Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1) (15 page)

Cassie looked up, sensing the strain and anguish in his voice. Grant clapped his hand on Connor’s shoulder, gripping it tightly.

“We’ll get him back, lieutenant.”

Connor nodded shortly, clearing his throat. “I think they believe Cassie knows something about her former employer. Something nobody else does, but we don’t know what. I tracked the scent downtown, but then it disappeared into thin air. I don’t know where they took the boy, but I’m willing to bet they’d come for Cassie if given the opportunity.”

“So, we have a new mission?” Thatch asked, quirking a brow.

His lips were pressed into a thin line, his body rigid. Just one look at him told Cassie that whatever was going on inside the thoughts of that man, they were keeping him loaded like a spring. Had she had the attention to spare, she may have wondered what it was that he was hiding.

“This is my problem, through and through. I will not command any of you to stay. If we all drop out of the mission, it is bound to raise alarms with The Firm. However, I will accept any help I can get. I need to get my son back. I need to have him safe,” Connor said, his posture stiff and his expression impenetrable.

“We’re with you, lieutenant,” Grim said, nodding.

A round of nods followed, Thatch being the last one to do it.

“If we settle this tonight, we can be on the plane tomorrow,” Dutch said with his slow drawl, chuckling. “Nobody has to be the wiser.”

“Right, like we’ve ever fixed a problem without blowing up half a city block,” Tex said, the resident explosives expert.

“To be fair, it’s usually you blowing things up when they could be solved just as well with one clean shot,” Dutch shot back, raising a round of chuckles.

Grim was the only one not laughing. When the bantering died down, he looked up, his expression clearing.

“I think I might know who could help.”

“Who?” Connor asked.

“Spade,” Grim said.

That stark quietness fell over the room again and Connor’s face twisted in distaste, his team looking at him with much the same expressions.

“That son of a b—”

“Yes, but he was the intelligence contact on that mission,” Grim said, cutting through. “I don’t like the fucker any more than you do, but he has the info and we don’t.”

“If you go to him, you know for a fact that Hemingway will be notified,” Grant said, urging caution.

Connor seemed to think about that for a moment, and Cassie felt the hot chocolate growing colder in her hands. How she hated waiting like this, being completely useless and helpless in a situation that was all created because of her. She bit down on her lip to keep from screaming at the idiocy of it all; the sheer anger that wanted to waft over her tied her vocal chords together.

“That motherfucker better play straight with me,” Connor growled darkly.

And with that, the wheels were set in motion.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Connor

Connor had never been nervous before a mission. After all, what was there to worry about? Things would either go his way or they wouldn’t, there really weren’t any other options. Stressing out about it could only work to distract him beforehand and he had no time for that. But this time, Connor was a bundle of nerves that could barely be untied.

He moved around uncomfortably in the little red booth at the coffee shop where Spade had told him to meet. It was two minutes past the time they had agreed on, and Connor was trying to keep from glaring at the door by staring at a cup of coffee that seemed far too small next to his big, towering frame. A matching cup sat across from him, waiting for Spade.

When the man finally arrived, the temperature in the café seemed to drop by a few degrees just because of his presence. He walked in through the front door, cold and menacing as always. Saying he looked ruthless would have been a compliment to Spade. The man was a wild card and Connor could never be sure whether he was drawing an ace or a joker from the deck when he was talking to one of The Firm’s top intel officers.

“Come begging for help, Connor?” Spade asked casually, slipping into the booth.

There were countless eyes on them now, but most of them belonged to young women who were staring at Spade. He was an inch taller than Connor and slimmer built, more of a competitive swimmer-type of body than the linebacker form that Connor had. Cold green eyes, a perfectly chiseled chin, and a thin nose made up the face of one of the biggest assholes Connor had ever known. Connor had always thought that Spade’s nose looked like it could benefit from being broken a few times.

“Glad to see you too, Spade,” Connor growled.

“Now that we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, what do you want?” Spade asked, picking up the cup of coffee and taking a measured sip.

Connor caught the tiniest motion of displeasure that wafted over Spade’s otherwise perfect expression. The man reminded him more of a machine, some sort of an emotionless robot than anything else. His jet-black hair was always neatly slicked back and his clothes were impeccable. Whether he was in a suit or in jeans and a button-up like this time, he always looked like he had just stepped off a magazine cover shoot. All the more reason not to be able to stand the guy.

The fact that he was always,
always
the bearer of bad news didn’t really help any with his popularity amongst the Shifter Squad squads.

“I need your help,” Connor admitted through gritted teeth, knowing that he would have to make that admission before Spade would even consider parting with any information. “I need to find someone.”

“Those wolves hassling the mother of your child?” Spade asked nonchalantly, like he was discussing yesterday’s baseball scores.

Connor leaned back against the red leather of the booth, his brows knitting in confusion.

How the fuck does he know that?

“I know everything, Connor,” Spade said bluntly, reading his body language like a book.

A low growl rose in Connor’s throat, but he pressed it down, followed by a smirk from Spade. The tall intel officer had always been the same for as long as Connor had been in The Firm. He appeared at the worst possible time with the worst possible news, and he seemed to practically revel in getting to hand it over. Though he rarely showed any emotion other than that cold, sharp, knife-edge capability of reading people, Connor had always figured that he took joy from being the one with the bad news.

Still, he had to respect the man. He was very,
very
good at what he did and the information Spade had passed along had saved his ass and the lives of his teammates more than once. If he just weren’t so easy to hate, they might have been friends in another life.

“Cut the bullshit, Spade. What do you know?”

“What’s in it for me?” he asked, resting his elbows on the tabletop.

“I won’t smash your face in right here and now,” Connor growled, feeling his hands ball into fists of their own volition.

“I don’t think you quite understand the concept of bartering. Just being here with you could get me fired. Though intelligence officers aren’t ever fired, if you know what I mean,” Spade said casually, looking nonplussed by it all.

Rage wafted through Connor. Monroe was in the hands of God knows who right now and Cassie was a mess, thinking it was all her fault. It was up to Connor to fix it and instead of making it happen, Spade was giving him the runaround. It took all he had to keep from launching over the table and choking the shit out the steely intel officer.

“What do you want?” he finally pressed out through gritted teeth.

“A favor. Whenever I want, whatever I want. No questions asked,” Spade said simply.

“And if I promise you that, you’ll get off your high fucking horse and tell me what you know?”

“Yes,” Spade said, smirking wryly.

Connor glowered at him, but he couldn’t deny Spade that much. He was sure that the promise would come back to haunt him one day, but in a choice between the life and safety of his son and his woman and the future possibility of having to do something distasteful for Spade, he was willing to take this bullet.

“Fine. Whatever you want. Now tell me what you know, you motherfucker,” Connor hissed, keeping his voice low so the whole café wouldn’t turn their attentions to the booth.

“Just remember,
whatever
I want, Connor.” Spade took another sip and set the cup down on the table, tying his fingers in front of him. “The people you’re dealing with are from an organization known as The Arctics. They’re a collection of werewolf radicals hell-bent on ensuring that the ‘might of the werewolf kind becomes a world superpower.’ Your average delirious terrorist organization crap.”

“What do they want with Cassie?” Connor asked, soaking it all in.

“They don’t want her. They wanted her boss. Jonah Robertson was a shifter biochemist. He was a werewolf himself, something he hid rather well from everyone that knew him, it seemed. He was a businessman and funded a number of charities, mostly for inner-city kids with the aim of bettering their science education, but underneath that, he also kept financing some shifter charities. Robertson was active in his field until his death, but he started going off the rails after his wife died. The theory is she died because of one of the viruses he was developing.”

“Yeah? What does that have to do with my kid, though?”

“It doesn’t. He’s just a pawn.” Spade grinned, showing a row of perfect predatory teeth. “Rachel Robertson was cremated after her death. Not because she wished it, but because she was stuck in her werewolf form, three times her usual size, horribly mutated after being exposed to her husband’s new virus. It was an accident, I’m sure, but somehow word spread that Robertson was working on something that could make a werewolf into a supershifter, with three times the strength and power. That’s when he came into our sphere of interest.”

“And The Arctics,” Connor added, realizing.

“Yes. It was a dumb coincidence that Jonah contacted us himself, looking for a safety net. He wouldn’t divulge the details of his virus, being a paranoid man, but we set him up with a safety button and an understanding that if he felt like he was in danger, he could push it and one of our teams would arrive on the scene. He made it very clear that he didn’t want to be saved though, but he did want the people closest to him to be protected after it.

“Robertson told us that whoever came to him when and if he was attacked would be the most valuable one. He called your girl instead of calling the ambulance after he was attacked by The Arctics, who we believe only did it for the same reason we would have. They wanted to see who he would call. Going through his house, his notes, his lab, we couldn’t find a single trace of the virus or how he’d manufactured it.”

“So you thought Cassie had it, or that she knew about it?”

“That’s what we believed, yes,” Spade said, shrugging. “But after we took her in for questioning, it became pretty clear that she had no idea. We wrote it off as Robertson losing what little was left of his lucidity toward the end. He was getting more paranoid than rational by the day. That’s why we let your girl go after a while and set her up with a new identity.”

“But you think these wolves, these Arctics, still think that she knows something?” Connor asked, thinking quickly.

Some pieces were finally falling into place that had made no sense to him, and his heartbeat picked up. It was all about Cassie. And the worst thing was, it seemed more and more clear that they would have to use her for bait if they ever hoped to get Monroe back.

“They haven’t had a chance to question her. I think they found her here in San Francisco and after you showed up on the scene again—the guy who ruined their last plan—they had to move fast. And that’s why they got sloppy. I think they want her. Bad. And they’re willing to go through you to get her.”

Connor nodded dully, his mind racing with ideas. He didn’t like where all of this was pointing, but with Spade’s information taken into consideration, there really weren’t many options open for him. Kill or be killed.

“I think I can work with that,” Connor said, standing up.

I want to get this fucking over with,
he thought.
If I don’t get Monroe back soon, I might not be responsible with what I do to the next person who gets in my way.

“Thanks,” he said reluctantly, offering a hand to Spade.

Spade placed his palm in Connor’s and they shook. Connor noticed that even Spade’s skin was cold to the touch, just like the rest of him.

“You do know I’m going to have to report you to The Firm, right? Can’t have operatives going rogue on us,” Spade asked as they let go of each other’s hands.

That numb anger that had been boiling inside of Connor threatened to spill over the edges now, and he could tell he had to be growling from the sneer that crossed Spade’s lips.

“Of course you do,” Connor said bluntly. “Give me twenty-four hours, will you?”

“I’ll give you twelve.”

Connor stifled the urge to punch Spade’s lights out and walked out of the café, overflowing with rage. But at least he had something to go on now. They had to come up with a plan, execute it, and succeed in twelve hours. Or he might never see Monroe again.

Time to lock and load.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Cassie

The whole plan was absolutely ludicrous.

That was the one thought that kept pounding through Cassie’s head as she sat in her living room, staring at the empty hole in the wall that let in the somber evening wind. She was curled up on the couch, clutching a blanket around her shoulders and huddling in it. Connor sat on the recliner, babying an assault rifle much like the one he had used to keep watch of her in that cabin.

This time he was nowhere near as laid back and calm though. His whole posture hummed with anticipation and readiness. He could have flung himself over the backrest of that damn chair and stopped five attackers at the drop of a pin if he had to. Cassie had no doubt about that. But still, he gave her a carefree smile, more to calm her nerves than his, she was sure.