Master No (47 page)

Her eyes widened and just when he thought she would shout out, he pulled her down and kissed her, drinking down the sweet sounds she made.

There was a tingle at the base of his spine and he let himself go. Pure pleasure raced along his skin as his balls drew up and he came inside her.

She fell on top of him and he bit back a groan. Real torture made a man a little sore, but he wouldn’t change anything. He wrapped his arms around her. She was here with him. That was worth all the torture in the world.

He shifted, moving her to his side. “Sleep for a while, darlin’. We’re leaving in a few hours.”

Her eyes were already drifting closed.

He sighed and let sleep take him as well.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Time didn’t stop. It kept going. When would they let him die? When would the darkness come? He liked the darkness, but whenever it would threaten to take him, someone would throw water on him or slap him awake or god, give him more drugs so he couldn’t sleep.

The lights. He hated the lights.

The subject takes the drug quite well. Heart rate and blood pressure are all perfectly normal. Well, normal for a man who’s in an enormous amount of pain. I need more time with him.

You don’t have it. The Chinese are almost here. Get him dressed and ready for transport. I have to call Victoria and make sure she’s ready for a package. If you damage the goods, I’ll kill you myself.

When she looked down at him, the lights behind her made her look like she had a halo. An angel of death.

She looked him over with a shake of her head. Her eyes reminded him so much of Faith’s in their color, but there the similarities ended because this bitch had some crazy eyes on her.
What I wouldn’t do to open you up and see what makes you tick, Mr. Smith. Unfortunately, my father won’t let me play. Not that you’re the one I really want to play with. Let’s get you another dose and you’ll forget this ever happened. I’ll replace the memory with some…hmmm, let’s see how much your dick can take. My sister seems to love it so much.

She started at him with the needle again and he screamed.

“Ten? Tennessee?”

He opened his eyes and Faith was staring down at him. She’d gotten dressed. She was wearing a T-shirt that was the tiniest bit too small for her and a pair of jeans that hugged her curves. Ten forced himself to take a deep breath. “I was dreaming.”

She sat down on the bed beside him, her hand easing into his. “More like a nightmare, baby. Are you all right?”

“He’s got the damn PTSD. All my men have it,” a sarcastic voice to his right said. He looked over and there was Tag, leaning against the doorway.

He sent Tag his middle finger. “You would have PTSD too if someone took a cattle prod to your dick.”

Tag’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, Ten. I take back everything I’ve ever said about you. You’re a motherfucking hero. You were able to perform after that? Yeah, she tried to be quiet, but that bed squeaks. Seriously, every man alive should salute you. Can I see it?”

“No, you can’t see it,” Faith shot back. “What is wrong with you?”

His girl had his back. Or his dick, as it was. He sat up. Faith was looking at Tag like he was some kind of monster. He had to explain. Tag was just a dude. “It’s no big deal. The only time men will look at another man’s junk willingly is when it’s been horrifically mangled.”

“Gay dudes will totally look at another dude’s junk. It’s normal for them. They’ll also look at a mangled one, since they’re dudes, too,” Tag explained.

“Why are we looking at junk? Has Ten finally come out of the closet?” Sean joined his brother.

Tag shook his head. “Nah. Part of his torture was a cattle prod to the cock.”

“Whoa,” Sean said. “Can I look?”

“Told you.” The dream was starting to dissipate. And he was starting to wonder how much of it really was a dream.

He squeezed Faith’s hand and sat up, looking at Tag. “The good news is the torture to my penis was virtual. She used some kind of drug to fuck with my memory. I think I even recall her telling me she was going to do it.”

“It’s not all virtual torture. You’re covered in electrical burns,” Faith pointed out and gave Tag a saucy stare. “And he really did perform admirably.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Tag’s lips. Despite his sarcasm, it was easy to see the man was still hurting. There were lines on Tag’s face he hadn’t noticed before.

“I am happy to hear Ten’s still a functional male and that the two of you worked things out. Faith, I’m glad you’ll be sticking around. It’ll be good to have a doc on call,” Tag explained. “My men do stupid shit. I swear if Boomer walks into that glass wall one more time, I’m having him put down. Where did you find him?”

“Where I find everyone. US military.” Boomer wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he had his talents. So did Ten, and one of them was putting things together. “I need to see the file on McDonald’s mistress. What do we know about her?”

“She works in banking. She’s some kind of VP at one of the international banks,” Tag replied, getting serious.

“He’s sending her some kind of package. We might want to intercept that.” Now that the fog was clearing, he was more certain that it hadn’t been a dream but a memory. McDonald had been concerned about Victoria receiving some kind of package. Maybe it was flowers, but Ten doubted it.

“I’ll have someone watch her apartment,” Tag promised. “Now, we’re going to head out. Hutch claims this is the best time to do recon on the compound. We’re going to go in quietly and get out the same way. It’s strictly intelligence gathering.”

What Tag wasn’t saying is the intelligence they wanted was the location of Des’s and Theo’s bodies. They would keep to the shadows unless they had an absolute free ride to pick them up.

Tag would get the job done. He would bring his brother back and they would all go home to try to find a way through the grief.

Ten looked at the clock and stood up, stretching his body. “We’ll be gone before you get back. I’ll have a detailed report on the entire operation on your desk tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll be ready to do anything you need me to do. Faith and I are going to stay in Dallas for the next few months.”

Tag held a hand out. “We’ll be more than happy to have you around. Be safe.”

Ten shook his hand. “You too, brother.”

As they walked away, Faith crossed her arms over her chest. “What were you talking about? My father doesn’t have a mistress.”

He hated being the bad guy with her. It was odd because he’d spent years being the bad guy with absolutely everyone in his life. “Sweetheart, your father sees a woman in DC on a regular basis. Her name is Victoria Chandler.”

She shook her head. “He might see someone, but she’s not his mistress. My father’s been impotent for fifteen years. We’ve tried everything. Every new drug that comes out, he’d give it a shot. I did his checkup six months ago. Trust me, if he’s got a mistress, he’s not sleeping with her.”

That made no logical sense. “He visits this woman on a regular basis, Faith. If he’s not having sex with her, what would he be doing?”

“I would say maybe they’re friends, but my father doesn’t have friends. He has business contacts. He places zero value on friendship. If he was trying to keep up the appearance of being functional, why would he keep a mistress secret? My dad is the type who would pay a woman to date him and be done with it.”

“He’s run on family values platforms,” Ten mused. “He talks about your mother in his speeches to this day.”

“Yes,” she said, her every word flavored with bitterness, “Dad is good at playing the grieving widower.”

If the relationship wasn’t about sex…

“She’s in banking. That’s how he’s moving the money. We’ve been looking in the wrong place. We’ve been trying to tie him to the cash, but he’s smarter than that. He’s used this woman to launder his funds for years.” Ten picked Faith up, enveloping her in a hug. “We’re going to get him and we’re going to take down everyone who helped him.”

She hugged him tightly. “And my sister? Tell me you’ll get her, too. She’s dangerous, Ten.”

He tempered his exuberance. Justice for Jamie meant Faith having to see her father and sister in jail. No matter how much they deserved it, it was going to hurt her. He kissed her forehead. “Yes, I’ll get her, too. I’ll try to keep it as quiet as possible. I don’t want to hurt your clinic, but we need to take down the executives at Kronberg who allowed this experimentation to go on.”

She put her head on his shoulder, not letting go. “Yes. They have to be stopped.”

They stood there for the longest time, gaining comfort and strength for the long journey home.

Twenty minutes later, Ten looked over the plane. It was a small plane, what he would call a puddle jumper. The couple who owned the place used it to get from Miami to here on a regular basis. He would use it to take Faith home. He settled the little luggage they had in storage. When they got to Miami, he would take Faith shopping so they didn’t stand out from the crowd at Miami-Dade airport. She needed a purse. It was the little details that could trip a person up. A woman without a handbag would stand out. They needed luggage, at the very least carry-ons. TSA tended to question travelers who didn’t fit the norms.

He turned, looking back at the house. Faith walked up the pathway. She’d placed a baseball cap on her head and held another one for him. Caps hid hair color. If they kept their faces down around security cameras, it was likely no one would be able to remember much about them.

He had to get her to Dallas. Once they were in Dallas, he could breathe again.

“I left a note for Erin. I told her I think she should stay with us when she gets back home. Being in that house without Theo is going to be so rough.” She gave him a sad smile. “So I might need to not be naked for a while.”

He pulled her close. Whatever she needed. “Just know that at some point, those clothes are gone. We’re going to have a fully naked honeymoon.”

“That should be fun.” She looked up at him. “So you know how to fly this thing. The airstrip looks small.”

“Hey, it’s not made out of dirt, so I’m calling that a win. I’ve flown small planes many times before. It’s all part of the super-spy school I went to. I got an A in ‘using small planes to flee your enemies’ class.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Oh, god.” She pulled away, her eyes widening.

Ten immediately went for the SIG in his holster, but as he turned, he saw what Faith had seen, what he’d missed before. Hutch had missed it, too, likely because of the storm and the brilliant way the small team had camouflaged themselves. They were dressed in dark green and eased out of the jungle with the long practice of predators.

“Mr. Smith, if you will come with us, we won’t harm the girl,” an accented voice explained.

There were six of them. No wonder they’d waited. He would bet they’d waited all night in the middle of a tropical storm. They’d likely followed the trail back and then MSS had proven themselves to be deeply patient bastards.

“Let the girl go free and I’ll come with you.” He couldn’t take out six armed operatives. Not in a gunfight. Not out in the open. They had no cover and even if the plane had been up and running, MSS would simply shoot it out of the sky.

Faith wrapped her arms around his waist, staying behind him. “No. I’m not leaving you.”

Shit. They would kill her. “You will if I tell you to. You’ll go to our friends. You’ll be safe with them.”

It was as close as he would get to begging her to go and get Ian.

“You’re talking about Mr. Taggart?” the leader said with a shit-eating grin on his face. “I believe we have a surprise for him as well.”

There was a loud boom and Ten felt the ground shake.

“That would be your friends meeting a grisly death from our trap. You’re alone, Mr. Smith, and you have nothing to bargain with. Come with us or we’ll kill the girl.”

He heard the sound of crunching gravel. He didn’t want to turn his head. Never take your eyes off the snake that’s about to bite you. Another thing Franklin Grant had taught him.

“Faith, please tell me that’s our people coming up the drive.”

“It’s my father.” Faith’s voice shook. “And he’s not alone. We’re surrounded.”

“Cowards waited until they could separate us from the rest of the team,” Ten said, his heart racing. He was cool under pressure, but now he realized he’d been that way because he’d had nothing to lose. The idea of losing Faith made him sick to his stomach.

But he was going to. He knew the odds, could see the various scenarios play out in his head. He could take a few out, but without cover, he had no way to protect her.

No way except to pray her father wouldn’t kill her.

“Mr. Smith, I’ll take my daughter back now.” McDonald’s voice boomed across the yard.

Ten turned. It didn’t matter. There was no option, no way to fight that wouldn’t lead to the loss of her life. He saw McDonald and four of his thugs bearing down on them.

“She had nothing to do with this,” Ten said. He had to try. “She didn’t know a damn thing until you told her and then my people kidnapped her.”