They hurried through the jungle. Mack didn’t feel the heat or humidity. He didn’t feel the torso-sized leaves slapping his arms.

He didn’t feel anything.

The blessed numbness had settled over him after he’d stabbed the lead assassin in the thigh. He’d needed to do violence and hadn’t felt one single tinge of remorse, especially since the motherfucker had just tried to kill him a minute before. Mack wasn’t above using a little torture to extract information, even though the threat of torture usually worked better. He hadn’t exactly been operating with all cylinders firing. Not when Marley was just a foot away from the action.

He’d wanted her to see the monster he could be. To make her fear him so she’d stop staring at him with longing and hurt. He tried to tell himself it was better this way. She had a kid, for Christ’s sake, and Mack had already failed the parenting test. He had no desire to start over with a miniature female version of Marley.

When Mack slapped a huge vine out of his way, the thwack of the thick wood slammed into his wrist and he embraced the pain. What right did she have to look all hurt and betrayed? She was the one who’d lied. The one who’d almost betrayed him and his team. If he hadn’t stumbled on her in that exact moment . . .

“Keep up. Almost there.” Mack barked the order and forged ahead, slicing a long-bladed knife a little harder than necessary but relishing the energy burn—he needed something to take the edge off before he imploded.

“On your tail, old man,” Ranger called out from somewhere in the middle of the line behind him.

Merc bit out, “Keep up, asshole.” Their prisoner wasn’t going fast enough. Good thing Merc was in charge of him. That man could make a boulder move with his stare.

Riser was bringing up the rear, and without looking back over his shoulder, Mack could sense Marley’s presence behind him.

Finally, a few buckets of sweat later, they pulled up at the perimeter around a small clearing that housed a flat, grassy helo pad with a nice, fat stealth helicopter sitting right in the middle, a ripe peach ready for the plucking.

Merc slapped a hand over the assassin’s mouth and shoved a knife to his throat, dragging him back into the woods so he wouldn’t alert the pilot to their presence.

Riser touched Marley’s arm, right above her elbow, to get her attention, and held a finger to his lips. Mack had to fight off a wave of red-hot anger. He was the one who had the right to touch her, to protect her.

Bullshit. He didn’t have that right. He didn’t want it either—or at least that’s what he told himself as he circled two fingers in the air, silently ordering his men to spread out and flank the helo from both sides. They’d snagged the weapons from the team sent to kill them. Now they had the rifles notched to their shoulders, sidearms holstered on their hips, and they approached at a fast, crouched pace. The darkness camouflaged them. The pilot, although sitting up straight in his seat, had slumped forward slightly, indicating he was asleep.

Mack waved his men on. Hunter rushed past him, ripped open the door, and pressed a gun to the pilot’s temple.

He startled awake instantly and froze.

“Nothing like a gun to the head to wake someone up,” Mack quipped as he approached.

“Where’s my team?”

“Ranger, why don’t you disarm our new buddy here?” Mack ignored the man’s question. The pilot knew exactly who they were, and he also knew what had happened to the team of assassins that had been sent to ‘deal’ with them.

Ranger did a quick frisk of the man, and then Hunter collared him and yanked him from the helicopter. Aaron darted past all of them, launching himself into the pilot’s seat to begin cranking up the bird.

“Aaron, radio base that we’ll have a package waiting on them. They’ll be tied up nice and neat in about two.” No matter how deadly Mack and his team were, they wouldn’t kill unarmed men.

Aaron fiddled with the controls and then pushed the radio close to his mouth. “Hawkeye, this is Tomahawk calling from latitude 692 and longitude 273. Got a package ready for pickup. Over.”

A few seconds later, the helicopter’s radio crackled through the jungle. “Roger, Tomahawk. ETA thirty minutes. Over.”

Aaron gave Mack a thumbs-up and then slipped on the large, black headset to finish his preflight check. Mack turned his attention to their newest prisoner, who knelt at his feet with his hands laced behind his head, staring at the ground as if it were his grave.

Mack chuckled. After the boys back at headquarters got through with him, he’d probably wish for a bullet.

“Merc, bring our other friend over here.” Merc emerged from the woods, a giant deadly apparition. He shoved the assassin to his knees next to the pilot. There was a glance between the two, the kind that men shared right before they hung from the noose. Mack could come out and tell them he wouldn’t kill them. But where was the fun in that? “Merc, you want the honors?”

“Absolutely.” Damn, that man sounded scary as shit. The two on their knees started shaking; straight-up fear would do that to any man. Merc stepped up to the assassin, lifted the butt of his rifle, and shoved it into the man’s temple. The bad guy went down with a grunt, face first in the dirt. Mack nodded at Hunter to do the same to the pilot. Smack. Grunt. Second guy went face first.

“Secure the package for pickup. Don’t want them waking up or running off to warn Mankel of our approach.”

“Yes, Sir.” Hunter didn’t bother with a salute. He disappeared into the helo, emerged moments later with a wad of 550 cord, and proceeded to wrap those two up like a stuffed burrito.

The rest of the guys eased out of the tree line, Riser and Marley last. Mack’s gaze locked with Marley’s. Heat flowed through him. His skin prickled. Shit. Mack did the cowardly thing and turned, making a big show of jumping into the helicopter and waving his men onward. “Come on, boys, we’ve got a party to crash.”

They loaded up, packing into the stealth helicopter like sardines. Aaron got them in the air within seconds and skated across the night sky into the sunrise. Mack had positioned himself on the outside, holding onto a metal handle overhead for balance. “See if you boys can dig up some radios. A team that size would have had some kind of comms. We’re going back to the original plan. Go in wet; come out dry.”

They zipped through the air to a cool 150 miles an hour in the stealth helo, which Mankel had been kind enough to provide. Using his own devices against him made the victory even sweeter.

With this kind of equipment, Mankel would never detect them coming in. And even if he did, he’d be expecting his men on this craft.

The only person on this helicopter who didn’t belong was Marley. Marley with her wounded doe eyes and stiff, prideful spine. Marley, who kept shooting Mack furtive glances full of longing. Her body was as sweet and lush as a ripe peach in summertime.

A peach who lied.

Mack averted his gaze, staring instead at the blindingly bright light of the sunrise on the horizon. A few white clouds marred the sky, but other than that it was a pure, beautiful blaze. It was a morning meant to be savored and enjoyed.

It was the morning Jack Mankel would die.

Aaron yelled back at the crew behind him, “Ten minutes out, boys.”

“Looks like it’s going to be a hot day, I wouldn’t mind a little dunk in the water,” Mack yelled over the roar of the helo.

Despite the fact he’d pointedly ignored her, he couldn’t let Marley out of his peripheral vision. He knew she was nervous. Hell, she should be. She was flying in with a team of special operatives’ intent on waging a war against a bloodthirsty killer. She’d be inhuman if she weren’t nervous. The old Mack might’ve comforted her, reassured her. But that was before she’d taken a knife to his trust and sliced him open and poured acid on the wound.