Final Target (SEAL Team Blackout), page 8
She started to apologize, but he pulled the phone from his ear.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m looking for Sparrow.”
“He’s in the room he set up as his office. He’s probably on the ph—”
She spun and took off for the room near the back of the safehouse. She didn’t know why she didn’t think to look there for Sparrow first. Her feet pounded the floor in time with the thump of her heart.
Reaching a closed door couldn’t stop her. What she’d overheard could mean life or death for all of them. She rapped on the door and shoved it open in the same move.
Sparrow was sitting at a desk with the phone to his ear. His eyes leveled on her. Whatever he saw on her face deepened the crease between his brows.
“I need to call you back.” He ended the call and shot to his feet. “What’s going on? Is Mustang okay?”
Her mind tripped over the nickname, but then the fog cleared and she realized he was talking about Crew.
“I just caught Sophia on the phone,” she blurted.
He rounded the desk so fast that she stepped back to avoid him plowing into her. “What?” he barked.
“I don’t know who she’s talking to, but I heard her tell someone that she…doesn’t know everything, only that they rescued him.”
“Goddammit. Is she in her room now?”
All she managed was a nod before Sparrow bolted out the door. She heard him call an order to one of the team as he strode to the room she shared with Sophia.
Teigen lifted a shaky hand to her brow. Her stomach wobbled with nerves, and she felt sweaty. Did she make the right decision? Sparrow would grab Sophia and interrogate her, and Teigen started it all. What if she was wrong?
But she’s not supposed to be on the phone. Orders.
She could have been talking to her parents.
Even still—orders.
On unsteady legs, she started to leave the office when quick, heavy footsteps sounded. The doorway filled with a huge, muscled man. Gunnison. They called him Gunny.
“We’re loading up immediately. I need you to come with me.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? Why? Is this about—”
“There’s no time. We’re leaving, and if you want in that transport, you go now.”
“Oh my god!” She’d either messed up or done something right. She was becoming wary of how swiftly her life was turning on a dime. One minute she was in a marketplace waiting for her contact and the next, tossed in a cell.
In this case, Sophia was the victim and the next she was the enemy.
As she reached the front of the safehouse, men carrying weapons and backpacks filed out the door at a quick pace. She’d arrived here in ripped and filthy clothes. The garments on her back had been provided, and she owned nothing to take, so she simply jogged out the door.
The vans were waiting with open doors. Men tossed items into the back and slammed liftgates. Frantic, she glanced around.
Hard fingers bit into her elbow. A squeak left her, and she looked up to find Crew grabbed her and was dragging her to a vehicle.
His face was white but his cheeks, red. His wet hair told her he’d at least gotten a shower before she kicked the hornets’ nest.
“Crew—”
“Don’t talk. Just get in.”
“I think I did this!”
He didn’t meet her eyes as he practically tossed her into a van and shut the door in her face. She pressed a hand to the tinted glass he probably couldn’t see through, but then the vehicle lurched forward and she rolled away. She kept watching Crew, but he’d turned away from the transport and headed back into the safehouse.
Fear ripped through her. Why was he going back inside? Why wasn’t he coming with her?
Would she ever see him again?
EIGHT
Crew stormed through the safehouse. His fists curled at his sides and fury pounded his system. Ramsey came out of nowhere and stepped in his path.
“Where the hell is she? Where’s the scientist?” Crew’s low growl burned through his throat like flames.
Ramsey set a hand on Crew’s chest, right over a bruise. Crew didn’t wince and pushed into his hand.
“You won’t stop me from finding her. She’s a fucking rat, isn’t she?”
“Mustang, Sparrow’s handling it. Just turn around and get into one of those vans headed for the airport.”
“You don’t have any rank over me,” Crew challenged.
“No, but you’re not thinking straight and I am. Kind of. Now turn your fucking ass around and get in the van!”
Crew glared at his teammate, who glared back. What did he mean by “kind of?”
“Are you even cleared for duty? You’re a fucking mess, Mustang.”
“Frost says I am.”
“Good, then you can fucking walk to the van.”
When he didn’t move, Ramsey shoved him, sending him back a step. With a huff of anger, Crew pivoted and strode out. Goddammit. He’d put Teigen in a van without him all so he could have a go at that scientist. The woman was aiding terrorists and had endangered Teigen, and every cell in his body screamed for him to act against her.
But if he wanted to get on that plane with his wife, he had to leave the scientist to Sparrow and get out of here.
He jumped into the back seat next to Frost. “Somebody tell me what the fuck’s going on,” he demanded.
Lachlan gripped the steering wheel. “Close the door, Mustang. Oh shit, wait. Here comes Sparrow and Ramsey and…the scientist.”
“Fuck that!” Crew reached for the door, ready to leap out and get answers himself.
The door opened. Ramsey looked at him. “Move over.”
With no choice, Crew shifted to the other side of the bench seat. Ramsey crowded in beside him and placed the scientist next to the door. Sparrow jumped in the front and they took off in a peal of tires.
“What the fuck did we bring her for?” Crew blasted his team.
Sparrow threw him a look. “There’s more to this that you don’t understand, Mustang.”
“Then fill me the fuck in because I’m dying to hear why we’re bringing a dirty traitorous whore with us!”
A soft sob slipped from the woman seated on the other side of Ramsey.
Sparrow’s glare drilled into Crew. “I said…not now.” The words were spoken in that deadly calm that always made Blackout listen. No matter how deep they were in the trenches, if they heard that tone, they stopped and took the order.
He fisted his hands on his thighs and stared straight ahead. The guys were talking around him, and he picked up that they really were headed to the airstrip. He accepted they had to get out of Egypt immediately—but they were bringing the scientist who’d tipped off their enemy?
He couldn’t see the woman around the wall of Ramsey’s body, but that was a good thing. If he saw her, he couldn’t count on holding back.
From the beginning, his gut told him to steer clear of the woman, to leave her in that locked cell. But his wife pleaded with him to free the scientist too, and now look where they were.
He didn’t know every detail of the situation, but he damn well knew something was off with her from the start. First, the fact she didn’t bear a single mark, at least on her face said a lot.
On the other hand, she might have performed those sexual favors for leniency but that didn’t mean she wanted to. Some men and women offered themselves as a way to survive. Could he really fault her if she had?
His molars ached from grinding his teeth. By the time they reached the airstrip, his fingers throbbed from gripping them so tight. Still, he wouldn’t relax until he had Teigen beside him again. He’d put her in the van to save her. But that meant getting split up from her again.
No more. Tonight, he’d have her in his arms, safe.
They turned onto the road leading to the airstrip just as a bright light flashed. Dirt and rock erupted into the air.
“Oh fuck! Airstrike!” Lachlan veered the van in a U-turn.
“They’re bombing the airstrip, just like they threatened.” Crew twisted to see the destruction behind them as they careened away.
He searched the area for another dark van. For the rest of the Blackout team.
For Teigen.
He blew. “Where’s the rest of the team?”
Sparrow rounded on him. “Mustang, if you don’t get control, we’re going to duct tape your goddamn mouth shut!”
“That’s my wife in that van!” he roared back.
“Exactly why it’s a Blackout rule to not have a wife!” Sparrow returned. “One more explosion from you and you’re off the team. Got it?”
Pulse hammering, he pressed his mouth shut on any more outbursts. He needed this team. Without it, what was he? He had nothing left.
An oily black cloud mushroomed into the sky behind them as the airstrip was ruined. They drove faster, but their exit was cut off.
“What now?” Lachlan hit top speed.
Sparrow touched his ear, activating his comms device. “New plan. Head back to the city. Bishop,” he said to his second-in-command, and relief blasted Crew that the other van was still on the road, “find us a safe place to rally and plan.”
Crew bottled up every word that jumped to his lips. His body grew rigid and his fingers throbbed even more as he balled his fists tighter.
What felt like hours later, Lachlan stopped the van. Sparrow ordered them into a house that looked little more than a shack. Not a single light lit the front entrance or came from the small windows cut into the stone walls.
Crew noted that Ramsey kept a firm grip on the scientist’s upper arm. When he walked in, Teigen’s gaze locked on his. His heart turned over but he veered away from her and walked up to Sparrow.
“If you’re interrogating the scientist, I want in on it.”
Sparrow locked stares with him as if they’d clasped hands in an arm-wrestling match. Neither looked away.
“You know what that woman cost me. What she could have cost me. I want to be there,” Crew pressed.
Sparrow issued a low rumble. “Fine.”
“Teigen comes with me.”
Sparrow skidded a knuckle along his jaw. “Get her and follow me.”
Crew was going to suck all the information out of the scientist. And he wanted his wife to hear everything.
When he walked up to her, she tilted her head to search his eyes.
God, he just wanted to bundle her soft body into his arms and fill his nose with her familiar scent.
He held back.
“We’re going to talk to the scientist.”
Worry washed over her lovely face, and his heart performed weird acrobatics in his chest.
He waited for her response to his statement. When she closed the gap between them and flung her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest, his world tilted sharply. He no longer knew right from wrong or up from down anymore.
The world was fucked up. A seemingly innocent woman was plotting against them, yet the Blackout team brought her along with them to safety.
But none of that mattered…because Teigen was in his arms.
* * * * *
Teigen’s head spun. First their tumultuous escape to the airstrip, just barely missing being blown up. After that, a mad dash through the city that ended in this house that the natives would refer to as a “poor hut.”
It consisted of a big open room where all of the Blackout team crowded. She overheard Crew asking about the Charlie team and was told they hadn’t made it to the airstrip before the strike. They were safe.
Her insides quivered. If she and the Blackout team had been a minute ahead or a minute behind, they all would have lost their lives.
Crew had given her a straw mat to sit on in the corner of the room. When he started to move away from her, she clung to his hand.
His stare hit hers. Electricity surged between them and her body hummed with its potency. He wasn’t looking at her like he was angry. He looked at her like he wanted her. Naked. Under him.
Ramsey led the scientist to the corner where Teigen sat. Sophia wasn’t given even a straw mat to sit on. She took a seat on the floor, head bowed and fingers tangled in her lap.
Sparrow dropped to a crouch, and Crew did the same. She expected him to release her hand but he clutched her fingers. The warm, callused fingers closed around hers stabilized Teigen in a way she hadn’t known since she broke things off with him.
“Let’s get this over with,” Sparrow said into the leaden silence. “Sophia got hold of a phone and called the men who held her prisoner for the past nine months.”
Shock and horror blasted through Teigen. Her lips parted on a silent gasp.
Crew wasn’t so silent. “Why?”
Sparrow looked from Crew to Sophia, who said nothing, and back to Crew. “She’s admitted that she was trying to help them.”
“Jesus Christ,” Crew spat. “I told you she’s on their side.”
“She is…and she isn’t. She’s fucked up from her ordeal, Mustang. Brainwashed.”
Teigen’s jaw dropped as she stared at Sophia. She hadn’t picked up any of those vibes back in the cell or the few days they’d shared a room in that safehouse. Yet now she understood everything.
“Torture will do that to a person,” Sparrow said about the woman. He tossed a look at Teigen, and his face softened. Maybe he was through giving her the tough love treatment for what she’d done to Crew.
“And we’re just supposed to ignore that she gave away our position and god knows what else?”
“Gunny recovered the conversation. We know what she gave up—and what she didn’t.”
“Or didn’t have time to,” Crew interjected.
Sparrow sent him a silencing look. Teigen could feel their wills locked in a fierce battle. Both men were so hard and unbending. If she knew Crew at all, she knew he wouldn’t back down without being forced.
“She’s staying with us, under total lockdown. We can’t take any chances. If we release her, she will run straight back to them because that’s what they programmed her to do. We’re taking her to someone who will handle it from there.”
Sparrow looked up and caught Lena’s eye. He gestured for her to join them.
The woman crossed the crowded space to his side. “Yeah, boss man?”
“Take Sophia over there and keep an eye on her. Take shifts guarding her.”
“Copy.” Lena gripped Sophia’s upper arm. Teigen noted that she wasn’t mistreating her in any way and still offered the same kindness she’d shown back in the safehouse. For some reason, that was a relief to Teigen. Maybe because she’d like to be treated with the same leniency for her personal crimes against Crew.
Sparrow and Ramsey left the huddle too, leaving her alone with Crew. Her husband.
She stared at their linked fingers. Her face tingled and the hair on her nape quivered as she realized his hot stare was burning into her.
He tugged her hand. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just come on.” He pushed to his feet and drew her up behind him. They moved toward the exit. As they passed Lena, she clamped a hand on Crew’s shoulder.
He swung his attention to her.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To debrief Teigen.” He directed his gaze to Teigen’s. A hungry look passed between them.
Lena pitched her voice to a murmur. “And when you say ‘debrief,’ you mean asking her questions…or taking off her panties?”
Crew grunted, not answering her question at all.
By the time Teigen and Crew were outside, alone, she was a tangle of nerves. She felt like one of those rubber band balls, layer after layer that needed untwisted before it would bounce into its normal shape, ready to snap if subjected to more stress.
She was a mess.
She was scared.
Crew drew her across a patch of dirt yard and around the side of the building to the deep shadow cast by the stone hut. Before she could think, he grabbed her waist and pinned her to the warm stone wall with his even warmer body.
“Should we be…” She wet her lips. “Out here?”
His head bowed lower and he curled forward, shielding her with his chest. Breathing fast, he just stared down at her. He dug his fingers into her waist as if he couldn’t find control. Electric desire shot through her body.
“Crew—”
He trapped her with his searing gaze. Oh god, he was going to—
His lips sealed over hers. Soft. Gentle. At the seeking brush of his mouth, her insides melted into a slick river of need.
This was a reunion. A reawakening.
How starved had she been for a touch from Crew?
She wanted him to kiss her harder, deeper, longer. But he didn’t increase the pressure and she wondered if he was being gentle with her after her beating or if he needed to go lightly for himself.
A shudder ran through her, and she pressed her palms in the barest touch against his chest.
He broke the kiss and stared down at her, panting. “Touch me. I won’t break.”
“But you’re hurt—”
He took her hand and flattened it to his chest, over his hard pec. “Touch me. I need you to.”
So much meaning echoed in those words that her mind spun with desire, regret and pain. She’d broken Crew.
That meant she could heal him too.
Gently, she molded her hand to his chest and searched his eyes for any hint that she should stop.
The gray depths darkened with a hunger—the same hunger that made her safe word for the bedroom pop into her head. She slipped her other hand around his nape and pulled him down again.
Their lips met with the same soft, seeking caress. She let out a purr, and he echoed it, pressing more firmly into the kiss and swinging his hips into hers, keeping her against the wall.
Crew. I missed you so much.
She stroked her tongue over his bottom lip and he groaned. With a rumble, he angled his head and sank his tongue deep, taking her every protest and brain cell with a toe-curling kiss.
God, this was so good. They were so good. Why did she ever break things off in the first place?
To keep him safe. But look how that turned out.
