by Tawny Weber
“Wait? That’s bullshit. You think I don’t know what you were doing in there? I know damned well you’re gonna try and hang treason charges on me, lady.”
“I haven’t charged anyone with anything.”
“You think I don’t know what you were going to say in there?” he snapped, waving the gun. “There’s only one way you’d clear Savino and that’s if you found someone else to point the finger at.”
“There are already two men implicated in this case,” she said, calling up the calm, assured tone she used when arguing before a jury. “Why do you assume I’d point anything at you?”
“You think I’m stupid?” he snapped, pacing toward the window to stare out, then to the door, then back again. All the while, aiming the guns at Darby’s belly. “You think I don’t see what’s going on between you and Savino? You’d do anything to clear him.”
Because he was innocent. She bit her lip to keep from throwing the words in his face.
“I’m a sworn officer of the court, Captain. I work within the law. If Commander Savino was cleared, it’d be because the law was on his side.”
“Savino’s charges are solid. They are Gibraltar. Thomas assured me he was going down,” he said instead of answering.
“You’re implicating Lieutenant Thomas in criminal activity?” she asked, feeling sick inside. Paul was a jerk but she’d never have imagined he’d be dirty.
“I could,” Jarrett muttered, wiping the sweat from his upper lip with the back of his gun hand. “Hotshot attorney hates Savino and his men like poison. Hates them enough that he was sloppy, he didn’t look past the conviction.”
“Overzealousness is unprofessional, but it’s not criminal.”
“No. He won’t back off,” Jarrett dismissed with a wave of the gun. “Savino’s the one. Everything was set. It was perfect. I’d laid it all out for him. Now you fucked it up.”
She hadn’t fucked it up alone. But Darby was pretty sure that admitting that everyone knew he was dirty was only going to get her in trouble. So she did the hardest thing possible.
She changed the subject.
“You sound as if you hate him.”
“Smart woman.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s so fucking perfect. Him and the rest of Poseidon. Perfect and arrogant and so damn better than everyone else. They think their mythic reputation makes them untouchable. That they can do anything they want because they are pure gold.”
Darby realized that hate was a mild term for what he felt for Nic.
“But isn’t that what SEALs are all about? Elite and exclusive.”
“Poseidon ain’t ordinary SEALs. Every man on that team holds multiple ratings, is qualified for every team role. They win every competition, have every commendation.” He gritted his teeth so loud, Darby was surprised a few didn’t fall out.
She knew all that. What she didn’t know was how it was a motivation for treason. Given that as soon as she was out of this time bomb of a building, she was going to bring every charge she could think of against Jarrett, she wanted as much information as possible.
“So Poseidon being the best is bad?”
“Some people think so. Some people don’t see Poseidon as motivation, they see it as an obstruction. It breeds jealous envy, bitter resentment.” He nudged her shoulder with the gun, scaring the hell out of her, then grinned.
“Do you know how many kids thought they could prove themselves good enough for that team? How many thought if they pushed harder, went bigger, they’d make such an impression that Savino would invite them to join? Think about it. Savino and his team killed your brother. Maybe they didn’t do the actual drowning, but it’s on them all the same.”
There was no room for fear as Darby reeled. She felt as if he’d just kicked her in the gut. Her breath was gone, her body rigid with pain. She’d told herself she’d put it aside. That she didn’t really blame Nic for Danny’s death. But sitting here on a chest labeled AMMO, held at gunpoint by a madman spouting words she’d heard hundreds of times before, she felt it. A tiny seed of shame.
Because for all that she’d told herself that Nic held no logical blame for Danny’s death, emotions weren’t logical. Because her feelings for Nic were so strong, she’d told herself she’d set it aside. The blame, the anger. But she hadn’t.
Not in her heart.
As Darby listened to Jarrett continue his rant, reciting all the reasons that Nic and his teammates were to blame for everything from a lack of morale among some seamen to Jarrett’s own paycheck, she realized she’d been just as unfair.
Nic didn’t deserve one iota of blame for being who he was any more than the sun deserved blame for shining.
If she got out of this, she’d tell him that.
No, not if, she corrected when Jarrett stopped whining to go check the window again.
When.
Because Nic would rescue her.
If she trusted nothing else in her life, she trusted that.
“You’re going to leave me here while you escape, aren’t you?”
“That’d mean I’m leaving a witness. Being such a clever lawyer, I’m sure you realize how stupid that’d be.”
Oh. Darby wet her lips. She wanted to ask if that meant he planned to take her with him. But she didn’t think either answer would make her feel any better. So she fell silent. “Witness or not, they’ll know it’s you.”
“Yeah, but they won’t do jack while I’m holding on to you. That’ll give me enough time to go under. You think I’m stupid. I planned this all out. Every damn step of the way. I have an escape plan. All I have to do is get off the base.”
“Nic Savino will find you. Taking me won’t make a bit of difference. He’ll hunt you down and make you pay.” Darby tried to look intimidating. “He knows what you did. He knows you framed him. And he’s going to want to know why.”
“Why? Because it was easy, that’s why. Everyone treats him and his gang like gods. Those assholes think they’re smarter than everyone. Well, I showed them, didn’t I? Who used their missions to steal secrets? Who sold those secrets, made millions and dropped it all on Savino’s head?”
“What about Ramsey and Adams?” she asked. “Wasn’t any of it their idea?”
“Those two idiots? They didn’t have what it takes.” Jarrett’s laugh was nasty. “All I had to do was use Ramsey’s ego and his hard-on for Poseidon. And Adams? That dumb-ass would do anything Ramsey told him. Golden boy said jump off a bridge, Adams would leap without question. Idiots. They were easy. Too damn easy. Until Ramsey landed his pretty-boy ass in the brig. I know how that idiot thinks. All I had to do was promise him I’d pin it all on Poseidon, and he kept his mouth shut.”
Was this a confession?
Because that fear was scraping at her back with its poisoned teeth, Darby swallowed hard against the knot in her throat and focused on keeping him talking.
All she needed was time.
Time enough for Nic to find her.
She focused on her breathing, kept feeding Jarrett bits and pieces, enough to keep him bragging.
She recited Nic’s name in her mind like a mantra.
She’d get out of this.
And when she did, she’d tell him the truth.
She’d tell him she loved him.
That she’d take the shadows and the gray with him anytime. Because this black-and-white crap?
It sucked.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“THE SONOFABITCH HAS her sitting on enough explosives to blow her to kingdom come.”
“And take out half the island in the process,” Lansky muttered with disgust. “Leave it to a coward like Jarrett to think thousands of people is acceptable collateral damage.”
“Coward or not, he’s smart,” Lou
den pointed out. “He knows Poseidon has a zero collateral damage policy.”
“He’d do well to remember that we have a kick-ass policy, too.”
Nic let the chatter roll around him but didn’t participate.
His every thought, his every focus, was on the mission ahead.
He had to think of it that way. As a mission.
He used his knowledge of the enemy to map out his weaknesses. He factored in Jarrett’s desperation, weighed it against his familiarity with the team’s style and the base layout. In the forty minutes since they’d discovered Darby’s kidnapping, he’d planned every step of the operation, detailed every move his men would make, coordinated every contingency with the Admiral. He had a solid backup plan, an alternate and a fail-safe. The base was on alert, every single man briefed and ready.
If he thought of Darby, considered what might happen, gave one second to what she might be going through, he might falter. In faltering, she could be hurt. Or worse.
Nic clenched his fists, his jaw tense as he vowed to never let that happen.
But with the vow came the memory of Darby’s face. Her deceptively delicate body. That brilliant mind and clever mouth.
At Jarrett’s mercy.
His throat was so dry he could feel every pounding heartbeat reverberate. Black spots bounced in front of his eyes, blurring his vision. Calm down, he warned himself. He couldn’t do a damn thing if he started worrying about what Jarrett was doing to Darby. Fear tightened his gut, mocking his attempt.
He’d never felt anything like it before, so it took a few seconds before he recognized it as panic.
“Savino.”
Nic glanced at Cree. On his commander’s face was an understanding and a hint of the same fury Nic felt. Not for the same reason, Nic knew, but still, the Admiral’s anger calmed Nic’s enough to clear his head.
“We’re ready, sir,” he assured Cree. The older man gave him a long look before nodding. And that, Nic knew, was the green light to move.
He noted the arrival of four MPs and EOD. They wouldn’t be necessary, but protocol was protocol, and the base was, essentially, under attack. They were, however, the signal to go.
Nic stepped away from his spot at the window of the building two doors down from Jarrett’s location and nodded to the Admiral.
“Men, it’s time.”
As one, his team came to attention.
“Rengel, you’re on the east side with Davidson. Danby, you and Prescott take the south. Kendall and Ward, you cover west. Louden and Torres with me while Lansky mans the eyes from here and Brandt coordinates with command. Ears on, eyes sharp.”
The orders were automatic, as were the men’s actions as each checked their weapons and comm system.
Ignoring the urgency pounding at his skull, Nic took the team through the plan. Quick and easy. They’d get in place. Assess. Move. Recover.
“Here.” As soon as they were out the door, he handed Louden his pistol. “Hold this for me.”
“You’re going in there unarmed?” That Nic would be the first one through the door was unquestioned.
“It’s safer for everyone if I’m unarmed when I come face-to-face with Jarrett. I trust the team to have my back.”
Before Louden could object, Nic held up one hand, then gestured that everyone follow him. Silent as still air, they moved down along the building, each team separating on his mark and heading for their assigned position.
“The target is in the building, twelve paces from the door, three from the right-hand window. Armed with a Sig Sauer, thirty round magazine. No extra clip visible,” Brandt said through Nic’s earpiece. “Lovely lawyer is strapped with what appears to be a zip tie to a crate four feet from target’s current position. Cut her loose, she looks like she’ll take down the target with her bare hands.”
He’d bet she would, Nic thought with a hint of a smile as he shot a hook onto the building next to Jarrett’s. With rope, hands and feet, he scaled the wall to vault onto the roof. He shimmied over the sun-warmed asphalt, keeping low while Brandt assured him that Jarrett’s attention was focused the other way. He glanced over as Louden and Torres joined him, then back toward the span of air between the two buildings. Eighteen feet, give or take an inch.
“Clear to set the line,” Brandt murmured.
Instantly, Nic and the other two men lifted onto their elbows, aimed and shot a line across the divide. At the same time the barbs of their hooks dug into the wood edging the roof, Cree’s voice called through the silence, amplified by a bullhorn.
“Captain Jarrett, you are ordered to present yourself.”
Nic grinned as Jarrett’s cussing filled the air. The smile still on his face, he grabbed his line, dropped from the roof and swung his feet up to snag the wire with his ankles. Fast and furious, he quick roped over the divide, silently pulling himself onto the opposite roof three seconds before his men joined him. Hooking a carabiner attached to his belt onto a still taut line, Louden flipped off the roof so his feet steadied him against the wall. One hand on the line, the other reached into his pack.
Within seconds, Louden silently drilled a hole in the wall. He carefully fed a tube through the hole, checked the monitor on his phone, then adjusted the tube. With an infinitesimal nod to indicate it as clear, he replaced his drill with a laser.
Nic checked his watch. Ninety seconds from Cree’s challenge, he noted, clenching his teeth to bite back the order to hurry the hell up. They’d played their hand, Jarrett knew they’d found them. It was time to get Darby the hell out. She’d been in with that madman long enough.
“Kahuna,” Davidson said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper. “Visual is in.”
On schedule, the east team had accessed visual inside the building.
Nic grabbed his phone and hit the video screen. The app pulled the camera image onto his phone.
Fury flashed hot when he saw Jarrett pacing in front of Darby, gun in hand. He wanted to break through that wall and beat the hell out of Jarrett. If the man had been unarmed, he would have. But furious or not, there was no way Nic would risk Darby.
Louden’s laser stream cut silently into the concrete, searing a thirty-inch square into the wall. As Cree’s next demand came via bullhorn, Louden finished his cut. Before he’d put the laser away, Torres was hanging over the side, inserting screws into the wall. Like pulling a piece of pumpkin out of a jack-o’-lantern, the wall slide free.
Nic and Torres grabbed hold, pulling it onto the roof.
He and his men exchanged one last look before Nic silently flipped off the roof and into the hole and into the building’s rafters. He waited the count of five before shifting slowly toward the edge of the platform. One wrong move, one wrong sound, could turn the tide against them.
Brandt’s voice reported that the men were at the windows of the building. Concealed, waiting with weapons at the ready. Brandt was watching, and would time it so Jarrett was facing away from the door when Nic made his move.
He gripped the edge of the platform, ready to vault to the floor twelve feet below. He waited for Brandt’s signal—two vibrates on his phone—that the Admiral and MPs had taken position in front of the building as distraction, then dropped to the floor.
“What the fuck is Cree doing out there? Idiot old man, thinks he can draw me out like a green recruit,” Jarrett barked.
While his back was turned, Nic angled silently behind a crate. He looked at Darby. He wanted her out of the way before he moved on Jarrett. She met his eyes, tilted her head and winked.
Damn. Nic couldn’t stop the smile. The woman was amazing.
“That’s your boss out there? That can’t be good. So tell me, Captain, what’s your plan now?” Darby asked, snagging Jarrett’s attention. “He’s not going to let you waltz out of here. Wouldn’t it be smarter to let me
go, play as if you’re sorry and deal with the consequences?”
“Shut the hell up,” he shouted, storming to the window to glare at the troops.
“This all really went south on you, didn’t it?” Darby continued as if he hadn’t snapped. “Just like all the rest. Was it Ramsey screwing up that blew your little treason scheme? Or was it your mistake in trying to pin your crimes on Nic Savino and his men? Either way, you know you’re in trouble.”
“I’ve got a plan. I just have to get out of here.” His tone grew more and more frantic with each word. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Uh-huh.” Darby nodded. “So does your plan include that money stashed in the Caymans?”
“Belize, you dumb bitch.”
Nic almost jumped the man then. Darby must have known because she gave a quick jerk of her chin to keep him in place.
“My info might have been wrong,” she said in a tone so full of crap that Nic grinned again. “So you have your plan and your hidden money. What’s next? Are you going to haul me out of here by gunpoint? Use me as a shield against all those military types out there? And what good will that do you?”
“It’ll do me plenty of good since nobody’s going to shoot when I’ve got a gun to your head.” Jarrett continued pacing, each trek across the room bringing him closer. Nic tensed, ready to pounce, but Jarrett turned again.
“Nic Savino won’t need a gun to stop you,” Darby said, shifting her weight as he drew closer. “And there’s no way he’s going to let you get away with this.”
She was right. Nic straightened, ready to launch himself across the room.
“Savino is an idiot. He was easy to set up,” Jarrett screamed, as he stormed over to get in her face. “Stupid fucker believes in honor and brotherhood and all that crap.”
Before Nic could pounce, Darby growled. Her face creased in anger and she kicked high, her foot nailing the Captain between the legs with enough force to send him to his knees.
Nic was halfway across the room when she followed that with a kick in the face. Instead of folding, Jarrett swore, one hand on his bleeding nose as he lifted the gun and aimed.