Seth
The vacant house was quiet and had that new paint smell. The owner had moved out a week ago and had assured them it wouldn’t be a problem for them to use it for a night or two before he put it on the market. The neighborhood was expensive and in high demand, the owner had gushed. Seth looked around, the home would probably sell quickly with its tall ceilings and wide, picturesque windows.
More importantly, though, was the view from one of the bay windows and the house that sat five houses down on the other side of the street.
The surveillance and bugs had been planted. Now, it was a waiting game to see what the occupants of that particular house were up to. Not too long ago, a group of men had arrived and were inside speaking in a combination of English and a foreign language, so the verbiage ran in circles. Good thing they had Noah along.
“You sure that house is owned by Yakov?” Noah asked.
Seth pulled a small listening device from his ear and glanced over. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Good.” Noah gave a quick nod.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just keep kicking myself that I didn’t take Yakov out at the same time I took out Viktor.”
“Was Yakov even in the business?”
“Not Viktor’s business, no. Yakov was small time.”
“Was Yakov even in Russia at the time?”
“No, he wasn’t,” Noah admitted.
“Then don’t stress about it. Viktor was a twisted psychopath that got off on hurting innocents. The man had to go. You didn’t have access to Yakov at the time, so it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“You’re right.”
“Death was too good for Viktor. If there’s a hell, I hope the guy is rotting in it,” Seth told Noah. Viktor Lakhonin had been the vilest of human beings who had preyed on innocent children.
“True.”
Seth lowered his binoculars. “There’s no way Yakov will ever find out you retired Viktor.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Noah shook his head.
Well, great. Noah might not be worried, but he was. And just to be on the safe side, Seth wasn’t taking any chances. They may like to think Yakov didn’t know about Noah killing Viktor, but Seth wasn’t going to risk Noah’s life on a thought. Consequently, he’d brought everything he could think of. They were fully loaded if anything other than normal surveillance went down tonight.
“I found out Yakov Lakhonin’s alias.”
“What?” His head jerked up when Reggie spoke.
Noah spun to face the techie.
“Yeah. It’s Hans Grover,” Reggie said, joining them from the far side of the room.
“Wait. Hans Grover? Isn’t that the bad guy from the Die Hard movie?” Noah squinted at Reggie.
“Nah, that’s Hans somebody else,” Reggie argued.
“Hans Gruber, I think,” Seth murmured, angling the binoculars at the house.
“What’s with criminals using movie character names?” Noah muttered.
“What do you mean?” Reggie paused while hooking up a cable to one of the monitors.
“A criminal I knew called himself Will Smith when he was hiding from the Marshals.”
“Did it work?” Seth tossed a quick look at his cousin.
“Yeah, it did.”
“Well, then, there’s your answer.”
Several minutes of silence ensued with only the sound of the occasional chair squeaking or slight whir of electronics running.
“How’d you find the house?” Reggie asked.
“I accessed the airline’s manifest and the terminal’s cameras and tracked when Yakov left the airport.” He showed Reggie the program he’d created as an app on his phone. “Hacking into nearby traffic cameras, I found he’d made a brief stop at that house before continuing to his interview at the hotel.”
Reggie gaped at the app. “Dude… that’s some serious shit.”
Seth gave a half smile and tucked his phone away before lifting the binoculars back up. “Of course, once at the hotel, Yakov must have gone out one of the side doors because the guy literally disappeared after the interview with the journalist.”
Reggie turned back to the wire taps.
Seth slowly looked around, suddenly uneasy. His gut was telling him something was off, and he always trusted his gut. “Something’s wrong.”
“Wrong?” Noah’s fingers paused on his keyboard.
“Why did they suddenly switch to all Russian instead of half and half?”
“It’s all good,” Noah assured him. “I’m deciphering.”
“What are they saying?”
“They’re waiting on someone. They’re careful not to mention names, but one of the guys slipped up and called the other Syrus.”
“Thank God you speak Russian,” Seth blew out a breath.
The sound of a door closing drew his gaze back to the house. A man got into a truck and drove away. Seth wrote down the license plate.
“I think Frost and Storm are the only other Phoenix agents who can speak Russian besides me.” Noah fiddled with the ear piece and replaced it in one ear.
“Asher,” he murmured to himself, and then shrugged when Noah tossed him a strange look.
Thinking of Asher drew Seth’s lips into a slight curve. He couldn’t forget the way the man’s strong arms had held him for that brief moment in time.
Beneath Noah’s penetrating gaze, heat traveled up his neck. “What?” The nickname Frost bothered him. He’d learned that Asher had only gotten the name because of his frosty attitude toward relationships. He didn’t want to think of Asher as frosty anything, he wanted to think of the guy as hot. Because hell, Asher Grayson was hella hot.
The sound Noah made could have been in agreement or not, Seth wasn’t sure, but he gave up the glasses when his cousin approached and took over watching the house across the street.
Seth took the opportunity to check the monitor. Then, he combed the house, going into each room, double checking for listening devices. Call him paranoid, but triple checking had saved his ass more than once. He’d come a long way from hacking high tech cars. He’d been so grateful when his uncle had swooped in to save him. He’d never found Eddie and his gang again, and he’d looked. It seemed Eddie and Tech Suppress had dropped off the face of the earth. He wasn’t sorry about that at all.
In the beginning, his Uncle Rossi had been his rock. The man had handed him over to Stefano, and Stefano had put him to work. Seth thrived and, before he knew it, they’d put him into training with Noah and Allison. He’d had never looked back. The unit was his family.
Crouching, he ran his fingers beneath the edge of an old desk that sat empty in one of the spare rooms. Nothing. He sighed and stood.
Family. He’d wanted so badly to be a family with Dennis. Although he couldn’t share anything with the guy about Phoenix, he had tried to be as open as possible. Of course, being away a lot hadn’t helped their relationship. He let himself out of the room and walked back down the hallway. Maintaining the team’s secrecy was critical to their survival. Some of the team had informed family about the unit, but not Seth. Dennis had been his boyfriend for a year, but he’d never once mentioned anything about Phoenix to the guy. Maybe he would have eventually, if they had become more. For a while, he’d believed he was in love. But now, he knew differently. He had never been in love with Dennis. How the hell could he have been attracted to such a shallow and unethical person?
Returning to the main room, he rolled up an extra cord and shoved it in a box. Asher seemed nothing like Dennis. It sucked that he hadn’t seen Asher since the night Dennis left. Asher was staying in the field a lot. All Seth had to show for that night was a key. The key fit into a lock on a storage shed that held all of his stuff. Everything Dennis had taken had been returned and placed in storage. Dennis had called, Seth hadn’t answered, but his ex-boyfriend had left a nasally sounding message on his phone saying he was very sorry. Seth knew that Asher had something to do with it, but nobody was talking.
Maybe it was for the best. While he didn’t really miss Dennis, Seth feared being alone. He needed someone of his own to be there. At least staying with Noah and Mac helped. He wasn’t totally by himself.
“I overheard Stefano talking to Lash,” Reggie said out of the blue.
“What?” Seth snapped his head around and Noah almost dropped the binoculars.
“What? What the hell, Reggie? How come you didn’t say something earlier?” Noah demanded.
“Sorry! Geez.” The techie held up his hands.
“What did you hear?” Seth asked. Lash was their missing Phoenix agent. The unit’s hunter had been AWOL for almost a year. Seth was worried about the guy. Hell, they all were.
“I heard Stefano tell Lash to come home,” Reggie answered.
“What else?” Noah had lowered his voice this time.
“I don’t know. That’s all I heard before Stefano shut the door.”
“How do you know he was talking to Lash?” Seth probed.
“Because he said, ‘Lash, it’s time to come in.’”
“Fuck,” Seth breathed out. He and Noah stared at each other.
“What’s going on?” Reggie glanced back and forth between them.
“Nothing.” Seth glanced away.
“You’re lying. What aren’t you telling me?” Reggie narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t know anything.” Noah frowned.
“We aren’t talking about it, Reggie. Give it a rest,” Seth said, and the techie backed down.
Seth blew out a long breath and snagged up the glasses. Turning back to the window, he carefully zoomed in on the house across the street.
“When did they switch to only speaking English?” Seth adjusted the mic in his ear and kept his eyes on the neighboring lawns and sidewalks.
“The one who spoke primarily Russian left,” Noah murmured.
“I could go for some pizza,” Reggie randomly piped up.
Noah and Reggie then started a heated discussion about where to buy the best pie. Their voices faded into the background as Seth worried silently about their missing brother-in-arms.
Lash. Jesus Christ, their missing Phoenix might be lost to them forever. Reggie accused him of hiding something. He was. Lash was dealing with something Seth wasn’t at liberty to share.
Lash’s disappearance had most of the team baffled. While Seth only knew a little, he suspected the chief and Stefano knew more than they were saying.
Frost
He paced Stefano’s office. The commander had a line of awards and commendations earned in the military stretching the length of one whole wall and a bookcase stood against another.
On one shelf sat pictures of a few of the team at Noah and Mac’s house last Christmas. He’d shown up but hadn’t stayed.
One picture held Giovanni Rossi, who was Noah’s dad, standing next to Stefano with Seth, Noah, Mac, Allison, Reggie, and Wild. He didn’t know the other people in the pictures. The party had been held at Mac and Noah’s place shortly after the sting that killed Terrance Manning, the man who had kidnapped and held Noah for years against his will.
“Who did Terrance Manning supply with the kids he kidnapped? I know he used some of them for drug mules, but what about the ones he sold into the sex trafficking ring?”
Stefano looked surprised at his question, but after a moment of hesitation, he answered, “He supplied Viktor Lakhonin.”
“Is that why you had Noah kill Viktor?”
“Yes,” Stefano said, easing back in his chair.
Viktor Lakhonin, head of a human trafficking ring, had been Yakov’s older brother. Frost lifted one of the certificates of achievement from the shelf.
“Of course, with Viktor dead, it left the doors wide open for Yakov to assume the reins,” Frost murmured.
Stefano sighed and then nodded.
Frost placed the framed certificate back down and turned. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Stefano.
Stefano steepled his fingers and stared back. “Where is this going?”
Frost narrowed his gaze. “It’s Yakov. Everyone suspects that he’s here because with Manning dead, he needs to find a replacement for that part of his business.”
“That’s what we believe.”
Frost turned and set his shoulder to the wall. “Did it ever occur to you that Yakov just might be here because Noah killed his brother?”
“There’s no way possible anyone outside of this team knows that Noah killed Viktor. On that, you can be assured, Frost.” The robotic voice of the chief came through the speaker phone on Stefano’s desk.
Although the repetitious voice was damned annoying at times, Frost understood the chief’s need for secrecy. He knew the chief needed to keep his identity hidden. If anyone found out who the man was, the whole team would be vulnerable. If the identity of the unit’s chief ever got out, Phoenix could very well crumble.
He studied Stefano. The commander held his gaze without blinking.
“So, why did you call me in today?” He’d been perfectly content staying in the field, away from temptation.
“Take a look at this.” The commander slid a file across the desk. Frost pushed from his lean against the wall and walked over to open the folder. Inside was information on Yakov Lakhonin. Scanning the documents, he saw it contained information they had already suspected. Yakov was currently trying to extend his dead brother’s business. And seriously, Frost was going to make damned sure that shit wasn’t happening.
He glanced up from the papers spread out on Stefano’s desk. “What do you need me to do?”
“We want you to find someone,” the chief said.
The commander leaned over and pointed to a name in bold on the front of one of the papers.
He leaned forward and read the name on the file before looking up. “Who the fuck is Marco Jennings?”
“I’d start with your FBI contact, Roscoe Burns,” the chief answered. “I believe he has a few leads.”
“And don’t forget, I have Ghost and Reboot Hell working the techie side of things,” Stefano added.
“As if I could,” he muttered.
“What’s this place again?” Roscoe whispered.
Frost paused, staying in the shadows the shrubs provided.
“Remember that suspect we caught the other day?” he whispered back.
“Yeah, the one that made bail?” Roscoe asked.
Frost clenched his jaw. The suspect making bail had been a surprise. A huge amount of money had been paid by someone named Hans Grover. It took him a few short minutes of investigating to find out that Hans Grover was none other than Yakov Lakhonin. The rat bastard was just itching for jail time. Only problem was that paying someone’s bail wasn’t against the law.
“Yes. When he was released, he came to that house.” He pointed. “And we are going to stake it out.”
“Why can’t we stake it out from the comfort of your jeep?” Roscoe grumbled.
He snorted. “Come on, old man.”
“Fuck you,” Roscoe charged back.
Frost grinned and ran quickly across a wide lawn and up to a nearby home.
He surveyed the house. After investigating what Stefano had given him, he was positive Yakov had or was in the process of recruiting Marco Jennings. How much success Yakov had depended on how much muscle he could buy and how receptive Jennings was to another man calling the shots. The only things that might make a difference in Jennings’ decision would be how much money Yakov was willing to pay and if he was offering Jennings the position that Terrance Manning had had in the organization.
“Wait, look.” Roscoe handed him a cell phone.
“How’d you get this?” The agent had pulled up information on the house.
“I have my sources.”
Sources that apparently listed Marco Jennings as the owner of the house their suspect had arrived at.
“Check that out,” Roscoe murmured and handed him a pair of binoculars.
Frost swung the glasses down the street a few houses away from the one they were watching. Something flashed briefly in the window and then disappeared.
He frowned, noticing the “For Sale” sign in the front yard. No car in the driveway, and the grass had grown a tad long and a few old newspapers littered the front porch.
“It looks like that house should be vacant.” He handed the glasses back to Roscoe.
“Let’s check it out.” Roscoe tucked the glasses away and pulled his gun.
Frost checked the clip in his own weapon and then darted across the street. Staying low, he moved around the side of the house. His gun was aimed left and then right, checking for any movement before he went across the cement back porch with Roscoe at his back.
A faint light glowed from within. Clearly, there was someone inside. With a thin piece of metal, he had the lock undone in seconds and moved silently and swiftly inside.
With his back to Roscoe, they cleared rooms, a lethal, two-manned team. Whoever was in there remained quiet, almost stealthy.
He froze when a light flicked on overhead. The gun nudging the back of his head wasn’t entirely unexpected. Son of a bitch! He lifted his hand slowly and let his gun swivel loose between two fingers. A hand reached out and took his weapon.
Seizing his chance, he whirled. Why the hell wasn’t Roscoe shooting? He jabbed out, but hit empty air. Then someone giggled. Glancing down, he found a pair of gorgeous green eyes sparkling up at him.
Roscoe had his hands up and Noah Bradford stood behind the FBI agent with a gun.
“You look ridiculous, Ro, put your hands down,” Seth laughed.
“Jesus, O’Leary! You guys fucking suck,” Roscoe complained, grabbing his gun back from Noah.
Frost scowled at Seth. “What the hell are you doing here?” Seriously tempted to throttle the man, he stepped closer.
“We were assigned here.” Seth sniffed as he handed back his gun. “What the hell are you doing here? I don’t remember seeing your name on the assignment sheet.”
“Assignment sheet?” he asked incredulously. “There’s a fucking assignment sheet?” Stefano was taking paperwork to a whole other level.
“What did you do, pick up extra work?” Seth’s lips pursed in a cheeky smile and Frost wanted to punch something. Instead, he prowled around Seth and into the main room to find Reggie Ackerman sitting at a panel of monitors. Great, just fucking great.
“Somebody better start talking,” he snarled, whirling around.
“I was talking! You walked away,” Seth clarified, coming after him. “Stefano put us on watching the house Yakov stopped at when he first arrived in the US. A Hans Grover rented it two weeks ago. We’ve been watching it all day.”
“Hans Grover is Yakov’s alias,” Noah offered.
“We know that,” Roscoe said with a frown.
“I was told to locate someone,” Frost seethed, frowning at Seth, but the man seemed oblivious. “When Yakov’s man was released on bail, Roscoe and I tailed him to the house across the street. My source says Marco Jennings owns that house.”
“Nope, it was rented by Mr. Grover,” Reggie corrected and then gulped when he glared at the younger man.
“Who’s Marco Jennings?” Seth asked, curious.
“Jennings is a local drug lord Yakov is trying to recruit,” Frost said, dropping into a chair and drumming his fingers on the arm.
“Okay, so our cases are closely related.” Noah shrugged.
“No biggie. I’m sure the commander and the chief knew this was going to overlap,” Seth offered.
“Except that now we have five people where we only need two, maybe three tops,” he shot back sarcastically. It was fucking obvious that someone fucked up and he refused to believe it had been Roscoe and him. They had arrested Yakov’s man a long time before Seth and Noah set up the stakeout in this house.
“I’ll call Stefano and see if he wants to reassign us.” Seth tapped his cell and walked out of the room.
When Seth disappeared into the other room, Frost pulled himself to his feet and followed. His eyes were drawn to Seth’s sleek, muscled form. The brunet was compact and lithe, not to mention fucking efficient and deadly with his own unique skills. He still couldn’t believe the guy had gotten the drop on him. It was kind of sexy. And heaven help him, he wanted a taste. Just a nibble, and then he’d back the fuck off. He cocked his head and allowed his gaze a moment to trace Seth’s lips. Lush, plump lips and the bottom one was wet where Seth’s teeth were pressing into it.
“Um, Asher?”
“Um, yeah?” he answered huskily. His dick thickened at the sound of his given name on Seth’s lips.
“My eyes are up here.”
He snapped his gaze away from Seth’s mouth and found himself drowning in a sea of green. A green so deep, it was as if he’d been swallowed whole by Mother Earth. When had Seth ended his conversation with Stefano? The younger man smiled, a flush spreading down his neck.
He shouldn’t be making a play for Seth. Hell, the guy had just been dumped by the lover he had been living with. His gut warned that it was too soon, but he took a step closer anyway.
Seth held up a hand, his eyes darkening with some unnamed emotion. Frost kept moving toward him until Seth’s palm settled like fire against his chest.
“Asher…” Seth whispered.
He clenched his teeth so tightly, his jaw ached. “I know,” he gritted the words out. “It’s too soon.”