Hot Protector: A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 10

by Lynn Raye Harris

  Hawk lifted an eyebrow. Chase knew he was being a cranky bastard, but his teammates forgave him for it. They’d all been there at one time or another.

  “Mendez.”

  Chase blinked. “You mean HOT’s involved?”

  “Yeah… and Mendez is reading, along with a couple of handpicked translators.”

  “Mendez is reading it? The colonel speaks Russian?”

  Iceman snorted. “Yeah, who the fuck knew, right? I mean, it has to be in his record, but it’s not like that’s the sort of thing we have access to. Fucking badass dude reads and speaks Russian.”

  “Holy shit.” Not for the first time, Chase felt pride in his organization and his commander swelling his chest. Jesus, that Mendez was a badass motherfucker. You didn’t get to be in command of an organization like HOT by being anything less than stellar, but sometimes commanders got so entrenched in the desk jockey aspects of the organization that you forgot they’d once been operators.

  And Mendez must have been a damned good one.

  “Yeah, holy shit. But if there’s anything in there, he’ll figure it out. We’ll know something in the next few hours. Until then, you and Sophie can crash.”

  Chase rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “I’d rather stay here until we know.”

  “We’re all staying here,” Matt said. “Brandy and Victoria are on the way, and so are Knight Rider and Georgie. Flash is still on his honeymoon. Big Mac and Lucky are flying back from the Caribbean, and Dex is still in Kentucky.”

  Chase’s throat was tight. This is what family was to him. The ties you made voluntarily were just as strong, sometimes stronger, than the ones you were born with. In his case, that was certainly true. He’d do more for these fuckers than he’d ever do for Tyler Nash.

  “I meant that you and Sophie can crash in one of the offices if you like,” Hawk said. “Not letting you leave here until we have an answer.”

  “I’m good,” he said, unwilling to move. Unwilling to go and talk to Sophie, to face being alone with her in a place where they weren’t surrounded by other people or the droning of jet engines. What the fuck would he say? What could he say? Last night, when he’d held her close and told her he liked her, he’d said everything.

  Everything he knew how to. He didn’t know how to do more than that, though something within him wanted to. But what more was there?

  He rubbed his temple. Jesus, he’d made mistakes. Huge mistakes. He should have never gotten involved with Sophie, never let his dick rule his brain where she was concerned. Because he had to admit, even if it were just to himself, that he was fucking addicted to her body. That even now he was jonesing for another taste, another hit.

  Like a junkie, he was trying to figure out how to get that fix. How to hit it one more time without hurting anyone. Without hurting Sophie, because fuck, she didn’t need any more disappointment in her life.

  The door opened and Evie walked in with Sophie, ending his battle with himself not to go to her. Evie’s long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her belly had the slightest curve to it now.

  Chase didn’t miss the way Matt looked at his woman, at the way his eyes went soft and his face looked as if someone had handed him the keys to heaven. Chase’s heart lurched at that look, then his gaze slewed to Sophie.

  Her hair hung in waves down her back and over her shoulders. She was dressed in formfitting jeans, the motorcycle boots, and a black tee that hugged those magnificent breasts of hers. She was wearing that cherry-red lipstick again and looked like sex on legs.

  Ice was deeply, totally in love with Grace Campbell, but even he couldn’t help the way his eyes slipped over Sophie. Chase saw it and wanted to growl, but then Ice looked away and Chase decided he had to give the man that much since this was the first time he’d laid eyes on Sophie. Matt had seen her at the airport, and of course Hawk had met her a few days ago.

  Ice had been in this room the whole time, so he hadn’t seen Sophie when she’d arrived. Billy was too engrossed in his screen to look up—but then he did, and he did a double take too.

  Chase was seriously ready to pounce on someone, but Billy got his shit together before Chase could act. After the initial shock of Sophie, the guys looked at her no differently than they looked at any of the other women who came into their paths. Every man in this room, except for him, was married or committed—and they were all in too, because Chase knew what they had done for their women.

  Risked it all.

  Risked their lives.

  Gone to hell and back for love.

  No, they might look at a beautiful woman—they’d have to be dead not to—but they weren’t interested.

  “Got anything, baby?” Evie asked.

  Matt took her hand and stood, guiding her into the chair he’d been occupying. She smiled up at him with such a look of love on her face that Chase envied the motherfucker more than he already did.

  “Billy broke the code—now we wait for the translation.”

  Sophie looked tired as she pushed her hair back behind an ear. “Of course it wouldn’t be as simple as English files with a big red arrow pointing and saying, Look here for the incriminating shit.”

  “Never is,” Billy said.

  Sophie leaned against a desk and crossed her legs, her hands going behind her to brace herself. Chase couldn’t help but think of the first night he’d fucked her when he’d put her on the counter and tasted her pussy for the first time.

  As if she knew what he was thinking, her gaze sought his. Their eyes locked for a long minute. They said things without saying a word, and Chase’s heart rate kicked up as he stared at her.

  Her neck bore his mark just as his did hers. It had to be clear to anyone watching them that they’d gotten involved over the past few days.

  Hawk’s voice cut into the silence that had descended on the room. “If you want to sleep for a while, Sophie, you can use one of the offices. It could be hours before we know anything, but you don’t have to stay up if you’re tired.”

  Sophie shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  “All right then, who’s hungry?” Hawk asked. A chorus of voices agreed they were. “I’ll order pizza.”

  The pizza arrived within half an hour, and everyone grabbed a slice. Sophie picked at hers of course, and Chase felt unaccountably angry about it. She’d been free with him over the past few days, lost some of that self-consciousness and eaten without thinking too much about it.

  Now she was right back to the way she’d been before he’d shown her how much he loved her body just the way it was. He hated seeing her like that, but what could he do? He had no right to say anything. No right to have an opinion.

  He finished his slice of pizza, stood, and carried his plate over to the trash and threw it in. When he turned around, several sets of eyes were on him. Except Sophie’s. She didn’t look at him at all. She picked at her pizza and didn’t look up.

  “Going out for some fresh air,” he said, and then he turned and blasted out of the building before anyone could stop him.

  There was a green space behind the building, adjacent to the parking lot, and he went into it, stood there with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. It was dusk, the sky awash in orange at the horizon. His breath frosted in the air, curling around him as he stood and tried to clear his mind.

  What the fuck was wrong with him anyway? What the fuck did he care if Sophie picked at her pizza? What the fuck did he care if he never tasted her again? There were other women. Plenty of other women.

  The door behind him opened and closed. He didn’t turn. He expected Hawk or Matt to come and stand beside him, tell him he was being a moody fucker and that it needed to stop.

  He was wrong. Her scent hit him like a blow and he sucked it in, holding his ground. He thought she might touch him, but she didn’t. She came to stand beside him, her hands shoved in her own pockets.

  “You okay?” she said.

  He glanced at her, his body tightening almost pain
fully. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

  “Nobody else thought it was a bad idea.”

  It probably wasn’t a bad idea for anyone but him. “You weren’t hungry?”

  She shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Bullshit. You’re back to thinking about Justine and Tyler and your fucked-up childhood. Thought you were over that. Thought I proved to you it didn’t fucking matter.”

  “Nobody gets over shit like that overnight, Chase. Besides, maybe I’ve got new reasons not to be hungry.”

  He turned to look at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  She faced him, her eyes flashing. “This is a lot to process, Chase. You, us, everything. It’s been a whirlwind few days, and I’m not quite sure how to feel about any of it.” She sucked in a breath. “I don’t like where we are now, how we’re acting toward each other. There’s a damn elephant in the room and everyone knows it. I’ve been asking myself just exactly why we have to pretend like nothing happened between us, why there’s no possible way forward. You aren’t my brother; I am not your sister. We aren’t related—we’re no more than two kids who knew each other once. But now we’re grown, and there’s no real reason we can’t have more.”

  He stared at her. “Other than the fact you live in New York—or is it LA now?—and I live here? And then there’s my mother, who’s already put up with so much shit from Tyler that I can’t begin to heap more shit on top of her.” He shook his head vigorously. “No, no way. It’s not that fucking easy—and besides, who said I wanted more? It’s pussy, Sophie. I can get that anywhere.”

  She stared at him, her eyes glittering like diamonds as she straightened, her head going back and her chin going up. “Okay. Well, I can see I was mistaken then. My bad. You just go ahead and go back to fucking around, and I’ll pretend like none of this ever happened.”

  Her voice broke on the last and it about fucking killed him. He wanted to reach for her, but he didn’t. Jesus, she was tearing him up—and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.

  “I thought you were brave, Chase. I thought you were strong and unafraid of anything. I see I was wrong. I see that you’re just a little boy who’s still running scared. Your daddy ignored you—news flash, you aren’t the first person who had an uninvolved father. I never even met my real dad—and Tyler, hell, he tried sometimes, but he wasn’t much better with me than he was with you. I got over it. But you—you let it control you. All that talk of being your own man—and you let it control you!”

  She goaded him into action then. He reached for her, but she stepped out of his way, stumbling backward, away from him.

  “Go to hell, Chase,” she hissed. “Fucking go to hell!”

  She turned and strode away. He started after her, but his body was suddenly on fire, frozen in place as lightning bolts rolled through him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe—

  And then he couldn’t see her anymore as the world blinked out of existence.

  33

  Everything fucking hurt. Chase forced his eyes open and stared up at the darkening sky. His muscles felt like rubber, refusing to obey his commands to move. It took a few seconds, but he finally managed to push himself up and onto his elbows. The door to the building burst open and Hawk, Richie, Ice, and Kid busted through, weapons drawn and badass-motherfucker looks on their faces.

  Kid rushed over and helped him sit up. The others filtered back to them within moments, weapons lowered but badass looks still firmly in place.

  “Sophie,” Chase forced out, his voice cracking. He pretty much knew he’d been shot with a stun gun. Military grade, judging by the feel of it.

  Richie swore. “Goddammit, how the fuck did they even know where to go?”

  Hawk looked more pissed than Chase had ever seen him, which wasn’t good considering how calm the guy usually was. Calm and deadly was his norm. Pissed and deadly? Fucking scary.

  “I’d like to know that myself,” Hawk said. “Fuck!”

  “We saw them on the security cam, but we couldn’t get downstairs in time,” Kid told Chase. “They tased you and grabbed Sophie.”

  Chase struggled to his feet, his muscles still like rubber, his body aching and smarting. He was lucky they’d only tased him, but he couldn’t dwell on that. He was still alive—and Sophie was in danger.

  “We have to find her.”

  He stumbled away from the group and Iceman caught him, stopped him. Chase jerked out of Ice’s grip, but he didn’t keep going. Hawk materialized beside them.

  “We’ve got nowhere to go just yet,” Hawk said. “At least not until Kid accesses the security cams from the nearby businesses. We have to hope like fucking hell they’re on it. We get a fix on their ride, we can go after them.”

  Chase gaped at the men, his brothers, standing around him—except for Kid, who’d dashed back inside. “You mean we don’t even fucking know where to go? Those bastards took Sophie, and all we can do is stand around with our thumbs up our asses and pray for footage that’ll show us what the fuck they’re driving?”

  Hawk had walked away during Chase’s tirade and lifted his phone to his ear. No one else said anything. They just continued to look at Chase sympathetically. He sucked in a breath that hurt. He felt like he was coming unglued at the seams, his skin splitting wide because it couldn’t contain the pain he felt.

  Not physical pain, because that didn’t amount to much when he was accustomed to dealing with that kind of pain from his job.

  This pain was worse. Deeper. In his soul.

  Sophie.

  She was gone. Kidnapped by Androv’s men, probably scared out of her mind, and headed for who knew what kind of trouble.

  Androv would not be kind. He would not be understanding. He would hurt her. He wouldn’t kill her right away because he was too arrogant for that, too diabolical. He would want her tortured, want her to suffer for daring to defy him. For stealing from him.

  Hawk was talking, but his voice was low and Chase couldn’t make out his words.

  Jesus, why had he been an asshole to her? Why had he told her they needed to deny everything they were feeling and pretend it never happened? Everything between them had been a whirlwind—but it was a whirlwind he’d never experienced before. He’d never been so addicted to a woman and so miserable about it at the same time. What the fuck was wrong with him?

  Hawk turned and came back over to the group, his eyes glittering with determination. “Androv is in fucking DC, speaking at an international technology convention. Mendez is putting the SEALS on him. Every move he makes, we’ll know it.”

  Chase’s gut twisted. “That’s where we need to look for Sophie then. He’ll keep her close. He’s too much of an egomaniac not to.”

  “I think you’re right,” Richie said. He took out his phone. “I’m calling Viking. He’ll be happy to let us join in.”

  Viking was Dane “Viking” Erikson, the SEAL team commander and a pretty badass guy to have at your back in a fight.

  “We need to go inside and arm,” Hawk said, and everyone agreed. They didn’t have time to go to HOT and get their equipment, but Hawk had his own arsenal.

  After they methodically went through the weapons, loaded them, and strapped on microphones and transmitters so they could talk, they were ready. Kid joined them as well, his search of the surrounding security cams revealing nothing of use. But knowing where Androv was, and knowing he wanted Sophie, was better. They would find her—and if Androv got hurt in the process, Chase couldn’t really be too upset about that.

  Evie sat alone in the adjoining office. She looked up when they came in, her gaze missing nothing, from the battle ready equipment to their determined expressions. She walked over and kissed Matt.

  “Give them hell, baby,” she said. “And get our girl back.”

  Chase started at that description of Sophie. Evie considered her one of their own, one of their little family of warriors. And why not? She’d been on a mission, and she’d helped retrieve informat
ion that might just give them insight into the heart of Grigori Androv’s operations.

  “Not leaving until I put you in the car,” Matt said.

  Evie rolled her eyes as she snagged her purse from the desk. “Then let’s go so you can get down to the real business of the evening.”

  As they were walking out, she stopped and put a hand on Chase’s arm. Her eyes made him think of Sophie’s eyes. She had that same beautiful shade of violet, and yet she was completely different from Sophie.

  “Good luck, Chase. I know y’all will succeed because it’s what you do—but when you get her back, tell her whatever it is that’s on your mind. The two of you—” She hesitated. “God, it hurt just being in the same room with you. I don’t know what that means, but I’m thinking it means something. Stop fighting it. Life is too short.”

  She was drunk. Sophie held her hand up in front of her face and tried to focus on it. She shook her head, tried again. Her fingers still didn’t come into focus, so she dropped her hand and turned her head. The world rippled.

  She was lying on a bed. A soft bed, really. She didn’t know how she’d gotten here. She remembered fighting with Chase…

  Oh, Chase. Her throat ached at the thought of him. She couldn’t remember all the reasons why, though she tried to push past the fog and find the memories in the mistiness of her head.

  She’d been arguing with Chase, she’d turned and walked away and—nothing. She’d woken up here, drunk.

  But where was here? She tried to roll over, but she couldn’t coordinate herself enough to move.

  She heard the clinking of glass in the background. A man’s laughter. A soft hand pushed her hair from her face and she turned toward it, trying to see who it was.

  “She’s coming out of it,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Excellent. She needs to be able to walk on her own by the time Mr. Rodriguez arrives.”

  “She will.”

  “But she needs to be quiet.”

  “I’m doing my best. This is the first time you’ve ever wanted to sell a girl outside the auction.”