“Please don’t say shocking things when I’m driving,” he joked, just in case.
“I mean it.” She looked almost embarrassed. It was adorable.
He shook his head in surprise. “Yes, I could tell how happy you would be to have me along all those times you told me I couldn’t come with you.”
She scowled over at him. “Are you going to let me thank you or not?”
“No. I’m going to thank you, instead.” He glanced over again to see if he’d surprised her.
He had.
“What for?”
“For letting me come with you. For not making me stay at home worrying about you.” He didn’t know how he would have survived that.
She shrugged it off. “Okay.”
“Can I ask you a favor?” he said a few minutes later.
“You can ask.” It didn’t mean she would oblige.
“Please call for backup.” It was a long shot, but he had to try.
From the beginning, she’d insisted on going alone. As much as he didn’t like it, he understood why she might not have wanted to take him. But she’d been reluctant to ask anyone else to help, either.
Despite her claim that it was her own mess so she should fix it, he was certain part of her reluctance was sheer stubbornness and a need to prove she was capable—to herself and everyone else. Colton knew her well, but he couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t moving past that to do the right thing.
She was brilliant. It wasn’t like her to take unnecessary risks. Going in with no backup was a huge risk. The two of them could easily be outnumbered, and this whole plan and their lives would be at stake.
She didn’t even pretend to think about it. “I’m sorry. I can’t ask the team.”
“It would be the smart thing. The safe thing. You don’t have to do everything alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have you.”
She did have him. Did he have her?
“We don’t know how many others this Redgamer3 is bringing with him,” he pointed out.
“I don’t know who I can trust.”
What? This was new. “Not even Dane and Thorne?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Dane has an injury, and I can’t ask Thorne.”
“Why not? You said he was like a father to you. If my father was alive, and I called and asked him to come, he’d be sitting in the back seat right now eating all of our Twizzlers.” He smiled at the thought.
“Thorne’s already done enough for me. I can’t ask him for anything else.”
Ah. So, not about trust.
While Colton wasn’t a father himself, the fathers he knew didn’t put limits on what was asked of them when it came to their children.
He didn’t push her. That wouldn’t get him anywhere. She’d made up her mind, and he should just feel lucky she’d given in and let him come along.
They were silent for a few more miles.
“Would you be interested in joining Task Force Phoenix?” she asked out of nowhere.
His jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. “Are you trying to get me to drive off the road?”
“No.” She laughed. “I’m just thinking you were with the DEA, and there’s no reason why you couldn’t switch agencies, right? We’re down a man since Garrett left. We could use someone dependable.”
All this time, he’d believed he only had one path—hiding. He’d wanted her to come with him into WITSEC. He hadn’t thought about the other way around—going with her.
But…it made perfect sense.
He could see how it might be possible to have everything. He could have her, and a life with excitement, meaning, and purpose.
Chapter Ninety-Six
Angel could see she had shocked him with her question. That much was obvious. To be honest, it had surprised her, as well. Not just that she’d blurted it out, but that she hadn’t thought of it a year ago.
Colton would make a great addition to their team. Like the others on the team who were officially “dead,” he wouldn’t be able to take on any high-profile cases. But he would be great at extraction and long-range protection. Those jobs were somewhat less dangerous, too, which suited her just fine.
Maybe that’s why she’d never mentioned it before. She’d selfishly wanted him hidden away where he was safe.
And where she could keep him at a distance. So she wouldn’t be forced into anything…serious.
She opened her mouth to apologize for her subconscious, but he spoke first.
“I think I might like to join your team,” he said. “It would be great to be in the action again. And it would mean working with you, right?” He glanced over at her. “Would that be a problem for you?”
She frowned down at her hands, and he turned back toward the windshield again.
Would she be okay if they worked together? That was not the question he was really asking. There was another question hidden in the layers. What he was really asking was if she was willing to have a future with him.
Rather than promise anything, she took the cowardly way out. “We need to survive this mission first. Why don’t we wait and discuss it when this mess is all straightened out?”
“Sure,” he said with a nod.
They didn’t speak again for probably an hour. It was an easy silence. She could tell he was considering all the details of her suggestion. She was doing the same thing.
He deserved to have the life he wanted. She wanted to make sure he was safe. They wanted to be together. This one idea seemed to solve everything.
So why was she still reluctant to commit?
Every time she pictured them together, it was in a more domestic setting. Like his home, sitting with Pudge on the sofa watching movies. Leaning on the counter while he made their frittatas. She couldn’t picture them spending the night in a van during a stakeout, or stretched out on a roof ready to shoot anyone who made a move on their asset.
Maybe after this mission, she could see them together like that.
Maybe.
They pulled into a hotel parking lot at ten that night. She’d been driving the last four hours and her shoulders were stiff. The hotel had been chosen beforehand. They even had a blueprint of the property in their bag.
If something happened, she had multiple ways to get out of the room. None of which would result in a sprained ankle, or a three-day excursion through the wilds of Oregon.
She sat by the hotel room window watching the parking lot, while Colton went to pick up dinner. She longed for the chance to go to dinner with him in public. To be able to sit across from him at a restaurant table, order a glass of wine, and be normal.
Instead she was stuck here, tense and restless. She wished they’d been able to bring Pudge. She missed her dog. But he was safer with Deb.
Her apartment in DC didn’t allow dogs. And she didn’t even know her neighbor’s name. If she and Colton decided to go with the Task Force Phoenix plan, they would need to find a new place. Their things would be mingled together. Would he like her coffee pot better than his? Hers was clearly superior, but maybe he liked the old style of his.
They would be making a home together.
The thought both excited and terrified her.
Even more than what they faced next.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Colton wasn’t sure what had happened while he was out getting their dinner, but Angel seemed out of sorts when he returned. He’d asked, and she’d told him she was fine, but he wasn’t buying it.
Something had spooked her.
Checking the window himself, he watched as she set out dinner on the small hotel table. Normally he was the one who did that while she was online. She was always in another dimension when she was on her computer. He’d always wondered if she even noticed she hadn’t eaten in hours when he disrupted her attention with food.
He forced a smile and sat across from her. Then jumped up and went to the door where he’d set one other bag.
“I almost forgot. I got us a bottle
of wine.” He opened it and carried the bottle and two little plastic cups to the table. Most of the soldiers and law enforcement agents he knew had a standard routine as they prepared for a job. For him, it was all about the meal the night before.
He’d never thought of it as a last supper, but more that it was the last time he had control over what and where he ate. Once he went undercover, he assumed a role and his decisions were based on the part he was playing. Even when it came to his meals.
Angel stared at him while he filled her little cup.
“Sorry about the cups. We’ll just have to pretend they clink when we make a toast,” he joked, earning only a slight smile from her lips.
What was wrong? He wanted so much to ask again, but he’d already asked twice.
“I was just thinking about this. Eating together. A glass of wine. But at a restaurant.”
He nodded and held up his cup in a toast. “To being able to eat in a restaurant again.”
Her smile was genuine when she tapped her cup to his. “Soon,” she said, and took a sip.
They would be in Dallas by the next afternoon. Redgamer3 was meeting Noah at nine tomorrow night, which would give them plenty of time to get ready, but not enough time to relax and enjoy a meal together.
So tonight they ate and talked as they finished off the wine. Laughter came easier by the time they tossed the takeout cartons into the trash. He reached for her at the same time she stepped closer to him.
She stood on tiptoes to kiss him, as if she couldn’t wait the fraction of a second it would take him to bend down to meet her lips.
He’d been thinking about her offer. If they worked together, they could have this all the time. Dinner and loving each other at night. Granted, there would be times when they were sent off on separate jobs and they wouldn’t see each other for months. But he would know she would always come back to him. There would be no need to worry she would leave in the middle of the night.
No, that worry would be replaced by a new worry—whether she would ever come home again.
Shaking the thought away, he focused on the moment they had together right now.
He undressed her slowly while he touched and tasted the skin he exposed. His normal process before a job had been to enjoy an excellent meal. He mentally updated that to include enjoying an amazing woman. Not just any woman, but his woman.
“I love you, Colton,” she whispered as he slid inside her. Their fingers linked above her head as he moved on top of her. Their eyes locked on one another.
“I love you, too.”
So much it nearly broke him.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
After all the years of facing down criminals, Angel still felt a rush of terror in her chest as she stepped out of the truck the next night to go and face what awaited them in the warehouse where Redgamer3 and Noah were to meet.
She should be better at this. She should be stone cool and calm. But she wasn’t. The best she could do was act like she was.
She swallowed down her nervousness and checked her ammo again.
“It’s not too late to call in reinforcements,” Colton reminded her.
“No. We’re good. We’ve got this.”
He nodded, but she knew it wasn’t in agreement. Rather, it was a nod of resignation.
It was definitely protocol to have backup, and she’d nearly caved and called Thorne. But she couldn’t.
This wasn’t a sanctioned mission. They would be considered rogue, like her, if anyone found out. She wouldn’t do that to them. However pissed off they’d be when they found out.
She could deal with angry friends. She couldn’t help them, or herself, if they were all arrested together. Going alone was the only way.
She stepped into the cool darkness of the warehouse. How cliché. Everyone knew bad things happened at warehouse meetings. Why Noah would ever have agreed to this place, she couldn’t fathom.
They arrived an hour before the meeting. They listened, and waited. Expecting that Noah, Redgamer3, or both, would have brought their own people ahead of the meeting.
No one came.
Which made her even more nervous.
“What is going on?” she whispered when they heard the door open and a single set of footsteps enter the building.
Colton shook his head. “Maybe they’re planning to have a normal meeting, not a shootout like we’re expecting.” He frowned down at his gun as if discouraged that he wouldn’t have the chance to use it.
She smiled and looked away, adjusting her Kevlar vest. She hated wearing it, it felt too restrictive, but it was the safe thing.
They hid behind a pallet as a man walked out into the large open area. It was Noah.
Across the warehouse, she heard another door open and close. Another single set of footsteps approached.
Angel let out a little breath of relief. It seemed Redgamer3 hadn’t come with an army, after all. Colton would never let her hear the end of it if they’d been outnumbered.
“You’re Jim?” Noah’s voice echoed in the expansive space.
“I’m here.” The other man had a southern accent, and a low, calm voice. Recognition stirred, but she couldn’t place it. “Did you really come alone?”
“You told me to,” Noah said.
“Yes, but— Never mind. Where’s the money?” Jim got right to business.
“Where’s the prototype?” Noah asked as Colton made a face that he was impressed by Noah’s snappy retort.
She recognized the two clicks of a briefcase being opened, and rubbed her forehead. She hadn’t expected Redgamer3 to actually bring the prototype to the drop. This guy was not doing anything the way she expected.
“The money?” he asked, almost pleasantly.
Noah’s feet shuffled. “I was hoping you’d accept a better offer. I’ll pay you twice what we agreed upon if you’ll give me a chance to sell it first.”
“You don’t have the money.” The other man’s voice was now flat and dry.
A chill ran down Angel’s spine. It was the voice of a killer. A sociopath with no emotion.
Angel nodded to Colton. It was time to move. This was going south, and Noah was blowing it.
“Well, no,” Noah said. “But you know I’m good for it. I just need—”
Noah was silenced by a single gunshot.
Angel jumped at the loud bang that echoed through the building, and again at the quieter thump of Noah’s body falling to the floor.
“Jesus,” Colton whispered.
Redgamer3 hadn’t even considered the counteroffer.
Angel hesitated for only a second, wondering for the first time if she’d bitten off more than she could chew with someone so unstable. But he was snapping the case shut and would be leaving. They had to act now.
Motioning to Colton, she indicated they should split up to move around each side of the pallet and join up on the other side with guns drawn.
“Freeze!” Colton yelled as earlier agreed upon…after a round of rock, paper, scissors.
“Hello, Angel.”
There was no southern accent now. She recognized the voice at the same time she identified the man standing across from her, gun raised and pointed straight at her.
He had been expecting her to come to the meet.
But she had not expected this.
“Lucas,” she choked out as ice water rushed through her veins.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Colton kept his gun drawn on the shooter, but didn’t know what to do next. It was as if Angel was under some kind of spell. She still had her gun up, but she looked almost…terrified. He’d never seen her like this before. At such a mental impasse.
It was clear she and this man knew one another, but Colton hadn’t been able to hear the name she’d muttered upon seeing him. Who the hell was he?
Shooting the guy was not a choice until he knew exactly what was going on with Angel.
However, the man still had a firm hold on the case containing the stolen
technology, which most likely meant he was the one who’d killed Zeller and taken it.
So why wasn’t she acting? The asshole was going to get away.
“It’s nice to see you again,” the man said. “Sorry we don’t have more time to catch up.” He laughed.
Colton gripped his gun tighter. Jealousy now heightened his need to shoot this son of a bitch.
“But… You’re dead,” she whispered.
Colton frowned. What the hell?
“Angel?” he called steadily, hoping he could bring her back. He might have shaken her if she had been closer. “What’s going on?”
Nothing.
She just continued to stare at the man who was now turning to leave, his weapon still at the ready in his right hand and holding the case in his left.
Colton made a decision and pulled the trigger.
A split second after the killer did the same.
Chapter One Hundred
At the sound of gunfire, Angel was finally shaken from her moment of stupidity.
She whipped up her gun and shot him.
Normally she was an excellent shot, but she’d been so stunned to see him, her hands weren’t as steady as she would have liked. She managed to hit him in the arm, causing him to drop the case and run for cover.
The door slammed, but she didn’t want to assume he was gone. It would be just like Lucas Stone to pretend he’d left and sneak back to ambush her.
She followed him outside just as he jumped into a silver sedan and sped off. She took note of the license plate, but was sure it would probably come back to a rental, or stolen. It would never lead her to his home base. He was much too smart for that.
Walking back inside, she called out to Colton, letting him know their target was gone. She turned the corner only to see him slump to the ground.
“Colton!” She rushed over to him and dropped to her knees. “Oh my God.”
Blood was spreading across his gray T-shirt. He was still breathing, but his breaths were shallow and quick. Ripping open the T-shirt, she exposed the Kevlar vest he was wearing.
The vest with a big hole in the chest.
Wanted for Life Page 24