“I got the CliffNotes version.” The light crease in her forehead deepened as her brows drew together.
“Where’s Owen?”
“He needed to hit something.” She angled her head, a pinch of irritation snapping across her face. “He’s at a boxing gym with a friend.”
“Oh.” Guilt came down on her like a sledgehammer, yet again.
“Listen.” Jessica held a palm in the air. “I’m sorry about Brad and everything you’ve been through, but I can’t have anyone screwing with Owen’s head. Not now. Not ever. Don’t lie to him again.” She tipped her head. “Understood?”
Before Sam could muster an appropriate response, the door clicked open, and Owen came into the room, his gray V-neck drenched in sweat. He didn’t make eye contact with Sam, and she had to wonder if his anger had gone back to nuclear now that the sun had risen.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” he said to Jessica. “Any news?”
“No word, but I’ve started looking into things on my end.” Jessica glanced Sam’s way. “You want me to stay, or—”
“No, you should work. Besides, I’m not ready to face Luke.” He messed up his hair, swiping a hand over the shorter locks as if he’d forgotten his longer hair was gone.
Jessica sidestepped him. “I’ll catch up with you soon.” And she left without another word.
Sam dropped her legs to the side of the bed and stood as steadily as possible once Jessica was gone. “You told her, huh?”
He nodded and leaned against the TV stand. He finally found her eyes as she moved around the bed, only a foot away. “You sleep well?”
“Probably better than you on that couch.” She took a second to observe the tee clinging to his muscled chest, and when she found his eyes, he arched a questioning brow as if she’d been caught cheating on a test.
“I’ve slept on much worse.” He cleared his throat and pushed away from the TV stand. “I’m going to clean up, and then we’ll go get the original photo back. We can’t have this picture floating around out there.”
“It’s Sunday. I’ll have to see if Javier has it at his home or not.”
“Find out where it is. I don’t want to wait.” He brushed against her, and her skin tingled at the sensation of the slight touch, and it was as if he felt something too, because he paused mid-step for the span of a heartbeat before going into the en-suite, closing the door behind him.
She remained still for a moment, listening to the sounds of the water running, and she hated herself for even flashing back to Owen standing in a towel in the hotel room the other day.
Her fingers massaged her forehead as she tried to get a grip. A few seconds later, she forced away her guilty thoughts and grabbed her phone to text Javier.
Midway through typing it, her phone buzzed with an incoming call.
Blocked.
She slowly raised it to her ear. “Hello?”
“We need to talk.” A deep tone touched her ears, as if altered by voice-changing software.
Shivers rushed over her skin, and she turned to check the bathroom door was still shut. “Who is this?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Check your phone—you just got a text.”
She sank onto the chair by the window, her eyes widening as she scrolled through ten images. “Where’d you get these?” Her hand trembled as she brought the phone back to her ear.
The photos had been stored in only one place—her laptop at home.
Her stomach roiled, and she pressed her hand to her abdomen.
“Kill your proposal.” The command had dropped through the line in a rush. “If not, these photos being leaked to the press will only be the beginning of what is to come.”
She blinked a few times. “Screw you.”
“Thought you might say that.”
“Did you send me the photo to my office?” She shook her head. “Was it you? Why?”
Silence met the other side of the line, and she realized he’d already hung up.
Her heart thundered, the beat pulsing up and into her ears.
It took her a minute to pull herself together, and when she did, she hurried to the bathroom. “Owen!”
“Yeah?” he hollered from the shower.
“We need to talk. It’s important.”
“One minute.” The water turned off, and a few seconds later, he opened the door wearing only a towel wrapped around his hips. The water dripped from his face and down his chest.
She backed up farther into the hall until she hit the wall. Breathe, she reminded herself as his smell touched her nose, reminding her of their time on the boat together a few days ago.
She hated that she missed the lie between them—when she had just been Sam, and he had just been Owen, and they hadn’t been two people with baggage that pretty much exceeded airline weight-limit standards.
He propped a hand on the interior of the doorframe and angled his head, his eyes thinning. “What’s wrong?”
Eyes off the happy trail. Focus. “I got a call.”
“And?”
“It was from the delivery guy. Well, I think it was him. He texted me some photos.”
“Why didn’t you get me?”
Her shoulders rolled back. “I was too stunned.”
“What’d he want?” Lines appeared in his brow.
The water kept rolling down the hard planes of his chest and to his abdomen, and there was no way she could talk to him nearly naked. “Could we talk when you’re dressed?”
“Fine.” He cocked his head to the side, his gaze falling upon her chest. “Maybe you could get clothes on, too?”
She looked at her long tee, realizing her nipples pressed hard against the nightshirt.
The coldness of his hard stare sent blustery chills down her back, and then he turned, closing the door behind him.
She fumbled with the hem of her T-shirt as she walked to her overnight bag.
After throwing on a pair of shorts and a V-neck pink tee, she sat in the chair near the window and tapped her phone against her thigh as she waited for him to return.
Owen came into the room shortly after and dropped onto the bed. “You ready to talk?”
“Yeah.” She handed him her phone to show the photos she’d been texted. “He’s threatening to leak these to the press if I don’t withdraw my proposal.”
Owen stood and swiped through the images. “Where’d he get these pictures of you?” His eyes stayed on the screen instead of looking at her.
“They’re my photos. The saved files from my computer at home.”
“Well, they’re mostly of you at clubs and stuff. A few guys in pics, but I don’t see anything incriminating.”
“Not with the event scheduled next week—a couple party pictures might seem like nothing, but it’d taint my reputation, and the work I’m trying to get done.” And my father would lose his mind. “But I can’t give in to him. If I abandon the proposal, I’d have to cancel the event in Russia on Wednesday.” Of course, her dad still needed to land Senator Abrams’s vote for the event to be considered a true success, so there was a chance everything could end up in flames next week anyway.
“What’d you say to him?” He clutched the phone tight in his hand.
She stood. “I told him to go screw himself.”
“Did he mention the other photo he sent to your office?”
“He hung up just as I was asking about it.” The hairs on her arms stood and chills passed over her skin. “It can’t be a coincidence, though, right? But does that mean the picture is fake . . . or does it mean it’s real?”
Chapter Eight
“I didn’t find anything. Sorry.” Jess removed her glasses and pushed away from the desk. “Probably a burner phone, and he’s since tossed it in the Potomac for all we know.”
“You think that picture is somehow connected to the op from ten years ago?” Owen pointed to the photo the deliveryman had given Sam, which he’d turned over to Jess last night after he’d escorted S
am to his hotel room.
“Considering Canton is in the image with your brother and Brad, it sure as hell looks that way, but the location doesn’t jive with the story we were given about how your brother died.”
Yeah, that part was a bit of a mind fuck. “Whoever’s threatening her must have our people, right?”
“We’ll do our best to find out.”
Owen checked the time. “When are we going to call in a manhunt for Handlin? It’s not like him not to answer your calls, right?”
“He’ll get back to me. He always does.”
“Did it ever take him this long?” They needed to confirm the photo was connected to the missing SEALs and the CIA officer. The wait was making his skin itch.
“No, but I’ll try and get ahold of POTUS again if I don’t hear from him by the afternoon. They must be held up in meetings about this.”
He hoped that was all.
“Not sure how someone got that photo, but I’m having a hard time believing it was doctored. Well, unless they altered the background location.”
“And that’s fairly easy, right?”
“It’d take me all of two seconds.” She was a cyber genius, though. “But the quality is damn good if it’s a fake.” She stood and turned on the single-server brewer. “One thing is for certain: Samantha is connected to this now. I’m not sure how we’ll explain this to her.”
“She knows what we do.”
Jess glared at him. “What?”
He almost smiled. “Sorry, I mean she knows about our alias and wants our help.”
“Well, whatever the hell went down on that op ten years ago, it must be pretty bad if POTUS can’t share the operational details with anyone.”
That was his line of thought, too, which made him wonder if the image of his brother in Kiev was real; damned if it didn’t make sense.
Jess added a packet of sugar to her black coffee and turned to face him.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
She waved a dismissive hand. Typical Jess. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Canton was your mentor at the Farm, and he’s missing.” He sent an exaggerated gaze drifting to the left and then slowly drifted his eyes to the right. “It’s just me in here. You don’t have to wear your brave-girl panties, you know.”
She rolled her eyes. “My panties are perfectly fine. Let’s just focus on your girl.”
“She’s not my anything.” And she never could be, even if his body didn’t seem to get the message. Even if his body was betraying him every time she was within arm’s reach. And hell, how could he even have a reaction to her, or to any woman, at a time like this?
“I’m sorry she lied to you, but maybe she was just scared or intimidated.” Her focus switched back to her screen, and she sat at her desk.
His gaze followed the swirl of steam rising from the coffee. “Anyway.”
At the sound of the door opening, he straightened and almost sighed with relief at the reprieve. Then he stiffened at the sight of Luke entering with Liam and Knox.
“Anything from Handlin?” Jess asked once the door was closed.
“No. You?” Luke sat on the edge of the bed, and a band of tension filled the room.
Owen hadn’t talked one-on-one to Luke since the meeting with Handlin yesterday. He didn’t want to be pissed at his best friend, but the fact remained that Luke had known all along that Jason had been DEVGRU, and he’d never said a word. It’d take Owen a little time to shrug off the burn of that truth.
“Any hits on the image of Samantha’s deliveryman?” Luke asked Jessica.
“I’m good, but I’m not a magician. The partial picture of that guy pulled up about five thousand hits at a twenty-five percent match each.” She turned in her chair and looked to Liam and Knox, who now occupied the couch by the window. “Tell me you guys got something helpful from the cameras at her office this morning.”
Liam shook his head. “He couldn’t just waltz into a federal building without ID. He had to have already devised a plan to infiltrate the building and bypass security.”
“That’s not something you come up with overnight,” Jess noted.
“The blackmail photos and threat Samantha got this morning make sense, though,” Knox said. “Hell, even the photo delivered to her office.” His gaze shifted to Owen. “This shit happens all the time. Behind-the-scenes ways to make political change in D.C. But kidnapping two Navy SEALs and a CIA officer to force that change . . . not so much.”
“You ever cross paths with the McCarthys?” Owen couldn’t help but ask, especially since Knox had grown up in the same political spotlight as Sam.
Knox stood, the sudden political talk seeming to make him uneasy; he tucked his hands in his cargo pants pockets. “Nah. I’ve always done my best to avoid D.C. insiders—well, unless they’re the ones writing us the checks.”
Jess was on her feet again. “Even if whoever’s threatening Samantha does have our guys, one question remains: how the hell did they know about Shaw, Robins, and Canton?”
“And what do they want with them? Torture for intel?” Liam’s lips flattened as he laid out his question, allowing the others to gather ideas.
“If Jason and Brad really died in Ukraine instead of Iraq, that means the government lied about everything,” Luke said. “And that’d be one colossal cover-up.”
“It was a Russian nuclear scientist whom Jason and Brad were trying to save in Ramadi,” Jess said.
Owen had memorized every detail about his brother’s op. Well, the details which hadn’t been redacted. Had everything been a lie?
“The scientist died in the explosion, right?” Liam asked.
Owen nodded.
“I’m thinking whatever happened was big enough to push Shaw into retirement, too. According to my research, he filed the paperwork within a few days of the end of that op ten years ago,” Jess said.
“SEALs don’t up and quit at that age unless severely injured,” Knox added.
“Are we all thinking the same thing?” Jess folded her arms.
“Someone other than al-Qaeda killed that scientist, and the U.S. decided to cover it up.” Owen hung his head. “That has to be the connection, right?” He thought about what Sam had told him. “She’s trying to help broker a deal to end border conflict between Ukraine and Russia.”
“What if whoever killed the scientist was from Ukraine?” Knox proposed.
“It’d blow whatever chances Ukraine has at entering NATO.” Owen’s mind raced as he considered what might have gone down ten years ago.
“Christ.” Luke retrieved his phone from his pocket. “We’ve got to get ahold of Handlin and the president.”
“We’ll split up. This guy,” Jess pointed to the partial image of the deliveryman on her screen, “is our best lead right now.”
Owen’s chest tightened. “I’ll go get the original image from Sam’s FBI pal. It looks like this situation needs containment more than we realized.”
“Take Asher with you,” Luke ordered. “Knox and I will hunt down Handlin, and in the meantime, Liam and Jess can head to Samantha’s and sweep her place for bugs.”
“We should have you and Sam take a look at the security CCTV footage around her home and office, too. Maybe we can get a better shot of this deliveryman on camera,” Jess suggested to Owen.
“Should we have eyes on her father?” Knox asked. “I mean, my pops never travels without a shit-ton of security, but what about her old man?”
“He’s in Russia right now, and Sam said her dad is already heavily guarded,” Owen answered.
“Good, because I don’t want to raise any red flags about this, especially without knowing for sure everything is connected.” Luke eyed Owen. “We’re going to keep Samantha safe, though. I promise.”
Owen gave him a quick nod. “Call me as soon as you hear from Handlin.”
He left the room to grab Sam and Asher so they could head to Javier’s place. He froze outside Asher’
s door when he heard Sam laugh, and the sound cut under his skin and created a warmth in his chest that didn’t belong there. At least, not because of her.
Get your shit together. He blinked a couple of times and then knocked.
Asher opened the door with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Great. “Nothing from Handlin yet,” he said in a low voice before entering the room and striding past Asher’s large frame.
He tried to fight the jolt of his pulse at the mere sight of Sam sitting by the window. She caught her thumbnail between her teeth as her eyes found his.
How could he have slept in a bed with her? Kissed her?
She’d been Brad’s fiancée. Brad had been Jason’s best friend.
And now, Owen was the guy who’d seen her naked and shoved his tongue into her mouth on multiple occasions within the span of twenty-four hours.
He knew every little detail of her body; it’d been burned and stored in his memory bank. He wasn’t sure how the hell he’d delete the damn thoughts.
And yet, why the hell was he even thinking about any of that now with everything he’d learned in the last day?
He was in the middle of an op. Well, not technically yet, since POTUS hadn’t cleared them, but still, he shouldn’t have been thinking about Sam. Period.
“Hey.” Sam rose to her feet in her Chucks, which he found irritatingly hot paired with her khaki shorts.
She crossed the room to stand before him. She had on her jasmine perfume today, the one she’d worn on the boat when she couldn’t blame alcohol for letting him kiss her.
He wanted to suck in a deep breath and pretend for a moment that all the bad shit of the world could get sucked into a black hole of oblivion.
She tucked her short hair behind her ears. “Javier texted me; he’s at home.” She grabbed her purse off the dresser and slung the strap over her shoulder, then maneuvered between Owen and Asher toward the door as if anxious to leave.
“Good. Let’s do this.” Owen turned toward the door and waited for both Asher and Sam to be out of sight before he could get his feet to move.
He needed answers. He needed the truth. And he needed to forget about Mexico.
Stealth Ops Series Box Set Page 32
