Hot Shot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#5) (13 page)

Her fingers curled into his shirt. “Stavros Metaxas.”

Fuck.

“I t…told you it wasn’t Barry.”

“You did. I’m sorry.” Jack’s phone rang and he brought it to his ear with a clipped, “Yeah.”

It was Kev. “We got the whole thing, Hawk. But it’s not going to do us a damned bit of good. The call came from an island in the Caribbean.”
 

Jack knew which island. They all did. St. Margarethe, where they’d taken out Athenasios Metaxas and the terrorist leaders he’d been about to sell arms to three years ago. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Kev replied.

There was always a successor. In this case, Stavros, the younger brother. His contacts weren’t as extensive and he’d had trouble getting business in the years since HOT had interfered in their last big arms deal. He’d made small deals here and there, but nothing as big as what his brother had been on the verge of achieving. What the fuck did he want with Eli and Gina?

“But where is the boy? Is he with Stavros?”

“Most likely. Billy sampled the audio until he could separate out the streams. There was a child in the background. For what it’s worth, he was laughing. And Stavros told Gina he had the boy.”

Jack wanted to hit something. Or better yet, shoot something.
 

Stavros had been toying with her by sending her on a wild-goose chase to Vegas, nothing more. He’d wanted to get her hopes up, make her frantic and biddable—and then he’d cut the ground out from under her and left her swinging. Hell, maybe he’d been behind the letters, but they’d clearly moved beyond that now. Stavros Metaxas had his son.
His
son.

“What else did he say?”

“He believes Eli is his brother’s child, but you’ll have gathered that by now. He said he’s taking him and raising him as a Metaxas. If Gina takes this public, he’ll make sure the boy disappears forever. But if she comes to him within twenty-four hours, he’ll make a deal with her that ensures she can have access to her child.”

A fresh chill washed over Jack. And a spike of anger unlike any he’d ever felt before. “What kind of deal?”

“He didn’t say.”

“We can’t let him get away with this.”

“Agreed. But this one’s going to take some serious planning. And more than a private plane and some equipment.”

“How in the hell are we—”

“Richie’s calling the colonel. This is a hostage situation now, bro. And you know what that means.”

Fuck, yeah, he knew what it meant. It meant HOT could go after Eli. Because Metaxas was a petty arms dealer who sold weapons to terrorist organizations, and Eli was an American citizen. So was Gina. Metaxas expected her to come to the Caribbean and make a deal. But what kind of deal? And what if he refused to let her leave? So long as he had control over her child, he had control over her.

HOT wasn’t going to allow it.
Jack
wasn’t going to fucking allow it.

He felt scalding hot tears press against the backs of his eyes, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of Gina and Eli or because of his team. Maybe it was all of them.

Goddamn, he loved these guys. “It means we’re saddling up the posse,” he said.

“Damn straight it does.”

“Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.”
 

Kev laughed at the line from
Die Hard
. “Let’s rock and roll, buddy. We’re bugging out.”

* * *

In the end, it took several hours to get everything together and form a plan. They returned to DC on Gina’s jet, and then they needed to go to their headquarters to gather intel and make deployment plans. Gina didn’t know what any of that meant, but she knew she had to trust Jack and his team to get this done the right way.

She believed Eli was safe for now, but every minute that ticked by on the clock made her more frantic. Stavros wanted her to come back to the island where she’d conceived Eli. She had no illusions that that was all he wanted. When she’d started dating Athenasios, Stavros had made her uncomfortable the few times she’d been around him. Where Athenasios was all charm and politeness at first, Stavros was nothing but a pig. He’d made her skin crawl just by looking at her.

She should have taken that feeling as a hint about the whole family, in retrospect.

If Stavros got her alone, she didn’t know what he would do. Gina shuddered and ran her hands up and down her arms. It was spring, but she was cold. Evie Baker looked up from where she was standing at her stove, stirring something. Whatever it was smelled divine.
 

Gina hadn’t wanted to be here, but Jack had told her she couldn’t go with the team to their headquarters. He hadn’t wanted her to return to the hotel, so Matt called Evie to come and pick her up. That had been over an hour ago now.

Evie smiled. “You change your mind about that coffee? I can whip it up in no time.”

“That would be nice,” Gina said. Because she was cold and the coffee would be hot. She let her gaze wander the kitchen and great room of Matt and Evie’s house. The kitchen was huge, with commercial appliances, and the great room had soaring wood ceilings from which an iron chandelier was suspended. It looked like a European cottage, all warm and homey.

Gina’s heart squeezed at the thought of having a home. She owned six houses, and she enjoyed all of them, but not one of them had the same feeling this one did.
 

Evie started the coffee brewing and set a plate of cranberry bars on the island. She fixed a serious look on Gina. “I know you must be frantic. Being here with me doesn’t help, but it’ll work out. The guys know what they’re doing.”

“I know they do.” Gina took a cranberry bar and bit off a corner. “I feel like I should be doing something, though.”

“I know the last thing you want is advice, but try to save your energy during these down times. You’ll need everything you’ve got once you go after your boy.”

Gina nodded and Evie turned back to the stove to check her sauce. A few moments later, the coffee was done and she poured them both a cup. Gina fixed hers with cream and lifted the hot cup to take a sip.

“How do you do this, Evie?”
 

“It’s not too hard. You just need really good coffee—”

“I didn’t mean the coffee.” Gina swallowed. “I meant…
this
. This life. Where you wait for Matt while knowing he’s doing something dangerous.”

Evie smiled. “Oh, you never really get used to it. But Matt doesn’t go out on many missions anymore, so that helps. He directs a lot of operations, and sometimes he still goes in the field. This time will be one of them, I’m sure.” She shrugged. “You just go about your business and have faith that your man knows what he’s doing. Matt wouldn’t cater an event for forty Junior League ladies, and I wouldn’t strap on a gun and go after the bad guys.”

“Lucky does it.”

“Lucky is different.” Evie nibbled her lip for a second. “I know it’s none of my business, but Hawk—Jack—is a good guy. He’s quiet. Enigmatic, maybe. But he was hurt pretty badly when his wife died, or so Matt tells me. I think it’s made him more cautious than usual. But when he’s with you, well… he seems a little different, that’s all.”

Gina had a lump in her throat.
Was
Jack different with her? And was that a good thing or a bad thing? “Eli is his son. Did Matt tell you that?”

Evie nodded. “It was a shock to everyone, I think.”

“Including Jack.” She lowered her gaze, unwilling to see the condemnation in the other woman’s eyes.

But Evie reached out and put her hand over Gina’s. “Hey, I’m not judging you. You had your reasons, and they’re none of my business.”

Gina pulled in a breath. “Thanks. But I should have told him before now. I just didn’t know how. He says he’ll never forgive me.”

She didn’t know what made her confess that, but Evie squeezed her hand and Gina was glad she’d shared. She was so accustomed to doing everything alone, to making her own way and being in charge of her destiny. It was lonely, but she did it. She sometimes wondered where her little sister was, but she had no idea who had adopted her. Her mother hadn’t kept any paperwork—or maybe she hadn’t known either. Gina had no idea if the adoption had been open or closed.

“Men say things in the heat of anger that they later regret. Give him time, Gina.”

“He saved me three years ago. I wouldn’t have made it out alive if not for him. And I didn’t repay him very well, did I?”

“It’s not an easy situation, I’ll grant you that. But Eli is a real person, and he’s half you and half Jack. For his sake, y’all will have to figure it out.”

Her chest ached. “You sound so positive that we’ll get him back.”

Evie smiled. “That’s because I am. I’ve seen the team in action before, and you have too. We know what they can do. Have faith in that.”

Gina gripped her coffee cup in both hands and let the warmth flood her. “Have you been with Matt long?”

Evie’s smile turned dreamy. “My whole life.” Then she shook her head slightly and laughed. “Okay, not quite. But I’ve loved him since I was about eight, I think. We grew up together. He was my best friend when we were kids. Then he left me and went to join the Army.” She shrugged. “I didn’t see him for ten years, and then we met again last summer.”

“Wow. Clearly it worked out though.”

“Yes. We’ll get married at Reynier’s Retreat someday.”

“Reynier’s Retreat?”

“It’s Matt’s family’s home. An elegant antebellum mansion with giant columns and a front veranda unlike any you’ve ever seen. The gardens are divine.”

Gina felt a pinch of envy. Not over the house so much as the way Evie was so happy—and also how she had a place where she belonged.

“Where’s home?”

“Rochambeau, Louisiana. It’s a small town, kinda nutty, but I love it. I have to admit I didn’t always, but I do now. My mama and sister and all my family are there. I think Matt and I will live there one day.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“It is. You’ll have to come visit sometime.”

Gina swallowed. “I’d like that.”

Evie laughed. “If you walked into Mama’s salon, half the ladies in Rochambeau would be scandalized to their roots and the other half would think they’d just witnessed the second coming.”

Gina couldn’t help the laugh that burst from her then. “I remember small-town living. We never stayed long in one place, but that sounds about right.”

Evie looked curious. “Where’s your family from?”

Gina shrugged as embarrassment settled in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t really have any. There was just Mom and me, and she’s gone now. She was a teen mother and her family threw her out. She never spoke about them.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s fine.” And it was, except for the little hole in Gina’s heart. “That’s life.”

Evie straightened and went over to the liquor cabinet where she grabbed a bottle of whiskey. “How about we doctor this coffee up a little bit, hmm? I make a mean brandied coffee.”

Gina pushed her cup toward Evie. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

* * *

“We shouldn’t take her.” Jack sat at the conference table in the ready room and stared at his teammates. They were giving each other looks they clearly thought he was missing. He wasn’t missing a damned thing. “She’s a civilian and she’s not trained.”

“But Metaxas wants her there. And if she’s not there in twenty-four hours, we don’t know what he’ll do,” Billy said. “We can’t risk the kid’s life.”

“We can get in and out before the deadline.” He didn’t want to risk Eli’s life—but he didn’t want to risk Gina’s either. He needed space on this op, and that was something he wasn’t going to get if Gina was there. His usual calm had gone MIA.

And they all knew it.

Kev leaned forward, elbows on the table. “No guarantee we can. You remember that place. Metaxas’s compound is on an isolated peninsula. There’s no easy way in or out.”

“It’s not that damned isolated. There’s a city on the other side of the island.” But there was a mountain between the peninsula and the city, and only one twisty road that connected the two.
 

Jack knew what they were saying made sense, and yet he couldn’t help having a visceral reaction to the idea of Gina going to Metaxas. Of her being in that house again and being in danger. There had to be another way.

But there wasn’t. He knew it. They knew it. And they were looking at him with sympathy, waiting for him to admit what they all knew. No one said anything.

Jack threw down the pen he’d been tapping on the table and let out an explosive breath. “All right, fine. We have no choice. She goes.”

The door opened and Colonel Mendez walked in. Everyone shot to their feet and snapped to attention.
 

“As you were,” he said.

Everyone sat. Mendez walked over and looked at the maps arrayed on the table. Then he glanced up at the slide on the screen which showed the aerial view of Metaxas’s compound and another view of the island. It was a large island with a flourishing tourism trade. But that was on a different part and not easily reachable from the side where Metaxas had built his house.