Czytaj książkę: «Soldier For Hire»

Chapter 1

“You know how this is going to end, Xander.”

Xander Scott melted against the wall, clinging to the shadows as his former Red Wolf team leader, Scarlett Rhodes, tried to convince him to come out peacefully, knowing full well that wasn’t going to happen.

Naw, everything had already gone sidewise; Scarlett knew he wasn’t going to go meekly to his own destruction but, hey, he gave her props for tenacity. The woman wasn’t known for her soft and fuzzy side—hell, that was one of the things Xander liked about her—but right about now, he wished Scarlett was a little less rigid so she’d listen to what he was trying to tell her instead of hauling his ass in over some bullshit frame job.

“I didn’t do it, Rhodes,” he said, quickly assessing his position within the abandoned building, stalling for time. Scarlett had found him faster than he’d anticipated, zeroing in on his location like a bloodhound, but he knew her tactics, which was his only saving grace, otherwise she would’ve had him trussed up like a Christmas turkey ready for the table.

Well, that and the fact that while Scarlett played by the rules, Xander didn’t.

“Looking pretty guilty from my end. Innocent people don’t run,” she replied, the sound of her changing position pricking Xander’s ears. “But turn yourself in and we’ll talk about it.”

Xander chuckled grimly. Yeah, we’ll talk about it. Sure. “Think about it, Rhodes. It doesn’t make sense. I’m being framed and you know it.”

“Turn yourself in.”

“Screw you, Rhodes,” he muttered, his gaze catching on the dirty window. They were on the third floor. A jump from that height would break bones at the very least. He was partial to his limbs remaining intact. Besides, Scarlett would have all exit points covered. She’d have a guy stationed in the stairwell, at the fire escape and all back doors. Scarlett was nothing if not efficient. “Why would I have any reason to hurt innocent people? Granted, politicians are scum but I had no beef with McQuarry. You’re barking up the wrong damn tree.”

“Cut the crap, Xander. You’re wasting time. You know you’re surrounded. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. If you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But right now, you’re just making things worse by running.”

Xander blew out a short breath, still trying to figure out how he’d gotten to this moment.

One minute he was going day to day—maybe a little rough around the edges, maybe playing fast and loose with a few rules but for the most part, things had been good.

Manageable.

Sure, sometimes he still woke up, drenched in cold sweat, heart hammering like a meth head after a fresh rail, hands curled in fists ready to swing to the death, but who didn’t, right?

Okay, so maybe not everyone had a psych eval that read like a cautionary tale but then not everyone had seen or done the things he had in the service of the good ol’ US of A.

Did he set the pipe bomb that killed Senator Ken McQuarry three months ago at a political rally in Tulsa? Hell, no.

At least, he didn’t think so.

Yeah, and that was the problem. He couldn’t actually remember that day so well.

Sweat popped along his hairline. “You know whoever’s framing me for this has done their homework. They knew I had a background in the bomb squad. I was cherry-picked. A little too convenient, though, don’t you think? I had no motive, Rhodes.”

He was trying to appeal to that stubborn logic locked inside Rhodes’s skull, but the redhead was like a dog with a bone—single-minded and hungry for the marrow behind the crunch. “You know me, Rhodes,” he said in one last attempt to get her to see she was fighting the wrong fight. “I mean, you really know me. Ask yourself if any of this bullshit sounds legit.”

Xander was playing with fire. No one knew about him and Rhodes. They’d both agreed to keep it that way for the sake of their careers.

But he had to play any card he could.

A pregnant pause almost gave him a glimmer of hope until Rhodes said, “Doesn’t matter. It’s not my job to determine if you’re guilty or not. It’s just my job to bring you in.”

Well, it’d been worth a try. He inched a tiny pocket mirror out so he could peer around the corner. Scarlett, looking dangerous as a coiled viper, covered in SWAT gear, her red hair pulled back in an efficient bun, her gun drawn, waited for him to make his move.

God, she was hot.

Even when she was determined to deliver his head on a platter.

Sorry, Rhodes. That’s not happening today.

Xander tucked the pocket mirror away and quietly pulled the pin on the flash bomb, lobbing it in Scarlett’s direction. The short bang and immediate smoke created cover, but it would only last a moment. Xander rolled under the smoke and popped up behind Scarlett, jerking her to him, his elbow hard across her windpipe, while the barrel of his gun pressed into the narrow opening exposing her rib cage.

“Damn you,” Scarlett growled. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t fight fair.”

“And why would I do that?” he asked. “Especially given the fact that whoever is trying to drag me down for a crime I didn’t commit isn’t exactly playing fair, either?”

“What’s your move now? The building is surrounded. Your little smoke show didn’t do anything but clog up my sinuses. Congratulations, snot.”

He chuckled. “You know, someday your sarcasm is going to put you in hot water. You’re lucky I’m not a psychopath or at the very least, a sociopath without a sense of humor.”

“Your jokes aren’t funny.”

“Ouch. Kitty cat has claws, but then I remember that from the scratches you left on my back.”

“Screw you, Xander,” she bit out, her muscles tensing. He would only be able to hold her like this for a few minutes longer and she knew it. He’d sparred with her enough times to know Scarlett was deadly with her hands and feet.

“Maybe later,” he quipped, but now wasn’t the time to trade witty banter. “Look, if you’re really interested in finding out who set that bomb, start looking in the opposite direction of where you’re being told to look. It’s the oldest trick in the book—sleight of hand—and you’re falling for it. You’re better than that, Rhodes.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job,” she growled, and he knew his time was up. As much as he hated to do it, he couldn’t very well let go of the tiger’s tail and just hope for the best. With one quick motion, he brought the butt of his gun down hard on her head, knocking her out cold.

Her pride might sting and she was going to have one helluva headache but after a few days of rest, she’d be fine.

Lord help him if she managed to catch him after this incident. Scarlett would likely lop off his balls just for fun.

Scarlett opened her eyes to a fog, her vision swimming and her head in an excruciating vise. She struggled to regain her equilibrium but Xander had gotten her good.

Damn asshole had nearly caved her skull in.

Through her bleary vision, she realized she was being loaded into an ambulance, which meant Xander had used her as a distraction to get away.

She swore under her breath, struggling to get up but the EMTs started saying things like “Whoa,” “Hold on, be still,” “you’ve sustained a concussion,” and she knew she was stuck with an ambulance ride to the hospital, which would only give Xander an even bigger head start.

“I’m fine,” she protested but no one was listening. Zak Ramsey, part of her team, crowded into the ambulance beside her and she closed her eyes to stem the spinning. She didn’t want the company but that was only because she was fuming mad that Xander had gotten the drop on her and she was embarrassed.

She was the team leader, not a rook.

And yet, Xander had practically waltzed free from the building they’d had completely zipped up.

Until he’d used her as bait to get away.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice little more than an aggrieved croak.

“We heard a single shot and came up to your location. We found you on the ground, bleeding from the head and Xander gone.”

In spite of herself, a smile formed. “SOB fired off a shot so you’d break off to provide support, which left the exits wide open. Brilliant, actually.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what we figured, too, once we saw that you weren’t actually shot.”

“Xander wouldn’t have shot me,” Scarlett said. It seemed counterintuitive to say she knew Xander wouldn’t gun her down in cold blood, yet she was determined to bring him in for allegedly setting the bomb that’d killed a US senator and a handful of civilians a few months ago. She couldn’t explain it but she just knew that Xander wouldn’t do something like that to her.

She reached up to gingerly touch the spot where he’d clocked her and she’d no doubt end up with a goose egg for her failure.

“Why the hell are you grinning, TL?” Zak asked, confused. She didn’t blame him. The whole damn situation was confusing. Going after one of their own? Yeah, it was confusing as hell.

“I’m smiling because he’s good,” Scarlett admitted with a rueful chuckle. “If he’d wanted to hurt me, I wouldn’t be here suffering a useless ambulance ride to the hospital. He knows protocol will demand tests to ensure I’m okay. The tests will show a minor concussion and I’ll be pulled off the case for a few days, giving him time to get that much farther away. Like I said, brilliant.”

Zak grinned, too. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He gestured to Scarlett’s bandaged head. “I bet that hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“It didn’t tickle,” Scarlett retorted, wincing as a wave of pain almost made her nauseous.

“You need to try and relax,” the EMT warned, but Scarlett just rolled her eyes. She’d had worse than a bump on the head.

To the EMT, she assured him, “I’m fine. This is just protocol. I’ll be out in a few hours.”

The EMT disagreed. “You took a pretty hard knock.”

“I got this,” Scarlett said, waving away the EMT’s concern to the man’s disgust. She didn’t care about hurt feelings. Returning to Zak, she said, “Xander knew just where to crack me in the head to get the job done without knocking my lights out permanently.”

“Talent. Did he say anything to you before taking you out?” Zak asked.

“Yeah.”

“What’d he say?”

“That he’s innocent.”

Zak frowned, shaking his head. “Do you believe him?”

“Not my job to believe him,” Scarlett answered, closing her eyes again when the vertigo became unbearable. “Just my job to bring him in. The attorneys can sort the rest.”

“Yeah, but you gotta admit this whole case stinks of rotten eggs. I mean, Xander’s an asshole, sure, but we both know he’s not the kind of guy to kill innocent civilians. Maybe he’s right... Maybe someone is framing him.”

“Well, we’re not PIs, Ramsey,” Scarlett retorted, if only to remind herself as well. Something was tugging at her brain, aside from the constant and excruciating thud of her heartbeat inside her head, and she didn’t like it.

Smart criminals had a way of getting inside people’s heads—and Xander was smarter than most. Hell, he had a ridiculous IQ, not that anyone would know by his baffling penchant for reality television. The man could binge-watch episodes of The Bachelor for hours on end when the same programming would make Scarlett put a gun in her mouth if she had to suffer more than ten minutes of the crap.

Xander also had the worst eating habits she’d ever seen of a former army ranger. Xander treated his body like a dumpster rather than a temple and yet somehow, he still managed to beat her PT times.

And it had nothing to do with muscle mass or any of that shit. Somehow, Xander had figured out how to convert processed sugars and carbs into high-octane fuel for his body when the same diet would’ve sent normal people into diabetic comas.

“Where’s the rest of the team?” she asked.

“I sent them back to the hotel to await further instructions.”

Red Wolf Elite was based out of McClean, Virginia, which was a veritable hotbed of special forces, FBI and military personnel, so when Xander’s trail hadn’t left the state, she’d been surprised. Not that he would stick around now that the welcome wagon had almost managed to catch him. It would take a few days of R&R before she could be cleared for the field again, but she wasn’t about to send the team home, not when they’d come so close to catching him.

As much as she hated to entertain the bent of her thoughts, questions that’d sprung up the minute his file had crossed her desk, rose with sharper clarity.

Xander had been right about one thing—there were details in this case that made no sense.

But then when did terrorists ever make sense?

Was she willing to believe that Xander Scott, a highly decorated former army ranger, was capable of killing innocent people to get to one politician?

A politician who Xander claimed he didn’t know shit about until Red Wolf had been hired as security detail for the rally?

Xander had been the first to scoff at the detail, saying they weren’t babysitters.

True, they were a highly skilled, elite force of former military badasses working for a private military company.

PMCs were making big money right now with the US government hiring out details in the Middle East instead of sending troops to deal with any problems left in the wake of military conflicts.

The money was good, and it gave retired soldiers a place to feel useful when civilian life wasn’t in the cards for them.

So yeah, when the detail came across her desk, she’d rolled her eyes in private but she wasn’t the one signing checks so she went where she was told.

Except Xander had voiced what they’d all felt.

Playing security guard to a pampered, doughy, left-wing senator trying to get the conservative vote for his re-election campaign was definitely below their pay grade, but Scarlett packed up her team and they went as ordered.

Now she wished she’d conveniently discovered a schedule conflict for that detail.

You’re better than this, Rhodes...

Xander’s voice urged her to dig deeper, to look beyond the flash bomb creating the sound and smoke to find who’d actually thrown the thing in the first place...and why.

Damn you, Xander.