“I won’t be put off by fantastic sex again. As a matter of fact, it is off the table until you tell me what the hell is going on!” Gah! Couldn’t the man even look slightly unsettled when she yelled at him?

Zed looked up from his laptop, then closed it.

“Good to know it’s fantastic sex.” He reached out a hand, and she slapped it away.

“Absolutely not, buster. You got out of bed in the middle of the night, and I hear you out here talking to Kane, but you haven’t been keeping me informed of what’s going on. I don’t like it one bit.”

She wasn’t going to admit to him for just a moment or two she thought of Rick and had a momentary flashback when she’d heard Zed out here in the living room talking to his friend on a computer call. So, start with insecurity, then find out they’d been getting information on Jefferies, and Zed had been keeping her in the dark, and now, she was ready to spit nails.

“Marcia, come sit down next to me.” He held out his hand again. It was so tempting. Seeing Zed there, in his bronze gloriousness, wearing nothing but boxers was tough to resist, but she was going to. It was a matter of principal.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she insisted.

“I will. You don’t have to sit next to me. But if you do, I can show you some things on the computer, it’s easier this way.”

“Oh.” She grabbed his hand like she’d wanted to and sat down next to him. “So, what are you going to show me?”

“Querida, first I want to say thank you,” his voice was so solemn, but his eyes twinkled devilishly.

“Uhmm, okay. I’ll bite. For what?”

“For telling Kane we have fantastic sex,” he drawled.

“Oh, no,” she wailed. “Did he hear me?”

“Oh, yeah,” Zed’s smile flashed white, “he did.”

Suck it up. Just suck it up and stay on point.

“Show me what’s on your laptop,” she waved her hand to the computer resting on his knees, “and tell me what’s going on

Zed was still chuckling when he opened the computer.

“Now Marcia, in all honesty, after my session with Jackson tomorrow, you and I were going to meet with the team to go over things.”

She knocked her ankle against his. “I guess I might have gone over the top, huh?”

“You do tend to have a temper.” Before she could apologize, he kept talking, “But I happen to love your fiery side.”

The man was making her blush again. Would that ever stop happening?

A picture of Raymond filled the laptop, but not as she remembered him. He was wearing Navy dress whites.

“That’s just all sorts of wrong,” she said.

“I agree,” Zed said grimly. “He’s gone off the grid, but Harold’s brought in an FBI Profiler to try to determine why Raymond became focused on you, and what he hopes to gain.”

Marcia laughed and held up her hand like a kid in school. Zed looked at her with that raised eyebrow of his.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I know the answer to this one. He’s a misogynist, and I made fun of him and shot him.”

“And for extra credit, can you tell me what he hopes to gain?” Zed asked.

“He wants to make me die painfully.”

“You have just passed the Navy SEAL profiler class, Ms. Price. Congratulations. However, the correct usage of batshit, crazy motherfucker was not used.”

Damn, this man was perfect. Just listening to his laugh, a girl could get lost in those eyes. Stay focused. Focused. But that chest, and those biceps.

“Okay, what about Jefferies?” she asked when her voice wouldn’t tremble.

“That man is profit motivated, but it turns out, he’s made a new friend who has political motivations. His new friend is a Russian oligarch who has made friends with a new nationalist in Turkey.”

“So, Jefferies could be after either of Mr. B’s projects for financial gain, but the nuclear materials seem to work better with the new Russian guy.”

“That about sums it up.”

“So, do you have a plan?”

“I always have plans.” Zed shut his computer and set it on the coffee table. “I told you, tomorrow after physical therapy, we’re going to meet with the team. But tonight, I think I need to work on some repetitive movements to show Jackson I’ve made progress.”

“Really?” Marcia sighed disgustedly. “You’re a thirty-six-year-old Navy man, for God’s sake. That’s your best line to get sex?”

“Rumor has it, it’s fantastic sex.”

“Only because of all the effort I put it into it,” Marcia said as she flounced off the sofa. The T-shirt she was wearing had ridden up, but why pull it down? Instead, she swayed down the hall and gave herself a mental high five when Zed picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the bed.

* * *

Zed had the phone to his ear before the first ring finished.

“Zaragoza.”

“The Brockman’s house was car bombed,” Kane said. He looked over at Marcia who was still asleep in the faint dawn light. He got up, shut the bedroom door, then went out to the living room. He turned on his computer with Kane continuing to relay information to him.

“Do we know survivors?” he whispered his question.

“It didn’t hit the house, only got as far as that massive front gate, but still, it was a huge payload. Killed the driver and three pedestrians, instantly. I’m not being coy about the family, the front of the house is caved in. I just don’t have answers on the family yet. Should know something any minute. Just stay away from the TV. I’ll call as soon as I get something.”

Zed didn’t have to stay away from the TV, he had aerial footage on his laptop.

He had to wake up Marcia.

He went back to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of clean shorts, and grabbed a clean tee and pajama bottoms for Marcia. The Brockman’s had to be all right. He didn’t know how Marcia could be expected to live with more loss in her life.

He kissed her healed cheek. “Querida?”

She smiled up at him. In an instant, she knew something was wrong.

“Just tell me.”

“There’s been a bomb. It’s still too early to know who’s injured or to what extent, but you need to know.”

Her eyes had adjusted, and she saw the clothes. Her hands trembled when she reached for them.

“Let me help you.”

Marcia nodded. Zed helped to thread her arms through the arm holes, then he held the pajama bottoms in place, so she could step into them, as if she were a child. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. He wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, but what would be the point if in five minutes her world would unravel?

He sat on the side of the bed with her in his lap, the phone on the bed beside them like the snake in the Garden of Eden, waiting to strike. It was supposed to take just minutes, but it felt like an hour Marcia had been trembling in his arms. Had he done the right thing waking her?

The phone rang, and he put it on speaker.

“Kane, it’s me and Marcia.”

She kept her head pressed into the crook of his neck. Her mouth was open in a wordless scream, just waiting to be set off.

“There are four people, all alive, being loaded onto ambulances. I don’t know their condition. Just that all four of them are alive.”

Marcia jerked up. “There should be five. Aunt Vi is there too.”

“I know,” Kane said. “I told them there should be five. Marcia it’s a goatfuck there. They haven’t even been able to tell me if it’s four women or three women and a man, how many of them are kids. Nothing.”

“I need to get there,” Marcia said, struggling to get out of his arms.

“We don’t know if this is a set-up,” Kane protested.

“So, fix it that I’m protected,” she shouted. “I have to be there.”

“No,” Kane said.

“Kane,” Zed’s voice cut through the pre-dawn hours, Marcia’s head whipped around to look at him. “Never talk to Marcia like that again unless we are on a mission, and it’s life threatening.”

“Got it, Zed. I’ll start figuring out how to make this work.”

“Appreciate it. Work with Dex on this side.”

“I planned to. It’ll be fun finally getting to wake his ass up at the butt-crack of dawn,” Kane laughed. With that joke, Zed knew they were good.

When he disconnected, he focused all of his attention on Marcia.

“You’ll be there soon. Even better, Kane will probably be calling back in five minutes with more details.”

Her small hands were laying, palms up in her lap. She was staring at the wall. To anyone else, it might look like she was giving up, but Zed could actually feel the energy she was gathering around herself. She was harnessing her resources. She turned to look at him.

“That meeting you were going to have. Can it be now? Can your team come here while Kane gets his information?” She gnawed at her lip. “I mean they have to help set up protection, anyway, right?”

She was right. It was perfect.

He picked up his phone.

* * *

Marcia was at the point where she thought she might throw up. She’d been trying to get ahold of Mr. B., but he wasn’t answering, and the uncertainty was killing her. She knew she had to stay strong and focused, but what she really wanted to do was scream and cry. They were waiting on Dex and Gray to show up.

She was trying to rub the kick out of her neck when she heard smoky, soft laughter. She turned and saw Evie O’Malley step out onto the balcony with her.

“Let me guess, your neck hurts because you keep having to look up at all those tall men,” Evie said in a Southern drawl.

Marcia nodded. “I couldn’t understand why Aiden brought you here to begin with, but now I’m just so grateful to have someone I can look in the eye, I don’t care about the why anymore.”

“I brought lemonade and sparkling water, take your choice, they’re both for you. I figured you probably didn’t need any more caffeine this morning.”

Marcia took the glass of lemonade and drank a long sip.

“Thank you,” she sighed. “So, why are you here?”

“I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. That these men will take care of you. One of my best friends was rescued by a SEAL from a Mexican jungle.”

“I don’t want to be rescued, I wanted to rescue myself,” Marcia said fiercely.

The smaller woman snorted and drank down half the glass of water. “Yeah, well that’s how Lydia has felt ever since Clint carried her out of that jungle. Trust me, she kicks ass. She helped me save my sister. I was just trying to say with all this firepower,” Evie waved her hand towards the men gathered inside, “plus the girls on your side, we’ll take down the fuckers.”

“God, I hope so. It’s been almost an hour, and they still don’t know if it’s Vi or Lesley who is missing. How can they not know?” Marcia looked at Evie helplessly.

Both women looked up as Zed opened the sliding glass door.

“Would it hurt you to bend over every once in a while?” Evie muttered.

Zed ignored her as he looked at Marcia. “Harold’s on the phone, he wants to talk to you before being put on speaker.”

Marcia couldn’t feel her legs, they had the substance of water. Zed had his arm around her in a heartbeat. He drew her down to one of the chairs and handed her the phone.

“Marcia?”

“Mr. B.? What’s going on?”

“Christie and Debbie are fine.”

“What does that mean? Burns? Bruises?”

“Just scared out their minds, but fine. It’s because of where their bedrooms are.”

“Thank God. Who’s missing then? Kane told me only four people were found at the house.”

“Lesley’s missing. She wasn’t home, and I didn’t know she’d left the house.” He sounded anguished.

“What happened to Vi that she couldn’t explain who she was? Are you sure she left voluntarily? Are you okay?” Marcia thought she might drop the phone, she was trembling so badly.

Zed scooched his chair beside her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“Easy,” he breathed into her hair.

Marcia slammed the speaker button on the phone, so Zed could hear Mr. B.’s answers.

“Vi was in the living room watching television, and she was knocked out. I was in my study and the bookcase fell and trapped me along with the part of the outside wall that was blown in. By the time they put me in the ambulance, they’d already transported Vi and the two girls. I have some of my former men checking everyplace for Lesley.”

“Her phone?” Zed asked.

“I’ll have the records in the next ten minutes,” Brockman answered. “I’m praying this is nothing more than her normal bad behavior.”

“How’s Vi now?” Marcia asked.

Brockman gave a weak chuckle. “I think this is old hat for you, honey. Contusions and a concussion.”

“I’ll be there tonight.”

“No!” he sounded almost like Kane had.

“I want to be there for my family.”

“And I want, your family wants you with you here with us,” Brockman said tiredly. “But NSA and Homeland Security are all over this. It’s made international news. What you don’t know is Al-Qaeda has taken credit.”

“Does that mean it has something to do with Yemen and the Saudis?” Marcia asked.

“ISIS has taken credit too.” Marcia could hear the man’s exhaustion. He needed her.

“I’ll be there―”

“Zaragoza, if you were running this op, what would your decision be?”

“She’d stay here. Too many moving parts in D.C. right now. You have no idea if this is part of your old job, Jefferies, or whatever pies you currently have your hands in. Meanwhile, we know Jefferies and Raymond are threats we have to neutralize, and we’ve been working some angles on that.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Yeah, we do. We’re going to review them with Marcia in a few minutes. Dex or Kane will keep you informed unless you want to be part of the conversation.”

“I’ve got to get back to the girls,” Marcia heard Mr. B. sigh. “Meanwhile, you keep my girl Marcia safe, you hear me?”

“I do. And I will.” Zed disconnected the phone.

* * *

Zed saw Gray and Dex come into his apartment. Aiden was at the sliding glass door, motioning Evie to come inside. Zed put his arm around Marcia and took her into the living room which seemed exceedingly small, now that it housed so many large men.

“How’s your family, Marcia?” Gray asked as she settled onto the couch.

“Physically fine, but Lesley’s missing. She just got out of a rehabilitation clinic. She’s pulled stunts like this before after her first two in-stays.” Zed heard the pain in her voice. He’d really hoped it would be different for Lesley this time on Marcia’s behalf. He just thanked God, the other four Brockman’s were doing well.

Dalton cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him. “Marcia, I’ve got your family in my prayers,” he said solemnly. From what Zed knew about the man’s past, he knew he was sincere.

“Thank you,” Marcia responded.

“I have some information regarding Raymond,” Dalton said. Dex handed him a file and Dalton reached in and pulled out a photo he handed to Marcia. She tilted it so Zed could see it. The picture showed Raymond with his arm around a petite blonde woman and another couple at the beach near Dana Point.

“This is Felix Raymond with his girlfriend Layla Martin. She was dead five months after this photo was taken,” Dalton said. “I spoke to Renee, she’s the girl standing beside Layla, she was Layla’s best friend. She had a lot to say about our boy Raymond.”

Marcia nodded. Then Dalton handed over another photo.

This time it was of Raymond in a team softball jersey. It showed him getting ready to throw a pitch.

“This is from the co-ed softball team they were all on. Turns out Raymond didn’t like to lose. So much so, Renee’s boyfriend finally admitted to her the night before a tournament, he and good ole Felix went to talk to the pitcher on the other team. Renee’s boyfriend swears he just thought they were going to bribe him to throw the game. Instead, Raymond broke two of his fingers on his right hand, so he couldn’t pitch.”

“Great, he’s a cheater and a bully too,” Marcia mumbled.

“Turns out this guy worked at the bank where Raymond had his car loan. He worked with his boss to get it repossessed. Renee said Layla offered to loan him the money for a down payment for a new loan. It was the first time he hit her.”

“He hit her for trying to help him?” Wyatt’s confusion was obvious as he asked the question.

“His little feelings got hurt because she was in a better financial position,” Evie said.

“That was half of it,” Dalton agreed.

“Let me guess, he then came back at her and demanded she buy the thing outright for him,” Marcia said.

Dalton nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed sadly.

Zed knew the real reason Dalton was pensive. He looked around the room and saw similar looks on all the men’s faces. They didn’t like the idea of these two women knowing the intimate working of such an abusive personality. It meant they’d had to learn how to cope, so they could survive. Zed now wondered whether there was any physical abuse in her relationship with Rick.

“How long after that before he killed her?” Marcia asked.

“It was nine weeks,” Dalton said softly. “There’s more. Renee never thought much of it, but it turned out that Marty, the pitcher from the other team, up and moved stakes soon after the whole car fiasco. Years later, she found out the reason why he’d left; his home had been invaded and his wife had been assaulted.”

Zed watched Marcia nod her head like she wasn’t surprised. God knows he wasn’t. He waited for the next shoe to drop.

The next thing Dalton handed Marcia was a newspaper printout of a bicyclist who had been the victim of a hit and run on Pacific Coast Highway.

“This is our banker friend’s boss,” Dex said. “Unfortunately, there had been enough hit and runs where bicyclists are concerned, nobody thought to look at this as premeditated.”

“None of this came up during the trial?” Marcia asked.

Dalton shook his head.

“But you’ve got more, don’t you?” Marcia looked between Dalton and Dex.

“Yeah, there’s more,” Dex said. He pulled out three photos from the file and handed them all to Marcia. “These are all men who have died at Thorpe International, two of them stateside. When Kane and I started to make inquiries regarding who Raymond had run-ins with, this pattern emerged.”

“Three dead men in eight years, that’s all you’ve been able to confirm, right?” Marcia leaned over and drilled Dexter with a look. “You know there’s more.”

“Yep, that’s what my guts saying too, but these are damn near certain. So, we’ve got a serial killer on our hands, and you are his number one target.”

Marcia waved her hand like it didn’t matter, and Zed gritted his teeth. “Dex, you have more than just five slides. So, we know we have an itty-bitty problem with Raymond, who’s up next.”

“This isn’t a joke,” Zed spit out.

She whirled to look at him, and she was going to mouth off something smart-ass, but thank God, she figured out now was not the time.

“Zed, I know it’s not a joke,” she said quietly as her hand landed on his thigh. “But I also know your team, and especially you, won’t let anything happen to me.”

“What else do you have?” Zed asked Dex.

This time Dex handed the picture to Zed.

“Solomon Jefferies, former Assistant Director of the NSA.” Zed studied the picture of the man Dex handed him. He wanted to see if this time he would discern something new if he looked at it.

“Kane finally found something interesting,” Dex said.

“Kane?” Gray said.

“Kane, me, who’s keeping score,” Dex scoffed. “Anyway, here’s the deal. Our man Jefferies’ new BFF, Vitoly Akulov, he’s a bastard.”

Everyone laughed, except for Zed.

“So, this isn’t about Jefferies’ friends in Turkey, is it? Who’s his father?”

Dex shook his head. “His father is the former head of the Republic of Crimea. The one who is currently in exile.”

“So, we could potentially have a Crimea with nuclear weapons?” Marcia asked aghast. Then she paused and slowly shook her head. “There’s no way Jefferies would allow that much instability to happen. Unless he’s a total warmonger. What’s his motivation? Money or instability?”

“Since I found out some former members of Thorp group have taken a commission to eliminate Vitoly, I’m going to have to say Jefferies was in it for the money, but now, he’s doing what he can to mitigate things. He would be looking for a new buyer, but I’m going to feed all the information to Brockman, so he can finally take back the materials. They’ve never been out of his men’s sights.”

Zed nodded his head slowly. Something still wasn’t sitting right with him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Okay, that takes care of Jefferies,” Gray said. “Any sightings of Raymond?”

“Nothing. None of his known aliases have been used at any airport,” Dex said.

Marcia’s phone rang. Zed saw Lesley’s picture come up on the display.

“Querida, put it on speaker.”

“Lesley, where are you, honey? Are you okay?”

“Marcia,” it was clear Lesley was crying. “I can’t reach Daddy on the phone. Nobody will tell me anything. Do you know where they are? I need to go see them.” She continued to say something, but Zed couldn’t understand her through her sobs.

“Lesley, calm down. Are you high?” Marcia’s tone was loving, patient, and firm.

“No. No. I promise―”

“Everybody’s fine,” Marcia cut through Lesley’s words. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll have someone come and pick you up and take you to the hospital.

Dex already had his phone out, Zed would bet money he was talking to Kane.

“I’m in Alexandria. My friend’s name is Margaret, just like Mom.”

“I need an address,” Marcia stayed on track.

Lesley gave it to her.

“Are you safe where you are?” Marcia asked. “Are you going to relapse being around Margaret and with what’s happened?”

The sound of Lesley blowing her nose came across clearly. “I already flushed the shit down the toilet. I just want to get to Daddy and the girls. I’m not going to use this as a crutch.”

Marcia slumped against him in relief.

Dex held up five fingers, three times. Marcia straightened and gripped her phone tighter.

“Lesley, someone will be picking you up in less than fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t hang up,” Lesley pleaded.

“I won’t hang up until your ride arrives.” Marcia picked up the phone and started talking to the girl who meant so much to her.

All the time Marcia had been talking to Lesley, Zed had been listening as Dex had been filling in Harold Brockman about his oldest daughter and the information on Vitoly and Jefferies. Both calls ended at the same time.

Marcia looked up and gave him a weary smile. “Was that Mr. B. on the line?” she asked turning to Dex.

“Yep. He’s going to take care of Jefferies now that he knows everything.”

“Good job, Dex,” Gray said.

Evie reached over on the couch and hugged Marcia. “I’m happy about your sister,” she said.

“Lesley’s just my friend,” Marcia countered.

“She’s your sister in every way that matters,” Evie disagreed.