AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked down and frowned. “Oh no. It’s my favorite.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.” What had it taken for Lou to dothat? Adrenaline was getting the better of him. “Baby, I’m sorry. Let’s get outof here. Stay behind me.”
Those brown eyes of hers rolled, and she suddenly had abaton in her other hand. His sweet, too-precious-for-the-world baby had a bloodyknife in one hand and a wicked-looking baton in the other, and she’d snuck themboth into a mercenary compound in her skirt. Come to think of it, she’d likelydesigned both weapons along with apparently making a quieter freaking C-4.
Fuck, she was hot.
He was standing in the middle of a paramilitary compoundwith the love of his life in danger and he had a hard-on because Lou doing badshit did something for him.
She turned, her gaze narrowing on him. “Try to keep up, TJ.”
She jogged out the door, looking like an avenging goddess-warriorqueen bitch. The bitch part wasn’t something he would say out loud. She mighttake offense, but for him she looked like the baddestbitch he’d ever seen, and he’d been raised around a whole lot of them.
Suddenly he was seeing Lou in a whole new light, and hewasn’t sure how to handle it.
He only knew he damn sure wasn’t letting her go.
He gripped the M-15 like it came naturally. Which it did.“When did this become a CIA op?”
“When we realized they had you. No one bought the whole TJ’sscrewing around thing,” she said, stopping at the end of the hallway. Sheflattened her back and closed her eyes, seeming to listen to something in herhead.
Or one of his cousins was in her ear. He could guess whathad happened. She’d figured it out, gotten on the Dark Web and discovered theplot to take her in and either allowed herself to be taken, or had one of theguys pretend to be a mercenary and haul her in. She’d come loaded with all kindsof devices that would keep her connected to her team and discovered they werejamming the signals.
“When did comms come back online?” he asked.
“I suspect when Kala or Coop killed the jammer. And it allcame back at the worst time possible. You should know your uncle might neverrecover.”
He didn’t care about the whole “we kind of made a sex tape”thing. “Good. Then he understands.”
That got her head to turn his way. “Understands?” Herexpression went blank, and then she nodded. “Coming from the east. Yes. I havehim. He’s safe but the guard is dead. Yeah, I know.”
She knew? Knew what? He didn’t like being on the outside.Normally he would be wearing a headset and would be able to hear all sides ofthe conversation.
“I’m on it,” she promised and then started moving again,going to the left down the corridor. They were in some kind of industrialcomplex with concrete walls.
“Hey, did they take out the cameras?” He hustled to keep upwith her, noting the CCTV cams that dotted the hallways.
“No, Tasha took them over. They can’t use them, but we can,”she explained. “Tasha’s taken over back at base since your uncle is apparentlytraumatized. You should know your parents are there. They flew out with us.Your mom kind of murdered the first guy sent to take her out, so we subbed Coopin.”
That would buy him some points on the maternal front. Hismom hadn’t killed anyone in a long time, and he thought sometimes she missedit. “I want to argue with you and tell you how fucking dangerous this was, butI think you’ve been holding out on me.”
She stopped. “Holding out on you?”
“You know I thought you were an analyst. I had no idea youwere out in the field.”
“I’m not, for the most part.”
There was something he’d been wondering about. “I heard somerumors about what went down at the end of the Australia op. Did you kill myCO?”
She gave him the brattiest look and started walking again.
That got his blood churning, though he wasn’t mad, exactly.This version of Lou did something for him the sweet, soft one never had. Healways wanted to protect her. He wanted to give to her.
What if she liked it when he took, too?
“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” He kept up his carefulprotection of her back since she seemed to be plowing through. Likely becauseTash told her it was okay, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“I didn’t kill Mike. Kala did. He was going to turn overTasha to the bad guys. The only reason Chet didn’t die was he cried like ababy, and Tasha couldn’t handle it. So I hogtied the asshole and had to babysithim while Tasha was nearly dying. It took everything I had not to murder him soI could get to the hospital.”
