FOUR
By the time the helicopter touched down at Sierra base, Rome decided the blackout hood was a mistake.
Necessary. But still a mistake.
From the moment he pulled it out and told Stina to put it over her head for security reasons, she argued. In fact, she spent the entire chopper ride informing him exactly what she thought about putting a hood over her head.
Didn’t he know her curls weren’t meant to be confined? That they’d frizz?
When he yanked it over her head anyway, she threatened him in three different tones, two languages and one creative impersonation of a rabid raccoon.
The woman made her feelings known with long fingernails, elbows, knees and one nearly successful attempt to bite his wrist.
Now she sat beside him in a furious silence, her curls sticking wildly out of the bottom of the black hood and her hands clasped in her lap so tight her knuckles were white.
Still, he wasn’t taking it off. Blackout protocol existed for a reason, and Stina wasn’t the only person to hate the hood.
He couldn’t blame her, but he had to follow the rules.
The chopper touched down, and Stina rocked in her seat. “Can I take it off now?” Her voice came out muffled enough that he took the moment as the only peace he’d get until they entered base.
“Not yet.”
She crossed her arms with enough anger that he could feel it simmering off her in waves. “What’s the plan? Death by hood?”
The pilot twisted and shot Rome a grin. He returned it and opened the door. Fresh mountain air swept into the aircraft, and Stina let out a little noise.
“Where are we? The North Pole?”
“I’m going to take your elbow and guide you out.”
She didn’t respond—which made another three whole seconds she wasn’t bitching.
He touched her arm, and she flinched but allowed him to guide her feet to the ground. But when he flattened his hand on her head to help her duck under the propellers, she jerked like one struck her.
“A few steps,” he called to her over the noise.
The entrance to the tunnel connecting the helipad to the base wasn’t far, but Stina tore out of his grip and tried to kick him in the shin. He managed to avoid her foot, and maybe he imagined it, but he swore he could hear the pilot’s bark of laughter over the noise.
She muttered threats and curses. By the time they reached the tunnel entrance, he’d been compared to a kidnapper, a dictator and a zoo employee. In particular, the one who scooped the shit.
Guiding her to the heavy steel door of the tunnel, he brought her to a halt. “Don’t fight me again. We’re going inside.”
“Inside what? A space ship?”
“What is it with you women and alien conspiracies?” Monk told him how Jolie asked him more than once about aliens being hidden in their underground base.
After he led Stina inside, he reached up, hand hovering over the bottom of the hood. Black curls rioted around her neck.
On impulse, he stroked a fingertip over one.
Soft. Silky, even.
She didn’t move.
“I’m taking the hood off.”
“About damn time.”
When he yanked it off her, green-gold eyes fixed straight ahead like she was picturing herself anywhere else.
“Nice place you have here.”
He snorted and took off down the dimly lit tunnel. His fingers didn’t stop tingling from the feel of her hair, and he made a fist to erase it.
He made it five steps before he heard her follow behind him. The minute they popped out into the rear hallway of the base, Jolie was there.
The instant Stina’s gaze locked on Jolie, relief flooded her face so fast, Rome almost looked away.
She pushed past him right into Jolie’s arms. The women hugged hard.
Rome left them to it. When the ladies drew apart, Stina sent him a glare that suggested she was planning his murder.
Jolie followed her gaze. “What did you do to her?” she asked him.
“Nothing.”
Stina issued a strangled sound.
Jolie narrowed her eyes. “That was definitely not a nothing sound.”
“She’s alive. That’s the important part.”
“He put a bag over my head.” Stina smoothed her palms over her curls, and he clenched his fingers into a fist again.
What made him touch her hair?
“It was a hood, and it’s protocol.”
Jolie issued a soothing noise and took Stina by the hand. “The hood is horrible, but it’s over now.”
Rome pointed at Stina. “She needs food, clothes and somewhere to calm down.”
“I do not need to calm down.” She did that hip-cocked-out thing again, and his mind overflowed with images of her in his shirt.
The round curve of her ass.
The shadow between.
Fuck.
Jolie tugged on Stina’s hand. “Come with me. You can tell me everything.”
“Anything to get away from him.”
Rome watched them go, telling himself that he’d completed the mission and now he was rid of the woman. She was safe. That was the only thing that mattered. She could hate him all she wanted.
He scrubbed his fingers over his thigh but still felt the silky softness of her hair branded on his fingerprints.
“I’ll leave you two to reconnect,” he called at their backs.
Stina shot a hand into the air, middle finger up.
Shaking his head, he headed to the war room.
The instant he walked in, seven heads snapped around to look at him. Cannon stood at the head of the table with Younger. Townie and O gathered around the laptop, and Monk, Rivers and Rorke didn’t bother holding back their grins.
Rivers’s gaze dropped to Rome’s forearm. “You’re bleeding.”
Rome glanced down. Four angry scratches raked across his skin, and one had opened enough to leave a thin trail of blood drying near his wrist.
Townie rocked back in his chair. “Tell me the other guy looks worse.”
“It’s from Stina.”
The room went quiet. Then Younger coughed into his fist.
Rorke’s shit-eating grin spread wider. “The waitress did that?”
“She scratched the shit out of me when I was putting on the hood. She did not like the hood. Not even a little bit.” Rome yanked out his usual seat and dropped into it. “Next time, I’ll take a tranquilizer gun.”
Cannon gave him a single nod—the equivalent of a pat on the back in Blackout language—and lifted one hand. The room settled, all attention shifting back to the monitors.
“We have the subjects that tried to take you out in Chicago.”
Rome settled his forearm on the table, ignoring the sting of the scratches. “Both?”
“One driver’s in the hospital. The other one isn’t talking. He asked for a lawyer.”
Two images filled the screen. One showed the sedan that blew through the intersection and T-boned their escort. The other showed the vehicle that pursued them to the Naval base perimeter before being turned away.
“Hospital driver going to live?” Rome’s voice came out gritty. The rage he’d stuffed down surfaced.
Rivers nodded. “From what we’ve been told, yes. Busted ribs, head injury. Possible internal bleeding. He’ll be questioned when he’s stable.”
“And the one who lawyered up?”
Cannon’s expression hardened to match the stiffness of his spine. “Sitting in a holding room pretending silence makes him safe from justice.”
Younger rested both hands on the back of a chair. “If they’re mercs, they’d be trained.”
Mercenaries weren’t new to Sierra. Rome just couldn’t recall a time he was chased by them on a busy city street.
Rome stared at the escort’s crash on the monitor. The impact replayed in his head in sync with the camera footage. The noise of crunching metal projected through the speakers, but only Stina’s scream played in his head.
As the footage continued to roll, he gave Cannon a grim smile. “The drone was a nice touch.”
“I thought so.” He returned the smile but it didn’t touch his eyes. “It distracted the guy on your tail enough for you to get to base, didn’t it?”
He ran a finger over the scratch.
“Is your charge okay?” Cannon asked.
“She’s with Jolie. Probably besmirching my name.”
That earned a chuckle, defusing some of the tension.
Rome let the banter wash around him without joining in. Normally, he’d have some cocky remarks to toss back at his brothers-in-arms, but his mind kept circling the facts.
Sierra might have connections to produce an armed drone at the right time, but someone else not only had eyes on Stina, they meant to kill her guard and the money to coordinate an attack in broad daylight.
Cannon’s phone buzzed.
O lifted a hand. “Incoming from Chicago PD liaison.”
Cannon hit speaker. “What do you got?”
A male voice filtered into the room. “We’ve got an update on the vehicle that took out your escort.”
Rome leaned closer.
“The driver was just cleared by medical. He’s being questioned by my officers and FBI.”
Cannon’s jaw flexed. “And?”
“He says he was hired off Craigslist.”
Rome’s eyes widened, fixed on the phone as if he could see the speaker. “Craigslist?”
“Driver claims it was gig work. Says he was told it was a stunt for a television show. He thought the vehicle would be rigged to move out of the way and nobody would get hurt.”
Rome’s nostrils flared as he sucked in a big pull of air. “Can the payment be tracked?”
“Payment was supposed to come after completion. We’re still watching for it, but I don’t expect it.”
O swore under his breath, and Rorke shook his head. “Dumb fucker gets smashed up and doesn’t even get the money.”
“We’re hoping to track the account tied to the job posting, but whoever set it up used layers. Burner email, prepaid phone—the usual.”
“Send over everything you find,” Cannon ordered.
“Already pushing it through.”
The call disconnected a second later, and for a moment, nobody spoke.
Rome spread his hands flat on the table, his eyes narrowed on the screens. “So the driver who hit the escort thought he was doing a stunt and the other one hasn’t talked yet.”
“Don’t forget the dead agent.” Younger folded his arms and widened his stance, looking every inch the senior operator reminding them not to chase shiny distractions.
Cannon looked at each of them in turn, his stare lingering on Rome the longest. “Nothing is random.”
Right now, all they had were questions. Rome turned his head toward the hallway where Jolie had taken Stina and felt the sting of the scratches the woman had given him.
The woman talked too much.
Argued too much.