“What else do you smell?” Hicksasked.
Diggs didn’t know how to answer that question. He’d never really paid attention to it before, assuming all of them could smell things better. Just like they could all see a little bit better and a little bit farther away. “I can smell Hicks and Whitney when they get within thirty feet of each other. You two need to spend more time in yourbedroom.”
Juarez’s black eyes grew large and he burst out laughing. Hicks just scowled and crossed his arms over hischest.
“I can smell Melissa’s guilt. It eats at her all the time.”Just like hisdid.
“Bro, I think we’ve just figured out your enhancement,” Juarez said with a grin. “You have the sniffer of abloodhound.”
Diggs took Juarez’s ribbing with a grunt. Was it true? Had he just assumed everyone else was the same as him, butbetter?
Juarez cleared his throat, his amused expression fading. “Well, if everyone’s through singing “Kum Ba Yah” and holding hands, your little fireball is escaping with the dog.” Juarez pointed to the wall of monitors behind Diggs, and he spun around, staring incredulously as Audra pulled the dog into the back seat of her tiny car. Even through the grainy images of the camera, they could all see the outright fear and determination on herface.
“Well,shit.”
Reaper clapped him on the back, “Well said,brother.”
He should’ve known she’d be a runner. She’d been terrified in the lab surrounded by his team. And if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know what civilian wouldn’t be. She had been surrounded by men twice her size and twice her weight. And although Diggs never really thought twice about the scar on Reaper’s face, now that he took the time to really notice it, he did look scary asshit.
As if on cue, Reaper blew out a long, frustrated sigh. “We have to get her back. She could be a threat.” When Diggs started to protest, Reaper held up his hand and cut him off mid-sentence. “She might not be, but don’t you think it’s a really big coincidence that she and this dog showed up the same day the drone did? We can’t ignore it, Diggs, you knowthat.”
His shoulders slumped. Problem was he didn’t know that. Despite feeling in his gut that Audra was not a threat, he couldn’t just go with his instincts without confirming the facts. “Can you send me? She’d probably come back willingly if I can talk to her without all of you standing around trying to scareher.”
“Scare her?” Hicks chokedout.
“She was intimidated as hell,” Diggsresponded.
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, brother, with your enhanced sense of smell and all, but that girl ain’t afraid of no one in this room. In fact, I’m fairly certain that if she would’ve had a knife, she would’ve cut off my balls right then and there,” Reapersaid.
The rest of the team nodded in agreement and Diggs threw up his hands in frustration. “Fine, she was a little touchy. Doesn’t change the fact that she listened to me,right?”
“Go get her.” Reaper started heading toward the door. “We got her on-camera image, so we can pull her information and see if her face pulls up on any credible source. Not that it will,” he added hastily, “but we have tocheck.”
Reaper unlocked and opened the massive door exiting the war room and froze. Fear, as acute as if there were a bomb in his hands, blasted off his team leader. Something waswrong.
Reaper took off running, and the rest of the team followed. It wasn’t until they reached the top of the staircase that Diggs heard Melissa screaming Caroline’s name. Chasing Audra would have towait.
They didn’t have time to stop and grab their weapons, not that they would need them if anyone was actually stupid enough to threaten Caroline. Each man on this team could kill with their bare hands and would do it without blinking. Without thought. When someone threatened one of their women, they’d signed their own deathwarrant.
Reaper rushed ahead, out of his mind with fear for his fiancee, pregnant with their child. Even Juarez struggled to catch up, hitting the landing almost simultaneously on the third floor, racing down the hallway in ablur.
They burst into Reaper’s room to see Melissa hunched over the bed, clutching the hands of a very pale and sweaty Caroline. Diggs instantly knew something was wrong. While Reaper rushed to Caroline’s side, the rest of the team fanned out in standard operating procedure, clearing the large room for any physicalthreats.
“Clear,” they all said momentslater.
“Caroline, baby, what’swrong?”
Caroline sobbed and threw her arms around Reaper’s neck, burying her face in his shoulder. Diggs cleared his throat and looked away, uncomfortable with the outward show of emotion. They’d nearly lost her a few months ago as a result of the unplanned pregnancy, and every man on the team had felt the utter desolation when Reaper thought he’d lost her. It was a day they never wanted torepeat.
Reaper made soothing noises, which, coming from him, seemed oddly out of place, but when it came to his woman, he held no thought of anything but her. “I’m here, I’ve got you. Are youhurting?”
Diggs was barely able to make out the top of her head, as she shook itno.
“Thebaby?”
Caroline shook her head again, and Reaper looked hopelessly to Melissa who was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching them with concern. “The baby is fine. I think she had a bad dream. We were in the foyer when I heard herscream.”
“It was a nightmare,” Caroline whispered drunkenly. “I thought—I thought I lost the baby. You were dead. Everyone was dead. And he was here. He took me back to thelab.”
