by Dawn Ryder
Saxon let out a low whistle. “That’s bad.”
“Exactly,” Kagan said. “If the colonel allows them to go to witness protection…”
“It will leave a trail,” Saxon finished for him. “One that could lead back to my location.”
“Right,” Kagan said. “Keep them there until I can find another solution to satisfy Colonel Magnus. Bram is a team member. We take care of our own.”
Kagan ended the call because it wasn’t a conversation. The only thing left to say was “Yes, sir,” but that was something the badge on his belt implied, so it wasn’t necessary to verbalize it.
Saxon still cussed even though he agreed.
Bram was a team member. Was the situation outside the Shadow Ops scope of operations?
Yes.
And that didn’t mean shit.
Bram had put his life on the line for the team. They’d be there in his time of need.
Saxon understood but he definitely didn’t like the situation. Behind him, his older son laughed, driving home how vital it was to maintain the security of his home. There had been a time when he didn’t think he needed love and home.
Now, he was certain he couldn’t live without it.
* * *
“We’re going where?”
Dare sent Bram a raised eyebrow. “Looked to me like you would be pleased.”
Bram wanted to cuss but the picture hanging on the wall in the dining room of Milton and Jeanie Sondors on their wedding day stopped him.
“I can’t believe Saxon agreed,” Bram said.
“My guess is, he’ll have plenty to say about it,” Thais said, joining the conversation.
“None of it will be pretty,” Dare said. “Hale doesn’t concern me as much as your attitude does. Didn’t you start something with her?”
“That’s none of your business.” Bram was working on lacing up his boots.
“You invited us to this party,” Dare replied. “But seriously, we take care of teammates. If one man went bad on your deployment, another might have been in on it.”
Bram tightened his fingers into fists. It was first light and things were in motion. Black SUVs with tinted windows had rolled up the driveway, the men exiting them before the parking brakes were set. They knew their purpose, striding toward the house intent on removing every last trace of the family who had called it home.
There was a courtesy rap on the door before the leader of the group opened it and spied Bram.
“Care to explain the tension around here?”
Thais cast her newly arrived fellow agent Greer McRae an amused look.
“Emotional entanglements,” she offered.
Greer titled his head slightly to one side and peered at her over the rim of his shades. “Figured that out on my own.”
“Really?” Thais drawled out. “Impressive…”
Greer lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Been a while since I worked with you, Sinclair. Give me a break.”
“Thais is rusty,” Dare said as he came into the room. “Needs some fresh meat to sharpen her claws on. Nice of you to show up.”
Thais Sinclair narrowed her eyes before she lifted one leg and landed a roundhouse kick on Dare’s backside.
“Doesn’t appear too rusty from my vantage point,” Greer observed with a smile.
“I’d like to learn how to do that.”
Jaelyn watched the effect her attempt to join the conversation had. The new agent didn’t give her much hope. He had the same stance and unreadable mask on she’d come to think of as Dare’s standard look.
Thais, on the other hand, contemplated her from behind what Jaelyn had learned was just as practiced an expression, even if it was a soft curving of her lips that made her look sweet.
“I might teach you,” Thais offered. “Since it looks like we’re going to have some time together.”
“Can I get in on that lesson?”
LeAnn had appeared from her room. Jaelyn took a long look at her sister.
“I know, you haven’t seen this side of me in a few years,” LeAnn offered in explanation.
“Missed it,” Milton Sondors declared from where he’d been listening in the kitchen. He shuffled over to the doorway and considered LeAnn from head to toe.
She wasn’t sporting the over-the-top look Jaelyn had come to expect from her. Instead, there was only a light application of makeup on her face, and her hair was cute but lacking the over-blown-out appearance Jaelyn was used to.
It was a nice sight, but Jaelyn felt the tension in the room growing. If she’d ever wanted to know what standing on a bridge as it was getting ready to collapse felt like, today it did.
And all she could do was wait for the ground beneath her feet to vanish.
Well, she wasn’t going to cry about it.
At least not in front of her grandfather.
“Ready?” Bram asked.
He meant it for all of them but he’d looked toward her grandfather.
“Always ready, son. So long as I have my girls, everything else will fall into place.”
LeAnn left first. Jaelyn watched the way Bram and his teammates positioned themselves around them.
Like they were sheep …
She knew they didn’t mean it harshly. Bram was waiting on her. He was patient and kind.
Yeah, and treating her like a baby bird …
“Time to get this wagon train rolling,” Jaelyn said. She was ready to take her first step toward one of the waiting SUVs.
There was a carefree whistle from her grandfather as he poured coffee into a thermos and screwed on the lid.
“Grandpa, that’s too much caffeine,” she muttered as she plucked a travel bag off the counter.
Milton winked at her. “Never you mind about me. Today I’m taking care of you.”
Jaelyn caught Bram’s lips twitching. He’d moved up beside her.
“Don’t encourage him,” she mumbled.
Bram paused next to her, so close she caught the scent of his skin. It sent a ripple of sensation across her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms. Their gazes locked and her world shifted for a moment.
Later …
Later … what?
It was a good question. One that drove home how little power she had over her own destiny at the moment.
She really fucking hated it, too.
Milton was the last one out of the house. He made it only a few steps down the front walkway before he turned around and took in the sight of the place where he’d brought home his bride. Jaelyn knew he had a picture of them tucked into his wallet but at that moment, she was sure he was seeing his life with Jeanie playing across his mind.
When Milton made it to the SUV waiting to take them … well, away … it was LeAnn who put her hand over his. He smiled, patting her hand as he made some comment about it only being a house.
Jaelyn found herself far more absorbed with Bram.
Damn but she was a rotten granddaughter, too.
But the truth was, she wanted control of her life back. Bram was something she’d reached for.
Was that using him?
She didn’t know and honestly wasn’t in the mood to contemplate it. The reason was simple, thinking about him gave her something solid. It might all turn out to be a mirage later; still, she wasn’t willing to rein her thoughts in.
One step at a time.
* * *
He had to lay low.
And be patient.
Ricky quelled the urge to follow the black SUVs.
That would be expected.
So instead, he waited a bit before heading toward a section of town where he could find men who didn’t have files. They were the sort looking for better lives, standing on the corners where construction foremen came to hire them for a quick, cash payday.
Ricky considered the men, singling out one who had a truck. It was a beat-up one, but solid at its core.
“I need a lift to Las Vegas,” he began.
“That
is a long way, my friend.”
Ricky pulled a thick roll of cash from his pocket. “Four hours out and four back. Beats working outside in this sun.”
The guy was hesitating, which was all the opportunity another man needed to step forward and offer to take the job.
Ricky grinned, climbing into the passenger seat of a beat-up minivan. He rolled the window down and looked forward to leaving the city and the multitude of surveillance cameras behind.
Open road suited him. As soon as he evened the score with Tyler Martin, he was going to get lost in Ireland.
But first, he was going to look up Brendon, an air-traffic controller he’d used for information in the past. Shadow Ops teams might have the authority to shuttle their travel records into a classified file, but air-traffic controllers had the magic keys or passcodes to look into those encrypted files. No one flew a plane over US ground without there being a flight plan filed somewhere.
Sure, Brendon might be pissed for the way Ricky had left him the last time but that only added an element of challenge to getting what he wanted from him.
Ricky did admit to enjoying a game that didn’t bore him.
* * *
“Trouble?”
Tyler Martin looked up as Carl Davis asked the question. Carl offered him a half smile and a mock toast with his Scotch glass.
“You gave yourself away there, Ty,” he muttered jovially. “I don’t see you show your reactions very often.”
Carl came into the office and settled into the padded chair next to Tyler.
“So what has your attention?”
There were times Tyler Martin wanted to kill Carl Davis. The guy was a fat cat, raised on the hard labor of those who would never taste his decadent lifestyle. He was an example of how some things never changed. There had always been haves and have-nots.
It was a harsh truth that Tyler had embraced when he sold out Saxon Hale for a job as Carl Davis’s head of security.
So he had to deal with the guy.
“Bram Magnus has someone hunting down his command officer.”
Carl’s grin melted off his face, leaving him staring at Tyler.
“Are the Hale brothers working with him?” Carl asked.
“No sign of them,” Tyler replied. “But I’ll bet he’s in contact with them. Shadow teams stick close to one another for life.”
Carl was tapping his fingernail against his glass. “You advised me to let my issues with them go.”
“Saxon and Vitus have gone to ground somewhere,” Tyler began. “Whatever Kagan has them doing, I want to know about it. We never know when that information might come in handy. It’s a good bet Bram Magnus will return to wherever they are.”
“Right.” Carl stood and tossed the rest of his drink down his throat. “You’re the best man for the job, Ty. Glad to have you on the team.”
Team.
Tyler had once had a very different idea of what that meant. Long before he realized men like Carl Davis used men like Saxon Hale. Carl would hand out medals and awards and make speeches about valor and integrity.
Sure would. Tyler had seen it.
And then Carl would go into a closed door meeting and vote to erase a secret ops unit to keep the dirt from splattering.
He and Hale’s team were different because Tyler had faced the facts and decided to make sure he had a spot on Carl’s team. He’d already done the dirty work, now he wanted a slice of the big cake. The lifestyle Carl lived and Saxon Hale couldn’t sell his Medal of Honor to buy.
But it wasn’t personal.
Life was just full of tough choices.
He’d made his.
* * *
“This is a classified location. I am in command and you are no longer in the civilian world.”
Saxon Hale wasn’t very happy about them being there. The vibe coming off the man was unwelcoming to say the least. Beside him, Vitus Hale was eyeing them with just about the same level of frigidness.
“Stay behind the fence at all times.”
Jaelyn contemplated the row of boulders that made up the fence. Huge pieces of rock with dirt clinging to them were arranged around a tiny vintage house. The house itself was cuteness incarnate because, in spite of its 1950s vibe, it was restored perfectly.
There wasn’t a chip of paint missing from the wood edging and every window sparkled. It was a stark contrast to its surroundings. All around them, construction was happening. That part wasn’t what made Jaelyn view the house as something dropped there by a twister … no, it was the huge camouflage netting strung up over the entire site. The sunlight filtered through in a speckling pattern that made it feel cool when it wasn’t.
“Classified” was the word.
Beneath the canopy of netting, there were large construction trucks moving around. Machinery hummed and clanged while men in hard hats worked. They weren’t like any construction personnel she’d seen in her life. There were no bright-colored safety vests and even their hard hats had dark green patterns on them that suited the forest around them.
“Magnus, show them their quarters.”
Saxon Hale left them, with his brother in tow.
“That was the hard part,” Bram offered as he pointed behind them. “Your quarters should be a little more welcoming.”
Their quarters were a mobile home type of structure. It was sitting behind the house, in a huge automobile graveyard. Stretching out behind the little house was an acre or more of slowly rusting cars. Saplings grew right up through some of them, while in the distance, a weathered barn stood witness to it all. There was no sign of the road they’d come in on, just more cars and forest.
Jaelyn felt like a punch had been delivered to her opinion of Bram. Her entire concept of just who he was had changed completely. It was like having her rose-colored glasses ripped away. She realized she’d seen him through a very carefully constructed persona that he presented when he was in the civilian world.
Now?
Now there was a gun on his hip and he fit right in with Saxon Hale and his brother, Vitus, because as far as Jaelyn could see, she and her family were the only unarmed people on the site.
The thing was … she found it really sexy.
Maybe you need that appointment with the shrink after all …
Jaelyn smiled at her own thoughts. She didn’t need to go pour out her feelings while lying on a padded sofa and listen to someone tell her why she felt like she did. Nope. It was pretty cut-and-dried. Bram curled her toes, and she liked it.
A lot.
Sure, it was extreme. But so was Bram. She watched the way he blended in with the other men on the site, so at home. Actually, more at ease than he’d ever been while at her grandfather’s house.
In a way, she felt like she was getting a look at him for the first time.
“You’ll each have some privacy.”
Bram spoke again as he directed them to the structure. It sported three doors, equally placed along one side. He opened one and Milton peered inside.
“That sure is more welcoming than the last set of quarters I had here,” Milton said.
“Grandpa?” Jaelyn said in surprise.
Bram’s expression finally changed. “What do you mean?”
Her grandfather chuckled as he turned and looked off toward where the construction was going on. “Yep. Been a few years now.”
“You were here?” Bram asked incredulously.
Milton Sondors sent him a smug look and a wink before he pushed his hands into his pockets and whistled cheerfully.
“Oh boy.” LeAnn shook her head. “He’s not going to tell you, Bram.”
Bram looked at Jaelyn but she nodded. “This is Grandpa’s ‘refusing to talk about the elephant in the room’ mode. He’s a master of the art.”
And Milton was enjoying himself hugely. He accepted the key Bram had used to open the door and tucked it into his shirt pocket before he ambled off, pausing to look at some of the cars rusting back into the earth.
&n
bsp; “I’ll be here,” Bram said softly next to Jaelyn.
She reached out and took the key from his hand. Her heart was picking up its pace, her mental musings during their travel time extracting a toll now that she was face-to-face with the opportunity to act on her thoughts.
Rabbit?
Or was it just wiser to give herself a little more time?
She unlocked one of the other doors and pulled it open.
“Jaelyn—”
“I need to think.”
She disappeared inside, the door closing behind her. The action took too much effort, leaving her facing a crashing wave of emotions. It hit her, making her feel pinned to the wall while she tried to sort images of Bram and Creepy into two different categories.
Fuck but emotions sucked.
* * *
Las Vegas …
Ricky listened to the sound of aircraft taking off as he waited for Brendon to finish his shift as an air-traffic controller. Ricky remembered things, details, like what car the guy drove. Ricky was leaning against it as he smoked. Footsteps echoed through the parking structure as someone came closer.
Brendon went still when he caught sight of Ricky.
“Surprised to see me?”
“I am,” Brendon said.
There was a note of anger in his tone, one that tickled Ricky because the guy was nursing a grudge over the way Ricky had left him.
Cold.
Ricky did like a challenge. Didn’t much matter if it was fighting or something more personal like with Brendon. Ricky liked to win and you couldn’t swipe victory if your opponent rolled over like a pussy.
“So what do you want?” Brendon surprised him by not whining.
Ricky took a moment to take another puff on the cigarette. Brendon was watching him when he blew out a line of smoke. “Sorry man, did you want me to stick around and play house? Thought you were still in the closet, worried about losing your job to those homophobic pricks you answer to.”
Brendon shook his head. “A text would have been nice.”
Ricky shrugged. “I’m more of a hands-on type.”
There was a double meaning in his words. Brendon’s color darkened. Ricky enjoyed seeing the contrast with his white dress shirt collar.
The guy was debating his options. Ricky took another drag on his cigarette as he watched the way Brendon wrestled with his conscience. Lust was drawing his features tight, though, telling Ricky everything he needed to know.
