by Cynthia Eden
“You think I’m not the traitor.”
“I know you’re not.” He knew every single secret that Cooper Marshall possessed. He should. The man was family.
Some secrets, Cooper didn’t even know.
“So you want me to go in and join the others who are already on point,” Cooper began.
Mercer shook his head. “No, I don’t want you making any contact with the other agents.”
Cooper’s blond brows rose. The sunlight glinted off his hair. Not as golden as my Cassidy’s. Much darker.
Cooper cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m a little confused. If I’m not to join the team, then just what is my assignment?”
“To make sure you’re not seen. To follow Tina Jamison. To keep your eyes on her and to report to me anything or anyone that threatens her.”
“And the agents with her— What, you don’t trust them? You think one of them could be the traitor?”
He wanted to trust them. On paper, Drew Lancaster, Rachel Mancini and Dylan Foxx were all good agents.
But somewhere in the EOD, there was an agent who was selling him out.
So, yes, he wanted to trust them, but he’d learned long ago that he didn’t always get what he wanted. And he wouldn’t put Tina’s life in jeopardy. “Money can tempt a man to do just about anything in this world.” The right offer, to the right man... “This isn’t the first time that one of the EOD’s own has turned.” Not the first time and, unfortunately, not the last. When you moved in the circles that he did, betrayal was a fact of life.
It was a fact that had killed his wife.
It had taken time, but Mercer had traced that brutal attack back to the man who’d been his friend.
His gaze returned to the grave.
“I want extra protection on Tina Jamison. She’s not an agent, and I’m not going to have her sacrifice her life because she’s trying—” He stopped because Cooper had no reason to know the rest. Tina is trying to repay a debt to me.
He knew exactly what Tina was doing. Because he knew her. Tina was smart, incredibly so. She always had been. Her father had kept smiling pictures of a young Tina—holding her slew of academic awards—all over his desk.
Mercer had never been able to show pictures of his own daughter. But he had one of Cassidy, one that he carefully hid from others.
Cassidy and her mother, Marguerite.
Tina was grateful to him. He knew that. She’d told him time and again. But he hadn’t done anything for her. She would have graduated college on her own. Gone to med school—on her own.
Sometimes, he felt as though all he’d done was put her in a cage. He’d offered her the position at the EOD because she was a damn good doctor.
But... Did I also offer her the job so that I could keep an eye on her? To protect her, the way her father would have done?
Only, Mercer’s protection had turned into a trap.
The same way I trapped Cassidy.
And if he’d known about Cooper Marshall sooner...
He shoved out a hard breath. “You’re on Dr. Jamison’s security detail. You watch her. You protect her. If you think she’s compromised, you move immediately to retrieve her.” He leveled his stare at Cooper to make sure the man got the point. “Your priority isn’t bringing down Devast. It’s keeping Dr. Jamison alive.” Because if a choice had to be made...
Cooper nodded.
Then Mercer wanted his agent to make the right choice.
Chapter Eight
“He wants a trade,” Drew said as he paced the small confines of the house.
A safe house, or so he’d said. The guy had hustled her out of that big hotel fast. Told her that their location had been compromised.
Then he and the other two agents had burned some serious rubber getting to this new spot.
A spot that was a lot less glamorous than their five-star hotel. The little neighborhood had looked abandoned at first glance. Houses in disrepair, roofs slumping, windows boarded up.
The streets were dark, and Tina sure hadn’t seen anyone walking in the area.
Tina glanced around the small, single-story house. There were burglar bars on the windows. Instead of making her feel safe, they just made her feel like a prisoner.
“Tina, did you hear me?” Drew paced toward her. A frown pulled his dark brows low. “The SOB called me. I don’t even know how the hell he got my number—”
“Sydney’s working on that,” Rachel murmured. There was a dark bruise on her temple. A cut on her cheek. Little mementos from the explosion that had nearly killed her and Tina. “She thinks someone hacked into the system because he called Mercer’s private line, too. She’ll find the link back to the hacker, just give her some time.”
“We don’t have time.” Dylan looked as grim as Drew. “What we have is a terrorist who’s locked on us. He’s killed to get to Tina already, and he’ll do it again. He won’t hesitate to take out anyone in his way.”
Was that why they were on that forgotten street? To minimize any collateral damage? The hotel had been full, right in the middle of the bustling city, but the houses on the street were pitch-black and empty.
“We have to be prepared for his attack,” Dylan said. “It could come at any moment.”
Tina found her gaze sliding back to Drew. He’d been quiet, too reserved, since they’d left the hotel. “What aren’t you telling me?” There was something else, she knew it.
“A killer is after you!” It was Rachel who answered a little too quickly. “Isn’t that enough, Tina?”
No, right then, it wasn’t. “What kind of trade did he offer?”
“One million dollars.” Drew’s gaze was guarded. “For you.”
One million— “Didn’t realize I was worth so much.” She had to ask because morbid curiosity compelled her. “Is that alive...or dead?”
His pupils widened, the dark spreading into the gold as he stared at her. “Alive.” The word seemed to drip ice. “I guess, after what happened before, he wants to kill you personally. To make sure the job gets done.”
The man who stood in front of her— I feel like I don’t know him. With his careful words, his dark gaze and his expressionless face...this wasn’t the man who’d made love to her so passionately. As if he couldn’t get enough of her.
This was the tough agent. The one with ice in his veins.
She hadn’t...expected to see this agent return. Not after what had happened between them. She hadn’t wanted to see him again.
Tina squared her shoulders. So much for not going back. He seemed to have flipped their relationship right back to the starting point on her. All thanks to one phone call. “Then I guess this is our chance.”
“Are you sure?” Dylan asked. “Before we go too far, we can—”
“We’ve already gone too far.” Every time she shut her eyes, she saw the plane exploding around her. I’m so sorry, Pierce. She kept thinking about the pilot. Was his family waiting for him to come home? Had they already learned of his death?
Her eyes stung, but Tina blinked quickly, refusing to let any tears fall. She could be strong now. She had to be. Tina lifted her hand and adjusted her glasses. Rachel had brought them to her. She’d even given Tina a backup pair in case these got smashed.
The backup glasses were in her bag. Right next to Tina’s inhaler. I won’t be going anywhere without it.
When the HAVOC group had taken her from the hotel, they sure hadn’t stopped long enough for her to get her medicine. But she would not be that vulnerable with them again.
Can’t be vulnerable. Won’t. “I need a gun.”
The breath expelled from Drew in a hard rush. “You need to think about this. We can get to Devast another way.”
“What way?” She rose from the chair and paced around the room. The familiar weight of her glasses strangely reassured her. “How long has the EOD been trying to get Devast?”
“Years,” was the mutter from Dylan. “We got lucky when Drew was able to infiltrate the grou
p. Their main pilot was caught in an explosion a few months back—one of their own bombs—and they were desperate for another pilot.”
And in stepped Drew.
“You’re not going to get so ‘lucky’ again,” Tina said. “Devast will be even more suspicious of new faces now.” She wasn’t saying anything they didn’t already know. “If we want to take him down, I’m the ticket that you can use. I’m the one who will get up-close access to the man.” She forced a smile even as she wiped her damp palms on her jeans. “So how does this work? He calls Drew again—”
“He already told me when and where to make the exchange.”
She blinked. “Well, then, you just have to tell Mercer. His men will be there, and the trap will be sprung.” A relieved smile spread over her lips. This agent business wasn’t as hard as she’d thought. “He’s caught himself.”
Drew shook his head. Then he walked slowly toward her. He stopped less than a foot away. She could feel the warmth of his body surrounding her. “It’s not that simple, Doc.”
When he said “Doc,” the word dripped and rolled. It sent a shiver over her.
He called her doc the way some men might call their girlfriends sweetheart or baby.
Emotion was breaking through his mask once more, and she sure was glad to see the real Drew. “Then tell me how it’s harder.”
“If he picks the location, if we go by what he says, then we could walk right into a place that Devast has already got wired. He’ll blow it up and kill every agent there.”
“All while he stays back, nice and protected,” Rachel added. She’d taken a seat on the old couch.
Dylan stood close to her. He always seemed to be close to Rachel. “We don’t go by Devast’s rules. We make him come to us.”
“So...what? You’re saying that if we go by his orders, the guy probably wouldn’t even be at the exchange?” She’d just have a bomb waiting for her?
Drew shook his head. “I’m saying we aren’t ready for the meeting yet. I have to guarantee that Devast will be there. To do that, I have to make the trade personal.”
She glanced toward the burglar bars. “Did he know we were in the hotel?” Was that why they’d rushed out so desperately?
“He had my phone number. Devast called me and deliberately kept me on the line long enough for a trace.” Drew shrugged. “It was a safe bet. Only a fool would have stayed put then. I wasn’t just going to wait for the hotel to explode beneath my feet.”
She swallowed. No, Drew wasn’t a fool. And she wasn’t exactly game for anything exploding beneath her feet.
Make this personal. “What are Devast’s weaknesses?” Tina asked as she tried to figure out a plan. “He has to have them, right? Everyone has a weakness.”
“If he has one,” Rachel sighed, “then we haven’t found it.”
Drew’s phone rang.
Tina glanced down at it. He’d placed it on the table when they’d entered the safe house.
“Sydney’s monitoring his calls. If that’s Devast, she’ll get a lock on him,” Rachel said, eagerness pushing in her voice.
Drew picked up the phone. His face didn’t so much as change expressions.
“Syd will get her trace,” Tina said, “but Devast will get one on us, too.” That was how it worked. But...was that what the agents wanted? “Is this some game of see who hits the fastest?”
“I told you, I have to make this more personal for him.” Drew pushed the button to activate the speaker on his phone. “Calling me again already?” She was surprised by the mocking tone of his voice.
Laughter filled the room. Chill bumps rose on Tina’s arms.
“You left the hotel so fast, Agent Lancaster. Did you truly think that you could run from me?”
Drew’s gaze focused on Tina.
“I’m a step ahead of you,” that hard voice said. “Your bars won’t keep her safe. And if you won’t give her to me, then I’ll just take her.”
Your bars.
He knew where they were.
Rachel had leaped to her feet. Her gun was out and she was at the window on the right, carefully searching the area outside.
“Doctors, police officers, even agents...they can all be bought.”
Drew hadn’t taken his eyes off Tina. “You haven’t named the right price for me,” Drew said. “You haven’t bought me.”
Silence.
“Why pay, when I can get her for free now? Thank you for showing me exactly where she was.”
“Come on and try to take her.” There was no fear in Drew’s voice at all. Just a dark challenge. “Let’s see how fast your men die. I took ’em out before, and I’ll do it again.”
“We’ll see...”
“Yeah, we will. You want her—then you’re going to have to track me yourself.” A deliberate taunt.
Then the call was over, just like that. Dylan had gone to the back of the house, and Drew closed in on Tina.
“Does he know? He said ‘bars’ as if he could see where we were.” She fisted her shaking fingers. “And when am I going to get a weapon? When?” If Devast was about to come storming into their not-so-safe house, she needed a weapon.
His hand closed around her shoulders. “You stay by my side, okay? No one is taking you. I’ve got this worked out.”
Oh, great, wonderful to know but before he’d even finished speaking, she heard the eruption of gunfire. The fast blasts came from the back of the house.
Tina flinched.
“Two men!” Dylan called out.
“Three up front!” Rachel said at the same moment.
Devast hadn’t been lying. He had found them. Trailed them? But they’d been so careful when they’d left the hotel. They’d switched vehicles, left false trails... “How did he do it? How did he track us?” Even if he’d had a trace on the phone call, he shouldn’t have been there so quickly. It took time to triangulate signals and then to actually get an attack force to the right location.
But his team was already here. He didn’t have to wait for a lock on the phone.
Devast shouldn’t have been able to find them.
Unless...
Tina’s eyes widened. The GPS trackers. The trackers implanted in the agents. If he’d accessed the EOD system, then Devast could have found Drew—and through him, Tina—by following those tracking signals.
Rachel was returning fire to their attackers. So was Dylan. Instead of joining the firefight, Drew was trying to pull Tina down the narrow hallway. She dug in her heels, then she ducked when a bullet whipped by her. She fell to the floor and her hands slapped against the hard wood.
Tina looked up. Drew had dropped with her. She met his stare even as a cold knot twisted in her belly. “You said that Devast had hacked into Syd’s system?” Just months before, the EOD computer system had come under attack. Agent intel had been compromised.
They’d thought the leak had been controlled but...
Maybe Syd wasn’t looking in all the right areas.
“If Devast knows you’re with me, he could be tracking you,” she said. Literally, damn it. He could have a direct feed into the small tracking device that she’d implanted in Drew’s back. “If the EOD is compromised,” she said as more bullets flew, “then you’re compromised.” Because Devast had definitely outed his identity. “We have to deactivate the tracker.”
The only way to deactivate it was to cut the tracker out of Drew.
“Not yet. I want him tracking me.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hallway. “First order of business—staying alive.”
Wait! He knew Devast was following his GPS signal? His mocking challenge for Devast to “track” him made chilling sense to her.
Drew led Tina into a back room. The windows were boarded up. As far as exit strategies went, this sure wasn’t looking like a good one to her.
He tossed aside the faded rug that had been spread over the floor.
With the rug gone, Tina easily saw the trapdoor in the floor. “Is that a basement?�
�
He hauled up the trapdoor. The hinges groaned. “It’s our escape plan. You didn’t think we’d actually bring you to this place without being sure we could get you out alive?”
The sound of gunfire still thundered from the other rooms. “But what about Rachel and Dylan?”
“They’re coming. They’re just leaving a little something for Devast.” His eyes glittered at her. “We needed to buy some time, so we had to lay the trap.”
What?
“After what he said on the phone back at the hotel, I figured he was tracking me, and I wanted that SOB to follow me here.” His fingers tightened around the door. “Because here, the guy will realize that he can’t just stand back and let his flunkies chase after us.”
Rachel and Dylan burst into the room. “They’re set. Let’s go.”
What was set?
“We’re going to use some of HAVOC’s own techniques against them.” Drew took her hand. “There’s a tunnel under this house. Stick with me. Stay low.”
A tunnel? With dust and mold and— Breathe. In. Out. She had her medicine. This was fine. She could handle a tunnel. She had to. Tina nodded quickly and hurried down with him.
There wasn’t any dust. No mold, either. Just a small, narrow tunnel, maybe three feet tall and three feet wide. She had to crawl, and she did it, double-timing her movements so that she could get out of there as fast as possible.
The sound of their breathing seemed loud in that small space. Rachel was leading the group. Tina was right behind her, with Drew following close. Dylan closed in the back.
“We’re clear,” Rachel said. She’d stopped. She shoved open another trapdoor, one that led them into the darkened interior of yet another house.
Tina scrambled from the tunnel. Drew grabbed her hand. “Easy. We’re about a quarter of a mile away, and we don’t want to do anything that would give away our position.”
So they stayed in the dark. She quickly realized that they’d already stocked this house. Food. Water. First-aid equipment. Binoculars. Night-vision equipped, of course. These agents were definitely prepared.