Ivy swore silently. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, too. Frasier was an impatient man, and if Thorn had been lighting up his phone like he had Ivy’s and Landon’s, it was likely he was under pressure to make something happen sooner rather than later.
Thorn had called her and Landon a few times right after Frasier had first shown up in the area, wanting to know what they were doing to capture the hybrid in the woods and get into Stillwater for Mahsood’s research. Thorn had never dropped anything to confirm Frasier was up there operating on his orders, but the fact that Thorn knew everything that seemed to be going on before they told him pretty much proved it. The scary part was that Thorn hadn’t called since late yesterday. It was entirely possible that he no longer trusted Ivy and Landon and was depending on Frasier to get what he wanted.
To say that was bad was an understatement. She and Landon had twisted themselves into knots over the past couple of months to get in good with Thorn. All on the off chance it would get them close enough to find the information that would put him in prison.
If Thorn knew they were playing him, there was no telling what the man would do. He wasn’t above trying to have them killed. Worse, while Thorn might think they had switched sides and were playing for another member of the Committee now, it was also possible that he’d figured out who she and Landon were really loyal to. Thorn coming after her and Landon was one thing, but the thought of him going after John scared the hell out of her.
“What’s the plan?” Landon asked in her ear. “You need me to come in?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “With those new guys moving your way, I want you out there watching Ian. But be ready to come in the moment I call you and say there’s a problem. I’m going to get in contact with John and let him know what’s happening. With all the trigger pullers showing up around here, we need backup—fast.”
“Agreed,” Landon said, and Ivy could practically hear her husband’s tactical mind spinning as he thought out all the angles. “But what do we do when this backup arrives?”
“I think we need to go into Stillwater and get Trevor, Brooklyn, and that shifter out of there immediately. We can’t wait around any longer. Hopefully, we’ll catch Mahsood and destroy his research at the same time.”
Landon was silent on the other end of the radio for a moment. “You realize Frasier and his crew aren’t going to sit back and let us carry out that plan, right? This could turn into another shoot-out like we had over in Tajikistan and Costa Rica and Washington State. Worse, any chance of talking our way out of this with Thorn is going to be gone the second Frasier realizes what we’re doing.”
“I know.” She sighed. “We knew it would come to this at some point. But on the bright side, we shouldn’t have to deal with too many hybrids.”
“We hope,” her husband said. “But in those other fights, we didn’t have to deal with a whole mental institution full of innocent people hanging around either. The chances of a civilian getting hurt is pretty high with this plan.”
“We’ll just have to be careful.”
“Uh-huh. Tell that to Frasier’s crew and those other trigger pullers who just showed up.”
Ivy didn’t say anything. If they were lucky, they would be able to get in and out of there without ever firing a single round. Hell, maybe they’d get really lucky, and Trevor would have gotten into that isolation ward on his own before she and Landon had to go in.
* * *
Braden looked across the conference room table at Dreya, hoping his face didn’t show how much he was freaking out on the inside.
They’d just gotten home to his apartment when the phone had rung, and John called them in to the main office in DC for a mission briefing. While Braden was extremely interested in what the new mission was—not to mention curious to finally get a look inside the secret offices under the EPA building—he had to admit he was more worried about Dreya and what the hell she was up to.
The moment Dreya had told him that she needed to borrow his car to run an errand after lunch, his BS radar had started screaming off the hook. He’d been questioning her about crimes for years and had never been able to tell when she was stringing him along, but when she looked him in the eye and said she was doing something for him, he had absolutely no doubt that she was lying her sexy little ass off.
The fact that he realized it had shocked the crap out of him almost as much as the lie itself. Had he seriously gotten to know her so well in the week they’d spent together that he could tell when she was lying to him?
He’d been so sure of it that he’d borrowed a DCO vehicle and followed her, hating himself the entire frigging time. But then she’d driven straight to the Chadwick-Thorn headquarters on I-295 near Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. He sat there and watched for almost an hour as she cased the building, scouting along the perimeter fence and looking at the place from every angle.
Dreya was planning to break into the place and steal something. And not just any place but the frigging seat of power of the man who had nearly killed her only two short months ago.
That knowledge had been eating at Braden ever since. It was like everything Coleman had said was coming to pass. Dreya was falling into her old ways, for no other reason that he could see beyond needing to give the shifter inside her another jolt of adrenaline like some junkie. What else would explain casing the offices of the most dangerous man in Washington, DC? Then again, there was always the possibility she was there to get revenge for Rory’s murder.
Neither of those things made him feel any better.
Sitting outside Chadwick-Thorn earlier, he had come damn close to calling Coleman and telling him everything so the DCO could intervene before she did something that couldn’t be repaired or covered up. Breaking into Thorn’s company definitely seemed to be in the irreparable damage category.
The only thing that had stopped him was Tommy’s voice in his head telling him he was screwing up, that partners didn’t do stuff like this to each other. But he was terrified Dreya was going to do something to break up their partnership and get her canned from the DCO, maybe even sent off to jail, or worse, killed. He couldn’t deal with any of those things happening, no more than he could accept her stealing again just for the thrill of it.
Braden knew the reason he was so torn. Dreya wasn’t simply his partner anymore. She was the woman he’d fallen in love with.
That was insane, of course. They’d known each other for all of a week. Even if he included all the hours he’d spent interrogating her over the past few years—which no one in their right mind would consider as quality date time—he still hadn’t known her long enough to be in love with her.
Yet, he was in love with her all the same.
He had to admit, there was a lot to love about her. She was the toughest, smartest, most tenacious, most stubborn woman he’d ever dealt with. She was also the most beautiful, passionate, and alive woman he’d ever been around. She was funny and engaging, with an infectious laugh and a sparkle in her eyes that were impossible to resist.
Damn…he had it bad.
