by April Hunt
“I pictured something a little less…domesticated,” she admitted.
Rafe hoisted two large duffels in each hand and led the way to the front door. “What did you expect? A castle with a moat and a dungeon?”
“Maybe not the moat. Now, if you told me that there was some kind of underground bunker built into the mountainside, I could believe it.”
Rafe chuckled. “Then you’d be pretty damn accurate.”
She widened her eyes, bouncing her attention from man to man before settling on Trey. “Seriously? Wait, how were you allowed to build into a mountain?”
“Because we own most of it,” Trey answered. “At least for miles in all directions. The entire mountainside used to be a training facility for the Army Reserves.”
“Then how did you all get it?”
“Rough economic times and government cutbacks had them closing down some of their smaller facilities, this one being one of them.”
Elle’s eyes widened. “So the bar…”
Trey held the front door open and finished her trailing sentence, “Is what allows us to do our job without raising local alarms. To them, we’re just the owners of their favorite watering hole.”
Elle stepped through the door. Her first glimpse of the interior reminded her of a perfect blend of neighborhood bar and Irish pub. Worn wooden tables and chairs and a small row of antique pool tables separated the one room into two, with the other side dominated by a plank-board dance floor and modest corner stage.
Elle fell into step beside Trey as Vince led the group toward the back of the building. “So you mean to tell me that a bunch of men like…you all…bought part of a mountain and no one asked any questions? I thought small towns don’t usually like being invaded by outsiders.”
“Hell no, they don’t,” Chase agreed. “Only the government knows about purchasing the mountain, and the rest was handled because Trey, Penny, and Rachel practically grew up around the corner.”
Elle’s eyes snapped to Trey. “You grew up here?”
“I was a military brat so I grew up everywhere. But this is where I spent my teenage years until I joined the Army.”
“Years and years of his mama’s red-beet eggs and chicken potpie.” Chase scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “And you haven’t lived until you’ve tasted Mama Hanson’s opera fudge. It’s fucking transcendent.”
Vince growled. “Shut the food talk, Kincaid. You’re making me goddamned hungry.”
“So exactly how clandestine are you guys?” Elle had to ask. A secret bunker in the mountain. A private plane to get them where they needed to go. This was no fly-by-the-seat-of-their-skivvies operation.
It wasn’t until Rafe stepped next to a shelving unit that Elle realized they were all crammed in a storeroom. Being crowded in a five-by-five space with four overgrown men should’ve made her damn nervous, but she wasn’t. Not even when Rafe flicked something behind him on the wall, and the entire shelving unit shifted left, revealing an elevator door.
“We’re so clandestine that even our families don’t know the particulars about what we do here,” Trey admitted.
“So why are you trusting me? Doing what you all do, I’m sure you’ve made some enemies along the way. Aren’t you worried that I’ll sell your location to the highest bidder?”
“We’ve probably made more enemies than we can count,” Trey agreed. “But tell me, Elle, should we be worried about bringing you here?”
All eyes landed on her, waiting. Trey had kept his voice light, but she knew she needed to give him the right answer.
She cleared her throat and pushed away the sudden rush of anxiety. “Of course not. All of your secrets are safe with me. I’m just…nervous. I’ve never been inside a secret nongovernment facility before.”
“You’ve been inside the White House, haven’t you? Trey asked with a smirk.
“And yet it’s got nothing on a hidden base built inside a mountain.”
It was apparently the right thing to say. Rafe leaned his right eye down to a scanner and, after a second and a faint beep, the elevator door opened and they stepped inside a steel box.
When the doors closed again, the car moved. Elle jolted, taken by surprise by the sideways movement, and grabbed onto the nearest stable object—Trey’s arm.
“Sorry,” she murmured, letting go quickly.
“Don’t be.” He braced his arm behind her back, his wide palm on her hip. Even through clothes, his touch sent a tingle to the pit of her stomach. “It’s not a conventional elevator. It’s almost like an escalator—goes up and down, but also deeper into the mountain. It takes a little getting used to.”
Finally, the elevator stopped. A second after the doors opened, a flying wall of red hurtled into Rafe, the momentum knocking the operative back a few steps. He laughed, right up until the redhead locked his lips in a kiss that nearly made Elle blush.
“Jesus Christ,” Trey complained and pushed past the kissing couple. “Can’t you save that shit for your bedroom? The gas station burritos I had after breakfast are gonna stage a reappearance if you don’t knock that off.”
“Fuck you, Hanson. It’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve seen my Red, so you’re just going to have to deal.” Rafe settled the woman’s legs around his waist and walked them into a spacious room that looked more like the common area in an expensive frat house than an underground headquarters.
Chase urged Elle into the spacious dwelling. “Don’t mind the lovebirds. Once you come to grips with the fact that they’re part rabbit, they’re easier to handle.”
The redhead giggled and untangled herself from around Rafe’s body before turning to Elle, hand extended. “God, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “So much for first impressions. I’m Penny—the girlfriend. Just so you know that I don’t usually go around accosting men in elevators. Well, just Rafe.”
“Damn right, just me.” Grinning, Rafe playfully swatted Penny on the ass as he passed, “and you’re the fiancée, Red.”
A pretty pink hue rose on her freckled cheeks as she smiled. “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”
Penny slipped an arm through Elle’s and pulled her deeper into the studio-style space, which had a small kitchen tucked into the corner and a couch and plush chairs spread throughout. Everything had clean lines and warm tones, and fit the men who stayed there perfectly.
“So I had a room ready for you just in case you made an appearance here in the Hole,” Penny was saying, “and we picked you up a few things…or I did. I wouldn’t let any of these guys buy me a toothbrush, much less toiletries or, God forbid, clothing. It was a bit of a challenge not knowing how long you’re going to be with us, but if you run out of something, or if I forgot something, let me know, and I’ll get it for you.”
“Penny,” Trey warned.
“Oh, stuff it. I’m not trying to get the dirty details.” When he cocked up a disbelieving brow, she added with a chuckle, “Okay, maybe I’ll try a little bit, but let’s not forget that you guys are the muscle in this circus, and I’m the bended ear. It’s my job to listen. Now go away.”
Trey looked a little insulted, and Elle couldn’t help but chuckle. She liked Penny already. Any woman who could hold her own against this group of guys was obviously a special person.
Vince rummaged through cabinets, pulling things off shelves until he found something he liked. “Have you heard from the rest of the horde? How far out are they?”
“About a half hour,” Penny answered. “And Stone said that he wants everyone in the situation room before he gets here. Something about a shit-storm and a clusterfuck and a bigwig with an overinflated head. And I’m not sure he was talking about the one on his shoulders.”
Rafe ripped the bagel from Vince’s hand and took a huge bite. “Babe, you need to stop calling it ‘the situation room.’”
“Fine. I’ll call it the War Room. Or the Room of Testosterone. Ooh, I like that one better. Anyhow, you all need to shower before you can even think about planting
yourselves on any of the furniture.” Penny cut a glare to Vince, who looked about five seconds way from doing just that.
The guys, laughing and ragging on each other, headed toward a back hall, looking more like overgrown teenage boys than badass security operatives. Trey lingered, staying toward the rear of the group.
“You going to be okay?” he asked, voice gruff as though he had a problem forming the words.
Penny propped her hands on her slender hips. “What am I? An ogre? She’ll be fine. Seriously, Trey. Don’t suffocate the girl. Where the hell’s she going to go in this mountainous box?”
Trey grumbled under his breath and started trailing behind the others. He spared the girls a quick glance over his shoulder, for which Penny dramatically shooed him away with her hands.
“You two almost act like siblings,” Elle chuckled.
“We are,” Penny admitted, surprising her. “Not really, but in all the ways that count. Anything horrible an older brother could do to a little sister, Trey did to me. And considering that I lived with him and his mom from the time I was twelve, he had both opportunity and ammunition.” She looped her arm back through Elle’s. “It’s a long story that I usually don’t tell until after at least three drinks, heavy on the alcohol. How about I give you the not-so-grand tour?”
The not-so-grand tour turned out to be pretty grand. And twisty. And turny. And probably covered more ground than a football stadium.
“This place is an underground maze,” Elle said as they turned into another long corridor. “You didn’t happen to pick up a GPS in those toiletries and things you mentioned, did you?”
Penny laughed and looked around as if trying to see it for the first time. “It is pretty massive, isn’t it? But then I think about the size of the men stalking the halls. It wouldn’t be pretty if they had to be practically on top of each other.”
“Is it just the six of them?”
Penny pushed through a set of double doors. “Right now, yeah. But we’re slowly growing. We’re currently vetting a few guys—and that’s before Rafe puts them through the gauntlet to see if they’re made of the right stuff. Stone’s very particular about who he lets climb on board. It’s one of the reasons why only a select few people in the government even know about Alpha.”
Elle wondered how her father had managed to get his name on that list, but then again, he got his name on a lot of lists—blacklists, hit lists. He was versatile that way.
Eventually, she and Penny reached the sleeping quarters. Doors lined the hall, some closed, some open and revealing surprisingly spacious and well-organized rooms. Elle wondered which one was Trey’s.
“Do all of you live here?” Elle forced her imagination away from a Trey-inspired bedroom theme—which included his sheet thread-count and the size of his mattress.
Penny nodded and continued to lead the way down yet another corridor. “For the most part, but we all have regular apartments closer to town, too. It would raise more than a few eyebrows if a dozen people holed themselves up in what appeared to be a small business and never came out. This is rural Pennsylvania…if we started doing things like that, they’d peg us as some kind of weird religious cult and call the feds.”
Elle chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That would look a little odd.”
“This is our testosterone-free zone,” Penny announced.
They stepped into a mini version of the main room, but this one sported a much gentler style, with coordinated but mismatched furniture and a modest television instead of a gargantuan movie screen.
“If any of the guys come in here, they know to tread carefully.” She pointed to three doors on the far wall. “That’s my room, when I’m not staying with Rafe—which I do nearly every night unless I’m trying to teach him a lesson. That room in the corner is Charlie’s, and the one to the right is yours.”
Her own room. Elle peeked in, pleasantly surprised by the size—and the bathroom. Not to mention the mound of clothes sitting on the bed. Penny urged her inside. “Go. I can’t imagine walking around in a dress and heels for longer than thirty minutes, and you must’ve been in that get-up for hours. Shower and change, and I’ll be out here when you’re done. Or I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to collapse.”
Elle wrapped the other woman in a hug before she even realized what she was doing. “Thank you so much, Penny. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for all of this.”
“Please, you don’t need to thank me.” The redhead returned the hug and waved off the gratitude. “Oh, and there’s also a walkie-talkie on the bed—just in case you get lost in the maze and need to send out an SOS.”
Elle didn’t wait longer than five seconds after Penny closed the door before she was shedding her gown and kicking off the shoes that had definitely given her at least two blisters. She turned the water to scalding hot and stepped under the spray with a sigh. Now, if only the last few hours would go down the drain, she’d be all set.
Elle washed her hair and then her body, and, loving the shampoo Penny had put in the bathroom, washed her hair again. After drying off and dressing in a T and yoga pants, she decided to rejoin Penny in the small testosterone-free common room.
“Well, well, well. Look who decided to grace us with her presence,” a familiar English voice sang when she came out from the bedroom. Charlie, wearing a sports bra and shorts, lounged in one of the plush chairs, her feet propped up on the coffee table. “I was about to send a search party to see if you tried escaping through the plumbing. Not that I would’ve blamed you for making a break for it. I swear to God, one of these days I’m going to snap and go postal on every single thing of male Alpha origin that currently resides in this mountainous bloody crater.”
Elle’s step faltered as she glanced at a laughing Penny. “Is she okay?” Elle asked the redhead.
“No, I’m not okay!” Charlie’s feet thudded to the floor, a look of pure lethal intent glinting from her brown eyes. “When we finally get to Alpha after two hours of being trapped in a car, I head to the gym to work out a few of the kinks, and who do you think makes an appearance? Navy! But only to point out everything wrong with my sparring stance, and then fly out of the room like someone lit his jock strap on fire.”
“By Navy,” Penny fake whispered to Elle, “she means Vincent. He and Charlie are special friends.”
Charlie’s brown eyes narrowed on Penny. “You are so bloody lucky that I love you to pieces or I would totally have you in a headlock about now.”
Penny blew the other woman an air kiss.
Charlie turned that wicked gleam in Elle’s direction. “Speaking of special friends…”
Penny’s head snapped back and forth between Elle and Charlie. “What? Wait, who? I have no idea what you’re talking about, and you know I don’t like being left in the dark. Tell. Spill. Dish.”
Charlie’s smirk widened, and she even threw in an eyebrow wiggle for good measure. “Not my story to tell.”
Penny’s gaze twisted to Elle, and Elle reached for the bottle of water in front of her.
“There’s not much to tell,” Elle lied. There was so much to tell. “I’m here because my father must’ve pissed off someone—again—which is no real big surprise for anyone who knows him. It’s happened before and I’m sure it’ll happen again. The only difference is that this group doesn’t seem to mind getting their hands dirty. So now I’m here, and I’m still waiting for my explanation—or at least an update on where we go from here.”
Penny nibbled on her bottom lip, her face scrunched up as if in deep thought. “Somehow I don’t think that’s what Charlie meant, but let’s keep rolling with it for now. The guys haven’t given you any kind of inkling as to what to expect in the next few days?”
“Days?” Elle snorted. “Try minutes—or even seconds into the future. All I keep being told is that once I’m safe, they’ll finally clue me in.”
“Maybe that’s what they’re discussing in the Room of Testosterone.”
Charlie’s previously teasing smile vanished in an instant. “What do you mean?”
The redhead shifted in her chair, looking a bit uncomfortable. “I mean that they’re all having a little powwow in the strategy room. Stone had me tell the guys when they landed. I assumed that you already knew about it, but just couldn’t take their presence anymore.”
“It must have slipped their minds,” Charlie said through gritted teeth, not looking or acting like she believed that for one minute. She erupted out of her seat a second later. “Let’s go, ladies. I think it’s about time we bring a little estrogen into the Room of Testosterone—and maybe we can get Elle some bloody answers while we’re at it.”
Elle wasn’t sure exactly what the petite blonde had in mind, but if it erased a few—or any—of the looming question marks hovering over her life right now, she was game.
“Let’s do this,” she agreed, getting to her feet.
Chapter Nine
Everyone had lost their damn minds. It was the only rationale for anyone thinking their current topic was a remotely good idea. Trey shook his head in disgust, not bothering to temper down the snort that had all eyes swiveling to him, including his boss’s.
“You have a problem, Hanson?” Stone asked from his seat right across from Trey.
Sir Stone and his Knights of the Oblong Table.
When everyone had arrived, they’d gathered in their strategy room as expected, and the seating arrangements went like they always did—first come, first served—with no particular throne for the boss to sit in because he liked to keep things on an even keel.
Stone rested his unyielding gaze on Trey. “Keeping Elle here at the compound makes the only logical sense—especially since we’ve yet to identify who we’re dealing with.”
“It’s not the keeping her here that I have a problem with—it’s the fact that we’re going to let someone else deal with the bastard who’s threatening her when we should be hunting him down ourselves.”
Logan grunted his agreement from his seat two spots down. “A-fucking-men to that.”
