His breath caught in his chest and he clamped his lips together. The last thing he needed was Delaney knowing that he was jacking off across the hall from her. But, he needed the release. It was ten days since they’d reunited. A hell of a lot longer since he’d had sex. He focused on the way she’d looked, the way her breasts had pressed up against his chest as they’d kissed in the living room, the way her ass had teased him. Years of deployment had given him a great imagination, and he imagined her breasts bouncing. Breathing heavily, he felt the moment he was about to come, could tell by the way his abs tightened and his balls were ready to explode.
In his head, Mac called out Delaney’s name as he came. He gasped for air and slowed his strokes until his breathing and emotions returned to normal. Once he’d cleaned up, he crawled back into bed and finally gave in to his exhaustion.
His alarm sounded what felt like mere moments later. He reached his arm out of the covers and fumbled around for his phone. His head swam. Four hours’ sleep. Shit. Work. He needed to get his shit together.
Twenty minutes later, he’d showered in cold water to chase away the heavy head, gotten dressed, and was in the process of savoring his first cup of coffee.
Six would be leaving in twenty-four hours and taking some of the guys with him. It was a trial, a test run for a much larger piece of work. They were to provide covert coverage for a CIA paramilitary team in Syria who were reporting on the uprising. It was a hugely lucrative contract. The kind they dreamt of. The kind that would put their special ops firm on the map. It was ironic how the SEAL in him had hated the fact that contractors outweighed actual U.S. military on the ground in many war zones, but here he was, ready to form his own chain of command as a contractor. At least now he got to pick which jobs to work on, ones that would make a difference, instead of deploying his men at a moment’s notice to go fix things that had been screwed up for so long, nobody knew how to put the pieces back together, or how to withdraw. But it weighed on him that Six’s heading out had been partly his call. After all this time and training, sending another man off into conflict never got any easier emotionally, even though he had long ago gotten his head around doing just that.
Part of Mac wanted to suggest that he, Cabe, and Six all go out together, but they each had their own teams, and their own jobs to do. It was the luck of the draw—or in this case, their scheduling—that this time it happened to be Six.
Which was why they’d all taken up Mac’s mom on her last-minute invitation to come to Encinitas for a barbecue later that day. To make things feel normal. As normal as seeing Delaney venture out of the bedroom, her hair a mess, an old baseball jersey sliding off one shoulder. It was like old times–ones he should let stay in the past instead of trying to drag them into the present. When she grabbed the coffee out of his hand on the way to the table, he let her. She wasn’t a morning person.
She pulled out a chair at the table where she’d set up her things and took a sip. The coffee was hotter than Hades, and Delaney winced. “Since when do you take sugar?” she asked, her face screwing up in a grimace.
Mac poured her another cup and took it to the table, placing it next to her laptop. “Since ten years ago and an R and R break in Turkey. Waitress in an out-of-the-way guesthouse. I casually called her Sugar. I got sugar in every cup of coffee after that. Couldn’t get her to stop. By the end of the trip I was hooked.”
Delaney raised an eyebrow as she handed him back his drink, and he did his best to ignore the way the baseball shirt slid a little further off her shoulder.
“So are you back at work then?” he asked.
She nodded as her eyes scoured whatever she was looking at on her laptop. Without answering, she reached for the notepad and quickly scribbled a name.
Victor Lemtov.
He reached across the table and grabbed the paper from her. “Of Los Feliz?”
Delaney snatched the paper back. “You know better than to go looking over my notes.” She said it so primly, and by the way she looked up at him, eyes narrowed, he knew he was looking at Delaney the journalist. “I’m sure we aren’t talking about the same person, but why don’t you tell me a little about the Lemtov you know, just to be sure.” Casually, she leaned back in the chair and held her pen at both ends.
Mac tried hard to remind himself that this was her job. And that his initial response—a fear strong enough to want to tell her to stay the hell away from Lemtov—was an overreaction. But Lemtov had been involved in the attempt to abduct Louisa. The people with whom he was associated had wanted her to re-create a drug she’d created that had the power to paralyze its victims while leaving them completely conscious.
“He’s a Russian criminal. Not connected to the mafia directly that we can tell. But definitely growing.” If he was involved in what had happened to Delaney, Mac should call their CIA contact, Andrew Aitken. He’d been able to get all the correct authorizations for Eagle Securities to work as contractors before. Maybe they should get them again.
Delaney tapped the pen on her palm. “Define ‘growing.’”
Mac took a breath. “He’s on the FBI’s radar. Just not high enough to warrant the resources for a serious investigation.”
“Makes sense,” she mumbled under her breath and then returned to her screen.
“Why?” Mac asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said without looking up.
Mac stalked around to the other side of the table and crouched down, waiting patiently until Delaney turned to look at him. “You don’t get to “oh nothing” me, Delaney. Not after the shape you were in when I saw you that first day in the hospital.”
“What I am doing has nothing to do with you.… I’m not—”
“You say ‘your responsibility’ one more time, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”
“I’ve been doing fine without your help for years, and—”
“You weren’t fine in that hospital, Delaney. And you’ve had nearly a week to move out, but you haven’t. Not that I want you to, but you know you’re safer here while you figure out which way is up. So, do us both a favor, and tell me what the hell you are looking into, so I’m not flying blind.”
* * *
Of all the arrogant, conceited … Gah!
“Listen,” she said, getting to her feet then regretting it the moment her ankle twinged. “I must have been off my damn mind on meds when I asked for you. I probably asked for my mom too. And Brock. And Kanye freaking West for all I know. You just happened to be the one they could track down because of your military record or something. Second, I’m a journalist. I don’t reveal shit until I am goddamn ready. And I have appointments today to look around at condos. So, do me a favor and get out of my way so I can go get ready.”
Slowly, Mac stood until he towered over her. She’d always found his height incredibly attractive, but now it just seemed too overwhelming, and she needed him out of her space. “I don’t care who else you might have asked for,” he said, “because I was the only one who came. I don’t want you to leave, but I know we can’t just pick up where we left off all those years ago, so you moving into your own place at some point makes sense. As for Lemtov, he was involved in trying to abduct Louisa last summer. He was arrested as part of a takedown that we led, and he was released on bail while he awaited trial. But the case is weak. An old man’s word against his, with no proof or money trail. You have no idea who you are looking into, and I do. So, stop being so stubborn.”
Louisa? During dinner, Six had alluded to the fact that they’d met while she was a client. She’d tried to get more details then, but the three of them had clammed up. She’d give anything to know what Mac knew now. Curiosity, the craving for truth, burned deep in her gut. Fear receded.
She wasn’t so naive that she’d refuse high-quality help.
“I believe there is a weapons dealer funding the insurgents in places like Kunduz,” she said.
Mac folded his arms across his chest. “Well, that’s nothing new. There hav
e always been runners out of Eastern Europe, going back as far as the collapse of the USSR.”
Carefully, Delaney returned to the dining room chair, and slowly rotated her ankle under the table. Even though it was still strapped up, it throbbed like a bitch. “Yes, but this appears to be funded within the U.S. The Kunduz delivery I had arranged to see traveled from the U.S. via Russia. Big weapons dealers insist they are purely providers of logistics. One major dealer’s defense was basically that a cabbie can’t be arrested for dealing coke if a dealer is caught taking a taxi to the airport.”
Mac scoffed and pulled out another chair. “Sounds like a technicality. They’re flying in and out of the world’s deadliest hot spots. Coups. Dictators. Mass genocide. They sure as shit aren’t shipping barley.”
“Yeah. Obviously. But the people who are financially funding with cash are also the ones supplying the weapons, and they are getting away with providing the weapons due to the dual purpose clause when shipping products to embargoed areas.”
Mac’s brow furrowed. “‘Dual purpose clause’?”
“It’s an exemption put on things that could be weapons or could be items required for other purposes. Gah … okay. I’m not doing a great job of explaining this.” Delaney searched for a better explanation. “Here’s an example: A basic helicopter can be used for managing extensive livestock movement or spraying crops. So it can be imported as agricultural equipment. But the moment it gets there, it‘s repurposed into a military vehicle and weaponized. It can work the same way with chemicals that can be used for a beneficial purpose but it is repurposed for chemical warfare.”
She’d been so freaking close to proving it. Her informant had taken a snapshot of the inside of the container while it was being processed for shipping. Pressurized canisters of chemicals and what she had been assured were second-grade weapons. She had shipping notes and plane manifests. All she had needed was a positive sighting of it at the other end of the journey. But she hadn’t seen it, in fact, she’d been grabbed only hours before the scheduled arrival, too much of a coincidence in her opinion. All she could prove was that it had landed in Russia. She had no evidence that it had ever arrived on Afghan soil.
“So what does Lemtov have to do with this?” Mac finished his coffee in four large gulps and put his cup down on the table.
“Honestly,” Delaney said, “I don’t know. I just got an email saying I should check him out. I don’t know the sender of the email, but I have a strong suspicion that if I try to trace it, it will bounce around for a little while and then seem to come from some place I’ve never heard of with a population of ten people and seven sheep. None of who give a flip about some random guy named Victor Lemtov. But I intend to trace the shell company that shipped the goods out in the first place. Maybe the two are connected.”
The alarm on Mac’s phone began to ring, reminding him it was time to leave. “Shit,” he said, turning it off quickly. “I have to go. We have to do some final planning with Six’s team. Look. I can help. With this. Can we talk more later?”
Delaney nodded. Hopefully she’d have more to tell him when he got back. “For sure. Tell Six to bring his ass back in one piece.”
“You got a secret thing for Six’s ass,” Mac said with a wink as he grabbed his wallet and keys of the kitchen counter.
“Most definitely,” she said casually taking a sip of her coffee.
“Look, my mom is having a barbecue this afternoon. Six’ll be there and you can tell him yourself. Come with me. Mom’d love to see you, I know.”
Delaney looked at her computer. She had a mountain of work to do. And seeing Mac’s family again felt a little too close to home. “I don’t know, Mac … I don’t think that’s the best idea.”
“Just think about it. Please.”
“Okay. I’ll see how far I get with all this after I get back from apartment hunting,” she said, gesturing to all the piles on the table.
He shook his head and returned to her side. “Be careful,” he said before pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She watched as he walked to the apartment door. His ass was way better than Six’s, but she’d keep that thought to herself.
After a quick shower, Delaney took the time to blowdry her hair and decided to wear it down. Dressed in her best, and only, pair of black pants—though they didn’t match her white sneakers and bandages—and a cream blouse, she grabbed her purse and left the apartment.
Her plan was to start with cheap and cheerful apartments, but if she couldn’t find any that met even her own low standards, she’d start surfing the web for people looking for roommates. It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t have money. She’d always been cautious about spending, and because she’d been away a lot on assignment, her living expenses hadn’t been too high. But setting up home had always felt a little bit like … giving up. Sitting in a beautiful home with a comfortable bed and soft sheets, it could be too easy to come to the decision that months on the road following leads and stories was a thing of her past. And then what would she do? Join the local knitting circle, or a book club, maybe? She laughed at the idea of a bunch of women sitting around discussing her choice of books on the international arms trade.
Most of the apartments she was looking at were farther north than Mac’s incredible centrally located apartment, so she took a cab. The first was in a nondescript building in a half-decent neighborhood. Inside, a giant notice declared the elevator out of order. Thankfully the apartment was on the third floor. Half walking, half hopping, and leaning heavily on the railing, Delaney made her way upstairs. The hallways were tired, but decently lit.
Delaney knocked on the door and was greeted by the agent and the strong smell of urine. “Sorry about this,” the agent said, wafting her hand in front of her own nose. “The previous owners had pets and were evicted. I’m sure it will come out with a decent carpet cleaning.”
Without setting a foot inside, Delaney knew it wouldn’t, but she hobbled around the apartment making noncommittal “hmms” and “ahhs.” She didn’t want carpet, especially ones that stunk of animal pee. She wanted hardwood. Easy to clean.
Her luck didn’t fare any better in the second or third ones, both of which were worse than the first. Depressingly, the smell of cat urine won out over a moldy bathroom and an apartment that had only one window.
The fourth apartment was the winner—if you defined “winner” as the “best out of four,” rather than anything close to what she really wanted. But the neighborhood was cute, the small apartment was bright thanks to large windows in the main living space, and it was a little closer to her mother’s and Mac’s than the others. Not that proximity to Mac had anything to do with … well, with anything. Or anything to do with the kiss they’d shared, which had been a complete shock. All she remembered from their relationship was the sweetness, the tenderness, not heat like he’d laid on her last night.
Using her ankle throughout the day had done the opposite of what she’d anticipated. It had loosened up. And while she was convinced it would ache by the time she took her sneakers off tonight, she used the opportunity to walk the several blocks back to Mac’s. The air was fresh—straight off the bay, as her mother would say. And it was nearly the first day of spring. It had been over three weeks since the abduction had taken place, and this was the first day she’d felt … normal.
She resisted stopping at the Ghirardelli store on Fifth Avenue, because as much as she could inhale the whole shop, she’d been sitting on her ass way too long. The scale in Mac’s bathroom told her she’d gained five pounds. She also ignored the pizza place on Island, even though it smelled so damn good. Her stomach rumbled, but there were plenty of healthier options in Mac’s fridge. Which, come to think of it, she should probably give him some money for.
Tugging her phone out of her purse, she stopped to make a note of it. When she looked up, she noticed in the glass of the pizzeria a stranger standing on the other side of the street glancing around curiously. The first t
ime that she’d seen the silver sedan outside her mom’s, the driver had been wearing the same black ball cap. It was a reach to assume they were the same person, but she wasn’t foolish enough to take chances.
Delaney began to walk again, testing her ankle a little as she picked up pace. She took a right onto Sixth and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of tourists and locals alike packing the street and going about their business. She still felt like she was about to puke, but panic wasn’t going to help. She headed toward the Gaslamp Marriott that stood proud at the bottom of the street. It was less than half a block to the condo from there, but she knew there would be more people milling around there than the condo reception. Braving a look behind her, she could see the man in the cap still on her tail.
Sweat began to form on her brow, and her ankle stopped cooperating and began to throb horribly. Despite the pain shooting up her leg, she began to jog. If he showed any signs of catching up with her, she would sprint straight into the hotel. But he didn’t. She glanced over her shoulder one last time and saw that he appeared to be hanging back. When she turned for the ballpark and saw the apartment entrance, her heart raced even faster.
She rummaged around in her purse as she ran, pulling out the key card that would allow her inside. To safety. The entrance was within sight. Delaney powered her legs.
“Delaney,” a voice called out, but she kept running. “Delaney, wait up.”
Final Siege Page 7