“The system you defend so fiercely will screw you eventually. You gave up your hand and you’ll sacrifice most of your life, probably lose Tasha in the process. And no one in the intelligence community will give a damn or even remember your name.” Pearce remained perfectly still as he delivered his little speech. “You’re a number to them. A sacrifice they are happy to make. Expendable.”
“I read the same contract you did when I went into black ops. The fact you’re all whiny about your choices now is your problem.” Ward glanced around, took in the gray walls and gray floors. No windows and air pumped in. He half wondered where he could turn that off. Let Pearce suffocate to death. “Good thing you’ll be rotting in here for a long time. You’ll have many hours to think about how the world has done you wrong.”
“Your time will come.”
Ward was already tired of the nonsense. Time to fast forward. He clapped his hands and treated Pearce to a little nod. “Thanks for the warning.”
He turned then and reached for the button to call the guard. He didn’t even make it the whole way before Pearce sighed.
“West is going to die out there this time,” he said in a flat tone.
There it was. The real reason for the request. Some sort of fucked-up scare tactic. Fine, Ward could handle that. He turned back to face Pearce head on but didn’t say anything. He’d rather let this fool talk.
Pearce nodded. “Now I have your attention.”
Barely. “West is on leave.”
“He’s in Pakistan with Delta team.” Pearce started pacing, as if delivering a lecture to one of his classes. “Last time he was there he was almost buried alive. For anyone else, going back there would probably be impossible. Not West. He’s not human. No emotions in that one.”
Son of a bitch. Ward forced every muscle to freeze. Wiped all emotion off his face as he dropped his shoulders.
Pearce could not know that information. West left at the last minute and wasn’t even with his usual team. Pearce could guess at some things, but the location and team switch . . . that was too much of a coincidence.
“He’s fine.” Ward said it but now suspected it wasn’t true.
“I gotta hand it to you. You found yourself a fine machine when you brought him into Alliance. The targeting ability. The way he can locate a hostile, pick up signals a few beats before anyone else. The lack of fear.”
Ward didn’t say a word. Just let Pearce spew. Eventually Pearce would use the one word that would give him the ability to pinpoint where he got his intel on West.
“Is it true he took out a terrorist cell in Yemen while they trained?” Pearce asked. “He actually went in, all alone, and killed them in the middle of the day while they were armed and in the act of shooting. Most people would go in at night. Take the advantage. But not West.” He laughed. “That’s a big pair of balls.
“I’ll let West know you like his balls.”
Pearce made a tsk-tsking sound as he shook his head. “Losing him will hurt, but then you’re going to lose all of Delta team, which will be quite the blow to your merry band of brothers.”
Score one for Pearce.
Ward knew he needed to leave. He had to recheck the intel and try to communicate with Josiah. Find West. “Anything else? If so, say what you want to say.”
“I just did.”
“You are in here without any contact to the outside world.” The guy didn’t have family or friends. He hadn’t been assigned a lawyer because he didn’t need one. Thanks to his work, no one knew who he really was or missed him when he disappeared off the street.
Pearce scoffed. “Don’t be so fucking stupid.”
Anxiety punched Ward in the gut. “Enlighten me.”
“I know everything, including the fact West is about to walk into a firestorm.” Pearce’s smile came back. “But I can help.”
“Yeah, you were really helpful that last time you worked with Alliance.”
“You need to get over that. It wasn’t about you,” Pearce said, as if that made it better.
He’d tried to kill all of them once. Ward would not let him get to West.
Ward turned back to the button. This time he hit it. That gave him less than twenty seconds before the guards stormed in. “Enjoy the silence, Pearce.”
“You get me to Islamabad and I will get you to the weapons and give you one opportunity—your only one—to save West.”
“West knows the risks of the job.” That didn’t mean Ward would leave him hanging out there. Not in Pakistan and not vulnerable to someone connected to Pearce.
“Ah, but you’re not like West. You do have feelings.” Pearce shook his head. “You won’t just let him die. Bring them all home and all that.”
“Right now the only feeling I have is boredom. Were you always this tiresome?” Ward’s nerves pulsed as the need to get back to the Warehouse flooded him. Every second counted now.
“It will kill you to sit in your cozy office and spend your nights fucking Tasha, all while knowing West and Delta are being picked off one by one.” Pearce lifted both hands then moved them behind his head as he went to his knees. “But you have the power to stop it. Or at least try.”
The locks opened again. Three guards came through the door, weapons ready and aimed at the cell, as they were supposed to every time they came inside. If Pearce somehow got loose, they were under orders to kill him without question. Light it up and take him down.
Refusing to let Pearce see one ounce of concern, Ward smiled at him. “Goodbye, Jake.”
“You need me.”
Ward refused to let that be true. “Never.”
The woman was going to kill him.
West stood there staring at Lexi and forced his breathing to slow. Frustration swamped him when he needed control. Between her eyes, all wide and flashing with anger, and that body, his usual solid concentration blinked out on him once or twice. Something that never happened before. Oh, he’d enjoyed many women in his time, but never on the job. Never did one rock him like this one.
He blamed the smart mouth. Add in her refusal to back down even when he shot her a glare that drove armed men to their knees and his blood caught fire. Standing this close, with his hands on the wall, pinning her there, turned out to be a huge a miscalculation. He could smell her hair. What the fuck was that about?
She put a hand on his chest and pushed. “Stop that.”
He wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she was talking about—the empty threats or the near drooling. “No.”
Didn’t move either. She might be fierce but he outweighed her, and his strength might be the one thing that could overcome her sizable will.
“I’m going inside to wait for Javed.” She ducked under his arm and headed for the front of the house.
West caught her around the elbow before she could round the corner. Forced his fingers not to tighten, which was tough because the frustration pounding him made every muscle clench. “He’s coming here?”
She glanced at his hold then back to his face. “It’s his place.”
West was half surprised she hadn’t marched them right into the middle of a Pakistani army training drill. “This is his house?”
She leaned in until her face hovered right before his. “That’s what I just said.”
Little did she know how close she was to pushing him to the edge. No one tested him like this. Without ever being warned, his team members knew when to back off. It was as if they understood how he could funnel all his rage, all the fury building inside him, to the subject of his missions.
There was a reason the team called on him to do the dirty jobs. To scare the hell out of people.
But not her. He didn’t know whether to be pissed or impressed. Right now he went with demanding. “We’re leaving.”
With as gentle a hold as he could muster, he started dragging her around to the back of the house. No need to announce their presence and walk out on the open road. They’d cut through the trees. Use the darkness to cove
r their trail and head for the safest place he could find to stash her.
Would have been a great plan if she hadn’t dug her heels in. Literally. The pebbles and dirt crunched under her shoes.
Then she started trying to peel his fingers off her arm. “He’s not here.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you talk in circles.” The guy was there, he wasn’t. He lived there, he was gone. “Drives me fucking crazy.”
She shrugged at him. Actually shrugged. “Get over it.”
Taking a final grab for patience, West started a mental countdown from ten. He abandoned it at eight and dropped his hand. Since touching her seemed to be a very risky plan. “Explain.”
“Javed has been doing helicopter training runs. He spends a certain amount of time flying in and around K2, stays at base camp then moves higher, but he has to come back down—”
“Because of the oxygen deprivation. Yeah, I know.” West knew far too well what happened at high altitudes. How white uniforms turned black. How men lost their minds. How faulty footing by one person could knock out all those hooked to him.
How the mountain could come down and bury everyone and everything in its path. Expertise and strength didn’t matter. Panicked digging kicked in and life turned into a race between speed and suffocation.
“From the look on your face I don’t think that knowledge comes from a book.” Her fingertips brushed against his cheek then fell away again.
“I told you. I’ve been here before.” In Pakistan, on the Siachen Glacier . . . under a landslide of rock and ice.
“You a mountain climber, West?”
“Definitely not.” His life would be a hell of a lot easier if the bad guys agreed to stay under 4,000 feet.
“Then how?”
He couldn’t do this. Purposely dredging up the memories and running through them begged for trouble. He stayed sane by forgetting. Blocked the bad and kept his mind clear.
Harlan and some of the others joked that the focus made him more machine than man. West could handle that. Machines survived. Machines didn’t care if a slide of rock and ice crushed humans in front of him. Tore through friends and teammates, shredding clothing and skin. Machines didn’t hear the screaming.
But he needed a clear head not only to keep them safe, but to keep up with her. “We are not playing twenty questions.”
“You tell me and maybe I’ll agree to give you the location of the secret encampment and not follow.” She smiled as if she’d found the right argument.
Not a chance. Despite what she believed, they were not locked in some sort of negotiation. Little did she know that using his past as a bargaining chip was the exact wrong way to go. “Or I can tie you to a chair and leave without you. Maybe Javed will come find you, but maybe not.”
Her face fell as all signs of light disappeared from it. “You’re a dumbass.”
And acted this way on purpose to shake some sense into her, which probably did make him a gigantic ass. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“Inside.” She pointed toward the front of the house and started walking again.
Catching her a second time proved tougher because she had the sense to duck and weave. It took him two steps instead of one to get her turned around. “Excuse me?”
“We’ll go in and I’ll draw you a map,” she explained.
“Just tell me.”
“Go nine hundred steps and turn right. How’s that?” Her gaze wandered over his face.
“Not great.”
She shot him a gotcha smirk. “See, you need me. With all your fancy satellites and surveillance equipment, with your armed men on the ground, you can’t find it.”
True, and it pissed him off. If there really were weapons out there, someone had them stored to evade detection. He had no idea how they were moved without raising suspicion. Without Lexi’s reporting, no one would know, which was why part of him hoped she’d gotten the facts wrong.
“Let’s try that map.” He guided her around back. From his previous peek inside he didn’t pick up any movement, but he saw a door and a room with few windows. He could barricade them in there until he got the information he needed or she talked him to death, whichever came first.
Her chin lifted. “I thought so.”
“You didn’t win.” For some reason, he needed her to now that. Probably would make the next few hours easier if she at least pretended she understood the structure of command.
“Feels like it.” She moved toward the door, looked determined to rush in and get herself killed. Not on his watch.
He slipped in front of her before she could reach it. “Stay here.” He pointed at her, almost scolded when normally he would growl and threaten. “Lexi, I’m serious.”
She answered by rolling her eyes. He took that as agreement and lifted his gun to go in.
The door creaked as he opened it. The usual humming sounds of a house were absent. No electricity meant no refrigerator or running appliances.
His footsteps echoed as he opened every door and checked behind everything he could inspect in the two-room place. At the back a kitchen. In the front a family room that ran the width of the house and included a section with a bed.
For Javed’s sake, Lexi better not feel at home in that bed. West knew he shouldn’t care, but he did.
“Have I told you I hate bossy men?” She whispered the words over his shoulder.
He had to fight from flinching. Not from her presence. He’d sensed that, but from the way she leaned her body against his back. Her fingers wrapped around his biceps and she pressed chest to thigh.
Then she was gone. She walked around him to the doorway to the front room. Her gaze traveled over the makeshift mattress on the floor and what looked like old newspapers stacked in the corner. Stood there not talking, resting her hands on her hips and highlighting every inch of that body.
Big talker or not, the woman was a temptation. But she might as well have had a flashing warning light above her head because there was no way he was going there.
He just had to remind himself that her personal life was none of his business. He had no right to want to rip this Javed guy apart. He decided to point that out. Maybe then he’d believe it. “Your taste in men is not my concern.”
“Then why do you keep staring at my ass?” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Hmm, nothing? No response to that?”
“I didn’t.” He’d glanced. There was a difference.
“Liar.”
Whatever her agenda, he needed to shut this down. “The map?”
West looked around the room for a pen or paper. Every time he turned or shifted, his attention zipped back to her.
“You’re looking at it now.” She brushed her hand over her ass, as if that particular body part needed more highlighting.
Sweet damn. “Only because you mentioned it.” And because he had eyes and a dick that even now was paying attention when it should have been on leave.
“Is that also the explanation for looking at my mouth? For the way your eyes dip when you think I’m not watching.” Her gaze traveled over him as she talked. “It’s okay to admit you like how I look.”
It absolutely was not. He didn’t tell the last guy he extracted out of Syria that he smelled good, which he hadn’t. The guy had been stuck in a cell, wallowing in feces and God knew what else. He needed to treat her the same way—as a job.
But he couldn’t exactly deny he’d noticed her. “I’m not blind.”
“Thank you.”
Between the politeness and the smile, he needed to get his head back in the game. “The map?”
“We are in the middle of an adrenaline rush, guys are attacking and we’re on the run.” With each point she stepped closer to him. More like stalked, with hips swaying and shoulders back.
“Regular day at the office for me.”
She circled around him, dragging a finger along his body. “Except for the staring.”
He holstered the gun to keep fr
om accidentally shooting both of them. “True.”
After one full turn she stopped in front of him with her hands on his forearms. “We should just do it and be done.”
Everything inside him froze. Came to a damn stop. “I’m going to need a definition of ‘it.’ ”
He’d been tortured and buried alive, stabbed and shot. All in the same week. Yet only her and the mountain of ice looming nearby had the power to make him twitchy. He’d hated having one thing on that list. Now it looked as if he had two.
She smiled like she knew it would make him itch to move in. “I meant a kiss.”
Hell, his mind had zoomed long past that. In the mental show playing in his head he had her pants off and her legs wrapped around him as he pushed into her up against the wall.
Not that he was thinking about it.
She leaned in and blew a whisper of breath across his ear. “Kissing. For now.”
That was more like it. Sounded as if his mind wasn’t the only one jumping to naked. But it still wasn’t happening. “Bad idea.”
She nodded. “Right.”
The quick agreement, the face . . . one of them shoved him right into stupid territory. If he didn’t kiss her now they’d both be screwed. It was going to be the only thing on his mind until he kicked it out.
“Fuck it.”
His hands went to her waist and his mouth touched hers. Not sweet and quick. Not a kiss to say “There, now we’re done.” No, this one lingered, deepened. His lips touched hers and a fire raced through his blood. His arms wrapped tighter around her as he lifted her off the ground.
He intended to kiss her to quiet her down, to give tasting her a try and move on.
Huge fucking miscalculation.
When her fingers slipped into his hair, he almost lost it. Did for a second. Spun her around and pinned her body against the wall. Had one hand dipping down to catch her leg under the knee . . . then he sensed it. A small movement, the change in the air—something out of place. Wrong.
The visitor snuck up the side of the house. He was damn good. Way better than Raheel and almost as good as that Mossad agent Ward had disarmed and pinned to the floor a few weeks ago. Only a brief flash of movement and no sound.
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