Chapter 14

Tanner muttered a curse as he left a message for Trevor. Where the hell was he on a Sunday morning?

He scrolled through the numbers on the burner phone and clicked on Adam’s.

Tanner had waited until Sunday to snoop around Dick’s office, figuring there’d be more of a chance it’d be empty. Since Tanner lived on the complex, he happened to know for a fact that Dick worked whenever the hell he wanted to. Fortunately, Dick wasn’t there. Unfortunately, Dick’s secretary, Phyllis, was. Worse, she spotted him before he could duck out. On the upside, Trevor was right about her liking Tanner. The minute she’d seen him, a smile spread across her face, and she sagged with obvious relief. She’d been trying to make a pot of coffee for the past thirty minutes with no luck.

The fact that the damn machine was so complicated it needed to have a control panel was half the problem. The other half was that it had apparently been built for use on the International Space Station. It had a cartridge that could be preloaded with filters so it could make twenty pots in succession—if the filters didn’t run out…or get jammed. He’d seen industrial copiers that were easier to clear than that thing.

While Tanner fixed it, he made small talk with Phyllis. At the same time, he tried to come up with some way to get her out of the office. But short of asking her to look for some nonexistent part for the coffee pot, he couldn’t come up with anything.

He was still thinking about that when Phyllis’s phone rang. When he realized it was Dick, Tanner thought for sure the man was on his way into the office, but after eavesdropping on their conversation, he realized Dick wasn’t in town.

“Dick away on business?” he asked when Phyllis had hung up.

She shook her head as she dropped her cell phone into her purse. “No. He just took the weekend off.”

Tanner paused, coffee filters in hand. Could it be this easy? Maybe he wouldn’t have to use the widget Evan had given him to decipher the password on Dick’s computer at all.

“Is he down at his farm?” Tanner asked Phyllis, trying to sound casual.

Her brow furrowed. “Farm?”

“Yeah, his farm. I heard him mention going down to the farm a lot, so I assumed it was his. I have to admit, Dick doesn’t strike me as the farming type. Just can’t see him sitting on top of a tractor, plowing the fields.”

Phyllis laughed. “Dick doesn’t own a farm. As far as I know, the man has never been on a tractor in his life. The farm is the nickname for the Chadwick-Thorn research facility near Millers Creek, North Carolina. I think they call it that because it’s built on the remains of an old chicken farm. Dick goes there a few times a year.”

Well, damn. It really had been that easy.

Tanner shook his head, still amazed at his good fortune as he waited for Adam to answer. The shifter picked up on the second ring.

“I’ve got some information for you,” Tanner said.

“It’s going to have to wait,” Adam said curtly. “I need you to bring Zarina to the safe house in Charles City. Now.”

Tanner tensed, his fangs trying to come out as fear gripped him. “What’s wrong?”

“Kendra’s in labor. The doctor and nurse were supposed to be here an hour ago, and they aren’t answering their phones. I’m worried Thorn’s men got to them.”

“Shit,” Tanner muttered. “It’s going to take me at least an hour and a half to get to Charles City. Maybe you should take Kendra to a hospital.”

“We can’t risk it,” Adam said. “If Thorn is onto us, the first place he’ll be watching is the hospital.”

Tanner felt his fangs extend. He closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to calm down. “Okay. We’re on our way. Tell Kendra to hold on.”

Hanging up, Tanner dialed Zarina’s number, praying she was working in the lab. Luckily, she was. He explained the situation as he raced across the quad in the center of the complex. She was ready and waiting for him near her car by the time he got there.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

Zarina didn’t argue, simply tossed him the keys and jumped into the passenger seat.

Even without a lot of traffic, the drive to the bed-and-breakfast seemed to take forever. Tanner heard Kendra’s screams of pain the moment he got out of the car. He glanced at Zarina to see her looking just as concerned as he was.

“We have to hurry,” Zarina said, dragging a big duffel bag full of medical gear out of the backseat and shoving it in his direction.

They ran for the big wraparound porch, hurrying up the steps. Declan, wolf shifter Clayne Buchanan, and Adam met them at the top.

“What the hell took you so long?” Declan demanded. The huge, blond bear shifter looked like he was about to kill someone. “Kendra has been screaming like this for hours.”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Adam and Clayne said in perfect harmony as Zarina pushed past them, running into the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor.

When another scream of agony came from up there, Tanner thought for sure Declan was going to shift completely. He’d only seen the big guy in grizzly bear mode once before, in Costa Rica when Kendra’s life had been in danger. He could be frigging scary.

“I’ll stay down here,” Tanner called out after Zarina’s disappearing backside.

“No, you won’t,” she said over her shoulder. “I might need your help, and it’s obvious that no one else down there is going to be of any use.”

Tanner blinked. The mere thought of being in the same room as Kendra while she was giving birth scared him shitless. “But—”

“Get up here!” Zarina shouted, her tone suggesting that if he didn’t come up on his own, she was going to come back down and get him.

Tanner looked at the other men for help, but they seemed more than ready to let him throw himself on this particular grenade. Cursing under his breath, he ran up the stairs before he went into hybrid mode and ripped a hole through the nearest wall so he could escape.

He almost turned and ran back down the stairs again when he rushed into the bedroom and found Kendra lying on the floor with Clayne’s wife/partner, Danica, on her right and Zarina kneeling between her legs.

Zarina glanced at him. “Get behind her, and help her sit up when it’s time to push.”

Tanner nodded. That didn’t sound too bad. At least Zarina wasn’t suggesting he assume a quarterback stance between her legs and help catch the babies on the way out. Just the thought of that made him queasy. Shit, he’d done emergency first aid on the battlefield, seen men and women with body parts completely blown off, and he’d never felt like this.

“Shouldn’t Declan be up here instead?” he asked as he walked in.

“He was,” Kendra said in between breaths. “I sent him downstairs. He was about to pass out.”

Tanner knew the feeling. Swallowing hard, he moved around behind Kendra. He was about to ask something completely lame like how she was feeling when another contraction hit and she cried out again.

His fangs extended in automatic response to the primal sound. Oh shit. He was going to lose it.

“Can’t you give her something?” he asked. “Make the contractions stop until later? When she’s more ready?”

Zarina didn’t look at him. “She’s ready. She’s fully dilated, and the first baby is in the birth canal. This is happening right now. Help her sit up a little. She’ll be able to push better in that position.”

Tanner got on his knees behind Kendra, then wiggled forward so she was leaning against his thighs. When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she screamed, pushed, and reached up to clamp one hand around his wrist so hard he thought she might break bones.

He was about to suggest again that Declan should really be the guy up here doing this when he heard a booming roar that shook the windows, quickly followed by the rapid pop, pop, pop of an automatic weapon. Glass broke, and wood shattered.

Shit. Someone was shooting at the house!

Danica jumped up and ran to the window. “Dammit! It has to be Thorn’s men. I guess we know what happened to the doctor and nurse now. That son of a bitch got them and made them talk.”

There was more shooting downstairs, this time from inside the bed-and-breakfast. It was followed by a long growl that Tanner immediately recognized as belonging to Clayne. The wolf shifter’s howls of rage were unmistakable.

“There must be a dozen or more of them out there.” Danica turned to them. Dressed in jeans and a tank top, her dark hair up in a ponytail, she looked more ready to go sightseeing than take down bad guys, but she was a seriously skilled agent. “More than the guys can handle on their own.”

Kendra was in midcontraction but nodded. “Go. I’ll be okay up here with Zarina and Tanner.”

Danica didn’t hesitate. Pulling her pistol from behind her back, she sprinted for the stairs.

“Maybe I should go help, too,” Tanner suggested.

Zarina shook her head. “No. We have to deliver these babies before any more of Thorn’s people show up, and I need your help to do it.”

Tanner nodded. While getting Kendra and her twins safely through this was their top priority at the moment, something told him Zarina was more worried about him losing control and going full hybrid if he went downstairs. She was probably right. But if Thorn’s men got through Declan and the others, Zarina trying to protect him from himself wasn’t going to account for much. If he had to fight people up here to protect Kendra and Zarina, he had no doubt his inner lion would take over.

Kendra gripped his wrist more tightly as another contraction hit. They were coming closer together. That had to mean she was close to delivering the babies, right?

“I see the head!” Zarina announced.

After that, everything happened a lot faster than Tanner thought it would. Within minutes, Zarina was cradling a tiny, little human. It wasn’t exactly the clean little package they show on TV all the time, but it definitely seemed healthy if the defiant cry it cut loose was any indication.

Zarina wrapped the little boy in a bath towel and quickly handed him to Tanner. He almost suggested that Kendra should probably hold the child, but she was still gasping and pushing, so maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. He grabbed the baby like a football and held on for dear life as Zarina turned her attention to the boy’s twin.

Downstairs, the sound of shooting intensified, as did the growling and snarling. Tanner itched to run down and help, even if it meant going hybrid. The thought of his friends facing such overwhelming odds without him made his claws come out and his hands ache with the need to rip someone to shreds.

He was so focused on fighting down the urge, he didn’t realize Zarina had delivered the other baby. It was only as Zarina placed the carefully swaddled but very messy baby in Kendra’s arms that he realized the shooting had stopped. He was still trying to figure out whether that was a good thing when Kendra glanced up at him expectantly. He quickly leaned over to hand her the little boy he’d been holding.

The infant gave him a curious look for a second, then must have decided he liked his momma’s arms a lot more than Tanner’s, because he closed his eyes and snuggled against her.

Footsteps pounded on the stairs, interrupting the sudden silence. Tanner picked up Declan’s scent long before he reached the bedroom. Tanner looked up to see the big bear shifter standing in the doorway, his look of concern quickly replaced by one of wonder.

Zarina smiled at him. “You’re the father of a set of perfectly healthy twins—a boy and a girl.”

Declan stood there, not saying anything, just gazing at Kendra and their two children. Then he slowly moved to his wife’s side and dropped to his knees beside her. “Are you okay?”

Kendra’s lips curved. “I am now. Is everyone okay downstairs?”

Declan nodded, then leaned close and put his forehead against wife’s, closing his eyes as he breathed her in. “Everyone’s fine. Well, except for Thorn’s men. Some got away, but most of them are dead.”

Declan pulled back to gaze down at the twins, a goofy smile crossing his face.

“Do you have names picked out?” Tanner asked.

Kendra nodded. “Chloe and Noah, after my grandmother and Declan’s grandfather.”

Tanner would have commented, but Adam stuck his head in the room.

“Sorry to break up the joyous moment,” he said, “but we need to get packed up and out of here before the cops—or more of Thorn’s men—show up.”

* * *

Alina clutched the sheets, her whole body quivering as Trevor slowly moved inside her. His thrusts were almost casual, like he had all the time in the world. Or maybe he simply enjoyed driving her insane. Not that she was complaining. If there was a better way to start off the day than with a gorgeous man between your legs, she couldn’t imagine what it could be.

Trevor’s eyes flared brighter, as if reading her mind. Giving her a sexy grin, he bent his head to kiss and nibble her neck until she was panting and writhing so much beneath him she thought she might orgasm just from that. After the number of ways he’d made her climax last night, anything was possible.

When her orgasm hit, she wrapped her arms and legs around him tighter and bit down on her lower lip to keep from screaming too loudly. The move didn’t work any better now than it had the other times they’d made love.

Only when Trevor was sure she was coming did he let himself go, nipping her neck a little with his sharp fangs as he climaxed with her. She kept her legs wrapped tightly around him afterward. She wanted him to stay right where he was, between her legs, buried deep inside her forever.

“I could get used to this,” she said softly, pushing a stray hair away from his forehead.

He chuckled. “That’s the idea. I want you to get used to it. Why do you think I’m working so hard?”

She smiled. “I’m not sure I would call anything we did last night work. If so, then sign me up for overtime.”

“Okay,” he admitted. “I have to agree with you about the work thing, but I’m definitely doing my best to impress you.”

She kissed him. “Consider me impressed.”

That kiss led to another, then another. That was about the time she felt him get hard again.

She gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Okay, that’s it. No more kissing for the rest of the morning. It just leads to more sex, and we can’t have any more sex until I get something to eat.”

Trevor groaned but rolled off after one more quick kiss. “I’ll shower first. If we both go in there, I can’t promise to keep my hands to myself.”

Alina sighed as she watched his naked backside disappear into the bathroom. Considering she’d gotten a grand total of two hours of sleep last night, she should be a complete zombie. Instead, she felt amazing. Great sex could do that.

She was still lying there when she realized she hadn’t heard the water turn on. Trevor might be fast in the shower, but he couldn’t be that fast. Rolling out of bed, she headed for the bathroom.

She found her partner standing in front of the vanity completely naked and staring at his phone, an intent—dare she say worried—expression on his face.

“Did you miss a call?” she asked. “I never heard it ring.”

He nodded absently. “Yeah. Tanner called earlier, but he didn’t say what it was about, and his phone went to voice mail when I called him back. There’s an email from Seth Larson, too, but I haven’t read it yet. I got caught up in a text from that friend at the FBI I told you about—Tony Moretti.”

That caught her attention. “The one doing the bomb analysis? What did he say?”

“It’s a long report,” Trevor said, scrolling his finger down his phone. “But the most interesting thing is that the bomb was made with military grade C-4 and military blasting caps. Tony was able to use the chemical markers they put in the C-4 to track the explosives back to a specific lot number, most of which are from the black-ops world.”

“You mean like the CIA?”

He looked up at her. “Or the DCO.”

She frowned. “Okay, that is scary. Anything else?”

“Nothing that will make you feel any better.” He scrolled through the report some more. “There was a partial lot number on one of the blasting caps as well. It traces back to the black-ops world, too, except a friend of his at the CIA is sure they consumed all of those caps in training years ago, so Tony doesn’t think our bomber could have gotten them from the Agency.”

She considered that. “So either his friend at the CIA is lying or we’re looking at a blasting cap that might have been issued to the DCO?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

She walked over to lean around him so she could look at his phone. “Any way we can check?”

“I’ll never get anywhere near the DCO’s ammunition inventory system, not without raising a bunch of red flags,” he said. “But maybe Jake could. One of his additional jobs in the DCO used to be helping with the monthly inventories before everything went to crap and he got labeled as persona non grata thanks to his association with me.”

“Call him,” she urged. “Let’s see what he can do.”

Trevor’s brow furrowed. “I’ve been trying to keep him out of this, so he won’t get any more screwed over than necessary.”

Alina nudged his big, strong shoulder. “How about you let Jake decide that? I’m pretty sure he wants to catch John’s killer as much as anyone.”

Trevor sighed but didn’t say anything.

She nudged him again. “So are you going to call him?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Let me see what Seth has to say first, then I’ll call Jake. Why don’t you go ahead and jump in the shower? This might take me a second.”

Alina had barely stepped in the shower and gotten the water turned on before she heard Trevor curse. She opened the glass door and looked out. “What’s wrong?”

“Seth identified three people going into the main DCO building about thirty minutes before the blast. John Loughlin, his secretary, Olivia, and this guy.”

Trevor turned his phone around, showing her a photo of a guy with dark hair cut military style and blue eyes.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

He turned the phone around and stared at it, as if to assure himself he was seeing straight. “It’s Ed Vincent, my former teammate—the one who quit the DCO within days of the bombing without ever bothering to tell me. Oh, and by the way, Ed used to help with monthly ammo inventories, too.”

Alina gaped. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting one of your former teammates provided the explosives that Shishani used to make the bomb? That Ed’s the one who brought the thing onto the complex and put it in John’s office?”

Trevor frowned. “I don’t want to believe it, but what the hell am I supposed to think? There’s no reason Ed should have been there at that time of the morning. Hell, he shouldn’t have been anywhere on the DCO complex. He was supposed to be with Jake, doing some kind of training that week. It’s one of the big reasons they didn’t go with me on that mission up in Maine.”

Alina wanted to ask what the mission up in Maine had been about but decided against it. There would be time for that later, after they dealt with this.

She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, then placed her hand on his chest. His heart pounded beneath her fingers. “You need to call Jake and get him on this. Because right now, we’re merely guessing.”

Trevor nodded, his brow still furrowed. “All right. I’ll call him now. But I can promise you, Jake isn’t going to like this. Go take your shower.”

Alina cleaned up as quickly as she could. Over the running water, she could hear her partner arguing with Jake. Apparently, Jake wasn’t happy with the idea of checking up on an ex-teammate. After Trevor told Jake why he was suspicious, the other man must have calmed down and agreed to do a little digging, because Trevor hung up.

She turned off the water, then grabbed a towel from the hook and wrapped it around herself.

“Jake said he’d do a quick check of the DCO ammunition inventory system, then call us back.” Trevor sighed. “I pray you’re right and that I’m seeing stuff that’s not really there.”

Alina hoped so, too.

She finished up and was drying her hair when Trevor’s phone rang. Her partner had already showered and dressed and was waiting with phone in hand.

“What do you have?” he asked Jake.

Trevor listened, jaw clenched. Finally, he hung up with barely a grunt of acknowledgment. For a minute, she was sure he was going to sling his phone across the room.

“Well?” she prompted, setting the dryer on the vanity.

He took a deep breath. “The ammo inventory system is a complete train wreck now that so many people have left, but Jake was able to confirm that there’s a box of electric blasting caps and a case of C-4 missing. It looks like the stuff disappeared early Sunday morning of the weekend before the bombing. It’s not like Ed signed for the crap, but his passcode was used to turn off the alarm in the bunker, so it’s pretty damn evident.”

Crap on a stick.

Trevor shook his head. “Fuck, he really did it. Ed stole the explosives and gave them to the bomber. Then he brought the damn thing on the complex and put it in John’s office. No wonder he left. He knew we’d figure out his code had been used to get into the storage bunker at some point.”

“What do we do now?” she asked softly.

“We go after him,” Trevor said, his voice as soft and low as hers.

“You know where Ed is?”

“I don’t, but Jake does,” Trevor said. “Turns out he’s talked to him a couple of times in the past few weeks. He didn’t tell me, because I always seemed so pissed at the way Ed left. Ed’s been working private security under a fake name at an industrial place outside Gainesville, Virginia.”

Alina twirled her hair up in a twist, then hurried into the bedroom to put on some clothes.

“Are we going to arrest Ed…or something else?” she asked as she pulled on her jeans.

Trevor didn’t flinch. “That all depends on him.”