“We stick together. You follow my directions until we have confirmation that the CIA believes you intend to keep quiet about the secrets you know and plans to uphold their end of the agreement.”
It sounded simple, but she knew from experience that little about the CIA operated that smoothly. “I’m unclear on how exactly we get that confirmation.”
“The most obvious?” He shrugged. “No one tries to kill you. No one comes here and we don’t pick up word about you being hunted.”
That sounded a bit loose for her comfort. “‘Pick up word’?”
“Andy handles that part. He tracks chatter and contacts and looks for signs that someone is trying to find you.”
One man versus the CIA. The idea made her head pound. “That’s not very comforting.”
“If someone comes for you, if they find us and I get taken out, you run to one of the two sites where I’ve stashed supplies and weapons. Each has a satphone. There’s a pack at each with directions, but you call Andy and follow his instructions about reinforcements and extraction.”
She didn’t bother to ask about the two drop points. “Okay.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “Do you actually plan on doing any of what I just said?”
“I’ll stop and grab the food and weapons—” His frown deepened and the rest of her answer cut off. “What? You would do the same thing.”
“True.”
The defensive words died in her throat. “Wow.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “What?”
“I didn’t expect the honesty.” With some of the fury gone, she let her gaze wander. Not far and trying not to be obvious about it, she glanced at his tight abs and the deep vee running from his shoulders to his trim waist. For a big guy, he was all muscle, no fat.
His chest bore more scars. Because she’d done her homework the minute Bast introduced them, she knew the wounds spoke to Gabe’s time in battle. He wasn’t the guy to rip his skin open as he tried to climb a fence in some immature drunken stupor. He’d earned every scar through fighting and bleeding and sometimes withstanding days of torture. Knowing that made it harder to hold on to the last of her anger over being manhandled and hustled away. Made it even harder to ignore the attraction kicking her ass.
The harsh lines of his face softened. “The one thing you can count on from me is honesty.”
“Then you know that the two of us, locked up here . . . alone . . .” The need spun around inside her, threatening to knock her over. She knew if she even mentioned the word “sex” she’d be all over him, desperate to release some of the adrenaline pumping through her.
He glared at her. “Since I’m trying not to crawl all over you, I’m specifically not thinking about that scenario.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding in. At least they were in this together. That knowledge provided some relief. It also made it clear that they were just running out the clock on the inevitable.
“We’re grown-ups.” Maybe a round or two between the sheets would burn off all this energy and they could go back to mutually glaring as they sized each other up from opposite corners.
His hands balled into fists at his sides. “I don’t fuck on the job.”
She tightened the blanket around her, hugging it closer to her body. “You mean you haven’t.”
“Right.”
Now that reaction proved interesting. She couldn’t help but poke around. “You ever been tempted?”
“Not before you.”
The words washed over her, leaving her insides jumping. Not a sensation she particularly needed or wanted right now. “I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t lie.”
“Maybe you just haven’t had the chance yet.” She stepped out of the shower stall, because standing in there felt like hiding from a conversation that had the power to strip her raw inside. “None of the women you worked with did anything for you.”
“Now you’re pissing me off.” He made a sound that came close to a groan. “Women are more than interchangeable body parts for me.”
For some reason she believed him. It didn’t sound like a line coming from him. Not with that rough edge to his voice. “Most guys would play games and lie.”
“Then most guys are idiots. It’s pretty clear I want you. Or I do on those rare occasions when you stop talking for two seconds.”
He could ruin a mood faster than any man she’d ever met. “Charming.”
“I’m accustomed to quiet.”
“Well, I’m used to sitting at a desk, setting up operations and guiding my team.” In her early CIA days, she’d walk into danger prepared never to walk out again. Looked like her life had circled back around to that position.
His gaze roamed over her face, as if he was studying her. “Those days are over.”
“Yeah, they are.” She accepted that. Pissed her off, but she’d known that protecting her team would seal her fate. That was the bargain she’d made. The CIA left her team alone—Elijah and Becca got to live their lives in peace—and in return she stayed quiet and walked away from all she’d worked for in her career. Everyone’s ass would be covered except hers.
Gabe took a step closer. “If you stop fighting me, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you stay alive long enough to build a new life.”
He didn’t touch her, but he didn’t really have to. Having all that intensity aimed right at her as a wall of shoulders blocked out the world in front of her held her attention. He’d enveloped her without ever lifting his arms.
“What does that look like?” she asked, because she really wanted to know. He’d navigated these waters and moved from government-paid sniper to businessman. He might be able to provide some perspective to a life that looked pretty bleak and spare right now. “The CIA is pretty much all I know.”
He nodded as he shifted again, bringing them closer and shutting out the steady dripping from the faucet and the strange look of the coffeepot sitting on top of the homemade water heater. “I thought the same thing when I left the Army.”
“With your firearms skills and contacts.” That was just it. She had nothing else. “My extraction agreement doesn’t really let me go into some random country and take down a dictator.”
The corners of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “That’s a shame, because I bet you could take a guy like that out without backup.”
His confidence in her abilities left her more than a little breathless. “I do have skills.”
“So you’ve said.” He lifted his hand and his thumb brushed back and forth over her bottom lip. “Damn, woman. You make me want to break every promise I’ve ever made to myself about mixing business with pleasure.”
She fought off a shiver, because she refused to be the man-touches-me-and-I-go-tingly type. “You did say you were in charge. That you decided every move we made.”
“Proves I’m a dumbass.” He continued to swear under his breath as he adjusted his towel.
She got it then. He really wouldn’t make a move until she gave him the green light. Even then, he’d need to be convinced they were safe. If she wanted a few hours of mindless sex—and she still wasn’t sure that was a great idea—she’d have to push. To test the limits of his control. “You seem to think your work will be done at some point.”
“Of course. You’ll be safe and able to move on at some point, hopefully soon.”
“And I won’t be a job to you.” Her fingers slipped over the edges of the blanket before balling her hands in the cloth. “Not then.”
He shook his head. “Don’t tempt me.”
She felt the pull. Something in the air wrapped around her and tugged her closer. She wanted it, wanted him . . . wanted to forget.
The reality of that last one broke the spell. She stepped back. “I better get dressed.”
“Good call.” But the grumble in his voice said he thought otherwise.
That made two of them.
FOUR
Andy MacIntosh sat at his brother
Gabe’s desk, double-checking work emails and generally keeping Tosh running as promised while Gabe was away. Not that those were easy shoes to fill. Gabe might only be six years older, but he’d been an adult and responsible, stepping into family roles since Andy hit puberty.
That bone-deep dependability and solid work ethic only increased when Gabe opened Tosh four years ago. Instead of the usual floundering small company routine, Gabe’s contacts and reputation launched them into a stream of steady work. Most days, too much work.
They had three on-the-ground assignments rolling at the same time right now, all high priority and all involving life-or-death scenarios. Safe houses with complex security measures and big gun protection. Usually Andy headed up a team, but Gabe’s sudden willingness to hit the field one-on-one with Natalie grounded Andy this time. He got stuck behind with the paperwork, file preparing and directing the rest of the group as they guided operations from a distance. Andy knew the men depended on him for intel and surveillance, but that didn’t make the big desk job any more interesting.
With few employees left in the office and those all focused on specific tasks, things had been quiet. They didn’t get many guests. Few people knew the two-story nondescript warehouse in southwest Washington, D.C., housed an upscale, high-tech multimillion-dollar security company. No flash on the outside. No expensive cars in the parking lot.
The only hint something more than packing and unpacking of crates happened inside the beige building came from the state-of-the-art security system. The same one that flashed a visitor’s face a few minutes ago. Even now Andy waited in the chair for the unwanted showdown to start.
He heard a beep, and the screen of one of the many monitors outlining the desk snapped to life. One of his mapping experts—a guy with years of technical experience and a brain that left them all breathless—played escort in the hall. Andy hit the buzzer before anyone could knock. He had enough of a headache without adding to it, and this scene would likely do just that.
The door opened, and Andy waved away his employee while Rick stepped inside. Rather than wait for the boring hellos to begin, Andy jumped right in. “Since you’re here, I assume you know Gabe is out of town.”
“Good to see you, too. Interesting you still choose to have your security act as a lockdown to keep you trapped inside.” Rick walked straight in and took the chair on the other side of the desk. “I warned Gabe about that flaw when he set up this place.”
They had contingency plans to escape if that became an issue, but Andy doubted Rick came in and agreed to hand over his weapons at the front desk just so they could talk about the building’s blueprints. “Speaking of Gabe . . .”
“Fine, yes. I’m here about him.”
The day officially turned to shit. They had been at it for a year, Rick and Gabe, locked in a family disagreement ever since Rick dropped his emotional bombshell. Andy dreaded taking a wrong step.
“I’m not getting in the middle of the game of mutually assured destruction you two are playing,” Andy said, even though he had long ago sided with Gabe.
Rick waved off the concern. “That’s not what this is about.”
Andy didn’t want to know what accusations Gabe and Rick were currently lobbing back and forth. But as soon as he thought it, he realized that wasn’t quite true. The unrelenting tension outside the office grew more, not less annoying and Andy wished it would end. “Have you talked to him?”
“Last time I tried he threatened to blow my balls off if I didn’t leave his property.”
Andy laughed. Couldn’t help it. He could almost see Rick standing outside the big gate while Gabe welcomed him with a gun. “You gotta admire the simplicity of his threats.”
Rick leaned forward with his elbows balanced on his knees. “I need you to get in touch with him.”
Just as suspected, Rick wanted to suck him into the middle of this. Andy had no trouble taking a pass on that. His personal life was enough of a shitshow without inviting these two to dump their garbage at his feet. “He’s out of contact.”
“This is about work. He’s guarding Natalie Udall, and you know where he is.”
Well, shit. So much for hoping Rick didn’t know what happened inside Tosh’s walls. Andy always assumed that Rick sat in his top secret, no-one-knows-he’s-out-there-watching office and kept tabs on them, but now he had confirmation.
“I actually don’t.” Andy held up a hand before Rick could call bullshit. “Deniability.”
So much of what they did at Tosh depended on secrecy. Rick might not work for Tosh, but he understood black-ops. Had spent most of his adult life heading up a group innocently enough called The Defense Initiative. He ran assets in the United States and overseas, providing backup on intelligence operations where the government needed a wall between what it could do by statute and what it needed to do to get the job done, legal or not.
Rick’s work helped people sleep better at night, even though they never knew he existed or that he even did the work. Tosh got off the ground as quickly and as successfully as it did because Rick had thrown work their way. Back then Rick and Gabe got along. Now Andy doubted Gabe would accept a ride across town from Rick.
“But you’re in contact.” Rick blew out a long breath. “Look, Andy, this is serious. Gabe’s job and my job just collided.”
Which in Rick-speak meant not “personal” but “work related,” and that got Andy’s attention. “Tell me.”
“Some people are concerned about Natalie’s loyalty. That she was privy to some secrets that she now might be tempted to tell.”
Andy had known Gabe was walking into a fucking mess. Forget the crap about this being a routine extract and hold. All those horror stories Gabe had told Natalie to get her on the helicopter, about the CIA potentially sending assassins to quiet her and eliminate all risk regardless of what her extraction agreement said. None of them had convinced Natalie or warned her about anything she didn’t already know, but it now looked like they could be true. Someone was talking to Rick about Natalie, which meant someone was too nervous about her knowledge of internal CIA workings and the mole and the failures that allowed the mole to work his way onto a black-ops team. Gabe could have more than a lone shooter or group on recon knocking on his door.
The trick was to draw the information out of Rick, something that never came easily. “What people?”
Rick tapped his fingertips together. “People who control drones and have assassins on speed dial.”
“You mean people in the CIA who won’t make it look like she died in a freak accident.” And took Gabe with her. Andy knew how this worked. Most of the team Natalie worked with lost their lives in just that way as the mole had panicked and tried to wipe out all of the evidence against him.
Rick nodded. “Her being out there, not communicating, not where they can see her and watch her, makes some people with a lot of power and even more to lose very nervous.”
Fucking Gabe and this fucking assignment. They dealt with life-or-death situations every day. Gabe never flinched, but in those cases he had a team with him, resources. Open communication. None of that was in play here. “That’s bullshit. She’s not a threat to national security.”
As usual, Rick didn’t show any emotion. His expression remained blank, and the tapping of his fingertips continued a steady beat. “I agree, but I didn’t give any orders here.”
“But there is an operation to locate her and bring her in?” That Gabe could handle on his own. A full-scale attack designed to wipe her out of existence might be a different thing. “This someone in the CIA, or group of someones, hired you to track Natalie, correct?”
“We’re speaking hypothetically, of course.” Rick sat back with his perfect posture honed by years in the military.
Andy’s patience expired. “Rick.”
“It’s a watch-only mission. I send my people in to make sure she isn’t making contact with . . . undesirables.” Rick almost smiled as he said it. “That she isn’t selling infor
mation about holes in CIA security that would allow for a foreign government to infiltrate the organization and plant someone inside. That she isn’t talking with the wrong people. Maybe other people who are disgruntled with the CIA.”
“In other words, one of her old bosses fears she’s turned.” The idea was so ludicrous it made Andy want to shoot someone. “Natalie Udall, a woman who’s dedicated her entire adult life to the CIA and the protection of this country.”
“Basically, the job is to make sure she’s out there holding up her end of the agreement as promised.”
Relief flooded through Andy, but skepticism rushed in behind. “Do you believe that? We both know you could find her and then the next order you get will be for you to send someone in to take her out, all in the name of God and country.”
Under that scenario Andy could have one brother out there trying to protect her and the other trying to kill her. The idea made him hate the division between Gabe and Rick even more.
“Some powerful people have a lot to lose if she talks about what she knows. Operational details.” Rick kept tapping those fingers.
Rick danced around the topic in general terms, but Andy knew they were really talking about the problem with the mole. The job that cost Natalie her job and almost cost his ex, Elijah Sterling, his life. “I read Natalie’s file. She had intel on everything from black bag jobs to abductions and rendition.”
“It’s more than that. From what I’ve been able to learn, she wasn’t the type to just hang out in the room. She pushed operations in the directions she thought they should go, including the mole hunt everyone else but her saw as a waste of time.”
“You mean, the point where she was right and everyone else was wrong.” Andy agreed with Gabe on this point. Natalie’s smarts and instincts had trumped those of most of the men around her. Could be one or two of those disgruntled lifetime desk jockeys didn’t like her skills or her agreement to leave the agency without trouble. “She should have run that damn place.”
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