Page 4 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

She had a way of tipping her jaw in a defiant manner that made his fingers itch to—

To what?

He didn’t have an answer.

“And if I refuse?” Her voice was pitched low with challenge.

Reaching into his inside pocket, he pulled out a long zip-tie. “Then we do this the hard way.”

Her lips curved. “Usually my date buys me dinner first.”

His jaw clenched. He wasn’t prepared for the flicker of heat behind her words—or how it made his gut tighten.

She smirked.

“Let’s go.” He kept his voice flat.

He didn’t touch her, and she walked beside him like she knew better than to try to run. The low thump of the chopper in the field near the station was loud, but he still picked out Kennedy’s resigned sigh.

As they approached, he reached up to cradle her head and urge her to duck beneath the moving blades.

She threw a look over her shoulder. “I’ve flown in helicopters before.”

He pulled his hand away without ever touching her.

Once they were seated across from each other, she met his glare with one of her own.

“Where are we going?”

He turned the tables on her. “Don’t you mean your place or mine?”

That earned him a blink…then a little twist of her lips, the closest he would get to a smile.

“Touché.”

He leaned back in the seat, eyes trained on her. “And the answer is mine.” He handed her hearing protection, and she placed the earmuffs on, taking care to smooth her hair around the band across her head.

They didn’t speak on the return trip. Only emotion vibrated in the silence between them.

It wasn’t trust.

It wasn’t hate, either.

It was something murkier. Enemies with some business to finish.

Dante watched her from hooded eyes. The woman across from him might be a traitor, and she might not.

Despite his irritation, he had to face facts. She was their only shot at finding Cipher.

And she really might be the next target.

* * * * *

Kennedy’s career was filled with a flurry of ringing phones, answering texts, sending emails, and sitting in on meetings to take notes on important diplomatic issues. But the past few weeks, all the chatter, all the noise, turned to silence.

Dante sat across from her in the helicopter, his stare never shifting from her, as if she was planning to leap out of the aircraft somewhere over the state of New York.

He didn’t speak to her, and the comms device built into the earmuffs she wore was just as silent.

She turned her attention to studying her companion. During the few times she was forced to be in the presence of Special Operative Dante King, she found it difficult to ignore him. He was so…big.

And not just physically—he walked into a room and all eyes turned to him as if he owned it.

If he weren’t such a colossal dickhead, she’d think he was handsome.

Okay, gorgeous.

Godlike, really.

His black hair was kept trim and short, military style, but she could tell if he let it grow, it would curl. Her mind ran with that, picturing a young Dante with black curls tumbling over his forehead and a mischievous gleam in his brown eyes, as deep as earth after it rained.

At this point, Kennedy knew her imagination was getting carried away. Dante King never smiled. Ever.

He wore a perpetual scowl whenever he looked at her. Even the few times she’d seen him interacting with any of his brothers on the special ops team, he still wore a serious, stoic expression.

He wore the look now, though his gaze seemed to be fixed on her chin and a wrinkle wove over one dark eyebrow as if he couldn’t figure out a puzzle.

She issued a soft sigh, lips parting, and suddenly, his gaze snapped up to hers.

There it is. The notorious scowl.

She disliked everything about this guy. Even if she put a paper bag over his head, he wouldn’t be suitable boyfriend material because he’d still be able to talk. Which meant she’d have to gag him too.

A little crazed giggle bubbled up her throat, and she dipped her head to trap it in. Just then, the pilot’s voice came over the comms, informing them that they would be landing in two minutes.

Landing where was anybody’s guess. She had stopped trying to guess what the SEALs would do right after they locked her away in the safe house.

Next time she ran, she’d have to be smarter and avoid all those cameras that obviously picked out her entire route to Grand Central Station and even gave away which train she got on. How careless of her not to consider that.

Dante didn’t react to the pilot’s announcement at all.

She fixed her stare on his chest. Though his chest was broad and thickened with muscle, it was still the chest of a colossal dickhead.

Their bodies swayed a little as the chopper lost altitude, buzzing over the world, dark with only a few clusters of lights from buildings below.

“Put this on.” He tossed her a black garment.

“It’ll mess up my hair.”

“Too damn bad. Put it on, Kennedy.”

She highly disliked how Dante said her name, drawing it out that way. She snatched up what she already knew was a blackout hood. When Chase took Alyssa and Kennedy to the special ops base, they were forced to wear hoods then too, so they couldn’t see where the secret base was.

With a low curse, she removed the hearing protection and pulled the hood over her face.

Her heart gave a huge throb, throwing itself at her ribcage.

Panic tried to win out over her senses, but she wasn’t going to let anything be in charge of her and focused on meditation counting, breathing in for five beats, breathing out for five beats, until she felt the landing gear touch down on solid earth.

She reached up to take the hood off, but before she could move, Dante’s fingers clamped around her upper arm and he tore off her hood with the other.

Her hair was thick but still prone to frizz after being stuffed in hoods. She felt it crackle around her as she blinked to adjust her eyes to the dim light on the back of a building.

Dante planted his hand over her head, squashing her hair down, and forcing her to duck under the chopper blades.

Could he be any more of a massive dickhead?

She hunched until they cleared the blades, then she jerked her arm in an attempt to free herself from his grip.

“I can walk on my own.”

He grunted. “You can also run. I’m not taking any chances.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. He was right, after all.

Her boot heels crunched lightly on the paved walkway leading toward that light.

As they neared the building, the brick of the structure came into sharper focus.

She didn’t know everything about the special ops team, like why they hid in plain sight or made their guests wear hoods, but she did know the mansion was the team’s base.

Dante led her to a back door painted as black as the shadows that surrounded it. She swallowed hard, wishing she had made it farther on that train, or gotten off at any of the stops along the way. Then she could have gotten a head start.

And she wouldn’t be interrogated for, oh…was it the fifth time or the sixth?

He guided her through the arched entryway, his grip on her arm a silent reminder of her status—suspect. His touch didn’t hurt, but it branded her all the same.

“Let go,” she said tightly, stopping a few steps into the corridor.

Dante drew up short. The glare in his eyes never let up, and she saw the tendon in his jaw bulge. Then he released her. His gaze panned over her face, searching. For what, she didn’t know.

“Stay right by me,” he said in a low tone that brooked no argument. His words were like waving a red flag, urging her to argue with the man.

They rounded the corner—and there she was.

Alyssa.

Kennedy’s breath caught. She hadn’t seen her since it all went down—since the spyware, the revelation, the betrayal . At least, it looked like betrayal to Alyssa and the Charlie team too.

She gave her boss…her friend… a tentative smile. “Hi.”

Alyssa didn’t return the smile.

Kennedy’s heart plummeted.

Dante steered her into a side room, and Alyssa followed them.

When he released Kennedy, she squared her shoulders and straightened to her full height. If she was going to be interrogated, she was going to carry herself with poise, dammit.

She knew the space well. There were no windows, just a table and two chairs. The same as last time. And the time before that. For now, it was her prison. The door clicked shut behind her, sealing them in.

Before anyone asked her to take a seat at the table, Kennedy pulled out a chair, making sure the legs grated on the marble floor, and sank to it, crossing her legs and drawing her Dior trench coat around her like a shroud.

Alyssa sat across from her, stone-faced and professional, as if they hadn’t once taken selfies together in every country they traveled to around the world.

Alyssa turned her head to look at Dante. “Give us a minute please.”

He didn’t look like he wanted to leave, but he took himself off, quietly closing the door behind him.

“We need to talk,” Alyssa said without preamble.

Kennedy nodded. “I know.”

Silence beat in the air like it had wings. Big, webbed ones that belonged to a night creature.

Alyssa’s voice was cold but curious. “What makes you think it was Cipher?”

Kennedy’s throat tightened, but her voice stayed level. “Remember when we went to the UN about six months ago?”

“Yes.”

“Shaw—”

Alyssa flinched at the name of her mentor whose death was so fresh in all their minds.

She leaned across the table. “I’m so sorry about Shaw, Alyssa.”

She gave her a small nod, throat working. “Go on.”

She did. “Shaw wanted you at that first meeting, but your schedule didn’t allow it. So I went instead.”

“I remember.”

Kennedy looked down for a second, then met her gaze. “The next time you were scheduled to meet with him…he made a comment. Something like, ‘You’ll have someone with you, I assume.’ And we did have a guard escort us that day. But the way Shaw said it…it sounded almost too casual. Too offhand.”

Alyssa’s brows drew together. “Why bring this up now?”

“Because it didn’t mean anything then. But now…” Kennedy inhaled shakily. “Now it feels like a breadcrumb in the forest, dropped for us to follow. Like maybe he knew something was off—something he couldn’t say outright.”

Alyssa sat back, her stare shifting inward as it always did when she was puzzling things out. “Why would Shaw worry about a threat to either of us back then?”

Kennedy shrugged. “I’m not sure. But maybe he sensed someone watching. Listening. If he knew there was spyware on my phone…” She raked her fingers through her hair. “Maybe he was warning me without saying it.”

Alyssa’s posture stiffened. “That doesn’t explain why your phone had spyware in the first place.”

Kennedy swallowed hard. “I’ve asked myself that a hundred times. I didn’t install anything. I didn’t give access. I didn’t even know it was there. But someone did…and they used me.”

A heavy pause fell between them.

Kennedy searched her friend’s face. “I didn’t betray you, Alyssa. But I know how it looks.”

Alyssa didn’t speak, but the flicker in her expression wasn’t as hard. It wasn’t trust, but it wasn’t cold disdain either.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Kennedy added. “But I need you to believe one thing: whatever Cipher’s after, he’s not done. And this? Killing Shaw? That wasn’t a warning. It was a move.”

Alyssa glanced down at her hands wound together in front of her. “Still, we don’t have anything to connect Cipher to my mentor. That’s the piece we’re missing.”

Kennedy leaned forward. She’d had a subway ride, a train ride and a helicopter ride to think about the connection. “Remember that night you were trying to reach Shaw? He finally texted really late, apologizing that he didn’t have his phone on him?”

Alyssa’s frown deepened. “Yeah. But people sometimes need to unplug. Or they forget to grab their phone before leaving the house.”

Kennedy gave her a pointed look.

She finally compressed her lips. “You’re right. It wasn’t like him. He always kept his phone close.”

“ Exactly. But what if he was being watched too? Extorted maybe. Already compromised. Maybe Cipher wasn’t just listening—he was moving the pieces months ago.”

Alyssa looked shaken. “God.”

“Remember another time when he told you he’d share a contact with you—but only after he got back to his office using his secure email?”

“Yes.”

Kennedy nodded. “And then…silence. He stopped carrying his phone. Every time we turned around, he said it wasn’t on him. What if he figured out someone was monitoring it—that it wasn’t secure ? What if he knew…and was trying to protect you?”

“No way,” Alyssa whispered.

Kennedy pushed on with her theory. “Think, Alyssa. What if Shaw knew his phone was compromised?”

Alyssa shook her head slowly. Kennedy could see her already trying to deny that her mentor could ever be anything but the hero she believed he was. She was thinking with her heart, not her head.

Alyssa leaned forward. “At the UN, he would’ve had all kinds of sensitive conversations. Maybe he just didn’t want to risk being overheard.”

“Maybe,” Kennedy said softly. “But if I’m right, and Shaw was under someone’s surveillance…then that someone knew killing him would bring us both out of hiding.”

“How do you figure?”

“If you couldn’t attend an event, I would always go in your stead. So if you couldn’t attend Shaw’s funeral, I would go. Then killing me would make it much easier to kill you.”

Kennedy faltered, emotional tears bottling up in her throat as she remembered that Alyssa wasn’t her friend anymore.

She issued a low sigh that sounded too much like a gasp someone made when they were slapped. “Well, I can see by the look on your face that you wouldn’t have attended my funeral.”

“I don’t hate you.” Alyssa’s whisper cracked. “I would’ve gone.”

Kennedy’s breath caught. “I know I disappointed you. I’m sorry.”

Alyssa looked down. “I didn’t know what to believe before. But I realize now you weren’t trying to hurt me. Or betray anyone. You didn’t know what was going on. Like you said, you were being used.”

Kennedy’s hands trembled in her lap. She fought the sting in her eyes. “You mean that?”

“I do.”

Kennedy blinked hard, but a tear escaped. She turned her face slightly, embarrassed. “I thought we were friends,” she murmured. “When I lost that, I wasn’t sure I even knew who I was anymore.”

Alyssa looked at her, softer now. “We’ve still got work to do to find out the truth. A lot of it. But I don’t think you’re the enemy.”

She nodded. “I want to help take him down. I need to.”

Alyssa rose slowly. “Then let’s figure out how.” As she walked out, she paused at the door, glancing back once.

Kennedy stayed seated in the empty room, letting herself feel the first flicker of hope in weeks.

Maybe she wasn’t alone anymore.