Rick stoodin the tiny-ass bathroom that was little more than a minuscule closet with a toilet and a sink. The backs of his calves touched off the rim of the toilet bowl as he stood at the sink. “Ow.” Wincing at the sting, he kept scrubbing at the cut the bullet had left as it grazed across his shoulder.
Pulling the towel away from his skin, he stared at the red streaks. “Fuckers.” Five years he had worked for one of JSOC’s top secret black ops squadrons. Five freaking years, so many missions he’d lost count, and he’d managed to keep a clean sheet and not get shot before today. Injured, sure, cut absolutely, but never fucking shot. Which was a miracle, considering his job. Bah, he’d much prefer to be back on the front lines again and earning his damn bullet burn on the battlefield.
Sticking the towel under the hot water tap instead of cold, which would make removing the blood from the white cotton easier, was maybe a stupid little act of defiance. But damn it, it gave him some bit of… he wasn’t sure what he’d call it… control, maybe. He was pretty sure he was still in freaking Naples, or at least still close to it. Based on traffic noises as they had brought him here, and the amount of time he’d been in the van, by his calculations, he still had to be in or around Naples. Hopefully, that would mean his team would come and rescue his ass soon. He’d even take all the shit they could dish out about him needing to be rescued, damsel in distress style.
“You should have just stayed with Sax and ignored the damn phone.” No matter how many times he repeated it in his head or even in a whisper to his reflection in the mirror, it didn’t change a damn thing. He was still here in this fucking room. He still had no clue who these people were. All he knew for sure was that they wanted or needed something from his family and thought he could be their business partner. He snorted in his head at that, icicles would be growing in the garden of hell before his family would pay a dime to get him released. They, and especially his father, would never want to work with him, or anyone associated with him. Slamming his hand on the top of the faucet, he shut off the water. He could stand here all afternoon poking and prodding at his boo-boo, or he could try to figure out what the fuck was going on. Someone would come looking for him, right? He always did when one of his team was missing, so allowing the part of him who never felt that he was good enough just as he was to serve him up a plate of self-doubt was stupid. Ruthlessly, he pushed it down, they would come.
Maybe Saxon had noticed something amiss.Don’t go there.He reminded himself that he couldn’t rely on that. Saxon had probably stayed in bed where he’d left him and was probably long gone from Naples by now. His team would come. Yup, for sure, his team would come for his ass, and he’d never live down that he had been snatched off the streets like a green new recruit.
* * *
The waiting was killing him,it had been an hour since they made it to the safe house Noble had secured for them. He itched to go, wanted to move, needed to search, to fucking do something. Sitting here with his thumb up his ass was useless. He should be searching, what kind of friend sat on their ass and didn’t search when shit like this happened?There is nothing you can do yet.Reminding himself that they still didn’t have a location didn’t do anything to ease the urgency kicking his soul for action. But the experienced warrior side of him overruled the impatient asshole. It was like Rick had disappeared off the map, once they had a location or even an idea who took him… then he could act. They could figure out the whys of his abduction later. Saxon gave himself a mental slap on the head, focus on the food order, dumbass,and listened to the man on the other end of the phone repeat the list back to him.
“Si, Si, mezz'ora. Grazie,” Saxon hung up the phone. Picking up his note pad, he scanned the list of pizzas, making sure each item had a tick beside it. It was sort of unfair that he was stuck with dinners when it was Roman’s knee that landed on Noble’s balls, not his.Suck it up, buttercup. Dinner is on you for a month.At least with pizza, the hoard that was his team would eat off the boxes, so ergo, no washing fucking dishes. He hated washing dishes, maybe he could persuade them to eat takeout for the rest of the month. Ripping the page off the pad, he stuffed it in his pocket and headed to the mobile Tactical Command Center Max had set up for them.
“How’s the boss?”
Max sat at the table in front of his computers. Saxon hovered near the door. Max had still been pretty damn pissed when he’d asked for his pizza order a few minutes ago. He could do without another mug being thrown at him, at some stage Max had to get lucky and would hit him with a makeshift missile. The last one had barely missed his head. He would stay right where he was until Max told him to move.
“Roman stomped on his balls, how the fuck do you think he is?” Max spun his chair around and gave him a look that promised revenge.
“Roman, not me.” Saxon reminded him. Yup, he would totally go there, would definitely throw Roman under the bus. That’s what brothers in arms were for, after all.
“I’m fine, love,” Noble’s voice behind him had Saxon jumping out of the way to let Noble into the room.
“Swear, I’m good.” Noble’s gait was careful as he walked. He was vertical and breathing. In their world, that meant he was perfectly fine. That he had called Maxlovein front of Saxon showed how much Max had been upset by his man getting hurt. Even if it was just a knee to the balls by one of the team. It also showed how much Noble wanted to soothe Max, to make him feel better. Aw, wasn’t that sweet, his boss was a big old softie, really. He was just normally better at hiding it.
“Sit down,” Max rolled his chair back to give himself room to stand, and reached for another chair, dragging it toward him.
“Uh, nope, I’ll stand.” Noble winced and shook his head. “Sitting hurts.”
“Fucker.” Max scowled at Saxon again, his hand reaching for something on the desk.
Shit.Saxon got ready to duck. His instincts screaming,incoming!
“It wasn’t him.” Noble tugged Max in for a hug, and leaned down to whisper something in his ear that Saxon couldn’t hear.
“I’ll—uh—go get the pizzas.” Saxon left the room. Noble and Max didn’t normally do the PDA thing. He figured the least he could do, after being part of the reason Max was so pissed, was to make himself scarce. Let them comfort each other. To most, a knee to the balls may be a small thing. Noble and Max, they dealt with things differently. They seemed to almost feel what the other felt, or some voodoo stuff like that. They were over the top protective of each other. When one had an ouchie, the other had a shitty attitude until it was fixed. It was so much a part of who they were that Red Squadron hadn’t even realized they were like that, until Drax had pointed it out after their relationship became common knowledge. Eh, it was Noble and Max, who was he to judge how their relationship worked, he wasn’t in it with them, so it was none of his business.
He made it to the top of the stairs before the doorbell rang. Pulling his Sig Sauer from its holster on his thigh as he walked down to the door, he checked that it was loaded. Peering through the peephole, all he could see was a sea of white with green writing across it.
“Dinner.” He yelled up the stairs and pulled his wallet from his ass pocket.
“Coming.” Shaun approached from the back of the building, ready to be his backup as he opened the door.
After paying the pizza delivery man, Shaun and he split the boxes to carry them to the living space on the first floor.
“Toppings are written on the boxes,” Saxon handed pepperoni to Luc, keeping Hawaiian chicken for himself. Most of the guys had all meat toppings.
“What the fuck is this?” Luc frowned at the pizza in his box.
Saxon read the lid upside down, “Pepperoni.”
“It’s fucking vegetables.”
“Says pepperoni on the box,” Roman dropped his box on the counter and looked over Luc’s shoulder. “Um… does pepperoni mean something different in Italian?”
“Peppers,” Max opened a box, closed it again, and checked the next one. “You should have ordered spicy salami.” Picking up both boxes, he left the room. He and Noble would eat their food in TOC before they had to get into the details of planning what happened next.
