Chapter 14 #2
“He sure as hell didn’t fly commercial.” Jessica’s face tightened, and she edged closer to Asher, ready to spar with him. “Not on my watch.”
“I just thought you were better than that. I mean, you claim to have created the best tracking program in the world. How could you miss Malik leaving the U.S.—even if he flew private?” Asher rose, casually tucking his hands in his jeans pockets, and stood before Jessica with a mocking grin.
Liam’s lips twitched as his gaze snapped back and forth between Asher and Jessica, as if anxious for Luke’s sister to sharpen her nails and defend her cyber skills.
“Do I need to stand between you two like always?” His Australian accent, still thick, cut even deeper into his tone, and he winked at Eva as if saying welcome to the club.
Jessica dragged her gaze up Asher’s tall frame. “Blow me.”
Asher cocked his head, his teasing smile deepening, his brown eyes dropping to hers.
Before he made a remark that’d push both Luke and Jessica over the edge, Luke stepped up alongside the two and pressed a hand to Asher’s chest. “Focus, man.” He looked over at his sister. “Keep your head in the game. We don’t have time for your usual bickering.”
“Um, can I say something?” Eva raised her hand, and the room grew silent as they all faced her once again.
Luke dropped his hand and crossed the room to her, sorrow thickening in his throat as he thought about Eva in this situation.
“Malik wanted you to know he’s here, right? Maybe he wants to make a deal?” she asked.
“A deal? Sure, darlin’,” Liam said. “His brother tried that and got his face blown off.” He stood next to Luke now. “Malik’s offered himself as bait, and he’s hoping we’ll come after him.”
“And he’ll be prepared,” Asher added from behind.
“Let me be bait,” Eva announced to the room.
“Hell no,” Luke said before anyone had a chance to entertain the idea. “I’m not putting your life on the line like that.”
He reached for her forearm, but she retracted it and sidestepped him. “Jessica?”
Oh, she was going to try and go around him? Not gonna fly.
“Luke is sufficient bait,” Jessica said, and his heart slowed a bit, thankful his sister was on his side.
Eva removed her jacket and held it tight in her arms. She faced Luke again, her eyes pleading. “Malik thinks I know half the code. He’ll torture Luke to get the five digits, and then he’ll kill him and come after me for the other five.”
Luke’s arms fell at his sides, surprise cracking through his body like a whip. “What do you think he’d do to you?” he asked, his voice deep as he tried to control the slow boil of anger about to erupt at the thought of something happening to her.
He stepped so close to her she had to lift her chin to find his eyes.
And at that moment, it was as if the rest of the room had faded away, and he and Eva were alone.
Her brows lifted slightly and her eyes widened a fraction as if luxuriating in the warmth of his intense stare.
Or maybe he’d officially lost his damn mind.
“We won’t let him take her, but if you two could lure him out of the hotel and somewhere a little less public so we could grab and bag him, that’d be ideal,” Owen suggested, interrupting the thick tension between him and Eva.
He shifted his focus to Owen and arched his shoulders back. “She’s not part of it. I’ll get him to come.”
“Can I ask an obvious question?” Eva asked.
“Yeah?” Owen spoke when Luke couldn’t do anything other than gape at this fiercely strong woman.
Jessica and the team observed Eva as if she held all of the answers.
As if she were this bright, shining light.
She drew everyone to her, and he couldn’t blame them.
He’d been the cliché moth to the flame in her presence the moment she resisted Ender’s men to strip, standing her ground against eight armed terrorists.
She probably even won him over before that, when she’d pointed a hunting rifle at him.
“What is it?” Jessica asked.
Eva took a sobering breath and offered some distance between her and Luke by stepping back a couple of feet. “If you’re able to get both codes, how will you get Malik to tell you where the safe is? Torture?”
“We don’t torture people. Not waterboarding, at least. We have a couple of moral rules we follow,” Owen answered and scratched at his throat as he looked to Luke.
“You’re okay with murder, but you draw the line at torture?” Eva crossed her arms and scrutinized the room of military personnel as if they were students and she was about to lecture them.
The woman had balls.
And God, did she turn him on.
“There’s no guarantee Malik will give us the code or the safe, but we can at least prevent anyone else from getting it,” Jessica said when Luke still couldn’t get his lips to part and speak, too taken aback by Eva to say anything.
“But it’d be better to get the safe so you can stop more terrorists.” Eva edged farther into the room, approaching his teammates. She straightened her shoulders, and any hint of shy red had fled from her skin. She stood in total confidence.
Was she born for this life, and she just didn’t know it?
“Of course,” Jessica said.
Luke lifted his arm, pressing his palm to the wall. “You think we should give him the code and follow him to the safe,” he said, not as a question, more as a statement in line with his own desires.
“We’d love to do that, but orders from above have said no.” Jessica looked over at Asher who stood behind her, and he narrowed his gaze her way, a hardness to his eyes. He’d been a major proponent of that idea from the get-go and had said, Fuck what Will wants.
Asher sent a mock salute to Jessica as if to say Even a civilian knows what to do . . . so, why aren’t we doing it?
“She’s right.” Luke let out a pent-up breath and dropped his hand from the wall. “But without the all clear from Will, we can’t do it.”
Jessica’s face was pinched tight in defeat as she eyed Luke now. “Can Luke and I have the room?”
Luke nodded in agreement. “Knox, take Eva to the neighboring suite. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
“Will do.” Knox motioned Eva to the door.
Luke found his sister’s eyes and snapped a litany of angry sentences in German—knowing they were about to do battle over this hot-button issue, and he was too anxious to wait until the room had been cleared to start the conversation.
Jessica inched closer and waved her hands in the air, yelling back at him in the same tongue.
“They do this all the time. You’ll get used to it,” Luke heard Knox say.
Jessica stopped talking and looked at Knox in the open doorway. “Wait, take her to my room, instead.” She tucked a hand in her pocket and then tossed Knox a key. “She can stay with me.”
Luke shook his head at his sister, but when he looked at Eva, he realized maybe Jessica was right not to have Eva bunk with him.
Owen snatched the laptop with the live camera feeds from the table and followed the rest of the group out a moment later.
“You, of all people, know we can’t go against Will’s orders,” Luke snapped once the door was closed.
The chain of command couldn’t be broken, even if he disagreed.
Rules were rules. Breaking an order could end a career.
“How many terrorists can we catch with the intel Malik is sitting on? How many lives can we save if we have access to that safe?” Her teeth clamped together, and her short red nails bit into the biceps of her crossed arms. “Will’s playing it safe.”
“And POTUS put him in charge. So,” he began and edged closer to his sister, his chin dropping almost to his chest as his voice deepened, “are you suggesting we go against the president?”
“No.” She spun away and shook her hair loose from her ponytail. “Malik is downstairs.” She pointed to the floor as if he’d forgotten the difference between north and south. “I’d love to do what Eva said and just grab him now.”
“And you’d be thinking emotionally and not strategically, which isn’t like you.” He slipped a hand to his sister’s shoulder, urging her to face him.
“You’re not exactly yourself, either.” She paused to take a breath. “We made a deal never to lie to each other five years ago—what happened with Eva, and why does she know so much about us?” She pivoted to catch his eyes, a dark look seizing hold of her blues.
He let go of her shoulder and tapped two closed fists at his forehead, working through his thoughts.
“Eva was an unaccounted-for wrench in all of this, but she’s a victim—not a tool to be used.
We’re still on the same page about that, right?
” He swallowed, his heart rate kicking up as he waited for his sister to respond.
“You care about her?”
“Like any human life, yeah.”
“It’s almost like you had that answer already planned.” She lifted her brows and gave him a pointed look. “How’d a woman get under your skin in less than a week? Hell, in any time period. If someone is breaking the rules”—she pointed a finger at him—“it’s you.”
“I’m not falling for her.” The muscles in his jaw clenched tight at the lie.
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.” He turned, cupping the back of his head. “I’d feel the same about any woman caught in the crossfires of an operation. I wouldn’t want someone innocent getting hurt because of a mission.”
“That might be true, but she’s different. I can see it all over your face. And on hers.”
“And what does any of this have to do with breaking Will’s orders and changing the plans?” He stole a look at his sister.
She dropped down onto the couch near the window. “This whole mission is different.”
He whirled around. “Damn right it’s different. Since when do we let the CIA spoon-feed us intelligence without doing our due diligence first?”
She rested her elbows on her knees and bit into her lip, but kept her eyes on the table.
“How can we do our job when the CIA has only given us half the picture? What if Malik and Ender didn’t have Odem killed?
What if Ender showed up in Berlin when I took out Reggie, not because he was there to meet with him, but because he’d witnessed his father murdered and followed him, seeking both revenge and the USB?
When I showed up and killed Reggie, I changed Ender’s plans. ”
“The CIA must have intel that led them to believe Ender and Malik paid off Reggie and had Odem killed.”
“You keep blindly trusting them. I don’t get it.” He lifted his palms. “Did you see the intel? I sure as hell didn’t. What if they lied to Will to cover their own asses?”
“We don’t have time to find any of this out.”
“Make time,” he bit out. “If you want me to even consider breaking protocol and going behind Will’s back, I want answers. I want to know what the fuck is really going on and why Malik chose Monaco to bring us to.”
Jessica slowly stood. “Just so we’re clear, you and I work together. We’re a team. I don’t take orders from you.”
He hated fighting with her, but damn it, they needed to be on the same page, or this shit would only get worse. But he relaxed his stance and said, “We are a team.” He blinked a couple of times, clearing his head. “I feel like we’re working in the dark, and it makes me edgy. I’m sorry.”
She took a small breath and nodded. “I want to do what’s right, Luke. And what’s right isn’t always what’s been ordered.” A sigh blew from her lips. “I’ll learn everything I can about Reggie, okay?”
He nodded. “From his high school girlfriend to who he was last sleeping with, I want to know it. You’ll need help from the inside, though.”
“Will won’t—”
“Harper.”
“You’re suggesting we bring her in?” She bit her thumbnail in thought.
“Get what you can from her without saying too much. We’ll talk to Will later about bringing her on board as needed.”
“Okay.” She started past him, heading to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To get the team together so we don’t waste any time.” Her hand stilled on the knob. “What really happened with Eva in the mountains?” Her eyes swept to his, her question throwing him off. “You’re not the same.”
“People don’t change in four days,” he said in a throaty voice, emotion catching in his tone.
“Are you so sure about that?”