Chapter 5
Tatiana’s eyes held mine before they shifted to Declan.
“The men outside work for a man named, Matek Nazari. They’ve been hired to kill me?—”
“Who is he?” Declan cut her off.
“A trafficker?—”
“Human?” he asked.
“Any minute they’re going to breach the gate,” Tatiana snarled.
“This would go a lot faster if you’d let me finish without interruptions.
He traffics ancient artifacts. I was posing as a competing buyer.
I put in a bid Nazari wasn’t happy with.
He’s been sending his men after me to try and take out the competition.
Things were going as planned until you guys showed up.
I was letting them play their games. Unfortunately for them, now I have to take them out.
I can’t risk them going back to Nazari and reporting I’ve been seen with American soldiers. ”
“You’re agency?” I couldn’t hide my distaste. “Not that any of us were buying the UNPOA cover.”
“I’m…something. Which is not up for discussion. What else do you have in the weapons cache?” She directed her question to Declan.
My team leader eyed her before he turned to Thad, and with a lift of his chin Thad jogged out of the room.
“What do you know about the guys out front?”
“Nothing. The only thing I know is they miss. Before today, they’ve made three attempts, all as sloppy as the current situation. Nazari is a heavy hitter but apparently hires his hits out on the cheap.”
Thad came back in the room with two HK416 rifles. He handed one to Tatiana before passing one to me. Next he pulled fully loaded magazines from the pockets of his cargo pants. Finally, he passed her a Sig P226, identical to the 9mm pistol he’d handed me earlier.
I don’t know what kind of man it made me, but watching her inspect the rifle she’d been given was turning me on.
She fingered the mag release button, ejected it, confirming it was loaded, jammed it back into place, and pulled back on the charging handle.
The sound of the metal slamming, pushing a bullet into the chamber, was some sort of tactical foreplay I’d never experienced.
“Two tangos broke south,” Thad informed us. “They’re moving around back.”
“You two, take the back. Thad, you’re with me out front,” Declan told us, then repeated his instructions into a two-way radio adding, “Max, Kyle, you stay on the second floor.”
Tatiana picked up two of the extra .223 magazines and shoved them in the back pocket of her shorts like some sexy Guns & Ammo calendar girl, further making my lust grow. What the fuck was wrong with me? This was a first, never had I had a hard-on going into a gun fight.
“Ready?” I asked.
With a nod, she followed me down a hallway and out the back door. The waist-high wall surrounding the cement patio was the perfect place to take cover while we waited to see if these assholes could breach the outer perimeter.
“What’s your guess? Do you think they’ll try and come over or blow their way through?” I asked.
Not that it mattered which way they tried to break in, they’d be dead before they were two feet onto the property. The only difference it would make was, where the mess would be left to clean up.
Tatiana looked around the back courtyard before she answered. “They won’t try and breach back here. The second their heads poke over the wall they’ll be popped. No one’s that stupid. And I don’t think they have the explosive charges to blast in.”
Just as she finished her statement, a head came up over the wall. Without giving away our hiding spot, I raised my rifle and pulled the trigger. The man disappeared from sight.
“You were saying?”
“I’m beginning to feel a little cheated. Nazari sent the B-Squad of hitmen to kill me. He didn’t think I was worthy of an experienced team.”
Two quick gunshots came from out front, followed by a rapid fire. Not moving was one of the hardest instincts I had to break the first time I was deployed. The natural need to rush to your team’s back when they were taking fire instead of holding the position you were ordered.
“Desperation to finish a job makes people sloppy,” I told her, still scanning the area for the other man.
Three sharp whistles cut through the now silent morning. “We’re clear.”
“Well, that was no fun,” Tatiana complained.
Her declaration had my dick jerking in my cargos.
Why did I find her thirst for enemy blood so arousing?
She wasn’t the first woman I’d seen with a gun, nor the first in combat.
But there was something different about her.
The first time I’d met Tatiana she was in a skirt and a pair of heels that made me want to fall to my knees and give thanks to whoever had designed the sexy shoes.
Right before I found a flat surface to lie her on to worship every inch of her.
She had been proper and mostly bitchy. A far cry from the woman I’d been stranded in the water with.
But this version of her, the strong, capable gun handler in a pair of shorts and soggy sneakers… off-the-charts-erotic as fuck. All that was missing was her throwing her spunky attitude my way and I’d be a love-sick fool.
With another quick look around, I stood, and Tatiana followed my lead. Once we were back into the safety of the house, I stopped blocking her progression and backed her against the plaster wall. Uncaring there was a fully-automatic weapon between us, I leaned in close.
“Who are you, Doll?”
“No one special.”
“Now that right there is the biggest crock of shit you’ve tried to feed me. Who are you, Tatiana Jones?”
“A ghost. A no one. A loner with no friends, no team, no home address.” Her words were strong but her expression was sad. “No different than you.”
She was incorrect, we weren’t the same. I had my team and I couldn’t imagine them not having my back. It made all the long, hard missions easier. Each of us had given up a part of who we were to continue to serve our country. But my closest friends were always with me.
“The phone’s for you, Tatiana,” Declan said, ending my time alone with her. “Brooks, help us drag the bodies into the courtyard.”
I stepped back allowing her to move around me and take the phone from Dec. It was the wrong time and the wrong place for me to have to adjust my hard-on in an effort to hide it, but there I was with my hand on my crotch.
“I now understand why Zane is always complaining,” Declan grouched as we walked out the front door.
“Why’s that?”
“Trying to keep a team of assholes in line and their dicks in their pants would make anyone grumpy.”
“My dick never left my pants.”
“And it’s a good thing. That woman is not who she says she is.”
“No shit.”
Declan stopped at the gate and turned to face me. “No, Brooks. She’s not who any of us thought she was. She’s not agency.”
“Who is she?”
“You two gonna help before the defense force shows up or stand around and gossip?” Kyle asked as he dragged a body into the courtyard.
Without another word, Declan jogged off, leaving me wondering who the fuck Tatiana Jones really was and who she worked for. I didn’t pull out of my stupor until Kyle passed me on his way back to the street and slapped me on the back.
“Come on, lover boy, we got stiffs to stack.”
It took us less than ten minutes to move the bodies and shut the gate behind us.
Zane had arranged for a clean-up crew to come in and dispose of the men.
No one had IDs or any marks that would help us figure out their identities.
We’d have to wait until our intel specialist back in Maryland ran the fingerprints Declan had scanned and emailed.
The moment we entered the house I knew she was gone.
I didn’t need to see Dec’s cell phone and the HK416 lying on the table to know.
Interestingly enough, she hadn’t left the Sig P226.
For some reason, that made me smile. Sneaky bitch ran off with one of our handguns.
It was all the reason I needed to track her down.
I couldn’t have her stealing company property.
“She left you a note.” Dec handed me a slip of paper.
Brooks,
Thanks for today.
I owe you one.
T.
“Who was she talking to?”
“Don’t know. Her handler if I had to guess. He knew the color and mission code so I let him speak to her.”
Who the fuck was Tatiana and where did she go?