Page 68 of Tangled

Her clothes certainly weren’t the black mercenary fatigues that the other guys on Delta Team were wearing, but they’d given her a webbing harness that buckled around her body.

Eian Summerhays, her personal mercenary, had fussed over making sure the straps over her shoulders and around her waist were latched securely and cinched down snugly. He’d watched closely, bracing himself on his knees to inspect how tightly she’d yanked the harness, and he’d instructed while she tightened the ones around her thighs.

Weird.

Delta Team was hiding among the enormous burnt ochre boulders at the base of the resort, directly below the balcony of the presidential suite. The floodlights illuminating the sleek, modern hotel built into the side of the mountain reflected a dark twilight where they were hiding in the shadows.

Colleen was lying among the rocks, cacti, and presumably rattlesnakes, spiders, and scorpions.

A trace of chlorinated water wafted on the dry breeze. Fifty yards away, hotel guests drank fruity drinks while relaxing around the pool in the ninety-five-degree heat. Mariachi music played from the speakers while kids splashed, despite that it was after midnight, while their parents slowly got drunk.

Around her, five men lay prone, stuck flat to the desert floor. Because Colleen didn’t have a walkie-talkie or whatever they were using, Eian Summerhays whispered what was happening to her. “They got the go signal. Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie teams are going in. The operation has begun.”

“When are we going to know if she’s okay?”

“Soon.”

The air cracked like a gun thundering beside her ear.

A crash and clatter of smashed glass blasted above them.

Colleen’s arms flew around her head and face, but nothing rained down on them.

Over by the pool, hotel guests screamed and ran.

Eian said, “They’re in.”

“Jesus,are theyshooting?”she asked him.

“Flashbang grenades. Nonlethal weapon. Like a thousand flashbulbs going off in your face all at once and a sonic boom right by your head.”

Ten long seconds later—ten seconds that lasted an hour in Colleen’s mind as she pictured Anjali terrified or Sergey holding a gun to her head while the Rogue Security mercenaries broke in— ropes dropped from the balcony of the presidential suite at The Boulders Resort and dangled, twisting in the dim light.

Eian leaped to standing. “Let’s go.”

The rope stretched five stories up to the hotel balcony. “I don’t think I can climb that.”

“No worries.” Eian grabbed Colleen around her waist and pulled her against his chest.

“Dude! I have a boyfriend!”

While that was her usual retort when a guy got too handsy in a bar, never mind the societal implications that she had to be some other man’s property for a guy not to molest her, it rang differently in her mind when she said it that time.

Did she?

Did Colleen have a boyfriend?

Tristan was definitelysomething. They’d definitelysomethingeda whole heck of a lot since they’d met eight days before. They’d somethinged more than she’d eversomethingedbefore in her life.

With better results, too.

And then Tristan had called himselfthe man who loved her,but they’d both agreed that it was just an excellent comeback when her father was being a jerk.

But Tristan wrapped himself around her at night like a protective cocoon, and he’d written the Anonymity Plus program just for her, and he’d bought her a cup of coffee exactly the way she liked it every morning.

As Eian Summerhays crushed Colleen against his chest, she said, “I mean, I think he’s my boyfriend.”

Eian held her around the waist and shoved his hand between them. Two crisp clicks tugged at her harness near her belly button and sternum, and Eian waltzed her backward so that a rope swung right beside her shoulder.