Chris beelined it for the garage. He had to get as far from Abigail as possible at the moment. He’d wanted so badly to kiss her, to pin her to the mattress and coax beautiful whispers of ecstasy from her. Something about her drew him to her.
But all he was doing was lying to her.
He started working on Mr. Gardner’s old Chevy. He’d brought it in the other day because of a bad alternator and Axel had to order the part. Working on cars relaxed him, something he’d never done when he was with the SEALs. Actually, he’d never had interest in anything except the military when he was a kid. Everything in his life was connected to getting into the Navy and getting into the SEALs.
The thing with the Reapers, which was different from the SEALs, was that there was a lot of downtime between missions. And he trained a lot, kept in shape, worked on the range downstairs. He even ran the virtual training simulators the Company had built. But still, it left a big hole in his life where he didn’t know what to do with himself.
Much like now. Abigail was with them, where Nathan wanted her to be. And now, he didn’t know what to do and he desperately wanted to do something.
When Chris first moved to Jubilee, he’d had much the same problem. He would run a mission and then he’d be wound up for days and didn’t know how to stop it. Axel Martinez, the mechanic Nathan had hired, had picked up on it rather quickly. He didn’t know about the Reapers. He just recognized Chris’s inability to slow it down and see the life around him.
“You’re going to strip that.”
Speak of the devil.
Chris glared at Axel as he came into the garage and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. “I told you don’t work on the cars when you’re mad. They sense it.”
Axel Martinez was a former Marine. Chris wasn’t sure exactly what his story was. He’d been living in Jubilee for longer than any of them, and completely out of the loop on all things Company-related by Nathan’s order.
Chris rolled his eyes and straightened up. “They sense it?”
“Sure. They’re ladies, after all,” he said, running his hand along the side of the old Chevy Chris had been working on. “They know when they’re being treated right.”
“Really? How long has it been since a woman gave you the time of day?”
Axel laughed. “Don’t be mad because I’m right. Come on,” he gestured with a slight incline of his head toward their break room. “Let’s get some coffee and stop torturing the cars.”
Chris growled under his breath, but he followed Axel into the small room. It was a pretty bare room, just a cheap round table that fit four chairs and not one of the four chairs matched either the table or the other chairs. It was like they’d been taken from their former lives and dumped into this small room to live out their lives.
Was he really comparing a chair to his life? Maybe he was losing it more than he thought.
Axel poured two cups and handed him one as they sat down at the table. “So, you’ve been out for about two years, right?”
Out? Oh, he meant out of the military.
“Yeah,” Chris said, looking down at the black liquid in his cup.
“It’s been eight years since I got out of the Marines. And sometimes I still have trouble sitting still.”
“I’m fine, Axel,” Chris said. “Really.”
“I’m sure you are,” Axel said with a brief lift of his shoulder. “Listen, in the military, everything is decided for you. They tell you where to go, what shots to get, what tests to run, and how to stand and act.”
Shit, that sounded a lot like his life now.
“Then you’re out, all of a sudden. You need to remember what it’s like to apply for jobs, when your next booster is due, and no one is holding your hand in case you fall.” He sighed. “When the military is all you know, civilian life is a shock.”
Didn’t he know it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t exactly civilian life for him.
“Is that what you think this is?” Chris asked.
“Maybe,” he shrugged. “Eight years ago, the military released me from active duty. The only thing they’d ever taught me was how to fix an engine. I got the offer here, and haven’t looked back since. I didn’t think I’d like a small town, but it grows on you.” He smiled but it faded as he spoke the next words. “Listen, Sheriff Hannigan came by. Wanted to know if you knew anything about an exploding car outside of town about two miles?”
“Nope,” Chris lied. “I was out at the Parker ranch for a few hours putting on her new tires though. Maybe I missed it.”
“Kind of hard to miss a flaming car,” Axel replied. His gaze swept over Chris, silently accusing. “Jubilee has a lot of good people. You and your friends… I’m not dumb. Y’all are doing something here, and it makes the town curious. I don’t care personally. Y’all do what you do. But I’m out of that life. But small towns don’t have a lot of entertainment, so that’s where the rumors get started. And there’s a lot going around about you and the crew here. I like these people, and I’m not going to lie to them for you.”
“No one’s asked you to lie about anything,” Chris said, swallowing the knot of nerves forming in his throat.
“No, that’s true.” He sighed, and caught Chris’s eyes, holding them steady with his. “Listen…That life… The one you think you have control over… it sucks the soul right out of you. I see it all over you, inside you, and it will kill you.”
“Axel—”
“Don’t insult me by lying to me. In fact, do me a favor. Don’t say anything at all. I don’t want to know.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.” Both men’s attention shot to the doorway where Bea stood. A white sundress with lavender flowers hugged her thin figure, but it couldn’t hide the way her muscles corded around her arms and legs, or the way her gaze scanned the room before she entered.
“Not at all, sugar.” Axel smiled, big and arrogantly, and patted his lap. “Come sit.”
Bea rolled her eyes. “Not after Mrs. Parker parked there.”
Axel’s eyes bulged. “What?”
“Axel, you didn’t!” Chris’s mouth dropped.
Axel’s mouth pressed together in an angry line, but bright pink colored his cheeks. “Shut up.”
“How drunk were you?” Chris asked, laughing.
“I wasn’t. And it was years ago.” Axel shot Bea a dirty look, but she ignored him.
Chris chuckled as Bea smiled her sly little knowing grin that left Axel completely flabbergasted. She dropped a file in front of Axel. “Need your signature on these.”
Axel begrudgingly signed them and held them up to her. She gripped them, but he didn’t let go immediately. His anger vanished, replaced by firm determination as he froze her in place with his eyes. “One day, you’re going to go to dinner with me.”
She leaned in, giving him a nice view of her cleavage and whispered. “That’s not today, cowboy.” She yanked on the file, breaking loose of his hold and left the room.
Axel shook his head. “Damn. I think she could kill me with her pinky toe and I’d die a happy man.”
Chris frowned and stood up. “I’m gonna go for a walk. Clear my head. So I don’t torture any more lady cars.”
Axel’s attention was still on the windows of the break room, where he could see Bea walking around the back office, but he did nod as Chris escaped the room.
As he headed toward the lair entrance, his earpiece chirped. “Yeah?”
“Hardy, we need you in the briefing room. We’ve got a lead on the bomb.”
~*~*~
Chris stared at the makeup of the C4 used in the car bomb. He’d seen the analysis before. He just hadn’t expected the way his gut plummeted down to his feet when he’d seen it.
“Giroux,” Chris whispered. The word came out like an epithet. Why did it not surprise him that where death was concerned, a Giroux would be lurking close by?
“Yes,” Jack said. “Well, it’s from Jean Giroux’s stash. Whether it was him or not, that’s inconclusive.”
“How could it not be?” Chris asked.
“If it looks like a bomb, and acts like a bomb, it’s a fucking bomb,” Jordan agreed.
“Yes, but this isn’t his style. And there’s a number of reasons why he wouldn’t target Abigail Lewis.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her father’s office recently put out a press release stating that Abigail Lewis was attending a university overseas. It lines up with her supposed escape.”
“Supposed?” Chris leaned his palms against the table as he stared at the screen. “You don’t believe her.”
“Her public behavior changed about a year ago. She went from America’s Princess to a recluse almost immediately. She doesn’t travel without her father. She isn’t seen in public without him. She doesn’t participate in her old charities. Everything she does now caters only to her father’s image.”
Chris straightened and crossed his arms. “Okay. So what changed?”
“Not sure. I’m still digging, but there’s just too much that doesn’t line up. And I think whatever life-altering thing happened, it happened about a year ago.” Jack pulled up a series of locations on the map. “Daniel Lewis has been on the campaign trail for the last six months. In the last twenty-four hours that Abigail has been here, the last two locations where he was scheduled to speak have been bombed by the same C4 as what destroyed the car here. The media thinks it’s random.”
Chris frowned, but Jordan asked the question first. “You think she’s been bombing her own father?”
“No. I think someone else is, trying to protect her.”
“So why try to kill her here?”
“I don’t think it was meant to kill her. It was meant to keep her here.”
Chris lifted his head to look at the older man. Jack Allen wasn’t his pick for the team. He’d betrayed his country, sided with a monster, and tortured one of his own to get information for a criminal. But Nathan had insisted on him, saying he was valuable to have on the team. So he got a second chance at life and the fucker was here, and there was not one thing Chris could do about it. The thing was… six months later, he found himself trusting the bastard. Maybe it was how much he’d changed. He certainly wasn’t the same dough-eyed kid that had joined the military. Shit. He wasn’t even sure who he was anymore.
“So someone wants to keep her here besides us?” Scott asked.
Jack shrugged. “Maybe.”
“What if it’s not her he’s targeting?” Chris asked.
They all looked at him.
He shrugged. “If Giroux found out I was here, it’s sort of likely that he might come for me, if anything to get at my sister.” Which was another checkbox in the column for him to do as Nathan wanted him to do. If he was dead to the world, then Giroux couldn’t use him to get at Addison.
“Possible,” Jack replied. “This car bomb doesn’t line up with the other bombings. It’s literally not connected to Daniel Lewis at all. And there’s no way that they could have known she was the one in the car. It’s a Company car.”
“We need to question the girl,” Jack said. “There’s something she’s not telling us, and we need to know.”
“You want to interrogate a senator’s daughter?”
“We aren’t bound by countries, Hardy. She’s just another asset we need to exploit.”
“You’re not touching her.” The idea of Allen even in the same room with Abigail set his blood to a low simmer.
Jack smiled, but it was full of malevolence. “You gonna stop me, pretty boy?”
Chris squared his shoulders, facing Jack. Half a room separated them, but Chris was willing to close the distance. “Yes.”
Jack rose to his full height, promises of violence in his sable eyes. Tension coiled around the two of them. Jordan and Scott watched them both carefully, but Chris’s attention was on Jack alone.
“Stand down.” Nathan’s voice rang out.
It was like cold water pouring over both of them as their boss entered the room. Jack’s face was homicidal, but he slowly obeyed, relaxing his shoulders. But they did not break eye contact until Nathan spoke again. “Sit down. Both of you. Now.”
They finally both sunk into seats as Nathan walked around to the computer. He tapped the controls and all three big screens came to life with pictures and text.
“Obviously, we all have our own impressions of Miss Lewis and her intentions here. But we do not act on impressions. We act on facts. Sierra has been doing a little research for us since Miss Lewis showed up.”
Chris watched silently as Nathan pulled up a picture of Senator Lewis.
“What we’ve found is quite interesting. We know Daniel Lewis. We know we’ve been tracking his dealings with foreign agents. Particularly arms agents like Alex Giroux.”
Chris’s eyes widened as he saw a picture of the man. Jean and Alex shared some similarities as brothers, though fifteen years separated them. Alex was out there somewhere, but he no longer had the pull of the family. His sister had been instrumental when he was with the SEALs to take him down.
“So, if he’s dealing with Alex why is Jean targeting him?”
“Alex is nothing anymore. He’s living off the last few millions he had stashed before his father died. Jean is the problem. He came out of his father’s death with half the business and all of his contacts.”
Jordan looked up at the picture, frowning. “So Lewis is really trying to kill his daughter? Like she said?”
“We know he’s been spending the last five years forging a relationship with Jean Giroux, and my sources tell me, she’s the key, though my sources did not know why.” Nathan’s face soured for a moment. It was probably killing him that he couldn’t get that information out of whoever he had tortured.
Jean Giroux, though. He wanted nothing more than to make that man suffer and die. Because of him, Addison was living a life without her brother. Because of him, Chris had two holes in his chest that would never fully close. Because of him, Chris was stuck in service to a mentally wounded billionaire that could probably kill him with his pinky.
“That is why I had Abigail Lewis brought here.”
“How so? She’s a spoiled little princess,” Jordan said. “A gorgeous one, but still, spoiled.”
Spoiled was never how he’d seen Abigail. Rich and sheltered, maybe. But a new version of her was seeping out now that he’d seen her again. One where she was brave despite the fear in her eyes.
“Something caused her to run from her father. She had access to Daniel Lewis, and we think she may have taken something he wants back. I believe he will want her back alive. He’s employed a private security firm to find her.”
“He hired mercenaries?” Chris couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
“Yes.”
Jesus. Mercenaries. High-end mercenaries called themselves private security firms and they catered to the whims of powerful political figures and had access to government contracts.
“We tag her. Send her home.” Scott said as he rubbed his scruffy chin. “She’ll lead us right to what we want.”
“Or her father kills her before she can,” Chris growled. “Besides, she won’t go back willingly. She thinks he means to kill her.”
“She doesn’t need to be willing,” Jack growled. “Or conscious.”
“Touch her, and I will remove your fingers by skinning them off her one at a time.”
Jack laughed. “You can try.”
“That’s enough!” Nathan scolded. The two men glared each other down but said nothing more. “Get close to her, Mr. Hardy. Bring her into the fold and get what we need from her.”
“She’s not a spy, Nathan. She’s just someone running for her life,” Chris protested.
“Yes, and you were just a man dying in a hospital bed once. Look how you turned out.” Nathan’s lip turned upward into a smirk. “Bring her in.”
“She’s not going to trust me just because I tell her she can,” Chris said. “She’s a smart girl.”
“I don’t care how you make that girl trust you. Coercion. Seduction. It doesn’t matter. Get it done. We will need whatever it is she has on her father.”
His watch beeped. Nathan glanced down and frowned. “I have to go.”
As Nathan yet again disappeared, Chris growled, mostly to himself. He didn’t want to do anything with Abigail Lewis. Seduction? If he even got close to her, it wouldn’t be him doing the seduction. She did something to him, woke something primal inside him he’d never felt before. When he’d looked at her in the infirmary, he’d seen it then… the desire, the want. He couldn’t control it. If he got anywhere near her, he had no idea how he was going to control himself. But the real problem was if he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to.