Brazen (B-Squad 1)

“He’s supposed to be in jail,” Bianca said, backing away from the image covering the wall. “He got thirty years.”

“Three decades in a federal penitentiary isn’t what it used to be.” Lexie looked up from her screen. “He got out a year ago.”

“Right about the time Genie’s Wish made its presence known in the global drug market,” Taz said.

It made perfect sense. When he and Bianca had taken down the dealers at Bisu Manor six months ago, they’d said that Bianca had been the initial kidnapping target, not Gidget, but the switch worked because their supplier wanted the girls from St. B’s for his drug-testing experiments—specifically Bianca, Gidget, Vivi, Elisa and Lexie.

Looked like they had a headmaster with a grudge to deal with. He focused on the image, memorizing the bastard’s every feature so Taz could find him no matter what. The asshole was going down for threatening his girl.

“How in the hell did he go from psycho school administrator to drug kingpin?” Duke asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care right now,” Taz replied as realization dawned. “Look at who he’s holding on to.”

Walsh held on to a woman’s forearm, his grip tight enough that white lines formed on her freckled skin where his fingers clamped down on her in a death grip. Her face was angled away from the camera but she had long bright red hair that fell in fat curls to her mid-back. The hair was a tipoff but the confirmation came in the five-inch scar winding its way across her upper arm.

They’d found Gidget Harms.

Chapter 5

Marko

Pottsworth Private Airfield…

Marko’s mother was right. Instead of milk, some people poured stupid into their bowl of cornflakes. It was the only explanation for the trouble Taz had gotten himself into. Not that Marko was going to say anything. That would require actually talking, and he didn’t waste breath on touchy-feely crap or other people’s relationships. Just the idea of doing so made his balls shrivel a little, not something he appreciated.

“Fucking Taz,” he said under his breath as he hefted an eighty-pound crate of equipment and popped it onto his shoulder.

“What about him?” Elisa asked as she checked the crate off the list on her clipboard. “The fact that he’s a total douchebag dick or the fact that he should be snipped before he can pass his asshole genes to the next generation?”

Ouch. Marko gave the brunette with the angel face a second glance. She looked like one of those big-eyed Russian dolls his mother had kept on the kitchen window sill when he was a kid. Not because she was big enough to fit another three or fo

ur of her inside herself, but because she looked so sweet and innocent on the outside that it was easy to imagine she wasn’t hiding something. He mighta thought that, but he hadn’t poured a shot of stupid into his cereal this morning. He’d spent more than enough time over the past few months with the sharp-tongued princess to know better.

Elisa would verbally eviscerate a guy and rob him of his last nickel. The whole time the doofus would be standing there, too dazed by the fact this amazingly hot chick was talking to him to know what was going on until it was too late. By then, Elisa would be in the wind. It was fucking awesome to watch—also, it gave him a hard-on.

Instead of answering her rhetorical question though, he just shrugged, jostling the crate and turned toward the private jet waiting on the tarmac. After he got this loaded they were minutes from takeoff. Inside the cabin, there was a pint of Jack waiting for him so he could make it through ten hours of shooting across the sky in a metal tube without soaking his undies in flop sweat.

A few minutes later, the crate loaded, he took a slow walk around the jet, visually inspecting every inch. Not that he would know if something was wrong if he saw it, but he had a routine. He always checked the plane. It had gotten him through flights from Afghanistan to South America and a million places in between without him giving in to the fear that chipped away at the back of his skull every time he went up in one of these things.

He’d just rounded the jet’s nose when he spotted Tamara, her back turned to him, talking on her cell phone. Getting as close as he could without alerting her, he kept his mouth shut and his ears open—otherwise known as his default mode.

“Just hold on for a little bit longer, honey,” Tamara whispered into the phone. “I have to go with him, but it won’t take me long. Promise.”

Boyfriend? Side piece she was ditching for Taz’s money? Shit just went up a level.

Marko had never been a Tamara fan. Not even when Taz had first gotten together with the former beauty queen. She was all ice when his brother needed fire.

Even when she was being nice, the woman had a hard edge that warned off small creatures. Whatever was going on between her and his brother, it was six kinds of fucked up and he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her—and he bench pressed enough weight to toss her plenty far.

“I love you, too.” Tamara ended the call and stood still for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh that dragged her shoulders low.

“Saying your goodbyes before we take off?” he asked.

Tamara squeaked in surprise and whipped around. “You scared me.”

He kept his trap shut and his gaze locked on her. People hated that. Made ’em nervous and chatty.

“It was my niece.” She smoothed her long blonde hair, her hand shaking just enough that the glare from the sun hitting her rock of a wedding ring hit him square in the eyes. “She doesn’t like it when I’m out of touch for long.”