HOT Witness (Hostile Operations Team: Strike Team #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“Wait… You want me to go back to Georgia and pretend the last seven years didn’t happen? Just waltz up to the clubhouse and act like nothing’s changed?”

Jake “Harley” Ryan cocked his head as he stared at the three men. “What makes you think the Brothers will take me back? It’s more likely they’ll kill me on sight.”

As a member of the elite Hostile Operations Team, Jake expected deadly assignments were part of the deal. What he didn’t expect was to be sent on a suicide mission.

There were three men in the room besides him: General John “Viper” Mendez, the badass HOT commander; Colonel Alex “Ghost” Bishop, the quieter but no less lethal deputy commander; and Ian Black, the legendary founder and leader of Black Defense International, a firm with government contracts and operatives stationed around the world.

That a private contractor was here in the HOT command center to confer with leadership didn’t surprise Jake. That a private contractor was here to request his help did.

Ian Black exchanged a look with Mendez. Then he shoved himself off the table he’d been leaning against and reached for a folder. He took out a sheet of paper and handed it to Jake.

“They might kill you, sure,” Ian said. “But I think you’re smart enough not to let that happen. And the general here is smart enough to make sure you get sent home under less than honorable circumstances, so everything looks legit. Play your cards right and they’ll take you back.”

Jake glanced at the paper in his hand, and his gut twisted.

Judge Harold Mason, aged sixty-four, widely believed to be on the short list for a Supreme Court seat, lay in a coma in an Atlanta hospital after a single car crash.

His wife had died. There was a picture of the accident scene. It wasn’t pretty.

“That’s the judge who offered you a choice, right?” Ian asked. “Prison or the military?”

“Yeah.” It was more complicated than that. Judge Mason was responsible for who Jake had become. And who he hadn’t become.

Jake had been young and angry when he’d faced the judge.

Hell, he’d been stupid—but his court-appointed attorney had not.

Jake had barely been eighteen. He’d figured going down with the Brothers of Sin was simply a rite of passage.

He was still a recruit at that point, but he’d have done anything to belong to that group of badasses.

Anything to earn the right to be a full-fledged Brother.

They were the only family he’d had, and he’d wanted to impress them. Be one of them.

His attorney, along with the judge, managed to convince him otherwise. Jake still didn’t know quite how they’d done it, but here he was.

He was something far better than a Brother. He was an elite soldier. The best of the best. A man who could face overwhelming odds and win every time. A man who stared death in the face and fucking laughed at it.

“He’s still in danger,” Ian said quietly.

“Unless we can get Brandon Cox and the Brothers on murder charges for Mrs. Mason and attempted charges for the judge. I can’t begin to tell you how badly I want that.

Judge Mason and his wife were friends of my family’s when I was growing up.

I know what kind of people the Masons are.

” His expression hardened. “I can’t let this stand, and I’d like your help to make it happen. ”

Jake set the paper down, his stomach knotting. “Look, I’d do anything for Judge Mason. He saved my life—but I wasn’t a witness to the crime. How can I do anything to prove the Brothers had a hand in it?”

Black arched a brow. “You can’t. But there’s a woman who can.”

Another piece of paper was thrust into Jake’s hand. A woman’s face stared back at him. She was striking. Familiar in a way, and yet not at all.

She wasn’t smiling. She had a faraway look that spoke of sadness and determination, and he felt like he was being pulled into a maelstrom looking at her.

She was climbing from a car, her pale legs bared as her skirt rode up.

He catalogued long dark hair and blue eyes.

She had a wealth of tattoos, all in shades of black and gray.

They decorated her arms and legs, danced across her collarbone, over her belly where the cropped top exposed the skin. There were even words on her thighs.

It wasn’t ugly, though. On her, it was beautiful. As if she were made to wear ink.

He dragged his gaze from the photo. “Then why aren’t you talking to her? Why ask me to get involved?”

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t throw himself on a grenade for the judge, but he wasn’t quite seeing how this worked yet. Why they needed him. What made them think he had anything to contribute?

Ian sighed. Raked a hand through his hair.

“We’d love to talk to her, but she won’t talk to us.

Her name is Eva Gray. She’s twenty-four, a tattoo artist. She does work for the Brothers.

Hell, she may even be involved with one of them, though we don’t know for sure.

But I can’t get any of my guys close enough without putting her in danger.

You, however, could walk in as a Brother and get what we need. ”

Ian paused, blue eyes growing troubled. “She’s in danger. If my FBI sources are right, she’s the only witness who’s been willing to finger them. We need to get in there and get her out—and then we need to convince her to tell us everything. If she doesn’t, she’ll never be safe again.”

Jake studied the photo. “She doesn’t look worried. She’s probably someone’s old lady. Maybe even Brandon’s. How do you know she’ll talk at all?”

“She called in an anonymous tip to the FBI. She’s willing but she needs some persuasion. Time is running out.”

Fucking hell.

Jake handed the photo back to Ian. He didn’t want to leave HOT for even a minute, but he couldn’t let anyone live at the mercy of Brandon Cox.

Eva Gray had dared to break the code and call in a tip. It might have been anonymous, but clearly the FBI knew who’d done it. And the Brothers had ways of finding out things they shouldn’t know. When they did, they’d eliminate her.

Which meant Jake was the only shot she had. “When do I go in?”