Hidden Impact

by Piper J. Drake

  She nodded, clutching her phone to her chest to keep herself from fidgeting. “There’s plenty of noodles and soup left if you all get hungry later in the afternoon. And I can come up and make dinner.”

  “Only if you want to.” Gabe shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. “You should take the time to rest if you can.”

  “I’m not going to get much sleep while we’re this close.”

  “I know, but this kind of operation is something we need to prepare for in every way before we go in. Too many things can go wrong if we’re not ready, and these people—Edict at least and probably their sponsor too—they aren’t the type to have regrets if they end up killing people.”

  Fear cut her breath short. For An-mei, for Gabe, for the people who’d so quickly become friends. “If there’s any way to do this without people getting hurt...”

  “Being prepared will minimize the damage.” Gabe looked up, catching her in a fierce gaze. “We do what we do to ensure the best outcome. Believe that.”

  Maylin swallowed hard. “I do.”

  His expression softened. “Not like you’ve had much reason to believe me recently, but it’s true. We’re going to do everything we can to get your sister back safely for you. Let us do what we’re good at.”

  She ached to hear his words. He was right, and she wasn’t going to lie to him or herself and say her faith in him had been completely restored. But it was rebuilding, and maybe he didn’t realize how much it had to do with him taking accountability for what he’d done, acknowledging how she’d felt and committing himself to rebuilding faith with her. Those things all mattered.

  And most of all, she didn’t want things between them to be broken.

  “Will you be coming back here at all?” The last few words came out in a whisper. She didn’t want him to feel obligated but she’d miss him.

  His expression softened and yet his gaze intensified, heated. “There’s a lot of work to do. To be honest, if I come back here I’m going to be tempted to do all sorts of things to bring us closer together that have nothing to do with the mission or the team.”

  She blinked, surprised by the answering heat coursing through her. Damn it, her nipples tightened.

  “Shouldn’t play with temptation.” And she was going to have a nasty discussion with herself about priorities. Her body was distracting in the worst possible way and she wasn’t ready yet to give in that way again. Was she? She needed to edge them back towards steady ground. “Why don’t I come back up in a few hours and cook the kind of dinner you can grab and get back to whatever it was you were doing? The kind we can leave out on the counter for you all to snack on through the night.”

  “Wouldn’t say no.” Gabe grinned at her and her breath caught to see it. “Entire team appreciates how you’ve been feeding us. We’re going to have to up our PT, though.”

  “PT?” Nope. Her brain wasn’t capable of recovering fast enough to remember simple acronyms yet. Full-blown fantasies of kissing him were taking up the majority of her mental capacity at the moment.

  If anything, his grin widened. As if he could know. Well, maybe he could. “Physical training.”

  And how did one volunteer for it?

  She dragged in a full breath of chill air. Cold shower might be better. “Good food is worth it.”

  He winked. “Agreed.”

  If he didn’t turn down the charm, her heart was going to crash right through her chest. Or stop for good.

  “I’ll see you later, coração.” When he leaned in, she didn’t duck. His kiss seared her lips and when his fingers touched her jawline she opened her mouth so he could deepen the kiss. In moments, she was lost.

  Then the kiss ended and he took a step back. Off balance, she almost stumbled forward and he reached out to steady her, letting her go as soon as she had regained her equilibrium. Physically, at least.

  She thought he might say something. He opened his mouth, closed it. Then he turned and headed back.

  What had she been hoping for? Had to be something, because the pang of disappointment hurt and she didn’t think it was Gabe’s fault. There was no doubt of the attraction between them, and he was walking away to do exactly what she’d wanted him to do from the first time she’d met him. Every minute she spent with him, her reasons for holding distance between them crumbled. And he had to know.

  And he was giving her time. She should be thankful for it. But she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to help him close the distance or run.

  She turned and walked inside the cabin, heading for the kitchen out of habit. But standing there, she couldn’t lock on to anything. Cleaning had been a great way to burn off the combination of confusion and frustration she’d felt this morning, but she wasn’t about to do it all again. There was keeping busy and then there was being crazy.

  Pacing helped for about a minute or two.

  Heading into the bedroom, she flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  It’d be silly to go back over there right away, even with the excuse of starting to cook something complicated. Gabe had just walked her over here, possibly to keep her out of their hair.

  Besides, seeing Gabe and having him ignore her in favor of something else? It’d be hard. And not fair to want him to devote all his attention to what mattered, then be around distracting them both with the obvious lust issues they had.

  No. That was unkind and unfair to the both of them. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just lust. It was more, for her at least, and Gabe wouldn’t be trying so hard if it was passing desire for him.

  At lunch, she’d had a harder time than she liked to admit resisting the urge to tap at his shoulder and ask him to help her while she’d been cooking. He hadn’t been ignoring her at the time, but she’d wanted his full attention. And she didn’t like the way she wanted it because it hadn’t come from affection. It’d come from insecurity.

  Where did they stand with each other?

  The ball was mostly in her court. He’d made it obvious. So the indecision was all hers too. Great. She had no patience for indecision, especially her own.

  She needed to trust him again. On a whole lot of levels.

  Sitting up, she pulled out her smartphone and turned it on. It had about a twenty percent charge. Not bad but she hated having her electronics anything less than fully charged if there was an outlet nearby.

  She started poking around in drawers and cabinets for a stash of chargers. There were a couple of interesting things, like a first aid kit and a mystery duffel bag in the little alcove under a shelf in the closet, but no chargers.

  Out in the living area, where Gabe had been sitting with his laptop earlier in the day, there was a power strip and—found it, a charger that fit her phone. Hah.

  She hadn’t checked email or messages in days. It’d been one thing to install the game app on the temp phone but Gabe had warned her not to check the things most likely to be under surveillance.

  There were messages in her digital voice mail so she decided to clear through those first. A few client messages in response to her out of office notification asking her to respond as soon as she returned. Nothing urgent. She saved each of them to address later, when she was officially back from her “vacation.”

  “Maylin. I need you to listen.”

  She froze. Charlie’s voice was so strained, she barely recognized it.

  “Please. There’s people. They won’t let me go. They’re giving me forty-eight hours and then they’re going to kill me. Kill me! They said all you have to do is let them come get you and they’ll take you to your sister. It’s what you wanted, right?”

  Oh, no. Charlie. No, no, no.

  His voice dropped to a pleading whisper. “Everyone gets what they want, right? Please tell me this is the right thing to do. Please. I don’t want to die.”


  A sinking feeling in her stomach turned and twisted into a tight knot of fear. How long had it been? Fumbling, she saved the message and cursed as she got the voice mail service to replay and announce the time stamp. It’d been a day and a half ago. A day and a half.

  She should run to the main house. Right away. Ask Gabe...

  Shuddering, Maylin went to the bathroom and threw up.

  As she ran cold water from the tap and splashed her face, she pulled herself together piece by piece. She needed more information for Gabe and the team. This would split their attention, take precious time away from finding An-mei. But she wasn’t about to leave Charlie with whoever had him.

  Still not sure she was doing exactly the right thing, she opened an app on her phone and set it to record, then she dialed Charlie’s number. She’d done it in the past to be sure she recalled details when planning an event, but this time, it mattered a lot more.

  Before she bothered Gabe, she’d find out more about who had Charlie and what they wanted.

  “Maylin, it took you this long to answer your friend’s call for help?”

  Jewel’s voice came across the line, crystal clear.

  Maylin fought to modulate her voice to calm and cool. “What do you want?”

  “He told you.” Jewel chuckled. “Just allow us to come get you. We’ll let him go back to his life and we’ll take you to your sister. And everyone goes on into happy-ever-after.”

  “If you know where I am, you know I can’t just walk out to the sidewalk and hop in a car. And I don’t know why I’d be of use to you anyway.” An-mei was the scientist, the brilliant resource. The closest Maylin could come to creating a biological warfare weapon was cooking up a devastatingly spicy batch of curry. Why, why, why were they after her?

  Maylin started to wander back through the cabin, taking stock of what was actually tucked away. People like Gabe and his team had useful things at hand squirreled away in every nook and cranny. Even in their own base of operations, they didn’t seem like the types to keep everything in the obvious locations. Not that she’d know where they kept their weapons or anything anyway. But they all walked around with something on them. Harness, knife, sometimes even their guns. They were always ready for something to happen.

  How likely was it there would be something in every building? She was betting they had small caches stashed everywhere in preparation for the worst-case scenario, including the guest cabin. And well, the mystery duffel bag she’d seen earlier wasn’t likely to be extra toilet paper.

  “I’m sure Gabe’s told you by now. We have history.” Jewel said it in a way that left a million things implied. But Gabe had already told Maylin, so it irritated her but it didn’t catch her flat-footed. “I used to be a Centurion and I know the area and their security precautions quite well.”

  “As if they wouldn’t change things.” Maylin didn’t know for sure but it sounded good.

  The duffel bag was heavier than she anticipated as she hauled it out of the closet. With no idea what was in it, she handled it carefully and placed it gently on the bed.

  Jewel sighed. “Change, yes, but they’re so predictable.”

  Unzipping the bag, Maylin pushed it wide open so she could survey the contents and try to figure out what might help her. If—and this was a very tiny if—she ended up going with Jewel and the Edict team, she wanted something with her.

  There were several guns and boxes of ammunition, but she’d never fired one and didn’t even know what ammunition went with what gun. Besides, she’d read articles about how women carrying guns usually had the very weapons they carried for self-defense used against them. Probably not her best option.

  Some of the weapons were unidentifiable to her eyes. The letters and numbers printed on the sides didn’t help, either.

  Then there were the canisters. “Flash Bang” was printed on the side of each one, along with a delay time. Simple pictures for directions. It didn’t take much to get the idea. Recognition and relief. Those could buy her time.

  “We’ll manufacture a distraction. All you have to do is come along quietly and your friend lives.” There was ambient noise on the call, but Jewel was raising her voice to cover it. “Are we agreed?”

  Maylin’s mind raced. “You haven’t asked me not to tell Gabe.”

  “Oh, honey.” Jewel laughed. “I wouldn’t give you time to do that.”

  In the background, someone said, “Location confirmed.”

  Panic gripped Maylin. She was out of time. She didn’t know how, but it was a fact.

  * * *

  The explosion sent Gabe and his entire team crouching for cover and moving. Gabe headed for the front door, staying low, with Victoria right behind him. Both of them had handguns drawn and ready. Marc was two steps ahead, breaking off into the surveillance room. Lizzy had headed in the opposite direction, toward her room.

  Gabe called out, “Anyone get a visual?”

  Lizzy answered first, leaning out the doorway of her room as she slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder. “Came from the training side.”

  “Contacting Training now to see if it was a misfire,” Marc called out from the surveillance room.

  “Not likely! That was an ASM.” Victoria spat out a curse. “Heard too many overseas. Unless they added the missiles to the training program here, that wasn’t a misfire.”

  No. Training hadn’t added to their program or they’d have notified the fire teams on site for rest and rehabilitation.

  Marc appeared in the doorway of the surveillance room, tossing Gabe and Victoria portable communications units.

  Gabe slapped on the throat mic and threaded the earpiece over his ear, shoving the rest of the receiver into his shoulder harness and giving it a tug to be sure it was clipped securely.

  “Need to get eyes on the asset, stat.” Lizzy’s statement was actually a question for Gabe. Who did he want going to secure the asset?

  Maylin.

  Gabe continued toward the front door. “Victoria is with me. Marc, get reinforcements from Training. Suspected incursion on the guest cabin. Lizzy, go high. We need a bird’s eye view. Everybody count in on the comm in ten.”

  “Apaches, incoming.” Victoria’s voice came in clear on his comm—her sharp hearing had given her a split-second advantage on the rest of them. The low, distinctive sound of the attack helicopter blades beating the air reached them all.

  “Go.” Gabe was out the door and proceeding through the trees at speed, eyes open and scanning the area as he took a curved path towards the guest cabin. The front door faced outward to the creek running past the Centurion property. Intruders were going to come from the perimeter right to the front door.

  He was headed for the back of the cabin, and hoped Maylin had remained in the bedroom at the rear. His heart kicked into overdrive, pounding hard in his chest. He sucked in air, held it for a beat, and blew it out to get his shit under control. She needed him. If she was in the kitchen...

  Chapter Nineteen

  The explosion had sent Maylin to her knees, instinctively ducking and throwing up her hands. The ground had shaken, and it felt like the cabin had shifted a little on its foundation, even. Or maybe she was just scared out of her mind.

  Yeah, she was definitely afraid.

  “We’ll see you shortly, Maylin Cheng,” Jewel sang out from the phone still clutched in Maylin’s hand.

  Tā mā de.

  Adrenaline coursed through her as she looked around wildly for something she could do, some way she could go. The windows were still intact somehow. But Jewel and her people were coming. Did she have time to run to Gabe and the others in the main cabin? What if Jewel had a surprise waiting for her outside?

  The loud strike on the front door sent a fresh spike of fear stabbing into her chest, and another hit to the
door followed.

  No. She didn’t have time. Not unless she bought herself some. Otherwise, they’d just grab her while she was trying to wrestle the damn window open.

  She swallowed hard. Go with them? Charlie knew too much about An-mei’s kidnapping if they’d told him they knew where her sister was. That they were taking her to An-mei. No. If they had Maylin, they’d probably kill Charlie to erase proof of An-mei’s abduction. He didn’t deserve to be caught up in all this.

  Worse, if they had her, they had the leverage to make An-mei do what they wanted. Based on what Gabe had told her—and she believed what he’d said about biological warfare—a lot more people could be hurt than Charlie if An-mei did the research.

  She was going to hell, but she wasn’t going to go with them. Maybe she could sell her soul to get Gabe and his team to rescue Charlie too.

  Please forgive me.

  Another bang at the front door, followed by gunfire. Maylin ducked back behind the doorjamb in the bedroom, breathed for a two count, then made herself peek. Hiding wouldn’t help her. She needed to know what was coming toward her.

  There was a man. He’d shot out the lock of the door. Someone was cursing behind him. “What if you shot the girl? Keep it under control, idiot.”

  “If I’d shot her, she’d have screamed. Asshole,” another man answered. “She’ll be fine. Let’s grab her and get out.”

  They sounded nothing like Gabe and his team. She’d listened as they’d murmured communications to each other that first night, forever ago. Even in banter, they’d been professional. Concise. These people weren’t Centurions.

  How long before they managed to shoot her, on purpose or by accident?

  Someday she was going to learn to come up with answers instead of so many questions.

  Her heart pounded. She tightened her grip on the cold cylinder she’d grabbed from the duffel, hoping her hands wouldn’t sweat and make her slip. One chance. And she had to hope she understood how to use the thing. It was heavy in her hand, weighing a lot more than she’d expected. No wonder the bag had been so hard to get out of the closet.