by Dawn Ryder
Her muscles tightened up as she started to follow her. The word sniper cracking through her head like thunder.
It was late afternoon, the shadows lengthening as the sun started to go down. Mercer stopped just outside the garage and swung his leg off the bike. He looked so damn confident. She kind of hated him at that moment because all she felt was a massive ball of tension burning a hole through her gut.
Suddenly, impulsive acts of sex seemed mighty insignificant compared with avoiding snipers.
He kicked the bike into life as she struggled to recall how to work the controls. She clenched her jaw and felt the engine vibrate. Mercer looked back, watching her from behind the safety glass of his helmet. He gave her a half grin before taking off through the trees.
She didn’t have to follow him.
Time felt like it froze while she pondered that fact. She was suspended in the moment, poised on the edge of making a decision that she knew would have a massive impact on her life.
Yeah … life.
Staying alive was what was important. Mercer looked really capable in the survival department. He might have used a dick move to get into her life but she couldn’t very well explain away the sniper.
Even if she could, she had nothing to hide.
So she took off after him, dirt and pine needles flying up behind her.
Mercer headed up into the mountains. The rest of the daylight passed in a blur of dirt and weaving around trees. Mercer would stop and look at a compass from time to time while using a paper map that he kept tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket. It was tempting to laugh at the low-tech items until she thought about it and realized he was using them to avoid being on grid.
Apprehension rippled down her spine in response. It was blood chilling and too real to dismiss.
Call me if you notice anything suspicious.
Bram’s call surfaced from her memory. He’d known something was up.
Or was she grasping at straws?
She snorted at herself as her joints felt like they were going to shatter from the constant vibration of the bike.
She was way past grasping at straws. Things were downright desperate now. They were using a paper map.
Mercer didn’t stop until the moon was up. Zoe was ready to beg for mercy but bit her lip when she got off the bike and her butt let her know exactly how bruised it was from the rough terrain.
“The bikes will draw too much attention if we run them late. Don’t need any of the cabins up here to call in a noise complaint to the local forestry department.”
She nodded, keeping her lips tightly sealed against the moan that wanted to slip out.
She wasn’t going to wimp out.
Collapsing onto the ground was acceptable, though. She swore she could still feel the vibration of the bike.
Mercer pushed the bikes between some trees before sitting down near her and using a large boulder to lean back against. He started unzipping his pack and rummaging through the contents.
She ended up staring at him and embracing the fact that he was all she had. It wasn’t a good feeling, and yet he was still the picture of strength. The sweat darkened his hair, looking good on him.
She preferred him untamed, his slacks-and-buttondown-shirt combo from the charity event striking her as ill fitting.
Of course at the moment, she really needed the badass side of his persona.
And when everything was over?
Well, that was when she could fall apart and decide if she really preferred good guys, because they were less likely to get her shot.
For the moment, Mercer’s rough edges were perfect.
* * *
“Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
Thais kept her voice low and her eyes on the screen in front of her. Saxon paused beside her, focusing his attention on the screen, but his mind was on her.
“Can’t have you thinking it’s that easy to pull one over on me,” she continued. “What’s happening?”
“Not sure yet,” he answered her. “Do you have anything to report?”
“As far as I can tell, her system is clean. Not a hint of intel, not even a few scattered words. At this point, I’m more suspicious of the very detailed phone records. For a military family, I’d expect them to randomize their incoming locations. Buy a few hot cell phones on the street. Use some free Internet at the local coffee shop. The evidence is a little too easy to read at this point.”
She turned to look at him. “I don’t like it. Too easy translates into bait trail in my book.”
Greer was listening in. Saxon exchanged a look with him before reaching past Thais to pick up the two hard drives sitting on her desk. He secured them in the zipper pockets of his jacket.
“Code Yeti.”
There was a brief widening of Thais’s eyes before she masked the reaction. He walked by her as Greer stood up and made a show of stretching his back. The newer members of the team were men assigned by Tyler. Saxon knew their files, but a file could be a fake.
Thais and Greer were his team.
He walked toward the room Harley was in. The parrot snapped his beak at him before Saxon picked him up and put him in his carrier.
“I’ve had enough of the bird.” Saxon announced. “Going to take him to a parrot boarding place.”
No one paid him much notice as he passed out of the house and into the driveway with the bird. Greer was already in the SUV. Thais wandered out a few minutes later.
“This might be a bad idea.” Saxon gave them exactly two minutes to get out before he started the car and drove out of the driveway.
Harley let out a squawk as they entered the flow of traffic.
“Let’s see who has a problem with us disappearing,” Thais said.
“My thought exactly.” Saxon confirmed.
And his gut told him, he wasn’t going to like the answer.
* * *
“Party Time Rentals.”
“What’s happening, Tim?” Bram Magnus got straight to the point.
“Oh … yes,” Tim Woodsy stammered. “Well, you see … there was some sort of fire at your sister’s house a few days ago.”
“How bad?”
“Rather minor, all things considered. The fire inspector says it can be saved. The house, that is. But I haven’t seen your sister and Harley since. At first I thought she might have gone to a hotel but she hasn’t answered any of my calls. Mind you, her cell phone might have been lost, but still, it has been some time. The police say they can’t officially call her a missing person for another twelve hours. Still, it’s highly unlike her,” Tim rambled on. “I’m not really sure what you can do but I’m rather concerned—”
“I’ll take care of it, Tim. Thanks for making contact.”
Bram Magnus drew in a deep breath. He was fighting for control, battling the urge to let his emotions lead him around on a choke chain. When he straightened up, he was focused.
“Can I help you, Captain?”
Bram walked by the young enlisted man serving as assistant to Colonel Decains. “Sir? The colonel isn’t expecting you.””
“Sit back down,” Bram told the young man. “This is going to be a private conversation.”
He turned his back on the startled expression on the kid’s face. Fresh out of boot camp, he was fattened up on the black-and-white rule book. In a few more years, he’d learn about the gray areas.
Decains looked up when Bram entered. Bram cut him a salute before stepping forward.
“I assume you had a reason for coming into my office, Captain?” the colonel asked when Bram didn’t say anything.
Bram pegged him with a hard look. “My sister is missing, sir.”
The colonel stiffened. He put down the tablet he’d been looking at and flattened his hands on the desktop. He was contemplating something, thinking it through long and hard.
“I know where she is. You aren’t going to like it.”
Bram lowered himself into a chair and waited for
the explanation he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to listen to.
But it looked like he did.
* * *
“What the fuck are you doing?” Tyler demanded when Tim answered the phone. “Calling Bram Magnus? That was stupid.”
“I don’t see it that way,” Tim answered as he closed his office door shut so that his secretary wouldn’t see the cell phone he was talking on. He’d bought it off a kid in the tougher part of town and paid him a lot of money to dig out the location chip. “Be a whole lot easier to wax him if he runs home to save little sis. Besides, I need him gone.”
“You really did enlist,” Tyler shot back. “’Cause you don’t know shit. I still have a man on the ground in Afghanistan. He is going to make sure the largest piece of Captain Magnus that makes it back to the States will fit inside a mason jar. If he ends up back on American soil, taking him out is going to draw the wrong sort of attention to this operation. Two members of the same family dead on opposite sides of the globe is bad luck. Them dying while there is an open investigation will raise eyebrows and questions I don’t want to deal with.”
“In that case, I guess you’d better get your man moving,” Tim shot back. “Better remember that I brought the buyer to you.”
“And you’d better remember that I didn’t haul your ass in. This was my case, I put a lot on the line to keep you from getting caught,” Tyler argued.
“Because you want the same thing I do,” Tim growled. “You want more than table scraps. Well, I’m not sharing unless you give me what I want. It’s taken me ten years to put this together, ten fucking years of licking the Magnus family boots. I want them silenced.”
“They will be.”
Tyler cut the line. Tim snickered but had to reach up and wipe his forehead with the back of his sleeve. There was no way he was going to let his new partner call all the shots. He really wasn’t that stupid. Tyler could just have him killed and take all the money.
Well, he was going to make that hard. Damn brass, always thought they knew better than men like him, men who went the enlisted route. What the higher-ups never saw the value of was just how hungry a man like him got down on the bottom. He was getting his slice of pie. That was for damn sure.
* * *
“I want to call my brother.”
Mercer looked up, his expression tightening. Zoe stared straight back at him. He crumpled up the paper package that had contained his dinner instead of answering her. Zoe left hers in her lap, the contents only half eaten. She had bigger fish to fry. Their makeshift campsite was under the cover of some low-hanging branches. The scent of pine needles was about the most pleasant thing she could think of. There was a thick mat of dead ones under her butt. At least her riding pants were thick enough to keep the ends from poking her. She had a sinking suspicion she was sitting on her bed. All the better to focus on a plan to get back to her life.
Normalcy had never been so attractive before.
“You challenged me to follow you today. To trust you.”
He nodded once before he crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to make her case. His stiff posture sure wasn’t promising her much sympathy.
“So I’m serving that challenge right back at you. You’ve got my hard drives. Whatever is there, is there.”
“True,” he agreed. “Why did your brother call to warn you and not your dad?”
His eyes narrowed as he thought something through. “What did your brother call you about the night we met?”
Zoe looked away. It was just a reaction to having him peel away the layers of her life so easily. She felt exposed, the need to cover herself impossible to ignore.
“You started this trust conversation, Zoe,” he said. “Don’t chicken out.”
She snapped her attention back to him. “It’s not easy having my personal life dragged out for everyone to poke at.”
He offered her a shrug. “A lot harder to have it presented as evidence at a trial.”
“Stop threatening me. It’s getting old.”
Something that might have been regret flashed across his face for a whole second before it was covered up by the hard determination she’d come to expect from him.
“Bram called me and asked if everything was all right.” She held up a finger when he started to interrupt her. “Only … it wasn’t a normal ‘how’s it going’ call. I know the difference. When my dad called, it was a normal, ‘getting in touch with home’ sort of call.”
“But your brother was different?”
Zoe nodded. “He told me to call him if anything suspicious happened.”
Mercer pressed his lips into a hard line. “You should have told me that.”
“Before or after I was duct-taped to a chair?”
“Before would have been more comfortable for you.” He didn’t offer her any compassion.
She treated him to a stony silence and a single-finger salute.
He snorted at her. “I’ve got the phone disabled right now so no one can track us. Bugging out means I only check in every other day. Lowers the chances of us being tracked.”
“Guess that buys you some time to make up your mind about trusting me or not,” she said.
Mercer’s lips curved. “Might give you a reason to stick close, too.”
It was a less-than-satisfying conversation. And yet, part of her respected him for not giving in too easily.
She ended up choking on a laugh. Mercer raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t expect that reaction.”
“Well…” she said. “Nice to know I’m not completely easy to work over.”
The knowledge was little comfort. In fact, all it did was drive home how gullible she was. He knew it, too. So did Saxon.
She ended up looking at the night sky as her brain filled with the hard facts about her circumstances. They’d planned to put Mercer into her bed.
God, what a thought. What a personal space invasion.
Had there been meetings?
More than likely.
Her face caught fire as she made it to the next step in the thought chain.
Shit. Had there been a post meeting? A wrap-up of the particulars?
Was there going to be a report filed when Mercer made it back from their bugging out?
“What’s on your mind, Zoe?”
Of course he was reading her body language. She ended up shooting him a glare full of resentment and bruised feelings. His expression tightened.
“Spit it out,” he ordered her.
“Maybe I won’t,” she argued. “Maybe I don’t feel like being so easy to push down your team’s little planned-out mission path. Maybe … maybe … you can just discuss that when you all get around to talking about me again.”
She looked away, trying to banish the hurt clawing at her. He didn’t deserve a reaction from her. But damn it all, she really wanted him to be worth it.
“Why did you do it?” The question just slipped out, betraying how much she didn’t want him to be a scumbag gigolo. She wanted him to be something more. Something she could respect.
Someone she could forgive.
“I have my reasons.” His tone was tight, his lips pressed into a hard line.
“Well … they suck.” She threw a rock at him. It was a small one and her aim wasn’t any good. It ended up striking the boulder he was leaning on with a sharp little ping. “You suck.”
A rock hit the bolder she was leaning against. She jumped and ended up locking gazes with Mercer. His black eyes were glittering.
“You’re right, Zoe, I am fresh from the ranks. Want to know why I’m stateside? My entire team was taken out by insider information,” he growled. “I went to every one of their funerals. Watched their flags be folded and handed over to their families. Sucks?” He chucked another rock toward her, the impact making her jump. “I know a lot about life sucking, Zoe. Five great guys. All gunned down because we were sold out. I only lived because there was so much blood, no one thought to make sure my wound
s weren’t fatal.”
He shook his head, disgust twisting his features.
“Honestly, touching anyone who might be a traitor was the worst thing I could think of when Saxon tried to sell me on signing on to this mission. But I was wrong about that. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.” He was on his feet, the dry dirt crunching beneath his boots. He came closer, lowering himself until he was eye level with her.
The air became charged between them. The tiny hairs covering her body rose, her breath catching. But she noticed something else. She noticed the way his nostrils flared. His eyes narrowed with arousal.
“What was worse was enjoying the buzz you gave me the first time we met. You were nothing but a target. One there was enough evidence on to warrant action,” he snarled softly. “Every one of my teammates deserved better than me being drawn into the way you smelled. You want to know the dirty deets? All those sex toys were at the safe house because more than one operation involves working between the sheets and sometimes, the agent just can’t forget what sort of ugliness they’re touching. It has a way of leaving a guy’s cock cold no matter how much determination he’s got to see the mission through. I wanted to think I was that kind of man, that I’d actually need the Viagra pills that were given to me.”
Emotion edged his voice. It tore at her heart, ripping away the resentment that had been boiling inside her.
“But I didn’t need them. I got a hard-on the second I smelled you, Zoe. My buddies deserved better than that.”
He pushed back to his full height. “And I’d do it again. Even thinking that you’re just a mule, I’d take the assignment because there are good men out there who deserve to be safeguarded. Sucks? Sure does. But we’re both going to have to deal with it because this is about more than just us. You say you’re innocent? Fine. Suck it up and take one for the team.”
He turned on his heel, leaving her behind as he disappeared into the darkness. Leaving her with her mouth hanging open in shock and nothing left to think about except that she agreed with him.
I wanted him to be something worth respecting …
Yeah, well she needed to be a whole lot more careful about what she decided she wanted.
Because now she had it.