Sharpshooter (8 page)

And she left him.

* * *

“C
ALE
,
DO
YOU
mind if I speak to Slade alone?”

Cale stood in the doorway of the second villa, his broad shoulders stretching to take up the space. He stared down at her with hooded eyes. “You sure that’s what you want to do? He’s pretty messed up right now, Sydney.”

“I need to talk to him.” To find out what had happened to him. Where he’d been all that time.

Cale gave a slow nod. “Okay, but if you need me, I’ll be right outside.”

Her eyebrows climbed. She was EOD; she could take care of herself.

But Cale’s lips curved in the ghost of a grin. “You just look so delicate...”

A lie. But she used that delicate trap to fool many of her enemies.

“Sydney?” Slade’s voice sounded subdued. Good. Maybe he was calming down.

“Right outside,” Cale murmured as he slipped past her and gave her the privacy that she needed.

Slade came toward her, his steps uncertain. Only fair, considering how uncertain she felt right now.

“I thought about you,” Slade said as his gaze slid over her face, “so much.” Then those slow steps of his were coming toward her. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her tight against his chest.

Why did being in his arms feel wrong? Sydney forced her own arms to lift. To hug him back. “I’m glad you’re alive.” That was the truth.

He tensed. “At least one person is.”

She eased back so that she could stare up at his face. “Gunner is glad, too. He’s your brother—”

“
Half
brother.”

A distinction that Slade had pointed out before, but Gunner...he never had.

“He didn’t know that you were out there,” Sydney whispered to him. “Search parties went back to recover you—” She’d almost said
your body.
“But no one found any sign of you.” She shook her head. “Where were you, Slade?”

“I don’t know.” Gruff. Lost. “The first few months were a blur.” He stalked away from her, began to pace the living area. “Different camps. Shacks. They dragged me through the jungle so many times.”

“And they never tried to ransom you?” Why not? It didn’t make sense to her. If you’ve got a valuable hostage, you use that hostage.

“I wasn’t the only prisoner they had. Some were ransomed.” He stopped his pacing. “Some were killed.”

She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “Are there others still being held?” If there were, they needed to get another rescue team ready.

“No. I was the last.” He swung to face her. His chin shot up. “Look, I don’t know why they didn’t kill me, too. I don’t know why they dragged me around. Sometimes I wished that they
would
kill me.”

“Slade—”

“Sometimes I just wanted it all to end.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “They would...they would ask me questions some days about my life—about you.”

Her heart was pounding faster. When she and Gunner had been held, their captor had asked them about the EOD. “Did you tell them about Elite Ops?” Slade hadn’t been in the group, but he’d once gotten clearance to work as a liaison on a mission with the group.

“Yes.” Hushed.

That was how the leader had known about their division.

“I told them. I would have told them
anything
for food and water.”

The mercenary who had come after EOD agents a little while back...that mercenary had been hired by someone in South America. Someone who had learned about the EOD from Slade?

No wonder his captors left him alive. They knew they could use him in order to get us.

“I want him investigated, Sydney.”

There was a sharp edge in his words now. He’d seemed almost...calm...a moment before, but now Slade was marching back toward her, his limp barely noticeable. “Did you hear me?” Slade demanded. “I want Gunner investigated. He left me to die. He’s not getting away with what he did to me.”

She had to make Slade see reason. “We both thought you were dead. Slade, we had your funeral.” It had nearly ripped her apart to stand there with the scent of flowers choking her.

But Slade laughed. “I’m sure that was exactly what he wanted.”

No, it hadn’t been. Gunner’s eyes had been haunted at the grave site.

“I’ll tear the whole EOD down if I have to do it, but Gunner won’t get away with what he’s done.” Then he was standing right in front of her, glaring down at Sydney. “I’ll make him pay, I swear I will.”

His eyes looked...wild. And his hands were shaking.

“Slade, are you all right?”

“You were with him, weren’t you?” Angry, low, biting.

Sydney squared her shoulders. “You’ve been through—” Hell. “I don’t want you getting so worked up, okay?”

“Worked up?”
he yelled.

She winced.

“You have no idea just how ‘worked up’ I can get.” His smile was mean. Not the flirtatious grin that she remembered. “But you’re all about to find out.”

The door opened behind her. She figured it was Cale, coming back inside to check on her because he’d heard Slade’s raised voice.

Slade’s eyelids flickered. “Sydney, do you still love me?”

The man’s moods were shifting constantly. Too fast. A break because of his captivity? Or something more? His eyes were bloodshot, lined with deep shadows.

“Sydney?”

“Of course,” she said, and it was true. “You have to know that a part of me will—”

The door closed again.

Not Cale.

She spun around, yanked open the door and saw Cale standing to the side and Gunner stalking toward the beach.

“Now he knows,” Slade said, sounding satisfied, “and now it’s time for
his
world to be ripped apart.”

* * *

S
LADE
STARED
OUT
at the pounding surf. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d seen the ocean. The scent of the salt water was strong, and a million stars glittered down on him.

He’d shaved his beard and used a knife to cut his hair. He still didn’t feel quite human, but then, he hadn’t felt so for a very long time.

Sydney was gone. She’d headed back to her villa.

But not back to Gunner.

He wouldn’t let her go to Gunner. His brother actually thought that he hadn’t realized how Gunner felt about her. Slade had known. He’d always known.

I had something you wanted.
He’d enjoyed keeping Sydney on his arm, showing Gunner what he’d never have.

His big brother, the one who was supposed to be so strong and tough and perfect.

Sydney would now see that Gunner wasn’t perfect.

They’d all see.

Slade was a survivor. He was the strong one. And Gunner...

He was the one who’d be destroyed.

Chapter Five

She couldn’t sleep. Sydney threw off the sheet that she’d yanked over her body, and climbed from the bed. She was wearing a pair of old jogging shorts and a T-shirt.

Sydney ran a hand through her hair. She’d been in that bed, tossing and turning, for hours. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Gunner.

And Slade.

“It’s time for his world to be ripped apart.”

No, no, it wasn’t time for that. Sydney hurried toward the sliding door and left her villa. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep until she talked to Gunner. Things were going to be rough for them all, but they would get through this.

He’d heard her say that she loved Slade. She
did
love him, but her feelings weren’t the same as they’d been two years ago. She wasn’t just going to abandon Slade, but she also wasn’t planning on losing Gunner.

He meant too much to her.

Her footsteps were quiet on the sand. Any sounds that she made were instantly swallowed by the pounding surf. Cale and Slade were in the second villa, Logan and Gunner in the third.

She walked past that second villa.

The moonlight shone down on her. There were no clouds tonight. No dense jungle. Just beauty, stretching all around her and—

A sharp retort cut through the night, the sound popping like a firecracker. Sydney knew exactly what that pop was, and even as her arm burned from the bullet as it grazed her flesh, she was diving down into the sand.

Gunfire.

Had the rebel group found them? They’d put so many miles between them, switched vehicles, made a false trail.

They shouldn’t have found us.

Then more gunfire came, kicking up the sand near her. She tried to hunch down, to make her way closer to the shoreline so that she’d have at least the slope of the sand to hide behind.

She hadn’t even thought to bring a weapon with her. Amateur mistake. But she’d just been going to see Gunner. Taking a quick stroll had seemed safe enough.

Now she was a target.

The shots were coming from the right, from the dense shadows just past Gunner’s villa. Her breath heaved in her lungs. The bullet had just grazed her. She’d been lucky.

Very, very lucky...especially considering the big target she must have made as she walked down the beach.

Then there were more shots, but not coming from the right near the last villa. Her team was rushing to help.

Cale was beside her in seconds. He crouched down, even as he kept his gun aimed at the spot where the shooter had been. “You all right?”

What was a little scratch? “Fine... Slade?” Because maybe he was the real target. Maybe the group wanted their hostage back.

“He was gone. He went out for air.” His head lifted, just a bit, as he scanned the area. “Logan was going round, trying to get behind the shooter.” His words were a mere whisper.

Silence. The pounding surf kept pummeling the beach. She expected to see Gunner come rushing up to join the fight.

He didn’t.

After a few more minutes, Logan appeared. “Get to better cover,” he ordered, and they rushed for the nearest villa.

Gunner still wasn’t there. Neither was Slade. Sydney licked dry lips. “Gunner?”

Logan glanced toward the door. “He needed some time alone.”

Her heart was racing too fast. “We have to find him! If he’s out there, he could be in danger.”

“It looks like the shooter is already gone.” Grim. Only there was something about Logan’s eyes, that hard, brittle glare that had Sydney on edge. “Just one shooter,” Logan muttered. “Just one, and he cleared out fast.”

“You think he tailed us?” Cale asked as he glanced carefully through the blinds.

Logan gave a quick shake of his head. Then his gaze fell on Sydney’s arm. “He hit you.”

“Barely a scratch,” she whispered. “Look, we have to find Gunner and Slade!” They were the priority, not her flesh wound.

Logan’s fingers curled around her good arm. “You were in the moonlight, walking on the beach?”

She knew where this was going. “Good thing he was a bad shot, huh?”

Logan didn’t speak.

“Incoming,” Cale murmured.

Then Gunner was there, rushing inside. “I heard gunfire!” His gaze flew to Sydney, dropped to her arm. “You’re hit!”

She pulled away from Logan. “It’s nothing.”

Slade followed behind him, rushing in just a few seconds later. His chest was heaving. “Shots...there were shots...”

She straightened her shoulders. “I think it’s safe to say that this location has been compromised.”

But Logan wasn’t saying that. Logan was staring at both Gunner and Slade, and she knew suspicion when she saw it.

Neither man was armed.

And Logan shouldn’t be suspicious of them.

Should he?

Where were they?

Her arm throbbed.

“We’re moving our departure up to
now,
” Logan snapped. “I’m calling in some favors and getting us the hell out of here.”

Gunner was glaring at her arm. Slade was breathing too hard, and a knot was forming in her stomach.

Because she wasn’t sure...why would a lone enemy follow them? Why just take shots at her and leave?

The attack almost felt...personal.

As her blood dripped onto the floor, Sydney realized that the danger from this mission was far, far from over.

* * *

F
OUR
WEEKS
. F
OUR
weeks had passed since the team had come back to the United States.

Gunner stared down at the street below him. He was in D.C., at an office most wouldn’t ever know existed. He’d been called in, along with the rest of the Shadow Agents, for a briefing with the big boss himself, Bruce Mercer.

Four. Weeks.

Once they’d gotten back onto U.S. soil, Slade had been taken in by other EOD agents. He’d been sent to a hospital, examined, monitored.

And Sydney had been at his side.

His back teeth ground together.

Slade had insisted that Sydney come with him, even as his brother had yelled for Gunner to be investigated.

Locked up.

He’d tried to talk with Slade, over and over, but his brother wouldn’t answer his calls. His brother wouldn’t talk to him at all.

When he’d been six, he’d discovered that he had a little brother. A boy only two years younger than he’d been.

His father had never believed in commitment of any kind. Gunner’s parents hadn’t been married, and when his mother had contracted a deadly strain of pneumonia when he was a toddler, his father hadn’t been willing to keep his son.

So his father had gone to the doorstep of Gunner’s
shinali,
his Navajo grandfather, and he’d just...left Slade there. Gunner had been two years old.

For a long time, he’d thought that his father would come back.

Then he
had
come back.

But only long enough to drop off his second son.

“His mother died in childbirth. You know I can’t handle kids. Let him stay here, with Gunner. They’re family.”

Those words still whispered through Gunner’s mind, as if they’d been said just yesterday, instead of over twenty-seven years ago.

His grandfather had been an honorable man. He’d taken in the second child, and, blood or no blood, he’d loved Slade.

They’d become a family. Gunner’s father had signed away custody of both his boys. Then he’d just...vanished.

Gunner had always been glad to have a brother.
I wasn’t alone then.

But as they grew older, his relationship with Slade had changed. Slade had pulled away from their grandfather. He’d seemed to resent the small house, the sparse lifestyle that they led.

He’d seemed to resent Gunner.

And he hates me now.

The door opened behind Gunner. He looked back, too fast, thinking it might be Sydney because he knew she’d been called into the office, too.

It wasn’t Sydney. Bruce Mercer stared back at him. The light glinted off Mercer’s bald head, and his eyes, a dark brown, studied Gunner.

Not much was known about Mercer, if that was even the guy’s real name. But the man was connected to nearly everyone in Washington, and he knew exactly where all the bodies were buried. Figuratively and literally.

“I’ve been told that I have to investigate you,” Mercer said as he crossed the room.

Gunner stiffened. “If that’s what you have to do.”

“The thing is I don’t
like
being told what to do.” Mercer lowered himself into the leather chair at the head of the conference table. “I especially don’t like being threatened.”

Who would have been dumb enough to threaten that guy?

“Slade Ortez has said that if you aren’t taken into custody, he’ll go to the media and expose the EOD.”

What. The. Hell? Slade knew that secrecy was the only way that the EOD could get their missions done. If any of the agents currently out on missions lost their covers, the results would be disastrous.

“He still knows names and faces from his time as a freelance agent.” Mercer’s eyes narrowed. “He gave all of that intel to his captors, you know.”

Yeah, he knew.

“Now he’s ready to tell anyone in the media who will listen to his story.” Mercer shook his head. “I can’t let that happen. You understand, right? I’ll take any steps—do anything necessary—to protect my division.”

Even if I get locked up?

Mercer’s fingers drummed over the manila file that he’d brought into the room. “Sometimes we
think
that we know a person, but it turns out we really don’t.”

“Sir, I don’t understand.” Was Mercer saying he thought Gunner was guilty?

Mercer’s head cocked as he studied Gunner. His fingers kept drumming. “What do you value most in this world?”

Sydney.
Her name whispered through his mind, but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

Mercer nodded. “And just what would you be willing to do in order to protect what you value?”

Anything.
Even let her go. Before he could answer, a knock sounded on the door.

Mercer held his gaze for a moment longer. Then he said, voice cool and calm, “Come in.”

Sydney came in first. Gunner tried to school his expression. He’d stayed away from her, tried to give her the space that she needed. She loved Slade, so that meant he was supposed to step aside, right?

Then why did it feel so damn wrong?

Logan followed her inside the office, with Cale right at his heels.

Gunner’s gaze, almost helplessly, drifted over Sydney. She looked too pale, and she seemed thinner.

His lips compressed.

“Glad you could all join me,” Mercer murmured, “because it seems that we have one very big problem on our hands.” His fingers had stilled over the manila file. “Just what are we going to do about Slade Ortez?”

“Do?” Sydney repeated as she crept toward the table. Since when did she creep any place? “What do you mean by that?” She waited a beat, then added, “Sir,” as if she realized she was coming across too hard.

One of Mercer’s dark brows rose. “You know he’s threatening to go to the media.”

“Every damn day,” Logan muttered, taking the seat closest to Mercer. “It’s getting harder to keep him in check. I thought his behavior would settle down the longer he was here, but that’s not happening.”

“We have to stop him.” Mercer motioned for the others to take their seats. When Cale sat near Logan, Gunner had no choice but to sit near Sydney. Her scent rose up, filling his nose. So sweet. That light vanilla that haunted him.

“Just what do you have in mind?” Cale asked cautiously.

Mercer pursed his lips, but instead of answering, he flipped open the manila file. “Have any of you heard about a drug called
muerte?
”

Death. Gunner leaned forward. He made sure not to touch Sydney. “It’s a black-market drug from South America.” He’d heard rumors about the drug for a few months.

“One that’s supposed to be highly addictive,” Logan added.

Mercer studied the papers before him. “Highly addictive, and very deadly to its users. It can cause increased aggression, paranoia and even hallucinations.” He glanced up at them, letting his gaze drift over the group. “The DEA believes that
muerte
first appeared in Peru, but now it’s being transferred all the way up the chain to Mexico.” He paused, then said “It hasn’t made its way to the U.S. yet.”

Gunner waited, knowing there was more to come. Mercer wouldn’t be telling them about the drug unless it related to the case. To Slade.

Increased aggression. Paranoia.

“We ran a tox screen on Slade Ortez shortly after he was brought back to the States.” The papers rustled in Mercer’s hands. “The screen showed that he had high levels of the drug in his system. More tests indicated that he’d been using for...quite some time.”

Gunner felt as if a fist had just slammed into his chest.

“You think...” Sydney’s voice was hesitant. “You think his captors made him take the drug?”

Mercer’s bald head tilted to the side. “They could have used it to keep him better controlled. Controlled prisoners are the easiest to handle,” he said, and Gunner knew the man was talking from dark experience. Then Mercer sighed. “The way the man is making these threats, the way he’s fighting every shrink I send to help him...I think the
muerte
is still affecting him.”

“Can it have an impact after so long?” Cale asked. “He’s been here for weeks.”

“
Muerte
is one of the most dangerous drugs that the DEA has seen.” Flat. “Its effects are far-reaching, and our government researchers think that some of the behavior changes can be permanent for the users.”

Gunner shook his head.

But Mercer wasn’t done. “Once a user’s on it, it’s nearly impossible to break free.”

“B-but he has been free,” Sydney said. Gunner saw her hands fist in her lap. “Slade’s been here for weeks, and he hasn’t used—”

“The shrinks say his behavior is becoming even more erratic. He needs help, the kind that he can’t get without the government’s help.” The lines around Mercer’s eyes deepened. “We have a special facility that we’re going to send him to—”