CHAPTER ONE
Saturday, July 15th
Brady lifted his binoculars and scanned the loading dock. Nothing. Not even the rats wanted to be out in the heat and humidity. Couldn’t blame them, considering summer in Lafayette meant a balmy eighty-five degrees at eight p.m.
“Anything?” the sexy voice in his mic asked.
“Nada, Claire,” Brady responded. “Quiet…too damn quiet,” he muttered as he leaned against a shipping container. “It would be nice to get this little soiree started though ‘cause this is not how I like to spend my evenings.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Claire responded with a laugh.
Adjusting his ball cap, Brady let out a long sigh and prayed he and the guys were going to be able to keep the body count low. They were expecting the warehouse to get hit tonight by a group of small-time criminals that had been running up and down the state for the last couple of months.
The owners had contracted Trident Response Group to make sure that didn’t happen. They’d already had three of their other facilities broken into and, by all accounts, this was going to be hit next. The place was loaded with ammo and it was the team’s job to make sure no one got their hands on it.
Which, as far as he could tell, was going to be damn easy, because intel on the group suggested they were on the low end of the intelligence scale. Anyone who didn’t take into account all the cameras that were located on about any facility bigger than a bread box was just plain stupid. And that’s what they had: a bunch of men who had dreams bigger than the skills and intelligence to carry it off.
The trail of bread crumbs the idiots had left behind at every heist was like a freaking road map. A road map that had taken Claire about thirty minutes to figure out once she’d identified who they were. What the woman could do with security camera images was a thing of beauty, and all it ever seemed to take was a couple of puzzle pieces to run through one of her fancy algorithms for her to understand what the whole picture was going to look like.
Not only was the woman a genius, and gorgeous, she also happened to have one of the sexiest voices he’d ever heard. If the whole intelligence gathering thing didn’t work out, then she could probably make serious bank in the phone sex trade. If a thing like that even existed anymore.
Rolling his shoulders, he decided to quit thinking about Claire and her voice because nothing good was going to come out of it and he needed to concentrate on the op. Didn’t matter that the group they were expecting wasn’t all that smart. What did matter was that they were fearless. Which he knew from experience could be damn dangerous. Ammo did not mix with crazy and stupid. And the plan tonight was to make sure the two didn’t get real well acquainted.
It was a fine line the team would be walking because they had to let the idiots get their hands in the cookie jar to make the bust stick, but they didn’t want to allow them to blow the place to kingdom come. Which he’d seen a time or two during his stint with the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.
The faint sound of pop music floated through his earpiece and he figured Claire was torturing the team once again. Which she occasionally liked to do because…well, she could.
Girl genius was the wizard behind the curtain of all the company’s ops and the grease to their wheels. Without her mind-bending skills, the team couldn’t be half as effective as it was, which meant they never complained about her horrendous taste in music.
What he’d seen her accomplish in the two months he’d been with the company was mind-blowing. Which was saying something, considering he just left one of the world’s top information-gathering agencies. The FBI knew a thing or two about collecting, disseminating, and analyzing, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen top tech people operate before. But Claire and her magic kingdom could give any one of the alphabet agencies a run for their money.
The fact that you were assaulted with pop music every time you entered didn’t make the place any less impressive. It might make your ears bleed, but it was always worth it, considering she could get you whatever intel you needed and some you didn’t.
She always had cookies in her office, and that didn’t hurt either. She was part mad genius and part Betty Crocker. The fact that all of that was wrapped up in a body that made speaking sometimes difficult was God’s way of proving life wasn’t always fair. “What in the hell is that song, Claire?” Brady asked quietly.
“It’s a remake of ‘September,’ which was featured in the movie Trolls.” Singing along, she hit the high note perfectly. “I took my goddaughter to see it and now I’m addicted to the soundtrack. Doesn’t it make you want to dance?”
“No. Can’t say that it does,” he replied quietly. Truth was, the only time he ever felt like dancing was when he thought it might lead to something else. Something that did not require any clothes. He was pretty sure that’s not the type of dancing Claire was talking about, considering she dressed like a librarian.
A freaking sexy librarian.
Running his hand over his neck, he asked, “If I pay you a hundred dollars, will you change the music?”
“Sorry, Brady, no can do. As the driver of this operation, I get to pick the tunes. When you sit in my seat, then it will be your turn.”
“But I’m the one risking my life. Shouldn’t that get me something?”
“Pretty sure a couple of lowlifes are no match for your mad skill set. Doubt you’re risking more than getting your pants dirty. And even that might be a stretch.”
“If you all are done with your chitchat,” Hunter said, “I’d like to inform you all that we have activity on the north end of the property. Looks like our party is about to get started.”
“Roger that,” Brady responded. The music in his earpiece stopped as he saw headlights flash across the front of the warehouse. “I have suspects approaching.” Sliding into the shadows, he checked his weapon. “I’ll be in position in three minutes.”
Climbing the storage container, he got himself set up. Tonight, he was lead sniper, and if someone needed to be dropped, it was his job to do it. He turned his cap around, lay down on the hot metal and looked through his scope. “In position,” he said quietly into his mic. Somewhere between the slow, steady breaths, the rhythmic heartbeats, and the utter stillness that long-distance shots required, he found peace. It had always been that way and he welcomed the opportunity to do whatever was necessary to ensure the bad guys had a lousy day because he loved nothing more than making sure the side of good won. Whenever and wherever.
***
Brady, Hunter, Kane, and Miles ambled into the TRG offices high on their success. It had taken them a little over an hour to apprehend the men who showed up to clean out their client’s warehouse. The scumbags were in the custody of the Lafayette Sheriff’s Department and the only thing TRG had to do was forward the footage from the cameras they had installed last week. After that, they could tie a nice big bow on the op and call it a success.
Hunter stood at the door of their equipment room and held up his hand to get everyone’s attention. “Since I was team leader on this op, the responsibility of buying you assholes a drink falls on my shoulders.” Turning his head, he smirked. “Damn good thing mine are huge.”
The laughter that followed that pronouncement might’ve woken the dead had Claire’s walk down the hall not stopped it cold. Brady ran his eyes up and down his girl genius and almost fell over.
Claire Hughes wasn’t dressed as a librarian on this fine Saturday evening. No, she was dressed to set a man’s heart beating. The woman who was known for her love of flowered dresses was gone, and in her place, was a woman who had every single one of her deadly curves on display. The fabric reminded him of bandages and all he could think about was peeling the thing away from her body…her sexy as fuck body.
Holy shit, he thought. Where the hell is she going?
“You all can roll your tongues back in your heads. Sweet baby Jesus, it’s not that shocking.” She slid her hand up her hip and frowned. “I brushed my hair. Big deal.”
He hadn’t even noticed the soft curls that hung down her back like a curtain as he let his eyes roam up and down. It was difficult to decide what he liked best. Probably all of it. He’d thought the woman he’d been joking and flirting with for the last couple of months was hot, but he had no idea she was this hot.
Hunter was the first to speak. “Yeah, Claire. It kind of is. Where in the hell are you going?”
Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she jutted out her hip and smirked. “None of your beeswax. Working with you all is like having a bunch of nosy and overprotective brothers. There is no way I’m telling you where I’m heading because I plan on having fun.”
Hell’s bells, there wasn’t a brotherly feeling in Brady’s whole body. That he was damn sure of. Glancing at the men gawking at Claire, he didn’t know how they could have brotherly feelings, either because the woman who stood before them was the very definition of feminine perfection. Five and a half feet of soft curves and long lines was making his mouth water. Add to that a mass of brown, silky hair and big hazel eyes with a smile that could make him do her bidding…well, he was just about a dead man. “One of us could go along and be your designated driver,” he said as he stepped closer. When she gave him a pitying glance, he realized how lame it sounded.
“The only thing I’ll say is that I’m going dancing with my friend and…” Checking her watch, she grimaced. “I’m late.”
She hitched her purse up on her shoulder, pulled the bottom of her dress down and walked around the gawking bunch of them. “See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya,” she called over her shoulder as she sauntered away from them.
Brady and the others were rendered speechless as they watched the sway of her hips. “I had no idea,” he commented quietly.
“I’ve known her for three years and neither did I,” Hunter replied.
“Maybe we should track her phone and see where she’s headed,” Kane added. “If she’s going out with her best friend, Andi, we definitely need to tag along.”
Miles scrubbed his hand down his face and shook his head. “None of us can hack worth shit and we all know that Claire has made her phone all but untraceable. If she doesn’t want us to know where she’s going, then there’s no way we’ll find out. The woman is part ghost.”
“It’s actually good news she’s getting out there,” Kane said firmly. “She hasn’t had a date in like two years and this means she’s ready to get back on the horse.”
“I’ll be her damn horse,” Brady muttered quietly. He didn’t know Claire that well, so he didn’t feel comfortable making the comment audible. What he did feel comfortable with was making a damn plan, despite her horrible taste in music and love of reality television. Those were things that could be worked out. What couldn’t be was his heart beating a million miles a minute.
“Let’s get rid of our gear and head out for that drink,” Hunter said before walking into the equipment room. “I need about three now that I have to call Quinn and let him know what his cousin’s up to. The man is going to shit kittens when he finds out Claire is hitting the town dressed like…a…” He let out a breath and didn’t finish. “Forget it. I’ll just tell him she’s out with a friend and leave it at that.”
“Smart move,” Kane commented. “You don’t want to get on Claire’s bad side by tattling. She’s not a woman who should be scorned.”
“Agreed,” Hunter said as he walked into the equipment room.
The men followed and started divesting themselves of their weapons. Brady’s locker was at the end of the row, so he had a little quiet as he took off his kit.
Truth was, he needed a hot minute to figure out what the hell was going on. He’d seen a thousand beautiful women dressed more scantily than Claire over the years and he never felt more than either appreciation or lust. Whatever was flowing through his body was a lot more than either of those things. It was richer and darker somehow. Rolling his head from side to side, he closed his eyes. Seemed he was going to learn to like pop music.
God save him.