Page 79 of Rescued

Chapter 33

It wasn’t until they were outside the Big House that Breanna felt like she could breathe again. She took a moment to lean against Switch, just letting his warmth and strength seep into her.

“I can’t believe Thanatos agreed to help Kimberly,” she said. “Hell, I can’t believe all the guys stood up and volunteered to help.”

“It’s what they do. And they like you.”

She kissed his cheek. “Thank you. And weirdly enough, I like them. But it’s still a lot. Troops, resources—it’s a big risk.”

Switch said, “Well, technically, you’re paying for it.” She laughed. He added, “I was really proud of you in there.”

She felt the warmth of his pride all the way through her. “I guess powerful men—or creatures—are all the same. They only respect people who stand up to them.” She paused. “I’m learning to be brave, but between you and me, that hood thing still terrifies me.”

He laughed. “Right? There could be anything under there. He might be Voldemort, with the snake face.” He kissed her. “You were always brave, by the way. What you’re learning is how to be badass. Which is hot.”

She put her arms around him and just held him. How the hell did she ever get lucky enough to have this man in her corner?

He added, “And don’t forget, Quentin Moreno is someone Thanatos has been wanting to take down for a while. You should have made him pay you for giving him the opportunity.”

She grimaced. “I’d settle for getting Kimberly out alive and in one piece. But I have to admit, seeing Quentin go down for good would be frosting on the cake.”

“I love frosting. Especially pummel-the-bad-guy frosting.”

She rubbed her hand up and down his chest. “You know though, I’m kinda more impressed with you. Thanatos has his own agenda, but you’re just doing this out of the goodness of your heart. That means a lot to me.”

Switch said, “Don’t kid yourself. I’m hoping you’ll spend your share of the money on scads and scads of electronic components for a certain incredibly sexy helicopter pilot to play with.”

“That’s your fantasy? Unlimited transistors and motherboards? I think I’m disappointed.”

He gave her that sexy, cocky grin. “I have other fantasies. Dirty filthy sexy ones. Want to hear them?”

“Hey,” Boomer yelled, from over at the head of the trail. “Are you two going to fuck right there, or are you going to come down to the command center so we can make a plan? Clock’s ticking.”

Switch sighed. “Hold that thought,” he said, and took her hand to head down the mountain.

They regrouped in the command center, with sandwiches, and Breanna picked at hers while the team put a plan together.

The details and exact deployment of the teams were a blur to her, but the gist of it was this:

Switch was going to fly Breanna to the airfield, just the two of them, like Quentin expected. “And you’re wearing a protective vest,” Switch added. “No arguments.”

Breanna wasn’t arguing. She had no desire to get shot, and she trusted Quentin about as far as she could throw him.

Once they had the location of the airfield, Gunn would send an advance team to carefully and quietly scout the location and check ground routes in and out. If there was a way to extract Kimberly on her way there, they’d do it, call off Switch and Breanna, and let the strike team take down Quentin.

If not, or if Quentin was bringing Kimberly in by air, then they’d move on him after the exchange had been made.

Hopefully, they’d still be able to recover the bonds.

That was called the secondary objective.

The tertiary objective was to discover the location that Quentin had been using for his drug manufacturing and gunrunning operations in western Connecticut, and destroy it. And him.

“That’s all assuming they bring the girl to the meeting place at all.” That was Boomer’s brother, from the corner where he’d been sitting quietly.

Switch glared at him. “Listen to Susie Sunshine,” he said. “Did you have to say that in front of Bree?”

“Reality is reality,” Boomer’s brother said. “Better to be prepared.”