Easy Target (12 page)

Not that he’d seen nearly as much of “hers” as he wanted. Not by a long shot. He’d love to see more of her . . . everything. But given what he’d just learned, he wondered if he ever would. One of her brother’s supposed best friends had practically raped her. It seemed wrong for Bryan, another of Trey’s friends, to be thinking of screwing her brains out.

Bryan knew this was a different situation. He was different. They were different. She was a grown woman, for one thing.

And if the price for making amends to her for past wrongs was laying his soul bare, he could do it. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. It hurt too damn much. He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him or trying to fix him afterward, either.

“Hey, ‘Hollywood.’ It’s no fair, not sharing after I spilled. Either tell me about your travels to the Middle East or tell me about your nickname.”

Jesus.
Was he really going to have to do this? He’d only talked to the counselor once at the VA, and that was because they’d insisted.

She was looking at him with an expectant gaze. He took a deep breath.

Tap, tap, tap.
The knocking on the door was soft but persistent. He felt a ridiculous sense of relief as he released the breath he’d been holding.

It was Otis, standing on the stairs holding a casserole dish in his hands.

“Tilly had no idea if there was anything in the fridge and figured you two might be hungry. This is our leftover poppy-­seed casserole from last night. It’s all heated up and ready to eat.”

Sassy came to stand beside Bryan and took the dish from the older man’s grasp. Bryan asked him inside, longing to postpone the inevitable conversation to come with Sassy.

“No, thank you,” the older man said. “You two get some rest now, you hear? Tilly said you’ll be wanting to figure out transportation when you wake up. I can take you to the rental car place if you like.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sassy and Bryan simultaneously. Those deep-­seated Southern manners of always agreeing with their elders automatically kicked in, along with a mutual anxiousness to
not
go to a rental agency.

Bryan thanked Otis again and shut the door. “Want some of this?” He glanced at Sassy’s half-­eaten sandwich.

“Yeah. I don’t know when we’ll get the chance later.”

He served up the casserole and gave himself a mighty heaping as well.

Sassy was right. This was a reprieve. They’d better take it while they could.

“Now where were we?” she asked.

Chapter Twelve

W
HERE THE HELL
were they?

The traitor sat in his office and twirled the letter opener as he drank his scotch. Fisher and the woman had been on the train, then after the wreck and explosion they’d vanished. Reports were unclear if they’d died in the crash and explosive aftermath or not. His men at the site reported that their IDs had been found, but no one had actually seen the bodies. And the traitor wouldn’t trust anything that wasn’t “eyes on” verification.

Fisher had proven himself cagey enough earlier in New York. According to all the intel he was receiving, the former Marine had become appropriately paranoid since arriving back from Africa. The AEGIS connection notwithstanding, IDs could be planted. And Bryan Fisher didn’t strike him as a stupid man. So the traitor now had men on the scene checking it out.

How the hell had they lost the woman to begin with?
Sassy Smith and Jennifer Grayson were the only two left who could put this together. He needed them eliminated, yesterday. But first he had to find them.

Fortunately, he had the resources; time just wasn’t one of them. Everything was coming to a head and in danger of unraveling. God, how could this have happened?

After ten years. Had it really been that long?

He’d flown under the radar until that ridiculous bust last year with the DEA and the snafu with Leland Hollis and the accountant Ellis Colton. Still, there had to be a way to stop it from falling apart.

He’d tried a ­couple of times. First with the accountant’s bust, next the explosions at the Rivera compound in Mexico, then at the vet clinic in Antón Lizardo. He’d finally gone to the “nuclear option” with ordering the deaths of Ernesto Vega and Juan Santos. It was a shame Santos was dead, but that had been inevitable. The man knew too much and talked too much. Vega’s death wasn’t such a tragedy, but it had been a foregone conclusion, nonetheless.

The traitor still couldn’t believe how quickly everything had gone to hell in Dallas, Mexico, and even Africa, of all places. The men at AEGIS and their women were like cats with nine lives. But he was the Grim Reaper. No one could survive him.

His men in Kingstree would find Fisher and the woman. And if they weren’t already dead, they would be soon.

Kingstree, South Carolina

S
ASSY SAT AT
the table, looking at Bryan expectantly.

“So where were we? Why did you come back from Afghanistan and boot the Marines? I thought that was your chosen career path. Your Gran sure thought so.”

There was nothing quite like getting right down to it. And he hadn’t missed the censure in her voice. There was so much she didn’t know.

She narrowed her eyes as he stared at her. “Cat got your tongue? Personally, I would have gone for a completely different part of your anatomy.”

He swallowed. God, she was doing it again. The woman really would say anything. She was barely five feet tall, yet she consistently shocked the hell out of him. He studied her across the table a moment, letting himself linger on her slicked-­back hair and oversized robe. She should have looked like a little girl; instead, she looked like an extraordinarily fuckable woman.

But he wasn’t going there, not after what she’d just told him about Bobby Hughes and his buddies. Bryan wasn’t going to be another one of Trey’s friends taking advantage. At this point, he’d already done enough to mess with her head to last a lifetime. Sassy’s brother was one of the only friends Bryan had left after Afghanistan.

Afghanistan.
He really didn’t want to go there, either, particularly with Sassy. He continued to stare, and as he did, she blinked and glanced away. He got the impression his gaze was making her uncomfortable.

Nah.
It couldn’t be.
She was too bold. Was
everything
about the bad-­girl act just a charade on her part? That hardly seemed possible, but it was an interesting idea.

She looked up again, and her eyes snapped with impatience. “So?” she asked.

He steeled himself and took a deep breath.

“I was in Force Recon, a Special Operations group from the Marines that integrated into MARSOC.”

Her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“MARSOC stands for United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. There are lots of acronyms involved, but it’s probably easiest to think of this as Marine Corps Special Operations.”

She nodded her understanding.

“My team was good.” They’d been better than good. His team had been amazing. “We did exactly what the name implies, reconnaissance and intelligence. At the end of our third tour together, we were coming back from a mission that involved investigating heroin smuggling routes used by one of the more fickle Afghan tribal chieftains.”

Bryan’s team had figured out how smugglers were getting the drugs out of the country and had been able to shut down access to a major shipping lane in the Helmand Province. They hadn’t shut down anything permanently, but what they’d done had slowed shipments significantly for several months. Hopefully, it had slowed the flow of money to Al-­Qaeda and Taliban militants as well.

“We were waiting on transport back to base—­talking and making plans for what we were going to do with our time off back home. We’d had a ­couple of CIA consultants and one DEA guy with us on the mission. At our extraction point, me and one of the other guys were asked to ride in the Jeep behind the main truck to make room for everyone.”

Sassy watched him, her gaze never leaving his face. Instead of that making him feel self-­conscious, he found himself wanting to tell her the story. He’d kept it bottled up for so long.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the scene before him—­hear the voices, feel the air, draw in the scent of the crisp morning. Afghanistan had smelled different, a difference he couldn’t ever quite describe in words. The road was dusty, and the gray-­colored grit covered his boots as he walked back to the Jeep with Bear Bennett. Everyone was shipping home the next day for some much-­needed R&R. The men were laughing and talking, giving each other good-­natured shit as they spoke of plans to see their families and friends.

He and Bear climbed into the Jeep, joking about who would ride shotgun while they snapped on their seat belts. The larger truck ahead of them began moving forward. They were following behind, passing a village boy leading a donkey loaded down with God knew what, and the boy gave them this look.

Suddenly Bryan knew that it was all about to go from sugar to shit. But there was no time to react. Even as the thought registered, the explosion was happening. All in the blink of an eye, while the aftermath felt like a slow-­motion nightmare.

One second he was looking at the boy with the donkey, thinking something seemed off. The next, everything disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. The concussion wave turned the Jeep end over end. Bryan came to in a ditch, broken up and still strapped in his seat.

Sassy watched him with unblinking intensity. He hadn’t realized he’d said all that aloud, but he was hyperaware now.

“Everyone on the transport was dead—­my teammates, the DEA and the CIA guys, our Jeep driver. Bear was in the back of the Jeep with a broken ankle and a blown-­out knee. But he was conscious, and he pulled me out of the front seat before the fire spread to our vehicle. I couldn’t walk. Could barely crawl. I would have died if he hadn’t been there.” He looked down at his half-­eaten casserole.

He still couldn’t wrap his head around why he’d survived. The men on that truck had had wives, kids, parents, girlfriends. Bryan had none of that. Not even a dog. His only relative, Gran, had died of congestive heart failure a few weeks before he’d gotten home after the bombing. He still wasn’t over the pain of not being there for her.

So why the fuck had he lived while everyone else but Bear had died?

He didn’t share that cheery thought with Sassy. That wasn’t anything he was ready to share with anyone.

“I ended up with a broken leg and collarbone, a severe concussion, a ruptured spleen, and some fractured ribs. They tacked several weeks on to my upcoming leave.”

Later they’d used the time to investigate Bryan because someone up the chain of command had been convinced his team had been set up.

No shit, Sherlock.

Initially, the powers-­that-­be were convinced that it was Bryan, Bear, or both who’d betrayed the team, the reasoning being that if they were still alive, they must have been at fault. Convinced to the point where they wouldn’t let either man go home, even when Bryan’s grandmother died.

They didn’t arrest him or Bear; they just didn’t release them from the hospital. They were under a sort of house arrest. And they kept them in Germany, despite their being well enough to travel. The unofficial charges had caused Bryan to question everything he thought he knew about the military and what he was doing with his life.

Once both men’s names were cleared, his commanders were “oh so sorry.” They still had no idea where the information leak had come from that had led to the roadside attack. They’d probably never know. But even with the apology from his superiors, it was too late to change Bryan’s feelings about his future with MARSOC.

His trust in the military and that life was completely broken. “I was at the eight-­year mark and due to re-­up. Instead I got out.”

He didn’t add that he hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of going on. Betrayal did that to him. Once he felt trust was broken, recovery was impossible.

Sassy continued to silently watch him. The homemade casserole had cooled, but he had a feeling she no longer had an appetite. He sure as hell didn’t.

What was she thinking?
Was it too much to hope that she’d remain silent? He could handle anything but her sympathy.

His burner phone chirped; the soft, mellow tones of the ringer filled the apartment. He didn’t recognize the number, but he took the chance to avoid hearing how Sassy would respond to his revelations and answered the call. “Hello?”

“Bryan, it’s Nick. I got your number from Leland. Are you in a place where you can talk?”

“Yes.” He glanced at Sassy across the table from him. He covered the phone. “It’s Nick Donovan.”

“Are they okay?” The concern in her eyes was genuine, just as it had been for him.

He stared at her a moment, not registering what she’d asked.
Definitely fuckable.

He mentally kicked himself, but there wasn’t any forgetting that idea. “Are you and Jennifer alright?” he asked.

“We’re back home. I’ve got some information for you, but I don’t want to share it over the phone. Probably best to meet in person.”

Hearing that Nick was concerned about the integrity of their communications did Bryan’s heart good. He no longer felt guilty about not wanting to call Leland after the train derailment. It was an odd sense of relief to know that he wasn’t the only one paranoid as hell at this point.

“Where do you want to do it?” Bryan asked.

“Do you remember the boss’s cabin?”

Bryan knew it. The place was just outside Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Hell and gone from where he was now.

“We could meet there,” said Nick. “You told me I needed a vacation when we were in Skikda.”

Bryan snorted a sad laugh. “Yes, I did. But that cabin is over a thousand miles from here.”

“Where are you?” asked Nick.

Bryan glanced around the room, cognizant of what he didn’t want to say. There was a beat of silence.

“Right. Forget I asked that,” said Nick.

“It could take a ­couple days for us to get there. I don’t have transportation at the moment.”

“Think you could be there by New Year’s Eve?” asked Nick.

Bryan studied Sassy sitting across from him, noted the darkening circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept for more than a ­couple of hours at a time. Hell, neither one of them had since the hotel room in Africa.

Was that three or four days ago? He stared at the stitches on her forehead.
Someone wanted her dead.

“Yeah. We can get there by then, maybe before. Let me figure out a car. Count on two and a half days. I’ll call you when we’re on the road.” Bryan closed the phone.

He had no idea how he was going to do it but having Bear come for them might not work after all. They needed transportation now, not four hours from now. He couldn’t rent anything with his ID and stay hidden for any length of time. Whatever was going on, the ­people after them had very long arms.

He glanced at Sassy again. Those circles under her eyes were deep purple. She had to rest, even if he didn’t. When they got on the road, they could split up the driving. But she wasn’t going to want to sleep until then. He’d bet money on it. She was stubborn that way.

Straightforward would be the best way to talk her into this. But as he recalled,
biddable
had never been a word anyone used to describe Sassy’s personality.

He smiled at the thought and took a breath. “You need to rest.”

“What did Nick want?” She spoke at the same time he did.

“He wants us to meet him.”

“Where?” She stood with her plate and walked it to the sink.

“Oklahoma.”

She stopped in the process of scraping her plate into the disposal. “But that’s—­”

“A really long way from here, yes.”

“That could take days. Trey doesn’t have days.”

Bryan held up his hand. “One problem at a time. First we have to figure out how we are getting out of here, whether we’re going to Oklahoma, Mexico, or back to Africa.”

She stopped on the verge of what appeared to be a full-­fledged rant and nodded. “Okay. So how are we getting a car if you can’t use your ID? You think Otis would let us rent that antique under the cover in his garage?”

Bryan laughed and pushed back from the table. “I think Otis would be more likely to give us his house. He loves that car.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, I suppose it depends on just how persuasive you can be.”

He stood and cleared his own dishes. “Oh, I can be persuasive, alright.”