Chapter 11 #2
“Still with Ana,” he replied. “There’s a change in plans.” A.J. provided Wyatt with a location outside D.C. “Can you meet me there in forty minutes or so? And can you bring my stuff with ya?”
“Don’t tell me you’re planning something stupid,” Wyatt replied.
“Nah, Boss Man. What would give you that idea?” Without thinking, A.J. set a hand to the back of his head, carefully probing the lump there. A little hit on the head shouldn’t have jarred him so much. Two bumps, he reminded himself.
“Anything else you need me to pack for you? Like condoms?” Wyatt asked, and A.J. heard the smirk in his tone.
“Hey,” Natasha snapped over the line at Wyatt’s question.
“I knew it,” A.J. said with a smile. “Finish up. See you in forty.” A.J. ended the call before he had to deal with any protests.
“I’m not sure how I feel about meeting up with your friends on the way out of town,” Ana said, exiting the bathroom with a small blue bag.
“I need my stuff, and they need to know the plan if they’re going to help us.” And this was as non-negotiable as her leaving D.C. alone.
“I said I didn’t need their help. And I meant what I said before. I don’t need yours.” Such a firecracker.
“But you want it.” He tucked his phone in his pocket and crossed the room to be near her, his favorite place to be tonight.
“We both know The Huntsman is probably out there collecting sources like it’s his day job, and hell, that sort of is his job, so it’d be better if we stick together.
Maybe track down who is after your sources.
Find your boss. And then, we’ll clear your name because once you run, there’ll be plenty of people dragging it through the mud. ”
“I can’t believe I’m involving you.” Ana huffed out a breath and tossed the blue bag onto the bed, then flicked her gorgeous red-gold strands to her back as if having her hair down was an inconvenience.
“I only trust you because of Adriana and because of how you performed on the case we worked together last year.”
He brought a palm toward her face, and she flinched, but she didn’t shove his hand away when he thumbed the last few lonely strands of hair behind her ear.
“Nah, it’s more than that, and you know it.
” He’d tried to pull off a teasing tone, but his voice had come out as raspy as a country music legend singing a love song.
“I believe you’re a good person. A good agent.
And I’m a betting man, and right now, I’m betting on you. ”
She caught his wrist in the air between them when he’d started to pull his hand back, and held on to him for a long moment, her expression contemplative.
“I’ll try not to disappoint you.” Ana’s manner was more FBI special agent than the woman who’d finally let her hair down.
In one fast movement, her hand slid from his wrist to settle in his palm, and she stepped back.
A handshake? Or a truce? Whatever it was, he liked having her hand in his.
She was chewing on her bottom lip, and the fingers of her free hand feathered over her mouth.
For one adorable moment, it appeared she was pleasantly startled by his touch when her eyes blinked rapidly, her dark lashes fluttering.
But the moment was quickly over, and she pulled her hand free, then stepped away.
“It’s okay, you know. You can have feelings for me that make no sense,” A.J. said candidly, not kidding around at the moment.
“I don’t have feelings for you,” she stated, her green eyes intently focused on him.
He nodded, eyes thinning. “Mmhm.”
Ana turned and set her attention on the open doorway of her bedroom, then reached up and slid her fingers through the auburn locks that fell in soft waves just past her shoulders. “I should probably dye my hair.”
“No,” he quickly sputtered, unable to stop himself. He loved her red hair. It reminded him of home, when the sunrise threw streaks of color into the sky as daylight unfurled itself.
Daylight. Ugh, the ledger. The real numero uno objective. He’d never think of daylight the same.
Ana turned to face him and fingered the collar of her black shirt, a slight touch of sweat on her chest from the heat wave D.C. was experiencing. She must’ve tossed her hoodie when she returned home.
Her eyes moved over his body, taking him in, and he grinned like he’d won his first rodeo.
“You have a lust problem, not a distraction problem,” he teased before she had a chance to defend her gawking.
“Same thing,” Ana murmured. A.J. couldn’t help smiling when her eyes widened a fraction, obviously realizing what she’d just unwittingly confirmed.
He leaned in closer and playfully waggled his brows. “So, you admit it, then?”
A flick of the back of her hand toward the door was all he got. But he’d take it.
“Let’s get you out of here and to someplace safe.”
“I’m still not so sure the words ‘you’ and ‘safe’ are synonymous.” Ana’s voice was soft. Nervous now. She needed to panic-clean, didn’t she? She was worried he was going to wear her down—make her fall for him.
And would that be such a bad thing?
“This is going to end badly.” Harper stood next to Roman and Wyatt in front of her Chevy Suburban rental.
“We were brought to D.C. to find the leak and maybe that ledger, and now you’re running off with a suspect?
” Harper folded her arms, eyes pinned in the direction of A.J.
’s SUV, where Ana sat behind the steering wheel, windows closed.
A.J. glanced back her way, confirming she was still in the car as he’d requested, then focused on his teammates. “I know this is crazy, but she’s on the brink of becoming the fall guy the way Aaron was last year. At least, she thinks so.”
Aaron Todd had gone through BUD/S with A.J., and A.J. couldn’t help but go to bat for him when he’d been maliciously set up as the man who attempted to assassinate Isaiah Bennett. A.J. had never been great at standing by when a friend was in trouble.
“I don’t think she trusts her team, which is why she’s intent on going to Atlanta without their knowledge,” A.J. added.
“And aside from Porter going missing in Atlanta, she won’t tell you her reasoning as to why she needs to be there on Friday?” Too many unknown variables made Roman uptight.
“No, but I think she knows something about where Porter may be. She doesn’t act like a woman whose boss just died. Maybe she thinks he’s alive,” A.J. pointed out, and Wyatt’s brows dipped inward.
“And you don’t think it’s because she—”
“Don’t say it,” A.J. cut off Wyatt. He didn’t need Echo One suggesting Ana was behind Porter’s disappearance because she was some cold-hearted killer or traitor.
“Someone on Ana’s task force must be behind the missing sources.
Or the Volkovs. Or the supposed owner of the mysterious ledger.
But not her.” A.J. tucked his hands into his pockets, uncomfortable with his lack of information and having to rely on his gut to justify to his friends his decisions.
Wyatt stepped forward and set a hand to A.J.’s shoulder. “I know you’ve been thinking about this woman for quite some time, but we have to look at the facts. We were brought in by POTUS to protect national security.”
“Not to run away with one of the suspects,” Harper chimed in, and Roman nodded in agreement.
It was one against three. And he knew they didn’t bring Chris or Finn with them to this face-off because Echo Three and Five would probably side with their hearts, like A.J.
“Luke and Knox will be in D.C. tomorrow. They wrapped up their assignment, and they’ll be providing an assist,” Harper announced the news. “Jessica is back behind her keyboard in New York to help, too. She’s going to try and confirm it’s The Huntsman who kidnapped the sources.”
“Sounds like you’re good, then. Won’t need me here.” A.J. pulled his hands from his pockets and fidgeted with the brim of his ball cap.
“A.J.” He knew that tone from Harper. She was going to try and talk him off a cliff of crazy.
And maybe it was crazy he was blindly trusting Ana, but he knew she wasn’t a traitor. And if he had to prove it to his best friends, that was exactly what he’d do.
“Listen.” A.J. stepped closer to them, hating what he was about to say, but he needed to convince his team to let him go.
“You want me to find out the truth, this is the best way. Let me get her safe and near wherever it is she wants to be. I’ll gain her trust. We’re working in the dark now.
Once we get real insight into what’s going on from her, and believe me, she knows a lot more than us, it’ll expedite our assignment.
But her in an FBI holding cell won’t do us any damn good, and you know it. ”
Wyatt removed his hand from A.J.’s shoulder and exchanged a quick look with Harper.
“We need to know what the Feds neglected to include in the files we were provided,” A.J. added. “And find out what Ana was after in Porter’s house.”
“Then we’ll go, too,” Roman firmly stated. “You can’t be twelve hours away from us without any backup if needed. We can stay in Birmingham instead of Atlanta to prevent being noticed, which will also put us closer to your immediate location. Just don’t tell her we’ll be nearby.”
“No more solo ops, remember?” Wyatt’s words had A.J.’s eyes shutting, a memory tugging at his mind.
“Never again. Understood?” Luke had once eyed the guys on the teams, stabbing a finger in the air, emotion choking his words. “No more solo ops. No more falling in love. No weddings. No babies. No more fucking heartbreak. Got it?”
“Marcus should never have gone in alone. We shouldn’t have followed orders,” A.J. had responded and lowered his hat to his chest, his eyes on the ground beneath his boots.
“A.J.?”
A.J.’s eyes flicked open at the sound of Harper’s voice. “Yeah, well, this isn’t an op. It’s just me keeping an eye on someone while we all work to piece this case together.” To see where the hell she needs to be in three days.
“I don’t know if we can get approval for any of this.” Harper faced the SUV and set her palms to it.
“Natasha can,” Wyatt said after the longest few seconds of A.J.’s life. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Thank you.” A.J. stepped forward, grabbed Wyatt’s hand, and leaned in to slap his back twice. “I should get on the road now.” They were going to drive to Roanoke and finish the drive in the morning.
“We’ll head back to the city, put together a plan, then some of us will go to Birmingham,” Wyatt said, his tone low.
“Look at it this way, the sooner we wrap this up, the sooner you can get back to focusing on your wedding.” A.J. smiled, but Wyatt’s lips didn’t budge. He was worried. About a lot, probably.
“Speaking of weddings,” Wyatt said, his tone grim. “Brian didn’t cheat. Gwen pulled the surveillance footage from Vegas.”
A.J.’s stomach tightened at the news. Why did he feel so disappointed?
He should’ve been happy Brian hadn’t done anything to break his sister’s heart, but he still didn’t like Perfect Brian, and he truly believed Ella was going to get hurt down the road.
“Okay.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. “Thanks.”
“We’ll check in once we get back to the safe house in D.C. Probably wait until tomorrow to head to Alabama,” Harper said. “Well, if some of us get the green light to go, that is.”
“Thank you.” A.J. looked at the bag on the ground by Wyatt’s boots. “Everything in there?”
“Can’t go back to Alabama without your cowboy hat and boots.” A smile crossed Wyatt’s lips. “Gotta blend in and all.”
“To think you just left home and now you’re going back.” Roman lifted the bag and handed it off to him.
“Keep your head down. Stay out of trouble,” Wyatt commanded, and A.J. saluted them with his free hand and started for the SUV.
“You’re not driving?” Wyatt called out in surprise.
“She doesn’t trust me,” he shot back.
“No idea why,” Wyatt replied.
“Hey,” Roman called out.
A.J. stopped just shy of the vehicle to find Roman coming up behind him. “Yeah?”
Roman’s dark eyes studied him. “Watch your back, okay?” He kept his voice low so as not to be heard by Ana inside the SUV. “Every once in a while, you make a bad bet.”
A.J. nodded. “This won’t be one of those times, brother.”
“And you don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Roman reminded him.
“So, then you know everything is good,” A.J. answered, doing his best to ignore the sense of foreboding gnawing in his chest.