“I count...nine hostiles,” Isaac said from his position on the other side of the house.
“Do they know we’re here?” Kyle asked.
“Negative. There’s so much smoke in that room, I imagine they’re high as fuck,” Isaac replied.
Shane blew out a breath as he quick stepped to where Felix was stationed at the front of the house as back up.
Their best case scenario was fewer than the projected twelve hostiles on site. With almost a two to one ratio, they’d have to all go in together. It was the only way to make sure they got the hostages out.
“Friendly indicated your side is good for entry,” Shane said.
“Who is this friendly? Any idea?” Kyle asked.
“Not a fucking clue.”
Shane wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad. They could be walking into a trap right now.
Marcos hung up the satellite phone and carefully slid it into his desk drawer. That done, he picked up the fist-sized breadnut and hurled it at the wall.
The slick fruit slipped from his fingers, veered off-target and pounded against the French doors leading out of the corner office. The door swung open, spilling in light, letting the cool air out, and smacked Lacey in the shoulder.
“Ouch!” She paused to pick up the fruit, glaring at it, then him.
“Where the fuck is my breakfast?” Marcos demanded. He couldn’t yell at the client, but could sure as hell take his anger out on her.
“I was just coming to see what you wanted.” She tossed the fruit underhanded toward him.
He caught it and frowned over her shoulder.
“Why are the doors open?” he asked.
“Its balls hot in most of the house. I thought you guys might appreciate a breeze. Sorry.” She rolled her eyes and gestured at the fluttering curtains.
Lacey turned and grasped the edge of the door.
Sometimes he imagined smacking that sarcastic look off her face. But damaged merchandise was worth less. And if he broke that rule, the men would assume they could, too. He didn’t want to have to fire and retrain guys. That would mean time and money lost, and he didn’t have any to give up.
Every cent counted.
“Leave it, but shut my office door.” He flicked his fingers at the office door.
“Fine, okay, whatever.”
Lacey shut his office door, blocking out the light. The air conditioning unit chugged on.
Eventually, they’d have to move. When they did, he wasn’t sure if bringing Lacey with them was a good move or not. Grabbing her off the street in Negril was a decision he regretted. They’d seen a pretty, American girl by herself and figured why not? But no one wanted to buy her back. She was a pain in the ass.
But she was good at calming down the marks. Getting them to cooperate, see the easy way out, and accept it. The last few gigs with her help, had gone smoother.
Still, she was a liability. Marcos didn’t doubt for an instant she’d turn on them.
So what did he do with her?
Fuck if he knew.
Marcos checked the time. It was almost nine in the morning in Delhi.
Tommy might be awake, but did Marcos want to risk it?
These long weeks away from his son were the hardest, especially since Tommy’s treatments were ramping up. Without Marcos doing his job, there would be no more treatments and Tommy wouldn’t have a future. This was how it had to be. Hopefully, very soon, Tommy would be well and Marcos could leave this life behind. He didn’t enjoy mercenary work, but he was good at it, and they had a system down. He’d still give it up if he could spend the rest of his days raising a happy, healthy son.
2.
Lacey had minutes before something happened.
If she was lucky, that gun-toting guy from the courtyard was there to rescue the newlyweds. If her bad luck held out, then she might die.
It was a toss-up.
In the event the cops found her body, she knew what she wanted to be in her hand.
And that meant braving the common room.
She dumped what ice was in the freezer into the empty bin sitting on the kitchen counter. Venturing into the living room empty-handed was asking for trouble.
Lacey shoved a bunch of sports drinks off the bar and into the ice. The guys would likely bitch about the lack of rum, but it was still early. She’d make some excuse.
As long as Marcos didn’t ask for breakfast again, she could do this. She could get the camera and maybe, just maybe, make sure her voice was heard someday.
She hefted the bin up off the floor and set her sights on the door to the house. Her muscles screamed at her, but she quickstepped all the way to the house and shoved into the hallway.
Silence.
But not for much longer.
A man geared up with guns wasn’t likely to go unnoticed for long.
Lacey padded barefoot down to the common room door and shouldered in, pasting a smile on her face.
Smoke hung in the air, as though the room had its own atmosphere. If she spent too much time in here, she was likely to get high off the smoke alone.
The only light came from the TV at the other end of the room.
Someone had taped a target to the windows and the guys were aiming rubber bands at it.
That was why no one had spotted the interloper.
She could have wept with relief.
“Morning,” she said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster.
She heard the twing a moment before pain licked up her leg.
“Ouch!” She yelped and stumbled sideways.
A chorus of coarse laughter pelted her from all sides.
Assholes. The lot of them. She hoped someday they all got what they deserved. Justice might be too much to ask for, but karma? That was something Lacey believed in.
She glared around, but it was useless identifying which goon was responsible. She hefted the bin across to the sofa table used as a buffet and bit her tongue.
When they’d first brought her here, she’d managed to pass off her action camera. The small device could clip onto her collar, while the storage and power pack hooked onto her waistband. Marcos had confiscated her more sophisticated gear, but the action camera had eluded notice until one night a goon got a look at the device clipped to her shirt.
Lacey swallowed. That was the night she’d realized just how disposable she was. How much danger she was in.
In an attempt to save the footage, she’d hidden the camera in a drawer of the end table she’d fallen over in her haste to get away from Handsy McGrabberson. Good thing, because Marcos had made her practically strip, in an effort to find the camera.
Before all this, Lacey had taken the footage and created travel vlogs. Money from advertising and her sponsors kept her traveling all over the globe. Now, she could be documenting her death, for all she knew.
Something hit the floor behind her.
Lacey glanced over her shoulder. What had these idiots done now?
“What the—?”
“Watch out!”
She was staring right at the...whatever it was, when it burst into light, the bang so loud her ears rang. Acrid smoke mixed with the cloud, stung her eyes and made it impossible to see.
Lacey bent over coughing.
All around her, people moved and shouted. She could make out shadows and hear footsteps as though at a great distance.
Whatever was going to happen was happening.
She had to get the camera.
Lacey lunged.
Someone ran into her, knocking her sideways.
She rammed her knee into the side table, and once again, found herself falling over the top. She scrambled, jerking the drawer open and pulling out the small, innocent-appearing device.
Lacey blinked. Her eyes stung. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
God, she hated smoke.
She pushed upright and stumbled out the door. People ran up and down the hall, yelling. Nothing made sense to her dulled senses.
Lac
ey made for the rear of the house and took the stairs two and three at a time.
Were the newlyweds gone? She could only hope they were.
She bolted down the hall, only to skid to a stop as a familiar man in green clothes, carrying a gun, stepped out, pointing the business end of his rifle at her. His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear him.
“I can’t hear,” she said—or tried to—and pointed at her ears.
The man nodded, one curt gesture. He shifted, pointing the gun away from her.
Damn it. What was going on?
The man reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, hauling her toward the side stair.
“No, no, no!” Lacey dug her heels in and pointed at her collar.
The man stopped and turned those piercing eyes of his on her. Tall, dark, deadly, and damn fine. If she’d met him in any bar across the world, she’d have wanted to tangle with him—but not this time.
“I can’t leave or it’ll explode.”
Shane had minutes to exit the building. Their forward team was about to make a break for the gate with the assets. Whoever this woman was, she wasn’t the mission, but neither could he leave her here.
Shane wouldn’t let anyone else die because of him. And that included this woman.
He eyed the bulky collar and mentally calculated the risk.
If it was an explosive device, it wasn’t sophisticated. This operation was built on quick ROI, nothing more. He glanced at the window covered in tinfoil behind him.
She wasn’t going to like this.
Shane grabbed the woman by the hand and pulled her into the room.
“I’ve got Friendly, but we’re going to need cover getting out,” Shane said into the radio.
“We’ve got you. Hurry,” Isaac replied.
“Assets are loading.”
Shit.
Shane ripped the tin foil off the window and without explanation, wrapped the whole sheet around the woman’s neck and head. She sputtered and squawked but didn’t resist. Whoever she was, she was made of tougher stuff than most.
He took her hand, turned, and placed it on the back of his belt, staring at the one eye he could see between the foil.
She squeezed his belt.
Good girl.
Shane took a step and she followed.
“We’re on our way down,” Shane said.
“I’m coming up the back stair. We’ve got to go,” Felix said.
Moments later, the blond Viking caught up to them.
“Guys, they’re starting to organize. You’ve got to go now,” Isaac’s voice was tense.
Fuck.
Shane didn’t have a moment to translate Isaac’s tone for Felix. He’d just have to find out himself how much Isaac liked to understate the situation.
They made it halfway down the stairs before two men darted past.
Kyle had reported that five were shot with tranquilizers, but that still left four or five fully-able, known combatants to deal with.
Shane paused, listening to the footsteps and voices growing fainter.
They could kill the whole lot of them, but that wasn’t what they were here for.
Shane took another step. The woman wobbled, pressing against his back, but otherwise held her own.
They proceeded down the stairs slowly. If they were going to be ambushed, this was where it’d happen.
The house was mostly quiet. Almost eerily so. The wind in the trees was the loudest thing of all.
Maybe they’d miscalculated that storm.
Shane peered out the door.
Isaac and Kyle stood at the gate, rifles pointed at five men with their hands up. That meant Adam, their remaining team member, must be poised as their getaway guy. Except Shane couldn’t take this woman in that vehicle, not if there was any truth to the idea that she was wearing an explosive device.
“We’ve got a problem,” Shane announced.
“You bet you have a problem,” a big, red headed guy in the lineup said.
“Tell me in the car,” Kyle said.
The woman hissed and tugged at his pants.
“She doesn’t have any shoes,” Felix said.
Shane turned, hooked his free arm around the woman’s waist and lifted. She yelped, but otherwise held still as he carried her through the gate. Shane carried the woman all the way to the vehicle.
“Load up,” Adam bellowed from the driver’s seat.
“Can’t, she might be wired to explode.” Shane would have to take her separately from the others. He’d found her, she was his responsibility. Besides, they wouldn’t leave anyone behind. That wasn’t how the Alpha Team worked.
“God damn it.” Isaac’s tension was mounting.
The woman lunged to the left.
“Keys,” she said over her shoulder, far too loud. She must have been almost on top of the flash grenade when it went off.
The woman reached through the open window of a truck waiting in the ditch and jangled them at Shane.
“You take her, everyone else load up,” Adam said, making the decisions for them.
“Copy, and go!” Kyle turned and bolted for the idling vehicle, Isaac on his heels.
Felix took up position for cover in the back of the getaway vehicle.
“Go, go, go.” Shane caught the truck keys and shoved the woman at the vehicle.
Instead of climbing into the cab, she vaulted into the bed of the truck and hunched down, almost out of view.
For the briefest moment, he stared at the last spot he’d seen her, rather amazed at how fast she’d evaluated the risk and gone to measures to mitigate the damage she might do if the worst were to happen. In all Shane’s years, he hadn’t run across many people who could do that. Hell, there were guys he worked with who wouldn’t be that quick.
He was going to get her out of here or die trying.
Lacey clenched the side of the truck, one foot braced on the swell of the fender well and the other against an empty crate wedged against the tailgate. Her rescuer took turns at a break-neck pace, laying on the horn worse than the most daring Jamaican driver, and that was saying something. Driving on the island was playing a life or death game of chicken at the best of times.
The wind whipping past rattled and tugged at the tinfoil hood. She’d seen enough action movies during in-flight entertainment to get the vague idea of what this was supposed to do. But what if he was wrong? What if Marcos or one of the others detonated the collar?
The truck veered off the main road abruptly, sending her rolling across the bed of the truck. She spat curses.
“Sorry,” the guy hollered back at her through the cracked window.
Lacey tilted her head. She’d heard that. Her hearing was coming back, which may or may not be a good thing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was going on.
He slowed the truck to a crawl, the dense growth closing in around them, blocking out the view of the road.
The ringing in her ears was almost gone.
Thank goodness.
The truck stopped and she flopped on her back, staring up at the breadnut trees overhead. A person could die if one of those fell and hit just right.
Her body was nearly boneless with relief. She’d made it out—alive—and with her body camera. The footage would show the atrocities of the people who’d held her hostage. From a mercenary standpoint, it would also bring traffic to her languishing website and vlog channel, but that didn’t matter as much right now. She wanted Marcos to pay for what he’d done to not just her, but others. How many more people had to live with nightmares because of him?
“You okay?” The man leaned over the side of the pickup peering at her.
He had one of those faces prone to frowning.
He’d come back for her. She could kiss him, she was so damn grateful.
Lacey was too tired to speak. She gave her rescuer a thumbs up.
“We need to dump the truck and get that thing off you. Storm’s coming in.”
“How, exactly,
do you plan on doing that?” She levered herself up in time to watch his broad shoulders as he walked away from her.
So much for getting an answer.
Lacey pushed to her feet and examined the ground. Her feet were tough, but she was also human.
She crawled out of the pickup bed and shambled after tall, dark and deadly.
The turnoff he’d taken wasn’t for a house or shopping strip. This appeared to be the local dumping spot for God-only-knew-what.
“Over here,” the man called.
Lacey picked her way toward him, eyeing the blue plastic barrel that had been cut in half. Several inches of fairly-clear rain water filled it.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” she asked.
“Probably not.” He stared at her, his dark gaze stony. That look should chill her, put her off, but there was a quiet confidence to him that set her mind at ease. If he could get the explosives off her, he’d do it.
“Okay, what am I doing?”
“I need you to submerge the collar in the water while I cut it off you.” He gestured at the water.
“I don’t—”
“Every minute it takes for me to explain is another minute they could get in range and kill us both.”
“I see.” Lacey swallowed. “I guess we’re doing this now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Let’s do this.”
He reached up and tugged on the tin foil, pulling it from around her neck, then balled it up and shoved it in his pocket. They were in the middle of a dump and instead of tossing the garbage out, he kept it. Whoever this man was, he was thorough and knew what he was doing. If she was going to trust anyone with her life, it should be him.
“If I die—”
“Then I’ll probably be dead, too. Come on.” He pulled a pair of needle-nose pliers from his belt of tools and offered her his hand.
“Why are you doing this then? You don’t know me.” She took his hand and lowered herself to her knees.
“Deep breath. Hold it for as long as you can, understand?” He took a knee next to her, hands at the ready.
She eyed the water.
It wasn’t as clear as she’d first thought.
“On three,” she said.
“One... Two... Three.”
Dangerous in Love (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #1) Page 2