Felix opened the closest passenger door and Isaac sat Tanya in the seat. The sound of her gasping for air brought up memories of dying breaths he’d rather not remember.
“It’s going to be okay, Tanya. Just breathe. Can you take a deep breath for me?” He knelt next to her and gripped her hand.
She stared at him, her eyes so wide and lost he couldn’t help but think that maybe, this time, they’d made a mistake.
Her hand tightened around his.
Isaac sucked in a slow, deep breath.
She mimicked him.
“Good. Keep breathing like that and focus on me, okay?” He closed the door, mentally cursing those few moments he’d lost.
Bullets pelted the ancient brick walls outside. Isaac yanked the seatbelt across her and jammed it in the catch. Felix already had the driver’s door open for him and was at the garage entry, ready to raise the door while Adam revved the engine of another vehicle.
Isaac slid across the hood of the car and vaulted into the driver’s seat. They’d underestimated her value, that was for sure.
Their window for getting out of here clean was closing. With the UK’s monitoring system, cops would be on them in moments.
Adam’s car shot out as the door raised enough to admit them. The fit was so tight the car’s antenna hit the metal door.
Felix waved Isaac out next.
He slammed his foot on the gas, and the car shot forward.
God, he loved European cars.
The wheels slid across the smooth stones of the back street before he got turned fully around. The sound of Tanya’s occasional gasp and whimper dampened any joy he might have gotten out of driving the high-performance vehicle.
The only person holding the alley down was Shane. Adam must have made the Kyle pick-up successfully and gotten out, leaving just one man to cover their exit. Unless the pursuing men had taken the Felix-and-Kyle bait.
Isaac gunned the engine and shot out onto the otherwise empty road.
No one laid in wait, which meant the guys following them had gone. Where to wasn’t Isaac’s concern.
He took a sharp left, then a right, weaving his way through the otherwise sleepy town of Boston with its picturesque homes.
“Stop,” Tanya said softly.
“I can’t. Not yet.” Isaac twisted, glancing behind him, but it was hard to tell if anyone was following with the way the streets wove back and forth.
“Stop, please?” She turned to face him, her dark eyes nearly black with fear. Her cheeks were slightly damp, which seemed wrong. She didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who cried.
“You’re safe now.” He’d just keep delivering those lines and leave it to the others to sort out.
“Don’t take me back to him, please?”
Isaac grimaced and for once he was grateful for the stupid knit mask. He didn’t need to ask who him was.
“Hang tight. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, okay?” That much Isaac could promise.
“You don’t understand. You don’t know.” Her voice cracked and she gulped down air again.
This whole gig was bad, but it wasn’t Isaac’s call what work they took, who they rescued. He went where he was told, did what needed doing, and that was it.
For the first time, he wanted to ask questions. He didn’t want to blindly agree to do what he was told. What didn’t they know?
She choked out a sob, the sound hardening his resolve that something wasn’t right.
“Tanya? Hey, Tanya, focus on my voice, okay?” He glanced at her, but she had her face covered by her hands.
Tanya was afraid, more than she’d been in the backyard of the cottage they’d found her at. What had Orlando done to her that made her so terrified? What had they gotten involved with?
Isaac turned the car onto a tree-covered, one-lane street that wound through otherwise unpopulated forest and pressed the accelerator. He couldn’t do anything else for her until they were safe.
The road dumped out onto a small lane that was now a service entrance to the small estate their team had booked as their staging location. He pulled the car off the road and straight into what had once been a horse barn, shifting into park so hard the seatbelt jerked him back.
“Tanya?” He pressed the button, releasing his seatbelt.
Her hands were curled into fists so tight her knuckles were white. She stared at the dash, but her mind wasn’t there.
“Tanya, look at me?” Isaac pulled the mask off and leaned forward until he was in her line of vision. “My name is Isaac, okay? I do not work for Orlando. You’re safe, understand?”
“Then why are you here?” She glanced up and away, the barn registering.
“Orlando hired us to rescue you—”
“Then you do work for him.” She clawed at her seatbelt.
“No—just, listen?” He grasped her hands, holding them tight between his.
Her eyes widened, lines divided her face into a map of worry and fear.
“He’s going to kill me, don’t you understand?” She twisted her hands in his grasp.
“No. Tanya, I won’t let that happen. Look at me. Please?”
She glanced at him once, then a second time.
“I know what kind of person he is, and I will not let anything happen to you. Understand?” Isaac had never meant a statement more than he did right now. “I promise you. You’re safe now.”
She licked her lips, and though she didn’t say that she didn’t believe him, her disbelief was evident in every tremor that shook her body. Her breathing was normal and she sat a little straighter, but she was still barely holding herself together.
“Orlando wants me dead. That’s why he sent you to flush me out.” She stared at him, her gaze seeming to dissect him. There was something about the way she looked at a person, studying them as though she could read his performance stats on a chart. “I was safer where I was. You might as well kill me now.” She let go of him and opened her door.
Whoever Tanya Graham was, Isaac had a pretty good feeling they hadn’t been properly briefed. This whole situation went deeper than they realized. The question was, had they gotten in too deep?
3.
Thursday. Boston, United Kingdom.
Tanya swallowed, but her secrets kept sticking in her throat. They wanted to come out, and someone needed to know, but were these the people to trust? The ones Orlando sent to get her?
Her urge to blurt out the truth was an indication of how close she was to unraveling. Without Quade, she was crumbling, and no amount of digging in could keep her from falling apart. If she could only think, she could figure a way out of this.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” The man waiting for her outside the car smiled. His expression was disarming, pleasant. Whoever he was, he seemed to be the merry band’s leader, and therefore he was the last person she’d trust.
He was good, she’d give him that.
She was already fighting the urge to trust that All-American face of his, but he had no idea what he was up against or what was really going on. Unlike Isaac. She could feel his eyes on her and she’d seen understanding in his gaze. He knew. He got it. But she still didn’t trust him.
“What is there to misunderstand?” She swallowed down her fear, that horrible tangle of toxic emotions that would strangle her if she gave it the opportunity.
Instead, she studied the man studying her. He was tanned, his hair sun-bleached to a light brown. Tiny scars dotted his neck, so small someone who didn’t know what they were might have missed them. She’d seen cigarette burns enough in her life to recognize them for what they were.
“Orlando wants me dead. You found me for him.” Tanya had to get control of the situation—and herself. Only one of those could be easy.
“Hold on.” The man frowned. “Those guys, they weren’t the ones holding you for ransom?”
“They were the ones protecting me from Orlando,” Tanya said.
The other two men finall
y got out of their car. Her brain was starting up, getting back into the game. No one else came out to greet them or assist with the gear. Five-man rescue team. No country identifiers, so they had to be private sector. None of them appeared to have a clue what was going on.
She was so fucked.
They might as well kill her now.
“Okay, we’ve got our wires crossed somewhere. Why don’t we all go inside and we can get this sorted?” Mr. All American said.
These men were mercenaries. Orlando couldn’t operate in the UK. He’d made too many enemies. So he’d sent people after her. These men would transport her back to Orlando, no matter what she said. Her opportunity for making contact was closing, and fast. If she didn’t get the intel out soon, it would be too late. Orlando hadn’t yet sold the weapon, but he would. Something that valuable couldn’t sit for long.
Tanya wrapped her arms around herself, her mind whirling a mile a minute. Her best chance was to encourage these men to see her as a weak woman. She’d done a good enough job creating that image, thanks to nearly losing it in the van and car.
Isaac was looking at her, still. She could feel his gaze like a hot brand on her skin.
Most likely, it wouldn’t matter to these men what Orlando did with her, so long as they were paid. They didn’t know her, and they didn’t care about her. But Isaac might.
“Hey.” Isaac placed his hand on her shoulder. He had a steady, comforting gaze she wanted to fall into. He wasn’t the leader of the group, but he had a firm control of the moment. “Let’s go inside, figure this out. I promise, we won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
She nodded and let him guide her forward.
The walk would give her the chance to collect her thoughts, make a plan.
Isaac kept a steadying hand on her elbow, offering support when she slipped on the cobblestones outside the barn and a warm touch that grounded her in an unexpected way.
“How do you know him?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“It’s mostly reputation and a gut feeling. I’ve met him a few times and, let’s just say I didn’t care for him.”
Interesting.
Mr. All-American led them along the long, low buildings that had once been servants’ quarters, the kitchen and workshops for maintaining the grounds, toward the estate house. Judging by the newer walls on the east and southern sides, the property had been cut down, reduced to the garden and buildings. The walk and fresh air helped calm her physical fear, but gave her no solutions to her problem.
She was still a dead woman walking.
They entered the main house through a back door that led into the breakfast nook.
Tanya glanced around the space, taking in the work done to update the house, make it more modern and comfortable. It was cozy, without being personal. A rental property, then. Orlando could likely find this with relative ease. He’d tasked her with tracking down targets in similar circumstances and coordinating their kidnappings. Those had been the worst things about her job—pretending the screams and pleas didn’t bother her. She wasn’t that cold or callous.
The signs of her would-be rescuers were everywhere, from a few laptops to bags of gear and a suitcase.
“Let’s chat in here.” Mr. All American gestured into the great room.
She hesitated and glanced at Isaac.
In the span of a few minutes, he’d become her safety net.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” he said quietly, as though he understood.
She nodded, too tired and worn out to parse out the meaning of her reaction, and followed the other man.
Isaac and the other men peeled off, stripping out of the outer tactical gear and stowing their weapons in travel trunks with false bottoms. They were a well-oiled machine, used to working covertly, that much was obvious. But they were still mercenaries hired to do a job. She needed to remember that. Even Isaac, who offered her such pretty promises, was a hired gun.
“All right, my name is Kyle.” Mr. All-American smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was serious, now. “This is Isaac, Felix, Adam and Shane. We work for a company called Aegis Group, and Orlando hired us to bring you home. He believed you were kidnapped to get back at him.”
Tanya glanced at Isaac, again. His gaze was firmly on her, that strong jaw of his clenching tight. Was he keeping his promises and opinions to himself?
“She says Orlando wants her dead.” Isaac never glanced away from her. For some reason, his statement eased more of her tension. He believed her.
“Why would you think that?” Kyle asked.
Tanya swallowed.
What version of the truth should she tell them?
Reality was stranger than fiction. If she told them the truth, the unvarnished bones, they might leave her immediately.
She’d go with what she’d told The Patrol. There was enough circumstantial evidence to back it up, and if it’d worked once, it could work a second time.
“Someone was stealing money from him. Orlando thought it was his accountant, and that I was sleeping with him. He killed Quade and would have killed me if I hadn’t run.” She crossed her arms over her chest and hunched her shoulders. Blaming money and sex were the easiest options, though the story was pure fabrication.
“How’d you end up here?” Kyle frowned.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Tanya shrugged, too tired to muster more of an act for their benefit. “Orlando has problems moving things through the UK because of the people he’s pissed off. I figured if I had any luck of getting away from him, I’d start here. Please, don’t take me back to him.”
She glanced from Kyle to Isaac.
God, she hated herself right now, but she wanted to live.
“No one is making you go anywhere.” Isaac stepped closer to her before anyone else could speak.
“Isaac is right.” Kyle glanced at the other man, a silent order passing between them. “We can’t make you go anywhere you don’t want to go, and we won’t force you to go where you don’t want to.”
Tanya swallowed. Did she believe that line? Not really. Why would Orlando pay a team who might not deliver what he wanted?
Orlando would figure out where she was, and if he’d figured out the depth of her betrayal she had no doubt he’d send more people after her. He had to have guessed she knew his client list and what he was trying to sell. That alone was worth her life.
What the hell was her next move? The one person she was supposed to be able to trust wasn’t answering her calls.
“Why don’t you lie down? Isaac can show you to a room. You can rest, and we’ll work out what comes next.” Kyle nodded at the other man.
She could do with a few moments to think, work out what came next. If they left her to rest without a babysitter around, she might get her hands on a phone. That would be good, since she’d lost the burner.
“I’d like that, thanks.” Tanya glanced at Isaac.
The muscles at his jaw twitched, and his lips were pressed so tightly together they were white.
Dissention in the ranks.
Because of her, the job, or Orlando?
“This way, please?” Isaac gestured toward the front stair.
He placed his hand on her back, the heat of his touch sinking through the knit fabric of her dress to her skin. She walked slowly, her limbs heavy, the dread weighing her down.
“Do you need anything? Want anything?” Isaac kept pace with her up to the second floor.
“To not go back to Orlando?” A very real tremor of fear snaked through her.
“It’s not our thing to make anyone go where or do what they don’t want to.” He smiled, the expression warm and honest.
“I hope so. Any chance I could use a phone?”
“Do you think that’s a good idea right now?”
She couldn’t truthfully answer that.
He led her down the hall, neither of them speaking.
From here on out, the less she said the better. Allowing t
heir team to come up with their own narrative to believe would be better than whatever she could brainstorm. She was quite simply out of her depth.
“We’ve covered the windows, so if you could please stay away from them for safety concerns, I’d appreciate that.” Isaac opened a bedroom door and held it open for her. The light was already on.
They’d arranged this. How interesting. From top to bottom, they’d planned for her needs, their security, transportation, housing, and what else?
“Thank you.” Tanya paused just over the threshold and peered up into his eyes.
Isaac was assigned to her, or something. Because he was comforting? Or some other reason? Was this his job on the team? Did he get the frightened women? Or was the tiny thread she felt pulling her to him unique?
He stared back at her, one corner of his mouth twisted up. Another time and place she’d like to pick his brain, find out what made him tick, the reasons he took on a job like this, but her plate was full right now. The less she knew about him the better. He was her mark. The person she had to con to get out of here alive.
“Please—don’t tell Orlando where we are?” Her fear wasn’t at all feigned.
He glanced away at the mention of Orlando’s name, the smile vanishing.
Did Isaac have some sort of experience with Orlando that had left a bad taste in his mouth?
“Like I said, if you don’t want to go back to him, no one is going to make you.” Isaac stared at her. “I’ll figure out a way to put him off. The longer we go without checking in, the better our plans for getting you out of here will be”
“Thank you.”
“Rest up, and I’ll see you in a little bit. We should have dinner soon.”
Tanya turned toward the bed, but she couldn’t sleep yet. She’d sent a message on the burner, and she needed to speak to the recipient. Did she dare try calling?
Isaac didn’t want to leave Tanya alone. Once again, his gut screamed at him to stay close. She struck him as a confident, strong woman, and so far she’d been on the verge of a panic attack since the moment he got her away from those thugs.
Then again, a woman that strong could be playing him, couldn’t she?
Dangerous in Action (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #2) Page 3