by Tawny Weber
Tension ripped through him as he went through a comm check, as they went through a play-by-play of the mission. Despite the reassurance of his team, Savino and command, in his opinion, the last mission he’d been on, he’d blown. The one before that? He’d been blown to hell. Now it was time to see what he was actually made of.
“I’m heading out.” Elijah didn’t wait for Nic’s agreement before grabbing his MK23, tucking it into his back holster as he bent low to check his ankle holster, then the knife sheathed in the opposite boot. “In position in five.”
Which was thirty ahead of schedule. But he wanted another visual of the territory. Time to scope out the best location for taking Ramsey down.
Despite the pressure, the intense thoughts, when he walked out the door, his demeanor was pure, casual ease. His moves were smooth, his expression calm—mellow, even. He looked like an average guy kicking back on vacation. To add to that image, he had a compact sketchbook in hand, the pencil wedged in the spiral binding.
He strolled away from the house, heading east toward the lake. Nice view, he decided when he reached the overlook. The delicate play of sunshine through the trees over random patterns in the grass-lined path, but glared with heat when Elijah moved toward the edge. He gauged the fall, the distance to the lake and the number of trees between here and there. A few decent-size boulders, but none big enough to hide a man.
That information committed to memory, he moved on to the next checkpoint. At each one, he checked for civilians, assessed threats, evaluated spider holes.
He took his time, taking a good hour to work his way toward a copse of trees to the far west of the house, off the beaten path with a limited window of visibility. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know he was being watched.
“Hostile spotted,” came Rengel’s voice through the tiny comm lodged in Elijah’s ear.
“Prescott, you’re up.”
A quick jerk of his shoulders to shake off any emotions still riding there, and Elijah was ready. He made a show of walking while inspecting the flora, stopping here and there to draw a quick wildlife study.
“Hostile confirmed and on the move.”
Hot damn. Elijah couldn’t resist smiling. Just a little one.
Because Brandon Ramsey was alive and heading his way.
Anticipation surged, slamming through his system like a pinball ringing all the bells.
“Maintain.”
Savino’s warning wiped the smile off his face but couldn’t dim the glee in his gut. Unprofessional or not, he was looking forward to this little assignment.
Which was probably why Savino had given it to him. He had to know how badly Elijah wanted to slam his fist into Ramsey’s face. That, or kick the guy’s balls into his throat. Maybe both.
Enjoying the options, Elijah found his spot. Nathan was long gone, but Ramsey didn’t know that. Elijah’s assignment was to draw him away, to keep his focus off the cabin. Engage at a distance, employ intelligence measures to extract information, ensure the safety of any civilians.
Backup would get here when it got here. Until then, he was on his own. Not a problem, Elijah decided with a grim set of his chin. He had a score to settle and some scores—especially blood scores—were better settled one on one.
He made a show of searching for the right tree trunk, taking his time settling in for a view. He flipped his sketch pad open, pulled his pencil free.
And drew a quick little image of Ramsey with a knife in his gut, a stake through his heart and a grinning vulture eating out his eye. Gruesome but satisfying.
He added prison bars around it to the sound of pebbles sliding down the hill, leaves rustling.
“Oughta watch your six, Rembrandt.”
Elijah didn’t bother faking surprise. He was done playing Ramsey’s game.
“Please,” he murmured, not bothering to look up from his sketch. “I heard your attempt at stealth two minutes before you got here.”
“You’re so full of shit, Prescott. You Poseidon guys like to pretend you’re so damned better than everyone else, but all you’re good at is lying. Mostly to yourselves.”
“So says the Pinocchio of lies.” After sketching in a few electrical wires to the bars for good measure, he nodded with satisfaction. Then, and only then, did he glance up at the liar. His eyes widened as he got a good look at the other man’s appearance.
Ramsey had always come across as a poster boy for Prince Charming. Blond hair and blue eyes, he’d had the all-American looks of a movie star. A perfect glistening white smile, chiseled features and charming demeanor.
There wasn’t much charming about the man’s looks now.
Shoulder-length hair was in disarray, partially concealing the puckered scar bisecting his sculpted features. It wasn’t a fire scar, Elijah noted, not bothering to hide his inspection. Seemed more like the guy had taken a piece of shrapnel to the face. It was petty, but Elijah didn’t bother hiding his smile.
“Looks like that mission took a piece out of you, too,” he observed. He leaned back against the tree, his flannel shirt a barrier between him and the rough bark, and tapped his pencil on his knee. “Bet it’s rough, shaving around that scar.”
“You’re trying to psych me out. It won’t work.”
“Why would I do that? You think I’ve got a grudge to settle or something? That’d make this personal.”
“It’s always personal.”
“And that’s why you were never as good a SEAL as you thought you were. You couldn’t get your ego out of the way and give the mission your all.”
Ramsey’s lips tightened, his fist clenching until knuckles showed white.
Direct hit.
“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” was all he said.
“Not me,” Elijah shot back with an easy shrug. “I’m on vacation, dude. Besides, I thought the official word was that your ass had been burned to ash.”
“We both know how worthless anything official is.”
“Do we?”
Making sure Ramsey could see both his hands, Elijah used his pencil to tap out a casual beat across his notebook cover.
“Red tape, protocol, politics,” the other man muttered. “All official bullshit organized by fat, lazy, self-aggrandizing assholes with one eye on their retirement and the other on whatever ass they’re kissing.”
“Sounds like you’re harboring a little bitterness toward the Navy.”
“Aren’t you? Isn’t the Navy the reason why you spent two months in a hospital? Isn’t the Navy the reason you lost your wife? Your kid? You and me, Prescott, the Navy fucked us both over the same.”
Seriously? Fury flamed behind Elijah’s eyes in a vicious flash. This motherfucker blew him up, and he blamed the Navy? The man abandoned his girlfriend, walked away from his unborn child, and he had the balls to compare that to the death of Elijah’s son?
Adrenaline surged, his body tightening in readiness to attack. His breath was fire in his throat, his heart thundering in his ears.
Focus, he ordered himself. Focus on the mission.
Because as soon as the mission was complete, he could kick this fucker’s ass.
“Some would say that fire you set was the reason I was in the hospital,” Elijah ground out, working to keep his smile in place. “You remember that fire, don’t you? The one you used to escape after stealing a top secret weapons formula.”
“Just doing my job.” With a hint of his old charm, Ramsey smiled and gave a boyish shrug.
Elijah took the confirmation with the same mind-set he’d take a bullet from an enemy. As the cost of war. Ramsey hadn’t accidentally set him on fire. The bastard had blown him to hell because he wanted his tracks covered.
“Your job bites,” Elijah pointed out. “I hope you’re getting paid damned well for
destroying your life.”
“You recording this conversation, Rembrandt?”
“What’d be the point of that? Official word is that you’re ash, remember? And I’m not the vendetta type.”
“Yeah, but you’re the loyal type. Like, to your exclusive little club of assholes.”
Bingo. The key to Ramsey’s actions, the one that would throw his ass in a cage. Resisting the urge to tell the guy that he was little more than a pimple to those assholes, Elijah followed the playbook. The one Savino had outlined when he’d given him this assignment.
He smiled. He lifted both hands in the air. And he pretended he could be bought.
“Loyal, sure. To my friends. I thought you were a friend once, Ramsey.”
Ice-blue eyes sparked with suspicion as Ramsey leaned against his own tree. “A friend? Sure, why not.” Ramsey laughed, the sound cold and bitter. “Like Adams was a friend. But you took him down.”
“First, Adams was a douche. It was irritating as hell the way he followed you around like a lovesick puppy.” Watching Ramsey’s face, Elijah saw the flash of satisfaction and thought, score one. “Second, he went off the reservation, my friend. Kidnapping a kid? That’s ugly business.”
“My kid.” The claim was made with about as much emotion as calling dibs on a doughnut.
“Which is why Adams grabbed him. To lure you out. You shoulda smacked that puppy on the nose with a rolled-up paper, Ramsey.” Elijah shook his head in disgust. “He was a total failure.”
“Maybe,” Ramsey said with a smirk. “Or maybe he was part of your plan to lure me out?”
“You think? I guess Torres, Lansky and I are like, what? The killer strike force? Because it was just the three of us there rescuing that kid.”
He wasn’t giving anything away with that news. The mission report had been in those transmissions he’d decoded. So someone was keeping Ramsey in the loop. It was his job to use that loop to tie this asshole in a nice, tidy bowline knot.
“Torres leading the way, I suppose.”
The way he spit the bitter words out like they were poison told Elijah he’d gotten word that Diego and Harper were a happy couple.
“Actually, Lansky cracked the location,” Elijah said. Was Lansky his informant? Elijah didn’t want to believe that his Poseidon brother was dirty. But wants didn’t factor in here. Facts did. “He seemed almost as disappointed as Adams was that you didn’t show.”
“If you think I’d walk into a trap like that you’re as delusional as Lansky.”
“Lansky’s delusional?”
Ramsey shrugged as if to say, sure. But Elijah could see the caginess in his eyes. He’d said it before, the guy might have been a decent Special Operative but he was crap as a criminal mastermind.
He wanted Elijah to think Lansky was dirty. Whether because he hoped to out the guy or to set him up was the question.
“You got my messages?” Ramsey asked after a prolonged silence. “The pictures, the notes and texts?”
“Was that you?” Pulling out his best fake surprised look, Elijah shook his head. “I’d have figured love notes were a little lame to be your style, dude.”
“Reminders.”
“Of?”
“Of what matters. Of what doesn’t. Of what a waste it is to try to please masters who don’t give a fuck about us.” Fury shimmered off Ramsey’s declaration. His voice rose with each sentence, each word bit off through clenched teeth. “How many times did you bust your ass in training? Put your life on the line during a mission? Take fire for worthless, unappreciative assholes? And for what? Our lousy pay? For fucking anonymity?”
Flames practically spewed from his lips as he spat that last bit out at Elijah’s feet. Ramsey paced as if there was too much fury in his gut to stand still.
Elijah could relate. Because he could, he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to hold back the urge to pound on Ramsey’s face. He tried to calculate the time since he’d dispatched the message, how long it’d take Savino to deploy. But he couldn’t count seconds when his mind was racing through the past.
“You knew the rules when you signed up to play,” he pointed out, pushing to his feet. He forced himself to keep it casual, though. Instead of posturing, he continued to lean against the tree, digging the heel of one boot into the bark. The only sign of agitation he allowed was to tap the sketch pad against his thigh. He used the beat to help shake off some of the anger—or at least to channel it since nothing seemed to be putting a dent in the wall of fury surrounding him.
“So you’re saying you’re okay with it?” Ramsey gave a pitying shake of his head. “I thought better of you, man.”
“You thought I’d play your game? Is that what this is all about? You’re looking for an inside man?”
Something flashed in Ramsey’s eyes. And that something told Elijah that he already had his inside man. Not that he’d be averse to gathering a few extra, but he was set. For what was the question.
“Wouldn’t hurt,” was all Ramsey said, though. “You should consider it. Some decent money, a chance at a real retirement. The kind that includes sun-drenched beaches, a fat cushion of cash and all your body parts. Hell of a better deal than you’ll get in the Navy.”
“Now there’s an offer,” Elijah managed to say. “Is that what’s going on? You’re recruiting?”
“You think I’m the only one involved?” Ramsey gave a bitter laugh. “Orders are orders, my man. I was simply seeding the ground, waiting to see what grew.”
“That’s why you left the number for your Swiss account in my possessions?”
“A precaution,” Ramsey corrected. “You know as well as I that being prepared is key to a successful mission. So is having a backup.”
So Ramsey wanted to make sure that he had a backup in case he fried his brains. He hadn’t left it in his own possessions because his dirty pals would have found it. So he’d used Elijah.
Again.
“Why’re you here?” he asked, wanting to know who’d tipped Ramsey to their location. “And more to the point, how’d you track me?”
“I figure a guy with your skills, you know who froze my funds. That, and like I already said. You’re an idiot if you think I’m the only one involved. So maybe that someone is interested in you. Interested enough to know you’re burned out and might like some new friends,” Ramsey taunted with a laugh. “I follow orders, I get rewarded. A lot better system than the crap pay and lack of recognition in the SEALs.”
Someone higher up, Elijah realized. It would take authority to get even a hint of respect out of Ramsey. And that was a combination of respect and fear in his voice. Who would have that kind of power? More important, what reward?
Those were questions for Savino to ask, he knew. Still, he was so pissed, it took him two tries to trigger the button with his toe. He had to take another slow, surreptitious breath to calm the fury before he could continue. But all in all, not a bad job for a man who couldn’t dance a step, he decided as he knocked out the all clear message in a few taps.
“If preparation is the first rule, having a solid team is the second,” Elijah pointed out. “And while I might work with an asshole like you if so ordered, I’d never play on your team, Ramsey. I don’t play with losers.”
Before Ramsey could respond with the fist he’d lifted, there was a rustle in the bushes to their right. Both he and Elijah went on alert.
Damn. Savino had moved a lot faster than he’d expected. Elijah shifted his weight.
The moment Ramsey turned his head toward the noise, he moved. A quick dive forward, sidekick to the head and a satisfying right cross to that pretty-boy face.
Ramsey tried to kick out but Elijah swept his feet out from under him. Both men hit the dirt with a thud. Elijah smiled through the pain as his knuckles split on Ramsey’s teeth. The
guy’s nose broke with a crack and a spray of blood, spattering them both as they hit the ground.
It felt damned good to sink his fist over and over into the other man’s face. This might be the first time Elijah had ever been tempted to laugh aloud during a fight.
Before Ramsey could react, before he got more than that one punch, Elijah had him on his stomach, arm wrenched high between his shoulder blades as he dug his knee into the small of the traitor’s back.
Ramsey reared back, his head smacking into Elijah’s face. Stars exploded, pain flashing. Barely resisting the temptation to grab the guy’s hair and use it to slam his head into the ground a few—or few dozen—times, Elijah shook it off. Blood spurted from his nose, spattering his shirt.
“You need some help, Rembrandt?” said a calm voice. “Or you gonna mop up that blood with his head?”
Elijah looked over his shoulder, blinking to clear the spots from his vision until Lansky swam into view.
“Yo,” he greeted him, swiping his tongue along the side of his mouth where his lip had split. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad.” Lansky sauntered closer, stopping two feet away. “You should have followed up with a knee to the balls, though. If anyone deserves to have his nuts kicked in, it’s this guy.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Elijah said with a laugh, angling himself so Lansky could step in and restrain the prisoner.
“I’ll make you pay, you sonovabitch,” Ramsey said as Lansky hauled him to his feet, his words muffled by dirt and blood. He turned his glare on his captor just long enough to identify him, then shot a killing look at Elijah. “You won’t get away with this.”
“Pretty sure I just did,” Elijah shot back, leaning back on his heels and swiping the back of his hand over his own cut lip. He eyed the speckle of blood, compared it to the flood gushing over Ramsey’s face and risked the pain of splitting his lip wider as he grinned. “Pretty sure I kicked your ass, dude.”
“You can’t hold me. You can’t stop me. Do you have any idea who the fuck I am, you idiot? What the hell I can do to you?”
