You’re a doctor.
You’re in trouble because of Danny.
Jem’s been helping you.
Carolina had kept her from mirrors in the beginning, and that hadn’t been hard. Drea had been in a fog, thanks to the antianxiety medicine she’d slowly been weaned from. Even after she’d realized her real age, she continued to actively avoid looking in the mirror for several more weeks, until Carolina forced her hand.
“You’re thirty-two, not ancient,” Carolina would tell her. “What do you think you’re going to see?”
Carolina had to be fifty, but she was ageless. Steely. Beautiful. Her hair was a beautiful white-blond sheen and she had the complexion to pull it off. She looked natural. She had laugh lines in her smooth skin. Her face had character.
And when she’d walked Drea to the mirror and forced her to confront her present, Drea saw a fierce amber-eyed woman with long, tawny hair that was wild and loose past her shoulders staring back at her, one who didn’t look nearly as weary or exhausted as she felt inside at times.
“Beautiful, child.” Carolina had pulled some of Drea’s hair off her shoulders as they stared at their reflections together. “Trust me. Your memories are all here.” She pointed to Drea’s forehead, and then to her heart. “And here.”
“What happened to me?”
“You’ve gone through more than most, Drea,” Carolina said gently. “The most important thing you need to know is that you’re safe with me. And you’re safe because of Jem.”
Drea believed that, which was why she sat with Carolina nightly since learning that she’d been kidnapped when she was with Jem, that she’d been helping him and things had gone terribly wrong. It was at that point when she’d asked Carolina to tell her about Jem, wanting to know more beyond his physical appearance. Only then did Carolina begin to show her pictures and tell her stories until Drea began to feel as if the man were an old friend.
But somehow she knew Jem was far more than simply a friend.
It was all so much more complicated than it had seemed at first, and she wasn’t at the bottom of it yet. There was so much more to learn, and Drea was determined to make sure she did so.
Carolina had quietly slipped into the gym toward the end of Drea’s workout, knowing that the treadmill tended to fill her with more questions than answers. And she carried the file folder that contained pictures of various Section 8 members, including—especially—Jem.
Drea shut the treadmill down, patted her face with a towel and grabbed for her water bottle, and Carolina motioned for her to follow.
They sat at the kitchen table, and Drea asked, “Did you know any of them—the old Section 8?”
“I’d heard of them, sure. They were part legend and myth, but anyone who worked for the CIA during that time knew that a team like that could be far too real. There were so few rules then. It was … lovely.”
“So if you’d been asked …”
“I’d have joined that team in a second,” Carolina confirmed. “These days, I’m much better as backup.”
They’d had this discussion before. So many times Drea hadn’t recalled it the next day. Now she did, but they still started this way. It comforted Drea that she could retain information. And this information was important—she could feel it.
To her credit, Carolina was very good at pretending this wasn’t the nine millionth time they’d done this. It happened mostly every night, except for those times when Drea was too frustrated to try.
Tonight wasn’t one of those nights.
They went over the background easily, with Drea recalling, “The old Section 8 was disbanded. Most of the members were killed, except for Darius and Adele. But then Darius disappeared, Adele was killed and Darius’s son, Dare, and his half sister, Avery, found each other. And realized they were in trouble, because they were the kids of Section 8 members.”
“That’s right.”
“So Dare and Avery are part of this new Section 8, right? Along with Jem and Key, who are brothers, and Gunner.”
“Yes.”
“And this new Section 8 started unofficially when Dare kidnapped a woman named Grace but ultimately ended up helping her.”
Carolina pointed to a heavily tattooed man with spiky white-blond hair. He stood outside a tattoo shop, his arm wound around the shoulders of a shorter blond woman. “This is Gunner—he’s a tattoo artist, and a pretty famous one at that. His father was a former CIA guy and a pretty nasty terrorist. Gunner hid from him for years, until Dare and Avery came along, looking for their father. Turns out that Darius was kidnapped and killed by Gunner’s father.”
Drea frowned. This part was always tricky. “But Gunner’s father was Grace’s stepfather—she calls him Rip. And Grace didn’t meet Gunner until last year. Together, all of them helped to capture and kill Rip.”
“Exactly. And then Gunner tried to leave S8 to keep them safe, once he’d been exposed as Rip’s son, and they’d ended up having to help him get rid of some old, dangerous enemies,” Carolina added.
As always, Drea muttered, “I swear, if I didn’t know better—which I don’t—I’d think you were making this up. It’s like a soap opera.” More so especially because Drea couldn’t recall ever meeting any of the players involved.
“I did not make this up … but I could always write this up and sell the script. Do you think anyone would watch it?” Carolina mused, then frowned. “I’d have to redact several classified points, though. Perhaps if I changed the names and dates …”
Drea sighed and motioned for her to go on with the picture viewing.
“Oh yes. Where were we? Right. So this man right here is Key. He’s Jem’s brother—younger.”
“You haven’t said much about Key yet,” Drea pointed out.
“Key was in the Army, until he rescued Dare and got court-martialed.”
“I thought rescuing someone was a good thing.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you? Anyway, that’s how they all met. Key and Jem went looking for Dare.”
“To thank him?”
“To kill him,” Carolina corrected. “And that’s when they all realized that they had Gunner in common, and that Grace’s stepfather was trying to kill them.”
“That would be Gunner’s father too.”
“Right. But none of them knew that at the time, except for Gunner.” Carolina sat back and nodded.
Drea traced her fingers over the tablet where the picture of the team, sitting together on some steps, was looking out at her. The photo had been taken of them especially for her so she could get to know them, that maybe something in their faces would jog her memory.
And then there was Jem. He was in her dreams an awful lot, and before she’d learned anything at all about Jem, she’d assumed the dreams were about Danny. In those dreams that she still had, she’d never see his face, and even though she’d call out to him for help, he’d never turn around.
The first time he did turn around was the night before she saw his picture.
And she still hadn’t told any of that to anyone—not Carolina, not the therapist—and she certainly wasn’t going to tell Jem, if and when she ever met him. Instead she held on to the dream for dear life, because that was what it was to her—a complete and utter lifesaving moment. And every day and every night she scratched and scrabbled to try to regain another scrap of memory, of him and her time together with Section 8.
Tonight, she didn’t ask Carolina any questions about the parts that involved her kidnapping. She repeated those facts over and over in her mind often enough, anyway, and that’s all they were to her: facts, with no feelings behind them.
Jem had kidnapped her because he needed a doctor to save Avery, who was dying. Drea had saved her, but spending time with Jem had gotten her in trouble with Danny and the OA. S8 helped her get away from the OA, and she’d gone on the run with them, willingly. And when they had a job to do, one that involved a human trafficker who was after Gunner, she’d gotten involved as a decoy.
Unfortunately, from what she’d been told, it’d gone wrong, and she’d been kidnapped.
By the time Jem found her, she’d gone into shock and was close to death. Physically, she’d recovered fine. The memories were coming slowly but surely, but those last months were more like listening to the plot of an action movie as opposed to having anything to do with her life.
Carolina assured her it was no movie plot. That she hadn’t done anything wrong during her part of the operation. That S8—Jem especially—felt horribly guilty, and hadn’t so much abandoned her as left her with Carolina for her own safety while they continued their attack on human traffickers and other criminals.
“Is this the kind of work you do?” Drea asked Carolina.
“When I retired, I swore I was done with this kind of work. But what am I supposed to do—sit around, read magazines and garden? Those are all fine things, but I’m trained to kill. Frankly, I’m finding retirement boring. I told Jem I’d be more than willing to help them out, but I’m not going up in planes or crossing the country for jobs. That’s the beauty of being old and crotchety—you get to make them come to you.”
“Well, I’m very grateful that you took me in.”
Carolina patted Drea’s hand. “Obviously in my line of work it’s hard to have family. I think of Jem as family. Anyone he’s close to is my family by default.”
Drea’s head was swimming with all the information. It was starting to integrate, but still in that frustrating way because it didn’t seem like her story.
It was always, however, a hell of a bedtime story. “So I know that Gunner is with Avery. And Key is with … ?”
“Many different people,” Carolina finished. “Apparently, he’s still hung up on some girl from the bayou. That’s what Jem says.”
Carolina looked as though she didn’t believe what Jem said in that regard. All Drea could do was shake her head and mutter, “Old loves,” disapprovingly.
“Not all old loves are necessarily bad.” Carolina paused. “Granted, right now I can’t think of any good ones. But I’d have to say that second loves are better. You’re through all that infatuation bullshit and you know what’s real. And there’s nothing more real than these men and women you’re learning about. They’ve made lots of sacrifices for one another. That’s the way you build a successful team.”
“And they sacrificed for me too,” Drea said thoughtfully.
“Well, honey, they did almost get you killed. Twice,” Carolina pointed out.
Drea rolled her eyes. “That’s so not helpful.”
“Just keeping it real, dear. Isn’t that what you all say these days? In my time, it was ‘Honesty’s the best policy.’ But come to think of it, that’s total bullshit.”
“You and Jem got along well as partners, then?”
Carolina flashed a brief smile. “Quite.”
Chapter Three
“Wonderin’ if I can hitch a ride.”
Jem’s drawl made the three guards on the freighter ship turn and gawk at him. They were miles from shore along the stretch of Indian Ocean notorious for pirates and other sorts of unsavory characters. Like him. And he’d somehow emerged from nowhere to balance on the railing. Before they could respond, he jumped onto them, taking two down with him and punching the third when the man lunged toward Jem.
He finished them off easily—a little too easily, which was always disappointing when he was geared up for a fight and none came. He sighed loudly and knocked on the side of the boat to let Gunner, his partner in crime for this particular job¸ know it was time for him to board.
Gunner was still in the water, holding Jem’s wet suit and O² tank. Jem helped the man up over the railing and told him, “We’ve got twenty minutes to get to our meeting place.”
The captain wouldn’t know what had happened above-deck, would blithely sail along until they docked. Jem would deal with him there. For now, they’d ride this out and free the merchandise the ship was scheduled to pick up—human merchandise in the form of kidnapped women who’d been bought and paid for at private auction by a scumbag they’d deal with soon.
That human trafficking shit made his stomach turn. Helping to save them and find out who actually bought them was something he’d been doing with Gunner and the rest of the Section 8 crew for months now. “Avery and Dare’ll be waiting at the dock.”
“And Grace has customs officials waiting for her call,” Gunner confirmed. “She’s also got the CIA looped in.”
S8 treaded carefully where government agencies were concerned, but Jem still wasn’t happy that his old agency would be so close. He tended to avoid agents like the plague these days.
Speaking of …
His pocket vibrated. He grabbed his phone and saw the text from Carolina, his former CIA partner in crime. All it said was We need to talk.
“Good news?” Gunner asked as he looted the guard’s pockets to see if there was any intel he could grab about the next shipment the human traffickers had planned. Jem knew he’d roust the computer systems next and finally the captain.
Half the time, they disabled the captain early and drove the boat in themselves, but Jem’d taken out half the dock last time … and Gunner refused to let him try again, even though Jem told him he’d been aiming for the CIA agents on the dock on purpose. “Shit, I hope it’s good news, ’cause it’s Drea.”
“Maybe she’s getting more memories back,” Gunner suggested.
Jem stared at the phone like Carolina had hidden a code in her words. “Maybe.”
Dr. Drea Timmons was never far from his mind, especially because she was tied in to the S8 crew of mercenaries he’d been working with for nearly two years now.
Over the past year, S8 developed a reputation for their no-nonsense approach to human traffickers. Of course, the group caught the attention of some of the bigger agencies out there. S8 members would deny their involvement, but that was only for security purposes.
Because the agencies wanted S8 to continue. The small group could easily accomplish so much more because they didn’t have to deal with red tape. No rules but their own.
As such, there was an unspoken hands-off agreement. Because even though blowing up ships and cargo and planes was against the law, the efficiency with which the jobs were done, and the lack of collateral damage, kept S8 in good stead.
Stopping them would be a win for the traffickers, and no one wanted that.
For the past year, S8 had lived and worked and breathed jobs. Some were paying, others weren’t, but they used the blood money Grace had inherited from her stepfather to fund their missions.
“The last thing we want to do is be at the mercy of rich assholes,” Jem had announced.
“We’re the rich assholes now,” Gunner had reminded him.
Jem smiled, remembering that, as he and his crew of assholes pulled to the dock and ended up freeing forty women, many of whom were going to get returned to their families.
More happy endings.
Drea would have one. He was fairly certain of that, based simply on the strength of her character. She’d hung out with a very tough crowd for a long time, which meant she had to be tough as nails herself—and she was. Any woman who survived any amount of time with a motorcycle club had to be.
He didn’t hold out much hope for himself, though. And for the first time in a long while, that bothered the fuck out of him.
*
Half an hour later, Jem texted Carolina back as he balanced on the deck railing and watched Gunner do an impressive job of waterboarding a trafficker for intel. Things okay?
Carolina answered with She wants to see you.
He stared at the words as they swam in front of him, not quite believing them. He could still remember those first texts from Carolina that had come in about six months ago, talking about how Drea remembered that Danny was bad news.
Since then, Jem had heard from Carolina regularly about what exactly Drea was remembering. At first, it was in fits and starts, a lot of it h
ad her waking up with screaming nightmares. Those had related to her childhood and teenage years, and Jem’s fists had tightened when Carolina shared those memories of various abuses Drea had suffered, first at the hands of her mother and then her grandmother. And, of course, with Danny.
And while it was a necessary and good thing that Drea’s memories were returning, no matter how painful they might be, Jem couldn’t help but think how much better it’d be if her memories didn’t stop before the months leading up to meeting Jem and the others. Sure, he was, of course, partially responsible for her memory loss related to shock. The doctors called it hysterical amnesia.
Jem supposed that might be considered a good thing, considering she’d been kidnapped and threatened.
But the fact that she couldn’t remember him at all was like a red-hot poker shoved straight through his heart. Because her life had been more than a little fucked up to start with, and he’d taken that and fucked it up way more, to the point where she was wanted not only by her ex, Danny, a high-ranking member of the notorious one percenter MC, the Outlaw Angels, but also by the FBI. The feds were prepared to question her about stealing and selling narcotics, as Danny had been framing her to get himself out of trouble. Whether or not the feds believed Danny didn’t matter—what did was that they’d use Drea any way they could to suit their investigation—and the RICO, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, cases—against the MCs.
She was exiled. Her medical license was at risk. Her life was at risk, but all this was since she’d met Danny.
And now Drea wanted to see Jem. In person.
She’s gonna have to wait, he texted back.
I don’t think she’s in a very patient mood. She just threw a chair at one of her therapists.
He actually smiled at that, right before he and Gunner jumped back into the water. The boat blew when they reached shore with the well-timed precision they’d perfected over the past months.
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