He pinched his eyes closed and picked up the handset. A few punches of the dial later, and Brock’s international call to Titan’s headquarters rang in his ear. He used a backdoor number that would connect to Jared’s office. If there was an emergency, maybe the bastard wouldn’t be there. Maybe, like he thought before, this was just Jared giving him a proper heads up that the time had come, and even if Brock was on vacation, Jared was gunning for him.
An unfamiliar unease made his stomach twist as Sarah stared, barely blinking. Brock wasn’t one to overthink, but right now, he was. Weeks ago, everything had been so normal. Jared was his buddy. His mentor. Sarah was sweet and innocent. No reasons to check out the self-help section in the bookstore. An abduction had changed it all, and he’d never seen it coming. What was he missing now?
“Brock,” Jared barked when he picked up the line. There was nothing unordinary about that, except that the tension between the two men was palpable.
“Jared.”
There was a familiar heave of a burdened sigh. “I have a situation. Obvious reasons, you’re the last person on the planet I’d want to call. But this cropped up fast, and I have no options. None. Except for you, asshole.”
Having no choice would be the only reason Jared lasted on the line that long. He wouldn’t ask for help when a trust problem existed. There must’ve been a red-flag issue that required differences be ignored temporarily.
“All right—” Shit, Brock almost said Boss Man. “Let’s hear it.”
Long pause. Jared never hesitated. It spoke volumes and ripped like a knife through Brock’s gut. How could he have betrayed Titan? Sarah caught his eye. Easy. He’d take out anyone if he thought he was doing right by his family.
“Damn it,” Jared growled. “I have no choice.”
He nodded, knowing that bitch of a feeling. “Look, man. Nothing happened the way it should’ve happened. Sorry about that. But I’m not sorry about doing what I did, just how I did it. So if that’s what you need to hear, there you go.” It needed saying. Got it over with and done.
Sarah smiled at him and patted his knee. Unexpected but appreciated. He waited for Jared’s response. Wondered how that would go down. Maybe Brock should say congrats on getting hitched? Sugar was perfect for Boss Man. What did it matter?
And what was he trying to do, pick up a job in Saint Lucia?
No. Not at all.
His only goal should be his wife. But a familiar adrenaline spike rushed through his system. He tried to swallow it away. Centered on Sarah, but the back of his mind called out the possibilities: There was a mark, a target, someone or something that he could take on or take out. Black ops percolated in his blood. It was a game. An urgency…
What would Brock do after they returned to the real world? Get a job at an office? Punch a timecard instead of bad dudes?
Jared cleared his throat. “There’s a sex trafficker who snagged a client’s teenage daughter off a beach in Barbados. We know very little about this trafficker other than his reputation—if we lose this girl today, she’s a lost cause. Satellite footage suggests there’s a holding compound on Saint Lucia. She’ll be there less than eight hours if our intel’s right, and the countdown clock is already clicking. You’re her only chance.”
Brock glanced at Sarah. There was no way he could say no. The things that happened in the foreign sex slave markets were enough to make a grown man vomit. He’d taken out enough freaks, rescued enough victims to know death was sometimes a better option. The answer came easy. “Done. I’m in.”
Sarah’s eyebrows rose. Her lips pinched together, and Brock didn’t know if it was worry or anger or something more.
Jared let out a sharp breath. “Thank fuck.”
“Tell me how this is going to happen.”
“I’ve got no boots on the ground down there. Few connections, and they can only arm you on the quick. No backup. Nothing.”
“Roger that.”
“You get in trouble, there’s nothing I can do. No way to pull you out. That has nothing to do with you and me, you and Sugar. Nothing to do with Titan. You get that?”
“I know.”
“This doesn’t mean we’re good.”
“Didn’t make that assumption. I’ll get that kid safe. Titan can take it from there.” Because he wasn’t Titan anymore. Brock’s chest tightened. A sad swell of pathetic loss swirled deep in his gut.
Sarah mouthed, “Kid?”
He nodded, held up a finger to give him a minute.
“You ready for the details?”
Brock looked for pen and paper. This was the most rudimentary briefing he’d ever experienced. No satellite footage from Parker. No GPS coordinates to pinpoint locations or intelligence briefings that downloaded at the touch of a screen. He walked away from the bedside nightstand toward the desk, but the snag of the phone cord stopped him. A harsh chuckle escaped, and he shook his head. This was literally the least amount of technology he’d ever used on a rescue op. He was on a phone that had a cord, attached to a wall.
Brock motioned to the desk. “Can you hand me that pad and pen?”
She moved fast and returned to the bed. “Here.”
He sank next to her, ready to take tactical notes on coral-colored paper with a sun and beach logo while Sarah stared over his shoulder. “All right. Go.”
***
Sarah listened and watched, realizing this was the closest she’d ever come to hearing her husband talk about work. Her mind raced, wondering what it could be that required multiple phone calls and referenced a kid.
Brock stared at his notes. She didn’t make much out of it. Numbers. Maybe an address in code? Nothing that explained what their conversation meant. They’d had an unmentioned don’t ask, don’t tell policy. But now, watching him with his jaw muscles ticking and his forehead creased, Brock personified intensity. More than a man. Larger than life. She bit her lip, still very concerned as to what was happening and oddly interested by the idea of what terrified her.
No. She wasn’t interested. That was ridiculous. If there was an emergency, bad things were happening. Someone suffered. Someone may’ve been hurt. Brock had said a kid. She’d witnessed the aftereffects from what he had sacrificed for his own kids. But never had she seen him do his job. An hour ago, he was all sex and testosterone, rolled into one hot man. Now, he was all alpha and deadly toughness, though nothing on his exterior had changed. Yet it had.
The air was charged. A prickle of dread and concern laced over her skin. She shifted, but the uncomfortable weight of the room didn’t alleviate its push on her shoulders.
“Angel.” He looked up, a genuinely torn expression tensed over his cheeks and eyes. His jawline remained rigid, his mouth thinned into a straight line. “I know this trip is all about you and me, and I don’t expect you to get it. But I have to go out. Probably be back late tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
She expected her heart to sink, expected panic to choke her, but curiosity didn’t let it. “What’s the emergency? You said a kid?”
“The shit that nightmares are made of. At least mine.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t live with myself if I said no to this job.”
“Brock…” She wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t don’t go. Because if a kid needed help, who was she to say no? And if she listened to her jumbled feelings, there was more than a smidgeon of pride. He helped people. Saved lives. Took out the bad guys.
But then the cold panic arrived, falling down her back. Just like she knew would happen. Bad guys were the problem. Not just that her husband could get hurt, or even be killed, but… dang that choking feeling of being overwhelmed. That tension and stress. She tried to swallow a dry lump, suddenly blanking on how to breathe.
Brock ran his hands over his thighs then looked out the window. The sun was setting over the water. “I have to.”
He got off the bed and pulled her up and into a hug. She couldn’t move her muscles. They’d turned to concrete, and she was sinking into the floor. Dr
owning in her concerns, her memories. But he didn’t know. Maybe he’d worried about her reaction, but from his encapsulating hug, he couldn’t tell that fear and anxiety had taken control of her mind and limbs.
“Angel? Sarah? You okay?”
No. She wasn’t okay. But she couldn’t make the words come out.
Her heart raced in a bad way, and she felt hot around her neck, her chest, her… She gasped a breath.
“Sarah?” Brock held her in outstretched arms.
Oh, no. She was going to pass out. The room tilted. Her tongue turned thick, and not moving of her own accord, she found her legs giving out and her husband putting her in a chair. He smoothed her hair, told her to breathe. Told her to look into his eyes. Focus on him.
And she did.
He was unwavering in strength. Strong, solid, and dependable.
A breath floated into her lungs. Followed by another. And another. She got the hang of it again, blinked against her reaction, her embarrassment, her unshed tears.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Her voice broke; she couldn’t finish her apology.
“No worries.” He stroked her hair, smoothing it behind her ears. “I’m not going anywhere, angel. It’s okay. You’re my world. You and the girls. That’s it.”
Guilt swished the bile in her stomach. Brock had said a kid. She didn’t want her selfish reactions or his pity. Her head shook, undoing the hairs he’d tucked off her cheeks. “But it’s an emergency. With a kid.”
He dropped to a crouch between her knees and stared up at her. “Don’t care.”
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What the emergency is.”
“It’s someone else’s problem, angel.”
His face lied to her while he tried his best to convince her with soothing words and consoling gestures.
“I’m stronger than this.” She inhaled through her nose, out through her mouth, channeling every yoga video she’d ever owned. The word kid echoed in her head. “Tell me the emergency. What were you going to do? Where were you going to go? I’m never going to heal if I run from the challenges.”
“Sarah, we’re eliminating those challenges. I’m not going into the field anymore if this is what it does to you. I can’t. I won’t, considering what I just saw happen to my wife. Fuck no.”
“What did Jared ask you to do?” Her head pounded. “Please, I need to know.”
He shook his head. “Hell no. Can’t do it. Let me handle the dark stuff and—”
Grasping his hands, she squeezed as much for the details as for support. “I’ll assume the worst.”
“You can’t imagine the worst. Let it go. You don’t need to know about the things I know. I want to protect you. Need to. Don’t you get that?”
A swell of passion surged in her chest, materializing through her arms and fists. She pushed him back and stood up. “Stop protecting me.”
“But—”
“Tell me the emergency, Brock. Tell me because I need to know. Because I want to get a handle on the tricks my mind is playing. Because we have to start somewhere, and it might as well be today. Right now.”
His body went rigid. “Goddamn it.” Dropping his head back, he scanned the ceiling then paced the room. “A girl, not too much older than our girls, was taken by a sex trafficker with a reputation for disappearing. Once he gets his product, the girls, they’re gone. But there’s a chance… a narrow window, and I can infiltrate and get her out. Not good odds, but the best the kid’s got. I’d have no backup. No additional eyes, resources, no gadgets. Just some local hardware—guns—that I’d get from a third-party contact.” He paced again. “That’s the emergency.”
This is what he did when he left home? He saved children. He interacted with scum. But he cleaned it up. She’d always known it, even if he hadn’t said it outright. Not that she could’ve imagined the scenario he’d just spouted, but still. “That’s someone’s daughter.”
He lifted his chin then pinched his eyes. “Yeah, someone’s kid.”
No way would she hold Brock back. Dangerous, yes. But if it were their girls… Sarah couldn’t be the reason an innocent girl was lost to evil.
She took a deep breath. “Take me.” Wait, where had that come from? But it made sense. He shouldn’t be alone and just said he didn’t have anyone else. Well, Brock had her. “I’ll be your eyes and resources. Tell me what to do, and I can do it.”
A harsh, coughing laugh answered her. His eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened. “No way, angel. Are you kidding me?”
“I won’t be a liability. I won’t slow you down.” She took a step forward, suddenly never more sure of what she wanted. “Take me with you.”
“You can’t fire a gun.”
“Point and pull the trigger. Seen it on TV.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” He backed up again. “The answer is no. No way. No way in the world.”
She stepped to him again. “What’s going to happen to that kid?”
“The kid?” Shadows darkened his smoky eyes.
“Yeah, Brock. The kid. Someone’s going to buy her? Is there an auction block? Old men bidding on her? Maybe it’s an online thing? I don’t know how these things work. But you do.”
“Sarah,” he snapped. “Enough.”
“What happens to her? Day one, she gets broken in by some sicko? Or does she have to wait around, terrified and having no idea what atrocious things will happen to her body?”
“Sarah! Stop it, goddamn it.”
“I bet she’s scared. Crying for her mom. Her daddy. Anyone to come save her. And that’s you, Brock. You’re the anyone. You’re the savior, her superhero. Just because I freaked out, just because you and Titan parted ways, that doesn’t change that you’re going to save her from those inhuman predators. And I will help you, so help me God.” Tears streamed down her face. “Now. What are we going to do about it?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Not only was Brock passing the concierge desk without his shopping list of fun, he was doing so with his wife in tow on the way to meet a Caribbean arms-dealing friend of a friend. Far from what he wanted to be doing.
He’d never been less prepared for a meet-up in his life. He was the rule follower. The contract enforcer. Whenever Jared had an idea that skirted the line, from questionable to downright illegal, Brock always found a loophole that let them move with a little more leeway.
Now, he didn’t even have a pair of tactical pants. He had on jeans, and his wife wore her longest pair of pants, white capris, and pink tennis shoes. At least he’d been able to secure a decent ride. The black Hummer sat waiting for them outside the resort’s front doors.
He put his hand on the passenger door handle, not opening the door. “You sure about this?”
Sarah gave a resolute head nod. “Yes, more than sure.”
Of course she was… This was an awful idea.
A yank of the door and a lift of his brunette bombshell, and he had her tucked into the passenger seat, giving Sarah her seat belt because it was about the only thing he could do to make this a safe adventure.
He jumped in and gunned it down the pocked road, swerving to miss livestock that wandered without fences and tree limbs that jutted onto the side roads he took toward their sketchy destination. Brock didn’t have one weapon on him. He hadn’t traveled with a sidearm. No stash of Titan accessories were packed in his bag. The only thing he’d nabbed was several steak knives from the restaurant on the way to the Hummer.
“Are you nervous?” Sarah pivoted toward him.
Nervous? No. Not a chance. He’d never been nervous a day in his life. But her little pink tennis shoe bopped on the floor board, and his gut checked his ego.
“Fuck, yes, angel. Nervous about describes how I’m feeling. I don’t like this.” He came to a stop in front of a shack. That the right place? It fit the description he was given. A short, dark-haired man stepped outside the thatched door, matching the specifics Jared had given h
im. Brock couldn’t see the scar on his face or the dead eyes that Jared had promised, but they were at the right location. “You stay in the car.”
Sarah swiveled in her chair, checking out the surrounding area. Thick, jungle vegetation. Very green. Very loud with the calls of birds and animals. The windows were darkly tinted, and no one could see in, but still, he didn’t want her seen.
Aw, shit. He rubbed his temples. What was the best he could offer right now? Honey, take a steak knife? Christ.
“I can jump out too. I’m not scared.”
She was probably terrified, but that not scared bit was for his sake. She attempted to comfort him. Great. Not feeling his role as a protector in any way right now.
“That’s not the point. Let’s keep you away from illegal arms dealers. For now.” He tried for a smile. A little joke. Something to lighten his mood, maybe make her smile. But it didn’t work on either account. “Lock the door. Back in a minute.”
Leaving Sarah in the running Hummer, hotel steak knife in her palm, did little to alleviate the grip of anxiety in his chest. The closer he drew to his arms-dealing friend, the better he could see the scar and the eyes. The man he was meeting with was typical. Familiar, almost. The type he did business with on the regular, but the familiarity didn’t change the fact that Sarah was in proximity and this whole situation didn’t work well for him.
“My man,” Brock greeted ole Dead Eyes.
Nothing said in return. Just a nod. Fine by Brock. Let’s do this and blow this Popsicle stand. The shack’s walls were mismatched pieces of plywood. The light came from the windows. The floor was dirt, and the table was rickety. But on that table—Brock smiled,—lay a selection of gorgeous gals. High-powered rifles. Swift-firing handguns. Gleaming with the love and care one could expect to see from a gun runner that Titan trusted.
“May I?” He gestured to the assault rifle outfitted with laser-sighting and a night vision scope.
Dead eyes nodded again, hand sweeping across the table. “The best of what I have for Titan.”
It hit him like a sucker punch. Each time he thought of Titan, it left him aching. “Appreciate it.”
The Titan Series: Military Romance Boxed Set Page 84