Dangerous in Motion (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #4)

by Sidney Bristol

  Adam closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I think a child is great,” he said.

  “Really? Like, you’re not just saying that because—fuck. I’m crying?” She wiped her tears on his shirt.

  “Come here. Take a deep breath. Why are you scared?”

  “Just...it’s a lot, you know?”

  “Well, do you still want kids?”

  She bit her lip. They’d discussed kids over a decade ago, when they were dating. They hadn’t been a possibility since then, and now she was unprepared for the chance.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Let’s stick with yeah.” He grabbed her hand and took her to the sofa.

  “But, how will this work? What are we going to do?” If she was going to have a kid, Adam couldn’t leave his job. But then he’d just be in danger all the time and she’d be alone.

  “That’s easy. We move to Atlanta and take it one day at a time.”

  “But... What are you going to do?” She feared this answer. The logical thing was that he’d get a job and she’d stay home with the baby.

  “I’ll get a job, for one. After the baby I could stay at home with him. Your insurance is hard to beat.”

  Heidi stared at Adam.

  He was serious. This wasn’t a joke. He wasn’t pulling her leg. It was the way his eyes lit up, the smile. He was dead serious about this stay at home dad business. Maybe more serious than he’d been about leaving his job and moving across the country with her.

  “Wait—he?” She frowned at him.

  “Well, I can hope, right?” Adam grinned.

  “What if it’s a girl? What then?”

  “She’ll grow up and be just like her mother, with the best damn bike on the street.”

  “You’re... I mean, you’re really serious then?”

  “I am.”

  “Nine months from now...” Oh, no... Heidi stared at Adam. “Holy fuck. Nine months from now? Wedding? We can’t have a wedding and a baby in the same month.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  Adam kissed her cheek.

  She closed her eyes and crawled into his lap.

  Somehow, someway, they’d figure it out. Together.

  You can stay up to date on the whole Alpha Team crew in Dangerous in Love, Dangerous in Action and Dangerous in Transit.

  Sign up for the New Release Newsletter at www.SidneyBristol.com to get inside scoops and free books.

  Explore the whole Aegis world in these series...

  It all began with the Aegis Group.

  Dangerous Attraction

  Dangerous in Training

  Dangerous Games

  Dangerous Assignment

  Dangerous Protector

  Dangerous Heat (coming 2018)

  In Dangerous Games it continued with the Gone Geek girls.

  Beauty and the Geek

  Mr. Purr-fect and the Geek

  The Jock and the Geek

  The Gamer and the Geek

  The Adorkable Girl and the Geek

  The Fake Boyfriend and the Geek

  When the Seattle office of Aegis Group opened the Twisted Royals took the stage.

  The Origin Story

  Alpha Prince

  Her Prince

  Bad Boy Prince

  Noble Prince

  Within Aegis Group, special teams take on special jobs, beginning with the Alpha Team.

  Dangerous in Love

  Dangerous in Action

  Dangerous in Transit

  Dangerous in Motion

  Dangerous in Charge (coming 2018)

  Other specialized teams exist under the Aegis Group umbrella, including Lepta Team.

  Dangerously Taken

  Dangerously Involved (2018)

  Dangerously Deceived (2018)

  Dangerously Broken (2019)

  Dangerously Entwined (2019)

  Stay tuned for the appearance of the Troy Team and Omega Team.

  For short reads, tune in this December for the Body of Danger novella series kick-off.

  Heart for Danger

  Mind for Danger (2018)

  Soul for Danger (2019)

  Coming in 2018, Texas SWAT: A Small Town Suspense Series.

  Fighting Redemption (2018)

  Stolen Redemption (2018)

  Dangerously Taken

  Aegis Group Lepta Team #1

  The following is an un-edited excerpt.

  Wednesday. Aegis Group Egypt Office, Cairo, Egypt.

  Riley Smith strode across the courtyard toward the command center for the Aegis Group Egypt offices. These days it seemed like Riley spent more time here than he did at his apartment in Seattle. A fact that his mother was not letting him forget.

  His phone vibrated again. It was probably Mom texting him pictures of his brothers getting ready for baling hay. He’d never promised to come, just said he’d try. It wasn’t his fault the travel plans to head home today were as of now canceled. His brothers knew what they were doing. They’d been running the ranch since high school. Riley wasn’t integral to baling, he was simply free labor. He also hadn’t been home since Christmas and Mom liked to alternate laying the blame on him and his youngest brother down in Texas.

  “Hold the door?” a woman called out.

  Riley turned toward the van parked by the gates leading out onto the street. The team’s dedicated client liaison and new hire hauled her laptop out of the backseat, juggling two other bags. He clearly wasn’t the only one ready to get out of here.

  “Want a hand?” he asked

  Megan ignored his question and stepped through the doors ahead of him.

  He wasn’t sure what to make of Megan. Their boss had informed Lepta Team that because of their unique nature dealing with companies as clients and the high dollar they commanded, the team needed a dedicated liaison. Riley didn’t care one way or another. As the team’s second, his focus was logistics. The less he had to bother with informing clients about their activities the more prepared he could be. That said, Megan and their Team Leader got along about as well as cats and dogs.

  Riley followed Megan into the elevator, the silence stretching thin.

  “Here, let me help you with that.” He took the laptop case from her without waiting for permission. “What’d Grant say this time?”

  “What?” Megan glanced up at him.

  “You seem tense. Grant say something?”

  “Oh, no. Long call with the client.” She blew out a breath.

  “Shit. Is the job that bad?”

  Megan grimaced.

  They climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  “You ever have a bad feeling about something?” She eyed the hand carved double doors leading into the command room.

  “Yeah...” Great. Just what Riley wanted. Another complicated job.

  “The asset makes sense it’s just... You’ll see.” Megan jerked her head toward doors.

  Riley followed Megan into what had no doubt bee intended as some sort of grant dining room. Their team used it for the planning and oversight of their work in the Middle East. The other four members of their team were present and seated around the table with the projector on.

  “Thanks for joining us,” Grant said. He turned toward the wall “We’re short on time, so this needs to be brief.”

  Megan set her things down by the door and remained standing opposite of Grant, who continued to ignore her.

  This was going to be fun. How long until their boss made those two kiss and make-up?

  Two images of a woman with dark hair, brown eyes and a crooked smile filled the screen. In one picture, she wore a billowing, floral dress and a scarf draped around her head, almost like a hijab. In the other image, she wore a pant suit and her hair was down. Whoever she was, she was the kind of woman who shone no matter what she wore. It was the smile, like she had a secret she’d tell him if he just leaned in a bit closer.

  “Meet our VIP asset. Erin Lopez. She is a Projec
t Manager working for NexGen Oil in Kurdish Iraq. Two hours ago while touring a facility they’re trying to reopen outside Mosul, a group of extremists breeched their security and kidnapped Ms. Lopez. There have been no demands, no contact, nothing.”

  Fuck.

  “Wait.” Riley frowned. “Don’t most of these companies have bodyguards for their people over there?”

  “Yes. Ms. Lopez’s personal security was on-site, but not with her at the time of the attack. NexGen wants us to rendezvous with the bodyguard and have him with us,” Grant replied.

  That didn’t make sense. The guy would no doubt be hurting for a job soon after a fuck up like this. Then again, what did Riley know?

  “What about her history there? With the company?” Nolan, their Communications Officer, asked.

  “Officially, she’s a valuable employee the company wants to get back as quickly as possible. The situation is clearly more complicated than that. We’ve already received a call from the Americans on the ground in Kurdistan to say they know we’re coming and they’re ready for us,” Megan replied. She glanced at Grant, who still looked like he’d sucked a lemon.

  “No one wants to see an incursion in Kurdish Iraq,” Grant said. “Unlike the rest of the country, Kurdistan hasn’t seen a terrorist attack in years. Obviously everyone wants this situation resolved as quickly and quietly as possible so they can focus their efforts on rebuilding Mosul.”

  “A couple more things about our VIP asset?” Megan glanced at Grant. “According to some digging Zain did, Ms. Lopez has caused a few waves at NexGen. Namely with who the company contracts for with security and advocating on behalf of locals.”

  “Are we thinking this could be related?” Riley glanced around the table.

  “Maybe? Local security forwarded us a video of the attack, which I think everyone should see,” Megan said, sliding into the pause left by Grant’s dramatic pause.

  “Video?” Grant glared across the table at Megan.

  “Yes, give me one moment, please...” She tapped at her phone. “Of note, Ms. Lopez is the daughter of an Iraq immigrant and a Miami local. She enlisted a year after she graduated high school and was one of the most valuable translators, interpreters, social navigators, she worked with troupes on cultural awareness... You get the point. She went straight into this job after that, and continues to work in border areas where the risk is greater.”

  Riley glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the team. Brenden didn’t so much as blink. The guy might as well be a statue, but that was typical. Nolan shook his head and if Riley wasn’t mistaken, that was the sound of Nolan’s molars grinding. Vincent caught Riley’s eye and shook his head.

  It wasn’t just him, then. Something about this job stank.

  Good.

  Maybe it was time to start placing bets on when Grant and Megan would have it out. After this job. They needed to get Ms. Lopez back to safety.

  “Here we go.” Megan glanced from her phone to the screen.

  “Security reported the group didn’t make it far into the building,” Grant said.

  Riley sat up a little bit.

  What about this video gave Megan pause?

  Unlike most security video, this was done in color. Ms. Lopez stood in the bottom left corner. She had a tablet in hand and was talking with two other people who appeared to be some sort of management based on their business casual clothing. A flash of light shone through the window of a door on the upper right hand side of the screen a moment before the door blew in, bouncing off one wall then the other. The blast knocked the two men back against the wall while Ms. Lopez went to the ground, her tablet skidding away from her.

  Riley winced, that fall combined with the concussion blast and not to mention any debris they didn’t see, would have hurt.

  Three men in traditional thawb garments with their faces covered ran in. Two went straight for Ms. Lopez, while the men on the ground were ignored. One of the men even kicked at the attacker, but they would not be deterred.

  Ms. Lopez got her feet under her and wrenched her arm away. Riley held his breath and clenched his fists. She swung her elbow at the closest attacker, catching him off guard.

  Something happened off-screen. The attackers flattened against a wall, all three grabbing Ms. Lopez. A moment later they dragged her out the side door and the video ended.

  For several seconds no one spoke.

  Riley swallowed, the feeling of wrongness settling in his stomach. He glanced up at Megan, who continued to frown at the square of light cast by the projector.

  “So, she was grabbed because she was all they could get to?” Riley asked.

  Grant turned to face the table.

  There was no way Ms. Lopez was anything but a target. No wonder everyone wanted to keep this quiet. An attack in Kurdistan was one thing, a kidnapping by terrorists another.

  FRIDAY. UNKNOWN, IRAQ.

  Erin Lopez balanced her weight on the ball of her right foot, doing her best Olympic gymnast impression. The crate had to be at least a decade old and wasn’t structurally sound any longer. She pressed her ear to the side of the building and listened for anything.

  When she’d first been dumped down here, she’d told herself that someone was coming to get her. As poorly organized as this group was, the company’s security would find her.

  She’d held fast to that idea for all of twenty-four hours.

  The reality of her situation was that to these people she was a foreigner working for a foreign company taking what should belong to the Iraqi people. If NexGen was going to save her, they’d have shown up by now. Which meant one of three things, they weren’t sending anyone, the US military was involved, or there was a third party.

  Erin didn’t like any of those options. They grew less attractive as the hours went by and still she was alone in this hole in the ground.

  Voices reverberated through the stone walls.

  She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the tone was enough of an indication for her to feel as though her assumptions were justified. She stepped down off the crate before she broke it and paced the three steps. This time she lifted her hand and ducked under the beam.

  What did she know?

  A team of seven men and one woman had abducted her from the work site. They’d had explosives, guns and a getaway vehicle. Erin hadn’t seen their faces, but she understood their words. Not that they’d said much around her except for the yelling at each other.

  Even that told a story.

  Whoever these people were, they weren’t unified, and they spoke Arabic.

  When Erin had first taken the job and moved to Kurdistan she’d struggled with the language barrier. Though the region was part of Iraq, most of the people her age and younger didn’t speak Arabic. Since the 70’s when the Kurds were banished to this corner of the country by their dictator, one of the ways the people had fought back was by holding onto their own culture. They spoke Kurdish to the point that anyone thirty and younger couldn’t communicate in Arabic. Her kidnappers were in their twenties, at most. Which meant her kidnappers weren’t Kurds, they were Iraqi and they knew her name.

  Erin was in some deep shit.

  When NexGen hired her, they’d sent her to the Iraq-Kurdistan border area where they’d been developing new oil fields and the tensions between the two people groups was the most tense. If she’d known what would happen, would she have turned the job down? It was hard to say.

  There weren’t many reasons for a group of unfamiliar people to know her name, either.

  Shit. Fuck. And damn it.

  Erin paced three strides, turned and paced again. She was in what was little more than a cellar of some kind, dug directly into the rock. At night she shivered and lost feeling in her fingers and toes. She wasn’t looking forward to another night down here, but she doubted her captors would offer her a bed and a warm meal, either.

  If those who wanted something from the company had their way, she’d never see sunlight again. She was a
bargaining chip. Something to use to get what they wanted. It wouldn’t be comfortable for her and she’d probably be here a while, but it was the least dangerous option.

  The best option after that was to be sold to one of the insurgent groups—ISIS, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, it didn’t matter—who would then use her to try to get something in return. Prisoners, resources, it didn’t matter. It still wouldn’t be a comfortable stay, but at least her value was in being alive.

  The worst option was if this was personal, and she knew for a few poor souls out there, this could be. She’d done the right thing. The events that led to that disaster proved her case. But that didn’t matter. All these people had seen was her face speaking those words and it was her fault.

  Erin sat on the lowest step and cradled her head in her hands.

  None of it made sense. She still didn’t understand how a group this disorganized had managed to breech the facility perimeter and get to one of the main buildings. They had new weapons. Explosives. Even the flash grenades were too sophisticated for a rag tag group of insurgents with no affiliation.

  This shouldn’t have happened. Perfect attacks existed, but for the site security to allow those men through and her personal security to be in the toilet at the time?

  None of this made sense.

  And now the people holding her were probably back to fighting about what to do next. The few glimpses she’d had of them since being tossed down here, everyone was fighting.

  A door banged and voices speaking over one another came closer.

  Erin pushed to her feet and turned, backing against the opposite wall.

  Someone clanged pots around, muttering to themselves.

  She tilted her head, listening to more than the words. The scrape of feet. The rustle of clothing.

  Two people.

  “That should be enough,” the one moving around said in Arabic.

  “I don’t see anything,” another replied.

  Two men.

  Enough what?

  And what were they looking for?

  Footsteps heralded a third and fourth person.