Light, in his eyes, blinding. Hands around him, heat against him, in his core. I got you, son. I got you.
He drew in a breath. Compassion in his father’s eyes.
His throat burned. I screwed up.
I know.
Overhead, a pale moon puddled over him. Stay afloat.
The sea closed over him.
I’m not enough.
But I am.
The waves rushed over him, pushed him. Carried him.
And I’m not done yet.
The thunder, farther away, rolling under him.
Moaning.
The surf gathered. He stiffened. No more—
Rolling.
Sand under his feet, through his fingers.
On his knees, crawling.
Falling.
Silence. Heartbeat.
Breathe.
He drew himself into the fetal position, shaking so hard his teeth hurt.
Darkness waned. Sunlight burned through his lids.
You will never be enough, Ford. But God is. When you are weak, because of Him, you are strong.
Dad. Sitting on the chairs in the hospital.
A cotton blanket hung over Ford’s shoulders. Warm, pain in his joints. You got in over your head. That happens. You have to learn when to call for help. That’s when you’re strong.
Yes.
Whimpering, his own voice, and he let it out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Dad.”
I got you, son. I got you.
Tears flushed out the grime from his eyes. He wrapped his arms around his legs.
I’ll meet you on the beach.
“Ford!”
He opened his eyes. His father advanced through the waves in the hazy morning light, powerful, unbroken, his eyes fierce. “Dad!”
He landed beside Ford on his knees, scooped him up. “I got you, Ford. I got you.”
Ford closed his eyes, the voice, the touch so real he could weep. He lay like the dead, not wanting the sense of it to fade.
“Ford! Wake up!” The voice, strident and angry, roused him, and he blinked his eyes open.
The dawn crested bright behind his rescuer, and he made out the shadows, the planes, so familiar so… “Tate?”
His brother smiled, nodded. Glanced over his shoulder. “He’s alive!”
Voices, footsteps, and he looked past Tate to see figures running toward him. Frogmen in wet suits…
“Yeah, I found him, Scarlett,” Tate said, looking at Ford. “You were right.”
Scarlett?
His breath whooshed in, and he wheezed hard, rolled over, and began to cough, his insides fighting to spill out.
“Whoa, bro, easy.” Tate’s hand landed on his back. “Breathe.”
His body shook out the debris, and Ford fell back hard into the packed sand. He put his hand over his chest, fighting the ache. He might have broken a couple ribs hitting the rocks, and his shoulder had begun a slow scream. “Scarlett.”
“She’s okay. We found her. And RJ.”
He breathed out, the heat dissipating. Thank you, God.
Stand back and see what I will do.
“Just can’t stay out of trouble, can you, Marsh?”
His eyes opened, and his vision cleared.
Except—maybe he was dead, because— “Nez?” His master chief was kneeling beside him.
Then, another voice. “Sheesh, bro. Always showing off.”
“Wyatt?”
His brother wore a baseball hat and crouched beside him, grinning.
No. This couldn’t be right. Because his hockey star brother couldn’t be on a beach in—Kazakhstan? Turkmenistan? Russia?
“What—?” Ford looked at Tate.
“He got it in his head that maybe Coco was with you,” Tate said. “Tried to turn into a super hero.”
Wyatt’s smile dimmed, his lips pinched into a tight line.
Ford met his gaze. “I’m sorry, bro.”
“She’s not dead,” Wyatt said stiffly. “RJ got an email from this guy York who said they were headed to Vladivostok.”
That might not have been a terrible idea. Maybe Ford should stop trying to figure everything out on his own.
Or trying to show up to help God along.
He took a breath, wincing. “How’d you find me?”
“A drone,” Nez said. “Scarlett’s been looking for you all night. She spotted you a couple hours ago, but then lost you when the riptide carried you out to sea.”
The riptide. It had cycled him out, then back into a spit of sandy beach.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s a superstar. Charted the drone search in a grid, starting where you went down, followed the path of the currents—the woman knew what she was looking for.” He added a smile, like he knew something.
Yeah, well. “I hope so,” Ford said, praying his voice didn’t betray his terrible urge to weep.
“Let’s get you on the boat.” Trini had parked himself beside Nez and was taking his quick vitals, probing his chest for broken ribs. “You’re probably a little hypothermic.”
“The freighter?”
“No, man. Your buddy Tyrone.” Trini nodded to someone beyond him, and suddenly hands came under him and lifted him from the sand. A man with dark blond hair appeared at his head.
“Ham?”
“I couldn’t let you have all the fun.” Ham winked, no smile.
“I tried to get ahold of you.”
“Next time follow the plan,” Ham said.
They were jostling Ford, and he winced, held back a groan.
“Follow a plan? Ford? He makes it up as he goes along,” Nez said, at his feet.
Maybe not anymore. Because he didn’t have to be in charge to get the job done.
No more lone wolf.
He let the team carry him to the Zodiac, let them settle him inside, and closed his eyes as they pushed back out to sea. “Where am I?” he said as they cut through the waves.
“You’re on an island in the middle of nowhere,” Nez said. “About thirty nautical miles from where the freighter picked up RJ. That’s quite a swim, Marsh.” He patted his leg.
RJ. She was okay.
Thank You.
I got you, son.
Ford let himself sink, finally, into the darkness.
He didn’t open his eyes again until they’d offloaded him onto the deck of a yacht, not until he heard her voice sweeping him out of the exhaustion back to life.
“Ford!”
Scarlett wore a fleece jacket that dwarfed her, a pair of thermal leggings, her feet bare. She dropped down on her knees right beside him. Her eyes betrayed the sting of the sea, reddened, and her hair had dried to hard strings. But he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
He reached for her.
She grabbed his hand.
He took that as a yes and kissed her.
And kissed her.
And he didn’t care that his team and his brothers and even his sister might be watching. Or that he looked frayed and was so far under, he hadn’t a hope—or desire—for rescue. Because this was how it was supposed to end. Him, getting the girl. Her, getting her man. The doom far, far behind them and sunny skies overhead as the sun painted the sea a deep, glorious red.
13
“So, let me get this right. You stood on the street and watched as someone tried to kill General Stanislov?” Tate leaned against the pillar of Tyrone Stavros’s Azerbaijani home, arms folded, giving her a big-brother grilling.
“Yeah,” RJ said. “I didn’t know he’d be there—he just came out of the restaurant. I went to meet York—or at least that’s what I thought. I had no idea that an assassin had set me up to take the fall.”
Stavros’s estate sprawled on a hill overlooking the Caspian Sea and seemed plucked out of some Tuscan hillside, complete with columns and Renaissance architecture and fountains. The house itself, all fifty-seven rooms of whitewashed stucco and rough-hewn timber, sat in the embrace of fifty acres of lush beech and
oak trees. Behind them rose the mountains to the north.
The blue haze over the rugged line of mountains, the scent of pine winding down into the valley, and the touch of summer on the breeze turned a longing inside RJ.
Home.
RJ just might give in to the urge to hop on the plane with her brothers and head back to Montana.
Except for the fact that York was still running for his life—or at least Coco’s life—in Russia.
And a killer still had his sights on the general.
She took a sip of the lemonade brought out by one of Stavros’s people. Guards, house help, assistants—the man had a virtual army at his disposal and had opened his house to Ford and his friends.
He’d even gassed up his private jet and offered them a ride home.
Nez and Trini had already left, needing to get stateside before the higher-ups went looking for them. Ham had stayed behind with Scarlett, Ford, Tate, and Wyatt.
Wyatt. The poor guy said little, sitting away from them, his face hard. The fact that Coco hadn’t responded to his phone calls or his emails showed in the knot on his face.
They were gathered beside a crystalline blue pool. Scarlett sat with her feet in the water, leaning back on her hands. Ford sat beside her, close enough to touch her. Which he did occasionally, just reaching over to weave his fingers between hers.
Sweet.
But it only deepened the dangerous ache for York.
He swooped in to take possession of her thoughts—no, her heart—like a pulse there, thrumming, reminding her that she’d lived because of him.
Probably that’s all it was, this crazy affection she felt. High-stress romances never worked—a lesson she’d learned from Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.
Except…what if she was instead Sydney Bristow? She got her man, Vaughn.
RJ met Tate’s worried expression. “York showed up anyway and saw the disaster go down. Instant chaos, and the general’s men all ordered us to get down. I did, too stunned to do anything but obey, and a gun fell out of my bag—”
“You went into Russia with a gun?” Tate said, leaning up from a pillar that held up the porch.
“No, of course not. Somebody planted it. But it looked bad, and I just stared at it and then, all I could think was…run. So, I did. Not sure what I was doing until York practically tackled me. He hid me in an alley, then got me to a safe house for about a week, laying low while the FSB looked for me.”
“We eventually figured out that my emails to him had been hacked—he was the contact that Roy gave me—and went to Coco to figure out who’d hacked them.”
“Roy was our source who alerted us to the hit on the general,” Ham said. He sat at a nearby table, nursing his own lemonade. He’d been quiet, thoughtful, and pensive since they’d arrived at the villa. She liked him—he possessed an all-American, boy-next-door persona, blue eyes, and the very strong sense of right radiating off him.
She’d discovered that he ran some sort of gym franchise in America, when he wasn’t out saving lives with his global SAR team, Jones, Inc. RJ had overheard him talking with Scarlett about her swimming skills last night on the terrace. That, added to her drone search-and-rescue abilities, and RJ thought the man might be offering her a job.
Interesting.
“What I don’t get is why you had to go, RJ.” This from Wyatt, who had turned toward them. “Aren’t you a secretary?”
“An analyst.”
Ford’s jaw tightened.
“Okay, yes, I’m an assistant, too, to Sophia Randall. She’s a handler, and Roy works for her. We’ve been hunting down some rumors of a shadow faction inside the CIA who might be trying to manipulate events in order to increase tensions between the US and Russia.”
“Why?” Wyatt asked.
“Arms,” Tate said quietly. He glanced at Wyatt, then Ham, and finally to RJ. “Right? Because with increased tension comes a demand on the market for weapons.” He walked over to the table and pulled out a chair. “It might be why we thought the Bryant League was behind the bombing of the San Antonio arena—domestic terrorism always breeds a need for more personal security.”
“I thought the Bryant League was out of the picture,” RJ said. She’d investigated the two men whom Tate and Knox had suspected of blowing up the San Antonio arena a couple months ago and determined their ties with the Bryant League were loose, at best.
“Who knows. All we know is that somebody tried to blow up the conservative VP and presidential candidates a couple weeks ago.” Tate nodded toward Ford and Scarlett. “They were there. They helped stop them.”
RJ didn’t know this story. “When?”
“While you were AWOL and chasing international assassins, Tate was leaping from a tall building to save his girlfriend,” Ford said.
RJ stared at her brother. “What?”
“Because of the tip you called in to Ford about the suspected bomber changing his name, we were able to track him down and stop him. The man said something strange, however, before he took a header off a building—something about VP candidate Reba Jackson being in league with Russia.”
“When was this?” RJ asked.
“Two weeks ago.”
“Right about the time that the general was attacked.” She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “You don’t suppose he knew anything about that?”
Tate lifted a shoulder. “I did find out how the Bratva found me in Vegas—someone on Jackson’s campaign—her assistant—alerted them.”
“The Bratva?” Ford said. He looked at Scarlett and back to Tate. “We ran into them in Moscow. They tried to kidnap Scarlett.”
“And York threw one of the gang members off the train after they attacked us,” RJ said. “We thought maybe the assassin was in league with them.”
“Who did Coco think was behind the assassination attempt?” Ham asked, leaning forward.
“A guy named Gustov. He and York have a past.”
“Damien Gustov?” Ham asked.
RJ frowned, nodded. “Do you know him?”
“When I was in Chechnya, there was a rumor about this guy—blond guy from the Urals who came down to train with the CRI, a Chechen rebel group. They say he trained the guys who attacked the school in Beslan.”
Scarlett turned to look at RJ as she asked, “Blond guy. Pocked face. Clubbed ears?”
Everyone went quiet.
RJ nodded, adding. “He had an accent, even in his Russian.”
“Why would Gustov be working with the Bratva?”
“And we’re back to weapons,” Tate said. “The Bratva’s main money stream is arms, with trafficking a close second. They kill Stanislov, get Petrov into power, start another cold war…money, honey.” Tate shook his head. “I can’t believe I was involved with them.”
“Different life. Different you,” RJ said. “Desperation makes us do reckless things.”
He offered her a wry smile.
Even Ford nodded.
But her gaze landed on Wyatt, whose mouth had tightened. “She’s in trouble. I know it—”
She—oh, Coco.
“She’s with York,” RJ said. “He’s capable of taking care of her—”
“She was shot!” His voice reverberated into the air.
No one spoke.
He got up, walked away, his hand cupped behind his neck.
“I gotta get home,” Tate said after a bit. “Back to Glo. I left my team in charge, but Glo is pretty much under house arrest while I’m gone, and she and the Yankee Belles have an NBR-X gig this weekend. Knox will be there—I’ll fill him in on what’s going on.”
“Wait—are you talking about the band my sister Kelsey is in?” Ham said suddenly.
RJ definitely had missed something. “Kelsey is your sister? Um, our brother Knox is dating her.”
Ham just stared at Tate. “Wow. Okay. We don’t talk much—my fault, but apparently we have some catching up to do.”
Tate’s eyes widened and he glanced at RJ. “So,
you don’t know about the bombing in Texas, at the arena where the Belles were performing?”
Ham looked like someone had taken a two-by-four to his gut. “No—what?”
“They’re fine, but…seriously dude. Were you hiding on some mountain somewhere to not know about the attack on the Yankee Belles?”
Ham swallowed. “Something like that. Are they okay? Why is her bandmate under house arrest?”
Tate shook his head. “I didn’t mean—she’s just…being protected.”
“That’s right. Her mother is Senator White’s running mate,” Ham said, his voice sounding far away. “Was my sister in the bombing in San Antonio?”
RJ actually felt sorry for him, the way his face paled.
“But you caught the bomber,” Ham said. “Right?”
“We think there’s another one, still at large,” Tate said.
Ham drew a breath.
“Your sister is with my brother. He’s not going to let anything happen to her,” Tate said.
RJ nodded, still wrecked by the man’s expression.
“You don’t suppose the bomber is connected to the Bratva, is he?” Ham asked quietly.
“Why would he be?”
Ham traced his finger down his sweating lemonade. “Experience. Gut feeling. I don’t know…” He turned to RJ. “Isn’t Senator Jackson on the Armed Services Committee?”
“So is presidential candidate Isaac White,” Tate said.
“What about this shadow CIA group? What do you know about them?” Ham asked.
“Just a rumor,” RJ said. “Our first confirmation was this hit ordered on the general. And the fact that the CIA blamed me.”
Ham frowned. “The CIA blamed you?”
“Apparently, I can’t go back until I’m cleared.” She looked at Wyatt. “And I think the only one who can clear me is Coco. She has the proof that my emails were hacked.”
The information was akin to a horsefly biting Wyatt. He stalked up. “I’m going to Vladivostok.”
“And do what?” Ford said, now climbing to his feet. “You don’t have a visa, you don’t speak Russian. You’re a hockey player, for cryin’ out loud. I nearly got RJ and Red killed, and I actually know what I’m doing.”
“I can handle myself,” Wyatt said, something sparking in his eyes. He had a look about him coupled with his broken nose that made him seem just a little crazy.
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