by Zoe Dawson
Mak sagged against him, unable to hold in all the raw and turbulent feelings that surged through her. Her armor had cracked, and she’d lost her ability to keep everything contained. But the miracle of being held by him, of having someone to share her fear with, was too much to handle and she huddled in his arms.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to cope if all her walls came tumbling down.
Drawing her deeper into his warmth, he cradled her head even closer, his breath warm against her face. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t have to. He was holding her and that was all that mattered.
Neither of them spoke or made a move to draw away for a while.
“Mak.”
“Yes,” she said, setting down the articles and wiping at her eyes.
“I’m going to take a quick shower. Is there something I can do afterward?”
“No, get some sleep. I’m going to go through this stuff before I turn in.”
“Okay,” he said.
He turned to go, then turned back and gave her a soft, comforting kiss.
Alone again, Mak tried to make sense of this day. She went to the bag and settled in at the conference table. She wanted to make some calls, but it was too late, and she didn’t want to wake the director. Nothing would change, and it would have to wait until morning. She was still trying to grasp that they had failed to find Chris and Paige.
Her friends’ faces floated in her mind. Her throat burned, and she braced her elbows on the table, then gripped her head.
There was a silver lining, although one that was utterly dull. They now were sure it was the Cortez brothers who had her friends. The familiar feelings of wrath and vengeance piled up inside her. If the brothers killed her friends, she wasn’t going to rest until they paid for their crimes, even if she had to hunt them down on her own.
All her rage and sorrow overwhelmed her as she slammed her fists down on the table, her past still generating dark and almost uncontrollable demons. She closed her eyes and took a breath thinking of Pitbull. The thought of him calmed her down, allowed her to settle, gave her the drive to inspect each piece. The burner phone might be useful, but without any way to trace it, she wasn’t sure how valuable it could be.
With no promising leads from the intel, Mak spent longer than usual in the shower and rubbed a towel over her hair, fluffing it as she walked out of the steamy room. She settled on the bed, surprised that Pitbull wasn’t here. She thought…damn…she’d hoped he would be here.
In yoga pants and a loose T-shirt, she went down the hall to get a bottle of water from the fridge in the break room and found Pitbull asleep on the sofa.
She turned down the lights, then tossed a blanket over him. She started to turn away, then sat on the edge of the coffee table.
Her heart ached. He looked worn out, and she was certain that was a normal situation for him, hunting the worst of the worst with no conscience, no moral center. After her husband’s and daughter’s deaths, she thought she would never find joy in the world again. Her days so full of work, she’d fall into bed at night unable to think or feel or mourn.
Being around Pitbull, letting him in until there was nothing but a flimsy barrier between them, still scared her.
There was such strength in him. Overcome with tenderness, she reached out and gently pushed his hair off his forehead. The dim light caught the sparkle of caramel in the dirty blond strands. His eyes opened slowly, and he held her gaze for a long moment. Then he opened his arms.
“Hi, babe,” he said sleepily, pulling her onto the sofa with him.
Mak didn’t bother fighting it and went willingly, needing his arms around her. He shifted her back against him, his body curling around hers, and she settled with a slow breath. She’d never been so comfortable as she was up against him. “Just what I needed,” she whispered.
“Hoo-yah.” He kissed her temple and snuggled warmly, yet as Mak drifted into an exhausted sleep, she couldn’t stop the thoughts of how rare it was to find someone like Pitbull. She wanted to keep everything about him close. It smothered the loneliness she desperately wanted to leave behind.
The sun was hinting on the horizon when Mak woke. She lay still, absorbing the incredible comfort of Pitbull wrapped around her. She hadn’t been all that cuddly with her Marine. In fact, she was usually out the door before he woke. But she didn’t want to greet this day if it meant losing the closeness she hadn’t had…well, since her husband was murdered.
Frowning, she felt the prickle of her isolation and inched closer to Pitbull.
She heard the coffee maker click on and tried to disengage herself from him, but he squeezed back.
“What’s your hurry, babe?” he asked sleepily, and she smiled, closing her eyes and settling in again.
Sleep nearly overtook her again until he whispered, “You feel so good.”
“I’m much more the woman I want to be with you.” She stirred and turned a bit to look at him. “It’s been such a long time coming.”
He nodded and waited. His gray eyes were so intense right now, and she thought she’d never be able to go further than that, but then, the words just spilled.
“My husband and daughter were murdered right in front of me by a drug lord.”
His arm tightened around her and his breath hissed in. “Geezus, Mak.”
The familiar ache started tightening in her chest. “I caught every one of his shipments across the border. He was pissed and tried to bribe me at first. When I refused, he kidnapped my family, forcing me to allow shipments across.” She inhaled a shuddering breath. “I tracked him down but got caught. He made me watch.”
He didn’t comment, his thumb rubbing slowly over the back of her hand, mimicking the way she was caressing his smooth forearm.
“Afterwards, he beat me and left me for dead. I survived.” She shifted on the sofa, fighting the urge to leave, to close down, to shut it all out. “I healed and then I hunted him alone, found him, and when he fought...I killed him.”
He pulled her against him, and she closed her eyes. “I got fired from the Shadow Wolves and estranged from my family. I did some drinking and bounty hunting for a bit until I applied to NCIS. This job saved my life.”
She tipped her head back and met his gaze. “This mission, losing my friends has brought some of it back, and finding you…this…” She curled her hand in his. “…thing between us has changed me.”
“Mak,” he said softly. “What were their names?”
“Matthew and Ajei, which means ‘my heart.’ She was three years old.” She shifted on her back and her breath caught when he slid his hand across her stomach. It made her more aware of him and the way he touched her with such natural ease. “It’s been two years and I’ve been so locked up.”
She curled into him and he simply held her, rubbing her spine.
“Maybe I haven’t done a good job dealing with any of it, but I’m trying.”
“I think you’re amazing, Mak,” he whispered.
“Thanks.”
He rubbed her spine for a few moments, then said close to her ear, “I’m sorry about your family. You haven’t spoken to them since?”
“On and off,” she admitted. “The Navajo people believe in hózhó. Roughly translated it’s about harmony and beauty and is the core of our philosophy. After my husband and daughter were murdered, I lost balance. I was angry and bitter. To the Navajo, this wasn’t acceptable, but I couldn’t seem to be any other way. The drinking was to dull the pain and bounty hunting helped with my anger.”
She leaned back and met his gaze. “I was so heartsore, angry, devastated, ashamed—in a really bad place. They tried to help, but I refused every offer.” She blinked several times at the sting of her eyes. God, she missed them so much, finally allowing herself to acknowledge that particular ache on her heart. Maybe it was time to go home, to mend what she’d broken, to claim what she’d lost. Regaining hózhó would take a lot of mental energy, a lot of forgiveness—namely forgiving herself. F
or the first time, the stirrings of her culture caught a hold of her, and she thought about the rituals and the healing her family had desperately tried to help her with. Homesickness engulfed her and she held on to Pitbull to assuage some of that pain.
After a bit, he said, “Coffee is ready.”
“You do have a one-track mind in the morning,” she teased.
“I do recently,” he said before his mouth covered hers.
Oh yeah, Mak thought, turning to face him, throwing her leg over his hip. This was wonderful. Their bodies were certainly following hózhó as she felt the beauty and the connection to Pitbull keenly.
He palmed her behind, the thin black cloth a weak barrier, his warm hands slow and subtle. Mak shuddered in pleasure as his hand swept up her spine and under her T-shirt. She wanted to get naked with him, and she pushed her hips into his, his hardness flush against her core. Her control slipped a little more, and her hand caressed his chest, seeking, and when her hand covered his erection, he moaned, as his hands mapped a rough ride over her body, hunger barely tempered.
“If you’re finished playing grab-ass, don’t mind me. I just need coffee,” Max said, then grinned when she jerked her head around, scrambling to rise only to lose her balance and fall onto the floor.
Max lifted his hands at her glare. “I come in peace,” he said with a huff of laughter.
“You’re lucky I don’t have my gun.”
“I could lend you mine,” Pitbull said, and they looked at each other and laughed.
Max shook his head. “Hey, you’re supposed to protect my back, brother.”
Pitbull swung his legs off the couch and offered his hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. “She has a nicer back,” he said.
“Agreed. Coffee?” Max offered with a wink “Or are you guys more interested in something else?”
“Where was your gun?” Mak asked, and all three of them laughed. It felt good to do that, freer than she’d been in a while and more determined than ever to renew the search for her friends and coworkers.
Hemingway caught sight of his quarry two buildings over and immediately stopped and ducked back around the corner of the building he’d been skirting. He toyed with sending the location of the warehouse to Fast Lane but decided to make sure his intelligence gathering to pinpoint Picador’s location was on the money. There was no margin for error here with lives hanging in the balance.
He hadn’t slept since leaving the command building, and it had been a grueling twenty-four hours. With his illegal hacking and ability to blend into not only the street, but the nightlife, he’d narrowed down Picador to this import/export business. The company took in an enormous amount of money and expelled an enormous amount. It was an ideal cover for money laundering and keeping Cortez’s coffers full.
Santiago Caique was listed as the owner of the company, but no one seemed to know him, not customs officials on the docks or people in the business. The guy was just as much a ghost as Picador.
And it was that point exactly that had his hopes rising that maybe he’d finally managed to track down the elusive Cortez handler.
There were no windows on the backsides of the buildings, allowing him the freedom to move across the open area between one and the next without worrying about being seen. At this end of the lot, all the buildings were either boarded over or vandalized. His guess was this place was far more active at night with the main building being the command center as it was in the best shape.
At this end of the row, there was no real activity of any kind. Except for the beat-up white pickup truck, a gorgeous black Mercedes sedan, and a high-end white Mercedes Sprinter van in front of the building he was presently behind, the immediate area was deserted. Most likely the very van that had transported his sister and Chris to wherever they’d initially held them, maybe even here.
He stayed in the shadows and slowly scanned the edges of the target building and those around for any mounted detection cameras. Not that the area seemed to warrant any high-scale security, but someone was conducting some kind of real business out of this building, and so it was hard to say what measures they’d felt compelled to take. Especially given the location and the person he was trying to nail down.
“I’m assuming you disabled the cameras,” Hemingway said in a low voice. Luck was on their side. Brick and cinder block buildings didn’t lend themselves well to voices carrying.
There was a chuckle behind him, and Hemingway turned to look over his shoulder as Artful Dodger emerged from the shadows, dressed as locally and unassuming as Hemingway. “Aw, mate, how did you tag me?”
“You’re good, my friend, but Kid Chaos taught me what to watch for.”
“How long have you known I’ve been shadowing you?”
Hemingway grinned. “Since you followed me out of the building. It wasn’t a huge leap of logic to assume that Fast Lane was going to put a man on me.”
“Brilliant.” He came alongside Hemingway and pointed. “There are several placements, and I’ve already set up a loop. Whoever is monitoring this area is blind right now. He’ll never see us coming.”
“How did you set up a loop? Where did you get the equipment?”
“It’s best you don’t know that, mate. What’s the plan?”
“If you get caught for stealing, that won’t be good.”
“I don’t fancy serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure for nicking. You’re only in trouble if you get caught, and I’m good at never getting caught.”
“Ever?”
“Once, but that was a disaster to only my heart,” he murmured. “You know the rub.”
“Actually, I don’t. I’ve never been in love.”
“What? Never?”
Hemingway shrugged. “I was too busy pursuing my dream.”
“Does that make you a virgin?”
“I didn’t say I was celibate, did I?”
“Gotcha.” Dodger winked and turned his attention back to the main warehouse.
“I wish I knew for certain I was right about this guy.”
“You are,” Dodger said.
“How do you know?”
He held up a black leather case.
Hemingway took it and flipped it open, his heart stalling in his chest. It was Paige’s NCIS badge.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the van. Your sister is a proper ace. I found it wedged under the passenger seat.”
Hemingway tucked the badge into his back pocket, vowing he’d hand this back to his sister in person.
“How much of this does Fast Lane know?”
“I figured this was your show, your call. I’ve just been checking in that all is hunky-dory.”
“It’s about to change for Picador.”
“For God, Queen, and Country, mate.”
Seeing nothing obvious, Hemingway led Dodger quickly across the last section of open ground, flattening themselves against the building. Coming in the way he had, there was no way to check for any movement, and the only way to see the front of the company was to put himself in plain sight.
“Ingress?” Dodger asked.
“Not the roof,” Hemingway said. Metal didn’t play well for alternate forms of silent entry. “My guess is this guy is here alone. He does all the necessary heavy lifting, then he has guys handle the deliveries. They have no idea what they’re carrying. Everything is kept secret and under the radar.”
“Through the front, then, and down his bloody throat?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I need his phone and his computer. But it will be easier to get the passwords if he’s alive. So I need him alive.”
“Copy that,” Dodger said as they moved to an external block cement staircase leading up to an elevated front door, giving them enough extra cover. Just then the front door opened right above where Hemingway and Dodger were crouched. They both froze, then shrank into a corner of the staircase and building as best they could.
The door closed and the delic
ate clack of heels echoed against the cement, followed by mile-high black spike heels and fishnet stockings on very long, slender legs. Hemingway got a brief look at the woman with long, dark wavy hair, glossy in the sunlight, a tightfitting little black number hugging her curves, her profile stunning. She was counting a wad of cash in her hands. With a satisfied look on her face, she tucked it in her black clutch.
“He has good taste,” Dodger whispered.
A few moments later as she disappeared from their vantage point, he heard the door to the Mercedes open and close, the engine purr to life. Concerned that the woman would see them as she pulled the sedan around, he breathed a sigh of relief when she went in the other direction.
“Do you think she’s coming back?”
“No. Looked like a lady of the evening to me. I don’t think Picador would keep himself a permanent girlfriend. Too risky.”
Dodger nodded.
They moved up the rest of the stairs to the front door and tried the handle. “Locked,” Hemingway said.
Dodger pulled out a slim black case and removed a couple of tools.
“Security?”
“Took care of it when I took care of the cameras.” He set them into the lock, and in moments, Hemingway heard a soft snick as the tumblers released.
“In like Flynn,” he murmured. One of his and his brothers’ favorite sayings.
They slipped inside and closed the door silently behind them. They were in a short hallway with a large office off to the left of them. No desks, tables or chairs. Instead it had been transformed into a makeshift place for antiques and other sundry items stacked on shelves.
They crept closer to the main area along the side of the wall, then crouched and tried to eyeball the interior.
The rest of the warehouse had neatly stacked crates and boxes with fragile stamped in red on the sides of some of them. The lights were on and they spied stairs that led up to a loft-like structure. The outside might show a rundown mess, but inside it was the poshest warehouse he’d ever seen, well-kept and doubling as a living space. Hemingway could make out a mussed bed, but other than rustled sheets and displaced pillows, the bed was empty. To the right there was an enclosed structure with a steel door that looked like it was locked with sophisticated security.