When a bang announced the door had been breached, he cursed himself for not locking it. Out of time, he wiped his hands over his face, sighed, and shut the water off.
“I’m coming with you,” Gray shouted through the bathroom door.
No less than he expected, Adam didn’t bother with an immediate response, preferring to have this conversation fully clothed instead. The delay didn’t suit his sister, and he’d barely managed to wrap a towel around his waist before she busted in on him.
“I’m coming with you.”
Adam frowned. “Be reasonable, Gray.”
“Fuck reasonable. And fuck you too.” Her green eyes flashed, and her spine took on the flexibility of a steel beam. The rigid posture was a Grayson family trait and an obvious warning he’d come perilously close to channeling their father. “I’m going, and you can’t stop me.”
Hecouldstop her. And she damn well knew it. She was just looking for a fight. “Mind letting me put some pants on?” Still dripping, he brushed by her.
She followed.
Seven years his junior, Gray didn’t take orders well, particularly from male military types who’d been absent from her life. As part of his cover, Adam had been dead to his sister for the past two years, and going by the look on her face, as far as she was concerned, he could’ve stayed that way.
“Tara wasmyfriend. I have a right to be there when that bastard dies.”
Since she wasn’t about to let him get dressed anytime soon, he braced for a fight and turned to face her. “It’s not sa—”
“I don’t care if you think it’s safe or not. You didn’t see her, Adam. What he did to her…” Her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.
She was wrong on that count. He’d seen the pictures and spoken to the men who found Tara. He knew what Tom Hood had done to her friend. Following orders that hadn’t come from him, Hood had abducted the young woman from Gray’s condo in Miami and taken her to a warehouse in Savannah.
As soon as he had Tara alone, he’d inflicted the most amount of damage possible using his bare hands, choked her unconscious, and left her barely breathing on the dirty concrete floor.
Not long after, Tara had succumbed to her injuries, Gray by her side.
His sister blamed herself. Caught up in a terrorist’s quest for revenge, Gray had been the intended target. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Tara was what men like Adam would call collateral damage.
Sometimes for the sake of the greater good, innocent people died. It was the nature of their business. His job was to make sure the casualties were kept to a minimum. So far, he’d failed miserably.
As much as he wanted to, Adam wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to make things right between him and Gray. And by all appearances, now wasn’t the time to start trying.
Gray’s heartsqueezed tight at the memory of Tara’s battered face, and she had to work overtime at keeping her emotions in check. She breathed deep and wiped at the corner of her eye. Tears would get her nowhere with her brother.
“You’re not going,” Adam said, his stare cold and direct. By this point, his rigid posture had started to mimic Gray’s own.
Even in nothing but a towel, her brother was a formidable opponent.
“This is fucking bullshit, Adam, and you know it.” Yes, the asshole who wanted her dead was still out there. Then again, the JTT’s former boss, Jonas Johnson, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wanted them all dead.
They’d messed with his plans to secure the presidential election by foiling his plot to scare Americans into voting for him, and he wasn’t happy about it. Not to mention they’d put him in the bad graces of his financial backers by stealing a couple of billion from his arms-trafficking coffers.
Yep, he was pissed, his backers too, and nobody would be free to live a normal life until the JTT got back with the program and did something about it. Plus, the fuckers had Takoda Keenan. The JTT sniper had sacrificed himself for her, his team, his country, and they wanted him back. They just had to find him first. “It’s no safer for you or Chase,” Gray said.
“Don’t worry, sunshine. I’ll make sure neither one of them eats any lead.”
“Stop calling me sunshine, dickhead.” Gray looked over her shoulder at the man entering. Grant Kincaid was armed, and despite taking a bullet to the chest a couple of weeks ago, clearly prepared to be dangerous.
“You’re not going either.” Coming through the door ten seconds behind Grant, Chase Mackenzie was equally as armed and equally as dangerous. He pulled up alongside Gray and slid his palm into hers, linking their fingers together.
Grant’s rust-colored eyes narrowed under the brim of his Missoula Maulers ball cap. “Last time I checked, fucknut, I didn’t take orders from you.”
“No, but you do take them from me,” Adam said, the hand holding the towel around his waist now clenched and white knuckled. “You’re not going…neither are you,” he added, steely gaze moving from Grant to Gray when she tried to argue. “End of discussion.”
“Here’s your bag, sir.” Always on the run, Davis Nader rushed into the room and set a garment bag flat on the bed. Then ducking to get a duffel strap over his head, he dropped Adam’s gear to the floor, narrowly missing Jeff, the big brown lab with the wonky leg.
