Friday. Aegis Group safe house, Nouakchott, Mauritania.

Felix sat back on his heels and clenched his teeth together. The van bumped and turned down the roads, Adam pushing the rental to its limits. Jackie’s head bobbed and swayed despite the other woman’s hold on her chin.

This was his fault.

He hadn’t completely covered her. That bit of rock or whatever it was had banged off his helmet before it pelted her skull. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost consciousness.

They’d managed to slip between two lines of PPM forces and make a break for the center of the city. If they’d been a minute too late, if the other vehicle hadn’t arrived when it did, things could have turned out very differently.

“She’s fine,” the other woman said a bit too loud. “Jack’s got a hard head, she’s a little dazed is all. The cut’s not deep. Head wounds bleed like a bitch.”

“Where is everyone?” Jackie’s head lolled to one side then the other. Her eyes were almost normal again.

“We’re all here. We’re safe. You got us out.” The other woman squeezed Jackie’s hand.

“You are full of shit.” Jackie glared at her nurse. The truck hit a bump and her gaze jumped to Felix, the full force of those dark brown eyes hitting him right in the gut.

Damn, pictures didn’t do her justice. He swallowed, unable to look away. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. He clenched his teeth a little tighter.

“You’re coming around finally. You should tell them about the time you got kicked in the head by that ass.” The nurse swabbed at the side of Jackie’s head with the supplies from his field medic kit.

“Val, you are a terrible friend.” Jackie glanced back to the other woman, breaking the momentary spell.

Felix held himself back from offering to help.

Val leaned toward him, her smile mischievous, but she never took her eyes off Jackie. Felix had the impression Val was putting on a show to make Jackie think herself okay.

“This one time we were trying to help this family evacuate, but they wouldn’t leave this cantankerous, old donkey they’d had forever. Problem was, the donkey had gotten loose. So Jackie here marches off into nowhere looking for it, radios us and we head to her. As we get close enough she tries to grab for its halter. The donkey turns and kicks her right in the head. I about shit my pants thinking she was going to have something broken, she was dead, brain trauma. Nope. This one shakes it off, glares at the donkey and herds it onto the trailer. I think she scared it.”

Felix shook his head. The more he learned about Jackie Davis the more he had to wonder how they hadn’t met already. A person with her lack of self preservation should have been captured a dozen times over.

“Those guards, what did you shoot them with?” Jackie’s gaze focused on him, her brows a dark slash across her forehead under the generous fringe of bangs.

“Rubber bullets.” He patted the gun at his hip. “Since the men in the truck weren’t armed, we decided less lethal was the way to go.”

“I might like you.” Jackie closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat in front of her. “When can we go back?”

Val glanced at him.

“You’ll have to take that up with our team leader.” He nodded at Kyle sitting near the back doors, watching out the rear windows.

“We’re home,” Adam called out from the driver’s seat.

“Shane and I will do a perimeter check,” Kyle announced. “Get everyone else inside and situated.”

Adam keyed in the code for the gate, and moments later they rolled into the garage of the swanky house the team had rented as their headquarters. Besides being one of the few places big enough for their whole team, this was also the one area of the city where there wasn’t any fighting, but it was only a matter of time until the clashing on the outer rim of the city crept inward.

Isaac and Kyle were out first, ducking under the garage door before it closed to do the check. That left Felix, Adam and Shane with the responsibility of going over the house, reviewing security and managing the assets.

Both Adam and Shane ducked into the house before Felix could get by the press of people.

Great.

He was on crowd control duty by default.

“Okay, everyone,” he said, “into the house. We’ll have a hot meal, showers and beds ready for you soon.”

The three men were just about dead on their feet. They shambled out of the back of the van and toward the open door without much urging.

“Need a hand?” Felix placed his hands on his knees and glanced from one woman to the other.

“I’m good.” Jackie scooted forward.

He stepped out the back of the van, followed by Val. Jackie sat on the tail gate and squinted up at him.

“There’s a bathroom in there, right?” Val asked.

“Through the door, down the hall, can’t miss it.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right back. Jackie, don’t die.” Val quick stepped it up the stairs and into the house proper.

“You okay to walk? Want a hand?” he asked Jackie.

The pictures her family had supplied did not do her justice. Even the carefully curated photographs on her social media didn’t capture the intensity of her stare or how the light caught in her hair making it almost blue it was so black.

Jackie let go of the delicate gold charm at her neck, tipped her chin up and stared at him. It wasn’t quite as gut punching as it’d been in the van that first time, but he could sense how the currents of change seemed to flow around her. Jackie was a doer, a pivotal person who made a difference. She had a magnetic pull, which was likely how she’d convinced the other four that this trip was a good idea.

Felix swallowed, reminding himself he had a job to do. Just because she and his cousin were alike didn’t mean he couldn’t forget what needed to happen next.

“When are you going to tell me why you’re here? You speak English like an American, but you aren’t US military. Who are you?” The knock to the head hadn’t slowed her for long that was for sure.

“Our Team Leader will answer all your questions once we are secure. Inside.” Felix gestured at the door. As soon as Kyle was done checking things out, he’d brief everyone and Felix could get the sand out of his clothes. He’d never realized sand rash was a thing.

“He’s going to sugarcoat what’s going on. I want the truth.” Jackie’s gaze seemed to grow sharper, and it was completely focused on him. She leaned forward, hands braced on the bumper, and gave him her best stare. He couldn’t allow himself to think that just because her bell had been rung she was anything but on the ball. A woman like her didn’t live like this without being able to handle herself and others.

Felix’s contribution to the team wasn’t dealing with the assets. That was Isaac’s job most of the time. He had a way with people, especially the female assets, though since he’d begun playing house with a previous client his charm had been more professional in nature.

Any moment now, Kyle or Isaac would come looking for Jackie and they’d get her out of his hair. He could take a breath, screw his head on straight, and proceed as usual. Maybe he should have taken time off, but that would have left the team one man down. He couldn’t do that to them.

Felix shifted his weight to one foot, then stopped.

Deep down, he liked her. Respected the hell out of what she was doing. Which meant he could not be the one to talk to her about anything.

“Will you tell me the truth?” Jackie asked.

“Depends on what you want to know.” He set his rifle up against one of the trunks containing their supplies. He could talk and do his evaluation of their gear.

“For starters—why couldn’t we go back?” The weariness she must be feeling was starting to show through. It was the micro-expressions, the slope of her shoulders. The woman was going on fumes, but she wouldn’t give up. He bit his tongue to keep from telling her to go rest. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d take that suggestion well.

“You saw the bus, right?” He went to a knee and unlocked the ammo case. Usually they didn’t travel quite so heavy, but the current situation in Mauritania was volatile. If they got into trouble, no one would be coming in after them. Might as well double check everything was still there while they talked.

“Yeah, what was that?”

“You know who PPM is?” He did a quick check over the boxes, ensuring they were all there, and snagged a box to supply the team inside. To his knowledge, no one had shot a live round.

“The People’s Party of Mauritania, yeah.”

“We don’t know the big picture, let me be clear about that. Your dad hired us two days ago to get in here, find you, and get out.” He fastened and locked the case, then moved on to the next.

“What is all this stuff?” Jackie stared at the line of black travel cases.

“Munitions, medical supplies, food, gear—anything we thought we’d need.” He perched on the lid of one case and opened another once more giving it a count.

“What are you doing?”

“Eyeball inventory. We don’t have enough people with us to leave someone behind, so we lock it up, and when we come back, I do a check.”

“Okay, back to the PPM. What are you getting at? You’re getting at something.”

Felix glanced up at her. “When we got here and showed your picture to our contacts, they’d already heard about you. People have been looking for you since before your group was kidnapped.”

“Me? What would they want with me?”

“Don’t know. We got a tip around mid-afternoon someone was looking to move people for the right price. Americans, specifically. Figured you were either our girl, or someone who needed our help. Maybe if we knew who was doing the buying we’d be able to guess at more, but now we don’t have to.”

“What about the people we left behind? The women and children?” Jackie dropped her hands and took a step forward.

He grimaced. This was the gray area he hated. The job was hard enough. Getting Jackie and her medical team out was going to take all their skills. Add a bunch of sick, injured and young kids to that mix and it was damn near impossible.

“Jackie? Hey, Jack, we’ve got a problem.” The Latin woman leaned through the open doorway.

“What is it?” Jackie turned toward her friend.

Shit.

Felix reached for the rifle, his stomach clenching.

Had they been followed?

“You’ve got to come in here. They want to fly us out of here in the morning without going back.” Val’s face twisted up as though she were the one in pain.

“What?” Jackie turned on him, her eyes wide. “Is she right?”

“Talk to Kyle.” Let him be the bad guy.

“I’m talking to you.” Jackie’s voice hit the right note, just enough authority and force. It’d likely worked against people unaccustomed to a chain of command.

“Look.” Felix blew out a breath. “We were hired to get in, get you, and get out. It’s our policy that we rescue as many as we can, but we’re just a five-man team. Our resources are what we can carry and our manpower is everything you saw tonight. There’s a civil war about to tear this city apart. We have to prioritize based on what we can physically do without loss of life.”

“I’m not going with you.” Jackie pushed to her feet, wavering a bit, her face twisted into a mask of anger and pain.

“I’m not leaving my patients behind.” The other woman braced her hands on either side of the door.

Felix bit his tongue.

Kyle had said specifically to not inform Jackie about her mother until they were airborne, a decision Felix didn’t understand. If she knew about how close her mother was to death’s door wouldn’t she want to go now?

“Look, ladies, I understand that you want to save these people, but the only reason that PPM bus was in that part of the city was because they were looking for you.” He pointed at Jackie. “If we remove you from the equation, if they know you’re not around to use as a hostage, doesn’t it make sense that they’d leave that part of the city—and your patients—alone?”

“We can’t do that,” Jackie said.

“That’s not going to work.” The other woman sighed.

In all the jobs Felix had done, he’d never had someone being held as an unwilling captive that didn’t want to be rescued. Part of him wanted to shake some sense into the two women. The other part of him wanted to wash his hands of this, leave it up to Kyle, and go about his job. The last few days had been hard on everyone, but his team hadn’t been holed up in a cell.

“We have to go back,” Jackie said again. “I don’t care what my dad wants. I’m not leaving without those people.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Felix folded his hands in his lap.

Jackie blinked at him a moment.

“Get some vans and go back.” She gestured at the van they’d arrived in. “We could load everyone up and be gone in fifteen minutes. Then we could all get out of here.”

“First, we don’t know if your people are where you left them. For all we know, they got out just fine on their own. They were moved. Who knows? Second, looting has begun all over that part of the city. We were barely able to scrape together enough vehicles to move us and our equipment.”

“Leave the equipment behind. Take just what we need,” Jackie replied. She sounded so confident.

“You want us to leave munitions behind for anyone to find and use to kill more people?”

Jackie’s shoulders fell a bit. He didn’t want to crush her hope, but he had to be realistic. “Even if we could get enough transportation, we’d have to find someone to bribe to get through the checkpoints. We made through a weak spot in their line tonight, but it was close. To get to you, we went through four and ploughed through a lot of our cash to make people look the other way. We don’t have a way of getting more because the banks are shutting down. I’m guessing you aren’t walking around with a couple grand in your pockets?”

“No,” Jackie whispered.

“Once we get past the check points, there’s the risk of coming under fire, getting caught in the crossfire, homemade bombs, and bonfires like the one set up tonight.”

“I just assumed your team did that...”

“No, someone else started it to keep the PPM busses out of their area, we just used it to our advantage.”

“Would you leave someone behind?” Jackie pinned him with the most agonized expression.

Felix grimaced and blew out a breath.

He really hated these shades of gray situations.

“This isn’t a perfect situation. Your father was clear, our job was to get in, get you, and get out—”

“What does he really want, anyway?” Jackie’s gaze narrowed.

“To get his daughter home safe?”

The other woman barked out a laugh.

“Newsflash—my dad doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me. I’m shocked he sent anyone after me.” Jackie’s brow furrowed and she glanced from her friend to Felix and back.

“He has to want something.” The woman stared at him. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“Viking?” Kyle’s voice echoed down the hall.

Thank, God.

“There you are, Jackie.” Kyle stopped just behind the other woman. He’d wiped his face and looked more civil than Felix. “Val, Jackie, you ladies want to come in here and we can brief you on the plan?”

“I know what your plan is, and I’m not leaving with you.” Jackie crossed her arms over her chest.

Oh, boy.

There was a right and wrong way to go about this. They’d bungled their one shot at getting her to agree to leaving town fast. He almost wanted to toss her in one of the trunks and just fly her out. Didn’t she get it? Staying here put her life at risk, and the lives of those around her. She did a lot of good, but she couldn’t do it dead. Besides, given that her father owned the rights to the gold mines in the country, she had to be a valuable bargaining chip in a government thrown into unrest. Why couldn’t she understand that?

“Then Felix has saved me some time.” Kyle’s smile never slipped. “The others are bedding down for the night. Our current plan is to stay here, lock everything up, and keep a watch going. There’s a lot of activity in the city tonight and we seem to have made it in undetected. Plan is to get up early, assess the situation and make a decision from there. How’s that sound?”

“All due respect, I don’t care what your decision is, I’m not leaving my people out there.” Jackie gestured at the garage doors.

“If we can send some of the guys out to get them in the morning, we will. Otherwise, we are in contact with a group here who will likely be able to get to them easier than we will.”

“No.” Jackie shook her head. Her pony tail whipped back and forth with the force of her movement. “You don’t understand. These women—”

“Were slaves.” Kyle said over her. “We are aware of the work you do, Ms. Davis. While we might not be prepared or equipped to carry out your objective, I’ve taken the liberty of contacting some guys I know who work with the African Court to see if they can assist us. They have a team fairly close.”

“Oh...” Jackie blinked at Kyle, all the wind knocked out of her sails.

“Why the hell didn’t you say that earlier?” Val wheeled around to face off with Kyle.

“I tried to, but we got started talking in the wrong place.” Kyle just smiled. “If you’ll head back this way, Val can show you where we’ve got some food, and Isaac is getting everyone situated for the night. I know your team has had a difficult couple of weeks.”

“Thanks.” Jackie’s tone wavered.

She crossed to the stairs. Val offered her a hand and together the two women disappeared down the hall. Kyle watched them go, his smooth smile fading. Felix ducked his head and got back to work, unlocking, checking and securing each case. This was what he needed to do, keep his mind on the job and not Jackie.

“Stubborn little thing, isn’t she?” Kyle said.

“That’s a word for it.” Felix glanced up. “Why don’t we just tell her?”

“Because this is not the setting to find out her mother is practically a vegetable.”

“We’re keeping that intel from her. Wouldn’t you want to know?”

“Not like this.”

Felix couldn’t wrap his head around the concept of waiting until the perfect time. There was no right moment to learn a loved one was dead. Sure, Jackie’s mom might be on a ventilator and her body was still alive, but the mind was gone. There was no waking up. And how long could they keep her there? The sooner they got on a plane headed state-side, the sooner that poor woman could be laid to rest.

It wasn’t his call though. That was Kyle’s. Felix was just the do-what-he-was-told guy. Didn’t mean he had to like keeping things from their asset.