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  Him being locked up didn’t mean he was out of the game. On the contrary. He was still a lethal threat to his enemies. As they would all learn soon enough, in order of insult to him. First Nieto. Then El Escorpion. Victoria Gomez. These two fucking smug federal lawyers. And the fucking DEA.

  Time was on his side. He intended to use it well.

  Sooner or later, he’d make every last one of them pay.

  ****

  “Stop,” Taggart commanded from high overhead on the catwalk situated alongside the shoot house hallway. He sounded pissed. The overhead lights came on, signaling an immediate end to the exercise. “Do it again. Freeman, you still wanna be our point man, or what?”

  God dammit.

  Suppressing a sigh, Mal took the criticism and turned the frustrated snarl inside his head back on himself as he shoved his NVGs back up on their helmet mount. Because this was on him. Again. “Yes, sir,” he called out, then turned at Hamilton’s signal to start over from the top.

  One by one all nine of them filed back down the narrow, five-level staircase to begin the drill again. Their fourth run in the past forty minutes, because all of them had been shit so far, this last one culminating with Malcolm missing an armed suspect hidden behind the door in one of the rooms. If it had happened in real life, he or one of his teammates might be dead right now.

  Taggart didn’t ask questions or demand a debrief of what had gone wrong, instead stalking back down the catwalk to the starting point without a word. Fourth in line with his teammates, Mal mentally berated himself on the way back down the final flight of stairs. They’d started out the day at the gym together at 06:00, followed by breakfast and intel briefings on the latest goings on with the Veneno cartel before moving here to practice various CQB scenarios.

  As a former SEAL and the second most experienced operator on FAST Bravo, Mal had held the position of being the team’s point man for the past four years. Although you’d never know it from today’s sloppy performance. His fucking head wasn’t where it needed to be.

  Because of Rowan.

  He’d lain awake all last night thinking of her. Of what might have been.

  It wasn’t like him to let something personal affect his mental state to this extent, and never while at work. And yet it was. No matter how much he wanted to get her out of his head, he couldn’t. Seeing her again yesterday had somehow brought back all those unresolved feelings. All those unanswered questions. He wanted closure, and wasn’t going to get it. His brain was having a hard time accepting and compartmentalizing that.

  Back at the starting point in front of the building’s façade, he maneuvered a new door onto the hinges and locked it with a bolting mechanism while other agents inside the building moved everything else around. This scenario called for them to do a tactical breach and clear the building of armed hostiles on each floor. They were using live ammo and dummies this time rather than paper targets.

  Training that way upped the stakes for everyone involved, allowing for zero margin of error. They trained as they meant to operate, because out there in the field, his and his teammates’ lives depended on them getting it done right the first time. Which was why he was so damn pissed at himself right now. There was no excuse for his shitty performance today.

  Hamilton, the team leader, eyed him with faint amusement as Mal took up position behind Rodriguez, who was responsible for blowing the door open with a battering ram. The moment it opened, Mal was always the first guy through it. Everyone else followed him, reacted to his actions and decisions. That was his role. They all depended on him being sharp.

  “You need a nap, or what?” Hamilton asked him.

  “I’m good.” Lack of sleep wasn’t any kind of excuse, for any of them. Hell, he’d gone days without sleep during his days in the Teams and managed fine. He was only thirty-four, so it wasn’t like he was getting too old for this line of work.

  “Okay. Think we can get it right this time? I’m getting bored.”

  Embarrassed, annoyed with himself even though his team leader was only giving him a hard time, Mal set his jaw and nodded once.

  Hamilton gave his shoulder a good-natured nudge with an elbow. “Just jerking your chain, man.” He turned to the others. “We ready to do this for real now, boys?”

  A chorus of affirmatives answered, so Hamilton strode to the end of the stack and awaited Taggart’s command to begin the assault. The lights went out.

  Mal pulled down his NVGs and narrowed his focus to his immediate surroundings, his gaze locked on the door before them.

  Taggart gave the signal.

  Seconds later, Colebrook’s hand landed on Mal’s right shoulder and squeezed. In turn, Mal did the same to Rodriguez, who pulled back the battering ram and slammed it with all his considerable might into the bolting mechanism.

  Wood cracked. Rodriguez rammed the door once more, splintering the lock. Mal charged through it, M4 up and ready.

  This time Mal was on his game. They executed the assault perfectly.

  “Third floor’s secure,” he announced over his mic. Thank fucking God.

  “Building’s secure,” Hamilton informed their commander, “all tangos in custody.”

  Taggart didn’t answer, but the lights suddenly came back on.

  Switching off his NVGs, Mal met Hamilton’s gaze in silent question, and the team leader gave a casual shrug. “’Kay, boys, good job. Everyone back downstairs in case we have to do this again.”

  Before Mal had made it two steps toward the stairs, Maka was there next to him, clapping him on the back with one huge, gloved paw. “’Bout time you brought your A-game, brah,” he teased, always ready with a ribbing. “Was starting to think we might need to replace you.”

  Mal grunted at him and trundled down the concrete stairs with the others, allowing his mind to wander. This thing with Rowan was driving him nuts. Trying to forget her hadn’t worked. He wanted answers. To know the real reason she’d ended it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he craned his head back to search for their commander. Taggart was still up on the catwalk, but he wasn’t paying any attention to them, his back to them as he spoke on his cell phone at the far end. Mal milled around by the doorway as the team waited for further instructions.

  “Freeman. Lockhart.”

  They both looked up at Taggart, who now stood staring down at them with his hands braced on the metal railing at the edge of the catwalk. “Need to talk to you both a minute.”

  He and Lockhart exchanged a puzzled glance before heading up a wooden staircase that took them to the catwalk. Their boots thudded on the plywood floor as they strode to the end to meet their commander.

  Taggart slid his phone into his pocket and folded his arms as he regarded them. “Something’s come up with the Nieto case,” he said in a low voice. “The daughter and mother are refusing to enter WITSEC at this point, and nobody knows what the hell to do with them. Until it’s all sorted out, the FBI wants us to provide temporary security for them.”

  Malcolm’s eyebrows shot up. “Us?”

  Taggart nodded. “I’ve volunteered you two.”

  What? Oh, hell no—

  Taggart held up a hand. “I realize this isn’t going to make either of you jump for joy, but it’s only for a few days.”

  “Like, how many?” Lockhart asked, suspicion written all over his normally taciturn expression. A former sniper, the guy was notoriously quiet and impossible to read if he didn’t want to be. Even Mal, who’d known him for years now, didn’t know what went on in Lockhart’s head most of the time.

  A shrug from Taggart. “They just told me a couple. Two days, four, I dunno. You’re assigned to the daughter,” he told Lockhart, and then shifted his gaze to Malcolm. “You’re with the mother. I don’t have any other details for you yet.”

  Mal frowned, not liking this one bit. This didn’t make any kind of fucking sense. “The mother doesn’t even speak English, does she? And my Spanish is limited to ordering a beer and a taco.” No
t even well, at that.

  The corner of Taggart’s mouth twitched in the hint of a smile. “So it should be nice and quiet for you over the next few days, then. Think of it as a kind of vacation if you want.”

  Vacation? Not. Mal bit back a groan, sighed instead because he couldn’t help it. “Rodriguez would be a better choice, don’t you think?” His Spanish was flawless.

  “Rodriguez is flying back to California this afternoon to visit his mom for a couple days. He got a call that she’s not doing well.”

  Oh, damn. That sucked. She had advanced MS and had been declining recently. Why hadn’t Rodriguez said anything to them this morning?

  “Besides, you’re good with people,” Taggart said, giving Mal’s upper arm a friendly slap. “So you’ll do just fine.”

  “Hamilton speaks some Spanish,” he couldn’t help blurting. “More than me.”

  Taggart’s turquoise eyes twinkled with amusement. “So he does. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” He pulled his phone back out of one of the pockets in his cargo pants. “You’ve got ten minutes to shower and grab whatever you need to cover you until the weekend. We’re meeting your principals at the U.S. Attorney’s office in thirty.”

  Now Malcolm did groan. Christ. This day was already the shits, and now he had to go to Rowan’s office again on top of everything else?

  Arguing was futile, so he didn’t bother. He’d survived worse over the years than having his heart broken and having to babysit a cartel boss’s mistress. Might as well suck it up and take it on the chin like a man.

  Chapter Four

  Rowan struggled to keep her professional demeanor in place as she faced Oceane and her mother from across her paper-cluttered desk. The FBI was currently scrambling to make arrangements for some security for the two women, who still refused to see reason. It was as mystifying as it was frustrating.

  They’d been over this same issue a half dozen times already over the past few days, and each time Rowan thought the women were about to agree to enter WITSEC, they dug in their heels again. Out of desperation, because of his rapport with the ladies, her boss had personally tried to sway them to go into the program an hour ago. Now, in a last ditch effort to change their minds, he’d tasked Rowan with trying to sway them.

  “I understand that this must be scary and overwhelming for you,” she began to Oceane in as calm a tone as she could manage.

  Everything about this day sucked so far. If she’d been sore yesterday, today she was in serious pain. Every muscle in her neck, shoulders and upper back was exquisitely tender. The extra strength Tylenol she’d taken for her headache hadn’t touched the pain, and she was bone-deep tired.

  When she’d finally made it home from the office last night, her father had shown up just as she was falling asleep—because apparently even whiplash wasn’t a good enough excuse to avoid signing the paperwork for him. Now she had a small mountain of work piled on her desk and another twelve-to-fourteen-hour day ahead of her before she could drag herself home in her rental car and finally crawl back into bed.

  She held Oceane’s blue-gray gaze as she continued. “But the only real way to guarantee your safety until the authorities figure out who was behind the attack on you and neutralize the threat, is for you both to go into the WITSEC program.” Why couldn’t she see that?

  Oceane sighed in impatience and pushed some chocolate-brown curls away from her face. “I have already told you, we’re not doing that.” Her accented voice was calm, her tone final. “The FBI agent I spoke to this morning said he would find us another option.”

  “Maybe, but that option won’t be as secure as having a team of highly-trained U.S. Marshals guarding you in an undisclosed location.” No one could force either of them to enter the program, however. It was voluntary. Oceane had been annoyingly tight-lipped about their reasons for refusing to enter WITSEC.

  “I understand.” Her mother nudged Oceane with an elbow, said something in rapid Spanish that Rowan didn’t have a hope of catching. Oceane nodded and turned to Rowan. “Have you heard anything new in the investigation? About who attacked us?”

  “Fue Ruiz,” the mother said in an adamant tone, her face set, and though Rowan didn’t speak much Spanish, she understood her meaning well enough. The woman blamed Ruiz for what had happened to them.

  “The investigators are looking into every possible option,” Rowan said, not willing to give anything away. New information and leads seemed to be coming in hourly, but federal authorities were tight-lipped about what they’d found. Only rock solid evidence pertinent to the case against Ruiz was passed on to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

  From what Rowan had been told, so far Oceane and her mother had been frustratingly reticent to share information about Nieto and the cartel. She got the sense that Oceane was still in the dark about a lot of it, but the mother definitely knew things, and she wasn’t talking until she got what she wanted: federal protection of some kind outside of WITSEC, and a guarantee from the government that they would be allowed to remain in the U.S. after the Ruiz case was over. A tall order, considering they were both Mexican nationals. For the government to give them residency or citizenship, the women were going to have to give them something big.

  At least three different agencies were currently working on their case, each frantically trying to find a lead that might help investigators unravel what was currently going on within the cartel. Information was sketchy.

  From a string of recent attacks on labs and other operations in Mexico, it seemed as if Nieto had declared war on what was left of Ruiz’s territory. Everyone involved in the case hoped that at least one of those threads might lead back to El Escorpion, whoever he was, so they could begin dismantling the Venenos’ sprawling narcotics empire.

  The pounding at the base of her skull got worse as Oceane and Anya didn’t respond to her point, merely stared at her.

  Her patience snapped. Her attempts to be the nice guy hadn’t worked. Time to put some pressure on. “Here’s the deal. You expect our government to jump through hoops to protect you, then you need to give us something solid today, or you’ll both be deported back to Mexico.” She stopped, glanced up when someone knocked on her door and pushed it open. Val raised his eyebrows at her in question and she gave a subtle shake of her head, the motion intensifying her headache.

  Val’s mouth tightened in a frustration she understood all too well. “Just got a call from Commander Taggart. The temporary protective detail will be here in a few minutes.”

  Surprised, Rowan blinked at him. Taggart? The DEA and FBI were calling in a FAST team on this? “Oh. Who is it?”

  “No idea.”

  As he started to pull the door shut behind him, her cell phone rang from the corner of her desk. She glanced at it, expecting it to be the body shop calling with an estimate about repairs to her car, but instead her brother’s picture popped up on the screen.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the women. “I need to take this.” Well, actually she needed a few minutes’ break from this futile argument, and more pain relievers. As soon as the women left her office, it was back to the mountain of paperwork she still had to wade through.

  Stepping out into the hall, she answered the call with a tired sigh, rubbing the back of her sore neck. “Hey.”

  “Wow. Bad day already?” Kevin asked. “It’s only eight in the morning.”

  “Don’t remind me,” she muttered, turning the corner so she could talk in a little alcove for some privacy. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m at Mom and Dad’s. He had some banking stuff and whatever that I had to sign.”

  That was promising, their father adding Kevin to his bank accounts as he restructured his estate. Things had been strained between them until recently. “I did that last night.”

  When Kevin had first come out to their parents officially five years ago, it hadn’t gone so well. Their dad had taken it especially hard. Either due to his alpha male ego, archaic beliefs, or maybe embarrass
ment, he’d refused to accept it.

  Over the last eighteen months or so he and Kevin had mostly stabilized their rocky relationship, but only because her brother had adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about his personal life with their parents. Kevin told Rowan everything, though. They weren’t just siblings, they were the best of friends.

  “How are you feeling? You sore?” Kevin asked.

  “More than I bargained for. I would give anything to crawl back in bed and stay there.”

  He made a sound of sympathy. “And I bet you’re working late tonight again, huh.”

  “Every day from now until I die, yes,” she said with a wry chuckle, only half-joking. “I’ve signed on for a lifetime of indentured servitude.”

  “A chip off the old block. Dad must be so proud,” Kevin teased, and Rowan winced inside. She’d certainly done her best to follow in their father’s footsteps, but he left a wide trail to follow and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to match it. Deep down, she didn’t want to. “How about I bring you dinner there later on? I’ll get takeout from that Greek place you love.”

  He was so good to her. “This is why you’re my favorite brother.”

  “I know. You’re lucky to have me.”

  “And you never let me forget it.” She was two years older. “And I still think I won the sibling jackpot.”

  “Just for that, I’m bringing crème caramel for dessert. And I’ll even take the takeout containers home with me when I leave.”

  “You’re a saint.”

  “I know. See you at six?” He worked at a pharmacy a few blocks from her office. They had lunch together at least once a week, unless she was preparing for a big case like this one. She missed just spending time with him; he always made her feel better about everything. And she wanted to confide in him about Malcolm, since he’d been the one to introduce the two of them at that veteran’s charity gala last year.