Elite Metal-ARE-epub (102 page)

“I know.” She kissed his jaw. “I’ve seen your records.”

“Still,” he said with a bit of a frown. “We should have had
that
talk before falling into bed.”

“Should we have had that talk before or after we stole the money laundering records of a terrorist organization or maybe before you were shot in the neck with a tranquilizer dart?”

“That shit still hurts.” He touched his neck. “I ought to punch the bastard who popped me.”

“It was one of the ghosts. Good luck with that.”

“I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about,” he amended with a groan.

Hugging him close, she said, “I hope you like it here, Silver. I know how much you enjoy the open road and your independence but—”

“The open road and independence are overrated.” He pressed her onto her back and smiled down at her. “I’m ready to put down roots, Poppy Jones.”

Thinking of that morning they first met, she whispered, “It’s Mary Catherine. You said that it was only fair that I share my real name with you since I know yours. It’s Mary Catherine. You can’t ever use it because the chance of a slip-up in public is too great, but now you know it.”

He trailed a fingertip down her cheek. “In that case, Jared-Frost-slash-Silver is ready to put down roots with Mary-Catherine-slash-Poppy. I’m not sure how this works, but I think we can figure it out together.”

“Together?” She interlaced their hands and grinned up at him. She lost herself in the lifetime of happiness and hope reflected in his gray eyes. “I like the sound of that.”

“It’s a good thing because you’re my one in a million woman, Poppy, and I’m not giving you up without a fight.”

She blinked back the tears that pricked at her eyes. “I knew you were going to be trouble, but I had no idea you were going to shake up my world like this.”

“From the first moment I saw you, I just knew that Poppy Jones was going to turn my life upside down.” He nuzzled in close and kissed her lovingly. “And you did, my brilliant, sweet, brave girl.”

After a lifetime of planning every moment of her life down to the very last detail, of exacting control in all things, and of being afraid to love or trust any man, Poppy finally felt free. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but she couldn’t wait to face a new day.

Because with Silver at her side, anything was possible.

Epilogue

Forty-Eight Hours Later

“Baby, I’m starving. If this show doesn’t start soon, I’m carrying you out of here, and we’ll find a barbecue joint some place in town.” Silver could think of a hundred different ways he would rather spend his afternoon than standing in an open portion of the hangar at the Elite Metal headquarters. He hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and after the way he and Poppy made the table shake after their pancakes, he had burned off those calories damn quick.

Not to mention the fucking shit ton of emotions he’d had after being reunited the day before with the men and woman he’s fought beside. Killed beside. Bled beside.

Having them all surround him and give him grief for being gone so long…

The comradery, the joking around, the friendships. He’d missed all of it more than he cared to admit while he was gone.

But the hurt in some of their eyes slayed him. They all knew what he’d done for the team, but they also knew what he’d been doing before that. He had a lot to make up for, and thankfully he had the time to do that.

“Will you behave? We’ll grab lunch soon.” Poppy shot him a look over the top of her tablet.
Fuck
! She was just so hot in those reading glasses! But he figured that was the last thing she wanted to hear right now. “And I thought we had an agreement on the pet names.”

“Sorry, Poppy.” He felt bad for the slip-up. Glancing around him he took in the ghosts lined up against the far wall, creepy fuckers with the masks on all the time. Then he stared at the relaxed stance of his…family…and leaned forward to whisper over her tablet. “But I’m getting
hangry
, okay? Hungry. Horny. Angry. This isn’t a good combination.”

“My God, you are whinier than a damned toddler,” Chrome chastised. He shot Poppy an incredulous look. “How the hell have you lasted two whole days with that? I swear I’m about to head home and apologize to the kids. Cammie was right. The little bit of normal kid whining they do is nothing compared to this.”

A candy bar zoomed through the air and hit him square in the chest where he caught it. Grateful for his sugar rush savior, Silver glanced over to find Adamantium winking at him. “Thanks, man.”

“Anytime, bro.” He flashed his wrist, showing off one of the outrageously expensive watches Poppy had stolen as part of their cover story, and grinned. “Thanks for the early birthday gift.”

“You know me,” Silver said with a shrug. “I’m thoughtful like that.”

Poppy huffed. “You know that evidence is supposed to stay inside the lockers, right? That’s not your personal pawn shop.”

“So what’s the point of this meeting, Poppy?” Steele piped up from his position next to Chrome. “Weekends are supposed to be for family. Why did you haul us in here?”

The rest of the team, including Alayna and Gabriel stepped closer. Everyone wanted to know what was going on.

“I didn’t haul you in here. I’m in the dark like everyone else.”

The others didn’t hear it but Silver easily picked up on the worry in her voice. Whatever this meeting was about, it had her on edge.

As if to head off the inevitable questions, she announced, “I’ll be sending out a full debrief report on the Henry Darby mission on Tuesday morning, but it’s going to take a few weeks for Adamantium to pull all of the information from the flash drives. We expect to be able to fully replicate the very tangled financial web that supports Red Wolf. So long as Mr. Darby doesn’t realize that our robbery wasn’t about stealing jewelry, we should be able to keep tabs on all the important financial players in the organization for a long time to come.”

“If we can cut off the cash, we can slowly strangle them.” Steele made a squeezing gesture. “There’s more than one way to finish these bastards.”

Every head in the room snapped toward the door as it opened where a new face had unexpectedly appeared.

Except it wasn’t a new face at all.

“You’re right about that, Steele.”

“Holy. Shit.” Silver vocalized what everyone else in the room had to be thinking as they took in the man—the fucking ghost—standing before them now.

Steele took a step forward and then froze. “Titanium?” He glanced around the room, his face slackened by the shock of their old colleague, as if trying to convince himself he wasn’t the only one seeing a dead man walking. “You’re
dead
.”

“No.” Titanium tapped the aviator sunglasses he wore. “I’m blind.” He used the tip of the cane he carried to tap at his legs. “And a double amputee. Legs that fit my name.” He tapped the shiny titanium dog tags hanging around his neck. “But it’ll take a hell of a lot more than an explosion to kill this rough ol’ bastard.”

The room erupted into a hornet’s nest of questions as Titanium walked over to stand in front of the ghosts. Plat and Sterling were of course silent, but everyone else threw questions at him at once.

When Silver glanced at Poppy to see if she shared their surprise, he saw the answer to all of his questions written on her beautiful face. Suddenly everything she had told him fit neatly into place.

But before he could question her, the bark of a dog silenced the room. The happy furry beast sat next to her master, her tail wagging wildly side to side. Titanium reached down to pet the dog equipped with a harness that proclaimed it a guide dog.

Silver didn’t think anyone had even noticed the golden retriever until that moment.

“Annie?” Steele called out in apparent shock. “But I searched everywhere for her after you died.” He frowned. “Lived. Disappeared? Hell.”

Poppy cleared her throat and slowly stepped forward to stand beside Titanium. “About that,” she said carefully. “I’m the one who took Annie after he was ‘killed’ in Operation Phoenix.”

“Annie.” Steele stated the name again. “
Fuck. Me.
Annie!” He groaned and looked around the room as if everyone else should be in on the joke. “Annie? Come on!
Annie!
”

“Warbucks,” Chrome said in shock. “
You’re
Warbucks?”

“You know what they say about life imitating art.” Titanium confirmed everything with a nod. “When Gold died, truly died in Moscow, he left everything he had to me. I didn’t know it until months later when I finally woke up. He left his inheritance to me with the explicit instruction that I would find a way to use it to right as many wrongs as I could and I had to include the men and women of Elite Recon. Combine that with my…
income.
” He held his free arm wide. “Here we stand.”

“Here we stand,” Chrome repeated slowly.

What the hell did he mean by income?

“But why did Poppy take Annie?” Copper seemed to be three steps ahead of the rest of the crowd. Wearing an almost puzzled frown, she stared at Poppy. “Why would you lie to us about Titanium’s death? You knew he was alive. You work for him. You could have told us the truth.”

“I expressly ordered her not to breathe a word of our connection or my identity to anyone,” Titanium explained. “She had to agree before I would allow her involvement. Secrecy was necessary in the early days of rebuilding the team.”

“That still doesn’t explain why she had your dog,” Merc insisted.

“Titanium is my uncle,” Poppy announced calmly. “When my parents died, I was very young, and he took me in and became my guardian. I lived with a nanny while he was away on his missions and later attended boarding schools. Our relationship was kept quiet for my safety.”

“And so no one knew my kryptonite.” Titanium swallowed and relaxed his shoulders. “I regret forcing Poppy to live a lie,” Warbucks admitted. “In fact, I regret a lot of the secrecy I forced on all of you. It was needed, but… I think it’s time we usher in a new era for Elite Metal. So before we get to the rest of the question and answer portion of this meet-n-greet I’ve got one more thing to disclose.”

Before anyone could ask what that meant, Titanium turned his head.

Toward the ghosts.

The black garbed, anonymous soldiers, who had picked up each of them and dragged them back to the team, moved forward. Three stood next to Poppy. The other four beside Titanium.

“It’s time,” Titanium announced.

One by one, the ghosts removed their hoods—as one familiar face after another was revealed.

Silence.

As if a nuke obliterated all thought from the room, everyone stood frozen. Waiting to wake up. Or waiting for the shock to sink in.

Zinc, Tungsten, Tin, Nickel, Thallium, Lithium and Uranium were alive. Everyone who had “died” in Russia stood side by side. Everyone but Gold.

Tungsten stared at Copper...and Gabriel.

Gabriel palmed Copper’s shoulder—holding her back or comforting her Silver had no idea—and Merc moved in front of her, a half step, his ruined face livid. Copper? She glared at Tungsten hell in her eyes, but her expression blank. Her muted emotion twisted Silver’s gut.

Zinc glared at Steele, fists clenched and chest pumping. More than ready for a fight.

All of them looked damaged. Scarred. Even, Nickel the other female Marine they’d fought beside.

Her eyes.

Lost.

Chrome’s voice broke the silence for them all. “What. The. Fuck…”

Roxie Rivera

A
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author, I like to write super sexy romances and scorching hot erotica. I live in Texas with my red-bearded Viking husband and a sweet but rowdy preschool-aged daughter with autism and heart defects. We also have two wildly rambunctious Great Danes named Hannibal and Murdock.

My other book writing alter ego--
Lolita Lopez--
was named one of
Latina
Magazine's
Eight Erotic Latina Authors To Check Out
. Lo writes deliciously steamy tales for Forever Yours/Grand Central, Mischief/Harper Collins UK, Siren Publishing and Cleis Press.

Read more from Roxie here

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