Dell nodded.
“Good.” Tango turned and led the way to the backdoor. “Because this shit needs to end. I’ve had enough curve balls today to last me a fucking lifetime.”
Inside the bunker, Maddie was lost in thought, staring at her burner phone that she should have secured back into her go bag after her calls with Andrei and Sinclair, but hadn’t because she was… thinking.
The Nexus Suit was in play. Well, not fully, but it wouldn’t take much for someone to physically fix it. Then they’d be able to access the programming she had to assume was still on it. Intact. Along with the encrypted data she’d collected about Van’s not-so-normal abilities. For years. Ever since the first time he’d tried the suit on.
Her fingers skipped a drum beat as the full ramification of the situation sank in. This was bad. Real bad.
Impact absorbed, her fingers resumed drumming. Even if she could believe Andrei and that Rutger Dillon was behind everything—which didn’t make any sense because that particular bad guy just wasn’t… connected enough to pull something like this off. But regardless, even if she did buy it, it still didn’t explain the contradiction in facts.
She was wanted alive. Yet someone was using live rounds. Indiscriminately and had sprayed enough in her general direction that had Van not been there to use his ability to disrupt the bullets’ trajectory… she’d be dead by now.
That was a sobering thought and one that she should focus on, but couldn’t because she had to follow the logic and assume… there were two factions after her. One that wanted her brain alive to fix the suit and the other… that wanted to prevent her from doing just that.
But who? Who could possibly be after her? It wasn’t like there was a huge plethora of people who knew the suit existed. Or that she was the one who’d built it. There was her family, Van, his team, Sinclair, some of Sinclair’s team, Andrei, Sinjun, and… Van’s chain of command.
It had to be there. In Van’s chain of command. She already knew there was corruption there. It wouldn’t take much to leap to a spot where the info had been sold to cover Howser’s gambling debts—debts that Howser owed to her because she’d been the one to lure him into that high stakes poker game that’d wiped him out financially, but… who would he have contacted to set the bounty up?
She glanced over her shoulder at the posted bounty. Howser didn’t have a million dollars to front for that. So who the devil could it have been who’d arranged the bounty that’d triggered someone in Van’s sphere to hear about it then tell him which would in turn have her ex-husband showing up at the house just in time to save her..?
Click. Light bulb in her head flickered to life. No one had shown up yet to kidnap her for the bounty. It had to be staged. As a message. To trigger Van to react. One that couldn’t have been sent in a blatant direct manner as in a text to someone in Van’s life, but as an overt, pray like hell he’d get it and… don’t freak out. He got the message. I’m alive. And safe. He got the message.
One conundrum figured out, Maddie spun around in her seat and finished hacking the message board where the bounty had been issued, then removed it. She was just finishing up, when the back door opened and her little brother rushed in.
“Don’t let him hurt me,” Kenny blurted out.
Maddie snorted. “He won’t hurt you.”
Kenny flung his stuff down on the floor then fell onto the couch in a sprawl that put him eye to eye with Lily who proceeded to give him doggie welcome home kisses. “Gah,” Kenny sputtered. “Enough with the kisses Lily.”
Lily ignored him and kept at it.
Maddie hit enter on the keyboard and the bounty was erased. “Enjoy it while you can… K-dog.”
The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees as Maddie slowly turned around to face her baby brother.
Kenny had Lily’s head in his hands and was holding her back as he half sat up. “Shit. He told you about that?”
“Kind of hard to miss your K-dog out… considering it was on speaker phone.”
“Uh, yeah, I um… how much do you know?”
Maddie arched a brow and pinned him with a look that’d make mamas around the world proud. “You lied to me. You knew how to get in touch with Van after he left and you… lied to me.”
Kenny squirmed and swiveled up until both his size fifteen boots hit the floor. “Aw, Maddie, don’t... it wasn’t like that. I didn’t have a choice! Have you met your husband? He’s scary. When he said keep you in the dark, I wasn’t about to… I had to do it. He scares me!”
“Not half as much as I will when I’m done with you.”
“I wasn’t the only one,” he spat out in a rush. “Zed and Nev were in on it, too.”
“And I will deal with them when I get my hands on them, but you… you should have told me.”
His head fell back on his shoulder. “I couldn’t. Tango threatened me then Nev and Zed… ah hell, what’s the use. You’re pissed. Tango’s pissed.” He shook his head, then pulled his head back to look at her. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have told you, but I didn’t. Because they made me swear not to and even though it was wrong, horribly wrong of me to stand by my word and not tell you, I did it because I believed them and that it was for your own good.”
Maddie’s brain latched onto the last part of his statement and a missing piece of the Van leaving puzzle she didn’t have. “What did they tell you?”
“That as long as you were with Tango you’d be a target.”
Maddie narrowed her eyes. Oh she heard him and it matched what Van had given her, but… she couldn’t shake the feeling that Kenny was keeping something from her. “You’re hiding something.”
“Shit yeah I am, but I’m not about to open to my sister about how many sorority chicks I banged this week.”
“Or how many times you hacked into your professor’s computer to change an absent mark to present?”
Kenny rolled his eyes then surged to his feet. “See, this is exactly why I don’t live at home! You’re always in my shit! How the hell am I supposed to grow up to be a man when you can’t cut the fucking apron strings?”
“I don’t know,” Maddie fired back. “Maybe when you start acting like a man and honoring your obligations.”
“I can’t do this.” Kenny grabbed his bag and started to stomp out of the room. “And maybe your husband wouldn’t have had to order us to stay silent on his shit if you weren’t such a busy-fucking-body who can’t respect a man’s privacy enough to keep her nose out of his shit!”
Maddie was too shocked by his words to respond. She fell back in her chair and just… let him go. Was that really what he thought of her? After all she’d sacrificed to make sure was clothed and fed and got into the college of his choice… that was what he had to say to her? That she was a busy body who couldn’t keep her nose out of ‘those that she loved’s business?
Sure she was nosy, but it wasn’t because she was trying to invade their privacy. It was because… she needed to know. To keep them safe. To… make sure they came home. So she wouldn’t be alone. Alone when they were there. Alone when they left. It never changed did it?
She had spent the majority of her life trying to be the glue that kept her family together and… they kept trying to cut her out of it. Exclude her from the party. Because she… wasn’t one of the guys.
The burner phone beeped with a text message.
It was from Andrei. In code. She had it decrypted in seconds and learned he was rerouting to her location to interrogate the prisoners.
She fired back a text. No need. It’s covered.
She was waiting for Andrei’s response when the back door opened and Van and his team started to file in. Not wanting Van to see the text, she turned it over in her hand and pressed the screen against her thigh. “Everything okay?”
Van’s expression didn’t look remotely happy. “Things are great. Thanks for asking.” He waved a hand indicating his team then started rattling through the introductions.
> Halfway through, the phone pinged with Andrei’s response. Habit more so than common sense took over and she glanced at it. Too late. It’s arranged.
Damnation. How in the world was she going to explain Andrei showing up to Van when he definitely didn’t know that she and Andrei were still friends? A shadow fell over her and Maddie looked up.
Van stood over her with his hand out. “Show me.”
Maddie pressed the phone to her chest and met his gaze head on. “I’d really rather not. It’s personal.”
“And I’d rather not have to turn you over my knee. In front of my team. But I will.”
“It’s not from my employer if that’s what you’re thinking,” she sneered.
“Did any of you send my wife a text,” Van asked his team without taking his eyes off her.
A chorus of ‘no, nope, not me’ echoed in the room.
Maddie narrowed her eyes. “You’re a bully.”
“No, I’m your husband and protector,” Van told her in a steely tone. “If you received a text message from anyone not in this room, then they’re not on my radar and I need to know.”
They stared at each other in another battle of wills that she knew going into wouldn’t end in her favor. Because he was right. Logic dictated that he was her protector and as such he needed to have all the facts. Including the ones that’d set him off. “Fine,” she huffed then thrust the phone out at him. “But I’m not explaining it other than to say it’s not a threat to me.”
Van took the phone, studied the message with a frown marring his brow that lasted for… not nearly as long as she’d hoped. “Sonofabitch. What did he arrange?”
“Ask him yourself.” Maddie surged to her feet then stepped around Van.
He grabbed her arm and stopped her glorious stomp march out of the room, then pulled her in until they were nose to nose. “Andrei Ivanov better not be your employer.”
She jerked her arm out of his grasp then pressed a hand on his chest as she stepped in closer. “You gave up the right to dictate to me when you divorced me after you removed the threat to my person. You want answers from me, then you better start talking. Because until then… you will get. Nothing.”
Her iron clad stance delivered, Maddie stepped around him towards his jaws hanging open team. They parted for her like she was Moses at the Red Sea.
Maddie half expected Van to try and stop her again. But he didn’t. Nor did he take his usual tact by issuing the last words that were meant to be a warning. And because of that, she soon found herself in the only room directly in her path… the kitchen.
And no, the irony of it wasn’t lost on her that she’d just inadvertently shot herself in her socked feet and relegated her butt right on out of the man’s world and into the proverbial woman’s. Son. Of. A. Mother. Trucking. Biddy. On. Steroids.
He’d won this round because of her own stupidity.
But by god, he would not win the next.
A few minutes later, after making sure the team had everything they needed to get working, Tango escaped the bunker to take a walk to clear his head and make that much needed call to his mentor and handler, Trace Mason.
Trace answered on the fourth ring. “You should know I almost didn’t answer.”
Tango grunted under his breath as he started hoofing it back to his car. “You should know I pulled my punches last time we met. But won’t next time.”
“I’d say ‘Bring it’ but that’d be too cliché even for you.” Trace paused, then asked, “How’s the reunion going?”
He should be surprised Trace knew, but word spread fast in their organization. Especially when a teammate’s female was targeted. “Like shit. Sinclair got to Maddie.”
His statement was met with silence.
“Son of a bitch,” Tango muttered. “You knew and didn’t tell me.”
Trace’s voice was deliberate and calm. “Because I’m not stupid and went above and beyond to do you a favor.”
“What favor, Trace? Whatever shit went down has my Maddie with a fucking bounty on her head that’s got every damn trigger happy, illiterate motherfucker with a live round in his clip gunning for us and—”
The phone abruptly disconnected on a fizzle and pop that was all the warning Tango got before Trace suddenly appeared next to him. “No kill order has been issued that I’m aware of.”
Tango rolled his eyes on a scoff, then pocketed his phone. “Who does she work for?”
Trace frowned. “Not someone who’d put a kill order out on her. That’s for damn sure.”
“Give me his name.”
“Herself,” Trace told him. “Maddie works for herself. As a contractor.”
They reached the end of the block and started up another. “You sure?”
“Positive. Shit, Gabriel, do you think I’m stupid? Maddie is your anchor and the last thing this world needs is for anything to happen to her and for you to go off like you did in Madrid. My ass still hasn’t fully healed from the last time you pulled your punches.”
Something inside Tango started to unwind. Whether it was being in the presence of someone he trusted to watch his back, or hearing his real given name being spoken, or the acknowledgement that Tango’s inner badass was stronger, meaner, and more effective than his mentor’s… yeah okay, so it was mostly that one. But regardless, it had an impact and allowed him to see things clearer. Not much, but enough to start to see things from a different perspective.
Trace continued. “I called in a favor with Marilyn’s godfather. He negotiated the deal and made Sinclair back down.”
Marilyn was Trace’s wife. The relationship between the two of them wasn’t what it should be, but damned if Tango was in a position to offer his mentor any advice. “No one makes Sinclair back down. What the hell were the terms?”
“Not a clue, but I was there when Drake called Sinclair and told him Maddie was off the board and under his protection. Recruitment cease and desist order went out and next thing… your girl is setup as a contracted lab rat.”
“No field work?”
Trace shook his head. “None.”
“Then who the hell is gunning for her?”
“No clue. But I can tell you Sinclair has diverted considerable resources into finding out.”
“Your team?”
Trace shook his head. “All teams, but mine and Ben’s.”
“Good to know.”
“Delta team contacted you yet?”
Tango nodded. “Spoke with Caliv. Nexus Suit has turned up missing. No clue why, but that shit can’t be good.”
“Hell no, it can’t be good and you need to stay as far away from that as possible. Last thing I need is for you to light up another beacon of doomsday prophecy shit that I have to beat back.”
“True that.” Tango muttered. He scrubbed a hand over his hair and sighed. “That’s not the only reason I called you.” He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
Trace stopped along with him and waited for Tango to speak.
Tango tapped the center of his chest. “He wants out.”
Trace gave him a ‘that’s a no brainer’ look. “Say no.”
Another hand through his hair and Tango blurted out, “Maddie’s pregnant.”
Trace pulled back. “Shit. It yours?”
“Hell yes.”
“Damn, Gabriel. That was quick.”
Tango rubbed the back of his neck, hating like hell having to discuss his crazy with someone else. If it’d been anyone other than someone else he knew for a fact got it like he did, he wouldn’t even be having this conversation. “Fuck it. He says we have to fully merge to do some sort of… soul rite. I have no clue what that shit is. But if I don’t do it, then Maddie and the kids will die.”
Trace sobered and turned serious. Quick. “Did he specifically say… soul rite?”
“Yes. Exact words.”
Trace was slow to nod. “Let him to the surface.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Yeah and I’d
rather be back home answering Marilyn’s ‘do these jeans make my ass look big’ question, but I’m here and that was an order. So, do it.”
Tango reluctantly did as he was ordered and closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath then inched up the gates that held back his beast. A hot burst of energy popped into his mind and Tango’s consciousness was shoved back, relegated to second string. He cleared his throat as words spoken in an unfamiliar language started to build in his mind, ready to spill out, he opened his eyes.
Trace started speaking. Tango had no clue what he was saying. The language was foreign, but he didn’t miss the beast’s surprise and pleasure at hearing his own language spoken.
The beast answered Trace’s question in a deep voice, full of power.
Half way into the second round of Q&A, the beast suddenly got agitated. Tango sprang into action, grabbed the chain tethering him from taking over fully, and then yanked him back into his prison. It happened in a split second that had Tango gasping for breath and reaching for the nearest wall to recuperate his strength. “You… get the answers… you wanted?”
Trace gave him a considering look as he stroked a hand over his mouth and jaw, smoothing down his goatee. “Wanted, no. Necessary, yes.” He paused to think then nodded as if coming to a decision. “Don’t do the rite. Not yet. Give me time to confirm something then… shit. Just don’t do anything until you’ve heard from me. Clear? ”
“What the hell did he tell you?”
“Nothing you need to know. Yet.”
“Bullshit. Tell me what he told you. Now.”
Trace shook his head. “It’s… complicated.”
“Maddie and our sons’ lives are on the line, Trace. Uncomplicate the shit, then spit it out, because I’m not sure I’m gonna hold him back. Not with that hanging over my head.”
Trace gave him a confused look. “Wait. Did you say sons? As in twins?”
Devil's Tango (Running with the Devil Book 1) Page 12
