Fuck, fuck, fuck.
His hands shook and he flattened them to the wall on either side of Phoebe’s head. Adrenaline after-burn. Just adrenaline. He’d be fine in a second…
Yeah, right.
He was one more gunshot away from completely losing his shit. His throat closed, his lungs seized up, and pain squeezed his heart like it wanted to pop the thing out of his chest. The wall was the only thing holding him up. The wall…and the woman trapped trembling between it and his body.
He sucked in a breath and the sweet citrus smell of her hair invaded his senses, intoxicating and strangely calming. Even as Phoebe’s heart thundered against his chest, his slowed and he focused on the dueling sensations. Her rate was way too fast and—yeah, it probably made him a prick—but her terror relaxed him. She was frightened so he couldn’t be. She needed him.
“You shot me,” she muttered into his sweatshirt, her voice little more than a dull accusation.
Seth leaned back to take stock of her condition. She wore a cotton button-up open over a tank top, and the sleeve had been slashed open by a bullet’s path, leaving a gouge in her upper arm. Her pale flesh was angry and inflamed around the wound, but the blood flow was already slowing to a trickle. Painful, but not serious.
“I didn’t shoot you.”
“Who else would it have been?” she demanded, her shock boiling away into temper.
“Good question.”
“You were the only one chasing me.” She shoved him, but he didn’t move. “You tackled me!”
“And I saved your life. That bullet was meant for your head. Who have you pissed off lately besides me?”
“Nobody!”
“Call me cynical, but I find that hard to believe. Why did you run from me in the first place?”
“Why did I run?” Her tone dripped with disbelief, even as tears cut streams through the dirt smudging her face. She cradled her wounded arm to her belly. “Seriously? You were manhandling me. Why would I not run?”
Seth clenched his teeth and let go of her, backing up as far as their narrow space allowed. The commotion in the market had quieted and he needed to get a handle on the situation out there. “Stay here.”
“Where am I going to go?”
He pointed a finger at her nose. “Stay.”
Her chin hitched up. “I’m not a dog.”
“Stay. Here,” he repeated. She harrumphed. Figuring that was the best response he was going to get, he crept to the mouth of the alley and checked around the corner. The shooting had stopped and the crowd had mostly disappeared. Police sirens wailed in the not-too-far-off distance. Several bodies lay on the ground, but thank fuck none of them were Jean-Luc.
Phoebe peeked out under his arm as the first squad car pulled up to the scene. “Oh, thank God. It’s the police.” She tried to squeeze past him.
“Goddammit.” He caught her shirt and yanked her back, once again pinning her with his body weight. “This is not a good thing.”
“Are you kidding me? If you didn’t shoot me—which, by the way, I still kind of doubt—then I need to report the incident so they can find the person who did.”
“They won’t give a fuck someone shot at you.”
“Of course they will. They’re the police.”
He stared down at her in disbelief, but her mulish expression didn’t change. “Jesus. You really don’t get it, do you? How long have you been in Afghanistan?”
Finally, a flicker of uncertainty showed in her blue-green eyes. “A couple weeks.”
Figures. He hated to be the one to bust her rose-colored glasses, but someone had to do it before she got herself killed. “You can’t trust anyone here.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me, but between me and the cops, I’m the lesser of two evils.”
“Call me cynical…”
He ignored having his own words thrown back at him. “We need to get out of here. You said you’re staying at a shelter. Where is it?”
She shook her head. “I can’t take you to the shelter. Most of the women who live there are petrified of men.”
He sighed. “Fine, then you’re coming with me. Unless you want to tell me what you’re hiding…?”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“Yeah, I don’t believe you.” He clasped a hand around her good arm. “Let’s go. And act natural.”
…
Act natural, he said. Like it was completely natural to be a hostage.
Phoebe tried to pull free from his grasp, but it was no use. Pain throbbed from her wound up into her temple and her stomach churned with nausea, sapping her strength. Not that she would have had any shot at escaping him while at full strength. Whatever his mental issues, the man was built like a warrior, all whipcord muscle.
Which made him all the more dangerous.
She could scream. Attract the police officers’ attention that way. As he firmly guided her up the street in the opposite direction of the market, she glanced back. There were several police cars around now and they had the whole area blocked off. At least two ambulances sat in the street and just beyond, gawkers and media had begun gathering around the barricades.
If she screamed, she’d bring a lot more attention to Seth than just the police. Good.
She opened her mouth, but closed it again without making a sound. A man stood near one of the barricades and scanned the crowd as he spoke on a cell phone. She’d seen him once before. Or, no. Twice. The first time was right before she noticed Seth and his blond friend. The second, when she was trying to escape them. This guy had been one of the men trying to stop her.
Was this one of the men Seth had been questioning her about? Seth thought the men had been following him, but if that was the case, why had they been so intent on stopping her?
The man spotted her and pocketed his cell phone in the inner lining of his jacket. And his hand stayed there, resting on something as he broke into a jog.
Oh God, he had a gun.
“Uh, Seth?”
He glanced back at her, then noticed the man. “Fuck. Move.” Lengthening his stride to just short of a run, he all but dragged her in his wake. She struggled to keep pace until a furtive glance over her shoulder showed the man gaining on them. He carried the gun in plain sight now.
Fear was a damn powerful motivator.
She raced ahead, staying at Seth’s side, zigzagging through narrow alleyways, darting across busy streets. When he took a sudden turn to the left, his grip on her arm slipped and she staggered. She dropped to her hands and knees in the hard-packed dirt, chest heaving, lungs burning from overexertion. Blood trickled from her wound and her arm ached down to her fingertips.
Seth reached out to help her up. “C’mon.”
She noticed her surroundings for the first time since they started running, but had no idea where she was, had never seen this empty four-way intersection before. The buildings around her looked residential and run-down and if she had to guess, this wasn’t part of the city many Western eyes saw. She looked back the way they’d come. The man with the gun was nowhere in sight.
Seth stood there, hand outstretched, panting as hard as she was. He wiggled his fingers. “Phoebe. We have to keep moving.”
She could try to run, get away from him. But the street ahead, narrow and soaked in unwelcoming shadows, didn’t look like any place she wanted to be on her own. The sun had completely disappeared behind the mountains now and with thick gray clouds rolling in overhead, it promised to be a dark, cold night.
God help her, she didn’t want to face it alone.
She accepted his hand.
Chapter Eight
Jesse Warrick tapped on the door to Gabe and Quinn’s bunk and waited. He heard no movement inside, but he knew his commander was in there trying to get some shut-eye before this new clusterfuck of an op. He just hoped Quinn wasn’t in there too, or else this was going to make for a damn awkward conversation. Hell, it might even end in a fistfight between hi
m and Quinn again like a similar convo had back in May.
The door opened. Gabe had his phone to his ear, but waved Jesse inside the tiny room. More out of habit than manners, he took off his cowboy hat as he stepped over the threshold. Ran a hand through his hair and glanced around.
The jet had been gutted and redesigned this summer by HumInt Inc. to better suit HORNET’s needs and now included a decked-out war room, a galley, and six of these small rooms. It was a typical dorm setup with two surprisingly comfortable beds—a mirror image of his and Marcus’s room next door. Except where his looked lived-in with his bed rumpled and a few clothes spilling out of his bag, Gabe’s room was immaculate. His bag sat unpacked on the tightly made-up mattress and his boots waited by the end of the bed as if a pair of feet already stood in them at attention. Quinn’s side of the room was just as precise.
Not a surprise. Guys didn’t get much more fastidious than the two former SEALs.
“It will be a while before I can get in touch again,” Gabe said into the phone. “You know how things get when they start moving.” A pause. His lips curved into a little smile. “Yes, ma’am.” Another pause, and everything about the big guy softened. “I love you, too, Aud. Stay out of trouble while I’m gone, okay? And you can tell Raffi that goes double for him. Brother or no, I’ll kick his ass if he doesn’t take care of you.”
A hollow ache opened up in the center of Jesse’s chest and he focused his attention on his hat, dusting imaginary dirt off the brim. Listening in on the husband and wife’s conversation, he felt like a voyeur, an intruder on their intimate moment. And damn if it didn’t remind him of the similar conversations he used to have with Lacy, back when he’d been with Delta Force and they could still talk to each other without it devolving into an argument. Not that he really missed his ex-wife. There was too much bad blood overshadowing the good memories for him to miss her. But he did miss having someone besides his horses waiting for him at home.
And God, he missed his son with an intensity that hurt.
In that moment, as he tried not to eavesdrop on Gabe and Audrey’s conversation, he started making plans to take Connor to Disneyland as soon as he got back stateside. He’d only been promising the kid the trip for years. Well past time to step up and make it happen.
Gabe finally hung up, slid the phone into the leg pocket of his cargo pants, and limped over to the end of the bed. He scooped up his boots. “So what’s up, Jess?”
“How’s the wife?” Jesse cursed himself as the question left his lips. That hadn’t been what he meant to say and he covered by adding, “Isn’t it a little early in Costa Rica?”
“0700, but she says she’s been up for a while. Inspiration struck.” Gabe shrugged, but an indulgent smile played around the edges of his hard mouth. “What can I say? Artists keep stranger hours than SEALs.”
“She’s worried about you.”
Gabe exhaled, the sound something close to a resigned laugh. “Yeah. She’s not going to sleep until we get home. She thinks I should be riding a desk because of…” He trailed off and tapped a hand to the cane propped against the wall.
Jesse decided not to comment. Gabe knew full well he agreed with Audrey. The big guy wasn’t doing his foot any favors by running around playing hero, but sayin’ so would only make the coming conversation more difficult.
Jesse motioned to the bag on the floor. “Where’s Quinn?”
“He and Marcus are tactically acquiring a vehicle for us.”
Good. Meant Quinn wouldn’t be walking in anytime soon. “Are you worried we haven’t heard back from Jean-Luc and Harlan yet?”
“Getting there,” Gabe admitted. “Yeah.”
“Do you think it was good idea to send Harlan out?”
“He is a part of this team,” Gabe said flatly, but it was hard to miss the unspoken until I decide otherwise in his words.
“Yeah, ’course he is. But don’t ya think he’s kinda…” He’d planned on finishing that sentence with “broken,” but trailed off. He didn’t want to be the asshole talkin’ shit about a guy who had lived through hell and come back out swingin’. And despite all of Seth Harlan’s issues, the sniper wasn’t the person he’d come to talk to Gabe about in the first place. “Nah, forget that.”
“So,” Gabe said after a second of silence. “What do you need?”
Like he didn’t know. “To talk to you about Quinn.”
Gabe pulled the laces of his boot loose and slid his foot in. Trying to remain casual, but Jesse saw the way he tightened up as he asked, “What about him?”
“Honestly, he’s not the guy I’d be sendin’ out for anything rougher than a pony ride. Probably not even that.” The look he got in response would have singed a lesser man, but he wasn’t about to back off. Not about this. ”I’m sorry, Gabe. I know he’s like a brother to you, but Quinn’s medical history makes him a liability. We can’t have him in the field. I’m already gonna have to keep an eagle eye on Harlan in case he can’t deal. What happens if Harlan experiences a psychotic break and Quinn blacks out on us? We’ll be down two men. If it happens in the middle of a firefight…” He didn’t finish that thought. He didn’t need to. His meaning came across loud and clear: they’d all be fucked. Hard and without foreplay.
“I hear what you’re saying, Jess. I do,” Gabe said and tugged his laces tight, making quick work of the knot before grabbing his other boot. He took more care about sliding that one onto his bad foot. “But I’ve been watching Quinn since you voiced your concerns back in July. I haven’t seen any indication of lingering effects from his brain injury. Have you? Beyond that one time he blacked out in Colombia?”
Jesse pressed his lips together. He should lie. He had been keeping his eyes peeled for another blackout like the one he’d witnessed in Bogotá and hadn’t seen a damn thing, but to his way of thinking just because the moon disappeared during the day didn’t mean it no longer existed. Quinn’s medical issues were very much a real thing, even if no symptoms presented themselves right now.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to flat-out lie to Gabe. He respected the guy too much. “An injury like his won’t spontaneously heal itself,” he hedged. “I told you before, it’s a damn miracle he’s alive and functioning. After gettin’ thrown through a windshield goin’ seventy? His brain should be mush.”
“But have you seen any more indications that Quinn is unfit for this op?”
“Christ, Gabe. You know what kind of position you’re puttin’ me in? I can’t okay him for active duty. It goes against everything I’ve been trained to do.”
“Have you seen any more indications that Quinn is unfit?” He enunciated each word.
“No. I haven’t.”
Gabe didn’t so much as blink. “So I only have your opinion—which I do value—but in this case it’s based on an incident that happened one time six months ago, correct?”
“It’s my professional medical opinion,” Jesse said between his teeth. Heat blazed up the back of his neck, but he sucked in a breath through his nose and exhaled hard to dispel the anger. He’d been kicked out of Delta Force for his temper. He wasn’t going to get kicked out of HORNET for the same reason, even if his commander had his head so far up a horse’s ass, he was tasting hay.
Then again, if Jesse’s ten years of loyalty to the Army had taught him nothing else, it was that usually, in the case of commanders, horse’s asses were the norm. It was up to the rank and file to bite their tongues and follow orders, no matter how stupid.
’Course, he’d thought Gabe Bristow was better than that.
He straightened and jammed his hat on his head. “Are you orderin’ me to ignore my training?”
“I’m telling you I can’t order my XO to stand down just because you think he’s a liability. Especially because you think he’s a liability. I have to take into account your history with him. You two have never seen eye to eye and I need something more than your say-so. I need to see proof.”
“Frankly, sir, it’s not
my judgment clouded by personal feelings here. I won’t give my okay. If he endangers himself or someone else, that’s all on you.” Jesse strode to the door, but stopped halfway out and tipped the brim of his hat in a sarcastic kind of salute. “And fuck you, Gabe.”
He stalked back to the war room, where Harvard was hard at work at his laptop trying to pin down Jahangir Siddiqui’s whereabouts. The rest of the team must still be in their bunks. None of them had slept more than three hours in the last twenty-four and Jesse was starting to feel the strain of exhaustion. He probably should have bedded down for an hour while they were stuck here twiddling their thumbs, but he was too worried about the Quinn situation. The guy was going to get himself or someone else killed. Jesse sure as hell didn’t want a narcoleptic watching his six in a pucker situation.
“Hey,” Harvard said, gazing up from his screen when Jesse kicked an abandoned rucksack in frustration. “Something wrong?”
“No,” he muttered. They only had a boss with a bum foot, a second-in-command with a traumatic brain injury, and a sniper with severe PTSD. Nothing wrong at all.
Jesus.
Jesse sank into a chair opposite Harvard and scowled across the table. If Gabe wouldn’t do anything about Quinn, maybe he needed to take matters into his own hands, tell the rest of the team what was goin’ on. It went against his training to divulge a man’s medical issues, but he couldn’t see any other way to force Gabe into taking action.
He opened his mouth, but a rattle at the plane’s door stopped him. He got up to unlatch the door, expecting to see Jean-Luc and Seth returning with HumInt Inc.’s local contact, Fahim. Instead Jean-Luc staggered inside, bruised and bleeding, his clothes torn. He all but collapsed into Jesse’s arms.
“What the hell happened to you?” Jesse lowered him to the floor and ordered Harvard to retrieve his medical bag.
Jean-Luc winced and slung a duffel off his shoulder. “Someone shot up the market.”
“Jesus Christ. Are you shot?”
“No. I caught up to one of the shooters and we had a go-round until he got me in the kidney and left me to be trampled by the crowd.” He swore in Cajun and gripped his side. “And trample me they did.”
Honor Reclaimed Page 6