2. Adrian
TWO
Fuck.I came around from the side of the restaurant to find a wall of a man bear-hugging Nataliya to his chest. She was struggling against him, but her movements were weak, and it was easy to see why. He was cutting off her airway, and she was on the verge of passing out—or worse. If his grip was too tight, a crushed trachea could kill her…and maybe that was what he wanted.
I picked up the nearest thing I could lay my hand on—the lid of a garbage can—and brought it down on the guy’s head. It didn’t knock him out, but it startled him enough that he dropped Nataliya to the ground. As he spun and swung out, I blocked him, keeping an ear out for her coughing as she took in a lungful of air. Good, I thought, even as my eyes focused on the man in front of me.
He got his wits about him too quickly for me to have a chance to get to my gun, and he roared as he lunged at me. I feinted to the left, ducking another swing of his massive arm, then grabbed his swinging arm and used the leverage of his moving body to bring him down into my knee.
The man’s nose exploded into a globby, red mess, and he howled in pain. I brought my fist down into his face again, and he collapsed into a heap.
“Pierce!” Nataliya called, terror choking her voice. She was pointing over my shoulder, and I whipped around, freeing my 9mm from the back holster and aiming at the new arrival running our way. I fired, center mass, and the man grunted with the hit but didn’t fall. So he was wearing a vest, then. Damn. He kept coming toward me and fired back at me. It went wide, as I expected—it was a rookie move on his part to even try to aim while running. Nataliya shrieked, scrambling so she was pressed against the diner’s brick exterior. I was glad she was as out of the way as she could be, given the situation.
I fired at the man again. We didn’t have long—someone from the diner would have heard the shots and the screams. The police had probably already been called. This time, I hit him in the leg, and the man crumpled with a scream. I approached him warily, kicking the gun away from his hand and waiting to see if he went for a backup piece. Thankfully, he was more focused on clutching his leg and moaning. I turned my gun to use the handle as a club and knocked him out, glancing over to make sure the first guy was still down.
With the threats taken care of, I turned to check on Nataliya, but she was…gone. Of course she is, idiot, I scolded myself. What did you expect a civilian to do? Honestly, moving to put some distance between herself and a gunfight was probably the smartest thing she could have done. But it didn’t make it any less frustrating to have her vanish after all the months I’d spent trying to track her down. Figuring she must have gone around to the parking lot in front, I followed after her, feet heavy on the concrete.
As soon as I spotted her, I broke into a jog to close the distance between us. I put my hand out to touch her shoulder, to tell her she was safe.
Nataliya immediately drove her elbow backward into my gut, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Ow!” I yelled. “Goddamn it!”
Nataliya looked over her shoulder, ready to hit me again, and her pretty, hazel eyes went wide. “Oh. It’s you.” Despite the tension of the moment, I couldn’t help noticing that she was gorgeous. The kind of beauty that didn’t seem real: delicate with a plush mouth that looked amazingly soft. Quite a contrast to her fierce eyes hard enough to cut through steel. “You shouldn’t grab someone who’s just been attacked like that.”
“I’ll remember for the future,” I said, voice breathier than I would have liked. She’d knocked the wind out of me. “Where are you going?”
She scoffed. “After all that, did you think I would stay?” Her words were harsh, and she winced, pushing a hand through her hair. “Look, thank you for stopping those men, but?—”
“You’re right that we need to go—but I still have questions,” I said. “Come with me. I’ll keep you safe.” I heard a groan behind us, and in the distance, there were sirens. Fuck. “We need to go. Now.”
I could see in her face that she didn’t fully trust me, but I got the sense that she was more scared of the sirens and the thugs than she was of me. Fine with me—I’d take being the lesser of three evils. I pulled her across the street to where I had parked. “Am I under arrest?” she asked as I opened the passenger side door for her.
“Have you committed a crime?” I asked, ushering her into the seat.
She glared at me. “You know I’ve been using a false identity. Surely that’s…” she waved a hand dismissively, “…fraud or something. That’s what you’re holding over my head, right?”
“I’m not here to arrest you. I just need information.”
“And there won’t be a Federal agent banging on my door in a few days?”
“Will you even be at your door in a few days?” I shot back. She frowned but nodded as if conceding the point. We both knew her identity here had been burned. Sticking around wasn’t an option. Not if she wanted to stay alive and keep herself and her son out of a dangerous man’s hands.
I pulled away from the curb just as a police car pulled in. We were able to drive past without getting flagged to stop. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“My motel room.” I felt her stiffen beside me and hid a wince. Yeah, I could have phrased that better. I missed my SEAL team. Where talking wasn’t my strongest suit, I could rely on Nate and Owen to pull me through. “I wrote down what your brother said. I just want you to look at it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s it? Once I’ve done that, I can get my son and leave, and you won’t try to stop us?”
“That’s—”
A car came screaming around the corner, barreling toward us, and I yanked the wheel to one side, lurching the car out of the way. Nataliya yelped—her hands scrambled for the door handle. “What the hell was that?”
The car that nearly bowled into us swung around, and I swore aloud. Apparently, those two thugs at the restaurant hadn’t been alone. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Hayes had a private army at his beck and call. He could send out as many men as it took to get the job done.
Well, he wasn’t getting what he wanted today. Not on my watch.
“Hold on, okay?”
Nataliya braced herself, and I flattened the pedal to the floor, racing through the small-town streets with the other car was hot on our tail. Adrenaline kicked through my veins, and I felt almost…nostalgic. Something about this kind of danger sang in my very blood, reminding me of the best days I had as a SEAL, before it all fell apart.
The other car kept pace with us, nudging us even as I pushed it all the harder. “Please,” Nataliya murmured, mostly to herself, “please, please, please, please.”
We turned down one street after another, but our tail wouldn’t shake loose. “Can you keep the wheel steady?”
“What?!”
“Take the wheel,” I told her. Her hands were shaking as she leaned into the driver’s side and put a hand onto the wheel, but I saw the way she set her shoulders, saw the determination in her eyes. She wasn’t going to let me down. “Just keep it steady,” I said and rolled down my window, grabbing the 9mm I had shoved into the door pocket when we first got in. “You okay?” I asked Nataliya.
She nodded, eyes firmly fixed on the road. “Do what you need to do,” she said. “I’ve got this.” A little zing of desire zipped through my belly. Smart, tough, capable women had always been my kryptonite. Now is not the time, I told myself.
Turning, I leaned out the window, aiming at the tires of the other vehicle, but our car swerved before I could pull the trigger. “Steady, Nataliya,” I barked. “Keep it straight.”
“I’m trying!” she yelled back. “Hurry up. There’s a curve up ahead, and we will end up in the swamp!”
Damnit. I steadied my arm, took a breath, and squeezed down on the trigger. The front tire of the car trying to ram into my bumper exploded, and the car swerved across the median, out of the driver’s control. I turned back and resettled into my seat, my hand sliding over Nataliya’s as I took the wheel back. Her skin was smooth, pleasant to the touch, and even though there was nothing intimate about the way my fingers brushed hers, my heart still skipped a beat.
She jerked her hand away like my touch had burned her. I glanced over at her. “You did good,” I said, quickly pulling myself together.
“Huh?”
“Steering. You did good.”
Her throat clicked as she swallowed. “Thanks,” she said.
If I throw up on the dashboard, how mad will he be?My stomach was steadily trying to climb into my throat. I held it together as long as I could, knowing we needed to put some distance between ourselves and the other car, even if it was disabled, but after another minute of driving, I couldn’t hold back any more. “I think—” My mouth filled with saliva. “Pull over. Now.”
Luckily, Agent Pierce didn’t ask questions. He stopped, and I threw the door open just in time for my breakfast to come back up.
“Here.” I turned back, and he handed me a water bottle.
I nodded my thanks and broke the seal, rinsing my mouth out with the lukewarm water. “Those men…seeing them made me remember…” I shuddered, unable to continue.
“Have you come across them before?”
I took another sip of water and a few deep breaths, trying to force myself to calm down. “Not them, personally, but…I was attacked months ago, in Las Vegas. They broke into my home. Elias and I barely got away.”
He was contemplating something. “Do you know who Ian Hayes is?”
“He owns the Hayes Group, right? The private military.” I’d grown up with groups like that coming into and out of the RoW. Perks of living in a country with an unstable government. The situation was so bad no one wanted to send their “real” soldiers—too much of a risk of troops dying and the public back home getting up in arms—but independent contractors filled the gap, for better or for worse. Mostly for worse.
“I have reason to believe he’s involved in illegal smuggling—arms, antiquities, military secrets, anything he can sell in all the countries where he has units stationed. And I think your brother had something to do with it,” Agent Pierce said. He looked over his shoulder. “Come on. We should get moving again.”
I just nodded, still trying to wrap my brain around what he’d said. I knew Anton worked for someone powerful—Interpol wouldn’t have been interested in him as an informant unless he had dirt on someone high level—but he’d been closed-mouthed about the details, wanting to keep that part of his life far from Elias and me. I don’t want to know, I decided. “Take me back to my car.” I had to get Elias, and we had to get out of here.
Agent Pierce scoffed. “So you can go on the run and make me chase you down again? Not happening.”
“Who’s making you do anything? If you don’t want to chase me, stay here. Or go home. Or go to the moon, for all I care. What you decide to do isn’t my problem.”
“It is my problem when you’re clearly in danger. I can protect you.”
“I don’t need you to do that. Elias and I have been just fine on our own.” Agent Pierce made a loop of the street we had gone down, and from what I could see, he was heading back into the town proper.
He glared at the road ahead of him. “You’ve been surviving, but how sustainable is that? I can help you.”
“I’ve heard that before—from the US Marshal who was my contact when Elias and I first arrived. But then he sold us out,” I said.
His eyebrows shot up. “How do you know he was the source?”
“I overheard him talking to someone…Hayes, maybe…about getting me to the ‘meet up location.’ I don’t know what those men, or you, want with me, but I have learned my son and I are better off on our own.”
“Are you, though?” he pressed. “What about your son’s medical care?”
I froze. “What do you know about that?”
“I know your son has Loorer’s Disease.” Had that information been in our government files? I suppose it must have been. It felt disturbing, though, to have this man, a complete stranger, know personal details about my son.
“I know you’ve been trying to get him into the medical trials for the new treatment,” Pierce continued.
Now that couldn’t have been in his file since the new treatment hadn’t been announced until I was already in the US—and hiding from the US Marshals. How the hell did he know that? How long had he been watching me? Had he intercepted my communications? No, that couldn’t be it. I may not have the training to know if I’m being watched or if someone is tailing me in person, but I damn well know how to cover my tracks online. Computers are my thing. No one could access my emails without me realizing it.
But before I could demand answers, he spoke again.
“I can help with that, but I’ll need help from you first,” Pierce said.
“What happens when I don’t have the answers you’re looking for?” Can I still trust you when there’s nothing I can do for you?
“I think you do.” He dug out his phone, opened a file while keeping an eye on the road, and handed it to me.
“What is—?” My mouth dropped open. “Is this what Anton said that night?”
Pierce nodded. “And judging by your face, you do have the answers I’m looking for.”
I tried to school my expression into something more neutral, but it had been so long since I’d seen one of the hidden messages my brother and I used to share since we were kids and trying to get one over on our mother. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “What do the words of a dying man matter to a federal agency?”
His jaw clenched. “They matter to me. Back then, I was the team leader, and the night your brother died, one of my teammates died too. A kid named Kyle Cuddy,” he said. “We walked into an ambush. And it wasn’t because of bad planning or bad luck. Someone set us up.”
“And you think Ian Hayes is responsible?”
“I do. He also had another teammate of mine killed on US soil, Roger Gentry…but I need evidence to tie him to both.” He gestured to the phone in my hands. “I’m hoping Anton was trying to direct me toward some. The whole point of the ambush was to take him out. Whatever he knew, it had Hayes scared. If there’s any way I could get my hands on that information…it could be the key to taking him down.”
I looked up from the phone and studied him—the clench of his jaw and the hardness of his eyes. This was a man desperate for answers. “Have you considered coming at it from a different angle?” I asked, interested in spite of myself. I’ve always had a thing for puzzles—it was what made me such a good programmer. “For Hayes to set up an ambush, someone must have leaked the mission details. If you find out who did that, you could use that person as a source.”
“I’ve looked into it,” he replied. “But from everything I’ve seen, the mission should have been secure. Outside of my team, only a handful of people even knew it was happening—and when I tried digging into them, it only led to dead ends. Whoever did it must be very good at covering their tracks.”
“Or you’re looking in the wrong place,” I pointed out. “It’s always a mistake to rule people out too quickly. Have you thought about investigating your teammates?”
Anger flared across his face. “No SEAL would sell out another. Not ever.”
“That’s naive of you.” His being offended by the idea didn’t mean it could never happen. “You said yourself they made up most of the list of people who were in the know.”
“Not. Possible,” he insisted, his voice so harsh I decided to let it drop. No point in making him angry arguing over something that was none of my concern anyway. Staring out the window, I saw we weren’t far from the diner, if I cut across the park. I needed to go get my car so I could get my son and get out of town.
“Just let me out here, will you?” I said.
“No,” he replied. “I told you—we’re sticking together from now on.”
My stomach sank. “So I’m your prisoner? Is that it? Do I have any choice about this?”
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. “Nate, where the hell are you when I need you?” He let out a sigh, then pulled over in the Walgreens parking lot, putting the car into park and turning to face me. “No, of course you’re not my prisoner,” he said. “I’m not going to force you to stay with me. But I do think it’s your best option.”
“Because you can keep me safe? But the price of your protection is helping you find evidence against Hayes, right?” I shook my head. “The man has a private army, more money than God, and no scruples at all about killing anyone who gets in his way. If you want to take him on, I can hardly stop you—but I’m not going to help. It’s too dangerous.”
“He’s the one who had your brother killed,” Pierce pointed out. “Don’t you want him to pay for that?”
Hell yes, I wanted him to pay. But I had to be smart about this. There were more important things than what I wanted. “Not if it means putting my son in danger.”
“What if I could help your son?” he argued.
“Help him how?” He’d mentioned something earlier about medical trials for the new Loorer’s treatment, but surely I’d misunderstood. What kind of connection would a Navy-SEAL-turned-FBI-agent have to a clinical trial?
“If you help me, I can introduce you to Dr. Samantha Mayfield.”
“You know Dr. Mayfield?” She was the woman who had pioneered the new treatment—not to mention one of the leading experts on Loorer’s in the world. I’d sell a kidney for the chance to meet her.
“I do. Her boyfriend and I served together—he’s one of my closest friends.”
I stared at him, trying to gauge whether I believed him. If it was a lie, it was a really effective one…but he didn’t seem like he was lying. Saying yes to him still frightened me, but if there was any chance he was telling the truth, then how could I say no?
“If you’re lying to me, I will make it my life’s mission to ruin you, do you understand? My son isn’t to be taken lightly.”
“So, is that a yes?” he asked.
“Yes, Agent Pierce. I’ll work with you.”
“Adrian.”
“Huh?”
“If we’re doing this, call me Adrian.”
“Okay,” I said, already regretting this. “Adrian.”