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Mick had seen shadows, he said. Possibly another team.
Was another group hedging their bets on being picked for whatever operation Crossfield needed a team for? But still, why hit Mick’s team? They were leaving.
“Lucas.” He turned to his second. “Contact Hayes. Tell him to make certain no one gets in that goddamned house, even if it means slipping in himself and hiding in a corner.”
“Already taken care of,” Lucas assured him. “Your woman’s fast asleep and Hayes is currently in position should anyone attempt to get in.”
Jack hated the thought of another man in her home, a stranger who could frighten her if she came up on him in the dark. It would fucking terrify her. Hayes was no amateur, though, and if he was in the shadows, he’d stay there if Poppy awakened and began moving around.
“There’s another team somewhere,” he told Lucas softly, feeling the certainty in his bones. “Doesn’t make sense to hit Mick as he was leaving, but they did.” He looked around the area again.
His hunter’s instincts weren’t crawling, but he could feel the disquiet, the certainty that Mick had seen something to convince him someone was out there before the explosion.
“Looks like someone doesn’t want competition, boss,” Lucas suggested, his voice low, hard.
Which meant Jack and his men were likely marks now.
As well as Poppy.
“Find that team,” he ordered Lucas. “And find them fast. Before our body parts are scattered over some field.”
Lucas grimaced. “Thanks for an image that I could have done without, but I’m already on it, boss…”
Hayes had slipped from Poppy’s house before Jack’s arrival hours later. Night was beginning to edge into dawn when he stripped, showered to wash the stench of death from his body, then after drying crawled into bed beside her.
She turned to him, still asleep, snuggling against him as though she had been cold, when Jack knew he was the one who needed warmth. Needed her body next to his, sheltered against him and protected.
There had been a woman on that fucking plane, as well as the pilot, Ian had informed him just before they left the site. One of his men had found her body, mostly intact. A petite blonde who’d been wearing a wedding band.
God, he prayed she hadn’t been Mick’s or Coye’s woman. Losing a wife like that could kill a man with no wounds. Shatter his heart right in his chest.
As he inhaled Poppy’s scent, he knew he’d never survive losing her.
“Okay?” she whispered sleepily, causing him to realize just how tight he was holding her.
“I’m fine,” he promised, loosening his grip on her only marginally. “Go back to sleep, baby.”
She settled into him once again, slipping back into slumber as he stared into the dimly light room.
He and his men went out daily riding through town, looking at faces, watching people. They hadn’t seen anyone from a team other than Mick’s, hadn’t heard from any of the contacts they were slowly pulling in of anyone who appeared dangerous skulking around.
That didn’t mean they weren’t there. They just hadn’t been seen yet.
Not a lot of teams would have risked trying to take Mick out like that. If he survived, he’d learn who it was, and he’d make damned sure they paid. And if Coye survived to help him, those other men would beg for death long before they found it.
They were still fighting to live. Both men were still in surgery, and the last report Ian had relayed to Jack was that though it was still touch and go, they were alive.
If they’d made it this long, then Jack had hope they’d survive.
He’d get some rest now, just as his men were now sleeping in the house across from him. At least, that was what he’d told them to do. They needed a few hours’ rest, a chance to catch a breath before they went looking for the shadows Mick had seen.
Finding that team and eliminating them was imperative now. Not just for Mick, but for their own safety.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mick and Coye were still holding on the next afternoon when Jack and his team met with Ian and Kira at the house the Richardses had taken for the summer. Ian’s contact didn’t know why the team had been hit, but was still checking into it; all that was known for sure was that it had to do with the job they’d turned down in Barboursville. A job Mick had decided he didn’t like the feel of.
Ian’s people hadn’t located any of the AI’s components coming into the country, despite their best attempts. They were tracking what they thought was a suspicious shipment heading for West Virginia but were trying to get more intel on it.
