Page 23 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

Chapter Seven

Mount Blue

Haven

Northern California

Nick Ross bolted up in bed on a gasp, heart drumming against his ribs, sweat popping out all over his body. Clapping his hands for the light, he threw back the covers and rushed for the door. Remembering at the last minute that he was naked.

In a fever of impatience, he turned back and hopped into the clothes he’d thrown onto a chair an hour ago. His usual—black jeans, black sweatshirt, black combat boots. Without bothering to lace his boots he raced outside.

Usually, he got a rush when he walked outside his door.

He’d rather die than say it or even show it, but he loved Haven.

He and his teammates were on the run from the US government, fugitives, outlaws.

They’d built a secret city and somehow a community of misfits had gathered around them.

He and Jon Ryan and Mac McEnroe didn’t even question it after a while.

People came, always on the run from something bad, and the three soldiers protected them.

It was a mountain—a forgotten, hollowed-out silver mine that had been turned into a thriving community of runaways and outlaws.

Like Hole in the Wall in the old West, only high-tech.

The community was circular, built inside the mountain.

Every time Nick stepped out from his quarters, he always paused along the balcony that ringed the huge open atrium below.

His community, his people. Gave him a rush, every time.

Except now.

He’d pressed their emergency button, the one that had never been used up until now, connected to Jon and Mac’s rooms, before bolting out the door.

Jon’s room was on his floor, Mac’s was two stories up.

He ran straight to the end of the corridor and when he passed Jon’s door he bellowed, “ Jon! Situation room, stat !” He banged his fist, hard, on the door then hit the stairs at a run.

The elevator would be too slow. He took the stairs four at a time, and at the end simply vaulted over the banisters down to the floor below, then ran for the situation room.

The doors of the room were biomorphically programmed to open for him, Mac, or Jon, but it took two seconds to process and he had to stand there, three feet out, practically hopping in place, fear and panic prickling along his nervous system, until the door whooshed open.

He rushed inside and skidded to a stop, looking around wildly for something—anything—that could help.

Their situation room wouldn’t have been out of place in the New Pentagon.

They had it all, including holographic monitors showing every inch of the security perimeter around Haven.

If a jackrabbit shat in the woods, they knew about it.

They were illegally linked into every overhead satellite, and at any given moment one or two of their almost invisible drones were dropping visual, IR, and thermal images onto their servers.

That kind of intel would be considered a security breach serious enough to warrant a court-martial, but since the entire US military was gunning for them, and a court-martial had found them guilty of treason in absentia anyway, they figured why not .

Their server farm, hidden in the mountain, was one of the largest in the world.

They had serious crunching power at their disposal.

Not to mention serious firepower. The armory would do any military installation proud.

None of it helpful at the moment because what Nick really, really needed was?—

What?

Fuck.

He didn’t know what he needed but he needed it now .

The door whooshed open, Jon came in at a run.

Wheeling to a stop, he checked the monitors.

Which showed acres and acres of nighttime mountainside.

Utterly peaceful, utterly normal, utterly calm.

Sensors blinking green. “What the fuck, Nick?” Jon’s bright-blue eyes narrowed as he glared at him.

His blond hair was tousled, shirt buttoned wrong, sweat pants hanging off his hips.

He looked around again at the monitors, brought his gaze back. “I repeat—what the fuck?”

It took every ounce of his self-control, but Nick managed not to twirl around, hands on head, looking for something that could be an outside sign of what was going on inside.

His heart was pounding, adrenalin running through his system, and he had nowhere to go with it.

Nothing to hang this huge flaming ball of desperation on.

He tried to speak, but his throat was too tight.

On the second try he got it, but what he wanted to say was so enormous his voice cracked.

“She needs me. She’s in danger and I have to get to her now and I don’t know where she is and she fucking needs me.

” Normally he would have been ashamed to death that his indrawn breath sounded like a sob, but right now he didn’t give a fuck.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Elle.

Jon’s eyes narrowed further. “Who needs you? What are you talking about?”

All Nick could do was stand there and pant, fists clenched so hard the knuckles were white. Ready to fight Jon, ready to fight the world if it could help her, but it wouldn’t. He couldn’t help her until he knew where she was and what she needed.

“Elle,” he said simply, because with all the thoughts swirling in his head, that was the only thing that stood out. That made sense. Elle.

Elle. In danger . God! He couldn’t even stay in the same room with that thought.

Jon shook his head and turned gratefully when the door opened.

Mac walked in, arm around his wife. His pregnant wife.

The pregnant wife Nick had woken up. Both men were now glaring at him.

Catherine McEnroe was an incredibly special woman, and Mac wasn’t happy that she’d had her rest interrupted.

Even pregnant, she worked tirelessly as a doctor taking care of their little community.

So, yeah, interrupting Catherine’s sleep was a big no-no.

Everyone treated Catherine with kid gloves. Even Nick, who liked her and respected her. But Elle—Elle trumped Catherine any day.

He didn’t give a shit about anyone’s sleep if Elle was in danger.

“Elle,” he repeated, his voice raw.

“L?” Mac asked, frowning. “The letter?”

Jon took it up. “L for link? L for lonely? L for?—”

“Elle.” It was the only thing he could say.

His head was going to blow up. Every single danger hormone in his body was awake with nowhere to go.

He was a guy built for action, and he always knew which action to take.

To be so primed, so pumped, so fucking scared and dying to race to the rescue but have no idea where was driving him batshit crazy.

His fingers beat a harsh tattoo against his thigh and his foot was tapping. Jon, Mac and Catherine simply stared at him. He knew what they were thinking—Nick Ross agitated ? Scared? What was that about?

Nick didn’t do agitated and scared.

“Nick,” Catherine said gently, and took his shaking hand in both of hers. Mac tensed. Everyone knew Nick didn’t like being touched. But this wasn’t someone he didn’t know entering his personal space. This was Catherine, and her touch…soothed. Calmed him, just a little.

She held onto his hand, watching his eyes. After a moment she nodded. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

His head jerked awkwardly, neck stiff with tension.

Catherine had something. He didn’t know what, nobody knew what really, but she had…

something. If she touched you, she understood you.

And lately, if she touched you, you felt better.

Which explained why her husband, Mac, the toughest, meanest son of a bitch on the planet, was walking around with a goofy grin on his hard, ugly, scarred mug.

Nick had wondered about that. About being married to someone like Catherine. Someone who understood you inside out with a touch. Understood you and loved you.

Elle had loved him. It had been clear in her eyes, her voice, her face. She’d loved him and he’d lost her and oh God, she was in danger and she needed him and he didn’t know how the fuck to find her!

He shivered, turned his sweaty face to Catherine.

“Yeah. She’s the one you felt when you touched me.” A few days after Catherine somehow found them in Haven—a place three experts in security had hidden carefully away from the world—she’d touched him and understood that he’d lost someone, that he was worried sick about someone.

She never went there again and neither did anyone else.

But now it had to come out.

He grabbed Catherine’s hand, barely noticing Mac and Jon exchanging looks. “Read me,” he whispered urgently, clasping her hand hard between his trembling hands. “Tell me where she is. What’s happening to her. I got a call for help and I don’t know where she is and oh God! ”

Nick’s throat closed tight. Nothing more could come out. He clung to Catherine’s hand as if it were a lifeline. A raging river was tumbling him over and over down an endless descent into hell and only her touch could make sense of it.

Catherine was shaking her head slowly, eyes on his, face sad.

“I am so sor—” She stopped, breathed out, tilted her head.

Even though she was looking straight at him, her eyes grew distant as if watching something a thousand yards away.

Her grip tightened, her hands warming up until they felt red hot in his cold ones.

“Elle,” she whispered and Nick broke out in a cold sweat. He was shaking, could barely breathe.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

“What?” Catherine blinked.

“Elle, Elle, Elle ,” he shouted.

Mac’s jaw tightened. Nick didn’t give a shit.

Mac could shove it up his ass if it bothered him that Nick was shouting at his wife.

Because Catherine knew something , and something was better than what he had right now, which was a shitload of nothing.

No intel, no idea where she was, nothing but ashes in his hand and his head exploding from the need to get to Elle as fast as humanly possible.