Hidden Heat: Hauberk Protection, Book 4

by Leah Braemel

  That might not mean anything. It might just mean he hooked up with whoever was there at the time. “He brought me here because he was short on time. And what do you mean about screwing him over? What makes you think—”

  But Scott had already disappeared into his bedroom and shut the door.

  Left alone, Sandy felt more confident in examining the condo. Other than a couple pairs of discarded socks under the couch, there was nothing personal in the living room. Oh, sure it had the requisite couch and chair, along with one of the biggest flat screens on the market. A stack of games had been piled haphazardly beside a Playstation, but there were no cushions on the couch, no pictures on the wall. Not even a rug covering the hardwood. Nothing that gave her a clue about who lived there. Okay, so she could tell that a guy lived here from the socks and the Playstation but heck, Jazz often left her socks on the floor, and they had an Xbox. But their place felt like a home. This didn’t. It didn’t even feel like a hotel. It was a box with furniture.

  The bedroom was no different. She stripped off her clothes and crawled into the middle of the king-sized mattress tucked into the corner of the room. He didn’t even have a proper bed frame for the thing. It was like walking into a college kid’s first apartment.

  Maybe that’s why he traveled so much. Kate, the accounting manager, had often complained about Troy’s travel expenses, citing the ability to videoconference these days. Maybe he wanted to travel because he didn’t feel comfortable here. Maybe she could do something about it. Make him want to stay around longer. She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, plotting.

  While Cooper had fallen asleep before the plane had taken off, Troy had fidgeted until they were halfway across the Caribbean.

  What if Sandy decided she wanted to go back to the Rouge? It wouldn’t be a total disaster. Lots of couples enjoyed themselves in the privacy of their suites. And if she liked having people watch, he could live with that too. He supposed.

  Shit. She’d said she’d miss him and he hadn’t said it back. What if she thought he wouldn’t? He pulled out his phone then shoved it back in his pocket. Fuck, he was behaving like an insecure teenager mooning over his first crush.

  Focus on the mission. He opened his laptop and pulled up the blueprints for the villa Garcia’s people had rented. The plane had begun its descent before Cooper roused.

  After a trip to the head, Cooper stopped to glance at Troy’s monitor. “I’ve got an update to that. And a list of people we think are staying there”

  The eighty-degree temperature change wasn’t as bad as the wall of humidity that slapped Troy in the face. Sweat dripped down his back and beaded in places sweat shouldn’t gather. The arrival of a brand-new air-conditioned Jeep had him breathing a sigh of relief. If the gods were kind, they’d knock the temperature down about twenty degrees by the time the attack Cooper had outlined started.

  He regretted not forcing himself to nap on the plane when Cooper took him to the Brigade headquarters and immediately launched into yet another briefing. Even though he knew it was critical that he focus on the discussion, he found his mind wandering back to his apartment, imagining Sandy lying in his bed. Would she sleep in her bra and undies? Or would she sleep buck naked the way she did in her own bed? Or maybe she’d pull on one of his T-shirts.

  He liked the idea of her wearing his clothes.

  “McPherson, you mind joining us here?”

  A dozen men and two women stared at him, with Cooper frowning from the far end of the table.

  Shit. “Sorry, I didn’t get any sleep on the flight down.”

  The man two to his right snorted at the excuse. Cooper’s frown turned into a scowl. “You pay attention and get the details right. Because if you fuck this up for us tonight, your ass is mine.”

  At Troy’s nod, Cooper pulled up the floor plans. “Now, we’ve got someone on the inside who will leave this side door unlocked. Team A will go in there and proceed to the suite Garcia is supposed to be occupying. Team B will go in through the kitchen area and secure everyone there. Our source says there will always be at least six workers in the kitchen, another four scattered throughout the other rooms.”

  “Add to that the dozen men Garcia’s brought with him.” A grizzled vet the others called Sarge and who Troy had learned was Cooper’s second-in-command used a laser pointer to highlight their positions.

  Troy forced himself to focus on the rest of the briefing. A loss of concentration could cause the death of one of Cooper’s team. Or his own. Or worse, it could provide Garcia a weakness to exploit and make an escape. He owed it to Scott, and to Devon, to take Garcia down.

  Sandy set the roller in the paint tray and stepped back. “There, that’s a lot nicer, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Scott put down his own brush and nodded.

  “We can always paint over it if he doesn’t like dark green.” Jazz looked up from where she’d been painting the baseboard. Well, maybe painting was the wrong term considering she’d been at the same spot for the past hour. What was up with her anyway? She’d been quieter than she’d ever been and she kept disappearing into the bathroom for ages yet claimed she was fine.

  “True.” Her conscience nagged that she’d guilted Scott into helping pay for the new drapes and the bed frame she’d coaxed him into setting up in Troy’s bedroom. “Oh, and Scott? Thanks for helping us do all this instead of kicking me out and protecting Troy’s space. If he doesn’t like it, we can take everything back. And I promise I’ll pay you back either way.”

  A grin softened the grim expression he usually wore. “I’ll admit, your threatening to paint my room pink and plaster Hello Kitty logos all over my stuff was a hell of a motivator.” He glanced at the walls they’d already finished painting and scratched the side of his nose with the handle of his brush. “I think he’ll like it, although it’s sort of hard to tell. I can’t remember him ever bothering to decorate any of his places before.”

  “Never?” Jazz stood with a groan as if she were an eighty-year-old man. “This place was a mausoleum before. How can you live without color?”

  One shoulder lifted and dropped. “He’s on the road a lot. I think he just uses it as a place to crash. And don’t worry about the money. Troy will pay me back. Or he will if he doesn’t want me raggin’ on him in front of the guys about all his frou-frou cushions.”

  Sandy shoved him, and to her surprise Scott let her. “Leave my cushions alone. They brighten up the place. Make it more homey.”

  Once it was dry, she and Jazz could hang those photos she’d framed earlier. She’d spent at least an hour hidden in the bedroom after she’d accidentally found the bag containing dozens of photos. Snapshots of Troy as a baby in the arms of a woman who had to be his mother from the shared hair and eyes. One of a man, perhaps his father, or maybe an uncle standing beside an eight-year-old Troy who looked uncomfortable in an ill-fitting suit. Probably his first communion from the way he held his hands in prayer. Others of him as a teenager, his arm hung over Scott’s shoulder, both of them wearing military-school uniforms. Troy had brushed off her questions about his family each time she’d broached the subject. Would Scott?

  “So you went to school with Troy, huh?” Was that casual enough?

  “Yup.” He dipped his brush in the paint and stroked it along the baseboard. “Let me guess, you want to know what he was like as a kid?”

  “I’m that obvious, am I?”

  “Nah, it’s a usual question from girlfriends.” His brush stopped moving, and he looked up, eyes wide for a moment. “I mean, it’s not like he’s, I mean… Shit. He’s a guy. He’s dated. So have you. Live with it.”

  Laughing, Sandy held her hand up to stop his explanation. “It’s all right. I want to know more about him. Did he like going to the Academy? I mean, I know it was probably better than an orphanage.”

  Scott resumed painting, letting the quiet stretch for at least five minutes. The brush paused again. “Troy hated the Academy at first. He was goo
d at the drills and keeping his kit neat and stuff, but he hated having anything to do with guns or mortar.”

  “You’d never know it from the way he handles a pistol.” He’d always been cool and confident at the practice range. And from what she’d seen of his silhouettes, an expert marksman.

  “He’s mighty good with a knife too. Doesn’t come easy to him, you know. Not after watching his father murdered in front of his eyes.”

  She sat cross-legged on the floor. This was what she’d wanted to know but she’d never felt comfortable asking for details from Troy. “What happened?”

  “You know he and his parents lived in North Ireland, right?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s never talked about it even to me but the word at the Academy was that his dad was working undercover for the SAS, trying to find those responsible for bombing a British barracks the year before. Somehow his cover must have gotten blown. Some locals associated with the IRA ambushed him on the road. Troy was right there when they shot him in the head point-blank.” He dropped the brush back in the jar and stared at it. “He blamed himself for a long time. I think he still does.”

  “But he was only ten. What could he have done against them?”

  “I think he knows he couldn’t have stopped them from shooting him. It’s more because Troy convinced his father to take him to a friend’s house out in the country. His father hadn’t wanted to go, but he took him anyway. Turned out the boy who had invited him was the son of one of his father’s murderers. Anyway, from what I’ve heard, the senator was over there on some peace talks between the Brits and the IRA. I always got the feeling he saw Troy as a good publicity opportunity. American senator saves a poor orphaned boy, gets him out of a dangerous situation. You know how these political types like to spin the facts.”

  “What happened to his mother? Did the IRA kill her too?”

  Scott’s forehead frowned as he tried to remember. “I think she’d died in a bomb blast a couple months earlier. It may have been longer, I’m not sure. Troy never talks about it and I don’t like to ask.”

  Maybe that’s why he seemed so alone. Losing his mom and then watching his father murdered because a friend he’d trusted had betrayed him. No wonder he was so protective of Scott. And so isolated from others.

  With a groan, Scott pushed himself to stand and checked his phone for the time. “It’s getting late. We should clean all this crap up so you ladies can get home and get your beauty sleep.”

  “Why don’t we both stay here tonight?” Jazz suggested. “That would give us an early start on painting the living room tomorrow instead of wasting time driving back and forth.” She glanced between both Scott and Sandy. “Scott, you wouldn’t mind the company, would you? We could order pizza and drink beer and watch movies. I can sleep on the couch. If that’s all right with both of you.”

  That would also give them more time to work tonight, but Sandy had been hoping to talk privately to Jazz. Something had been off with her all day.

  Scott, you wouldn’t mind the company, would you? From beneath her lashes, she watched Scott. Troy had invited him to stay at his place because Scott had nowhere else to go. Now that she thought about it, she’d never once heard Scott talk about family members, and no one other than Hauberk people ever bothered to visit him in the hospital. And Troy had said he still worried about leaving Scott alone. “If it’s all right with you, Scott, Jazz can sleep with me in Troy’s bed. It’s big enough to sleep six.” Yeah, that sounded right. Putting a hand to her aching back, she stretched in an effort to play it casual. “What do you say, Scott? Do you mind if we hang out here with you tonight?”

  Scott shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But we’ll have to order dinner in or we’ll have to take a trip to the grocery store because we’ve got zip in the way of food. Hell, we’re even out of coffee for tomorrow morning.”

  Jazz scrambled to her feet. “Tell you what, you order the pizza and I’ll pick it up after I’ve hit the grocery store and bought coffee and whatever else you need.”

  “All right.” He gave her the address of their usual pizza joint, along with a list of the necessities they’d need. “And when you’re choosing the coffee, buy French roast, none of that caramel vanilla hazelnut crap.”

  She was out in the living room and out the front door before either of them could say a word.

  Huh. Something was definitely up with her roommate. Oh well, if they were sharing a bed, she was sure she could get Jazz to spill the deets.

  “So what’s her story?” Scott leaned against the wall then cursed when he remembered it was still wet.

  “Jazz?” So she hadn’t been the only one to pick up on Jazz’s weird mood. “I’m not sure. Did she say anything to you while I was changing this morning?”

  “Nope. She stared out the window and didn’t say a word.” His forehead crinkled. “Sometimes I got the feeling she wanted to say something then she’d change her mind. And now she’s all bubbly.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not the right word. Something’s off with her.”

  “Yeah. I’ll talk to her when I get her alone later.” Jazz was a lot of things, but he was right, bubbly wasn’t the first word that sprang to Sandy’s mind either.

  The humidity hadn’t eased with the setting of the sun. Sweat trickled down his forehead and leaked into Troy’s eyes. He blinked, trying to lessen the stinging while not losing sight of the team leader as another member picked the lock to the compound’s kitchen door. Fuck Cooper for placing him with the secondary team. He’d wanted to be with the primary squad set to capture Garcia. Instead here he was, skulking around the back of the estate, his objective to secure the door to the fucking kitchens. Secure the perimeter his ass. They’d tranquilize any workers they encountered to prevent them from sounding an alarm, while the primaries busted into the meeting and got to use the big fucking guns on the bad guys.

  Oh sure, Cooper had promised he’d get to verify Garcia’s identity but only after the fucker was secured.

  Big-fucking-whoop.

  The team leader dropped his arm and kicked open the door. The pop of the first tranq sounded quickly, followed by a second, third and fourth. By the time he made it into the kitchen, the area had already been secured and the servants, all but one of them women, were unconscious. Fuck. They’d not even left him a chance to use his own weapon.

  “Hey, new guy.” The team leader gestured to him. “Get the pantry door for us, will you? The rest of you, grab a body and let’s get them locked away before the tranq wears off.”

  Stalking across the tiled floor, Troy threw open the door to the pantry. Surprise, surprise. The pantry wasn’t empty. A young woman lay bent over a sack of produce, her skirt up over her hips, her ass being reamed by none other than Garcia himself.

  Ask and He shall deliver. Sorry, Coop. He’s mine.

  Before Garcia could pull out his dick, Troy squeezed the trigger; the tranquilizer dart smacked into the woman’s buttock. Even as her eyes glazed, he aimed the gun at Garcia.

  No. No tranquilizer for this motherfucker. In the time it took him to toss his tranq gun aside and unholster his 9 mm, Garcia grabbed a knife from a nearby shelf and threw it at him. The KA-BAR whizzed by Troy’s head, ruffling his hair as he ducked. It buried itself in the doorframe with a thunk.

  “Missed.” Troy raised his weapon. “But I won’t.”

  He squeezed the trigger twice. Two holes appeared in Garcia’s chest and his eyes widened as he slumped onto the woman’s body then slowly toppled to the floor.

  Troy walked over and used his foot to turn him over. Blood burbled at the edges of Garcia’s mouth. “That’s for Devon King and Scott Phillips and for all the others you’ve tortured and murdered over the years, asshole.”

  As the light dimmed in Garcia’s eyes, Troy placed the barrel of the gun a centimeter away from the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  The team leader and two of the others crowded the doorway. “What the fuck are you doing? We were
to take him alive.”

  “That was your mission. Not mine.”

  Leaving the team leader to deal with the body, Troy walked out of the pantry. His footsteps echoed on the slate floors through the kitchen; the rest of the team silently parting to let him pass. As the team leader radioed Cooper to report Garcia’s death, Troy opened the door and walked into the night.

  He lifted his head and took a deep breath as he stared at the sky. “I got him for you, Scott. Sleep well tonight, buddy.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Don’t worry, Sandy.” Chad muted the television mounted on his office wall. Not that Sandy needed the sound, the images of the burning cars and dead bodies in the streets of Kinshasa had done their damage. “Troy’s smart. He’ll lay low and stay out of it.”

  “How come he’s not carrying his satellite phone?” Crap, that made her sound whiny and needy. Three days of silence and she was ready to install handholds on the wall she was about to climb.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it lost its charge or got busted somehow. Don’t read anything into it. Their communications have been shut down by the military.” Chad rubbed his shoulder where he’d been shot the previous month. “It’s none of my business, but how serious is it between you two?”

  Good question. Would she be feeling as queasy if they hadn’t been dating? No. She’d been worried about him when he flew to Colombia to rescue the hostages, the whole office had been on edge, but this was different. “I don’t know how to answer that. We’re dating. We agreed not to see anyone else but neither of us are looking for something long term.”

  Well, she wasn’t. At least she didn’t think she was. Troy, she wasn’t so sure.

  “You realize this is part of his job, Sandy. Part of who he is. If you can’t live with it, then it’s better to find out now than to expect Troy to change.”

  She started to say she knew all that, that she didn’t want Troy to change when Sam loomed in the doorway, his thick brows drawn together. “Sandy? Can you come in my office for a moment? Chad, you’d better come too.”