by Maya Banks
She grinned innocently. “I will if you will.”
“Deal.”
He reached over, an unconscious gesture that he gave no prior thought to, and took her hand in his. She seemed as surprised as he felt by the tender action. He almost drew away, but she curled her fingers around his and relaxed.
“Eli, you there?”
The radio crackled as Gabe’s voice echoed through the receiver.
Eli was forced to release her hand as he picked up the radio and held it to his mouth. “Yeah, go ahead.”
“Problem, man. We need to reroute. The chopper is out.”
“What the fuck is wrong with the chopper?”
There was a long pause. “Nothing’s wrong with the chopper. It’s Manuel. He’s dead. Or at least I assume that’s who I saw being toted out in a body bag. The place is swarming with the authorities.”
Shit. “Okay then, Plan B. Haul your ass out of there and be careful. When all fails, do the one stupid thing your enemy wouldn’t expect.”
“Buenos Aires?”
“Yeah, we’ll take the jet out of there.”
“All right. I’ll see you there in a few days, then. You and Tyana be careful.”
He tossed the radio down and looked over at Tyana. “You up for a road trip, sugar?”
Chapter Nineteen
Their trip through rural Argentina was actually quite beautiful. It was country Tyana hadn’t seen before despite how many times she’d trotted across the globe.
They’d stopped for petrol twice, small dingy little places that most people who weren’t intimately familiar with the villages wouldn’t dare to slow down for. It didn’t seem to bother Eli, though. He even chatted amicably with one of the owners, an older man with sun-weathered skin and dusty, faded clothing. Eli’s Spanish was impeccable.
When Eli climbed into the SUV and they started down the winding back roads, Tyana looked curiously over at him.
“Why here?”
“Why not?”
“I figured you and your team for true blue. Red, white and blue, that is. Solid patriots. All formerly employed by Uncle Sam. Yet as far as I can tell, none of you have set foot back in the States since the deal went down in Adharji.”
He stared straight ahead, darkness falling over his face.
“We still don’t know who set us up in Adharji. You say it was Esteban. First I’ve heard of that. And interestingly enough, after that incident, all our channels were cut off. All our contacts fizzled. No one was interested in giving us the time of day. A network we’d built for over five years was gone. We were forgotten. We no longer existed. According to the U.S. government, we all died in action.”
“Ouch.”
“So maybe you’ll see why we’re not exactly knocking ourselves out to get back to the good ole U.S. of A. It’s my guess Uncle Sam will continue to ignore us as long as we stay dead. As much as we believed in what we did, I don’t think any of us are kidding ourselves that we have a future.”
“So you’ll no longer recover hostages?”
He glanced sideways at her. “We’re in a bit of a holding pattern, you know? It’s hard to think about reorganizing our business when we have two guys who turn into pissed-off kitties at a moment’s notice. Not to mention we have no resources, no contacts, no way to advertise when we’re technically supposed to be dead. Right now our priority has to be finding a way to help Ian and Braden.”
She nodded. She understood that motivation well. Falcon hadn’t taken more than a handful of assignments since Damiano’s condition deteriorated. They only accepted smaller ones that required two members of the Falcon team and any of their secondary network. Someone always stayed behind with D.
As though reading her mind, Eli reached over and took her hand again.
“I’m sorry about Damiano, Tyana. I wouldn’t have left him behind. Things went to shit fast where we were being held, and we barely escaped with our lives. But if I had known he was still alive, I wouldn’t have left without him.”
She locked gazes with him and could see the sincerity reflected in his dark eyes.
“I believe you,” she said softly.
“And,” he added as he turned his attention back to the road, “If I had the means to help him—you—I would. But I don’t have answers for you.”
Disappointment made her chest ache. She’d been so sure Eli’s stability was a sign that something could be done to help Damiano. That it was just another unexplained occurrence in a line of them heightened her despair.
She turned her gaze out her window, determined not to allow Eli to see the tears stinging her eyelids. His grip on her hand tightened as he squeezed comfortingly. But he didn’t say anything further, and for that she was grateful.
“So what do we know about Esteban?” he asked several minutes later. “Apart from the fact that we were all his little experiment.”
“He said he owns the largest pharmaceutical company in Europe and that for the last few years he’s branched into other projects, namely human experimentation. He wanted warriors. My guess is he wanted an army of shifters. The instability was an unfortunate side effect. Which also explains why he wants you so badly.”
He frowned and loosened his hold on her hand before slipping it away to grip the steering wheel. White showed around his knuckles as he navigated down the bumpy road.
“So he wants to know why I work, and the others are just collateral damage,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, exactly. He offered to be benevolent and leave Damiano off his hit list, but again, I don’t trust the piece of shit as far as I can throw him. It’s obvious he doesn’t want his failures floating around. Think of what it could do to him were it to get out that A. he was experimenting on humans, and B. that he unleashed a bunch of unstable shifters on the general populace.”
Eli nodded. “We can’t kill him. Not yet.”
“What do you suggest then?”
He glanced over at her before returning his gaze to the road. “We hunt him down and extract information from him using any means necessary. If he created this bullshit, then he might well have an idea of how to fix it. If nothing else we might get the original formula of whatever the fuck chemical agent he used on us so we can break it down and have it analyzed.”
Anticipation and, for the first time, a sense of hope crept over Tyana. She’d feel better if they had the resources of Falcon to back them, but Jonah wouldn’t be doing her any special favors for a while. Tits on the other hand…
“I have a guy who can help us,” she said.
“Thought you said Falcon was pissed at you.”
She made a face then sighed. “My position with Falcon is probably tenuous at best. Jonah…well, he runs things and he gave me a direct order not to go after you. Besides, the guy who can help us lives to annoy the piss out of Jonah. He’s the one who helped me get off the island and to Paris to my meeting with Esteban.”
“I’m listening.”
“His name is Tits. He does his own thing. Works for no one. Provides a lot of intel, backup, support, technology, you name it. Solo mercenary. Falcon’s used him a lot.”
“And what do you propose he do for us?”
She thought for a minute as she braced herself over a particularly rough patch of road. “He could gather intel on Esteban, monitor his movements so we know exactly where and what we’re looking at. Do you and your team have passports? Alternate identities?”
Eli nodded. “Yeah, got all that covered.”
“Okay then Tits could get us info on Esteban, and he could set us up a safe house somewhere close to Esteban so we can hit him when he least expects it.”
“You’re asking a lot, Tyana,” Eli said softly. He turned to glance quickly at her, his eyes dark with indecision. “You’re asking me to put not only my life but the lives of my team in your hands. You’ve made it quite clear you don’t trust me, but you’re asking me to trust you.”
She understood his reluctance, even admired it. “Whe
n it comes to saving Damiano, I’ve done some stupid things. I’ve made bad decisions. I’ve taken responsibility for them all. There isn’t a person I wouldn’t lie to, step on, or kill to help him. The way I see it, if you can help me help him, then that loyalty extends to you. Once I give my word, I don’t break it. And once you have my loyalty, that doesn’t go away.”
“And is that what you’re doing Tyana? Including me in your loyalty? Giving me your word that you’re not going to knife me in the back when you no longer feel you need me?”
“What are you really asking, Eli? I’m sensing one hell of a loaded question here.”
“Maybe I’m asking you to trust me. Maybe I’m saying that you and I have shared a lot more than a desire to help our respective teammates. Maybe I’m asking you where the hell I stand with you.”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the tight edge of panic swelling in her chest.
“Do not bring sex into this, Eli. Sex has nothing to do with trust. Sex is just sex. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Uh huh. You keep telling yourself that, sugar. Well, here’s the deal. I don’t make it a habit of making love to a woman who doesn’t trust me. So maybe you need to think about that the next time you want me to crawl inside you.”
Making love. She had the sudden urge to clap her hands over her ears and childishly chant no, no, no. It didn’t matter that she’d pondered the differences the night before, that she had allowed herself the fantasy of being made love to by this man as opposed to a quick fuck and a mediocre orgasm.
She couldn’t have it both ways. She couldn’t expect him to trust her, to, as he said, put his life and the lives of his team in her hands, when she couldn’t offer him the same level of trust in return.
Did she trust him? She’d flatly denied the idea even when it had slipped out of her mouth. She didn’t despise him. She didn’t think he was a dishonorable man. Hell, who was she to judge someone’s honor when she was willing to sacrifice her very soul to save her brother? Honor was bullshit. Idealistic bullshit fed to new military recruits. Honor didn’t keep your ass safe. It didn’t provide you with your next meal. It sure as hell didn’t keep you from being knifed in the back by someone because you were stupid enough to trust them. Honor was for the weak.
And yet she felt safe with him. She didn’t believe, deep down, that he had any intention of hurting her. Was that trust? She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She trusted Damiano. She trusted Mad Dog and Jonah. She trusted herself. She didn’t particularly see a need to widen that circle.
Silence fell between them, and Eli didn’t make another attempt to touch her or alleviate the tension in the air. The drove steadily onward, and Tyana focused her attention on the landscape.
When darkness fell, they continued driving for a few hours before Eli turned off the road and onto an even smaller path leading into a densely wooded area.
Only the soft light from the dashboard illuminated the interior, but she could feel him watching her as they pulled to a stop.
“Only one of us should sleep at a time. The other needs to keep watch. We can camp out in the truck. The seats recline. Won’t be the most comfortable rest we’ve had, but it beats the ground.”
She nodded, then realizing he couldn’t see her, she muttered her assent.
“I’ll take the first watch,” she added. She wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, and she could take the longer shift, since she could always sleep while Eli drove the next day.
He didn’t argue. He reached into the backseat and dragged out a heavier jacket and a blanket then shoved them toward her.
“It gets chilly out here at night.”
She opened the door and stepped to the back where the weapons were secured. She already wore her knives on her, but she pulled out her rifle and her pistol and secured them before walking around to collect the coat and blanket from the front seat.
Eli reached across the seat and grabbed her wrist as she started to back away.
“If you hear anything, you wake me up.”
“I can handle it,” she said shortly. “Get some rest. I’ll wake you later.”
Chapter Twenty
Tyana sat, cloaked in darkness, fifty yards from where Eli had parked the SUV. She pulled the blanket further around her shoulders but was careful to keep her rifle in reach at all times.
There was a stillness to the air that unnerved her. No sound except the occasional breeze through the pines disturbed the night. No moon shone. The sky was black, the stars blanketed by heavy cloud cover.
For the first hour she kept her mind purposely blank, not wanting the distraction of letting her thoughts wander. The second hour she wondered how D was doing and if he was worried. Of course he was worried. But she hoped he kept his faith in her abilities.
The third hour she allowed herself to think about Jonah and just how pissed he was at her. Then she wondered if Jonah had taken off to overtake her, and had Mad Dog stayed behind with Damiano? Mad Dog would have wanted to go.
That was a kink in her plan she hadn’t considered.
If both Jonah and Mad Dog pursued her, then that left D alone on the island with only the Falcon security team to help him.
She put her face in her hands and rubbed tiredly over her eyes.
Impulsive. Impetuous.
They were words that Jonah would hurl at her. He would accuse her of compromising Falcon for her own means, of putting her own priorities ahead of the team. And he’d be right on all counts.
But she wouldn’t apologize. Not for putting D first. He came before her. Before Falcon.
At six hours she still stared broodingly into the dark, willing the dawn to come so she would no longer be alone.
A warm mist enveloped her, and she relaxed, the tension in her body dissipating as Eli wrapped himself around her, surrounding her in a light fog. He touched every part of her skin, light and seeking. A gentle sensation trailed down her cheek like the soft stroke of a painter’s brush. Slowly, he came to form in front of her, his hands on her face.
“You should have woken me before now,” he chided.
“I can sleep while you drive. You needed the rest more.”
He tugged the blanket a little tighter around her and tucked the corners beneath her chin.
“Why don’t you go back and get some sleep now?”
“I’m not tired yet,” she murmured. That wasn’t true. She was plenty tired, but she knew her brain wouldn’t shut down enough for her to sleep.
“Then keep me company for a while,” he said as he crawled up beside her.
He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close into the shelter of his body. She relaxed and laid her head against his chest.
“Tell me about you,” she said in a near whisper. “I only know what little I could dig up when I was looking for you and back when Falcon did background before accepting the guide job into Adharji.”
“Not much to tell,” he said. “No family. That was a requirement back when CHR was a spin-off to Special Forces. No ties. No life to speak of.”
She frowned. “How did you get from being a specialized unit to leaving the military and going out on your own?”
Eli sighed. “Same reason most military teams get axed. Bureaucratic bullshit, cutbacks, changes in administration. Everyone comes in with their own agenda.”
Tyana nodded. All reasons she loved being a part of Falcon. They didn’t answer to anyone but themselves.
“Our team was formed with a take-no-prisoners attitude. We were ruthless, and we did what we had to do in order to get the job done. We had a one hundred percent hostage recovery rate. Never lost a civilian. Bad guys? Didn’t fare so well, and we didn’t give a fuck.
“Then came changes in administration. They started making noises about dismantling us. We weren’t exactly politically correct. Admin didn’t want it to get out that the U.S. supported a military team that didn’t adhere to political niceties.
&nbs
p; “And then we had an assignment into a fuck hole in the Middle East. Several Americans were being held hostage by some fuck show who wanted the U.S. to surrender to His Royal Highness the King of Fuck-u-ban.”
He turned his head toward Tyana. “You see the bright individuals we were working with here. Obviously with those kinds of demands there was going to be no negotiating, no reasoning with these brain children.
“So we went in to recover the hostages. Things were going well until one of the women, who’d evidently decided during her captivity that she sympathized with our poor misguided terrorists, decided to take a bullet for one of her captors.
“She stepped right in front of him. Took a round to the chest. The pisser was, she didn’t even save the asshole. The bullet passed through her heart and took the guy behind her out anyway.
“We recovered the hostages and got the hell out. It was our first civilian casualty, and the guys in Washington jumped at the chance to wag a finger in our faces and disband us. There was no way I was going to let go of something I believe so strongly in.
“Ian, Braden, Gabe and I resigned and struck out on our own. The Army was more than willing to utilize our services as long as they didn’t carry the ultimate responsibility. If a mission went to shit, they could throw their hands up and deny having any knowledge of a gun-for-hire hostage recovery group.”
“Real nice,” Tyana said dryly.
“It gets better,” he said. “After what happened in Adharji, it was like we ceased to exist. We’d call needing intel, they’d pretend they didn’t know who the fuck we were. All the contacts outside the military, mostly ex-military guys with ties to the government, wouldn’t give us the time of day. I’m not convinced that the government and your Esteban weren’t in it together.”
She scowled. “He’s not my Esteban.”
He continued on, ignoring her protest. “Esteban might have been the brainchild behind the chemical that turned man into shifter, but what would he want with warriors? He planning to go to war? A pharmaceutical company?