Page 27

Chapter

Twenty-Five

GRACE

T he sun wasn’t even a promise on the horizon when Bones woke me with a gentle hand to my cheek and a cup of coffee in his free hand.

Despite releasing a groaning yawn, I wasn’t remotely upset by the wake-up call.

I’d slept like the dead and my body still hummed from the multiple orgasms he’d pulled out of me.

I’d finished most of that first cup of coffee by the time I got dressed and braided my hair back.

The unrelieved black made me seem a little too pale, and added hollows to my cheeks.

This wasn’t for a shoot though, so I didn’t have to worry about reducing the glare or the shine.

It helped that the collar hid the presence of the fresh hickey that Bones had left on my neck.

Tingles raced through me when my gaze lingered on it. Still, probably not the time to get turned on. I’d just tied my boots and studied the bulletproof vest he’d put on the table for me when Bones slipped back in.

“Put that on last,” he said, scooping it up.

Like me, he was also dressed in all black.

He looked like some dark angel come to life.

“Breakfast is ready and we need to brief.” Downstairs, the kitchen doubled as a war room.

The table had laptops open, maps spread, weapons lay spread out, where Voodoo was going over each one.

The scent of black coffee was so strong, I could take hits off of it.

Lunchbox handed me another big mug of coffee and a pocket pastry with eggs and sausage inside of it. It was like a hot pocket but home made. “Pay the toll,” he teased and I pushed up on my toes to meet his kiss.

Alphabet patted the chair next to him and I slid onto it and got another kiss from him as Voodoo grinned at me from across the table. Goblin let out a yawn from beneath the table and then set his head on one of my feet. It didn’t take him long to start snoring all over again.

I was with him on that. I didn’t even want to know what time it was, but since it was hardly my first early call, I didn’t complain. The only difference was I might be doing some of the shooting on this one and it had nothing to do with pictures.

Putting a pin in my own internal joke, I focused on Bones who took position front and center.

“We strike the compound from the east entrance.

Alpha team, made up of Lunchbox and Voodoo, hits the control room. Bravo team is Grace and me. We’ll move through the VIP hall, clear room by room. Alphabet runs overwatch and external feeds. Goblin stays with the vehicle.”

Surprise flared through me. I half-expected to be the one in the vehicle or in the vehicle with Alphabet.

I studied the floor plan of Reznik’s estate.

It looked like it had been designed for opulence but resorted to ugly.

Squared off corners, a bad mix of architecture, what looked more like a Norman fortress than anything gothic, and overloaded with cameras just stripped it of any kind of soul.

“Entry’s quiet,” Bones continued. “We go in masked, we get out clean. No collateral. Priority is the drives in the vault. Secondary is confirmation of the buyer list. According to the decryption, he’s their security specialist.” Something cruel moved through his smile.

“He keeps all the records including their background checks and likely blackmail material.”

It was hard to work up any sympathy for people being blackmailed over their propensity to buy other people. Boo. Hoo.

“If Reznik’s on-site,” Bones stated. “He’s mine.”

No one challenged that. Frankly, they all had the right to tear him apart.

“We extract in two teams as soon as we’re done. North stairwell for Alpha, west service for Bravo. Fourteen minutes, in and out.”

It sounded so clear, so straightforward. We’d get in, get it done, and get out. My pulse thudded a little too fast and heat seemed to burn beneath the chill as I stared at the floor plan.

“You good for this?”

I glanced up to find Bones assessing me. A flicker of the night before seemed to be present in his eyes, but it vanished before I could focus on it.

Straightening, I held his stare and lifted my coffee mug in quiet salute. “You made me a part of the plan, Captain. I’ll handle it.”

At my use of his rank, the hint of a smile kissed his lips again. I wanted to make him truly smile, unguarded and without any need to shield me or anyone else from what might make him really happy.

For now, though, I had to settle for his nod. “Fair.”

Lunchbox grunted as he slapped a magazine into one of the guns Voodoo had been going over. “Fourteen minutes,” he muttered the complaint. “That’s not even enough time for me to get dramatic.”

“That’s why we love you,” Alphabet said dryly. “Short fuse, high yield.”

Another smile tried to escape out of the locked barricade of Bones’ expression but he just shook his head. Voodoo shot me a wink. The guys were winding themselves up. Goblin huffed from under the table. I bent and scratched behind his ear—gentle, a grounding motion.

As I straightened, Alphabet leaned in close even as the other guys were already moving to load the equipment in the vehicles.

“You need anything?” His eyes were warm. Steady.

“Just you in my ear when it counts.”

“Always.”

“What about you, AB? Do you need anything?”

“For all of you to come back in one piece.” He held my gaze for a long beat then nodded once.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Don’t make me come in there after you…”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, recognizing the invitation to play in his blue eyes. “Bones might get upset with us.”

Alphabet smirked. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Bones was back before Alphabet finished closing his laptop. He lifted the tactical vest and held it up for me. At my nod, he slipped it over my head then secured the velcro straps. When he finished, he dropped to one knee then slid a holster around my hips, buckled it before he tied it to my thigh.

He added another one to the opposite thigh, though one got a gun and the other a knife. When he stood, he checked the fit of the vest then added a secondary holster to the first belt and that had my taser in it.

Another pat down, then he flipped open a case and held out the comm unit. “This goes in your ear. It will lock over the shell and tucks right into the canal. It will hold in place even if you have tiny ears—which you do, since you have a tiny everything.”

I wrinkled my nose, but took the comm unit. Our fingers brushed, but he didn’t pull back. Instead, he watched me set it in place, then brushed my fingers aside to check the fit himself. The contact just threw me back to when it was his teeth and not his fingers.

“If things go sideways…” he began, dropping his hands to rest on my shoulders.

“We adapt,” I finished. “Wing it, but—I follow your lead. Follow your orders. No questions, just move when you say move.”

“You’ve never done this.” Who was he reminding? Me? Him?

“That’s why I’m with you,” I said.

“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “You stay with me, too. Like we’re sharing one skin. Got it?”

I saluted. “Got it.”

His eyes gentled, the crinkles at the corners deepening. “You really like giving me shit.”

“Just a perk. I promise.” But he’d almost smiled and that was worth it.

“Let’s go.” He jerked his head toward the door and I followed him out.

Everyone was at the pair of SUVs and they loaded up in silence. The kind that wasn’t awkward—just full. Bones and I took one vehicle. The guys were in the other with Goblin.

Not a word was exchanged as they finished. But the looks I exchanged with each of them before I climbed into the second SUV felt like everything.

The darkness seemed almost thick with few if any lights on the roads as we headed for Reznik’s compound. If I hadn’t looked at the map, I wouldn’t even know what direction we were headed. Clouds obscured the skies leaving no stars or even moon to navigate by.

“Bravo team,” Alphabet said via the comms, his voice the first I’d heard since we left the safe house an hour earlier. “You’re clear to separate. Twenty minutes to target. You have thirty to get into position.”

“Copy,” Bones answered, his voice clear as steel. We took a right off the road we were on as the SUV the guys were in continued ahead. We were following a different path that would take us around to the other side of the compound.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. If this were a movie, we’d see some kind of weird montage scene in slow motion while Time in a Bottle played or something. A nervous giggle tried to escape, but I managed to swallow it down.

The wild pound of my pulse threatened to make me hyperventilate. Bones set his hand on my thigh, and he began to tap two fingers in a slow, rhythmic pattern. “Tell me five things about where we are.”

“What?” I cut a look toward Bones.

“Five things about where we are right now. Go.” He punctuated the order with a squeeze to my leg.

“We’re in SUV, in France, ninety minutes away from Lyon, on a road, in the dark, and we’re together.” That was six things and with each item I listed, I had to suck in a gasp of air.

“Now four things you hear.”

What? I frowned. Why did he—“The SUV engine, you talking, um…” What else did I hear? “Me mouth breathing way too loud.” That almost made me smile. “The road? I think I hear the tires on the road.”

“Good.” He patted my leg. “Three things you feel.”

My breath wasn’t coming in such hard pants now, but I stared at him. “Your hand on my leg. My heart was beating a little too fast, it was a lot too fast but it’s better now.” A third thing that I felt? “The air is kind of chilly in here. Or maybe I’m just a little too warm.”

His smile flashed in the dark. It was there and gone again too fast. “Two things you smell.”

“If you fart, I will hurt you.” The words just fell out of me and he laughed. A real laugh came up from his belly. “But fine, I smell you. Your soap I think. It smells like the soap from the safe house. It’s very clean, and neutral. And leather. I smell leather.” Maybe that was the belts?

He pulled the SUV in and stopped. Killing the headlights, he shifted in the seat and it wasn’t hard to imagine him looking at me. “Better?”

It took me another moment to just process the question and how my heart had slowed from a gallop and my breathing deepened. “Yes.” I exhaled slowly. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He touched a hand to his ear. “Bravo team in place.”

We were? I glanced out the window. The ugly ass compound rose in the distance, but only visible through the faint light creeping up from the fog.

“Bravo,” Alphabet acknowledged with a crackle of the comms. “You’re green.”

“Mask on,” Bones ordered, pressing a knit mask into my hand, before he opened the driver’s side door. No interior lights came on. I opened the passenger side door to follow him out.

I tugged it over my head once I was outside. It had two small cutouts for my eyes and one for my mouth. The one over my mouth was even smaller than my eyes, but it let me breathe.

The longer we stood in the dark, the more my eyes adjusted.

“Alpha team,” Alphabet said. “You’re a go.”

“Copy,” Voodoo said, the soft acknowledgement all to let us know they were on the move.

“Bravo, start the count,” Alphabet said. “Going dark.”

The count.

“Thirty seconds,” Bones said in a low voice before he clasped my right hand in his left. “Stay with me.”