Page 113 of Her Defiant Warrior

When she left the living room, he turned his attention to his boss. “Braxton filled me in. What have you all come up with?”

“I’ll tell you about it, the day after tomorrow. Like you just said, you can’t think straight.”

“I said I couldn’t think straight on the meds. I’m fine with Tylenol. Now tell me what the fuck is going on. We know it’s the Kraken. Do we think the Aussie bitch is in charge now?”

“Braxton’s take is that she could take charge after Roberts and Brady were killed.”

“Yeah, he told me how she was fucking him and calling him ‘Daddy’ but his take was that she would have slit his throat during the night so she could take over if she thought she could get away with it.”

“Nice.” Kostya grimaced. “Women can be ruthless.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Lark said as she came back with the Tylenol bottle. She stopped and opened it up and shook out a couple of tablets.

“Make it three,” Mateo said as he kept his hand held out.

This time it was her turn to grimace. “Fine.” She shook out one more. “Drink it down with the Gatorade, then eat all of your ice cream. You need the milk to coat your stomach. What in the hell did your Uber driver get at the store for you anyway?”

“Gatorade, protein bars, Doritos, protein shakes, cheese puffs and ice cream.”

Lark started to say something when his doorbell rang.

God. In the name of all that was holy, that sure as hell hurt. He needed to get that damn thing disconnected.

Lark opened the door and let Amy Linden in. She was holding a crockpot with oven mitts. Where in the hell was Ryker?

Kostya was off the coffee table before Mateo could blink and had the crockpot out of her hands and on the kitchen counter. Ryker came in loaded for bear. He had at least seven grocery totes.

“What in the hell?” Mateo demanded to know as he got up off his couch.

Lark looked over at him and winced. “I really should have known better than to have called Amy. I should have called Jada. She wouldn’t have bought out half of Teeter’s Grocery.”

“You called while we were grocery shopping. It was no problem,” Amy said with a smile. She was already starting to unload everything and put it away. She’d plugged in the crockpot and a heavenly smell was wafting through the air.

“And the crockpot?” Lark asked.

“We just stopped by our house and picked that up. Since it’s our dinner, we figured we’d make it our lunch instead and come on over here and share. And check up on the idiot who checked himself out of the hospital three days early.”

Shit, he’d forgotten that Amy was Lark’s best friend and she didn’t pull any punches either.

“That smells really good,” Mateo admitted.

“Too bad you don’t get any.” Amy smiled at him. “It’s spicy chili. I brought yogurt and I’m going to whip up some homemade chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for you.”

“But I love chili,” Mateo heard himself whine.

“And in three days I’ll give you some.” She handed Ryker the half full pizza box and pulled out the trash can from under his sink. “Here, honey, take out the trash. This is stinking up the house.”

Ryker looked over his shoulder at Mateo. “You owe me.”

Mateo got the feeling he was going to be owing half his team before the next two days were over. He’d been out of the game for seventy-two hours being held hostage at the hospital and lying around here in his condo, and it was two more days until he’d be in a meeting. It was five days too long to be out of things, as far as he was concerned.

4

Night Storm had just been deployed on a mission. So had Black Dawn. Midnight Delta, out of Coronado was the next team up to bat, so it looked like Omega Sky had a breather. It didn’t matter; if necessary, Kostya would have gone over their new commander’s head and talked to Captain Hale about the situation, and why they couldn’t be deployed.

If their commander was still Lt Commander Simon Clark it wouldn’t have been a problem, but they couldn’t take a chance with the new guy. Not with their families being targeted. It was possible this new commander, Theo Nash, might bring in the FBI, because the military wasn’t supposed to operate on US soil, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that the men of Omega Sky were going to let anybody but themselves care for their friends and families.

Not a chance in fucking hell.