CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The road noise didn’t dull his thoughts. Nope. No luck for that, as they roared and complained along with the whirl of his speeding tires. Winters drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel and picked up his burner phone a dozen times wanting to call Mia.
It was still dark out, and with dawn yet to break, what was the point of disturbing her? He cursed at blameless drivers observing the speed limit as he maneuvered his way to Titan headquarters.
He woke up holding happiness. Her sweet smell still clung to him in his truck, and the last thing he had wanted to do was slip away from the warm bed. If this job didn’t revolve around Mia, he might have told Jared he was taking a vacation. Time like that accumulated. He must have weeks available. When he busted through the door, question numero uno would have to be, Where’s the company handbook?
Surely that existed. Right?
But would it have a section entitled Don’t Do the Job? He had a date with the job tonight. A very hot date. No corporate set of rules would change that.
He snarled to no one and pulled into Titan’s secure parking. Before facing the guys, he had to lose the whole just-woke-up-with-a-naked-woman glow. It was too early in the morning for a razzing, and he hadn’t had nearly enough coffee or Dots to ease into his day.
He squeezed his eyes tight, took a deep breath, and walked to the first door. Code entered. Locking mechanism disengaging. Another door. Retina scan. Another door and another, jumping through whatever hoops Parker had going right now. Goddamn security measures. Good thing he appreciated them.
Winters blew through the ops nerve center, straight into the kitchenette, hoping to hell someone had brewed a pot already. Nope. No luck. Not even a leftover box of candy in his stash. Christ, he felt like a chick. Mood swings. Candy cravings. He needed to cut that shit out.
“What’s your problem, Winters?” Parker eyed him when he stalked back into the computer hub. Despite the heat pouring off hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics, the room was icy cold. “You blew out of here yesterday like you were avoiding enemy fire, and today, it’s like you have the shakes.”
“I had places to be.” Guess clearing his mind didn’t work. “Where the fuck is everyone? I thought this was an ops meeting, or was I wrong?”
“When did you start wearing a watch?” Parker spun round in his chair, regarding him with even more curiosity.
Shit. Should he just wear a sign that said hook, line, and sinker, or just fess up that there was a woman in his bed he wasn’t fond of leaving. He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Never mind. Just ready to wrap this up. This job’s been a headache.”
“Dude, you are a headache. Since when did you give a shit about complications? I thought you fed off pandemonium.”
There were Grade A assholes who’d fucked with him and Mia. He could forgive someone going after him. But not her. Messing with her earned a place in his cross-hairs.
Winters flashed Parker a shut-the-fuck-up glare when Jared walked into the room, filled to his eyebrows with the usual piss and vinegar. He was an Army Ranger and had been trained by the best to be the best. The military got all they could out of him before he took his Chief Motherfucker in Charge attitude and turned into a very tidy profit for all involved.
“He has a point, Winters.” Jared studied a topography map on the table.
“What? That I don’t wear a watch? Or that first one in didn’t turn on the coffee?” Winters glared at Parker.
A few other men shuffled into the room, and they all took seats around a large table, bitching about the ungodly time of day. Parker spread out a handful of glossy papers, and everyone shuffled through the pile. Jared nodded to Parker, signaling for him to begin.
“I retrieved shots from the traffic cameras, toll booths, and security footage at the places Winters stopped.” Parker took some photos from the men and arranged them in chronological order. “Airport. First motel.”
Everything looked legit. Parker could pull any picture anywhere there was a camera. That was for sure.
He pointed to additional shots on the table. “These two men followed Winters from the Nation’s Capital to Derby City. They’re employed by Juan Carlos Silva. A Colombian cartel. They trade mostly women and drugs.”
Jared growled. “I’m sick of cartel kingpins trafficking girls.”
Aren’t we all?
Parker tossed out another photo. “This ugly fucker is Diego Cortes, reportedly one of Silva’s top men. He was behind the grab at the airport. Probably panicked after you dismembered his team and hired a couple of street punks to fill ranks. He also came after you at the second motel.”
The guys were shuffling through the eight by ten glossies. Winters didn’t need to see them. He lived it. He caught a smirk from Parker.
Parker laid out another photograph, very deliberate, and tapped it. “Here’s the karaoke bar where Winters engaged them. Police records indicate Cortes and another man were found dead in a car trunk.”
Like a donkey kick to his gut, Winters saw a shot from a security camera, Mia pinning him to the wall. Goddamn, Parker. The man was going down.
Someone in the room made kissing noises. Someone else laughed. They were all going to get a beating.
Winters looked at the glossy again. It was defendable. A variation of a honey pot scheme: the operative must act otherwise engaged to lure in the enemy. The maneuver worked every time and was in all their book of tricks. But it wasn’t a move that needed a Polaroid. He would kill Parker later. Knock him out cold.
Every man in the room focused on that photo—with Mia’s hair loose and wild around her shoulders, her lips very much pressed against his neck, and his face showing just how into that lip lock he was—he’d never live that down. Ever.
He’d have to kill everyone in the room.
“Fuck you very much, Parker.”
Parker laughed and rolled his head back. It’d be better if it just snapped off.
Winters groused and tried to move forward. “So what’s the deal? More of Silva’s men are on their way? They think the NOC list’s still in play?”
“Chatter on the wires says that Juan Carlos Silva is furious. If you hadn’t killed his man, he would have done it for you. Silva wants the NOC list and the girl. He’s offering her up as an incentive to his men.”
An incentive? Oh, hell no. Give me the coordinates. I’m going in.
Jared cleared his throat, silently issuing him an order to stick his ass to his chair.
Parker poked his finger on the war room’s large flat screen. “We’ve heard that Silva’s men have showed up here, here, and here.”
His fingerprints left smudges everywhere he touched.
Bring on the assholes. Winters was ready to end this shit.
Parker pulled up a new map on the big screen. Bright white dots blinked along his path from Kentucky to Virginia. “Everything shows that the Silva teams followed you back to DC. They’re likely already here again and have searched Mia Kensington’s office and home.”
“Which safe house did you stash her at?” Jared asked.
“She’s not at a Titan safe house.” Winters tried to add an uninterested inflection and focus on the screen of illuminating dots.
He could hear the wheels grinding in each head around the table. All stilled. Every set of eyes narrowed on him.
“Pray tell, Winters. Where might little Miss Mia Kensington be if she’s not at a Titan safe house?” Jared arched his eyebrow.
Winters had heard of a slow clap before, but this was a slow laugh. Each man coughed a chuckle, then another, until it was a full-scale assault. Fuck them.
“She’s at my place. Leave it alone.”
“With Clara?” Parker piped in for good measure.
“And your mother?” Jared asked, though his rigid tone was the same as always. Boss man lifted an eyebrow, even smiled a little.
Winters pressed his lips into a tight, thin line. “I might just kill all you fuckers. What’s it to you, anyway?”
Now even Jared laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Well, hell, Winters. This is kind of cute. What do you think, boys? Winters found himself a girl?”
They all drum rolled on the table and hollered.
What did he expect? Of course, they’d find out. He wasn’t trying to keep her a secret. But the safe house revelation didn’t need to come on the heels of the honey pot photo.
“Screw you all.” It was the only thing he could think to say when he wasn’t cursing them each by name. So he said it again, and again, and again, only making the room more and more raucous. Damn it.
After what Jared apparently determined was the appropriate amount of misery, he settled into his normal gruff self. “All right, all right. Enough with Winters’s bullshit. Silva will go after that list again in DC. It’s his last chance to get it before our client destroys it. We’ll arrange for Winters to do the drop off. Parker, you and lover boy will ensure Mia’s safe when she matriculates back to the real world.”
Winters’s phone beeped, and dread sunk to the pit of his stomach, landing hard. Knowing what the sound meant before he looked at the phone screen, he interrupted Jared. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
“Yeah, your phone is set to annoying,” someone called from the back of the room.
“The perimeter alarm at my house was breached.”
He pushed the stored number in his phone, reaching out to Mia. No answer. He hit redial. C’mon, c’mon. All he wanted was a quick hello. Still no answer. He hung up and punched each number into the phone to make sure the number dialed right. More ringing. Nothing. He pressed the end call button and dropped his head, muttering a prayer and a promise.
“Winters, don’t you have an alarm on your gate?” Parker asked. “And sensors on the fences? If those didn’t go off, then it’s just Mia triggering it. I mean, if no one has come on to the property—”
“Don’t be stupid, man. It can be done. Even with as good a system as I have.” He hit the redial button once more. Just to be sure. “Something’s wrong. Parker, hack my security system. And don’t bullshit me. I know you can do it.”
Parker looked at Jared, who nodded, and Parker pushed away from the war room table to a keyboard under the wall of flat screens. Winters checked his phone while anxiety blossomed. It was early, but Mia would be up by now. She should be answering the burner phone. His fingers jabbed as he dialed his home number. Same result. She wouldn’t pick it up anyway.
“Where’s the NOC list?” Jared asked.
Winters pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to his boss, readying to hightail it back home. “You take it. I’ve got business to attend to.”
“Hold it, Lone Ranger. If there’s a problem, we’ve all got business to attend to.”
He wanted to argue. Hell, he wanted to ignore him and walk out.
Jared could read his mind. “Sit your ass down, Winters.”
Parker’s fingers flew over his keyboard. Without stopping, he’d occasionally asked Winters a question. With a few flashes of pixelated grains, several of the security cameras in his home now broadcasted on monitors in front of the men. Parker flashed through several feeds and stopped.
The feed was clear as if he stood in the room. The kitchen was empty. A coffee mug shattered on the hardwood floor in the kitchen, coffee splattered. Parker skipped through other camera angles. Nothing was out of the ordinary in the living room or hallways or nursery.
“Parker, I have a camera pointed into the crib. It’s in the corner. Get that shot.”
Parker clacked on the keyboard. Winters’s stomach ached worse with each loud stroke, until one screen blinked, showed snow, then an empty crib.
“Fuck!”
Winters dialed his mother. She picked up on the second ring. Without giving her the chance to say hello, he said, “Do you have Clara?”
“What? No, she’s at home with Mia. You said—”
Winters clicked the phone off. He summoned all of his training, and all but ordered Parker to queue back the footage. Parker worked. Winters paced. The live images halted, then skipped backward in sixty-second increments.
“Keep going.”
“Dude, I’m working on it.”
The screen skipped backward in two-minute increments. A blur of activity flashed and Parker hit stop. The image was clear. Mia was at the table with a cup of coffee in one hand, a sleeping baby in the other arm, and a half-empty bottle on the table.
“Make it play right now.” Jared wasn’t interfering in Winters’s orders to Parker. None of the men interrupted. Winters’s lungs ached. His body warped into warrior mode and ignored the terrifying paralysis edging at his mind.
Every pair of eyes watched as Mia turned to the kitchen window. Her face pinched in surprise. Her mug fell and shattered. The baby startled awake. Mia grabbed the bottle, stuck it in Clara’s mouth, and the panicked look on her face made him ill. A heartbeat later, Mia took off at a run out of the kitchen.
Parker’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and Winters yelled at him. “Find her. Where did they go?”
“Looking.”
“Look faster.”
Black flooded the screen. The motion detector lights flicked on as Mia and Clara rushed through a door. Parker switched the footage to the large flat screen in the center of the room. No one breathed. They watched Mia finger the keys on the pegboard wall. She selected a set and stretched out her arm. His Hummer’s lights flashed as it unlocked, and she ran to the vehicle’s backdoor. She jumped in with Clara but came out alone. She ran to the driver’s door, cracked the tinted windows, ran back around, and to peek in the backseat at the baby.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Jared asked. Mia swiveled her head, a terrified expression plastered on her face. “Is she leaving?”
No one moved. Everyone watched. She flew back toward the house and manually turned off the lights.
“What did she do with Clara?” Jared was pissed.
“Car seat.” Winters mumbled.
“Car seat?”
“Yeah, asshole. She just rat holed my kid.”
Every guy in the room gave a collective oh.
Winters interrupted the stunned mumblings. “Can you get me a shot of what she saw outside?”
He needed to be there but was too far away. He couldn’t get home. Whatever they watched was History Channel by now. Nothing was worse. His head spun.
“Working on it,” Parker muttered. “Until I find that camera feed, keep watching this.”
It played in time and a half. Mia ran through several of the shots. The kitchen. The hallway. Up the stairs and toward the master bedroom.
“Has this woman gone mad?” Jared asked.
“Damn, boy.” Parker directed them to a different monitor in the corner. Parker rewound the screen, then hit play. A chopper landed several hundred feet from his house. That explains the perimeter alarm.
Men piled out. They took their lazy-ass time, knowing no escape was possible. They sauntered past the exterior camera. Parker clicked to the entrance camera feed. His front door exploded open. Two men stepped through. Others remained outside.
Every man watching the screens had to wonder where the hell they would go first. Winters had no idea. This was like reality television, the nightmare edition.
He didn’t know what to do, so he issued orders. “Fast forward. Go. Go. Go.”
Parker held up his hand. “Wait. Watch.”
Mia flinched in the upstairs hallway, then went to work slamming every door. She waited, then screamed. She dragged their attention straight up the stairs, and they took the easy catch, running toward her ruckus.
They were on her in seconds. She flayed and kicked, her nails clawed for their eyes, and her knees aimed for their nuts. Winters knew those moves all too well. They gagged her mouth and bound her hands, despite the throws of her fists. She bucked the entire time. A visible look of relief crossed her face as they pushed her out the busted front door.
“Good night.” Jared blew out a telling whistle. “That woman just baited those men away from Clara. Parker, what’s our elapsed time?”
“They were in and out in three and a half minutes.”
“Find me that helo.” Thank God Jared was barking orders, because Winters needed to dry heave.
He heard Jared on the phone, issuing orders for another team member to get out of bed and to get to Winters’s place post haste. He ended the call with a command to secure that baby. God willing, Clara would be sleeping. Please let her sleep. Please.
He hit the speed dial for his mother again.
She picked up on the first ring. “Colby, what’s going on?”
“Mom, we had a problem. Clara’s fine.”
“Oh God. What happened?”
He took the phone away from his ear. He didn’t have time to explain. “Hey, Jared. Who’s headed for Clara?”
“Brock.”
He put the phone back to his ear.
“Hello? Colby Winters, you get back on this phone,” his mom yelled.
“I’m here. Look, you know Brock, right? He’s going to bring Clara to you. I need you to take her for a few days at your place.”
“Can you tell—”
“I can’t. Kiss that baby for me. Call you later.” He ended the call and dropped to a chair, unaware he’d been pacing.
“The baby will be fine,” Jared said. “That girl of yours pulled off quite the stunt. Are you pussying out of this, or can you get your shit together? We’ve got some cartel motherfuckers to find.”
Pussying out? The hell with that.
“More ready than I’ve ever been.” He was resolute. Jared would never question him again where his family was concerned.
“First things first. We need to figure out where they’ve taken her. Parker, have you tracked down that copter yet?”
“Almost.”
Winters spun to Jared, remembering he had intel to offer. “She has a skin tracker on her. Long story short, she has a bio-tag on. We’ve got about eight more hours to get a signal from her.”
“Kinky,” his buddy called from the end of the room.
“Shut your face, Cash.” Winters scowled at Parker. “Can you find that tracker?”
“Trying. Two minutes. Tops,” Parker said.
Jared turned to Winters. “Glad to see the company resources are so well used.”
Winters rolled his eyes. “I can’t handle how slow this is going. Come on already.”
Parker closed the security footage except the live feed of his darkened garage. Winters sat and watched the dark screen, transfixed. Parker went back to his keyboard, numbers and code streaming across the monitor in front of him. A flash on the screen and a GPS location began to read.
“They’re stationary. Fairfax County, Virginia. Not far from here. Satellite images coming in three, two, one…”
A small compound appeared on the flat screen. The chopper sat on a helipad. A decrepit mansion stood in rough shape, shutters hanging off windows, cracked white paint peeling from the clapboard, and a half-boarded front door.
“What’s that place?” Winters asked.
“Land records say it’s the business address of Silva Enterprises. Five pesos says it’s a front for the Colombian, where they launder money. That place hasn’t seen anyone in long time.”
“That’s advantageous. Security will be nil.” Jared nodded to a different screen.
Brock entered Winters’s garage. He paused, then moved straight to the Hummer, opened the door, and cocked his head to the side. Winters’s phone rang, and he answered before the screen showed Brock grabbing his phone to dial.
“There must be a five second delay in the feed,” Parker said.
“The kid’s asleep,” Brock said. “I don’t know how the hell to get her out of her seat. She looks… secure.”
Thank God. Relief was an awesome poultice right now. When Winters found Mia, he’d get on his hands and knees, thanking her until the end of days for protecting Clara.
He gave directions to Brock to meet his mother. Maybe he should call her back with a rundown of events. She was likely to interrogate Brock until he broke.
Jared cleared his throat. “Now that we’re done with all of that, it’s time to kick some cartel ass.”