“You should have seen her,” Carl continued, voice thickening, “when we found her in that hotel room. She was all tousled and—”
Drew whirled on him. “Are you going to help me secure the chopper?” His words rapped out. Fury had coiled in his gut. No way, no damn way, should Tina have been put at risk like this. At his first opportunity, he had to contact the other EOD agents assigned to the HAVOC mission. They needed to work an immediate extraction on her.
And if they didn’t, then he would.
Carl’s smile stretched. “You thought she was pretty, too, didn’t you? It’s those glasses... Sexy.”
He wanted to drive his fist into Carl’s face.
But Carl turned away and went to work on the chopper.
Drew exhaled slowly as he tried to bring his control back in check. He was still the new guy in this crew. Useful because he could fly anything—and kill anyone instantly. Sure, his dossier had been faked, but his skills were plenty real enough.
During his time in Delta Force, Drew had been turned into a lethal fighting machine. He didn’t need a weapon to take out a dozen men. He could do that just with—
A scream cut the night. Her scream.
Drew was running toward the main house before he could even think about his response.
The door was shut, so he just kicked his way right through it. The wood banged against the wall.
“Don’t!” Tina yelled. “Please, I—”
Her cry was abruptly cut off.
Drew felt the familiar ice encase his fury. That was the way it had always been for him. When it came time for a battle, he went ice-cold. No emotion. No room for mistake.
He’d been called a robot by some of his teammates before.
He’d been called a hell of a lot worse by his enemies.
Why had Tina stopped screaming?
Another door was in front of him. A tall, blond guy with a gun at his hip tried to block Drew’s path. “Stone, man, I don’t think they want you right now.”
Drew shoved the guy out of his way. He went in that room.
The first thing he saw was the blood. Fat drops that were sliding down Tina’s arm. Lee Slater stood next to her, a knife in his hand. “I think that’s what we need.”
In his mind, Drew saw himself rushing across the room and breaking the guy’s wrist. The knife would clatter to the floor, falling from Lee’s slack fingers. With him out of commission, Drew would turn on the other two men there. He could have them all on the floor in less than a minute.
But he didn’t attack. Not yet. Because he’d been given very specific orders from Bruce Mercer.
The job was top priority. The fear was that these men—men from the U.S., from Mexico and from parts of South America—had access to classified government intel. There had been a leak at the EOD just months before, and they were still tracking to determine just how much information had been taken from headquarters.
They’d followed the trail to HAVOC. Drew was supposed to be days away from meeting the group’s leader.
Days.
Getting an up-close audience with the man named Anton Devast wasn’t an easy task. Those who got close usually wound up getting killed.
Drew locked his jaw. “Why’d you cut her?”
They’d cut Tina and gagged her. The gag would explain why she’d stopped screaming. Damn it, the gag had been his suggestion, but he’d only said it to clue her in to the fact that she needed to stay quiet about him.
Her eyes—so green and bright—found his. There was a desperate plea in her gaze.
A plea that he couldn’t answer right then. Not if they wanted to both keep living.