by Paige Tyler
“So, what’s going on with you and Jayson?” Danica asked, sipping her coffee. “I hardly ever see you two together around the training complex anymore.”
Layla stifled a groan. She didn’t really feel like discussing her screwed-up relationship with anybody right now, even if Jayson and that damn hybrid serum had been the only thing on her mind since leaving DC. But if there was one person in the world she could talk to about this—outside of Ivy, of course—it was Danica. At least they were alone. If Clayne or the other two agents on the mission, Foley or Hightower, were in the van, there was no way in hell she’d talk about her relationship troubles. All three men were out checking to see if the DCO had any new intel on why the meeting hadn’t gone down yet though. At least, that’s what Layla hoped they were doing. Considering how poorly Clayne and Foley got along, it was also possible they’d gotten in a fight with each other in the middle of the street and were all in a Scottish jail somewhere with Hightower standing between the two men, trying to keep them from killing each other.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay,” Danica added when she didn’t say anything.
Layla shook her head. “I don’t mind talking about it. In fact, getting some of this stuff off my mind would probably help. Sometimes it all seems so complicated that I’m not even sure where to begin.”
“Let’s start with something simple then. Are you in love with him?”
“Yes,” Layla answered without hesitation.
Danica glanced at her. “Is he in love with you?”
“I don’t know.” She swallowed hard. “I know he cares about me, and I used to think that was enough. But as hard as everything has been lately, I don’t know if it is anymore.”
Danica let out a sigh. “He’s pushing you away, isn’t he?”
Layla blinked. “How did you know?”
“Because I’ve seen it before.” Danica snorted. “Hell, I’ve done it before.” At Layla’s confused look, she continued. “When I fell in love with Clayne—I got put into an impossible situation where I thought that being with him was going to hurt him. He wasn’t going to let me go on his own, so I pushed him away. And when he refused to let go, I pushed even harder. I ended up saying some things that hurt him terribly to get him to let me walk away.”
Layla frowned. “But if you loved him, how could you do something like that?”
“It was because I loved him that I could do it,” Danica said. “I was wrong for him at the time and didn’t want him getting hurt because of me. I don’t know Jayson very well, and while your situation isn’t anything like ours, I’m guessing he has similar reasons for pushing you away.”
Even though Layla didn’t want to admit it, on some level, she knew Danica was right. “He feels like he’s not worthy of me because he’s disabled. I mean, I hadn’t even met him until after he was injured. I told him that’s crap and that I don’t care about it, but nothing I say gets through to him.”
It didn’t help that she was a shifter. It was hard enough for people who weren’t physically challenged to accept someone who could do the things she could. In Jayson’s eyes, she must seem superhuman. She’d always embraced her inner animal and dreamed of sharing that part of herself with someone who would love her in spite of it. She’d been so sure Jayson was that person. But instead, her shifter half was coming between them. Not because it disgusted him or freaked him out, but because it made him feel like he wasn’t good enough for her. For the first time ever, she wished she were simply a regular person.
Danica went back to watching the monitors. “He’s a man. For most of his life, his whole world was wrapped up in what he could do physically. In his eyes, that’s all gone now. If you want him to get his head right, you’re going to have to help him get to a place where he can stand on his own two feet again.”
“I’ve been trying to get him back on his feet for months, but it’s not working.” She growled in frustration. “I helped him get his own place, so he’d see that he could still be self-sufficient. Then I helped him get a job at the DCO so he could still use his tactical skills. Heck, I even tried to get him a service dog to take care of, thinking that would help him, but Jayson refused to even go look at the cute little fur ball, saying he could barely take care of himself much less a pet. Nothing I do seems to help, and he’s drifting further away every day.”
Danica offered her a small smile. “I wish I could give you some magical piece of advice, but I can’t. It’s going to take more than getting him a dog—or a job. You need to give him a purpose, a reason to keep going and get out of bed every day.”
“How the hell do I do that?” Layla demanded, especially when Dick was waiting in the wings with a syringe full of drugs that promised a shortcut back to everything Jayson used to be.
“You’re going to have to prove to him that he’s still the same man he used to be, injured or not.”
That was easier said than done.
Layla was still pondering that impossible task when the radio on top of the monitors crackled to life and Clayne’s rough voice filled the back of the ops van. “Everybody get ready. Our buyers are three minutes out and our target is probably in the area already. Layla, fire up the drone camera and find him.”
Danica swiveled her chair around. “That’s my cue. See you later.”
As Danica hopped out of the van to meet up with Clayne, Layla grabbed the controls for the drone. She guided it off the roof, letting it hover above the building, so she could see the streets below. A few minutes later, two dark blue SUVs pulled into the warehouse. A little while after that, a van came down the street.
“There’s a white van coming toward the warehouse from the East End side,” she said softly into the radio as the vehicle moved slowly through the alley and entered the building. “The van doesn’t have windows on the side or in back, so I can’t see what’s inside, but it’s low on its shocks so they’re carrying something heavy, whatever it is.”
“Can you see the driver or tell how many other people are in the vehicle with him?” Danica asked.
Danica and the rest of the team were hidden in the warehouse, ready to make their move as soon as they verified this really was a weapons deal. Clayne and Danica would focus on the man they hoped was Kojot, while Foley and Hightower apprehended the locals who were there to buy the weapons. Foley and Hightower had gotten the short end of the stick in Layla’s opinion. There were six buyers, all of them armed.
“Negative,” she said. “All of the front windows are tinted.”
“Understood,” Clayne replied in a low, gruff voice that always made it sound like he was pissed at something—which he usually was. “Let us know the second you confirm we’re dealing with weapons here and not some drug deal or a truck full of stolen computers. If that’s the case, we abort without response. It might be Kojot setting a trap to see if we’re on his trail. We don’t break cover unless we’re sure it’s him.”
Layla followed the van on the monitors as it moved into the warehouse, then pulled up next to the two SUVs and stopped. The buyers looked nervous as heck as they moved to form a semicircle around the front of the van. She supposed she couldn’t blame them. If the intel on Kojot was right, he was one hell of a scary dude.
A minute later, the driver’s side door opened and a man in jeans and a T-shirt stepped out. He wasn’t a big guy, but he was in good shape and definitely moved like a person who wasn’t concerned with all the armed men standing around him. He didn’t necessarily look like a cold-blooded killer, but Layla supposed he could be Kojot. It would have been much easier if she’d had audio as well as cameras.
One of the buyers moved over to the back door of the closest SUV and took out an iPad. He moved his fingers over the screen for a moment, then held it up so Kojot could see. Kojot must have liked what he saw because he nodded and tossed the keys for the van to one of the other buyers. The buyer and one of his buddies h
eaded for the back of the van while their friends continued to keep a tense eye on the arms dealer.
“The deal is going down,” she reported over the radio.
“What’s in the van?” Clayne growled.
Layla glanced at the other monitor showing the inside of the warehouse. Crap, it wasn’t positioned right. When the doors of the van swung open, she couldn’t see inside.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The camera is at the wrong angle.”
“We need to know what’s in that van before we blow our cover,” Clayne said tersely. “Figure out a way to ID what’s in there.”
Layla wanted to ask him how the hell she was going to do that since he was the one who’d been so adamant about her staying in the operations truck, but pointing out the obvious would probably only piss him off. She was half a second from jumping out and hauling ass for the warehouse when she remembered the camera drone.
“I’m moving the drone in for a look,” she said, grabbing the controller.
The image on the monitor feeding from the drone immediately jumped all over the place as she put it in motion. Clearly it didn’t like the idea of diving near ground level to look through windows like a Peeping Tom.
“Hurry up before they close the doors and leave,” Danica urged.
Layla darted a glance over at the stationary camera monitor. Kojot was tapping something into the iPad, no doubt transferring funds to some account that even the DCO would have a hard time tracking. Another few minutes and they’d be out of there.
The hell with it. Turning back to the controls for the drone, she sent it diving down into the alley behind the warehouse at insane speed. A split second later, she was rewarded with a long-distance view into the back of the van through one of the warehouse windows. The dark green boxes were definitely military and the stickers on them had universal symbols for Danger, Caution, and Explosive.
“They’re weapons,” she announced. “The boxes are about the right size for shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles.”
She had no idea what a group of people in Glasgow wanted with surface-to-air missiles, but it wasn’t something she liked to think about.
Clayne immediately gave the order to move. A moment later, he, Danica, Foley, and Hightower dropped to the first floor of the warehouse from their hiding places upstairs and ordered everyone to freeze. No one obeyed that order, least of all Kojot. The arms dealer took off in the opposite direction. Clayne and Danica followed, the wolf shifter quickly gaining on the bad guy.
Layla went back and forth from one monitor to the next, looking for Kojot, and caught a flash of movement at the south end of the warehouse as he ran down a flight of stairs. How the hell had he gotten all the way across the warehouse in just a few seconds?
“Kojot is heading down the stairwell on the south side of the warehouse,” she called over the radio.
On the monitor, Danica immediately turned and ran in that direction. Clayne, on the other hand, was standing in the middle of the warehouse, his head tilted to the side and a pissed-off expression on his face. Then he tore across the room, growling so loud that Layla could hear him without the benefit of the radio.
“He’s a fucking shifter!” Clayne shouted as he raced down the stairs ahead of Danica. “Kojot knew we were here all along and still had the balls the go through with the deal. He’s probably been onto us for months.”
Layla’s eyes widened. No wonder they hadn’t been able to catch the mysterious arms dealer. It was hard to sneak up on a person when he could smell you coming. She couldn’t believe the DCO never even had a hint he was a shifter. Just how good was this guy?
In the warehouse, an engine roared to life. She looked over at the monitor just in time to see the white van spinning up dirt and debris as it raced for the exit on the west side. Foley and Hightower were trapped behind one of the SUVs, locked in a shoot-out with the buyers who’d stayed behind. As the van sped away, Foley switched targets, shooting at the escaping vehicle and trying to hit the tires.
“Foley, stop!” she shouted. “That van is full of weapons. You hit something sensitive and you’re going to turn the neighborhood into a combat zone.”
“I know that!” Foley ground out. “But we’re pinned down and those weapons are getting away. If we can’t stop them, you’re going to have to do it.”
Layla expected Clayne to countermand the order as lead agent on the mission, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he hadn’t heard Foley.
“Clayne, did you copy that?” she called. “Foley and Hightower are pinned down and want me to go after the van full of weapons. Do you copy?”
“Layla, you gotta go now!” Hightower shouted. “We’re okay here. You can’t let those weapons get away.”
She was up and out of the operations truck before Hightower even finished. Clayne would probably make sure she never went on another mission as long as she lived, but if this was the only one she ever got on, she was going to do it right.
She thanked God that whoever was driving the van had decided to escape out the west side of the building. If he’d gone the other way, she would have had to run all the way around the building. She would never have caught up to them, shifter or not. As it was, the white van was already out of the alley and pulling onto Ingram Street. Fortunately, the van couldn’t accelerate very quickly with all those weapons in the back.
Layla ignored the people on the street staring at her and ran faster. It wasn’t until then that she realized she didn’t have a plan for what she was going to do when she caught up to them. Stopping a moving van while on foot hadn’t been part of her field training.
She had her 9mm SIG Sauer, but she’d just berated Foley for shooting at a vehicle full of weapons. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could aim very straight while running flat-out like she was.
Heart pounding, she sprinted around to the driver’s side door. As she gripped the handle and wrenched it open, she realized her claws were out. Crap, she hadn’t even felt them extend.
It was hard to keep pace with the van, but she managed it as she grabbed the surprised driver by the scruff of the neck and yanked hard, tossing him out of his seat and onto the road.
The van immediately swerved into oncoming traffic. Layla quickly hopped in and got control of the wheel just as the guy in the passenger seat finally figured out what the hell was going on. She stomped on the brakes as he pulled his gun, making him fly forward. His head bounced off the windshield, then he slammed back into the seat, leaving him unconscious.
Pulse racing, Layla pulled the van over to the side of the road. Okay, that had been way more intense than any training scenario.
She was just climbing out as the sound of sirens reached her ears. She glanced at the guy in the passenger seat to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere for a while, then looked around for the one she’d tossed out. From the way several people two blocks down Ingram Street were looking underneath a pricey-looking four-door BMW, she guessed that guy wasn’t going anywhere either.
Layla bit her lip, not sure what to do. The sirens were getting closer. Did she stay at the scene or not? Unfortunately, this situation hadn’t exactly come up in her training, and they sure as heck hadn’t talked about it during the mission briefing Clayne had conducted.
The pounding of running footsteps interrupted her musings, and she spun around to find Danica coming her way. Relief coursed through her. She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life.
“I know I was supposed to stay in the truck, but they were getting away with the missiles,” Layla said quickly.
Danica waved her off as she caught her breath. “Don’t worry about it. The situation changed and you did the right thing. Outstanding job catching these guys.”
Layla smiled, relieved. “Thanks.”
She was about to ask Danica if she and Clayne had apprehended the arms dealer, but right then, thre
e police cars weaved their way through the crush of vehicles crowding the street and stopped in front of them.
Crap.
“What do we do?” Layla asked.
Danica reached into her pocket and pulled out her Department of Homeland Security badge. “Follow my lead. And try to lie as convincingly as you can.”
Chapter 3
“You can’t just go barging in there. I need to announce you!”
Jayson ignored Dick’s secretary, walking past her and pushing open the deputy director’s big oak door. He hated to blow her off like that, but he wasn’t feeling very polite right now.
“Were you serious about what you said?” he demanded as he came to a stop in front of Dick’s desk.
The deputy director looked up from whatever he was writing on the notepad in front of him as if just realizing Jayson was there. Right. Like he hadn’t heard the fuss his secretary had made.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Coleman. He just blazed right past me.” The plump, blond woman gave him a disdainful glare. “I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“That’s okay, Phyllis.” Dick gave her a nod. “I’ll take it from here. Close the door as you leave, please.”
Phyllis gave Jayson another scathing look, then turned and walked out, closing the door behind her.
“Was I serious about what?” Dick asked, a trace of irritation in his voice.
“Were you serious when you said that if I take your new drug, and it works, you’ll pair me up with Layla?”
Dick sat back in his chair, his expression changing to something between curious and appraising. “Once we’re able to verify the drug has worked—in some kind of field test—then yes, I’d be open to pairing you and Layla up as a team.”
“Then I want to take the drug,” Jayson said. “Now.”
He expected Dick to ask why the sudden rush, but the deputy only regarded him thoughtfully. “Are you sure, Jayson? This isn’t exactly a situation you can back out of once you’ve started.”
