by Elle Kennedy
“They’ve got enough well-wishers,” he said with a shrug. “They don’t need me.”
Olivia shook her head. “It would make Ethan happy if you said something.”
He stifled an angry curse. Fuck Ethan. Fuck these people. It wasn’t his job to make them happy.
But the damned woman was staring at him as if it was, and her chastising gaze succeeded in making him feel guilty.
The only other woman who held this kind of power over him was Sofia. Except Sofia was even worse than Olivia, because once Olivia left the compound, she didn’t linger in his mind. But Sofia . . . she fucking lingered.
She’d been messing with his head for two months now.
He hadn’t expected to enjoy fucking her as much as he had. When he’d pulled out of her pussy, still rock-hard and wired with arousal, he’d been stunned to realize he wanted to screw her again. Hell, he probably would’ve screwed her all goddamn night if he hadn’t walked away. But he’d forced himself to go, to avoid giving in to temptation and taking what he couldn’t have. What he shouldn’t have taken in the first place.
“Please, D,” Olivia said softly. “Ethan respects you. He views you as an older brother. You know it would mean a lot to him if you went over there.”
Goddamn it. His jaw went rigid, but he couldn’t turn away from those big earnest eyes. After a beat, he found himself giving a curt nod and stalking back to the group.
He weaved his way toward the happy couple, ignoring the knowing looks from his teammates. Even the baby in Kane’s arms seemed to be smirking at him, blinking at D with the honey-yellow eyes the kid had inherited from his mother. But when Jasper grinned that toothless grin of his, he was all Kane.
D marched up to Ethan and tapped him on the shoulder. The younger man turned around, his expression immediately filling with—damn that Olivia—pleasure.
“Congratulations,” D muttered.
Ethan’s mouth twitched. “On a scale of one to ten, how physically painful was that for you to say?”
D glowered at him.
Juliet untangled herself from Ethan’s muscular arms and surprised D by throwing her arms around him—and kissing him right on the mouth.
The quick peck startled the shit out of him. He and Juliet weren’t enemies, but they weren’t best buds either. Her fiery nature didn’t mesh with his serious one, and most of the time he found her tolerably annoying.
“You need to smile every once in a while,” she whispered in his ear. “That scowl of yours is hot as fuck, but damn, D, life is good sometimes.”
He swallowed a laugh. Yeah right. Life was never good. Sometimes it deceived you into thinking it was, but D knew the world for what it was. A cesspool of evil and violence. A living nightmare.
Though it might be nice to borrow those rose-colored glasses sometime and see what these people saw.
He leaned in, brushing his lips against her ear. “You hurt him, and I’ll fuck you up.”
Melodic laughter floated around him as Juliet stepped back into Ethan’s waiting arms.
There. He’d wished them well. Time to get the hell out of here.
This time when he stalked off, he made sure to steer clear of Olivia, who was probably plotting a way to force him into socializing or some shit. He climbed up to the terrace in hurried strides, where Liam continued to stand at the railing, watching the festivities with a grimace.
“Look at them,” Liam remarked when D came up beside him. “It’s like they have no care in the world.”
D lit a cigarette and followed Liam’s gaze, taking in the same joyous scene. Luke’s head bent over Olivia as he kissed her cheek. Abby and Isabel chatting on the far end of the aisle. Cate’s dark blue eyes lighting up as she laughed at something the team rookie, Ash, had just told her.
Liam was right. No care in the world.
But another pair of blue eyes, these paler than a glacier, suddenly peered up at the terrace, and D wasn’t surprised when Noelle’s gaze locked with his. He swore the woman could read his mind.
The look she gave him spoke volumes. He could read her too, read her well, and he knew in that moment that she wasn’t part of this happy charade. She was still looking for Sullivan, just like he was, and the slight nod she offered confirmed it.
Liam didn’t catch it, though. He was too busy scowling, visibly offended by what he was seeing. “They don’t give a shit that he’s still out there,” he mumbled, and there was no mistaking the pain in his voice. “Christ almighty, D. He’s probably being tortured as we speak.”
The guilt was back, a dull knife twisting his insides. He almost opened his mouth and told Macgregor about his suspicion that Sullivan had been abducted in his place, but he pressed his lips together to stop the confession from slipping out.
He didn’t give a shit what people thought about him, but Liam was looking for someone to blame, and D couldn’t afford to be on the man’s radar right now. If he alerted his teammate to the fact that he might be responsible for Sullivan’s disappearance, Liam wouldn’t just hate him—he’d interfere.
D had feelers out. He’d tapped contacts that not even Morgan knew about. He would find out what happened to Sullivan, and when he did, he couldn’t have Liam screwing up his plans. Macgregor wasn’t right in the head. He was acting on impulse and fear, and his desperate need to find their teammate could very well put Sullivan’s life at risk.
Unfortunately, D’s silence only deepened the darkness in Liam’s eyes. “You think he’s dead, don’t you?”
D looked at the other man, frowning at the hissed accusation. “No. I don’t.”
Liam’s hostility dampened. Slightly. “Then why the fuck aren’t you doing anything to find him?”
“Every contact I have is out there looking for him,” D said coldly. “Same way your people are looking for him, and Morgan’s, and Noelle’s. We have nothing to go on, man. We combed every inch of Dublin—hell, Reilly and Bailey are still there, talking to anyone who’ll listen. Noelle’s girl Paige has been poring over every frame of security footage in that city, trying to locate him.”
Liam slammed a hand on the railing. “How does someone just disappear? Who the fuck has him? And don’t you dare give me that bullshit about how maybe he took off—Trevor tried selling me that earlier, and I’m not fucking buying it.”
Neither was D. Sullivan had always been a nomad, but when he wasn’t with the team, there was only one other place he’d be: on his boat. And the damned boat was moored in Portugal, where Sully had left her six months ago before heading to Dublin. D had examined the marina’s security footage himself, which clearly showed that Sullivan hadn’t stepped foot on his yacht since he’d docked her.
“Why don’t they care?” Contempt dripped from Liam’s voice as he stared at their colleagues. “Weddings? J.J.’s christening? Cate’s graduation? What the hell is wrong with them?”
D laughed harshly. “The world doesn’t stop when something bad happens, bro. Life goes on. But that doesn’t mean they don’t care about him.”
“They think he’s dead.”
“Not all of them.”
“Just one is enough. One person gives up and the rest fall like fucking dominoes.”
Liam no longer sounded angry, but anguished. Visceral sorrow polluted the air around them, and D suddenly felt like fleeing. This was why you didn’t get close to people. Liam had been fine before his friendship with Sullivan. Then he’d gone and formed a bond with the man, and now look at him. Hurting. Furious. Pathetic.
D liked his teammates. He respected them. He cared whether they lived or died, and he saved their asses when their asses needed saving. He even showed up for their fucking weddings and graduations. But truly caring about them? Enough to experience genuine grief if they were gone? No, he would never let himself get that close.
Finding Sullivan wasn’t about having some deep emotional connection with the man. It was about righting a wrong. D was already going to hell for the sins he’d committed, but damned
if he was going to burn for this. He refused to have a teammate’s death on his conscience.
“You know what? Here.” Liam shoved his beer bottle in D’s free hand and stumbled away from the steel railing. “Finish this for me. Toast the happy couple. I can’t stomach this.”
As the other man staggered toward the French doors leading into the kitchen, D decided that Liam had the right idea. Maybe he’d head down to the basement, kill some time in the target range. Normally he preferred the outdoor range on the property, but he doubted the wedding party would appreciate the sound of his rifle going off in the middle of their celebration.
He took a final drag of his smoke, his gaze sweeping over the sprawling compound. The property had once belonged to a drug kingpin, and Morgan had bought it at government auction after their last compound had been compromised. Although the outbuildings, ranges, tunnels, and armory were absolutely to D’s liking, the house itself was too damn luxurious. It boasted three floors of posh suites, along with a massive kitchen, a living room right out of a ski chalet, a game room, a theater, and dozens of other extravagances that D didn’t give a shit about.
He didn’t belong in a place like this, and he often wondered why he stuck around. He could easily live off-site like some of the other men, but for some fucked-up reason, he’d chosen not to.
D stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray on the wrought-iron table, but before he could leave the terrace, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out, frowned at the unknown number, and answered with a brusque “Yeah?”
A raspy voice responded in Spanish. “I hear you’re looking for someone.”
The caller was male, but D didn’t recognize the voice. Switching to Spanish, he barked out, “Who’s this?”
“A friend of a friend.”
Wrong answer. D didn’t have any fucking friends.
“Be more specific,” he snapped. “Three seconds, or I hang up.”
There was a pause.
“One,” D warned.
“The cash you promised Vic,” the caller said hastily. His voice was no longer deep and growly, and although there was something familiar about it now, D couldn’t place the guy. “I want it.”
His eyes narrowed. Vic was one of his informants in Tijuana, a low-life drug dealer D hit up for information every now and then. He’d contacted the dealer a few months ago and promised a nice reward for any intel on Sullivan, but there’d been no word until now.
“Why isn’t Vic calling me himself?”
“Because he’s dead.”
“Bullshit. I would’ve heard about it. I keep tabs on all my rats.”
“He was killed this morning.” Another pause. “I’m his brother.”
An incredulous laugh popped out. “Jesus, is that you, Tonio?”
“Yes,” the teenager admitted guiltily.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. He was dealing with Tonio? Vic’s little brother was a gangly seventeen-year-old, and, like his brother, a member of a two-bit gang that distributed cocaine in Tijuana. Stupid little boys who thought they were big, bad men.
“Where the hell is Vic?” D demanded.
“I told you. He’s dead.” A note of panic crept into Tonio’s voice. “A drug deal went south this morning. He was gunned down by six Diablos Rojos.”
Shocker. D had always known that moron Vic would eventually get himself killed.
“What, so now you need some cash to skip town?” D asked with a chuckle. “You thought you could feed me false intel and I’d send you a get-out-of-Tijuana ticket?”
“It’s not false intel,” Tonio protested. “Vic was going to call you after the deal. He told me so himself.”
D frowned. “And you waited this long to get in touch with me?”
“I had no choice. Your number was on one of his burners, and those are all in his apartment. I had to wait for the heat to die down before I came back here. Had to make sure I wasn’t being followed.”
That gave him pause, because his internal lie detector was telling him the kid was being honest.
“I need that cash, Delta,” Tonio pleaded, using the name D’s informants knew him by. “Please. Wire it to the place you and Vic use.”
“No,” he said bluntly. “That’s not how Vic and I operated. He gave me the intel, I sent him half. I verified the intel, he got the other half.”
“I don’t have that kind of time! I’ve got the entire Diablos Rojos organization gunning for me. Vic fucked them over big-time.”
D stifled a sigh and mulled it over. Twenty grand was a huge chunk of change, but it meant nothing to him in the grand scheme of things. And if the intel led to a dead end, at least Tonio would have a chance.
Not that D gave a shit if the kid lived or died. Right now, he just needed a lead. A crumb. Anything. Sullivan had been gone for six months, and the ticking clock in D’s head was getting louder and louder the longer Sully stayed off the grid.
“I’ll wire the full amount,” D told the kid. “But first you cough up the intel.”
The line went silent.
“That’s my final offer, Tonio.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. But you’ve gotta promise to wire the cash the moment we hang up.”
“I already said I would. Now, what did Vic find?”
“The guy you’re looking for—Australian? Merc, right? Vic heard some whispers about someone fitting that description being taken captive.”
D froze. “Who’s the source?”
“I don’t know. Vic didn’t tell me. But you know my brother, Delta. He has—” Tonio stuttered, correcting himself. “He had eyes and ears everywhere.”
Which was one of the reasons D had contacted him. Vic lived in the underbelly of Mexico’s crime world. That slimy motherfucker knew everyone.
“Where’s the Australian being held?” Although he was speaking Spanish, he still lowered his voice, because half the people currently milling on the lawn spoke the damn language. Hell, Isabel alone was fluent in a dozen languages.
“Isla del Rey,” Tonio answered.
The stone floor beneath D’s feet swayed.
Shit. Motherfucking shit.
So much for putting the past behind him.
Tonio added, “Mendez has him.”
With those three words, D knew that if Sullivan wasn’t already dead, it was only a matter of time before he would be.
Chapter 4
Six months ago
Isla del Rey, Mexico
He regained consciousness when the boat bumped the dock.
Maybe it was the sudden calmness of the water, the slower speed, the scent of earth and citrus that joined the salty air he’d been breathing for most of the trip. Years of sailing the world and living on his boat for months at a time had trained his senses to recognize every leg of a sea journey, and those senses alerted his subconscious now, drawing him from his sedated slumber to let him know they’d reached their destination.
Sedated.
Jesus Christ. How had he allowed that to happen?
Sullivan Port opened his eyes and blinked against the sudden onslaught of sunshine. When they’d thrown him in the back of that SUV, it had been dark. And rainy. In Dublin. But clearly they’d traveled far, far from Dublin since his captors had knocked him out at the hotel.
He tried to move, and it took a second to figure out why his body wasn’t cooperating. His arms were yanked behind his back, wrists bound together and tied to the metal barrel he’d been propped up against. His legs were stretched out on the dirty deck of the fishing vessel, his ankles trussed up by a thin cable, just like his wrists.
The duct tape on his mouth rendered talking impossible, but he was able to turn his head, and when he did, he instantly spotted the man from the bar. The man with the neat goatee and dark eyes.
The man who’d abducted him because he thought Sullivan was Derek fucking Pratt.
Sully would’ve corrected the bloody bastard back in Dublin, but he hadn’t been given the
chance. The stranger’s instructions had been more than clear, buzzing through Sully’s head now as he regained his mental faculties.
“Walk out of the bar. Hands visible at all times. Step outside. No sudden movements, no funny business, or my men open fire on everyone in this hotel.”
He supposed he could’ve called the man’s bluff, but it had taken no time at all to confirm that the stranger did indeed have backup. Half-a-dozen suit-clad operatives positioned in the lobby, bar, and restaurant, ready to kill anyone unfortunate enough to be awake and roaming the hotel at two thirty in the morning. Granted, the civilian count had been low—six, maybe seven folks—but Sullivan hadn’t wanted to risk it.
He’d figured he could neutralize the situation once he got outside and the civilians were out of harm’s way, but he hadn’t accounted for the needle. The shadow that appeared from nowhere and injected a tranquilizer into his bloodstream.
At least twelve hours must have passed since then, judging by the fact he was on a body of water that was most certainly not the English Channel, approaching an island that looked far too tropical for the UK.
If he had to hazard a guess, he’d say they were in Mexico, Latin America maybe. And with the time difference, that meant it was nine in the morning, maybe later.
The island wasn’t huge. Just a flash of green on a backdrop of blue. Thick vegetation took up the far end, but the area surrounding the marina had been cleared away. It had a military feel to it, thanks to the tall guard towers and concrete airstrip a hundred yards from the dock. A gleaming white jet sat on the tarmac, along with a handful of smaller aircraft, including a military-grade Chinook helicopter.
Christ. What had he gotten himself into?
Or, rather, what had D gotten him into?
“Cut him loose,” a voice said.
“Yes, sir.”
The men were speaking Spanish, and it took Sully’s foggy brain a moment to snap into translation mode.
A man with a shaved head appeared in front of him, a hunting knife in his hand. He reached behind Sullivan and slashed at the rope securing him to the barrel.