Brazen (B-Squad 1)

Bianca unwound herself from Taz and walked on jelly legs over to the shelf where the cell phone was resting.

LEXIE: BE READY. ELISA AND MARKO CAME UP WITH A BEAUTY.

Picking it up, she pivoted as she pocketed it. Taz sat on the floor, one arm propped up on a raised knee, with his eyes closed and his lips curled in a post-orgasmic smirk. The sight of him took her breath away—not just because of how he looked, which was pretty damn good, but because he was right. They might never be the tell-each-other-everything couple, but that was okay because they were in this together for the long haul. It wasn’t because of Genie’s Wish. It wasn’t just a honeymoon high after they’d gotten together after the Bisu Manor mission adrenaline rush. It was because they belonged together, they loved each other. The truth of it settled deep in her bones, a certainty as solid as the Rocky Mountains.

“I don’t know what’s about to go down,” she said, “but Elisa and Marko came up with the plan.”

Taz opened his eyes and shook his

head. “Oh God, those two working together is never a good thing.”

“They only burned down one empty warehouse.” She almost got the whole sentence out without cracking a smile.

“Exactly.” He let out a weary sigh and stood up.

She had to hand him that one. The explosives expert and the con artist were a match made in trouble heaven, which was why it was a Godsend that the two couldn’t stop snarling at each other when they weren’t up to their elbows in the shit together.

Holding up a hand to silence him, she cracked open the door an inch. The guard was still at his spot in front of the video screens. The sandwich, chips and soda were history.

“Holy fucking shit on a rye bread cracker,” the guard yelled and jumped up from his chair. He grabbed his walkie-talkie next to the empty chip bag and turned it on. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, Bob, but it looks like aliens landing on the south beach.”

“Are you drinking, Jerry?” came the question out of the walkie-talkie.

“Fuck you Bob. Just get your skinny ass down there.”

The guard hot-stepped it out of the security room.

Bianca counted to ten and then walked out of the computer server room, dying to know how in the hell Marko and Elisa had managed an alien invasion from their spot on the Sutherland yacht anchored a mile from the island. She paused in front of the video screens and couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You’ve got to see this,” she said.

Taz stopped next to her, entwining his fingers with hers. “They outdid themselves this time.”

The manual labor was all Lexie, but the twisted idea had Marko and Elisa written all over it. Somehow they’d managed to isolate a handful of aliens from a movie and superimpose them onto a static shot of the resort’s south beach. If she didn’t know better, she might have had the same reaction as Jerry the guard.

“Shit on a rye bread cracker, indeed,” she said, giggling. “They outdid their crazy this time.”

Knowing they only had four and a half hours left until Blackfish and his DEA team crashed the south beach for real, she scanned the other video monitors, hoping against hope for a glimpse of Gidget or Sterling Walsh. It would be a miracle but the fates kind of owed her right about now.

The pool was all but abandoned, with only a few couples going at it on the lounge chairs. The resort’s lobby was empty except for a man masturbating in the wine bar. The next screen didn’t show anyone at all. She flicked her gaze to the fourth screen, but something in her periphery caught her eye. She turned her attention to the black-and-white image and peered closer. Nothing. Just an image of the path leading to the last grouping of bungalows.

“Taz come take a look—”

Movement in the left corner of the screen killed the rest of the sentence. A woman scurried from the trunk of one palm tree to another. After a five second break, she did it again. Because of the black-and-white image, it was impossible to confirm she had Gidget’s signature bright red hair. The woman had the right body type. If only she’d look up at the camera…

Bam! As if she had a telepathic connection to Bianca, she looked up right at that moment.

A shiver of recognition shot through Bianca.

“Shit, is that her?” Taz asked, squeezing her hand.

She nodded, becoming surer with each breath. “Looks like it.”

“I don’t see anyone else around her.”

“She must have gotten free somehow, or she’s drugged up and under their control. Either way, we’ve got to get her before she disappears again.”

Taz glanced at the analog clock above the wall of video screens. “The team can be here in thirty minutes.”