A WILDer Kind Of Love

by Angel Payne

  His ringing doorbell took the place of making a final choice.

  Before he took two steps toward the front door, it rang again. Then again. A trio of thumps on the portal followed right after.

  “Christ, Colton,” Levi grumbled. “Have you been out making trouble for the world again? Or did you just invite a circus troupe to dinner, as well?”

  “Why not?” he retorted. “You’d look good in some tights, Cowell. Balancing on an elephant, yeah?”

  “Sure. That leaves the high wire and tutu for you, pretty boy.”

  Once Dan opened the door, he really did wish for the circus.

  “John?” He clasped hands with the half-Samoan giant who filled his portal, outfitted much differently than the black-and-gray club gear in which Dan had seen him just a few nights ago. Franzen actually looked more daunting in his camouflage uniform and heavy boots, the stripes on his shoulder denoting him as Captain, the beret on his head adorned with the yellow flash of the First Special Forces Group.

  “Dan,” he responded—another incentive for his neck hairs to jolt up. Dan. Not “shithead” or “spook man” or “buddy.” The last time Franz had gone with “Dan,” they’d been gripping hands in the back of an air transport, a journey Dan barely remembered because half his face had just been fried off. Even so, his scars flared with phantom pain.

  He clenched his jaw to battle the ghosts as Franz invited himself into the foyer, followed by an equally tall guy with a jaw that matched his boxy crew cut. A shorter figure was behind them, outfitted in the black suit/white shirt of the Secret Service. Though that “uniform” was meant to make its wearers as “invisible” as possible, there was no way Dan ever dismissed it—

  Just in case it was filled by the feisty female who grinned at him now.

  With a moan of joy, he rushed her like a linebacker and embraced her like a favorite pillow. His chest burst. His throat constricted. “Hey, you little shit.”

  She laughed against his shoulder. “Hey, you big shit.”

  A not-so-discreet cough brought the world rushing back. Reluctantly, he stepped back—colliding with Tess as he did. With his brain already spinning, it was too huge an effort to hold himself back from the most natural action in the world: wrapping an arm around her waist to steady them both. Too bad the haters were right about best-laid plans. The moment his hand pressed to the curve of her body, he wanted her closer—in about a hundred other places.

  “Ruby.” He dipped his voice on the endearment, needing her to feel her preferred status. “I’m honored to introduce—”

  “Shut. Up.” Tess shoved away from him to rush forward as he had. “Like you don’t have a baby sister photo shrine in the den.” She went in for one of her signature Tess hugs, brief but brutal, before greeting, “Hi, Devyn. It’s awesome to meet you. I’m—”

  “Shut. Up.” Devyn’s eyes sparkled, bright blue and sassy, as she turned the tables on Tess. “I know exactly who you are, too. It’s great to meet you, despite the shitty circumstances.”

  More neck hairs on high alert. “What’s going on?” he charged. “It’s not Dad, is it?” It was his best guess, though Franz’s camos and the presence of the cube-head stranger didn’t bear it out. From the second they walked in, the air felt heavier. Official.

  “He’s fine.” The only assuring thing about Devyn’s statement were the words themselves. Her tight tone and fidgeting fingers told a different story. Franz’s jumpy gaze only deepened the impression.

  What the hell?

  Devyn tugged on his elbow. “We’re here about something else, Dan.”

  “You don’t say,” he drawled.

  “Can we come in?” she pressed. “And talk someplace…quiet?” The glance she tossed at Levi and Bella all but bullhorned her subtext. Quiet, as in private.

  “Maybe a raincheck is in order.” Levi wound a hand into Bella’s then scooted around everyone with surprising grace, given his size. From the open doorway, he called, “Yo, asshat? We’ll be in town until Wednesday, at the Wynn. Call if you can.”

  “Sure, man.”

  After waving goodbye to the couple, he shut the door and returned to the living room, where everyone was filling in the blanks on the missing introductions. Since he had the advantage of knowing everyone but the cube-head, he cut to the chase and riveted his attention on the guy. It didn’t take Cary Grant too long to approach, hand extended. “Hi there. Caspar Menken. FBI.”

  “Pleasure.” He didn’t mean either syllable. A glance to Tess for commiseration was worth the effort. It wasn’t that they absolutely hated teaming with the feds on cases; it just wasn’t their preferred method of tackling issues. Red tape and hoops were bad enough when one group of spies was involved. Doubling the manpower didn’t always equate to doubling effectiveness.

  Franz stomped forward, clearly determined to play Switzerland—but most disturbingly, looking like he had a damn good reason for it. “Okay, everyone plays nice right now, boys and girls. This is too hot a stack of bang sticks for us to fuck up.”

  Dan shot a narrow glare. “What are you talking about?”

  Menken braced a hand to John’s shoulder. When the huge warrior didn’t bite it off, a chill gripped Dan’s chest.

  This was serious shit.

  “Kirk Newport has been relegated to house arrest,” the fed explained.

  Screw the ice. Fury detonated through Dan in a hundred different ways. Make that a thousand.

  “What. The. Fuck?” It roared out as he surged toward Menken—only to be stopped cold by his sister’s hand, rammed against the center of his chest.

  “Sit the hell down, sparky.”

  He twisted away from her. Hurled his glare, hot and furious, at Franz. “You said a sentence downgrade, John. House arrest isn’t a fucking downgrade!”

  “Sit.” Devyn again. Shoving him this time. “Down.”

  He stumbled back and fell to the couch. At the same time, Tess lowered to a chair on the other side of the coffee table. Her tongue flicked nervously over her lips. “So the president signed the papers.”

  Dan snapped his glower at her. Right over the goddamn cracker flower. “You knew this might happen?”

  She paled—and he wished that didn’t look as gorgeous as any of her blushes. Menken saved her from having to answer by shifting forward, looking as if his suit had gotten too small. “Shit’s going down with Moscow. They need Newport on board,” he explained. “Nichols signed everything about forty-eight hours ago. It was discreet. Nobody was supposed to find out.”

  “But somebody did.” The whole right side of Dan’s face was a bath of fire now. It was his psyche’s permanent security alert system. Rage level high. Evacuate all but necessary instincts for survival. Digging fingers into the couch cushion, he went on, “Didn’t they? And now the shit’s hit the goddamn fan.”

  Menken’s composure was damn near irritating. “Well, thanks to your sister, we’re not dodging as many fecal Frisbees as we first anticipated.”

  Franzen snarled softly. “No time for walking cocky yet, G-man. This is far from over.”

  “What’s going on?” Tess deliberately focused her stare on Devyn. Her evasion was so obvious, he wondered why she didn’t just flash a neon sign. Officially avoiding Dan.

  It hurt. And enraged. How long had she known the full plan for Newport? And why hadn’t she breathed a word of it to him?

  “After they settled Newport in at his house, the vice president went to visit him,” Devyn explained. She lifted her gaze to Dan for a second. He didn’t try to hide his conflict from her, knowing it was pointless. The connection they shared was difficult to explain to anyone. They weren’t twins or best buddies or even raised in adversity. They were just…close. Over the miles, through the years, beyond the crazy job demands for them both—nothing changed the fact that she was one of his coolest blessings and biggest curses. Right now, it was tough to decide which, especially after she stated, “Daniel, I know you’re sideways about this—”

&n
bsp; “Understatement doesn’t come close to that, sister.”

  “But you don’t see the entire picture. Nobody does. The Soviets are pulling some bullshit that could be pretty degrading for US security in Europe and the Middle East. To keep Americans safe, President Nichols had to strike a deal with the devil.”

  “The devil.” Franz widened his stance and folded his arms. “There’s a truth we can all get behind.”

  “No shit.” Devyn’s agreement turned his mood around a little. A little. Her continued tension kept his attention amped.

  He wasn’t the only one. Tess bolted from her seat with both hands balled and shoulders locked. “What. Happened?”

  Before Devyn answered, she pulled in a measured breath. “On a sweep during Madame Vice President’s meeting with Newport, I found a cell phone hidden in a lead planter.”

  Tess sat right back down. “Damn.”

  “Yeah,” Devyn snapped. “Damn. That bastard isn’t allowed to have a cell, let alone a secret one. And what we found on it—” She cut herself short as her stare swung over, riveting on Dan.

  It was a sledgehammer of a moment for him, too. Never had he seen such a look on his little sister’s face before. He stared over every inch of her, wondering where or how she’d been so violently stabbed. Surely there wasn’t any other reason for the violent pain on her face—and the last-breath kind of love in her eyes.

  “I wanted to kill him,” she whispered after a long moment. “I did, Dan. When I saw what the bastard was capable of ordering, just punching it all into a damn cell phone like a take-out Chinese meal—” She inhaled and exhaled, shoulders shaking from the effort. “I could’ve taken out my SIG and blown his worthless head off. And dammit, I couldn’t. I can’t. I can’t even give that cocksucker a paper cut because of his value to our national security.” She spun and drove a fist into the wall. “Fuck!”

  Tension fell over the room like a funeral knell—until Franz cocked his head in a wry glance at Dan. “Can’t tell you two are related at all.”

  The urge to rise and pace was excruciating. Dan fought it, sensing whatever came next would make him want to turn the wall into a punching bag, too. He leaned forward, parking his elbows on his knees before looking back up at his friend.

  Softly, he asked, “What was on the phone?”

  Franz dipped his head to one side then the next, a cross between a shrug and a scowl. “Want to take a guess?”

  Dan linked his fingers. The comeback was actually perfect. Franzen knew him well enough by now to discern he’d feel more empowered if he could slam together parts of the puzzle himself. “GPS locator pins on everyone involved with the mission that took him down—and their women and kids.”

  Franz straightened his head. “Very nice, Holmes. And what else?”

  Dan swallowed hard. “Links back to other GPS coordinates. Real-time locations of the operatives for each hit. Probably statuses, too.”

  Franz dinged an imaginary bell. “Give the man a Bingo prize.”

  Devyn swore again.

  Menken turned, bracing both hands to the fireplace mantle.

  Tess went eerily still.

  And yeah…Dan noticed.

  Every damn inch of her.

  His gut gave his gaze no other alternative. His spirit gave his heart no other path. Yeah, even in his wrath at her. Maybe even because of it. Every thought in his head and sensation in his body was revved on high octane right now, even the recognition that while he was pissed as hell at her, he was awed into paralysis by her.

  How was this possible? How had she turned him into this mess?

  Because she was unlike any woman he’d ever met—especially now. Others, even toughened field agents, would likely be shaking from head to toe after hearing the news Franz, Devyn, and Menken had brought: that as they spoke, Kirk Newport had a different assassin headed for every dot on his secret cell phone. But Tess’s face was lifted and proud, determined and dedicated, brave and dauntless. Her eyes were focused firmly on Franz. Her lips mingled with her teeth and tongue as she processed thoughts, accessing her amazing laser beam of a mind for any knowledge she could bring to this makeshift war room of theirs, any new angle she could lend to thwarting Newport without killing him.

  She floored him. Enraged him. Mesmerized him.

  Tore him apart.

  “Needless to say, we’re working with Spec Ops in all the cities to take out the assassins before they get to us,” Franz clarified. “But until that happens, we’re arranging for fully-supplied safe houses for all the families.”

  “Nichols gave us clearance for that much,” Menken supplied.

  “I didn’t give the fucker much of a choice,” Franz growled. “We saved his life last year, goddammit.”

  “That op was one hell of a hat trick.” Menken’s mini fanboy moment of the mission Franz and his team had pulled off, not only saving the president but the entire US west coast, notched him a little higher in Dan’s regard.

  Franz barely noticed the compliment. His sculpted Samoan features, normally set in the requisite Spec Ops mode of tough guy arrogance, were much different tonight: an open book of fear for his men and their families.

  “Z’s fianceé Rayna, along with Sage and Racer Hawkins, are already tight in the Seattle location,” he stated. “A few more stateside members of the team, including Rhett Lange and Rebel Stafford, are with them. Can we use the new condo you secured in downtown LA for Ethan Archer’s wife?”

  “Of course,” Dan answered, before a scowl took over. “Hold on. Ethan wasn’t even on the mission last year.”

  “You think Newport knows the difference?”

  “Or cares?” Devyn added.

  That flipped open another page of Franz’s book. “We’re already covered in Hawaii,” he rushed on. “Luckily, Shay and Zoe are still there on honeymoon. They’ve been transported to the cottages on the Barking Sands Missile Base. Nobody’s getting on that base without stripping to their skivvies and handing over five official forms of ID.”

  Dan nodded, approving the move. “Is there a chance Newport may still want Shay more alive than dead, though? And would he try to use Tait as bait for that?”

  One more page peeled back across Franz’s face. “That’s why Tait, Kellan, and Lani are staying in the next cottage over. Lani’s little brother, Leo, is with them.”

  He punctuated it by fully locking his gaze with Dan’s—baring the full extent of his dread. The move reeled Dan through his third shock of the night. Fate had gotten in the first smack with Devyn appearing on his front doorstep, followed by her fist in his wall. Now, the exposure to this side of John Franzen he’d never seen. During the entire history of their friendship, the tough soldier had never allowed his composure to unravel so much.

  “These men are my ohana, Colton,” Franz told him. “My family. If even one of them or their loved ones are taken down by Newport’s fucked-up rampage, the man will not live to see another sunrise—and I’ll gladly tell the world in a court of law, including President Craig Nichols, that I was the one who ridded it of that sonofabitch.”

  Another thick pause weighted the room. This time, Menken didn’t attempt to calm the Samoan. The only person with those kinds of guts was, not surprisingly, Devyn. “Okay, big guy.” She stroked his shoulder, her hand looking tiny on his bicep. “We’re on a good roll here. Stay focused. One more safe house to secure, then you can go out and track some bad guy motherfuckers.” She shook her head and pouted. “Dammit.” Added a pitiful whine. “I wanna go too, mauna man.”

  “No.”

  Dan commanded it in unison with Franzen. He was about to embellish it with a rant about how playing roulette with safety got half of one’s face burned off, but that was when all his thoughts of fire were totally doused—

  By the glacier of horror that had taken the place of his chest.

  Shit. Shit.

  The last safe house would be Vegas. Because Devyn would be going in it.

  Sure enough, Menken looked u
p from a smart pad he’d opened, declaring, “We’ve got a furnished place ready to go not too far from here, tucked into a gated community. Nice view of the lake and everything.”

  “Sounds charming,” Devyn groused. “I can toodle around the water in my cute little paddleboat, getting blitzed on margaritas—or you can just send me to hell. Same diff.”

  Dan jolted to his feet. Paced all the way to the kitchen and back again. Then again. He had no idea what else to do with the terror now gripping his soul—the crazy what-ifs that bombarded him from all angles, shattering the glacier into freezing shards that tumbled through every inch of his body, every drop of his blood.

  You want to talk about hell, baby sister?

  Hell was the certainty that Newport likely knew, with crystal clarity, what Tess had come to mean to him in the last year—and that if he’d been followed by any of the bastard’s minions over the last week, especially to Catacomb, it wouldn’t be an outrageous leap to assume they’d taken their relationship to new levels.

  Hell was the certainty that if Newport even suspected Tess was Dan’s sexual submissive, he’d take her to his own dungeon—where safe, sane, and consensual would be merely fancy words from a dictionary.

  “Hey! King shit!”

  Devyn’s shout jerked him around.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “I think that’s my line,” she rebutted. “Well, our line.” She spread her hands. “What the hell? What’re you doing?”

  He took a second to breathe. To evaluate the accuracy of the shit storm that had just plummeted over his logic—and still led to the only course of action, disgusting as it was, that he could take because of it.

  Fuck.

  He scraped a hand through his hair. When he lifted his head back up, he arrowed his stare straight at Tess.

  “You have to go with her,” he directed.

  Tess’s gaze widened. “What? Who? Me? Where?”