The words came out as a threat, and Zane meant them that way.
He knew in an instant that Nate was hiding something. His face had gone flat. Nate was an excellent poker player, but Zane had known him long enough to call his bluff. “You better spit it out now, man. If you know something and you’re holding out on me, we’re going to have trouble.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed. “I’d watch my tone, Zane, or you might find yourself in the cell with the women.”
That was not happening. “I’d like to see you try. You want to explain why you’re holding out on me?”
“What would you have done if I had given you the coordinates of the place where we’re supposed to meet with Worthington and Leander?” Nate asked.
Frustration made his fists clench. “I sure as fuck wouldn’t be sitting here. I would have gone there, and Callie would be out and safe by now.”
“No, you would have gone charging in, and both you and Callie would be dead.” Nate took the hat off his head and pulled out a Kevlar vest. He tossed it to Zane. “Put it on.”
Zane let the damn thing hit the floor with a thud. “Tell me where she is.”
Nate picked up the vest, his eyes steely as he held it out. “Put the fucking thing on or I’ll Taser you and handle this myself. If you want to have anything to do with this mission, you will put the vest on and you will follow my every order. I’m in charge here. If you deviate from the plan, Logan is going to take you out.”
“Umm, boss?” Logan’s voice sounded reedy and thin. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Don’t worry, Nate. If he steps out of line, Max, Rye, and I will take care of it.” Stefan held the rifle like a man who knew what he was doing. “I’ll make sure I don’t actually kill him.”
Zane’s chest felt heavy. He stared at the man who had been his partner for most of his life. How could he not understand what was at stake here? “You can’t do this, Nate. You have to give me up.”
Nate reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder. “So they can kill you and Callie? Not going to happen. Leave this to me. I know I let you down before, but I won’t this time. I promise. I won’t lose you, and I certainly won’t lose our wife.”
The words made his heart seize. Their wife. They didn’t need a piece of paper to make her theirs. He didn’t need some marriage certificate to know that Callie was his. She’d given herself to him when she said “I love you.” She couldn’t take herself back, and there was no way in hell he was going to allow some assholes to take her away from them.
His eyes held Nate’s, and Zane suddenly realized the real intimacy of this threesome he found himself in. It wasn’t about the sex. It wasn’t about getting her in between them. It was so much more. It was about sharing this life with Callie and Nate. It was about having another person who knew what it was like to love Callie. He could rely on Nate. Nate loved Callie, and in a completely nonsexual tough-guy way, Nate loved him, too.
Damn, Nathan Wright was his hero. Why hadn’t he seen that before?
He picked up the vest and fitted it over his head. He tried to close the straps around the waist. They locked together, but just barely.
“Damn big bastard. Who thought we should get such a fucking small vest?” Nate asked no one in particular. He walked around Zane, shaking his head at the fit.
“It’s a large.” Rye Harper shrugged as though apologizing. “And I had to fight for that one. This is Bliss, not the DEA. We don’t have a ton of money set aside for law enforcement. I managed to get exactly one Kevlar vest out of the chamber of commerce, and I had to win at dominoes to get it. I was surprised because I think Hiram cheats. We’ve always known that if the shit hit the fan, Logan was going down.”
Logan snorted. “I ain’t going down. The shit hits the fan, and I’m hiding behind Momma number two.” He shrugged. “I might be a man, but I’m not stupid.”
Marie smacked her child upside the head and told him to watch his language. Nate shook his head and started giving orders. Stella would man the phones and wait for the backup Nate had already called for. Marie and Laura Niles would guard the station house in case some of the jerks Ellis had set on him showed up again. Logan, the Harper twins, and Stef would head out with him and Nate.
They took their small armory and split into two vehicles—Nate, Zane, and Stef in the Bronco and the rest in Max Harper’s truck. They were splitting up in order to try to come at Leander and Worthington from two different sides. They would attempt to give the men nowhere to run. Of course it also meant Callie would be stuck in the middle if the bullets started flying.
Zane’s stomach roiled. He’d never gotten used to the adrenaline rush of a dangerous situation. Though he’d been good at his job, he’d never enjoyed it. He’d never liked the danger, the anticipation of a fight. He knew he looked like a bruiser to the outside world, but deep down he wanted some fucking peace.
Nate, on the hand, was born for this. His hands were steady on the wheel as he turned out of town and toward the mountain that dominated the landscape.
“You want to tell me where we’re going now?”
“Are you going to behave?” Only the tightness of the words gave away the fact that Nate was tense.
“Yeah. I’ll follow orders. I promise.” This was Nate’s op. He was going to trust his partner and not make trouble for him. Nate loved Callie. He wouldn’t put her in more danger than he needed to.
Nate turned his head slightly, as though studying him for deception. “You better. Worthington sent me a text with coordinates about a half an hour ago. It’s a place up the mountain on Mel’s land. I tried to find him, but he’d disappeared. It would be nice if the man would carry a damn cell phone.”
“He’s never going to do that. Mel isn’t a great believer in technology. I’m sure he’s off somewhere patrolling. It’s what he does at night. Be careful about who you shoot at. I wouldn’t want Mel to get caught in this. There’s a clearing about a quarter of a mile from Mel’s cabin. It’s isolated, but those city boys didn’t think about the fact that there are several great sniper perches. Laura was right about those two. They are dumbasses.” Stefan Talbot wasn’t hiding his tension. He was like a well-dressed, highly coiled rattlesnake waiting to pounce. “We need time though. Max, Rye, and Logan are going to have to ditch the truck at the base of the mountain, or Leander and Worthington will know they’re coming. It’s not an easy climb.”
“Do they need gear?” Nate asked.
“Max and Rye? Hell, no,” Stef replied. “They were born in these mountains. They’ll be there. They just need a couple of minutes.”
“I don’t know if we’ll have that,” Zane muttered under his breath. His knee bounced nervously, an unconscious show of anxiety.
Stef leaned forward. “She’s alive, Zane. She’ll be alive at the end of this. She’s no delicate flower. She was born in these mountains, too. If she had any chance to run, I promise she’s hiding right now. She knows the woods. She’s tough.”
“God, I hope she’s not running around in the woods.” Nate said.
They were thinking the same thing. They wanted her waiting patiently to be rescued. They wanted her to play it safe and let them take the chances.
There was absolutely no way in hell she would do that. She would take the first chance she got, and he had to hope she was lucky enough not to get hurt.
His hand tightened on the gun in his lap. The weight and feel was comforting. There was a real chance one of them wouldn’t come out of it. If it had to be that way, then Zane hoped to hell it was him. Nate thought he was being self-sacrificing. Hell, he was being selfish. He didn’t want to live without them. He couldn’t even stand the thought of a world that didn’t include Nate and Callie. He would rather die than live with the hole in his soul. But before anything happened, he needed to do something.
“Nate, I want us to be okay about what happened to me. It wasn’t your fault. I know that. I’ve always known that.”
Nate??
?s jaw clenched. He swallowed before he replied. “I should have known something was wrong. I should have done something then and there.”
“You did. You went for help. You saved me. I’m alive because you got the team and came back for me. If you’d tried to save me on your own, we would both be dead.”
Nate didn’t look at him. His eyes were focused on the road. “You were only there because you followed me.”
“Yeah, I followed you,” he replied. “You didn’t make me sign up. I wanted to go. I was there because I believed in you, and you didn’t let me down. You did your job and got Ellis off the street. Now it’s time to finish it, and then we can move on to the good part of our lives.”
Nate nodded shortly and turned the car up the long dirt road. “We finish this tonight.”
The car got quiet. Zane firmly intended to finish it. Nate might be honor bound to try to take Worthington and Leander in, but Zane was under no such oaths.
He was going to kill them.
Chapter Fifteen
The stinging pain in her shoulder was reaching epic proportions. Callie tried to blink away her tears. Her left shoulder felt like it was on fire. She’d hit the tree line at a sprint, but now she moved slowly, carefully studying the ground so she didn’t trip and fall and make things worse. The instinct was there to run as fast and far as she could, but that would be a mistake. Patience was required in this case. Panic would get her killed.
She forced herself to stop, to hide behind a huge tree and take stock.
She needed to be quiet. The moon was blocked by the forest here, and it was very dark. She could hear one of her attackers moving through the woods like an elephant clomping around. He gave away his position with every move. He’d been behind a desk for too long. He’d forgotten how to stalk his prey, if he’d ever known how.
She hoped he couldn’t hear the thundering beat of her heart. It was galloping. Breathe slowly, let yourself focus. Nell had taught her meditation. She’d done it in an attempt to balance Callie’s soul with the energy of the earth, but she could use the lesson to find her inner calm, to keep the panic at bay.
She took a long, cleansing breath. It was cool and getting cold.
“You better come out now, bitch!” Leander’s voice bounced around the forest.
Callie listened carefully. She was pretty sure he was behind her and to her left. It was like when she was a kid and playing games. She, Max, Rye, and Stef would play hide and seek in these woods. A much younger Mel had warned her even then that she might get abducted by aliens. He’d taken them all out here and shown them good places to hide. He’d taught them how to survive.
The caves. She had to get to the caves. How was she going to climb with her hands behind her back?
She would deal with that problem when she got to it. Mel had a stash in that cave. The moonshine still he kept there might not help her, but the guns he hid would. If she had to, she would shoot those men with her hands behind her back. She would start firing and hope she hit something.
“Come on, sweetheart. You don’t want to be out here. The woods are scary.” A more soothing voice was trying to coax her out. Worthington sounded a bit closer. “You have no idea what’s out here. There are probably animals out here that would love to get a bite of you. Just come out, and we’ll take care of you. Nate should be here any minute, and he’ll take you home.”
Not likely. She rolled her eyes. Did they think she was a complete idiot? Probably. She hadn’t used a whole lot of common sense around them, but that was about to change. There was no way she would willingly go back to them. And she knew what was in these woods a hell of a lot better than they did. Where was a bear when she needed one?
She eased from her hiding place when she heard them move away. She kept her step light, moving slowly, from one tree to the next, inching toward the clearing. She would have to run once she got there, but if they were still in the woods, she should be all right if she was careful.
She broke from the woods and made a beeline for the caves. The entrance was hidden, but she had no doubt where it was located. She’d snuck into it far too often. When she was a kid, she had played there with the boys. Only a year ago, she’d snuck in and sat and cried after her mother’s funeral.
The trouble was the entrance to the cave was about ten feet up a pretty steep incline, and she had to climb without the aid of her hands. She stumbled and fell, her knees hitting the hard ground. Pain flashed through her and she bit back a cry. She had to get up, but she struggled. It was so hard to balance.
“Callie, this can go easy or it can go hard.” Worthington’s voice sounded closer now.
She swung her head around, praying he wasn’t actually walking toward her. Her breath came out in a harsh pant. She saw a flash of something moving and forced herself to get off her knees. Her entire body trembled violently. Fear threatened to take over her every cell. She decided to give the cave one last shot. She backed up slightly and took the hill at a run. She fell forward, her face hitting a rock. She groaned and tried to turn over.
Get up. Move. Don’t just lay there.
She felt something tug at her shirt. She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand came down across it. She bucked and tried to get her teeth to sink into that hand because if they were going to kill her, she was going to make them feel it. She was going to fight.
“Callie, calm down.”
She knew that voice. She stilled and opened her eyes. Mel’s face loomed over hers in the gloom. She breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“Come on.” He hooked his hands under her armpits and hauled her up.
“There!”
Callie heard the masculine shout as Mel was pulling her up. Her shoulder screamed in protest.
“Someone’s up there with her!”
Mel whirled her around and was setting her on her feet at the mouth of the cave when Callie heard the loud crack of gunfire. Mel’s body jerked, and he pushed her roughly away from him. She hit the hard rock of the cave on her ass and immediately scrambled to get up.
“Mel!” Her voice echoed through the cave. She got to her knees and started to make her way toward him.
Mel crawled through the entrance. She could barely see the outline of his body as he struggled to get through. He turned, and Callie could see he’d managed to hold on to his rifle. He turned and fired, the report shockingly loud.
“Sorry, Callie.” Mel practically shouted the words. He scooted backward slightly. “That should make them think twice about coming up here. You in cuffs?”
“Yeah,” she replied breathlessly. “Where are you hit?”
She could hear the pain in Mel’s voice, but it remained steady and even. If the aliens ever did come to Bliss, Callie was going to run straight to Mel. For all his paranoia, he was damn cool in a crisis. “They hit my left thigh. It’s bleeding pretty bad, but I’ll live. I won’t be running anytime soon.” He fired off another shot. “Come over here and I’ll get those cuffs off you. I can pick that lock in no time at all.”
She scooted to him on her knees, wincing at the pain lancing through her. Everything hurt, it seemed.
“How did you find me?” She turned to give Mel access to her hands. She heard the click of metal against metal and suddenly her hands were free. She stretched to get her circulation going again.
“I saw them take you from the town hall. I was getting into my truck to come home and start my patrol, and I saw them put you in their car. You’re a good girl, Callie. I knew you wouldn’t leave with two strange men, not when you already have two strange men.” Mel’s eyes were already facing front again, watching for the agents.
She winced as she started to get circulation back in her hands. Her shoulder hurt, but she breathed through it. Her pain was nothing compared to what these men had done to Zane, what they would do to Nate and Zane if she gave them a chance. She kneeled beside Mel. “Can you take them out?”
“If they’re stupid enough to come close,” Mel replied quietly. He s
ent out another warning shot. “They’re playing it smart for now. Don’t worry. Your men will be here.”
That was what she was afraid of. “They’re walking into an ambush.”
Mel shook his head and chuckled a little. “No, Cal, they’re walking into what we used to call a clusterfuck in the Marines. Excuse my language. You see, these boys didn’t think this out at all. There are far too many places here to come up on a man. Why do you think I chose this spot for my stash? You have to know this place intimately to find all of its hidey holes. Otherwise, you’re a sitting duck. Those boys are sitting ducks. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”
“I screwed up their plans,” she admitted. “They didn’t mean to end up here. They intended to steal twenty million dollars, and I overheard them talking. Hence this crazy plan. Do you see them?”
Mel was still for a moment. “No. They’re quiet, too.” His voice went down a notch. “I heard someone coming up the road though. They stopped a little way back. I think your men are here.”
She let her eyes close and sent a silent prayer to anyone who would listen. She’d done her part. They wouldn’t be able to use her to pull Zane and Nate in. Now it was up to them to save themselves. A sudden thought occurred to her. “Mel, I need a shotgun.”
“There’s a flashlight about ten feet to your right. When you find it, move back another ten feet, and you’ll find a stash of guns.”
She started crawling, feeling her way along the stone floor. If it came to it, she would do whatever it took. She wasn’t going to lose them.
* * * *
Nate cut off the engine about a half a mile from where he needed to be. He had no intention of walking into an ambush. What Zane didn’t seem to understand was that he had no intention of losing either of the most important people in his life. He needed Callie, and he needed Zane, and he wasn’t willing to let either of them die.
His hand curled around the gun he carried. “Stef, you take the long way around. I want you coming up on their backs. If they’re where they say they are, Zane and I are going to come out of the forest in front of them.”