Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
DEAN
The binoculars are too small in my hands. I hate using other people’s equipment, and I make a mental note to budget for my company’s own supplies as soon as we collect on this job. I grunt, my elbows digging into the roof of the science building, where I lie sprawled on my stomach, sweating through my jeans.
At least at this height we can catch a bit of cool ocean breeze.
The ocean momentarily distracts me, glittering in the late afternoon sun. The siren call of the water, the ability to float, to forget. The ocean is the only perk of this job, and it’s the only place that feels free these days. Safe.
Feeling safe is a trick.
“She should be out here by now,” Pierce mutters.
“Yep,” I agree.
Angling the nocks lower, I sweep the parking lot. Some instinct nagging at me to keep watch. Maybe it’s training. Or, as my government appointed therapist likes to say, trauma response.
“I told you I don’t like this kind,” I mutter, flicking the binoculars’ magnification with unnecessary force, speeding past the setting I need.
Unnecessary force. That’s been my life to a tee lately.
“What’s not to like?” Pierce makes a small noise of disgust, barely shifting next to me. “Under nineteen ounces, easy to transport, military standard. You’re such a princess sometimes,” he snorts. “Would you rather have those fancy crystal ones?”
Yes. Swarovski.
“Nothing wrong with princesses.”
“If you say so.” Pierce shrugs, the derision in his voice clear.
I scoff under my breath. Hoping Pierce doesn’t hear. Can’t let the ‘man in charge’ know I’m not impressed.
You’re just a contractor. You’re not here to pick the equipment.
Nor was I able to give Pierce a detailed list of exactly what was needed for this op.
This is the DEA’s business. They only brought me in for support. Muscle.
Despite my misgivings towards government agencies these days, Pierce isn’t a terrible partner. At least, there’s nothing wrong with him I could find. I read up on him, asked around—at least as much as a contractor can. Everything I got my hands on said Pierce was clean, and at the very least he didn’t raise any red flags with the DEA.
But still, I would have preferred my own team, especially on a job that could make or break my fledgling company. A grim smile turns up the corners of my mouth.
Not like my team’s far away, though.
Shifting, the black roof wickedly hot, I glance over at Pierce again. Something about the man bothers me.
He handpicked me for this job, despite my quick and dirty departure from the military. And that black mark cost me a dozen bids for other work. It kept a lot of guys from picking me. Yet here I am.
Trust issues.
My therapist would love to explore that at our next meeting.
Again.
Sighing, I flick my eyes to the slick black gun propped next to us.
Guess we do have everything we need.
The rifle my therapist dubbed a troubling safety blanket sits there, waiting should the need arise. Troubling or not, the government hasn’t sidelined me, not when there are fish this big out there. Not that they would. Contractors with my resume aren’t exactly easy to come by. No matter how I left the military.
Grunting, I refocus on the task at hand.
Mission first.
Dark brown tendrils of hair halo the target’s face as she steps out of the shade of the building.
“Heads up.”I swallow as Pierce goes quiet.
Perfect body, ten out of ten. Curling hair down to her slim waist, shapely legs I’ve been tasked to watch all week. Eyes like chocolate, long lashes. High cheekbones and full pink lips.
The black and white faculty photo the analysts provided with her profile didn’t do her justice.
So she’s pretty. Doesn’t mean she isn’t neck deep in this shit with the fucking Russians. If anything, her beauty makes her doubly suspicious.
“Target on the move,” Pierce says, shimming closer to the rooftop edge, bringing his own tiny pair of binoculars up. “She looks pissed.”
June Legarde, PhD, pauses, looking around.
“She’s spooked. Goddamnit Pierce, I told you we should’ve stayed in the car.”
“I’m sick of sitting in that thing,” Pierce mutters. “It’s hot as balls. Besides, you know we don’t have the go-ahead to make contact.”
“Fucking stupid,” I mutter.
Working for this new org comes with endless bureaucratic catch-up for one of the alphabet soup agencies, the steep learning curve of figuring out when I can push them to my timetable and where they might budge.
But I grin and do it. I’d do it all to get back in the intel community’s good graces, to carve out a spot for my new company.
And once I figured out the stakes of this op, no one could talk me out of taking the job. Not even my team.
“We need approval to make contact.” I keep my focus on Legarde. “I don’t like it. If she runs, with all the info her dear old dad left her, you and I both know this job is fucked.” The mere thought of this op going sideways makes my stomach churn.
I need this. I need this win.
“I swear to god, if you tell me that one more time, I’m going to lose it.” Pierce growls, kicking me in the shin.
Ten, nine, eight… I grit my teeth, gluing my attention to the parking lot below us.
A second woman bursts into our field of view, scurrying between the cars, platinum hair waving behind her.
“Who’s that?” I ask, keeping my voice even, knowing for all my trust issues I might be the biggest liar of all.
Because I know damn well who she is, but Pierce doesn’t need to know that.
Pierce scoots even closer to the edge. “It’s that other prof in Legarde’s department, the newer one. Charlotte Abbot. Goes by Charlie. Teaches Texas history.”
I briefly cut my eyes to Pierce. He sounds… interested. That little teaching fact sure rolled off his tongue real quick.
No time to wonder at that—it’s time to focus. Shit’s heating up on this op.
This op, that’s nothing like the one five years ago.
Seven, six, five…
Nope, to repress that memory, I’d have to start counting down from ten thousand.
“What do you have on her?” I make myself ask, just to give my brain something else to do.
“Not much,” Pierce says. “Friends with the target. Girls’ nights, wine nights, whatever. A shoulder to cry on after Legarde’s old man got popped. There was an opening at the beginning of the semester. She got lucky, scooped up a job like that,” Pierce says, snapping his fingers.
I stop myself from rolling my eyes. Lucky isn’t in my vocabulary, shouldn’t be in Pierce’s, either. Nothing about how Charlie got that job was luck, but what Pierce doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
The two women are talking now, Legarde scanning her surroundings. Like she knows we’re watching.
Unlikely. Everything has been smooth as silk so far.
“Allegedly popped,” Pierce smirks, correcting himself.
“Allegedly my ass,” I growl.
The circumstances surrounding Legarde’s father’s death were shady at best.
“Agreed. Everything was a little too neat for someone that useful to the Russians to up and die.” Pierce tells me this like it’s brand-new information.
I grunt, annoyed at him all over again.
“We just gotta find his drug sub before the Russians do and close this case. Then we can spend a day at the beach. Easy.”
“You talk too much,” I growl.
I blow out a breath, frustration making my hand twitch. The intel is as murky as the missing drug sub’s watery grave. There’s too much chatter, too much noise about the shipment. And the cartel is constantly increasing their reach, ramping up their interest in additional revenue streams. Running weapons, human trafficking, even working with domestic terrorists.
Well, if the DEA’s now missing informant is right.
Why couldn’t fucking assets stay fucking put?
Thanks to them and the fucking analysts, I’m sweating my balls off watching a bombshell I can’t approach. They suggested Legarde would be the easiest to leverage, the key to the whole damn thing.
Suggested. I snort, keeping my eyes on our best bet to find the sub.
Damn analysts, always hedging their assessments. But the cube jockeys just so happen to be right this time. And not because there are worse-looking targets to surveil.
Legarde’s key ring flashes in the sunlight as she dumps it in Charlie’s outstretched hand.
“I don’t like this.” I move to get up.
Charlie piles into the driver’s seat of Legarde’s beat-up truck.
“I checked the work-up on the blonde myself,” Pierce says. “I think she’s clean.”
A rangy blond man, dressed in black, moves out of the bushes. Directly behind the target.
“Son of a bitch,” I murmur. “Russians are here.”
“Gun.” Pierce points like I don’t see the man with a gun.
With lightning speed, I replace the nocks with the long-range scope of my rifle.
“You know we’re not cleared for wet work,” Pierce says lazily.
“Fuck me sideways.” Legarde is our only lead. “We have got to get down there. Call it in.” I line the man up in my scope. “ Now .”
The man approaches the vehicle, raising his gun, and I suck in a breath, holding it, steadying the shot.
The truck roars to life, plowing the gunman down.
Good job, Charlie.
“Oh shit.” Pierce sounds genuinely shocked. “The blonde mowed him down.”
My eyes narrow, waiting for the gunman to try again as the two women go to his side… but he gets up and runs, well, limps away.
What the hell? Did Charlie say something? Did she blow her cover? Fuck. Fuck!
“She just ran him over,” Pierce repeats, clearly confused.
Lowering my rifle, I turn to face him.
“I ran the check on her myself.” Pierce wipes a hand over his sweaty face, standing and collecting the fallen equipment. “She’s a civilian.”
“Hmmph.” I grunt, hefting the rifle, following Pierce to the ladder leading from the roof.
No matter how much I should want to trust Pierce, I don’t.
I learned the hard way that sometimes it’s better to keep my mouth shut.