Art had told her about their excursions and how often Brodie wasn’t home. At the time, she’d been smart enough to see that the chief was trying to explain that sometimes she’d have to live without Brodie at her side and she’d thought she could do it. But worrying for him, and for their relationship, was a difficult habit to break.
“No,” he said, taking hold of her hair. “But I’ll find one.”
That she didn’t doubt, but as her attention moved to his chest, she wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to respond. Should she wish him luck? Encourage him to leave when she would never be able to pin him down on when he’d be back.
“Are you taking Tuck?” she asked, because at least if Tuck were with him, she would have some reassurance that he had backup.
“No,” Brodie said. “He has his own issues to work through. Time on his own will be good for him. He needs to get himself neck deep in trouble before he’ll realize he screwed up.”
That was an unusual and ambiguous statement. “Screwed up?” she asked with renewed intrigue. Tuck was the most efficient member of the Kindred, and she’d never seen him make a mistake. He didn’t let his feelings get in the way of the job like the rest of them could be accused of. “I told him to go and get some TLC from Kadie.”
“He broke up with her,” Brodie said, watching her lips again.
Her mouth fell open. She’d spoken of Tuck’s girlfriend and he’d never confessed that. “When?” she asked.
“Right after Art.”
That was months ago and Tuck had let her talk about Kadie as though she was still a part of his life. “Why did he do that?”
“Screws with a guy’s head, losing a member of the team like we lost Art.”
Thinking back over their conversations, she remembered that Tuck had commented on how if he’d taken the bullet Kadie would never have known. “Man,” she exhaled and relaxed her weight onto Brodie. Her arms slid around him until she clasped her own wrist at his lower back. “He broke up with her because he thought it wasn’t fair on her to be waiting for him and because he could be hurt and Kadie would never know what had happened to him.”
“Maybe,” he said. “We’d have taken care of Kadie if anything happened to Tuck.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Kinda,” Brodie said. “He looked after you when I was off the grid, didn’t he?”
“He did,” she said. Tuck and Brodie weren’t the types of men to open their hearts to each other. But Tuck had told Brodie about dumping Kadie, it was a sign they were closer than she had given them credit for.
“I’d have felt better about you going away if you were taking someone with you,” she said, breathing in his scent. “What about Zave?”
“Zave’s not much of a spotter,” Brodie said and the heat of his mouth warmed her hair. “You think you’re up for the job?”
It hadn’t occurred to her that Brodie might ask her to go with him. But as she slid out of his arms to look up at him, she didn’t read any doubt in his features. “You want me to go abroad with you?”
“You’ve always wanted to go, right?”
Her smile spread, but she was speechless. He’d listened, he’d considered, he’d cared, and he’d chosen her. “What happened to not making any plans past tomorrow?”
His scowl was sarcastic. “You doubt the team? You think someone’s gonna fuck up?”
She smiled. “No,” she said, but her faith was stronger than his.
“If you don’t want to,” he said, but from the way he leaned away, she could tell he was teasing her.
Grabbing handfuls of his tee shirt, she hauled him back and climbed up him to steal his mouth. “I’d go anywhere in the world with you,” she said, coiling her arms around his neck and squeezing herself close. “I love you, Brodie McCormack.”
“Yeah,” he said while sucking in a breath. “And that scares the shit out of me.”
Some of her exuberance waned. “Why?”
“Because every time you leave my side you’re in danger. When you were out there at Sutcliffe’s and out of range… I couldn’t cover you and if that fucker had hurt you, I wouldn’t have gotten there quick enough.”
Nothing he’d said so far suggested he was wild about having her in the field again. During this mission, her confidence had grown, and she didn’t want to fade into the background again. Being a part of the Kindred was as humbling as it was invigorating. These men trusted her and she wouldn’t let them down—if Brodie didn’t yank her. Without Art here, Brodie’s word was the one everyone else followed.
The joy from a moment ago cooled to confusion. “You’re saying you can’t work with me?”
“I’m saying…” The way he trailed off and glanced upward intrigued her. She smoothed a hand up his throat, curling her fingers to rasp them through his stubble.
“Beau?”
With a rough exhale and a glare, he confessed. “I’m saying I was jealous.”
“That I was with a man I have no interest in?” she asked.
His stern eyes weren’t playing when they landed on hers. “The jealousy was irrational. But I carry a powerful weapon, sweetheart. I hurt people for a living. Jealousy riles me, which clouds my thinking and I act without thinking when I—“
“No one got hurt.”
He took a few seconds to compose himself. “As long as I can see you, we’re fine,” he said. “We’ll just have to keep that in mind during future missions.”
It would be hard to control his volatility, it was something she hadn’t even tried to do. If she was going to be a part of the Kindred then he would have to learn that he couldn’t always be in control of her. Although, it was flattering that he lost his senses over her. It might be primitive, but these suggestions of his feelings always heightened her own.
“You want to watch me every minute of every day?” she asked and smiled because that might be quite hot, though the idea was probably more alluring than the reality.
“Keep you in my line of sight at all times? Yeah,” he said and his frown finally relaxed. “I think I might do that.”
Having him and Maverick watching over her movements would make her the safest person on the face of the earth. “I have to go shower and change,” she teased, sucking her lower lip into her mouth to moisten it, only to let it slide out again with more ease as her saliva lubricated it. “Do you want to start now?”
“Yeah,” he said and one corner of his mouth rose. “And don’t forget you’ve gotta follow your superior’s orders.”
She couldn’t say no to anything he told her to do, superior or not.
TWENTY-THREE
“I’ve got this,” she muttered to herself and rested a hand over the purse she had slung across her body.
Walking toward the Grand Hotel, Zara wasn’t as self-conscious about talking to herself as she had been the last time she’d been on this sidewalk. Maybe that was because this time her words were for her rather than the men in her ear.
“Looking good, baby,” Brodie said and she smiled. “Your legs look fucking hot.”
“Thank you,” she muttered, trying not to let her glee spread to her expression because grinning like an idiot would probably be more conspicuous than talking to herself.
“They’ll look sexier with my head between them later.”
“Rave,” she whispered, sure that her blush was making her face luminous.
“If you get back what you give, she can earn her name,” Tuck said and she could only conclude the teasing was a way to relax her.
“She earned that months ago,” Brodie muttered and Tuck laughed. “There’s no bird called a spit.”
A laugh escaped on a breath as she pulled open the door to the Grand lobby. “You got an eyeball on them?” she asked.
It took no time for the men to refocus on business. “The blinds are half closed, but yeah, they’re in there,” Brodie said, sounding serious now that the game was upon them. “Where am I?”
“With me,” she w
hispered and pressed the elevator call button.
Again, she held onto the purse that was across her body. She’d intended to get dressed up like she had the last time she’d been here, that was until Brodie reminded her there was no party and no one to impress. So wearing a short gypsy dress that was approved by Brodie, she had plenty of room to move if she had to make tracks in a hurry.
According to Brodie’s instruction, if she had to run the first thing she was to lose were the shoes. Now that he’d admired their effect on her legs, Zara would bet his opinion on that would’ve changed.
She’d suggested wearing flats, but that might have been an obvious safety net. Brodie preferred the spike heels and had explained how to push the point through the eye socket into the brain. The act would eliminate any threat but would probably make her lose her lunch too. From her sneer, he’d guessed how disgusting the idea was to her. Her love had reminded her that he was her chief and if he told her to do it, she had no choice.
The more casual dress allowed her to wear a larger purse and Brodie had allowed her to take her gun. But that wasn’t why she kept touching the purse. Inside were the keys to the van she’d parked a block over. The van that had been secreted in a storage locker for a month before she and Tuck had moved it to a separate unit on McCormack property.
They’d lost Art protecting this device. They’d hidden it to stop it from falling into the wrong hands and now she was supposed to just give it away.
The Grand elevator came and she stepped inside to select the conference room floor. “Are we sure about this?” she asked as the doors closed, giving the men the chance to revise the plan.
“Shit,” Brodie hissed and the suddenness of his exclamation made her jump.
“What?”
“They closed the blinds,” Tuck said. “It’s ok, we still have the neck cam.”
The necklace camera was the same as the one she’d worn at the compound and was becoming part of her regular jewelry routine. “You want me just to shoot him?” she asked, but it was unlikely Sutcliffe would allow her to get her hand in her bag to pull out her gun then put a round into him before he took her out himself. If she got a gun into that room, she had to assume that the others did too.
“No, the meeting is here because it’s public,” Brodie said. She was heading to a private room, but the hotel was public. “Someone will hear the shot and we don’t trust Saint.”
At the pre-brief, they’d sat in main security and the men had explained to her how the bustling hotel in a busy part of town was a difficult place to commit murder. Even from Brodie’s position, it would draw too much attention to their group. It was Kindred protocol to do their work when people were alone or in a deserted area. As she thought about it, she realized that was what had happened to all of the men she’d been present to see die by Maverick. Tim. Quebec. Sutcliffe’s men.
The plan was to let Sutcliffe take Game Time with the belief that he’d transport it to the arsenal. They had a low-quality image from the map she’d seen in the kitchen of the Sutcliffe compound, but Game Time would be taken to the most secure storage area, where the most destructive weapons would be kept. That was the location the Kindred had to identify and the reason for her taking this risk.
“Give them the keys and get out,” Brodie said. “Fast as you can.”
Zara had never considered hanging around just to shoot the breeze. But Brodie had told her about his struggles when she was in the Sutcliffe compound and out of his range. While there wasn’t quite the same distance between them at that moment, there was a tormenting barrier to him keeping her safe.
“Copy,” she said and strode along the corridor.
“Don’t knock,” Brodie said. “Gives them time to take aim. Stay to the side.”
She didn’t like any of these statements, but expressing her apprehension would make him abort the op, she was sure of it, and she hadn’t gotten herself hyped up for nothing. She was doing this. Doing as Brodie told her, she stayed near the wall and opened the conference room door without knocking. A beat of nothing passed. She’d betrayed her presence, so she had to enter, but her heart was hammering as she did.
Slinking around the doorframe, she saw Sutcliffe and Grant on the couch, neither had a weapon drawn, in fact, they were both smiling. “Miss Bandini!” Sutcliffe exclaimed and put a glass of dark liquid aside to stand up and cross to her.
Zara left the door open, just in case, but he came all the way over and took her hand to shake it vigorously. Maintaining his hold on her, he pulled her into the room and over to the couch where there was a decanter and an empty glass on the end table.
“We were just discussing your turnaround,” Sutcliffe said and pulled her onto the couch to sit between them.
“I can take it blind,” Brodie murmured as Sutcliffe went to the end table to pour her a drink.
With the men on the couch, Brodie could picture the room and take the shot if he had to. But there would be zero room for error. The blinds could affect the bullet trajectory, and she was in the center seat, where Sutcliffe had put her and as she glanced at Grant’s smile, she wondered if they’d put her here on purpose as a shield for both of them.
After the Atlas warehouse, they had to be wary of a sniper, especially being as she claimed to love one. “I brought the product,” she said, opening her purse.
Grant’s smile faded as he watched her put her hand inside. Instead of seizing it, she slid her hand beneath her weapon and was reassured by the weight of the cool metal on her knuckles. She’d killed with this weapon once before and if she had to, she would do it again now.
Pulling out the van key, she held it up toward Grant, who opened his hand to receive it. “It’s a black van, one street over.”
“How did you get it?” Sutcliffe asked, coming over to give her the glass of liquor. “Wasn’t it under Kindred protection? They wouldn’t have handed it over without a fight.”
She took the glass but didn’t drink. Whether it was just alcohol or contained a drug, she didn’t want anything slowing her reflexes and Art’s warning about hard liquor remained with her. She’d been a part of the Kindred for a short time and every word of advice she’d been given thrummed through her mind. All of it was useful. The others were trained and experienced. She was the rookie.
“It was no trouble,” she said.
“Raven has been out of the picture,” Grant said. Zara was surprised to hear him answering for her. “Zara has been abandoned by her previous allies.”
“Typical,” Sutcliffe said, seating himself beside her and retrieving his glass from the table. “You were used, my girl.”
She wasn’t used. Nor was she his girl. She could practically hear Brodie grinding his teeth together, and she knew he was using all of his restraint not to take the shot right this minute. What Sutcliffe knew about Raven’s identity was unknown. But if Grant was trying to butter up the Brit then there was a chance he’d told the truth. Regardless, she wasn’t going to reveal any secrets.
“Ben told me that you were at the house last night,” Sutcliffe said. “Can we assume that we have your loyalty now?”
“Ben has been a good friend,” she said. “He’s a good man.”
Sutcliffe made eye contact with Grant on her other side. “We want you to move to the compound.”
That request was unexpected, but she tried to hide her shock. “Move?”
Discerning as he drank, Sutcliffe lost his humor and became pragmatic. “Our pace will only increase now that we have Game Time,” Sutcliffe said.
Looking from Sutcliffe to Grant, she was surprised to see the certainty Grant was exuding. “Your pace?” she asked.
“We plan to hit a high-profile target,” Sutcliffe said.
They couldn’t know that she was worried. Hiding her fear took all of her restraint. “I thought the point was to protect our people,” she said, hating that this turn of events was making it difficult for her to think straight. “If you plan to hurt—“
“It won’t be in this country,” Grant said.
It was on her lips to exclaim her surprise. This was a room for revelations. The closed blinds were only a few millimeters thick, but she’d never felt so far away from Brodie as she did at that moment. They wanted her on Sutcliffe land and they planned to turn Game Time around quickly, meaning there was a chance it would never be stored on US soil, they could have a plane waiting for it.
“When?” she asked.
Getting answers wasn’t as easy as asking the right question. “You’ll be given more information when you’re settled in. When will you join us?”
Recognizing opportunity was another Kindred requirement. “Now,” she said. She couldn’t delay if she wanted to ensure Game Time was monitored.
“Excellent,” Sutcliffe said and took one of her arms while Grant clutched the other.
They helped her onto her feet and she put aside her glass to go with them to the door. Glancing back at the blinds, she hoped the others understood her reasoning. There was nothing that Brodie and Tuck could do to protect her after she left the conference room.
“I’m coming, baby,” Brodie said and she could hear movement in his tone. Background noise suggested he was running down an echoing stairway.
“No,” she said. Grant paused, but Sutcliffe kept on moving. “You don’t have to pull me. I’m coming. I want to come to the compound. I want to be a part of what you’re doing.”
Sutcliffe didn’t let her go. But Grant did. “Are you talking to me?” Brodie asked and the slight pant in his voice made her swallow.
“Are you sure?” Grant asked, which gave her leave to answer Brodie.
“Yes,” she said to Brodie. Grant and Sutcliffe stopped inside the stairwell they’d brought her to. Making eye contact with Grant, she was still talking to her lover. “You’ll stay with me?”
“We’re on it,” Brodie said. “Don’t take the earpiece out. We’ll lose contact until Swift and I catch up. But we’re there, ok? And if you need to start shooting, do it.”
Swallow (Kindred Book 2) Page 27
