Chapter Three

HORNET Headquarters, Wyoming

Ian Reinhardt rolled out of bed and stuffed his feet into his boots. The quick back-and-forth trip to Switzerland had thrown off his internal clock, and he wasn’t getting sleep any time soon. From the dog bed on the floor, Tank lifted his head from the pillow of his big paws and blinked sleepily.

On his way to the door, he rubbed a hand over his best friend’s—okay, shit, only friend’s—head. Tank gave an impressive yawn and looked at Ian like he was crazy for being up in the middle of the night.

Yeah, pal. You should know by now I’m batshit crazy.

It had been two years since he and the team rescued Tank from a bombed-out shell of a village in Afghanistan, but it still astonished him that the dog liked him. No-fucking-body liked him. He was an asshole on his best days, and a complete shit-heel bastard on his worst. He knew it, accepted it, was A-Okay with living his life that way. And, still, Tank thought the sun rose and fell at his command.

He patted the dog’s head. “Go back to sleep, pal. I’ll be home in a few.”

Tank hesitated and looked at the front window of their one-room cabin. Snow had built up six inches thick on the windowsill and icy flakes frosted the glass. He looked at Ian again. Dogs supposedly couldn’t express human emotions, but Ian saw disbelief written all over his black snout. Almost as if he was saying, You’re going out in that?

Yes. He was. And even if he wanted to, he couldn’t explain why.

“Stay,” he told Tank and snagged his jacket from the knob by the door.

Tank hesitated another beat, then plopped down on his bed with a huff. All… Fine. I didn’t want to go with you anyway, you big jerk.

Ian grinned as he opened the door. The cold hit him like a fist to the stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs. “Fucking Wyoming.” He kicked at the snow that had blown up against his door and was now tumbling inside. “Fucking Gabe and Quinn. They couldn’t set up shop in California or Florida or Hawaii. No, it had to be Wyoming.”

He glanced back inside before swinging the door shut. Tank was already snoring again. He envied his dog’s ability to sleep at the drop of a hat. Ian was lucky to sleep at all anymore.

It took fifteen minutes to clear the fresh snow off his truck and de-ice the windshield. When he finally climbed behind the wheel and put the thing into drive, he told himself he didn’t have a destination in mind.

Even as he pulled up in front of the half-finished dorm of HORNET’s training center, even as he shut the truck off, even as he got out and trudged through the snow to the front door, he told himself he had no particular destination in mind.

And he would’ve kept telling himself that until he got to the door of her cell, except he saw Marcus staggering through the swirling snow, headed in this same direction. Ian parked himself in front of the door, arms crossed.

Marcus didn’t notice anyone was gatekeeping until he nearly collided with Ian. The guy was shit-faced. Again. No big surprise there. It was his regular state of being since the whole Danny thing.

Ian ignored the sharp tug in his gut that happened every time he thought of that morning and watching Danny Giancarelli bleed out on the pristine sand of a Martinique beach. It wasn’t grief, goddammit. He didn’t care enough about any of these guys to grieve for the senseless, brutal loss of one of them.

People died. That’s what they were put on this planet to do. Live a shitty life and die shitting themselves. He couldn’t care about everyone who got themselves killed, especially in this line of work. Not caring was exhausting enough, thanks.

Marcus slurred something that might have been a sentence, but Ian couldn’t pick out any specific words. He planted his feet. Not that he thought Marcus had any chance of taking him on in his inebriated state. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Get outta my way.” More slurring. He carried a bottle in one hand and his weapon in the other. He waved the gun around in a big gesture. Pointing at what was anyone’s guess. Only thing he was threatening was the light over their heads, and even that was safe due to the fact he had more alcohol in his blood than plasma at the moment. “… the prisoner… knows more… I’mma find out…”

Yeah, nope. That wasn’t happening on Ian’s watch and was exactly the reason he’d been unable to shut his brain off tonight. A switch had flipped in Marcus back there in Switzerland. Ian had seen that switch before. Hell, he’d felt that switch before. He knew the rage and the driving need to kill to settle the score. He’d lived with it for years. Had channeled it. And was so damn close to being rid of it.

Given the shit Marcus had done to Mercedes Raya to get the intel on Sebastian Haly, murder wasn’t a stretch of the imagination. And Ian couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d wake up tomorrow morning and find Mercedes dead.

Not that he cared what happened to Mercedes. He didn’t. He hated her and everything she stood for. She was a reminder of exactly the thing he’d spent the last several years trying to forget. But he had plans for her, and they didn’t include her getting a .45 slug in the brainpan courtesy of a pissed-off Marcus.

If he ever wanted to be rid of the rage inside him, he needed her alive.

Marcus tried to shove by him. He didn’t budge, but Marcus stumbled down the steps and fell on his ass in the snow.

Ian shook his head. Pathetic. “Go home, Deangelo. Before you do something to piss me off.”

“Yer always pissssed off.” Marcus swayed to his feet, his gun forgotten in the snowbank where it had landed. He didn’t forget the booze, though. Oh, no. He snapped that bottle up like it was a lifesaver in a turbulent sea and took a huge swig. He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand and jabbed a wobbly finger in Ian’s general direction. “Yer p-protesting… erm, protecting…the enemy.”

“No. I’m keeping you from doing something that will weigh on your conscience for the rest of your life. Cold-blooded murder doesn’t make for a sound night’s sleep.” He should know. His teammates thought he was capable of murder—and, yeah, he was; he’d killed many times and would again—but none of them knew that the blood on his hands kept him awake at night. They thought he was a psycho, and he was fine with that.

Marcus shook his head so hard he threw himself off-balance. “Not cold-blooded. She killed Danny.”

“Sebastian Haly killed Danny. And he’s dead. You should take comfort in that.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“You should take comfort in that, too.”

“I owe Leah closure. I owe her…” He stared up with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. “I told her I’d catch the man responsible. I told her…”

Despite all of his protestations to the contrary, Ian felt for this guy. Marcus wasn’t a bad man. He was shattered and lost and so fucking sad it hurt to be in the same room as him. But at his heart, underneath the anger and sadness, Marcus was one of the best men Ian had ever known. A man with a quick smile and quicker wit. A man who loved his mother, put her up on a pedestal, and treated her like a queen. A man who took care of his friends, even when he was hurting.

Someone should do the same for him. Unfortunately, the only person awake at this hour was Ian.

“Marcus…” He hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to be a good friend, wasn’t even sure if they could be considered friends at all. “Man, you should leave for a while. Get away from here. Get your head on straight. Get away from the sauce.” He nodded toward the bottle. “You’re too good to let that demon get the best of you.”

Marcus swayed on his feet for a moment, then looked at the bottle in his hand. “Hurts too much to be sober.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

He blinked hard and to Ian’s horror tears spilled from the guy’s eyes. “It was ’posed to be me. I shoulda died on that beach, not Danny. Me.” He thumped his chest. “The sniper wanted me.”

With that, he spun away and swayed off into the swirling snow.

Ian let out the breath he’d been holding. “Fuck,” he said softly. That had been more emotion than he’d wanted to deal with tonight. Or, you know, ever.

He waited until he could no longer see Marcus. The guy would either make it back to his cabin or pass out and freeze to death in the snow. Ian told himself he didn’t care which one happened as long as Marcus stayed away, and he shoved through the door.

The construction on the dorm had kicked into double-time since the previous dorm sustained fire damage a few weeks ago. Currently, the trainees were all staying at a hotel in Jackson. Before much longer, they’d move into this building, which begged the question—what did Gabe and Quinn plan to do with the prisoner then?

Well, after tonight it wouldn’t matter.

He found Seth Harlan standing guard outside the cell. The sniper was recently back from his honeymoon and looked tanned and as relaxed as Ian had ever seen him. His attention was on his ereader until he yawned and reached for his empty coffee mug. Only then did he notice Ian’s approach. “What are you doing up?”

“Hey, Hero. First day back and they have you on bitch-sitting duty, huh?”

Seth shook his head and set aside his mug. “Don’t call her that.”

Ian rolled his eyes. That was Seth. Golden Boy Scout Hero to his core, even after all the shit he’d gone through. Had to give the guy credit. Torture like he’d endured as a POW in Afghanistan would’ve broken a lesser man. But Seth? Nah. It only chipped him a little bit, dinged him up.

Ian suspected Seth Harlan was stronger than all the rest of them put together, which made what he was about to do to the guy that much worse.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Ian said. “Went for a walk, ended up here.”

Seth yawned again and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Lucky. I’m struggling to stay awake.”

“Want me to take over for a bit?”

Seth’s head snapped up and his eyes narrowed. “Why are you being nice?”

Guy was no idiot. This would be so much easier if he were. “I’m not an asshole all the time.”

Seth just stared at him. “Yeah, man, you are.”

Ian resisted the urge to shift on his feet. He wasn’t about to examine why those words made him so uncomfortable. It shouldn’t matter that Seth thought he was a Grade A prick, but…it did.

Goddammit.

Going for disinterest, he shrugged and turned away like he planned to leave. “See if I offer to help again.”

He’d wanted to do this without hurting anyone, but it looked like that would be impossible now. And, fuck, why did Seth have to be on duty now? Out of all of them, Seth was the guy he least wanted to hurt.

“Wait.” Seth got up from his seat and stepped forward, giving the perfect opening.

Ian swung around, rotating his hips to add KO power behind the punch. Seth never saw it coming. His head snapped back and it was lights out.

Ian caught him before he collapsed and lowered him to the floor. “Sorry, pal. I really didn’t want to do that, but I need our prisoner free.”

He searched Seth’s pockets for the key, found it, and took it over to the door. He drew his weapon with one hand while unlocking the door with his other. He didn’t need the gun. He could kill silently with his bare hands. The gun was for show, intimidation.

As if anyone could intimidate Mercedes Raya.

She sat on the end of the narrow bed, dressed in sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. The clothes she’d had on when they picked her up in Nigeria had been destroyed in case she’d come in contact with the virus still burning its way through the population there. Whoever had bought her the sweats hadn’t paid much attention to her size—she swam in them.

She looked like hell. She’d lost weight. Her hair was a matted mess, reminding him of the crazy homeless woman who used to wheel around a broken cart full of junk outside the troubled boys’ group home where he’d grown up in Brooklyn.

Crazy Cart Lady. Huh. He hadn’t thought of her in ages.

Mercedes stared at him for a long moment, her dark eyes huge in her drawn face. “Come to kill me?”

He motioned with his weapon. “Get up. You’re getting out of here.”

She didn’t move. Only nodded. “You’ve come to kill me.”

Out of patience, he stalked forward. “I’m not killing anybody. Yet. Put on your goddamn shoes and get the fuck outta here before Seth wakes up.”

“If I leave this room, it’s only a matter of time until I’m dead.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Then why would I leave? Your friends are too good. They won’t kill me. But out there…” She motioned vaguely toward the door with one hand. “Defion is looking for me. They think I’m a traitor and don’t have the same moral hang-ups about murder.”

“That’s your problem. You chose the wrong team.”

“So did you. Once upon a time.”

And I’ve been paying for it ever since. He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it at her. She’d make shitty bait if she died of hypothermia before Defion found her. “You’ll leave because if you don’t, I’ll kill you. And I’ll make it hurt. You know I don’t have the same moral hang-ups as my teammates.”

Her gaze traveled past his shoulder to where Seth lay on the floor. “No. You don’t. Harrison made sure of that.”

Ian ground his teeth together. Harrison Stead, the leader of Defion and one-time father figure to Ian. Harrison was the reason he was willing to throw away the good thing he had with HORNET by releasing Mercedes. Harrison no doubt took her betrayal personally, and would make it his mission to find her and kill her…leading Ian right to him.

Mercedes returned her gaze to him. “I take it you didn’t find Sebastian?”

“No, we did. Fucker just had the courtesy to already be dead by the time we got to him.”

She flinched like he’d struck her and shut her eyes tightly. Despite that, her tears leaked out.

There was that tug again, somewhere in his chest. Bait, he reminded himself. That was all this woman meant to him. She was the chum in the water—her only purpose was to draw his own personal Jaws toward his spear.

Mercedes drew a shaky breath and shoved to her feet. “If they found him, it doesn’t matter where I am. They’ll find me, too. I’m already dead. I just didn’t know it yet.”

Ian watched her go and smiled grimly to himself. She’d taken his jacket. His favorite, but he’d been willing to make that sacrifice. There was a tracker sewn into the lining. As long as she kept it, he’d know exactly where she was.

…

Sebastian was dead.

God.

She hadn’t wanted to think it a possibility, though that tune had been playing on repeat in Mercedes’s head ever since he’d left her in Nigeria.

Sebastian was dead. Sebastian was dead. Sebastian was dead.

Why else would he have left her like that?

She’d wanted to believe he was still alive. Wanted to believe there was a chance. The only reason she’d given HORNET his location was the faint hope that they’d find him and lock him away, too. Keep him safe for her.

Sebastian was dead.

It wasn’t a creeping suspicion anymore, but a fact. He was gone and it hurt so much she struggled to breathe in the icy night air. Ian’s coat was like an iron cape around her shoulders as she trudged through the snow toward the woods, but she didn’t dare get rid of it. She wouldn’t last long in this cold without it. Her boots—the ugly brown things basic girls wore to Starbucks for their pumpkin spice lattes—were already soaked through. Useless pieces of footwear. What the hell was their purpose if not to keep your feet warm and dry?

She needed clothes more suitable for this weather. She could access one of her hidden bank accounts if she found a town, but she had no idea where she was—other than somewhere cold as fuck, likely in the northern hemisphere.

Maybe she should just lie down in a snowbank. That way, she’d deny Ian the satisfaction of using her as bait—oh, she knew exactly what he’d planned for her—and Harrison Stead the pleasure of killing her. She should just give them both a big middle finger and freeze to death.

But, no.

Those thoughts reeked of defeat, and she’d never been the kind of woman to give up without a fight. Harrison had taken everything from her. Her brother. Her lover. Why lie down and give him her life, too?

Shivering, she trudged forward another step. And another. Rage became a fire in her, stoking her engine, keeping her moving. Ian thought letting her go would lead him to Harrison? Well, she would, but he was going to be mighty disappointed. She’d get to Harrison first, and Ian would never have his revenge.

The crunch of a foot through the icy snow halted her in her tracks. For a split second, her body coiled in preparation to bolt into the line of trees up ahead. She quickly reconsidered that idea. If she had a gun pointed at her right now, the snow was too deep to allow for a quick exit, and she’d probably wind up with a new lead accessory to go with her fugly boots.

Forcing herself to relax, she turned to face her follower.

No gun.

It was the first thing she registered. The second?

Marcus Deangelo.

And he was in no shape to fight with her. He stood there swaying on his feet, blinking like he didn’t believe what his peepers told him. Judging by what little was left in the bottle he carried, he could very well be hallucinating.

Her lip curled. She hated him for what he’d done to her. For making her so weak that she’d betrayed the only man she’d ever loved. It didn’t matter that Sebastian was already dead—her betrayal was a betrayal all the same.

She could take the bastard out now. Easy. Like Ian, she didn’t need a weapon to kill. Harrison had made sure of that.

She took a step toward him but stopped short when he collapsed to his knees. The bottle rolled out of his hand and spilled into the snow. He looked…broken. There was nothing she could do to hurt him more than he was already hurting.

“Go inside,” she called. “You’ll freeze out here.”

“Deserve it.” Marcus stared up at her, his face reddened by the cold, his eyes reddened by the booze. “Do you know…more? Please. I don’t care if you leave. I don’t…care about anything but getting justice for Danny. And Leah. She deserves peace.”

With those slurred words, some of that hate she had for him vanished, swept away by the wind with the little flakes of snow swirling around them. He wanted revenge, same as her. Same as Ian. In his shoes, she would’ve done exactly the same thing to get answers. And worse. Because again, like Ian, she didn’t have many moral hang-ups when it came to murder. In comparison, a little waterboarding was a weekend holiday.

God, was she going soft?

Maybe.

This newfound compassion would probably get her killed, but she didn’t entirely hate it. She’d lived so long pushing down her emotions, doing her best to view other people as objects to be used and discarded. She was exhausted by it.

“I don’t know anything more,” she told him as gently as she could manage. “Sebastian never told me who contracted the hit.”

He nodded, then glanced around like he wasn’t entirely sure where he was. “I’m sorry,” he slurred. “Hate myself for what I did to you.”

“Others have done worse.”

“Sorry for that, too.”

“Jesus, you’re pathetic. My sob story is not your fault.” She stalked forward and searched his pockets until she found his phone. She grabbed his hand, using his fingerprint to unlock the screen, then scrolled through his contacts until she found one of HORNET’s head honchos.

She didn’t wait for a response when the line picked up. “Come get your boy before he freezes to death.”

Without ending the call, she tucked the phone back into his pocket. She had to get gone for now, but even as she ran toward the woods, she knew she hadn’t seen the last of the HORNET guys.

Like it or not, their paths to revenge were on a crash course now.