Chapter 1
“Ready to stepin?”
Kingston Kenrich glanced at his teammate, Rip, from the corner of his eye. “The Russian isn’t ready yet. Let’s give Owen a littlelonger.”
Rip had been interrogating Vladimir, the second in command of the terrorist group ran by his brother, Solonik, on and off the entirenight.
Rip chuckled, his voice deep and his tone light yet cautious. “If you don’t step in, Owen’s gonna kill the bastard before we get any realintel.”
They faced the two-way mirror in the concrete wall. Owen, aka “the Viking,” grabbed a metal chair and slung it across the room, his long blond ponytail flying from the force. The chair hit the wall, bounced back three feet and clanged to thefloor.
“Maybe, maybe not. Give him a couple more hours to work out his frustration, then I’ll step in.” King crossed his arms over his chest and braced his boot-clad feet wide. “He’s still pissed off that Vladimir’s brother Solonik slipped through hisfingers.”
“Solonik is a slippery bastard, I’ll give him that,” Rip said. “Shit, it’s a miracle we lucked out withVladimir.”
Owen stalked to Vlad, bending his giant form in half to yell into the Russian’s face. King smiled. “Not luck, bro. Lust. Vlad couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, plain and simple. After Solonik got sent on that deal up in Siberia, I knew he’d be jonesing for somesnatch.”
After six months of working his way up Solonik’s ranks, King had finally managed to get close to the second in command as perimeter security. The semi low-level position hadn’t gotten him into the deep circles, but it had given him access to Vlad’shabits.
Rip reached up and unknotted a folded black bandanna from around his neck and scratched his chin, his huge fingers scarred. The Texan had started out at fourteen in the oil fields after his mother tossed him for a half-baked Mexican with a straight line to fresh cocaine. “And how you managed to disguise your Cajun accent under your Russian for so long is beyondme.”
King shrugged. Every soldier in the Special Forces teams went through some kind of foreign language training. Surprisingly, he’d taken to Russian with ease, which in this operation helped tremendously. Solonik’s terrorist organization dabbled in just about every business on earth—human trafficking, weapons, drugs. Typical terrorist shit. “I’m just thatgood.”
Rip burst out laughing. “No LSU fan is that good atanything.”
King snuck in an elbow to his teammate’s ribs, grinning when Rip grunted and doubled over. “You’re still sore over LSU wiping the swamp with Texas’sface.”
Rip straightened, rubbing his injured side, but his eyes crinkled in amusement. “That’s ’cause we couldn’t see through all the damn rain down in your swamps. Just wait till y’all step onto solid Texas turf. We’ll make Tiger meat out ofthem.”
King rolled his eyes at the ongoing jest. “Didn’t Texas just lose its shiny new quarterback to theHogs?”
Rip opened his mouth with a comeback, but was drowned out by the sudden onset of loud heavy metal music topped off with bright flashing strobe lights from the interrogationroom.
Owen tapped on the metal door. Rip punched in the security code and stood out of the way as Owen snatched the forgotten bandanna from Rip’s hand, ignored his teammate’s protest and wiped the small specks of blood from his face. “He didn’t even flinch when I broke hisnose.”
King looked up at Owen, who stood two inches taller at six foot five inches. “Give it a minute. No one’s ever stood up long against those sledge hammers you callfists.”
Owen glanced at his bloody knuckles and as an afterthought used Rip’s bandanna to wipe them off as well. “True.”
He tossed the abused material at Rip who jumped back and let it fall at his feet. “That was brandnew.”
Not like it wasn’t one of about a hundred the cowboyowned.
With a snort, Owen turned his back on Rip, completely unconcerned about any retaliation. And with good reason. No one went up against the Viking—not unless they wanted pain. “He’s unconscious. I’ll need to wake him up in a bit, if the music doesn’t do it forme.”
“Did you get anything new?” Kingasked.
Owen shook his shaggy blond head. “Not a damn thing. If the bastard has one redeeming quality, it’s loyalty to his brother, Solonik. I’ll give him that much. But we’ve only had him a few hours. He’ll crack in time. They all do.” This statement was given as a matter of fact, withoutemotion.
“If those knuckles can’t crack him, maybe that crap you call music blasting in there will drive him to it.” Rip’s affinity for country music was a well-known fact in the group. Any time the two ended up in the same ride, a fight over the radio was aguarantee.
King didn’t mind the heavy metal, but definitely preferred the sweet slow blues of his homegrown SouthernLouisiana.
“That’s okay, brother, only real men can handle the heavy shit.” Owengrunted.
Rip glanced down at his Garmin GPS watch. “How much time you want to give him before starting anotherround?”
“I’m up for some chow,” Owen said, “youtwo?”
