Dangerously Broken (Aegis Group Lepta Team Book 4)

by Sidney Bristol

  He’d woken up the desire for companionship in her.

  Before Brenden she’d accepted that all men were in some form of competition with her. Now she had to wonder if there was someone out there like Brenden who could accept her for who she was. Someone she could be happy with. Someone she could love. There had to be others, and damn it, she was going to find someone.

  She was going to survive this. She was going to stand up for those who were being taken advantage of. And then she was going to get on with living life.

  No, she would never be the carefree soul she once had been as a child. She was different, but her wounds had healed. She could learn to be different. To have a full life. And she didn’t want to do it alone.

  Brenden could fuck right off.

  Priscilla turned on her heel and grabbed her new purse, courtesy of Melody, then headed for the bedroom door.

  Today she would plead her case. She’d make the CEO’s of Asclepius realize she wasn’t the mastermind here. That someone else was the problem. They would get to the bottom of this.

  She emerged from the bedroom to find the others were assembled. They all wore suits. Black pants, jacket, white shirt, black ties. Very Secret Service, complete with ear pieces and concealed weapons. Even Melody had dressed the part, though her outfit was snazzier with wide legged trousers and a black necklace instead of a tie.

  Brenden hung back, almost across the room, and he sure as hell didn’t look at her. He was a man content to be on an island by himself. Maybe she had the advantage of more time on her side. She’d been able to heal, to move past what happened to her, while he was still living in it.

  That was his problem. Not hers.

  “Ready?” Melody asked.

  “As I’ll ever be.” Priscilla glanced at her two beaten up boxes of evidence.

  “Before we leave.” Melody turned her tablet to face Priscilla. “We’ll be traveling in two vehicles. The first is our decoy. Media have gathered outside the building. They know you’re coming in. Our plan is to pull that first vehicle up and let it idle at the curb while we walk you in a side door.”

  Priscilla nodded and mentally steeled herself for the nightmare that was about to happen.

  Which SUV would Brenden ride in?

  She wanted to slap herself for the stray thought, but there it was. It would take time to not think about him or want him, but she’d make it through this. All of it. Without Brenden, because she knew she was damn strong. They’d shaken her yesterday, but now she was prepared.

  “Let’s go, team,” Grant said.

  Melody fell into step with Priscilla.

  Grant and Riley took the lead, followed by the blond man, Nolan, which left Vaughn and Brenden to bring up the rear.

  Priscilla’s ears burned, and she was distinctly aware of Brenden’s presence at her back. He had to be directly behind her because she caught a few glimpses of the other man, but never Brenden.

  Why was she thinking about him at a time like this?

  Right now she needed to have her head in the game, coming up with reasons why she couldn’t be the mastermind behind this drug problem. She was armed with theories, a suspect list, and not much else.

  Grant, Riley and Nolan went ahead of them down to the garage to both check for an ambush and get the two SUVs running. Priscilla remained facing the doors, not looking at Brenden.

  Was the whole team aware of their falling out?

  They had to be.

  The room arrangements were a dead giveaway.

  Priscilla tipped her nose up a bit. She wasn’t the one running away from a possibly good thing. She’d taken a chance, and she didn’t regret it. The one thing she could thank Brenden for was proving to her that she wasn’t totally broken. She could give love.

  The elevator dinged, and she got inside. Without thinking she turned and met Brenden’s gaze as he followed her into the small space. His scruff was almost a proper beard now. His eyes were a bit red, and she was willing to bet he hadn’t slept either.

  That wasn’t her problem.

  He turned his back on her as the doors closed.

  It was an excellent mental image to hold on to right now.

  Getting off the elevator and into the SUVs was a blur. The team kept her moving, someone always on either side of her. But she didn’t fail to notice that Brenden got in the other SUV. The one she wasn’t riding in.

  This was it. If today went well, that might be the last time she saw him.

  Priscilla sat in the middle of the rear seat, Vaughn on one side, Melody on the other. Priscilla kept her gaze on the bumper of the SUV in front of them and allowed her mind to wander.

  This whole experience was horrible and yet she’d had revelations about herself no professional had been able to guide her on.

  “Are you prepared? Do you know what you’re going to say?” Melody asked into the silence.

  “Yes.” Priscilla had a bullet point list, half of it provided by the team.

  Facts were on her side regardless of the sketchy way things looked at first glance. She had to believe people would see reason.

  The radio played softly as the SUV crept along in the Chicago traffic. Somehow Riley kept right on the other vehicle’s bumper, never once getting separated. It was quite a skill.

  A calm settled over her.

  Whatever happened, things would work out

  Maybe she was being foolish and optimistic, but she’d prefer to live that way. To see good, to have hope.

  A wall of white interrupted her vision. Losing sight of the bumper was jarring and left her blinking.

  “Shit,” Riley yelped.

  The SUV lurched to a stop, tires squealing.

  Priscilla braced her hands on the seats in front of her.

  “Red alert,” Grant bellowed.

  Whatever else he said was drowned out by the squeal of tires and the crunch of the SUV doors. The whole vehicle jerked sideways, the nose of the SUV swinging. Her stomach bounced around inside of her. For a moment it was like she was inside a snow globe. Flashes of being in the plane before losing consciousness came back to her. Items seemed to float in the air for a moment as everything went wrong.

  Then just as fast it sped up, going almost too fast as she caught up to reality.

  Their vehicle screeched to a stop. Her head wasn’t just pounding, it felt as though someone were drilling against her skull.

  People yelled. More things crunched. But she couldn’t seem to focus on any of it.

  Her stomach clenched.

  She was going to be sick. Her skin went hot then cold.

  Her head screamed that this was wrong, things were very wrong, and yet all her focus was on her stomach and the impending violent reaction.

  Someone yelled at her. She lifted her head and looked at the open door and the masked man pointing a gun at her.

  MONDAY. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

  “Where the fuck did they go?” Brenden twisted in his seat to stare at the eighteen wheeler that had narrowly missed crashing into them.

  “Shit!” Nolan slammed on the brakes.

  The SUV skidded then hit something, throwing Brenden forward. If it weren’t for the seatbelt snapping tight, he’d have hit the dash.

  “Mother fucker,” he snarled.

  He knew without looking this wasn’t an accident. Blindly he groped for his weapon, pushing aside the dull ache from the collision.

  Priscilla was back there where he couldn’t see her and he knew she was the target. The one they wanted.

  Brenden ignored the stabbing pain in his neck and lifted his too-heavy head to stare at two gunmen. Unlike the thugs from New Mexico these people were professionals. It was their gear, the weapons, how they held themselves. These were people on their level, and they’d kill Brenden before he could get to Priscilla.

  “Grant? Riley?” Nolan said, his voice coming through the earpiece as well.

  The other end of the comm was a jumble of noise. Crunching. A scream. Someone yelling.
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  “They know she’s not in here,” he said, thinking out loud.

  Which meant that scream? That was Priscilla.

  Would they kill her here on the street? Or would they do something else? Take her somewhere and hide the body?

  “Don’t.” Nolan reached out and grabbed Brenden’s wrist. “You move, you lift that gun and they’ll kill you. Right now everything inside is telling you to shoot, to do whatever it takes to get to her. It’s not wrong, but if you do that, you’ll never get to her.”

  Brenden knew the other man was right.

  “Asset is gone. They’ve taken the asset,” Grant’s hard voice said in the comms.

  Something inside Brenden shriveled up and died.

  Priscilla didn’t deserve this. None of this was fair. And the worst part? He hadn’t been there to protect her.

  “How did they know our route? How did they know we’d be here?” Brenden asked.

  The gunmen in front of their SUV fell back, leaving the pickup they’d used to ram their vehicle, smoke curling out from under its hood.

  “How the fuck did they know?” Brenden snarled.

  They’d decided on a winding route, something with no direct lines, lots of turns. Instead of heading in first thing they’d waited for morning traffic to die down. No one else knew. Except the people at Asclepius.

  “B,” Nolan infused the one letter with warning.

  Brenden didn’t care.

  The gunmen climbed into a van.

  He shoved his door open and jerked the seatbelt off. His knees were wobbly as he climbed out of the SUV.

  They had Priscilla.

  It was stupid, he shouldn’t do it, and yet Brenden threw himself into a run. The van shot backward, nearly crashing into traffic, turned and was gone before he’d made if halfway to the intersection.

  She was gone, and somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was his fault.

  MONDAY. UNKNOWN, CHICAGO, Illinois.

  Priscilla gripped the leg of the bench seat in front of her. Had the van stopped? Or was she out cold?

  The stench of her own breath and clothes was enough to make her eyes water.

  She was awake. Which meant the sudden stillness indicated the van had finally stopped its harrowing journey.

  Where was she? What were they going to do to her?

  Hands grasped her by the ankle. She tightened her grip on the bench.

  “No,” she said weakly.

  More hands took hold of her legs. She kicked out, but there were too many of them and she was too weak. The floorboard and steps leading into the van scraped her back. She had a brief sensation of flying before her tailbone hit concrete and pain shot up her spine making her eyes water.

  She blinked up at three masked men. Another had a phone to his face.

  Her hands and legs were still free. For how long?

  Priscilla’s better sense screamed at her to get up, run, try to escape this place.

  Where the hell was she?

  She glanced around at what looked like an underground garage. There were only a few dozen parking spots. The exit was across the space. She only had one heel. Her other shoe had come off at some point.

  It didn’t matter. She could run barefoot.

  One of the men looming over her turned to say something to the man on the phone. They were speaking Spanish, not English. She couldn’t understand them but it was a detail she filed away for later.

  The man on the phone jabbed his finger in her direction.

  No.

  She pushed up, her legs weak and wobbly. Before she’d found her balance, the men were on her. They wrenched her arms behind her back and secured her wrists together.

  These men didn’t want anything from her. She had no value to them, nothing she could barter for her freedom. They only wanted her dead and out of the way. Before she’d had something to bargain with, herself, her money, her knowledge. But not anymore.

  “No, please,” she said, the words coming from that desperate little girl inside of her.

  Only, this wasn’t a deserted park.

  She sucked in a deep breath and let out a scream, the sound reverberating off the concrete.

  A hand struck her and another wrapped around her face. In that moment her brain woke up. How many times had she talked other women what to do if they were attacked?

  Priscilla bit down on the hand over her mouth. She kicked back. Her hands might be useless, but she wasn’t.

  One of the men cried out, and the hand was jerked away, leaving the salty taste of skin on her tongue. She sucked down air and screamed again, because her life probably depended on these moments.

  A hard object connected with the back of her head. Her body went limp, she pitched forward and everything around her went hazy.

  She could not pass out.

  Hands caught her before she landed on the ground. She hung suspended there, her grasp on reality fading as she was dragged toward a sedan.

  Was this how she was going to die? Right when she’d figured out what she had to live for?

  17.

  MONDAY. ASCLEPIUS HEALTH, Chicago, Illinois.

  Brenden stared daggers at the self-important officer taking his sweet time signing off on returning their gear.

  This was a waste of their fucking time.

  Cops had rolled up several minutes after Priscilla’s abduction. Zain had been able to trace her phone and tracking bracelet to a block away. After that, he couldn’t find anything. The cops had acted on what they’d seen and assumed their team was the problem. After a lengthy back and forth, involving their boss, lawyers and calling their clients at Asclepius, they should be on their way. But here they were, killing more valuable moments.

  The trail was cold.

  Priscilla and her kidnappers were long gone.

  A team like that, who knew what they were doing, should have her whisked away in moments. They’d change vehicles, drivers. Priscilla had vanished right from under his damn nose. And they all knew what was going to happen to her if they didn’t find her.

  “Guys?” Melody came around the busted up SUV, her phone in hand. “Asclepius executives want us to meet with them. They want a brief on the situation in person.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking me.” Brenden dropped his hands to his side.

  “I know.” She held up her hand. “Right now we’re relying on Zain and the tech team to find her. We don’t have anything to do except track down our suspect inside Asclepius. There’s a good chance that person will be there, and if that’s the case, it cuts our suspect pool in half.”

  Brenden understood Melody’s point. Yes, it made sense, but he’d rather be out there turning over stones, searching for some sign of her instead of making nice with the bastard behind it all.

  “Then let’s get this over with.” Brenden turned toward the officer, but the man was gone.

  Nolan stood at Brenden’s back holding his handguns out to him.

  “There’s a car on the way,” Melody said.

  “Great.” Brenden holstered his weapons.

  He’d fucked up. Last night. This morning. It was all screwed around.

  Priscilla could do better than him. Of that he had no doubt, but she’d asked him out. If he was smart, he’d have said yes. Turning her down was a fear response. After twelve hours replaying the moment in his head, he was man enough to tell himself that much. He’d looked at her, offering him a good thing, and he’d panicked.

  Maybe if he’d gone to her in the morning, made this right, he’d have been with her in the SUV. If he was there, could he have done something different? Would he have saved her?

  Two SUVs arrived moments later, and they left the scene to the cops and tow trucks. Unlike their planned path to the Asclepius building this time they took a straight shot. Brenden sat by the window, staring out at the city.

  Was it some sort of cosmic fuck him that he was back here? That Priscilla was stolen out from under his nose here?

  He ha
d to believe that the boss would find her. That they’d get her back. His team hadn’t yet lost an asset. It was a point of pride, but there was always a risk.

  Instead of pulling around to either of the entrances, the SUV pulled into the executive lot under the building. He noted the cameras and security guards as he got out.

  “Mr. Carlson.” Melody stepped forward, addressing a thin man in a blue pinstripe suit standing near the elevator.

  “Ms. Nguyen, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” The man didn’t budge from where he stood. Instead he waited for Melody to come to him to shake his hand.

  Brenden didn’t like him on principal.

  “We wanted to stop in and speak to you before heading back out.” Melody folded her hands over her purse with the broken strap.

  “Oh? About what?” The man blinked at her, his eyes owlishly large behind his glasses.

  “Ms. Yilmaz?” Melody said slowly.

  Brenden had a bad feeling about this.

  “She sounded great on the phone. We had a very informative conversation. Thank you for handling all of this.” Mr. Carlson finally acknowledged the rest of them. “We didn’t want to keep you, but on behalf of the company we wanted to offer a bonus check for all the trouble you’ve had.”

  He produced an envelope and handed it to Melody.

  “She’s still missing,” Brenden said.

  Mr. Carlson blinked at him a few times. He was a frail man, the kind Brenden would typically ignore, except there was something off about this one. Why meet them in the garage? Why was he lying about talking to Priscilla? What was he hiding?

  “Is she? Well that’s news to me. Maybe she’s just recuperating?” Mr. Carlson shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve got to get up to a meeting. You guys travel safe, okay?”

  He turned toward the elevator.

  Brenden clenched his fists when what he wanted to do was grab the man and shake the truth out of him.

  If there were secrets to figure out, Zain would uncover them.

  Brenden pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the boss.

  “Yes?” Zain sounded just as weary as Brenden felt, but they couldn’t stop now.

  “Is there a Carlson on our suspect list?”

  “Yes,” Melody answered before Zain could.