Wicked as Lies Read online

  Edgington shook his salt-and-pepper head. “You’ve already signed the employment contract, so you know the rules.”

  “I do. And I don’t think you have to worry about me ‘fraternizing’ with anyone on staff. I’m not ragging on anyone who’s gay, but hairy butts aren’t my thing.”

  The colonel looked as if he suppressed a laugh. “I paid a lawyer for a boilerplate contract. He inserted that clause, but now that you point it out, I don’t see much of an issue with this crowd.”

  “Probably not. Expectations I should be aware of, sir?”

  “I don’t like bullshit. I expect ops to be run smart and clean. I expect you to follow orders…but I expect you to think for yourself if shit goes south and situations get hot. I hired all of you because you’re good at your respective roles and you’re smart.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t ‘yes, sir’ me. I know your reputation.”

  A rebel. A maverick. A big stick when shit needed stirring. He wasn’t surprised it had preceded him. “I can’t promise to be a perfect operator, but I can promise to be honest, do my best, and work for the collective good.”

  “That’s all I can ask. Anything else we’ll figure out as we go.”

  “Sounds good.” Zy snatched up the paperwork and finished the last of the coffee in his cup, wishing he had more.

  “Dismissed. Get the hell out of here and start thinking about ways to make our clients safer.”

  “You got it. Thank you,” he called as he left the office.

  As he approached the coffee bar, tucking the paperwork under his arm, he found Trees stirring a little powdered creamer in his brew. “How did it go?”

  “Good.” He refilled his mug and gulped half down, the fresh caffeine hitting his bloodstream feeling like pleasure. “Edgington doesn’t seem like a dictator.”

  “He’s not, but he can be a hard-ass.”

  No surprise there. Any boss worth their salt could be. “I gotta pick up some crap from Aspen, then I guess I’ll be doing paperwork today. What about you?”

  “Reports for my last couple of jobs. I’m behind.”

  “Sucks. I’d rather be out in the field.” Zy got itchy behind a desk.

  “Same, buddy.”

  After topping off his mug, Zy set it and the envelope on his desk, then headed to the front of the office. Aspen sat there, scowling at the computer screen in front of her, shoulder-length hair now wrapped in a messy bun and held up with a pencil.

  “Hey,” he greeted, trying not to startle her.

  Her head snapped up, and she lowered the lid of the laptop before plastering on a chipper smile. “Hi. I’ve been trying to get everything ready for you, but your computer is giving me fits. It will just be another few minutes. I’ll bring it to you.”

  Given what Trees had said about Aspen’s abilities, he didn’t think that was a good idea. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it.”

  “No, really. Let me. I need to fix this mess I made so I can learn how not to do it again.”

  If she was only going to fill in here for another couple of weeks, why? “Seriously, it’s no problem. I’ll have it done in a few.”

  “Please. This is so frustrating. If I figure it out, I’ll learn something.” She huffed. “I’m not stupid.”

  “You’re not,” Zy placated, but if the woman wasn’t good with this kind of machinery, maybe she’d be better to take a step back. “But I have a lot of experience. How about you let me help?” He rounded the desk to stand beside her chair.

  Aspen slammed her hand on the laptop lid. “I need to do this.”

  The woman looked ready to cry, and Zy didn’t want to create drama on day one. “Okay, I’ll just stand here and whisper hints. How’s that?”

  The woman let out a breath, looking as if she’d like to object. But when she studied him, she closed her mouth again. Yeah, he wasn’t budging, and that probably showed. “Fine. If you’ll just give me a minute to get back to the beginning…”

  “Absolutely.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall behind him. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “I’d do better if you didn’t hover.”

  Wow, she was touchy. “I’m not hovering. And I’m not judging, either. Just hanging out, looking at Trish’s pictures.”

  “Tessa,” the woman automatically corrected.

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant.” He lifted a silver-framed snapshot of a trio of smiling girls. Some embossed Greek letters underneath told him these might be sorority sisters. The brunette on the left was pretty, as was the redhead on the right. But the blonde in the middle with the sparkling green eyes and the fuckable mouth shoved his heart against his ribs with a thud. Man, he’d love to meet her.

  He set the photo down, and seeing Aspen’s still suspicious glare slanted his way, Zy chose to pluck another photo off the desk. In this one, the blonde wore a white sundress and reclined with a fluffy gray tabby, both with their eyes closed, almost nose to nose. She looked happy in this picture. Peaceful. Gorgeous.

  “You should probably put that down. I don’t know if Tessa would appreciate anyone messing with her pictures. I’ve tried to avoid touching them for just that reason.”

  Tessa was the blonde?

  “Have you met her?” He gestured to the woman in the photo.

  Aspen shook her head. “Only talked to her over the phone. But I wouldn’t want my stuff touched.”

  Yet she felt free to mess with his computer? Screw this. Time to end the standoff, snatch the machine up, and fix it himself. But another framed picture on the far wall caught his attention. A dude with sandy hair and a matching goatee stood beside the gorgeous blonde, wearing a cocky smirk, his arm hooked around her shoulders.

  This must be Tessa’s husband. And in Zy’s view, she could have done better. This guy looked a little smarmy. A little shifty, too. But whatever. Maybe Mr. Tessa was a great human being and a supportive husband. It just sucked that the first woman Zy had felt a jolt of attraction to in forever was taken.

  “I’m not hurting anything.” He set the picture back down. “Just admiring the nice couple.”

  Aspen turned to him and dropped her voice. “They’re not a couple anymore. Apparently, he ran out on her a few weeks before their daughter was born.”

  What a scumbag. On the one hand, Zy was kind of happy to hear the news. That meant she wasn’t weighed down by a horrible excuse for a man anymore and she was free to date someone else. Like him, for instance. On the other hand, that meant she was a single mom with a newborn and maybe even a broken heart…so probably not ready to date anytime soon.

  Just his luck. And the longer he stood at her desk, checking out her random pictures, the more that fact annoyed him.

  “Thanks for the FYI, Aspen.” He snatched up the computer. “You know, I think I’ll take it from here.”

  “Wait!” She lunged out of her chair. “I really want the chance to fix it.”

  “I’ll handle it and give you some pointers later. Log-in credentials?” He held out his hand.

  She slid the slip of paper into his palm, looking almost tearful. “Please give me the chance to fix this and learn from my mistakes.”

  Maybe if he’d been feeling less agitated, he would have obliged her. “Next time.”

  Zy hiked back to his desk and sat with the computer. When he opened the lid, he scowled. “What the hell was she doing?”

  Instead of a log-in screen, Aspen had somehow gotten behind the interface and maneuvered herself into the back end, into the terminal itself. “What the fuck was she doing?”

  “What?” Trees looked up absently.

  Zy flipped the laptop in his direction.

  His buddy laughed. “She did that with mine, too. She tries. I think she’s really lost.”

  She had to be. Getting here usually took a know-how he doubted she possessed. “She won’t be touching my computer again.”

  “Good call.”

  Silenc
e fell, and Zy knew he probably shouldn’t stir up trouble, but he didn’t feel like letting this go. “So, um…Aspen told me Tessa’s husband ran out on her?”

  “Boyfriend. Yep. His name was Cash.” Trees snorted. “And yeah, he was as douchy as his name implies.”

  “How did she take it?”

  His friend shrugged. “Tessa is hard to read.”

  Zy didn’t know what to say to that. He wanted to know more. Hell, he kind of wanted to know where she lived so he could find out if she was all right. But that was ridiculous. He’d never met the woman, and she likely wouldn’t want a stranger intruding. Besides, they were going to be co-workers. Why start something in the office that, contractually speaking, neither of them could pursue?

  It would be better off if he didn’t go after her. Shouldn’t be too hard. This job would be dangerous, and a fair amount of his time would be spent away from Lafayette, gun in hand, kicking bad-guy ass. That’s where he needed to focus, not some hang-up he had for a blonde he’d never met.

  “Hmm. So what’s good for lunch around here?”

  Monday, March 10, 6 a.m.

  Mexico

  * * *

  “What the fuck are we doing here?” Zy hissed at Trees as they trekked around a scrub-dotted desert hill in the chilly pre-dawn. “I know this is a rescue mission, but…”

  “I’m in the dark, too. I don’t know much except this is part of an ongoing effort.”

  “Rescuing someone related to the head of a drug cartel? Why?”

  “Not sure. But if we’re here, I’m guessing someone close to our scumbag, Emilo Montilla, wants to talk, maybe turn evidence over to the feds…who probably don’t want to get their hands dirty by taking a foreign citizen out of their country of origin to further their case. Or maybe us busting in is all for optics, so Montilla doesn’t know one of his own stabbed him in the back.” He shrugged. “But I know that when the feds can’t or won’t green-light missions, we often get the call.”

  That made sense, and Zy didn’t need to know why he was shivering in the middle of the damn desert before sunrise, trying to extract a woman he’d never heard of. He’d done clandestine before, and a paycheck was a paycheck. But it helped to understand the players, the lay of the land, and the reason for the mission objective, especially when things went south. “Roger that. How much farther?”

  Trees stared at the sat-map device in his hands, then scanned the horizon with a scowl. “Almost there.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  His scowl deepened. “I don’t know, maybe nothing.”

  Maybe, but if something had spooked Trees, that worried Zy. He plucked the radio from his belt and turned the volume up just enough to hear. “Almost in position. Copy?”

  “Roger that,” Cutter murmured. “Same.”

  The plan was simple…in theory. A few hours ago, Zy had planted explosives around the camp intel said Montilla was currently holed up in, along with their target. In a few minutes, as the sun edged above the horizon, they would launch the first part of their attack. Less than a mile to the east, Cutter was spotting One-Mile on a series of shots that should be a breeze for him, to take out the trio of heavily armed guards watching over the compound overnight. Then, while pandemonium ensued, Zy would detonate the preset explosives to draw out the rest. Trees had come along to scramble the cartel’s devices and make their communications next to impossible. Then Zy was supposed to rendezvous with Cutter just outside the compound, rush in to grab the woman with One-Mile providing cover fire, then get the fuck out and back to the extraction point before eight a.m.

  It wasn’t terribly complicated, and the mission shouldn’t be hard, but he was nervous. Because it was his first assignment for the colonel? Because he wanted to prove himself to the guys he’d pledged to work with for the next three years?

  “Holler when you’re ready,” he told Cutter. “We’ll initiate the sequence on your go.”

  “Got it.”

  Zy glanced up to see Trees peering through the charcoal morning with infrared binoculars. He was still scowling.

  “What do you see?”

  “Same three guards, still in the same basic place.”

  “Makes Walker’s job easier.”

  “I guess. It also makes me uneasy. Why aren’t they patrolling?”

  “Laziness?”

  Trees scoffed. “Show me a lazy member of a cartel, and I’ll show you a dead one.”

  He had a point, but… “We have no indication they’re onto us.”

  “We don’t.”

  But Trees didn’t like it. Zy had known his buddy long enough to read the signs.

  “Shit,” the big guy beside him hissed suddenly.

  “What?”

  “A fourth guard just emerged.”

  Dread pinged Zy’s gut. That wasn’t normal. They’d been watching this compound for days. “Over an hour early?”

  “Yeah, and he’s not empty-handed.”

  “Abort!” Cutter screamed over the radio.

  The warning had Zy on even higher alert. “Trees?”

  He paused, peering through the binoculars before whipping them away and bending to scoop up his pack. “Abort. GTFO now!”

  Zy didn’t stop to ask questions, just secured his gear and ran after Trees.

  “Did you hear me? Abort!” Cutter’s voice urged over the radio.

  “We’re out,” he shouted into the handheld unit, legs pumping across the desert sand.

  “Run fast. They’re onto us and they’ve got an RPG.”

  Oh, fuck! Somehow, the cartel had figured out they weren’t alone in the middle of nowhere, and they were coming for blood.

  Behind him, Zy heard the hum of an engine. The growl told him their vehicles weren’t standard-issue. Unfortunately, he and the rest of the team were a good half mile away from their stashed vehicle—and even longer to reach the chopper.

  A dozen questions sat on his tongue, along with at least that many expletives. Now wasn’t the time. If they lived, then he’d want to know what the fuck was going on. Details. An explanation that made sense. The truth.

  The sound of tires eating their way up the side of the hill carried over the sawing of his breath and the pounding of his heart. He ran every fucking day, but not at this pace. Not on sand that shifted and slid beneath his feet. It was going to wear him down, probably before the cartel caught up. And that scared the shit out of him. They weren’t known for their hospitality.

  To his left, he caught a glimpse of Cutter and Walker sprinting, as he and Trees were, for their vehicle, which stood a few hundred feet in the distance. Behind him, the sounds of the engine grew louder. Next, he heard an explosion, followed by a whine and a whoosh.

  An explosive landed in the soil half a football field in front of them, kicking up sand, rocks, and brush. Zy squinted and covered his eyes as he approached the brown cloud of dust, then tried to outrun whatever came next. It would take the crew behind him less than a minute to reload and launch again.

  “We’re fucked!” Trees shouted beside him.

  “We’re almost there,” he tried to encourage his buddy.

  But deep in his heart, Zy feared his buddy was right; they were fucked.

  The engines roared closer as the second explosion filled the air. Zy craned his head over his shoulder—and saw the fucking grenade coming straight for them.

  “Drop!” he shouted as he rolled to the sand, trying to avoid the explosive’s arc.

  Trees hit the deck. Cutter started to do the same, but Walker either didn’t hear or intended to be the hero. At least until his spotter tossed him down with a tug on his arm.

  The grenade hit the sand not twenty feet from them, too close to their vehicle for comfort.

  “Go, go, go!” Cutter demanded.

  They all raced to their feet in an all-out dash for their Jeep. If they couldn’t reach it and hit the gas in the next sixty seconds, they were toast.

  Finally, they managed to reach their open-air veh
icle and dump all their contents in the back. Over his thudding heart and everyone’s furious breaths, he heard the tick, tick, ticking of a silent clock in his head, counting down the moments to impending death. It blended with the snarl of engines closing in as they tore off the camouflage covering and all hopped in, Cutter taking the briefest glimpse to ensure they’d all piled in before he stomped on the gas and the vehicle lurched forward.

  Zy’s ass barely touched the seat before they began tearing through the desert, jockeying their way toward the public road, which was at least ten miles away.

  “We’re not going to fucking make it,” Walker spit. “You should have let me shoot the son of a bitch with the RPG.”

  “We didn’t have time.”

  “The fuck we didn’t! No one made you mission commander, Bryant, and you don’t have the first fucking clue what shots I can make.”

  “Stop whining and fire back at these assholes. That’s the only way we’re getting out of here alive.”

  Zy whipped his stare around. In between the clouds of dust their race through the desert had kicked up, he saw something that made his blood run cold. “They’ve got a mounted fifty-cal!”

  “Motherfucking son of a bitch,” Walker cursed as he jerked out his Glock. “Don’t ever stop my shot again. And if I die, I’m going to haunt your ass.”

  There was no way anyone was hitting the enemy vehicle with that weapon at that distance. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Walker glared at him like a bug to be squashed. “You got a better idea, new guy?”

  Zy didn’t, and that sucked, so he closed his mouth, drew his own weapon, and sent up a prayer.

  The sun inched up the horizon, and Cutter wisely drove east, straight into the blinding light, fishtailing the back tires to kick up as much dust as possible. They had no other way to obscure their position.

  If they got out of this alive, it would be a fucking miracle.

  Then came the sound he goddamn dreaded—another bang, followed by another high-pitched howl. Then a flash, followed by a deafening sound as the explosive landed inches from the back right tire, where Zy sat. Then fire ripped into his shoulder and across his back seconds before something bashed in the side of his skull.