Strike Zone (Hawk Elite Security Book 3)

by Beth Rhodes

  He threw it back and swallowed it, no water.

  “Well, geez. I don’t think you need to prove your manliness, John. It’s quite apparent.” She messed with the kit until she could close the top, then latched it.

  Finally looking at him, eye to eye, and loving how they were so much closer to the same height than she’d ever been with another man, she found him grinning. Rolling her eyes, she stepped back. “You’re not going to get all bigheaded, are you?”

  “Maybe. A little.” He moved his arm then rolled his shoulder, testing the bandage.

  “Feel okay?”

  He nodded. “It’s fine.”

  Bobby came in then, compelling Emily to pick up the kit and move away from John. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew things had changed between them since they’d left for Idaho. What if he wasn’t ready to share that connection?

  What if he was merely testing the waters?

  She had to work with these guys too.

  Until she quit, anyway, which was becoming more and more likely.

  “What’s up, Bobby?” John asked as he put his shirt back on. Too bad.

  “The police have scoured the building and have a search going on, but there’s no sign of Marcus or the shooter.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Someone needs to go back,” Bobby said. “I’m going back.”

  “I want John and Emily on that helicopter.” Hawk was on the video com in the back porch, where they’d all gathered. “I’m putting Malcolm on tracking Marcus’ phone. And we need to check the intel for mention of Hassan again. Hassan’s men, family. Anyone connected in the past five years.”

  “I want someone on Callie,” Emily said. “Whoever was there today saw her. Until this is over, she’s got protection.” Silence met her demand. “Please.”

  “Bobby?” Hawk said.

  He nodded, as if holding back a grimace.

  The panic on Callie’s face had Emily stepping over to her and putting an arm across her shoulders. “Just a precaution.”

  “Chopper’s ten minutes out,” Hawk said.

  “Wow. That was fast.”

  “Old Army buddy has a tour company down the coast. They swap favors every now and again.” John studied her, leaving her feeling way more vulnerable than she had while they were running from those gunners. “Will you be coming with me?” he asked. He’d read her mind.

  She could quit. Anytime.

  But she wouldn’t. Not until this was over. The worst part about it all was that in the weeks since being with Hawk Elite, she’d felt more alive than she had in a long time. She’d been in her element, and that element smacked her in the face now.

  “I can’t very well go back to Harbor View now.” That was the bottom line. “I can’t put those people in any more danger.”

  John looked into her eyes. “As much as I agree with you and want you with me, maybe you should think about how much you mean to those people. You aren’t the new girl—”

  “Mrs. Grinyevich tells the story of how you would come to her shop every time you got into town,” Callie said. “And she’d give you your first bag of saltwater taffy for the season.”

  Emily stared at Callie. “She remembers me?”

  “Most of the old people do.”

  The emotion stuck in her throat turned into strained laughter.

  “My point is,” John continued, “that most of these people would go up against an army for you. Myself included.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck what they think they would do for me, what you would do for me,” she said sharply, uncomfortable with that kind of devotion. “What if someone had died in the explosion tonight?” Her stomach tensed and squeezed as she shoved panic down into her subconscious. “No way. That’s not acceptable.”

  “So, let’s find who’s doing this and finish it. Hassan? Or whatever the hell mother—” He stopped and looked at Callie. “Fudger who wants you dead.”

  Her heartbeat stuck, took a break in between beats. “It could be one of many.”

  The look he gave her was unamused. “You’ll never be free, Emily.” He gripped her shoulders. “It’s the truth. You know it. Let Hawk Elite help you. With Marcus missing now, we won’t stop. They have one of our own, and they want you. And you’re mine now. You got that, Emily?”

  He was stealing her breath away. Shaking her head, she broke from his hold and turned to find Callie in the doorway. “Don’t leave us, Emily. You belong to us.”

  Her heart filled. Shit.

  “Here.” Eddie came up at her side and handed her a short glass filled with an amber liquid. Her hand shook as she took a swallow.

  John’s phone rang through the tense silence. He answered with his gaze still on her. “Hello.”

  “Marcus’ phone is headed up the coast,” Stacy Hawkins answered. “Hawk is already gone, flying out of Raleigh for DC, and will be on standby, gathering intelligence until you get there. I need you back here and ready to board in two and a half hours.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” John blinked, breaking the connection he’d made with Emily, leaving her bereft…disappointed. The sound of the chopper finally broke through. She worked for Hawk Elite now.

  Right now, they were telling her to go to the one place that had changed her life for the worse.

  But they’d be doing it for her. To hopefully bring resolution.

  “Okay,” she agreed, and with that, the butterflies in her stomach eased.

  The helicopter roared in as a storm blew off the coast. Par for the course, as far as Emily was concerned. Nothing else had gone right since the gas leak in her apartment. And once again, she was at the mercy of the man in charge. John, and Hawk Elite, made arrangements—the helicopter, a man to drive Callie home, and they’d do cleanup in Harbor View, too.

  She was basically a passenger in her own life. Again.

  He’d said things were different in Hawk Elite.

  She believed it…but at the same time, she was nervous over this turn of events.

  Not that she could blame Hawk. He was only protecting his team.

  The helicopter landed but didn’t shut down as two other guys got out, crouched, and ran up to the house. John stepped up, putting a comforting hand on Callie’s shoulder. Emily was convinced he had no idea. He just…did these things as if it was natural.

  “Callie,” he said, gesturing to the older man. Red hair, freckles across his nose. A little shorter but built like a bull. “This is Jamie. He and Bobby are going to get you home to your parents and then stick around as the police finish the job of investigating what happened at Emily’s.”

  “Howdy-do, miss.” Jamie’s grin was easygoing, and Emily breathed a sigh of relief that John wasn’t going to leave Callie alone with Bobby, the more typical, young cocky soldier. Not that she didn’t like him. Not that he didn’t work well with the team. He did. He was good.

  Turning to Callie, she took the girl in her arms and gave her a hug. Callie inhaled sharply then held on tight. “Be careful.”

  She’d lived, two years, yet had kept too much distance. In the end, it hadn’t been too much. It had been not enough. “Be careful, okay? You listen to Jamie. Do as he says.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “And if anything happens, at all, you tell him. Strangers, funny noises. You tell him when things don’t seem right to you.”

  “You’re going to scare her, Em.” John had grabbed her duffel and was passing on his way to the helipad next to the house. Her heart was pounding, and she didn’t like leaving Callie, leaving things so undone, so unsettled.

  “I’ll be okay.” Callie’s confidence struck a good bit of fear through Emily, especially when the young girl grinned. “This is the most fun I’ve had—ever.”

  Jamie grinned. “Come on, pequeñita.”

  Callie leaned in and kissed Emily’s cheek. “Come back. Please.”

  And then she turned and was gone with Jamie, through the house and back out to the car on the other side. Out of
sight. “I should call her parents,” Emily said.

  “We won’t let anything happen to her, Emily,” Bobby said. “You have my word.”

  The worry settled, but she nodded. “Thanks.”

  And then he was gone as well.

  “Hey.” John leaned in and stared her down. “Call her parents. And then it’s time for us to go.”

  Part of her could hate him for bringing her life back to this…except that she’d chosen. She’d wanted to bring closure.

  She nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The plane under him rumbled as it passed through the storm clouds. He gripped the arms under his hands and let the anger of what had happened course through him. Tension in his arms and shoulders had a headache forming at the back of his head.

  “You almost fucking blew the entire operation, dipshit.”

  “You told me I’d have her. I almost had her.”

  “You’re going to blow fifty grand on a fucking whore?” His grip tightened. “Shit, don’t talk. The man gets first turn at her, and I get my money. Only then can you have her, and if you fucking disobey again, I’ll put a bullet through your head myself.”

  “I don’t care about the money.”

  Jesus, he was surrounded by dumbasses. “You’ll care when I’m taking your fingernails off one by one, when I start on your kneecaps and break every single bone in your body. You can screw the money. It’s mine. But don’t you fucking blow my chances at it.”

  “I don’t care if you kill me, but you can’t do it until I get her.” His companion looked over at him with dead eyes that sent a shiver up his spine.

  “Well, don’t go rogue on me again. Jeez. We were this close to getting caught.”

  Not even a spark of anger lived in the dark black and blue of his eyes. Those eyes. He was going to see those eyes in his nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat for the next month. “Fuck.” He’d taken a risk contacting this guy. But something about him had struck a chord, drawn sympathy from his sarcastic, cynical heart.

  He could only hope those fucked-up feelings wouldn’t be his undoing.

  He needed that money.

  Because it was only nine days until Campino would come calling.

  If there was one thing he knew, it was that Mama could never, never find out about the deal he’d made with her cousin.

  Or she would kill him.

  John frowned as he and Emily walked through the DC airport at four a.m. the following morning. Shortly after Malcolm had tracked Marcus’ phone to DC and then lost it completely, there’d been a demand for his life. A trade, Marcus and a reporter, who’d been captured six weeks ago, for Madhu Ahmed. Madhu, who’d been captured for his connection to the Brussels attack, was Ahmed Hassan’s brother. And the world kept getting smaller.

  But the United States didn’t negotiate with terrorists.

  And Hawk Elite didn’t either. They went in and took care of business.

  They were always in the business of pulling a friend from harm’s way.

  Ahmed Hassan. The man who’d shoved Emily into this hamster wheel three years ago, when he’d killed her friends Sandra and Tim.

  The stretch of corridor to their gate seemed endless, and he was well aware that as soon as they were airborne, he was going to crash, hard.

  Malcolm and Marie were behind them, doing their best to ignore each other. Craig followed as well, along with Tancredo and Ranger, making up the rest of the team.

  They tightened the ranks as the terminal crowded with people disembarking from another flight, this one on their left. He grabbed Emily’s elbow and pulled her closer, but she was jostled anyway.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured, then stopped and turned.

  John’s arm extended when he tried to maintain contact, forcing him to stop and wait.

  She was staring behind them, and his gaze moved over the crowd, looking for anything out of the ordinary. But it was only people and the backs of their heads, some hats. Lots of coats. “What is it?”

  She frowned, shaking her head. “Nothing—a flash from the past, I guess. Brain games, probably, about going back. All the closure I imagined never included returning to the sandpit.” Visibly shaking off whatever or whomever she’d seen, she gave him a tired smile. “I need sleep. Serious sleep.”

  “You can sleep on the plane.” The look she gave him had him laughing. “Not a plane sleeper?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll see. This isn’t going to be like anything you’ve had to do before.”

  Hawk and Stacy waited for them at the gate, nodding to each one as they passed down the ramp to the door and the tarmac outside. They were a ragtag team, it seemed. But appearances were in place for a reason. They didn’t wear any special gear or carry anything that screamed military.

  Even Craig’s huge build was downplayed by the big backpack and the glasses on his face. John knew for a fact that the guy had twenty-twenty vision. Tancredo was growing out his hair again and, with his sunglasses and Hawaiian shirt, looked more like a long-lost Jamaican cousin than the personal security expert he was.

  John put an arm around Emily’s shoulder and pulled her in next to him as they approached the private jet. Her eyes lit on his face with amusement as he led her up the narrow flight of stairs to the plane’s door. “Fancy.”

  “Yeah. Every once in a while, Hawk calls in a favor.”

  The guys were already picking their spots to get comfortable. John was eyeing two seats about midway to the back, both of them facing the center of the main cabin. Further into the plane were two bedrooms. One was used as a clinic, for any onboard illnesses or injuries, and it was John’s duty to run the checklist.

  He set his bag in an overhead compartment, which wasn’t like the usual overhead compartments on a commercial flight. The fact that he could actually stand up in this tin can made the pain in the ass of flying a pleasure. He actually liked to fly; it was the landing that messed with his head.

  Emily dropped to the seat in front of him with a sigh. He put his bag down in front of the second seat. “I’ll be right back. Have a few preflight checks to make.”

  “I can help,” she said, sitting up straight and coming to attention.

  “You’re exhausted.”

  “No more than you are,” she added quickly, making him stop and study her. Her pupils were dilated, her breathing shallow.

  He stepped up to her and tipped her head back with a hand on her chin. “You weren’t afraid to fly to Idaho.”

  “I’m not afraid to fly.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “I’m not, not really. And I was so tired on the trip to Idaho. Plus, it was Idaho.”

  He nodded. He didn’t like where they were going either, and she had a thousand more reasons to want to avoid the Middle East than he did. “Okay. Come on.”

  The medic room was small, but it had a bed on one wall and a table that came out of the wall at the head of it. He lifted the table and clicked it back into the wall. “Sit.”

  Her hands fidgeted in her lap, something so unlike her that he stopped to watch.

  Turning, he opened the liquor cabinet in the wall behind him and pulled out the vodka. He added a generous amount to a tumbler of Sprite and handed it to her. “Drink.”

  “One-word sentences don’t become you.”

  “Fidgeting doesn’t become you.”

  She sipped then coughed when the vodka surprised her. “Holy moly.”

  There was one of those little doctor pedestals on wheels, and he sat on it, spread his legs, and wheeled over to her where she’d tucked her feet under her legs. He placed his hands on her thighs, immediately feeling the draw and heat of her body. Gentle massages focused him on their connection, and he finally met her gaze. “I wish you didn’t have to be here. I regret dragging you back. No matter what you thought about coming to Hawk Elite, I feel responsible for the snowball of events since that day.”

  Emily’s hand came up and rested against his lips. “I’m
nervous like I haven’t been in years. But I also feel alive, and you did that. The what-ifs don’t matter. If they did, there would only be one…

  “What if Hassan had never planted that bomb in Brussels?”

  When she gulped again at her drink, she relaxed and took a deep breath. “We’re going to get Marcus back—”

  “Meeting for takeoff in five,” Tancredo said through the open doorway.

  John glanced up with a nod, took Emily’s hand, and kissed her palm.

  He did the usual check of his supplies, making sure everything was there and secure. Then he and Emily walked back into the main cabin and took their seats against the wall.

  The plane started to move down the runway, and everyone clicked their seatbelts into place and got comfortable. The hum of the engines covered the little conversations going on around them. John stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes to wait for Hawk to start the briefing.

  Two days of nonstop travel was wreaking havoc on his senses.

  Or maybe that was her, her scent drifting through the air around him, the feel of every breath she took in the brush of her arm against his. The rhythm of her breathing slowed and evened out.

  And then Hawk turned his captain’s chair on its pivot and handed off a stack of folders to Stacy on his right. “Let’s go over the plan, shall we?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Emily dragged herself from the recesses of a dark dream. Images of Ahmed blurred with images of Tim, only to be obliterated by the recurring nightmare of heat, explosive devices, and helplessness. In the early days of posttraumatic stress, she’d see Sandra’s face in a crowd. Random bouts of crazy-ass, which had eventually stopped.

  Had she really seen Tim yesterday? That face in the crowd. It couldn’t have been possible.

  The dreams were a direct result of this assignment. But she’d learned how to control the fear upon waking, and after all this time, the dreams didn’t seem so bad anymore. The real questions was, what was she doing here? In a way, she felt like she was standing in front of this overgrown decision monster. Which way would she go, staying in this business with a company like Hawk Elite? Or leaving altogether, like she’d done two years ago?