Mack scowled, the lines on his face deepening, before resuming his discussion with a thin but muscular black man who was wearing athletic gear and an Atlanta Braves hat.
“Good morning,” the man said to Rick and Dane.
“Price,” Dane responded as he took a seat.
“Hey Ace.” Rick inclined his head in the man’s direction and sat opposite Dane. Ben Price was ex-FBI who quit the bureau when his partner was killed in the line of duty. He was also a champion boxer, having won several world titles in his youth. His right hook was deadly, a fact that Rick discovered the hard way multiple times. Mack recruited Ben hard when he heard he left the bureau, not letting up until the man agreed to work for him.
“Alright assholes. Since you’re late, let’s skip the bullshit.” Mack glared down the table at the three men, making sure to give Rick an extra-long frown. “Tucker is in Mission Control, working on a new case. So he won’t be sitting in on this meeting. I’ve already debriefed him, so unless something comes up, he’s getting a pass.”
Rick sat back in his chair, calm and collected. He’d known Mack for so long, and been the recipient of so much worse than just a disparaging look from him, that he wasn’t phased one bit. In fact, it was damn entertaining to get Mack all riled up. Rick tented his fingers, holding them in front of his lips to hide his smile.
Howard “Mack” McEvoy had been Rick’s staff sergeant during his sixty-five day initial Marine Corps Recon training at Camp Pendleton. The man had screamed in Rick’s face, humiliated him, ran him until he vomited, forced him to clean the latrines, hell… there wasn’t much Mack hadn’t seen him do.
After sustaining injuries during a Recon mission in Iraq, Rick was honorably discharged from the Marines. Mack heard about it through the grapevine, and with Rick’s special-ops background, he offered him a job here with his misfit group of ex-military men and spooks.
“Price here is gonna start.” Mack leaned back and waited for Ben to begin.
“Okay, so the mission was to extract three Americans— two journalists and one person of high political importance, and one British journalist— from a militant group in southern Turkey on the Syrian border. Locate, liberate, extract. Casualties of rebels acceptable.” Price cleared his throat before continuing. “Result was the removal of all four hostages, alive, with a total of sixteen rebel fatalities. No damage to property, no casualties on our side. Clean in and out.”
“Okay,” Mack said. “Nolan, your quick summary on the ground.”
Dane sat up straight in his chair, pulling a paper out of the manila file he had in front of him. “Helo’d in undetected. Hiked half a day to rebel camp. Gathered intel for approximately two days…”
Rick started spacing out while Dane broke down the three days they spent in Turkey last week. Rick loathed paperwork. His mind was too active to sit at a desk and so was his body. He twitched at the thought of a desk job. Unfortunately, the U.S. government loved paperwork, and they were the main client for their in-demand hired mercenary services. Whenever they did a job for them, it always came with a fuck ton of forms and reports and debriefings. The government used Sanctum to complete their black-ops jobs, jobs that needed to be done, but weren’t exactly “legal”. Mack had built his oper
ation carefully and selectively. It was the best-kept secret in the country. No one knew what they did outside of very high-ranking officials at the Pentagon.
Over and over throughout the debriefing, Rick’s mind wandered back to Quinn. He couldn’t remember ever having seen a woman that beautiful in person before. Sure, he’d seen gorgeous women. Fucked a bunch of them too. But this girl? She was stunning, and Rick was positive she wasn’t wearing a single bit of makeup to create that look.
But it was something else about Quinn that drew Rick to her. He wasn’t sure how to define it, she was just… different. There was a delicateness about her, like a fragile porcelain doll, needing to be wrapped up in his arms and protected from the elements and dangers of the world. That’s where he came up with his nickname for her. Rick gave practically everyone he knew a nickname if they didn’t already have one. Doll fit Quinn perfectly. But she was also feisty, immediately dismissing him when he came on too strong. The combination of vulnerable and lively really turned him on for some reason.
He was in the middle of wondering where she was from and what she would look like naked, when Mack yelled his name.
“Rick!”
“Yes chief?” He met Mack’s scowl with a lazy grin.
“You and Nolan are on your two-week downtime. I’ve got fighters scheduled for you idiots to train during that time. Don’t want you getting all soft on me. Now, get the hell out of here and have your reports typed up and on my desk by tomorrow. Your psych evals are scheduled for Friday.”
Rick leapt from his chair, eager to see if the girl was still sitting at the front desk. Before he could get one foot out the door, he heard Mack’s voice again.
“And be nice to Quinn, our new hire. First off, no, she doesn’t know what we really do here. Keep it that way. Second, she’s the daughter of a very close friend of mine that passed away a few years back. She’s like family to me. Don’t fuck with her, she’s one of us now.”
Rick heard Dane and Ben immediately acquiescence to Mack’s demand, but he had no doubt that the warning was really for him. Mack knew Rick’s reputation and almost certainly didn’t want him going anywhere near his friend’s daughter. Unfortunately, Rick didn’t think he could stay away from the intriguing new receptionist with the wide amber eyes.
Chapter 4
ON THE LAST day of her first full week of work, Quinn shut down her computer and locked up her files for the weekend. She wanted to talk to Mack before she left. He’d been more than generous to her after she showed up in Atlanta last month with nothing more than the clothes on her back, a backpack full of fancy lingerie, and a few dollars in her pocket.
Quinn swiped her badge and headed into the main gym. Usually, she hurried through the large open area, much too uneasy to be surrounded by large, violent men as they hit things. It brought back horrid memories. She tried her best to avoid the men that were training with punching bags, weight sets, or even sparring in one of the three separate fighting rings set up, including what she was told was a regulation sized octagon surrounded by chain link cage. It was bad enough they were huge and intimidating, but while they were fighting? No way could she stomach that sight without freaking out.
“Hey. Quinn, right?”
Quinn froze in place halfway between the lobby and the hallway, too scared to move or speak. Her eyes darted between the two exits as she tried to figure out which escape was closest.
“You okay?”
Quinn’s flicked her gaze to the tall, Latino man as he gracefully stalked towards her. Rationally, she knew she didn’t have anything to be afraid of. Mack assured her that the men in his gym were nothing but professional. But it had been over three years since Quinn had spoken to any male that wasn’t either Travis or Mack, or in passing like the blue-eyed man earlier this week.