Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) (2 page)

“
The hell you are.” No fear wasn’t just a motto. “Pack that shit up. Concentrate on the situation. Where are Maggie and the baby?”

“
They’re my life. You know that?”

“
I do. So let’s end this so you can get back to living.”

Sniffling sounded from a corner and Ryder was closer to triangulating Madigan’s position. He could take him in the murky light, but Madigan’s eyes were already acclimated to the black void. He’d have the upper hand. Darkness was Ryder’s friend, helped him focus, but today, night vision didn’t give him the advantage. Ryder reached to the wall and patted until he hit a switch. He flipped the light.

“
Fuck.” Madigan shielded his eyes with one hand while the other aimed a gun at Ryder.

Where the hell was Ryder’s backup? Rose was supposed to take Madigan from behind, but Mad Dog’s back was now against a wall. Madigan backed himself into a corner looking every bit like his call sign: Mad Dog. A halo of red hair capped a tall, lean body smeared with war paint. The wild expression on his face surpassed insane. Blood covered Madigan’s hands and bare chest as if he’d painted himself in some twisted ritual. His eyes were dilated.

“
You on drugs?” Maybe drugs explained the panic that shouldn’t be there. And the lost time.

“
No.” Madigan scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “At least I don’t think so.”

“
What does that mean, Mad Dog? You know better than to experiment with that shit.” With everything they had had pumped into their systems, even alcohol was a gamble.

“
I didn’t, not on purpose, Ryder, I swear, but I woke up with the worst fucking headache. Disoriented.”

They’d all experienced those symptoms at least once. Shit. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“
I went into town to get pizza. Maggie didn’t feel good and the baby was fussy. I thought—” He pounded his forehead with the hand holding the gun. “Why the fuck can’t I remember?”

“
What time was that?”

“
Lunch.”

Hours ago. “Your truck’s out front. Do you remember pulling into the drive?”

“
Yeah.” He pounded the back of his skull into the wall. “Maggie screamed. That’s what I remember. She screamed. I bolted. God, I can’t believe— I wouldn’t, but I had to, it’s only me in the house. And I’m covered in it.” His voice rose. “They’re my life.”

“
Calm down.” Something was seriously fucking wrong, because the soldier stank with fear. Ryder took two measured steps closer.

“
Stay back.” Madigan lifted a handgun and aimed at center mass. “Don’t take another step.”

Ryder paused. “I’m not afraid of dying.”

“
Neither am I.”

Wasn’t that the problem?

Keep him talking
. “Did Maggie leave you?”

“
I wish.” Panic lifted his voice. “Not the way you mean. I don’t remember, but it had to be me.” An unfocused haze covered his eyes in a thin white film. “I’m the only one here, and there’s so much fucking blood.”

“
You’re not making any sense.” Two steps closer. “Sitrep,” he barked, demanding a situation report from the soldier.

The order snapped Madigan’s shoulders to attention. “They’re dead.” He twisted his bloody hand in front of his hazy eyes as if the five fingers held the answers. “They’re my life.”

Seconds later, something in his eyes went hard. Determination replaced the haze, causing a shift in the soldier’s stance. All the training and the mood-altering modifications clicked into place until Mad Dog metamorphosed into a warrior.

Madigan knew how to kill and he’d finally settled on a target.

“
No,” Ryder ordered.

“
The pain ends. Right now.” Madigan turned the gun to his head. “No fear.”

Ryder launched across the space, but he wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet. Blood spatter hit him before exposing the ruined skull of a man Ryder considered a brother. Mad Dog was a soldier, a protector, and a killer. Where did one start and the others begin?

Rose barreled down the stairs at the sound of gunfire. “What the fuck?” He took in the sight of the fallen soldier. They’d seen death. They’d lost teammates, but they’d never lost one like this. Train a man to kill, take away the fear, and suicide was too damned easy.

“
Wife and kid are dead,” Rose confirmed. “Bloody fucking sacrifice. Just like Kandahar.”

One of the special teams had turned sadistic in Kandahar and taken out a local village. Bad press didn’t begin to cover the fallout. The organization reacted swiftly, shutting down the program and denying any and all knowledge. Contracts were severed. Their service records heavily redacted. Overnight, the entire team was out. Out of the military, out of the war, out of the only life they knew. Team Fear took the fall.

Nothing about Mad Dog’s situation could leak. Fallout from a failed government program on U.S. soil would be catastrophic. If the company investigated, retribution would be swift and fatal.

“
Shit, Ry—”

“
I know. Get out,” he ordered. The cops didn’t need to know Rose had been in the house. “Rendezvous at zero three hundred hours. If I’m not there, you go underground.”

Rose vanished up the stairs. Outside, some idiot on a bullhorn issued threats he couldn’t hear inside the macabre house of hell.

Ryder leaned against the wall, and then slid down as the world shifted under his feet. Was this what it meant to be fearless?

CHAPTER ONE

Present Day

“
Mister, you lay a hand on me again, I’ll break your wrist.”

The soulless son of a Yank taking possession of the townhouse slowly removed his hand from Lauren’s lower back. “No need to lose your temper. I’m not the reason you’re losing your house.”

Lauren removed the last key from her keychain. Someone had forced the foreclosure through the system way too fast. If she had any money left, she’d bet it all on the realtor. “My lawyer is going to eat you alive.”

Tall and thin, Smythe had to be close to sixty with thinning gray hair and cowboy boots that were polished. “You don’t need a lawyer, darlin’. There are ways to make your problems disappear.”

“
I just bet.” Smythe’s fake Southern drawl scratched against her last nerve. She fisted her fingers around the key.

“
What you need is a man to protect you.”

Been there, done that, didn’t want the t-shirt. Impulsively, she had married Ryder before his last deployment eighteen months ago. He’d wanted her to have insurance, to be covered in case something happened to him. Being taken care of was a foreign concept, but he’d worn her down with talk of being a team. Team Ryder. His twelve-month deployment ended early, and the first four months he’d been back, things had seemed picket-fence perfect. They had bought the townhouse and started painting and fixing and making a home. She cleared the knot in her throat. She knew better than to expect forever.

“
I could set you up in a nicer condominium in a better part of town. Real nice.”

“
I like this side of town.” It was close to work and close to the university. Had been close to the army post when proximity had been important.

“
You could do better.” Smythe finished the final walk-through paperwork, the scratch of the pen reverberating in the empty townhouse. The light dimmed as a cloud covered the sun outside.

In the gloomy kitchen, the walls closed in on Lauren, increasing her breath rate and pulse until she nearly hyperventilated three steps from the back door. She needed out, away from Smythe and the house that was no longer hers. She loosened her grip on the key and tossed it on the countertop where it jangled against the tiles. The ding sounded like the closing bell at the end of a fight, but she didn’t know what happened when the fight ended, when the crowd left and it was just you, bloody and bruised in an empty locker room. The foreclosure broke what was left of her heart.

Smythe finished the last box on the checklist and handed her a pen. She signed and dated. He glanced at the uneven paint line between contractor white and soft beige. “They’ll have to repaint.”

Every day for the past six months that unfinished paint job taunted her, a sore blister that time rubbed raw. She and Ryder had never finished. They’d only been in the house for a few months before— “That’s not my problem.”

“
I could probably get this place for a song,” Smythe bragged. “Set you up right.”

Lauren tossed the pen on the counter next to the key. The realtor was the lowest piece of dung on the dung heap. “You offering to be my sugar daddy?”

“
If you were nicer, I might let you keep the place another month. See where it goes from there.”

“
Does that ever work?” Not a chance in hell it would work on her. She’d starve before prostituting herself to the dirty old buzzard.

“
You’d be surprised. A woman like you needs a man.”

Lauren made a line for the front door. Regret followed her through the now empty living room. It had been a hopeful place once. “I have a man.”

Liar
.

“
We both know your husband isn’t coming back.” He boxed her against the door, letting a certain part of his anatomy rub her hip.

Fire licked up her spine. “You know what, I’ve changed my mind.”

“
Yeah.” His breath brushed her hair and surrounded her with the smell of cigarettes and peppermint.

“
I’m not going to break your wrist.” She shoved him off and followed by ramming the heel of her hand into his weathered face. “I’m going to break your nose.”

Blood gushed and he backed away. “Stupid, bitch.”

Lauren jerked open the door before he could retaliate. She had surprise on her side, but the man was taller and meaner. “Come near me again, you lowlife son of a carpetbagger, and I’ll pull out my granddaddy’s castration knife.” She ran the path alone and jumped into her granddaddy’s Ford. Resting her head on the steering wheel, she fought tears. Every good memory of her marriage was in that house. Every bad memory too.

CHAPTER TWO

Lauren wanted a hot bath, a glass of wine, and the promise of a good night’s sleep. What she got was country music, a loud dance floor, thirsty patrons, and the promise of six hours wearing cowboy boots and a smile as plastic the beer mugs she carried. Soldiers filled the rustic booth to overflowing. Sunday night and they were ready to party.

“
What can I get you, gentlemen?”

They responded to her synthetic smile with good-natured grins that spoke of youth and a serious lack of problems. They ordered beer and shots—tequila, God help ‘em. “No problem. As soon as I see some ID.” She smiled and winked to soothe the sting.

“
It’s Baby Face, isn’t it?” The soldier closest to her asked, pointing to the guy in the corner with whisker-free cheeks. “We get carded every time he’s with us.”

“
It’s all y’all,” she joked, laying her palm flat for his ID. “Pony up, boys, if you want to drink.”

They were loud, but respectful, and barely legal to drink. They looked like babies. Nothing like—

Nope. She cut that thought right out of her head. At the bar, she steered past Wade, the cowboy with more hands than a dude ranch, and hit the other end with a seriously bad attitude. “Remind me why I do this?”

The bartender’s lips lifted, showing pretty white teeth and a sarcastic smile. “Because you like to eat.”

“
It’s a reason.” The boss was gone for the night, so Lauren leaned her backside against an empty barstool.

“
Not a good one.” Debi chuckled as she filled Lauren’s order. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you all week. Finish your story before we get busy. Did you break his nose?”

“
The hit landed solid, but I was shaking harder than a heifer in an ice storm.” Truth be told, the only thing keeping her rubbery legs from giving out was pure spite. A minute and a block later, and she’d had to pull over as a panic attack turned her vision hazy.

“
He got off lightly.” Debi raised her voice over the blaring country music. She pulled two draft beers and set them on Lauren’s tray.

“
You’re absolutely right. Guys like Smythe are the reason I’m swearing off men.”

“
I thought your husband was the reason.”

“
Him too.”

“
Ryder would have killed Smythe.” Debi added two bottled beers and four shots to the tray. “Speaking of—”

“
Don’t say his name again.” She hadn’t let herself think or say his name in months.

“
Okay, if that’s how you want to be.” Debi gestured with her head, the move subtle. “Because he who shall not be named is standing there large as life.”