Chapter 16 #2
“Ha! You keep telling yourself that, dude, but from where I stand, you’re not only heading down a road, but you’re heading down the right road.
And here I thought you would wallow in sorrow for the rest of your life because the woman you weren’t supposed to spend it with walked out on you.
Did you ever think the reason it happened is making your lunch right now and has a very nice ass? ”
Before Ian could tell Carter to fuck off again, the team’s SUV pulled into the driveway with Brody at the wheel and Jake in the front passenger seat.
The vehicle parked, and when the front doors opened, so did the rear passenger door, and a clean-shaven but tired-looking Athos climbed out of the vehicle.
The two men on the steps stood and approached the trio.
As Carter shook hands with the DEA agent, commenting on his de-whiskered face, Ian eyed his teammates. “How’d everything go?”
“Good,” Brody told him. “No trackers, no worries.”
Ian nodded at the geek, who headed toward the house.
As he reached the top of the porch stairs, Angie burst out the door and ran down the steps toward the car…
toward her best friend and jumped into his waiting arms. Ian’s heart squeezed, and his fists clenched as he watched his woman hug another man as tight as she could.
Grinding his teeth, he forced himself not to beat his chest and yank her out of Athos’ embrace like his inner caveman wanted to do.
Next to him, Carter said in a low, amused voice that no one else could hear, “Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself she’s not the one, Boss-man. Maybe someday you can convince yourself, but I doubt it.”
Ten minutes later, Angie handed a plate with a heaping sandwich on rye bread to Ian and another one to Carter, then got busy making sandwiches for Jimmy and herself.
Jake stood on the opposite side of the kitchen island, throwing together a similar lunch for himself and Brody.
Egghead was upstairs in the den, tracking down some information they needed concerning several agents from the DEA’s Atlanta office, including Agents Jackson and Holstein.
Athos confirmed their identities from the surveillance photos Brody had printed out.
When they were done making the sandwiches, Jake ran Brody’s lunch up to the war-room before joining Angie and the rest of them at the large dining table.
Angie noticed as she sat down that Ian hadn’t touched his sandwich yet.
She smiled to herself when she saw he didn’t pick it up until after he watched her take a bite of her own.
He’d waited until he was sure she would eat as well.
Since she realized he was always putting her welfare before his own, she noticed a lot more of the little things he did and loved how they made her feel.
The man may not be a romantic in the traditional sense, but he was a romantic in his own way.
While they all ate, Athos filled Ian and Carter in with what he’d told the others on the way back to the house.
“Things seemed fine the first two weeks. I used contacts I’d made a few years ago to work my way under.
I got lucky. Met up with a guy who only knew my cover, and he vouched for me.
A local cop on the take ran me for the boss, found my established arrest record, and I was in.
Did some small-time runs right off the bat.
They had a few run-ins with the cops and local gangs recently, so they were down a few guys.
Otherwise, I don’t think I would’ve gotten in so fast. Yesterday morning, I was doing some snooping around and overheard a big shipment was coming in next Monday through the Gulf of Mexico from Colombia’s Diaz cartel—”
“Ah, shit, man,” Carter interrupted, dropping his half-eaten sandwich on his plate. He glanced knowingly at Ian, who was pissed as all hell that the Diaz cartel was involved in this mess. “Emmanuel is behind all this? Damn, when you step in it, you really step in it, A-man.”
Athos dragged a hand down his face in frustration.
“Don’t I know it. Aaron, the agent I replaced, suspected that’s where the trail ended, but I don’t think Diaz was behind the hit on him and his family.
I think it came from lower down the food chain with inside help from the DEA.
” He looked at the government spy. “You know there’s dirt in every agency, and mine has its fair share. ”
“How’d you find out you were blown?” Ian was trying to think past the cartel’s involvement and his fear for Angie.
His SEAL Team Four had been involved in investigating and eventually killing Emmanuel’s brother, Ernesto, several years earlier.
Not only was the cartel involved in drugs, but they also, at the time, had a thriving sex trade and arms trade, which Emmanuel was working hard to reestablish after his brother’s death.
“Same conversation. After I overheard the details, the head honcho of New Orleans’ drug trade, Manny Melendez, got a phone call from someone.
The next thing I knew, he ordered the hit on me and told whoever was on the phone to find out my weaknesses.
I got out of there as fast as I could and called you. ”
Angie sat silently between him and Ian, and he reached over and took her hand. His eyes filled with deep regret. “I’m so sorry, baby. You know I’d never do anything which would result in you getting hurt. I’ve always taken precautions to keep you safe.”
Ian didn’t know who was surprised more, him or Athos, when Angie tore her hand free from her best friend’s grip and stood while glaring at him.
“Really, Jimmy? If that were true, then I wouldn’t have had two crooked DEA agents knocking on my door, wanting to kidnap me and probably kill me.
I wouldn’t be running for my life and the lives of these men,” she gestured around the table, “wouldn’t be in danger because they were protecting me. ”
Athos got up from his seat, and so did Ian, but neither man could get a word in because the woman was on a roll now, yelling and pointing her finger at her friend’s nose.
“I wouldn’t be hiding out up here and worrying you might be dead somewhere.
And don’t think I forgot about you telling them to bug my house and put cameras in.
” She huffed and crossed her arms. “I don’t even know how this whole mess will end.
Am I going to be running for the rest of my life until one of those bastards catches up to me?
Will I ever be able to go home again? Will I—”
“Ang, stop yelling. Calm down and sit down.”
As soon as the growled orders were out of Athos’ mouth, Ian knew things would get worse from the look on Angie’s face.
He was just glad her ire had another target this time.
She snarled at her friend, her hands clenched in rage.
“Don’t tell me what to do, and you don’t get to pull that dominant crap on me because I get more than enough from Ian. ”
She turned on her heel and stormed out the front door while Athos glared at Ian, who returned it to him in spades.
“Is she fucking kidding me? I told you to watch over her and keep her safe, not fuck her and get her involved in your god-damned kink. And yeah, I know all about your fucking sex club, asshole, and you’re not fucking taking her there. ”
While Ian tried to keep himself from punching the guy, the other two men stood from the table and strode toward the door after the very pissed off-woman.
Jake glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll go and keep an eye on Angie.
Just don’t kill each other until after we take care of the main objective, all right? ”
Neither man answered him because it’d been a rhetorical question.
Instead, they stared each other down, and Ian was astounded when Athos broke eye contact first, sighing in frustration and running his fingers through his hair.
“Fuck. Sorry. You can kick my ass later. I have no say about who she dates or what you two do. I just want her to be happy and safe. If you’re the man to do that, then… ”
Athos left the rest of the sentence unsaid, and Ian could see the defeat in his expression. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the dining table where the remnants of everyone’s lunch still sat. He studied the other man for a minute. “Does she know?”
Athos looked at him in confusion. “Does she know… what?”
“That you’re in love with her?”
The question was obviously the last thing Athos expected him to ask.
Mirroring Ian’s stance, he leaned against the back of the couch and stared at something over Ian’s shoulder.
“To love someone the way she deserves, you have to have not only a heart but a soul as well. I lost both of those a long time ago. I’ve been trying to get even for my mother’s and sister’s deaths for so long…
” He shook his head sadly. “I have nothing left to give her, which is why I stay away from her as much as I can, yet still hold on because she’s all I’ve got. ”
He paused and regarded Ian a moment. “So, right back at you, Sawyer. Does she know you’re in love with her? Because I’m not blind either, man.”
Before Ian could respond, although he wasn’t sure what his answer would’ve been, Brody came barreling down the stairs from the den with his laptop in hand. He placed it on the dining table so both men could see the screen. “We’ve got big trouble.”