Wanted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 8) (4 page)

If he tried, or if he thought he could turn her in afterward and take all the money, she would bury him. As insurance she had enough evidence saved up on him to put him away for two consecutive life sentences. He wouldn’t dare cross her.

“Well then let me be clear,
sweetheart
,” he sneered back. “This line of work is new to you, so let me help you out. You gotta keep a clear head, leave emotions at the door. Understand? Otherwise you get killed. Simple as that.”

His attitude rankled. “I’m not stupid.” Desperate maybe, but definitely not stupid. No, she’d planned this all out carefully.

“And how do you know we’ll even get the money after this? Fuentes is in lockdown. How are you gonna even prove it was us?”

“I already told you, I have insider sources.” Handy contacts she’d developed at her previous job. Until his capture several months ago, Fuentes—who Carlos had done side jobs for—had been the head of the most formidable drug cartel in the United States.

And he still had power. Even from within the walls of one of the most secure prisons in the country, he was pulling strings. She didn’t know how exactly, and didn’t care. All she cared about was the money he was offering.

A million dollars for a hit on one of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team members. A metaphorical middle finger to the men who had put him behind bars and killed several of his best enforcers.

That money would be
hers
.

Dom grunted. “I don’t do business with women for a reason. They’re too emotional, and that shit causes nothing but problems.”

Amanda almost laughed out loud at that. Carlos was the only person she’d ever loved. “You’d be the first person to ever accuse me of being emotional,” she said dryly.

Cold, maybe. Others had called her detached, but that just made it easier for her to get what she wanted. Lack of conscience made a lot of things so much easier. She’d do this job, take the money and sleep like a baby once she was safe in the Caribbean.

After everything she’d gone through in her life, she
deserved
that much.

She swallowed her annoyance and went for reasonable. “Whether we like it or not, we’re a team for now. You do your job, I’ll do mine. Let’s leave it at that.” She didn’t trust him, but she needed him. Although she had some weapons training, it was preschool level compared to what Dominic had learned as a sniper with the military.

He made a disparaging sound. “Just call me when you find her.”

The call disconnected before she could respond.

Amanda slapped her phone down on the table with a muttered, “Go fuck yourself.”

She took a breath, cleared her head. Their alliance was fragile and uneasy enough without adding any more animosity between them. Besides, she had more important things to focus on right now, or there wouldn’t be an op to plan.

Pulling up the file she’d created, she narrowed down her final choices to stake out and selected the one that made the most sense. An average of five times per week, Zoe stopped in at a specific coffee shop about fifteen minutes from Quantico.

In the morning Amanda would drive there and stake it out. If Zoe showed, she’d follow her, all day if necessary, and find out where she lived. If she could just track her down once, from there it should be easy enough to come up with a plan and for Dominic to figure out where he wanted to set up for the shot.

She sighed and rubbed at her temples, the beginnings of a headache throbbing there. Things had been so much easier for her when Carlos had been alive.

The truth was he’d lied to her and used her, sure, but she’d always come out ahead in their relationship. When he died, everything had become so much harder. She’d had no choice but to leave her job and the steady pay it brought, because internal affairs had begun sniffing around, asking questions about her alleged relationship with him.

No one knew she’d been in love with him. Not even Carlos.

It had taken her months afterward to earn the trust of one of the Fuentes cartel’s top lieutenants. She’d taken a few bribes from Alvarez prior to leaving her job, and once earned triple her pitiful government salary from a single favor to him. So her next decision had been a no-brainer.

With nowhere to go and no one to turn to after the agency began investigating her, she’d gone to her contacts in the drug cartel. After worming her way into Alvarez’s circle and becoming one of his lovers, she’d lived the good life for a little while.

Then Zoe’s HRT boyfriend and his team had killed Alvarez too, costing Amanda the sugar daddy she’d so carefully cultivated in an attempt to salvage her dream of becoming independently wealthy.

Rage and resentment built inside her, slowly eating at her like acid. She never wanted to be someone’s whore ever again. She was sick of her shitty life, of having to spread her legs for various cartel members, and before that, her foster father, just to have some security.

No more. She had vowed to herself that she would get enough money to ensure she’d never have to trade her body for anything again.

In her life within the cartel she’d been well on her way to becoming independently wealthy in her own right, even if it came with a heavy price. With Fuentes’s entire network either dead, captured or on the run, her only option now was to enlist Dom’s help to get this reward money and start over out of the country.

No one was taking that chance from her. She was ready do whatever it took to make this happen. It was time for her to take control and go after what she wanted. A new life and a fresh start far away from here.

Everything went back to Zoe, and her lover. “They’ve both got this coming,” she muttered to herself, a wave of anger suffusing her. She’d worked hard to get where she’d been, and they’d destroyed it all.

Now they were both going to die.

She envisioned the whole thing playing out in her head. Zoe lying on the ground bleeding from a bullet wound, in agony, terrified, having no idea why Amanda had done this to her. Then the glorious moment of triumph when her HRT lover found her, his grief-stricken expression vanishing the instant another bullet took him out, never realizing that he was their real target the entire time.

The thought made her smile.

Zoe slid behind the wheel of her car, locked the doors then laid her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. She’d already been feeling like shit when she’d come here but now she was literally sick to her stomach.

What the hell was she going to do?

Swallowing back tears, she raised her head and started the ignition. Clay had wanted to come with her to the appointment but he’d been called in to work for some kind of meeting first thing this morning and she definitely wasn’t telling him this over the phone.

The drive home from her doctor’s office took almost an hour with the heavy traffic but she barely noticed, in a daze the entire time. When she pulled into the secure underground parking lot, she immediately spotted Clay’s truck in its spot and parked next to it. Her mind was a chaotic whirlwind of fear and anxiety.

Upstairs her hand shook as she took out her key to unlock the front door, her stomach a giant knot of nerves. She had a feeling Clay was going to freak out. Hell,
she
was already freaking out and she hated it. She was always in control. She prided herself on it.

When she opened the door, she got another shock to find Celida and Tuck sitting on the living room couch. Her best friend had made it back sooner than they’d expected. Zoe stood there in the entryway, feeling hollowed out, barely able to summon a smile. She couldn’t handle company right now, not even her cousin and best friend.

Clay got up and walked toward her. “Hey, how’d it go? Everything okay?”

She put on a smile she was sure didn’t reach her eyes and forced a nod. “Yeah.”

“Good.” His big arms came around her in a gentle hug and she almost lost it. She wanted so badly to cling to him, bury her face against his wide chest and cry. And she wasn’t a crier. The guilt from lying just now was gnawing at her. “You still look a bit pale,” he said, frowning as he eased back to study her, that intense blue gaze roving over her face. She’d fixed her eye makeup down in the car so he couldn’t tell she’d been teary earlier. dpgroup

“Just tired,” she answered, and moved past him to greet the others. She could fake it for a little while until they left. They might be family, but she needed to tell Clay this in private, without anyone else around. “Hey, y’all. I hear there’s gonna be a wedding this weekend.”

Celida made a guilty face as she got up to hug her, but then a smile replaced it, stretching the scar on her right cheek. Her gray eyes glowed with happiness. “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t call you but things were crazy out west.”

“It’s okay.” She released Celida and aimed a smile at her cousin. “So, when and where?”

“We’re still working out all the details,” Tuck said, and pulled out his phone to show her everything he’d organized already. Zoe responded in all the appropriate places even though she could barely concentrate, tried to seem enthusiastic when all she wanted was for them to leave so she could talk to Clay. God, what the hell was he going to say to her?

“We’re slammed at work wrapping up an investigation,” Celida told her, flipping the end of her long, chocolate-brown ponytail over one shoulder, “and actually I’m supposed to be at the office right now. I know you’ve been sick and you’ve probably got another deadline coming up with your next book, but I’m really stuck. I hate to ask, but could you carve out a few hours to run some errands for us this week?”

Even though she felt completely overwhelmed by the drastic turn her life had just taken two hours ago, she didn’t want them to know anything was wrong and there was no way she could say no. “Sure, no problem.”

Celida’s face brightened. “You’re the awesomest friend ever.” She hugged Zoe again, sat back on the couch and pulled out her phone.

Tuck shook his head at Zoe and rolled his eyes as Celida took over and efficiently laid out everything she wanted done. “We’ll need to try on our dresses right away, see if we need them altered or whatever. And then we’ll have to figure out how many people are actually coming so we can get the caterer arranged, but there shouldn’t be more than a dozen total. I’m giving you free reign to pick whatever you want for the menu, because I don’t really care.”

The thought of food at the moment made Zoe want to throw up, but she nodded and dutifully jotted down a list of what Celida needed. A sort of numbness was setting in now, offset by sharp stabs of panic every few minutes as reality intruded again.

“Hey, and Clay told us about the latest message you got from that stalker this morning,” Celida finished when they’d gone over everything. “That shit’s gotta stop, because it’s escalating. I’ve updated my analyst and she’s gonna check it out ASAP.”

“Thanks.” He was probably just some lonely, social reject trying to get a reaction out of her. Although this latest message had made the blood drain from her face when she’d read it. Which was no doubt his intention, the sick bastard. Just one more thing for her to worry about.

“I sent everything to Rycroft first thing this morning. He’s got someone on it now, just in case,” Clay said. “She won’t be going out alone anymore until we get to the bottom of this,” he added with a pointed look at her, aware of how much she hated being a prisoner in her own home because of some jackass, “but if it’s at all related to what happened in New Orleans, his people will find out and let us know.”

Zoe covered a shiver at the mention of it and crossed her arms to stem the urge to fidget with her hands. Only in the last couple of months had she begun to truly heal from the trauma of what had happened there, and now this freaking stalker had come along to dredge all the memories up again.

Celida nodded, then gave her an encouraging smile. “I’m sure he’s just a whacko. Doesn’t hurt to be cautious though.”

“Yeah,” Zoe answered, strung so taut inside it felt like she might shatter.
Now please just go. I love you guys, but I need you to leave right now
.

She figured she did a good enough acting job pretending nothing was wrong, because Celida and Tuck stayed to visit for another half hour or so before leaving. But she hadn’t fooled everyone, because the moment Clay shut and locked the door behind them, he turned to face her and put his hands on his hips.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

Her heart sank. She really shouldn’t be surprised that he’d known something was up.

She lowered herself onto the couch. Now that the moment had come, how did she even tell him? Her throat tightened.

Expression filled with concern, he walked toward her, stopped a step away. “Zo. What? What did the doctor say?”

Staring up at his handsome, worried face, Zoe felt her insides tremble. Unwanted tears welled up and she decided there was no easy way to tell him except to just get it out there.

She swallowed. “I’m pregnant.”

Wait,
what
?

Clay stared at her as the words penetrated, echoing through his brain. And everything inside him seemed to stop. Even his heart.

Especially his heart.

“Pregnant?” He knew he sounded like a fucking moron, like he didn’t know what the word meant, but denial was a bitch. And he was definitely in denial.

Zoe nodded, looking completely miserable, her black-rimmed amber eyes bright with tears. She sniffed, the little diamond stud at the side of her nose catching the light coming in from the window behind her. “Yes. A little over six weeks.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Well what… I mean, how…” Well, he knew
how
, but—how? She’d been on the pill, had been from the time they’d moved in together. She took it every day religiously, although maybe not at the same time every day.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Didn’t fit the mental plan he’d had in place. Before they even thought about having kids, he’d always assumed they’d be married for a while first. Enjoy life together, just the two of them. And he’d been slowly warming up to
that
idea over the past year. To have this dropped on them was…a shock, to say the least.