by Juniper Hart
“Yes, Captain.” Matthew didn’t sound convinced.
The silence ensued in Theo’s ear, and he waited for a long while, mentally debating their next plan of attack.
He’s gone. He was here, but he’s gone again. Shit.
Sand had wrestled itself into the creases of his khaki fatigues, and slowly, Theo rose through the dunes to blink his coffee-colored eyes.
“Let’s fall back,” he muttered, frustratingly accepting his resignation. “Make yourselves scarce. Meet back at the chopper—”
The words had barely left Theo’s lips when the sand before his feet imploded and he was thrown back fifty feet by the land mine.
You have got to be kidding me! We scouted the area! We checked!
His body landed with a sickening thud, and he felt the crack of several bones in his massive frame.
“Captain! Captain! Do you read me?” Matthew gasped in his ear. “Are you hurt? Do you copy?”
Dazed, Theo lay on the ground, his breaths escaping in uneven rasps. Blood began to pool down his brow around his neck, and he felt his heart slowing.
“Do you read? CAPTAIN?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words escaped. He could slowly sense the life attempting to leave his body.
Jackrabbit is really beginning to piss me off, he thought furiously, willing his strength back, but the blast had incapacitated him beyond movement. There was nothing he could do other than lie still and wait for his cells to regenerate. Silently, he hoped his team would not venture to find him, though he couldn’t well stop them if they blatantly disobeyed a standing order to never come after him. I’ll heal. They’ll die.
He inhaled and closed his eyes, the ringing in his ears subsiding to a dull chime. It was then that he realized he was not alone.
Theo’s dark eyes flew open, and he peered up at the figure towering above him in the gas mask, his heart quickening amidst the blood loss. Clad only in black, the form cocked his head like he was trying to figure out what he was looking at. There was nothing descript about the man, and the truth was, Theo couldn’t even be certain that it was a man before him. Inherently, though, he was sure it was.
Again, Theo opened his mouth to speak, but words would not come. Then he saw the gun and grunted to himself.
Before the figure in the gas mask could fire, the sound of voices caught his attention, and the man Theo assumed to be Jackrabbit whipped his head around to see the team rushing toward him.
As quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared into the dunes, leaving Theo with his comrades in a dust of commotion. Relief flooded Theo when he realized that the terrorist had not opened fire on his team, but before he had a chance to ponder why, the men were flocking his side.
“Captain Veriday! Look at me, sir!”
“Is he alive?”
“We need to get him out of here!”
The voices jumbled together in his mind, but Theo barely heard them. His mind was fully on the man who had stood before him seconds earlier.
He’s been one step ahead of us all along, the bear thought miserably as his team lifted him to his feet and shuffled him to safety. There was no danger, not anymore. Jackrabbit had done what he had come to do: mock them again. Was he even here for any other reason? Was there even a mission or are we the mission?
Theo loathed that he was questioning himself when he had always exercised his plans with so much precision.
“Captain, can you hear us?” Matthew stared urgently into his face. Finally, Theo managed to utter a noise aloud. “He’s alive!”
“Of course I’m alive,” Theo gasped. “You fools! I told you never to come after me!”
But his weak protests were unheeded, and somehow, the team of six managed to load the nearly dead body of their commander onto the chopper, two kilometers away. By the time they arrived, Theo could feel his blood circulating properly inside his body, and he shrugged off the others who helped him onto the chopper before they could look too closely at his wounds.
“Get off me!” Theo barked at them, and they had no choice but to fall back as their captain’s body began to heal itself. The team had no way of knowing that the explosion would have killed any of them in seconds, and he was not about to show them how much damage had been done, especially not when he was already recovering.
If nothing else, Jackrabbit is going to expose me for what I am in front of my team. This guy is going to be the death of me one way or another.
“Let Ainsely look at you!” Matthew insisted, nodding to the waiting medic. Theo’s scathing look seemed to stop him in his tracks.
“We have bigger matters to worry about now,” he snapped, sitting upright and wiping the dried blood from his face. Someone handed him a bottle of water, and he used it to wash himself as the chopper lifted into the air and out of the desert.
“How the hell did he know?” Matthew demanded, falling back as the vessel rose higher into the cloudless blue sky. “How does he always know?”
“There’s only one way he could,” Theo replied flatly, looking to his team with cold eyes. “We have a mole.”
The dismay was identical across all their faces, including that of the medic. Theo wished he hadn’t spoken his theory aloud.
I’m not thinking clearly. I shouldn’t have said that. It only proved that he was more hurt than he’d initially thought.
“Impossible,” Matthew snapped. “We have all been tracking this bastard for months. Who would rat us out to him?”
“Can you think of another way he can see us coming?” Theo retorted harshly. It was too late to recant his words, so following through was the only way to go now. “Between his terrorist ties and jet-setting from country to country, I doubt he’s been spending his own time tracking us. Someone is telling him our every move.”
A hush fell over the group as they contemplated Theo’s words. Only the whir of the helicopter’s blades filled the tight space, and everyone seemed to sink back in unison, recognizing the truth of what their captain had said.
Theo’s eyes trailed over each of their faces, his pulse quickening as he examined the team. It was true—they had all worked together for years in the private sector. Could one of them have folded through threat or promise of money?
We’re military trained. We’re disciplined, honorable men. Who would side with a terrorist?
But if there was something that Theo had learned in all his years alive, it was that anyone was capable of anything, and they would always find a way to justify it.
He looked at Matthew, his right-hand man and likely the moron who had instructed the team to come for him after the explosion.
It wouldn’t be Matt, he thought. If he was a traitor, he could have just left me there to die.
The medic didn’t have enough invested in the assignment to care, which could make him a liability. Still, Theo put him on the backburner and looked at Smitty, Cole, and Fend.
I can scrutinize them all day long through my peripheral vision, but it wouldn’t get me any closer to finding out who might be responsible for ratting us out—if someone is, in fact, doing that.
Paranoia and suspicion had no place in those moments. Not that Theo was prone to any such behaviors naturally. He would investigate his theories, but he would do so discretely. From what he could see, they all were the men he had hired and who had worked alongside him, quietly fighting wars at his side.
Theo hoped for once that his gut instinct was wrong.
“What is that?” Matthew demanded suddenly, leaning forward to peer at him curiously.
“What?” Matthew pointed at his shirt, and Theo looked down where he gestured. Beneath his dirty, bloodied shirt was a glowing which startled him to see. It took him less than a second to recognize that the amulet pressed against his skin had begun to exude an eerie, red light against the bronze. Theo yanked it out of his shirt, holding it in his hand to study it in awe.
In all the time he had held onto it, he had never seen it react in such a way—
not once. Until that moment, it had been a piece of red gemstone, intricately locked into a galvanized cage, which hung about his neck on a simple leather strap.
“What is that?”
“It’s nothing,” Theo told Matthew firmly, dropping the necklace back against his bronze flesh to rest with his dog tags. The pieces hung perpendicular to his sternum, his heart thudding against the jewelry hard enough to vibrate. Suddenly, Theo noticed something else.
The amulet was hot.
His thick fingers moved back up his chest to touch the glowing stone, and without warning, an image of Miriam Aldwin popped into his head.
What the hell? he thought. There was no reason to envision the newly deceased witch, certainly not in the middle of an operation, that far away from home and the Council of Seven. And yet, he couldn’t strike her withered face from his mind, as if she was trying to speak to him.
That blast hit you harder than you thought, he chided himself, shaking his head. Your brain is scrambled.
“Why is it doing that?” Matthew wanted to know. “Is it going to explode?”
“No,” Theo snapped. “But I am if you keep asking stupid questions. No more talking until we get back to the hotel.”
Matthew frowned and sat back, folding his arms over his chest like a scolded child. Theo relished the silence. For the first time since he could remember, he was consumed with a feeling of intense insecurity, a sense that he was approaching something out of his league.
Don’t be stupid, he yelled at himself. There’s nothing you can’t handle. You’re Theo Veriday, alpha bear, CEO of Veriday Group Contractors, and member of the Seven. There is not a force in the world that can keep you down.
Then he yelped as the amulet became a burning coal and seared into his chest, marring his skin, if only temporarily. His eyes wide, he pulled it out again to observe it. Inexplicably, he was consumed with dread as he stared at the throbbing red stone.
He couldn’t shake the idea that the necklace was mocking him.
1
Ugh, Simone thought. He’s looking right at me. He’s coming this way. What the hell does he want now? She shifted her eyes downward, skilfully avoiding Everett’s gaze until he was upon her, thrusting a file onto her desk.
“I thought I told you to run this.”
Simone glanced at the paperwork through her peripheral vision before reluctantly looking up at him. “I did. Check the entry.”
“Run it again.”
“Why?”
“Because you clearly made a mistake,” he answered condescendingly. Simone felt her fists close under her desk.
“Did I?” she replied evenly.
“Obviously. Run it again.” Everett spoke the words flatly and without emotion before turning away from her cubicle. Simone looked after him, steeling herself from flying out of her chair to attack him with her manicured nails. She would never act so irrationally, of course, not even if she was pushed over the edge, but it was one of the many fantasies she indulged in, day to day.
Sometimes, the data processor would imagine herself screaming like a banshee, clinging to Everett’s back as he whirled around, trying to get her off him. In her mind’s eye, Everett would reach out to her co-workers for help, but they would all turn their heads away and pretend they were too busy to do anything as Simone continued to attack him.
That’s more or less how it would play out, she realized. Everett is a dick. If I wanted, I bet I could get everyone together, and we could arrange an assassination.
Maybe that was going a little far—Simone didn’t wish death on anyone, after all, but people like Everett deserved suffering, minimally. Perhaps a flogging?
“How long do you think it’s been since he’s been laid?” Toni asked, leaning her head over the cubicle. “A year? Two?”
“I think he’s still a virgin,” Simone countered without thinking, and Toni snickered.
“If you have too much to do, I can run those numbers for you,” the curvy blonde suggested, eyeing Simone speculatively.
“It’s fine,” Simone muttered, reaching for the returned file on her desk. “I can run the damned numbers again, but the result is going to be the same. The problem isn’t mine.”
“I think he just wants to feel useful,” Toni offered. “You don’t need to take it personally.”
Simone chuckled. “Take it personally? I’ve been emotionally void since the day I started here, Toni. Don’t you worry about my ego.”
Toni giggled again, and her honey-colored head disappeared back onto her side of the cubicle wall.
“What are you doing this weekend?” she asked curiously. “I’m having a get-together on Saturday. Lots of single boys…”
“Hm, tempting,” Simone lied, craning her neck around to peer at Toni with wide, brown eyes. “But I have plans already.”
“You’re still mad about that date.”
“Dufus? No, he was great!” Simone called in a tone much higher than she had intended. “Charming.”
“You just called him ‘Dufus.’”
Simone paused. “You didn’t hear me properly,” she said. “I clearly said ‘Rufus.’”
Dufus, Rufus, who cares? They’re both stupid names, which is precisely what that idiot was—stupid. Him and his dumbass hipster beard and kale smoothies.
“Rufus won’t be there!” Toni pleaded. “Josh has army buddies coming over, and I always feel so out of place around the other army wives! Please come, Simone.”
Simone was about to insist that she really did have plans, but the begging note in Toni’s voice made her rethink her refusal. She’s always been a good friend to you in this hellhole. The least you can do is help her out for once. Anyway, it’s not her fault Rufus was an idiot.
“I can try and stop by,” Simone told her evasively. “But no promises.”
Toni squealed happily, as if she’d actually agreed, and Simone knew she was on the hook, whether or not she wanted to go.
“No promises!” Simone repeated, but Toni didn’t seem to hear her as the phone on her desk began to ring. Sighing, the dark-haired woman returned to her computer, shaking her shiny mane.
Why do I do this to myself? I’m Simone Ruiz! I’m not supposed to be some pushover who reruns the numbers and get suckered into being the fifth wheel at parties!
Her cell chimed on the edge of the desk, and Simone eyed it without slowing her fingers on the computer before her.
Got my stuff?
She glanced at the name and grunted. And then there’s this one. Simone ignored the text until a minute later, when a second and third followed.
I’m not fking arnd. I nd it now!
You said today!
My God, Simone thought contemptuously. Was I ever that annoying? Even at my lowest point in life? There was no doubt in her mind that these kids were at their lowest as well. They’d have to be. Even I never paid for what they do.
She reached for the phone, considering making Tommy sweat for a few more minutes, but she knew he’d just keep texting until he got his answer.
I’ve got it. I’ll swing by your dorm after work.
Instantly, she saw the message bubbles appear and rolled her eyes skyward as she waited for whatever desperate response was coming. She could feel his insecurity via text.
I rlly nd it, Simone. Pls? Hurry?
When did we become a generation of people who couldn’t text in full sentences? How did we come to this? Does it save that much time? Then Simone remembered kale smoothies, and she grew that much more depressed.
She didn’t answer Tommy and instead replaced the phone in her desk after placing it on silent. She knew that he was only the first of several texts she was going to get like that today, and she wasn’t going to get anything done placating a bunch of college kids who were on the brink. Tommy would just have to wait, like everyone else.
Simone turned her attention back to her work and tried to stifle the resentment as she re-entered the data that Everett had insisted upon earlier
. As she had suspected, the data didn’t match what was already scanned into the system, but before she could dial out to Everett and tell him, the phone on her desk rang.
“Simone Ruiz,” she answered.
“Hi, guapa.”
She tensed instantly at the sound of her father’s voice. It was just going to be one of those weeks, wasn’t it? “Dad…”
“¿Qué pasó?”
Simone’s eyes narrowed, detecting the fake sweetness in her father’s tone. “Estoy trabajando, Dad. What’s up with you?”
“Oh, I just called to say hi.”
“What do you really want, Dad?”
“I can’t call mi hija and say hi?” he asked defensively.
Oh, damn. He’s calling me his daughter now. It must be something huge. “You can call me on my cell, after work hours, to say hi,” Simone countered. “You call me on my work line in the middle of the morning because you want something. What is it, Dad?”
Victor Ruiz sighed, and Simone drummed her fingers against the desktop, waiting. Her father rarely spoke to her, their history long and complicated stemming from the time when Simone’s mother had first gotten sick. Her father had thought that was a good time to leave the family with his eighteen-year-old secretary and start a new life in New York.
It had taken several years for Simone to forgive Victor, but their relationship was still tumultuous.
“Cinnamon needs a job,” Victor explained. Simone snorted so loudly that Toni peered around to look at her. She waved her co-worker away. “What’s so funny, Simone?” She could hear the anger growing in her father’s voice, and she matched it with her own.
“What the hell would you like me to do about that, Victor?”
“Simone, I know you and her haven’t seen eye to eye—”
“Dad, she stole you away from our cancer-ridden mother, and she’s young enough to be your granddaughter.” And her name is Cinnamon!
She could hear the wince through the phone. “No one stole me away from your mother, God rest her soul—”
“Shut up!” Simone’s voice was like whiplash. “Don’t talk about Mama.”
