What mattered most, he’d discovered, was not the adventure of cheating death, but the serenity of being back home. He’d lived out of the country for years and then back in the United States only when he hadn’t thought he could take it any longer. Any time he’d come nearer to home, or had sneaked in to take peeks at his family, the heaviness in his chest had decreased.
This was no different. Yes, he was being hunted, but he was with his family. That made this whole ordeal easier. Finally, he turned away from the window and looked at his brothers, who were leaning over Bill’s desk, looking at a paper he’d laid out.
“We can do this,” he said. His tone was hushed, but it caught the attention of the four other men in the room. They looked up and waited.
“I’m not going to stand around and wait for this man to destroy what I want to build. Let’s hear your plan, Bill,” he said. He moved to stand beside his brothers.
“All righty, then,” Bill said with his smirk smile. “We’re going to use you for bait.”
No one said a thing. A pin dropping on a vat full of cotton could have been heard. Maybe Ace should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. His lips turned up as he looked at Bill and nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
Ace tuned out his brothers’ protesting voices. They didn’t believe this was the wisest plan. It was the only way they were going to draw Nestor out, though. The man was very good at hiding behind his goons, but the chance to personally get at Ace would be too much for him to resist. He’d have to show his face—and then this would end.
He was ready—he was more than ready, in fact. He actually felt damn good about what was going to happen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Dakota stood in the cottage, not a muscle moving in her entire body as she listened to Ace try to explain how putting himself in danger wasn’t the most idiotic plan she’d ever heard in her entire life. She schooled her expression, not wanting him to see how upset she was, afraid if she showed it he wouldn’t finish telling her what his plans were.
There wouldn’t be a way for her to stop him from acting the utter fool if she didn’t know what was going on. She’d learned that much from growing up with brothers who were bred to be idiots. She’d identified their idiocy by the time she was three.
When she was sure Ace had finished his entire explanation, Dakota hugged herself, her body tense. It was either that or she feared she was going to come unglued and smack the guy in the head for being such an idiot.
“No.” Just the one word slipped from her lips. Ace looked at her, clearly not understanding.
“What do you mean?” he asked. He was finally tuning in to her body language. For such an observant guy, he could sure be clueless sometimes.
“This is a foolish plan that only leads to you getting yourself killed,” she told him. Now she wasn’t even trying to hide her worry or fear. He’d told her his plans, and she’d told him they sucked.
Ace slowly moved toward her, afraid she might bolt. It was very dangerous for him to come toward her right now. She might just have to tie him down and not let him go anywhere.
Ace cupped her cheek as he looked into her eyes, utter confidence shining from his crystal-clear green depths. His confidence and independence were some of his best qualities, but at this moment, she would rather he not have quite so much arrogance.
; “He won’t kill me, Dakota. I’m not going to let it happen,” Ace told her. “I know his family, know how they operate. This was a four-year mission for me, the most dangerous one by far. I might not have known Nestor was a part of the family, but I know what he was taught, because I learned everything about each and every one of the other family members. His overconfidence will be his undoing.”
“Or your own might be yours,” she told him.
“You have too little faith in me,” he said.
Dakota didn’t cry often, but she felt the sting of tears in her eyes as he spoke to her. She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight as she pushed back the urge to cry. That wasn’t going to help the situation at all.
“It’s not about having faith in you. It’s about you trying to be a hero. I want you to be the man who is safe and sound, not the one stepping into gunfire,” she told him.
“I can’t be that man, Dakota, not for anyone. I couldn’t live with myself,” he said. His hand was weaving through her hair, and the gentle caress contrasted sharply with his words. His denial confused her.
“You are that man with me. You have done nothing but be a good man,” she said.
“That’s because you bring it out in me. You make me think of things I’ve never imagined before. But please don’t ask me to be anything other than who I am,” he said, his words almost sounding like a plea.
“I just want you to have a healthy fear of the man and the situation,” she said.
“The man is a coward beneath it all,” Ace assured her. “He hides behind his family name, behind the stolen weapons and drug money, and behind the goons he hires to do his dirty work. The only way to draw him out is to wound his pride. I don’t fear cowards,” Ace said, his voice tight. “I can’t turn my back on this.”
Dakota had been holding herself so tightly, she began to tremble in his arms. She would never respect a man who asked her to be anything other than who she was, so how could she ask him to change who he was? She couldn’t. She just wished she’d maybe started to fall in love with an accountant. Life with an accountant would never stress her out this way. Boredom was looking pretty dang appealing at the moment.