Elite Metal-ARE-epub (19 page)

“The twins will be six in a couple months. Boy, Thomas. Girl, Teresa. Both of them blond with blue eyes, just like their natural mother.”

Anger flared inside Chrome but he tried to remain calm. “Why snatch the kids? Why without the woman?” He refused to say her name because then she’d be incredibly too real to him.

“She needs access into the agency facility and a handful of Russian Mafioso would draw too much attention.” Alayna spoke and at some point Steele had sat in the chair behind the desk and pulled her down onto his lap.

He looked content. So did she.

Chrome tried to ignore it.

“Intel shows he’s willing to make a trade. The info for the twins.”

“What information?”

Steele spoke up. “The entire database of expectant mothers. Names, addresses, next of kin. They want to steal the mothers while they’re pregnant.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. That’s sick.”

“Sick doesn’t even cover this cesspool of humanity and you haven’t even heard the worst of it. Most of these mothers. Unloved. Unwanted. Some drug addicts. Some teenagers. People Korovin assumes will not be missed. So they aren’t just going to steal them. They’re going to sell the kids, keep the mothers and then breed them. Like fucking cattle.”

“Jesus. And he’s probably going to take the woman too. Breed her. Sell her kids.” He shook his head and started pacing. His need to help and protect her rose quick and fierce in the pit of his gut.

“We don’t think so.” Alayna commented.

“Don’t think what?”

“That he wants the woman. The kids probably once she’d disposed of, but we’re not certain why yet.”

Chrome barely cut off the growl clawing at this throat to get out with the word disposed being used in conjunction with Cammie…

Fuck
.

Her name hit him like a sixty mile an hour collision.

Her face popped up in his front cortex in perfect living color. The way she smiled at him. Bit her lip.

Chrome had to concentrate on not going ape shit.

“So he’s dangling the carrot in front of her face. Give the kids back. Keep working. You won’t have to run and hide for the rest of your life because the big bad wolf knows where you live. Right. She’s going to need protection. Relocation for her and the kids. Someone to take over the agency that’s probably going to kill her to leave and—”

“Exactly.” Poppy pushed a button on her tablet and it went dark. “Which is exactly where you come in.”

“Me? What do you mean me? I haven’t agreed to join much less take on…whatever you’re thinking right now. And I’ve never met her before. She’s nothing to me. Don’t like kids.”

“Such a fucking liar.” Steele rolled his eyes. “You were on the plane with her. Yesterday. Sat next to her, befriended her. You even held the baby. Nice touch.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Why his hackles were raised? He didn’t know. Why he cared that she might be in danger? Had no clue. Why he wanted to take a swing at Steele again? Physical therapy.

Steele tossed the rest of the file on the desk. Pictures fanned out on the smooth surface and Chrome picked them up before he thought better of it. Clenching his jaw tight didn’t even begin to conceal his mad. “Why do you have pictures of me with her on the plane? That’s not even possible. What the hell is going on?”

“Possible? You really think the game is that different just because we haven’t been players for a couple years? Damn you think highly of yourself.”

“Why. Do. You. Have. Pictures?” Chrome tossed the photos back on the desk and paced away as far as he could without actually leaving the room.

“You got bumped from your first flight.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

Steele stared at him. “And they gave you some bullshit reason right? Full flight, overbooked, something. Had to take the next flight, the last flight, and they only had one seat. I couldn’t even believe you fell for their line of crap. I lost a bet on you with Poppy.”

“Fifty dollars and a free car wash anytime I want from Steele. I’m going to wait till it’s cold. Thanks for making it easy on me. Like taking candy from a baby.” Poppy smirked at Steele and then focused on Chrome again.

“You bet on me?”

“Good Lord man. You’re like a fucking parrot. I’m trying to tell you what’s going on and you’re trying to—“

“Skip the lecture and get to the actual facts.”

Steele petted Alayna’s back and looked as if he were trying to rein in his temper. Alayna rubbed her thumb over his arm and she’s the one who spoke. “Warbucks found out about the human trafficking directive passed to Korovin to handle.” He grabbed another picture from the desk and tossed it to him. He nodded to it. “Korovin. He got to Cammie but not before they got her kids. We’re almost certain he knows something of our existence so we had to be extremely cautious in contacting her. The last thing we needed was her going to local police or even worse going it alone.”

“So you’ve met her?”

All three of them nodded. “Yes,” Poppy answered in kind. “She’s adorable. Kindhearted. Gorgeous even when she tries to blend in and be a wallflower.”

“Why me?”

“I already told you that,” Steele reminded. “We need you in the group. Both of us being on board is the only way this is going to work.”

“We needed you invested in the group,” Poppy continued. “In Cammie specifically. So we manipulated the flight data to get you bumped to her flight. We needed pictures of you with her.” She motioned toward the pics on the desk. “We’ve already planted info that she has a boyfriend and we needed to back it up and leak the photographic evidence. Then we found Mr. Jarvis who was supposed to be sitting next to her, a businessman of the philanderer variety, and I convinced him he needed to spend an extra evening in Cali.

“Convinced how?”

“Need to know, Chrome, and you don’t need to know. The rest was up to you, and you did perfectly. A perfectly placed pawn if you don’t mind the use of alliteration.”

“I’m nobody’s pawn.”

“Figure of speech, jarhead. Get over it.” Poppy continued as if he wasn’t giving her the death stare. “She doesn’t know anything about you being the person we want to protect her and help bring down Korovin.”

“Why was she on that flight anyways? And she had a baby with her.” Panic kicked up in the pit of his stomach. “She wasn’t going to turn it over to—“

“No.” Steele looked him straight in the eye. “She would never turn over the list and she would
never
turn over an innocent child to those monsters.”

Chrome relaxed and had no clue what to do with the knowledge that he wouldn’t have been able to stand it if she’d actually turned over the kid.

“Red Wolf’s assholes told her to go about her business as if nothing was wrong. Nothing different. The trip was already set for her to bring home a little Korean girl for a family in Colorado. So she still went. Business as usual. Brought the kid back, passed her over, all the paperwork was already done. A few signatures and she was back on another plane to Texas. Her agency is in Texas. Dallas actually. Imagine that.”

“The little girl’s already been given to her new parents?”

“Don’t like kids my ass,” Steele joked.

Alayna elbowed Steele in the solar plexus and he chuckled.

“Use your words, pretty girl.”

“My words aren’t appropriate for present company. Behave and don’t poke at Chrome right now.” Alayna glared at Steele and then focused on Chrome again. “The little girl is safe and sound with her new parents. And Cammie’s not scheduled to fly out for the next few days. Korovin’s given her a deadline for the list. Four days from now. We think he’s keeping the kids somewhere around here and he’s either here now or on his way. We don’t have a lot of time to brief her. She needs help and she needs it now.” Alayna stood up, Steele moved out of the chair and settled her back in it.

Chrome took another deep breath and tried to quiet the need to get to Cammie.

“She’ll be here tonight,” Poppy offered up as if she’d heard him.

He stared at her picture, which he’d picked up again. Didn’t remember doing that, but he couldn’t actually convince his arm to put it back down.

“When?”

“She’ll be here in…” Poppy glanced at her watch. “Two hours and twenty-six minutes.”

“Come on man. Meet with her. She needs our help. Our brothers would—“

“Don’t throw them into this.”

Steele walked around the desk and stood toe to toe with them. “They were my brothers too. Especially Zinc. I know how bad you’re hurting for them. And I know you think it was your fault but it wasn’t. This is our opportunity to make things right.”

Chrome stayed silent and closed his eyes.

The weight of Steele’s hand on the back of his neck wasn’t what he expected. Nor was the moment he pulled his head forward and held him, forehead to forehead.

“They were my brothers, too.”

“I know, Steele. I know.”

They stood there for a minute and then Steele let him go and took a step back. Waiting.

They all stared at him as if he had all the answers in the world. He had nothing. Nothing but revenge filling his mind that he’d lied to himself and said it wasn’t important. Nothing but desire to see Cammie again. To hold her, protect her, and her brother and sister, who had to be scared shitless. Hurt…

He shook that thought from his head and stared at Poppy and then Steele. “I’ll meet her. No promises. But I’ll meet with her.”

“Fuckin’ A,” and he clapped Poppy on the shoulder who wrinkled her nose.

At the contact of Steele’s hand the size of a dinner plate or something else Chrome wasn’t certain. “What was that for?”

Alayna smiled and let out a soft laugh and then grabbed her ribs. “Oh. Don’t make me laugh. Steele bet Poppy you’d be on board before you left the office.”

Chrome smirked and looked over at Poppy, “What’d you lose?”

“Nothing of import,” she sniffed disdainfully and walked toward the door. “Would you like a tour of the facility while we wait for Ms. Robertson to arrive?”

“Sure,” Chrome shrugged. “As soon as you tell me what you bet.”

“A hundred bucks and she has to wash my bike…in a bikini.” Steele waggled his eyebrows and Alayna laughed again.

“Nice, brother.” Chrome raised his fist and Steele bumped it.

Neither of them made a big deal of it.

Of the gesture, or the return of the easy camaraderie that had been lost on their last mission. A quick glance at Steele and he knew things were okay. Good even. Or at least they would be.

The knowledge surprised him.

How much it meant to him.

He headed for the door and followed Poppy, and her rim rod straight posture into the command center.

Walking back in he felt…different.

Familiar?

No.

Himself.

For the first time since he’d been bum rushed out of the Marines, he felt whole.

Cammie’s face flashed across his mind.

Almost whole?

Holy hell.

He rolled his eyes. Love at first sight. Bunch of bullshit invented by a conspiracy between greeting card and flower companies.

“Are you coming, or should I just get back to work?” Poppy’s crisp businesslike tone snapped him out of his inner sap moment.

“Coming.” He beat feet toward her, clenching his fist.

Cammie’s picture. He still held it. He folded it and stuck it in his back pocket.

He’d give it back to Steele later.

As in never.

Never sounded all right to him.

Chapter Four

Two hours later, after darkness had fallen, Chrome walked around the main house, which turned out to be the clubhouse, main meeting area, community kitchen, etcetera.

But that was nothing compared to the underground facility the main house, back lawn and helipad concealed. Several secret entrances were in the main house as well as the vehicle hangar in the back, which had several vehicles, he’d actually drooled over. Not to mention the plane and helicopter. He’d never wanted to learn to fly before. But now? Definitely something in the back of his head.

Maybe he could get Mercury to teach him.

The real possibility of the teams back together made his step falter.

He let it go, unwilling to be lulled into the need for his brothers beside him again. Committing to the group if his head wasn’t fully on board was as good as shooting them all himself.

Stepping outside, he glanced down the wide tree-lined road and tried to focus on the compound again.

They had a full armory, geek cave, medical facility with surgical ward and umpteen other things they shouldn’t have been able to get their hands on.

But they had.

Well.

Warbucks and Poppy had.

They even had a medical warfare research facility in the back. It sat dormant but if and when Merc arrived it would be a state of the art lab.

The tour had been straightforward, to the point and a bit stuffy, just like the tour guide.

There was something niggling Chrome in the back of his head about her.

He’d definitely never met her before. He’d have remembered her prim posture and no nonsense attitude. She’d even showed him his cabin at the head of the road directly across from Steele’s.

“If you choose to stay. Of course,” she’d tacked on with a bit of attitude.

Cabin.

Right.

Sucker was bigger than his apartment at almost two thousand square feet. And there were ten cabins on the property. “Nine for team members and a safe house,” Poppy had told him.

They’d thought of everything. The compound sat nestled in the middle of fairly remote piece of land, far enough away from the main highway so it was quiet.

He heard the gate at the very front of the property open and he went on high alert.

A white van with its lights on and no markings of any kind came down the road at an even pace. Chrome couldn’t see past the glare of the headlights and shielded his eyes as the van entered the cul-de-sac at the bottom of the steps.

Just as he made it down to street level the van stopped and the side door opened. One of the ghosts got out, confirming his suspicions on who was in the van. Even twenty feet away he could see Cammie inside. Sensation danced along his nerves and he ached to go to her.