Page 10

CHAPTER 9

“I’m fine.”

Slade’s infuriated gaze remained locked on the frowning woman sitting up on the gurney. Rage and fear still ran strong through the hard thumping of his heart, leaving his hands in white-knuckled fists at his sides.

“You’re not fine,” he growled.

Yes, he fucking growled . And no, he didn’t care.

Someone had placed an incendiary device on his car with the hopes that he and Shadow would be inside it when it blew. They’d come close to succeeding. Too damn close.

And if he’d pressed the button on his key fob a few seconds later…

We’d both be dead.

Slade had come to grips with the idea of death years ago. He wasn’t afraid to die and some days even welcomed the idea. No, the murderous inferno raging inside had nothing to do with his own mortality and everything to do with the woman he was supposed to protect.

“I have a headache and some bruises,” Shadow argued as she moved her head to the side in an effort to avoid the nurse’s hands.

“You have a concussion and a cut on your scalp that this nurse is trying to butterfly shut.” Taking a step closer, he put his hands on his hips and shot her a pointed stare.

“Just slap a band aid on it and call it good.” She scowled. “I need to see my dad.”

“Owens is fine,” Digger assured her. “I told you earlier, I spoke to him on the phone while you were off getting your CT.”

“Yeah, well I was sure that was Ashley who called me earlier, too. Look how that turned out.”

“That’s why I used FaceTime when I called,” he countered.

“All done.” The kind nurse smiled as she finished placing the small, white strips over the cut near her patient’s bloodied hairline.

“So that’s it?” Shadow shot the other woman a hopeful glance. “I can leave?”

“I’ll go get your discharge papers from the doctor now.”

She wasn’t gone two seconds before the stubborn blonde swung her legs off the portable bed. But when Shadow stood a little too quickly, she started to sway.

A deep curse flew out from under Slade’s breath as he shoved his way past Bones on his way over to her side. With his hands on her shoulders, he kept her steady as she held onto the lowered bedrail and closed her eyes.

“Easy, dammit.” He admonished her for not waiting until someone could help. “You need to slow the hell down and take a breath before you wind up hurting yourself more than you already are.”

With her head still down and her eyes remaining closed, Shadow grimaced as she kept a tight grip on the plastic railing. “Good thing you don’t have to worry about patient satisfactory scores, because your bedside manner really sucks.”

Bones snorted with a chuckle from a few feet back. “And this surprises you how exactly?”

“Oh, I’m not surprised.” The stubborn woman peeled her lids open and glanced his way. “Just pointing out the obvious.”

“Damn, brother. She’s got you pegged.” Then to Shadow, Bones said, “Honestly, I’m shocked you haven’t killed him by now after being locked away with him in that cabin for the last few days.”

Slade’s jaw muscles flexed with the clenching of his teeth. If he wasn’t so damn happy Bones and Falcon came away from the blast with little more than a few scratches, he’d be tempted to shoot the comedic medic, himself.

“You’re right.” He ignored his teammate’s comments, focusing solely on Shadow. “I don’t give a shit about satisfaction scores, and I don’t care if my tone offends you. It’s my job to protect you, and that’s what I’m trying to do. But you?—”

“What? Almost ruined your perfect record?” she seethed, the blues of her eyes darkening with anger and some other emotion he couldn’t quite decipher.

“My what?”

“You know…the record .”

Slade blinked when she failed to offer anything more. “You keep saying that as if I know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“She’s talking about the fact that, to date, no one on Tac-Ops has ever lost a client we’ve been hired to protect.” Bones took it upon himself to explain. To Shadow, the other man added, “But technically, you didn’t hire us either, so…I’m thinking this may not actually count toward the record.”

That’s what she thought he was upset about?

Slade grew silent, letting his arms drop down to his sides as he took a step back to give her some room. “We should go.” His tone sounded flatter than normal, even to his own ears. “If you’re still hell bent on leaving, we need to get you to the office. You can see your dad, and then I’ll take you someplace safe.”

“Do you know where?”

“Not yet, but we have to assume the cabin’s been burned, and your father agrees. He already has a clean-up crew headed out there to grab our things and erase any evidence we were ever there.”

A look of sadness flashed before she blinked it away. As for Slade, he was fine never going back. He’d never admit it, of course, but every time he’d step foot in the cabin’s entrance or inadvertently caught a glimpse of her bed through her room’s opened door, he’d remember.

The kissing. The touching. That brief moment in time when he’d lost himself in her arms.

It was both Heaven and Hell being there with her and not giving in to his deepest desires. So while he hated the reason, Slade couldn’t help but think a change of scenery would do them both some good.

With any luck, it would help remind him that this was nothing more than another job. That Shadow was no different than any other woman he and his teammates had been assigned to protect in the past.

Yeah, you tell yourself that bullshit enough times, Garrison, and you might actually start to believe it.

Probably not, but you couldn’t blame a guy for trying.

The nurse from before returned with discharge papers in hand, and a few short minutes later, they were walking out the door.

“Owens sent over another car, since yours and the one we were driving both got destroyed in the blast,” Falcon informed the group as a whole. “There should also be a couple of uniformed officers waiting to escort us to the office, just in case.”

Sure enough, as they stepped outside, Slade saw one of Tac-Ops’ blacked-out SUV’s ready and waiting. Just as Falcon had claimed, there was also a marked Charlotte PD cruiser parked in front, as well as another one waiting to follow their replacement SUV from behind.

“It never ceases to amaze me how much pull my father actually has,” Shadow muttered as a man Slade recognized as one of Owens’ trusted drivers opened the back passenger door.

The guy stood silently off to the side and waited as she carefully climbed inside.

Slade followed suit, sliding himself onto the bench seat next to where she sat. Falcon took the front while Bones went around to the other side. With Shadow sandwiched between him and Bones, Slade gave their driver a nod, letting him know they were ready to roll.

They rode back to the office in silence, Slade and the others each lost in their own thoughts. Though he tried like hell not to let himself go there, his mind kept replaying the terrifying scene over and over again in his head.

Like Shadow, he’d been pissed as hell for having fallen for what they now knew was a trap meant to end both their lives. Then he’d pushed that damn button, sending them all flying in different directions.

He could still see her lying in the grass, bleeding and far too still. Slade had gone crazy, then, nearly falling back down to his ass as he’d scrambled his way over to her. He’d never felt such an overwhelming sense of relief as he had when she’d opened those gorgeous blue eyes.

I could have killed her.

A few more seconds, and that’s exactly what would have happened. And that knowledge—and the images that came with it—was something that would haunt him for the rest of his days.

“Hey, Dig.” Bones’ voice cut through his torturous thoughts, pulling him back into the present. “We’re here.”

Slade blinked and looked out his window to find they were already stopped inside their building’s secured garage. The underground space was kept safe by an armed guard posted by its gate, and the elevator a few yards from where they sat would take them straight up to the building’s top floor.

Once there, the four of them walked the few feet down the hallway to the official Tac-Ops office. A distraught looking Ashley was at the door, waiting when they arrived.

“I am so sorry, Shadow,” the young woman apologized the second they made their way inside. “I don’t know how someone managed to not only clone the office number but also mask their voice so it sounded exactly like mine.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shadow offered, sounding sincere in both her words and tone. “With technology what it is today, all it takes is the knowledge and the right equipment. And sometimes, a little luck. But yeah…generative AI is getting more and more accurate by the day. It’s terrifying, actually.”

“Tell me about it.” Ashley’s round eyes grew with a nod. “I still don’t understand how they even got your private number, let alone my voice.”

“The person we’re dealing with is former deep-work CIA,” Bones told her. “There’s not a lot those guys can’t do.”

“He’s right.” Owens appeared from the hallway that led to their individual offices and the Tac-Ops conference room. “If this was Stanton, and it’s looking more and more like it is, then for him, pulling off something like this would be like child’s play.”

Shadow didn’t say a word on her way to Owens. And when she got to her father, she moved seamlessly into the man’s muscular arms.

“I was so worried about you.” She spoke softly, clearly not caring that she had an audience of four.

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” The seasoned operative closed his eyes and kissed the top of her head. “I was halfway to the parking garage before Digger finally convinced me to remain here, rather than racing over to the hospital where you were.”

Pulling free from her father’s embrace, Shadow gave Slade a quick glance before turning back with a slight nod. “We didn’t want to risk the same thing happening to you.”

“Speaking of which…” Falcon took a step forward, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “We need to check over every vehicle in that garage.” His eyes locked onto their boss. “Starting with yours.”

“Already done,” Owens informed them. “While you were finishing up at the hospital, I had the entire place checked. No signs of explosives or trackers were found.”

“Well, that’s good, at least,” Bones mumbled low before asking their boss, “So what now?”

“Now, we go over everything we know up to this point, and then we make a new plan. Apollo is already waiting for us in the conference room.”

Slade and the others dipped their chins in agreement with their boss’s agenda. Minutes later, they were sitting around the large conference room table, recounting the events leading up to the bombing.

“My contact within the CIA has confirmed what we already suspected to be true,” Owens began. “My late wife, Shadow’s mother, did wet work for the CIA.”

“She was a government assassin,” Shadow clarified with a shrug. “Might as well call it like it is.”

“Very well.” Owens conceded to his daughter’s request. “Amanda was a government assassin, as was her partner, Michael Stanton. At the time of her death, my wife and Stanton were working under the guise of being attorneys who worked together at a law firm in Columbus. While they were both legitimately licensed to practice law in the state of Ohio, their primary job was to take out targets the agency deemed as national, and sometimes global, threats.”

“Why would Stanton want to kill his partner?” Apollo asked from his usual seat across the table from Slade.

“That’s a very good question.” Their boss sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s information I have yet to uncover.”

“What does your contact think?” Shadow asked. “Has he said whether the hit on Mom was sanctioned?”

“He’s still looking into it. So far, he’s found no evidence tying your mother’s death to anything official.”

“Yeah, but off-the-books jobs happen every day,” Falcon countered. “Just because there isn’t a record of an official order being given doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“I agree.” Owens nodded. “Which is why my man on the inside is still digging.”

“What if it wasn’t an ordered hit?” Shadow pondered aloud. “What if Mom did some digging on her own, and what she uncovered got her killed?”

“You think she had something on Stanton?” Slade asked.

Her blue eyes turned his way. “It’s the only alternative that makes any sense.”

“He’s dirty, she finds out, maybe threatens to expose him…” Apollo nodded. “Definitely plausible. It would also explain why he’s so concerned about Shadow ousting him as her mother’s killer.”

“Apollo makes a good point,” Owens addressed the group as a whole. “Redacted or not, if the hit was sanctioned, there would be some sort of paper trail linking Stanton’s unit to the job.”

“One lone gunman blasting a motel room with bullets from across a parking lot doesn’t exactly scream spy job to me,” Digger agreed before turning to Shadow. “But didn’t you say Stanton has a rock-solid alibi for the night of your mother’s murder?”

The slight snorting sound coming from the mildly concussed woman eased some of the tension still holding his muscles hostage.

“The guy’s wife told police he was home all night with her and their son. They had dinner together as a family, and after their son fell asleep, they stayed up half the night watching movies from their couch. Security footage doesn’t show anyone going in or out of the residence, but you and I both know technology can be manipulated to fit whatever narrative a person wants to spin.”

“Okay, so going back to the working theory that Stanton was a dirty agent…” Bones straightened his spine. “If your wife somehow did find out whatever the guy was up to, killing her makes total sense.”

Piggybacking off of that, Falcon added, “It also explains why the guy wouldn’t want his time with the Agency exposed to the public. He’s already spent millions of his own money trying to smooth-talk his way into the Oval Office.”

“Nothing brings out the worst in people like a threat to their money and freedom,” Shadow glanced around the room. Clarity filled her gorgeous, tormented gaze when she turned her focus back onto Slade. “We need to go on the offensive. If we can find out what my mom had on Stanton, we can use it to take him down once and for all.”

“That sound’s all well and good…” Apollo rejoined the conversation. “But how do we do that when the prick’s history with the CIA has been completely erased?”

“We don’t need the CIA’s records. We just need to find the person who tried blowing us up. And that starts with me checking out the feed from the hospital’s security cameras.”

“You think whoever put the explosives on Dig’s car was careless enough to get caught on camera?” Bones asked next.

Shadow merely shrugged, looking and sounding more and more like her old self with each second that passed.

“It’s worth a shot,” she told their team’s medic. “I mean, they were stupid enough to try to blow us up in broad daylight surrounded by witnesses, right? And as my father so astutely pointed out, whoever turned my motel room into Swiss cheese didn’t do so with the usual stealth of a government hitman.”

Not waiting for a response, she carefully pushed herself to her feet.

A renewed sense of rage toward the person who’d tried to kill her began to swirl around in Slade’s gut, but then he saw the strength and determination present in her fiery gaze. He couldn’t deny the sense of pride he felt knowing the two recent attempts on her life hadn’t broken her in the least.

If anything, the incredible woman seemed even more resolved in her pursuit of justice. And despite the fear that Stanton wouldn’t stop in his efforts to silence her forever, Shadow’s unwillingness to give up made him like her even more.

Easy, Garrison. You keep going down that path, you could end up doing a whole lot more than just liking her. If you’re not careful, you just might find yourself falling in ? —

“We can do that from the safe house.” Slade cleared his throat and rose quickly to his feet, doing his damnedest to ignore the thought trying to drive itself into his head.

Her confused stare found him once again. “I thought you said we weren’t going back to the cabin.”

“You aren’t,” Owens answered for him. “I had your things taken to a different location. One here in the city.” The gray-haired man turned to his daughter, who was still standing beside her pushed-in chair. “I decided it was best to keep you closer. And now that we know he isn’t above using our relationship to his favor, you will remain in the new safe house until he’s either behind bars or dead.”

“That could take months, if it ever happens at all,” the man’s daughter argued. “I’m not going to let this guy dictate how I live my life.”

“And I’m not going to let him take your life.” Emotion poured into Owens’ concerned gaze. “I already lost your mother to this son of a bitch. I’m not about to lose you, too.”

The room grew quiet as Shadow worked her throat with an audible swallow. “What about you?” she asked her father quietly. “Stanton may not have come after you this time, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.”

“The guys and I can stay with you, Boss,” Falcon offered. “Just in case.”

“Party at the boss’s house.” Bones grinned with a playful nod. “What could go wrong?”

In response to this, Owens countered with a serious, “Two of you can stay with me at the plantation, but I want one of you to watch over Ashley, as well. Stanton pulled her into this the second he used the likeness of her voice to trick Shadow into coming out of hiding. There’s no reason to think the bastard isn’t above actually going after Ashley.”

“Good idea.” Shadow nodded. “Oh, and Dig said you had our things brought here from the cabin?”

“Not here,” her father clarified. “It’s already at the new safe house.”

The tempting blonde turned Slade’s way next. “I say we get to wherever it is we’re going. Sooner we get there, the sooner I can get to work on the footage from the hospital.”

Just like that, she was back to being mission ready. As for Slade, he began to wonder if perhaps, deep down, he was a closeted masochist. Because a part of him—a big part, if he were being completely honest—was suddenly looking forward to it being just the two of them again.