Hot For His Hostage

by Angel Payne

  Newport stalked forward. “Enough.” He paused next to the jeep, pulling off his aviators to lower a calm smile at Mom. “Dr. Bommer, we’re all sympathetic to your grief—and aware of you feel. But you know, as well as Dr. Adler or anyone here, that doing the right thing is not always doing the easiest thing.” He stroked her forehead and gave her an encouraging nod. “You know who else knows it?” Both of your amazing sons.”

  He kicked the last of that into a prominent shout. Shay grinded his knuckles into the boulder, as well as both sides of his jaw, to hold back from telling the ass fuck what he could do with his twisted take on the motivation banner. He just hoped Tait had the melodrama curtains closed today, and would know to keep his own mouth shut.

  “Take a dick deep in your backside, Newport!”

  Dammit. The curtains were wide open.

  The slur was all it took for Newport to order more men toward the cause of opening fire on T and Franzen. Though Ethan and Zeke ran and joined them, it was soon clear that his four friends were destined to repeat the fucking Alamo. Shay grimaced to see Franzen take a bullet to his thigh, while Ethan was grazed in the shoulder. And still, the four men fought on—until it was clear they were about to run out of bullets and options.

  Abruptly, Newport held up a hand.

  Immediately, the firing stopped.

  “Well then, gentlemen.” Though the general called it out, his voice held the condescending cool of tea time at the fucking Ritz. “I think we all agree now. Game time is over.”

  At Newport’s nod, Cameron waved another throng of soldiers forward. The assholes stormed the little wagon like delirious Banshees. With two injured members and little ammo left, his friends had two choices: surrender or death. Reluctantly, they agreed to the former. Their rifles gone, their bodies bloodied, and their spirits exhausted, they didn’t resist when the guerillas zip-tied their wrists then ordered them to kneel in front of Stock and Newport.

  All of them except Tait.

  Shay looked on, his heart snapping, as a soldier rammed the middle of T’s back with the butt of his rifle, forcing him to bow at the feet of the man who’d been responsible for Luna’s death—and damn near Lani’s, too. But as Tait scrambled to his knees, he didn’t miss the chance to spit hard on Cameron’s boots. He followed it by jerking his face up at Stock, too. From Shay’s position, he could only witness the violence of the movement itself but if T’s face matched the action, Satan was thanking fuck he’d sent Stock as his proxy.

  Unless the two were the same piss-sucking creature.

  A supposition supported in disgusting detail by Stock’s next move.

  Motioning a soldier forward to keep Tait’s head locked back, the bastard pulled out his pistol and jammed it to the middle of Tait’s forehead.

  At the same moment, Newport did the same thing to Mom—with a creative twist. His pistol went straight into her mouth.

  “Choices.”

  Newport bellowed it, succinctly and purposefully, into air made harsher by the crackles and whooshes of the fire still eating through the lab and Mercantile.

  “Easy ones, or right ones.”

  Shay lay his arm along the top of the boulder then caged his face with his hand. He glared through his fingers at the blazes on the other side of the street. The flames consuming the lab were fluid and brilliant, their heat defined by dark cobalt hues, the smoke twirling up with effortless grace….

  A dancer.

  As the Mercantile surrendered, it punched out thick black billows that were scented by cedar and pine, forcing its way up…

  A fighter.

  But higher in the sky, the colors blended.

  Merged.

  Mated.

  For just a few moments, they painted the sky in one of those moments a person simply knew…and he knew.

  Stare at this. Remember this. No photo will ever capture it right. Only your heart will remember it perfectly.

  He let his hand slip down his face, dragging his tears with it.

  He pushed away from the boulder, dropped his rifle, and raised his arms.

  “You’ve made your fucking point, Newport. And now you have what you came here for, so do the right thing yourself and let them all go—Dan first. He needs a heli-vac. With paramedics.”

  “Fuck,” Tait grated.

  “Fuck.” Now that Newport’s pistol was gone from her mouth, Mom echoed it. Hers came with a big difference. The sheen of her tears.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  Shay repeated it after they untied Mom and let him hug them both one last time.

  “You’re a fucking liar, Little B.” Mom’s accusation was broken up between the tears she soaked into his neck.

  “What she said.” Tait’s voice was just as ragged.

  “Shut up, asshat.” Shay gripped the back of his brother’s head and held on tight. Tighter. He had no idea what the three caballeros of crazy had in store for him, or if they’d ever let him see T and Mom again, so he clung to this moment like another precious curl of smoke in the sky—and once more said the words that had become his desperate prayer. “It’ll be okay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You all think everything’s going to be okay, sí? Well, I’m afraid I’ve got some tough news.”

  Zoe folded her arms and let her words sink into the thirty UNLV dance majors lined up against three sides of the studio classroom. But who the hell was she kidding? If anyone was listening at all, they only reacted with rolled eyes and impatiently tapping feet.

  “I’m not trying to be your puta, okay? But if half of you turn in performances for your final that look anything like today…”

  Nobody noticed she’d trailed off. Several kids yanked out their phones and started checking texts.

  “Mierda.” The mutter was more surrender than anger. How could she blame them? Five minutes before the start of spring break, and she decided to drive the stake in about their lazy jazz hands and sloppy footwork? Damn. She’d be secretly calling herself a puta, too.

  But did they want to end up showcasing their “skills” at some club on the north strip with two bouncers and a drink minimum? They had to think about their futures. God knew, she hadn’t. Not really. She’d been a fool, believing she had all the bases covered, all the plans handled.

  Then she’d met Shay Bommer during an ordinary flight delay…that had been anything but ordinary.

  Moral of the story? Life was a sadistic pitcher. It liked switching up the throws. And if you weren’t ready, you got hit in the head.

  It felt important to pass along the knowledge, even vital. It was why she’d decided to take a leave of absence from the show and accept this guest teaching gig at the university for a year. It was challenging work but much easier than having to feign desire and passion during the show every night. After only a couple of performances, she’d realized the stupidity of that move. Only one face kept blazing in her mind—not the one she needed with four thousand people watching. His eyes seeking hers with dark gold need. His jaw clenched in those two perfect right angles, leading to the intersection of gorgeous and dominant in his chin. His thick chestnut hair tumbling over his forehead as he pressed it to hers, laughing softly as she whispered how crazy they were…how perfect they were.

  She took a deep breath and swallowed her eightieth pang of heartache for the day.

  Just as someone burped.

  The clock saved her from coming up with a reprimanding glower. As the minute hand officially ticked into the end of class, the kids cheered and raced for the door.

  “If you’re smart, you’ll practice over the break!” she yelled. “And remember, beer looks like crap in spandex!”

  Her parting shot seemed to get her back into a few good graces, not that it would tamp her irritation with most of them. It wasn’t personal. She was frustrated with everyone these days, even Ry and Ava. Ryder, now wearing Rok’s promise ring, couldn’t stop talking about the trials of handling having to “open up the New York place” for
their relocation to the Big Apple for the next six months. And Ava, now Mrs. Ethan Archer and a full-time stylist for the CW’s Vancouver-based shows, was just as bad with the décor magazines. After her and Ethan’s Bali honeymoon, he’d brought her home to her wedding present: a five-bedroom, three-bathroom “starter” place on the Columbia River.

  That was right. The whole world was in rebirth, redecorating, and now, in the case of her students, rejoicing in a week off from responsibility. There were wildflowers on the hills and more convertibles on the freeway with their tops down. Everyone wanted to hit the Refresh key and wake up.

  Except her.

  I’m not going to die, dancer.

  He’d kept his word, hadn’t he?

  He wasn’t dead.

  But heaven forgive her…she wished he was. At least then she’d know he didn’t wake up every morning with only hours of pain in front of him. She’d fall asleep knowing he wasn’t strapped to some bed, pleading for sleep as his only deliverance. She wouldn’t wake up screaming from nightmares of him wandering endless halls alone, rows of those black threads holding his body together, wondering which part of him would serve as the next experimental meat for Adler, Stock and Newport—who somehow, in the eyes of the military, was still untouchable in the whole “honor and character” department.

  On the other side of the bullshit river, Shay had been officially discharged from the green machine as AWOL. Her fury about that fact only made her more determined about holding onto him with every piece of her heart and grasp of her soul. Every morning before she left for the university, she wrote journal entries to him. At night, she looked to the stars and whispered to him, wondering if his night sky was the same as hers. She restocked her pantry every week with his favorites. The pretzels, Oreos, and apple chips—the soft kind, not crunchy—waited there for him. She did, too…pleading with fate for the moment he’d come bounding through the door, sweaty from the gym, scarfing on the stuff like a puppy and kissing the back of her neck in thanks. She read everything she could get her hands on about loving a man in the Special Forces. Sometimes she pretended he was just away on deployment, out to run recon on bad guys and rescue kids before they stepped on landmines—until the memories returned, glaring and taunting, of what she’d seen in the hallway at A-51.

  Then it all returned. Including the helplessness.

  Especially the helplessness.

  Nothing was good enough to bring him back. Despite the AWOL status, perhaps because of it, Franzen had helped her have files reactivated at both the CIA and FBI. Their new agents didn’t come close to Dan Colton, but it would be a long damn time before Dan donned his spook suit again. After months of burn treatment and therapy, the man was still unwilling to see anyone except Franz, and even then for only ten minutes at a time. Despite that, Dan had turned in a detailed report about everything that had happened to Shay from the moment he signed on with Stock’s gang. Like all the first sets of his notes, the report went “missing,” conveniently deleted by CIA computer users who remained conveniently faceless, nameless…ghosts.

  Just like the ghost into which Shay Raziel Bommer was turning, as she watched without a damn thing to do about it.

  No. No.

  She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up.

  “Ay,” she muttered while extending the handle on her rolling file bag. “Enough of the moping, dammit.”

  The edict would have to apply for at least the next few hours. Brynn and El had a dark week for the show so they’d invited themselves—along with Ryder and his drapery sample book—over for a dinner designed to get her head out of all things Shay Bommer. Despite the thirty excuses she’d tried for getting out of the plans, her friends held her feet to the fire. There would be pizza and salad tonight. And wine. And drapery samples.

  When she arrived home, a couple of hours remained before the trio’s scheduled arrival time but a dark blue Ford sedan already occupied her driveway. Alarms went off in her senses, remnant angst from the night half the government agents in the country had descended on her house, but when she saw the G-tags on the car, her curiosity piqued.

  As soon as she parked her Prius, a man got out of the Ford. Bad suit. Classy haircut. Square shoulders. Proud chin. She’d met him once before, in his office at the FBI building downtown, and her impression was the same. Cary Grant had been reincarnated in the form of Caspar Menken, the agent for Shay’s case.

  Only what was he doing here, visiting her at home?

  No. Mierda. No.

  She approached the agent on legs that suddenly turned to icicles. When Caspar bypassed the pleasantries and went straight to “We need to talk,” the icicles shattered and gave way to complete paralysis.

  “Spare the damn sugar, Menken.”

  “Just Caspar, okay? And what the hell does that mean?”

  She gripped the handle of her file bag tighter. “Don’t give me platitudes, poetry or pretty. If he’s dead, then just tell me—then forgive me if I don’t invite you in.”

  Caspar’s stare, a Caribbean blue that was almost too pretty on a guy who evoked Cary Grant, softened a little. He’d always been able to see the pain beneath her anger, and she was usually thankful, except misery had beat the gratitude to her gut today. “Zoe—”

  “What?”

  “You need to invite me in.”

  Her heart burst at the same time it caved. She couldn’t make it through the door fast enough, or wait the agonizing three seconds it took Caspar to step inside, too.

  As soon as they got through the door, Fluffy ran to greet them. Over the months, the cat had simply become more Zoe’s than Ryder’s, especially with Ry leaving in three weeks to play house in New York with Rok. Nevertheless, kittah-girl instantly wrapped herself around Caspar’s leg, having been well-trained that men were the ones with all the best presents.

  Zoe hoped she and Fluffy would be receiving great gifts tonight. To kick-start the good karma, she broke out the expensive cat food as dinner for the feline.

  She motioned for Caspar to come along to the kitchen so she could dish out Fluffy’s pseudo filet mignon. As she prepped the food, Caspar once more didn’t waste a moment to start speaking again.

  “First, I owe you an apology.”

  Zoe let her eyebrows dip. “Why? You didn’t come here to tell me Shay’s dead. We’re already off to a good start.”

  Caspar loosened his tie and readjusted himself on the chair he’d pulled out next to the dining table. “I…haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  She let the empty can and the spoon clatter to the floor. Fluffy jumped four vertical feet then bolted for the bedroom. “Mierda. He is dead. You just didn’t want me to make a scene—”

  “For fuck sake, Zoe. He isn’t dead.”

  She huffed and retrieved the mess off the floor. “Fine. Then what? Dios, Caspar. Spit it out.”

  He curled his hand into a determined fist and tapped it on the table. “I’ve been tracking General Kirk Newport for about two years.”

  She almost let the can drop again. “What?”

  The agent nodded. “It was the reason I got assigned to Shay’s file when Captain Franzen came in, demanding we open one. We already knew about Newport’s connection to Cameron Stock. The two rammed their dirty peanut butter and chocolate together after meeting at some Hollywood grip-and-grin. Stock, of course, saw the immediate bennies of an evil partnership, especially when learning that Newport’s status could get him back into Melody Bommer’s panties.”

  Zoe grimaced. “Disgusting cabrón.”

  Caspar nodded more emphatically. “We knew all this in theory, but gaining enough evidence to put them both down was close to impossible. On the books, everything they both did was completely legit.”

  “Which was why you never looked too stunned when Franz and I relayed our version of the mess to you.”

  A trace of a smile crossed Caspar’s screen idol mouth. “The day you two came in was one of the biggest mother lodes of intel I’d land
ed in a long time. I was so over the moon, I damn near kissed your toes.”

  Zoe allowed herself to laugh a little. “Franz would’ve demanded worship for his own little piggies.”

  “Why do you think I held myself back?”

  She approached the table after filling a pair of water glasses. “I forgive you for the subterfuge if you tell me this has led us somewhere productive.”

  “It has.”

  She was glad she’d gotten the water. It helped combat a pulse that kicked into aerobic mode and palms that were now humid microclimates. “So why do you look like depression on a stick again?”

  The agent took a couple of thorough breaths before flipping open his smart pad. “It’s a good thing you don’t like sugar, because this shit doesn’t have a grain on it.” If his words didn’t underscore the severity of his message, the new lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes were damn effective. “You ready?”

  She flattened her palms to the table’s surface, emulated his breaths, and nodded. “Sí.”

  Caspar swiped to a new page. “First, Adler may be a scientific genius but he’s an operational moron—and that’s good news for us. After Shay gave himself up at the mining camp, it was pretty simple for us to track him back to his old haunts in the DC warehouse district.”

  Zoe raised a hand, stopping him. “Wait. What? You’ve known where he took Shay, and didn’t tell me?”

  “So you could do what with the information?” the gent calmly countered. “We could barely do anything with it. Knowing where they were through exterior intel gathering was one thing. Getting inside the damn place was another.”

  She didn’t want to let him off the hook. Not yet. This was like being the last one picked for high school PE because she was the smallest. “So when did all that happen?” she sneered.