by Elle Kennedy
Damn it, Cate, why couldn’t you have stayed in college? Hooked up with a popped-collar-wearing frat boy and shot out the requisite two kids? Wielded a pen instead of a camera lens? Your dad would’ve bought you the house in the suburbs with the shiny pool in the back and you could be sipping mai tais on a playdate with the local moms.
He dragged a hand down his face, remembering how they’d swam together in that damn grotto in the back of the property. When she’d stripped down to nothing but her panties and bra and slid into the water to become all long legs, smooth skin, and bright, hungry eyes.
He’d wanted to take her up on the invitation she’d telegraphed every time she looked his way. Wanted to take her up on it so damn bad . . .
A buzz at his hip wrenched him out of the past. With a shaky hand, he pressed the TALK button. “Yeah?”
Noelle’s voice was brisk on the other end of the line. “Ready? We’re taking off in five.”
“Just sitting here warming the chopper.”
“We’ll be out soon.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the helicopter landed at the private airfield ten miles from the compound. Five minutes after that, Ash and the others boarded Morgan’s jet, which would take them directly to Guatana. Yet even though they were finally doing something, Ash still couldn’t relax.
Neither could his boss, who was a total wreck. Morgan couldn’t seem to sit still for even a second. The moment the plane took off, he’d bolted from his seat to address the assembled team, which consisted of Noelle, Ethan, Kane, and Ash.
“You know I hate going in with guns blazing and no pre-ground prep, but according to our contact at the DEA, Guatana is going to hell in a handbasket. The cartels are in all-out war. Ballsy fuckers are killing people in the streets, and they don’t give a shit if innocent civilians get caught in the cross fire. I spoke to my contact in the Guatanan military who said martial law will be imposed any day now.”
In front of Ash, Kane and Ethan exchanged raised eyebrows. Martial law would make it harder to get in and out of the country undetected. Airspaces would become totally restricted as the military regime flexed its muscle and cowed all the people indoors.
“Do we have a staging area?” Kane asked.
Morgan shook his head. “No. A contractor is meeting us at the airport. He’ll have two transport vehicles. Kane, you and Noelle will be in one. Ethan and Ash are with me. D’s going to fly in and hold at the airport to make sure no one takes our plane.”
Translation: if martial law got imposed, they’d take off regardless.
Morgan took a ragged breath and checked his watch, as if trying to will the plane to move faster. Ash had never seen the boss this tense before, which said a lot, because Ash had been present when Cate was discovered, and that entire op had been hella tense. He’d been the rookie then—still was, he supposed. At twenty-nine, he was the youngest man on the team. Jim hadn’t expanded in recent years, even with the absence of Liam Macgregor and Sullivan Port.
“Any word from Boston these days?” Ethan suddenly asked, as if reading Ash’s mind.
He wasn’t surprised that Ethan was also thinking about their former teammates. On missions, the absences of their brothers were noticed most keenly. After Sully’s capture two years ago, he’d disappeared on his boat and they hadn’t heard from him since. Liam, or “Boston” as Sully had nicknamed him, had ghosted at the same time.
Sure, they still had the A-Team—Kane, Abby, Trevor, Luke. Derek Pratt, the scary asshole who’d somehow gotten a woman to fall in love with him and have his kid. Ethan, who’d been the rookie until Ash had come along. Basically your everyday assortment of former Rangers, SEALs, Marines, and Special Forces who lived off adrenaline and danger.
But they all would’ve felt better going in with Sully and Liam.
“Not holding my breath,” Morgan replied before twisting his wrist to see the time again.
“If you look at your watch one more time, I’m ripping it off your wrist and throwing it out of the plane,” Noelle announced, getting up to drag her husband back to his seat.
Winding a hand in his hair, she pulled his ear to her mouth and whispered until some of the tension left Morgan’s shoulders. He gave her a quick, fierce kiss and then went to harass the pilots.
“Boss man is coming unhinged,” Ash murmured under his breath.
“Not you, though.” Ethan reached back and nudged Ash’s knee. “Nerves of steel, right?”
“What’s there to be nervous about?”
Ash was known for being calmest when the worst kind of shit went on. In his first tour of duty in the USMC, he’d cemented his reputation as the definition of calm, cool, and collected when he’d walked straight up to a suicide bomber strapped with enough C-4 to level a city block and took the detonator from the dude’s hand. Ash had tried to explain to the guys in his unit afterward that if it was your time to go, it was your time to go. A guy with a bomb strapped to his belly wasn’t going to make a difference.
Still, it helped to have the right training to guide fate along. When the bomber had hesitated in front of the café, where a mom and three young kids were enjoying an afternoon treat, Ash’s antiterrorist training had kicked in. He’d known that the terrorist was weighing all that he’d been brainwashed about heaven and the instinctive human need to protect the young. Without the proper skill set, maybe Ash would’ve missed that window of opportunity.
He rose from his seat and went to crouch next to Noelle. “What’s Cate armed with?”
Noelle batted her eyelashes coyly. “Why would she be armed? Cate’s a photographer.”
“I know you and your band of wicked women train with her all the time when Morgan’s not looking.”
Noelle was amused. “You think he doesn’t know? He knows. He just likes to pretend it’s not happening. She’s got a Glock, a couple of tactical knives, and a few other tricks up her sleeve. She’ll be fine.”
“You think this is overkill, then?” He nodded to the two operatives behind him.
“No. This is Jim’s daughter. He was without her for seventeen years. If he doesn’t save her . . .” Noelle shook her head. “It would kill him. This would change him. So even if this is overkill, who the fuck cares.”
Ash kept his smile of relief under wraps. No need to supply Noelle with more ammunition. “D’s meeting us there?”
“Yeah, and everyone else is on standby. Callaghan, Dubois, Castle and all the contractors on the B-Team. Nothing is too good for Jim’s baby girl.”
Ash’s smile faded. “I know.”
Which was why he’d stayed away. It wasn’t just that Cate was jailbait when they’d first met, or the eight-year span between their ages. It was that he respected her dad too much. Ash knew the last person that Morgan wanted in Cate’s bed was a merc.
“You have to prove that you’re better than good.”
He pasted on a cocky grin. “We all know I’m the best man here. Let’s go on to the back and I’ll give you enough material for a testimonial.”
Her lips curved. “So you’ll test the limits of Jim’s patience with me but not with anyone else?”
“We both know you’d kill me in the sack before Jim even got his turn.”
Noelle outright snickered before patting his arm. “You’re my favorite little mercenary. Don’t tell the others, though. They all have fragile egos.”
“I’m fragile, too. Don’t use the word little around me.”
Noelle continued to laugh even as Ash returned to his seat.
Ethan cocked an eyebrow. “Gonna share with the rest of the class?”
“Nope.” He settled into his seat and closed his eyes. The talk with Noelle did little to put his mind at ease. He wouldn’t feel right until they were on the ground and en route to Cate’s apartment.
No, strike that. He wouldn’t feel right un
til he saw Cate with his own two eyes and made sure she was okay.
* * *
The airport was in chaos when they arrived. Air traffic control had no intention of allowing Morgan’s private plane to land without prior governmental approval, so it took them an additional hour of circling before permission was granted. Ash didn’t want to know how many favors Morgan had to call in for that.
“Hundred bucks says that the transport vehicles we were promised aren’t at the terminal,” Ash grumbled as they jumped down the jet stairs.
Ethan readjusted the shoulder strap of his bag. “Not taking that bet. How about we bet on how long it will take for the boss to lose his actual mind?”
“What’s the over/under?” Ash grinned, although the effort to make it appear as if Cate’s presence in this country didn’t affect him the same as Morgan was getting more difficult by the second. The presence of heavily armed soldiers at the frickin’ airport was doing nothing to alleviate his ball-shriveling anxiety.
“Say ten minutes?”
“I’ll take the under.” He surveyed the tarmac. The military was out in full force and tourists were casting longing looks at the planes that they’d just departed. That’s right, folks. You should climb back on your bird and fly away.
“All these guns out here,” Ethan observed. “Not a good sign.”
“Understatement,” Ash muttered. When you didn’t bother to hide the danger of your country from tourists, shit was bad. His gut tightened and his pace quickened. The sooner they were out of here, the better.
The terminal was small, but the four mercenaries and one gorgeous assassin had gained a sizable audience. By the time the team passed through customs, there were five soldiers trailing them.
Kane whipped around. “Ash, you stay here and wait for D.”
Not in this lifetime. “D’s a grown-ass man. He doesn’t need a babysitter.” Ash walked right past him and out the doors. He wasn’t sitting on his ass until D got to town.
“What the hell?” Kane began, but Ethan stepped in.
“I’ll take airport duty,” he volunteered.
Kane shook his head as he followed Ash outside. “There’s something called chain of command, you know,” he grumbled as they joined Morgan and Noelle on the sidewalk.
Ash shrugged. “I know. Are those our transport vehicles?”
A bearded man was leaning against the side of a black Land Rover with a matching one idling behind him.
“Looks like it. Let’s go,” Morgan snapped.
“Good thing Ethan isn’t here or I would’ve owed him a hundred bucks.”
Kane threw him an amused glance. “Didn’t think—”
Whatever Kane was going to say was cut off by a bloom of blood appearing where the contractor’s head was. The glass of the passenger window exploded. Swearing loudly, Ash drew his gun and charged forward, the other team members hot on his heels.
The second vehicle was already moving backward. Ash pointed the barrel at the driver, but the asshole kept moving away. Didn’t matter. Another bullet struck the rear wheel tire and then another took the driver out.
“Sniper at three o’clock!” Kane yelled. “Top of the garage.”
Ash dropped to one knee and swung around looking for a target. He caught a flash of movement at the ledge overhead, a blur of black and silver as the shooter darted back into the garage. He fired twice, then turned to see Morgan waving at him.
“Get in!” The boss threw open the back door of one of the Rovers.
Ash dove in, with Kane behind him. Noelle was already at the wheel. She slammed on the gas and whipped over the concrete median. Ash and Kane had their guns out, shooting at the remaining gunmen in the parking lot across the street.
“How many’d you get?” Noelle called back as she jumped a curb and entered the stream of traffic flowing away from the airport.
“Two. One wearing a suit and the other in a Windbreaker,” Ash reported.
“I got the guy with the Windbreaker,” Kane argued. “Right between the eyes.”
Noelle shook her head.
“What was that all about?” Ash demanded, adrenaline still jolting through his system.
Morgan rubbed his chin. “Don’t think it was about us. Must’ve been a preexisting dispute.”
“Nice friends you have there, boss.” He pulled out his magazine and started to reload. Beside him, Kane was doing the same.
“Like I said, this isn’t how I’d ordinarily do things.” Morgan might have said more, but his ringing phone interrupted him. “Cate?” he barked instantly. “We’re on our way. We’ll be there in—”
“Ten minutes,” Noelle clipped out.
“Ten minutes.” Morgan listened for a beat, then addressed the car. “She’s still at the Bardera apartment. No suspicious activity on the street.”
Ash’s body sagged with relief. She was alive, then. Now it was just a matter of getting her safe and making sure she stayed that way.
Chapter 6
Cate kept the phone glued to her ear as she peeked out from behind the thin, musty-smelling drapes. She’d been holed up in Noelle’s small city apartment for nearly five hours and the first light of dawn was beginning to wash over the derelict street four stories below.
Couldn’t Noelle have picked a safe house in a nicer neighborhood? Bardera was a run-down, ugly part of the city, emanating an air of danger that was only made worse by the street youths loitering on the cracked sidewalks. From her upstairs sanctuary, Cate had already witnessed several drug deals go down. And either she had gunshots on the brain or that was actually muffled gunfire coming from a few blocks away.
Would her father hurry up and get here already?
“What’s your ETA?” she hissed into the phone for the hundredth time.
“Less than five minutes,” was Morgan’s brisk response.
She swallowed her relief. “Are you going to tell me what happened at the airport?” She’d clearly heard Kane say something like “shit storm” and “airport” in the background.
“We ran into some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
She gritted her teeth. She hated how he did that. He always tried to shut her out, shield her from the perils of his job, even though she’d witnessed those perils firsthand when they’d met. Hell, within hours of leaving France, they’d had to jump out of a plane because someone planted a bomb on it. An enemy had wanted to kill Morgan bad enough that they hadn’t even cared how much collateral damage there’d be.
Cate fully understood that Morgan’s life was dangerous. And she understood why he liked it—for it was the same reason she’d accepted all these assignments since she’d left school. The excitement, the adrenaline rush, the thrill of feeling alive. She was her father’s daughter, all right.
She just wished he would recognize that.
“Just hold on,” Morgan told her. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Who’s we?”
“I’ve got Noelle, Kane, and Ash with me.”
Damn it. She’d kind of hoped that he wouldn’t bring Ash. But the guy lived on her father’s compound, so she supposed it made sense, convenience wise, to bring him along.
Still, the thought of seeing Ash triggered some serious discomfort in her.
No, it triggered something else. It conjured up the mortification she’d felt the night she’d stripped naked and sprawled on Ash’s bed like a pinup model, begging him to fuck her.
But he hadn’t fucked her. Nope, he’d turned her down. He’d called her a kid, told her that he wasn’t attracted to her. It still burned two years later when she thought of it, so she did what any sane person would do—she shoved those bad memories aside and focused on the present.
“Two minutes.”
Morgan’s vo
ice penetrated the fog of humiliation caused by reliving Ash’s rejection. “Any news about the hotel?” she asked, trying to distract herself.
But the question only made her heart clench, because she’d been trying so hard not to think about Riya’s death. It must have hit the news by now. A well-renowned journalist brutally gunned down in Guatana? No way would that go unnoticed.
“Eleven dead,” Morgan answered grimly. “All women.”
Cate’s stomach dropped. If she hadn’t been convinced before that she was the target, she sure as shit was convinced now. Why else would they kill only women, and why had they gone to Riya’s room first? Or rather, what was supposed to be Cate’s room.
“No official confirmation yet that it was Rivera’s hit squad,” her father added. “But the Feds seem to think it was.”
“Americans?” she said in surprise. “The police department involved foreigners?”
“The local police force is useless, you know that. Almost every officer is in the pocket of one cartel or another. So yeah, the officials called in outside investigators, and the preliminary reports are saying that the weapons used in the hotel shooting are consistent with what the Rivera cartel is currently armed with. A major arms deal went down a few months ago, a bunch of Russian AKs landing in the hands of Rivera’s people. Casings and bullets they found at the hotel match those guns.”
“I don’t need a ballistics report to tell me it was Rivera,” Cate said flatly. “I saw his son last night. He was shooting at me from the balcony when I escaped.”
Morgan’s tone sharpened. “You saw Adrián Rivera? Why the fuck didn’t you mention that?”
“Because I had other things on my mind! Like the fact that I was getting shot at!” She exhaled a weak breath. “How did they know I was at that hotel, Jim? They knew my room number, which means they must know my name. Are they after me because I took that picture?”
“I think so.”
Nausea coated her throat. “How did this happen? The only people I told about the picture were you and Noelle.”
“The only person I told was my guy at the DEA . . .” Morgan let that statement hang.