by Katie Reus
Understanding set in and she wasn’t sure what to feel. She knew she didn’t like the sick sensation in the pit of her stomach, but she liked that she affected him as much as he did her. “So you feel like maybe you’re being unfaithful in a way?” Even though all they’d done was kiss. She wasn’t even sure why she’d asked. She should just let this drop, but couldn’t seem to help herself.
Swallowing hard, he looked back at her and nodded. “Sort of. I keep thinking, what if I’d met you when I’d been married. Would I have reacted the same? I don’t know. I just can’t turn my head off.”
“You wouldn’t have reacted to me if you’d been married.” Of that she had no doubt. It wasn’t the way Levi was hardwired.
His expression darkened. “How can you know that?” he asked, his voice savage.
“Because you’re not a douche. That’s how I know. When you were married you were faithful, committed, and in love with your wife. You wouldn’t have been looking. And you can’t play the ‘what-if’ game because it’ll only drive you insane. Trust me. Things happen and our futures change and there are no what-ifs anymore. The path we’re on is the one we’re supposed to be on. And I’m not saying stuff happens for a reason. I hate that saying because it’s total bullshit. I’m just making the point that you’re not doing anything wrong by wanting me. But if you feel guilt or shame, then this stops right now.” Because she wasn’t going to take any man’s scraps. Selene pushed at his chest, wanting to get up from the bed, but he kept her pinned beneath him, an immovable force.
“I don’t . . . fuck,” he growled, the self-loathing in his voice pretty damn clear. His breathing had grown even more erratic, his chest rising and falling against hers. For a long moment he just watched her with those dark, penetrating eyes.
Right about now she wished she understood the opposite sex more. She understood men, or at least that their dicks seemed to motivate them more often than not, but Levi was too damn complicated. Everything she’d read about him, not to mention his ability to stay off the NSA’s radar for two years, told her that he was a man not used to showing any emotions, to doing whatever it took to get the job done. She’d already agreed to take him to the meeting with Tasev so she didn’t think this kissing episode and little confession was about him manipulating her. She didn’t have much experience with men so she couldn’t be totally sure. God, what the hell was she thinking though? She couldn’t trust him. She shoved at him again, this time harder.
Thankfully he moved off her, his expression dark and full of too many emotions for her to sift through.
“We’ve got to prepare for tonight and stop by my place. I’ve also got to call Wesley,” she muttered.
She mentally shook herself for this stupid lapse in sanity—and self-control. No matter what, Levi was a man on a mission and she wasn’t stupid enough to think that because he desired her that it would mean anything if she got in the way of that mission. She needed to remember that. She knew exactly how men could be when it came to their own self-interests.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, turned away from her, he finally spoke, his voice guttural. “This isn’t over between us.” Without waiting for a response, he shoved up and stood.
She should have said something witty to make it clear that this was never happening again. Unfortunately her body flared to life at those heated words. She wanted to know what it was like to be completely possessed by this man. Instead of scaring her, the thought sent the most erotic thrill racing through her.
If she was stupid enough to sleep with him, she knew that things between them would end badly, but she wanted Levi in a way that defied logic, and probably her sanity, and she wanted everything he had to offer. Even if she got burned in the end.
• • •
Wesley cracked open his eyes at the hard knock on his door. He glanced at his watch. Barely a couple of hours had passed. “Come in,” he barked out, already sitting up. If someone was interrupting him, he knew it was an emergency and he wasn’t going back to sleep.
Ortiz walked in, his expression tense and even though Wesley knew he hadn’t gotten any sleep the man still looked sharp. Fucking youth. “Sorry—”
Wesley shook his head, picking up his button-down shirt as he stood. “It’s fine.”
“Max Southers is on the phone. Line one. Said it’s an emergency.”
A jolt of energy shot through Wesley. He’d turned the volume on his cell down so that’s likely why the man had called his office. He nodded at Ortiz as he fished his phone out and swiped his finger across the screen. Sure enough he had a few missed calls from Max. “Thanks. I know it’s not your job but—”
“I’ve already got a fresh pot of coffee brewing and I’m having bagels and other breakfast stuff picked up for the entire staff.” Ortiz was a relatively new Black Death 9 agent but Wesley liked working with him and had kept him in Miami for this job after the last op they’d run because he’d wanted Ortiz to see how ops ran from the tech side. The man was one of the toughest Wesley had worked with, a fast learner and surprisingly good in an office situation as well as the field.
“Thanks, Marine.” Even though Ortiz hadn’t been in the Marines for years Wesley still called him that sometimes.
The man grinned and stepped back for the door. Before he left, Wesley pinned him with a stare. “Call Bell, Freeman, and Dax and wake them up. Are you good for an op?” he asked even though he knew Ortiz would be. A few weeks ago he’d been hit with a direct round and thanks to a vest had been protected. Still bruised and battered, he’d been ready to go hours later on another mission.
“Yeah.” Not even a pause.
“Good.” Wesley dismissed him by picking up the office phone. Everything here ran through so many layers of encryption he never worried about privacy. “Hey, Max. What’s the problem?” he asked as Ortiz shut the door behind him. Considering the early hour he knew that the Deputy Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration wouldn’t be calling him unless it was an emergency.
“You still in Miami?” Southers asked, his voice humming with unusual intensity.
Wesley sat up straighter in his chair. “Yeah.”
“I’ve got a tip for you. Anonymous. No one can know this came from me, but there’s a player in Miami who just sent out two teams of armed men to infiltrate two cities’ water supplies with an unknown toxin. One right outside Tallahassee. The other outside of Albany, Georgia. And they’ve got a two-hour head start on you but if you send teams now you can cut them off.” He quickly rattled off the names of the two water companies.
Wesley’s blood ran cold at Southers’s words, already retrieving his cell again so he could call in his people. “Who’s the operator?”
“I can’t—”
“Tasev?” Wesley took a shot in the dark. This was no coincidence, especially with what Schmidt’s message had relayed.
“Shit. How’d you know?”
“I’m working an op right now involving him.” And now the question of whether the man was indeed alive had been answered. Not that Wesley had doubted it. “You have an inside man?” Because there was no way Max could have gotten the tip otherwise. When he was met with silence Wesley gritted his teeth. How the hell had Southers even gotten someone inside Tasev’s organization? “Fine, I get it. Why are you contacting me instead of another branch?”
“It was either you or HRT and I don’t have a contact there who’ll listen without more info. You’re one of the only men I know who won’t have to wade through red tape to get this op off the ground. Good luck. And if you leak that this came from me, we’re no longer friends.” Max ended the call before Wesley could respond.
Which was out of character for him. So was the threat at the end. Because that’s exactly what that had been. If they weren’t friends, they were enemies. Wesley would never betray his friend’s confidence. After calling Ortiz and ordering him to get another team together, he headed out to the comm center for this op.
The team of analysts had s
witched shifts for the night with the night crew smaller than the day one. Right now one of his favorite people was working, Karen Stafford. He swore the woman never slept. Knowing he’d have roughly twenty minutes before the two teams gathered here, he grabbed a chair and sat next to Karen at her computer station.
The redhead continued typing and raised her eyebrows without looking at him. “What’s up, boss?”
He could be wrong, but going with his gut, he thought about what he would do if he was in an undercover situation. He wouldn’t make a phone call from any cell phone, no matter how encrypted. No, he’d go old-school and use a pay phone. Making contact with a handler or anyone on the outside during the middle of an op was one of the riskiest things an agent could do, which told him this tip had to be real.
Wesley wanted to know if he could find out who Southers’s inside guy was. He wouldn’t betray his friend, but information was power. And if they could track the inside guy back to Tasev’s place they could bring the terrorist down without Selene ever needing to meet him. If he could keep her out of harm’s way, he’d do it. “I need you to look into something for me. Off the books and erase your tracks when you’re done.” They erased so damn much of what they did that this wasn’t an odd request.
She nodded and instantly cleared her screen before looking at him. “What do you need?”
“Check all the CCTVs in the area starting with two and a half hours ago and locate anyone using a pay phone in a one-hour period after that. Eliminate any locals.” Which would be easy enough using facial recognition software. He’d go back and look at locals later if they didn’t pull anything from the search, but if Southers had an inside guy working with Tasev it was unlikely the man was a local.
Without asking questions Karen got to work, her fingers flying across her keyboard. He sat patiently waiting, knowing it would take her less than five minutes to get what he needed. Sure enough, minutes later she pulled up a list of names and faces along with their DMV records. “I’m surprised by how many people use pay phones,” she muttered more to herself, still typing away. “All right, it’s early so there weren’t as many people out around that time. Of the twenty people, seventeen are locals, two are known prostitutes, and this guy . . .” She frowned, pulling up another screen.
Her frown deepened as she zoomed in on a man wearing a hoodie. “I can’t get a scan of his face. Even when he leaves the phone, watch this . . .” She trailed off, pulling up screen after screen, showing him in different parts of the city and his face was always hidden from any CCTVs. Eventually he disappeared into a public parking garage with no cameras inside. At least none they had access to.
Oh yeah, this was their guy. Someone didn’t conveniently manage to avoid every single camera. It was statistically impossible. That was some damn fine work to be able to do that. He’d have had to memorize the whole damn layout of the city in advance to pull that off. “Who’d he call from the pay phone?”
She pulled up another screen and worked her magic as she located that individual pay phone, then accessed the list of outgoing calls. Karen highlighted a number, then ran it through multiple programs. Eventually she stopped typing and shot him a surprised glance. “It’s gotta be a burner phone. I can’t even figure out where it was bought from.”
Wesley nodded, taking what he needed from this. “Track all vehicles leaving that parking garage and make a list of their final destinations if you can. If not, track them as far as you can and note the area.” He had no clue if it would yield anything but he had to try to locate Tasev any way he could.
“Good work,” he said to Karen, standing as he started to make another call.
He needed the choppers ready to leave in five minutes and to check in with Ortiz to make sure his guys were ready to go. Because Wesley was going on this op. He wouldn’t be part of the infiltration but he was going to be there to bring in whoever was trying to poison and kill American people.
Chapter 9
Tactical team: a small law enforcement unit that uses military-grade weapons and engages in high-risk operations including hostage rescue and counter-terrorism maneuvers.
Nathan Ortiz stayed hidden in the shadows of the second floor of the water plant. He was inside on a metal balcony walkway, using it as a perch to watch anyone coming through the warehouse-type roll-up door. If anyone was going to poison the water supply, this was where they’d ultimately have to do it.
“I’ve got a visual. Unmarked white van heading your way. Two subjects visible. Could be more in the back. Not sure if they’re civilians,” Dax said quietly over his earpiece.
Ortiz tensed, readying for an assault. Dax was outside as the lookout and the rest of the team was waiting inside to take down the threat if one materialized. According to their contact at the water plant, no one should be coming back here this time of day and with the van being unmarked . . . Ortiz prepared for the worst.
He’d ended up calling in a bigger team for this op since they hadn’t known how large of a force they’d be up against. Seven of his guys plus himself against whoever was in that van—those were odds he liked.
M-4 in hand, he watched through his scope as a man wearing an employee uniform hurried out of the lone office on the first floor. He made his way to the roll-up door and pressed a large red button. He looked around nervously, as if he knew he was being watched, though he could have no clue how many eyes were on him now. Ortiz could see the gleam of sweat across his brow before he wiped it with a shaking hand. Immediately the door started to open. The moment the van was through, the man closed it again.
Ortiz tapped his earpiece. “I’ve got a visual. Everyone confirm.”
As the other six team members inside confirmed, he watched as two men slid from the front of the vehicle: the driver and the passenger. Ortiz scanned them quickly and noted one had a bulge under the back of his shirt and the other in the front of his shirt. Keeping a weapon tucked in the front of your pants was stupid, but some people did it anyway.
Immediately the back door opened and another man stepped out. The butt of his weapon stuck out from the back of his shirt.
The man in the uniform seemed nervous and shaky as he started talking to the driver. Though Ortiz was only about a hundred or so yards above them he couldn’t hear what was being said. They were speaking too low. When the employee shook his head, starting to protest something, the driver pulled out a pistol and held it to the man’s head.
“Move in. Now,” Ortiz ordered, remaining in position as a sniper. Normally he was on the ground for any operation but they mixed it up for ops so no one got comfortable. That way if something happened to one of them, anyone could take on any role. It was standard for their units to be cross-trained.
As if they’d choreographed it, Bell, Freeman, and two others moved in on the suspects, surrounding them as they shouted for everyone to hit the ground and keep their hands up. There were still two other teammates in different perches just like Ortiz.
They were keeping these guys locked down tight in case anyone tried to flee. When the side door of the van slid open and a man jumped out with an automatic rifle in his hands, Ortiz shook his head.
“We’ve got a runner,” he said into his earpiece before firing at the man’s thigh. Shouting in agony, the man dropped to his knees, letting go of his weapon with one hand.
As the rifle dangled from his right hand and he tried to stanch his wound with his left, Ortiz shot again, hitting the hand holding the rifle. The weapon immediately fell and before it had hit the ground Bell had moved around the van, his M-4 aimed at the fallen man as he ordered him to stay down.
“All tangos are secure. Nice fucking shot,” Bell said as he kicked the man’s weapon away and began binding his wrists behind his back.
Ortiz tapped his earpiece, clicking over to another secure channel. “It’s clear to move in,” he said to Burkhart, even though his boss had a visual.
They’d managed to get here almost an hour and a half ahead of time. Only t
wo trusted employees had known about the NSA’s infiltration of the plant in case Tasev had an inside man at the water plant. From the looks of it, he’d had at least one. Soon enough the NSA would know why he’d helped terrorists attempt to poison his own city’s water supply
Ortiz didn’t care about the whys though. That wasn’t his deal. He just wanted Tasev stopped. They all did.
• • •
Levi was on edge in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. Selene’s presence was the main reason, but being in her temporary condo as she changed clothes and packed up her things had him tensing at every little sound.
For all he knew she’d called in backup and an assault team was currently gearing up to rappel in from the roof and infiltrate through the windows like something out of a bad movie. That was unlikely considering she could have called a team on him anytime over the last few hours, but the knowledge didn’t stop his imagination from working overtime. She’d told him this place was secure and wasn’t bugged, but he wasn’t certain he believed her that there weren’t listening devices in place.
After that kiss earlier he was all sorts of fucked up and off his game. She’d seemed so surprised by the kiss but also so willing to take it to the next level. And there had been nothing calculating in that pretty face of hers. She’d been turned on, breathless, and ready for more. She could have been acting. Some agents had no problem using their bodies to get the job done, but he didn’t think that was the case with Selene.
He’d had this strange compulsion to confess his damn guilt to her. What had he been thinking? That was just it; he hadn’t been thinking. He lost the ability to around Selene. She’d gotten under his skin without trying. At least he’d managed some sort of fucking control.
“What are you thinking?” Selene’s soft voice cut through his thoughts.
