by Cynthia Eden
Tina frowned at him.
Dylan lifted a plastic bag and seemed to focus just on Tina. “I’ve got new clothes for you. The doctors here said they’d give you medicine to take with us. They wanted you to stay but—”
“It’s too dangerous,” Tina finished. She understood. The longer she stayed, the easier it would be for her location to be compromised. It was too hard to keep secrets in a place as public as a hospital. “Does that man—Anton Devast—think I’m dead?”
If he thought she’d died in the explosion, then she’d be free. Wouldn’t she? His men wouldn’t look for her any longer, and she wouldn’t have to be worried about waking up in the night to discover a gun pressed to her head.
But Dylan’s tense expression shot down those hopes. “He’s not going to believe that, not if he had a man on the scene. And a guy like Devast...he doesn’t take chances. He would have wanted to see you die.”
Great. She snatched the bag from him. So much for being safe again. Safety wasn’t going to come easily.
“Mercer received a call.” This detail came from a watchful Drew. “Right before the explosion, Devast called his private line and told Mercer that you were about to die.”
Her cheeks felt a little numb. Even she didn’t know Mercer’s private line, and she’d worked for the guy ever since she’d finished her residency. “That’s how you knew what was happening. Why you ran to me—”
Drew nodded. “Devast’s man must have told him that you were on the plane. He knew we were at that airport and that you were getting ready to take off.”
“In order to place the bomb,” Dylan said with a roll of his shoulders, “they had to know before our team got on scene. They tapped into the EOD system, and they figured out your most likely departure spot.”
Then they’d placed the bomb and waited for her to board the plane.
She would have been on board when the bomb detonated, if she hadn’t stopped to talk to Drew once more. If she hadn’t tried to tell him thank-you before she left.
And if he hadn’t promised her—
Naked bodies.
So much for delivering on that promise. She was still waiting.
Tina cleared her throat. She was feeling a draft in the back of her gown, and she needed to get dressed ASAP. First, though, she demanded, “What happens now? Am I still headed back for D.C.?” This was her life, and she needed to pick up the pieces and keep going.
Dylan slanted a fast glance toward Drew.
She didn’t like that secretive glance. “What happens now?” Tina repeated, the words a little sharper.
“Devast got his start by making bombs, dirty devices that he’d place for the highest bidder.” Dylan spoke slowly. “He loves to use his fire to destroy anyone or anything in his path.”
So she’d figured out with that up-close brush with death. She’d felt the scorch of fire all along her skin as she was propelled through the air.
“He burned down the ranch his group was using out in Texas.”
“HAVOC,” Drew said.
Dylan’s head jerked in a nod.
Tina frowned as she tried to understand. “So he creates havoc, that’s his big thing?”
“No.” Drew exhaled slowly. “He is HAVOC. It’s a terrorist group. They’re global, and their main goal is destruction. Devast started the group. He used his bombs to create it from fire and destruction and fear. He’s a threat that needs to be eliminated.”
“You’re giving me this intel because he keeps coming after me...” Mercer must have finally given them the all-clear to reveal this information. All it had taken was—what?—a few attempts on her life. One attempt that had nearly been too successful. In return for nearly dying, she got HAVOC clearance. Thanks, Mercer. Her boss could be a real jerk.
“That’s not why we’re telling you.” The intensity in Drew’s voice worried her.
Her bare feet curved over the cold floor. She waited.
“We’re telling you because we need your help,” Dylan said. “The EOD needs you.”
“What?” Sure, if they needed her to patch up the wounded, then Tina was their girl. But if they were talking about a mission in the field... “No, no, you’ve got the wrong woman—”
“That was the problem,” Dylan continued roughly. “You weren’t the woman who was supposed to be picked up as bait. Another EOD agent was. Rachel was the bait who should have been taken, but Devast followed the wrong trail of breadcrumbs.”
Drew’s lips were a thin, grim line. “You weren’t ever supposed to be brought into this mess. Hell, you didn’t even have a tracker on you! There was no way we thought that HAVOC would ever come after you.”
A tracker. She stiffened. Tina had placed trackers in plenty of agents. The small devices were inserted right under the skin, a precaution in case of capture. The EOD could follow the signal sent from the tracker and locate the agent almost any place.
“Once we realized Drew had left the ranch, we activated his tracker. That’s how we got to you both so fast in Lightning. Before Drew and Sarah checked in, we were already en route.” Dylan’s face tightened. “I’m sorry you were brought into this mess. It wasn’t supposed to be you.”
“But now it is.” She was tangled up in HAVOC without any chance of escape.
Dylan nodded. “And now we need your help.”
“Dylan...” A warning edge entered Drew’s voice.
Dylan’s gaze flashed. “The orders came from Mercer. As long as Devast is out there, she’s not going to be safe.” He jaw hardened as he stared at Drew. “Do you want that? Do you truly want her to be constantly at risk, always looking over her shoulder, always wondering when another attack might come?”
Drew’s hands fisted.
Tina clutched the bag of clothes a bit tighter. “What is it that you want me to do?”
Dylan focused back on Tina. “We don’t want you to run. We don’t want to hide you.”
Drew swore. “I told you already. I don’t like this plan. We have other options that can work.”
“Nothing that we can do now. Nothing that will be as effective as—”
“As what?” Tina demanded.
Dylan hesitated a moment, then said, “We want you to help us catch Devast.”
* * *
“SHE’S STILL ALIVE.”
Anton didn’t let his expression alter when he heard this news. “That is disappointing. You’d...assured me that she was on the plane.”
“That agent—he stopped her. I thought she’d already gotten on board, but the guy stopped her for some damn sweet talk.” Disgust thickened the words as they drifted over the phone line. “Those two must be involved. I don’t know how the hell I missed that.”
“Apparently, Agent Lancaster is a man who is very good at keeping secrets.” Drew Lancaster...not Stone Creed. That had just been an alias the agent used when he got close to HAVOC. Now Devast understood who the fellow truly was. And it was time to unearth every secret Drew Lancaster possessed.
Know your enemy. When you knew your enemy, it was easy to attack his weak spots.
“They took Tina Jamison to a local hospital then they cleared out of the place. But don’t worry, I’ll find them. Just give me a little time.”
Anton sighed. Why did everyone always think that he would tolerate failure? “Time isn’t on your side. You’d better find them, fast.” But he was already talking to a dead man. Whether this man delivered Tina Jamison or not, he was dead.
Anton had no use for traitors. Men like the agent on the phone...they’d sell out anyone.
He stared down at the photo on the desk in front of him.
Drew Lancaster.
He’d already managed to pull up some records on the man. Born in a small Mississippi town, abandoned by his father. The guy had been trouble as a kid, thrown in and out of juvenile halls. He was always running from the law.
Lancaster’s mother had worked herself to death.
And Drew Lancaster...he’d fought his way out
of that life and joined the army.
Became very, very good at killing.
Anton hung up the phone and kept staring at Drew Lancaster’s image. A man who’d come from nothing. Who existed only to kill.
Right now, Drew Lancaster was one of Mercer’s attack dogs, but, as Anton had already discovered, some of Mercer’s men could be bought...if the price was right.
Anton was good at making the price right.
He smiled as he stared down at Lancaster. Another dead man, one who just didn’t know it yet.
But, before Drew Lancaster died, Anton planned to use him.
Use him, then dispose of him.
Chapter Seven
The Dallas skyline stretched in front of Drew. He stared at the buildings, noting the sweep of architecture as it bled into the red evening sky.
He and Tina were in a plush hotel room. Five star all the way. No dusty sheets or wobbly chairs would be found in this place. For security, Drew had requested two adjoining rooms. Dylan and Rachel were stationed right down the hall in another set of adjoining rooms.
Dylan was determined to go through with Mercer’s ridiculous plan. They wanted Tina to continue with the deception of being Mercer’s daughter. Wanted her to play that part—and to keep Anton’s focus on her—until their team could bring down HAVOC and its leader.
He hated that plan. Tina wasn’t trained for a situation such as this one. Putting her into the middle of this fight could very well get her killed.
I won’t have her death on my hands.
The door squeaked open behind him.
Soft footsteps came toward him.
He kept staring out at the setting sun. Its light reflected off the high-rise towers.
The scent of strawberries drifted in the air.
His fingers curled into fists. “Why did you say yes?” Because she had, and with that one word, Tina had changed everything.
She’d agreed to Dylan’s too-dangerous plan, and she’d made saving her even harder.
“I agreed because Devast is determined to kill me, and no matter what you do or say, he isn’t going to believe I’m not Mercer’s daughter.”
My fault. That burned like acid in his gut. He and his team had thought they were being so smart.
Mercer’s real daughter, Cassidy Sherridan, had needed to vanish. Intel had leaked out about her—not her specific name, but the fact that Mercer had a daughter he’d hidden for years—and the sharks had started to circle. They’d needed to get the sharks off their blood scent.
We needed bait.
But the bait was supposed to be Rachel. Not Tina.
They’d left a trail of evidence including phone calls and a log of private meetings connecting Rachel and Mercer. They’d wanted all those circling sharks to think that Rachel was the one connected so intimately to Mercer.
When the sharks came in to attack, Rachel and the team would have been ready.
But the main shark had gone after the wrong prey in New Orleans. Tina had been down there—why?—and Devast had connected her to Mercer.
“I’m sorry,” he told Tina, and he meant the words. Drew was sorry that he’d screwed up her life, and that his team had brought her into this twisted mess. He turned toward her.
She stood just a few feet away, her eyes wide, her cheeks a soft pink.
She’s so beautiful. Does she even realize what she does to me?
He cleared his throat. “Why were you in New Orleans? You weren’t supposed to be there.”
“The call came down that an EOD doctor might be needed on scene.” Her smile was wry. “Considering some of the locations the agents travel to, visiting New Orleans sounded like a really good option for me. I can’t... I can’t always go into the field. It was—”
“Safe,” he finished as he edged toward her.
She nodded. Her hair brushed across her cheeks with that slight movement. “I thought that would be the perfect trip for me. I needed a break from D.C.” A rough laugh eased from her. “I guess I got my break.”
“A break is one thing.” He tried to keep his anger and fear leashed. “Signing on to finish this mission? That’s something altogether different. You’re risking your life.” The anger spiked, sharp and hard, within him. “You don’t belong in the field, Doc. You need to get back in an office. Go back to—”
“I know his daughter.”
Hell. He’d wondered if Tina had put the puzzle pieces together. The woman was sharp. She’d been working in the EOD office when Cassidy Sherridan had gone in a few months back. Cassidy hadn’t headed to the office willingly. She’d been hunted, nearly shot right outside on the street in front of the EOD office.
“She’s trying to escape, isn’t she?” Tina asked.
Yes, Cassidy wanted out of the prison that had held her in check for her entire life. “Not at the cost of someone else’s life.” Cassidy would never go for a plan like that.
“It’s not just about her.” Her gaze seemed shadowed. Since when did Tina keep secrets from him? “I want to stop Devast, too. I want to help.”
He had to touch her. He shouldn’t. She was still recovering but...
His fingers trailed down her cheek. Like warm silk. “Help by staying alive.”
“I can do more.” Now she had anger of her own pushing through the words. “So I’m not an agent. I’ve been working with the EOD for years. I can keep a level head. I won’t panic. I have my medicine now, so I can control my attacks. I can do this.”
The problem was that he didn’t want her to “do this.” What he wanted was for her to be far away from danger. He forced his hand away from her and took a step back so the scent of strawberries wouldn’t be so tempting. “Go to your room. You should get some rest.” He turned away.
“Stop it.”
That wasn’t anger coming from Tina. It was full-on fury.
He glanced over his shoulder.
Her cheeks weren’t just a soft pink any longer. They were flushed a dark red. “Uh, Tina...”
“I don’t take orders from you, Lancaster. Whether I’m completing this mission or not—that isn’t your call. It’s mine. It’s my life.”
“A life that you could lose!”
“Pierce Hodges already lost his life.”
Pierce. His body tensed. Pierce Hodges had been the pilot on that plane. A good guy. Drew had worked with him before and—
“Pierce died because Devast was coming after me. Devast is going to keep coming. If we don’t stop him, innocent people are going to die.”
This was what she didn’t seem to get. “You’re innocent.”
Tina shook his head. “Not in his eyes. You really think you’re going to be able to convince him that he made a mistake? My life has been bound with Mercer’s since I was eighteen. You were trying to link him to Rachel, but you overlooked the fact that he’s been linked with me for too long.”
Eighteen?
“I won’t have more deaths on me. Not when I can do something to stop this.”
“You don’t know what you’ll be facing—”
Her chin lifted. “Maybe you don’t remember, but when we were in that hellish room and that jerk with the knife was getting ready to cut me—when he was getting ready to take a finger from me—I didn’t make a sound.”
He shook his head. He didn’t want to remember that moment. It twisted his guts.
“I’m not going to crumble. I don’t have your training, I get that. But I can do my part.”
He stared back at her.
Her eyelashes flickered. “I know what this is about.”
He doubted it. He was good at keeping his secrets.
She stalked toward him, stabbed her index finger into his chest. “It’s because of the attack I had. You can’t get past it.”
Drew shook his head. “That’s not—”
“I am not some little piece of fluff. Do you understand me? Yes, I had an asthma attack. My asthma gets severe—especially if smoke is billowing around me! But I’ve got
it under control. I’m fine now.”
But he’d never forget how terrified he’d been. “I’m not going to risk—”
Her finger stopped its stabbing, but her eyes were bright with fury. “I’m not yours to risk, Agent.”
I feel like you are.
“I told you already. This is my life.”
But he felt like she was his.
“You think I’m some green girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing? That I’m just a healer. That’s what you said, right?”
There wasn’t any “just” about it. She saved lives. She’d saved plenty of agents. That was damn important.
“I killed a man when I was eighteen.”
There was that magic number again, only now he realized it was attached to a dark story that had changed her life.
“I can do it again, if I have to.”
She’d killed a man? His doc? Drew shook his head.
Her smile was sad. “Anyone can kill, under the right circumstances. Those circumstances...” The smile vanished as she swallowed. “They didn’t give me a choice.”
His heart was pounding in his chest, racing fast, but when Drew spoke, his voice came out flat. “What happened?” He had to know. It was getting to the point where he felt as though he had to know everything about her.
She backed up a step.
He caught her wrist, held her there. “What happened?” She didn’t get to drop a bombshell like this one and just walk away from him.
She straightened her spine. Her whole body seemed to tense as if she were bracing herself for the memory. “It’s one of those ‘wrong place, wrong time’ stories. They always end badly, you know.”
Pain echoed in her voice and seemed to strike right at his heart.
“My parents and I got caught in the middle of a bank robbery. When we walked into that bank, we didn’t realize what was happening until we heard the teller scream.”
She eased out a slow breath and continued. “My dad, he was a cop. He had his dress blues on that day. He always looked so good in them. My mom would call him her ‘handsome cop.’ And he did look handsome that day. I was proud of him. Always so proud.”
She pushed her left hand through her hair. Her eyes were on his, but Drew didn’t think Tina was actually seeing him. Her gaze seemed to be focused only on the pain of the past. “We went inside, thinking that we’d be in and out. We had dinner reservations at six that night.” She pushed out a hard breath. “We didn’t make dinner.”