Liam cupped his hand over the phone and said, “They found the shell casings of 50 BMG rounds, but so far, no other evidence. JAG is still working the scene.”
“Until we find out who the hell did this, I want protection detail for Luke,” Dave ordered.
“I’ll beef up security at the estate,” Luke interjected with a frown. His California residence could use a few more security personnel anyway.
“I want Infinity on this,” Dave countered.
“Are you kidding me?”
A Special Forces unit as protection detail? It was one thing to use them for a sting op, but to watch his ass?
Dave gave him a flat stare. They sat like that, eye to eye, until Luke realized it would be futile to argue.
“All right, but only a few,” he reluctantly growled.
Dave turned to Liam. “Make it happen.”
Luke plopped down into the deep leather chair next to Dave as Liam tucked his phone away and approached the group in the doorway. Luke’s spirits picked up when Liam pointed to all three in the doorway.
Dave lifted the bottle of whiskey on the small table that sat between the chairs and splashed more whiskey in his empty shot glass. When Dave held it out, Luke gratefully took it.
“I’ll take the extra protection while I’m in the city, but I have my own protection detail at the ranch. And I’ll need a protection detail for my son.” The booze warmed his gut.
“Deal, but I want at least one of Infinity to be with you at the ranch,” Dave countered.
“I want to pick which one.”
Dave quirked an eyebrow at him. “No. You’ll have Staff Sergeant Dillon Thorne; he won’t fall for your nonchalant attitude when it comes to your own safety.”
“Great,” he grumbled into his drink, hiding his smile.
Dillon
He stood squarely in front of the speed bag and smacked it with the side of his fist to get the bag moving. After a few seconds, he hit it with his other fist and then both, alternating until he achieved the rhythm he wanted. After another few moments, he bounced on his toes and picked up the pace, setting a brutal rhythm until sweat tricked down his back. About three minutes in, he eased on his pace and then gave the bag one last smack before he finished.
He loved the speed bag because he didn’t need to think. The shit in his head went quiet for those three minutes of bliss.
This really wasn’t like any other mission. On the one hand, he fucking loved it, but on the other, it irritated the hell out of him. He’d thought he’d seen the last of General Luke Rhine after the last mission to assist the guy, but he’d been mistaken.
Tugging his t-shirt from his back pocket, he wiped the sweat from his face and upper chest before tucking it away. Snatching up his water bottle from the floor, he chugged it down between sucking in air.
The barn was quiet with the occasional snort of a few horses accompanied by the distant sound of cattle through the open door.
General Luke Rhine’s ranch sat just outside of Phoenix, Arizona. It wasn’t a working ranch and didn’t need livestock to keep it afloat, because Luke had enough money to keep it going without any additional revenue.
Most of the animals there were retired. One thing he’d learned about Luke in the month since he’d come to the ranch was that the man had one of the biggest hearts he’d ever seen. Almost weekly, rescue animals arrived; from chickens to zoo animals and everything in between. A few weeks ago, they’d received an injured and starved llama.
Luke kept the ranch for the pure pleasure of retiring rescue animals, and if truth be told, Dillon fucking loved it.
His soul thrived every time they came to stay at the ranch. This place was way better than the estate that Luke owned in Bel Air, California.
He’d honestly never been around someone with so much money until he’d met Colonel Liam Cobalt. The colonel was what he called filthy rich. Luke Rhine was the same, but even though he came from old money, he didn’t lord it over others.
The guy had to be hovering around the top one percent, so very different from his own upbringing. After his father died, Dillon had become a latch key kid at the age of twelve. At that point in time, he’d been in charge of taking care of his younger brother while their hard-working mother held down two jobs so they wouldn’t get kicked out of their rundown apartment.
He’d dreamed of living on a ranch when he was a boy. Something about the animals, the air, and the quietness of it all had drawn him in from the first moment he’d stepped onto a farm. His best friend had spent the summers on a family farm and had taken him along.
He smiled thinking of his childhood friend, Beckett, who had inherited the farm and his dad’s collection of mismatched animals. Still, to this very day and when he took military R and R, Dillon tried to spend a few weeks in Texas. Last year, for the first time in a long time, his brother had tagged along.
He tugged his cell out and checked his phone. So far, Isaac hadn’t returned his call. He wasn’t worried yet.
Snatching up a shovel, he made quick work of emptying the stalls. Dumping the last shovel full of manure into the wheel barrel, he backed out of the stall and dumped the barrel’s contents into the heap out back before he cleaned and put away the tools. Luke’s ranch foreman, John Jane, JJ for short, waved from a distance as the man went about feeding the animals. Dillon waved back and headed around the barn.
Walking toward the massive ranch style home, he spotted the general on the porch. Luke was nursing a mug of coffee in one hand and with the other, doodling on a piece of napkin with a pencil. As he drew closer, he realized it was an unfolded piece of paper. The pencil brushed against the whiteness, and he imagined Luke was drawing an animal.
The man’s eyes lifted and locked on him. And just that fast, the paper and pencil disappeared into Luke’s shirt pocket just as he reached the porch. He was dying to get a closer look at the sketches, but Luke was careful to keep them tucked away.
Pulling his t-shirt from his back pocket, Dillon wiped the sweat from his chest, watching as Luke’s eyes followed the movement.
Damn the man and his penetrating stare. While relatively quiet, soft spoken, and somewhat easy going, Luke gave off a powerful vibe. Authority clung to him. He figured it came from having been a general in the Army until a year ago.
“Mornin’,” Luke drawled.
Dillon scowled.
That sexy as fuck drawl damn well hadn’t been there when they were in the city. Luke spoke differently when he was at his California estate, almost as if he slid on another persona. Not around here, though, at the ranch was where Dillon suspected the real Luke came out.
“Good morning.” He stepped up on the porch, and surprise had him reaching for the cup Luke handed him. He hadn’t seen the extra mug.
“It’s dark roasted just like you like.”
He choked taking his first sip, just sucked it down the wrong pipe.
“Okay?” Luke stepped up and patted his back.
“Yeah,” he said roughly and stepped away. He kept moving toward one of the wide, wooden chairs that sat on the massive, covered porch and put as much space as possible between them.
The coffee was good. Really good. Luke must have overheard him bitching about the weak coffee they kept in the dining room. Not that Luke drank it, the general stuck to decaf, and Dillon often wondered how the guy could stand that crap.
“I had Marge pick some up on her monthly run.”
Dillon grunted. In secret, though, he was pleased. He really liked Luke’s outspoken assistant. Marge called herself the ranch housekeeper and cook, but she was so much more. The fifty something woman literally kept the general’s life in order.
Luke settled into the chair next to him and Dillon found himself shifting about with his t-shirt fisted in his lap. He should have pulled it on.
From the edge of his vision, he noticed that Luke was watching him. Like running-his-eyes-over-his-bare-chest watching.
Dillon turned his hard gaze on Lu
ke, but the man just smiled slightly and turned to look out over the porch railing. Dillon sat his mug down, yanked his t-shirt over his head, and pulled it down to cover his chest and torso.
He lifted the cup back up and blew on the hot brew before taking a sip. From the corner of his eye, he carefully ran his gaze over the general. The cut of his shoulders, the perfectly trimmed mustache and beard along his jaw. It was the same brown as his windswept hair, and both held a tiny touch of gray that wasn’t really noticeable unless someone looked closely. So he looked, so what? Luke was forty-nine and in a hell of a lot better shape than men half his age.
“Thanks for helping JJ out,” Luke murmured.
Dillon yanked his gaze away from Luke and focused on the yard. “Like I told you, it’s no problem.” It was the same old thing, Luke thanking him repeatedly over the past several weeks. He cracked his neck and took another sip of coffee. Helping out really wasn’t a hardship.
Luke turned and smiled slightly. “Well, I appre-”
Dillon’s cell phone rang, cutting off the man’s words.
“Excuse me,” he said when Colonel Liam Cobalt’s name flashed on the screen. Stepping down the steps of the porch, he walked until he was out of hearing range from the general.
“Colonel?”
“All good?” Liam asked.
“It was a quiet night. General Rhine has business in the city today. We’ll be leaving here in a few hours. His meeting is for later this afternoon.”
They’d use one of General Rhine’s helicopters to travel the three hundred and some odd miles to Bel Air, California.
“You playing nice?”
“Why?”
“You have yet to talk to me about that incident report I received… oh, about seven weeks ago.”
Silence.
Liam sighed.
“I’ve been on ops,” he grumbled.
“Not all of that time.”
Silence reigned again.
“Okay, I’ll start. Why’d you lose your temper?”
“It’s my MO?” He ran a hand over his shorn head. He could only hope Liam hadn’t heard the irritation in his voice.
Of course, he’d heard it. After all, the man knew him well.
“Dillon,” Liam rasped.
He stayed silent, because what could he say? The motherfucker had had it coming. He lightly brushed a hand over the area on his head where the stitches had recently come out.
He heard papers rustling.
“There was blood.”
“He deserved it. The guy was bullying his wife in a fucking bar and gave her a bruised lip.”
Liam sighed. “You can’t save everybody, Dillon.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t have punched him in the mouth yourself?”
Liam grunted.
Silence again.
“You find something at the ranch to destress?”
“I have.” The stress bag was new, and he sent a silent thank you to his brother. He was glad he’d taken the time to put it up in the barn last week. He should have done something like it when he’d first arrived at the ranch, but better late than never.
“So,” Liam changed the topic, “I swapped out Blade. You’ll find Pia and Oliver at the estate when you arrive.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you talked to Isaac?”
“Not since last week. Why?” He frowned.
“If you talk to him, have him call me.”
“I will.”
He ran a hand over his head and gazed out at the horizon, not really seeing it. Isaac was currently on military leave. It had been several months since the stabbing that had wounded his younger brother, and Isaac had yet to return to active duty.
He pressed his lips together remembering how evasive Isaac had been during their last conversation. His brother was up for reenlistment and wasn’t sure if he’d return or not. Rather than push, Dillon had eased off. There were just some things a man had to decide on his own.
“Is he recovering nicely?” Liam probed.
“That’s what he said.”
The silence stretched between them until finally, Liam broke it.
“I’m going to talk Luke into allowing more protection at the ranch.”
“Good luck.” He scratched at the stubble on his jaw.
“I’m going to try. Let me talk to him,” Liam growled, and then threw in as an afterthought, “And be nice!”
Dillon snorted and turned, heading back to the porch. He found Luke’s gaze tracking him and his mouth went dry. Handing the phone to Luke, he headed into the house. He didn’t have time to decipher Luke’s expression, he was more concerned about his brother.
Isaac was holding something back. As soon as Luke gave him back his phone, he’d send his brother another text. If he pushed hard enough, Isaac would talk. From the day Isaac was born, his brother had been the only constant in his life. They shared a bond that could never be broken.
The air-conditioned coolness was welcoming and he took a deep breath. The sound of Luke’s deep voice on the phone with the colonel came through the closed front door. Not the exact words, but the refusal in Luke’s tone could clearly be heard.
He could have told Liam to save his breath. Luke was too stubborn to have more military on his ranch. Which was strange since the guy was retired Army, but Luke had told him there was enough protection with his ranch’s security team.
Feeling like an eavesdropper, he stalked down the hallway. It wasn’t any of his business, and soon it wouldn’t matter to him anyway because the next opportunity he got, he was going to ask Colonel Cobalt for a transfer.
Not right now, though. First, he had to get Luke safely to that California meeting.
He didn’t trust anyone else to get the job done.
Luke
“You want the bad news or the good news first?” Liam asked.
Luke settled back in his chair when his view of Dillon was cut off by the closing of the front door.
“Bad news.”
“We finally got in to talk to Kevin Monterey.”
“Four weeks later? It’s about damned time.”
“Hey, this shit takes time. Anyway, he denies ordering the attack on the helicopter. He said he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“All right, why is that bad news?”
“Because of this, we have no idea of who it could be.”
He gazed out at the horizon. “What do we do now?”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I just told Dillon. I want to put more of Infinity at the ranch.”
“No.”
“They’re good at what they do.”
“I’m not saying they aren’t, but I’m not going to have a military unit on my ranch.”
“You’re being difficult,” Liam growled.
“What would Dave have to say about using the rest of the unit like that?” he responded, smiling at the irritation in his friend’s voice.
“Dave gave the okay if you agree to it.” Liam’s voice was smug.
“You’re both being ridiculous,” he growled. “And it’s still no.”
“Who else has a grudge against you?” It seemed Liam had given up, at least for the moment.
“There’s a shit ton of people.”
“I take it you went through your files?”
“I did.”
“I’ve been waiting weeks for that list, Luke.” Irritation filled Liam’s voice.
He pulled out his own phone. “There were hundreds of people. I had to narrow the list down. I’ll text it to you.” He sent the message.
“Jesus Christ, Luke. There’s about forty people on here.”
“Forty-two.”
“Damn it,” Liam muttered. “Why’d you have to be friends with a district attorney?”
“We grew up together.” He chuckled thinking of Michael Anderson, the Maricopa County D.A.
“It’s not funny. Why the hell does he need your help on so many cases?”
“You know why.
”
“Don’t remind me,” Liam bitched. “Super achiever!”
Luke grinned. During his thirty years in the Army, he’d gone to law school and worked several years with JAG before being promoted to general the year before. Thinking of his early retirement, he rubbed at his chest.
Why the hell the sudden extra protection? Everything had been going good for the past month.
A sudden thought occurred to him. “Has Dillon put in a request for transfer?” he asked. Was that why Liam wanted more Infinity out here?
“No. Why?”
“Just wondering why you’re suddenly pushing to have Infinity at the ranch when it’s been fine for almost a month.”
“Why?” Liam growled. “You just sent me a list of forty-three names!”
“Two.”
“What?”
“Forty-two,” he murmured.
The silence went on for a long moment, but he waited Liam out.
“Who on this list stands out?” Liam finally asked.
“I put them in the order I thought would be the most likely.”
“Who’s this Randy Batterman?”
“One more scumbag still on the streets.”
“Elaborate.”
“He was brought up on charges for killing his wife. The D.A. asked me to help put together a case. In the end, we got nothing. No body and no physical evidence. Charges were dropped.”
“Why is he top of the list?”
He shifted in his chair and rubbed at his chin.
“Luke?”
“He threatened to kill me.”
“Fuck.”
“It was in the heat of the moment. I doubt he can get his hands on a military grade rifle to shoot down my helicopter,” he responded dryly.
“Why’d you put him at the top of the list then?”
“Because he’s the only one that ever threatened my life to my face. The others did it by email or snail mail.”
Liam gave an exasperated sigh. “A death threat is a death threat. It doesn’t matter if they did it in person or not.”
“You asked me why he was at the top of the list, and that’s why,” he responded.
“You’re not going to budge on this, are you?” Liam said after a minute.
“No extra protection.”
Whatever It Takes (Code Of Honor Book 5) Page 2