by Hahn, Joni
Agent E2: Aidan
Copyright December 2013, Joni Hahn
Cover by: Najla Qamber Designs
Formatted by: Author’s HQ
Kindle Edition
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be interpreted as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or deceased, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without the express written approval of the author, except where permitted by law.
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
Dedication
To the Princeton University Facebook page and the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library for their invaluable help with my research.
To my nephew and USAF pilot, Capt. Daniel Jeanes, for his detailed information on airplanes and parachutes.
To my team of medical experts, aka, my siblings Bobby, Loris and Jill, for their never-ending patience with my million and one questions.
And to my editor, Candace Havens, and her team, for pushing me beyond my expectations. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Chapter 1
In order to be a true super-agent, a man needed a pair of breasts and a push up bra.
Cassandra Naylor zipped up her black jacket as she stepped over the unconscious D.I.R.E. agent lying in the hospital’s fourth floor corridor. Men were such predictable animals. Flash them some perky cleavage and they were distracted like an ADD child at an amusement park.
Slipping off her high heel pumps, Cassandra shoved them into her tote and jogged down the hall barefoot. It hadn’t taken much to hack into the hospital’s computer network and find her father’s name on the patient roster. What had scared the manure out of her was his location: Fourth Floor ICU.
According to the hospital’s map, ICU was on the second floor.
Finding a door marked ICU, Cassandra pushed it open and peeked around the corner. She gasped. Big, rugged Robert Naylor lay pale and unconscious, a myriad of tubes and wires connecting him to an intimidating group of machines. An oxygen mask covered his face, a ventilator at his bedside.
Letting the door swish shut behind her, Cassandra stepped over to the bed. Taking his limp hand in hers, she squeezed it, hoping to elicit some type of response. Her tears increased with her grip until she held his hand in a white-knuckled hold.
“What happened, Father? Who did this?”
You know who did it. Mitchell Jacobs and his D.I.R.E. Agency.
The hospital records showed a gunshot wound to the chest. Thank God, he’d survived. She couldn’t imagine life without him. He, Dar and Naylor Interests were her life. If he died, her entire world died with him.
Leaning over, Cassandra gave him a feather-light kiss on the forehead. His skin felt cool against her lips, her body heated from the post-midnight excursion into the hospital. She’d never attempted anything like this alone. That had always been Dar’s specialty.
“Where’s Dar, Father?” She stroked back the hair from his forehead. “What have they done with him?”
Her twin could be free, in a local jail, or well on his way to D.I.R.E. Headquarters. Mitchell Jacobs would like nothing more than to interrogate Robert Naylor’s son – then kill him.
The elevator dinged down the hall. She heard male voices, then running footsteps.
Guess they found her unconscious agent.
She had to get out of there.
Pulling up her blonde waves into a ponytail, Cass shoved her feet into a pair of ballet slippers and donned her glasses. Her father wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. She had to find Dar so they could decide what to do. How would they get her father out of D.I.R.E. custody like this? What should she do about the gun deal that was supposed to take place tomorrow night?
She had never been involved in that side of the business. Her father and Dar had purposely kept her away from the danger. Yet, now she found herself in charge and in doubt of what to do.
Inadequacy weighed on her shoulders like concrete.
Opening the door a slit, she peeked down the hall.
Empty.
Opening the door further, she stuck out her head and looked to her right.
The body had disappeared.
An agent ran toward her.
Blast.
Bolting out the door, Cassandra ran in the opposite direction. Taking a right at the first crossroad, she ran toward the stairwell, heavy male footsteps closing in on her. She hit the exit door and flew down the stairs, her slippers floating over the hard concrete steps.
The door slammed opened behind her. Blast, blast. Strong footsteps followed, gaining more ground than she could ever cover with her size eight feet. He jumped over the handrail and landed behind her.
Cassandra’s heart leapt to her throat. She couldn’t afford to get caught. She had to save her family.
“Stop. I just want to talk to you.”
Sure, you do. With a little water and a towel over my face.
The first floor door came into sight. If she could make it to the ground floor, she could lose him in the bustle of emergency room activity.
He grabbed Cassandra’s arm from behind. A shock of electricity shot through her. She convulsed violently, her body shaking and quivering with abandon.
He dropped her arm. Cassandra collapsed on the landing, her head bouncing off the plaster wall. Pain exploded at the back of her skull. Her body hummed, every nerve ending charged and sizzling. Dizziness shrouded her head, her brain groggy.
He dropped down beside her. She gazed up at him through lazy eyes. Her heart stopped, any hope for breath lodging in her lungs.
She must have died and gone to the hot angel floor of heaven.
Bright, emerald green eyes stared down at her beneath furrowed brows, a lock of dark copper hair falling over his forehead.
“Are you okay?” He bent over her.
Yep. He was an angel all right, with a soft, deep voice that made her body sizzle and her head spin all the more.
His full, gorgeous lips were by far his most appealing feature, although his chiseled, smooth jaw came in a strong second. He even wore intricately carved copper and gold armbands like archangels in paintings of old.
The stories of heaven she’d always heard were way underrated.
“You’re beautiful.”
He grinned with a dimpled smile that would render an auctioneer speechless.
“I think you hit your head. Can you stand?”
Cassandra frowned. As a matter of fact, her head did hurt. Reaching behind her, she felt around in her hair and found a knot the size of a Ping-Pong ball.<
br />
She wasn’t dead?
Damn. That must mean this guy worked for D.I.R.E.
That just wouldn’t do.
Shutting her eyes, Cass took a mental inventory of her body. Other than limbs like noodles and a nagging headache, she felt okay.
She had to lose him.
What a pity.
Mustering strength she would surely beg for later, Cass backed away from him when he tried to help her up. “Don’t touch me.”
Holding up his hands, he unfolded to stand above her. “Sorry about that.”
Glaring up at him, Cass got to her knees. Bracing a hand on the wall, she slowly climbed to her feet - with a swift uppercut to his crotch.
Sonovabitch echoed in the cavernous stairwell as he doubled over.
Cass flung open the first floor door. Running into the busy corridor, she lost her footing.
Shit, shit, shit.
Grabbing a handrail on the wall, she righted herself and took off. Thank God she wore stretch jeans. She had a little crawling to do.
Growling through the pain, Aidan Monroe shot out of the stairwell in pursuit of the hellion on wheels that had royally racked him.
Holy buckets he hurt.
“In pursuit of a blonde female...” He spoke into his armband, as he ran with a limp past a nurse pushing an empty gurney. “…First floor of the hospital, heading toward the main corridor. Runs like a freaking gazelle.”
Tristan Jacobs, his former SEAL BUD/S teammate and fellow D.I.R.E. agent showed on his screen. “Cassandra Naylor?”
“I think so.”
Aidan had been trained to ignore pain and most of the time, he could manage. However, his new system had every nerve ending on high alert and dammit, this woman had knocked his nuts into his throat.
Rounding a corner, he ran into two D.I.R.E. agents in the hallway.
“Which way?” one of them said.
“You mean she didn’t run past here?”
They shook their heads.
Dammit.
Several minutes later, Aidan walked, no limped, into the front door of Creekmore General Hospital. He and some of the other D.I.R.E. agents had scoured the building and grounds looking for the blonde spitfire.
She’d lost them.
Aidan winced as he stopped beside Tristan in front of the elevators. His balls hurt like hell. He may never get a hard-on again. He could kick himself for allowing his out-of-control powers and her striking beauty to play on his sympathies.
“It had to be Naylor’s daughter.”
He preceded Tristan into the elevator. Tristan hit the fourth floor button. “What did she look like?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Blonde, built, glasses... good taste.”
“Good taste?” Tristan leaned against the opposite wall.
“She said I was beautiful.” He gave Tristan an arrogant grin.
“Well, you did say she wore glasses.”
Aidan glowered at him. “She’s not the first.”
“Well, Smooth Dog, you’ve been through enough women. At some point, one or two are bound to say something nice.”
Reaching the fourth floor, Aidan followed Tristan into the makeshift D.I.R.E. office. He’d seen his share of women, no doubt. However, long ago he’d discovered that caring for someone brought nothing but heartache and trouble. Variety kept things new and light.
Of course, most women had the opposite viewpoint. Aidan knew he’d left a trail of irate females in his wake. Tristan had warned him that one day he’d meet his match.
Aidan didn’t think so. Besides, he had no time to mess with women now that he’d joined D.I.R.E.
“Monroe, I thought you had a reputation for chasing, and catching, women.”
Mitchell Jacobs sat on the corner of a worktable inside the empty operating room. Any medical activity that had taken place on the floor had been transferred to other areas of the building. Mitchell didn’t want to move back to D.I.R.E. HQ until they were sure Robert Naylor would survive.
“What happened?” Mitchell said.
Tristan straddled a chair at the table. “She racked him.”
Wincing, Aidan pulled his shirt over his head. Besides his new injury, he also had a new D.I.R.E. tattoo stinging the nerve endings in his back.
Twisting around in the front of the mirror, he admired his new artwork.
Tattooed between his shoulder blades was a vivid, three-D image of two intertwined atoms. Stamped in the nucleus of one was the atomic number one, the second, the atomic number twenty-two. Streaks of lightning shot from each nucleus like sunrays.
Because his electrical system fused directly into his central nervous system, Aidan’s nerve endings remained hypersensitive for now. Thus, the reason Cassandra’s rack job hit the jackpot.
Dr. Clint Robinson, the D.I.R.E. scientist who had flown in to check his system and fix Tristan, motioned for Aidan to sit on a hospital bed. “Do I need to get you some ice?”
Aidan shook his head as he watched the doctor look over the copper and gold armbands on each of his forearms. “I’ll live.”
Tristan stood by Aidan and compared his single armband to the armbands covering both of Aidan’s forearms. “So, his system is based on the same idea but is tied into his central nervous system?”
Robinson nodded his blond head as he studied the display screen on Aidan’s left arm. “The gold in his blood helps the conductivity. The copper disburses the charge evenly.”
“So, what can he do exactly – besides shock people?” Tristan snickered.
Aidan glared at him. “Asshole. I’m beginning to re-think saving your life all those years ago.”
“It was only because you saved my life that I agreed to help with Rachel in the first place.”
“And aren’t you glad I did?”
A contented grin appeared on his face. “Rachel’s everything to me.”
“She’d better be.”
At first, Aidan had had a hard time adjusting to Tristan and his sister. He’d thought no man good enough for Rachel. She had a heart of gold and a giving nature like no one he knew.
However, he’d seen a change in her over the last few days. Finding out her father wasn’t her father at all, and their mother had set her up to marry the biggest asshole on the planet, had changed her.
Thank God Tristan had been there for her through it all. Aidan knew he could never choose a better man for her.
“Tristan,” Robinson said, “Aidan can power up anything that takes an electrical charge, big or small. He can also fry it.” He looked up at Aidan with a knowing grin. “One day, he’ll figure out he can shoot lightning bolts from his gloves, but don’t tell him I said that.”
Aidan gave Tristan a fist bump. “Hell yeah...”
Aidan held up his hands, each finger wrapped in thin, metal rings, the tips covered with titanium diodes. The black, aluminum-titanium covering his hands contained veins that fed energy from his solid hydrogen cell through the high-voltage coil, to his fingertips.
“Monroe.” Mitchell turned around a laptop to face Aidan. “Here’s a photo of Cassandra Naylor. Is that her?”
Aidan stared at a photo of the blonde beauty. Why couldn’t his enemy’s daughter look like Quasimodo? No, Robert Naylor’s daughter had to be a fresh-faced beauty with eyes a vivid shade of violet-blue, and a mole below the corner of her left eye.
Aidan had a thing for women with a beauty mark on their face.
She had long legs like Rachel, her skin pale rather than tanned.
Too bad she was a Naylor. Her name alone destroyed any beauty she possessed.
“That’s her.”
Glancing back at the computer, Robinson turned back to shut a compartment on Aidan’s armband. “Nice.”
Mitchell turned around the laptop. “She’ll be back, but I want her back when and where we choose, not at her leisure.”
Robinson extended Aidan’s arms in front of him. “Flex your fingers and your wrists. Everything feel okay? Frequenc
y too high?”
Aidan shook his head. “Other than the fact that I’m shocking everyone I touch, I’m fine. I knocked Cassandra Naylor to the floor.”
“Not to mention your sister.” Tristan glowered at him. “And me.”
Robinson opened the computer screen on Aidan’s right armband. “You’re not shocking me now, Aidan. You have to learn to control your blood flow during intense situations. I don’t want to lower the frequency. You’ll need the power.”
“Remember that during sex.” Tristan gave him a knowing grin.
Aidan stared at Tristan before shaking his head. Anger bubbled in his veins, teasing him to take it on. “Don’t even tell me that. I don’t want to kill you, after all.”
Laughing, Tristan sidestepped Aidan when Robinson motioned for him to take Aidan’s place on the bed. “Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Donning his shirt again, Aidan plopped down in a chair and sat back on two legs. He wouldn’t mind testing out that theory on Cassandra Naylor. With a spitfire like that, things were bound to get intense in bed.
“Speaking of Cassandra Naylor…”
Mitchell gave him a raised brow. “Were we?”
Tristan and Robinson grinned as he replaced the Tesla coil in Tristan’s armband.
Aidan glared at them. “We have Dar’s belongings, right?”
Mitchell nodded. “We’ve gone through his phone. He doesn’t save his calls or text messages.”
“Why don’t we send her a text from his phone asking her to meet him somewhere?”
“The trick would be sounding like him,” Tristan said. “If she thought someone else had his phone, all bets would be off.” He looked down at the open compartment on his armband. “I’m sure she’s already suspicious that he hasn’t contacted her.”
Sighing, Aidan let all four chair legs hit the floor. “I majored in asshole in high school. Where’s that phone, Mitchell?”
Tristan smiled at him. “I thought that was a natural talent.”
Aidan pressed the power button on the smartphone. “For a quiet man, you sure have been zinging out one-liners since you got engaged.”
Tristan raised his brows. “Intense situations, remember?”