Ultimate Risk (R.I.S.C. Book 6)

by Anna Blakely

  He let out a low curse. “That’s it. You’re going to the hospital.”

  “I can’t go to the hospital, Sean.” She winced at her own raised voice. “A hospital will only lead to questions.” Mac glanced down at Luca’s dead body. “Questions we really don’t want to have to answer.”

  “I hate to admit it, but she’s right.” Trevor agreed. “I’ll call Ryker. I’m sure he’s got some people nearby who can help with this mess.”

  Coop glanced at Mac then back at his other teammate. “What about her?”

  They knew what he was asking. If they got Homeland involved, Ryker would find out about Mac’s real identity. Something like that could get her banned from ever working with them again, which meant ruining her career with R.I.S.C.

  “It’s okay,” Mac answered for Trevor. “Ryker knows about me.” With a sideways glance, she looked at Luca and back to him. “He knows everything.”

  Her eyes skittered away from his but not before he caught the shame and uncertainty there. She knew he’d heard everything she and Marino had talked about before he and Trevor got to the room. The conversation ran through his mind again.

  Mac hadn’t said the actual words, but she didn’t have to. He knew what the fucker had tried to do to her when she was a teenager.

  On the edge of losing his shit, Coop turned away and faced Trevor. “I’m gonna go look for the shooter.” His voice came out emotionless and flat. “Make the phone call and stay with Mac until I get back. And I still want her checked out!”

  “Be careful.”

  Her soft words seemed to fill the thick air around them as he walked out of the room. Coop didn’t turn back around, though. If he did, if he looked into her eyes and saw even a glimpse of what had been there just now, there was no telling what he’d do.

  Not because he blamed her for what happened back then. Fuck no. He blamed himself for letting her go into the house alone.

  As her partner—and her lover—he damn well should’ve stayed by her side. Or at the very least, he should’ve made sure either he or Trevor stayed in the front of the property rather than splitting up to check the sides and back.

  Leaving the front entrance unmanned was a fucking newbie mistake. One that nearly cost him everything.

  To make matters worse, when he saw all that blood and that she wasn’t moving, he thought she’d been hit. For those few, short seconds, Coop believed his entire world was bleeding out in front of him.

  It was all too damn much.

  With his gun secured in his fist, he made his way outside and across the street. With his head on a constant swivel, he kept a close eye on his surroundings, ready to act at the first sign of a threat.

  As he walked through the thick foliage, he tried not to think about what had transpired in that fucking house. Blocking it out, he concentrated on finding the shooter or any evidence he may have left behind.

  Twenty minutes later, he returned to the house having found nothing more than a spent casing and a trail leading to the road on the opposite side of the trees.

  When he didn’t see an ambulance in the driveway, he clenched his jaw together and stormed into the house. He found his teammates standing in the home’s entryway.

  “Where the fuck is EMS?”

  “We didn’t call them.”

  Coop glared at Trevor. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because I don’t need a damn ambulance, Coop. I already told you, I’m fine.”

  “Yeah? How much medical training have you had?”

  “The same as you.”

  So not much. “Exactly.”

  “But I’ve had plenty,” Trevor spoke up, pointing to himself. “Team medic, remember? I ran the basic tests, and I’m confident she’s all right. Mac got her bell rung pretty hard and has a bump on her head, but she shows no signs of a concussion.”

  “Basic tests.”

  Mac stepped forward, arms crossed tightly at her chest. “Seriously, Sean. I’m. Fine.”

  Coop looked deep into her eyes. After several seconds of intense studying, he realized Trevor was right. There were no signs of unequal pupils, and from the way she was shooting daggers at him, her eyes were definitely reactive.

  He was glad to see some of her fire had returned.

  “All right. But the first sign of worsening symptoms, I’m taking you to a damn hospital. I don’t care if I have to drag your ass kicking and screaming.”

  Those pissed off eyes rolled. “Did you find anything?”

  “Found this.” He held up the spent casing. “Looks clean, so I doubt we’ll find any prints. Whoever killed Marino pulled the trigger once and took off to the road on the other side of the trees. You guys call Ryker yet?”

  “Yeah.” Trevor nodded. “He’s sending in a team to handle the clean-up. Said with Marino’s background and the recent death of the Moretti crime boss, this was most likely a mob hit.”

  Coop considered this. “Rival mafia?”

  “I’m sure that’s how it’ll play out. We won’t know for sure unless or until we identify the shooter.”

  “He’s right.” Mac looked over at him. “I was alone in the office for a few minutes before Luca came in. I stood in the exact spot he was in when he got shot. You and I both know it takes time to climb a tree, get into position, calculate distance and wind and hone in on a target before ever pulling the trigger.”

  “They were already in place.” Coop muttered. “Waiting for Marino.”

  Trevor shrugged. “Unless they missed their target. Mac, where was Luca standing when you two first started talking?”

  “By the doorway. I was in front of the desk when I heard him come in. I pulled my gun and spun around. I was in the way, sort of, but I’m also much shorter than him. Shooter could’ve taken him out at any point in time and I probably would’ve been okay.”

  “But he didn’t.” Trevor walked through it out loud. “He waited until you were completely out of the line of fire to take Marino out.”

  “I wasn’t right next to Luca, but Coop was. Hell, he was still holding onto the guy’s shirt when Luca was shot. That bullet could easily have hit him.” Her hesitant eyes landed on his as a visible shiver ran over her.

  He stared back at her. “One shot, one kill.”

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, frowning.

  “That the shooter was professionally trained.”

  Mac nodded, following his train of thought. “Like someone with prior military experience.”

  Trevor hopped back in. “We can cross-reference any of Moretti’s known associates, as well as any known rivals with military records. See what we come up with.”

  Coop shrugged. “Not a lot to go on, but it’s a start.

  “We’ve already wiped down anything the three of us touched and I called Derek. He knows everything now, and I told him he may as well go ahead and fill Grant in, too.”

  Coop knew that couldn’t have been easy for her, but at this point she didn’t have much choice.

  “What did D say?”

  “He told me to text him when we leave so he can go in and fix the home’s security feed. Said it’ll be like we were never here.”

  He couldn’t help but grin. West was a former SEAL and Alpha Team’s technical analyst. Labeled a literal genius, there wasn’t much the guy couldn’t accomplish when it came to computers. After all these years, the things Derek could do with a keyboard still amazed him.

  “You find anything on Marino that could tie him to the blackmail?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I used his thumb to unlock his phone and go through his texts. Lots of talk about business deals and chatter the feds will definitely be interested in but nothing about the two mill. Or me, for that matter.” Mac got quiet before adding, “I don’t think it was him.”

  “Because…” Coop let his voice trail off.

  “For one, he’s currently missing half his brain.”

  “We already said the shooting could’ve been unrelated.”
<
br />   “True.” She nodded. “The guy was clearly an asshole, and considering the kind of business he was in, he most definitely had people who’d love to see him dead. But my gut’s telling me otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, he was an asshole of epic proportion and got exactly what he deserved. But he wasn’t the one who lured me here.”

  She sounded confident, but Coop needed to know. “How can you be so sure?”

  “You heard the conversation. He denied knowing anything about the money. I had my gun pointed straight at his heart and he didn’t waver in his claim. Not once.”

  “If not him”—Coop pondered—“then who?”

  Mac raised a brow. “That’s the two-million-dollar question.”

  Mac wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and stared at her reflection.

  She’d run a brush through her damp hair, the long strands hanging over one shoulder. The blood she hadn’t been able to clean off before leaving her uncle’s house had finally been washed away. Other than the slight bruising on her forehead and neck, and a slight bump on the back of her head, there were no outward indications she’d fought a man twice her size today.

  A man who, minutes later, was dead.

  I wanted to be the one to kill him.

  She should be disgusted with herself for having such a thought, but like her uncle had taught her long ago…some people deserved to die.

  Before she turned sixteen, the idea of taking another human life had been utterly appalling. No matter what a person did, it wasn’t her place to serve as judge, jury, and executioner.

  She’d believed that, too. Straight down to her core. Until her uncle put a gun to her head and she saw Luca pull that trigger.

  After that, she knew her father’s brother had spoken the truth. Later that same night, those words were locked inside her memory forever.

  So much changed for Mac that day. In an instant, she’d grown stronger. Much wiser than her sixteen years. She’d also realized the only person she could rely on was herself.

  Until she met Sean Cooper.

  The scene where he’d ripped Luca off her and began beating him to a pulp had been playing through her mind since they left her uncle’s house. Over and over again, she saw him in her mind’s eye, racing into that room with the sole purpose of saving her. And he had.

  Coop saved her, but then he’d left because he couldn’t stand to look at her any longer.

  Sure, he’d made eye contact later, after he’d come back from looking for the shooter. But that was only because they’d been discussing the situation and debating their next step and where they’d go from here.

  It was the way he’d looked while they’d still been in her uncle’s office that was burned into her soul. She’d watched him shut down, could see it happen right before her very eyes.

  Everything about him changed after hearing her conversation with Luca. His voice went flat and the light in his eyes had grown dark. He could barely look at her, and she didn’t have to wonder why.

  He knows everything now.

  They all did.

  After they left her uncle’s home, Coop had insisted she ride with Trevor back to the hotel. He claimed he needed to get gas and wanted her to get to the safety of the hotel without stopping.

  As far as excuses went, it was plausible, but Mac knew the truth. He didn’t want to be alone with her. Not in the car, probably not ever again.

  A tear escaped, the silver streak falling over the rise of her cheekbone. Mac did nothing to stop it. Nor did she wipe away the others that followed.

  I’ve ruined everything.

  In spite of her desperation to escape her family’s evil ways, the second she made the choice to run away from her uncle, to take his money and become someone else, she’d sealed her fate.

  Coop was always too good for someone like her. Always would be. Like her uncle once told her, killing was in her blood.

  Sure, the killing she’d done in the Army and with R.I.S.C. was different. It was government-sanctioned, justified in the eyes of the law.

  But today, when she’d been pointing her gun at Luca, it had taken everything in her not to pull that trigger. Not because she felt her life was threatened. Not because he was some terrorist on Homeland’s Most-Wanted list.

  Because she believed in her heart, he deserved to die for all he’d done.

  When she’d regained consciousness and realized someone else had done what she’d wanted to do, the only thing she felt was disappointment. She still felt it because she should’ve been the one to kill him.

  It should’ve been me.

  That unwavering belief—and so much more—was how Mac knew she’d never be the kind of woman Coop needed. Or the kind of partner and teammate he deserved.

  Doing her best to accept what that realization meant, Mac lifted her chin and wiped her face dry. She’d reinvented herself once before. She could do it again.

  With one final, acknowledging glance in the mirror, she shut off the light and left the bathroom.

  Wearing nothing but a towel, Mac was reaching for the pajama set she’d laid out to wear to bed when someone knocked softly on her door.

  She froze, her heart began pounding a little harder. Two seconds later, the knocking came again, this time with a little more force.

  Despite what she’d just been thinking, Mac couldn’t help but feel hopeful as her bare feet padded across the plush carpet. Filling her lungs, she held her breath as she rose onto her tiptoes to look through the door’s tiny peephole.

  She dropped back down, drawing in several more calming breaths before sliding the chain guard free and releasing the thick lock above the handle. When she opened the door, she found someone she barely recognized.

  Even in the most serious of times, Coop’s joy and passion for life was always present. From the moment they first met, he’d always had this way about him. A perpetual light that flickered behind his fun-loving eyes.

  Staring back at him now, Mac’s heart began to break when she realized she couldn’t see any of that, anymore.

  “We need to talk.” His deep voice rumbled, rolling through her like an imminent storm.

  Having a pretty good idea what he was going to say—what he had every right to say—she schooled her expression and nodded. “Okay.”

  She pulled the door completely open, willing herself not to react to his spicy male scent as he passed. It was bad enough he looked like the most heavenly sin, did he have to smell so freaking good, too?

  Coop stormed into the room, his steps determined and sure. Mac’s heart ached with the loss she knew was coming as she shut the door, not bothering to engage the locks. After all, telling her to kick rocks probably wouldn’t require much time.

  This was the day she’d been dreading since they first met. But she’d made this bed of nails. Time for her to suck it up and deal.

  Turning away from the door, Mac flinched at the expression on his face. Gorgeous, hazel eyes stared her down. At first glance they appeared cold, but when she looked closer, she realized they were actually engulfed in a fierce, tumultuous fire.

  Anger in his hardened features left his jaw clenched to the point of breaking, the tightened muscles there matching the white-knuckled fists at his sides.

  Oh, yeah. He’s pissed.

  “Look, Sean.” Mac started to move past him, knowing she’d never keep it together if she had to look in his eyes while he told her to go to hell. “I know what you’re going to say, and you have every right to be—”

  His hand snaked out, wrapping around her upper arm. He kept his hold strong but not painful. Coop would never hurt her.

  Not physically, anyway.

  “Trevor knew. So did Jake and Ryker.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Have they always known?”

  No more lies. “Yes.”

  He let her go and stepped back, the void from losing his touch nearly breaking her.

  “Why them and not me?” Betrayal poured from him. “You said before that you didn
’t tell me because you didn’t want anyone on the team to know the truth, but they knew. Why?”

  “Because Homeland did a much more extensive background search than the Army.” Mac wrapped her arms around herself. “When I first enlisted, the Army only checked to make sure I had all the appropriate documentation. The references I used were fake, of course. Another service provided by the guy I got the papers from. The military’s background check searched for a criminal record, that sort of thing. Very basic. Being Homeland, Ryker looked a hell of a lot deeper. When red flags started flying everywhere, Jake pulled me into the office. Ryker was ready to make him fire me and send my ass to Leavenworth.”

  “Obviously that didn’t happen.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t deserve it, but Jake gave me the opportunity to explain my actions. I knew the truth was the only chance I had at making the three of them understand. Once I was finished, Ryker gave him a nod and both he and Trevor left the room.”

  “And Jake?”

  “He looked me in the eye and told me he understood why I did what I’d done. That there were times in life when lying was necessary. To protect ourselves or the ones we love.”

  Understanding filled Coop’s eyes. “He was talking about Liv.”

  Mac nodded. At the time, Jake had been lying to his now-wife for nearly half a decade. Not so long ago, before they were married, one of those lies had nearly cost him everything.

  “Jake made a promise to me that day. Said my true identity would stay between me, him, Trevor, and Ryker. As far as he was concerned, it had no bearing on my military record, nor my ability to do my job as part of Alpha Team.” She blinked against the sudden burning in her eyes. “He told me if I ever wanted to reveal the truth to you and the others, it was up to me.”

  Coop’s forehead creased, and he looked away. God, she hated that she’d caused this man so much pain.

  “I’m sorry, Sean.” She licked her dry lips. “I should’ve told you who I really was a long time ago. Should’ve told you about all of it. My family, the money…Luca. But I was afraid once I did, I’d see that look in your eyes. Turns out, I was right.”