Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
GRACE
Virginia.
It seemed almost surreal when Legend landed the plane at the private airport in Loudoun County. The distance from here to Alexandria where Am’s law firm was seemed as far as Am herself. After all these months, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of not seeing her again.
We’d never gone this long without talking.
The aching open wound of her absence tore open.
The new damage split the scar tissue that had formed over the intervening time.
While I could never forget her, the struggle to survive both the search and the time after while the guys helped their friends—it had numbed me.
A little.
The jagged swipes tearing down the walls and reconnecting me to those emotions hurt. Like a limb that had gone to sleep, the pins and needles were brutal in their assault.
“Hey,” Bones said and it roused me to the fact the guys had all deplaned and it was just me still in my seat, and Bones crouched next to me. “You good?”
“No,” I admitted. “Not really.” I didn’t have a lot more than that to offer.
While I could have made something up or just faked it until I made it, I didn’t. One thing had become almost second nature over the past few months with all of them, though it was the most true with Bones. Maybe because he aggravated me so much and didn’t retreat even when I snapped back.
They didn’t need me to pretend. I didn’t have to be sunshine or bright. I didn’t have to fake cheer I didn’t feel or be upbeat when all I wanted to do was wallow.
“You still good to do this?” The phrasing of the question was careful, even if his voice was matter-of-fact.
“I will be.” I sucked in a deep breath. Even though he didn’t ask, I added, “It just hit me all over again how long it has been. I’ve been so distracted that—” I hadn’t forgotten. That was the wrong word. Not to mention what a betrayal that would have been.
“That you let it slide to the back of your mind while you focused on what is in front of you.” Bones nodded. “Take a minute, catch your breath, and then we’ll go. Voodoo and Lunchbox are going to recon the firm and Sinclair’s house. Once we have all the data, we’ll work out the insertion.”
I nodded once.
“My turn,” I said, and when he would have risen, he sank back into the crouch. “You still mad that I want to do this?”
“I was never mad.” No matter how flat the statement, he couldn’t fool me.
“Liar.”
One corner of his mouth curved upward. “I don’t like it.
I will never like having you go into danger.
You have scars now, Dollface. Scars you didn’t have before you met us.
” He touched a finger to high on my cheekbone.
There was a small one there, I’d seen it.
From when I’d gotten a cut. Honestly, I barely remembered the injury, much less when I got it.
“They aren’t so bad,” I told him. “If they really bother me, there’s creams and stuff.” Things I probably should have thought about before now, but I hadn’t. Bruises, scars… who cared when Am was out there?
When he cupped my chin, I focused on his gaze. There was just something so compelling when he looked at me like that. It was as though he could stare right into my soul, weigh it, then make a choice based on what he discovered.
“You will be wired when you go in,” he said, his tone utterly uncompromising.
“Okay.”
“You will have a receiver on here,” he continued, curving his hand over my ear before stroking his fingers against the skin.
“Visible or hidden?” Just because he was stroking the soft, vulnerable flesh behind my ear—when the hell did that become an erogenous zone—didn’t mean it was going to be there.
“Flesh-colored ear bud.” He paused, considering me for a beat. “Can you wear your hair down?”
I considered it. When it came to work, Amorette was buttoned-down and professional. “I can make it work.” Containing her sexuality was as much a weapon for Amorette as it was for me to use mine to get my way.
“Good.” His touch on my face remained feather light. “We’ll have eyes and ears on you at all times, if I call abort—you get up, you walk out and you keep going. Do you understand?”
While it wasn’t phrased as an order, it was still very much a command. Previously, my kneejerk reaction would be to balk. But that was before…
“I don’t like it,” I admitted. “But I’ll do it.”
The fact something like real relief shivered through his eyes made the breath back up in my lungs. Bones could be such a hardheaded asshole, but he cared and he was worried. He brushed a kiss to my lips, then another to my forehead. The ghost like touch was barely there before he rose.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said, standing to grab my small backpack that also doubled as a purse at the moment. Bones took it right out of my hands.
“For?” He ducked at the hatch and walked down the two steps before turning to offer me his hand.
“For not suggesting she might be dead, and that all of this won’t net any real answers or even… where she is.” I had to swallow around a hard lump at the end of that. “I know it’s a possibility.” One I hated so damn much. “But…”
“You need hope.” The words were so soft, I wasn’t sure I’d heard them right but his expression matched the soft sentiment. “If I ever truly think that we’re on a fool’s errand, I will tell you. I promise.”
That offered me an odd kind of comfort.
“But until then, we keep looking and we fight.” He handed off my bag to Legend as he rejoined us.
“And maybe we pick up someone to torture along the way. Maybe more than one.” His quicksilver smile helped settle the jumble of debris that had been crushing my heart since reality sank in that we were officially back on the hunt.
“You guys know how to show a girl a good time.” The teasing remark earned me another grin from Legend and a stroke of a hand down my arm from Bones. “Right. No more time for my sulking.” I summoned the smile.
While it was cold here in Virginia and there was snow on the ground, it was nowhere near as cold as it had been back at base.
Didn’t make it that warm, a fact that Voodoo seemed concerned about when he tugged my knit cap lower to cover my ears.
We had two big SUVs waiting, and they were fully loaded with gear.
“Will you guys tell me one day how you have so much stuff everywhere we go?” At this point, I was more curious than anything else. The sun chose that moment to slide out from behind the clouds, even if it was already late in the afternoon.
“Maybe if you’re a very good girl,” Voodoo said with a wink.
“Or a bad girl,” AB countered, then grinned. “We’re not all that picky.”
I snorted in unison with Bones, the sound so exact in echoing our skepticism that the other three stared at us before they began laughing. Goblin barked, tail wagging. He was in the cutest little shoes for the frozen ground and a little body jacket.
Making a mental note to pick him up some clothes the next time I went shopping, I let the guys laugh.
It wasn’t long before we split up. Voodoo and Legend left in one vehicle, while Bones, AB, Goblin, and I took the other.
As usual, Goblin and I had the back seat and he was sprawled with his head in my lap while I gave him good firm scritches under his chin.
The action helped with my jangling nerves. Head back against the seat, I stared out the window though I wasn’t really looking at the white painted landscape as they headed east—well, pretty sure it was east.
“Did you guys figure out why Bones’ tracker didn’t work?” It was a random thought, floating up to the top as I tried to focus on anything else.
“Electrical overload,” AB said, shooting a glance at me over his shoulder. “They also had jamming equipment in that place. Not ideal, but we’ll work out something that isn’t so easily fried.”
“It wasn’t easily fried,” Bones commented. “They used a lot of electricity.”
I grimaced, hating the idea of his torture.
Another mile drifted past and the quaky feeling in my gut grew more intense.
“What made you guys decide to turn mercenary?” Where that question came from, I couldn’t really say.
“I mean, I know you were military. But now you’re not.
You take jobs like getting stolen people home, sourcing intelligence and… ”
What else did they do? Assassinations? Takedowns? What exactly did you call a mercenary’s various tasks? Their “services”?
For some reason that conjured the image of a website where you could scroll through the various job offerings and optional add-ons.
When neither one answered me immediately, I sighed. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. My thoughts are kind of all over the place.”
“I don’t mind answering, Gracie,” AB said, glancing over his shoulder again. “But I don’t think it’s the same reason for each of us and it’s kind of a team thing…”
“So, let’s put a pin in it for now and we’ll sit down to a full team debrief after this is done.” Bones cut a look at me in the rearview mirror. “There’s a lot we should all sit and discuss.”
Like what happened later? Or what was happening now? Or…
Instead of settling my disquiet, the idea of a full team meeting regarding their past, our relationship, and what the potential future held just made it so much worse. A chill seemed to settle deep into my bones and I shivered, despite the warmth of Goblin on my lap and my own jacket.
“Have I ever mentioned how much I struggle with patience?” It came out a grumble, a complaint, and almost but not quite a whine.
“I would never have noticed,” AB said with absolute sincerity. “You are the absolute personification of stoicism.”
Another snort escaped, and a smile broke out of the nervous cage closing in on me. “No one has ever called me stoic before.”
“He’s not calling you stoic now,” Bones said in dry observation. “He’s saying you are the picture of stoicism. Not exactly the same thing.”
“You have a point,” I conceded. “You are far more stoic than I am.”