“And we still have two hours until Armin’s guy shows up with the kid. Two minutes isn’t going to make a difference,” Terry muttered.
“It does to me.” The black ops agent thrust a tablet at Dana. “Passcode is 739031. We have eyes in the room with Flynn and on the parking lot surrounding that wing of the hotel. You can watch but keep quiet. The less chatter over comms, the better.”
Relief washed over her, and Terry clapped X on the shoulder. “Thanks, mate. This means a lot.”
Xavier gestured for Terry to follow him into the next room. Once he’d shut the door, closing Dana on the other side, he muttered, “No way a former Army lieutenant is going to be happy sitting in the dark with no intel. I’m making sure she doesn’t get in the way.”
“You’re lucky this is a short op. You need a serious attitude adjustment.” Terry stalked over to Raine and held out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Xavier always needs an attitude adjustment.” With a lopsided smile, Raine bumped her fist to Terry’s. A complete badass—and the head of Zulu Team—she rarely joined them on ops unless kids were involved. Years ago, a bomb had severed a handful of nerves on the left side of her face and stolen her left leg.
With her long, blond hair styled to cover the worst of the scarring and a garish sparkly dress over her black tactical pants and Kevlar shirt, she’d be able to pull off “angry wife” with ease.
Xavier went over the plan until Terry could recount it forwards, backwards, and sideways. He was about to tell the man to shut the fuck up when their comms units came online.
“Black SUV pulling up,” Flynn said quietly. On the laptop in front of Terry, Flynn ran a hand through his reddish hair, leaving it rumpled, and glanced up at the camera. “You got me?”
“Crystal clear,” Xavier replied. “Raine, head for the front desk. Now.”
The look she shot him would have killed a lesser man, and as she passed Terry, she whispered, “It’s a damn good thing he’s a tactical genius or I’d put him on his ass.”
“I heard that.”
“Of course you did. These bone-conduction mics are state of the art.” Raine eased the door shut, leaving Terry and Xavier alone in the room. On screen, Flynn opened the door.
“Come on in,” he said, his voice not entirely steady. “I…uh…it’s three hundred for the hour, right?”
The boy—who couldn’t be older than sixteen—entered the room wordlessly, and Flynn passed him a wad of cash.
“It’s all there. You can count it,” Flynn said, his gaze pinging between his feet and the boy.
Once the boy flipped through the bills and tucked them into the pocket of his well-worn jeans, he pulled off his t-shirt. “What do you want? Anything other than a straight blow job needs a condom, and rimming is five hundred extra.”
Raine had better get in there right fucking now. The boy stepped close enough to Flynn to wrap his skinny arms around the man’s neck.
Thank God the lock beeped two seconds later, and the door flew open with a bang. “Harrison! What the hell are you doing? I go to dinner with my girlfriends and you cheat on me? With…oh, God. Is that a kid?”
The boy snatched his shirt from the bed and bolted past Raine, who continued to shout at her fake husband while Flynn made vague attempts at groveling.
Xavier and Terry hurried down the stairs to X’s SUV. Raine and Flynn would follow in a van once the target was out of sight.
Revving the engine, Xavier peeled out while Terry kept watch on the security feed from his phone.
“We’re three cars back from the target,” Xavier said. “Flynn, as soon as you’re in position, let me know so I can drop off. Can’t have them spotting the tail.”
“Got it.” Raine sounded slightly breathless, and a moment later, she confirmed they were on the road.
As tense as the past few minutes had been, this was the easy part. The hard part would be battling their way through the enforcers without hurting any of the kids.
14
Dana
She paced the hotel room, hating that she couldn’t be with Terry and the others. At least she could hear them. Terry updated her every few minutes as they followed the SUV through the fringes of Las Vegas.
“Is this asshole toying with us?” Flynn asked. “We’ve been driving for twenty minutes.”
“Head to the intersection of Taylor and Sixth,” Xavier replied. “According to the map, there are only two outlets from this subdivision. I’m dropping back. Maybe he’ll relax.” Lowering his voice, he added, “I knew we should have gotten a third car.”
