Special Forces Seduction

by C. J. Miller

  He walked her toward the couch and dropped her onto the cushions. He lowered himself on top of her. When their bodies collided, she rolled, forcing him onto the floor and underneath her.

  Kneeling across him, she stared at him. His hair was mussed and his clothes rumpled and she fell for him more.

  She had always liked and wanted Finn. But after her pregnancy, Hyde had to face two emotional revelations, one about her desire for a family and the other about her feelings for Finn. He was more than sex to her.

  She brought her leg over his hips and perched on the edge of the couch, embarrassed she had started and stopped this. Finn sat and set his hands on her knees.

  “It’s okay. We won’t do anything you don’t want. If you’re not ready, I understand.”

  Hyde met his eyes. “It’s gotten complicated.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Hyde stood and strode to the table where she had left her phone. She checked for new messages, anything to distract her from the confusion and desire ping-ponging around her mind.

  Chapter 8

  Hyde couldn’t shake the feeling that something would go wrong tonight at Barnett’s dinner. If he was planning to kill them, he would have done so already. But Hyde didn’t trust Barnett or his plans.

  Finn didn’t trust Barnett, either, but he held steadfast to his goal. Fear wouldn’t dissuade him.

  “Why don’t you stay here tonight? If Barnett tries anything, I’ll send you a message. Use the boat and get as far away from the island as you can,” Finn said. Concern edged his voice.

  They were a team and the more time she spent with him, the more deeply that word resonated. She had Finn’s back if this mission went sideways. “And leave you here to die? We’ll attend together. We’ll be ready.” And armed.

  After discussing their plan, as well as contingency plans, they prepared for the occasion. Finn was wearing a tuxedo and Hyde a long, emerald-green dress, which hugged her body until it reached her knees and then flared.

  She tucked a gun in her clutch and strapped another one to her leg. Accessing the second gun would be difficult, but Hyde was ready in a pinch.

  Finn drove the dune buggy down the beach to Barnett’s mansion. They were escorted into a long, glass-enclosed sunroom overlooking the beach. The window trims were painted yellow and orange, and the dark wood table in the center of the room sat twenty-two. Only four of the chairs had place settings. Fans whirled overhead, cooling the room. It was quiet and that worried Hyde. Her fingers itched to reach for her gun.

  Barnett was waiting in a chair that reminded Hyde of a golden throne, with red velvet wrapped around the arms and intricate scrollwork across the high back and sides. It was how Barnett likely saw himself, a king of his island. “Welcome,” he said. He was wearing a silk robe, and a cigar burned in an ashtray in front of him.

  Just the one word? That was unusual. Was he hoping she or Finn would talk to fill the silence and give something away?

  Ruby was absent. She may have been warned to stay away from this meeting.

  A waiter brought Hyde and Finn each a glass of red wine, but Barnett was without a drink of his own. Hyde set hers down, wanting her hands free. This could be a bloodbath in the making.

  Folding his hands in front of him, Barnett cleared his throat. “We believe you’ve brought me Ramirez. I’ve sent teams to authorize your stories. If I catch a whiff of a lie, I will kill you and I won’t give second chances or ask questions.”

  Finn hadn’t moved though he seemed tense, his shoulders hiked, his knuckles white. He was poised to strike. They both were. No matter what happened here tonight, she would keep Finn safe.

  Hyde’s hand drifted toward her gun. Pulling a weapon in this room would bring Barnett’s guards, and Hyde was sure they were being watched. She considered killing Barnett and taking her chances. Ending his miserable life would mean she could return to hers. With their leader dead, Barnett’s organization could be systematically destroyed.

  “Enough talking in circles, Barnett. I’ve done what you’ve asked. You might have something I want, but that wind blows both ways. I want to know more about the master plan. Stop jerking me around,” Finn said.

  Barnett frowned. He didn’t like a show of strength from Finn, but he must realize that Finn wouldn’t wait indefinitely. Though Barnett was influential and ruled unreservedly on the island, Finn could lash back.

  “My new drug is one of a kind, absolutely spectacular,” Barnett said.

  That wasn’t news. The illegal drug market, much like the pharmaceutical drug market, was flooded with new drugs every day. Every street dealer with a Bunsen burner and a mortar and pestle thought he could manufacture the next big moneymaker. A drug’s success was dependent on many factors. The drug had to be sold in the right clubs to the right people who would spread the word. It had to bring its customers back to the table, wanting another fix.

  Finn leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. “I gave you five million for a buy-in to a new drug? I’m not impressed. You’d better have more than that, Barnett.” Finn gestured to his shoulder. “I took a bullet to get this job done.”

  For the first time, Barnett seemed nervous, his heel tapping against the ground. “Imagine a drug that makes you feel better than ecstasy, but with the addictive power of cocaine. It’s cheaper than heroin to manufacture, about one dollar and thirty-three cents, but in my test markets, the pills sold for forty dollars apiece.”

  “I like those margins,” Finn said. “Where are they manufactured?”

  Barnett appeared smug. “I’ve set up manufacturing plants in many places. I deliver the ingredients, I keep control of those ingredients and my labs create the drug. I can relocate if pressure from the local authorities becomes too strong. The process is safer than meth, meaning less waste and fewer casualties.”

  “If this drug is as amazing as you claim, you should be able to distribute it without push from me,” Finn said.

  Barnett pressed his hands together. “I’ve been in this business a long time. I don’t want my formula replicated and my profits cut into by knockoffs. I’ll lose market share and customers. I need control. I need to dominate the market.”

  Hyde suspected more to the story than he’d let on. But Barnett wouldn’t give away his full plan. A new drug, easy and safe to manufacture, with high profit margins and a high rate of addiction meant hundreds of millions of dollars in Barnett’s pockets every month.

  “I’m a person of interest to several American law enforcement agencies. I can’t step foot on American soil without risking arrest. I need you to be my liaison,” Barnett said.

  “Meaning you use my network to distribute the drug fast and it’s my neck on the line if the Feds make the connection to the drug, or you, to me?” Finn asked.

  “Arrest is a risk. You’ve stayed out of jail and avoided prosecution this long. Based on what I read about you and what my network has told me, you are the right man for the job. My last big score could have been bigger. But someone I trusted made a series of mistakes. We lost money. We wasted product. That won’t happen this time,” Barnett said.

  Finn drummed his fingers on the table. “Tell me what you need me to do. Specifics. I’m not your errand boy.”

  Barnett looked like a lion about to spring. “I need you to fly to Miami and negotiate some business for me. I need you to set up the deliveries and the infrastructure. Do it fast. I have a shipment of highly volatile chemicals coming into the port soon. I need you ready to receive. In return, you’ll have ten percent of the profits.”

  “Twenty-five,” Finn said. “My contacts. My experience. My neck on the line.”

  Barnett nodded. “Twenty. No mistakes, though, Finn. During my last transaction in Miami, my partner wound up dead.”

  * * *

  Hyde and Finn too
k their boat to a nearby island and waited to board a private plane to Miami. They were running on fumes.

  Their plane took off at 3:00 a.m. When the plane was in the air, Hyde took out her nail polish and worked on her nails. The mindless task gave her time to think and in Miami, frequenting nightclubs required a certain look. Tired and bedraggled wouldn’t cut it.

  Barnett could be leading them into a trap. Or more likely, planning to use them and have Finn take the fall for Barnett or have them outright killed. She and Finn were in the weeds with the snakes, and being bitten was highly probable.

  Hyde had been in situations where she wasn’t safe and where she couldn’t trust anyone. She too vividly remembered those long days and nights in La Sabaneta prison. She’d had to be sharp every moment to conceal her identity. She had been lucky enough to form alliances that had helped her to survive. Through some of the tightest security, she had a friend on the outside pass her cigarettes and cell phones to use as currency. Those had kept her alive on several occasions. She had worked out relentlessly to hide her small frame, though with the terrible nutrition, every person in La Sabaneta looked famished.

  In her retired life, she wouldn’t miss that fear or the rush of adrenaline that had accompanied her on missions or the panic that overtook her when she thought about being imprisoned again. Her background had made her who she was today, but she wanted to leave those experiences behind.

  Finn sat next to her on the plane. “You okay?”

  She had told him she wasn’t feeling well. An excuse to put distance between them. She needed to think. “Nothing a hot shower, a good meal and a night on a decent mattress can’t fix.”

  Finn pushed his chair into a recline position. “We could sleep here.”

  Her body was tired, but her thoughts were running wild. “Go ahead. I’ll wake you when we land.”

  “Relax, Hyde. There’s nothing we can do now except dig up what we can in Miami. When we have enough, we’ll nail him.”

  They didn’t know the direct path to do that and the longer they were on the mission, the more out of control she felt. This assignment tested her relationship with Finn.

  “Are you upset with me?” Finn asked. He blinked at her with those expressive eyes.

  She was contemplating the mission and her future and her feelings for him. “Just thinking.”

  “I’m worried about you, Alex. I forced you into this mission. I know you have other dreams and goals. I have every intention of making your dreams come true. I’ll return you alive and happy to Montana,” Finn said.

  Was she happy? After making her decision to leave the spy world, Hyde had been fumbling. She hadn’t found her new world yet. “Thank you for acknowledging that this isn’t the life I want.” He had transitioned from questioning it to accepting it.

  “It’s hard for me to fully process it. But it’s your life and your choices.”

  Hyde faced him. He was staring at the ceiling of the plane.

  Hyde put the nail polish lid on and screwed it tight. “While we’re on American soil, why don’t you call your family and have them meet us in Miami?”

  Finn shot her a look of disgust, the same look he might have given her if she had suggested he lick the bottom of her shoes. “They can’t see me. I won’t bring them into this.”

  Was he concerned about their safety or was he maintaining distance? “We could find a way to meet them safely,” Hyde said. “Unconnected to the mission.”

  “We?”

  The word had popped from her mouth before she’d considered the implication. Meeting Finn’s family wasn’t a good idea. They might get the wrong impression about her and Finn. They’d navigated Finn meeting her family skillfully enough. “I will go along as your bodyguard.”

  “No visits with my family,” Finn said. His tone left little room for negotiation.

  Hyde wouldn’t let it drop easily. “You don’t know the next time you’ll be in America. Why not extend the olive branch to them now?”

  Finn rolled to his feet in one smooth motion. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Hyde. Let it go.”

  It wasn’t like Finn to sprint away from a challenge. Speaking to his family was a far different problem, than say, avoiding missiles in the field. “You’re running from them and given how you live, you’re probably hiding, too.”

  Finn was staring out one of the airplane’s windows. “Not running. But involving my family in my life won’t bring me anything except more headaches.”

  “You could let them know you’re safe.”

  “They know,” Finn said. “They would be alerted if I was dead.”

  Hyde had pushed a hot button. She wanted to understand what he was going through and perhaps get to the heart of the matter. Suddenly, this issue felt important to her, like talking about his family was letting her inside his life in a real way. “They’d like more than that. They might want to know how you are and what you’ve been doing.”

  “I can’t tell them about anything I’ve been doing,” Finn said.

  “You could tell them about me,” Hyde said.

  Finn stabbed his fingers through his hair. “Except what would be the point? You won’t be in my life long. You don’t want to be an operative and you’ve made it clear there’s a personal obstacle between us.”

  She had sorted her feelings while on this mission and had come to the conclusion she wanted him in her life. Not clear on the specifics, but losing him felt devastating. “I’ve been going through something difficult, Finn. I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”

  “You talked to me about it, but you’ve been distant.”

  She didn’t have a good explanation for that. They were holding back. She didn’t want to do that anymore. An actual connection with Finn would mean so much to her.

  Finn turned. “We’ll be in Miami in a couple hours. We’re meeting a few of Barnett’s contacts in the nightclubs. Doesn’t give us much time. You should sleep now.” He closed his eyes, not giving her a chance to respond.

  Getting into a conversation about his family wasn’t happening, not today and maybe not ever.

  Rather than argue with Finn, Hyde found a comfortable position in her chair and shut her eyes. She had her own demons. She didn’t need to chase away Finn’s.

  * * *

  Finn and Hyde arrived in Miami without issue and gathered their bags from the trolley on the runway. Overhead, a plane took off. They had been the only passengers on their flight.

  Finn had arranged for a car to be waiting for them. A man was standing at the exit, holding a sign with their aliases written on it. Finn approached and the man handed Finn a set of keys, giving a small bow as he backed away, almost like he was afraid of Finn and couldn’t flee fast enough.

  Hyde slipped into her role as a drug lord’s girlfriend. The car parked at the curb was worth well over a hundred thousand dollars and was ostentatious and mysterious, with dark tinted windows that concealed the interior. Hyde had driven in astoundingly fast and well-appointed cars before, but this one was the most luxurious.

  Hyde took a seat in the passenger side, the softness of the leather seats like a caress. Even though she would have loved to drive, Finn’s character wouldn’t let his girlfriend take the wheel. When she closed the door, the car was nearly silent, blocking out the sounds of traffic and voices.

  “I called ahead to the hotel, and Abby sent over some new outfits for you,” Finn said. He set his hand on her knee and gave it a squeeze. Hyde looked from his hand to his face, but just as quickly, he removed it and took the wheel. Reading too much into a casual touch would drive her crazy.

  Hyde could imagine the type of outfits a drug lord’s girlfriend would wear clubbing in Miami. “Looking forward to it.” She’d enjoy the wildly sexy clothes and stiletto heels. In Montana, she wouldn’t have many oppor
tunities to dress up.

  “We have a meeting at 10:00 p.m. tonight with the owner of a club along the beach,” Finn said. “Tables at Illumination start at twenty-five large per night.”

  This was the flashiest operation she had been on. Most of her work as a spy involved wading through dirty conditions. Hiding out in run-down buildings and digging through Dumpsters for information had been the norm.

  The car moved smoothly along the road like it was made of polished glass. Finn was tapping the leather steering wheel with his right pointer finger.

  “Want to tell me what you’re worried about?” Hyde asked.

  Finn’s hands gripped the wheel, turning his knuckles white. “Are you planning to bring up my family again?”

  She had tried and failed. “No.”

  “You think I should contact them.”

  She was worried for him. He was making a mistake. “It’s your family. Handle them how you see fit.”

  Finn made a noncommittal noise. “We have enough problems. Let’s not add my family to the mix.”

  “I’m your friend. I wasn’t trying to add more concerns to our plates. I was trying to smooth things over with your family for your sake and peace of mind.”

  “It’s complicated and you wouldn’t understand. Your family is close. They care for each other. I was with them for less than a day and I could see it,” Finn said.

  “You don’t care for your family?” Hyde asked.

  “I care for them,” Finn said. “But being away from them is better. Do you know who my father is?”

  Hyde hadn’t heard him speak of his father much. “Not really.”

  “He’s a politician. He’s worried about fund-raising and his contacts and getting elected, and everything else is a distant second. My mother, brother and I don’t rate as high as golf games and fancy dinners if there’s a connection to be made. I escaped that life. I have no interest in going back.”