by Lexi Blake
“But it’s not anything that we can’t reverse,” Case insisted. “He had the chance to kill Mia and he didn’t.”
“He risked himself so I didn’t die.” Mia was still right there beside him.
Ian shook his head. “I’m going to read the reports. Get some sleep and we’ll reconvene in a couple of hours. I’m going to try to call in some favors and see if I can find any planes leaving Cartagena late last night or early this morning.”
“I’m already on it,” Fain replied. “Mia’s tried to reach out to some of her contacts outside of Santos. I’ll monitor all of those.”
Ian nodded and headed back toward the second bedroom. Lawless stared at Case from across the room.
Mia stepped in front of him, as if she could protect him from her brother’s very impressive stink eye. “Drew, we talked about this.”
“No, you talked about this. I said nothing. We’re going to have to choose to agree to disagree because I’m going to have a word with him. He nearly got you killed.”
“I brought him into this,” Mia pointed out. “This was my idea. He went along with it because he knew damn well I would go by myself if he didn’t.”
Case felt the need to defend his girl a bit. “You hired a bodyguard. He’s an asshole, but he’s fairly good in the field.”
Fain’s left hand came up, his middle finger pointing to the heavens, but he said nothing.
“It doesn’t matter. He could have called me. He could have stopped you,” Lawless insisted.
“I doubt that, but I am very sorry for what happened last night. Mia’s extremely competent, but I put her in danger.” He could still see her face when he’d been shot, could still feel the pain of knowing he might not see her again. “I did that and it ended with Hutch being taken, too.”
“He doesn’t need this right now,” Mia insisted. “He just had surgery. You’re not yelling at him until he’s at least had some sleep. Go on, Case. I’ll deal with my brother. We’re taking the adjoining room. I’ve already got your stuff in there.”
She was taking care of him and he’d been nothing but trouble for her.
“Mia, I think we should talk.”
She reached out and took his hand in hers. “After you rest. Drew, stay here because apparently we need to have another talk about you not intimidating my boyfriend.”
Her brother’s eyes rolled as she led him out of the room and down the hall. It looked like the Lawless siblings had taken up the entire top floor of the hotel. She led him past the room where Ian, Liam, and Michael were huddled together and to their personal bedroom.
“I don’t want you to worry about anything but getting better, Case,” she said as she ushered him in the room. “You need some sleep. It’s all still going to be here when you wake up. I’m also going to bring in a private doctor.”
“Mia, stop.” He squeezed her hand. “Tell me what he said to you. I need to know.”
She couldn’t look him in the eyes. “He was far gone. He didn’t seem at all like the man you described. It’s all in the report. I don’t want to think about it right now. I would rather concentrate on getting you better. We also have to deal with the fact that our brothers are going to try to ship us home as soon as possible. At least mine will.”
That had been his plan all along, but guilt made him back off. Her decisions hadn’t cost them. His had. “I’ll talk to Ian. He won’t send me away. He’ll make me endure a lecture that will feel like torture, but he won’t send me home. I’ll make it clear you stay with me.”
He owed her that. If she wanted to stay, he would make that happen. Ian would take over the op from here.
Her face turned up. “Thank you. Helping you is all I want to do. You can’t blame yourself for this.”
Oh, but he could. He could blame himself for all of it. “I thought if I could get close to him I could break through. I didn’t have the chance to even talk to him. If I’d been able to get close, he would have recognized me, like he knew Erin’s scent.”
“I don’t know about that. He rejected the idea that she even existed.”
“If I’d been able to talk to him, even for a moment, I would have gotten through. He’s my twin. We have a shorthand. We know each other like no one else.” But he’d blown the opportunity. “I just don’t understand how he got past me. I was up and on my feet pretty damn quick. I followed after you. I had to double back to find you but I never saw him.”
She leaned in, gently hugging him to her body. “I don’t know. It all happened so fast.”
“If I could have caught up with him, I had a tranq dart ready.” He’d come prepped.
“You did?”
“Yeah. I knew I would likely have to take him out in the beginning. He got the jump on me. But I was ready the second time. I just…he must have been too fast. It was like he disappeared.” Like his brother was only a ghost and he’d caught a glimpse of him before Theo had faded back into oblivion.
She went on her toes and kissed him briefly. “Please get some sleep. I’m going to talk to Drew and then I’ll join you. I promise, I’ll do everything I can to help you find him again.”
He didn’t deserve that, but he would take it. She’d been everything he could have hoped for in a partner. “All right. I’m sorry about our fight before.”
She nodded. “Me, too. I’ll be back in a bit. Do you need anything?”
Just her. Just for the world to roll back about twenty-four hours so he could have gotten up faster, gotten Theo in his sights.
Mia walked out and he was left alone in the beautiful room. He hadn’t provided her with this luxury. He’d given her a crappy motel room and ordered her around. She’d given him her trust and her honesty and he’d been a bastard.
He sighed as he looked around the room. He should take one of those pills the doctor had given him and go to sleep, but his mind kept churning. How had Theo gotten past him? Where had he been hiding when the police had gotten there?
One minute faster and he could have saved his brother, could have saved Hutch.
What was Hutch going through right now? Would Mia ever be able to look him in the eyes again? She’d been perfectly sweet and affectionate, but he’d felt a distance between them. Had he lost her trust?
He wasn’t going to be able to sleep. Not until she was back with him. He’d talk to her, tell her how he really felt and ask her forgiveness, and then maybe he would be able to sleep with her beside him. He walked back down the hall to where he’d last seen his brother. Yeah, he needed to apologize to Ian, too. And to Li and Alex, who’d had to leave their families on short notice.
He’d fucked up all the way around.
“Apparently the boy managed to get the cameras up right before he took off after Case.” Liam’s voice was soft, but there was no way to miss his lyrical accent. “I don’t know he even realized it was working at the time. Hutch had set his system up to search for CCTV feeds and record the ones he chose. I’ve been rolling through for hours. You looked good getting hauled out of there, boss.”
“Yeah, that might not have been my first prison rodeo,” Ian was saying. “Has Case seen this yet?”
“I wanted you to look at it first,” Liam replied. “Maybe the boy doesn’t need to see it, if you know what I mean.”
Case watched from the doorway. The screen was pointed his way with Liam sitting in front of the computer Fain had used and Alex and Ian flanking him, their backs to Case as they watched the scene from the camera play out.
“Damn it. There was a hidden door,” Alex said with a sigh. “She didn’t tell him. Do you think maybe she was unconscious and didn’t see Theo get away?”
“Not a chance. She’d seen the others take Hutch that way,” Li pointed out. “And see, she’s moving the minute that door closes. She knew. Poor girl. She had to be terrified. I wish I could hear what Theo said to her.”
“I think we can guess.” Ian’s voice was hoarse. “There’s Case. Damn it. He was seconds behind.”
Seconds behind. He felt a chill go through his body as he realized what he was watching. “Play it again.”
Ian turned, his eyes flaring and head shaking. “Can I have one fucking thing go right in this cursed day? You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
He wasn’t doing this dance with his brother. He looked directly at Liam, who was frowning fiercely. “Play it again.”
“Now, Case, there’s a reason I didn’t call you in here,” Li began.
“Play it or I’ll do it myself.” He didn’t give a shit that his whole body ached. He would fight to get to watch that tape, fight to get to see the truth.
Alex’s head fell back. “He’ll do it. He’s just like his brother. He won’t stop until he’s seen it and fucked up entirely.”
With a curse, Liam moved the mouse and rolled back the tape.
Hutch was on the ground, barely moving. God, he hoped Theo hadn’t been the one to do that. Hutch was the funny one, the one who always came through with a joke, but he was also the brilliant one amongst them. He could hack a system with the best. When he’d joined the team, he’d learned how to fly a helicopter because as he’d put it, he didn’t want to be a one-trick pony. Theo had been one of Hutch’s closest friends.
“He’s alive,” Ian said, his voice dark. “You can see him breathing.”
“He was alive then.” Case felt the need to point out a few truths. “We have no idea if he’s alive now. They’ve had hours to do whatever they want to him.”
“She’ll keep him alive. She’ll use him like she’s using Theo.” Alex’s eyes were on the screen.
Case forced himself to watch as Mia was pushed into the camera’s range. She wasn’t alone. One of Theo’s partners had her in his grips. That rat bastard was holding her so tight. “I want to know who he is.”
“I’ve already got Adam on it.” Liam sat back. “He’s got a copy of the tape and he’s putting it through facial recognition. We’ll figure out who the other two are. It might give us another starting point.”
Because they would need one. Because Theo was in the wind.
Because Mia had lied.
He watched as the woman he’d grown to love lied to his face. She’d seen the door open and then Theo had said something to her. He’d shoved her out of camera range and shot twice before disappearing behind that hidden door.
And then Case watched himself rush into the room like a fucking idiot. Theo was right there. He couldn’t have gotten more than a few steps away. The door had barely closed and Mia hadn’t said a word.
Except she had. She’d claimed she had no idea where he’d gone. She’d told him she didn’t know.
Honesty. It was all he’d asked from her.
Anger thrummed through his system, hot and rabid. His brother had been five feet away. Hutch had been taken and he was gone right now because Mia hadn’t opened her mouth and told him where his brother was.
“Case, do not talk to her right now,” Ian ordered. “We’re going to get a drink and discuss what to do about this.”
He barely heard his brother’s words. They didn’t matter. What mattered was looking Mia in the eyes and letting her know what she’d done. She’d cost him everything.
He stalked out into the main room and the minute she turned, she paled.
“Case? I thought you were going to bed.”
“Were you going to try to erase the recording while I was asleep?” He had no idea how far she would have gone to cover her tracks.
“Recording?”
She didn’t know? That was why she’d so confidently manipulated him. The last she’d likely heard before Theo had taken her earpiece had been that Fain had failed to bring the cameras online. According to what he’d heard Li say, Fain might not have known he’d made it work at the last minute. She’d thought she’d been safe and that he would never know how she’d lied. “Fain got the cameras online at the last minute. Or rather he managed to push enough buttons that Hutch’s protocols did the job for him.”
Fain looked up from his computer. “I did?”
“What’s going on?” Lawless asked.
Mia ignored all of it, turning tear-filled eyes his way. “Case, I can explain.”
He heard someone walk into the room behind him. Likely his brother and the rest of the team. It was there in the back of his mind that this might not be the time or the place to have this discussion, but all he could see was how hollow his brother had looked, how still Hutch had been on the ground. His anger was in control and logic had left the building. “You can explain? There’s no explanation for what you did. You let Theo go.”
Those tears started to fall on her cheeks. “He was going to hurt you.”
He should have known she would turn this into some kind of play to save him. “He’d already hurt me. He’s very likely hurting Hutch right now. Did you think about him at all? Did you think about what they would do to him? Or were you so fucking scared for yourself that you didn’t give a damn?”
“Hey!” Lawless was on his feet again.
Mia shook her head. “I wasn’t scared for me. I was scared for you.”
He wasn’t going to listen to that crap. He could take care of himself. He was two hundred and twenty pounds of former Navy SEAL. He didn’t need to hide behind a woman’s skirts. “You knew how much this meant to me. Hutch was under my watch. Mine. He was my fucking man and he’s being tortured right now because you decided to take that choice from me. Did you think for two seconds that if I knew there was a secret door, I could look for other ways in?”
She started to reach for him and then pulled back. “It happened so fast. He said he would be waiting behind that door to shoot you.”
“And I couldn’t have ducked? You couldn’t have told me hey, baby, your brother is laying in wait, you might want to get the jump on him?” He could feel his blood pounding through his system. All of it could have been avoided. Hutch being taken. Theo could be coming home. All of it turned to shit because Mia decided she knew best.
“I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
“Like he hurt you? Like he shot you?”
“It wasn’t the same. He’d already shot you once.” Her voice was shaking and she bit back a sob.
He couldn’t let her manipulate him with tears. “He pulled left. That shot should have hit my heart, but he moved. He was trying to get away, Mia. He was fighting the conditioning and you sent him back to hell. You did that. How can you think for a second that I’ll have anything to do with you after this? That we can have any kind of a future when you do nothing but lie and manipulate?”
“Can we please go somewhere private?”
He knew exactly what would happen if he got “private” with Mia. “So you can fuck me and I won’t care that you cost my brother and my friend their lives? Is that what you plan on doing, Mia? You think you can go down on me and I’ll just forget what you did?”
“Jesus, don’t kill him,” Ian said with a long sigh. “Try to remember he just came out of surgery.”
Lawless stood behind his sister. “Mia, get your things. We’re leaving.”
He braced himself because he knew what happened next. This was when Mia lashed out. This was when she fought back. Her original plan had failed and now she would lash out and then walk off to plot and plan and he would have to be ready for her. He wouldn’t indulge her this time. It was too fucking serious an infraction.
She’d cost him the whole op. The most important op of his life.
He waited for Mia to throw a punch. Instead, she turned and walked out, moving back toward the bedroom they were supposed to have shared.
“Look at me and listen to me well, Taggart.” It looked like it might be her brother who threw the punch. He got right in Case’s face. “I made you that offer months back because I honestly thought you were best for my sister. She loved you and I thought if I could just reach inside that stubborn as shit Taggart brain of yours and tickle your pride a little, you would get off your ass and love her bac
k. I’m only telling you this because I tried that stupid trick but I need you to understand that I’m not attempting to manipulate you now. I mean every fucking word I say. If I see you even come near Mia again, I’m going to kill you. I’ll do it and I’ll get away with it because I’ll find the best lawyer money can buy and believe me, I can buy a lot. If you show up on my doorstep again, I’ll gut you and I won’t think twice about it.”
“You’ll try,” Case shot back. Despite the fact that he was pissed as shit at her, he didn’t like the idea of someone keeping him from her. When he was ready to deal with her again. He needed to not see her face for a few days, for his volcanic rage to die down a bit before he set up completely new ground rules for their relationship.
“Stop it.” Ian stepped between him and Lawless. “Drew, you have to see his point. You would if it were Riley or Bran on the line. He needs some time to think before he shoves his foot in his mouth so hard he can feel it in his ass.”
“I don’t have to see anything, Ian.” Lawless’s eyes were cold. “I’m taking my sister home. I think I can find another security company. Ezra, we’re leaving.”
Ezra got to his feet, the only person in the room who looked perfectly satisfied with the way things had gone. “I’ll put you in touch with my old boss. I’m sure Guy and his group can meet your needs.”
Good fucking riddance.
Mia walked out, her bag in hand. She didn’t look his way.
That pissed him off even more. What the hell game was she playing now? “We’re not done talking.”
Mia kept walking.
“Mia!”
She never looked back.
Lawless followed his sister, Fain hard on their heels.
The door slammed and Case stared at it.
“Fucking shitty day,” Ian cursed. “Alex, we’re going to need a flight home. Case just cost us our ride, a million dollar a year contract, and our children cousins since the next time Mia lets him touch her will be a cold fucking day in hell.”
Alex looked grave as Ian strode out, yelling at Li to join him. “Pray Ian doesn’t get stiffed with the bill for this place. I don’t think his heart will be able to take it.”