Kill List (Special Ops #8)

by Capri Montgomery

  He went north before heading west because he needed to be sure anybody watching him thought he really was going to Maine. Autumn had already told him she would arrange for a switch car at a local shop. She had arranged everything where he could pull in and transfer the goods, including Olivia, without being seen and then he could pull out in a new vehicle while somebody else wearing the same type of black shirt with BDU inspired pants but not the real BDU uniform parts drove out in the old car. Wearing their BDU off base wasn’t really permitted anymore, so in this he had to make some changes to Autumn’s original plan. He understood why she wasn’t up to date on it, but he felt if somebody was at a higher level than just a crooked cop they might recognize the misstep.

  He made sure he kept it simple. He would have preferred to just put on regular pants instead of this cheep version of a uniform, but this would be fine. He had a full BDU in his bag because he knew he would need it once he found out who this guy was and where he was located. The idea of Autumn’s plan and his was that if anybody was following him they would stalk the new driver thinking it was him and he and Olivia would then go westward to Montana. And at the end of the day, if somebody with extensive knowledge on their uniforms was linked on this assassin’s payroll then they would be smart enough to know the pants weren’t real uniform. They would just assume he was a dick waiting to find a hole to enter and using the pants as a pickup tactic. Win-win for him because they would underestimate him in more ways than one and that would work to his advantage in the battle.

  “You kept talking about rules the other night.” He heard her voice from the back. He knew she wouldn’t be able to stay quiet for long. It wasn’t that she was a chatterbox as Mike Riggs used to call some women, it was just that Olivia couldn’t really sit still so asking her to lay in back with the blanket over her was like asking her to lay in a bed of roaches. The woman just couldn’t handle either. Although he would say she was doing better at this than she would do with the later of the option.

  “Yep,” he said as he shifted lanes once again.

  “What are all these rules about your uniform about?”

  He chuckled. “Not important, Liv. BDU,” he said as he made another lane change. “That’s Battle Dress Uniform. These pants kind of resemble them, but they’re not quite them. Somebody in the know will know that. Somebody not in the know won’t but they’ll know that I’m not in full uniform so I’m not breaking any rules either.”

  “Oh…you’ll have to tell me about this rule and BDU thing one day.”

  He resisted laughing. “Not even worth talking about, honey. Now stay put back there. Don’t go moving around.”

  “I’m bored.”

  “Go to sleep and you won’t be,” he said sternly. He meant what he said; she had to stay covered until he made the final change of the vehicles. Well, technically she would have to stay covered at least another hour in there too. He was going to do this covert and do it well because any mistake could get them both killed.

  “I’m not sleepy,” she said. “But I will try.”

  “Good,” he said as he checked his rearview again. Was that a car following them? He couldn’t tell just yet. A few more subtle lane shifts and he would have more clarity of what was going on. He was ready to go on the hunt, but right now he had to make sure that he cunningly led anybody following them on a not so easy trip. He would prefer to shake them before he got to the next pickup, but he knew that might not happen.

  One more shift and then another and he noticed the same silver Ford Focus shifting just the same. Yeah, they were being followed.

  “We have a tail,” he said just to let her know and to remind her just how important it was she stayed low.

  “Oh joy,” she mumbled. “I hope they fly off a bridge or something.”

  He chuckled. “You do pick some interesting ways for people to go, Liv. Last time you were angry with somebody I distinctly remember hearing you say you hoped flying monkeys ripped their face off and ate their brain out.”

  She laughed. “Yep.”

  “I don’t think they really need to rip the face off, Liv. The brain isn’t behind the face. They should just go for the head—if there were such a thing as flying monkeys.”

  “I figure go for the face and make it painful for them. Then they can get to the cranial part and eat the brain matter. Besides, since I have found out about spider monkeys and flying snakes I won’t say that flying monkeys don’t exist.”

  He shook his head. The woman watched a lot more PBS nature and science shows than he would have expected, but then again maybe he should have expected it. She was the one who wanted to be a vet once upon a time. Of course she would enjoy the science shows involving animals and things related to them.

  “Flying monkeys,” he sighed. “If I meet any when I’m back on duty I’ll mail you one.”

  “Ooh, now wouldn’t that be a cool gift.” He heard the serious nature of her voice. The woman wasn’t kidding while he was. Cute, sexy, and crazy—yep, he had hit the jackpot of wonderment with this one. He couldn’t imagine they would ever have a dull day together at this pace.

  He checked his rearview again. He could shake this guy but doing so would alert them too swiftly that he knew what was going on and he didn’t want to give them that message. He wanted to hang on to his advantage right now because right now they didn’t know he was primed and ready for the hunt. Right now they just thought he was a grieving forced on continued military leave big brother. The longer they thought that the more he could get done without interruption. Sure, they would figure it out eventually that he wasn’t the guy who would be sleeping in that Bar Harbor hotel without leaving it for a day out anywhere, but until then he could work, investigate and stalk his prey without them even knowing that he was watching just like a blackbird watched from above, eyeing its prey, Chogan would be doing the same thing. He chuckled inwardly; he would say his father was right, his name was befitting of him. Chogan had the meaning of blackbird just as his father’s name Mingan meant gray wolf. They were both fittingly named, only for Chogan he was a military warrior ready to execute the threat in whatever way was needed.

  The exchange went off smoothly and from what Jensen Braddock, the car contact, had told him the Ford Focus definitely had followed off behind his decoy. So it was time to go and he had Olivia hide out the same way but this time they were in a very roomy Range Rover that he was able to transfer all of his added weapons gear from the other car to and sit it comfortably within grasp. And as they cleared more and more land he told Olivia she could sit upward if she wanted and she had done that swiftly, rearranging her disheveled clothes and trying to cover up some of the parts that were not fitting in the best of ways.

  “I kind of like having a view of your nipple,” he winked at her as she finished situating herself in the front seat that she had climbed onto. Thanks to his dad and other instructors that he had long ago had he could multi task while driving otherwise he would have driven them off the road with that uninhibited view of her commando nether regions.

  “If you hadn’t ripped up my last undergarments, and my dress, I wouldn’t be flashing you so much.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I ripped them off ya then huh,” he chuckled and her lips split into a smile, one of the first he had seen since finding her in his basement.

  She sighed, going back to that sullen look. “Did my description of this guy help at all?”

  He wished he could say it did but right now he didn’t have anything and his guys wouldn’t be in Montana for days. They, too, were going the scenic route landing in different states and getting on the road heading in different directions until they made it to White Sulphur Springs, or more like the nicely secluded home Autumn had set up for them just outside that area. But one thing he hadn’t planned on, that he hadn’t thought to have his mother pack for Olivia was some serious winter gear.

  “Yeah, there would be snow still falling up here, Chogan.”


  “I see that,” he mumbled.

  “I’m in a sundress.”

  He looked her over out the corner of his eye. “I see that too.”

  “I’ll freeze to death. No mad killer necessary,” she sighed.

  “You will not freeze to death,” he enunciated those words sharply. He would fix this; she didn’t need to doubt that he could, or that he would.

  She sighed. “It’s pretty up here though. When I was in school I was thinking of trying to home front here and work as a vet for my internship maybe on a ranch or something close to one. But I had South Dakota on my mind too. I didn’t want Texas. No way did I want to go to Texas.”

  “Why not? Texas has cattle ranches.”

  “Texas has a lot, but nothing I want so badly that I would move to that state. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  He nodded. It wasn’t that important. He figured she wasn’t moving anywhere now that she wasn’t in school and on the veterinarian track anyway, but what was she planning to do now that she wasn’t likely to go back to work at that hotel. No, scratch that; if he had to tie her to his bed she would not be going back to work in that hotel.

  “You like it up here,” he watched the expressions on her face flick between awe and fear. She liked what she saw, but their reason for being here sparked fear in her heart.

  “It’s pretty. It looks super cold, but it’s pretty. I could envision a small house in the woods, spectacular tree coverage…yeah, this could be peaceful, but I would have to seriously adjust.”

  “Because it’s colder than New York and your blood thinned down in the desert southwest?”

  “No, because I have altitude sickness and the last time I spent time in a higher altitude it took me six months to get even close to back to normal.”

  “Whoa! Why didn’t you tell me this? I would have asked for a different location.”

  “It never came up. Besides, you got what works for what you need and I’ll adjust—I always do,” she sighed and he could tell she was thinking about the changes that had happened in her life that had uprooted her and kicked her plans out of her mind. “I’ll sleep a lot. I’m just going to warn you now. Last time I slept almost all day every day. It was crazy trying to study and work at the same time when I couldn’t seem to find the strength to get out of bed and move. But I’ll be okay.”

  He didn’t like the sound of the issues she had experienced before combined with the fact that she was expecting to experience them again. He wished he had known because he would have asked for something else, yet he also understood her words because he knew they were in the best location out of what Autumn had had available. The seclusion left room to set up some monitoring devices without having to have neighbors that sat out and watched all day long.

  He needed a change of subject right now. His mind was warring between protect his woman from an assassin and protect her from the elements of nature and the altitude of the mountains.

  “Have you heard anything about your sister?”

  “She who shall not be named,” she snorted. “Nope. I’ve given up looking for her. The money for the PI was just getting to be too much. I mean I work as a maid at that hotel; I didn’t own the hotel or have relationships with men who liked to dole out money. She knows her way back to New York. And I made sure I kept my number listed and address updated so if she wants to get in touch with me she can find me. I can’t be her mother. I can’t be that woman who sacrifices everything for somebody who will never appreciate it, or herself, enough to work for her own betterment. I miss her. She’s my big sister and I remember the good times we had as a family when we were kids, but the reality is, when I push the fairytale memories aside, Keisha and I were never close. We were never what you and Amber had. My mom said it’s because she was jealous of me.” She shook her head and laid it back against the headrest.

  “Jealous?”

  “Stupid reasons really. She was dark and I’m considered light skinned,” she snorted and gave a sarcastic chuckle. “I have a cousin that’s considered high yellow so I fail to see how I am light skinned, but I suppose light and dark are relative depending on your vantage point. I’m brown, a nice shade of brown and that’s all that comes to mind when I look at me.”

  He nodded. She was most definitely a nice, softly caramel meets dark brown sugar color tone blend. She was beautiful inwardly and outwardly.

  “I never really got my sister though. She would always call me fat.”

  “What the F—hell?” He curtailed his words. Being in the military had him develop a less than gentlemanly verbiage sometimes.

  “I was never overweight,” she assured him. “But I was heavier. I was like maybe one ten until college. I hit my undergrad years where I gained the dreaded Freshmen Fifteen, but I was still in my healthy weight. I took some kickboxing classes and dance aerobic classes. I always loved working out so I just made a few of my electives more health inclined since I was in hardcore chem. classes at the time. Between that and the trig courses I needed a frou-frou class and I figured why not take something that would benefit me too. I dropped the fifteen plus some.”

  That she had. She was toned, sculpted and hot. “How much is some?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a little under a hundred pounds now. But you know what’s hilarious? My sister was like ninety pounds back in the days of her taunting me and last time I saw her she was like nearly forty pounds overweight. And she’s shorter than me,” she laughed. “Karma…it always finds a way doesn’t it.”

  He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him either. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, she’s like four-eleven and she most definitely can’t open her mouth to call me fat anymore. I remember how much it hurt when I was younger. I didn’t care what anybody outside of family said about me, but family is family and as a little girl I took it hard. I didn’t show it because I was stubborn like that but I still felt it.”

  “So did you lose the weight because of that?”

  “Nope. I just realized I loved to workout. It really was part stress reliever too. There is something about getting the heart rate up, pushing myself beyond what I thought was my limit, holding a plank until my arms are feeling like they’re going to give and then holding it longer, having sweat dripping off my body…oh yeah, that is empowering on so many levels. Plus with the classes I realized that I ate healthy at home for the most part and being away for college was no excuse to eat crap food. It was harder when I was on campus, but once my dad helped me get into a small apartment during my final undergrad years eating healthy got easier. It was like I didn’t have to work so hard to try to find healthy food, and I got to cut out all the Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine frozen dinners too.” She turned her head to look at him. “What about you? Were you always this hot?”

  He laughed. Hot? Yeah, he had heard that before but coming from her it was revving up his ego in ways he didn’t think a woman could at this stage in his life.

  “I was always in shape. I liked working out too. I lifted some weights, but boot camp really upped my fitness more than I already had. Years of special ops has a way of having a man stay fit. Plus there are weight requirements in the military.”

  “Somehow I doubt you ever had a problem falling in line.”

  He laughed a little at her statement. “Nope, never did,” he winked at her. “Here we are,” he pulled up the long drive and could see the small rustic house as he got closer. He heard the shivering sigh come from her as they saw the snow covered steps. This was higher up in the mountains and while the temperatures might be edging toward spring in New York they most certainly weren’t doing that here—or maybe this was their definition of springtime weather.

  “On the bright side,” he said. “The snow is trying to melt, and the thermometer reading,” he tapped the screen center console, “has it listed at forty-four degrees out there.”

  She gave him a side eye look. “Yeah, and tonight it’ll be like eighteen degrees out there.”

&n
bsp; “We’ll be inside and you’ll be in my bed. I can assure you I’ll keep you warm. I’ll contact Autumn to see what we can do about clothes for you okay? I should have thought of this.” He should have because as a Marine he was used to having to do threat assessment, surveying the situation, the enemy, all of the possible ups, downs and complicated arising of danger issues and yet he had dropped the ball on this.

  “Can you imagine this place in the fall? I bet it’s gorgeous. All these trees and the fall foliage must be breathtakingly beautiful.”

  “Maybe we can get up here next fall and see it.”

  She gave him a soft smile, one that told him she was wishing for legitimacy to that statement but still planning for her future demise. He didn’t like that look at all. She had to trust him. She had to know he wouldn’t let her get killed. The fact that she didn’t seem to have complete faith in that made him angry, made him feel the need to prove to her that he was a man who would fight for her, kill for her, protect her no matter the cost. He was a warrior. He was a Marine. He was a man who would not abandon his woman, and sure as hell wouldn’t let her get killed. She had to know that. She had to believe that.

  Olivia could tell from the moment Chogan parked the car that something was amidst. No, it was from the moment they were discussing a possible future traveling back to this beautiful place. It hit her now that her doubt that she would be alive was kind of a slap in the face to him as a protector, as a Marine. But this wasn’t some desert hostile ground. This was America. This was a different enemy—in her mind anyway. But maybe she just saw it differently and saw it wrong.