Page 4 of Viper

“Wait, what?” His voice turned shrill. “Did something happen?”

“No, but he won’t take me home,” she whispered, her gaze darting to the closed door as if it were made of glass.

A slew of curses hit her eardrum. “Send me your coordinates. What’s the name of the boat?”

“The Predator.”

Silence beat through the speaker. Then, “Jesus Christ.”

Bang, bang, bang!

The flimsy door jumped with every thump of Craig’s fist. “Hurry up!”

“I’m coming,” she sang sweetly. “Just a sec.”

“I’m sending help, honey.” Atlas’s strong, reassuring voice brought tears to her eyes. “I love you.” He hung up.

Sucking in a deep breath, she sent the coordinates. She tucked the device back into her bag and hid it beneath the sink, then flushed the toilet.

Atlas, please hurry.

Chapter Two

Troy pushed away the carton of chicken fried rice and stared up at the ceiling of his rental as if he could channel fucking courage.

He’d called Paige before. That wasn’t the problem.

Admitting he’d followed her to Siesta Key and spotted her with a guy was— Jesus, what if she was with the douchebag now? It was after 10:00 p.m. If he interrupted in the middle of her getting laid, he’d pull out his goddamn hair.

He exhaled. He needed to chill out. Make the call for Striker and leave his own intentions on the shelf. He’d tell her to heed her brother’s warning and go home, or at least be extra vigilant and stick with friends at all times. Stuff Striker had likely already said, if she’d let him get that far.

To say Paige was hardheaded was an understatement. She made it known that Striker’s paranoid streak would only send her in the opposite direction. According to Striker, she’d been that way since she was a kid. If Striker told her to get down from a tree, she’d climb higher. If he told her to fix her helmet, she’d tear the thing off. With Paige, Striker always had to go about shit sideways.

It’d only gotten worse when they were teenagers at barely three years apart. Striker had once told Paige to stay away from a guy at school. That weekend, he’d caught her playing spin the bottle with him at some random backyard party.

Troy wouldn’t go as far as to call Paige reckless. She was smart and adventurous. And she had an uncanny ability to piss off her brother.

He reached for his phone, which sat on a couch cushion, and read the text that’d come in earlier from Phantom Ops’s team lead, Roarke “Rogue” Logan.

Hey man. Just checking in. When you get back next week, we’ll have a meeting at my place to discuss the next job.

Troy had met most of his team years ago in Marine Recon, but they were no longer part of a military unit. Phantom Ops was an elite team of handpicked former special operators. They answered to no one. Took only the missions they agreed to.

A group of the deadliest men money could buy.

Most jobs took them out of the country for weeks or months at a time. Rogue struggled with this aspect of the business a lot now that he had Laine and her daughter, Emmy. The bright side was that they usually got a few weeks or a month off between jobs.

Nice. Any word where we’ll be going?

Rage bait. Encrypted phones or not, they rarely discussed their work over the phone—and definitely not in text messages. Rogue’s reply came instantly.

Are you for real?

He chuckled.

Kidding. Enjoy the fam. Say hi to everyone.

He reached forward to set his phone on the table, but the device vibrated before it left his fingers. Striker.