Circle of Deception

by Carla Swafford

  Her mother met her at the front door with the news. “His deputy reported that he called in and said he planned to talk with you over at Brody’s. That was the last anyone heard from him. We’re all worried sick. When the deputies went to Brody’s place, they were told everyone was gone and only the employees were there. The groundskeeper let them search the house and came up empty-handed. Where did you go?”

  Abby didn’t take offense to her mom’s preoccupation with her son’s uncharacteristic disappearance. Truth be told, she rather not explain the cuts and bruises on her face. “Rurik had some business to take care of.”

  “Don’t go blaming your husband for this. You’re always passing the blame to someone else. You never take responsibility.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, ruining her perfect makeup. Her hair stuck up in the back as if she’d gotten out of bed and never combed it. It was so unusual to see her mom anything less than flawlessly coiffed and primped.

  “Okaaay. Mom, I’m not sure what you’re saying, but we’ll help in any way we can.” Abby’s eyes widened when her mom flung herself into her arms.

  “If anything ever happens to him, I’ll just die,” her mom sobbed.

  Abby closed her eyes and nodded. She never expected it to be any different. Her mom was more concerned with her brother.

  Rex lightly touched her shoulder. “Abby, I’ll talk with the investigator.”

  A brief smile crossed her face and she nodded. “Thank you, Rurik. I don’t know what I would do without your help.” Her mom released her and hugged Rex. “I’ll go check on Suzie. She’s upstairs keeping Tommy occupied. It helps her to not think about the horrendous turn of events.”

  Frustrated at her mom’s overdramatization, Abby covered her mouth to stop herself from blurting out, Why think the worst when he could walk through the door any minute with a logical explanation? That would only start an argument, and they needed less stress, not more.

  The next few hours dragged by. Her mom decided to stay overnight and Suzie convinced her not to sleep on the couch. Abby tried to be empathetic about her mother’s concern with her missing son, but didn’t she see how her overreaction affected Suzie? There had to be a logical answer to her brother’s disappearance.

  Abby helped Suzie clean up the kitchen while Rex and Tommy played a rousing game of monster trucks in the den. Her mom had decided to rest in the bedroom next to Tommy’s.

  “I’m so sorry that Mom is being such a pill to deal with.” She scraped off a plate and handed it to her sister-in-law to place in the dishwasher.

  “She’s always worried about Eddie. You probably remember she never wanted him to go into law enforcement.” Suzie placed a glass in the top rack.

  “He’s smart. Whatever is going on, he’ll be okay.” Abby had to think positive. If anything happened to him because of her bringing this mission to his backyard, she’d never forgive herself.

  “You’re right.” Suzie stopped fidgeting with the plate in her hand and looked up at her. “Can you promise me you’ll do everything you can to bring him back to me?”

  Abby blinked. “Why do you think I can do anything?”

  “You hold yourself the same way Eddie does. There’s something about a person who knows violence and how to defend themselves. They square their shoulders and walk with a confidence most people don’t understand. I saw it in you the first time you visited us last year. You haven’t been working in an office for a construction company. Eddie leaves out paperwork and I see stuff. I disagree with what he’s found investigating you and Rurik. You two aren’t into anything illegal. You don’t give me those vibes.”

  That surprised Abby, but then again, she felt a little guilty for underestimating the intelligence of her sister-in-law.

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but Rurik and I are no more than what we seem.” Her whole body tensed. She hated lying to family, and she liked Suzie a lot.

  “He loves you so much. It’s really sweet to see how he can’t take his eyes off you.”

  Abby shook her head. “Do you want me to rinse this off? The pasta is stuck to the sides.” She lifted a pan from the stove.

  They needed to change the subject; otherwise, Abby would start thinking Suzie saw something that she hadn’t. Her sister-in-law misunderstood Rex’s cynical distrust of her every move as love. He watched her because he thought she would betray him in some way. The man didn’t trust anyone. Well, maybe he trusted her a little more than before. She still couldn’t believe he’d taken her side over Nic’s.

  By the time Abby reached the bedroom upstairs and changed into dark clothes, she wanted the operation over with. Involving her family had been so wrong. Never again would she allow Rex or Jack to talk her into mixing family and business. She didn’t care if her mom was selling nuclear weapons from her home through the mail; she would stay out of it. Another operative could handle it. Or the government could take care of its own dirty business.

  “Hey!”

  She aimed her Sig at Rex.

  “What the hell! Don’t scare me like that. I could’ve hurt you.” After she returned the gun to her drop rig, she stood and shook out her arms and legs. How long had she sat here waiting for the big doofus?

  They’d been so busy trying to save the whole operation and their hides, the time to talk about what happened at the hotel and Brody’s house had slipped by. Her face burned with the thought of how uninhibited they’d been while having wild monkey sex. There had been nothing romantic about it. If he didn’t want to talk about it yet, neither did she.

  “The way you were staring off, I could’ve taken you out before you blinked,” Rex scolded without any true heat.

  He grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it off. With his pants riding low, she could see where his hips and groin met. Talk about sexy.

  Looking down at the carpet while he changed into darker, hardier clothes for their nighttime raid, Abby concentrated on what they planned to do. Sneak onto the far side of Brody’s property, meet up with Jack and a small number of other Circle operatives at the van, and then find a weak point in the security to enter the caves. She only hoped no exchange of fire would be necessary.

  “What did the investigator really say?” She wanted Rex to tell her good news.

  After all but one patrol car had left earlier, he’d told her mother that Edward’s car hadn’t been found. Everyone hoped that was a good sign. Then again, the criminals—they all agreed it would take more than one person to stop Edward from returning home—could’ve dumped his body somewhere. They hadn’t received a ransom demand or any type of note saying why he was taken. So they were waiting.

  “They believe he’s dead.”

  She gasped and then took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. “Why?”

  “He’d received several death threats.”

  “But the moonshiner and his two cousins are in jail.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders, which looked even broader in the black long-sleeve T-shirt. She was relieved to see he was dressed again. Her concentration needed to be centered on the mission at hand, but something felt off about her brother’s disappearance. What a coincidence that it would happen at this time, and she’d never believed in coincidences.

  “Could be he has more than two cousins.” He buckled a thick belt with a gun on one side and a huge knife on the other. Similar looking to a police officer’s duty belt, it had little cases with snaps lined up next to the knife along with a flashlight. The gear would be too heavy for her to wear, but on his tall frame, he looked ready to take down bad guys. “Let’s go.”

  “Rex.”

  He looked at her. “Abby, are you calling me by another man’s name, milaiyah my-ah?”

  At least he looked at her. Not until that moment had she realized he’d barely glanced her way but a handful of times since returning. They had a lot of personal drama to talk about, but now wasn’t the time.

  “Rurik, I need to find my brother.”

  “Abby, we have pe
ople on it. Now you have a job to do. Time to concentrate.”

  She locked her jaw and nodded, refusing to let the tears fall. She was a grown woman and knew what she needed to do.

  He opened the bedroom door and peeked into the hallway. “You first.”

  They left quietly though the back door. The officer in the patrol car out front was more for notifying everyone if Edward returned than for protecting the house, but they didn’t want to explain their dark clothes, the late hour, or why they were armed.

  A black van waited for them about a mile from the house with its headlights off. They split and carefully walked to the sides. There was no certainty that the people inside were who they expected. The window nearest Abby rolled down.

  “About time you got here. We were about to leave without you.” Behind the steering wheel, Jack leaned across the front seat and opened the passenger door. “Abby, up front with me.”

  “We had to wait for the house to settle down.” There she goes explaining herself. She hated feeling like a wayward child after failing at Brody’s. Tonight, they needed to be successful.

  Jack jerked his head to the back. “Rex, have a seat and tell us what you’ve found out.”

  “The road in has six guards, with two of them in the trees, and cameras every ten yards. The electricity is underground and the box is located near where three of the guards stand sentry. We’ll have to take them all out before they can alert the interior. I never could get close enough to the caves to see how many are inside. During the hour I watched, I spotted only two trucks going in and one out.” One of the operatives sitting in the back handed him a map. “Here, here, and here are where we can find the caves. The entrance into the caves is in this area. Like I said, I couldn’t get more information out of the guards, no matter how many drinks I bought.” The paper crackled as he handed the map back.

  So that was why he’d been gone so long on his jog that afternoon and returned with alcohol on his breath. Busy little bee. She tried to not let it bother her that he hadn’t said anything to her. It was all a job, one that they’d become too immersed in for a short period of time.

  The van started to rock and bounce along the dirt road Rex had pointed at earlier. They planned to go two miles or less before ditching the van in the underbrush and continuing in on foot.

  Brody’s people had no idea their lives were about to be cut short by a group of trained deadly operatives.

  Abby stared straight ahead. The Circle was her life. She was good at killing and for a little while had forgotten that she wasn’t normal with normal dreams.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  * * *

  “WHERE DID THEY go?” Rex kicked out at a nearby crate. It landed against the stone wall, splintering one whole side and showing it was empty. Echoes of other crates being pried apart or bashed in vibrated throughout the cavern. Not a living soul had been in sight. “What the hell were those guards protecting?”

  He turned to Nic as she wiped the sweat off her forehead with her arm.

  “Some farm equipment and several rotten crates,” she stated the obvious. The cavern was cool and the humidity tolerable but tugging and breaking open everything they came across worked up a sweat. “From the looks of it, this place hasn’t been used in years. I can understand why no one would want to use this for storage anymore. The only cell tower is on the other side of the mountain. With no service, we’re cut off from everything—even Jack’s satellite phone can only work outside. By the way, Liam and Charlie are here now. They checked the smaller caves, and they’re empty too. I have a feeling Abby’s screwed the pooch on this one.”

  At the mention of her name, Abby came in sight. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked so feminine. He liked it. He wished it was as simple to decide what else he felt for her. He wanted her. That was easy for him to understand. He’d wanted her since she first joined the OS and had remained that way after she’d returned from the dead. That was it. He wanted her too much and for too long. Her scent, the taste of honey and salt on her skin, between her legs, the tender spot behind her ear, every soft inch of her pulled him in and brought a need to sink into her every waking moment.

  When he woke up hard and aching for her after their night of wild sex, he understood how dangerous she’d become to him. The last time she’d disappeared, he’d gone insane, and when the news came that she’d died, all the light in his world had died with her. He never wanted to love someone like that again. To allow someone that much power over him was asking for trouble, and for it to be the same woman? They might as well strap a straitjacket on him and put him away.

  A little distance was needed to clear his head. Whatever drug Brody had in that wine, he hoped to never come across it again.

  “Rex!”

  He rubbed his eyes and looked at Nic.

  “Are you okay?” Her sweet face looked at him with such concern.

  “Yeah.” His gaze caught something shining in the wall near where the kicked crate had broken up. “What’s going on here?” A missing chunk of the limestone wall exposed a hinge. “Hey, Jack! We’ve got something here.”

  He ran his hands over the wall and beneath a little lip was the latch. The wall moved smoothly, opening into another empty cavern. Except for the look of the floor, someone had moved a lot of full crates recently.

  “Let’s see where this cave goes. Everyone be careful and keep an eye out for traps. I wouldn’t put it past the asshole.” Jack aimed his flashlight along the floor and moved inside with Abby a step behind him.

  Rex tensed. Why the surge of jealousy? He believed Jack had been telling the truth about the one-night affair. So what was up with the unreasonable fury?

  For the moment, he needed to concentrate on tracking down Brody. The key to finding out who created the bullets and where they were being manufactured rested with him. And then they needed to beef up the search for Abby’s brother. There was a good chance Brody had something to do with that, no matter how much Abby’s mother denied it. What any woman saw in that bastard, he would never understand.

  About ten minutes later, they reached the other opening. Damn. A one-lane dirt road wound through a thick stand of trees, the limbs arching over the road, hiding it from satellite pictures. They were less than three miles from I-65, an easy way to escape. Brody and his crew could be anywhere.

  “About time you fellows showed up.” Bubba stepped out of the tree line. Dressed in camo with a rifle resting on his shoulder, he looked like any hunter walking through the woods in the south. Problem was, hunting season was several months off.

  Rex pointed his gun at the man.

  “I’ll be damned. I thought you were dead,” Jack said as he and Bubba slapped each other on the back. “Good Lord, man, you’re skinny enough to be a skeleton.”

  “Others have tried, but I’m too mean.” Bubba laughed. His accent was still Southern yet refined and less the good ol’ boy with each word. “I heard that Collin’s brother is running the show now. Is he any better than Theo?”

  “Let’s say Ryker likes grown women and he doesn’t demand anyone call him master.” Jack shook his head.

  Rex crossed his arms and listened to the two men. He barely kept from tapping his foot.

  “Who is that?” Nic asked in a whisper. The way she kept her eyes on the man and the way she asked the question, he could tell she was interested in more than just his identity.

  “That’s what I’d like to know too.”

  Rex looked over at Abby. He didn’t like the glint in her eye at all.

  “Jack, you might want to introduce me to your brother. I was working under an alias when we met in Brody’s house.”

  “So you were involved in that clusterfuck.” Jack referred to the failed mission, but the crooked grin Bubba gave said he remembered what Rex and Abby had done. The gasp next to him warned that Abby realized it too. Rex’s face tightened with Jack’s unwitting remark. The man better keep his mouth shut.

  “Clusterfuck
, heh? I wouldn’t say that exactly. I left in the middle of the night so I didn’t see much.” The man’s gaze remained on Abby.

  “We’re wasting time. It’ll be morning soon. Time to get back to our transportation and get out of here.” Rex had had enough of the long-lost-buddy routine and wanted the man’s eyes looking in a different direction.

  “Hey, Rex. This is Ty Roman.” Jack grinned from ear-to-ear.

  He nodded toward the man formerly known as Bubba. He’d heard of the infamous bounty hunter. Rumor was he’d pissed off the Savalas family a few years ago and old man Mikolas called in a favor from Theo. Rex had figured one day they would come across his bones in a cell deep inside the basement of The Circle’s old facility.

  Ty nodded back. “Listen, Rex’s right. They’ve already covered the entrance you came in. The asshole underestimated your ability to find the hidden passageway.”

  “How did you get involved with Brody?” Rex hadn’t decided if he trusted the man, a wild card in his opinion. What was a bounty hunter doing working undercover?

  “Paying an old debt,” he said without adding more.

  “You know another way around?” Jack asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Where’s your ride?” Abby piped in.

  One side of his mouth lifted as he eyed her. “A few yards away, grazing.”

  “Grazing? You rode a horse?” Nic edged in a little closer.

  What was it with these women ogling the guy? Tall and rawboned, he didn’t look anything special; then again, Rex wasn’t into men. So what did he know?

  Feeling uncomfortable analyzing what the women were thinking, Rex pointedly looked at Jack and said, “If they’ve realized we found the passageway, then we don’t have a lot of time here. They should be—”

  A hissing sound passed his ear and a small limb near Rex’s head shattered.

  “Fuck! Down! Everyone down!” Jack hurtled into cave opening, dragging Nic with him. Several other operatives followed. The bounty hunter had disappeared.