Page 37 of Kane (Ghost Ops #4)

Chapter Twenty-Six

“You’re up, Daphne.”

It was a few minutes after six and Daphne was sitting at the table in the break room with all six of the One Shot Tactical men. Alex had suggested they convene in this room where there had hot coffee available and a fridge with drinks.

The range was closed until ten, so there wasn’t any chance they’d be interrupted.

Unless Jackson and his men decided to attack.

But based on what Kane had said last night about battles, she was certain that wasn’t going to happen.

Jackson was a tough guy in the sense he had weapons and attitude, and he always went in with superior forces, but when she’d considered her brother’s activities in terms of what Kane had told her these six men had done, it didn’t compare.

Jackson wouldn’t storm a gun range in full daylight to get to her. He wasn’t that brave, or that stupid.

Good to his word, Ethan had hopped into his truck and gone to the Gas-n-Go for breakfast. The guys were busy chowing down. She’d only taken a bite out of hers because her stomach was tied in knots.

All six of them watched her patiently. Even Kane.

She took a deep breath and placed the memory card on the table in front of her, her heart pounding at seeing it there.

Such a tiny thing. Explosive. And vulnerable too.

She hadn’t checked the information since right after she’d downloaded it.

When she’d left New Orleans, she hadn’t taken a computer because she didn’t want to be traced.

And she hadn’t bought one since arriving because she hadn’t had the money at first. When she finally did, she no longer cared about having a laptop. She had the computer at work and that was enough. Her smart phone was a burner.

She simply trusted that the information was still there, still secure, because she hadn’t done anything to compromise it.

She’d also brought her Glock in its soft-sided case, and she laid that on the table as well.

“You’ll find the diamond stamped on the trigger guard. This gun has the same mod as the one you were researching. I have legal weapons, but I didn’t want them traced if I got picked up for some reason. It’s just another way for my father to find me. This one I took from my brother’s office.”

It’d been a source of contention that her father had made her give her brother office space in her building, but she knew why now.

Trafficking women into sexual slavery was better done in the Quarter, in a night club setting, than a gun range.

Easier to move them through. Easier to make them think they were being hired to work at the club.

“It probably went missing at some point before delivery to the dealer,” she said.

“My father has a network of spies, and he has paid agents on shipping vessels, in ports, and probably even in the factories of some of the manufacturers. The guns go missing, he eventually takes delivery at one warehouse or another, and if the client wants mods, they get done offsite from the armory. Everything that goes through the armory is legal—weapons, I mean. He’s very careful about that. ”

“Jesus,” Blaze said. “I thought we were meeting to discuss another incursion at your place—and now your father’s an arms dealer?”

“We are,” Alex replied. “This is the background story. There wasn’t any reason to go into detail last night, so you get the story now.”

“Sorry,” Daphne said. “Yes, he is. Among other things. My real name is Josephine O’Malley. Daphne’s my middle name. Bryant is an alias.”

She proceeded to give them a quick summary of the story she’d already repeated twice before. Blaze, Chance, and Seth took it all in. Then Seth got up in the middle of his sandwich and left the room. He was back a few moments later with his laptop.

“Need to research. Carry on.”

“That’s pretty much it,” she said. “My father is a crime boss, my brother is a psychotic nut he unleashes from time to time, and I stole evidence about all the O’Malley businesses.

I worked for my father because that’s what I was raised to do, but it doesn’t excuse the fact I knew what he did wasn’t entirely legal. ”

Seth was typing away on his keyboard, his sandwich forgotten for the moment. Daphne took a tiny bite of hers. It smelled good, and her stomach growled as the knots started to ease now that the truth was out there.

“Do we have any clue who left the playing card?” Chance asked.

Blaze dragged his phone out. “I can look over the past few days of footage in the hallway. I’m guessing whoever it was timed it for when the workmen were there.

Too many people coming and going to keep up with at that point.

I’ve checked the door every night after work and it’s been locked.

But that wouldn’t stop anybody from sliding a card beneath it. ”

“My initial thought was that it was my brother. Jackson. He’s usually not so subtle though—unless he’s toying with me.

He might want to provoke me into running so he can get me away from all of you.

” She frowned, thinking. “I suppose Nathan Fader could have done it. I don’t know why.

If he’s the one who told them where to find me, he wouldn’t want to give me a heads up.

At least I don’t think so. Unless Jackson told him to do it so I’d try to leave town. ”

“I have the info on Fader’s rental,” Seth said.

“The car’s GPS places him in Huntsville on the day of the break-in.

Redstone Gateway, to be precise. I’d like to get into those parking lot camera feeds,” he growled half to himself.

“But they changed the system after I broke in the last time. It’ll take time to break in again. ”

Daphne glanced at the men surrounding the table. Not one of them seemed surprised that Seth was breaking into random camera feeds. Then again, it probably had something to do with Callie since she worked in one of the buildings in the complex.

Not that Fader had anything to do with the crap that’d happened to Callie, or the man who’d held a gun to Nikki’s head and tried to steal classified information from Callie, but it had to bring up bad memories for him.

“So he didn’t break into the apartment,” Kane said. “Unless he left the car in Huntsville and found another way into town.”

“Possible,” Blaze said, “but he can’t know what we’re capable of. So why go to the trouble?”

“Because he’s a conspiracy theorist,” Seth said. “That’s my guess anyway. Those type of people are paranoid about everything.”

“True,” Blaze acknowledged. “It could be a fun game in a way. Cloak and dagger shit for the sake of his own self-importance. Though in this case, he’d be right that he was being watched.”

Kane sighed and shook his head. “Look, none of that matters. Doesn’t matter if he did it, if the tooth fairy did it, or if Daphne’s pyscho brother did it. Somebody knows who she is and they wanted her to know they’re watching her.”

Daphne had finished half her sandwich by now.

“Look, this is a lot to deal with. A lot to ask of you all. I know you want to protect me, but I can still leave. If you help me get out of town, I won’t be running scared.

I can do it smart and disappear where they won’t find me, and you can get back to your lives. ”

They looked at her with blank expressions. Kane reached over and squeezed her hand, let it go again.

“Told you before, that’s not how we operate.

You’re one of us, Daph. No man or woman left behind.

” He glanced at his friends. “We spent years in the military with that creed burned into our brains, not because they made us do it, but because that’s who we are at the core. We won’t leave you behind.”

She stared at six handsome, stern faces.

Kind faces as well, but determined. She’d never had that before.

Never had a group of people—or even one person—who would stand between her and the gates of hell.

Mrs. Donovan had loved her and tried her best to protect her, but she was one woman and there had only been so far she could go as an employee of John O’Malley.

She would have never risked her very existence for Daphne, and Daphne wouldn’t have wanted her to.

But these men, no matter how many outs she tried to give them, were willing to risk their lives for hers.

It was sobering. Humbling.

A tear spilled down her cheek and she swiped it away, but she knew they’d seen.

“I don’t deserve this,” she forced out of her tight throat.

“It’s not a matter of deserving,” Kane said. “It just is. You’re one of us. We fight for you.”

Daphne sniffed back the tears, wiped her eyes with her napkin so she wasn’t staring at a watery, blurry mass of humanity.

“We need you to fight for us, too,” Alex said, his voice soothing and commanding at the same time. “With your permission, I want Seth to download the information from your memory card and analyze it. And then, if it’s as explosive as you say, I want to bring Diana Corbin in.”

Daphne stiffened as fear rolled like a tsunami inside her.

“My father has spies in law enforcement. I don’t know if he has FBI agents on his payroll or not, but he has ways of making negative information about him disappear.

How do you know you can trust her? And even if you can, how can you be sure she has the clout to make sure this doesn’t go away and my father just carries on as usual?

Because if he gets away with this, he’ll come for all of us. We will never be safe.”