“Jackson?”
“Hmm?”
“Please don’t make me have a big wedding. I just want it to be you, me, my parents, and your friends.”
“Sounds good.”
She sighed against my neck, her warm breath puffing against my skin. “It’s a shame we don’t know anyone that could take care of this now. Everyone’s already here.”
I looked down at her, her eyes closed and contentment all over her face.
“I think that could be arranged.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Raegan and Jackson
Raegan
“It’s not even legal. I don’t see why I have to wear a dress.” I grumbled as Claire fussed over me.
“Because it’s your wedding and you don’t know that it’s not legal. I think Hunter may have been ordained online after he married Gabe and Isa.”
“Seriously? He married them?”
“Well, sort of. It was more Hunter and Lucy yelling at each other while saying the vows for Gabe and Isa. It was pretty funny, but we all just kind of assumed it was the real deal after that.”
Claire finished adjusting my dress that had been picked up at the nearest town. It was not something I would normally wear, but I did like the way I looked in it. The dress was royal blue and tight fitting, hitting just below the knee. It had a boat neck and no back. At first I was worried what my parents would say, but then I remembered that they were already in love with Jackson and wouldn’t care what I wore as long as I walked down that aisle and married him.
“I knew this dress would look perfect on you,” Claire said excitedly.
“Yeah, it’s beautiful, but what are the chances that Jackson will show up in jeans and a t-shirt?”
“I doubt the guys would let him show up like that. At least, I hope not,” she mumbled under her breath.
“This is ridiculous, really. I mean, we don’t even know if this is real. I think we should just-”
“Don’t even finish that thought,” Jackson growled from behind me. “You are fucking marrying me today and we’re going to be fucking happy. You got that?”
I nodded, not really knowing what else to say. Jackson looked amazing. He was wearing black dress pants and a white shirt that was left open at the top. A black suit coat was left open on top of that.
“I don’t know why you’re so nervous. I’m the one that has to marry you with eyebrows that have barely grown in yet.”
I chuckled slightly. He was still a little upset over that. Most of his hair had started coming in again, but we’d had to wait almost two months. His eyebrows weren’t as bad as he thought. They just weren’t as full as they normally would be. And he looked really sexy with the scruff that was dirtying his jaw.
“Just promise me that this is low key. I can’t take anything flashy.”
His eyes glimmered slightly until he saw that I was dead serious. His brow started to sweat and he paled slightly.
“Oh, shit. You did something big, didn’t you?” I started hyperventilating. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t want a big wedding. I wanted it to be like any other day with us. I just wasn’t one of those people that did well under pressure or when the spotlight was on me. I needed to not be the center of attention.
“Baby,” he chuckled nervously. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t let you down.”
He took a step back and looked at his watch. “Ten more minutes,” he grinned, and then he turned and fled the room as fast as possible.
“Oh God. This is going to be bad. I can’t go down there. I can’t walk in front of everyone when they’re all staring at me and expecting me to be this sentimental, blushing bride.”
“Calm down,” Claire said. “Seriously, it’ll be fine. These guys are experts at giving a woman what they need.”
“You’re sure?”
She waved me off like I was insane. “Trust me, Jackson’s got this covered.”
✯✯✯✯✯
Jackson
I raced down the stairs, almost slipping and breaking my neck on the last step. I had eight minutes to get everything out of here and make it look like I hadn’t just tried to give her a dream wedding. When I flung the backdoors open, everyone looked over at me.
“We have to get rid of it all. She was fucking serious about not wanting all this shit.”
Everyone just stared at me, not sure what to do. I clapped my hands as I yelled, “Move people. We only have eight minutes. I want this whole place cleared out!”
The women started grabbing the white chairs that had pink fabric draped across it and moving them to the shed. Cap helped me grab all the flowers and we tossed them into the pond. I grunted in frustration when they floated, but it kind of made the pond look cool, so I forgot about it and ran back to get more flowers.
“Shit,” I said as I saw the swans in the cage. They were supposed to wander around the property, but I couldn’t have that happen now. “What the hell am I supposed to do with all these swans?”
“Open the cage,” Hunter said from his chair.
“They’ll just wander around.”
“Trust me.”
I didn’t have any other ideas, so I ran to the cage and opened it up. The swans waddled out, not going anywhere. Then chunks of dirt and grass flew from the ground as Hunter fired at the swans. They quickly ran, making their way to the pond. At least over there I could just say they wandered over here.
“Get rid of those doves,” I yelled to Derek. He opened the cage and let them all fly free. I looked around frantically, seeing what else I had to get rid of. Shit, there was gauzy pink fabric draped all over the place.
I ran to the house and started ripping it from the roof. Sinner ran over and started helping. “What else do you want?”
“We need to look casual. Grab beer and hand it out to everyone.”
“On it!”
Sinner took off and I started gathering up all the fabric, tripping over it multiple times before I was able to get it all over to the shed and shove it in with other decorations. I checked my watch, relieved when I saw I still had two minutes. I walked over calmly to the group, trying to slow my heart rate, and wiped the sweat from my face. I was fucking hot now and had to get rid of my jacket. I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt so I looked more casual.
When Raegan stepped outside, I almost had a fucking heart attack. She looked hot. I had seen her inside, but my brain had short circuited when she started asking about the wedding. But now, the way her hair was pinned back on one side and draped over her shoulder, and the way that dress fit all her curves just perfectly had me rethinking my choice to go commando for easy access after the wedding.
I stared anywhere but at her so that I didn’t grow any harder than I already was, but eventually I would have to look at her. Hunter was sitting in his position, ready to marry us, and everyone else was standing around casually, holding their beer. I hoped like hell that this was more what she was hoping for.
She smiled at me when she stood next to me and leaned in close. “How much did you have to get rid of?”
“Nothing. I kept it casual, just like I promised.”
“Is that why the pond is full of flowers and there are swans all over the place?”
I looked over and sure enough, the swans were out of the pond and wandering around. “I…uh…”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the…Reed Security party,” Hunter began. “We are gathered here today, as we are every day, to witness the marriage of Jackson and Raegan. It only took them a little over a year to get their shit together, but now that they have, we can finally drink some beer and pretend that we all want to be wearing monkey suits today.”
I glared at him and he shook his head before continuing.
“When you meet that special person, it isn’t usually when she’s all beat up and shit, but she’s pretty cool, so we’ll just pretend that these two met under normal circumstances.”
Hunter was completely fucking this up. He to
ld me that he knew what he wanted to say and he said it was romantic as fuck. I should have known that his version of romantic was different than everyone else’s.
“Hunter,” I motioned for him to keep moving.
“Right. So, Raegan, do you promise to stick by this fucker through bloody times and boring times? Do you promise that you’ll bandage his wounds and make sure your kids are fully trained by Reed Security? Do you promise that when the shit hits the fan, you’ll still be there for him, even if he loses a hand?”
“I do,” Raegan laughed.
“Cool. Jackson, do you promise to always care for your woman? Make sure she’s properly fucked so that we can expand the Reed Security crew? Do you promise that when she’s pregnant, you’ll remember to keep all the fat comments to yourself so that we don’t all get bitched out by our wives? Do you promise that you’ll invite us all over for your mother-in-law’s cooking, as we all know how fucking fantastic it is?”
“I do.”
“Oh, yeah,” Hunter cleared his throat before he continued. “Do you promise to love one another and all that bullshit until one of you inevitably gets blown up by one of Maggie’s grenades?”
“I do,” we both said.
“Good, then fucking kiss her.”
That was the only traditional part of the ceremony. It wasn’t short and it most definitely wasn’t the kind of kiss you wanted your in-laws witnessing, but it was everything I felt about her. Maggie tapped me on the arm, breaking our kiss.
“Here,” she said, shoving two grenades at us with a grin. “Kind of like fireworks, right?”
“I’m not sure-”
“Awesome!” Raegan said, snatching the grenade from Maggie. “Alright, let’s go blow shit up!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jackson
3 months later…
“I’ve gone over everything on Agent Curtis’s computer and I’m not finding a whole lot,” Knight said as he sat around the table with the rest of us. “There are names, but I looked into them and they’re all dead. None of them seem to be connected and I’ve searched their backgrounds for hours. There’s nothing there, no connection or relation to anything that has to do with Raegan, Chance, or Morgan from what I can tell.”
I was starting to lose my mind. Chance had been missing for almost six months and we were no closer to finding him than we were when he went missing. “How does someone just fall off the grid like that? How is it that there’s no trail left behind? None of this makes sense.”
“I looked into Carlos Guerrero,” Rob said. “I’ve been tracking him for a long time and trying to figure out what his end goal is. I couldn’t really find out a whole lot about him, but he lives in Mexico. If he was entangled with Xavier, it would suggest that the guy operates out of Central America.”
“So, we don’t know what his role is in any of this?” Cap asked.
“He doesn’t show up in any databases and I couldn’t find any ties between him and Curtis. I don’t know if he’s friendly or part of the trafficking ring. There’s just nothing there.”
“He can’t be a friendly. He wants to kill Raegan.”
“But if he’s on the government’s payroll, that suggests that he’s either an operative or he’s a scout of some kind.”
“You haven’t found anything on him, though,” Cap said.
“That doesn’t mean he’s not working with our government.”
“So, basically we’re back to guessing,” Knight scowled. “I hate fucking guessing.”
“Bossman!” Becky ran into the conference room, panting and smiling like she had just finished her first marathon. “I think I have something. Okay, remember that Craig was saying that when he was taken they said something about praying at the altar?”
“Yeah.” Cap looked to Craig, but he just shrugged.
“I figured they thought I was Catholic.”
“That’s what I was thinking too, but then I got to thinking about the fact that you said the guy made a slicing motion across his throat, which had me thinking about human sacrifice. See, altars in a Catholic church are for praying, but in other cultures, altars were used for human sacrifice. So, I did some research to find out which cultures practiced human sacrifice. There were the Etruscans, Chinese, Celts, Hawaiians, Mesopotamians, Israelites, Carthaginians, Egyptians-”
“Becky,” Cap interrupted. “Get to the point.”
“Okay, so those I ruled out because of location or who they sacrificed, which were mostly children. But, then there were the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. The Aztecs were located in Mexico and the Mayans were in Central America. The Incas were in South America and I ruled them out because they also sacrificed children.”
“What does this have to do with Chance?” I asked.
“I’m getting to that. This is the good part.” She squealed and clapped her hands excitedly. “Now, the Aztecs mostly sacrificed by laying someone on the altar and cutting through their abdomen and pulling out their heart. But the Mayans used the altar and beheaded their human sacrifices.” She drew a line across her neck with a big smile. “See?”
“No,” Cap said blandly. “That sounds like a lot of coincidences.”
“Okay, I understand that it’s not enough, but what if I told you that the human sacrifices were usually prisoners of war?” Everyone just stared at her. “Oh, come on! Craig was a prisoner of war and the guy said something about praying at the altar and then made a beheading motion.” Still, everyone just stared. “Okay, you’re still not convinced. There are six prominent sites for the Mayan cities that still stand. Chichen Itza, Coba, Copan, Calakmul, Tikal, and Uxmal. Now, four of those sites are in Mexico. One is in Guatemala and the other is in Honduras. Obviously, we could look into any one of those areas, but Honduras happens to be the murder capital of the world. That’s where I say we start looking.”
No one really looked like they were too convinced of anything she had said, but we literally had nothing else to go on.
“So, what do we do with this?” Knight asked. “We go search for an altar and that’s where we’ll find Chance?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly. I was thinking that maybe the altar was just a stopping point for the ring. Maybe the people that get executed by the trafficking ring for snitching or whatever their crimes, are used to send a message. They’re taken to the altar and executed.”
“It sounds far fetched.” I wasn’t sure that any of that was right. “I mean, these guys are traffickers. What the hell would they have to do with Mayan traditions?”
“Maybe nothing,” Becky said. “Maybe he’s just from Honduras and was using it as a scare tactic, but either way, I think we should check into it.”
“Well, fuck,” Cap sighed. “We have nothing else to go on. Becky, do some more research on the altar and the area. Before we go on any missions, we need to get back up to strength. We’ll plan over the next month and Knight will make sure everyone is where they need to be for the mission. Derek and Cazzo, work with Becky and start planning as soon as you have something to go on. Ice and Hunter, you’re going to have to sit this one out. Lola, we need a weapons check. I want an inventory of everything that we have at our disposal. We need to figure out how many trips we can take before we run out of supplies.”
“Cap,” Cazzo shifted in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with his next question. “How long are we staying here? I know that we need to rebuild and everything, but I think we all need to know if this is becoming our new home. The ladies have left everything behind for us and at this point, none of them really have a job left to go back to. Vanessa lost her job, Kate’s clinic is in her partner’s hands, Claire was supposed to be running the library and they’ve probably replaced her by now. Lucy was notified that she lost her teaching job. Ali lost her nursing position. Lindsey had to shut down her bed and breakfast and Emma had to close her bookshop. Isa lost her position as a real estate agent.”
“Not to mention that Ryan hasn’t been able to contact Logan about t
heir construction company,” Lola added.
“What does everyone want to do?” Cap asked.
We all looked at each other. None of us really knew what the best option was at this point. “If we go home, we still need to protect everyone. We can’t take any chances right now. Raegan is still a target and most likely, so are we.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Cap said. “Who wants to stay?”
Pretty much everyone raised their hands, but Cazzo was hesitant. Eventually, he raised his hand also.
“We stay,” Cap nodded. “Now, what do we tell our women?”
“However you decide to do it,” Sinner said, “make sure Maggie doesn’t have any weapons on her.”
✯✯✯✯✯
“Are you seeing anything?” I asked Gabe over the mic.
“Nothing. What are we looking for exactly?”
“Anything that looks off,” Cazzo replied.
We were at Copan in Honduras searching for anything around Altar Q that might give us some hint as to where Chance was or who took him. So far we weren’t having much luck.
“You know, we should have brought Claire with us,” Derek sighed. “She’s great at solving shit like this. She’s got an overactive imagination.”
“Okay, so let’s think like Claire,” I suggested. “What would she say was going on?”
“Shit, I don’t know,” Derek grumbled. “Her mind doesn’t quite work like other people’s. She gets lost in these imaginary worlds of spies and thievery.”
“Alright, so think like a spy,” Cazzo suggested. “Spies would send information in secretive ways. So, let’s look around the altar for any hidden papers or…whatever shit spies use.”
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