Night Moves: A Shadow Force Novel (3 page)

Almost as stupid as he and Reid leaving a woman handcuffed in their Jeep, unprotected.

Head in the game, Kell
.

Both he and Reid had a perfect shot of their targets. “I’ll take Rivera,” he whispered into the mic around his neck, the words barely voiced, and still Reid heard them clearly.

“Affirmative. From five—my count,” Reid said. Kell steadied his rifle, adjusted the scope and waited for Reid to begin the countdown. They’d have to take
the shot at the same time or they’d lose one of the men in the ensuing confusion, for sure.

Kell’s hands remained steady on the trigger. Although he wasn’t a sniper by trade, he’d been trained by the best and he could do this dance when necessary. And when Reid uttered the word
one
, he and Kell fired simultaneously, Kell’s bullet catching Rivera in the heart and Reid getting Cruz between the eyes.

“Show-off,” Kell muttered, but there was pride in that statement.

“Let’s move out,” Reid said in his ear. “Drop the cards and let’s go.”

The government wanted to send a message to the gangs and the drug lords—
we can get to you, and we will
. So Kell dropped the calling cards he’d been given, with the name of some of the higher-ups in the Mexican government who’d promised to clean up the streets of Juarez, even if it killed them—which it might—and then backed down the hill toward the Jeep.

Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Both men were in the Jeep in record time, finding the woman had shifted a little but was basically in the same position as when they’d left. Kell climbed in next to her to stop her from falling out of the vehicle when Reid gunned it as the house alarms finally sounded.

Too late to do any good, but it would bring the calvary. They needed to be as far away as possible, which Reid managed with ease. Within twenty minutes they were on the deserted road that had led to their destination, the wind whistling against Kell’s skin calming the adrenaline-fueled rush he’d come to associate with these missions.

“And the night’s saved,” Reid muttered as they pulled up to the safe house they’d been using for the past few days. “I’ll let Dylan know it’s done.”

God, tonight could’ve been the biggest fuckup imaginable. Still could be, with this woman next to him, but at least their main goal of taking out Rivera was done. Cruz was the icing on the cake—unexpected, and that would be appreciated by the two governments who’d commissioned this job.

Yes, more men would take Rivera’s and Cruz’s place, but not immediately. There would be too much strife and distrust for the gangs to recover completely, and in that time the local
policia
and other agencies would have a field day ripping Rivera’s place apart and gaining new intel.

The gang had been holding the surrounding towns and cities hostage for too long. This quick shot of violence would put an end to much more—and that’s why Dylan had agreed to take on the job in the first place.

Save the innocents. It was their main goal now and the only thing that comforted Kell as he prepared to bring the woman inside for questioning.

T
he files were still highly classified. So much so that they were thin as anything and sparse on any real intel, and he put them aside and let the frustration ball inside his chest the way it had for the past four years every time he thought about how Dylan Scott had screwed him.

He’d thought about it a hell of a lot. There’d been nothing else to do while in hiding. And now that he’d
paid his debts, it was time to resurface and give his old friend a what’s-up.

He hadn’t needed anyone to fill him in on some of the more pertinent details.

Like the fact that Dylan Scott had been mercing for years. He’d trained the bastard.

That he’d turned the CIA down, the same way Kell Roberts continued to do.

“Kell Roberts is currently running wild. Last known location—Jakarta. Sri Lanka. The Congo. Key Largo.”

Unless stopped, the agent sitting across from him would continue to list all the places Kell Roberts had supposedly been spotted within the past week. “So basically, no one knows where the hell he is, or where he’s been.”

“The guy’s good. They all are.”

He meant the rest of Dylan’s group of merry men. Roberts was rumored to travel with Reid Cormier, a Delta operative who was still active duty but ran black ops missions on the side. A man who’d told his CO he would not re-up next year, when the time came. “If they’re that good, then we have to be better.”

T
eddie came to when gunshots shattered the quiet and she jerked up in the darkness. Out of sorts, she struggled to move and realized after a long moment that her wrists were handcuffed together and to the door of the open-topped Jeep she was in.

That’s when the night’s events came rushing back to her like a tsunami and she struggled to breathe.

Shots. Blood. Running …

Don’t be stupid, Teddie … put the gun down
.

A rustle of air, and the men appeared seemingly out of nowhere and the Jeep began to move again at a frantic pace.

She closed her eyes to block it all out, played dead because it was easier than screaming, not wanting to think about what she’d gotten herself into … and how it might even be worse than what she’d been running from.

Her shoulder throbbed along with her head, no doubt from running and screaming for so long.

Finally, mercifully, the Jeep came to a jolting halt and the man who’d been holding her in place got out, undid the handcuffs and picked her up.

He set her down on her feet and she opened her eyes, surprised, and steadied herself with her arms on his shoulders, all too aware of his too close proximity. Under these lights, she could see the outline of a ruthlessly chiseled face, narrowed eyes and dark hair … lips that were full, almost sensuous, made to make a woman scream.

“I knew you were faking it,” he said gruffly.

“Not the whole time.”

“No. You’ve been shot.”

She nodded, felt the bandage he must’ve taped over the wound when she’d fainted. Her mouth was dry as sand and her skin felt tight and hot. She was feverish for sure, hadn’t thought an infection could set in so quickly.

Then again, she’d been wrong about so many things.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

She used her real name for the first time in three hundred and sixty days. “It’s Teddie.”

“That’s a boy’s name. You want to be a boy?”

“What? No, it’s … I didn’t name myself,” she sputtered, and his eyes met and held hers … rimmed silver with blue and brown striations, intense and unsmiling and it still sent a thrill through her, a hard jolt that surprised the hell out of her.

You’re not as jaded as you thought
.

She definitely did not want to be a boy. “Theodora.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“My name is Theodora. Italian on my mom’s side. It was my grandmother’s name—everyone called her Teddie too.” She paused. “What’s yours?”

“It’s Kell. The other guy’s Reid. Those men who are after you—the mercs—what do they want with you?”

So much for the introduction portion of the evening. No more small talk, and she supposed that was smart. The mercenaries could come back, and she had to know what Kell planned on doing with her. “Are you going to turn me over to them?”

“Should I?” Her heart beat so loudly with terror, she was sure he’d hear it, and she could only shake her head no. “Then I won’t. Tell me how you know them.”

There was no way really to lie—she’d been caught running in the dead of night through Mexico with mercenaries on her tail. Nothing but the truth would do … and she wasn’t even sure if that would suffice to make this man believe her story.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

“Not even the guy who saved your ass?”

He didn’t mention the man he’d called Reid, and she hadn’t seen him since she first came to in the Jeep. She looked toward the house and saw a light, supposed he was in there.

Reid appeared to be the nicer of the two, but that wasn’t saying much since he’d barely spoken to her. She knew what they were. Night vision goggles. Rifles. Men dressed in all black, hiding by the side of the
road, ready to take out a drug smuggler or something like that.

More American mercenaries. Talk about out of the frying pan …

Her bag was wound around her and she pushed her hand inside it, searching out what she needed, as stealthily as she could. Kell’s eyes were on her face anyway as she started to speak. “A year ago, those men killed my father—he was a U.S. diplomat living in Khartoum—they also killed my stepmom and my half sisters. I was there—upstairs. They didn’t see me, but I saw them.”

He stared at her for a long moment, as if weighing the truthfulness of her story. “You’re sure that the men who came after you tonight are the same ones who killed your family?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ll never forget their faces,” she whispered fiercely. The night air was as heavy as a blanket around them and a thin trickle of sweat ran down her back, between her breasts. Everything was sticky, including the way she played this.

He had to help her. Otherwise …

Don’t think about it
.

“How did they find you?” Kell asked.

She bit her bottom lip for a second and then told him, “I came to Mexico to meet with someone who had information for me—a man named Samuel Chambers. They found me with him and I shot one of the mercenaries and escaped.” Barely.

“Did he die?”

“I didn’t stick around to admire my handiwork. I knew I couldn’t take all of them down.”

And she was as dangerous as she looked, all five-foot-ten, honey blond–haired, innocent-looking inch of her. She’d shot a merc, was on the run from his cohorts and probably the U.S. Marshals too. And now she was here with him.

Yep, business as usual when he and Reid were together. At least Teddie was telling the truth—as a practiced liar himself, Kell could spot a lie the way most people could spot the sun when it was shining. “What happened to Samuel Chambers?”

“I don’t know. I think he ran too. It was chaos.”

“You have to come with us.”

He waited for her to refuse, but she didn’t. Rather, she pulled her gun out of her bag and leveled it calmly at his chest and said, “I’ll take the Jeep instead.”

Kell bit back a laugh but only because she was so deadly serious and he had to give her some credit for that. She backed away a couple of steps toward the Jeep, held out her free hand and said, “Toss me the keys.”

“You’re going to have to shoot me if you want them,” he told her, and goddamn it all if she didn’t aim and pull the trigger without hesitation. Of course, the fact that he’d taken the ammo out of the gun earlier made it far less intense than it could’ve been, but she hadn’t known she’d be firing empty.

She’d been aiming to kill him—and she would have. For a long moment, they stared at each other, while the enormity of what could’ve just happened hit her. She’d held a look of confidence, even with the fear behind it.

Now she simply looked terrified … of him. And she damned well should be, so why the hell did it bother him so much?

He closed the distance between them with two long strides and took the gun from her hand. “Sorry, darling, you didn’t get your wish tonight.” The Jeep and his life remained intact and she took a step back, away from him. He grabbed her, pulling her body close to his. “Are you in witness protection?”

She didn’t respond—wasn’t supposed to, he knew, and he loosened his grip on her just a little. “I’m going to assume you are, especially because of the nature of the shooting. You should call your handler.”

She didn’t answer that either, her big brown eyes boring into his, like she was trying to read his mind and figure out what he’d do to her now.

“Is there any other family you need to contact?” he asked, and she shook her head slowly without breaking their gaze.

“No family left,” she said quietly.

He tore his eyes from hers, glanced toward Reid, whom he knew was standing in the doorway of the house.

Kell had asked the same question of Reid many years earlier, when Reid was recovering from his concussion after the car accident and Kell stayed up with him.

Where’s your family?

Reid had just shaken his head in a decidedly
I don’t want to talk about it
fashion, but that didn’t mean Kell gave up. No, he’d gone through the foster mother’s cabinet, gleaned what information he could and then did his research at the local library.

Some days Kell wished he hadn’t, because discovering Reid had lost his entire family in a house fire caused by a careless cigarette his mother had fallen asleep with—and that it had been a happy family—was heartbreaking. But it was better that he knew, because his friend’s tendency to self-destruct was then something Kell could pull him back from most of the time.

Self-destruction had given way to survivor’s guilt. What happened last year with four of their Delta team getting captured—Reid included—had nearly sent all of them over the edge. But Reid, who had missed being massacred for the second time in his life because he was unconscious … well, you could look at it as irony, or wonder if Reid had his very own guardian angel.

“If I do, that guardian angel is one sick motherfucker,” Reid would mutter when Kell talked about his theories.

Kell had been on another mission, but still had to live with the fact that it had ultimately been his fault the team had gotten captured—the captors had been looking to take their revenge on him, and when they couldn’t, they did the next best thing.

Maybe Reid was right about the sick motherfucker of a guardian angel.

“Why tell me all this?” he asked her finally.

She swallowed, hard, looked like she wanted to pull away from his grip, but she didn’t. “You’re an American mercenary too—I figure, if you were going to kill me, you already would have. The worst you can do is turn me over to the other men … and I’ll
find a way to kill you or myself before I let that happen.”

T
eddie listened to the low voices, unable to make out more than a few words here and there. Frustrated, she stared at the fan overhead that pushed the air lazily around the room in warm swirls that brushed the hair lightly from her face.