Sami leaned around Harvard to give Marcus a skeptical up-down glance, then shook her head like she thought her boyfriend was clueless. Harvard wasn’t—in fact, he was usually the smartest guy in the room—but the catch was, for all his brains, he was still a guy. He’d obviously been sent by Sami to check up on Marcus, and neither of them particularly wanted to talk feelings. Quoting one of Harvard’s favorite movies was a surefire way to keep that from happening.
Or maybe Sami didn’t think Harvard was being thick-skulled. Maybe she just saw through them both. Women had the creepy ability to do that.
But she let it slide for now. “It’s good to see you again, Marcus.”
“You, too. You changed your…” He motioned to his head. She’d chopped off her hair and dyed the ends purple since the last time he’d seen her. “Suits you.”
A lot more than her hair had changed in the last eight months. Apparently she was allowed to go on missions now? Last he knew, she was still a trainee.
And he was out of small talk.
“So who are all these people?” Sami asked, giving him a reprieve.
Yeah, okay. This topic he could handle. “Muslim refugees from the civil war. Josue, the priest, lets them stay here so the Christian militias won’t attack them.”
“God,” she said after a moment, her voice strained. “They look like they’re starving.”
“They are.”
“Oh, hell no. Not if I can help it.” She pulled her pack around and grabbed a box of protein bars.
“Is it a woman thing?” Marcus wondered as she wandered away, passing out protein bars. When she ran out, she raided a stash of candy from her pack and handed out mini packs of Skittles. “The ability to care so much. They all seem capable of it and I…” He trailed off, realizing he was speaking out loud and Harvard was staring at him. “Shit. Never mind. I’m tired.”
“But you’re good?” Harvard asked. “Like I told Sami, you’re fine?”
“Yeah, yeah. Right as rain.”
“What does that even mean? Rain sucks.”
“Fuck if I know.”
They stood there in silence for a moment before Harvard finally cleared his throat and gave his laptop case a little jiggle. “So where do we set up?”
“I’ll talk to the priest.” Marcus clapped him on the back and cut through the crowd, thankful to be out of that awkward conversation. He headed toward Josue, who was helping Jesse and the local nurse tend to Mercedes.
But he didn’t get far.
His escape was foiled by Seth, who stepped in front of him, effectively blocking his path. Seth was smaller than him by a few inches and a dozen or so pounds, but the look on the sniper’s scarred face said he wasn’t moving without a forklift.
Annoyance sparked like a match inside him. Obviously, Seth had a bone to pick with him—ha, get in line—but they didn’t have time for this reunion bullshit right now. “You got a problem, Hero?” He purposely used the hated nickname, which was a mistake. Seth grabbed him by the throat and shoved him against the wall.
The room dropped into silence.
“You knocked me out,” Seth said through gritted teeth.
Marcus had to claw at the hand cutting off his air before he managed to squeak out a choked, “What?”
“You put me in the fucking hospital with a concussion and I lost an entire day of memories. I’ve had enough days taken from me, asshole.” Seth knocked him against the wall again. “I shouldn’t have to worry about my friends stealing more.”
What was he talking about? Seth was a former POW and had lost two years of his life, so it made sense that he’d be angry about losing more time. But Marcus couldn’t figure out how it was his fault. Yeah, he had done a lot of shit he hated, but had he really hurt Seth, too? “I-I don’t know what—”
“Yeah, you do. Think real hard. That night you left. You wanted to get at Mercedes. I was guarding her. You hit me over the head.”
“Wait. Wait.” Marcus frantically searched through his blurred memories of that night. Had he really stooped that low? Shit, he couldn’t remember. He didn’t think so, but… “I-I was drunk.”
“I trusted you.”
“Guys!” Lanie finally broke through the crowd. “Jesus, we’re in a church. Stop it!” She was a tall woman, but they both still had several inches on her. Her smaller size didn’t stop her from wading into the fight. She shoved between them and threw an elbow at Seth’s stomach, forcing him to release his grip on Marcus’s neck.
Marcus bent double and gasped in a lungful of hot air that reeked of too many humans crammed into too small a space. When he straightened, he caught sight of Ian standing by Mercedes’s cot, his expression a mask of stone.
And he knew exactly who had knocked Seth out that night. It couldn’t have been him. He’d been too drunk to wield any kind of weapon with any kind of accuracy.
Ian had turned him away at the door. He remembered that clearly enough.
Ian had knocked Seth out.
Why was the psycho so intent on protecting Mercedes? Both then and now, because there was no mistaking his stance as he hovered over her cot. It was that of a male protecting his female.
Did they have a relationship?
If not, they at least had a past.
When the team first butted heads with Mercedes in Nigeria last year, Ian had never mentioned knowing her. In fact, Ian never said much about anything. What did any of them really know about the man?
Unease swirled in his gut. This wasn’t going to end well for anyone involved. Those two together was a bad idea. He knew it like he knew his name was Marcus Vincent Deangelo. Ian and Mercedes were an explosive mix of chemicals that threatened to blow a hole in the side of the entire planet at the tiniest catalyst.
And yet he was going to fucking protect the both of them. He intimately knew the hollow ache that came with wanting a woman who couldn’t be yours.
As he turned back to Seth, he purposely skipped his gaze over Leah. She was watching the whole thing with wide eyes, a hand pressed over her heart. If she hadn’t hated him thoroughly enough before this, she had to now.
At least he did owe Seth—and everyone else—an apology. Just not for this particular crime.
He met his teammate’s gaze and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
Seth crossed his arms over his chest. His scars stood out white against his tanned skin. A roadmap of horrors Marcus couldn’t even fathom. “I trusted you, Deangelo.”
“I know, dude. And I know how hard trust comes for you. I’m so sorry. I was a wreck that night and looking for relief at the bottom of a bottle.”
Seth’s features softened. If anyone understood what that was like, he would. “You’ll never find it there.”
“Didn’t stop me from trying. I wasn’t in my right mind. That’s why I left.” He took a moment to find each of his teammates in the crowd. “I know I hurt all of you in one way or another, but I had to leave. For my own sanity. I needed time to put myself back together and figure out how to live in a world where—” His voice cracked.
Hell, this was harder than he thought it’d be. But it had to be done. And it had to be done now—despite the audience of curious strangers— because if they tried to undertake a rescue mission with all of this tension hanging over them, someone would wind up dead. At least many of the locals probably didn’t speak English. He hoped.
He drew a breath and tried again. “I had to figure out how to live with the knowledge that a man I loved like a brother was dead because of me. Because someone wanted me dead. And, after we found Haly’s body in Switzerland, I had to come to terms with the fact that I might never know who that bastard was. I…died inside. I drank, hoping my body would catch up with the rest of me, but it wasn’t happening fast enough. I didn’t want to live and if I had stayed, one of you would’ve found me with my brains
splattered on a wall. I tried it once, but the fucking gun jammed.” He let out a ragged laugh. “I hadn’t cleaned it since Martinique, and it had sand in it from that fucking beach. If I hadn’t left when I did, I would’ve tried again with a clean gun.”
Nobody moved or spoke for a long moment. An endless, torturous moment. His admission of attempted suicide seemed to echo around the church, growing louder with each passing beat of silence. He supposed that was better, having it out there in the world instead of the thought echoing inside his head like it had been since Danny died in his arms.
He risked a glance at Leah again. She hadn’t moved, but now there were tears pouring silently from her eyes.
Seth was the first to react. He uncrossed his arms and held out a hand. After a second’s hesitation, Marcus accepted it.
Seth pulled him in for a quick, hard hug. “I’ve been there, too. Next time call me before you pick up the gun,” he whispered before stepping back.
Lanie released a shaky breath and also stepped in for a hug. “Danny saved me. He pushed me out of the way. He died because of me, too.”
“No.” He emphasized the word with a hard squeeze. “Stop it. I don’t blame you.”
“Then why do you keep blaming yourself?” She released him, pressed a kiss to his cheek, then backed away and slipped seamlessly back into her role as commander. “C’mon, guys. We have work to do, people to save.”
“Just another day at the office,” Jean-Luc tacked on and the tension in the room broke with a ripple of laughter from the team.
Chapter Twenty
Based on satellite photos, the Russian doctor had set up shop in an abandoned Aid First clinic in the northern part of the country, near the border with Chad. Given the horrible road conditions and the flooding caused by the constant rain, it was at least a day’s drive from their current location.
Harvard and Sami also managed to dig up a name: Dr. Alla Denisova. She was a dual British and Russian citizen, educated in both Britain and the United States, and had worked with Aid First until three years ago, when she was quietly fired and stripped of her medical license after allegations of misconduct. And that was where her background ended. Despite having two of the best computer sleuths on the planet looking into the woman, neither Harvard nor Sami could find more information on those allegations or what happened to her afterward. It was like Denisova vanished, and Marcus bet Volkov Group had something to do with her disappearance.
Was she a hostage, too, or was she the brain behind the disappearances happening here? It was a question the team couldn’t seem to agree on.
“We treat her like a hostile,” Ian said matter-of-factly.
“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?” Seth asked.
Ian’s lip curled. “You of all people should know that no one’s innocent, Hero.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I can call you whatever the fuck I want, Hero.”
“Two can play at that game, Boomer.”
Ian scowled. “Don’t call me that.”
“I can call you whatever the fuck I want,” Seth shot back.
“Enough,” Lanie said on a heavy sigh. Most of the time, she seemed like just another one of the guys, but right now, her expression was all female exasperation that clearly said, Ugh, men. She was probably wondering if she could knock all of their thick, testosterone-heavy skulls together until they stopped sniping at each other like cranky children.
Although things had calmed a bit after the blowup earlier, the longer they discussed this mission, the closer tensions rose to the boiling point with each passing minute. The church was stifling hot and stank of too many unwashed bodies. Ian had been on a knife’s edge ever since he laid eyes on Mercedes, his temper even more volatile than usual, and it was rubbing off on everyone else.
For his part, Marcus couldn’t focus on the conversation. He kept looking for Leah in the crowd. There she was with Abel, carrying on a conversation with a young mother. There, helping Josue move some benches to make more room. At one point, she straightened and rolled her shoulder. Her grimace of pain had Marcus climbing to his feet before he realized what he was doing. Was she hurt? How had he not noticed in the shower? He should’ve noticed. He should’ve been more careful of her, treating her like the precious thing she was rather than manhandling her.
Jesus, had he hurt her?
Lanie arched a brow at him. “Going somewhere, Deangelo?”
He snapped back to the briefing and realized his teammates were all watching him like he was a half inch from losing his mind. “Uh, need to stretch the legs.”
“Uh-huh.” She was completely unconvinced. Not that he expected her to be. It was a transparent lie.
Okay. He had to get his head in the game. The sooner they finished here, the faster Leah could get home to her kids.
Marcus sat back down and pulled the map across the floor toward him. He studied the distance between the church and the old Aid First clinic and shook his head. The country was a little smaller than Texas, which was a lot of ground to cover in a hostile environment. “Our main problem is transportation. We can argue over Dr. Denisova all we want, but it’s a moot point if we can’t get to her. Driving will take too long.” He remembered bouncing along the road between the Volkov camp and Josue’s church and winced. His ass still hurt from all those potholes, a few of which could’ve swallowed a smaller vehicle. “The roads around here are damn near impassible, especially with the flooding. Not to mention, we’ll have to contend with the civil unrest. There are local militia groups everywhere, and they won’t care that we have nothing to do with their war. By the time we get to Denisova—if we even get there—Alexander Cabot will be long dead.”
Lanie exhaled through her nose, then nodded. “I’ll see if we can coordinate air transpo.”
“We’re goin’ to need it,” Jesse said, returning to the group after his latest check on Mercedes. He stripped off a pair of latex gloves, balled them up, and shoved them into a side pocket in his medical bag. “She’ll die if we don’t get her to a hospital soon. She’s spiked a fever. If it’s sepsis, we may already be too late.”
Lanie glanced over at her husband. “It’s that bad?”
“Honestly, I’m surprised she’s conscious. I’ve started an IV and gave her an antibiotic shot, but it won’t be enough to combat the infection. If our pilot’s still waiting on standby in Bangui with the Nest, he’s her only chance at survival.” The Nest, HORNET’s jet, was one of the perks of working for Quentin Enterprises.
“We need the Nest to get to Cabot,” Marcus said. “Or else he dies.”
Lanie sent Marcus a sideways glance, then moistened her lips. “Nobody’s dying on my watch. Get Mercedes ready to travel,” she told Jesse, then held up a hand when Marcus opened his mouth to protest. “I’ll call Tuc and see if he has a spare helicopter and pilot nearby.”
“I’ll have to go with Mercedes,” Jesse said. “If she crashes in the air, Garcia won’t be able to help her.”
“Whoa. We’re not doing this mission without a medic,” Jean-Luc chimed in. “That’s just daring God to take a great big shit on us.”
Lanie pinched the bridge of her nose as others added their thoughts about the situation until they were all talking at once. Most agreed with Jean-Luc. And Marcus did, too, but he was willing to take the chance if it meant rescuing Cabot and saving Leah from further danger.
“Guys!” Lanie held up both hands and made a slicing motion, cutting through the noise. “Chill. I’ll also ask Tuc about a medic, okay? Like I said, nobody is dying on my watch. Give me time to hammer out the logistics.” She turned to her husband. “Go with Mercedes to the Nest.”
Jesse hesitated. “I don’t like leaving you.”
“Oh, that’s sweet, but didn’t you know?” She flicked her thick ponytail over one shoulder, purposely whacking him in the face with
the ends of her braids. “I’m a kick-ass warrior who doesn’t need her man to protect her.”
Jesse grinned and caught one of the thin braids between his fingers, gave it a playful tug. “I did know that. It’s why I married you.”
Her smile faded into seriousness. “I’ll be fine. We all will. Go save a life, cowboy.”
“Doesn’t stop me from worrying.” He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. As he turned away, Marcus caught his arm on impulse.
“Wait. Take Leah with you.” He didn’t even realize he’d had the thought until the request left his tongue, but now that it was out, he was sure it was the best idea he’d had in a while. Leah didn’t need to be here for Cabot’s rescue. She’d done her job by getting HORNET involved. She could go home now.
Jesse looked down at the hand on his bicep, then searched the crowd for Leah.
“She’s not safe here,” Marcus added, half afraid Jesse would give a valid reason why she couldn’t go. “And I need her safe or I won’t be able to keep my mind on the mission.”
Jesse met his wife’s gaze briefly, a flash of understanding passing between the two of them. Marcus didn’t care if they knew about his feelings for Leah. If it meant she stayed safe, let them speculate.
Jesse nodded once. “Tell her we leave for the airport in ten minutes.”
…
Busy work helped to keep her mind off the situation. As long as she kept assisting Josue with all the little chores that needed doing around the church, she didn’t have to think about Alexander Cabot, Mercedes, or—most importantly—Marcus.
She didn’t have to consider the fact that Marcus and the rest of the team would soon be putting themselves in danger to rescue a man none of them knew. A man she had asked them to rescue. A man she barely knew, but who claimed to have a tenuous connection to her husband.
She didn’t have to think about the civil war raging outside this church, or that many of the children taking refuge here were starving to death and may not see adulthood.
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