Chapter 1

“Hey, Mac. We got something.”

Mackenzie Stone jerked her gaze away from the fenced-in compound and its collection of mismatched concrete buildings. In the driver’s seat of the Dallas Daily Star undercover van, her photographer, tech guy, assistant, and all-around best friend Zak Gibson yanked the buds from his ears and switched the police scanner on the dash to the external speakers. The blare of a fast-talking dispatcher spouting code numbers and addresses filled the van.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “There’s a hostage situation over on Belmont Street and the on-scene commander has requested SWAT to respond.”

About damn time. “Excellent. Let’s go.” She climbed around the console and into the passenger seat as he cranked the engine. “It’ll take a while for them to gear up. If we hurry¸ we can get there before they do.”

She and Zak had been slowly roasting in this dang surveillance van for two days in a row, trying to figure out how to get inside the SWAT team’s inner sanctum. She’d been so close to walking up to the gate and ringing the freaking bell. It probably wouldn’t have gotten her anywhere, but right about now she was willing to try anything.

Mac clicked her seat belt into place just as Zak slammed on the brakes. She was thrown against the restraint, then flung back. “What the hell?”

Zak pointed at the monstrous vehicle barreling through the gate, cutting them off. A white SUV bearing a matching SWAT insignia followed, lights flashing as it raced down the road.

“How is that even possible? They just got the call,” she said to Zak.

“Fast response time?”

She snorted. Just one more thing that didn’t add up about the Dallas Police Department’s SWAT team. She considered scrapping the idea of following them in favor of sneaking into the compound and snooping around, but the gate had already closed. Inside, a cop the size of a linebacker scanned the fence line, then headed back into the building. Just her luck, one of them had stayed behind.

Damn.

She tucked her long, dark hair behind her ear and sank back in the seat. She wouldn’t have to be so underhanded about this whole thing if the police department had agreed to a ride-along with SWAT. Or at the very least, an interview with their commander. Why wouldn’t they want her to do a story about the team unless they were hiding something?

Investigating cops who might be corrupt was never a good idea. But she’d earned her reputation by sticking her nose in places other investigative journalists were too afraid to go. She’d covered everything from gangs killing each other over territory and coyotes who robbed illegals blind to the murderous Mexican drug cartels and dirty politicians. She went wherever the story took her and never flinched when things got rough. She’d helped to make the Dallas Daily Star synonymous with fearless, Pulitzer-worthy journalism. So when she’d told her editor she wanted to go after SWAT, he gave the okay. Even if he did think she was wasting her time. There wasn’t a division in the Dallas Police Department that had a better—or cleaner—reputation than SWAT.

It didn’t help her cause any that everyone except the criminals SWAT put in prison thought the tactical team was damn near perfect. They’d taken on some of the toughest and most ruthless crooks, gangbangers, and cartel goons in the city. You name the bad guys, Dallas SWAT had taken them on and taken them down. Considering the load of major shit storms the group had been involved in, they had a ridiculously low number of complaints filed against them. There’d been allegations, but nothing had ever come of them—not since the new team leader, Sergeant Gage Dixon, had taken over eight years ago. Since then, the SWAT team had been beyond perfect.

By itself, that was enough to make her suspicious. All organizations tended to screw up occasionally, no matter how dedicated and capable they were. But that rule didn’t seem to apply to the Dallas PD SWAT.

The police chief held them up as an example for the rest of the department to emulate, and for reasons she couldn’t figure out, the other divisions seemed eager to try. The mayor even used their exploits to roast other civic leaders across Texas and the southwest. Hell, even the Girl Scouts wanted to be associated with them, and SWAT was happy to oblige by lending their muscle-bound presence to the annual cookie sale kickoff every winter. As far as everyone in Dallas was concerned, the SWAT team was better than sliced bread, PB&J with the crusts cut off, and sex in an air-conditioned room—combined.

“Just what do you expect to find, Mac? That they don’t floss after eating popcorn?” her editor had asked in his deep Texas drawl. “Maybe the Dallas PD finally got something right for once. Maybe this city just has the best damn SWAT team in the country.”

Mac had good reason to believe the SWAT team was crooked and a danger to everyone around them. But she had to be damn careful how she sold it to her editor. She had a hard time believing the story, and she’d heard it firsthand from an eyewitness named Marvin Cole.

Marvin was a two-time loser currently out on bail awaiting trial, this time for kidnapping, assault, and resisting arrest. Normally, Mac wouldn’t have given the guy the time it took to call security to escort him out of the building. But then he had something on the one group of people in Dallas who were damn near untouchable—SWAT.

She was intrigued, so she’d bought him a cup of coffee in the newspaper’s break room and listened to his story. She figured it was sour grapes—they had busted his ass, after all—but she pretended to pay attention as Marvin described how two big SWAT guys had smashed in the reinforced door of his secret hideout, tossed him around like a rag doll, and took the kid he’d been holding for ransom.

She didn’t exactly swoon from excitement, but then Marvin described how one of the SWAT officers had growled like an animal, then grabbed him and shoved him up against the wall, holding him there with one hand as his feet dangled above the floor. The only reason that got her attention was because Marvin weighed about 350 pounds—and most of it was muscle. Still, SWAT guys were big and tough—everyone knew that. Marvin must have seen how skeptical she was because he opened his shirt and showed her the two sets of four parallel scratches gouged in the muscles of his enormous chest. He looked as if he’d been clawed by a big animal.

“Son of a bitch did that with his bare hands. I lived on the streets my whole life, so I know when someone’s messed up,” he said as he slowly buttoned his shirt and sat down. “Those SWAT dudes that everyone’s so freaking impressed with? They’re on something.”

She lifted a brow. “You mean like steroids?”

Marvin shook his head. “Hell no, lady. Shit, I take steroids and I ain’t never acted like that. No, those cats are on something really serious. Something that makes them crazy strong.”

The idea that SWAT members were on some kind of designer drug was insane, but Marvin wasn’t making up the ragged marks on his chest.

“What do you hope to gain from telling me this?” she asked him. “Even if this is a case of police brutality, I don’t think it’s going to keep you out of jail.”

Marvin shrugged. “Probably not. But maybe it might land one of them in there with me.”

She’d sat in the conference room for a long time figuring out what to do. The possibility that Marvin was right had buried itself in her soul too deep to let go. But while convincing her boss to let her run with the story had been easy, getting close enough to any of the guys on the SWAT team to find out what they were hiding, if anything, was damn near impossible. As far as she could tell, they only hung out with each other, and it wasn’t at any bar or club she could find. They only worked out at their own facility, so she couldn’t bump into them at the gym or along a running path somewhere. And if they bought their groceries from a store anywhere in the Dallas area, she couldn’t figure out where.

Well, today she was going to talk to the elusive SWAT commander even if she had to take the man hostage.

Okay, maybe not. But she was going to talk to him, damn it.

Even though Zak drove like a madman, they couldn’t keep up with the SWAT vehicles, so the scene was already well established by the time they pulled up to the industrial district on Belmont. There was crime tape going up everywhere, but fortunately Zak found a space near the curb only two blocks down the street from the SWAT tactical operations vehicle. It was usually impossible to get this close to an active shooter situation. That probably meant there weren’t enough uniformed officers available to both set the perimeter and evacuate the surrounding buildings. No doubt the cops would remedy that soon. Until then, she might be lucky enough to get a few action shots and gain a bit of insight into how the mysterious SWAT team worked.

Zak leaned forward to get a better look, making a face when a pair of EMTs ran across the street half carrying, half dragging a man covered in blood.

“You think maybe we should move a little farther back?” he asked as the EMTs put the man in the ambulance and jumped in after him. The ambulance peeled away from the curb.

“I don’t think so. It looks like all the action out here is over with. We’ll be fine.” Mac held a pair of binoculars to her eyes and scanned the area in front of the building. “So, what’s our situation?”

Zak pulled out the buds he’d stuck back in his ears so he could listen to the scanner on the drive over. Thank God he was good at figuring out all those silly-ass codes and cop acronyms because it was like a foreign language to her even after ten years as a journalist.

“Sun Community Bank over on First and Devon got hit by a crew about an hour ago.” He fished his camera out of the back and swapped out his normal lens for something bigger. “Someone got to the silent alarm and the cops were waiting for the bank robbers the second they walked out. That’s when all hell broke loose.” Zak stopped as he fiddled with one of the option settings on the top of the camera. “The cops ID’d at least seven bad guys armed with automatic weapons, some of whom were set up outside the bank while the rest went inside.”

Mac set down the binoculars and climbed in the back to grab her own gear. “That doesn’t sound like your ordinary bank robbers to me.” She took a binder out of her bag and started flipping pages. “More like a gang with military training.”

She’d spent enough time investigating gangs on both sides of the border to recognize their handiwork. Some of them could rival the U.S. military when it came to weapons and tactics.

“You could be right,” Zak agreed. “Regardless, the responding officers got hit hard. There were multiple injuries, including some innocent bystanders. Cops took down at least two of the robbers, but the rest got to their vehicles and turned it into a car chase.” He pointed at the industrial building in front of them. “They’re holed up in there.”

Mac didn’t recognize the name of the place, and sure didn’t know what kind of product E-Brand produced, but the bad guys had decided the three-floor brick building made a good defensive position. Probably because it didn’t have any windows.

“They already shot four people and are currently holding thirty employees hostage,” Zak continued.

“What do they want?” she asked as she scanned the pages of the SWAT personnel folder she’d put together. It wasn’t much more than fluffy Dallas PD public affairs crap at this point, but it was a start.

“That’s anyone’s guess,” Zak told her as he started snapping pictures of the scene. “But I think we can assume it’s not world peace since SWAT was called in.”

As if hearing the introduction, the door of the tactical operations vehicle opened and three big men stepped out. Dressed head to foot in black with heavy tactical vests, helmets, and automatic weapons, Mac would have known they were SWAT even if she didn’t have their pictures. She had to admit their public affairs headshots didn’t do them justice.

Maybe it was just that a simple two-by-three-inch photo couldn’t capture how big the three men were—at least six-three or six-four with broad shoulders and biceps she wouldn’t be able to get her hands around. Or maybe it was that all guys simply looked hotter dressed up in tight-fitting tactical gear.

She dragged her gaze away—a little reluctantly—to scan each cop’s bio.

Officer Diego Miguel Martinez, ten years on the force, the last four with SWAT. More commendations than fingers.

Officer Hale Delaney, eight years on the force, the last three with SWAT. Taught martial arts to underprivileged children in his free time.

Senior Corporal Michael Lavare Taylor, eleven years on the force, the last five with SWAT. His records had a big gap missing, indicating he’d probably been an undercover officer before he joined SWAT.

Mac studied the three men as they stood talking. No doubt going over last-minute details before entering the building. They didn’t look like they were on drugs. They were too relaxed and sure of themselves. If they were juicing, their hands would be shaking or something, wouldn’t they? For the first time since talking to Marvin, she began to think he’d been full of crap.

“If these guys are up to no good, they’re the hunkiest dirty cops I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Zak shrugged. “I guess some women might consider them attractive.”

She raised a brow. “Some?”

He went back to snapping pictures, this time getting close-ups of each SWAT member. “The ones who’re only interested in muscular men who kick in doors and shoot things.”

Her lips twitched. “Versus men who do what? Take pictures and eavesdrop on police scanners?”

“And program their own phone apps,” he told her. “Trust me. That skill is in high demand these days.”

Mac shook her head. Zak had nothing to feel inferior about, but they’d been ragging on each other since college, so she couldn’t resist teasing him.

She was about to remind him he’d been talking about hitting the gym more often when the door on the operations vehicle opened again and an even bigger man stepped out. She pointed at him. “I want pictures of him. Lots of pictures.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zak groused, thumbing a button on his camera and taking rapid-fire shots of the primary focus of her investigation.

It was possible the SWAT commander wasn’t even aware someone on the team was using drugs to improve his performance, but instinct told her if there was something going on, Sergeant Gage Dixon knew about it. Which was why Mac had put his name at the top of her list.

Three other men followed the SWAT commander out of the vehicle, but it was almost impossible to do anything but ignore them—Dixon was that mesmerizing.

Dixon was the type of man who made it hard to notice anyone around him, even the other members of the SWAT team, who looked as if they should each have their own month in the Hot Cops of the Dallas Police Department calendar right along with him. It wasn’t simply that Dixon was tall, muscular, and sinfully gorgeous. It wasn’t even that he was a charismatic leader. It was that he had a presence, which made every head turn his way—male and female.

Sergeant Gage Dixon, fifteen years on the force, the last ten with SWAT. Previous military experience as a U.S. Army Ranger, two years in the narcotics division, and commendations out the wazoo. She didn’t have to refer to her personnel record to remember those facts. She’d learned everything about him she could, including the fact that he’d replaced every single member on the tactical team with his own handpicked people after taking charge when he was promoted to sergeant eight years ago.

That by itself gave her reason to think something was fishy. Organizational trends being what they were, it was highly unusual there’d be a one-hundred-percent turnover in such a peach assignment in such a short period of time—unless someone pushed to make that happen. And that someone was Gage Dixon.

She finally forced her attention to the other men who’d come out of the operations vehicle behind Dixon, trying to figure out who they were. The one wearing a uniform was obviously a cop—a lieutenant she guessed—probably the on-scene commander who’d called in the SWAT team. The shorter guy next to him was also easy to ID. The white shirt, hard hat, big radio on his belt, and a familiar logo above the pocket on his shirt indicated he worked for the local power company. The last guy had her stumped, though. He had unkempt hair and wore a cheap herringbone sports coat, but he didn’t have a sidearm or radio that she could see. Whoever he was, he got along well with Dixon. They shook hands, then did one of those weird shoulder-squeeze things men did when they were giving an enthusiastic hug.

Zak was snapping photos of the man-fest, so Mac asked him, “Any idea who that man is in the sports coat? I don’t recognize him.”

“Not surprising. He doesn’t get a lot of press. He’s one of the department’s new civilian crisis negotiators.”

“But SWAT has its own negotiators.”

Three of them, to be precise—Diego Martinez, Trevor McCall, and Zane Kendrick.

Zak shrugged. “Maybe the department brought him in to soften up SWAT’s image.”

And he was on good terms with the commander of the unit? What was next—dogs and cats sleeping together?

Dixon finished up his conversation with the lieutenant and two civilians, who disappeared back into the operations vehicle. The SWAT commander then turned and said something to Taylor, who nodded. Damn, she wished she could hear what they were saying. A few moments later, Taylor and the other two SWAT officers headed for the brick building, reaching under their helmets to pull knit caps down to cover their faces as they went. Before they got there, the three men split up, each disappearing around a different part of the building.

“You’d think they would go in with more people than that,” she said.

“Maybe some of them entered the building before we got here,” Zak suggested. “You know, like an advance recon team.”

Mac blinked. Where the hell had that come from? “An advance recon team?”

He stopped taking pictures to give her a superior look. “Hey, I play video games. I know the lingo.”

She shook her head. Men.

Mac turned back to see what Dixon was up to and saw him looking over at their undercover van. Crap. She started to duck down in the seat but caught herself. What the heck was she worrying about? The windows were too tinted for him to see anything at this distance.

His gaze lingered on them for a moment longer before he said something to the two patrol officers nearby, then climbed into the operations vehicle.

Mac grabbed the door handle.

“Where are you going?” Zak asked in a voice that said he knew exactly where she was going, and that he also knew he couldn’t stop her. He’d given up trying a long time ago.

“I’m going to look around, see if there’s anything interesting happening. Maybe get a few pictures.”

Zak frowned but held his tongue. Another thing he’d learned over time. “I’ll go with you.”

She reached into her bag for the digital camera she carried on little sneak-and-peek missions like this. It was small, simple to operate, and took higher-quality pictures than her cell phone. She tucked it in her back pocket.

“Nah, I’m good. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She slipped out the door and closed it before Zak could insist. And he would, on principle. But she didn’t like him getting involved in this kind of stuff. She was willing to be stupid with her own neck, but she sure wasn’t going to let him risk his. Zak was good at a lot of things, but he sucked at the sneaky, Danger Mouse stuff. Fortunately, he knew it and never tried to force her to take him along.

“Be careful,” he called out.

She nodded and hurried down the block, away from the scene. As soon as she reached the end of the block, she started jogging. Cop cars zipped past her, lights flashing and sirens wailing, but nobody paid attention to a woman who seemed to be doing the sane thing—running in the opposite direction of trouble.

The moment she was out of sight, she turned down an alley and worked her way back toward the rear of the building where all the crap was going down. If she could sneak inside and find a place to hide, she’d be able to observe the SWAT team in action and see how messy things really got.

And she had no doubt things were going to get messy. Why? Because she was here now, and things always seemed to get messy when she showed up. Zak said it was because she had a nose for finding trouble. Maybe he was right. That used to scare her parents to death when she was a kid—it probably still did—but it proved to be an invaluable talent for a journalist.

She looked left, then right, then darted across the street. She couldn’t believe the SWAT team didn’t have anyone covering the back door of the building, but there wasn’t a cop in sight. Maybe they weren’t the hotshots everyone made them out to be.

She was just about to grab the handle when the door burst open.

Mac barely had time to gasp before a man with a baseball cap on backward and a chest full of tattoos lifted a big rifle and aimed it at her. Her heart stopped. Instinct told her to run—or at least scream for help—but before she could do either, a SWAT officer in tactical gear dropped from above and knocked the thug to the ground with some kind of martial arts chop to the back of his tattooed neck.

She stared at the man lying unconscious on the ground, then at the cop before looking up to see a rappelling rope swaying back and forth against the side of the three-story building. How the heck had he dropped down fast enough to do that?

Mac opened her mouth to identify herself, but the SWAT officer closed the space between them in the blink of an eye and slapped a gloved hand over her mouth. She automatically reached up to grab his hand, but then froze as she locked eyes with his. He was wearing his ski mask, so all she could see were those eyes and a small amount of smooth brown skin around them. It had to be Mike Taylor or Jayden Brooks, the only two African American members of the team. Since she hadn’t seen Brooks go in, it had to be Taylor. But for the life of her, she didn’t remember his eyes being a shocking shade of gold in his personnel file photo.

Movement caught her attention and Mac darted a quick look to her right to see two uniformed officers appear out of nowhere. When had her SWAT savior called them?

“Get them out of here,” the golden-eyed man said softly. “And keep her quiet.”

And just like that, one of the uniformed cops wrapped his arm around her waist from behind and picked her up, putting his hand over her mouth when Taylor pulled his away. She watched helplessly as the other cop grabbed the unconscious gunman and heaved him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then ran toward the front of the building. When she looked back, the SWAT officer was nowhere to be seen. Where the heck had he gone? If all the guys in the tactical unit were this fast and powerful, she could imagine why Marvin thought they were on something. Nobody should be able to move that fast.

Her captor followed his partner, running down the alley with her like she was an unruly kid in a movie theater. She was so shocked she didn’t even struggle, and by the time she thought about it, they were at the SWAT operations vehicle. The minute he planted her firmly on her feet and took his hand away from her mouth, she whirled around to chew him out for manhandling her and was amazed to discover he was the same uniformed cop Dixon had spoken to earlier. Had the SWAT commander seen the news van and told the cop to keep an eye on her? But that was impossible. No one had eyesight that good.

The officer reached around her and opened the door of the operations vehicle, then motioned her in.

She’d about had enough with the caveman crap for today. “I’m not going in there.”

“In here, or in the backseat of a cruiser until this is done,” a deep voice said from inside. “Your call, Ms. Stone, but make it quickly.”

The cop raised an eyebrow, gesturing with one hand toward the open door and the other across the street where his cruiser was parked. Well, she’d wanted to get an inside look at how the SWAT team operated.

Mac ignored the hand the cop put out to help her and tried not to stamp her foot as she stepped into the vehicle.

“Please close the door, Officer Danner,” said that same deep voice.

The door slammed shut, making her jump.

Mac pushed her sunglasses up on her head and surveyed the inside of the huge vehicle. The three men she’d seen earlier were eyeing her curiously. Gage Dixon, on the other hand, wasn’t paying attention to her at all. He stood with his back to her, his focus locked on the computer monitors attached to the far wall of the vehicle. All six screens were on, but the images on four of them were moving and changing so fast it made her dizzy to look at them. It took her a moment to realize she was seeing live feeds from cameras mounted on his men’s helmets. Funny, she hadn’t seen one mounted on Taylor’s.

Who the hell was she kidding? She hadn’t noticed much of anything besides his big muscles and seriously mesmerizing eyes. He might have been naked for all she knew. Nah, she would have noticed that. She never missed a naked man.

But the four moving cameras meant Zak had been right—there were more than three SWAT officers in there. There were four. Not that four seemed like enough to her, either. She’d want like fifty or so to do the job.

The other two screens were stable, showing the inside of the building from two different angles. Mac took a step closer to get a better look and saw people lying facedown on the floor. At first she thought they were dead, but then she picked up movement.

She surveyed the inside of the operations vehicle and was disappointed to see it was nothing more than an RV without all the good stuff that came with it. That wasn’t to say it was empty. There were racks for equipment, racks for weapons, and racks for radios, computers, and cameras. There were even two whiteboards and a corkboard. A rather detailed drawing of the exterior of the building had been drawn on the whiteboard. Double red lines marked what looked like entry points.

Mac glanced at Dixon and the other men. They were all staring at the monitors. Figuring this was her chance to pick up some intel, she slid her hand into her back pocket for her camera.

“Please put your camera away, Ms. Stone,” Dixon said.

Mac froze. Damn. Everyone turned to look at her—well, everyone except Dixon. He was still glued to the monitors.

She pushed the camera back into her pocket. How the hell had he known what she was doing?

Dixon reached out and thumbed a switch on a box near the monitors. “We just got audio from the room where they’re holding the hostages.”

The sound of quiet sobs and pitiful moans—punctuated with a whole lot of shouting for the hostages to “Shut the eff up!”—filled the operations vehicle.

When the hostages were only silent, black-and-white video images, it had been possible for Mac to distance herself from the fact that the people lying on the floor—most of whom were women—were real, live human beings with mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, boyfriends and husbands, maybe even kids. And that they were scared to death. But now it was impossible to remain detached.

Mac edged closer, holding her breath without even meaning to. One of the gunmen weaved in and out of the hostages, kicking them in an attempt to get them to move…somewhere. Most of the women just curled up in the fetal position and cried harder, which only seemed to infuriate the guy kicking them even more.

Cursing, he grabbed one of the women by the hair and dragged her out of the camera’s view. The woman’s terrified screams echoed through the speakers, chilling Mac to the core. She’d seen a lot of violence in her line of work, but that didn’t mean she was used to it.

She covered her mouth with her hands to keep from shouting at Dixon to tell his damn SWAT team to do something to help. She was a journalist. She was supposed to stay neutral in every situation and just observe. But it was damn hard when she knew that thug in there was moments away from killing that poor woman—or worse.

“Shit, this is bad,” the hostage negotiator said. “Those animals are on the edge and ready to go over. If your team is going in there, they’d better be quick.”

Dixon didn’t answer but just spoke softly into the mic he was wearing. A moment later, he turned to the man from the power company. “Are your people ready?”

Hard Hat looked nervous, but he nodded. “When you say the word.”

Dixon turned his attention to the uniformed officer. “I know you were hoping we wouldn’t have to do this, but I need to get my people in there.”

The man didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded. “Do whatever you have to do. Just be careful. There’re a lot of hostages in there.”

Mac wasn’t sure in a case like this who got to make the call as to when SWAT went in. But regardless, Dixon had smoothly put the lieutenant in the decision loop, making sure he didn’t step on any toes he didn’t have to. She’d used that trick herself a few times in the past to keep herself on people’s good side, even when she could have trampled all over them. He was pretty smart for a big, muscle-bound trigger puller.

Dixon threw a glance at Hard Hat. “On my mark. In three…two…one. Now.”

At the SWAT commander’s signal, Hard Hat said a single word into his radio. All at once, every screen on the wall went black. For a moment, Mac thought the SWAT vehicle had lost power. Then she heard screaming over the speakers and realized they’d cut the power to the building.

Half a second later, gunfire erupted.

Mac couldn’t see a damn thing on the monitors except the occasional bright orange flashes that reflected off the walls.

But while she couldn’t see much, she could hear plenty. Women screaming, men cussing, the thud of heavy stuff hitting the floor. And interspersed between all of it, the growls of what sounded like a pissed-off SWAT team. Man, these guys really got fired up when they went in. It sounded as if they were ready to tear the place apart. Maybe that was what Marvin had meant when he said they were on something.

Right now, she couldn’t care less about her story. She only prayed the hostages made it out of this in one piece, although she couldn’t imagine how that would be possible. Not with all that gunfire.

But as fast as the shooting had started, it stopped.

Mac stared at the pitch-black screen, straining her eyes for something—anything—that would tell her if the hostages were still alive.

Gage pressed his index finger to the small bud in his right ear as if listening, then he turned to Hard Hat. “Flip on the power.”

The monitors trained on the interior of the building lit up, but not the ones connected to the SWAT officers’ helmet cams.

Mac sagged with relief. The women were huddled together in the center of the room, clearly traumatized but alive. Three men were on the floor nearby. They were still moving, but it didn’t look like they’d be going anywhere. One member of the SWAT team was covering the downed bank robbers, while two others moved among the women checking for injuries. Mac didn’t see the fourth member of the SWAT team. He must be dealing with the other thugs out of the camera’s view.

“Copy that,” Gage said into his mic, then glanced at the lieutenant. “Scene secure. Five suspects down, four WIA, one KIA. No hostages seriously wounded, but a few got trampled in the panic.”

Four bad guys wounded, one dead.

The lieutenant looked as relieved as Mac felt. “I’ll get in there with some uniforms and EMTs, start getting everyone out.”

He brushed past her at a run, slamming the door of the operations vehicle behind him. A few moments later, Hard Hat and the hostage negotiator left as well, leaving her alone with the SWAT team leader.

Curious despite herself, Mac moved closer to the man so she could see the monitors better—or at least that was the excuse she was going with.

She watched in silence as police officers and EMTs rushed into the room to take custody of the bank robbers and give first aid to the hostages. Dixon’s team fell back, disappearing out of the camera’s view.

Only then did Dixon take off his headset and turn to face her. “So, Ms. Stone. Did you get what you were looking for?”

This was the first time Mac had seen Gage Dixon this close up. Saying he was gorgeous didn’t even begin to cover it. With his dark hair, chiseled jaw, and sensuous mouth, he was downright devastating. She was especially captivated by his eyes. They were the color of dark honey. Or maybe fine whiskey. Either way, it was too easy to get lost in their depths.

She gave herself a mental shake and forced herself to look away, if just to catch her breath. “What are you talking about?”

He smiled at her in a way that made her wonder if he knew how off balance he had her. That bothered her—she was used to being the one who put other people off balance.

“It’s obvious you’ve been snooping around for a story,” he said.

“When your man grabbed me, you mean?” She shrugged. “That was a complete accident. I got turned around and ended up back there.”

He chuckled. “Right. Just like it’s a complete accident that your unmarked news van has been parked outside my SWAT compound for the last two days?”

She tried not to let her surprise show, but failed miserably. Mouth twitching, he turned and switched off the monitors.

How the hell had Dixon made her so easily? She and Zak weren’t that sloppy, were they? Dixon turned off the monitors, then picked up a cloth and wiped down the whiteboard.

“Okay, you caught me,” she said. “But I only resorted to that because the department turned down my request for an interview and a ride-along.”

He stopped wiping and turned to her, his brow raised in a way that did interesting things to her tummy. Damn, the man had quite the smolder. “Most reporters would be able to infer from that answer that they should go after a different story.”

Mac knew it was crazy, but if she didn’t know better, she’d think Dixon was teasing her—if not outright flirting. Well, she could play that game, too. But while she wasn’t above using her feminine wiles to get a story, she needed to make sure she was right about him first.

She moved a little closer. If he backed up, she’d assume she read him wrong and would retreat accordingly. If he didn’t, she might be able to work him a little bit.

Dixon did neither. Instead, he took a step toward her so that they were standing even closer together. She hadn’t realized how big the SWAT officer was until that moment. He towered over her by almost a foot, and his shoulders were nearly twice as wide as she was. She decided she suddenly liked really big men.

Damn, it was going to be hard remembering this guy was the target of her next in-depth investigative article.

“I’ve never been very good at picking up subtle hints.” She gave him her best award-winning smile—the one she used on her editor when she wanted a really juicy story—and moved a fraction of an inch closer. He smelled nice. “I was simply waiting outside the compound so I could talk to you and straighten out the obvious misunderstanding the department had.”

“Of course.” He returned her smile with one of the sexiest grins she’d ever seen. “Because it must have been a mistake. After all, what cop wouldn’t want to talk to the ever-insightful Ms. Mackenzie Stone, right?”

“Exactly.”

Mac gave him a real smile this time. It was hard not to. He was one of those rare men who could be charming with a few carefully chosen words. And he seemed attracted to her—at least she was pretty sure he was.

She was just trying to figure out how to use that attraction to weasel an invite for an in-depth interview with the hunky SWAT commander when the door to the operations vehicle opened and two of his men climbed in. They hesitated for a moment when they saw her, as if surprised to find their superior alone with a woman in the back of the operations vehicle. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if they could know she was a journalist looking for a story.

One of the men was Senior Corporal Michael Taylor—the man who’d saved her life before. The other wasn’t one of the three she’d ID’d earlier, but she recognized him from the files anyway—Senior Corporal Xander Riggs. He must have been the one who’d slipped into the building before she and Zak got there.

Dixon took a step back, putting some space between them as Taylor closed the door behind him and Riggs.

“This is Mackenzie Stone from the Dallas Daily Star. Ms. Stone, meet Mike Taylor and Xander Riggs, two of my senior team members.”

Being surrounded by three guys so big and muscular in a confined space like the operations vehicle should have made her feel claustrophobic, but that definitely wasn’t how Mac felt right then. She had to make a serious effort to keep her mind in gear as she shook their hands.

She had a hundred questions about the operation she’d just witnessed, but there was one thing she needed to get straight first. “Sergeant Dixon said that one of the bank robbers was KIA. That means he was killed in action, right?”

Riggs glanced at his boss, his dark eyes questioning. Dixon nodded, signaling it was okay to talk to her. “Yes, one of the suspects was shot and killed by a member of the team. He left us no choice. When the power went out, he grabbed a hostage. We ordered him to drop his weapon, but he pointed it at the woman’s head and was about to pull the trigger. A disabling shot wasn’t an option because he was behind the woman.”

Mac noticed Riggs didn’t say which member of the team had shot the suspect, but based on the level of detail he provided and the way the muscle in his jaw flexed, she guessed it was him.

“That must have been a pretty tough shot, considering how crazy it was in there,” she said. “And in the pitch black, too.”

Xander’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. She thought he would have taken it as a compliment, but instead he looked uncomfortable. Why did men find it necessary to downplay every heroic thing they did?

“We have excellent night vision goggles,” Taylor said. “They help.”

“Of course.” She smiled at him. “By the way, thanks for helping me out back in that alley. It’s possible I might have been in a bit of trouble.”

Taylor’s mouth curved. When he smiled, he seemed a lot less intimidating. “Something tells me you find yourself in trouble like that frequently.”

Mac shrugged. “Every now and then,” she said before turning back to Riggs. “I didn’t see you enter the building with the rest of the team. Did you go in before I got here?”

Riggs threw Dixon a sharp look. Instead of giving the corporal the okay, he answered her question this time.

“We dropped Corporal Riggs off a few blocks out from the scene. He hoofed it in over the rooftops while we were getting into position outside. He went in and set up the remote cameras and microphones while everyone inside was focused on us and the other police officers.”

Riggs and Taylor stared at their commander, clearly shocked by how open he’d been about their tactics to a member of the media. Mac was stunned, too. She’d been fishing when she’d asked the question. She hadn’t expected them to actually answer her.

Dixon chuckled. “You don’t have to look so alarmed. It’s not like I shared state secrets. Besides, Ms. Stone will be coming by the compound later today to take a look around and see how we operate.”

Mac did a double take. “Seriously?”

His amber eyes met hers. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? An in-depth look at a day in the life of a SWAT officer?”

She was more interested in finding out if they were hiding something, but she didn’t tell him that.

“I figured if I didn’t make the offer, you’d only hang around outside the compound for months until I agreed to let you in. Or until you tried to sneak into the middle of the next hostage situation,” he said. “This way we can do our job without worrying about you popping up out of nowhere, and you get to do yours without risking your life.” She opened her mouth to thank him, but he held up a finger. “There’s one condition, though.”

“Name it.”

“You agree not to detail any of our tactical procedures or techniques like the one I just told you about. You print those and you’ll get my team killed.” He lifted a brow. “Do we have an agreement?”

Mac nodded eagerly. “Yes.”

She’d agree to whatever he wanted if it got her in the compound—even if it meant going back on her word later. Although, after today, she wasn’t sure there was a story. She seriously doubted these guys were doing drugs, regardless of what Marvin said. But that didn’t matter. No way was she passing up an opportunity like this.

“I’ll see you at the compound this afternoon then,” Dixon said as he opened the door for her. “Say three o’clock?”

She smiled up at him. “I’ll be there.”

Mac had to resist the urge to do a little happy dance as she hurried back to the news van. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow she’d gotten herself an engraved invitation to get up close and personal with the country’s most elite tactical unit—the Dallas PD SWAT.