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  Turning the van quickly around a corner, I drove a few feet and made another turn down a small alleyway that barely fit our vehicle. The team had gathered halfway down, or at least everyone but Chavez.

  “Fuck!” I exploded in rage.

  “What is it?” Ginny asked as I screeched to a stop in front of the guys.

  I didn’t get a chance to answer her, because before the team reached the van, Sanjay spoke, saying something that made my blood run cold. “If you want to see your man alive again, you’ll do what I tell you.” Jay said to me in an annoyingly calm manner.

  “Has it escaped your attention asshole, that we just kidnapped you? It’s not the other way around. How about I tell you that if you don’t tell me where Chavez is I’m going to start pulling your fingernails off with a pair of pliers?”

  That was about the time that the side door slid open, with the guys one by one climbing inside. Jaxon climbed into the passenger seat next to me and asked, “What’s going on here?”

  Glaring at Sanjay I growled, “That asshole has Chavez apparently.”

  The next thing I knew, Chase had his handgun pointed at Sanjay’s head. “Give me a reason to put two pounds of pressure on my trigger motherfucker. Now tell us where Chavez is or my finger might twitch.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched Ginny scoot back into the farthest corner of the van so she could get away from Chase and Sanjay. She shook so badly, and I felt horrible that she had to see this, but it’s what needed to be done. We never left a man behind on a mission, even if it was a personal one.

  Sanjay sat quiet for a few minutes, making Chase irritable enough to push the gun closer to his head so that the muzzle not only rested on his temple, but pushed painfully into the side of his head. He’d been quiet a little too long, and I was afraid Chase was really going to pull that trigger, when he finally spoke.

  “I’ll take you to where he is, and then we’re going to have a little chat.”

  Chase laughed. “Right, just don’t forget to serve the tea and biscuits while we have a quaint little chat. Are you off your fucking rocker man?”

  Jaxon didn’t give Sanjay the chance to say anything. “Chase, enough.” Turning his head to look at Sanjay, he addressed him directly. “You take us to our man, and as long as he’s in one piece and still breathing we can talk. I find him anything other than that though and I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Sanjay nodded in agreement without hesitation. Which bothered me. Shouldn’t the man be at least a little concerned for his well-being? Perhaps reluctant to go somewhere with us? Instead he was as cool as a cucumber. That just doesn’t seem right for someone who is supposed to be a spoiled, rich civilian. Is there more to this man than meets the eye?

  I could only guess that we were about to find out.

  “Where do we go?” I asked him.

  “Go out the end of the alley, make a left. That will take you back to the street in front of my penthouse’s building. Go straight through the intersection and then turn into the parking lot on the back of my building. After you do that, there’s an industrial sized garage door. The building uses it for their big truck deliveries of supplies. You’ll need to take me up to the door once we arrive. They will not let you in without me.”

  It was a tense couple of minutes as I drove to the back of Sanjay’s building following his directions. But in that time I could hear my team loading and locking their weapons behind me. I couldn’t spare a look at Ginny right now. My mind had to stay on the mission so I could keep all those promises I had made to her. Like not hurting Jay if I didn’t have to. And getting her mother out alive.

  Pulling the van up to the industrial sized garage door, I parked the car and looked over to Jaxon. “Who’s going to take him?”

  “Me and Baker. Stay in the van and you know what to do if it goes sideways.”

  Damn right I did. If Sanjay’s men so much as sneezed I was going to blow their heads off. Although I knew that wasn’t what Jaxon wanted me to do. He would want me to secure Ginny. Well, he wanted me to become more of a team player, so this was me stepping up to do that. I was going to protect the men on this team with my life. It was the least I could do after they had hauled ass out here to help me.

  Jaxon pulled his Glock out of his harness and opened the van passenger side door. “Move your ass Georgia Boy.”

  Baker didn’t laugh at the dig the way he normally would. More than likely because he was worried about Chavez. How long had Sanjay’s men had him? They had all started surveillance hours before I had dropped Ginny off. Commander Wall and Baker pulled Sanjay out of the van. Wall led the way, constantly scanning from side to side on the lookout for trouble as Baker followed behind him. He had a tight grip on Sanjay’s arm and the muzzle of his gun shoved into our hostage’s side.

  They slowly approached the closed garage door, but when they were about five feet away, the door started opening. Wall and Baker stopped in their tracks to wait and see what would happen. Three men’s feet could be seen as the garage door opened, and by the time it stopped at the halfway point, I could see all three of those men standing there with pistols in their hands.

  One of them said something to Wall, and it crackled through our ear pieces. The Commander must have set his comm link to an open mic so we could hear what was going on. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Wall and his crew. Jaxon Wall, the elite machine and his team.”

  My mind raced, wondering who knew about us. This couldn’t be good. Without hesitation, we all continued our forward movement into the lion’s den.

  It was the guy on the end that surprised the shit out of me. Short brown hair with hazel eyes and an athletically slim build. The only thing he was missing were his khakis and a black polo embroidered with the ATF logo on the chest.

  Holy shit. The guy on the end was Baker’s wife’s old ATF partner, Agent Boyd. What the fuck was he doing here?

  Through Wall’s ear piece I could hear Boyd say, “Wall, Baker, it’s good to know you to heed a warning when you get one.”

  Baker snapped back, “What the fuck are you doing here Boyd? And where is Chavez?”

  One of the other two men started to step forward, but Boyd held his hand up in a motion for him to stop. “Chavez is just inside. How about you bring Mr. Kahn in here and we can talk.”

  Jaxon hesitated for a second, looking mad enough to throw a right hook and knock Boyd’s head off. Eventually he agreed though, and signaled for us to join them. The room they took all of us to was a typical conference room, a non-descript place with a table and a white board.

  “Wall, you have apprehended someone of high value to the DEA and ATF. While we understand your team usually has orders to supersede our actions and authorities, we ask that you and your men stand down.”

  “No,” Wall simply gave back.

  The middle man with a tight buzz-cut of hair so blonde it was almost white leaned over the table, supporting himself on his knuckles. “Look, we get it. Your team doesn’t exist. The untouchables, the ghost team, you’re not here, we’re not here. However, you need to know this is an international investigation that you are close to blowing out of the water and endangering multiple people.”

  To this, Wall raised an eyebrow.

  “We recruited Mr. Kahn to help because he was one of the few people who had the money and reputation to lure Wellington in without us building some elaborate cover that would take years.”

  “Years, none of us have. Richard Wellington is expanding beyond pharmaceuticals and into weapons. And he’s growing support in Korea by supplying a known terrorist organization.”

  “What’s Kahn got to do with it?” Baker asked while I tried to reel in my temper that not one, but two government agencies wanted a piece of Wellington before I could secure Ginny’s mom.

  “We knew we could use the arranged marriage as a way to get him close on a family level. Nothing breaks Wellington but his wife. Nothing breaks the wife but the daughter.” The short dark haired man e
xplained, looking directly at Ginny who gasped.

  “Nothing touches Ginny, no one gets her, but me.” I stood and told the room firmly. “I don’t give two fucks who any of you are, who you work for, or what pawn you are in the government’s war on drugs. Wellington is mine to take out, and the fall out is yours to handle.”

  “Young, stand down,” Wall ordered and I was truly ready to disobey, when the side door opened and they released Chavez back to our group.

  “A show of good faith,” Boyd explained. “Your man back. We’re ready to take down Wellington. We have what we need to control the fallout from the Kingpin’s demise. We just need Kahn back to make this possible. You have your man, now do we have ours?”

  Wall studied each man in the room. “It’s gonna take every single one of us working in unison to take this man down and secure his wife for his daughter. We work together, my team taking the lead, and nothing gets fucked for anyone. Deal?”

  Boyd was the first to reply with his confirmation followed reluctantly by the rest.

  Now to sort out what Kahn had learned, what our next move would be, and take the fucker Wellington out, so Ginny and I could finally have our life together.

  Ginny

  “How could you use me like that, Jay?” I asked Jay after discreetly requesting that he follow me out of the room so we could talk privately.

  Jay shook his head in disbelief at my words. “It was never love between us, Virginia; you know that. Hell, for the longest time, I thought you couldn’t love anything except your vodka. Now I realize that the alcohol was just a replacement for someone else.”

  I flinched. Perhaps he hadn’t physically touched me, but his words cut straight to the vulnerable spot inside of me that I rarely let people see. The vulnerable spot I had learned to build emotional walls around to protect myself years ago after my father had found us.

  Jay was right about the fact that we were never a love match, but I still had come to see him as a friend. To know that I had been nothing but a job to him hurt like hell.

  Stepping backward, I wrapped my arms around myself in some unconscious form of self-preservation. Then, taking a deep breath, I whispered, “It’s good to know how you really feel about me.”

  Jay closed the distance between us and gently grabbed my shoulders. “Look at me, Virginia.”

  I was near tears and didn’t want him to see, so I just shook my head.

  Giving my shoulders a little shake, he commanded again, “Look at me.”

  This time I did. My eyes were watery, and I hated how I had let some guy I barely know hurt me. But when I looked at him, I didn’t see judgement about my drinking habits. All I saw was concern.

  “You’re a beautiful woman from the inside out, but you don’t let people see it. You hide yourself away in some sort of armor you think is going to protect you from the world.”

  “Not the world, Jay; my father,” I interrupted him.

  Jay shook his head in disagreement. “You can’t stand there and tell me you put up all those emotional walls and stayed so damn bloody aloof because of your father. It doesn’t matter, though. What does matter is this: you don’t drown by falling into the vodka bottle. You drown by staying there. I don’t know where you’ve been these months, or who you’ve been with, but you look ten times better than I have ever seen you. Whatever you’ve been doing, it’s working.”

  “Hey, asshole, get your hands off my woman.”

  I jumped a little at the sound of Lucas’s harsh tone, which Jay seemed to think was funny since he smiled. Then he whispered, “Maybe I should have said who you’re doing.”

  My jaw dropped open at his implication as he winked at me.

  Then he took a step back, removing his hands from my shoulders and sliding them to rest in the pockets of his dress slacks.

  Lucas walked past Jay to stand beside me, draping an arm over my shoulders in an obvious claiming gesture. That was just something else that I figured amused Jay since he seemed to get this delighted little twinkle in his eyes while he watched us.

  Turning all of his attention back to me, Jay said, “I’m sorry if I hurt you, Virginia. I promise that I will do everything I can to get you and your mom out of this situation with your father. Especially since your boyfriend didn’t take the hint I gave him back at the restaurant months ago to leave all of this alone.” The last comment was said with all his attention on Lucas, so the dig was obvious.

  “I’ve already shot you once; I have no problem doing it again,” Lucas replied with a dig of his own.

  Crap, somehow, in all the rush of what had been going on recently, I had completely forgotten about Lucas shooting Jay four months ago.

  As I patted Jay’s upper arm gently, he turned to look at me again.

  “I’m sorry about that, Jay,” I apologized. “I had no idea he was going to come after me that day.”

  Jay gave me a slight head nod, but nothing else. Then he turned to look back at Lucas, his eyes turning hard as he absentmindedly rubbed the spot next to his shoulder with his right hand. “Don’t push your luck, Mr. Young. I let you get away with that once. I won’t a second time.”

  Turning his attention one last time back to me, Jay then said, “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Virginia. I think it’s time I return to the other room so my handlers and your boyfriend’s little friends can plan on how to take down your father. I’m just as anxious as you are to get this over with.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” I muttered back.

  Jay’s face lost all its warmth. “You’re not the only one who had someone they cared about jeopardized by this operation.”

  After dropping that little bomb, Jay turned on his heels and walked away.

  What he had said was something I hadn’t expected to hear. Suddenly, an image of the redhead I had seen him photographed with popped into my mind. Maybe I wasn’t the only one here with a complicated love life.

  Speaking of love, I turned toward Lucas and wrapped my arms around his middle, laying my head against his chest. “What’s going to happen now?”

  He caressed my hair and down my back with his strong hands. “We’ll work with the DEA and the ATF to come up with a plan on how to arrest your father in a way where no one gets hurt. After that, we’ll go get your mom, get the hell out of this state, and go back to my place.”

  Startled, I lifted my head to look him straight in the eye. “You want me and Mom to go to … Wait, where is it that you live now?”

  A small smile tipped the side of his mouth upward as he answered, “Virginia.”

  “What?” I asked him in confusion, especially since he had never called me by my full name, except as an introduction.

  Lucas started laughing and hugged me tighter. “No, angel, I’m trying to tell you that I live in Virginia now.”

  “Oh …” I could feel the blush spreading across my face. “Sorry about the misunderstanding.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. And the answer is yes.”

  Totally confused now, I asked, “Huh? Yes to what?”

  Lucas bent down and gave me a hard kiss on the mouth. When he pulled back, he whispered, “To anything you want to do with me. The answer is always yes, angel.”

  Chapter

  11

  Lucas

  “So, what’s the plan?” I asked the room as I stepped back into the conference room and sat down where the rest of the men had remained.

  I had left my girl out in the hall. If I hadn’t, there would have been a very good chance I would have ended up dragging her into some random storage closet for more kisses. And as much as I wanted to do that, I needed to get this situation over with even more. Since I couldn’t kill Ginny’s father with Boyd and the other agents breathing down our necks about not blowing their case, then the sooner I could get Wellington arrested, the sooner I could get Ginny and her mom to my place in Virginia.

  There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I wanted them to move in with me. I wanted to com
e home from work to my woman. And, right now, that meant having her mom live with us, too. I was okay with that, even if it became long-term. As far as I was concerned, we could buy a house with a mother-in-law suite. That way, after I got a ring on my girl’s finger and speed walked her ass down the aisle, when we were ready, we could then have kids, and Grandma would already be there to help.

  “Young, you listening to me?” Agent Boyd asked.

  I looked over to see his eye twitching in irritation.

  Chase laughed from across the room. “Man, if I had what he had, I know where my head would be, too, and it’s not here in this room with you morons.”

  I pointed a finger at him in warning. “Don’t even think of Ginny like that.”

  He held his hands up in surrender. “No worries, man. I don’t want your girl.”

  “If you children are done playing, I would like to get back to work here,” Commander Wall snapped at us.

  That was my cue to shut the fuck up and fall in line.

  Standing back up and walking over to the group that had congregated at the front of the room, I asked, “Okay, what did I miss?”

  Boyd rolled his eyes. “Well, while you had your head in the fucking clouds, we were discussing potential ideas for drawing Wellington out and into a location that can be secured for a safe takedown.”

  “Do we have any viable ideas?”

  “We could do what you did earlier today,” one of the ATF agents piped in. “Use Virginia as bait to lure her father out.”

  “No!” I exploded. “Fuck no, in fact. You’re not using Ginny for anything.”

  Wall held his hand up as a signal for me to calm down. Then, looking to the ATF agent, he said, “The idea has merit, but we can’t use Ginny. What about Kahn, though? Can he set up some sort of meeting with Wellington in a public place?”

  Boyd rubbed his chin while plotting. “That could work. We would need the meeting to take place with as few civilians around as possible, though.”