it beside him on the seat. They were going to have a baby. “Might as well not have used protection at all.”

      “Yeah, apparently, latex wasn’t strong enough for your swimmers.” A hint of a smile played across her mouth, the first softening of her guard since he set sights on her in the conference room. “If you’re thinking about asking me whether or not I’m sure the baby is yours, I’ll save you the time. Yes, Braxton, she’s yours. No, Braxton, I haven’t been with anybody else since the night you took me to bed then disappeared without a word. And, yes, I’m keeping the baby. I plan to raise her on my own without help. Any other questions?”

      “It’s a girl?” He ran his palms over the baseball cap and interlaced his fingers at the crown of his head. He turned away from her, surveying the curve of the street but not really seeing where they were. The muscles across his back strained under the self-induced pressure. He didn’t know what else to say, what to think. They were having a girl?

      “I found out the sex a couple days ago.” The vulnerability in her voice compelled him to face her again, but she’d turned her gaze back to the road. Snow and ice kicked up along the SUV. She rolled her lips between her teeth. “This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out. I tried to find you, but four months is a long time waiting for you to come back. Figured you’d moved on and I could do the same. When I got tired of the NSA interrogating me about your whereabouts, I changed my name in every federal database I could hack and relocated.”

      He’d known about her search effort but ultimately decided to stay away. It’d been the hardest decision of his life and the only way to keep her safe. Until four days ago when he’d learned about Dalton Meyer’s murder and that Oversight’s feeds had been hacked. Until he’d uncovered the program’s surveillance logs. Someone had put her in their crosshairs.

      Intense pressure built behind his sternum as she took a sharp left. The city came into focus for the first time since Braxton had gotten in the vehicle. A familiar line of bare trees surrounding Fairview Lions Park cut off his air. A good foot of snow covered the all-too-familiar horseshoe pit and most of the green and purple playground where he’d spent countless nights as a kid after his father had lost the house to the bank. Right there, under the small rock wall. He forced his attention back to the rearview mirror as a group of homeless made their way down the street, back to her, his anchor. No point in studying the weathered faces as they passed. His old man had most likely died from his addictions a long time ago. Wasn’t important. The past was dead, and he sure as hell would make sure it stayed that way. “Did you also figure moving here was enough to keep me from finding you?”

      “I’d accepted you weren’t coming back.” Liz cocked her head. “In retrospect, I guess Anchorage had been on my mind since you told me you’d never step foot in this city again. It’d worked until an hour ago.” She glanced at him—almost too fast for him to catch it—then back to the road. “You never told me how you managed to find me.”

      “You’re predictable. I knew you’d never change your first name.” Not after what she’d told him about her mother and the long line of Elizabeths in her family. “As for your new last name, I remembered your favorite TV show growing up. Wasn’t hard to sift through the short list of Elizabeth Dawsons and track you down from there.”

      Nothing would’ve stopped him from finding her.

      “I’ll keep that in mind next time.” Her knuckles tightened over the steering wheel. There wouldn’t be a next time. Not if he had anything to say about it. She turned the SUV east, leaving the park and memories he’d worked hard to bury behind. “So are you going to tell me where this safe house of yours is or are we going to drive around all night?”

      “Make one more loop around the neighborhood.” Braxton studied the cars behind them. They hadn’t been followed. Whoever had taken shots at them in the parking garage probably hadn’t been able to make it past the wall of police officers and emergency personnel surrounding the building. At least, not in a hurry. On top of that, her team had seen them race from the scene. His pulse hammered at the base of his skull, and he wiped at the dried patches of blood along his forehead. He should’ve known the bastard would come at her at Blackhawk Security. As far as he’d been able to tell over the last few days, that was where she’d spent most of her time. Day and night. Protecting her clients just as she’d protected millions of lives during her contract work for the NSA. And now with a baby. “Have you told your team?”

      “No. Not yet.” Her shoulders rose on an audible inhale. Hesitation tightened the cords running down her neck. She made another turn, seemingly refusing to look back at him. “I was thinking of telling Sullivan about the baby today, but then someone blew up the conference room and it sort of slipped to the back of my mind.”

      A laugh escaped from his control. She always did have a way of downplaying stressful situations with sarcasm. “Understandable.”

      “I work in network security now.” Liz ran a hand through her hair and levered her elbow against the driver’s side door. “My clients come to me to assess their firewalls, encrypt the information on their servers, basically make their networks unhackable. I analyze shell corporations and perform background checks for everyone on my team. I can’t think of a single person who would want me dead.”

      “All I know is someone tried to kill you back there.” He wouldn’t discount the possibility the threat was tied to Blackhawk Security. They had to consider all the angles. Past, present, someone invested in the outcome of the firm’s military and private contracts. The list of suspects with the kind of knowledge and training that shooter had to have was endless, but military training was a definite. He needed access to her client files. “And I’m not going to let them succeed.”

      “Do you think this could be linked to my contract with the NSA?” Her voice wavered. To someone who hadn’t memorized every inflection, every emotion, it would’ve gone unnoticed. But not to him. He knew her inside and out, down to a cellular level. Even with filtered moonlight coming through the SUV’s tinted windows, he noted the color draining from her face. Hell. The nightmares. How could he have forgotten about her damn nightmares? Her throat worked to swallow. “Maybe a family member or someone who’d gotten a look at the files?”

      Her fear slid through him, and his body reacted automatically. Ready for battle to protect what was his. One breath. Two. “You still have nightmares.”

      Not a question. He was there during