Page 5 of Jonas (Silver Team #4)

CHAPTER FOUR

I stood in the kitchen and watched Jonas take in my apartment.

My temporary apartment provided by Anson Sutton.

the Chair of the board of directors for Delcon.

Anson wasn’t stupid nor was he negligent in his duties.

He kept his finger on the pulse, he read the reports, he investigated when red flags popped up.

And boy did he find the mother of all red flags.

It was flying so high, flapping in the wind, either management was complacent or they were obtuse.

In the six months I’d been there I was leaning toward inept.

Though there had to be a mole, I just hadn’t found them yet.

Seth immediately came to mind. If it was him, I was losing my touch.

Until this afternoon, I wouldn’t believe he had it in him to betray anyone—not even an employer.

But obviously there was something going on with him.

It wasn’t a coincidence that a black Mercedes had rolled up in front of my building, this being after it followed me, after Seth had been anxiously talking to whoever was in that car.

Two too many ‘afters’ for my liking.

“Did Kira get back to you?”

“At least the view doesn’t suck.”

Jonas and I spoke at the same time.

“She—”

“There’s—”

We both started and stopped at the same time.

“You go,” Jonas offered.

“I was going to agree with you about the view,” I told him. “Most everything about living here sucks, but the view doesn’t. Though I have to sleep with the curtains shut because it never gets dark.”

That was something else I missed about home—darkness.

Clear dark nights where the only light came from the heavens.

I missed looking up and seeing stars. I missed silence.

It was never quiet here. Yet as much as I missed the ranch I’d never consider going back.

Not to the stifling rules that had damn near suffocated me, not to my father’s delusions, not to my brother’s cruelty.

It was almost amusing the way my mind played tricks on me, like I had the option to go back to the ranch.

I’d been cast out. Exiled. Forbidden to return.

I was a heathen who had to be banished before I corrupted my sisters.

Jonas shifted away from the window and his attention swung to me.

His gaze roamed my face. There was something disconcerting about the way he took me in.

A featherlight caress coated in scrutiny.

I quickly dipped my chin and averted my eyes to break contact.

I had a feeling Jonas could read minds and mine was a murky, unhealthy place to be.

“Kira’s working on the occupants of the Mercedes but she got a hit on the man in front of your building. Daryl Barnes.”

My gaze swept my apartment before landing back on Jonas.

He looked the same as he did yesterday—same black tee, black boots, the jeans looked a shade lighter but overall the same.

I liked that. He was who he was. I rarely was myself—more like a chameleon.

I was always shifting and morphing into who someone else needed me to be.

It was easier that way. I could pretend I wasn’t a disappointment, an outcast, the girl who had been shunned.

My gaze snagged on his beard. Once upon a time I avoided men with beards.

But I liked his beard. Nowadays it was all the rage, even the hipsters were growing beards.

But Jonas’s beard wasn’t a fashion accessory.

He hadn’t grown it because it was trendy.

Everything about Jonas screamed MAN ! His facial hair was just a sexy addition to who he was.

Why was I thinking about the man’s beard?

I needed to focus.

Daryl Barnes.

I searched my memory banks for the name and came up empty. I’d never heard that name before.

“I don’t know who that is.”

Jonas nodded. “Kira’s working on it. What can you tell me about Seth?”

I glanced at the couch. “Should we sit?”

“I’ve been in a car with Cash for the last two hours. An hour and a half of that was while he was driving.”

He delivered that information like it said it all. When he didn’t go on, I lifted a brow.

“He drives like we’re dodging IEDs on Route Irish.”

I’d heard of the stretch of road between Baghdad Airport and the Green Zone. The DC beltway could be a nightmare but it was nowhere near as bad as driving in New York or Iraq.

“I take it traffic was bad?”

“Traffic was a breeze. Route Irish is his default.”

I couldn’t stop my lips from twitching.

“Better you than me. I get car sick,” I unnecessarily informed him.

“Advice then, don’t ever get in a car with Cash.”

Jonas stepped away from the large windows, but instead of going to the living room area where two cream leather couches opposite each other with a chunky— could wood be described as chunky?

—coffee table between them dominated the space, he moved toward the kitchen.

For such a large man, Jonas’s strides were fluid, surprisingly light, yet his limbs were fully at his command.

Predatory grace.

He didn’t simply walk, he stalked.

Between his intense stare and the way he moved I could see how he’d be intimidating to most. His imposing height nor the wall of muscle I knew he hid under his clothes didn’t scare me, but that stare…

the way his eyes studied, processed, and saw…

now that scared the hell out of me. I’d learned to school my thoughts, I’d mastered disguising my emotions, but I had a feeling Jonas would be able to see through my mask.

I couldn’t stop the shiver accompanying that thought. Jonas didn’t miss it. Was it bad that I hoped he’d mistook the shiver as my reaction to the sparking awareness of his proximity? I’d rather him know I found him attractive than the alternative.

Emotions were messy.

They were a weakness.

They lied.

It had taken me years to wrest all my feelings into a box and tape it closed. Unfortunately, it had taken a few more years to forget the box existed. But I’d done it. Now all that was left were facts and truth. Those didn’t lie.

“Do I make you nervous?” Jonas’s rough voice cascaded over my skin.

I used my years’ worth of hard won training and shored my defenses.

“Why would you make me nervous?” My retort was accompanied with a smirk I hoped looked more like a sexy tip of my lips than a grimace.

His mouth formed the perfect smile—lips that hitched up surrounded by neatly trimmed dark-brown hair.

That was better—focusing on his good looks and masculine beauty instead of the ripple of fear that he could see through me.

“Just checking.”

That might be true, but more than that, he was watching for a reaction. Something to give him more insight.

Moving along …

“How long do you think Cash will be?”

That earned me a scorching look. If I’d been on the receiving end of it while, say, at a bar, I would’ve suggested leaving that bar immediately and going somewhere private so I could fully experience the look that sent fire licking up my back.

Jumpin’ Jack flash, the man could smolder.

Whatever had caused that mischievous look that stated clearly he had a fast and ready retort that would undoubtedly make me blush cleared so fast I blinked at the swiftness of it, then wondered if I’d imagined it.

But I hadn’t.

Like Jonas, I could read people.

“No way to know. He’ll follow for as long as he needs to.”

“The way you described his driving—is it possible for him to follow without being made?”

Another smile, this one not megawatt but the potency remained.

“I said his default was Route Irish, but he can drive like a grandma when needed. Which makes the combat maneuvers all the more frustrating. He can drive like a normal person, but I think he gets a thrill knowing he scares the fuck out of us.”

That surprised me.

“His driving scares you? Like actual fear or just a little pucker factor to get the ole heart jumping?”

His laughter filled the apartment, rich and deep, and suddenly I had the urge to run to my ereader and download a plethora of joke books so I could make him laugh over and over.

“Pucker factor,” he snickered, and damn but I liked the way that sounded, too. “Maybe a little of both.”

I took time to bask in the steady current flowing through me before I announced, “Just so I’m on record and you can pass this onto Cash, not only do I get car sick but I have a rule that includes inflicting bodily harm to those who scare me.

It would be in his best interest to allow me to drive if we ever find ourselves in a car together. ”

Obviously, my joke missed its mark seeing as Jonas didn’t smile as I’d intended.

“Who scares you?”

My father. My brother. My uncle.

“No one.”

That fear was also something I’d worked hard to get over, yet there had been a time when I was scared of my own shadow.

I would never again be the kind of woman who cowed to a man’s demands.

I’d never again be a second-class citizen.

And I’d never again allow a man to intimidate me and make me afraid.

I lived my life on my terms.

I’d learned the hard way that people let you down, especially the people who were supposed to love you the most, and I was never going to put myself in that position again.

I did what I did, how I wanted to do it, and I didn’t give a damn what that said about me or how people perceived me. For the most part people were rude, disingenuous, and unkind, so not giving a shit if people judged me was easy.

“You look like you’re thinking awfully hard over there.”

“Just thinking about how long we’re gonna have to wait for Cash to get back,” I lied. “I still need to show you your apartment and we should get down to forming a game plan.”

Jonas looked like he was going to call me on my bullshit but changed his mind.

“That eager to get rid of me?”

I appreciated his attempt at a joke but it hit too close to the bone. Yes, I was eager to get away from the all-seeing Jonas. Yet there was a part of me—the stupid part—that didn’t want him to leave.

“I was teasing, but if you want?—”

I waved him off before he could finish.

“I know you were. Don’t mind me, I’m a little off my trading barbs game. I still can’t get Seth and that Mercedes to fit with what I know about him.”

Jonas glanced at the couches.

“Let’s sit and work through the puzzle.”

“Generous of you to take that hit and sit down after your harrowing car ride.”

That pulled another smile.

“I think I’ve finally recuperated and unclenched.”

Before I could make a wisecrack, Jonas’s phone rang. I watched as he pulled it from his pocket and scowled. That scowl remained as he swiped the screen and lifted the phone to his ear.

“What’s up?” There was a lengthy pause while he listened. Then he looked back out the window as he said, “Well fuck.” Another pause, this one shorter. “Okay. I’ll stay here with Derrika.”

There was something about how his tongue wrapped around my name that suddenly made all the teasing I’d received growing up about my name worth it.

He disconnected and didn’t make me wait. “That was Zane. The Mercedes dropped off Daryl Barnes at a hotel about fifteen minutes from here. Cash called it in and continued to follow the Merc.”

“Followed it where?” I asked as I rounded the kitchen, moving to my laptop on the coffee table.

“Toward Arlington. He’s still in pursuit.”

When I opened the lid of my laptop I followed up with, “What hotel?”

“Sky Lodge on Old Dominion Drive.”

I knew where that was but I still typed it into the map I’d opened.

“If they’re headed to Arlington they could’ve stayed on Old Dominion or they could’ve hit Dolley Madison and taken the GW Parkway.

Though the GW would be a nightmare this time of night.

A local would know to stay on Old Dominion, even with the slower speed limits and two lanes it would still be faster. Did Zane say which route?”

“He said the one-twenty-three.”

“One-twenty-three is Dolley Madison,” I told him and pointed to my screen when he sat next to me. “What else did Zane say?”

“He’s sending Easton and Smith to cover Cash in case he gets made or needs backup. Kira and Cooper are on their way here.”

That was a lot of people for the three-bedroom apartment across the hall. The guys would have to bunk together, leaving Kira and her husband to have their own room. Or I could offer my second bedroom to…

“Where’d you go?” Jonas pulled me from my thoughts.

“Sleeping arrangements. Now that there are more of you, you’ll have to share rooms.”

“We’ll work it out but I’m calling the couch.”

He wouldn’t be saying that when he saw the white leather couch that was more for show than actual sitting.

I shoved that aside and focused on my laptop.

I pulled up my Tor browser, double checked that my VPN was on and working, showing my IP was out of the Philippines before I typed in my favorite dark web site.

“Onion.” I wasn’t sure if Jonas was asking or simply noting the web address ended in onion instead of the normal dot-com or the like.

“Dark web extension,” I explained. “Though this site is more gray than dark. I use it first to give me direction before I dive into the world of black.”

“I’ve seen Kira poking around so I know where you are.”

He let that hang.

“And you’re surprised I know?—”

“Not surprised. Impressed. Kira’s tried to give us all a tutorial so we can run simple searches but remembering the addresses since there’s no indexed searches proved to be too much for us. Even with the cheat sheet she provided she got frustrated and took away our privileges.”

The way he said “privileges” clearly stated he didn’t view internet searches as a privilege, more like torture. And for a man like him who was obviously more of an action man than an ass-in-a-chair man, it would be.

“The dark web is a scary place if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s also not my favorite thing. I’d rather be in the field, but sadly, I have to know my way around.”

Jonas leaned closer, forcing me to make a concerted effort to ignore the spicy scent of his cologne. Not that I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but this close he was making it difficult not to sniff him—which would be weird.

But I did inhale—deeply.

What can I say? He smelled that good.