Hunting for Honey - THE SPECTER SERIES [book one]

Chapter EIGHTEEN: The Sharks

Archer West

I've been dropped behind enemy lines with nothing but a clip and a pistol..
I've faced down armed hostiles in combat..
I've stood toe to toe with some of the biggest, baddest criminals in several countries...

But none of that compares to the nerves I feel as I lift my hand to knock on the stark white door in front of me..

When Jackson told me Honey wanted to see me, I didn't exactly believe him..
The betrayal I saw in her eyes when she kicked me out the other day, has haunted my thoughts ever since..

I've never met another whose presence is as addictive as Honey's.. Tender and tolerant one minute, tough and direct the next.. Her every word spoken with razor sharp intelligence and her every movement intuitive.. She's like a delicate flower forged from steel, sweet and fine, yet so sharpened and fierce.. I find myself more and more entranced by her captivating charm, each and every time I see her..

I just cant get enough..

Still, the fact that I hurt her eats away at me, so I had done the only thing I know how to do.. The only thing I'm good at.. I focused on the task at hand, spending the week tracking the hitman Asher had sent after Honey.. Leaving Patrick and Jackson to watch over her.

The hitman had turned out to be Russian gangster, Nikita Drackov, who had several connections to Brian Asher and a black market gun smuggling ring that new reports have been surfacing on..

Iris's theory is that when Honey reported the financial discrepancies, Asher had gotten spooked and tried to cover it up by having Honey taken out.
Because of this reasoning, Iris has issued the command for me to return Honey to her normal life..

But my theory is a little different.. I think the hit on Honey was green-lit long before those reports were filed..
I think Honey is somehow the key to the encrypted messages Alex had sent me during the days leading up to his death..

And Drackov knows it..

Something the Russian thug had said when I apprehended him; "The pretty girl will bring you nothing but trouble, my friend.."
Sure it's a pretty generic bad guy thing to say.. But something about the devil's smirk he'd given me when he said it..
It felt like real warning.. A threat..

When trying to voice my concerns to Iris, she'd dismissed them, "West you're not thinking straight," She had said, "you can't keep Honey locked up in that safehouse forever!
All intelligence shows Asher has gone to ground somewhere outside the city, he poses no immediate threat.. With Drackov in holding, there's no reason to waste the skills of Alpha team on babysitting her."
Typical Iris, always thinking of the bottom line, crossing t's and dotting i's..

To say I had been pissed would be an understatement.. I definitely still saw Asher as a threat..
But Iris is the boss for a reason and I happen to know first hand that arguing with her is pointless...

So here I am, about to throw Honey to the sharks by doing the only thing I can think of to keep her safe.. By telling her everything...I rap softly against the door with my knuckles..