“I wanted to tell you, but the NDA affected more than just me. Breaching it risks all of our freedom, not just mine.” His brain latched onto another part of what she’d said: Story? Becca thought he was telling a story. His chest cavity filled with crushed glass. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?” He held his arms out. “You don’t believe us.”
“Yes, I do. I mean, I think . . . shit, Nick. This just redrew the map of my world. I don’t know what the hell to think right now. Okay?” Her voice cracked. “It feels like losing him all over again.” Silent tears fell, and her expression filled with utter disappointment. “You asked me to trust you,” she whispered. “And I did.” Becca shook her head. “God, Nick, we just—” She gestured toward the door.
We just made love. Damnit, Becca, I know. The truth of the words sliced into him on a cellular level. He understood her anger. It was hard to accept any reason for being lied to by someone you love.
If she even loved him. Or ever could, now.
“So, what is it that Shane wants me to participate in?” she said in a monotone voice. She turned toward his teammate.
Sonofabitch. She was shutting down, and he was losing her. He felt it down to his bones. And as much as he wanted to drag her back to his bed, beg her forgiveness, and do any penance she required to make it up to her, he couldn’t. Because they had a time-sensitive lead hanging over their heads.
And a fight to finish about how to pursue it.
Shane looked over her head to Nick.
“Don’t look at him. Look at me. Tell me.” She planted her hands on her hips.
Shane’s eyes narrowed, but he started talking. “Man who says he attempted to abduct you called through the reward line and asked for a meeting with you this morning. He knew about the pinkie, so he seems legit. We’re supposed to call him back at oh seven hundred to set it up.”
Life filtered back into her voice. “This is good news, right? If he knows about the pinkie, he probably knows where Charlie is.”
“Maybe,” Nick said, stepping beside her. “But it could just as well be a setup to grab you.”
“Still, it’s worth learning more, isn’t it?” She scanned her gaze over the group. “Unless the scouting you did last night turned up something useful?”
“We reconned four locations,” Beckett said, pushing off the wall and giving her an appraising look. “Two were completely negative, two beg further investigation. We’ve also got bugs in place at the strip club, one on the bar and one on the stage. We couldn’t access any private spaces, though, so we’ll see what they yield.”
“See,” Marz began, pulling up a series of images on his computer. Grainy schematics appeared with small groups of blinking red dots. “In both locations, Beck’s scanner identified stationary humans in basement rooms. In the first location, three. In the second location, two. This was at the shipping facility and a strip club.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, leaning in.
“Possible prisoners.” Beck braced his hands on the desk and studied the pictures. “Or not. It’s hard to say for sure without more intel.”
“Which our caller might be able to provide, depending on what the hell he really wants.” Shane’s voice didn’t hold its earlier eagerness for the idea, which helped keep Nick’s blood pressure from exploding off the top of his head. “But it means putting you out there. There’s no way he’s going to allow you to bring along a guard detachment. He’s going to put demands and parameters on the meet, Becca. One will certainly be that you come alone.”
“Oh.” She visibly deflated, shoulders sagging, gaze dropping to the desktop.
Oh? No, more like, Holy fucking shit. Guy who tried to kidnap her wanted to meet alone. No. Just no. “It’s too dangerous,” Nick said.
“You guys would find a way to keep me safe,” she said, with an implicit trust that tore at him. “So, if I’m game to do it, that’s the end of the conversation.”
“Becca—”
“Stop. Just stop. You don’t get to dictate what I do or don’t do.” She arched an eyebrow at Nick, and he got the message loud and clear. He’d lost any right he might’ve had to an opinion about her life. Rixey fought the urge to rub at the ache splintering the left side of his chest. “Charlie is my brother. If doing this will help bring him home alive, then that’s all I need to know.” She looked at Shane for guidance, and that absolutely slayed Nick. “What do you think?”
“I think Nick’s right about the risk,” he said, throwing Rixey a bone. “But recon didn’t tell us as much as we’d hoped, and this meeting could make the difference, depending on why he’s asking for it.”
Easy settled a hip against the edge of the desk. “Maybe he wants to make a trade? Or sell some information?”
“It’s like a damn multiple-choice quiz right now. I’ll pick D: all of the above.” Shaking his head, Marz leaned back in his chair.
“One way to find out, right? We call.” She surveyed the men, and Nick followed her lead. Maybe she didn’t know them well enough to see it, but to a man they wore a new respect for her in their gazes. As much as he hated the idea of hanging her out there as some kind of bait, he admired her courage and willingness to help. To be part of the team. Everyone nodded, including him. He could totally get behind making the call. “Okay, then. What time is it?” she asked.
“Six forty-two,” Marz said.
She nodded and released a long breath. “So, we call at seven o’clock like he asked and go from there.”
WELL, BECCA GOT what she wanted. Which was why she found herself standing alone in an open-air picnic pavilion on the edge of the Canton Waterfront Park three hours later.
A yuppie neighborhood with a party reputation, all of Canton was probably still hungover and in bed, which meant she was the only one in the park. Good for their daytime op, a little scary as she stood here now.
She wasn’t really alone, though. The team was stationed all around her. Miguel and Shane were hiding in plain sight. They were readying Miguel’s powerboat down at the dock, like they were heading out to fish on the beautiful spring Sunday morning. Miguel had actually been the one to suggest this location, reasoning he could drop them off by water, which the gang wouldn’t likely expect in case they were lying in wait. And, if the team could grab the guy, taking the boat out on the water would give them privacy to interrogate him. Nick, Beckett, Easy, and Marz had taken up hiding spots around the park. Even though she couldn’t see them, she trusted that they were there for her.
That knowledge didn’t keep her heart from pounding in her chest or her scalp from prickling, but it gave her the courage to stand and wait to meet the man who’d held a knife to her ribs and attempted to kidnap her.
The man who said he could tell her where Charlie was and what she had to do to get him back.
That had been enough for Becca. For the rest of the team, as well. Even Nick had begrudgingly admitted it was a critical lead, even if he hated the idea of her being out in the open by herself.
Nick. God, the story he’d told about her father. If she let herself think about it at all, nausea flooded her gut. Becca paced the length of the pavilion, twigs crunching beneath her sneakers. Part of her wanted to reject the idea that her father was anything but the hero she’d always believed. What they said he did made absolutely no sense. None of it squared with the man she’d known and loved her whole life.
Except . . . now that the logic of the team’s story had time to gel with what Charlie claimed and the reality of their situation, she was ashamed that she’d succumbed to a moment of knee-jerk defensiveness and made Nick question whether she believed in him. She’d just been so blindsided.