Maddie dropped the sandwich and was out of her chair and to his side in a heartbeat. “What’s wrong?”
Fox continued in his ear. “On it. Betty is locked and loaded on the front door.” Betty was Fox’s nickname for his favorite rocket launcher. “Security protocol is ready to go as soon as you’re clear.”
Tango nodded and held a finger to his lips to shush her, then whispered, “Need you and Lily to get in the car. Minimal noise.”
“I need pants,” Maddie said.
“No time.” Tango wrapped an arm around and pulled her close, then leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Five teams converging on our location. Need you to get the car ready while I grab weapons. Can you do that for me?”
Maddie stiffened against him and he hated the fear he felt rolling off her, but was damn proud of her when she nodded. “My bag still in the car?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I got this,” she said then slipped from his arms and into the garage with Lily-pup.
He watched her go while he collected his sidearm from the counter, tucked it into the back of his pants. Once she was clear of the room, he killed the kitchen lights then strode towards his bedroom. “Movement,” he murmured to Fox.
“Slow and steady to the house. They’re professionals. Unlike the last group. Minute, maybe two, and then they’re in position to breach.”
Thank God old habits die hard and he’d dressed fully and donned his boots after their shower. Moving quickly, he loaded up on the bare essential of weapons, then turned and walked back towards the kitchen. “How did they find us?”
“Not sure,” Fox answered. “Car was clean. Checked it myself. Could have tagged her clothes when she was out.”
“Doubtful,” Dell piped in to add. “Bogey at the back door.”
“Copy that.” Tango slipped through the garage door, then closed it behind him and headed for the driver’s side. Once inside, he pulled the car door softly closed until it latched. “In car. Babe, how much longer before she’s primed to go?”
Maddie was a flurry of arms and genius as she moved from one console to another. “She’s ready now. Doors won’t open on their own, but I programmed the first turbo boost to propel us through the doors and down the drive.”
“Good, now, buckle up.” Tango assumed the position. “On your signal, Fox.”
“Want them closer,” Fox murmured. “Closer… closer… that’s it, come to papa and… fire in the—go-go-go!”
Tango slammed his foot down on the accelerator the same moment he hit the button on the gear shift to engage the turbo. The car roared to life and shot forward through the garage doors just as the front porch exploded in a mass of wood, vinyl siding, and glass.
Maddie shrieked as bullets peppered the side of the car and windows, then fell harmlessly to the ground. “Slam on the brakes and get the garage door off the windshield!”
What Maddie didn’t know was that he and the team had practiced this maneuver a hundred times. Usually after beers and a cookout they’d take turns driving like a maniac out of the garage blindfolded through the windy drive to the end of the road. They’d done it so many times, he wasn’t worried about making it down the drive, but hitting the main road at the correct angle… yeah, that was the challenge. “Driving blind,” Tango called.
“Path clear. Hard turn, right… now,” Dell answered over the ear piece.
Tango yanked the wheel hard to the right, slammed a foot on the brakes, and slid onto the pavement. The garage door debris flew off the hood, into the ditch.
Maddie slid and banged her hip into the seat belt buckle.
Instinct made him grab her with one hand while he dropped a foot on the accelerator and gripping the wheel with the other hand tore off down the road. “You okay?”
“I’m good. We lose them?”
Tango glanced up in the rearview mirror and checked for tails. One behind him and another joining pursuit from the side. “Fox, I’ve got two on my six.” Gunshots hit the back of the car. “Get down!” he shouted and tried to shove Maddie down.
“The hell I will,” Maddie muttered and dodged his hand. “I did not spend hours building and rebuilding this car just so some two bit mercenary with a too small penis could come in and scratch the paint.” She unbuckled and started climbing toward the back. “Besides, the armor will hold up until the thousand round mark.”
Her comment about the armor hadn’t been tested last time he’d checked but he wasn’t about to argue the point with her. Not now. Not when he had something else scaring the shit out of him as he took another corner hard and her panty clad ass hit his shoulder. “What the fuck—Maddie, get your ass in that seat, now!”
She righted herself and used his shoulder to push herself into the back seat. “Drive, Van, and let me take care of your six. These sons of bitches… need to go.”
Much as she hated to admit it, Maddie was in her element. Summers with her brothers had been less camping and barbecuing by the pool and more about running war game scenarios. They’d called it family time and, yeah, it’d been weird and not something she’d ever been able to share with any of her female friends, but this was what her family did for fun. Setup mad dash escape scenarios in the middle of nowhere and target each other with paintball guns to see which team was the smarter and ultimate warrior.
She and Zed had been the champions of the last exercise and she wasn’t about to hand over her title to some group of two bit loser mercenaries who needed to go to hell.
Lily scooted over and made room for her as Maddie landed on the backseat, then flipped open the back driver’s side ash tray and mashed a button inside. Down came her half of the back seat and up popped a makeshift bombardier’s chair. Quick glance up through the rear window as she climbed into the chair. “Any of those SUVs have your guys in it?”
“No. Fox and Dell are coming up behind them.”
Maddie put on her headset and flicked down the visor that’d allow her to line up her shots and see through the cameras mounted on the device she was gearing up to deploy. “Tell them to back off and watch for… road debris.”
He relayed the message. “What are you doing?”
“Doing what I do best.” She focused on lining up the sight with the lead SUV firing at them. Flick of a switch and gears groaned as a back panel slid down on the rear bumper and exposed the chute that’d fire off the small device she’d spent months developing with Caliv but hadn’t yet tested. “Ease off the gas some. Let them get closer… not too close… but close enough to… perfect!”
Van gave her what she needed and Maddie sucked in a breath, then fired. “Fritz deployed!”
“What the hell is a Fritz?”
A flash of light and fire was all the indication she had that the device had successfully launched. But it’d worked like a champ. Exactly as she’d configured it to. Now all she had to do was wait for it to get in the right spot and… “Roll, baby, roll… that’s it… swerve for Mad Maddie… right there…gotcha!”
The lead SUV rolled over top the ball and Maddie slammed her thumb on a button and the device exploded in a flurry of mechanical arms and body that latched onto the SUV’s undercarriage.
“Nothing happened.”
“Wait for it,” Maddie assured him. “Speed up and let me know when the next turn is.”
“Turn coming up,” Van called.
Maddie braced herself and when she felt the car start to lean into the corner, she waited another second then hit the button again triggering a silent boom under the SUV that floated it up in the air, then slammed it back down on to the ground. “Boooyah! That’s what I’m talking about.”
Lily-pup barked her agreement as the lead SUV hit the ground, wheels turned, prepped to make the turn it’d never make it out of. Halfway into it, the wheels locked and engine seized up leaving enough momentum that the SUV should have slid to a stop in the middle of the road, but instead… was a sitting duck for the second SUV to slam into it and shove the suckers hea
d over axel into the shoulder.
Maddie hooted and scratched Lily-pup behind the ears. “And that’s how it’s done. Mad Maddie one, bad guys zero.”
“What the hell was that?”
Tango wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. Maddie had deployed a soccer ball looking device that’d rolled underneath the SUV and then exploded into a million fragments and then… poof. Engine locked up. Bad guys crashed. Chase over.
Damn but that shit was hot. Wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she’d come up with that evil, cool as hell design and obsessed over it until she had the materials to make it. Hell, yes, this was exactly why he’d fell for her. She was brilliant and smart chicks were fucking sexy as hell.
He watched as she moved in the backseat and started shutting down whatever the hell she’d opened back there to put the seat back together.
“That was Fritz,” she announced with pride. “Electromagnetic pulse combined with a high heat charge that killed the motor and seized the mechanical engine. Totally prototype of course. Never tested.” She chuckled as she started to climb back over to the front. “Until now.”
He held up a hand and helped her over the seat. “Fucking genius.”
“Why, thank you. I certainly am.”
He couldn’t help but grin at her smug admission, then immediately groan as Fox shouted in his ear.
“Shut the front door and tickle my whiskers! Did Mama Tango do this… carnage,” Fox demanded
Fully versed with exactly how geeked out Fox was about to get, Tango pulled out his phone and flipped it to speaker so Maddie could get the full effect of the hero worship that was about to commence. “You know it.”
“Hell yeah, we need her on the team,” Fox declared. “Bravo’s gonna shit bricks he missed this.”
Maddie suddenly squealed with delight. “I got it!”
“Got what?” Tango asked.
“A video of it!”
“You recorded it?”
“She recorded it?” Fox said in a daze. “Damn, I think I’m in love.”
“Get your own,” Tango said.
“Does Maddie have a sister,” Fox asked.
“Not that I know of,” Maddie answered, then squealed again. “Caliv is going to be royally pissed he missed seeing Fritz in action, but I got some good data from it and know where we can improve it and—” another squeal of joy “—it worked, I’m a genius, it worked!”
“You’re crazy, you know that,” Tango said to her.
“Crazy is what crazy does, lover boy,” she said right back at him with a grin. “Or should I call you Daddy-O, now?”
That was a sobering thought that made him look at the speedometer. “Buckle up.” He deliberately slowed down. “Now.”
“Seriously? This car is built like a brick shit house with plated armor and an adamantium frame—”
“Madeline,” Tango growled as Fox and Dell laughed. “Seat belt. Now.”
She leaned over the arm rest and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Mmm, growly sexy… I like it. But still mad at you.”
“Be mad, but get buckled. Now.”
She laughed. “Right-o, Daddy-o.”
Dell spoke up. “Slowing to pick up presents.”
“Make it quick,” Tango ordered. “Need a new safe house and—”
“I have one,” Maddie announced. “My warehouse. Well, it’s not mine, but Caliv’s. He lets me crash there when I need to work off some frustration and—”
Work off some frustration? “Smarmy Brit is going to die,” Tango interrupted. “Is it safe?”
“Safe as an underground Cold War bunker can get with three exit points.”
“It’ll have to do. Address?”
She gave it to him and programmed the GPS for a map to pop up. “Kenny knows the address and has been there before.”
Tango relayed the intel to Fox and Dell, then contacted Whiskey.
“K-dog knows the location. Says we’ll be there in an hour,” Whiskey said.
“See you then.” Tango signed off and looked over at Maddie.
She was wiggling in her seat. “What are you doing?”
“Pants. Putting pants on and—,” she unbuckled. “There we go. Much better.”
“Glad to hear it. Seat belt. Now.”
“Sheesh, I’m going, I’m going.”
He waited until he heard the click and then said, “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
“More than enough time for to explain to me just what the fuck the smarmy British bastard is to you.”
“You should know. After all, you’re the one who picked him to baby sit me while you ran off and did God knows what.” She couldn’t stop the bitterness and anger she felt at him from creeping into her voice. Yes, she understood everything he’d told her so far about why he’d left, but she wasn’t an idiot. There was more to his story than he’d shared with her thus far. “I can only imagine what his reports must have been like to you.”
“You know it wasn’t like that.”
“Nope, afraid I don’t. See, I mistakenly believed that Caliv was my friend. Not some hired baby sitter assigned by you to do me favors and give me a job.”
“You got that job all on your own and you damn well know it.”
“No, I don’t,” she yelled at him. “You’re the one who decided I needed to work there. Not me. For all you know, my biggest dream was to be a stay at home mom and go to PTA meetings every other week.”
“You never wanted that.”
“You don’t know that,” she fired back.
“Yeah, babe, I do. Heard you regretting not getting a college degree to get a real job enough times that there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d done the right thing.”
He had her there. She had whined about it enough when she was younger, but that wasn’t the point. “Would you stop logic-ing me out of my angst? It’s annoying.”
He glanced her way and frowned. “When was the last time you slept?”
The answer was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Last night.”
He shook his head. “Not napped, but slept. For a full eight hours.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“For you? Everything. You can’t think straight when you don’t get enough sleep.”
“Oh, naturally,” she scoffed. “Maddie’s overwrought because she’s sleep deprived. Her chaotic emotional state has nothing whatsoever to do with her ex-husband showing up just in time to save her from being gunned down in her living room. And let’s don’t forget the shoot’em up bang-bang car chase after some mind blowing stress relief—which by the way I’m probably about to get yelled at for not saying thank you for rocking my world, but hey it’s all good, because I’m just too stupid to know anything about nothing that’s pertinent to this crazy day that just keep getting better and better and… now I’m rambling. Great.”
Maddie blew out a breath and slumped back against her seat. He had a point. And it was annoying. Extremely annoying because he was doing what she should be doing. Being logical. Because she worked damn hard at being logical and as non-high maintenance emotional diva as a girl could get. But look at her now.
She was melting down because in less than six hours her entire life had been uprooted, stripped of everything sane, and stomped on by a pair of size thirteen combat boots.
Boohoo, it sucked to be her. “If you make me say you’re right and I’m neurotic and bipolar, I will hit you.”
At least he didn’t laugh at her. Or mock her for her issues. That had to be something. “Sleep deprivation is a bitch. How long has it been?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “A while.”
“Define a while.”
“Months. Years.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t like to sleep alone. You ruined me for that.”
“So you and Caliv haven’t…?”
“Ohmigod, you’re like a dog with a bone!” She turned on him. “Caliv is
a friend. Or rather I thought he was my friend until I found out you’d sicced him on me as a watch dog.”
“What kind of friend?”
“The best kind a girl can have, Van. Attentive. Nice. Remembered my birthday with a card. Sent absurd memes with grammatically challenged quotes that made me laugh. He’s a friend.”
“Without benefits.”
She glared at him.
He looked at her. “What?”
“You know, don’t you?” She shook her head. “Ohmigod, you probably even put him up to it to make me feel better. I should have known. But I was stupid, clueless, and yet again in the dark.”
Van breathed in and then out in that God grant me the serenity kind of way that he tended to do when he was frustrated with her. “You’re not stupid.”
“Oh really? Then please explain why it matters to you, who obviously knew everything that was going in my life while you were gone, whether or not Caliv made me a friends with benefits offer that I turned down.”
Whatever response she’d expected him to explode with, it certainly wasn’t the sudden blast of heavy, dominant testosterone that suddenly filled the car and made Lily whimper in the backseat. She’d expected he’d grip the steering wheel and mutter a string of curse words and growl out something about killing Caliv slowly with a dull, rusted butter knife, but seeing him glow? With a white ethereal sort of light? That was… something she’d seen him do only once before. Shortly after they’d started dating. When she’d been a waitress and a drunken customer had mistaken her ass for a place his hand needed to be.
He slowed the car and very carefully pulled over to the curb. He drew in a deep breath that did little to control the tremble of his jaw. Another breath. Then another. “Mine.”
His statement wasn’t a growl. More like the rumble of an insecure man on edge.
Insecure? On edge, sure, but insecure? Where the heck had that come from? Was he really insecure? No, surely he couldn’t be. He was a soldier. A badass, gun toting, hotter than homemade sin hottie who could have any woman he wanted and… ohmigod.
Devil's Tango (Running with the Devil Book 1) Page 6