The Boss

by Melissa Schroeder

  “I have government agencies, criminals, and who knows what else looking for me because of those smarts, so, yeah, I am. I will admit to not having as much street sense as the rest of you, but I’m very good with plans. Besides, it’s my life they want, so I think I have some say in this plan.”

  She looked at Vic, as if waiting for him to denounce her. A lot of other people would dismiss her, but he knew what it was like to lose control over his life. He’d been in a similar situation when he left the CIA, and there was more than one old friend who didn’t trust him anymore. He’d been cut off and left out to dry…close to being burned. He’d left for his brother, who had needed a steady hand, and he had been sick of the game. Still, he’d felt a little trapped by the situation. Plus, Millie was right. When it came to IQs, she was the smartest one of the bunch.

  “That you do,” Vic agreed. “So, Rock, what did Tessa have to say?”

  “We’re going to meet at the Lincoln Memorial. Nine tonight.”

  “At night? That doesn’t sound right to me,” Millie said. “Isn’t it more dangerous at night?”

  “It could go either way, truthfully,” Mac said. “At least it’s public. That, I like. I would rather do a daytime exchange, but they might be concerned with safety themselves.”

  “What do you mean?” Millie asked.

  “You said it yourself. You have a lot of people after you. The FBI is going to want to make sure they don’t lose you. So their thinking would be that you might bring out some bad elements bent on stealing you.”

  “But wouldn’t daylight make it easier to be sure of that? There would be witnesses.”

  “True,” Mac said, as she looked up at him. The expression in her eyes told him she knew there was something off, but the whole case had been like this. And while Mac had turned over a new leaf, she might just blurt out the truth—as she was known to do.

  Vic took over.

  “Listen, it isn’t ideal, but the truth is, I don’t think any situation in this scenario is going to be ideal. At least this gives a couple of hours to plan.”

  Millie nodded, but she didn’t look any more convinced this was a good idea.

  “Listen,” he said. “Mac, Rock, and I have done this a hundred times before. In fact, it is one of our specialties. We often have to work out deals with organizations, and when I was in the CIA, I handled a lot of negotiations like this. None of them were easy, and they all made you slightly sick to your stomach before you were done, but it will be okay.”

  “What about Jay?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You said that you, Mac, and Rock all have experience in this. What about Jay?”

  He shot a look at his brother, who had leaned forward. He didn’t need to listen to these two bickering.

  “He’s newer to the business, but he was taught by the best.”

  She smiled.

  “Besides, he’s going to be driving.”

  “Wait, what? I’m driving?” Jay demanded.

  “Yeah, you’re driving.”

  “But—”

  Irritation pushed his patience to the breaking point. “No arguing. I am running the op, and I say you drive. You’re the best at speeding, and I had the high insurance rates to prove it. I’m not going to coddle you. You do what I tell you, or you leave.”

  For a long moment, Jay said nothing. They stared at each other as the sound of the clock ticking filled the room. Then, finally, Jay nodded. The tension in the room seemed to dissolve.

  “Okay, let’s get ready. Then we can see where we go from here.”

  Everyone got up from the table, but Jay stayed behind. Mac gave the brothers a worried look, but he nodded to tell her he could handle it. He needed to. His brother had questioned him in front of the team, and that was unacceptable. Jay needed to learn how to take orders before he got them all killed.

  Once they were alone, he waited for his brother to argue—but he didn’t.

  “Explain to me why you have me driving.”

  His tone was cool, non-confrontational. Damn, Jay might make a good member of the team yet.

  “Exactly as I said. Plus, Mac, Rock, and I have run these ops before. There is a rhythm to them.”

  “How am I supposed to learn how to do it if you keep me from working them?”

  “You will learn.” It was something he had come to realize in the last forty-eight hours. His brother would be good at the work, but he needed time, and he needed experience. “I just think we need some less dangerous ops. You know what we mostly handle. Security checks, very few NSA jobs—probably less now that they hung us out to dry on this one. You know how I feel about government agencies.”

  Jay nodded. “Just so long as you know I plan on learning. If I can’t do it here, I will go elsewhere to learn.”

  He could see it. Jay had dabbled in a few things, made a run at college. While he had learned a few things along the way, nothing had looked as good as this. He had so much more to learn, but Vic sensed Jay’s need. He wanted to be taken seriously, and if Vic wouldn’t, his brother would go elsewhere.

  “Settle down, Jay. I said I want you around here to learn. But there will be no shortcuts. I’m not trying to hold you back.”

  “Then what do you call it?”

  He was irritated enough to just blurt out the truth. “I call it making sure you aren’t killed.”

  Jay studied him for a long, tense moment, just like before. He realized his brother was trying to figure out if he was lying or not. Something must have told him he was being truthful, because Jay’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “No problem. If you would have come to me before now and asked like this, I would’ve probably let you in. You just never seemed that serious about it.”

  “No. I was serious. You just couldn’t take me seriously.”

  He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Jay stood up. “I need to get ready for tonight.”

  Then he left him alone in the kitchen. Everything that had been said over the past few years played back through his mind. He had treated Jay like his annoying little brother for so long because he was that annoying little brother. Had he been the one keeping Jay from growing up? The man was almost thirty years old, and he’d always thought he would never mature. Had he been part of his brother’s problem? Some of it could be laid at Jay’s feet. He’d been in no hurry to grow up, and maybe Vic hadn’t been ready, either.

  Agitated, he stood and walked down the hall to the bedroom he was sharing with Mac. She had settled down on the bed again but was staring up at the ceiling. He said nothing as he continued to study her.

  “Stop.”

  “Stop what?” he asked.

  “Looking at me like that. You know it creeps me out.”

  “Always nice to know I creep you out.”

  He stepped into the room and shut the door.

  “What were you and Jay talking about?”

  “Him being part of the organization.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Yeah? Does that mean you’re staying?”

  Yes. He couldn’t say it, not right now, but down in his gut, Vic had made the decision. He’d thought he didn’t have anything to fight for. Now he knew better. But, as always, he’d rather be cautious when he was dealing with Mac.

  “Might be. Depends on us working together.”

  “We haven’t done so badly the last few days.”

  “True. If it was just working together, I would definitely not have so many problems.”

  “You mean our relationship.”

  “Yeah, our relationship.”

  He approached the bed and sat on the mattress next to her.

  “What about our relationship, Mac?”

  She sighed and plucked at the comforter. “I’m not sure.”

  “Rock said…”

  She slanted him a look. “Rock said what?”

  “Rock said it was rough after I left.”

  She looked away from him,
but not before he saw the shame. So many times, he had let it go. Just like he had been thinking earlier, he’d avoided these kinds of talks because it was easier. He’d also used the cop-out of saying they had a job to do.

  “No. I want to know.”

  “What do you want me to say? That you tore a hole in my world? Well, you did.”

  “Mac.”

  She bounced off the bed and started to pace. “Everything fell apart in the business, but it wasn’t because you weren’t there to help. You know I can handle it on my own.”

  “Never doubted it.”

  “You always come back. Always.”

  “And I didn’t, because…”

  He stopped himself, and she looked at him.

  “Because?” she asked in a timid tone. Completely un-Maclike.

  He said nothing for a moment. He went back to that day, the argument over something as simple as taking an assignment. He had turned down that job with the CIA because it had been bad. He knew it was bad. The money wasn’t guaranteed, and the legality had been questionable. The fact that he turned it down without discussing it with her, after she had said she wanted more contract work, had apparently been the last straw. Vic had walked out, then, like a petulant preschooler, got upset when Mac refused to do what he wanted. It hadn’t made sense, either. Mainly because he had first been attracted to her because she was so damned independent. But it had been something else, something he hadn’t been prepared to face.

  “If I tore a hole in your world, leaving tore a hole in my heart.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Yeah, surprised the crap out of me, too.”

  “Vic…” She shook her head. “I didn’t fare much better.”

  “Yeah, so I heard. Why didn’t you call?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I wanted you to care enough to. I wanted you to need me.”

  “Right back at you.”

  He smiled, but it faded quickly. “And where does this leave us?”

  She shrugged and stepped closer. “I’m not sure what you want from me, but I know I would like to at least try again.”

  He nodded and slipped his hands around her waist.

  “So, what else did you and Jay talk about?”

  “I realized maybe I babied him too much.”

  She snorted, and he looked up at her.

  “What?”

  “You always did.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I don’t know I would do any better. I never…well, you know my family situation. But I understand.”

  “He wants to work for us.”

  “I know.”

  “And if I don’t agree, he said he’ll go elsewhere.”

  “Love, he’s almost thirty. He needs to be allowed to be a man.”

  “So, you do think I’m holding him back.”

  She snorted again and shook her head. “No. I think if Jay doesn’t want to be held back, he wouldn’t allow it. He’s a Walker.”

  He smiled. “Yeah.”

  “I think you leaving forced him to take a long, hard look at his life. That helped.”

  “And I coddled him.”

  “To a point. Not like that’s odd, and as I said, if he hadn’t wanted it, he would have walked away. You have to allow him to be wrong sometimes, too.”

  “For me, it is.”

  “What?”

  “It’s odd for me to give him so much leeway. I would have never allowed that from one of my team.”

  She shook her head. “Your brother had a rough time of it after your parents died. You still saw him as that young boy. But now you can train him. He’s good, Vic. I promise.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Good, because I really want him here. He could definitely be an asset. He has that little-boy look that will get him information any time he wants it, plus, he knows how to handle himself, thanks to you.”

  “Yeah, and I really would hate him going to work for a government agency. We both have been down that road before and know just how much they use their agents.”

  “True. Feel better?”

  He nodded again. It felt better to have her here, to be able to talk things out with her. When it came to the job, he had always used her as a sounding board. Other than Rock, he didn’t trust another person more. Actually, there was a part of him that trusted Mac above all others.

  He had kept some of his personal life from her. She would intrude from time to time and give her opinions. Mac was never shy about that. But right then, at the moment, he realized he had kept some things from her. While he’d accused her of not being open with him, he hadn’t always been open with her.

  “Vic, are you all right?”

  He nodded. Then he grabbed her and pulled her down on top of him.

  She laughed, the sound of it lighter than he had heard from her in a long time.

  “What do you think you are doing?” she asked.

  “I think we need to get some rest before we go tonight.”

  “You do, do you?” she asked, but he could already sense she was tensing up.

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “I have a bad feeling about this meeting.”

  “I think this whole situation has all of us on edge. It’ll all work out. You’ll see.”

  She didn’t look like she was convinced, but she slipped off to the side of the mattress and snuggled closer.

  As he stared at the ceiling, he held on to her and thought back to the last time Mac had a really bad feeling. He’d ended up shot and in the hospital.

  He just hoped she was wrong this time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Good instincts can keep you alive in any situation, from avoiding an angry woman to dealing with espionage.

  –Vic Walker

  Mac counted back from ten and tried to keep her heartbeat normal. When she had first started out with MI6, she had loved this feeling. The first rush of excitement always seemed to spur her into action. She thrived on it. Now, years later, her stomach roiled at the thought of what lay ahead of them. Again, she counted back from ten, hoping she would calm down. It didn’t work. It hadn’t been working since they had made the ninety-minute trek to D.C.

  The bad feeling she’d mentioned only grew with each second that ticked by. A lot of people wouldn’t know what it meant, but she did. She knew the history of that bad feeling and understood the gut reaction to the plan was more than just that. Her finely-tuned instincts had saved her life more than once, but it didn’t mean this would be the worst situation. It might just be that she didn’t like being backed into a corner.

  That’s why she hadn’t mentioned it since. She could be wrong. From the beginning of this job, something had been off. Mac wasn’t too sure it wasn’t her. She hadn’t been working right for months. Her head had been out of the game, along with her heart. That could be the issue.

  But it probably wasn’t.

  She and Vic were in different SUVs. They were the leads, and it was best they were in different vehicles. He’d been wearing his stone face before they left. This was the point where he took no prisoners. She didn’t blame him. She was ready for this entire business to be over, too.

  They scouted the area, with Vic and Rock driving by first in their vehicle. They seemed to think they could make sure no one was around. She was with Millie. The setup was not ideal. Hell, it sucked, but it didn’t matter. Truth was, they didn’t have a choice. Not really. If they didn’t get this fixed, and soon, all of them would end up on the run. Granted, she and Vic had done that for a while, but she hated to think that anyone would be subjected to it. Maybe Rock could handle it, but Millie and Jay were really just starting out in life. It wasn’t fair that they were going to have issues for the rest of their lives because of this.

  “I see nothing,” Jay said, as he used night-vision binoculars.

  “Nothing?” she asked.

  “I said nothing.” His tone had turned testy, but she ignored it.

 
“Are you sure?” It was wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Wait. There’s someone. Must be Tessa.”

  She used her own binoculars and saw a slim black woman walking up the massive steps that led from the water to the memorial.

  “Is she supposed to be here?” Millie asked.

  Without turning away from the scene in front of her, Mac nodded. “Yes. It’s best if we have someone who knows us to help with the deal.”

  “I don’t know what I can do to help with it, but I will do my best.”

  Millie’s self-defeating tone pulled Mac away from the scene playing out in front of them. “You know things. Don’t worry. The FBI always likes people like you,” she said. “We’ll make sure you don’t have to deal with any time in jail and that you don’t sign a document. Remember that, Millie. Never sign a document.”

  She frowned. “Okay.”

  “Not without a world-class lawyer looking at it. Seriously.”

  Millie nodded.

  “I’m going in,” Rock said over the connection, pulling her back to the job at hand.

  Mac watched as he walked across the pathway and worried. This was all wrong. Most people wouldn’t notice if there were watchers missing, but she was trained. There weren’t any workers who looked just a little too neat to be cleaning, and there were no couples pretending to be on a romantic stroll at night. It was silent. Dead silent.

  “I don’t like it,” Vic said over the com. She could tell from his tone it was more for himself than anyone else. Still, she answered him.

  “I don’t either, love. But this is where we are.”

  Where was everyone? She took another sweeping view of the memorial area. There was no one. Not a soul. That one thought kept going on in her head over and over, until something horrible hit her.

  “Vic, this is a setup for a hit.”

  “No. Wait.”

  She knew he was thinking about it and knew he would come to the same conclusion. She had to act now, or things could go sideways.

  “You all take off,” she said to Jay, and scrambled out of the SUV.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Vic said over the com.

  “Something is really wrong. I told you, a hit.”