by Dawn Ryder
He came closer, lifting the sheet high and lowering it over her.
“Emergency blanket,” he explained.
The consistency of the blanket was less than comfy. Jenna gathered it around her, hoping it would make up in function what it lacked in comfort.
“I’m stepping outside,” Dare said. “Stay down.”
“But, the wind will freeze you.”
Her teeth were chattering again. He was watching her and even in the dark, she got the impression he wasn’t missing anything.
“The wind will dry me off enough to keep me warm.”
He was gone a moment later, approaching the doorframe the same way, from the side and looking out onto the small deck of the boat before he moved into the open. There was nothing to prove he was even still on the vessel, well except for the feeling she had of his presence.
The guy had that in spades.
And she wasn’t going to measure up short.
Tightening her jaw, Jenna fought to control her shivering. It was cold, yes, there was no point in dwelling on it.
She had Dare Servant after all.
Yeah? Better hope you don’t get him killed.
* * *
“Tell me you have something.”
“I’ve got shit,” Zane answered Greer. “Damned flash grenade blew all the footage, even the infrared.”
Greer looked toward Thais. She shook her head, the set of her lips telling him she was as pissed as he was.
Greer looked back at his phone, trying to establish contact with Dare. “Damn it.”
There was a ring of local police waiting nearby. The flash grenade and gunfire had brought the civilian law enforcement down on them but not fast enough to trap Kirkland. Thais had followed him, but without a witness, they had no reason to haul him in.
Greer fought the urge to do it anyway.
The body lying in the shipping container was a blister on his heel. Every damn motion made him recall how much he wanted to deal with the cause of it.
But hauling Kirkland in would only make the guy cover his tracks that much better.
“Make the call.” Thais shot him a look as she spoke.
Greer held her gaze for a long moment. “Clear out.”
It wasn’t what he wanted but there was one thing he knew for certain, Shadow Ops cases never closed easily. If they wanted to take Kirkland down, they’d have to make sure they had enough evidence to keep him pinned.
Zane reached out and caught Greer by the bicep. “Don’t you want to send the Coast Guard after Dare?”
“Yes,” Greer answered.
“But it would tip Kirkland off, too,” Thais added.
“I have other resources,” Greer mentioned. “First we have to clean up this scene.”
“And hope Dare can handle what he’s up against,” Zane responded.
Greer cracked the first hint of a grin that anyone had seen in hours. “Dare can handle anything. Even a spunky civilian.”
“Jury is still out on that one,” Thais informed him. “The civilian that is. I think Dare might be in over his head with her.”
Greer shook his head, but their female agent dismissed his opinion. Not that Greer was any stranger to Thais choosing her own path when it came to what she thought. Truth was, he had no idea what went through her head most of the time. A wise man would learn early on to admit that when it came to Thais Sinclair, it was best to avoid direct confrontation if the man didn’t want to feel the femme fatale using her claws on him.
She knew men too well and didn’t have much compassion about making sure anyone foolish enough to challenge her learned that truth the hard way.
* * *
A crack of thunder split the sky open.
Jenna jumped, letting out a startled sound as she realized she’d started to fall asleep.
“It’s going to get a little wild.”
Dare was back inside the cabin. He closed the door but it rattled, proving how flimsy it was against the brewing storm.
He reached up and secured the small window before giving the twin size pad a good shake.
Lightening flashed, illuminating him as he stood over her, feet braced wide against the roll of the waves.
“Because we haven’t had enough excitement for one night…” Her teeth chattered again, but her voice came across in a nice sarcastic tone. At least she could still manage to spit in the eye of fate and its rather twisted sense of humor.
“I hate boring nights to be sure” was his response.
Jenna smiled as the thunder crashed and rain started to pelt the side of the cabin. She looked up but there wasn’t any water leaking in, so she’d count her blessings.
“You’re still shivering,” Dare said.
“It won’t kill me,” she answered as she tightened her grip on the blanket.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Dare replied.
“I’m sure.”
She thought she heard him snort, but the blanket crinkled as he sat down next to the wall.
“I give you points for guts, Jenna, but that’s not going to keep you from hypothermia.”
He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her against his body.
“What … are you doing?”
As far as questions went, it was pretty stupid. Dare had her against his chest, one arm locked around her lower waist as he pulled part of the blanket up and over her head. It crinkled like he was wrapping her in foil.
“Sharing body heat,” he replied. “It’s all we have to deal with your shock.”
“I’m fine.”
He ignored her argument, and her body turned traitor by melting against him. She should have had the resolve to remain stiff, but he just felt too good. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten close enough to realize how bitterly cold she was, there might have been some chance of toughing it out on her own.
Now, she was curving toward him. Flattening her hands against his chest and shuddering as his body heat eased some of the agony in her flesh.
“You will be fine,” Dare offered as he looked at her before pulling his gun from his chest harness and resting it on top of his thigh. He was on his side, facing the door as he flattened her against his body and covered her head completely.
It was perfect.
Wuss …
Yeah, truth, and yet, she discovered herself unwilling to forgo the comfort he offered. She’d had enough of cold reality, and suffering for the sake of her pride just seemed ridiculously short-sighted on her part.
Pride wouldn’t warm her.
Dare could.
He did …
She seriously adored the way he employed action instead of words. The night’s events were rushing through her head, reminding her vividly how much she needed action.
“Thank you.”
Dare smoothed a hand over her shoulder in response. “I’ve got you, Jenna.”
She slipped into slumber with his words easing the last of her concern.
* * *
“Shadow Ops took out my father.”
Kirkland was doing more than telling Mack an essential fact. His head of security was already aware of what had happened to the Raven.
Kirkland was thinking out loud, and Mack was wise enough to keep his mouth shut while his boss was thinking things through.
“I think it’s time for Carl Davis to pay up for all the support he’s been enjoying from me.”
Carl Davis was close to winning the next presidential election. Just a summer away, Kirkland had made sure the man’s name was in front of every set of voters’ eyes in media bursts.
“Sure you want to press the man?” Mack inquired. “Maybe you should just enjoy the profits from the businesses Carl Davis ensures you can run legally.”
“It’s a drop in the bucket, and you know it,” Kirkland cut back. “Carl said he’d close down the Shadow Ops teams. One executive order and we’ll be free to make billions.”
“He’s not president yet.”
Kirkland sent Mac
k a hard look. “Remind him I can pull my support if he doesn’t get Dare Servant off my ass. Carl needs the money and the access to the media network my father built. His numbers will drop overnight if I don’t keep his face in front of the voters. He’s only winning because I’ve got the plugged-in generation fired up on his behalf.”
The younger voters were the ones who didn’t show up at the polls very often. Kirkland had changed that. Carl was ahead because of new voters who believed the feed they were getting through their tablets and social-media sites. But Kirkland wasn’t working for free. Carl was going to make sure the laws favored his business, and he’d better get the dammed Shadow Ops off Kirkland’s ass.
Otherwise, Kirkland would happily watch Carl sink like the Titanic.
* * *
The water was hot.
Carl Davis knew what he’d been getting into, and the temperature was climbing fast now that they were down to the wire.
Kirkland needed to be tossed into a ditch with his throat slit.
Carl wanted nothing more than to crush the phone Kirkland was using to call him.
Not yet.
Staying ahead in the polls meant having his name in front of the voters. It was a media generation. Kirkland was a king of the airwaves.
So Carl would have to appease him.
It was risky though.
Carl grinned and tipped back his glass of bourbon.
He was a high roller and liked knowing the stakes were high. He pressed a button on the side of his desk and waited for Eric Geyer to answer. His new head of personal security didn’t disappoint him.
“I have an issue,” Carl began.
Eric listened intently as Carl laid out the facts.
“The best thing for Kirkland to do is walk a straight and narrow line. We tell a Shadow Ops team to disengage, and they will know they have a solid case,” Eric advised.
“I need Kirkland in my corner,” Carl insisted.
Eric didn’t alter his stance. Carl glared at him.
“Don’t forget that your job is dealing with people like Kirkland for me. The world isn’t run by the righteous. You won’t be working with me in the Oval Office unless you understand how much I need the revenue Kirkland brings to the table. The untraceable kind,” Carl said.
Eric nodded and turned to leave. Carl didn’t call him back. Flinching over what needed doing wasn’t Carl’s style, and he wasn’t working with any man who couldn’t stomach the darker elements of the job.
He was so close. The ice clicked in the glass as Carl contemplated the fact that his goal was coming into range.
The Shadow Ops wasn’t going to steal the victory from him. No, he just had to keep his head down a little longer, and then he’d sign the exertive order disbanding Kagan’s little covert teams.
* * *
Dare didn’t sleep.
It wasn’t the first time he’d made sure he was on watch. Alone in the tiny cabin of the boat, he only had his thoughts to keep him company.
And most of his attention was on Jenna.
As his witness, that was spot on, and yet, there was a hell of a lot more to it.
The admission came hard. Dare felt the bite of frustration while he was unable to overlook the fact that he enjoyed knowing Jenna was breathing softly beside him.
The scent of her blood enraged him.
Passion for his job was something he was familiar with.
This was different.
Deeper …
More intense.
His frustration spiked. Whatever it was, he didn’t need it. His plans were set in stone. The Shadow Ops were the perfect place for him, but the teams didn’t mix with the sort of intensity he was feeling for Jenna.
Sure, Saxon Hale, his former team leader might have settled down, but minding a computer console wasn’t something Dare had planned for his own future.
The world needed the Shadow Ops teams. Men like Kirkland would continue to build their underworld empires if there was no one willing to risk it all to take them down. Add in the fact that Kirkland was making sure Carl Davis was elected, and there was a combination that chilled Dare’s blood. Men like Carl and Kirkland didn’t care if they spilled innocent blood in pursuit of their agendas.
Dare didn’t crave glory.
No, he wanted to know that at the end of the day, he’d breathed a little life into justice, because someone had to make sure men like Kirkland and Carl Davis didn’t kill it off completely.
They could do it, too. His memory was still crisp and vivid when it came to the night his family had fallen at the hands of scum like Kirkland. The name of his parents’ murderers didn’t matter. Dare’s father had refused a bribe and it had cost him his entire family.
“Don’t make a sound, my little cub…”
His mother’s voice still rang in his ears as she’d hidden him. Her eyes bright with fear, she’d found the strength to smile at him as she pushed him into the back of a linen closet, behind fluffy stacks of towels she’d washed and folded for her family.
“You must grow up … become a bear before you can right the wrong of this night…”
Dare gripped his gun, listening to the storm but paying attention to anything that might hint at them being found. He was wedged in the corner, Jenna curled against him so he had a clear shot at the door.
He would right wrongs.
“Remember you are your father’s son … always do the right thing … no matter the cost.”
The cops had tried to spare him the sight of her body. Dare didn’t shy away from the memory of her staring up at the ceiling with a hole in the middle of her forehead. He looked straight at her and his siblings while his father struggled to draw his last breaths because the men who had come for him, had sliced only one side of his neck so he might linger in the room and know his family had paid a high price for his devotion to duty.
Dare had a plan for his life.
One that didn’t include intense responses to anyone.
He shouldn’t have kissed her.
There was a lesson there, one Dare took the opportunity to learn while the night hours ticked away. The scent of Jenna’s blood reinforced it, driving deep into his gut with just how dangerous it was for civilians to have any knowledge of him or his Shadow Ops team.
Sure there would be moments when regret touched him.
But that was the cost of dedication.
One he willingly paid.
* * *
Sleep had a tighter hold on her than she was used to.
Jenna shifted, feeling pain. It cleared her thinking a bit, and yet she still felt like she was being sucked down to the bottom of a pool, the water flowing over her like a comfy blanket. Her brain just went with it, shutting down while she struggled to decide why she wanted to wake up.
Pain …
Waves of it as she was tossed and turned. She heard her name, tried to respond, but it seemed to take too much effort. It felt like her battery was on low, giving her just a trickle of energy but not enough to really do anything more than be half aware of how much she needed to sleep.
It was frustrating.
Knowing she needed to sleep, yet being half aware of everything. There was more pain, and then blackness hit her like a gust of wind.
* * *
“Kagan.”
Thais Sinclair offered Dare a phone. He took it as he forced himself to take his eyes off the doors Jenna had been taken through on her way to surgery.
“You need a checkup as well,” Kagan, his section leader, began. “Before you leave the hospital.”
“Is that really the top of the priority list?” Dare asked.
“I brought it up first, so you’ll know I mean it,” Kagan replied.
Dare headed for a coffee station. The Coast Guard chopper crew who had picked them up was clustered around it. One of them poured a measure of the brew into a mug and offered it to him.
“My witness is in surgery,” Dare offered before taking a sip. “I won’t know
what we have until she’s out.”
“According to Sinclair, it won’t be much. Kirkland learned a lot from his daddy, put a spot light in her face. She won’t pull him out of a line up.”
“Kirkland was still there,” Dare said confidently. “We saw him enter the container.”
Dare enjoyed the way the hot beverage warmed his insides as he swallowed it. “Kirkland wouldn’t have shown up himself if he didn’t have something to hide.”
“We know he’s dirty,” Kagan responded. “I want him on the human trafficking charge. That’s how to cut the flow of money to Carl Davis. Just being there isn’t enough to convict him of running the operation. Kirkland will be interested in your witness now that he failed to silence her. Keep her close and don’t raid his house. Tax fraud and underground brothels aren’t the case you’re down there to solve.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dare ended the call. He drew off another sip of the coffee. Keeping Jenna was something he still liked the sound of.
She had to be only a witness.
He’d dealt with them before. Found the detachment necessary to keep them just faces, which didn’t rise from his memory unless he was actively thinking about a case.
Mental discipline.
He needed to find more of it.
And fast.
Thais was watching him. Greer and Zane both leaning against different points in the hallway. The hospital was a private, military one. The walls were basic, flat white. No soothing music filtering through the air.
There were also no prying eyes.
Everyone in the place knew to seal their lips.
Which got him thinking about the press. The rescue at sea had been noticed. The California coast line was too populated to avoid someone catching sight of the Coast Guard helicopter bringing them in. Zane had people making sure cell phone footage disappeared from social media sites, but maybe that was the wrong approach.
Thais noticed when he came to a conclusion. She shifted closer, ready to get their case moving.
“Let’s toss the media a bone,” Dare began. “Kirkland likes to run his media empire. Let’s see if he rises to some bait.”
Greer and Zane clustered in close to listen.
“Let some footage out,” Dare continued. “Let’s see what Kirkland does when he realizes Jenna is alive.”
