Surrendering To Her Sergeant (41 page)

Technically, this didn’t qualify as
stalker behavior.

Tait nodded his head,
confident with the conclusion, as the sun started to burn off the
June mist across the parking lot of the Los Angeles branch of the
CIA. He hadn’t followed her home, wherever the hell that was these
days. He hadn’t left her a single annoying text and only tried to
call her at the desk once a day. All he’d done this morning was
borrow the team’s rental van to buy her coffee and a chocolate
croissant, then park here for a few to wait for her to roll into
work. She’d been working insane hours; he knew that because all the
spooks were on an all-hands-on-deck status that didn’t seem to be
changing anytime soon. As soon as he gave her the sustenance, said
a quick
hi
, then
maybe grabbed a fast kiss, he’d get his ass and the vehicle back to
the hotel before Franz poked an eye open.

He kept a close eye on a few people
who arrived. Three guys and a couple of women, though none of them
was Luna. Everyone appeared like they’d gotten just a few hours of
sleep and would be hitting the caffeine IV in a few mikes. After
six years in Special Forces, he knew that look well.

While vowing he’d give this
stunt only fifteen more minutes, he got out of the van then leaned
against it.
Not
the wisest move in a parking lot where even the trash was
likely given X-ray scrutiny, but he was oddly restless and couldn’t
keep still.

“Damn it, Luna.” He fought off the
disgruntlement with himself once more. How had she drawn him here,
standing in line for the Insanity Coaster once again? He knew how
this worked. He’d love every twist, turn, and drop of the ride,
only to stumble off and puke on his shoes afterward.

But he couldn’t stop
himself, and didn’t want to.
Crazy
Luna
. That’s what she’d called herself. The
trouble was, he liked crazy. Who on earth was he kidding? He adored
crazy, especially when it was working so damn hard to show the
world that cray-cray could be okay, too. That crazy didn’t mean it
couldn’t atone for its missteps and try to make the world a better
place again.

But why the hell was crazy
bolting
out
of the
building now, black-and-lavender hair flying, ID badge twisted,
knee-high boots clattering in a mad pace on the
pavement?

Tait pushed off the van and called to
her. “Luna?”

She whipped around with one
emotion claiming her face. Fear. “Weasley! Shit! Y-You’re
here
.”

He held his hands out. “I’m not
pulling anything creepy, okay? Just brought you some coffee
and—oof!”

A full body check was the last thing
he expected from her. His nose tangled in her hair as she pythoned
his neck with her elbows. “Thank God,” she uttered. “Thank fucking
God.”

If her face was permeated in terror,
her voice swam in the stuff. He pulled away to get a good look into
her eyes. “What is it?” he demanded. “What do you need?”

“Stock is Lor’s bitch. He
double-teamed us. And he’s called an ‘emergency’ meeting for
everyone at the hotel, not the studio, apparently for an urgent
matter.”

He choked on the ice bucket of shock
she’d just dumped on him. “When?”

“Right now.”

“Right
now
?”

He was genuinely shocked and her gaze
narrowed, clearly believing him. “Franzen sent out the text about
it an hour ago. Haven’t you been checking your phone?”

“I took the rental van without asking.
What do you think?”

Brandishing her second shock of the
morning, Luna gave him a hard and fervent kiss. “For the first
time, I’m damn glad you bend the rules, buddy.” Alarm sparked anew
in her eyes. “We have to get to the hotel. Now!”

He reached back and wrenched the
driver’s side door open. Before Luna could get a step off toward
the passenger side, he swept her up and threw her onto the bench
seat. She’d crawled across and buckled up before he fired up the
ignition. That was a good thing, because T-Bomb was in the driver’s
seat now.

* * * * *

“What the hell?” Luna blurted it as he
guided the van toward the hotel’s loading dock and they noticed a
white C-Class Mercedes that’d been driven up a curb and left on one
of the hotel’s sidewalks with its hazards blinking.

Tait growled and stated, “You got it
about right. That’s Ava Chestain’s car.”

“Shit.” During their fifteen-minute
speed ride over here, she’d filled him in on the phone call she’d
gotten from Ethan, in which he’d not only cited Ava as his source
about Stock but had confirmed many of the details directly with the
woman. They could imply she and Ethan had come here together. “That
doesn’t look like Archer made it to the loading dock.”

He braced his forearms against the
steering wheel and considered his next move. Follow the trail from
here, where Runway had obviously entered the building, or stick to
the plan Luna had set and proceed on to the loading
dock?

When he looked up, his decision got
sealed for him.

“Fuck.”

“Wha—” Luna cut herself short when she
followed his line of sight and took in the same incongruous thing
he did. “What the hell?”

Part of the hotel had been built out
with a domed atrium. The top was glass, meaning they should be able
to see straight through to the sky on the other side. That wasn’t
the case. There was a thick cloud of smoke pushing up against that
curved roof.

“That’s a whole lotta hookah,” he
muttered in tight suspicion.

“Get this thing parked where we can
get to it fast if we need to.” Luna flashed him a look full of
trepidation. “I don’t feel good about this.”

They tucked the van against the back
side of the kitchens. Before Tait climbed out, he reached under the
seat, and was relieved to feel the reassuring steel of a SIG P226.
After checking the chamber and the safety and pocketing the extra
round Franz had also left behind, he swung out of the van, tucked
the pistol into the middle of his back, and ran to catch up with
Luna.

She waited for him at a corner that
opened onto a lawn that adjoined the atrium. As he neared, she
peeked around the corner. When she pulled back around, it looked as
if there’d been a giant rubber stamp waiting for her around the
corner—and it’d been dipped in ink made of
mortification.

“Oh, my God!” She slumped against the
wall.

“Oh, my God.” Tait’s version was
different. Lower. Grittier. But resonant with just as much
horror.

He looked out again across the lawn—to
where his unconscious battalion mates, along with Rayna, Ava, and
even the very pregnant Sage, were being carried out of the atrium
on stretchers into what looked like a huge medical bus. Cameron
Stock, with a grimace on his face, calmly supervised the mass
kidnapping. Tait heard someone snarling at the duplicitous bastard
and suddenly realized it was him.

“Sleeping gas.” Luna’s grief-stricken
whisper came behind him. “Th-they’re not dead, are
they?”

He squeezed her hand. “I don’t think
so, beautiful.” He watched Stock step over to consult with of his
camouflage-wearing minions. “Those dildos are probably the
mercenaries Galvaz told us about,” he ventured. “Looks like the one
he’s talking to is their captain. Damn it, they’re talking too low
for me to hear. I have to get closer.”

Luna yanked him back. “No,
you don’t!” she seethed. “Tait, if they see you—
Tait
!”

He pulled the comfort of
her voice, even if it was banded in terror, around him through
every step he gained around the perimeter of the lawn. After less
than minute, he made significant progress using the pillars and
hedges as shields. He was finally close enough to hear the exchange
between Stock and camo asshole
numero
uno
.

“
So all their vital signs
are within normal, with the exception of the one?” Stock asked it
as he scrutinized a clipboard full of pages.

“Affirmative,” the soldier answered in
a thick Spanish accent. “We’ve ventilated him for now. He may pull
through with that extra help.”

Tait called on every ounce
of his training to keep his breaths quiet and even.
Ventilated
who
,
goddamnit? And what did he mean by “may pull through?” Dealing with
the death of a battalion mate was a disgusting part of this job,
but when it came from being senselessly gassed in the name of
terrorism, he had a serious fucking problem with activating the
healthy coping thing.

“All right,” Stock replied, “keep me
posted. If our demands for safe passage out of the country aren’t
met, that may be a ventilator we decide we don’t need.”

“Understood.”

He grinded down a layer of
tooth enamel as he clenched his jaw. The monster was asking for a
forty caliber “decision” in his skull right now.
Dial it back, T-Bomb. There’s still a second
laptop out there, getting prepped for God-knows what kind of
fuckery thanks to this traitor
.

“Did the missing one show up yet?”
Stock prodded. “Our friend Sergeant Bommer?”

“Negative,” the soldier supplied. “The
team’s rental van isn’t in the lot, either. We are following up on
your guess that he’s involved with the special agent, Ms. Lawrence,
and that they may be together. Her car is in the parking lot at the
agency’s building but she doesn’t answer her desk line or her cell
phone. We have three men watching the entrances and
exits.”

Stock’s face hardened. It wasn’t a
scowl, merely an impassive look that reminded Tait of how his Uncle
Jonah appeared whenever they went out hunting and the man pondered
how to outwit a cunning whitetail. On the director’s all-American
features, it was a chilling visage. “What about her
apartment?”

“Classified information. She’s on a
special task force, right?”

“Right. I don’t know a lot about her,
except that her undercover skills are exceptional.” One side of the
man’s mouth quirked up. “Too bad. In a different world, I could
hire her for the show. Probably much easier to direct than that
plastic fish who calls herself my leading lady.”

“Well, her apartment is registered
under another name. It will take us a while to hack the proper
channels into the CIA’s database and get the address.”

“Fine, fine. Hop on it as soon as you
get it. In the meantime, track the van through the rental
company.”

“Yes, sir.”

The soldier said it as they rolled out
what looked like the last stretcher. They’d laid the guy’s arm
across the blanket as if wanting to make it look like a rescue
instead of an abduction, and Tait knew by the sleeve of
pirate-themed tattoos that it was Rebel. He swallowed his fury and
sorrow in time to glance over at the perimeter the hotel staff was
now taping off around the atrium. Shit. That was exactly what Stock
had done, staging this thing as some kind of abnormal chemical
spill.

Somebody started up the big bus. As
the motor revved to life, Tait took advantage of Stock’s temporary
distraction to sneak his way back to Luna. Without wasting time for
words, he scooped her up by a hand and raced back to the
van.

“Where are they headed?” she charged
as he flipped the ignition.

“Don’t know.” The words bit at his
mouth like acid.

“So we’re following them?”

“No.” Now it was acid stirred with
thumbtacks. “They’re going to put a trace on the car through the
rental company. We’ll need to ditch it. They’re looking for loose
ends right now, and I’m the biggest item on that list.” He left the
car in neutral for a moment longer, swinging a rueful stare her
way. “They’ve also figured out I’m a little sweet on you,
flower.”

She lifted the generous curves of her
lips at him. “Nothing I can’t handle, wizard boy.”

Though he tied back the physical urge
to kiss her, he let her read the intent in his eyes. The next
second, hard logistics dictated his words again. “They’re watching
your car and your office, and it’ll only be a matter of time before
they find your apartment address. Luna,” —he reached for her hand,
feeling solemnity wash over his face— “who else knows your Wonder
Woman origin story? Is there anyone at LA’s CIA or FBI besides
Colton who knows where you really came from? And more importantly,
about the tracking chip in your neck?”