Brazen (B-Squad 1)

“Aren’t you concerned they’ll find some information to track us down?” Byron asked from behind her as he downed yet another Mountain Dew while watching the screen.

“I’m hoping they do,” she said.

He nearly choked on his soda. “Why in the hell would you want that?”

Closing her eyes, Yasmin exhaled a slow, calming breath. For a man who was a certified chemistry genius, he had a head full of rocks when it came to anything that didn’t have to do with drug formulas.

“So they can rescue their friend.” She opened her eyes and glanced across the room at the redheaded woman flipping through an old copy of Soldier of Fortune. “Gidget, honey, are you ready to see your old friends from St. B’s again?”

Gidget Harms looked up, her green eyes wonderfully vacant, the pupils dilated. “If you say so.” She smiled as sweetly as a child currying favor.

“Yes, I think it is time. But we can’t make it too easy or Bianca won’t ever bite down on that hook.” Yasmin’s fingers flew across her keyboard as she executed a series of commands that opened a military-grade software program that allowed long-distance remote detonations. She stopped one keystroke away from setting off the bomb hidden in the Phoenix house. “Gidget, why don’t you come over here and press this?” She pointed to a button on her laptop keyboard.

The redhead got up and strolled across the room, stopping next to Yasmin. “What will it do?” she asked as she watched the screen. Recognition flickered in her eyes.

Now comes the fun part. “It’ll blow up the house we’re watching.”

Gidget gasped. “But Bianca, Vivi, Lexi and Elisa are in there.”

Gidget’s hand shook. She hesitated over the keyboard. Byron forgot the Mountain Dew he’d been guzzling and reached for the little notepad he always kept in his front pocket along with a ballpoint pen and breath mints. He scrawled some notes on the pad, no doubt to be entered into his case study about the drug’s effect on human will.

Most of the test subjects had lost their individuality within a few weeks. Gidget, however, still had moments of resistance. Even after six months of almost constant Genie’s Wish doses, she continued to have some fight in her. It almost made Yasmin admire her—almost.

“Press the button, Gidget,” her voice was soft but firm. Yelling rarely got any results other than to have her little Genie’s Wish zombies pee themselves.

A look of horror twisting her face, Gidget did as she was told.

A set of beeps sounded in the Phoenix house and the bomb hidden in the fireplace began to count down.

Taz

Phoenix, Arizona…

The three quick beeps weren’t loud, but they were enough to make the hairs on the back of Taz’s neck stand up. After years on the street and in the ring, he’d learned to listen to that sixth sense that told him shit was about to go pear shaped.

He held up his right hand. The rest of the team went still.

Beep.

There is was again. On his left.

Beep.

He pivoted until he faced the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that went across the living room’s back wall. Books packed each shelf except the middle column, where glass-doored cabinets were; below that was a built-in brick fireplace. He took a step closer.

Beep.

“It’s in the fireplace.” Where, he had no fucking clue. The damn thing looked like every other unne

cessary decorative fireplace in a house with central heat.

Bianca was at his side in an instant, running her hands over the bricks lining the top of the fireplace, looking for anomalies. While what he wanted to do was get her the hell out of here before everything went boom, he knew that wasn’t going to happen. As stubborn as she was sexy and smart, his girl didn’t give up when things went hinky. It was one of the things that had made him fall in love with her. So instead of hauling her ass out of here like he wanted, he focused on the bricks lining the sides of the fireplace.

Beep.

None of the bricks gave way to reveal a secret compartment, which only left one option… He looked down at the fake logs piled on the hearth. He squatted down and lifted the faux wood shell shaped like four logs. Then, his entire body went tense. Hidden away under the logs were two short sections of steel water pipe sealed off at both ends with brass caps. A trio of wires came out of one end and toward both a small battery and a beeping timer.

Beep.