Eye of the Tiger

by Crissy Smith

  “You’re going to free Logan.”

  “I can’t do that,” Zak tried to reason. “I’m not the only agent on the case. I can’t even get that close to him.”

  Timmons snarled. “You better figure out a way. Call your girlfriend if you have to. But you are not leaving my sight until I have my brother-in-law back.”

  This guy had been smart in all his dealings before. It was a strange turn of events to see the nerves and craziness in his eyes.

  “I can’t,” Zak repeated.

  “You have to!” Timmons’s hand wavered. “My sister won’t forgive me. She said I’m dead to her if I don’t get Logan back. You will get him free.”

  His sister? Zak didn’t really need to deal with any more family drama. He’d had enough the day before when he’d met the eldest Perez.

  “Look, it’s not only the Coalition involved. We also have the ATF and FBI at our office. Logan isn’t going anywhere. He would be missed.”

  “Then you better start praying. Either Logan is brought here or I’ll start to send them your body parts. How would you like that?”

  Crap, this guy has gone insane. Maybe if Zak surprised him he would be able to wrestle the gun away from Timmons. There was no way he could get to his own weapon but he had a pretty good chance at taking his opponent’s.

  “Don’t even think about it. Are you stupid enough to think I’m alone?”

  Zak wasn’t sure what had given his intentions away. He peered around but didn’t see anyone else. Timmons could be bluffing.

  “Start walking to the house.”

  He nodded before following the order. Timmons would have to walk right behind him if he wanted to keep the weapon trained on him. Three steps up onto the porch and he could make his move.

  Looking up, he wanted to curse.

  Two huge shifters stood in front of him. One had a wicked-looking knife against his own leg while the other cracked his knuckles. Here was Timmons’ muscle.

  “After you,” Mike Timmons said from behind Zak.

  Still holding his keys in his hand, Zak walked up the three steps, warily watching the new additions. He slowly unlocked the door before pushing it open. He’d just started to move forward when he felt a shove from behind.

  He dropped his keys as he caught himself on his hands and knees. He grunted when a kick to his ribs landed hard.

  “Get him inside,” Timmons ordered.

  The two goons grabbed him by the arms and dragged him deeper into his home. Zak let them take his weight. If he could act like he was more injured than he was, maybe he’d be able to work out an escape.

  He was dropped into the middle of his living room floor.

  “Make him want to cooperate,” Timmons told his men.

  “Gladly,” the guy with the knife replied. “Fucking traitor.”

  Zak rolled onto his back to see him approach. He had a small limp so Zak dubbed him Gimpy. The other was grinning with his arms crossed. He was Grumpy. Yeah, Zak liked his nicknames for the two brutes.

  His amusement didn’t last long. Instead of taunting him like he’d expected, Gimpy went right at him, throwing back his arm and punching Zak in the chin.

  Zak tried to move out of the way but the guy was quick.

  Taking the hit, he tried to rise up but Grumpy swept his legs out from under him. They took turns beating him. Just when Zak thought he had an opening the other would hit him with enough force that Zak’s vision would waver. He didn’t know how long the punishment lasted but fuck, he hurt. Mike Timmons sat in his recliner, gun on his knee, laughing as he watched.

  If it was the last thing he did, Zak would tear that smirk from his face.

  Inside, his tiger started to claw to be let out. He had to bit his lip and push back so he could stay in human form. He’d like to release his animal but he was afraid that would earn him a bullet in the head. Timmons was too close to let him get complete control of the room.

  When the punches and kicks finally started to ease Zak fell down to the carpet on his stomach. There was blood already staining his freshly vacuumed floor and that pissed him off even more.

  “I think he gets the picture,” Timmons told his goons. “Run into the kitchen and get us something to eat while I have a talk with Agent Lewis.”

  Was there another leak? Not only did Timmons know who Zak was but he also knew where he lived.

  Trying to hold back a groan, Zak pushed himself off the ground to sit against the back of the couch. He kept his arm close to his right ribs to keep from moving too fast.

  “How’d you find me?” he questioned.

  “You made it quite easy on me. I was watching the events of yesterday closely. Imagine my surprise when I saw you there with a badge around your neck. All we had to do was wait and follow. You led us right here.”

  Fuck. He really had messed up, and he had no one else to blame but himself for this situation. Plus with how he’d been feeling when he’d left the office the night before, he hadn’t even thought about looking for a tail. He was never going to hear the end of this from Cody and Jamie—if he survived, anyway. “Even if I asked, there is no way that anyone would bring Logan to me.”

  “You’d better hope for your sake you’re wrong. If you don’t come through for me, I’ll be seeing the two ATF agents next. I already have people in place to take them at their hotel if you fail.”

  He wouldn’t let anything happen to Abilene or Luca. He’d kill everyone in the house first. “Even if I got someone to release Logan, they’d come here looking for you. You wouldn’t get away.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Timmons waved his hand in the air. “As far as the others? I have a plan for them too. They’ll be very busy in…” He glanced at his watch. “About nine minutes. That’s how long you have to decide, by the way.”

  * * * *

  Abilene pushed open the door to the conference room that she, Luca and Spencer had been given. She was surprised to see Cody along with his team—plus Jamie, Sal Perez and Flynn O’Bannon sitting with Luca and Spencer.

  “Finally,” Luca grumbled.

  She just smiled at him. “I’m actually right on time,” she replied. She was surprised that Zak hadn’t made it in before her.

  “I know,” Luca whispered loudly. “But more than five minutes with this bunch and I want to kill myself.”

  “Funny,” Sal said with a glare.

  Luca sighed. “See?”

  “Is Zak with you?” Jamie asked as he glanced toward the door.

  “No, I figured he was already here.”

  “You haven’t seen him?” Jamie questioned, clearly surprised.

  “Not in the last half hour or so. He did say that he was stopping at a diner to grab some breakfast,” she answered.

  “I just came from the diner,” Cody told her. “He wasn’t there.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know then. He was leaving at the same time I was. I just stopped by the hotel.”

  “Huh,” Cody muttered before pulling out his phone.

  As he dialed, she leaned closer to her partner. “What’s going on?”

  “Cody wanted to catch everyone up at once. The teams are going out first thing to hit the safe houses, so we’re hoping to round up Mike Timmons and everyone else that hasn’t been arrested yet.”

  Leaning back in her chair, she looked around. It was weird that Zak wasn’t here yet.

  “Let’s get started. Maybe the commander called Zak to his office. That’s the only reason I can see he wouldn’t answer. Well, since Agent Fox is with us.”

  She refused to blush as everyone else laughed.

  There weren’t many surprises with shifters so it wasn’t like she could hide her relationship with Zak anyway. They could pick up on Zak’s scent on her. Plus why would she want to? They were both consenting adults and Zak was one sexy man.

  “Okay, to get us caught up,” Cody started.

  Abilene had heard a lot of this the night before with Zak but now her mind was really o
n the investigation. It hadn’t been easy to concentrate previously with Zak naked next to her.

  She reached over and grabbed Luca’s notebook and started to take observations. She would add them to the other pile on her stack later. The intel that was coming in would help.

  Robbie had been talkative. According to him there were six houses that could be hiding Mike Timmons or other members of the group—the members that remained. With the giant bust on the farm, some of the more law-conscious men and women had fled. They didn’t want to get mixed up in a federal investigation.

  Of course that made Abilene wonder what they had thought would happen.

  It wasn’t like setting bombs and threatening humans was just going to be forgiven. Sometimes people surprised her by their acceptance of violence toward others.

  Did it really matter if someone was a shifter or human? What should be the big concern was if they were law-abiding or not.

  There hadn’t been hate when the shifters were still in hiding and the humans had no knowledge of them. But as soon as the announcement had been made, all of a sudden humans were demanding they register and be treated like second-class citizens. And some of the shifters, like this group, were no better.

  After years of hiding, why couldn’t they just accept that humans and shifters were on the same level? No better, no worse.

  Of course things couldn’t be so simple.

  An alarm sounding pulled Abilene out of her thoughts. She jumped up along with the others in the room.

  “What in the hell is that?” she asked as she put her hands over her ears to help muffle the loud, blaring, beeping sound.

  “That’s not good!” Jamie exclaimed, racing to the door.

  Abilene was right behind him.

  He yanked on the door handle. “What the fuck!” Jamie yelled.

  “We’re in lockdown,” Spencer informed them.

  Abilene turned and saw that he was pointing to his screen. She hurried over and saw the message.

  Lockdown procedures have begun. Please remain calm. Instructions will follow.

  “I don’t understand.” She looked around the room. “Why?”

  Cody’s phone began to ring. He picked it up off the table. “It’s Zak. Hello?”

  Okay, at least he’s okay. Now if they could just figure out what was happening. She turned to Spencer. “I know you can hack through that, whether or not we’re locked down.”

  Spencer nodded slowly.

  “Do it. We have too many suspects on this floor for this to be a random act.”

  “Okay, but if I get in trouble, I’m blaming you,” Spencer said softly.

  “Hell, kid,” Jamie said, clamping a hand down on his shoulder gently, “Blame me. Tell them I threatened to beat you up or something. I need to repair my rep. Cody keeps telling everyone how I’m giving up sugar to make Brandy happy.”

  She grinned, glancing over at Cody. It was true that the falcon shifter loved to give his friend shit.

  Cody’s face was stark white and he was frantically writing something on a piece of paper.

  He lifted it up.

  Mike Timmons has Zak.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Abilene stood next to the black SUV, wringing her hands. Spencer had managed to override the locks on the door so that she, Luca, Cody and Jamie could sneak out. While they prepared to rescue Zak, the others were trying to figure out what was going on at the Coalition.

  A bomb threat had been called in, so the bomb squad was sweeping the entire building. They’d managed to avoid the team by taking the back stairs to the garage.

  “There is no way we could get Logan out if we wanted to,” Jamie said. “What is this Timmons character trying to do?”

  “He wants to kill Zak. Sure, he’d give him a chance to save himself, but by calling in the threat he ensured that we’d be on lockdown,” Luca said.

  “Zak said that Logan was his brother-in-law. He wants him out, so I don’t understand,” Jamie told him.

  “Unless he plans to get Logan out another way. What would happen if he killed Zak because he couldn’t get Logan out? Then he takes someone else. Eliminates everyone on the team one at a time. Eventually even our bosses would be concerned for our safety. He might think he’d get what he wanted,” Abilene suggested.

  “It could be anything. Maybe the guy just lost his mind,” Cody said. “How are we going to get inside?”

  “We have a key,” Jamie mentioned.

  “Hey, did Zak leave his bedroom window open?” Cody turned to Abilene.

  Thinking back to earlier, she smiled and nodded. “He did. We opened it before we went to bed last night.”

  “Zak loves the freshness from the lake. I always bitch at him for not securing his house properly but thankfully he doesn’t listen. I can get in that way,” Cody stated as he pulled out his notebook.

  He quickly drew a map of Zak’s house. “I’ll fly in here.” He placed an X a block up from Zak’s door. “You three go around back. Luca, stay in human form. You can use Jamie’s key to unlock the door. If the deadbolt or chain is up, Jamie can slam though them, but it will announce our arrival.”

  “I’ll dart inside as soon as the doors open,” Abilene said.

  “I’ll wait at the top of the stairs until I hear you all. I don’t know how many people are in the house, but we have to expect at least three. Any less than that and Zak could have taken them himself,” Cody stated.

  “We’re not calling in reinforcements?” Luca asked.

  “If we wait, we won’t be able to do it our way. If our bosses know what’s happening, they’ll want to negotiate and talk Timmons out. If we go now, hopefully we won’t get Zak killed,” Cody replied.

  Abilene’s heart was pounding. This could go really badly. If Zak got hurt—or worse—how would she ever forgive herself?

  “He’ll be okay,” Jamie told her, gripping her shoulder. “He’s tough. We’ve been in situations like this before. He knows we’re coming for him. He probably knows what the plan will be.”

  She glanced up and met his gaze. “He better be okay or I’ll kick his ass myself,” she said.

  “I’ll help,” Jamie promised.

  * * * *

  The bleeding had stopped but Zak could still tell that his face was a mess. Gimpy and Grumpy had come back into the living room with sandwiches, chips and sodas. Timmons had turned his nose up at the offerings but devoured the food anyway.

  “You’re running out of time,” Timmons taunted him. “We still haven’t gotten a call back. I don’t think your friends are going to come through for you.”

  Zak had been shocked when Timmons had picked up his phone and ordered one of his men to go ahead with the bomb threat to the Coalition. He couldn’t believe it. Timmons stated that he wanted Logan back but Zak had his doubts. “You knew they wouldn’t be able to deliver,” he accused.

  Timmons laughed. “Of course I did. But this is fun.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “Oh, I plan to carry out my mission. Logan will be returned to me. I just might have to go through all the agents involved before that happens, but I don’t mind.”

  Anger rushed through him. If he was correct, his friends would already be on their way. They would have found a way out of the office, even if Jamie had to knock out every agent he came across. Hopefully Cody had been able to rein him in.

  Zak was both worried that Abilene would be with them and terrified that she wouldn’t.

  Sitting with his back to the wall across from the couch, he kept his eye on the three men. He wasn’t sure if backup would come from the front or back. No doubt it would be in shifted form.

  Why these guys didn’t think someone was coming for them was beyond him.

  “You won’t get the others,” Zak told him.

  “I got you, didn’t I?” Timmons said with a laugh.

  Zak snorted. Yeah, he had. But Zak’s head had been on a completely different plane. He’d been wrapped in thoughts about A
bilene and he still didn’t regret it.

  Sure his mouth throbbed and his ribs ached, but those would heal. This way they would be able to finally take Mike Timmons down. If he had to take a beating for that? Well, he’d been through worse.

  Abilene would probably yell at him, too. He kind of looked forward to that. She’d get all huffy and red in the face. He could use that passion to rile her up in other ways. He adjusted himself as his cock began to fill. Shit, now was not the time to get a hard-on. How would he explain that?

  He chuckled quietly to himself.

  “Something funny?” Grumpy asked as he walked by. He kicked Zak’s foot, which caused a sharp pain in his side.

  “Yeah, your face,” Zak responded.

  “Really?” Grumpy said right before punching him again.

  Zak brought his leg out and kicked his knee, as hard as he could.

  The crack sounded loud in the silent room. Grumpy howled, and Gimpy jumped up from the couch. Zak crouched, preparing to defend himself.

  Gimpy reached for Zak, but he was quicker. He shot out his hand, grabbing his opponent’s wrist, and yanked. Gimpy crashed into the wall next to him.

  Grumpy gripped Zak’s foot and pulled. Zak shouted as he fell on top of him, hurting his ribs worse.

  * * * *

  Abilene slid out of the SUV and looked up at where Cody was circling above them. He called out to them.

  “There’s one guy outside the house,” Jamie told them.

  “Huh,” Luca said. “It’s convenient having a bird shifter.”

  She laughed. “Yeah it is,” she agreed.

  “I’ll take care of our guest,” Jamie told them. “Let’s go.”

  She let him lead the way, staying in the middle between him and Luca. They’d parked a block away, hoping to sneak as far as possible without being seen. They cut through the alley behind Zak’s house.

  He had a large fence but luckily Jamie had a key to that, too.

  “Wait here,” Jamie whispered, when they were three houses from Zak’s.

  Both she and Luca nodded. Jamie took a running start before grabbing hold of the neighbor’s fence and pulling himself up and over.