Living on the Edge

by Shannon K. Butcher

  “Brink needs you. A little tardiness isn’t going to turn a man like him away.”

  “We need each other. My father’s empire is crumbling. Moving product over the Mexican border is becoming increasingly difficult. I’ve lost millions this year alone.” A fact that grated his nerves raw. If he couldn’t get his drugs onto American soil, his profits were going to decline to the point where he no longer had the power to control the men around him.

  Wealth and power were the same thing, and there was never enough of either to go around.

  Adam Brink was going to change all of that.

  Block inclined his head. “I’ll see to the nosy American.”

  “Send the men to do the job. I want you with us when we leave to meet Mr. Brink. If he reneges on our deal, I’m going to need you to kill him.”

  Block’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve never once disobeyed one of your orders, and I swear to you I’ll do whatever you ask or die trying. But my gut tells me that if you give me that order, trying to kill Brink will be the last thing I do.”

  “Do you think he can best you?”

  Block nodded. “I know he can. Death follows that man wherever he goes.”

  “Then let us hope for both our sakes that Adam Brink is a man of his word.”

  Sloane tried not to smile. She really did. Tricking Lucas was one thing, but rubbing it in was not at all kind.

  He stood there, shaking his head as if she were some kind of naughty girl. Then again, he’d probably learned that move from the best. Disappointment was something Sloane had seen so often on her father’s face it no longer fazed her.

  At least that was what she’d always told herself.

  Whatever. She didn’t need him slowing her down, anyway. Time to move on.

  She reached into her back pocket for the paper with the map on it, but found nothing but lint.

  “Looking for this?” Lucas asked, pressing the map to the window.

  Shock rattled through her. How had he slipped that out of her pocket without her feeling it? Clearly, she’d been too distracted with the way his body felt pressed against hers, or the way his fingers felt slightly rough against her throat. That was how.

  “Not nice,” she told him.

  He smiled. “I’m not here to play nice. Guess you’ll have to follow me.”

  He sauntered off, and Sloane couldn’t stop herself from staring. Faded denim hugged his butt and thighs, which were nice, regardless of his connection to her father. Even she was a big enough person to admit that.

  As he rounded a corner, she thought she saw the faintest hint of a limp. Maybe she’d been wrong, or maybe he was perfectly fine and simply playing on her sympathies. But if not, then not only was he a liability; he was an unarmed one. She still had both his sidearm and holdout weapons.

  Great. Now, not only did she have to save Gina, and do it with a tagalong; she also had to make sure that her tagalong didn’t get himself killed.

  Two minutes later, Lucas’s Jeep rolled by. Sloane had no choice but to follow him, watch his back, and pray that they all got out of this hot, sticky hellhole alive.

  Three hours later, Sloane’s shoulders ached from keeping the Rover on the rutted dirt road. This far from a major city, there were sections of road that were nearly gone—washed out by heavy rain—leaving a dizzying drop to the valley below. They climbed steadily, heading up toward the heavy clouds, which would release torrents of rain at any moment.

  Ahead, Lucas came to a skidding stop. Sloane had been following at a distance to spread the weight of two vehicles out over the aging road, so she was able to stop before ramming into the back of his Jeep. Barely.

  She rolled down her window, stuck her head out, and shouted, “What’s up?”

  “Something’s not right,” he shouted back. “Turn around.”

  Sloane hadn’t come this far only to be driven off by some soldier’s hair-trigger instincts. Still, she rolled up her window and slid one of her semiautomatics out of the holster clinging to the side of her seat, just in case.

  As soon as she got his vehicle behind hers, she’d move on without him, map or no map.

  A bullet whipped through the foliage and splintered a chunk from the trunk of a tree a few feet away from Lucas’s Jeep.

  Okay. Maybe his instincts weren’t faulty.

  As adrenaline shot through her system, she realized that Lucas had no weapon. She’d taken them.

  Great. Now she was responsible for putting him in even deeper danger. Time to find a plan that was going to get both of them out alive.

  Sloane slouched in her seat to put more of herself behind the Rover’s armor, and scanned the area where she thought the shot had come from. She couldn’t see anything through the thick vegetation, but maybe she could buy them some time to turn tail, run, and regroup.

  She lowered her window just enough to get the barrel of her weapon out, and fired in the general direction of the shooter, hoping it would make him keep his head down and prevent him from hitting her unarmed, unarmored travel partner.

  The Rover was nimble, but she was going to need more road to get it turned around, so she backed up. She drove one-handed, splitting her attention between the road behind her and keeping her shots going in the right direction.

  She was driving much too fast for the narrow road, but Lucas was right on her front bumper as he backed up, keeping pace with her, urging her to go faster.

  If she was weaponless, she’d be doing the bat-out-of-hell routine, too.

  The shooter fired again. Sloane spared a swift glance at Lucas to see if he was okay. He was still upright, but a spiderweb of cracks appeared in his windshield. They were running out of time for her to come up with that plan.

  A sharp left turn was coming up fast, and Sloane knew she couldn’t make it at this speed. She’d slide off the edge of the road and plummet down into the thick vegetation clinging to the mountain. She had to slow down, but not until the last moment possible. Hopefully, Lucas would slow with her and not slam into her front bumper and send her flying over the edge.

  Sloane looked over her shoulder as her speed increased, in order to gauge the distance to the turn, and saw a battered truck sling around the bend. A man standing behind a mounted machine gun balanced in the back of the truck. He aimed over the roof of the cab.

  Panic grabbed Sloane hard, making her hand lock onto the steering wheel. This was not going to end well if she didn’t do something fast. Time for plan B.

  Sloane slammed to a halt, skidding her vehicle sideways. She had all the firepower she needed to take that truck out in the back of her SUV. The trick was going to be getting to it before they were shot to pieces.

  The first barrage of bullets slammed into the side of her Rover, but the ugly armor held, and the rounds pinged off into the jungle. The bulletproof glass was marked, but holding fine. She had time to pull out the big guns.

  Lucas’s Jeep slid to a halt, lining up parallel with her vehicle. He made the maneuver look easy, though she knew it was anything but. Sloane unlocked the doors, hoping he’d get out of that death trap and into her armored ride, but not wasting the time telling him something he should already know.

  She shimmied over the console into the back, heading right for her favorite toy.

  Outside, a deep boom blasted through the air. Either the bad guys had gotten way too close, or Lucas had a toy of his own.

  Sloane lifted her head from her weapon long enough to peek, and sure enough, Lucas had a shotgun in his hands, firing at the machine gunner.

  Good man. He’d bought her enough time to get Constance loaded.

  Another boom exploded out of Lucas’s shotgun. Sloane took the opportunity to squeeze herself and Constance out of the back door between the cover of the two vehicles.

  Lucas shoved shotgun shells into his weapon and glanced her way. His gaze stalled out on Constance and he lifted his brows. “A grenade launcher?”

  “Every girl should have one.”

  “You’re
one scary chick. Glad you’re on my side.”

  “Says who?” asked Sloane as she steadied the launcher on her shoulder and took aim over the hood of her vehicle.

  The grenade sliced through the air and slammed into the battered truck’s cab. A ball of flames exploded, killing the two men in the truck instantly, and sending the gunner flying out of the truck bed. He hit the dirt road and didn’t move.

  A swift thrill of victory surged through Sloane. Then a second later, a bullet tore across her shoulder, and she knew she’d begun the celebration too soon.

  There was still at least one more shooter behind them, maybe more.

  Pain radiated out from her arm, but she could still move it, so that was good enough for her. Time to take out the next asshole in line.

  Lucas glanced at her arm and a feral snarl tightened his mouth. “How bad?”

  “Just a scratch. Can you see where he’s hiding?” Sloane asked Lucas.

  He peered into the jungle, squinting. “No, but I’m going in. I’ll find him.”

  “I can just blast things in his direction.”

  “Don’t you want to know why they’re shooting at us?” he asked.

  Sloane shook her head. “I already know why. Gina.”

  “Maybe, or maybe we’ve encroached on some drug lord’s or weapons dealer’s territory.”

  “I hope so. Otherwise, we’re going the wrong way. That’s who has Gina.”

  He stared at her like she was crazy. “Did you think that perhaps it would have been better to sneak in?”

  Sloane shrugged and it made her shoulder burn. She felt blood leaking along her skin, but not so much that it worried her. “I’m not good with stealth.”

  He nodded toward Constance. “Clearly. Good thing I am. Sit tight and try not to shoot me.”

  “You can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “This is my problem. I’ll deal with it.”

  “You’re hit, a fact that may already mean I’m a dead man once your father finds out. Nothing to lose now.” With that, he left his shotgun behind and slipped off into the foliage, disappearing within seconds.

  More shots dug into the Jeep’s hood. Sloane ducked and covered as best she could, but this was not a good spot. She wanted as much metal between her and the shooter as possible so she could lay down some covering fire for Lucas.

  Try not to shoot me.

  Easier said than done, but she knew where he’d gone into the jungle. She could aim away from that. So long as she kept the bullets barking in any direction, the shooter might keep his head down and stay in one place long enough for Lucas to find him.

  Sloane pulled out her semiautomatic and began making strategic shots, hoping Lucas stayed the hell out of her line of fire.

  Lucas found the shooter hiding behind a thick tree trunk. Sloane’s shots had him pinned down, making him an easy target.

  Lucas had his knife in easy reach. His feet were silent over the damp, rotting vegetation. His knee throbbed, but the thrill of the hunt blunted the pain and sharpened his senses.

  The shooter never saw him coming.

  Lucas wrapped his thick arm around the man’s neck and squeezed until he blacked out. It took only a few brief seconds of flailing arms before he subsided and Lucas eased him to the ground. He used the plastic flex cuffs that the Old Man has insisted he’d need for Sloane to secure his hands behind him, then waited for the man to wake up.

  He had some questions, and with any luck, his Spanish was good enough to get some answers.

  Lucas had just settled against a tree to wait for the man to wake when he heard another flurry of gunfire ring out from where he’d left Sloane alone.

  There were more gunmen out there, and he was too far away to do a thing to stop them.

  Chapter 5

  Mira Sage heard the computer room door open over the hum of dozens of fans. She could tell by the heavy, sluggish fall of the footsteps that Clayton Marshall had walked in. “You’re late,” she said without turning around.

  Normally, an intrusion into her electronic sanctuary would have made her nervous. Her network wasn’t operating perfectly at the moment, and that made her antsy. But it could wait. Her friend couldn’t. Bella probably wouldn’t notice the slight network sluggishness, anyway. That kind of subtlety was beyond Mira’s boss.

  Mira plugged the cables into the updated server and powered it up. “Where’ve you been?”

  Clay settled carefully into a chair as if every move hurt. “Overslept.”

  Mira knew it was a lie, but she and Clay had been friends since they were kids, and he’d tell her the truth only when he was good and ready. Whatever he was hiding, it was killing him slowly, and had been for the past several months.

  The hum of fans and the extra air conditioner used to keep the servers cool filled the computer room. It was a soothing sound, but not soothing enough to keep worry from creeping inside of her.

  Her best friend was in trouble. She could feel it.

  Mira unsnapped the wire from her wristband and let the protective electrostatic discharge device dangle. She’d have to skip lunch in order to stay on schedule, but that was probably for the best anyway, if the way her slacks were trying to strangle her was any indication.

  “Bella was looking for you earlier. She wanted to know why you’re late. She’s gathering up a team to head to South Africa.”

  Clay rubbed his temples and let out a weary sigh. He looked thinner—the hollows under his cheekbones more pronounced. “How deep is the shit I’m in?”

  “I covered for you,” Mira said. “Told her I’d sent you out to pick up some cables for me.”

  “Thanks, squirt. I owe you.”

  No. She still owed him for saving her life when they were kids, even if he didn’t remember doing it. She remembered, and she could never do enough to repay him for helping her escape her father.

  Mira sat down across from Clay and rummaged in her desk drawer until she found her bottle of aspirin. She poured a small pile out into her hand and offered them to him. “You look like you could use these.”

  “Thanks.” He popped them in his mouth and chewed, making Mira gag. She handed him her now cold coffee, hoping he’d wash down the pills so she could stop cringing. He guzzled it down, seemingly uncaring that it had gone cold.

  “You know,” she said, trying to sound casual, “you should go see the doctor. I think you might be sick. You’ve lost more weight.”

  “Not gonna happen, Mira. Let it drop.”

  “She’s nice. You’d like her.”

  “I hate doctors. You know that.”

  “But she’s different from a normal doctor—not at all stuffy like the last one. She’s beautiful, and a redhead, too,” added Mira, hoping that might sway him. He had a weakness for redheads, and it had been too long since she’d seen Clay go out on a date. As his honorary sister, she had made it her duty to play matchmaker.

  “I don’t care if she’s composed entirely of perky, bouncing tits and practices medicine naked. I’m not interested.”

  Mira lowered her voice. “You have to do something. You’re getting worse.”

  Clay shoved his fingers through his dark hair, messing it up. “I’ll be fine. I’ve just had a bit of insomnia, that’s all. It’ll pass.”

  “If it doesn’t, I’m going to talk to the doctor for you.”

  “Don’t.” He issued the order in a hard, cold voice. “It’s none of your business.”

  “I love you. Of course it’s my business.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Don’t think playing the sappy card is going to get you off the hook. I mean it. Stay out of my business. I’m dealing with things in my own way.”

  “If you were dealing with it, then there wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Let it go. I’m serious. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”

  “Holy cats, Clay. You can bluster all you want, but I know you’d never hurt me.”

  A flash
of fear crossed his face, making his amber eyes brighten. “I’d never hurt you on purpose, but lately . . .” Fans hummed, filling the silence he’d left hanging.

  “Lately what?”

  He waved his hand as if forcing the subject away and plastered a fake smile on his face. “Just give me some time, okay?”

  Mira nodded. “Whatever you need.”

  And she meant it. Even if she had to piss him off, she’d make sure he got whatever care he needed.

  Sloane couldn’t see exactly where the new shots had come from, but there were at least two more men out there firing at her, maybe three. And judging from the angle of the bullets ripping through the leaves, if she didn’t stop them, chances were they were going to hit Lucas.

  She didn’t want the man anywhere near her, but she didn’t want him dead, either. Besides, if he failed, her father would only send two more in his place.

  That thought was enough to get Sloane’s blood flowing.

  She aimed Constance and fired toward the shooters; then, while they were hopefully dodging bits of debris, she grabbed a rifle and moved around to the far side of the Rover. If Lucas hadn’t taken out the bad guy up the slope, she was a sitting duck here, but she’d have to take that chance and hope that it was her father who’d trained him. And that he’d learned well.

  Smoke billowed up from the jungle where her grenade had exploded. It was too wet out here to start a fire, but all that moisture went up in steam, obscuring her line of sight.

  A movement sixty feet out caught her eye. Sloane targeted it and fired.

  A deep grunt of pain rose up from the jungle, giving her a fierce sense of satisfaction that she’d hit her mark. She’d have made one hell of a sharpshooter. Too bad her father had blocked her every attempt to join the military. He didn’t want his little girl putting herself in that kind of danger.

  If he could only see her now.

  A grin stretched her mouth. She loved this kind of danger, loved living on the edge. Dad had always said this unladylike streak was his genes coming out in an inconvenient display, but she preferred to think of it as her own personal rebellion. Dad deserved a little payback for imprisoning her in boarding school all those years.