AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His gaze flicked down to Puzzle. “He’s not certified.”
“That excuse is so flimsy it’s transparent.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “We’ve been on missions before.”
“Not ones like this. He’s not a war dog, and we haven’t desensitized him to gunfire.”
She lost some of her defiance at that and glanced down at Puzzle. His tail wagged at the possibility of heading out on an adventure, knocking someone’s half-empty mug off the nearby coffee table. The dark liquid splattered across the floor like an oil spill.
She looked up, meeting Zak’s gaze again. “Are you expecting a war?”
His smile was grim. “That’s why I called in the big guns.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer and instead pointed at her. “Stay.”
At her side, Puzzle obediently sat, but his tail still wagged, spreading the coffee mess around with each swish.
“I’m not a dog!” she called as Zak and the rest of the guys marched out. “I’m not just going to sit and stay on command.”
“Welcome to my world,” Sawyer muttered from in front of his computer. “I don’t get to do anything fun anymore, either.”
She whirled on him. “Who did he call?”
Sawyer’s fingers stopped tapping at the keyboard, and he looked in her direction with his unfocused eyes. “Ghostbusters?”
“I’m serious.”
He hesitated for a heartbeat, then sighed and dragged a hand over his face. “He called in the team that rescued him from Afghanistan.”
“Oh shit.” She’d never heard the full story of Zak’s time as a POW or how he lost his leg, but she had heard the rumors of his rescue by some kind of badass black ops team. “He thinks it’s that dangerous?”
“Well, he hasn’t really talked to them since his rescue… if that gives you any indication.”
Ellie glanced back at Puzzle. The fur on his back was standing up, and the light in his eyes dimmed. He could sense her worry. She held out her hand, and he pressed his head against her palm. “So those guys... they’re… what? Mercenaries?”
“I think they prefer to be called private contractors. They specialize in hostage rescue and do dirty work that government agencies can’t touch due to legal entanglement.”
The words hit Ellie like a sucker punch. She sank into the nearest chair, staring with wide eyes at Sawyer. Puzzle whined and nudged her knee with his snout, but she barely noticed. Her mind was whirling, too full of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios.
“Are they... are they any good?” she asked, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Sawyer snorted, a sound somewhere between amusement and disdain. “They’re the best. They don’t always obey the rules, but they get the job done.”
Fear curdled in her, bitter and cold, choking out any semblance of rational thought. She thought about Cal, strong, stubborn Cal, wrapped up in something so dangerous that Zak had to call in a team of mercenaries.
All because of her.
Infiltrating the commune had been her idea.
And then she’d left Cal there…
She popped to her feet. “I am not sitting this one out.”
Sawyer whipped around in his chair. “Ellie?—”
But she was already out the door with Puzzle at her side.
By the time she got to the parking lot, the team had just finished loading their gear in Redwood Coast Rescue’s new K9 unit trucks. She slipped alongside one of the vehicles—the one farthest from Zak’s—and crawled into the backseat, keeping low. She bribed Puzzle to lie down in the footwell with a treat.
