“Breakfast?” Hunt asked gruffly once the men left the room. The men had been there one minute, gone the next. Like real ghosts. Only Jake and Hunt remained behind.
Little Bit punted Kiera in the spleen, and she winced. “Apparently the answer is yes. Breakfast would be great. But first I have a question. The guys on the team seem super casual about this whole situation. If I so much as think about Lequire, my anxiety skyrockets and I want to take him on. Or run away. Is there something you know that I don’t know? Is it all an act?”
Hunt settled into a chair across from her and studied her face until she squirmed. Finally, he said in a low, gravelly voice, “We’re trained to be calm. In all situations.”
Ironic statement, given his virally triggered implosion last night, but Kiera wasn’t about to point that out now.
He rubbed his salt-and-pepper flat top. “Are you asking if my men have a fire lit under their asses about the problem they’re facing?”
“Um…”
“You bet they have fires lit. Most folks can’t see it.”
“I didn’t mean—” she sputtered, leaning away.
“Uh-oh,” Jake breathed.
Moving a pen and pencil into parallel positions equidistant on either side of the notebook in front of him, Hunt said, “Because, ma’am, if you ever see one of us get sketchy, then you better believe that Armageddon is about to occur and there is zero hope for humanity’s survival. Anything short of that? We’re on it like the professionals we’re trained to be, and we always have a plan.” Another pencil was placed equidistant from the top of the notebook. “But yes, we’re calm.”
“Okay.” Got it. So these guys were tense on the inside but freaky Zen Buddhists on the outside, always not-ready but ready for an attack. Good God. Next they’d be doing yoga while meditating about world domination. An image of Jake in athleisure attire popped up, and she covered a giggle with a cough.
At a sharp glance from Hunt, she folded her hands in front of her.
As Jake put together a quick breakfast, Hunt updated him on the compound operations. “The permanent security system will be in place soon.”
“What’s taking so long?” Jake asked.
“Glitch in the software. Stumpy’s working on it. Won’t affect anything since the temporary system is working well.” He made a micro-adjustment on the notebook, lining it up perfectly flush with the table edge, and moved the pen and pencils to maintain their distances from the pad. “And we have a rotation of physical patrols and are monitoring audio and video feeds.”
A muscle jumped in Jake’s jaw as he popped four pieces of bread into the toaster. “What else?”
“Doc’s got all the supplies he needs. For any contingency.”
“Shit,” Jake swore, making Kiera flinch.
“We’re good,” Hunt said.
The CO’s level tone didn’t reassure Kiera. Yeah, she knew what kind of supplies might be needed. A light twinge came and went through her lower abdomen.
“What about my family?” she said, desperate to deflect the conversation away from the all-too-real looming future.
“The men are already on the ground, soon to be embedded.” The CO’s icy stare swept her. “They won’t let anyone hurt your family.”
A chill skittered up her spine.
A few minutes later, Jake set plates down in front of Kiera and Hunt, then took a seat next to her, tucking into his own food.
After a few bites, Hunt used his fork to push bacon strips into parallel alignment with the toast edges on his plate. Then he leaned forward and opened the notebook with crisp, lined pages. He adjusted the book so the edge was parallel to the bacon.
Kiera would have laughed if the situation were any less serious.
He started, “I hope the information you provide will make it like Christmas here.” The flash of his grin was nothing like jolly St. Nick. “I have wanted to take down Lequire for a long time.”
“Why?” she asked before taking a bite of buttery toast. Despite the crappy situation, she still sighed as her hunger ebbed away.
At Hunt’s tight, closed expression, her food turned to sand in her mouth. She felt safe enough here at the Morpheus Squad compound, but the team leader’s every word, every decision, made it clear he was in charge and didn’t appreciate her presence disrupting his tightly ordered world. She studied the determined glint in his eyes and the rolls of muscle on his neck and arms. He could probably destroy someone in five seconds flat without breaking a sweat.
Oddly enough, she didn’t feel as uneasy around Jake.
The corners of the commanding officer’s mouth rose again—like a cat right before it disembowels the mouse. “Mostly, I want to stop Lequire from stealing from our vets. With the new information you’ve brought me, I also don’t want the guy who killed two of my men using a fake charity to buy power for his daddy. Punching holes in Bratva to keep its tentacles out of our country? That’s a bonus.”
She blinked.
“I have one more reason.” Hunt’s thick fist tightened around the pen, knuckles blanching. “It’s personal. I flat-out hate the entitled prick and his power-hungry father.”
Kiera picked up the fork again. “Jake said Beau didn’t make the cut for one of your early teams.”
A grunt. “The guy didn’t get close. But he tried so he could impress his daddy. Always trying to make Senator Lequire proud.” He tapped the notebook with the pen. “Beau fancies himself a Special Forces alum now. We’ve toyed with exposing him in one of those online forums, but the risk of being traced is too great. Hashtag asshole.”
She choked on a piece of bacon. Hunt had a sense of humor, after all. “You know, I heard Beau mention something about the Green Berets,” she said. “He was bragging about his missions and injuries he’d received on the team. But in reality, he washed out, didn’t he?”
“People can say whatever they want. Truth is he lasted one day in Special Forces Assessment and Selection.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The preliminary phase of training. It’s meant to weed out the weak.” When Hunt barked what passed for a laugh, his eyes remained cold. Barren.
“So how can he claim he had been a Green Beret?”
“People lie. Yes, he did get injured in the service, but not as a Special Forces candidate or team member. But he manipulated the media and spun quite a story. Jake knows the truth. We all do. I was one of the instructors for that class of Special Forces. I know precisely when he washed out. Some folks can’t hack it. But he should own his shit, not hide it.” He released the pen from his death grip and set it down on the table. Perfectly parallel to all other objects near it. “He got transferred to another base and ended up pushing paper in logistics until he got injured.”
Jake said with a snort, “Injured, my ass.”
Hunt grimaced. “Flag football, twisted his ankle. Then claimed ‘chronic pain’ and finally got discharged because he couldn’t do PT. Ouchies.”
She covered another giggle by dabbing her mouth with the napkin. Crunching the piece of crispy bacon, she thought back to all the times she’d seen Beau walking. “He never seemed to have a problem. No limp. Never sought treatment for an injury, to my knowledge.”
“Of course not. But he was discharged because of it and got a service-connected disability designation. Then he used the GI Bill and his Senator daddy’s money to obtain his MBA. Good for him. Serving in the military should come with some reward.”
Kiera’s chest ached. Brady never got a reward, did he? What about Mateo? All these guys who spent their lives in hiding now?
With a nasty smirk, Hunt continued. “After Lequire got his degree, his disabled veteran status attracted preferential government contracts, which helped him to create and fund Fallen Comrades. By that time, the story of his participation in Special Forces was woven into the fabric of the organization—icing on the cake to increase donations.”
“Wow,” she said, wanting to scrub off the invisible slime coating her skin from working with the creep for so many months.
Hunt rubbed his jaw. “There’s more.”
“Okay,” Kiera said, sitting forward, like somehow proximity might produce more clues to keeping her family safe, finishing her mission, and getting on with her life.
“You know how his father’s a big-shot senator?” Hunt said, drawing her back to the conversation.
Jake leaned back and crossed his arms.
“Senator Lequire is on the Committee on Veterans Affairs as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee.” Hunt tapped a thick knuckle on the table. “Has access to everything regarding veterans. But more importantly, he has access to the entire budget of the Senate.” His cruel smirk chilled her blood. “What organization do you think receives special funds from a line item in those budgets?”
Her heart sank. “His father is behind the government money getting pushed to Fallen Comrades?”
“Yep. Not to mention how he tugs the strings of a lot of puppets in the government, the president included. If he has any connection, direct or indirect, to funds being misused by this charity, it would be disastrous for his political career, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “Politicians get away with bribery, extortion, misappropriation of funds, rape, and literal murder.”
The CO shrugged. “We’re going to use your information as a starting point to dig deeper.” Nothing casual about how the cords of his shoulders and neck shifted and tensed. “There’s always more. Like the Bratva angle. Guaranteed there’s more than even the Russian mafia here. We’ll find it. Deep state government stuff. False flag operations.”
She took a bite of eggs and swallowed. “But you can’t make the connections public without exposing Morpheus Squad’s secrets and risking your freedom. You all would be detained and used for more experiments, right?”
“Forever.” Jake’s grim smile congealed the breakfast in her gut. “Great Catch-22, huh?”
Jake, subjected to medical testing, trapped in a facility. She imagined his face, twisted in pain, as personnel collected specimens and ran tests on him.
How much could she ask these people to sacrifice for her? Mateo had given his life. Jake had torpedoed his entire existence to help her outrun Beau’s men. The rest of the team had left their carefully crafted fake lives behind to help Kiera.
So, yes, she would do her part to protect the Morpheus Squad guys. Whatever it took.
And she would protect her child. Both goals were possible.
“Why are you all here, then? In the country?” she asked. “If you’re at risk of being captured by the government.”
“We have to stay close to our pipeline.” Hunt didn’t meet her eyes.
“It could be shipped,” Jake offered.
What were they talking about?
“Too risky. Besides, this is the last place they’d look for us.”
She pointed a thumb at Jake. “Apparently not.”
“It’s complicated,” Hunt said with a growl. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “We don’t have unlimited options.”
A hot wave of anger made her hand shake, and she set the fork down. “So unless we do something, Beau will keep siphoning money designated for real heroes?”
“You got it.”
“I assume you have a plan.”
“Of course, I do, ma’am.”
An image of her brother’s earnest face appeared in her mind. “I hate Beau Lequire. What a loser.”
“Damned straight. But he’s a loser with a hell of a lot of power and money, which makes him a threat,” Hunt said.
“No question there.” She took a sip of orange juice.
He ran a hand over his flat-top hair. “Any public action by the Morpheus Squad means we risk re-capture. We haven’t had a compelling reason to put our freedom at risk.” He flashed a shockingly jovial smile, then it was replaced by a snarl full of pure vengeance. “Until now.”
Jake pressed his mouth into a tight line. “Wait. Is Kiera in any danger by telling you what she knows?”
“Lequire killed Brady to keep him quiet, blew up Kiera’s house, killed Mateo, and tried to capture and kill her in public. While she was pregnant. How much more risk are you talking about?” He turned to squarely face her. “Look, there’s risk either way. Whether or not you share everything you know, you’re in trouble.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “But?”
“But you’re safe here. You’re surrounded by ex-Special Forces soldiers who train to fight at a moment’s notice. They’re in top shape.” He smirked at Jake. “Well, most of them.”
He lifted his hands. “Hey, even while sulking in the boonies, I stayed in form.”
Kiera licked her dry lips, recalling his … form.
Hunt winked at her and said in a mock whisper, “That man is soft like a candy-eating kid. Out of shape and flabby. Don’t let him lie to you.”
She covered a chuckle with her hand. No one could ever claim Jake Zimmerman was unfit. She could personally attest to the cords of hard muscle covering every inch of his zero-fat body.
“So, yes, ma’am. Short of you disappearing completely into witness protection, which would be messy given”—Hunt waved his hand around the room—“the secrecy of this operation and how you’re already involved with Morpheus Squad, we don’t have a lot of choices. Frankly, I don’t even know if witness protection would deter Lequire, with all of his connections. Also consider the fact that your baby will be highly sought-after by the government, and I don’t mean for college scholarships. Your options are limited. But we can keep you safe here. Indefinitely.”
She started. “Wait. I can’t go back to my normal life?” A virtual vise gripped her chest. “That was never part of the plan.”
“No.”
“Like, no, it’s not advisable, or no, you’re not going to let me?”
“The second one. You can’t leave. I won’t risk my men’s existence on a civilian’s ability to keep her mouth shut.”
A prickle at her temple turned into a pounding headache. “Hold on a minute.”
“You can’t leave. That’s final.”
Her ears rang. “I have a life to live, you know.”
“So does your baby.” Hunt’s lips barely moved. “So do we.”
Next to her, Jake’s frame went ramrod straight. “Kiera, you have to listen to him. It’s not all about you.”
Oh, God. The baby. But her own future? Gone in the snap of two thick fingers.
“We’ll keep you safe,” Hunt said.
“I’m going to hold you to it, boss,” Jake said, his mouth pressed into a grim line. Like he cared. Shocking, considering his reaction to her this morning.
She sucked in air, stunned. Did she seriously have to remain in hiding for the remainder of her life? She slumped as the weight of her decisions over the past year dropped onto her shoulders. Damn it.
First things first. Baby’s safety. Father and sisters’ safety next. Then Kiera would deal with her future later. She’d get her life back, one way or another. And no, she would never reveal anything about Morpheus Squad.
A frown forged lines across Hunt’s weathered skin, aging him an extra five years. “I will ensure your safety and your baby’s.”
“I understand,” she whispered. For now, she would stay. But later?
“Fair enough.” Hunt’s curt reply broke the thick tension in the room. “Now Jake, get your butt off to some training. The guys will knock the rust off. We’ll start you on rotations tomorrow. Send Stumpy in so he can organize all of the information living in Ms. McNeill’s noggin.”
“Roger that.” Before he spun, the flash of emotion in Jake’s gray irises pinned Kiera to her seat. A combination of regret and longing shifted the features of his handsome face, right before he pasted on a bland expression. Damn her, but she couldn’t stop staring as he walked out of the building and closed the front door.
Hunt’s expression changed from in-command and harsh to almost … sympathetic?
After rearranging the perfectly aligned pen, he looked like he was about to speak. Then thought better of it and his mouth closed with a clunk of molars. A few seconds later, he muttered, “I’m no expert in emotional stuff, but Jake’s a good guy.”
She stammered, “I’m not. No, I—”
He folded his hands. “Don’t get all squishy on me. It’s just a comment.” Watching her until she squirmed, he asked, “Speaking of comments, what do you think of him?”
She choked on her orange juice and coughed for a minute before she could respond. “What?”
“It’s a reasonable question.”
Not from a guy like Hunt. She’d bet her CPA degree he had never asked an innocent question in his life.
“Um.” She shoved hair behind her ears. “Look, Jake and I dated years ago. We broke up ten years ago. No contact until last summer.” Shifting on her seat, she stammered, “Pardon me, but is this information somehow critical to the data I have on Fallen Comrades?”
“Nope.”
The skin over her chest heated up.
The damned interrogator merely stared at her. Then he leaned back in his seat.
Crossing her arms, she pursed her lips. “Aren’t you supposed to be the grumpy commanding officer? Not a psychologist?”
That relaxed posture? Gone. In its place was the hard-nosed Special Forces CO. The guy sure could flip the switch on his personality. “Understand that I’m everything for these men. Father, commander, big brother, and counselor. Everything I do is to protect their best interests. It’s my overriding goal. I only ask questions if I think the answers will help the team.”
Oh, God, he had toyed with her. Like a cat with a naïve mouse.
Did Hunt have a separate agenda? If so, she and the baby might not be as safe as he claimed. She’d have to tread carefully.
She swallowed again. “Shouldn’t we concentrate on downloading my brain?”
He paused. Then, with a salute and a savage grin, he readjusted his notebook, setting it perfectly parallel to the table edge, and tapped the end of the pen on his angular jaw. She was surprised the writing implement didn’t shatter. “Let’s get to work.”