by Elle Kennedy
She rolled her eyes. “Back to I, huh? Now that you’ve conquered your bias, we’re back to keeping me hidden away.”
“I’m just trying to keep you safe. What’s so wrong about that?”
“It’s not wrong. Just...old-fashioned. It’s the twenty-first century, Nick. Women aren’t fragile, helpless creatures that require a man to protect them. We’ve never been that way, no matter what all those big manly men wanted to believe.” She shook her head in aggravation. “Women are perfectly capable of taking on dangerous tasks, just like men. We can serve in the military, work in law enforcement, politics—”
“Are you really lecturing me on women’s lib?” Nick sounded vaguely amused.
“Just seems like you forget about it sometimes,” she answered with a shrug.
He changed lanes, making his way through the deserted streets of D.C. in the direction of their hotel.
“Darling, I have no doubt about a woman’s ability to take on the same roles as a man. Trust me, I’ve met some pretty badass women, even got my ass kicked by one during basic training.”
She grinned. “I would’ve loved to see that.” Her grin faded as a thought occurred to her, and suddenly she felt wounded. “So wait, are you saying it’s just me? You think I’m weak?”
“What? No, not at all. You’re probably the strongest woman I’ve ever met.” When he gave her a sideways look, the confusion in his brown eyes was evident. “Honestly? I don’t know why I’m so overprotective of you.”
Because you like me.
She quickly swallowed the words before they could pop out of her mouth. For some reason, Nick didn’t seem at all comfortable with his attraction to her. Which brought a prickle of offense, because, really, what was so bad about liking her? She was smart and funny and pretty and successful—any man would be lucky to have her.
So what was Nick’s problem? Was it just her job he didn’t approve of? Or maybe he didn’t like being attracted to a woman who wasn’t his usual type?
Then again, he hadn’t seemed to mind it a couple of hours ago when he’d been rocking her world....
The memory of their explosive joining sent a bolt of arousal straight to her core. God, the sex had been...thrilling. Amazing. Unexpected. Nick had been rougher than she’d thought he’d be. More intense. More passionate.
She’d loved every second of it.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Warmth spread through her as his voice broke into her thoughts. Penny for your thoughts? Gosh, who said things like that? Why did Nick Barrett have to be so effing cute?
“Sorry,” she said, “I spaced out there for a bit. Anyway, I know you feel protective of me, but I still think I should come along when you see McAvoy.”
Nick turned left onto their hotel’s street, then glanced over in reluctance. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I think it’s a great idea. My being there worked to our advantage with Waverly, remember? We could do that whole leave-the-room ploy again where you pretend you’re going to torture him but can’t do it in front of me.”
“Pretend?”
At first she thought he was teasing her, but when she looked into his eyes and saw the feral gleam there, she realized he was dead serious.
“You actually would have tortured Waverly?” she blurted out.
“Yes.”
Yes. That was it. He didn’t say another word, and Rebecca sat there in silence for a moment, trying to make sense of this man. There were so many facets to him. One minute he was sweet and chivalrous. The next, he was devouring her body like a starved man. And then in the blink of an eye, he was a deadly warrior capable of torturing another human being.
She gulped, pushing away her confusion and focusing on the matter at hand. “Well, I still think I can be an asset. McAvoy might be more willing to talk if—”
It came to her attention that Nick was no longer listening to her. His shoulders had gone rigid, his handsome profile revealing the tense line of his jaw.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Is everything all ri— Hey, you just passed the hotel. What’s going on?”
Nick turned with a grim look and said, “We’ve got company.”
Rebecca battled a spark of fear. “Are you sure?” she demanded, twisting around in her seat to peer out the back window.
She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but Nick’s body language said otherwise.
He nodded stiffly. “Positive. The black van parked on the street was the same make and model as the one that was outside the Liberty in Mala. The driver was the merc with the shaved head, and the dude reading a newspaper in that bus shelter across the street was also a mercenary.”
“How did they find us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the hotel clerk recognized one of us. You, most likely. She could’ve notified the press that you were staying there. Or maybe Mr. X paid off every hotel worker in the city to inform him if a couple matching our description checked in.”
She shot him a dubious look. “That seems like a very expensive plan.”
“Hey, I’m just throwing out suggestions here.”
Rebecca felt terrible asking her next question, but she couldn’t stop it from slipping out. “Did you tell your dad where we were staying?”
“No,” Nick said curtly, “I didn’t.”
His foot slammed harder on the gas pedal and the SUV picked up speed, zooming away from the Capitol. Rebecca stopped talking and let Nick concentrate on driving, but her brain was still trying to make sense of this latest development.
She supposed the woman at the front desk could have recognized her and phoned one of the papers with a tip that Rebecca Parker had checked into a hotel with a strange man. Everyone in D.C. was looking to make a few extra bucks, and when a scandal landed in their laps, they weren’t going to ignore it.
The alternative was far worse—Secretary Barrett had alerted the hit squad to the fact that his son was back in town.
But darn it, Rebecca had truly believed in Barrett’s innocence. There had been nothing insincere about that man.
He’s a politician, Becks. Politicians are good actors.
True, but Secretary Barrett wasn’t a typical politician. He had been a soldier first and foremost. And he was a father. A good one, if the love shining in his eyes when he’d looked at his son was anything to go by.
When Nick slowed the SUV twenty minutes later, Rebecca lifted her head to examine their surroundings. They were on the outskirts of the city, pulling into the paved lot of an L-shaped motel with a flickering blue neon sign. Capitol Hills Motel. Not exactly an apt name, seeing as how they were nowhere near the Capitol and the landscape was flatter than a pancake.
“Stay in the car,” Nick told her as he parked in front of the motel office.
He hopped out of the SUV and disappeared through the office door. Wooden blinds shielded the door and front window from view, so Rebecca couldn’t see inside. She was on edge the entire time, unable to relax until Nick strode back to the car five minutes later.
“Did the clerk get a good look at you?” she asked.
“He didn’t even get a look at me, let alone a good one. The kid’s eyes were glued to the TV over my head. We should be fine.”
Nick drove across the courtyard and parked in front of the room at the very end of the row.
“Stay here until I check it out,” he ordered, and then he was out of the SUV and approaching the chipped red door of room 14.
Through the windshield, Rebecca watched as he withdrew his pistol and kept it flat against his thigh. A flash of silver winked in the darkness. The room key, which Nick stuck into the keyhole.
He crept into the dark motel room, and less than two minutes later, he reappeared in the doorway and gave her a nod of approval.
Nodding back, Rebecca unbuckled her seat belt and slid out of the car, then waited for Nick to grab their bags from the backseat.
She’d teased him about it earlier, insisting it w
as pointless to constantly lug that duffel around instead of just leaving it in the hotel room, but now that the hotel had been compromised, she was eating her words.
They entered the motel room a minute later and Nick flicked a switch, shedding light on their shabby surroundings. The room contained a pair of twin beds, a frayed brown carpet, ugly flowered bedspreads and a minifridge that hummed like the engine of a jet plane.
“Cozy,” she said lightly.
Nick didn’t answer. He locked the door, flicked the chain, then approached the bed and dropped the duffel bag on the bedspread.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked when he didn’t say a word.
He unzipped the bag. “Send a message.”
Alarm skittered up her spine. “What does that mean?”
“It means these mercenaries are just gonna keep coming. See, Mr. X underestimates me. He thinks he can send some goon squad, they’ll take us out like that—” he snapped his fingers “—and all will be swept under the rug. Well, it’s time to prove his assumption wrong.”
Rebecca didn’t like the reckless glint in his eyes. “I’m not going to approve of this, am I?”
“Probably not.” He promptly began removing a startling amount of weapons from the duffel bag.
They’d both donned all black for their meeting with the secretary, but Rebecca thought Nick pulled off the deadly look a lot better than she did. And he looked even deadlier now that he’d put on that shoulder holster and was strapping on so many weapons she didn’t know whether to be terrified or turned-on. She was kinda digging the badass warrior thing he had going on, but at the same time, her heart was beating like crazy at the thought of Nick getting hurt.
She watched as he knelt down to slide a lethal-looking blade into his scuffed black boot. “Are you seriously going after these mercenaries all by yourself?” she said in disbelief.
“Yep.”
“Fine, then I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“Nick, I’m serious. You can’t take on a team of mercenaries by yourself!”
“Yes, I can,” he said simply.
Okay, the confidence was definitely a turn-on. And it succeeded in chipping away at some of her terror. Looking at him now, dressed in black and covered with weapons, she had no doubt that this man really could take on a mercenary squad and come out triumphant.
Without another word, Nick stalked to the door, then halted as if remembering he wasn’t alone.
“Lock the door behind me,” he said softly. “And don’t even think about leaving this room, not even to grab something from the vending machine. If you’re hungry, choke down an MRE.”
Rebecca sighed. “Is there any way I can talk you out of this?”
“Nope.” His voice came out gruff. “And, Red, if something goes wrong...if for some reason I don’t come back tonight, I want you to call Tate. Same drill as before, all right? Go to Ecuador.”
Surprise filtered through her. “You don’t want me to go to your dad?”
He shook his head. “We stick to the plan. Tate and Sebastian will make sure you’re safe, and they’ll handle the McAvoy thread, okay?”
“Okay.”
Before he could reach for the doorknob, she dashed toward him and intercepted his hand. “Wait,” she burst out.
“What is it?”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him.
After a beat, his arm came around her waist to hold her close.
“Be safe,” she whispered, resting her cheek on his broad chest.
His warm hand stroked the small of her back. “I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said huskily.
To her surprise—and pleasure—he dipped his head and dropped a quick kiss on her lips.
And then he was gone.
* * *
Nick was in warrior mode as he moved through the shadows. Unseen. Unheard. A predator closing in on its prey. It was three o’clock in the morning and the city was asleep. Not a single light was on in the residential street running parallel to the road where the hotel stood, making it easy for him to go unnoticed.
He crept along the narrow walkway between the two low-rise buildings across the street from the hotel. His initial sweep of the area had pinpointed the location of only one sniper, situated on the roof of one of these ivy-covered buildings. Ascending the fire escape took no effort at all, and then he was hauling himself over the concrete edge of the roof and landing silently on his feet.
On the other side of the roof, the black-clad mercenary lay on his belly like a snake, one eye focused on the scope of what looked like an M40 sniper rifle. Standard issue rifle in the Marine Corps, which hinted that the merc was former military.
Nick crept toward his prey, who was oblivious to the fact that he was no longer alone on the roof. It was only when Nick was a foot away that the sniper sensed his presence and abruptly twisted around. His eyes widened in surprise, his hand reached for the pistol strapped to his belt, but not fast enough.
Nick got his hands around the man’s throat and snapped his neck with an efficient crack.
One down.
No remorse. The sniper had been ordered to put a bullet in Nick’s brain. In Rebecca’s. He couldn’t risk knocking him unconscious and having the man wake up before Nick could finish sending his message.
His heartbeat remained steady as he lowered the dead sniper to the pebble-strewn rooftop. He arranged the limp body to make it appear that the man was still peering into that scope, just in case one of his merc buddies happened to glance up with a pair of field glasses. Then he descended the fire escape and locked in on his next target.
Make that two targets. Both stationed behind the hotel, one hunkered down behind a row of Dumpsters, the other positioned on higher ground, trying to camouflage himself in the trees.
Nick maneuvered through the shadows and made his way to the farther target first.
“Son of a—”
That was all the dark-skinned soldier for hire managed to get out before Nick got him in a chest lock and dragged him backward into the brush. The man was struggling too much for Nick to get a solid grip on his neck, so he swiftly drew his knife from his hip and shoved the blade into the soldier’s chest, slicing up toward the sternum to penetrate the heart.
Two down.
Lowering the body to the dirt, Nick dislodged his knife, wiped the bloodstained blade on his pant leg and headed for the Dumpsters.
Three minutes later, it was three down.
Jeez, these men were making it too damn easy for him. None of them had even seen him coming, which said a lot about their piss-poor instincts.
As he stashed the third body behind the enormous garbage bins, a crackling noise filled the air.
Crap. The merc’s radio.
“Charlie, you copy?”
More static.
Stifling a sigh, Nick reached into the dead man’s pocket and pulled out the small, compact radio. After a beat, he pressed the talk button, covering the speaker with his hand to produce a muffled response.
“Copy,” he said briskly. “No sign of them.”
He held his breath as he awaited a reply.
Another hiss of static, then “Copy that.”
Relaxing, Nick shut off the radio and tossed it on the ground. That check-in ought to buy him some time, but not much. When “Charlie” didn’t answer the next call—not to mention the other two radio-silent mercs—their buddies would undoubtedly come to investigate.
Nick followed the brick wall at the side of the hotel where steam rolled out of the vents that ran along the bottom of the building. He heard the murmur of voices beyond the service doors and quickened his pace. This next part was going to be tough. The van was parked only forty yards from the bus shelter where that soldier was not so covertly monitoring the hotel’s entrance. If the men in the van made any noise, or managed to get a shot off, the bus shelter merc would be all over him.
Thi
s had to be fast. Like ripping off a bandage.
Drawing in a steady breath, Nick sheathed his knife, withdrew his SIG and sprang into action.
He rushed the back of the van and threw open the doors, eliciting shocked curses from the three heavily armed men sitting there. Before they could raise their weapons, he pulled the trigger. Once, twice, thrice. Three pops from his silenced SIG. Three kills.
There was no time to waste and no way to approach the brightly lit bus stop unseen, which meant it was time for a full-frontal attack.
Taking another breath, Nick bounded from the cover of the van and came out running.
The mercenary at the bus shelter instantly spotted him. Dropping his newspaper, the man flew to his feet and drew a black Glock from beneath his blue windbreaker. He proceeded to fire at Nick, who ducked and zigzagged as he sprinted forward, making it difficult for the soldier to connect with his target.
Nick was five feet from the bus stop when heat streaked through his left shoulder. Ignoring the sting of pain, he charged the mercenary before the man could take aim again and knocked the Glock out of his meaty hand.
In a heartbeat, Nick had the barrel of his gun pressed against the man’s temple. “Don’t frickin’ move,” he hissed.
The other man froze.
Nick knew he didn’t have a lot of time. Despite the late hour, the bus shelter was lit up like Fort Knox, and there was a chance that a bus would pull up any second.
Keeping one arm locked around the merc’s chest, Nick jammed the muzzle of his SIG deeper into his captive’s temple and said, “Let’s not waste time. I assume there are a few more of you up in my hotel room, right? Luckily for them, I’m not in the mood to kill anyone else tonight.”
With an angry curse, the soldier attempted to bring the heel of his boot into Nick’s groin, but Nick simply shifted and tightened his hold.
“But you need to know that if I wanted to, I could kill every last one of you bastards,” he went on. “And that’s the message I want you to take back to your boss.”
The other man released another dark expletive, but he had stopped struggling. “Go ahead and kill me. Carraway will only send another team.”
Carraway. Nick filed the name away for future contemplation, then let out a chuckle.