by Angel Payne
Some would call it fate, destiny, or even God’s purpose. At the moment, she wasn’t picky about the labels, especially when all the events led to the same cosmically correct result—starting from the second Dan had called her about this event. The hole she’d actually had in her schedule for it. Sol recognizing they needed extra support from local experts. Sol finding Shay Bommer to assist. Bommer backing out because of his wife’s early labor. Shay calling on help in the form of flying in John Franzen.
Who’d stepped into that dressing room this afternoon and then stomped on the axis of her world.
In the very same moment, restoring every millimeter of its balance.
It sounded crazy. It was crazy. But her life was a whole lot of crazy.
A lot of survival too.
Reliance on her gut and never doubting the rightness of what it spoke to her.
Just like it spoke to her now.
Telling her to set her shoulders, steel her jaw, and repeat, “Stop the damn car, Shep!”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, I don’t think now—”
“Received and acknowledged, Agent Cary. Now pull the hell over. We’re waiting for him.”
The agent emitted a sound rougher than the gravel they churned on the side of the road. As soon as the three drivers in their wake copied the move, they instantly laid on their horns. Knowing she’d piss him off more but unable to help herself, Tracy unbuckled and then flipped over, shooting a stare backward.
Fervently, she scanned the other Escalades. Her breath escaped in a relieved whoosh. In all the reverse-gear chaos, they’d taken out the Bellagio’s back gate and then skidded onto the street like a Fast and the Furious scene gone wrong. But a thumbs-up from the burly driver of the second car back told her he’d gotten Luke out. A glance to the driver’s seat of the car directly behind them, and the Taye Diggs doppelganger commandeering Gem and Ronnie’s car, confirmed they were all safe too.
Her lungs gave permission for one full breath.
One.
Aside from the distant wail of fire engines, the street was eerily quiet. Tracy peered up and down the block, fighting the need to bolt out of the car. But the stress lent her strange insight. If this were a movie, the audience would be screaming only one thing.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it!
Screw the audience. And her better sense.
And Shep’s gritted use of the F-word as she unlocked the door, cranked the door handle, and then pushed out of the Escalade—
Only to be shoved back in.
By a really pissed John Franzen.
“Shit on a shingle!” It was her own version of the F-word, as furious as Shep’s growl, as Franzen piled back into the car. Before the captain could shut the door again, she received a full view of the scene he’d just run over from. A billow of smoke curled up from what was the villa, dancing like a wraith against the clear blue sky. The thing was angry and black and huge, likely visible for miles now.
Holy hell. This wasn’t a drill. This was a real-life, real-bad situation.
Making her doubt what she wanted to do more to John Franzen right now.
Kiss him or kill him.
He was alive—alive, thank God—enticing her not to waste another moment on merely dreaming of running her hands, mouth, and other things all over him. The psychobabble experts were right. Fear was a heady aphrodisiac, and every cell in her body confirmed it like a lit firecracker.
“What the fuck?”
Then there was his pissed baritone. Attached to his snarling face. Backed by his arrogant hands, digging into both her hips, slamming her back down against the cushion.
“Franzen,” she bit out. “For the love of—”
“Not. Now.” He spat tacks along with both words—a prelude to the nails he shot into Shep. “What. The. Fuck?”
“Down, Fido,” Shep snapped. “I was following orders.”
The captain’s glare flared darker than the soot on his cheeks. And yes, Tracy was close enough to tell, since he pressed against her while yanking at her seat belt. “Drive,” he ordered Shep. “Now.”
As he rammed the buckle into its housing at her hip, the car lurched into motion. Once more, gravel pelted the Escalade’s undercarriage—Shep understandably taking his tension out on the gas pedal—and then they were speeding along the road, the freeway on one side and the hotel on the other, the other cars in the caravan racing to keep up.
After he was done locking her in, Franzen stayed unusually close. As in, he loomed. As in, he resembled a huge orc protecting his—whatever it was orcs protected; she couldn’t ever get that part out of Luke when he spoke of the menacing monsters from the fantasy games he played online with the friends he only saw every few months now, instead of every few days.
Because of her insane job.
The job that had almost taken his very life.
As the comprehension set in, her anger drained. And as a tremor convulsed her whole body, she’d never been more grateful for orcs in her entire life.
“You okay?”
Or for copper-skinned hulks who tamed their bold baritones into tender murmurs—and then emphasized with a silken brush of a thumb across her cheek.
“I—I don’t know.” It was the most weak-willed shit that’d left her mouth since Ryker’s death, but Vice President Rhodes didn’t have to be “on stage” right now. It felt damn good to have an orc on hand, issuing a soft grunt as if to tell her that was okay.
Not that he gave anyone else the same leeway.
“Whose orders?” he barked, addressing Shep’s initial defense.
The guy behind the wheel jutted his jaw, taking the shout as if he’d expected it. “Higher pay grade than yours, man.”
“Whose?” Franz twisted, burning a glare into the back of the driver’s close-cropped head. “Goddamnit, Shep. I don’t care what the flow charts say. If Sol Wrightman thinks he has the right to dictate what’s going on here, from across the fucking city, especially after what just happened—”
“You mean after the detour you insisted we take?”
Shep’s retort dunked Franzen into thick silence—and Tracy into a bathtub of guilt. The man had flown from Seattle for the priority of her safety. Had defied Sol for the sake of her happiness. Had tolerated Luke’s arrogance for the “privilege” of nearly getting blown up in his place. For what? To weather that kind of insinuation?
That was not going to happen. Not when she could do something about it.
“Mine.”
Like issue that declaration.
Franzen scowled. “Yours…what?”
“My orders.” She straightened. “He ordered the route change for me.” Shoved Franz over to lean toward Shep. “And we all know it—which is exactly how we’ll tell it.”
“Won’t matter,” Shep huffed. “And with all due respect, you know that, ma’am. The others will—”
“Screw the others.”
It took just a second for Shep’s startling response—his hearty snicker. “Received and acknowledged, Madam VP.”
Franzen’s reaction wasn’t so easy to watch. His face, still as fiery and fierce as a pissed-off bull, darkened into something harsher. Harder. A creature with gritted white teeth and eyes as black as fresh lava.
Something a lot like a dragon come to life.
A dragon wanting to bite into her.
And not in the good way.
“You,” he gritted, baring those teeth a little more. “You ordered the pull-over, not Wrightman.”
Chapter Four
She was going to make him wait for the answer.
And damn it, he was going to let her.
For five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Seconds they didn’t have. Time they couldn’t afford. But he let the little rebel have them because she fucking blew him away, sitting there as serene as a queen even while smoke coated the sky behind them. Lots of smoke. The very real evidence of what could have been her very real death. The comprehension hadn’t escape
d her—he saw evidence of that in the tremble of her fingertips and the brightness in her eyes. She simply chose not to let it daunt her. She decided to reach for courage, even if it meant dragging herself from the pit of fear.
He began to understand why Craig Nichols had tapped her for this job.
Even if she maddened the hell out of him while doing it.
Even if she tempted him to tear the remaining spikes of his hair out as she jogged up her chin and then stated, “It was me. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
John’s nostrils flared. He knew that because he consciously made them do so. He had to borrow sanity in the form of oxygen to prevent himself from telling the vice president of the fucking country that the “heartbeat” she referenced might have been her last. Actually, that part was fine. It was the other phrases he longed to jab in with it—like “idiot call” and “damn fool” and “what the hell were you thinking” that stopped him, fuming and flaring…
Up to the second his ear was blasted with furious sound.
“Home base to Dragon. Home base to Dragon. Fuck. Tell me you hear this!”
He slammed the comm link so hard his ear drum was likely in shards, but his brain thanked him. No more of Sol’s berserk blaring.
“Dragon here. Go ahead.” No sense in adding to the fireworks. He’d had enough of those today—to the point that even squeezing his eyes shut couldn’t erase the image of the item flying from the blast at Sam and him, landing with a sick clink at their feet. They’d both skidded to a stop, hoping for the impossible…
It had been Donald’s badge. Fried so badly around the edges, it was still smoking.
Yeah. The impossible.
Fuck.
Donald.
He didn’t even know the guy’s last name. Couldn’t tell Wrightman which form to look up, to contact the people who’d come after Donald’s potato chip of a badge and some goddamn answers. Something other than “he was a hero, and he died serving his country.”
Had he?
What the hell purpose had that just served?
What the hell was that?
His teeth locked harder as he prepared himself for the same demand from Sol Wrightman.
Somebody, somewhere, had to have briefed the man already. Using an internal reverse clock honed from years of experience, Franz backtracked the timeline. It felt like fifteen seconds since the explosion, but it had been more like fifteen minutes. Nine hundred seconds. Precious time. More than ample for word to reach the guy in charge of the VP’s security detail.
Translation: in charge of keeping Tracy Rhodes alive.
A goal he’d gotten pitifully sloppy on.
No.
An objective he’d completely kicked to the curb—for the sake of what her smile could do for his dick.
So yeah, he braced himself for the shit storm.
For the command to deliver her sassy ass back to Wrightman and then get his sorry one on a plane back home.
For the confirmation that maybe the brass up in the Army Head Shed were right all along.
That making responsible field calls was no longer his calling.
That he had to figure out a way to be useful to the world without a mission plan on his smart pad, a SIG in his hand, and a comm line in his ear.
But for now, none of that had changed—especially the comm link. He could make the firearm happen too, but Wrightman’s snarl served as perfect proxy for at least twenty bullets.
“Sit-rep, goddamnit. Now.”
No. Not bullets. The guy’s voice was like another round of C-4. John frowned. Wrightman had struck him as a spaz but not a panic pusher. The shit fraying the edges of his voice now?
That was panic.
“Franzen! Did you get that?”
“I’m here.” His own response was as silken as foam on a wave. Hardening his nerves into lead in the middle of crisis had been his stock-in-trade for a decade. This time, gods willing, it wouldn’t let him down. “I’m here,” he echoed, stronger and clearer. “Go ahead.”
A rush of relieved breath roughened the line though Wrightman rushed on, “Tell me you have Tigress. Tell me you are actually looking at her and confirm she’s alive. For the love of fuck, tell me she’s alive.”
“Confirmed.” He gave into a puzzled frown. While he understood a lot of Sol’s conniption, the melodrama pushed the envelope. “We followed protocol.” At least he knew that as the truth. “To the letter—despite the tiger cub and his Nala having other ideas.”
He waited for Wrightman’s empathy, at least on that angle of things. Instead the guy volleyed, “Those kids and their antics probably saved your hide—and Tigress’s too.”
“No. Your team member Donald did.”
A leaden pause answered him. Wrightman finally broke it with a rasping sound, as if scrubbing a heavy hand down his face. Finally he muttered, “Damn it. Reese was a good man.”
“Yeah. That was my impression too.” Divine spirits of the afterlife, please watch over the soul of Agent Donald Reese, now in your safekeeping. Guide him to the afterworld with care and patience. With the weight eased on his chest, he was able to add, “He took one for the whole t—”
“No.” Another hard grunt from Sol. “He didn’t.”
So much for tossing aside the bricks on his sternum. “You want to fucking clarify? Because there was a laser trip wire—”
“Likely put in place as a backup, just in case the first charge didn’t go off.”
John stiffened. Once more fixed his gaze past the front windshield, ramming a mask of neutrality over all his features and words. No way in hell was he alarming Tracy Rhodes before he had to. Not yet. “The first charge?”
“Affirmative. A timed bundle.”
“Timed?” There was neutrality, and then there was sounding like a moron—but Wrightman’s allegation was getting harder and harder for viable logic. “Are you positive?”
He needed to be positive. A timed charge leapfrogged this shit to a different level of dangerous. It was one thing for some half-cocked section-eight to sneak, climb, bribe, zip line, or wing it on a bell cart to get in here—all possibilities in the fun-filled Oz of Vegas, explaining why Wrightman brought in extra help from the locals to begin with—but it was another to purposely figure where to park a block of explosives and then preprogram the blast for when Tracy was sure to be in the villa. If it hadn’t been for the sound check delay and their detour, thanks to the mysterious tipster, that would’ve absolutely been the case.
A scheduling detail only known to the vice president’s inner circle.
The focus on this camera shot—and Sol’s paranoia about it—suddenly made a lot more sense.
In the most disgusting ways.
“Yeah.” The guy’s response to his query held the timbre of commiseration. “Yeah, we’re sure.” He let John hear his long huff, a vocalized version of that deeper message. I know exactly what you’re going through, man. Passed it by about three minutes ago.
But if that were the case…
“You’re sure…because you know something else already.”
More silence. This time, a pause so dense and deep, Franz swore he heard scuba pings even through the comm link. He swallowed hard. It really hurt. His throat was so dry and constricted, even breathing was agony.
“Because you know what, Wrightman?”
Sol took even longer to come back.
Too damn long.
“Where you at right now, Dragon?” he asked quietly.
Too damn quietly.
“I-15.” He was too irate—and yeah, scared—to bother apologizing for the snarl. “We’re playing it safe this time. Coming up and around back to you. Looping back in via Sahara. ETA is ten to twelve mikes and closing.”
“Negative. Do not return to home base, Dragon.”
He nodded, if only to push the emphasis into his response. “Acknowledged.” And no, damn it, he hadn’t forgotten the man playing hide-and-seek with pertinent intel, but more important qu
estions now had to matter. “We’ll reroute to Baby Star Base.” As soon as he used the agreed-upon code for the private charter tarmac at McCarran, Shep tapped a pair of fingers to his temple in a pseudo-salute, confirming the route change. Franz ticked a fast nod of thanks. Thank fuck the ju-ju with him wasn’t wonky. Thank double fuck for the equally capable driver of Sam’s vehicle, making sure they stayed nearly on the back bumper even as congestion worsened with their approach to the Strip. “Has the ground crew been notified?” he directed into the comm. “They’re ready to launch the bird when we get there?”
“Negative.”
“Also acknowledged.” Though he didn’t leave the implied question mark out of it. What the hell was going on? Wrightman was starting to remind him of a Hamilton understudy who hadn’t learned all the main raps. “So you need us to contact Star Base?”
The prelude for Sol’s response was so tight and rough, it sounded like static. “Negative,” he finally said.
“Pardon the hell out of me?”
“I said negative on the reroute to Star Base as well, Captain.”
“I heard what you said. Now clarify, damn it.”
At the same time, Tracy twisted to fully face him. The afternoon sun, though a dim glow through the tinted window, added an ethereal amber halo to the top of her head. Her eyes, wide and curious, were lush collections of gold flecks and gray velvet. She shook her head in jerky little spurts, a nonverbal version of what the hell?
Should have been the question he directed at himself too. She was clearly agitated, edging toward stressed, and all he could ponder was how that searching stare of hers would look atop her naked body—and how that naked body would look straddled across his. Moaning into his chest. Slicking his cock with her aroused juices…
Thank God his frustrated growl fitted the situation. He channeled the fury tighter, biting into the comm mic, “That’s not clarification.”
From Wrightman’s end, silence.
Then more silence.
What. The. Fuck?
The man finally came back on, after a pause long enough for John to run down a shitload of scenarios as well as their bizarre repercussions. Number one on the list? That the lunatic who’d called truly hadn’t been sitting around whacking off to the concept of blowing up the vice president of the country. That maybe he had a few friends helping him out…friends who’d compromised both the convention center and the hotel.