Hard As It Gets: A Hard Ink Novel

by Laura Kaye

  Christ, they’d made love—and that’s exactly what it had been, not sex, not fucking, not some fling—they’d made love and he hadn’t been honest.

  She faced off with the team. “Somebody man up and tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Becca—”

  Nick glared at Marz, and the man ate whatever words he’d been about to say. When the call had come in on the reward phone line that had led to this fight with Shane, they’d already agreed to Nick’s appeal to trust Becca with the truth once they recovered her brother. Finding Charlie didn’t necessarily mean the Merritts’ troubles were over. Not if their enemies were still looking for whatever had led them to toss both their apartments. Moreover, Charlie would hopefully be able to corroborate some part of their story anyway. And if he was the one talking about whatever his father had been into, the NDA became moot as a reason for continuing to withhold the information.

  Gauging the temperature of his team, it was clear from their gazes and their nods they thought she should know. And that was enough for him. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, especially the more he’d gotten to know her, but that ship had sailed. And fuck the goddamned NDA. If he was going down, it wouldn’t be with this secret standing between them.

  Shoulders braced and feet apart, Nick heaved a breath. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  Arms crossed, she slowly turned toward him. Her gaze told him to get to it.

  Unsure which knife to throw first, the words tangled on his tongue. “Shit, Becca, I’m sorry. Your father . . .” He shook his head. “For five years I served under him. Frank Merritt was my mentor. The kind of soldier I wanted to be. He loved being out in the field, leading men and making a difference. He could’ve gotten cushy on a base somewhere, but he stayed with his team. And I respected the hell out of him for that.”

  Damn, it wasn’t easy admitting how much Merritt had once meant to him. He kept his eyes on her, not wanting to see the guys’ inevitable reaction to his next words. “Frank was dirty. He had some black op running on the side—”

  She blanched. “What? No. My dad would never—”

  “Let me finish.” Rixey raked at his hair. The scowl looked so out of place on her face, and God, he hated that he’d put it there. “For months, I’d noticed little things. How he started to go off on his own for meetings. Afghan farmers—new to all of us—who seemed to know him. Supposed last-minute changes in orders while on counternarcotics missions, including the day our convoy was ambushed.”

  The men knew all of this. And, damnedest thing was, after the fact, they’d all opened up. He hadn’t been the only one to pick up on some of Merritt’s oddities in behavior. But they’d all admired him so much that not one of them had believed what had been right before their eyes. Until it was too late, and half their team was gone. All this time that he’d beaten himself up over seeing but not believing what had been going on with Merritt, he’d forgotten that the others had experienced the same thing. His brain had piled all the blame on himself, when it wasn’t any of their faults. Somehow, he hadn’t had these insights until now.

  “Go on.” Anger, sadness, and suspicion clouded her expression and made him want to go to her. But everything about her posture screamed Hands off, and it parked a Humvee-sized ball of regret right in the middle of his chest.

  He shook his head, his gaze skating over the empty gym equipment, and he heaved a breath. “We were transporting a huge quantity of seized opium. In our area of operation, there were two drop locations, but we almost always used the same one. Right before the convoy got underway, Merritt said we had to drop at the alternate location. About halfway there, out in the middle of BFE, we hit a two-truck roadblock that shouldn’t have been there. I was in the tail gun truck and hung back. It didn’t feel right. And your father was too reassuring on the radio, like he knew it would be okay. When, damnit, that shit is never okay over there.” He scanned his gaze over the group.

  Silent support radiated from all the men, shoring him up to finish the tale.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face, the scruff there now pronounced. “SOP when a convoy stops is fives and twenty-fives. Gunners do five-meter scans in all directions. Soldiers dismount to secure the territory twenty-five meters out from the convoy. Your father told us to stand down. Fucking ridiculous, because a stopped convoy is a sitting duck for a grenade launcher. But your father got out of the truck and approached them like he didn’t have a care in the world.”

  As he spoke, the blood slowly drained out of Becca’s face. But now that the words were spilling, he couldn’t stop them. You could’ve heard a pin drop as he drew a breath to forge on.

  “The ringleader of the roadblock—an Afghan police commander we’d never before seen—shook your father’s hand, then said, ‘I have a message for you: death finds all traitors.’ The man shot him point-blank. After that, the shit hit the fan.” Rixey easily recalled the barrage of reports through his headset, the gunfire, and the pounding explosion of the point vehicle. “The front trucks were trapped when a grenade disabled the third truck. The team bailed from the vehicles, taking cover and returning fire. Insurgents went after the transport vehicles without checking their cargos, like they knew exactly which ones to take. Easy put two rounds in the police commander’s gut. I think that’s the only thing that kept them from staying until they picked every last one of us off.”

  Becca took two steps backward and sagged into a folding chair.

  “After they left with the opium, six of us were still alive, though four were shot to shit. Shane did his best to keep us from bleeding out while Easy got one of the gun trucks up and running. By then, Zane was gone. We radioed for backup, but we were on the road again before anyone showed up.”

  “The casualty notification officers said he’d died in a routine checkpoint incident,” she said in a shaky voice.

  “That’s the official word,” Shane said, voice tight, expression dark.

  “But what you’re saying is . . .” Becca swallowed, hard, the sound audible across the distance that separated them. “That he led you to that roadblock with . . . what? The secret intention of turning over those trucks of opium to terrorists?”

  She put the pieces right together, didn’t she? Nick just nodded.

  “But . . . why? Why would he do that?”

  “There’s a fuckton of corruption in Afghanistan,” Marz said, elbows on the desk and hands fisted together. “Opium’s a persuasive mistress. The local police are on the take. Upwards of forty percent of them in some regions test positive for the drug. Hell, among our own forces, positive drug tests for opium have increased more than tenfold since we’ve been over there.”

  She spun toward Marz. “The Army was my father’s life. You think he would sell you out to make money off the drug that killed his oldest son?”

  No one responded. The deafening silence was an answer in itself.

  Nick cleared his throat, memories forming a thick knot. “When we got back to base and were stabilized, they immediately started in on interrogations. It became evident pretty damn quick they were investigating us rather than the incident. Our suspicions about your father were roundly shut down to the point where we were threatened with prosecution if we continued to voice them.”

  “They ruined our records, Becca,” Murda said, leaning against the wall, his expression lethal, his tone like ice. “Every man in this room had exemplary service records. Look at them now and you’ll find a long list of disciplinary problems and hints of dereliction of duty, supposedly reported by your father. Makes it look like we’re trying to discredit his leadership to clear our own names. Someone was in on this with your father, protected him while he left us swinging.”

  Her gaze dropped to her lap, where her fingers knotted and unknotted.

  “They forced us out on other than honorable charges,” Shane said with barely concealed rage. He stabbed a finger into the table. “Made us sign nondisclosure agreements in order to stay out of prison. It’s a per
manent mark on our records that will never go away.”

  Nick had to hammer home the point. It was his only shot at getting her to forgive him. “Those NDAs are the main reason I didn’t—couldn’t—tell you the truth. But I also didn’t want to hurt you. And, shit, how could this not hurt?”

  Becca kneaded the muscles in her neck and shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.” A single tear trailed down her cheek. Her glassy blue eyes cut to Nick. “Who was the message from?”

  “What message?” Nick asked.

  “You said the police commander gave him a message. From who?”

  Wouldn’t he like to know. It was one of the pieces of the puzzle that screamed corruption. “We don’t know. But apparently Charlie stumbled on something that might help us answer questions just like that one.”

  Becca rose to her feet and closed the distance between them, her movements stiff, her sad blue eyes spearing him. “You promised to be honest with me. To treat me as a partner in this.”

  He shook his head. “I promised to tell you everything about our investigation to find Charlie. And I have.”

  “Bullshit, Nick.” Anger burned away the sadness from her eyes. “You’re splicing hairs too thin to be cut. Correct me if I’m too blond to follow, but this story, if it’s true, is fundamental to finding my brother. If my father was working with some bad guys and Charlie found that out, then those bad guys are who probably took him, broke into our houses, and tried to kidnap me, right? Same investigation.”

  “I wanted to tell you, but the NDA affected more than just me. Breaching it risks all of our freedom, not just mine.” His brain latched onto another part of what she’d said: Story? Becca thought he was telling a story. His chest cavity filled with crushed glass. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?” He held his arms out. “You don’t believe us.”

  “Yes, I do. I mean, I think . . . shit, Nick. This just redrew the map of my world. I don’t know what the hell to think right now. Okay?” Her voice cracked. “It feels like losing him all over again.” Silent tears fell, and her expression filled with utter disappointment. “You asked me to trust you,” she whispered. “And I did.” Becca shook her head. “God, Nick, we just—” She gestured toward the door.

  We just made love. Damnit, Becca, I know. The truth of the words sliced into him on a cellular level. He understood her anger. It was hard to accept any reason for being lied to by someone you love.

  If she even loved him. Or ever could, now.

  “So, what is it that Shane wants me to participate in?” she said in a monotone voice. She turned toward his teammate.

  Sonofabitch. She was shutting down, and he was losing her. He felt it down to his bones. And as much as he wanted to drag her back to his bed, beg her forgiveness, and do any penance she required to make it up to her, he couldn’t. Because they had a time-sensitive lead hanging over their heads.

  And a fight to finish about how to pursue it.

  Shane looked over her head to Nick.

  “Don’t look at him. Look at me. Tell me.” She planted her hands on her hips.

  Shane’s eyes narrowed, but he started talking. “Man who says he attempted to abduct you called through the reward line and asked for a meeting with you this morning. He knew about the pinkie, so he seems legit. We’re supposed to call him back at oh seven hundred to set it up.”

  Life filtered back into her voice. “This is good news, right? If he knows about the pinkie, he probably knows where Charlie is.”

  “Maybe,” Nick said, stepping beside her. “But it could just as well be a setup to grab you.”

  “Still, it’s worth learning more, isn’t it?” She scanned her gaze over the group. “Unless the scouting you did last night turned up something useful?”

  “We reconned four locations,” Beckett said, pushing off the wall and giving her an appraising look. “Two were completely negative, two beg further investigation. We’ve also got bugs in place at the strip club, one on the bar and one on the stage. We couldn’t access any private spaces, though, so we’ll see what they yield.”

  “See,” Marz began, pulling up a series of images on his computer. Grainy schematics appeared with small groups of blinking red dots. “In both locations, Beck’s scanner identified stationary humans in basement rooms. In the first location, three. In the second location, two. This was at the shipping facility and a strip club.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked, leaning in.

  “Possible prisoners.” Beck braced his hands on the desk and studied the pictures. “Or not. It’s hard to say for sure without more intel.”

  “Which our caller might be able to provide, depending on what the hell he really wants.” Shane’s voice didn’t hold its earlier eagerness for the idea, which helped keep Nick’s blood pressure from exploding off the top of his head. “But it means putting you out there. There’s no way he’s going to allow you to bring along a guard detachment. He’s going to put demands and parameters on the meet, Becca. One will certainly be that you come alone.”

  “Oh.” She visibly deflated, shoulders sagging, gaze dropping to the desktop.

  Oh? No, more like, Holy fucking shit. Guy who tried to kidnap her wanted to meet alone. No. Just no. “It’s too dangerous,” Nick said.

  “You guys would find a way to keep me safe,” she said, with an implicit trust that tore at him. “So, if I’m game to do it, that’s the end of the conversation.”

  “Becca—”

  “Stop. Just stop. You don’t get to dictate what I do or don’t do.” She arched an eyebrow at Nick, and he got the message loud and clear. He’d lost any right he might’ve had to an opinion about her life. Rixey fought the urge to rub at the ache splintering the left side of his chest. “Charlie is my brother. If doing this will help bring him home alive, then that’s all I need to know.” She looked at Shane for guidance, and that absolutely slayed Nick. “What do you think?”

  “I think Nick’s right about the risk,” he said, throwing Rixey a bone. “But recon didn’t tell us as much as we’d hoped, and this meeting could make the difference, depending on why he’s asking for it.”

  Easy settled a hip against the edge of the desk. “Maybe he wants to make a trade? Or sell some information?”

  “It’s like a damn multiple-choice quiz right now. I’ll pick D: all of the above.” Shaking his head, Marz leaned back in his chair.

  “One way to find out, right? We call.” She surveyed the men, and Nick followed her lead. Maybe she didn’t know them well enough to see it, but to a man they wore a new respect for her in their gazes. As much as he hated the idea of hanging her out there as some kind of bait, he admired her courage and willingness to help. To be part of the team. Everyone nodded, including him. He could totally get behind making the call. “Okay, then. What time is it?” she asked.

  “Six forty-two,” Marz said.

  She nodded and released a long breath. “So, we call at seven o’clock like he asked and go from there.”

  WELL, BECCA GOT what she wanted. Which was why she found herself standing alone in an open-air picnic pavilion on the edge of the Canton Waterfront Park three hours later.

  A yuppie neighborhood with a party reputation, all of Canton was probably still hungover and in bed, which meant she was the only one in the park. Good for their daytime op, a little scary as she stood here now.

  She wasn’t really alone, though. The team was stationed all around her. Miguel and Shane were hiding in plain sight. They were readying Miguel’s powerboat down at the dock, like they were heading out to fish on the beautiful spring Sunday morning. Miguel had actually been the one to suggest this location, reasoning he could drop them off by water, which the gang wouldn’t likely expect in case they were lying in wait. And, if the team could grab the guy, taking the boat out on the water would give them privacy to interrogate him. Nick, Beckett, Easy, and Marz had taken up hiding spots around the park. Even though she couldn’t see them, she trusted that they were there fo
r her.

  That knowledge didn’t keep her heart from pounding in her chest or her scalp from prickling, but it gave her the courage to stand and wait to meet the man who’d held a knife to her ribs and attempted to kidnap her.

  The man who said he could tell her where Charlie was and what she had to do to get him back.

  That had been enough for Becca. For the rest of the team, as well. Even Nick had begrudgingly admitted it was a critical lead, even if he hated the idea of her being out in the open by herself.

  Nick. God, the story he’d told about her father. If she let herself think about it at all, nausea flooded her gut. Becca paced the length of the pavilion, twigs crunching beneath her sneakers. Part of her wanted to reject the idea that her father was anything but the hero she’d always believed. What they said he did made absolutely no sense. None of it squared with the man she’d known and loved her whole life.

  Except . . . now that the logic of the team’s story had time to gel with what Charlie claimed and the reality of their situation, she was ashamed that she’d succumbed to a moment of knee-jerk defensiveness and made Nick question whether she believed in him. She’d just been so blindsided.

  If only Nick had told her the truth sooner.

  Damned NDA. The agreement made the team’s freedom contingent on keeping quiet. On an intellectual level, she totally got why Nick hadn’t said anything. But it didn’t keep her heart from feeling a bit bruised. Here she was talking about her father like he and Nick were old friends, never having the first clue that he hated her dad with a passion. Believed to his core that Frank Merritt had ruined his life. Certainly explained the frigid shoulder that first day, didn’t it? And it explained why the team had been standoffish toward her while they’d been more friendly toward Jeremy and Jess. But all along, she’d been clueless.

  Becca turned to stare out at the bright sparkle of the Inner Harbor. Two wide-winged gulls swooped low over the water. A part of her heart wanted Nick to have trusted her despite the NDA. They’d made love, for God’s sake. That didn’t earn her a bit of extra trust and respect? Then again, she’d been the only one to ever actually voice feelings in this whole thing. Maybe she was putting the cart about forty-two cart-lengths before the horse, and Nick’s feelings weren’t anywhere near as pronounced as her own. That would certainly explain why he wouldn’t have wanted to take a chance on telling her.