Battle with the SEAL (Norse Security 3)

“Nice to know you had faith in me.” Loki shook his head. “That makes exactly one of us.”

“You’re a smart man and more than a bit tricky yourself,” Steele said. “Made you perfect for this job.”

“Too bad it’ll be our last. I was counting on that arms dealer’s cash to fund our budget once your money runs out.” Loki twiddled his thumbs, ignoring the stab of hurt in his chest. Truth was he was going to miss this place terribly. Norse Security had become like home to him, with Cam and Hunter being the closest thing to brothers he’d ever had. And sure, their missions hadn’t always turned out quite as expected—with the wrecked government car and Hunter’s sex ring operation going awry. But still, they’d done good work and met good people. Everly, Cam’s wife, was the best. And Alexandra, Hunter’s fiancée, was a sweetheart too. And M…

Well, M had her promotion and should be on the way to living the life of her dreams, jetting off to new and exciting feats of espionage around the world. He’d miss her too, more than he cared to admit. But he’d let her go as planned and bless her journey, because it was the right thing to do.

He just wished doing the right thing didn’t make his heart ache so badly.

It was his own fault, really. He’d gone and fallen for the last girl on earth he should want. And damn if it was a beautiful disaster from start to finish.

“I hate to break this to you, Loki,” Steele said, forcing him back to the present. “But this is only the end if you want it to be.”

“Excuse me?” Loki straightened, frowning.

“I’ve been thinking things over and while the company hasn’t exactly turned the profit I wanted, I can still see a purpose in keeping it going. With certain conditions.”

His pulse quickened. This was good. Very good. “What conditions are those?”

The sound of a door opening and closing, followed by the sound of footsteps, had Loki glancing toward his office door. Soon, Cam and Hunter stood there, looking exceedingly proud of themselves.

“Uh, Steele, hang on a second please,” Loki said, hitting the hold button before waving the guys inside. “What’s going on? I gave you both the day off.”

“We’ve got something to tell you,” Cam said, grinning.

“Yeah, we think you’ll like this, Low.” Hunter flopped down into the chair in front of Loki’s desk while Cam took the other one. “We think we found a way to save Norse Security.”

“Seriously?” Loki blinked at them, surprised. “How?”

“Well, you know that Everly’s been working on the Aeon since we brought it back here, right?”

Loki nodded. Everly was probably the best mechanic on the East coast, maybe the country.

“She finished it, in between breastfeeding the baby and working on stuff at her dad’s shop on the side. When all this shit went down with your mission, I started asking around to see if we might be able to sell it for cash to put into the business.”

“And?” Loki asked, glancing over at the flashing red light on his phone.

“And I found a buyer.” Cam practically beamed with eagerness. “You’ll never guess who it is.”

“I’ve got Steele on the other line guys,” Loki said. “I don’t really have time to guess.”

“The federal government. They want to buy it back from me and Everly, along with the souped-up tech I’ve installed on the car. It’s way better than the original prot

otype and they’re willing to pay us big bucks to get it.”

“How big?” Loki frowned.

“One and a half million big. That’s gotta be enough to at least cover a year’s worth of expenses here, right?” Cam asked.

A million and a half was good. Loki sat back, doing the calculations in his head. That would last them about a year, with overhead and expenses and any unforeseen costs of doing business in their world. But it wouldn’t leave them much of a cushion after that and it wasn’t like there would be more cash coming in from that corner. Once the car and its tech was sold, that was it. Plus, they’d be spending months recruiting new clients, outputting cash without a lot of new revenue coming in.

The phone on the desk beeped and Loki held up a finger to his lips to tell the guys to keep quiet. He took Steele off hold. “Sorry about that, sir. You were saying you might keep the business running, with conditions?”

“Yes.” The sound of rustling paperwork issued through the phone line from Steele’s end. “I have other connections who require a certain…set of skills. And discretion. I could throw their business your way, as long as you and the others would be willing to be…flexible…with your ethics.”

Loki stared at the guys’ faces as that word “flexible” sank in. They were all used to obeying orders they didn’t always agree with while in the military. It was how you got the job done. But once they were out, they’d all taken an oath to never compromise their ideals for the sake of efficiency again. Of course, at the time they’d vowed that, they hadn’t been threatened with bankruptcy either. He wouldn’t fault Cam or Hunter for changing course now. They both had other responsibilities—wives, kids, fiancées—and all Loki had was himself to worry about these days.

The ache of loneliness settled in his chest again and images of M resurfaced in his mind. Her laughing, her giving him hell when he deserved it, her crying out his name as she’d come apart in his arms. God, he’d do just about anything to have one more night with her.