Chincoteague, VA

2300 EST

Kaylee’s signal stopped moving and five minutes later they approached a large farmhouse that, from a distance, seemed to be in disrepair. There wasn’t a street light on the long, winding dirt road.

“Pull over here,” Mick said.”

He looked at Frank. The two of them would have to rescue Kaylee alone. He knew he could wait for backup, but Kaylee was in the hands of Diavolos, or at the very least, one of his top henchmen, and Mick’s gut said time was of the essence.

“What’s the plan?” Frank asked.

“You and I gear up and take the compound,” Mick said.

“That hardly seems fair,” Linc said over the earpiece. “But I get it. Keep us in the loop and we’ll send backup ASAP.”

“Will do,” Mick said.

He and Frank got out of the car and went to the trunk, where the gear was stored. Frank opened a bag, took out a pair of night vision goggles and handed them to Mick before putting a pair on.

“These might help,” he said.

Mick took the gear and dug through the other bags, finding a semi-automatic weapon and several additional clips of ammo. He put a large hunting knife in the webbing on his chest, and noticed that Frank had grabbed an RPG launcher.

“What are you planning to use that for?” Mick asked.

Frank shrugged. “Not sure yet.”

“This is time critical. I’m going to get close and see if I can spring Kaylee, but if she’s engaged with Diavolos or his men, I’ll take them first,” Mick said, his earpiece still on.

“Two here. I’ve notified the director and he’s sending backup.”

Mick cursed under his breath. Sam wasn’t sure if one of his people was working both sides. If he was sending backup, he hoped it was someone he trusted implicitly.

“Did he say who?”

“Aphrodite Team,” Linc said.

Perfect. He knew Lena was loyal to Sam and would never work for someone as dark and dangerous as Diavolos. Mick turned to Frank. “Four, follow me until you find a place that will give you a good vantage point. Shoot anyone that isn’t me or Kaylee.”

“Will do, boss,” Frank said, picking up his sniper rifle and a pack that had the RPG launcher and more ammo.

They turned toward the direction of the road.

“We don’t know for sure what the situation is with Ramona,” Mick said. “So try not to take her out completely if she’s in your sights.”

“It’s very odd that she’s been involved in something shady twice,” Frank said in that low-key way of his.

“Agreed. But she might just be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mick said.

“Like SOGDI?” Frank asked, using the acronym for some other guy did it. Something they had heard quite a few times when they’d been in the service.

“Yeah,” Mick said. “Still, we don’t know for sure.”

Frank was the one guy on the team he’d known forever…well, it felt like forever. They’d both enlisted at eighteen and had been in the same platoon for basic. They’d both gone the military cop route at first, before Frank’s sharpshooter skills had him drafted into sniper training.

“You might not, but my gut says she’s up to something. And she did show us the picture of that kid that’s not related to her or captured,” Frank said.

“I’m trying to keep cool,” Mick said. “Why are you winding me up?”

“I need you pissed off and crazy. I want to know the guy who’s with me isn’t worrying about a girl or playing the game. Diavolos is the kind of man who’d use a kid like the one we saw in the photo, and this Ramona seems cut from the same cloth. I want them shut down,” Frank said.

“Are you questioning me, Four?” Mick asked.

“Boss, you know I’d follow you into hell with two squirt guns, but something about Kaylee is making you…well, it’s rattled you.”

Frank wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t noticed himself. “I’m here, I’m pissed, and I know how to do my job.”

“Great. Just making sure,” Frank said.

They both heard the gunshot at the same time. Mick pulled his night vision goggles down and scanned the landscape in front of the house where Kaylee’s signal was being transmitted.

“I’m going in.”

Mick didn’t have to hear Frank’s response to know he would take up his position. He took off at a run, moving silently the way he’d been taught by the US government, and when he got closer to the house he went low, on his stomach, snaking his way toward the building. There was a light shining from a window and he couldn’t hear any sounds from inside.

“I’m going in. Four? Do you copy?”

“Affirmative, One. Taking care of the two sentries outside,” Frank said.

He heard the muted sound of a silenced shot and then a second one. He let out a breath as Frank came over the earpiece. “You’re clear outside.”

“Thanks, Four.” He heard footsteps and looked up to see Frank moving to his location. He had his rifle held loosely in one hand and was looking around, Mick suspected he was scouting out a good spot to set up his shot.

“Go on. I’ll cover you,” Mick said, trying to ignore the rising panic in his gut. He didn’t let himself think about the fact that there had been a gunshot in the house and Kaylee was still in there.

Until this moment, he hadn’t’ realized how much he cared for her. And that was a weakness he couldn’t afford right now. He needed to be a soldier, not a man in love for the first time in his life.

“Four in position.”

“One going in,” Mick said.

This was where he excelled, so he shoved down the emotions he felt for Kaylee, and did what he always did—welcomed the violence that was never far from the surface, and let it take control of his body. There was a faint light emanating from inside, that Mick avoided by going around to the rear of the house. He carefully opened the door and found himself in a dark kitchen.

A light flipped on as he entered, blinding him, since he still wore his night vision goggles. He pushed them off, closing his eyes as he ducked outside.

He opened his eyes as a large man stepped into the doorway.

“I suspected you’d be right behind Kaylee,” he said in a slow drawl.

“Dirk Thomas.”

Kaylee’s father looked different than he had earlier at Grimaldi Global headquarters, and not at all like he’d expected. He looked like a big teddy bear of a man, with his longish hair hanging around his shoulders and his bushy eyebrows low over his eyes.

“So you’re Diavolos?” Mick asked, looking around for Kaylee.

“Nope. But he does pay my bills,” Dirk said. “Get up real slow, son, hands where I can see them.”

Mick saw the .45 in Dirk’s hand, and slowly got to his feet hands outstretched.

“Where’s Kaylee?” Mick asked. He wanted to tear the bastard limb from limb, but he needed to know where she was first.

“Straight down the hall, being interrogated,” Dirk said.

“Interrogated? So you know what she has,” Mick said. He hated the thought of someone torturing Kaylee to get information. She was stubborn—maybe more so than even he was—and he bet she wasn’t about to give up any information.

“Well, I think I know what she has,” Dirk said. “But we also know that she’s in contact with someone that Diavolos wants back in the fold. She escaped a long time ago and we recently heard that she’s resurfaced.”

“Who?”

“This isn’t an information exchange,” Dirk said. “Drop your weapons on the table.”

Mick took the knife from the webbing on his chest and put his gun on the surface of the table. He had another knife in his boot and a gun tucked in a holster at the small of his back that he kept since they weren’t visible.

“That’s it? I thought you were a big bad-ass,” Dirk said.

“I’m travelling light,” Mick said.

“I need you to keep your hands where I can see them, and walk down the hallway.”

Mick led the way down the hall, debating if he should kill Dirk now or wait until he had Kaylee. He needed to see her and make sure she was alive and well before he got rid of the only man who knew her true location.

“Open it,” Dirk said.

Mick opened the door and froze. Sitting there on a folding chair, arms bound behind her back, was Kaylee. Blood dripped from a wound on her face, and he noticed her thigh was bleeding as well. The man standing over her drew back his hand and hit her again in the stomach.

“Where is the woman? The one you sent the intel to?” the man asked, waiting for Kaylee’s response.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her words slurred.

Mick told himself to stay calm. He needed to let the rest of Ares Team know what was going on. “Great little room to keep your daughter in. Not much of a man are you, if you have to have someone else interrogate her.”

“Like your opinion matters to me,” Dirk said.

Mick saw Ramona slumped in the corner, hands and feet bound. That was fine with Mick. She’d betrayed Kaylee and was dead to him now. But seeing her like that showed him all he needed to know about how Dirk operated.

“Thanks, Al,” Dirk said.

Mick tried to keep it together. Knew there was more at stake in this moment than killing Dirk Thomas, but it was hard. “She’s your daughter.”

Dirk shook his head. “She’s nothing to me. Her mom was a hacker who liked to get high. She died of an overdose and I took the kid in. I didn’t have to. I never wanted a child.”

No emotion in the man at all.

At least his old man had thought he owned Mick. That he had been given a boy to beat whenever he wanted to. And though they were going after a criminal mastermind, it was this callous attitude that affected Mick more deeply. A father who hated his daughter enough to coldly shoot her.

He looked over at Kaylee and saw the anger and pain in her eyes. She was trying to mask it, but she was in bad shape.

“Tie him up and then meet me in the other room,” Dirk said.

“Is your boss here?” Mick asked. He wanted to get Kaylee out alive, but Diavolos was the mission. And he knew that his team was listening in on the earpiece.

“I’m not discussing that with you.”

Al would be easy to take. Mick shifted to the side so he could assess the other man better. Dirk stepped over to him, raising his left hand and clubbing him on the side of the head with the gun in his fist.

He was dazed, but not seriously, as he let himself fall. He faked a blackout as he lay still on the floor. Mick knew that Al would have a hard time lifting him. He couldn’t get to his knife or his gun, but he had his fists.

“Get him up and in that chair,” Dirk said.

Mick heard the sound of Dirk’s footsteps as he left the room. Al struggled under Mick’s weight and Mick took advantage of that by punching Al solidly in the gut. Then a rage seemed to settle over him and Mick became the Ares leader he always was under the surface. Punching and kicking until the other man was on the floor in a bloodied heap.

“Mick, stop,” Kaylee said.

He heard her voice, as if from a distance. Like was at the end of a tunnel and he was far away.

He couldn’t stop kicking Al as he fell to the ground. This bastard had beaten Kaylee. Had been willing to torture her. He didn’t deserve to live.

“Mick! Enough!” Kaylee yelled.

He looked over at her. Her face was bloodied, her body hunched in pain, but she was watching him.

“Please stop,” she said. “Untie me.”

He nodded. Kicking Al one more time, he walked over to her.

“Oh God, Kaylee. Where are you hurt?” he asked as he took the knife from his boot and cut her free from the chair. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

“My da—Dirk. He shot me.”

“I know. I can see the blood. I’m not going to let him get away with it,” Mick promised.

“No. He’s not worth the price you’d pay.”

What was she talking about? “Violence is where I live. It’s a price I’ve been willing to pay since I can remember. And I’m taking him down.”

Kaylee lifted her arm, wincing as she did so. “I don’t want to be another mark on your soul. I want to protect you.”

She was the first person to look at him and see a man who needed protection, and suddenly the emotions he was trying to keep control of threatened to escape. So he shifted on his knees to get closer to her and kissed her as softly as he could. He lifted his t-shirt up and wiped the blood from her face.

“I love you, Kaylee Thomas,” he said.

Her eyes went wide. His timing might be wrong, and she might not really care for him at all, but he wanted her to know how he felt.

“Two here. I know you wanted us to head straight to HQ, but you can yell at me later, Boss. We’re at the location. Is a medic needed?” Linc asked.

“Yes. Back room. Gunshot, internal bruising and several lacerations,” Mick said. “I need Five in here now.”

“A chopper is inbound and landing in the backyard,” Linc said. “Should we take him out?”

“Four, if you have a shot, then take it. Let’s try to get the bastard before he can escape.” He hesitated as Kaylee looked over at him. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, hug her close, but he couldn’t.

“Go. Stop him from leaving. I’ll be fine.”

He nodded and then ran out of the room.

The door was opened to the room at the end of the hallway, and he ran quickly, silently, and with deadly intent. He reached for his gun, determined that Dirk wouldn’t escape.

“Duck,” Mick heard Frank’s voice in his earpiece and dropped to the ground as a bullet went past him.

Dirk was firing at him. “I’m going to kill that bastard.”

“I don’t blame you,” Frank said. “There is someone in the chopper already.”

“Three?” Mick asked.

“Here,” Cory said.

“Can you use the drone to get some footage of who’s on the helicopter?” Mick asked.

“Affirmative. I have it in the air now,” Cory said.

“Four here, want me to take out the pilot?” Frank asked.

“Can you?” Mick asked.

“Maybe. The wind has kicked up, but I’ll do my best.”

Mick was close enough to launch himself at Dirk, and he took the bastard down as he heard the chopper take off. He could only hope that Cory would be able to track him with some sort of tech.

“You again?” Dirk said.

Mick was trying not to lose it. He remembered what Kaylee had said about Dirk not being worth another mark on his soul. And he wanted what he saw in her eyes. Wanted to be the man who was worthy of her love.

He could easily overpower Dirk. Kaylee’s dad was older and out of shape. He’d spent his entire life behind a computer. Mick launched himself at the other man, wrapping his arms around his middle and driving him backward.

But Dirk had a few tricks up his sleeve, jerking Mick to the side, pushing him off balance as he hit Mick with a quick upper jab to the sternum. His breath rushed out of his lungs as Mick fell back.

Dirk advanced toward him, punching him in the gut twice more before taking a quick jab at his face, which Mick dodged. He punched Dirk hard in the throat and saw the older man’s eyes widen as he was sent spinning back. Mick advanced on him, hitting him again and again in the face, snapping his head back.

This was the man who’d had his own flesh and blood tortured. Who’d stood in front of Kaylee and told her she didn’t matter.

Red-hot rage was settling over him again like it had with Al, and Mick was trying to fight it. He knew that Kaylee wouldn’t want him to kill her dad, and the director wouldn’t be able to hush it up if he beat Dirk to death.

Dirk got in a solid hit to Mick’s mouth. He tasted blood on his lip. He licked at the blood as he advanced on Dirk, getting ready to use a vertical kick to his throat, trying to crush his esophagus.

“Mick. Stop. The house is clear,” Linc said.

“This bastard is her father,” Mick said, his fists clenched and his breath sawing in and out of his lungs as he stood there.

“I know. Go take care of Kaylee. Cade is with her, but she wants to see you. I got this,” Linc said.

Mick didn’t think he could do it. Just walk away after this bastard set Kaylee up the way he had.

“She’s shot and beaten, you bastard,” Mick said.

Dirk looked up at him through his bloodied and battered face. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

He saw red again. How could the man who fathered her treat her life as if it mattered so little? And why did that attitude still surprise him? He launched himself at Dirk again, but Linc stopped him, locking his arms around Mick’s chest.

“No more or you’ll kill him,” Linc said.

“So?”

“The director wants to question him,” Linc said.

Mick shoved his friend aside and pushed his way out of the kitchen into the living room, where Cade had Kaylee stretched out on the couch.

“You don’t look so hot,” she said as he walked over to where she was and knelt next to her. Cade had put a compression bandage on her gunshot wound and had cleaned and bandaged the wounds on her face.

“You do,” he said.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and he was humbled by her concern for him. She deserved so much better than that bastard who was her father.

“Yeah. You just relax. We’re in the clear now.”

“Not yet. They were meeting someone…” Kaylee said.

“Don’t worry,” Mick said. He hadn’t heard from Cory, but he knew that if it had been possible, Cory would have video of the man in the chopper. A man that Mick was pretty sure was Diavolos.

In his earpiece, he heard Cory saying that another chopper was inbound. A Grimaldi one this time, to airlift Kaylee to the nearest hospital.

“I want to see him,” Kaylee said.

“You can’t. Your ride is here.”

“Mick, please,” she said.

He didn’t say anything, just walked back into the kitchen where Linc had used a safety cuff to bind Dirk’s hands together.

“Kaylee wants to talk to you,” Mick said.

“Sure thing,” Dirk said. “That’s why I asked for her to be brought here, after all.”

“Are you Diavolos?” Mick asked, moving closer to the man. He wanted to hit him again. Now that he wasn’t enraged, he could see that his eyes were the same color as Kaylee’s.

“No. Just work for the man,” Dirk said. “Kaylee has something that I need.”

“She’s not going to give you anything—not that you’d be able to use it, since you’re going to jail.”

“If you say so,” Dirk said.

Mick clenched his hand into a fist and swung before he could stop himself. Dirk ducked out of the way and Mick let him.

“Get him up and bring him to the other room,” Mick said, turning his back on Dirk and walking away.

His cellphone pinged, he pulled it from his pocket and saw that it was the director.

“Boy, when you go off the reservation, you do it up big,” Sam said when Mick answered.

“Go big or go home,” Mick responded. “We’ve got Dirk Thomas. Also, Ramona was working both sides and she had an accomplice. You want them back at headquarters for questioning?”

“I do. I hear you ordered a chopper. Is everyone okay?”

“Kaylee’s shot. And the wound isn’t a clean through and through, since Frank wasn’t the one shooting her.”

“Glad to hear Frank didn’t shoot her,” Sam said dryly. “Let me talk to Cade. I want to know where to have her sent,” Sam said.

“Give me a sec,” Mick said.

He walked into the other room where Kaylee and her father were talking. He nodded to Cade. “The director wants to talk to you.”

Cade got up and took the phone as Mick walked over to sit near Kaylee.

“This is going to get worse unless you let it go,” Dirk said.

“I can’t. How can you even suggest that?” Kaylee asked, trying to shift but wincing as she moved the wrong way.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” Mick said. “Frank and Cory, get the suspects ready for transfer to Grimaldi. Linc, you take care of this one,” Mick said.

Everyone left the room and he looked down at Kaylee. Her face was pale, and in her eyes, he saw a loneliness that echoed the way his own soul had felt more than once.

“I wanted him to say he didn’t know who he was working for,” Kaylee said at last.

“Why?” Mick asked her. “You know the kind of man he is. You heard what he said to you about your own upbringing.”

He knew he should say something to make her dad not seem like the evil man he had to be, given who his boss was, but Mick didn’t do lies—even little white ones that might make her feel better.

“I was hoping,” she said.

He suspected she was angry at her dad, but that man was gone. But he dealt in truth, and Kaylee wouldn’t believe any platitudes anyway. So he just pulled her into his arms and held her.