Nik’s own irritation kept him from laughing at his friend’s antics. “Then go without me. I don’t see what the big deal is. Just because it’s a freaking guy’s trip doesn’t mean it has to be only guys.”
“Yeah, it kinda does. You’re not bringing Yoko.”
“Yoko?” Now he did laugh. “We’re not the goddamn Beatles.”
“No shit. We’re goddamn SEALs. We stick together as family. And I need you there. It’s not just a trip, brother. It’s a job.”
“A job?” Explained why Coop was so serious.
“Yeah, a job. The kind I need you for,” he said ambiguously.
“Me, huh? Is it dangerously insane or insanely dangerous?”
“Both. The kind which will make us all a hell of a lot of money.”
Coop was being awfully mysterious. Out of the corner of Nik’s eye he caught Leo scrubbing his hand through his hair. Was he nervous? Was that why he’d backpedaled with the omen bullshit earlier?
“You know what kind of job this is, Leo? You’re cool with it?”
“He’s creeped himself out because it’s in the Bermuda Triangle and there are sharks,” Coop answered for him.
“And—” Leo began, before Coop cut him off.
“It’s a deep dive with explosives. He doesn’t have the same fondness for things that go boom as we do.”
It looked like Leo had more to say, but wasn’t going to. Which worried Nik into asking, “Is it legal?”
“It’s in international waters, so I think so.”
“You think so? Jesus, Coop, the damn media would have a field day if someone like us got caught doing anything remotely questionable.”
“And yet here you are with Miss Questionable herself. Maybe I should call the police or whoever and resolve this little standoff the hard way.”
Nik’s blood chilled. “If you do, I won’t go with you anywhere. Ever.”
The pressure in the air changed. He and Coop may have bickered and fought like an old married couple at times, while at others they flat-out butted heads like two charging rams, but in the course of their decade-long friendship neither had ever drawn a line in the sand until now. It didn’t feel good. In fact, it fucking sucked. But at least it felt like the right thing to do.
Coop leaned back in his chair, flexing his biceps as he crossed his arms over his equally puffed-up chest. He ignored Titan and the stick for the first time all night. “Let me make sure I have this right—you’re choosing some girl you picked up on the side of the road a couple of days ago over me? Do I need to remind you of what we’ve been through?”
“Maybe I need to remind you. You’re the one choosing some job over me. If it’s about the money, write a damn script.”
The look Coop shot him with decimated the idea.
They both had high six-figure offers from Hollywood to tell their stories, but like many others in the Special Ops community, neither believed in selling out the Trident. The things they’d done in the Hindu Kush, other operators were currently doing. Revealing too much would compromise the lives of those men and women.
“Tell me what you need. I’ll get it for you.”
Coop’s hardened gaze locked with Nik’s. Nik knew they both could standoff all night and then some. But Coop broke the stare quickly, shaking his head. “Fine. Fuck. Bring her. Let’s just get on the road.”
“Dude,” Leo said, looking up from his phone at Nik. “Before we go anywhere with her, you should see this. Thea Gale is a dead woman walking.”.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nik had been smart to keep it simple all these years, but he’d sure as hell picked the wrong time to start playing house and complicating things, Coop thought as he watched Leo and Nik head inside. At best, all of Thea’s recent troubles were a big misunderstanding and she was engaged to a good man who loved her and could give her everything she needed. At worst, she’d gotten herself into one heck of a dangerous situation with some exceptionally powerful people. But either way, Coop didn’t need her tagging along and stealing Nik’s focus on a critical and dangerous job.
He pulled out his cell phone and tapped out an ever-changing number he only kept in his head. While he waited for the secure line to connect, he cut his eyes through the great room windows, his appraisal landing on the picture of Nik’s family. Coop had taken the photo, never realizing he’d be framing it and handing it over to Nik at a triple funeral short months later. Nik had spent the past several years ignoring the photograph while Coop had watched dust slowly mute the colors, but not the pain. Now it stood propped up. The dust gone, the colors bright and vibrant, leaving him to wonder how Nik would handle the pain Coop would soon be bringing.
“The Ghost appears, but not where he’s supposed to,” Coop’s boss, Omar Zaki, answered, dispensing with any pleasantries.
“Tying up loose ends,” Coop countered, dispensing with any apologies.
The great OZ was one to talk about ghosts, the old coot hadn’t been seen in person by anyone in a decade. But for a recluse, Zaki was better connected than God. He was a master at pulling strings, but always from behind the curtain of his global corporation—Beryl Enterprises.
As the Director of Defense and Specialized Operations, Coop’s role in the organization was pretty straightforward. Keep the billionaire and his associates protected and his enemies scared. When Zaki had contacted him about an underwater search and seizure job, it seemed a bit off. Treasure hunting wasn’t in his skill set, but he was a deep diver with ordnance experience and wasn’t afraid of pirates, sharks, or anything else known to haunt the oceans, least of all any of the rumored forces swirling in the Bermuda Triangle. Besides, only Zaki could make a much-needed miracle happen for Coop, so he’d jumped at the opportunity.
The job required a partner. Nik was the only man Coop trusted implicitly to keep his cool and handle absolutely anything down in the depths with him. But time was running out and Zaki expected them to be at the island already. In order to get Nik off high center, Coop needed to deal with Thea and quick.
“I need intel,” Coop said.
“We have a substantial tech department. I know you have the direct line and are aware I’m a busy man.”
Not too busy to play games with me. Coop swallowed back the sarcasm. “This is a little more delicate, I’m afraid.”
“The Ghost afraid? You have my curiosity.”
“Good. I need the initial autopsy reports for the three DOAs from the Colby, Kansas, tornado a few days ago. Also, information on Clayton Kenyon, age unknown, and Thea Gale, early to mid-twenties. Last address for both unknown—possibly Wichita, Kansas, or thereabouts. Gale may work for LE or government though. A mobile number on Kenyon. The sooner I can get it, the sooner I can get Nik on the road and on the job.”
“This has to do with Nik? So you’ve come directly to me not for information, but for discretion. Don’t want it getting back to your fellow SEAL you’re spying on him? Tell me, what does Nikolas Steele have to do with a tornado in Colby, Kansas?”
“He was in it.” Coop hung up before Zaki could ask any more questions. He’d pay for being brusque with his boss later, but Zaki would get over it. Especially if Coop could get Steele on his team. With Nik leaving the military, Coop intended to bring him right onboard. Should’ve been easy before some girl dropped out of the freaking sky. Convincing him now would require some strategy. Like a chess match, in order to capture a king, one must first take out the queen.
It wasn’t as if Coop didn’t like the girl. Thea was spunky and tough and probably everything Nik needed. If he was in any shape to actually be in a relationship. Which he wasn’t. Fresh out of the Teams, Nik needed a mission, a job, a purpose—and he mistakenly thought Thea fulfilled them all.
Yeah, Coop could see ol’ steel-hearted Nik falling for a woman like Thea. Easy. Hell, if he was a few years younger he could’ve seen himself getting quite the heart-on for her, even though she hated him. Maybe even because she hated him.
The woman
he did have heart-on for certainly did, and for good reason.
Hell, Nik would probably hate him for a while, too, considering what Coop planned to do with the intel he’d soon get. But Nik was way too close to this situation to see it clearly. Plus, he wasn’t exactly thinking with an organ he had experience with. His heart.
Coop on the other hand knew everything there was to know about the fickle muscle. Coop loved—hard and fast, deep and wild—and it didn’t matter for shit when the real issue was never with the women, but within himself. For better or worse, he and Nik housed the same ghosts and the same darkness, and those demons never played well with the hearts of angels.
* * * *
At the buzzing of his cell phone, Clay snarled. The past few days had been a shitshow, to say the least, but Sera’s constant need for updates had worn thin. As much as he normally enjoyed adding fuel to her already fiery demeanor, he didn’t want to incur her infamous wrath today. Not when he didn’t have Thea under control yet.
He could already hear Sera’s taunting question, ‘Tell me, love, how did the cursed brat outfox you?’ Her shill, cackling laugh as she gloated about having warned him to stay away from Thea. But avoiding the Feds on multiple fronts, especially the human trafficking task force Thea worked for, was vital for their organization to expand.
The thrilling challenge of getting close to Thea had been too addictive to quit. Until now. Now she stood to threaten everything he and Sera had worked years for.
He muted the phone and tossed it onto the bed. Definitely not the time to speak to Sera.
“Hey!” Aimee griped. “I wanted to talk to her. Tell her about our ceremony. My rise.”
“She can’t talk right now. I’ve booked her an important appearance on Michael Maddox Live tomorrow to promote the Sanctuary and its connection to our organization. She needs to prepare for it.” Besides, Sera had more than likely gotten word about her sister’s death and Clay didn’t want her raining on his parade.
He still couldn’t believe Thea had risked her life to try to help the previous Aimee. It had almost given him the perfect opportunity to snatch her, too. A nice thwack on the back of the head had knocked Thea clean out, but her damn dog had stood guard over her and the tornado had been bearing down. “Once Sera’s finished her interview and we have Thea, then we can share all our news.” Good and bad.
Aimee nodded in agreement, despite being visibly disappointed. Sera spent every day at their camp, grooming the girls who showed the most promise, whereas Clay popped in only a handful of times per year. His arrival, typically marked by special ceremonies and rituals, made him their rock star, not their rock.
“We need to go set up. Then all we have to do is wait for a time when Thea’s alone.”
“Why don’t I just call her? She’ll meet with me.”
Clay grumbled. “Sure. Okay. She’s only been running her ass off for the past couple of days, but let’s call her and invite her for tea.”
“She trusts me.”
“Thea trusts no one. Understand? No one.”
“No, I don’t understand. Any of this. She’s your fiancée—why doesn’t she know anything about Phoenixes or the Ring?”
Clay stilled. “What did you tell her about the Ring?”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly to be the truth. “I gave her the card we hand out to new recruits, that’s all.”
Despite being ready to spit nails, Clay drew in a deep breath and enunciated each word as clearly as he could. “You have no idea how long it took me to get as far with her as I did! No idea. And you have no fucking clue who Thea Gale even is!” He might as well have been screaming it at himself.
“You made her seem crazy. Combative. She was nice. She wanted to be friends. I could see it in her eyes.”
“Thea doesn’t have friends. She’s like her father. A fucking untouchable, unfeeling robot.”
“That’s not true. I mean, sure she was awkward, but… She trusts the guy she was with. She wasn’t untouchable with him.”
Images of Thea hanging herself all over the asshole in the parking lot, smiling at him, touching him rushed back on Clay.
It was all an act. It had to be. Each pathetic ounce of affection had to be mined from her. Pried out. Worked for. He had earned it! Not that guy.
“Get this straight—Thea Gale is playing him and you. She uses people. The second you think she trusts you is the second she fucks your world up good. What do you think she does for the Feds? She cons people. And she’s damn good at it. She spins a pretty gossamer trap. She’s a spider and you think she’s being gracious by letting you walk into her web. Pretends to be a broken little girl like you and she’ll suck you into helping her.”
“I’m not broken anymore! And earlier you said she was like I used to be. Now you’re saying she’s pretending? Which is it?”
Fuck. Clay didn’t even know anymore. “It doesn’t matter. She’s a goddamned savant. She’s dangerous. A pinless grenade waiting to blow. And you think you can hold her in the palm of your hand!” They were the very words Sera had once warned him away from Thea with. But he’d prove Sera wrong. And he’d prove Thea wrong, too—he wasn’t just some mark she could dupe. He was her worst fucking nightmare. One she was never going to wake up from.
“Thea thinks she knows who she’s dealing with, but she has no clue. And neither do you!” He slammed his fist against the table, causing both the drone and Aimee to jump.
Aimee retreated a wobbly step, then another. At her trembling recoil, Clay’s energy surged. She was a fawn in the hardened sights of a hungry wolf.
“I don’t know why you’re so mad at me, but maybe I should…”
She’d been smart to swallow her thought, but Clay cut to the chase for her. “Leave?”
Naturally she was having doubts, thinking of running. The Ring’s gates were always open. The only thing holding her captive, even in this hotel room, was fear. But as Sera had taught him, fear could bind someone far better than any chain or rope.
And for Clay, it was much more enjoyable.
Her wide, frightened eyes baited him. He could smell her terror, taste it like iron pooling thick and warm on his tongue. She had no clue the needs her terror triggered. Needs he’d suppressed for far too long and were now boiling his insides.
Even as Aimee’s distress excited him, he knew better than to let the pulsing adrenaline disrupt his focus.
“You can go anytime, but there’s no going back. All those people who spent days and weeks searching for you, exhausting every resource—what are you going to tell them, Rebecca? It was a desperate cry for attention? All a joke? I don’t think they’ll find it humorous.”
As Clay grabbed the remote control, she flinched. He powered the TV on, navigating to the correct channel. He’d kept the show in the back of his mind to ensure she wouldn’t stumble upon it. But now he needed to remind her where she came from. Or, more aptly, what she’d be returning to.
College pictures from Rebecca Meade’s social media pages flickered on the screen right on cue. Harrison Sharpe’s familiar voice-over provided chilling recollections of the fateful day last year. The leading network journalist on unsolved mysteries then cut to her tearful father—an upstanding citizen, pillar of the community, begging for his baby girl’s safe return. The very daughter he had tortured all those years.
Clay gave a short grunt. “Well, I’m sure at least one person will welcome you back with open arms. Or maybe not. Would it shock you to know he’s been a lucrative donor to our organization? He’s highly motivated to keep you missing. How does the saying go? Dead girls tell no tales.”
“Turn it off! Rebecca is dead. I’m Aimee now. We had the ceremony.” Her terse voice held more confidence than her trembling body. He clicked the TV off, silencing her father’s dramatic performance and allowing her the smallest of victories. It would be the last he’d give her for a while.
Clay crossed the room in two strides. “Yes, we did have the ceremony. It’s a g
ood thing we have the video. Should we watch it again? Those who still think Rebecca is alive might like to see it. What do you think those people will say once they learn you weren’t abducted—you left eagerly, you joined us freely, and you let me do whatever I wanted to your body? So many things…”
The scar from branding her still fresh over her heart. No doubt the nature of last night’s ceremony had been nothing like what she’d expected. Without all the ritualistic bullshit Sera loved so much, the newly risen Phoenix didn’t even have the fantasy of last night’s ceremonial rise from the ashes being more than just a special outlet they’d created for Clay’s more deviant desires. The poor little lamb had thought it’d be like a wedding, not her slaughter.
Aimee’s thumb stroked circles around the tattoo on the underside of her wrist.
Clay chuffed at her attempt to soothe herself. Lord knows he wasn’t going to do shit to ease her fears. But he needed her help and this was not the way to keep her in check.
Sera had always been there to soothe the newly risen Phoenixes after the shock of the fire ceremony, telling them loving praises and sweet lies until they believed again. He wasn’t nearly as bewitching as Sera, but he’d heard her spiels enough to know what this girl needed to hear to get her compliant again. “Don’t worry, my dear, we’ll add the color to your tattoo as soon as we get back home. Everyone will know with one look—you’ve risen and are one of the Six.”
Pathetic how happy this always made them. As if they couldn’t walk into any tattoo shop in the world and have the bright orange flames added to the black phoenix outlines. No, they wanted the ceremony with all its pomp and circumstance to hide what it really was—reliving the very things which had crippled them into seeking out the Ring in the first place. But most of all, they desperately wanted to be special. Chosen. And they’d endure damn near anything to be.
“You still look shaken, my pretty. Like a ruffled little bird with wet wings. Are you not ready to rise and fly? Because if you aren’t truly ready to be Aimee then you must still be Rebecca. Are you still Rebecca? Still afraid and scared? Weak and a victim? Did I not prove to you how strong you are? How much you could possibly withstand? Endure? Rebecca let those things cripple her, paralyze her. Not Aimee. Aimee proved how strong she could be to survive them. I was so proud of you last night. Sera will be too when I tell her how valiant you were to let go of all your wicked fears. But, my sweet bird, if you’re not ready to fly it means I did not do my job… I did not free you from your past and Rebecca’s vulnerabilities. If I was not successful in forging you a new life as someone as strong and confident as the former Aimee, you must tell your magister.”
Twist My Heart (Wicked Games Book 1) Page 19
