A View to a Thrill (Masters and Mercenaries Book 7) (22 page)

Jesse’s fists clenched at his sides. “How the hell could she know that? No one should be around me when I’m like that.”

This place looked vaguely familiar. Simon glanced around again, his brain finally starting to really function. “She was right. You came down when she talked to you. The minute you realized she was a female, you stood down. You could be high as a kite and you wouldn’t hurt a woman, Jesse. They killed that girl and left her for you to find. It was one more way to break you down.”

“Sometimes I wished they’d just killed me with the rest of my team,” Jesse muttered under his breath.

And there was his survivor guilt. It didn’t surprise Simon in the least. Had he gone through what Jesse had, he was certain he would think the same way. In the beginning, he’d thought Ian had paired him with Jesse because they were the two he didn’t trust. He’d come to realize the boss had paired him with Jesse because he was the most patient of the team. Li would tell him to shut up and drink it off like a man. Ian would have killed him a long time ago. Alex would talk him to death. Jesse needed to be needed, and Simon understood that.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. If you weren’t here, I’d be stuck with Li and I can’t stand that Irish bastard.” This place reminded him of somewhere. The wood paneling was reminiscent of the outer buildings at the Circle M.

“You really think I didn’t kill that girl?”

He didn’t think it. He was sure of it. “You can leave that off your list of sins and help me figure out how we’re going to get out of here. We need to figure out where they’ve taken Chelsea. I take it since we’re talking that you’ve checked the room for bugs.”

Jesse stood a bit taller. “No bugs. I checked. I tried to stay pretty still when they dumped us in here, but I’ve checked the room since then.”

“How bloody long was I out?” It unnerved him a bit that Jesse had shaken off the effects so much faster than he had. The floor under his feet was linoleum. A rusty color. Yes, that seemed familiar, too.

“Probably two hours.” Jesse moved quietly across the floor. “I woke up in the trunk of an Explorer. The men are military. No doubt in my mind. Special Forces and American. We were on the highway for a long time, and then we turned up a paved road and finally we hit dirt. It was about ten minutes from the paved road out to here. There’s one man on the door, and he’s supposed to call HQ when we wake up. And there are a lot of cows. When the winds blow the wrong way, it smells terrible. Why would they take us someplace where there are so many cows?”

Simon sighed. Well, there was a reason the place seemed familiar. He was going to kill Michael. Or perhaps relegate him to a long list of people he could no longer trust. Everything fell into place. The linoleum under his feet didn’t just remind him of the flooring in the outer buildings. It was the flooring in the outer buildings. His uncle had always been practical when it came to the small buildings the hands could stay in if they had to work overnight. “We’re on a ranch. The Circle M to be precise.”

“Why would they take us here?”

“Because they’re using this ranch as their meet spot. I suspect this entire operation is being billed as a boys’ weekend. They likely told my uncle they’re out here for some R&R. It’s isolated and easy to control the incoming and outgoing flow of information.” There would be no handy Wi-Fi signals for Chelsea to piggyback. There was one and he was certain that Ten would control it.

The question was how much had Michael warned his friends about? Simon had spent his holidays on this ranch. There were a total of five small dorms like this across the vast ranch. He and his cousins would migrate around all summer long finding trouble wherever they could. Which one was this?

Ten minutes off the paved road that led to the main house. The shack. That’s what they called this place. It was the first of the shelters. It was also the one he’d played in the most as a child. “Are we locked in?”

Jesse nodded. “Oddly enough, I don’t think so. There isn’t a lock on the door and I didn’t hear anything click. I think they’re just watching and waiting for us to wake up. There’s a guy sitting outside and one other who’s checked on him twice already. I heard them talking. They said something about the big house and the boss being there for the time being. Who do you think has us? I didn’t think The Collective was this well organized. These are well-trained operatives.”

The big house. Yes, he knew that place well, too. Simon hoped like hell that some things never changed. There was a small lockbox under the cot he’d been lying on. Still there. He gently pulled it out. One didn’t spend the night on the range without protection. “It’s not The Collective. It’s the Agency.”

The box was slightly rusty, but then David Malone tended to use a thing until it completely wore out. He’d told Simon once that being a chintzy miser was how he managed to stay a billionaire.

With careful hands, he dragged the dials into place. David Malone also never changed his codes. Simon could have easily broken the box, but that would make too much noise and he was a deep believer in finesse over raw power.

“Why does the CIA want us? Shit. You think they’re here for me? I’ll talk to them. I’ll cooperate and get them to let you and Chelsea go. How did you know that was under there?”

Simon rotated the wheels until he’d placed his aunt’s birthday. He clicked the button and sure enough, the top came open and he had what he’d wanted all along. A shiny pistol and extra bullets sat in the box. Despite the fact that they were only twenty miles outside of Fort Worth, the Circle M was often plagued with what his uncle called “critters.” Unfortunately, he’d lied to Chelsea. There was certainly a lot of nature out here. Luckily, he didn’t intend to stay.

“The Agency doesn’t want us. They want Chelsea. This is Ten’s play to bring her in. He waited until she was vulnerable and now he’s going to pounce. I knew this gun was here because I grew up here.”

Jesse frowned. “I thought you grew up in England. Is this one of those weird cities that names itself after a country? Like England, Texas? Because that’s confusing and you really shouldn’t have an accent.”

There were days when Li sounded like a better bet, but Jesse was always amusing. “I assure you, I’m as English as they come, but I did spend an enormous amount of time here, which Ten is about to discover.”

He made sure the gun was loaded. He wasn’t playing around. He was going to get his girl and Ten could fuck himself. He would deal with his cousins later, but this felt like a betrayal of the worst kind. They’d dumped his bloody body in a line shack. Yes, that felt like family to him.

“Someone’s coming.” Jesse nodded toward the door. Simon couldn’t hear anything for a moment but then the sound of thudding boots reached his ears.

“Take the right side,” Simon instructed in a near silent voice.

Jesse moved to the right side of the door. He found an umbrella sticking out of a container and gripped it like a baseball bat.

“Don’t kill anyone,” Simon breathed.

Jesse shrugged as though to say he would try, but he was making no promises.

“Hey, is he awake yet?” a familiar voice asked.

Michael. Perfect.

“Nah, they’ve got at least another twenty minutes. That was a pretty hefty dose Tag hit him with,” another voice said. They were easy to hear. They weren’t whispering and standing right next to the door, Simon could make out everything they were saying.

“Yeah, I’m going to take that up with him. He promised me no one would get hurt,” Michael complained. “That’s my cousin. Do you have any idea what my brother will do to me when he finds out I was involved in shooting our cousin up with horse tranquilizers?”

It was absolutely nothing compared to what he was about to do to Michael. This wasn’t a childish prank. Michael had placed his operation in danger. He’d placed Chelsea in danger.

“Your brother seems like a nice guy,” the other voice replied. “I think he would understand. This is about national security. Hey, if he needs an explanation, let Ten give it to him. I swear that man likes to hear himself talk. And I never realized how much he looks like that actor dude. Do you think he plays nude bongos, too?”

Michael groaned. “Don’t mention that to him. It pisses him off. And we’ve got to convince Simon to go along with this. Look, I’ll take over. When he wakes, I’ll talk to him. We grew up together. He’ll listen to reason. If I can convince him our intentions were good, I can get him on our side. You go back to the main house. We’re supposed to be setting up for a barbecue, remember? If my mom finds out I’m using the ranch as a base of operations, she’ll kill me. She only looks sweet. She can make my life hell, Boomer.”

There was the sound of masculine laughter. “I love this fucking assignment. It’s so much better than Afghanistan. The spy shit is way more fun. I’ll save a beer for you, Malone.”

Simon held a hand up to let Jesse know to wait. He preferred his odds against Michael alone. After all, he really only needed one hostage.

He heard his cousin take a long breath. “Damn it. Okay. Hey, Si, good to see you. Sorry about my buddies taking you out but your girl is in some trouble and we can help. Yeah, he’s going to buy that.”

Nope. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t buy a word his cousin said and it was deeply interesting to know he still talked to himself. It was something he’d done when they were children, a habit that had always been endearing. But Simon couldn’t let that little quirk have an effect on him now. Michael was SEAL trained and Simon was still a little rattled. He was moving more slowly because of the drugs in his system, but luckily he had the element of surprise on his side. And he had Jesse, who was brilliant in a fight if he didn’t go crazy.

Simon put his hand on the door. He’d only have a second or two. He took one breath and then two, trying to give the other man time to leave.

Jesse nodded. “He’s gone.”

Two seconds later, Simon heard an engine and some vehicle drive away. He stared at Jesse, wondering if he wasn’t bionic in some fashion. Jesse just smiled. Apparently his good hearing was simply biological. And his ridiculously quick reflexes were likely the same—and Simon was going to use them both to his best advantage.

He held his fingers up, counting down from three to one. When he got to one, he tossed open the door and leveled the pistol straight at his very surprised cousin’s head.

“Drop the gun.” Michael had a SIG in a shoulder holster.

“Damn it.” But he reached out and let the gun drop to the ground. “Happy?”

“Not in the slightest. Don’t move an inch.”

Michael sighed. “Si, come on. Listen to me.”

“That time was done when your friend put a dart in my chest. I want to know what’s going on and I want to know now.”

Michael’s jaw firmed, a sure sign he was getting stubborn. He never liked being put in a corner. “You don’t know everything and you’re not the only one with a goddamn mission, cos.”

“My mission would never have included making you look like a fool,” Simon replied. “Though I suppose it does now.”

Where had Jesse gotten to? Jesse wasn’t behind Simon and that had rather been the point.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me?”

“If I have to. After all, you shot me.”

“That was Tag.”

“Yes, I’ll be asking about him.”

“It’s a coincidence,” Michael replied. “My Tag’s never even heard of your Tag. It’s not an uncommon name.”

“I seriously doubt that.” He might think it was a coincidence, but not if Ten was involved in the game. If Ten was involved then he knew everything. “It doesn’t matter. Where is he holding her?”

“This is about the girl, isn’t it? Look, man, she’s in trouble.”

“I believe I know that.”

“Serious trouble, Si. People are trying to kill her. I know you have a thing for her. Ten isn’t going to hurt her. He wants to help. It’s why I was okay being a part of this. We’re not trying to hurt her. We’re protecting her.”

Yes, he was certain Tennessee Smith was doing this out of the kindness of his heart. The bastard would use every trick in the book to recruit her. Ten would play Mephistopheles to her very sweet and hot Faust. Simon wouldn’t allow it. She’d signed a bloody contract and he meant to see it through. “Michael, tell me where he’s holding her or I’ll take your left foot out.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Simon aimed and fired at a place about ten centimeters from Michael’s boot.

“Fuck!” Michael yelled, but managed to hold his position. “You are a crazy motherfucker.”

“I want to know where Chelsea Dennis is.”

Michael’s eyes hardened. “She’s with the boss up at the big house. You going to shoot me now? You better be quick because I’m not alone, little cousin.”

“Are you talking about this dude?” Jesse said as he walked around the shack, hauling a large man dressed in black. He’d grabbed his quarry by the back of his shirt and hauled him through the dirt. “I heard him sneaking around the back. He must have been watching the perimeter. It took me a second to get out the window. I was afraid I was going to get stuck for a minute and that would have been embarrassing. Sorry. No idea how I missed him the first time.”

Nope. He wouldn’t trade Jesse for anyone. “Excellent job. Now leave him and let’s go and find my girl and get out of here. I’m afraid I don’t feel very welcome anymore. Get the SIG, please.”

Jesse picked up the gun Michael had dropped and exchanged it for the one in Simon’s hand. He felt better with the familiar weapon. He started moving toward the main house.

He’d read somewhere that no one could really go home again. It just hurt to have that phrase be proven correct.

* * * *

The smell of barbecue made her stomach rumble. Someone really knew how to roast a piece of cattle. And she hadn’t had anything to eat all day. “You think I could get a sandwich or is this part of my torture?”

Ten’s brow rose up in that sort of sexy way of his. “Now, girl, there’s no torture here. Just a really well-smoked brisket that should be served any minute now. Look, there’s the waitstaff with appetizers. Like I said, you gotta love a Texas oilman. Tell me something, do you like the clothes? My men aren’t particularly good at fashion, but I hear Deke’s got five sisters so I gave the job to him. I will say that to my eyes, you’re looking mighty fine, Miss Chelsea.”