"Recon?" Rebel folded his arms and growled. "From the inside? Right. Because we have that kind of time?"
Rhett grunted. "So you vote for just blowing the lid off the place?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Zeke drawled.
"Right." Garrett snorted. "That's a fine plan-unless Adler's fun little fairies have been hard at work building in some cute booby traps for wandering C-4 enthusiasts. Just to make things more interesting, yeah?"
Zeke narrowed his eyes. "You've been watching too many James Bond movies."
"And you've been to too many CrossFit sessions." Garrett caught enough of Rhett's commiserating glance to go on. "The ability to bench-press a tractor tire doesn't do you shit beneath a mountain of rubble or a lungful of sarin gas."
Rebel glowered back into pirate mode. "Better the guy who tried than the guy who stood around ‘strategizing' with his dick in his hand."
"So you're all dead," Rhett snapped, "and Zoe and her baby are still turned into Adler's human sushi."
That took care of any remaining stomach flips-and turned into Brynn's bravado for whacking the man's shoulder. "There's a word in the dictionary called ‘tact,' bozo. Look it up. And you,"-she stabbed two fingers into Rebel's chest, cutting short his gloating snicker-"aren't any better."
Rebel glowered. "Huh?"
"Are you really licensed to play with explosives? Who do I write a letter to about that?"
Shay shoved from the wall and barreled toward them. "This bullshit's getting us nowhere. If I have to tear down that building brick by brick, I'll do it."
Zeke hooked him to a halt. "Negative." He shrugged in reply to Shay's snarl. "That's exactly what Adler's anticipating, not to mention your fun friend Nyles. Sorry, I-Man. If Zoe's their holy grail, you're their golden Arthur. On top of that, you've barely slept or eaten, not to mention the emotions that are fucking your game to shit."
"And yours wasn't, when you went running after Mua when he took Rayna as revenge when you put away his brother?"
"I was way clearer than you." Z jerked up his chin and firmed his jaw. "I was also a lot less valuable to Mua than you are to Adler."
"And Mua was a moron," Garrett inserted.
Shay fumed into silence. Brynn winced again in sympathy. The guy had no other option. Homer Adler and "moron" didn't belong in the same sentence. The man was brilliant-to the point of daunting.
But while Brynn had sworn off soldier studs like these as lovers, she knew their fiber as men. "Daunting" was part of their job description, along with terms like "impossible", "risky", and "what-the-fuck-are-you-thinking". She could practically see the gears churning in their heads already, about what they were going to do for Shay.
And Zoe.
As if the conviction of her conclusion drew him forward, Rebel moved to the middle of the room. But that was where things got weird. He didn't stomp forward; he sauntered. Like a gentleman pirate strolling the decks in the sun, he clasped his hands behind his back while glancing at Rhett.
"Hey, Double-Oh?"
"Yeah?"
"Weren't we about to hit up Franz for those two weeks of leave?"
Rhett closed the laptop with a knowing grin. "Do believe we were."
"Seems a good time to make that happen."
He grinned wider. Rhett mirrored the look.
"The mavericks haven't had an adventure in a long, long time."
"God help us all," Zeke muttered.
"Sending that the wrong direction, buddy." Garrett jabbed hands into his pockets. "With those two, we'll be posting bail money to hell." When he pulled a hand back out, a child's pacifier dangled from his fingers. His eyes softened, undoubtedly succumbing to a vision of his nearly two year-old son, Racer.
"As long as they take care of recon on Texas first, I don't give a shit."
"Amen, brothah." Kellan lifted his hand, wiggling a confident Hang Ten. "And while you guys are checking out shit in the land of longhorns, I can cross the D.C. warehouse off the list. Wouldn't hurt to check out LA, too. If Adler formed relationships with any of Stock's show biz buddies, he might be going that route, as well."
Z bumped a fist in his direction. "Good thinking. What better place to hide someone than the land of ultimate illusion?" His head jerked, a thought clearly piercing it. "You have any lines on where to find a discreet pilot?"
Kellan curled a wolfish grin. "Sam Mackenna just got into town."
Z chortled. "Mackenna! They really let that ape leave Scotland?"
"All six-foot-whatever of him." Kellan chuckled. "He's here for some cross-training between the air forces, only they've been delayed due to some bullshit red tape. He's sitting on his hands over at Nellis, going stir-crazy. Seriously, you'd think he'd been forced to hole up in a cave for years or something."
"Call him. Right away."
"Done."
Zeke cocked a wry look at Garrett. "I'm pretty sure Franz won't have a problem with our request for some leave, either."
"Under the circumstances?" Garrett returned. "No. But adding in the can of whoop-ass we unleashed on those drug traffickers last week, and the fact that he's in training now?"
Z snorted ruefully. "Why training gives that guy a nonstop boner, I'll never understand."
"Don't bother to try," Kell interjected. "Just be grateful."
"Agreed, Slash-tastic. Agreed." Zeke's resilient tone reflected a newly buoyant mood among the guys-even Shay, who stood without the help of the wall or sofa for the first time in hours. "We'll put together the mission command center right in the next room so you can monitor everything that's going on, I-Man."
Shay growled. "If they find Zo, ‘monitoring' won't be all I do, asshole."
"Bridge to cross later." Garrett clapped a hand over the big man's shoulder.
El stepped forward again. "I can be here a lot, too. Help out in any way you guys need with the tech."
Brynn frowned at her. "You're in two shows right now."
"One's dark for two weeks," El countered. "And they can grab someone to cover for me at Papillon. Thank God the Braneff Brothers believe in huge show casts."
"Outstanding." Rebel smacked his palms together. "And I've got a guy who can hook up Double-Oh and me into a place just outside Austin."
Rhett jogged up a brow. "Of course you do." He traded a look with his friend that solidified Brynn's earlier assessment. Deep waters. Both of them. A lot of them traversed together.
Which meant they didn't need company.
But some moments in life were just dominated by other forces. Maybe divine ones. That was the excuse she went with, as a string of insane words spilled off her lips.
"And I can help you two with that part."
Both men looked up. The pirate and the Viking stared at her, scrutinizing with two distinct shades of deep blue that dared a girl to get lost in them. What an ideal match for the rabbit hole she'd surely just flung herself into.
Rhett's ruddy brows were the first to crunch. "With what part, peach?"
Okay, forget being entranced by his eyes. Peach? Had he really gone there? It seemed so-and in one syllable, turned a dorky endearment into an all-hail for the deepest tissues of her sex. She stood there with the wet panties as proof, desperately praying she effectively hid the sexual cataclysm that had just struck.
Maybe going to Texas with him wasn't such a keen plan, after all.
"El, Garrett, and Zeke have things handled here. Kellan's scoping out D.C. and Hollywood. So why don't I help you two in Texas?"
So exactly why was she pushing the point again?
"Please. I need to help find her, too."
There it was.
It sure as hell didn't come easy. She wasn't wired to beg for anything in her life. Only when the moment really called for it did she flip open the circuit box and consciously decide to rewire her nature. But if any cause was worth it-if anyone was worth it-Zoe Chestain-Bommer was that person. Brynna had a nonexistent father, a mother who might as well have been, and a sister who lived in fantasy land most days. Ryder, El, and Zoe were her only real family now. She'd be damned to stand by and just watch a monster rip one of them away.
"Please," she repeated, "I have to do what I can. You have to let me help get Zoe back-somehow!"
Chapter Three
‡