Waiting For You (The Guardians: Book 3)

by D. M. Mortier

  “Bring it on, pretty boy. Your threats are like Skittles, colorful but have no substance.”

  Neo roared with laughter.

  Sean narrowed his eyes, staring her down.

  Rico and Xavier also snickered.

  “Sean.” Dominic’s voice was laced with impatient authority.

  Sean straightened and turned to confront Dominic. “The next time Rinah gets pissed at you and you beg us to soften her up for your stubborn ass, I’m going to remind you of today.”

  Dominic grimaced slightly, and Malika was shocked to see a brief moment of vulnerability reflected on his face. “I feel you, man.” Dominic ran his fingers through the strands of his hair. “You’re not going to win this argument now.” His gaze drilled into Malika. “I know Trinidadian women. They’re stubborn as hell.”

  Malika grinned at him cheekily. “He’s not going to win this argument at any time.”

  Sean grunted and resumed his seat beside her. “Tell us where we can get these bastards.”

  “Like I said, it’s best to eliminate the sons first. They’re the ones carrying out their father’s orders and actually have the contacts to come back at you and your families. Eliminate them and at least your families are safe. If you go after the father first, the sons will retaliate by hurting your families.”

  “How do we get to the sons?” Xavier asked.

  Malika knew he would be most worried because his wife was still in college and was probably the most vulnerable of all the wives. Dominic’s family was heavily guarded because he just had that many enemies and he had to always be prepared. Rico’s wife was the ward of the SEAL team and was the most prepared to defend herself. She was almost as proficient with guns and knives as the men, and she had an abnormal ability to read minds. No one outside of the SEAL team was aware of that fact, and the only reason Malika knew was because she had hacked into their systems enough times to know the work Cherone did for the team. She now worked with Neo and Rico in their security firm. Neo had family, but none that he was aware of or anyone else for that matter. Malika knew that the tech SEAL was in for a huge surprise when you found out who he truly was.

  “Liam lives in New York, Niall in London, and Ian lives in Australia. They—”

  Dominic interrupted her with his palm up. “That’s all I need for now.”

  “Arrogant much?” Malika muttered.

  Dominic smiled at her in apology. “Malika and Neo work on getting us the details of the extent of the security at the various locations. We need to do this simultaneously,” Dominic ordered as he stood and moved to the area of the plane that housed a boardroom-like desk. The other men gathered around the table.

  “You’re already outnumbered. How will you possibly do this?” Malika also stood and moved toward the table where the men, with individual iPads in front of them, were already shifting through whatever scenario Dominic was drawing up. She was worried that they were underestimating the danger the men after her posed.

  “Stop worrying, Duchess. We’re actually very good at what we do,” Sean assured her. He didn’t look up from his monitor, and Dominic continued to draw. “And we do have other personnel and some very competent friends.”

  Dominic looked up at Sean sharply. “I like where you’re going with this.” He nodded as though coming to a decision. “Sean, contact Richard in London. He will be very useful for what I have in mind.”

  Sean placed the iPad down and narrowed his eyes at his commander. “I want Duchess with Cherone in Miami until this is over,” he demanded.

  Malika gasped in disbelief.

  “I know you want her there because of the security we have surrounding Cherone”— Dominic frowned thoughtfully in obvious tactical mode—“but I like that idea because it will be easier to utilize her technical skills in this mission. We’re headed to Miami anyway.”

  “Good, it’s settled then.” Sean nodded in approval.

  “Sean, when did you get the right to dictate what I do?” Malika fumed. “I’m not leaving you guys to do this alone.” Malika was puzzled by Sean’s behavior. Yes, he had always been protective, but this was getting ridiculous. He was acting as though they were a couple.

  “We need your capabilities at the computer.” Rico smiled at her slightly, his smile immediately putting her at ease.

  He probably realizes how scary he seemed a moment ago.

  “My wife has ways of reaching us that others don’t,” Rico explained, his dark chocolate eyes shining with love as he spoke about his wife.

  “I can be more help to you if I go along with you.”

  “We need Neo in the field, and you being available for intel will help us.” Sean tried to reason with her.

  Malika didn’t like it and spent the rest of the flight to Miami arguing her point and helping them plan the simultaneous missions in New York, London, Australia, and Papua New Guinea.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “So you’re Uncle Sean’s kryptonite?” Cherone Zayas, Rico’s wife, teased as the two women prepared dinner. Their party had arrived in Miami without the fanfare that had greeted them in New York. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief that O’Malley had not linked Sean to Dominic Stone. Malika marveled that Sean had kept his identity as a SEAL well hidden.

  “Sean doesn’t have a kryptonite.”

  Cherone laughed. “You two are so cute.”

  Malika frowned at the other woman. She couldn’t decide if she liked her or not. For one thing, Cherone was gorgeous. Her skin was a flawless coffee-with-cream tone, and she had hazel eyes that were almost green and beautiful long hair that looked as though it was kissed by the sun. To watch Cherone and Rico together was especially painful when her love life was just a mirage. “Sean and I are not cute!”

  The housekeeper, Clara, who was helping prepare the meal, laughed. “Ah, Miss Malika, you and Mr. Sean are funny.”

  “I don’t understand what you people are going on about. Sean is like a brother to me.”

  “If I had a brother who looked at me like Uncle Sean looks at you, I would run!”

  Okay, I’ve made up my mind. I really hate this woman!

  “Thank God he found you. If he had ever settled on those bimbos he usually goes for, I might have had to knife a bitch.”

  Okay, maybe I don’t hate her so much.

  “You have it all wrong about Sean and me.”

  “How is she wrong about us?” Sean entered the kitchen and was followed closely behind by Rico.

  Rico immediately went to his wife and wrapped his arms around her, her back to his front so he could palm her growing stomach. His absolute love for Cherone and their second child in her womb was evident in the reverent way he touched her and the clear adoration when he looked at her. Cherone melted against him. There was no other way to describe it. The couple looked as though they were one being, two halves to one soul.

  “Cherone has it in her head that we are in a relationship.”

  “We are in a relationship,” Sean said flippantly.

  “Yes, but not in the relationship she’s talking about.”

  “At this point, he’ll take whatever he can get.” Neo laughed as he entered the kitchen.

  “Smartass,” Sean muttered.

  “When do you guys leave?” Malika was determined to change the topic. Talking about the non-existent relationship between her and Sean was just too damn depressing.

  “Rico and I are heading to Papua New Guinea in a few hours.” Sean didn’t even look at her. He was too busy still glaring at Neo for teasing him.

  “I thought you guys were going after the sons first and then the dad.”

  “Dominic thinks O’Malley poses the greater threat,” Rico offered. “That’s why we’re in here. We need you out there with us to go over the revised logistics.”

  “But—”

  “Hear us out, Duchess,” Sean interrupted her. “Richard will need Dom’s help in London, so we can’t run the mission concurrently as we worked out on the plane.”

/>   “Papa!”

  The frown of worry, which she had felt would be permanently etched on her face, immediately dissolved at the sight of Rico and Cherone’s son, Reece. “He’s the cutest thing,” Malika said in awe.

  The adults laughed as Reese wrapped his little arms around his father’s leg and buried his face against it. Everything about the toddler screamed Rico, from the long ponytail at his back to the olive complexion of his skin and his dark chocolate eyes but most of all in the solemn, quiet way he observed everyone in the room. He was very much his father’s son.

  “He’s two years old and already thinks he’s a SEAL,” Cherone teased. “I wanted to become a SEAL, but my guardians forbid it.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought it was a great idea.” Sean grinned. “I got outvoted.”

  Rico picked up the little boy and kissed him, generating loud giggles from his son.

  Malika knew that Cherone used to be the ward of Sean’s SEAL team. Her brother, Adam, had been mortally wounded in the line of duty when he asked his teammates to look after his baby sister. Cherone had been living in New Orleans with her two brothers, Jerome and Edmond, along with her sisters, Delarese and Tamara. Sean and the guys had arrived in the nick of time to save Cherone from being sold by her siblings as a prostitute. Cherone had been only thirteen years old at the time, a fact that only pissed off the SEAL team even more when they came to collect her. The guys had then hired Clara and her husband, Raymond, to keep the house and grounds for Rico, and also serve as caretakers of the teenager. After years of living together, Rico and Cherone had found that they were in love and had gone through a difficult period of indecision on Rico’s part. He had thought the Cherone was too young for him.

  “You got outvoted because you’re an idiot,” Rico grumbled. “I’ll let Cherone become a SEAL when you let Malika become one.”

  “That’s not the same comparison,” Malika protested.

  “You missed that part of the story where Duchess is an MI6 agent?” Sean scowled at Rico, seeming to find the thought of Malika as an agent distasteful. “Damn, you were there when she was in the middle of a bloody mission.”

  “Yeah, so you now understand how I felt.”

  Malika sighed, her gaze still glued on the beautiful little boy. “You guys know it’s not a good idea for me to stay here. O’Malley isn’t rational if he’s killing so many agents to get to me. I don’t feel comfortable putting your family in danger, Rico.”

  Rico’s grip tightened on his son until the little boy whispered, “Papa?” Rico looked away from Malika, seeming to not want to meet her gaze.

  Malika knew he agreed with her but was reluctant to say no to Sean.

  Sean and Neo shifted their feet and gazed at Rico’s son and pregnant wife with slight frowns.

  Cherone appeared confused. The men had obviously not told her the full story.

  “My house in Bermuda is fortified, and I have a safe room there that I can bunker-down in for days. I can communicate with you guys and with Cherone if I have to.” Malika had no intention of staying in Miami once the men left. She had still not been able to determine how O’Malley’s men were tracking her when they hadn’t been able to do so before.

  “We’ll have dinner, and then I need you to talk to Dom about the changes in the plan,” Sean told her. “Neo has noted some activity that could mean trouble. We’ll think of a way to ensure the safety of everyone,” Sean said, his gaze steady on Rico. His usual carefree grin had disappeared again. The two men seemed to have a special bond, and from the nod Rico gave to Sean, they seemed to have come to an understanding.

  Dominic had just finished going over the revised plan with Malika when a loud explosion rocked the house. Malika heard a woman scream. She had no idea if it was Clara or Cherone. Dominic grabbed her arm and pushed her to the floor.

  “Stay down and remain here! I’ll come back for you.”

  Initially the strength of Dominic’s demand kept Malika paralyzed in place, even after Dominic raced toward the sound of the blast. At the sound of gunfire, Reece’s innocent face came to the forefront of her mind. Malika grabbed her gun she kept in the back waist of her jeans, sprang to her feet, and followed in Dominic’s wake, staying low to the ground.

  The office that she and Dominic had been using was located toward the back of the house near the kitchen on the ground floor. The house had an upper level, which contained all of the bedrooms, and a large basement, which served as the living quarters for Raymond and Clara.

  Just as Malika was creeping past the kitchen double doors, a series of bullets zipped over her head. Malika dived across the opening and found cover behind the large beam in the dining room. She crawled toward the front of the house where the men were exchanging gunfire with their attackers from the outside. Malika was shocked to see the large crater along a wall in the living room. These bastards are destroying Rico and Cherone’s house.

  Despite being vastly outnumbered, Sean, Neo, Dominic, and Xavier were calmly picking off assailants as they tried to come through the hole in the wall they had created with the explosives. It was well past nine p.m., and Malika anticipated that, given the quiet neighborhood of Coral Gables, that the local police would be arriving soon. Given the expertise of mercenaries out there, that could prove very lethal for the law enforcement personnel. We have to end this before innocent people get killed! Malika again started moving toward an opening in order to be of some assistance.

  “Stay down!” Sean yelled at her just as a bullet zipped close to her head, and he leaped through the air to cover her with his body. “What the hell are you doing in here?” he screamed in her ear to be heard above the loud sound of bullets blasting through the air.

  “Where are Cherone and Reece?”

  Sean pushed her behind him as he shot a man barreling toward them.

  “Rico took them to a safe place after you went to speak to Dom.”

  “Let’s move!” Dominic yelled. All of the men started creeping swiftly to exit the house and pursue their attackers.

  “Stay here,” Sean told her as he, too, moved with the other men.

  Malika watched as they climbed out of the house through the busted front door, broken window, and the hole in the wall, making sure to maintain their cover. Ignoring Sean’s dictate, she followed them, not too close to distract them but close enough to pick off a few of the assailants approaching from their blind spots. Twice she intercepted a gunman who would have put a bullet in one of her protectors.

  “Get back in the house,” Dominic ordered her.

  Malika pulled the trigger of her gun yet again. She ignored him. She was ready and able to help, and she was going to do just that. Then one of the men came rushing toward her before she realized that he was there. He grabbed her arm. By not killing her instantly, as he could have easily done, it was evident that they wanted to take her alive.

  “Fuck no!” Sean roared and went berserk. Moving with incredible speed, Sean pulled her attacker away just as Malika slammed her knee between the man’s legs.

  The man screamed.

  Sean snapped the assailant’s neck mid-scream.

  A number of men rushed toward them then. Pissed, Sean turned and met the assassins head-on. With a series of mixed Asian martial arts maneuvers and simultaneous use of his custom-made Heckler and Koch 9mm gun, Sean made short work of the six men who had tried to come after Malika.

  Dominic, Neo, and Xavier looked at Sean in disbelief, as there didn’t appear to be anymore men standing to attack them.

  “Damn, you could have at least left one for us,” Neo grumbled, taking in the front lawn of Rico’s house, now littered with dead bodies of at least thirty men, who had all been dressed uniformly in black. The yard was now flooded with lights. There was nothing moving on the lawn, which was almost the length of a football field and extended out to the fifteen-foot perimeter wall. A hole in that wall showed just how the men had come onto the property. They had arrived in a caravan of dark SUVs. It was fortunate
for them that it was late and Rico’s property was fairly isolated, lessening the possibility of innocent bystanders getting caught in the fray and being hurt from stray bullets.

  Dominic and Xavier moved forward with grim looks on their faces, surveying the damage. Xavier pulled his phone out.

  Malika knew that since he was a DEA agent attached to the Florida office that he would have contacts in local law enforcement to clean up the mess on the lawn. Dominic had done the same for the carnage they had left in New York. It was obvious that the men still had well-placed connections with the intelligence community and law enforcement.

  “I’m going to tan your ass for disobeying me,” Sean said through clenched teeth, glaring at Malika, the adrenaline from the recent violence still evident in his eyes.

  “Since I’m no longer two years old, I really want to know how you’re going to accomplish that.” Malika stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. She was just as livid by his reckless display of a few moments ago. How dare he risk so much! But he’s such a badass, how am I not jumping him right now?

  “Keep testing me, little girl,” Sean muttered.

  “Touch me, white boy, and you’ll bloody well regret it.” She was beyond reason as well, both of their emotions hostile and flaming hotter by the second.

  “I want to know how the fuck they found us so swiftly,” Dominic growled, interrupting Sean as he made one step toward her.

  “They have to be tracking us,” Malika told him. She and Sean were still locked in their own visual battle.

  “How?” Dominic frowned.

  “I have no idea, but that’s the only way they could be finding us so quickly.” Malika thought back to her interaction with everyone she had come into contact with over the last two days. The only person she had been close to was Sean. Before Sean came to her flat, she hadn’t left the flat in days.