Less than two blocks away, the runner dropped from a run to a walk, then headed for a car on the other side of the stoplight. He fumbled in his pocket, then the lights on the car flashed and he squeezed his large frame inside.
“Cabe, get up here. He’s getting into a car and will be mobile in less than a minute.”
As the driver pulled away, Cabe’s truck pulled up alongside and Six jumped in. Instead of calling the detective on Louisa’s case, they called Noah, feeding him all the information they had. Keeping a steady distance behind, they trailed the truck for twenty minutes until it came to a stop outside a nondescript two-story condo unit in San Ysidro. The dirty cream-colored stucco was chipped and faded. Four pitiful plastic loungers were placed around an empty pool.
The man stepped out of the car and entered one of the lower-level buildings, leaving the bag behind.
“I got the address, local units will be out there shortly,” Noah said. “I’ve explained who you are, what you are doing.”
“Thanks. Will keep you posted if he moves,” Six said and hung up the phone. “I want to know what’s in that bag.” Six unfastened his seat belt and silently opened the door, slipping out into the darkness. Cabe followed.
Six breathed a sigh of relief when he tried the rear door of the car and found it unlocked. Quickly, he unzipped the bag and found a passport and a phone on top of clothing that had hastily been shoved in.
He looked over to where Cabe was taking a photograph of whatever documentation he’d found in the glove box.
Thankfully the phone was charged, and Six quickly found the number. He took a photograph of it and made a mental note to get a trace on it as quickly as possible.
A bright light illuminated the concrete, disappearing quickly as though someone had opened and closed a door. Six held his breath, listening acutely for sounds of footsteps heading in their direction. They sounded as if they were coming from around the side of the building. He tapped Cabe’s shoulder, giving him the signal to withdraw.
Silently, both he and Cabe quickly stepped away from the vehicle, closing the doors with the gentlest click, before jogging back to the truck, settling back inside as two unknown men walked to the vehicle and retrieved the black bag.
Six pulled out his phone and called Lite, another of their new hires.
“S’up?” Lite mumbled, clearly half-asleep.
“I need full access to a phone. Now.”
“Text me the number.”
Six hung up and messaged Lite the number. With any luck, they could flip the phone into a recording device and capture whatever was going on inside that apartment.
Neither Cabe nor Six spoke again until blue flashing lights, several of them, appeared in their rearview mirror. Six wanted in on the takedown. Cops were good, but SEALs were better.
He stepped down out of the truck.
One of the cops glared at him. “Stay out of the way,” he said gruffly. “You don’t have any authority here.”
“What the—”
“He’s right,” Cabe said, placing his hand on Six’s shoulder.
They were going to screw it up, he knew it. There were going to be exits left uncovered, evidence left behind. And damn, he knew he was being unfair to the hardworking cops, but it was Louisa who was at risk if any stone was left unturned.
Six began to pace as he heard the loud hammering on the door, the shouting, the yells for everybody to get down. In the recess of his mind were images of all the times he’d burst into a room and yelled the very same things.
Goddamn.
The sound of feet hitting the pavement drew his attention to the left, and he saw the man who had broken into Kovalenko’s house running away from the building. Six began to run, powering his legs as his heart pumped furiously, to catch up with the man fleeing the scene. There was no way in hell he was getting away.
As Six pulled closer, the man began to look over his shoulder, then sprinted faster. The loose gray track pants began to slip, and the man grabbed hold of the waistband, which slowed him down just enough for Six to leap across the distance between them and take the guy to the floor.
“Fuck you,” the guy said, attempting to buck Six off him.
“Stay down,” Six yelled as the man squirmed beneath him. A rogue fist caught Six on the side of the head, not with enough power to hurt. In an attempt to get the man onto his front, Six’s knuckles hit the hard concrete, sending pain shooting up his arm.
Cabe’s boots appeared in Six’s peripheral vision.
“I got about two minutes,” Six growled as he finally subdued the man, “before those cops come out and take you away. And I got a handful of bullets in this gun, that I am more than happy to use to get you to tell me who the hell you all work for.”
With his knee on the guy’s back, Six pulled a cable tie from his pocket and secured his arms behind his back. He had no intention of killing the guy, but he sure as shit was cool with using the threat to get what he wanted.
Six pulled his gun and placed it next to the guy’s head. “Anytime you’re ready.”
“Don’t, please. Don’t shoot. It’s Lemtov. Victor Lemtov,” the guy cried out.
It wasn’t a name that had come up in conversation with Lou, but Six fully intended to figure out who the hell he was. Quickly, Six reholstered his gun and stood. Cabe dragged the guy to his feet.
It took another painful twenty minutes of waiting to learn that Kovalenko was not in the building, and a further twenty to give their statements and hand over all the information they’d collected.
It was nearly three in the morning by the time he crept back into his own home and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. He looked over to Lou’s room, where she was still sleeping. As tempting as it was to lose his clothes and crawl in bed next to that warm body of hers, he didn’t. He didn’t trust his feelings around her. When she’d looked at him in the bathroom like he was a giant ice cream sundae and she was the five-year-old allowed to eat it before breakfast, it had made his week. But by the time she’d left the bathroom, she’d looked like she felt as bad as he did. For a moment, he could’ve sworn that she wasn’t going to take his no for an answer, and he wondered how he would have reacted if she’d acted on that flicker of confidence. Yet she hadn’t.
Footsteps on the wooden floor behind him made his heart race a little with excitement, something he hadn’t felt about a woman in a really long time. He closed the fridge door and turned to look at Louisa. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her lips were pursed.
“Are you okay?” she said, quietly, as she looked down at the floor.
Back to hiding again. Look at me, Lou.
Damn. She’d put her wall back up while he was gone, and while it was the best thing for the two of them, he hated it.
“I’m fine. You?” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. He did so to comfort her, but he was the one who suddenly felt better. At least he did until she shrugged slightly and moved out of his reach and walked over to the window.
“I’m fine,” she said in a voice that told him she was many things but fine certainly wasn’t one of them. “What happened last night?”
“We found a guy, followed him to what we think was some kind of safe house, and got some leads on who might be involved,” he answered honestly. Technically, she was his client, so he owed her answers, but, shit … What if she couldn’t deal with the reality about how he came by them? He couldn’t bear it if she hated him for what he’d had to do to get them.
Louisa gripped the back of the stool, finally looking at him. “Just like that? You knocked on the door and said, ‘Hey, who hired you?’ and he told you?” She raised one eyebrow suspiciously.
“Well, it wasn’t quite that straightforward,” he said. He followed her gaze to the bruised knuckles that he flexed subconsciously. There was no keeping anything from her. “No,” he answered because he could tell from the look on her face, all squinting eyes and pursed highly kissable lips, that she was going to dem
and answers even if his natural instinct wanted to protect her from them. “It wasn’t that easy. It took some very physical persuasion. But we found out that he’d been hired by a Russian who lives in LA. A Victor Lemtov.”
“Ivan and Vasilii are Russian. Are they connected? I mean, it’s kind of obvious, really.”
“We’d be foolish not to assume so. And if they are, they’re probably smart enough to realize that you will come to that conclusion. Somebody wants the drug you created, which means someone had to tell them it existed.”
“That’s reassuring,” she said before shuffling around the take-out menus he kept on the counter until they were in size order.
Though the confidence with which she spoke was undermined by the nervous actions, he was impressed by how she was keeping everything together.
“You didn’t kill the man you spoke to yesterday, did you?”
It had been difficult not to, but he shook his head. “He was still alive and in the back of a police car when we left,” Six said, deliberately being light on details. “We got the information that we needed and we now have the means to keep an eye on him too.”
“So, what happens now?” she asked.
“Mac and Lite are working the LA angle, just grabbing some intel about the guy before we go up there and see what we can find out. Lite is covering feeds from Ivan’s house and the phone belonging to Kovalenko, the guy who attempted to abduct you. Buddha, Gaz, and I are technically off rotation today. Sherlock is tracking the other vehicles to see if we can find out more from them.”
“I thought the whole call-sign thing was a myth,” Louisa said, tucking the menus back behind the phone.
“They’re just nicknames. Mac is actually short for his real name, Malachi, which he hates. Buddha’s real name is Joel Budd. Gaz is Gareth. Lite’s first name is actually Miller. Miller Lite, right? Sherlock’s real name is Jensen Holmes. I get Six from Sixton, but I get Viking too, sometimes. My dad’s family descended from them.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I want a nickname too. Can I pick one?”
Six laughed. “It doesn’t work that way. The team kind of picks it for you.”
“Will you pick one for me?” she asked, her voice lighter, breathier. God, he wanted to get her back in bed, to hear her whispered words float over his lips before he kissed her. But he couldn’t. Not again. He’d let her down once already by giving in to the thing he wanted most. She needed his focus, and he needed to get them out of his house before he forgot everything he’d been telling himself for the last twenty-four hours.
Without answering her, he changed the subject. “I need some sleep, Lou, and so do you.” He took her hand and led her to her bedroom door, noticing her pout when he didn’t follow her inside. The thought that she wanted him as much as he wanted her was going to make sleep hard to come by. “But tomorrow, do you want to take a walk, Louisa?” She’d been cooped up at his house for three days. He’d take her down to the narrow beach, get onto the long strip of sand that would take them down to the meditation gardens.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” she said quickly.
In that case, he’d better rest up, and then get armed.
* * *
Being outside had never felt so liberating, yet so terrifying.
Three days of hiding away at Six’s house had made her crave the simple freedom of movement, about which she’d never been overly concerned. It was an odd feeling, but she wanted to be outside, even if she was scared for completely different reasons than normal. Now, she craved being in a crowd. Safety in numbers was a very real thing, and the idea of being isolated freaked her out. Plus, three solid days in Six’s presence had also made her crave sex—something else that hadn’t been high on her list of things to do, but which now seemed just as vital as breathing. Six’s idea to head outside had stopped her from doing something foolish to thank him for hurting himself for her sake. Those knuckles were swollen and blue, and though it was primitive thinking, she loved the idea that he had stood up for her. Things were stirring inside her, and for the first time, Louisa began to question the way she’d been choosing to live her life. Crippling shyness had led her to live with as little human interaction as possible, but something was changing. Well, she couldn’t exactly say a wall had broken down inside her, but there was definitely a small crack in the mortar, and she wondered how hard she’d have to push for the crack to grow.
She’d had to wait for Six to make a call before they’d left to a CIA contact of his, someone who had the power to give Eagle Securities the authority to legally dig more deeply into the affairs of Vasilii, Ivan, Kovalenko, and a name she hadn’t heard before, Victor Lemtov, under the guise of national security. When he’d hung up, Six had assured her that while his contact needed to do some follow-up of his own before agreeing, Six was confident they’d have the authorization he needed before end of day.
The hot Encinitas sun warmed her face, and Louisa focused on the natural vitamin D she was getting. Anything to take her mind off the tall man next to her who was wearing a light jacket, despite the heat, so he could wear not one but two guns and a couple of knives strapped in his boots to protect her. His eyes were constantly on the move. He looked down the hill, and then turned to look back up it. And she hadn’t missed the way he’d switched sides to stand between the platform and her as they’d approached the train station. He’d explained his rationale before they’d even left the house. They’d be most exposed on the short trek down E Street to the wooden staircase that would lead them down to the sand.
“It kind of freaks me out that you are carrying,” she said as they walked. “But then I’m relieved that you are. You don’t think they’ll shoot me, do you?” Her hand brushed against Six’s, and for a moment she wondered what it would be like to walk alongside him, holding it, like a real couple.
For the briefest moment, he took his eyes off their surroundings and looked at her. “No, I don’t. They’ve shown repeatedly that they intend to take you alive. If anybody is going to get shot, it’s me. I’m standing between you and them.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” she said, her mouth going dry at the mental image of him down on the pavement with a gunshot wound to the chest. Her heart squeezed at the thought.
Six laughed. “Reassuring that you’d be okay, or that I’d get shot?”
She eyed him teasingly. “Both.”
“Nice, Lou,” he said as they reached the staircase to the sand. He placed his hand on her back, leading her in front of him. “Ladies first,” he said. “If anyone was watching for us, they’ll be behind us. So I want you in front of me. You know, so I can get shot instead of you.”
Louisa stopped and turned to look at him. “This isn’t really funny, you know. I don’t want you shot on my behalf.”
“I know, but it’s my job. One I do willingly. One I am good at. I don’t want to get shot any more than you don’t want me to. But I’ll always put you first.” He ran his finger along her jaw and then snatched it away quickly. Even after his flesh left hers, the line he’d traced burned. “Anyway,” he said, circling his finger to encourage her to turn and start moving again, “irreverent humor is the best way to get through shit like this. Plus, if you go first, I get to look at your ass.”
Despite her nervousness, Louisa laughed. Perhaps he was right. There was only so much she could control. Another item to add to her list of things she’d learned since spending time with Six. Control wasn’t everything. The design of every experiment she’d ever done depended on her having control of the inputs, all variables accounted for, excluded, or measured. But there was no way she could control what was going on in her life right now.
She made a move to kick off her sneakers on the last step, but Six put his hand on her arm. “No,” he said quietly. “Always keep your shoes on. You need to be able to run, should you have to. And if you do, head for the harder sand. It’s easier to sprint on. Running on soft sand takes more effort.”
“I’m not sure I’d have
been so eager to come out if I’d thought it all through,” she said, looking at the water wistfully. The gentle shushing of the waves hitting the beach and the faint tang of saltwater in the air teased her. It was the perfect day to walk along the water’s edge, feeling the surf bubble over her feet, cool and refreshing.
Though the local kids had gone back to school the previous week, the beach was busy. Families played in the warm sand and paddled in the shallow water. Three young men were lazily throwing a football between them. And a group of older ladies in wide-brimmed hats walked in their direction. Tourists. There were too many of them, and her heart rate quickened further. Six began to move, but she stayed rooted to the spot. Realizing that fear was no way to live her life and doing something about it were two different things. Recognizing she was guilty of one didn’t directly mean that she could fix the other.
“What’s up, Lou?” Six said, moving close to her side.
He was so close that she could see the beads of sweat on his brow and could feel the heat radiating from his body. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to focus on him and his presence, not all the other people on the beach outside of their circle. “I just need a moment.”
Six put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. She could feel the hard line of the gun under his jacket, but more importantly could bury her head in his chest for just a moment while she shored her defenses. His hand was between them, and she knew it was on the holster in his shorts, just in case. Louisa let his strength and absolute lack of fear seep into her. His hand crept to the back of her neck and massaged it slowly as he kissed the top of her head. “You’re cool, chickpea. Just take a deep breath.”
She let her breaths line up with his, slow and sure. “I’m not having a panic attack,” she said, quietly.
“I know,” he said, his words reverberating through his chest. “You’re too in control for that, right?”
Was she? Her insides felt like unset Jell-O, and her skin was the plastic mold holding it all together. She just needed to put one foot in front of the other, take one breath after the next.
Under Fire Page 17