by Lexi Blake
He couldn’t be certain that wasn’t exactly what she was trying to do—to get him soft so he would change his mind.
He followed her to the SUV. She’d said she judged him by his actions. She would just have to wait and see. When he showed up on her doorstep in a few weeks, she would know he hadn’t been lying.
And then they could really start their lives. This was a minor blip in a brand new relationship. That was all.
He hoped that was all.
* * * *
Mia forced a smile on her face as she took the glass of champagne from the tray. Not that she would drink it. Despite what Case thought, she had done the undercover thing a time or two before and rule number one was she didn’t trust anything she hadn’t poured herself. Even if she was at a party.
“This is awesome. You should try the little cake thingees. They’re good.”
Her partner didn’t have the same rules. Hutch was like a kid in a candy store or a kid at a well-done buffet. For a group that fed the hungry, they knew how to do gourmet.
“Hutch, how about a little less eating and a little more hacking?” Case’s voice came over the small device she’d placed in her ear before they’d gotten to the party. “You’ve done your obligatory socializing. I think it’s time to get the job done.”
So he could get rid of her. She didn’t mention that. It wouldn’t do her any good. The men around her were once more working to decide how her life would go and she’d learned long before the only way to counter that was to do her thing and not compromise.
“I agree. It’s time to move,” she said. She looked directly at Hutch so anyone who glanced their way would think they were having a conversation. “I think we’ve got a decent understanding of all the good work the charity is doing in the community and how they’re managing it. There are a lot of doors they’re opening.”
Hutch seemed to get serious. “Yes, they are.”
Mia counted four doors that led to different parts of the building. She’d had a brief discussion with the director, a middle-aged man who seemed a little overwhelmed by all the people around him. He’d explained the different workings of the charity to her in halting English. There was a food pantry that helped the urban poor and attempted to stave off childhood malnutrition. They had outreach in rural areas of the country as well. There was also a department that helped with job searches as unemployment was a real problem in the country.
She and Hutch had been given a nice tour that included the director pointing out his office and the business offices.
There wasn’t actually a guard posted on the doors, but there were several well-dressed men who didn’t seem to be mingling.
“Are the guards going to be a problem?” Case asked.
Mia glanced around. No one was looking their way at the moment. A guitarist was playing, his fingers flying across the strings as he entertained with local music. The crowd of roughly sixty or seventy people seemed preoccupied with him. There were a few groups talking quietly around the buffet and some people at the open bar, but no one seemed to notice the Americans.
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly. Having her hair down helped enormously. In the course of her normal life, she would have pulled it all up for an elegant look, but the mass of hair around her shoulders not only sheltered the earpiece, it also hid her face from the multitude of security cameras. “He should be able to deal with the problem with ease. Any luck on your end?”
“She’s asking if Fain’s been able to cut into the feed,” Hutch said in a quiet voice. There was no way to mistake his irritation. Apparently her partner preferred to be behind the scenes. “I told him what to do.”
“It’s not as easy as you made it sound, asshole.” Ezra sounded frustrated. “I’m not a tech guy. I might have pointed that out.”
“I could get it done in five minutes if you let me,” Hutch said, his mouth tight. “I can probably figure out how to hack the internal systems here, too. I think we should come in.”
“Hutch, I know this isn’t your thing.” Case was the calm voice of reason. “But I’m going to need you to do your job. Get in, download the system, and get out. We can’t be sure what kind of security they have. Getting in and putting physical hands on the system is our best shot. You agreed with me earlier today.”
“Earlier today I didn’t get the feeling that someone was watching me,” Hutch admitted. “Something’s wrong with this place. I can feel it.”
“No,” Case said, his voice steady. “What you feel is PTSD. This is the first time you’ve been back out in the field, brother. I promise, it’s normal to be afraid. It’s time to shut that fear down and do your job. A lot of people are depending on you. Theo is depending on you.”
Mia didn’t like the way Hutch paled. She held out her hand. “I can do it. I certainly know how to download a system. Give me the drive.”
He stood straighter, his shoulders going back. “I’m fine. If I get caught in the hallway, I’ll say I was looking for the bathroom. Could you distract the big guy who’s obviously carrying a gun while I slip back there? The other two are moving around outside, but the one to your left is doing an inner perimeter sweep and he keeps looking that way. I need about thirty seconds.”
She wasn’t sure he was up to it, but she nodded because she was done arguing with the men in her life.
Case might be telling her the truth. He might fully intend to see her again. Hell, she’d proven to be very open when it came to his sexual proclivities, but he’d proven he didn’t truly want her. He wanted her body, maybe her submissive side. But he didn’t want her in his life. Not in any real way. She had a serious chance to help him find his brother. Tony was still looking into the situation, but it didn’t matter to Case.
This was the most important moment of his life and he wouldn’t allow her to help him, not even to sit in a shitty motel room and wait for him to return. It didn’t make sense. She’d followed all of his rules. She’d kept a bodyguard with her.
I can’t work with you.
She knew damn well the other men in his family worked with their wives. Liam took his wife and child with him at times when he was investigating. Ian took Charlotte as his backup many times. Alex and Eve worked together every day. Mia might not have served in the military, but she would put herself up against any of the women and some of the men when it came to self-defense. She was proficient in Krav Maga and had used a gun more than once in her life. She’d never had to actively shoot anyone, but she’d certainly had to fight her way out of bad situations before.
Mia began making her way across the room, trying to keep a serene smile on her face as she walked away from Hutch.
Case trusted her to do the one thing he couldn’t do himself, but he didn’t trust her to sit her ass in a motel room with a bodyguard?
It was ridiculous. She had to face the fact that she felt more for him than he did for her. She was in love with him, but all she was to him was a convenient lay. He might check in with her from time to time when he was at loose ends. He might even offer to play with her, but he wasn’t ever going to be serious about a woman he could dismiss so easily.
No matter what he said, his actions spoke volumes. He was so eager to get rid of her, he was actively putting his brother’s investigation in jeopardy.
And still she had to acknowledge if he’d said anything about loving her, she would have hopped on the plane and been the good little girl, waiting for her man to come home. If he’d said a damn thing about needing her, she would have kissed him good-bye.
He’d just said she was a distraction and he didn’t need one of those.
He’d been cold. Not at all the warm lover she’d quickly grown addicted to.
It wasn’t the first time a man had lied to get a woman to do what he wanted. She’d basically offered herself up. Need to get off? Mia will spread her legs for you. Need to let off some steam? Spank Mia. She likes it. Want to move your mission forward but don’t have any cash? Mia will write you a
check as long as you kiss her and make her think you care about her.
Maybe it was the leftover pleading of a child who’d been so loved one moment and alone and shoved into a cold world by herself the next. Maybe she would always be that six-year-old girl wishing her parents weren’t dead, praying someone else would love her because her brothers had been taken from her, too.
She plastered a smile on her face. Get through the next thirty minutes and she could figure out what to do. It wouldn’t be going back to Austin. If Case didn’t want her help, she would find someone who did. She would pursue her leads and feed them to Ian Taggart. She would do it via computer. There was no way she was getting back into that circle again. It was far too dangerous.
Then she would work on her brothers’ plans. God knew revenge was going to take up a good portion of her time in the coming months.
Perhaps making the people who’d killed her parents pay would take her mind off the cowboy who didn’t want her.
“Hi, I was wondering if there was a place I could make a call from.” She made sure she was standing in a way that forced the guard to turn away from Hutch. “My cell can’t find a signal here.”
“Very good,” Case said in her ear. She wished his voice wasn’t so damn sexy. “Just a few minutes more and we’ll have you out of there.”
And out of his life.
The guard looked down and she was surprised by the perfect English he spoke. “We’re kind of in a dead zone, if you know what I mean. Sorry about that, but if you walk outside, you should be able to get a signal.”
His accent sounded Western to her. Like he’d been taken straight off a Colorado ranch and put into a designer suit. Wasn’t that interesting?
How many Gringos were there according to the papers? Three? Was she currently talking to one of them?
“You’re American?”
He stopped for a moment, a cloud coming over his face, but then he smiled. “Yes. I’m American. Born and raised in New York.”
Not with that laconic drawl he wasn’t.
“You sound like you’re from Colorado or Wyoming.”
Again, his eyes seemed to lose focus, but he recovered more quickly. “Not at all. I’m from upstate New York. Lived there all my life until I left for the military. You’re a lovely woman. Are you here alone?”
“Tell him you have a husband waiting for you and then excuse yourself to find him.” Case didn’t sound quite as calm now. There was an edge to his tone. “Hutch should have gotten to the offices by now. You can rejoin the party until I tell you Hutch is ready to come back out.”
“I came with my brother,” she said, unwilling to stop the conversation. Case couldn’t see what she was seeing. Not all intel was found on a computer. “I seem to have lost him, but that’s okay. I found the only other American here.”
“What are you doing, Mia?”
It was annoying to have Case in her ear, judging her every choice. Maybe she was better off on her own.
The big guard stared down at her. “There are two more. My brothers. We all work here.”
Something about the way he said brothers made her wary. His eyes had lit briefly when he’d said the words.
It was time to use her assets to get a little more information. She gave him what she hoped was her best flirty look, eyes up, bottom lip out just a bit. “Are they all as big as you?”
His lips curved up, a perfectly arrogant look. “They’re tiny compared to me. I’m afraid I got all the muscle in our family.”
“Mia, you walk away right now,” Case growled. “You think this is making me jealous? It’s not. It’s making me pissed off that you can’t follow orders. This is exactly why I’m shipping you home as fast as I can.”
“How did three New York boys end up in Cartagena?” She ignored Case. This man very likely knew Theo. If she was right, he worked with Theo. Tony had talked about Hope McDonald gathering a small group of men she was turning into her own personal army. This was bigger than just Theo. This could have ramifications that went beyond one family.
Tony had told her more than one group wanted to get their hands on McDonald’s research. What would hostile governments do with it? Hell, what would her own government do with it?
The ex-soldier’s jaw hardened and she noticed the way his left hand twitched ever so slightly. “I don’t…I need to do my job. You’re very pretty. I would like to spend some time with you, but I can’t sneak you back to our room. They watch us. She watches us.”
He grimaced and put a hand to his earpiece, as though something was happening to it.
His words had been stilted, as though he was fighting some kind of instinct.
“Robert, I think we should go,” a deep voice said. “We’ve been called back into base. Apparently there’s a problem coming our way.”
She turned and there was another dark-suited bodyguard standing behind her. He was dark-haired and beautifully built. Mia had to hand it to Hope McDonald. The woman liked a handsome man. Mia was surrounded by big, gorgeous men all of the sudden and she realized it was likely time to retreat. Two was one too many to deal with on her own.
“Mia, if you don’t show up outside in thirty seconds I’m going to come in, and you won’t like how I’ll come in,” Case promised.
Definitely time to move. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll pick up a signal outside. Hope you have a nice night.”
She turned, her hair swinging as she tried to put some distance between her and the big guys. She stopped right in her tracks because Case was already here.
“Hello,” he said. “I think we should talk, don’t you?”
“I’m not kidding, Mia,” the same voice said in her ear. “You better get your sweet ass out here.”
She wasn’t staring at Case. She’d found Theo and he had a gun on her.
CHAPTER TEN
Case watched as Michael opened the door to the hotel room he’d rented earlier this afternoon when he’d decided on his course of action. He nodded Michael’s way, not bothering to take the earbud out of his ear.
“Everything all right?” Case asked as Michael walked in. He could hear the sounds of the party through the link he shared with Mia and Hutch. Mia’s voice came over loud and clear in his right ear as she introduced herself to the director and asked for a tour. “Is Fain on his way back?”
Michael put a bottle of water in front of him and sank into his seat. “He’s parking on the street. He has to find a space. He doesn’t feel comfortable leaving them behind without a quick getaway. He’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Fain was being a bit of a drama queen about the whole thing. It was obvious that the ex-soldier was planning on riding his new job as far as he could. Case intended to explain to him again that it would be a very short-lived position.
Mia was being stubborn but he would make her see reason once everything was over.
“Good for him,” Case muttered and turned back to his computer, though he didn’t have visual on them. That rankled. He felt blind. He was blind.
“I see security cameras,” a low voice said in his ear. Hutch. “They’re American made. I’ve got protocols on my system for how to break into the feed.”
Case prayed the kid knew what he was doing. “Okay. When Fain gets up here, I’ll put him on the computer with your instructions. Let’s hope he’s got some skill.”
“He’s the only one who has shown any skill at all tonight,” Michael muttered as he picked up his own headset. Michael would be able to listen in.
Case turned off the microphone. Mia was asking the director questions about the charity. She was safe enough for now. “I assume you have something you want to say to me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I know when you’re pissed. I’ve worked with you for most of my adult life.”
Michael’s emerald eyes pinned him. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Because I think you think you do, but you don’t.”
“What is that supposed to m
ean?”
“It means you are seriously fucking with that girl and I didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”
Another reason for Mia to go home. He never had to have relationship talks with his best friend in the field before Mia had come along. “What kind of guy? The kind of guy who wants to see his girl safe? Because that’s the guy I am right now.”
“Are you? Because she’s safe here. She’s got a bodyguard and she’s actually quite calm under pressure. She knows how to shoot, too. I would take her in as backup, but you’re pushing her out even though she could bring you the very intel that leads us to your brother. I have to wonder why you would do that.”
He did not want to have a relationship talk now. Maybe never. He didn’t do relationships, but he found himself in one with Mia and it would have to wait. “How about you do your job and I’ll worry about Mia.”
Michael shook his head and turned back to the monitor in front of him. “You’re not going to have to worry about Mia at all after this.”
When had Michael gotten so fucking chatty? It had been way easier when they’d been dumb grunts getting their asses shot at in Afghanistan. No time to think about girls when extracting a high-value target under cover of night. No chatting like teens when blowing up a munitions factory.
Life had been simple. Michael watched his back. Case watched his. They’d bonded because it had been the first time for them both to be away from their twins. JT Malone had stayed behind to run the family oil business and Theo had been miles away in Iraq with his own team.
Michael had become his best friend, the one he could count on.
“I can’t think when she’s around. She’s a distraction.”
Michael turned. “Do you even hear yourself? Do you understand what she’s thinking when you say that?”
“She should be thinking hey, I’m distracting the dude who needs to find his brother. Maybe I should go and wait for him to come home?” He was pretty sure that wasn’t the answer.
