Sweat slid down the side of Roman’s face. “She’s the one with custody. That means you’re the one putting your daughter at risk.”
“I had custody first. She bought it back,” Hix yelled. “I don’t have to justify myself to you. I’m well within the law here. You’re not. We’re up one man, and we know this terrain inside out. If you push this, you’ll be the ones to suffer. Lay down your weapons, come back to the house, and let’s talk this out. No one has to get hurt.”
“This is going nowhere fast,” Granger muttered.
Roman was thinking the same thing.
“Hey, boss,” Ian murmured. “Remember Islamabad and that Australian journalist?”
Roman’s mind darted back to the hostage situation they’d solved with off-the-cuff ingenuity. “The inside job.”
He considered using the same technique now. If they got inside the house, they could gain proximity to their captors and possibly take them out. They could gain proximity to Everly and the girl. If Everly was still intact, she could find a way to free their team and trap Hix’s men. If she wasn’t, they could get her out of a dangerous situation.
But those were a lot of ifs.
He thought about Everly’s assessment of Hix from the very beginning. She saw him as a devoted father, a man of integrity. And she didn’t dish out those compliments easily. He was also showing all those signs now by not charging his team with a take-no-prisoners attitude.
“Who’s up for making this an inside job?” Roman asked.
“I’m in,” Ian answered first.
“Me too,” Granger quickly added.
“I want to see how you’re going to do this,” Sawyer said. “Count me in.”
“You know I’m always with you, boss,” Anders murmured, “two-hundred percent.”
“I need a skills refresher,” Sam said. “I spend too much time behind a screen.”
Roman heaved an exhale. “Okay,” he yelled. “We’re coming out. Don’t shoot.”
Austin and his team moved in. The hostile team had laid their M4s on the ground and clasped their hands behind their heads.
“Everyone,” Austin ordered, “eat dirt now.”
The enemy took their sweet time getting facedown. Austin was juiced with adrenaline. Something wasn’t right. That had been too easy.
Once they were all cuffed individually, Austin shoved his boot into the ribs of a guy on the end of the row, rolled him to his back, and demanded, “Who are you?”
He got nothing but an angry stare. Not a surprise.
“Night vision up,” he instructed the team before dragging his penlight from the pocket of his vest and shining it on the man’s face. He winced and turned his head away, but something nagged at the back of Austin’s mind. “Look at me.”
“Get that fucking light out of my eyes,” he demanded.
Austin angled the penlight down while still illuminating his face. When the man looked back at Austin, familiarity flared. “No fuckin’ way.”
He leaned down and gripped the man’s tactical vest, then hauled him to his feet. He pushed him back against a tree. “Mr. Coleman,” he said in a sarcastic greeting. “You really took my disinterest in your company hard.”
The man didn’t respond.
Austin angled his light toward the other five men. “Let’s see who you’ve got with you. Roll ’em over, boys.”
One by one, Austin’s guys rolled the members of the other team to their backs. Austin lit up each man’s face in turn and found two more he’d seen before. “You and you were at the party too.”
“Boss,” Decker said, pointing at another. “He’s the one I saw in the market.”
“Right.” He zeroed in on the man’s face. “Chatting up my nanny.”