Romero just stood at the door. He didn’t knock, didn’t pull a phone out to text, or anything. He just waited in the dark as if he were expecting something in particular to happen. It was cold. Cassidy could feel the evening dampness settling into her bones. She was tired. She wanted a shower. And right now she was seriously reconsidering her choice of partner for this adventure.
“What are you waiting for?” Cassidy whispered. “Shouldn’t you knock or something?”
“He knows we’re here,” Romero muttered. “He’s probably running facial recognition software on you.”
“What?” Cassidy didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “Why would he think I’m a criminal or something? What? Is it a crime not to say I love you back when a guy says it to you? In a really, super awkward situation, I might add.”
Romero turned to face her although she couldn’t see the details of his expression in the dark. “Is that why you’re being so bitchy?”
“Me?” She was utterly outraged. “You’re acting like a middle school girl on her first period!”
“Whoa!” Romero growled. “That’s low. Way low.”
“Yeah? Then stop acting like a pubescent teenager!” she shot back. “Believe me, I’ve had a ton of experience with that crap. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Ahem.” A voice seemed to float down from above them.
Cassidy turned, cranking her neck around to see if there was a camera or something.
“If you two are done with your little lovers’ spat,” the disembodied voice continued, “you can come in now. I think it’d be best to finish your discussion in private. At least, if you don’t want to alert everyone within a two block radius of your business.”
“Did you know he was listening?” Cassidy fumed at Romero. “You could have said something!”
“I told you he knew we were here,” Romero snarled. “What else would that mean?”
“Lots of stuff!” she insisted. The door clicked open, and they walked inside. Cassidy didn’t take a breath. She just kept talking. “Seriously. You said he sees us. That just means he has video, not audio. And it was pitch black. Maybe he couldn’t really see. It’s not like it’s possible to tell all of that.”
“Oh, excuse me for not telling you that someone was witnessing your temper tantrum,” Romero said sarcastically.
“Hey!”
Cassidy and Romero both stopped talking. There was a man roughly Romero’s height standing before them. This man was stockier, heavier in the chest and arms, and he had closely shaved hair that appeared to be some version of blond, if his eyebrows were anything to go by. His expression showed not a hint of humor, and he seemed to be almost surly.
“You must be Yates,” Cassidy said sweetly.
The guy raised an eyebrow. “Uh. Yeah.”
“Wonderful. Do you have a shower I can use?”
“End of the hallway,” Yates grunted.
“Thank you,” Cassidy said primly. She gave Romero a pointed glare and then headed for the bathroom to clean up.
ROMERO STARED AT his friend and fellow SEAL. “Don’t say it. Just don’t.”
Yates headed back to the huge computer terminal that took up most of the living room. There were monitors galore and several keyboards, as well as a crazy number of fiber optic cables stretched everywhere.
“What is it you expect me to say?” Yates wanted to know, his attention already focused back into his screens.
“Nothing.” Romero heaved a giant sigh. Yates was probably right. Whatever was going on was all in Romero’s head. Fantastic. He’d lost his damn mind. He pulled out the laptop and set it in front of Yates. “I brought you a present.”
Yates’ arctic gray eyes gleamed with curiosity. “This is from that Mackenzie guy, right?”
“Yes. I made him pull up the message board where this fabled Inner Circle gets their instructions from The Broker.” Romero sighed, feeling frustrated. “Did you ever find anything on someone who uses that alias? I feel like it’s all one big pile of shit.”
“I haven’t found squat on any of that.” Yates was already pounding away on Mackenzie’s computer. Then he hooked it up to his own system, and the screens went crazy. Yates muttered something unintelligible before speaking again. “I found a few import records for Rohypnol though. And I cross referenced those with some pretty large orders of Fentanyl. I figured since the next hunting ground was supposedly DC, they would be needing to get their pharmaceuticals in order.”
“Good idea,” Romero muttered.
“So.” Yates drew out the word until Romero felt like ripping off his ears. “What’s up with this woman?”
“She’s Rachel’s roommate. She’s the one who reported Rachel missing. She contacted Trapp and asked for his help.” Romero was being vague on purpose, and he knew it. He just didn’t quite know why it mattered.
“Are we really going to dance around the topic here?” Yates looked up from the computer long enough to peg Romero with a gimlet stare.
“Fine.” Romero felt like he’d been sent to the principal’s office. “She’s been a really big help. I—so maybe I’ve let the lines get a little blurry. That’s all.”
“You told her I love you?”
There was no inflection in Yates’ voice, and somehow that made the whole thing worse. Romero grunted irritably. “Look. I don’t need you on my back about it. Okay? If you spent twenty-four hours with Cassidy, you would fall for her too. All right?”
“Doubtful.” Yates curled his lip. “Love is a chemical response to arousal that happens during period of extreme emotion. It’s almost always fatal.”
“Wow. It’s good to see that RoboSEAL is back on duty.”
“Hey, man, it’s what I know.” Yates sounded disgustingly self-satisfied. “It’s science.”
“Well, science can’t always explain everything,” Romero snapped.
“Then maybe you should remember what happens when we go back on the active roster. You think this girl is going to be happy about having to not only stay behind, but get told zilch about what’s going on, where you are, whether you’re even alive or not?”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Romero said moodily. “Have you ever wondered if all of this is worth it?”
“This?”
“Our jobs, I guess.” Romero pulled up another chair and flopped into it. “Seriously. Some days I wake up and I’m just so damn tired. Maybe that means I’m ready to retire.”
“Fuck me.” Yates’ low voice was filled with awe. “You actually love this chick.”
“Huh?”
“You’re talking about leaving the team, Romero. That’s serious shit.” Yates shook his head, turning back to the keyboard. “Does Trapp know about this?”
“No. And if he gets wind of it I’ll know who told him.” Romero had no desire to listen to his CO berate him for letting his dick do the thinking. He’d heard other men get that speech before. It wasn’t pretty.
“Ah, so that’s where crazy is going to happen,” Yates murmured.
“What?” Romero snapped. “You haven’t dogged on me enough yet?”
“She’s right, you know,” Yates said with a chuckle. “You’re acting like a pubescent girl.”
“Huh?” Romero was ready to knock his teeth in.
“I wasn’t talking about your little Lifetime movie. I was talking about the next club this guy who calls himself The Broker is going to use here in DC.”
“What’s it called?” Romero demanded.
“Oddly enough, the Hunting Ground.” Yates didn’t sound amused. “But it’s not scheduled to open for another week.”
“So maybe we have a week to find out what’s really going on and shut it down,” Romero said eagerly.
“Or we have a week before the containers are shipped overseas.” Yates’ tone and expression were grim.
Romero swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. “You can see that?”
“Unfortunately. Yes. There’s a r
eference in here to an outgoing shipment scheduled for the day before the club opens. The only reason they reference it on this message board is because the owner of the Hunting Ground wanted to know when his container was going to arrive. Something about permits.”
“This thing is getting out of hand.” Romero shoved his fingers through the stubble on his head, feeling overwhelmed. “We can’t keep chasing our tails here in DC the way we were in Richmond. They damn near killed us more than once. We’ve got to get ahead of them.”
“Then maybe the next step is figuring out what public officials know what’s going on,” Yates mused. “Permits don’t come easy, or cheap. Especially not here. Maybe there are some greasy palms to be tracked.”
“And in the meantime,” Romero said irritably, “stay out of my love life.”
“Or lack thereof,” Yates quipped.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cassidy put her hands on either side of the sink and stared into the mirror. What was she doing? She felt like she was chasing her tail. Not just with Rachel, but with Romero too. What did she want? This last week had been hell. She’d essentially lost her apartment and most likely her job. She’d practically been killed multiple times, and she still didn’t know where Rachel was. Her life was utterly in shambles.
She splashed cold water on her face. If she really thought about this too much, she was going to start panicking. Then there was this whole thing with Romero to worry about. Jase Romero. The guy was a Navy SEAL. He wasn’t a regular Joe with a regular J-O-B. If she tried to have a relationship with a guy like him, he was going to break her heart. Maybe it was time to cool off, slow down, and just focus on getting Rachel back and rebuilding her life.
There was a knock on the door. “Hey, are you okay in there?”
A thrill shot down her spine. It was really pathetic that she was standing here contemplating the reasons why Romero was a bad idea, and yet just the sound of his voice made her feel all mushy inside.
“Cassidy?”
“I’m fine,” she said grouchily. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said after a momentary pause. “Do you need anything?”
“I need you to be less nice!” she snapped. “Seriously. Could you just be an ass for awhile?”
She could actually hear the wheels creaking in his head as he tried to process that. And why not? It was insane. What was she doing? Cassidy pressed her palms against the door and rested her forehead against the cool wood.
“Romero?” she said softly.
“Yes?”
“I’m really sorry I’m acting like a crazy person.”
No answer.
She swallowed nervously. “It’s all gone, you know?”
“What is?”
“My roommate, my apartment, my job… I almost lost my life too. I’m scared.”
“Will you open the door?”
Cassidy sighed and twisted the handle so the little lock button would pop out. Then she opened the door and found herself face to chest with Romero. His scent enveloped her in warmth and security. Something about the way he smelled hit her on a very visceral level. She was pretty sure that nobody else—ever—would give her that same feeling. What was that worth exactly?
Everything.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I do. And it scares the shit out of me. Everything is wrong. Not you exactly,” she said quickly. “But everything else. Rachel is still missing. We have to be realistic here. Finding her may not ever happen. Even if we manage to figure out who this Broker guy is.”
ROMERO FELT HIS heart jump into his throat. He heard everything she was saying, yet the only thing that really mattered was the fact that she’d said the L word.
She had said the L word!
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms. “Everything is always changing. And you’re right. What has happened is going to make things nuts for a while. But we’re going to get this figured out.” He didn’t try to tell her they were going to find Rachel. That would be promising something he wasn’t certain he would ever be able to deliver, not even with his entire team on board.
She rested her cheek against his chest. “I feel like everything is at an impasse. There’s nowhere left to go. It’s like the story is over and we’ve—well—we’ve failed.”
“There’s always somewhere left to go.” He gently smoothed her hair back. “We’re not giving up. Yates has some leads. We’ve talked over our next move. We have a plan.” They sort of had a plan, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. Not right now. “It’s going to be okay.”
“So that’s you and Yates.” She pulled back and looked up at him, biting her lip. “So I guess I go—home—now?”
“No.” This was where things got sticky. He’d already told Yates to butt out of his love life. At the time he’d been so convinced that he didn’t really have one. Three words from Cassidy had changed things for good. “You’re staying with me. You’re always going to stay with me.”
“That’s a nice thought,” she said quietly. “But we both know what happens when you get deployed again. You’re a SEAL. I’m not so stupid that I don’t know what that means.”
Romero could not believe he was about to have this conversation while standing in front of a bathroom in Yates’ little underground dungeon apartment. “I’m tired, Cassidy.”
“I’m sure. We haven’t slept in ages. If you want to talk later, I’m sure…”
“No.” He put a finger over her lips. “I’ve been a SEAL now for almost a decade. Before that I was a seaman. I’ve never wanted to do anything else, but that’s mostly because there was really nothing else to do.”
“What are you talking about?” She smiled, and the beauty of it nearly made him lose his train of thought. “There’s plenty to do. Our country needs heroes.”
“And our heroes need love and rest and companionship and a place to call home,” he told her gently. “I built a life with my team, and I love them to death, but I want more.”
“You do?”
“I want a life with you, Cassidy.”
“You’ve only known me a week, Romero,” she said, sounding every inch the practical teacher. “That’s not even long enough to accurately predict a weather pattern.”
“But I love you.” He thought that over a minute, mostly he thought about what it meant. “I want this life with you. I want to try. And I don’t try lightly.” He leaned down and brushed a kiss over the tip of her nose. “And I have a feeling you don’t either.”
CASSIDY SHIVERED WITH excitement, and maybe just a little bit of lust and passion. Somehow all of the crazy crap going on with Rachel and The Broker, and even John Jacob Mackenzie, didn’t seem so awful when she had the promise of Romero by her side for the long haul. Not just this moment of insanity either. More like a whole lifetime’s worth of insanity.
She flung her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to place a kiss on his lips. That apparently wasn’t enough for her guy, though, because he wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss until her head was spinning. His lips were soft, yet demanding. He slipped his tongue into her mouth to mate with hers. She felt the tingle of desire thrumming in her veins and whimpered as her core grew hot and wet. This man could make her horny as hell in seconds, and she loved every wicked moment!
“Ahem.” Yates cleared his throat with an exaggerated sound. “Not to interrupt your nonexistent love life, Romero, but I think you should come look at this.”
“What’s that?” Romero murmured, still placing tiny kissing along her jawline.
“I found Rachel.”
Both Cassidy and Romero bounded apart, spinning to face Yates. Cassidy reached out and grabbed his arm, not even thinking about the fact that she was probably violating all kinds of personal space rules. “Where?”
“I can’t say where, but I’ve found her.” Yates gestured toward the living room and his computer setup. “I’ll show you what I mean.
”
Cassidy practically dragged Romero down the hallway. The two of them squeezed in next to Yates in front of his computers. There appeared to be a long stream of photos with little blurbs on the screen. It took Cassidy a moment to realize that they were set up like listings.
“Where did you find this?” Romero asked quietly.
Yates gestured to Mackenzie’s computer. “It was attached to that message board that Mackenzie had access to. I’m going to guess that he wasn’t exactly honest with you about how much he knew regarding what’s going on here. All of the”—Yates used air quotes—“‘Inner Circle’ seems to have access to this listing. I can identify them because they have a different prefix to their IDs.”
“Wow,” Cassidy breathed. “It’s like eBay for people.”
“Exactly,” Yates agreed. “It’s set up pretty much the same way. Every user has a unique ID. They bid on something they want, in this case a woman. In some cases it looks like they were grouped into lots.”
Cassidy’s stomach was churning. “Is that? Oh my God,” she whimpered, unable to finish and feeling sick to her stomach.
Yates cursed in a low voice. “I’m guessing they must have taken your photo when they had you under.”
“She’s listed with a lot.” Romero didn’t just sound angry. The fury lacing his voice gave her chills. “The two men I heard talking said that they were going to throw her in as a freebee.”
“Apparently they haven’t updated their info,” Yates said grimly.
Cassidy forced herself to speak even though her throat wanted to close. “They look so awful. It’s like they’re passed out or drugged or something.”
“Probably both,” Yates suggested. “I don’t think these guys particularly care. And the bidders certainly don’t.”
ROMERO FELT HIS battle rage taking over. He felt the strongest urge to hunt down every single person who might have seen this horrible photo of Cassidy, with the intention of slitting throats.
“You said you found Rachel,” Romero managed to say.
Yates began scrolling up, way up. “She’s at the very top of this list.”
SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series Page 15
